I wasn’t much of a reader when I was studying nutrition. We had so much course work and materials as part of the lectures that reading outside of this just didn’t happen. I could probably count on (one or) two hands how many books I read over the entire three years.

But when my official studies were over, I started to read a lot more.

One of the first books I discovered was Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It’s an extensive cookbook but referring to it as a cookbook is probably a disservice. The first 100 odd pages is a mini course in nutrition, covering different foods and food practices, vitamins, minerals and picking apart a lot of common health rhetoric.

The book is based on the work of Weston A. Price and so when I was done I went and read his book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

Price was a dentist who worked in the early 1900s. Over a number of decades he started to see the degeneration of the dental health at a population level. He began to make a connection between this poor dental health and health in general and suspected that changes in the diet may at least be part of the reason.

So in the 1920s and 30s he started travelling the globe, trying to find populations where dental problems were minimal or non-existent. What he found was different tribes and areas where people were still living in a traditional way and dental health (and health in general) was superior. But when these people were exposed to modern foods, this is when problems started to arise.

Price identified a number of foods that were problematic. Things like white sugar, white flour, and vegetables oils.

But what is interesting is the term that he gave to this umbrella category of foods. He named them the “displacing foods of modern commerce”. The key word here is “displacing”. *

A lot of Price’s work revolved around the importance of vitamins and minerals. When he analysed the foods of those on a traditional diet, he found that they were consuming higher amounts of key nutrients.

And not just in small amounts, but significantly; they could be taking in 10X or 20X the amount. You do this for a week or so, it doesn’t make much difference. You do it for years and decades and it really adds up.

(I’ve written before about traditional diets and some of the traps that people can fall into when “following them”. You can see that here).

Now the issue with the more problematic foods that Price identified was that they had been refined. This refining process had reduced the amount of vitamins and minerals in the food. It wasn’t that these foods were inherently bad; it’s just that they weren’t as nutritious as some other options.

And this is where we come to that word “displacing”.

Too much of what I see around food are fears about how “unhealthy” certain foods are. Or that people have these long lists of foods they must avoid.

But if we are trying to build health, the focus should really be on inclusion, not exclusion. Getting the right foods in is way more important that getting the wrong foods out. The “bad” foods only create a problem when they are displacing more and more of the “good” foods.

So when I’m working with clients I always focus on what are the foods they can be bringing in instead of demonising the “bad” stuff. And I do this for a number of reasons.

The first is that if people are including more fruits and vegetables in their diet for example, it naturally pushes other foods out. I don’t have to tell someone to focus on eating less of this or that, it just starts to happen as they include more of the other foods.

And even if they still continue to eat a similar amount of the less healthy food, they are now getting in more nutritious stuff to balance it out. There isn’t as much displacement of vitamins and minerals and other nutrients going on.

Part of this is also psychological. If you tell someone they can’t have something, now all they can think about is that something. They are naturally drawn to it.

This is even more so if someone comes with a history of dieting.

They have experienced repeated periods of restriction and the almost inevitable over-consuming. With time they became worn down and get an almost flinch like response; you say they can’t have it, now they want a double portion.

This method of “including more of the good stuff” also works perfectly as part of a sustainable approach. It can start out with a goal of say, including 2 pieces of fruit a day. The person can do it for a couple of weeks until this becomes a habit.

Next up the goal is to include vegetables with two meals or snacks a day. Work on this for a handful of weeks until it becomes natural. And then again, add something new in, creating a snowball effect.

There are times when I break this rule. Where I do tell clients to actively avoid something. Simply waiting for the healthy habits to push out a specific unhealthy habit just doesn’t feel right because in certain cases it’s more urgent.

For example, I may tell certain clients to give up alcohol for a specific period of time. Or maybe I will get them to limit their intake, so I set a maximum of two drinking days a week and they are instructed on these days that they can have one glass of wine with their food.

So in this case I have suggested that they explicitly avoid or minimise something.

But whenever I do this, I also explicitly tell them they need to pay attention to their symptoms. To watch what happens to their energy and their mood. To keep a check on how they sleep and if they’re still having trouble waking in the night or with a need to urinate. To be aware to how this effects the foods that they crave.

Because whenever I’m doing this with someone the expectation is that it will make a fairly major difference. And if they can become aware of the connection between these two things, it makes it easier for them to see why it’s worth doing. The draw then to have that alcohol becomes markedly reduced as they realise the tangible difference it makes when they choose to avoid it.

So I only do this when I think it’s absolutely necessary. And in most cases it’s not. Because most of the time it takes someone keeping up habits over the long haul to make an impact. And with these changes, if we can make them as simple as possible with only a small amount of willpower needed in the beginning, they are going to get to that long-term place and be doing this as habit and therefore reap the benefits.

In a world where we are regularly told about “toxic” foods, I suggest you take the opposite approach. Search out the simple things you can include that will make a difference. Because if you can do this, most of the other stuff takes care of itself.