This is the second part of a series on the health risks we are facing in our Modern Lifestyle. Previously, in the first part, we looked at how some of our lifestyle factors caused premature aging. We also looked at the corresponding detrimental effect on our health.In this post, we will look more closely at our diets. Our diets would tend to cause small chronic issues at the start, but can snowball into serious health issues in the future. Personally, I am one who suffers from chronic constipation in my life before I understood Nutritional Immunology. Hence, this is a topic that is close to my heart.

Exposure to Unhealthy Diets

Those who have been here would know that Singapore is a haven for good food. However, does good food necessarily mean healthy?

Most of the food available outside of home would be heavy in animal based foods or carbohydrates, with just very small amounts of vegetables. In addition, we are very helpless against the additives, preservatives and chemicals found in our foods. Honestly, I was a very very big fan of processed meats like ham and bacon. It's only now that I finally realized how detrimental they are to my health.

While I did not specifically pick out fried or oily food in my choices, I did not avoid it as well. While we inherently know that its not good for us, do we really know what is the harm we sustain besides just growing fat alone?

In my journey with Nutritional Immunology, I learnt about how choice of cooking oils contribute to our body sustaining chronic inflammation. I will be highlighting the long term detriment of chronic inflammation and how it comes about in a later post.

Update on 7 Oct 2016: You will be able to find my new post on chronic inflammation here.

Despite being a fan of fruits and vegetables, I definitely did not meet the requirement of 28-35 g of dietary fibre each day as well. Dietary fibre can only be found in fruits and vegetables, not from meats. That explains my experience with constipation as well.

Psyllium Husk is one of the wholesome foods which is high in fibre at 78.5 g of fibre per 100 g of psyllium husk. I will writing more about it in the near future.

Stay tuned for part 3 of our series on Modern Lifestyle health risk factors. 🙂