Episode 8 – What does it mean to eat healthy?

What does it mean to eat healthy? You’re listening to the daidokoro video podcast. Hi, I’m Pat tokuyama And you’re about to discover some of the tastiest ways to feed your mind, body and soul. A pharmacist by training you may know me as the founder of all day I eat like a shark, the food blog, YouTube channel or as author of several Japanese cookbooks, if you desire to live a healthy life and are looking for a different way forward with a hunger for growth, then this video podcast is for you. Daidokoro is a Japanese term for kitchen. And I’m glad you’re here with each episode, we’re going to be bringing clarity to your cooking by blending Japanese tradition and life lessons into bite sized bits that even a shark would enjoy ready to make some magic happen. 

The word healthy gets thrown around a lot, often losing its inherent meaning. And in spite of that, here’s how I define it and how it keeps me motivated cooking and eating healthy. If there’s a way for you to change the meaning of something so that it empowers you and motivates you to stay consistent, stay committed, and moving forward in the direction that you want to go each and every day. Chances are you would do it right. I know I would.

So for me when it comes to eating and being healthy. Obviously I love eating and I want to stay healthy long term. And today of course, I think it’s important to find a balance. On the one hand not being able to enjoy the food that I eat would make for very dull and unfulfilling life. On the other hand, eating too many rich foods, salty foods, sweet foods, for example, salty, sweet, fatty foods, oily foods may not be the best thing for me long term. It’s the weirdest thing though, because I remember when there was a time in my life that I actually didn’t care about food. It was the last thing on my mind.

Actually, I was more interested when I was younger, and doing other things like going outside, traveling, exploring new places, going to see music and maybe sightseeing or meeting up with people and doing other fun things. And while I still enjoy those things today, I also enjoy food. And that’s also one of my priorities whenever I’m traveling, and even on a day to day basis. And I think one of the reasons why I really love eating so much is it brings people together. So that’s one thing. 

And I think now more than ever, right? Everybody says now more than ever these days now more than ever, we need to bring people together, especially at different backgrounds. And I think food is one of the easiest ways that you can do so. And that’s one of the reasons why I started my communities, people that can come together around Japanese food. And not only that, but I think you can also appreciate and understand a culture a little bit better by the foods they eat the traditions that surround those foods, the history of those foods, how they came to be, for example. And it’s also a great experience. For me, at least I love eating, chances are you do too.

So if you’re curious what changed and what got me into food in the first place is probably my last couple years at school pharmacy school in San Francisco. So during that time, Yelp was just starting. And as I was getting into food, exploring the food scene up there,

I realized that I wanted to share my experiences with food eating at restaurants in the area and sharing those people through Yelp reviews and becoming elites, the reason that I wanted to be elite, because I knew that the elite Yelpers had private parties that they always got to go to with free food and alcohol, even though I don’t drink. So the food part is what really got me interested as well as the parties, of course. So during my last year in San Francisco, I made sure to eat out all the time, wanted to explore all the different food options in the city before I had to leave to go to LA or Los Angeles. And I think I did a pretty good job. Because by the time that I left, I actually got nominated to be an elite Yelper I got the badge. And I was elite for about three years.

So during that time, I had a pretty good option or assortment of different yelp parties that I got to go to. And if you aren’t familiar with the parties, basically, they have all kinds of different foods that you can try. And if you’ve never been to yelp party before, basically, there’s usually some sort of an activity that you can participate in. So for example, I went to a coffee roastery one time got to sample some coffees. Another time it was like a Halloween party. So they had a bunch of stuff related to Halloween, Halloween related activities. They had tacos, they had open bar candy, things like that. And as you can imagine, it’s a lot of fun to go out and enjoy all the free food and drink and party with a bunch of other Yelp elites.

And by the way, I think if you haven’t had a chance to explore the food scene up in San Francisco, though it has changed quite a bit. I still think it’s some of the best food in the country, at least from all the places that I have traveled to. Next time you’re in the area, or next time you’re considering a vacation somewhere. Maybe the Bay Area is a place that you can visit to have a foodie vacation. 

So now you know how I got into food previously, didn’t really care about food. Now I do thanks to my experience as elite yelper. So for me, as you can imagine somebody who’s passionate about food who loves eating it, it’s who loves cooking it it might be a little bit difficult to find a balance to stay healthy or to eat healthy, but to me healthy means several different things, I think first, it’s going to mean to eat a balanced diet, that means not eating the same thing every day, day in and day out. Rather, keeping things varied and changing the foods that you eat by the season, for example, so that you can keep things balanced. 

So the first thing I think, for me, at least when it comes to eating healthy, what I try to do is eat a balanced diet. So that means eating different things all the time, maybe there’s, I think what helps me at least as I usually go through phases, maybe one week, I’ll feel like eating a bunch of Mexican food, maybe the next week, I’ll feel like eating some Thai food. And other week, I might feel like eating Chinese food. And another week, I might feel like eating Japanese food. So having that sort of a variation, I think helps to keep me somewhat balanced, at least more so than I used to be in the past when I didn’t really eat that many exotic foods, as my dad likes to say, because what my dad likes to eat, for example, is just Japanese food, Chinese food, Mexican food, I think that’s probably it. Those are his probably three, three of his favorite cuisines and all the other stuff he considers exotic, that’s one thing. 

And the second thing is to cook and eat at home as much as possible. So as you may know, if you’re out at restaurants, usually things tend to be a little bit overseasoned, and maybe even a little oily. And those two things, salt and oil are not necessarily the best things for you. In addition, when you’re cooking at home, you have a little bit more control over the ingredients that you’re putting into your food. So for example, I usually try to cook with organic ingredients whenever possible. And that’s another thing that I think is important to stay healthy, at least for me. And when you’re cooking at home, you can choose to cook with organic ingredients, which are definitely something that you should try doing if you can, because they’re not only taste good, but they’re also supposed to be more nutritious. And they’re also not supposed to have the GMO or the genetically modified organism. I think that’s what it’s called GMO. And they’re also non GMO, which is important if you don’t want to eat any genetic, genetically modified foods. 

The third thing that I think is important is to actually enjoy the food, to appreciate the food to be grateful for it and cultivating a good relationship with the food that you eat. So you’ve got to tell that inner voice inside of your head, if you have one, that this food is good for you, it’s going to nourish you, it’s going to heal you it’s going to give you sustenance, it’s going to give you energy, it’s gonna make you feel good. Because there’s power in the mind. And if you remember, those milk commercials back in the day, when I guess I’m sort of dating myself where they have milk, it does a body good. I think if you say food, the food that you’re eating, does the body good. And if you say that to yourself and your mind each time you eat, I think it will do your body because there’s a lot of power when it comes to your mind, kind of like what we talked about in the previous episode about the placebo effect. And is it too late? 

So you might as well use that to your advantage. And as far as the whole food plant based foods that I advocate Japanese food, it does do your body good. And there’s a growing body of evidence there to support and perhaps somewhere in the not too distant future this will be somewhat of a new normal, where plant foods whole food plant foods are something that we see more often at restaurants, not only around the country, but around the world. Would you be excited about that? I think I would be. 

So what does it mean to eat healthy for you? I’d be curious, let me know in the comments. If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know. And if you’d like to contribute to this podcast, make sure to leave me a voicemail linked in the show notes. 

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