Anti-aging Eating

I am sometimes not a Poster Girl for anti-aging eating.

I know what’s good for me.  I read the studies and the magazine articles and the newest Google Alerts.  I consult Dr. Weil and Dr. Oz.  I regularly stalk the aisles at Whole Foods.  In fact, this time last year, while researching a chapter for my new book, Counterclockwise (officially out and available in just 3 weeks!), I devoted an entire month to eating superfoods.  That’s right:  Just superfoods.  Nutrition-packed, wholesome, fresh, organic, reverse-the-biological-clock superfoods.

During week 1 of my strict Superfoods-and-Superfoods-Only diet, I ate the 10 superfoods mentioned most frequently in the lists of “top superfoods” compiled by the most credible sources I could find, like the Mayo Clinic and Center for Science in the Public Interest.  Three meals a day, seven days, 10 foods.  That’s it.  Here’s what I ate when I was the Poster Child:  almonds, apples, black beans, broccoli, blueberries, salmon, spinach, sweet potatoes, yogurt and quinoa.  Oh, and skim lattes.  Which were not on anyone’s superfood lists, I admit, but were on my personal Must-Get-Through-This-Week list.

For week 2, I added the 10 next most touted superfoods to my healthier-than-thou menu:  olive oil, eggs, tofu, garlic, onions, brown rice, green tea, colored peppers, kiwifruit and – the reason behind compiling this runner-up list – dark chocolate.  This was a good week.

For week 3, I kept this 20-superfood regimen and added a mix of trendy, exotic, over-hyped and over-priced items, the ones we’re always reading about, the ones that cure cancer and restore 20-20 eyesight and lead directly to world peace.  These products come from the protected valleys of Inner Mongolia, the rainforests of the Amazon, from Peru, Guatemala, Australia – and the ever-exotic province of Manitoba.  I chewed gogi berries and hemp seeds, drank acai tonic, maca water, kombucha and wheat grass.   If you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to read the book.

Week 4 I went raw, which is worth a post of its own.

My point in chronicling this for you is to say that, although I deeply researched the many connections between food and health, between nutrition and aging, although I walked the talk, although I wrote the book…occasionally (and sometimes more than occasionally) I answer the siren song of Newman’s Pretzel Rods.  Or Quaker Oats “Natural” Granola. (Sugar is the third ingredient…I know, dammit, I read the label.)  But this is a significant improvement over my pre-superfood-experiment cereal addiction to Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.

Like I said:  Not always an anti-aging foods Poster Child.