Sometimes things are so obvious that we miss it altogether. Like when we look all over the house for our glasses only to look in the mirror and find them sitting right on top of our head. Life has a tendency to keep us very busy, causing the obvious to escape us. Getting caught up in our daily responsibilities can mean overlooking the obvious for the sake of convenience. Yet, we still know the flaws in our thinking. A recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer highlighted this scenario quite well. Titled, “Too much bacon, not enough nuts lead to deaths,” this article told the reader the obvious. Too much of anything is a bad thing, right?

Bacon is good. So good in fact that we can enjoy bacon ice cream, bacon cupcakes, and even candy. Bacon has become very trendy. But bacon is high in salt, typically cured, and very fatty. Common sense would tell us that something like that is probably not the most beneficial to us nutritionally. So, eating too much bacon is unhealthy. Nuts, on the other hand, are a whole food. Made from nature. Something our body can easily recognize, breakdown, and use to sustain itself.

Essentially, the article broke down food into two groups – good and bad. However, it added American food habits and links to deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. There is a link between bad food and these conditions. Probably not surprising to most, if not all, of us. The kicker is not that we eat bad foods, but the sheer amount that we consume and not eating enough of the good stuff. So, what are the bad foods that we like so much in the U.S.?

• Bacon
• Bologna
• Hot dogs
• Steaks
• Hamburgers
• Sugary drinks

The good foods that are under-eaten include:

• Nuts
• Seeds
• Salmon
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Whole grains

We like the bad foods so much that 45% of the deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are attributed towards the overeating of those “bad” foods. Those deaths were preventable. Yes, preventable. Now rather than beat ourselves up because we’ve enjoyed “too much bacon,” we can choose to use this article as a reminder. A reminder of what we already know to be true about what is healthy and what is not. We can change our actions today to affect an outcome tomorrow. Awareness is the first step in moving ourselves in the right direction.