Michael Pollan, a High Priest of "Healthy" eating, says in his book, Food Rules:
Eat Food, Mostly Plants, Eat Less. 
 If that is the food that you like eating, then follow that advice.
Personally, although there is great social pressure to do so,
I don’t buy into the current media hype which says that to be “healthy” within our modern culture,
we must eat foods that are:
“Whole” or “Real” or “NonProcessed” or “organic” or “grassfed” or “local” or “non GMO”.

My personal position is that we can be just as healthy if we simply: 
Eat Less, and Eat according to our preferences.

As much as we might like the idea of trusting  the Body to tell us when and how to eat, sometimes our Body’s Hunger is a Lie.

Here are a couple of articles about the Science of Willpower, which discuss some of the reasons why the Body’s wisdom can’t always be trusted.

The Ghrelin Gremlin 
           by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.
                          Published on June 22, 2010 in Psychology Today

One of the most popular ideas in weight loss right now is:

 "trust your body's wisdom."
The body knows what it wants. The body never lies.
If you listen to signals like hunger and satiety, your body will never steer you wrong.

This is a lovely sentiment, and it's true that the body is a great source of wisdom.
Until it's not.

A new study presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society shows how the brain can be tricked by the body into overeating and choosing fattening foods over healthier choices. [1]

The study set-up was simple enough: bring in hungry participants and ask them to choose between high-calorie, high-fat foods (e.g. pizza, cake, chocolate) and less fattening foods (e.g. salad, vegetables, and lean protein). Not surprisingly, hungry participants preferred the less healthy choices. Their bodies craved energy. The researchers then had participants makes similar choices, but 90 minutes after eating a meal. They weren't as hungry, and they made healthier choices. They "listened" to their bodies and choose a more appropriate snack, given their fullness.

But the researchers didn't stop there. They were interested in whether they could mimic the effects of fasting by manipulating participants' level of a hormone called "ghrelin." Ghrelin stimulates appetite and plays a big role in the body's signals of hunger and cravings. It is typically regulated by things like how recently you ate your last meal and blood sugar level, making it a good signal of the need to eat. But it can also be influenced by many other things, including stress and sleep. This means that as much as you'd like to trust the body, the signal of hunger can be a lie.

Back to the lab: On one visit, participants who had recently eaten a full meal were injected with ghrelin. And this time, the participants behaved as if they were starving. They found the higher-fat, higher-calorie foods more appealing and were more likely to choose them--even though the body was actually quite satiated.

This injection was just a quick-and-dirty stand in for all the things that can push ghrelin levels up in the real world. If you're sleep deprived, your body is pumping out more ghrelin to get you to eat. [2]

It's a poor substitute for sleep, but high-fat, high-sugar foods are a source of the energy you desperately need. The same is true for stress. And research shows that high-sugar foods  - especially drinks, includ...

Each of us has different diet preferences on Halloween,

Some people have food plans which do not allow sweets, and they choose to follow that plan precisely.
.......Note: I've found this choice easier to make while involved in following a low-carb food plan.

Some people choose to incorporate a few sweet treats into their daily plan.

Some people choose to abandon their food plan entirely and binge out on Halloween sweets.

Whatever your personal choice, you have my Holiday support.
However, when making your food decisions, here is something to keep in mind.

LOW-CALORIE CHOCOLATE TREATS
Each one of these tiny treats has 20 - 35 calories).

3 Musketeers Minis
Hershey's Kisses
Sixlets 8-piece tubes
Tootsie Roll Midgees
Whoppers Malted Milk Balls 3-piece tubes

CHOCOLATE MINIS
Minis are the small, typically square morsels. The kinds below have 35 - 55 calories per piece.

Baby Ruth
Butterfinger
Hershey's Special Dark, Krackel, Milk Chocolate, and Mr. Goodbar
Kit Kat
Milky Way
Nestlé Crunch
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
Twix

SNACK-SIZE/FUN-SIZE CHOCOLATE
Snack-size and fun-size candies are usually about 2 inches long and weigh in at around half an ounce. The ones listed here have 60 - 85 caloriesper piece, pack, bag, or box.

3 Musketeers
Baby Ruth
Butterfinger
Hershey's Milk Chocolate
Junior Mints
Kit Kat (one 2-piece bar)
M&M's Milk Chocolate
Milky Way
Nestlé Crunch
Raisinets
Snickers
York Peppermint Patties

SNACK-SIZE/FUN-SIZE CHOCOLATE, Higher-calorie
Same specifics as the last list of snack-size/fun-size treats (about 2 inches long and half an ounce in weight), but these are a little higher in stats. Each bar or pack has 90 - 95 calorie).

100 Grand
M&M's Peanut
Mr. Goodbar
PayDay

 
What does Healthy Eating REALLY mean?

Health is the general condition of a living person's mind, body and spirit,
usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain (as in "good health" or "healthy").
So, to be in “good health”, or to be “healthy: simply means “not sick or injured” and “not dead”.

Human nutrition is the process by which substances in food are transformed into body tissues and provide energy for the full range of physical and mental activities that make up human life.

Nowadays, Marketing Interests attach the word “healthy” to just about every food sold.
.. and they are technically correct, because if it doesn’t make you sick or kill you, it IS healthy.

It is now fashionable for people to worry about whether or not they are “eating healthy”. However, here in modern society, an average person, who is not sick, doesn’t need to have state-of-the-art scientific expertise and technologies of the links between human nutrition and health. 

   Basically, it is still as it has always been, in every society and culture.

If other people eat it;
if it tastes good;
and if it doesn’t kill you, make you feel sick,
or make you get really fat;
your eating qualifies as "Healthy".

But, many of us are interested in learning more.

 The study of human nutrition involves physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology, as well as psychology and anthropology, which explore the influence of attitudes, beliefs, preferences, and cultural traditions on food choices. Human nutrition further involves economics and political science as the world community recognizes and responds to the suffering and death caused by malnutrition.

What we eat obviously goes inside our bodies and therefore affects our internal organs and the chemical interactions that take place. What we eat can affect how we feel and ultimately influence our thoughts, our decisions and our behavior. What we eat also affects how our internal organs operate and therefore affects their healthiness and longevity.

“Healthy” eating, by definition, helps to ensure that one’s internal organs are being cared for, that they are processing foods effectively and efficiently, and ultimately, sustains one’s life.

 Dietitians are health professionals who specialize in human nutrition, meal planning, economics, and preparation. They are trained to provide dietary advice and management to individuals, as well as to institutions. Clinical nutritionists are health professionals who focus more specifically on the role of nutrition in chron...

"We never repent of having eaten too little.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826)

When Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he was around 33 years old, and he lived until age 83 during a time when food was not as easily obtainable. Even though he did not experience our modern readily-available-highly-processed-food world he seemed to understand the value of eating less.

How little is "too little"?

I’ve noticed that people who eat far too much, seem to spend a lot of time worrying about eating too little. Why do people who are obese, or even merely overweight, fear eating too little, and just how little is too little anyway?

Many overweight and obese people appear to have an irrational fear of starvation mode.
However, one really can't eat too little for weight loss - Starvation Mode (the way most dieters define it) is a Myth.

"Starvation mode" is a phrase that gets thrown about loosely. Many people think that eating below 1000 to 1200 calories a day, will cause their metabolism to slow down so much that their body will stop losing weight. The reality is that until a male has only 5% excess body fat, or a female has only 10% excess body fat, it is very unusual for a person to go into “starvation mode”.

When it seems impossible for a dieter nearing goal to lose weight, they assume their metabolic process is slowing down, and think that they are “in starvation mode”. However, people with extra weight obtainable to oxidize, can oxidize extra body fat per second. The less human body fat one has, the less fat oxidized for each moment. So as one gets closer to the body’s individual reduction limit of human body weight, the slower one will burn up what body fat one has. This is why taking off the final 10 pounds happens very slowly, NOT because one is wrecking one’s metabolic process with an aggressive diet regimen.

By the way, I’m using the term…”excess fat”… to define the entire genetic make-up of an individual body, not “troublesome” fat on specific body areas that one wishes were leaner… like stomach or thighs, etc. It is not uncommon for someone who is “normal weight” or even “underweight” to be unhappy with the way their own body’s necessary fat is genetically distributed.

The article quoted below makes a number of good points:

Are You In The Starvation Mode or Starving For Truth?

Recently we discussed the myth that dieting can lead to an eating disorder and saw this common dieting myth was inaccurate.  Another common dieting myth held by people is that they may not be losing weight because they are in the "starvation m...