Jennifer Aniston's Quinoa Salad Revealed

Recently, Jennifer Aniston released a secret recipe that she claims kept her slim and trim during the 10-year run of Friends. The key, she says, was eating this same salad every day for lunch...for the entire 10 years. After looking through the recipe carefully, it not only looks appealing but actually contains all of the nutrition one needs to stay in peak condition.

What was especially interesting about this revelation was that the U.S. Department of Health came out suggesting that more variety than this one recipe is necessary to stay healthy. This idea, however, assumes that variety is the ultimate necessity for proper nutrition.

It is not.

In fact, there are plenty of experts who consider too much variety an overcomplicating factor in diets. For many cultures around the world a routine daily diet is a standard practice. Only in the West do we consider a wide variety of foods to be a necessity for good nutrition. If the foods we eat are nutritious enough, adding more outside those needs isn't really an advantage. It may be more interesting, but it actually wastes time, causes stress for shoppers and food preparers, and doesn't add anything to the diet itself.

Once a body adapts to a nutritional plan, it can very quickly become highly efficient at processing that particular food routine. That efficiency is where the plan really starts to pay off; and in fact, as in Ms. Aniston's case, usually only applies to one key meal in a day anyway.

There are other holes in the recommendations of the Department of Health's recommendations. In addition to suggesting that "variety" is the key to good nutrition, they recommend...[read more]