I hear it all the time: “I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.” So let me remedy one cliché with another: “you are what you eat.”

The modern American diet isn’t just bad, it’s killing you from the inside out. For 250,000 years, the human race evolved to eat nutrient-dense natural foods, but over the last 10,000 years, since the birth of agriculture in western civilization, we have seen a steady decline in the quality of our diet and lifestyle – starting with the introduction of wheats and grains and leaving us where we are today: with a pre-made sandwich in one hand and a cola in the other.

It isn’t your fault, though. We’re caught in a paradigm of fast-and-easy good-tasting meals, with a food industry that mirrors the assembly-line factories of every other commodity in this country. Poor food is readily available and heavily advertised.

I’ve heard it said that the food industry hijacked our taste buds.Eating foods high in sugar and fat is one of the most pleasant human sensations. Going back to the evolutionary perspective, foods high in fat and sugar meant energy and stored sustenance. They are an undeniable survival tag team.

But the refined sugars, trans-fats and corn-derived sweeteners we find in almost every item in the supermarket are far from the whole food fruits and game that our ancestors once feasted on.

Being healthy isn’t about counting calories. It’s about ingredients – the quality of those calories. Read the back of any cereal box, bag of chips, Yoplait yogurt or even those microwaveable “diet” trays and you’ll find an ingredient list longer than a graduate dissertation. Most of these “ingredients,” you won’t even be able to pronounce. They are mostly chemical preservatives and processed sweeteners that keep food on the shelves and you coming back for more.

I was talking to some Swedish exchange students recently, and I asked, “What are some of the noticeable differences between Americans and Swedes?” One of them quickly remarked on the number of overweight Santa Rosans.

But the extra pounds on your butt and belly are only one indication of the health hazards of the modern “food-like” concoctions making up our diets. That blotchy skin, afternoon sluggishness and persistent sickliness are all related to poor dietary decisions.

You don’t have to be an organic vegan to be healthy, but you do need to balance out all that cooked meat, starchy grains and sugary drinks with leafy greens and colorful fruits.

The best part is you’ll start feeling better immediately. Bananas, apples, avocados, blueberries and the rest will help protect your heart, strengthen your bones, control your blood pressure, lower your cholesterol and help prevent cancer.

Your mom told you your whole childhood to eat fruits and veggies. You hated broccoli, tomatoes and spinach then, but you’ll have to learn to love them now. Or else…