My friends routinely send me e-mail about food, beverages, health and medicine to solicit my opinion, keep me informed or just make me laugh. The below e-mail, forwarded to me from my colleague Lauren, made me smile …
Someone with a lot of insight wrote this.
These six paragraphs are apparently floating around in cyberspace. From where they come, I’m not sure, but whoever compiled this synopsis should be given a medal.
I know your day is busy, but this entry is worth a read …
1. Don’t eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Imagine how baffled your ancestors would be in a modern supermarket: the epoxy-like tubes of Go-Gurt, the preternaturally fresh Twinkies, the vaguely pharmaceutical “energy drinks.” Those aren’t foods, quite; they’re food products. History suggests you might want to wait a few decades or so before adding such novelties to your diet, the substitution of margarine for butter being the classic case in point. My mother used to predict “they” would eventually discover that butter was better for you. She was right: the trans-fatty margarine is killing us. Eat food, not food products.
2. Avoid foods containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It’s not just in soft drinks but also in ketchup and bologna, baked goods, soups and salad dressings. Though HFCS was not part of the human diet until 1975, each of us now consumes more than 40 lbs. a year, some 200 calories a day. Is HFCS any worse for you than sugar? Probably not, but by avoiding it you’ll avoid thousands of empty calories and perhaps even more important, cut out highly processed foods–the ones that contain the most sugar, fat and salt. Besides, what chef uses high-fructose corn syrup? Not one. It’s found only in the pantry of the food scientist, and that’s not who you want cooking your meals.
3. Spend more, eat less. Americans are as addicted to cheap food as we are to cheap oil. We spend only 9.7% of our income on food, a smaller share than any other nation. Is it a coincidence we spend a larger percentage than any other on health care (16%)? All this “cheap food” is making us fat and sick. It’s also bad for the health of the environment. The higher the quality of the food you eat, the more nutritious it is and the less of it you’ll need to feel satisfied.
4. Pay no heed to nutritional science or the health claims on packages. It was science that told us margarine made from trans-fats is better for us than butter made from cow’s milk. The more I learn about the science of nutrition, the less certain I am that we’ve learned anything important about food that our ancestors didn’t know. Consider that the healthiest foods in the supermarket–the fresh produce–are the ones that don’t make FDA-approved health claims, which typically festoon the packages of the most highly processed foods.
5. Shop at the farmers’ market. You’ll begin to eat foods in season, when they are at the peak of their nutritional value and flavor, and you’ll cook, because you won’t find anything processed or microwavable. You’ll also be supporting farmers in your community, helping defend the countryside from sprawl, saving oil by eating food produced nearby and teaching your children that a carrot is a root, not a machine-lathed orange bullet that comes in a plastic bag. A lot more is going on at the farmers’ market than the exchange of money for food.
6. How you eat is as important as what you eat. Americans are fixated on nutrients, good and bad, while the French and Italians focus on the whole eating experience. The lesson of the “French paradox” is you can eat all kinds of supposedly toxic substances (triple crème cheese, foie gras) as long as you follow your culture’s (i.e., mother’s) rules: eat moderate portions, don’t go for seconds or snacks between meals, never eat alone. But perhaps most important, eat with pleasure, because eating with anxiety leads to poor digestion and bingeing. There is no French paradox, really, only an American paradox: a notably unhealthy people obsessed with the idea of eating healthily. So, relax. Eat Food. And savor it.
As you’re an RD I can’t believe you don’t know who created these 6 Rules….it’s Michael Pollan. His books are highly recommended and for anyone in the business of helping people with nutrition and food it should be required reading!!
Hi, Steve. Thanks for your posting and for the source of the six paragraphs. As an RD, my primary responsibility to my clients, the greater public and to my peers is to communicate sound, science-based findings. To that end, I read, sleep, eat and breath the scientific literature. Granted, I also read non peer-reviewed material, but I’m selective. Of course, I’ve read articles by Pollan (see my blog entry dated January 28, 2007 in response to a piece he wrote in the New York Times). Sometimes I agree with him, and there are other times I don’t. More important than reading the lay press, I “highly recommended” that those in the business of health and nutrition frequently go back to the original literature to better understand issues and formulate educated recommendations.
I think looking only at “the science” and science-based findings is not the best approach, and problem with many of today’s nutritionists, RD’s, and others in the nutrition field.
Though science is important, it’s not the end all, and things can be very good for you without looking at the science. I mean, wasn’t it science that told us that margarine was good for us, fat was bad for us, and that smoking was okay for us (even doctor’s used to advertise for cigarettes). And they went before Congress and said “we have the science & studies to prove it.” Ha…science..
So looking at scientific literature has been part of the problem here in the U.S. We need to relax, and take it all with a grain of salt.
And we all know many large food, pharmaceutical, and drug companies pay (whether directly or indirectly) for “studies.” Something the general population is not aware of. And I know first-hand of such ‘studies.’ So this so-called science, isn’t always the truth.
Man has survived thousands of years without looking at science to know what to eat. Eat real food that nature provides, (of course, with the least amount of pesticides and GMO’s) and you’ll live a generally healthy life. Simple, basic, and no science needed.