"whole grains" -yeah right!
Our government released the 2010 Dietary Guidelines last week. Considering it is now 2011, I guess it took them longer than they thought it would to come up with 91 pages of recommendations on what to eat. I have to admit that I am a bit cynical about these recommendations which come out every five years. Back in 2005, the big news was “eat more whole grain”. This message got morphed into all sorts of craziness by the food industry. As a result, “whole grains” are a health claim on many packaged faux foods today.
This year, the big bad boy is now SALT! We’ve all got to eat LESS of it! Its really easy to eat less salt if you eat real food that you make from scratch. We will no doubt see lots and lots of salt claims in the year ahead. (I promise to tackle salt in an upcoming blog post.)
There are questions as to whether these government recommendations really have solid science behind them. One thing is for sure, they are awash in politics. The food industry is so deeply embedded in the USDA, that its tough to anything they say at full value. I for one, take these recommendations with a grain of salt – good quality sea salt of course!
Let’s make 2011 different. Let’s draw the line and come up with our own dietary guidelines. This is an excellent topic for a family discussion. This way everyone in your household is on the same page and you can work to build critical thinking skills which come in handy in all facets of life.
Here’s my version of “dietary guidelines” that I use in my home and with students and clients. This continuum is simple, it comes down to four words.
Choosing what food to eat is not simply a black and white issue: healthy or unhealthy, there are shades of grey. This food continuum will help you determine which foods will support your health. Looking at food choices in this way will help to build your intuitive muscle around food selection You can turn this into a game you play with your family. Evaluate food using this language instead of what the food industry dishes up.
Beneficial Foods are easy. They often don’t contain a label because they are simply one ingredient, i.e., sweet potato. Ideally, beneficial foods are fresh and local and in season whenever possible. You’ll find lots of beneficial foods at your farmer’s market.
Useful Foods. These foods are still pretty darn useful, but they might not be as fresh and in their natural state as the beneficial ones. Frozen peas are useful, so are canned beans and tomatoes.
Useless Foods. The food industry sometimes likes to call this category “empty calories”, I prefer the word useless because these foods are of no use to us! A good percentage of the food you find in supermarkets can be considered useless. They are more marketing hype than real nourishment. Make sure your family understands this key point and you will save big bucks when out shopping. Money that can be saved for more meaningful activities.
Hazardous Foods. Fast food and junk food often falls into the hazardous category. These food products contain ingredients that are known to be hazardous to your health. As a family, decide which ingredients are hazardous. I posted my top 10 hazardous ingredients in a previous blog post, click here to read it.
Here are two examples of how the continuum works.
Beneficial: steel cut oats
Useful: old fashioned rolled oats
Useless: instant oatmeal
Hazardous: highly sweetened instant oatmeal containing ingredients like HFCS, artificial colors, flavors, especially those containing colored “dinosaur eggs”!
The real thing: beneficial
Useless!
Beneficial: An orange. Freshly cut and eaten.
Useful: Orange juice that you squeeze yourself from fresh oranges
Useless: Orange Juice in the supermarket
Hazardous: Orange drinks loaded with HFCS and other questionable chemicals. (i.e. brominated vegetable oils)
Why do I use a strong word like hazardous? Because I remember the label on my mom’s cigarettes when I was a small child: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. If the food lobbies weren’t so rich and powerful, I bet you’d see warning labels like that on foods containing these ingredients! In my system, a food is hazardous if it contains any of these hazardous ingredients. Work to have a zero tolerance policy in your home when it comes to these ingredients.
Please note that I am not suggesting that you or your family only eat beneficial and useful foods. That would be close to impossible! What I am saying is to work to eat less of the hazardous and useless foods by taking the time to actively figure out what they are! This way, we take our power back as eaters and build our critical thinking skills.
Have fun creating your own dietary guidelines. Let me know how it goes!
