In 2003, I told then U.S. Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson, and then FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan we needed a food supply for dummies (also published as an Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant, and New York Newsday). Presenting yesterday in Washington, D.C., to a committee of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, my testimony was: we still do.
Advice to eat more plant foods simply states the destination; it does not provide the step-by-step, GPS-like guidance people need to move in that direction. Besides, alas, it doesn't work. It has not worked for decades. Less than 1.5 percent of Americans meet guidelines for fruits and vegetables, despite counting both French fries AND the ketchup poured over them as servings of vegetables, and juices as servings of fruit.
We should, indeed, eat more fruits and vegetables. But while working on that, we should also enable the AVERAGE shopper to identify and choose better-for-them bread, and cereal, and crackers, and sauces, and spreads, and dressings, and yogurts. After all, when you want a sandwich, you need bread- you will not swap out bread for broccoli. So the question is: which bread?
Because I believe it is nearly impossibly hard for the average shopper to answer the question -- which bread is most nutritious? -- I do NOT blame individuals in our society for obesity, and I don't think you should, either. Don't get me wrong: I believe we all have responsibility for how we use our feet and our forks every day. But we cannot blame individuals for an 'obesigenic' environment.
We need both public policy, and personal responsibility; we need to both cultivate will, and pave the way. The body politic must pave the way to better health -- the individual must then assume responsibility for walking it. We can no more expect people to achieve health despite an environment that encourages and actively markets the converse, than we can expect individuals to ride effortlessly to health on the shoulders of public policy.
Right now, most individuals simply cannot take responsibility for eating well because they are too disempowered. The do not know that marinara sauce routinely has more added sugar than ice cream topping; they do not know that breakfast cereals are routinely more concentrated sources of sodium than potato chips; they do not know fat-reduced peanut butter is less nutritious than regular due to added sugar and salt; they do not know that salt-reduced products routinely have added sugar and fat, sugar-reduced products routinely have added salt; they do not know that a 'multigrain' bread may contain no whole grains!
And why should they? Why should the busy mom dashing through a supermarket have to be a nutrition expert to make choices that are actually good for her and her family? Why should she need to figure out how to put together a lot of nutrient details, and interpret (or dismiss) impressive-sounding but misleading marketing messages just ... to buy a loaf of bread?
She shouldn't. If we made an objective, reliable, expert measure of overall nutritional quality for every food available at a glance to all, she wouldn't have to.
The average shopper is no dummy -- but he or she is not a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry either. He or she needs guidance to more nutritious foods. Guidance that is universal and trustworthy.
The average shopper should eat more foods that are 'food'. But they need help to get there from here. They need GPS for a very complicated modern foodscape that can undermine the best intentions of anyone but a truly expert navigator.
In 2003, we needed a food supply for dummies. We still do.
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Let's take the "simple" subject of bread. From the article, it would appear that the author favors "whole grain" breads as the healthy answer. Not so fast.
Grains are grass seeds, a food that nature never intended primates to eat. Grains require careful preparation because they contain a number of anti-nutrients that can cause serious health problems. Phytic acid, for example, is mostly found in the bran. It can combine with a host of minerals, including zinc, in the intestinal tract and block their absorption. A diet high in improperly prepared whole grains may lead to serious mineral deficiencies, bone loss, and irritable bowel syndrome.
Other anti-nutrients in whole grains include enzyme inhibitors which can inhibit digestion; irritating tannins; complex sugars which the body cannot break down; and gluten which may cause allergies, digestive disorders and even mental illness.
How was your favorite whole grain bread prepared?
The solution is to either avoid grains, or be aware of their proper preparation in order to minimize toxins. For information on whole grain preparation methods, see:
http://www.westonaprice.org/Be-Kind-to-Your-Grains...And-Your-Grains-Will-Be-Kind-To-You.html
Information on what nature intended us to eat can be found in "The Wellness Project."
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
Because I believe it is nearly impossibly hard for the average shopper to answer the question -- which bread is most nutritious? -- I do NOT blame individuals in our society for obesity
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Comments like this one really puzzle me. Recently I posted that the cause of obesity has a lot to do with lack of intelligence and/ or a dietary illiteracy . For example, on the question of which bread? stay away from the "legend". IF there is an inch or more of ingredients listed for a food such as bread then one cannot rationally think it is healthy. Bread is not complicated: there are 4 basic ingredients, none of which are chemicals or sugar. Yet why don't people know that?why do they have to be told that?
I guess I figured that there is soooooooooooooooo much information out there, and most of it is commons sense that it puzzles me that we still need to state the obvious, such as eat fruit and vegetables. THen there's the internet, lots of sites on good for you food.
It won't kill us to go vegetarian/vegan for a while. Most of us could do with a modified fast or two.
And until we recognize packaged, dead, processed foods as being the toxic killers they are, we won't see much progress.
Marketing has us believe that sugary cereals are a good breakfast, that calorie-laden nutrition bars are healthy, that heavy, rich meals are necessary every couple of hours.
Start fighting back - don't let a marketer influence your decisions. Go to the farmer's market. Learn how to prepare soups and salads. Reject the status quo!!!
That said, If I had a magic wand I would round up all of the boxed crap on grocery store shelves and poof it to the starving people in other nations. Americans, generally, do not need these calories.
Most people that I know have no idea about nutrition and I often find myself looking things up because I'm just not sure (this, after working with a nutritionist). I don't think that we are going to have a healthy population until we start teaching children about food in schools and quit gaming the system so that a twinkie is cheaper than an apple.
Food isn't just important to our physical ability, it affects our brains! The chemicals and godknowswhatall in these highly processed, GMO-filled, pesticide riddled plasticized foods are causing major neurological disorders. Artificial colors and flavors aren't called excitotoxins for nothing! Have you ever reeled from someone's cheap cologne? Or got knocked over by the scent and flavorings plants in NJ?
Not to mention what all of this does to our ecosystem. Seriously. It's more than nutrition deficiency we're concerned with here. Eating an apple for breakfast would also be called nutritionally deficient (no real proteins or essential fatty acids).
Let's stop avoiding responsibility. Everyone should be as careful about what they put into their mouth as to what grade of gasoline that put into their sports car.