To help encourage healthier ways of eating, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest is working with food and health advocates of all stripes to create Food Day, Oct. 24. Its goals are nothing less than to reshape the nation's diet and orient food and farm policies toward healthier people and a healthier environment. Thousands of classrooms, colleges, churches, city halls, health departments and families all over the country are organizing events, including family meals, to inspire Americans to change their individual diets for the better.
Food should be delicious, a source of joy and nourishing. But all too many foods in the typical American diet are anything but nourishing. Rather, they slowly but surely undermine the body's delicate balances and put people on the path to disease. And Food Day will be a time to begin to improve diets and transform America's food system.
Remarkably, diet begins promoting the disease process in the teenage years, or even earlier. The consumption of cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizzas, French fries and soft drinks, beloved by millions of children, promotes dental caries, weight gain and childhood diabetes. Also, quietly and not manifest with any outward sign, arteries begin to thicken and lay the groundwork for heart disease. The ultimate outcome of a pathogenic diet is people whose arteries are nearly completely clogged and destined for either a fatal heart attack or major surgery.
Numerous influences discourage people from eating a healthy diet. For children, the barriers to healthier diets include the temptations of tasty junk foods and the massive advertising to eat unhealthy packaged foods instead of healthy home-cooked meals. (Ever see an ad for carrots or public service announcements encouraging cooking on children's television shows?) And, of course, many parents don't even know how to, or want to, cook. And adults, too, are no strangers to lousy diets based on processed and restaurant foods loaded with saturated fat, sodium and sugar.
I hope that Food Day encourages all Americans to give their plates a makeover. Eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and animal products low in saturated fat and eating less junk foods -- including sugary drinks, grain-fed beef, and more -- also could lead to a windfall for our pocketbooks.
Just consider that Americans now spend well over $30 billion a year just on drugs to treat the heart disease and high blood pressure that are often caused by diet. The 1.4 million heart surgeries -- bypass operations, angiograms and angioplasties -- cost another $25 billion. And more important than money, 15,000 people a year die on the operating table or shortly thereafter when undergoing those surgeries. Bypass operations, in particular, are pretty violent experiences, involving cutting open chests and legs, transplanting blood vessels, and then sewing things together again. Yes, 98 percent of patients do survive that ordeal, though many end up with depression and a long recovery. Moreover, surgical treatment of heart disease is only a temporary patch, alleviating symptoms while the treated arteries re-clog and untreated arteries continue to sicken.
A better, cheaper, pain-free approach would be to prevent cardiovascular disease in the first place, and then, if it does occur, treat it with diet and lifestyle changes. In fact, researchers like Dr. Dean Ornish, president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute, have conducted numerous studies showing that eating a healthy plant-based diet (along with other lifestyle changes) can not only prevent heart disease from worsening, but can actually reverse it. Former President Bill Clinton seems to be having a great deal of success with that approach.
Given the choice between heart surgery and an active lifestyle anchored with healthy delicious foods, who wouldn't choose the latter?
New Year's Day is the day that millions of Americans vow to lose weight. Food Day could be the day that millions of people start overhauling their diets. If you want to attend a local event, check the map on the Food Day website. Alternatively, you can celebrate simply by having an especially healthful meal with your family or potluck dinner with friends and talk about the concerns your concerns about America's food system.