Eating Healthy

This NYT article on nutrition and "nutritionism" is the most eye-opening. Michael Pollan, a Journalism professor at UC Berkeley, discusses the history of nutrition, including the fads like omega-3's and oat bran, marketing ploys foisted on us by the American Heart Association and the beef-producing states, and 1980's scientific studies about "nutrients" that have been debunked by later research.

A sample rule of thumb from his article: "If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat."

Reading every bit like history and science and not at all like the dreadful books on my chiropractor's shelf or radio shows like "the only good doctor is a dead doctor," Pollan shows how the health claims for various kinds of foods have changed over the last 30 years. He also shows how the science of "nutritionism," which seeks to divorce nutrients from the basic foods in which they are found, and gave rise to the whole supplement industry, has been a miserable failure. For example, those who eat carrots gain healthful benefits, but those who take beta carotine in supplement form not only show no health benefits, but can show some harmful effects.

Some of Pollan's suggestions for eating healthy:

• Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. 
• Avoid food products that come bearing health claims.
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, or more than five in number. 
• Pay more to buy healthy food.
• Eat less: eat until you are only 80 percent full.
• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

Some of these are similar to suggestions we've heard at Weight Watchers or in our quest for gluten-free health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html
or search for Unhappy Meals