It is almost impossible to keep up with the new way to "be healthy." I particularly like what Pollan has to say in chapter six, "Eat Right, Get Fatter." In this chapter Pollan mentions the low-fat craze that occurred in 1970 that resulted in people gaining weight. Nutritionists are always discovering new options for putting off the pounds but it seems like they are never effective. This could have to do with the fact that everybody is different and their bodies have different reactions to foods. Or, there is the fact that several products find a way to slip through the cracks during these times. Such as the example about Frito-Lay and their chips being better for you because they are fried in polyunsaturated fats. Also, as people we believe that if we are supposed to eat low-fat foods, and low-fat foods are good for us, then we can eat as much of them as we would like.
There are numerous things that still must be brought into consideration. For the most part, we are a population that is not overly educated in nutrition. We take nutritionists for their word and we change our diets in accordance to what is considered "in." Then there are those who have issues with plant protein and that it should never be consumed over meat protein. Or that all oils are in one way or another harmful for you. While, I personally love fried foods, I don't necessarily believe that there is a healthy fried food. My biggest concern is, what do we do? How do we know what our best option is and how can we execute our decision in a way that will truly allow us to eat better and lose weight?
I feel that there truly is no best defense.
I agree with your comment about Americans not being properly educated in their own nutrition. In the West we live in a service-based culture; if you don't want to do something you pay someone else to do it for you. So because we don't have the time to read up and become properly educated on what we are eating, we allow the opinions of so-called "experts" to form our opinions for us, in the process failing to realize that many of those experts are merely extensions of the industrial food industry, feeding us information that they want us to believe. Societies grow complacent when faced with wealth and plenty; I personally think it's dangerous to allow anyone else but yourself to make up your mind for you.
ReplyDeleteIts thoroughly fascinating that with all the information we think we have, we are as clueless as we have ever been! There is still this quest to find the Rosetta Stone of nutrition; that one thing that will unlock the mysteries of how to eat well. Unfortunately, as you illuminated, we are each different with different variables and thus it does not seem that there will ever be one right "answer." So perhaps the best defense, is the one that defends you!
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