To celebrate Making Love In The Kitchen’s first birthday, the bestest posts of the last year are getting another turn in the spotlight. These were selected either because they had the most traffic or should have. While together we stroll down memory lane, I will be away on a farm with no computer! We’ll chat when I get back.
Challenging Acceptance: First Published: May 22, 2009
One of my best teachers from nutrition school has a saying: “Where everyone thinks alike, no one thinks at all.”
Though generally accepted, I am not in support of Canada’s Food Guide, or the American Food Pyramid, or the whole Five-A-Day campaign that was all over the UK when I was there recently. I am really not for any generalizations around diet and I don’t think we should have to consult a chart to determine what we should be eating.
I do agree that there is big, fat, massive confusion over what is healthy, what we should eat, what we should avoid and what nutrient of the day is going to save us from our own bad habits. To follow a guide that first came out about 50 years ago and is a product of politics, lobby groups, and food industries’ best interests has done little for our health.
We have the four food groups: dairy, meat, fruit and veg, and grains.
Does this seem odd to anyone or have we just come to accept this as the way food gets grouped? Are we all thinking alike? Is dairy a fat or a protein? Are nuts a grain, a meat or a vegetable? What about sugar? What food group do we put sugar in? We do get nearly 10% of our calories from sugar. Shouldn’t sugar have a group too? Why is fish with meat? Why is fruit with vegetables? And again- what about nuts, seeds and lentils? Where do they fit in?
These generally accepted, mass market approved nutritional guidelines are recommended by doctors and dietitians, taught in school, and fully supported (and sponsored) by the milk board, cow farmers, grain farmers, and food industrialists. But do they work? Are we healthier now than we were 50 years ago, before we had these guidelines to follow? I am bringing this up now as in the last 24 hours or so, I have been challenged on the whole food nutrition I am promoting, practicing and teaching. I have been told that if I want to be successful in the nutrition field, I need to start with a generally accepted understanding of nutrition.
The challenge I have is that these guides are generally accepted, but they are not nutrition. They place equal value on a bagel and a bowl of brown rice, a glass of skim milk and a serving of fresh vegetables.. We are warned us not to eat too much nuts or avocados because they are higher in fat content but are encouraged to go with margarine and fat-free cheese which have nothing of nutritional value (and is gross).
The food we eat does one of two things in our body. It will build our health or build our disease. Since we all like our guides and given all the marketing around food, we could all use a little honest direction. I present to you HonestFoodGuide.org‘s Honest Food Guide.
What are your thoughts on government directed food guides?
Both The Food Guide and McDonald’s Image Courtesy of Weighty Matters at bmimedical.blogspot.com
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I’d never considered this. “Food” for thought indeed.
Amen Meghan, amen!!!
In Luise Light’s book What To Eat she discusses how when she was hired by the USDA to create the food pyramid, she came up with a guide based on scientific evidence and substantiated health advice. After submitting the pyramid for approval, it came back completely altered due to industry pressure; specifically from the meat, dairy and sugar industries.
I guess grandma knew best…
what’s wrong with Cheerios??
Great post Meghan. As an adult I’ve never felt that the “national” standards were correct either. Thank you for sharing the great link to the this “Honest” Food Guide. I love how it includes sunlight!!
I love that pyramid at the bottom but I dont like that they’ve included protein powders as one of their health promoting foods. We should get enough protein from our foods we dont need a ton of extra protein.
I tried to meet those govt directed guides when I was obsessed with being healthy a few years ago and it never right. I always felt like I was gorging myself on dairy products and was always short on animal proteins. But I would meet my fruit and veg quota easily. See the problem?
Heres my pyramid-eat straight from nature(that the whole thing top to bottom)
Okay on top is a little space for wedding cake! yum lol
i like the concept of a chart where one direction is health and the other is disease…because that is what it basically comes down to. …but even this “Honest Food Guide” chart isn’t really that honest – they make terrible generalizations (e.g. red meat) and is off in a quite a few spots (e.g. tofu is good)… what i’d really like to see is the “Making Love In The Kitchen” True Food Chart…with possibly some suggested tolerance levels for the stuff that points towards disease…because even health nuts need a cookie sometimes.
i’m glad that the government is TRYING to make nutrition a focus, but i agree that they do it in the wrong way! their charts over-simplify and fit into people’s misconceptions about a “diet” lifestyle. i agree with jeff — i bet you could come up with a better food chart than any of these!
Being a health educator and having taught nutrition to teens, I totally understand what you’re talking about. In the U.S., they have made an attempt to improve the pyramid. A few years back they made some big changes and it’s now called My Pyramid (mypyramid.gov) It does separate the fruits from the veggies, even has a category for fats, encouraging folks to get most fats from nuts, fish, and vegetable oils and suggests limiting fats from margarine, shortenings, and solid fats (though i do believe in eating raw butter). Beans and legumes are lumped again with the meats-due to protein amounts. But, they do urge eating whole grains too. It is definitely better than the old one. And they even have a section for daily exercise. Whenever I’ve taught nutrition, I’ve always encouraged including foods like avocado and coconut milk. I want to see all the wonderful good fats in nutrition guidelines.
I’m waiting to see your guidelines.
Opps, that’s Sari not Sar.
What a great post Meghan!
I agree with Jeff — I’d like to switch the “healthy” soy and tofu products for selected dairy, like organic raw goat/sheep milk; and also think it’s totally weird how eggs don’t appear on either food guide. Definitely would like to see a Making Love in the Kitchen Guide — that’s probably the only one I’d ever trust.
I’m with the content of your post 100%. It’s timely for me because I just started reading Food Politics (2002 edition). Then again, I’m often reading something like it.
I mostly agree with the Honest Food Guide. I don’t think that all protein powders are created equal. One needs to read ingredients.
I don’t think that red meat should be at the top of the “disease” side, above fried food and sodas. The disease side of their guide is based on fiber content, to which I disagree.
I’m wary of the government guides and have toyed with designing one up but always came to one challenge that would stop me dead in my tracks: there really isn’t one solution for everyone and that is why these food guides will invariably fail. Beyond the concept that we should eat whole, unprocessed foods the water starts to become a bit murky.
[...] America Food Pyramid recommends a higher intake of dairy than vegetables (and we know how I feel about this) and seven of the 13 committee members that developed this pyramid have ties to food and/or drug [...]
The government is certainly not supportive of preventative health care, *cue* the food guide!
Although I am immensely thankful for the presence of pseudo- free health care in this country, (I’m sure we all have paid a visit to an emergency room, or have known someone we love who has), it is nonetheless corrupt.
For example rather than subsidizing much needed medications, the government inadvertently allows individuals to ignore their health issues until they become so sick that they are forced to seek out a hospital to receive treatment. Don’t get me wrong, the last thing I want to do is support or succumb to pharmaceuticals, but therein lies the problem.
Alternative methods of health care in experience tend to be as expensive as pharmaceutical drugs (which is most often due to the lack of government support). This same logic can be applied to food. The foods that are the most healthy for us are in most cases more expensive than ‘regular’ fare, but I digress.
Anyway, I hope that in examining the food guide, we can all come to the conclusion that despite what we would like to believe, our government is not looking out for our best interests in the long-term.
Our only options are to support corporations that promote ‘alternative foods’ (so they can go and compete with the bigwigs lobbyists for space on the food guide ) or, of course, eat the foods that makes y-o-u-r body feel good!
Meghan, I promise you that if I in fact end up doing any kind of policy planning with my degree, the food guide will be at the top of my ‘hit list’.
I blame this conspiracy theory banter on an empty stomach…
Oh, just one more thing. If you really want your flesh to crawl then check out the ‘health check’ debacle!
Although, some props should be given.. these guides and recommendations are highlighting the best of the worst for those who choose to eat these types of foods.
“…in the last 24 hours or so, I have been challenged on the whole food nutrition I am promoting, practicing and teaching. I have been told that if I want to be successful in the nutrition field, I need to start with a generally accepted understanding of nutrition.”
I have to wonder who told you this. What is their definition of success? More importantly, what is your definition of success? I look at your work here and see a wildly successful woman. Just look at the responses your article has generated!
Obviously, being challenged from time to time is a good thing. It keeps us all from falling into the rut of thinking alike. Still I know those kinds of comments can leave a person a bit rattled. I’m glad you used it as an opportunity to reaffirm and share your beliefs around food and the food guide. Good for you. And next time someone questions your success in the nutrition field tell them you’re already successful. Laurie said so!
PS What on earth are “whole food concentrates”? They sound a bit artificial and less than healthy, but as I don’t know what they are it’s hard to tell!
This is so well put ! It should be copied and given out to all school children – and all their parents too !! You write so eloquently ! Great, great post .
Have you posted your version of the food guide yet? I’m dying to see it!
[...] throughout promoting the benefits of a high fiber diet. There were dietitians on site handing out my fave nutritional document, Canada’s Food Guide and Cancer Care Ontario was manning some tables of pamphlets. I picked up a magnet picturing the [...]
[...] In fact, most holistic nutritionists would disagree quite vociferously! Here are a couple of dissenting opinions from those in the holistic field, outlining some of the reasons why the guide may not contain the [...]
I had actually written up my own version of a food guide but felt the post was too long already. It will come soon, I promise!
Ashley- I totally agree with you on the protein powders. I am not much of a fan personally.
Jeff, Sarah, gettinggreen- the food guide is coming!
Not yet! I thought long and hard about this and then realized that’s the whole thing. There is no food guide that could work for everyone.