Pollan: Nutrition 'Science' Has Hijacked Our Meals -- and Our Health

Pollan: Nutrition 'Science' Has Hijacked Our Meals -- and Our Health

www.alternet.org

Much of what lines supermarket aisles is not food. It's merely foodlike, and it's making us sick.
We all know about the U.S. epidemic of obesity and diabetes over the past 25 years, on top of the steady rise of chronic diseases over the past hundred. Paradoxically, this happens just as Americans and the food industry are ever more aware of nutrition. What's going on here?

(visit the link for the full news article)



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Eat crap, feel like crap, die a crappy death.

Seems simple enough.

Keep big pharm in business by loading your body with toxins so they can "treat" you with more toxins.

Does the conspiracy escape anyone's notice?

Here's some of author Michael Pollan's deceptively simple solutions:

"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

How can you tell if it's real "food?"

I have a bunch of rules to help you find the actual food. One is, "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." That's kind of an algorithm. Carry her with you in your imagination as you're rolling down the aisles of the supermarket. Would she know what to do with portable yogurt tubes? Would she recognize the ingredients in it? And the answer is no, she wouldn't. That's not really food. Yogurt is a very simple, wonderful food. It's milk in a bacterial culture. So what are those other 15 ingredients doing there?

Another rule: "Shop the perimeter of the supermarket." That's where you'll find the foods that have been least fiddled with: fresh produce, meat, fish, dairy products. What's really going to get you in trouble with added fat, sugar and salt, is the stuff with the long shelf life.

You'll be even better off if you leave the supermarket entirely and do your shopping in a farmer's market. That's food your great grandmother would recognize. There might be some exotic vegetables, but basically she knows what that stuff is, and she knows what to do with it.

And "Not too much?"

The amount we're eating is a big part of our problem, especially because we're so sedentary. It's not enough to tell people to eat less. I try to find other cultures and cultural rules that would govern appetite. The Japanese in Okinawa, and this is true of the Chinese too, have a cultural rule that you eat until you're four-fifths full. How do you know when you're 80 percent full? Well, if you just stop before you're completely full, that would be huge progress.

What about "Mostly plants?"

Especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what's so good about plants, but they do agree that they're probably really good for you. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you'll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods -- except seeds -- are typically less "energy dense" than other things you might eat.

Splendid interview with a sensible man who can help one change their life, and their community, for the better.

That's worth the 15 minutes it'll take to read, don't you think?

Good health!




www.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

Yeah this is not a surprise. We pumped so much chemicals in our animals, in our fruits, vegetables, cereals, in our bodies and in the air which led to the nutritional value lowering. It really disgusts me to see how companies would rather make money grow everything regularly.

Read this...

www.coralcastlecode.com...

It's good to know.

Ideally it's all about doing a 'Raw Food diet' of mosly fruits and veggies.

I have been a vegetarian for about 6 years now, but I am not always eating healthy per se. You really should just stick to raw fruits and veggies as the primary.

But if you do indulge on a more diverse pallet, just use common sense and avoid what you already know to be junk-foods, and avoid anything in a can i.e things with an extensive shelf-life.

Avoid high-fructose corn syrup! Avoid also the trans and saturated-fats And if you're a meat-eater do your best to by free-range organic

Drink water and fruit juice instead of soda.