Food Becomes You - Relax, It Will Help Your Digestion

My grandmother kept a Kosher home, but she made an exception for bacon. Bacon was especially nutritious, all the doctors said, so she served it lovingly to her children as often as possible.

When I graduated from college the low fat diet was in its ascendancy. Cooks dropped cream and egg yolks from their recipes; tubs of low fat margarine replaced butter; boneless skinless chicken breasts became the all-purpose meat. Soon afterwards major corporations got into the act, producing such taste delights as Eggbeaters, Wow! potato chips, and no fat, no sugar, no taste "ice cream."

After a couple decades though, low fat lost its cachet. Despite all that fat deprivation, Americans were gaining weight at a record-setting pace. The popular media crowned carbohydrates the new villain. Out went the potatoes, pasta, and fruit; in came steaks, burgers, and - you guessed it - bacon. In came the corporations, serving up goodies such as low carb pasta and low carb candy. Even fast food restaurants started selling double bacon cheeseburgers without the evil bun.

But guess what? Americans are still getting fatter. According to the 1999-2000 NHANES survey, one-third of all adults are obese (body mass index above 30). An article in today's paper now notes that one American in three has high blood pressure. Consumer data indicates that the low carb craze is on the wane, soon to be replaced by -who knows?

Maybe it's time to calm down. Zen philosophy applies: the way to eat better is to pay less attention to what you eat.

Dietary fads arise for many reasons. For one, our fashion consciousness affects the foods we eat as much as the clothes we wear. I've heard ordering bread in a Los Angeles restaurant is a social faux pas akin to attending a movie opening in a polyester leisure suit. In the seventies French cooking defined gourmet; now the trendiest of restaurants offer up platters of meat loaf and mashed potatoes. These fads apply to nutrition as much as taste.

For another, many people prefer to think in absolutes. Eggs are high in cholesterol? Never let one pass your mouth again. Fruit juice raises your blood sugar? Drop it from your shopping list. Moderation, with its ambiguity and nuances, requires too much thinking.

Thirdly, people like to complicate life unnecessarily. They carry calculators around to monitor their diet gram by nutrient gram. They sign up for expensive programs that deliver prepackaged food to their door. If you want to eat a low carb diet, it's a simple proposition. Eat low-carbohydrate foods: steak, chicken, and fish, greens, and whole grains. Skip refined, high carbohydrate foods like pasta and cookies. But instead stores are filled with overpriced products such as "super low carb chocolate chip cookies." Even foods that nature creates carbohydrate-free aren't immune from commercialization... I recently saw a shelf full of "low carb salad dressing." Yoo-hoo, folks! Did you ever hear of olive oil and vinegar?

Lastly, many people misinterpret scientific data. The kind of study to pay attention to is the kind that illustrates a direct correlation between cause and effect in human beings. For instance, extensive studies show beyond question that there is a direct link between tobacco smoking and several kinds of cancer. But most studies are only preliminary, pointing the way for further investigation. They are of interest to scientists but irrelevant to the general population - which doesn't prevent alarmist headlines from being splashed across the media. Just because a study shows that twenty percent of rats got bladder cancer after ingesting charred steak drippings doesn't mean you have to swear off barbecued meats forevermore.

Julia Child lived healthily into her nineties dining on foie gras and prime rib. While I don't share her particular taste in food, I do share her sentiment about diet neurotics. "What is all that stress doing to their stomachs?" she asked. Perhaps the spirit in which you eat a food is just as important as the physical food you eat.

As hard as it may be to admit for a nutrition professional like myself, several other factors are just as important as nutrition for optimum health, such as exercise, stress, exposure to environmental pollutants, and sanitation. For all the talk about supersizing, the average American eats fewer calories now than they did at the turn of the 20th century. But they used to exercise a whole lot more. I'm not referring to running marathons, or even aerobics class, but the kind of exercise people used to routinely get in the course of a normal day, such as farm work, housework, and walking to the store. Even twenty years ago people got up to change the channel on their TV set, instead of lying on their couch and clicking the remote.

I'm not recommending that people ignore nutritional concerns... I'm just recommending that they relax.

One area I am personally fanatical about is organic food for my family. What I don't grow myself I buy organic, down to ketchup and chocolate syrup. I only buy free-range meat (from ranches I'm familiar with) and line-caught fish. But while visiting my brother and sister-in-law they served us a lovingly prepared meal featuring farm-raised salmon from Costco. Who knows what kind of chemicals and excess fat lurked in that fish? Who knows what kind of pollution that fish farm spewed into the oceans? Nevertheless, we ate our meal without complaint. The company was wonderful and the fish delicious. We survived.

Wendy Gordon has an M.S. in Clinical Nutrition, from the University of Chicago Medical school, and a B.S. in Nutrition from Simmons College.