What’s wrong with our dietary guidelines?
We are getting fatter and sicker. What’s going on?
Our dietary guidelines in Australia (including the health star rating) should be reviewed. It is utterly ridiculous that in a country with a growing incidence of diabetes, sugar laden, highly processed cereal gets a healthy 4-star rating and the Heart Foundation Tick, despite containing 23.5% sugar. A processed rollup (kids snack) contains 26.7% sugar, and is rated 3 stars! On the flip side, healthy greek yogurt containing no added sugar receives 1.5 stars due to high saturated fat. Yet a growing number of studies seem to indicate that demonising saturated fat is the wrong approach, and that sugar is the true evil. One was a meta-analysis in 2014 that looked at 76 studies, with 27 of them randomised, controlled trials. It was concluded that “current evidence” doesn’t support limiting saturated fats in favour of polyunsaturated oils such as canola oil (1) This has been reported elsewhere ( 2 3 4)
In the last 100 years food has changed more than it has in the 1000 years prior, which is pretty scary really. And, our gut has not evolved at a rate fast enough to keep up. So essentially we are poisoning ourselves slowly with a concoction of chemicals and artificial substances that we call ‘food’. Most foods on our supermarket shelf are a concoction of chemicals that should not be classified as food.
We should not be eating anything that has ingredients that we cannot pronounce, or anything with more than 6 ingredients. We should also stick to recognisable ingredients, for example, tomatoes, water, basil, oregano, salt. We should not consume anything with high fructose corn syrup, as even in moderation is linked with many chronic inflammatory conditions. We should not be consuming foods containing soybean oil. Soy bean oil is a major source of omega-6 fatty acids, but worse, it often contains high levels of glyphosate. Soybean oil is in many foods so it is important to always check ingredients. If you eat grains, fast foods, desserts, packaged foods, potato chips, muffins, or consume anything cooked in oil at a café or restaurant, then you’re almost certainly consuming lots of soybean oil and other oils rich in omega-6 fatty acids without even knowing it. They are inflammatory and toxic!
Before the rise of processed foods we ate seasonal real foods. There was much variety, and we ate whatever was available, when it was available. Nuts, seeds, vegetables, roots, berries, eggs, fish & wild game were all on the menu, and because it was dependant on seasonal availability we weren’t exposed to one food for a long time and instead obtained a variety of nutrients. How many of us now eat the same breakfast cereal daily? We only ate organic foods- now we have foods contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and waxes. Antibiotics are even sprayed on vegetables, and Roundup (glyphosate) is sprayed on crops at harvest. Previously animals were caught in the wild, and before their demise, consumed grass and plants- now they are in factory farms and consume grains, corn (sprayed with glyphosate) and antibiotics.
Right back in the early 1900s some physicians were aware of the demise of our food system and were warning against it. In the textbook Graded Lessons in Physiology and Hygiene (5) (used as a school textbook in 1908), Dr. William Khron writes;
“Many of our foods are sometimes spoiled by persons who manufacture or sell them, putting into them cheaper substances that are dangerous to health. Such persons seem to care little for the purity of foods, but are chiefly interested in making the most money possible out of them. So common has this adulteration become that in most of the states the law-making power has passed pure food bills to prevent the sale of such adulterated articles. These laws are most worthy and should be strictly enforced, for what is money-making by a few individuals compared with the health of the people of an entire city or state, which may be greatly endangered by the use of these impure or adulterated foods”
These laws Khron is referring to were abolished in the 1970’s, not because the science had changed- but because the food industry had won.
It is not too late to turn this around and to take Khrons advice. Stay away from “impure or adulterated foods”. This means growing our own food, it also means baking and cooking, and time spent in the kitchen. It means hard work and sacrifice (of time- and also the sugar filled processed junk we call food). It also means investing in our health and wellbeing, and using food as medicine to prevent disease and ensure that we live long and healthy lives.
Spending time in the kitchen does not have to be a drag and cooking from scratch can ensure that our 'creative self' gets a workout. Involve the kids as well, so they not only learn a basic skill which is being lost to convenience foods, but so that the next generation develop a healthy appreciation of food, and the ingredients required to make a healthy, and satisfying meal.
So, our dietary guidelines should simply state that we should consume a diet rich in healthy fats, fruits and vegetables, lean, grass fed meat and sustainably sourced fish. We should make our children snacks from real ingredients with no additives and spend time sourcing and cooking real food! It is actually that simple.