(Dietary) Practice Makes Perfect

In exhorting people to follow sound dietary principles and follow an exemplary diet, I’m left asking myself if we (dietitians, I mean) are over-doing it in the nagging department. “After all”, the devil sitting on one shoulder advises, “food is one of the few sources of pleasure in some people’s lives…how can you expect them to deny themselves?” The angel sitting on the other shoulder pipes up “Maybe…but that indulgence for a quick fix is going to cost them dearly in the future in terms of poor health and premature death, not to mention the drain on the health care system!”

The trick to getting both these critters off my shoulders, and still bring you a practical message, is to find that happy medium, the path of moderation…dietary virtue with a bit of an edge. The point seems to be that folks really do want to eat well and choose healthful foods, but they want them to taste really, really good. If only broccoli tasted like chocolate cake! Well it doesn’t, so get over it. But broccoli can be made tasty, so let’s have a look at the four food groups and see what can be done to maximize the flavour and minimize the guilt.

The Bread and Cereal Group:

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that whole grain breads are a better choice than refined, white. In fact if I were Queen for a day (bet you’re glad I’m not), there’d be no such thing as white bread. Go on…give the multi-grains a try. Fancy, artisan, multi-grained breads have become really trendy and for once it’s a trend I’m solidly behind.
Cereals are perhaps a greater challenge in making a healthful choice; the pre-sweetened ones just seem to taste better to many adults and children alike. I’m about to make an un-dietitian-like recommendation: take the un-sweetened cereals and sweeten them with an artificial sweetener! The sweetener I have in mind is Splenda…it’s actually made from sugar, with none of the downside. You can try mixing a variety of whole- grain cereals, add some milk and Splenda and you’ve got a cereal that’s good for you and tastes good at the same time. And don’t forget the hot cereals…nothing better on a cold winter morning. You can also add some fruit for its natural sweetness and nutrients. Just don’t succumb to the allure of the pre-sweetened hot cereals…they’re just not worth it.

The Vegetable and Fruit Group:

While there’s hardly any representatives of this group that we would describe as unhealthful or poor choices, a couple of candidates spring to mind: deep-fried zucchini (actually anything that’s deep-fried) and fruit leather. Fruit drinks that have no, or a minimum amount of fruit juice in them, are relegated to the poor-choice category as well. The problem here is trying to increase consumption of these foods, and while we’ve had some success, there’s still a long way to go. One method is to increase the “yummy” factor by dressing up the veggies with a little sauce, or serving them with a little dip…that goes for fruit as well. For the vegetables, a small amount of butter or cheese usually does the trick; for the fruit, a bit of yogurt sauce does wonders. Salads are mostly considered a great choice, that is until they’re drowned in salad dressing! Oils are, after all, fat-- and fat is a concentrated source of calories. Try this delicious yoghurt dressing on your next salad and you’ll not only cut down on the calories, you’ll greatly increase the nutrient value: 2/3 cup (150ml) plain yoghurt; 1 clove garlic (minced); 1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil; 1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon juice; 1 teaspoon (5 ml) honey. Combine all in blender or mix with a frother; pour over salad.

The Milk and Milk Products group

As with the Vegetable and Fruit Group, the challenge here is to get people consuming more of the stuff. Various surveys have shown that the average Canadian adult barely gets one full serving of the two to four servings that Health Canada recommends. Sometimes people actually think that milk is fattening when, in fact, the very opposite is true…people with high intakes of dairy calcium are much more likely to have a healthy weight. Cheese sometimes gets a bad rap as being fattening, but that’s only if you eat the whole block in one sitting. Moderation is the key, just as portion control is the key to keeping total calories in check with any food choice. While it’s true that chocolate milk has no more sugar in it than an equal amount of unsweetened apple juice, there are some sweetened milk and yoghurt products out there that have overdone it. A little bit goes a long way.

The Meat and Alternatives Group

About the only way to turn a choice from this group into a bad choice is to either “pig out”, i.e. simply eat too much, or to deep-fry it and then load it up with gravy. The term “too much” demands some description, and that’s hard to come by. It’s sort of like the guy trying to describe good art: “ I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it”. You know it when you’ve eaten too much. Of course there are official descriptions of what constitutes a serving: 3 to 4 ounces or 90 to 120 grams (the size of a deck of playing cards), but let’s be generous and go all the way to 6 ounces or 180 grams. When fish is the choice it’s almost always good until it’s battered and fried (You’ll notice a trend here: I’m very much against deep-frying). I’ve said “almost” in relation to fish choices because certain large fish or some caught by sport fishers may be high in mercury. Pregnant women should be especially watchful, but by-and-large eating fish is a good idea. The “alternatives” in this group refer to nuts and seeds that supply protein (which is the basis for the grouping), but they come up a little short in the mineral absorption department. Peanut butter, for example, is a very good source of protein but not a supplier of iron…plus it’s very high in fat.

The “Others” Group

OK…this is where the rubber hits the road, or words to that effect. This is the group that does the most damage in terms of excess calories and little or no nutrients. You know what I’m talking about: the added sugars and fats, the fudge, the soft drinks, that kind of thing. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not about to suggest you forego these foods entirely. It’s just that these are the items that put you in greatest danger of doing yourself harm. So deal with it. One very good chocolate every night; a very small donut once a week; a small order of fries occasionally. You get my drift. It’s not that any one of these foods in and of themselves will do you in, it’s habitual consumption that’s the problem. Nobody except a saint can be all virtuous all the time. Now you’ll have to excuse me…there’s a piece of chocolate cake with my name on it; I couldn’t possibly be rude and offend the baker.