What to Eat: Expert Clears the Confusion
By John McGran, eDiets Editor-in-Chief
Pry that mouse out of your hand for a second -- it's time for another show of hands. Today's question: Who amongst us feels comfortable and in control when doing the grocery shopping?
If you raised your hand, good for you -- you are in the minority when it comes to feeling confident about your food-shopping prowess.
The rest of us can't be blamed for stressing while sauntering aisle-to-aisle at our favorite supermarket. So many choices -- as many as 50,000 -- are calling out to us.
Sure, you want to do right for you and your family, but how is the super busy man or woman supposed to have a firm grasp on what constitutes a healthy meal?
-Oh sure, you think you read or heard something good about that package with the label screaming ORGANIC! Or maybe you saw something great about fish and its omega-3 fatty acids on TV...or was that something bad about fish and its mercury content on the internet?
And can a bowl of Trix or Lucky Charms really be part of a nutritious breakfast? Go ahead... scream. Then ask yourself the question you've asked yourself countless times: What to eat!?
Marion Nestle is a world-renowned expert on nutrition and the "politics of food" and she has asked herself that very same question many times, too. Recently though, Marion stopped asking and started telling... via her supersized new book ‘What to eat…’ ’(see below)
Fun-Sized Fact: Marion's last name is pronounced nessle, not nest-lee like the chocolate bar.
Yes, that book title is a mouthful. But after reading the 600-plus page book you'll not only enjoy the taste it leaves in your mouth, but you'll also bask in the calmness it spreads through your besieged brain.
Digest Marion's smorgasbord of food sense and there'll be no more asking WHAT TO EAT? In fact,you may actually begin enjoying those weekly trips to the supermarket. Well... I did say almost ...
Mr. Bad Food (John McGran) caught up with Marion just the other morning. Well, it may be more accurate to say Mr. Bad Food WOKE UP Marion at 6:30 a.m. yesterday. It seems there's a 3-hour time difference between Pennsylvania and California, and when a PR liaison sets up a phone interview for 9:30 a.m., she means Pacific Time not Eastern Time, the time zone where this interviewer happens to live.
Marion, who you may have heard of from her previous best sellers Food Politics and Safe Food, proved a very good sport. She not only stayed on the phone to discuss her newest release, but she also ended up revealing her favorite junk foods (Bar-B-Q potato chips, frozen yogurt and chocolate-covered ginger) to Mr. Bad Food!
Marion's message of food and health is a simple one: "Eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, go easy on junk foods."
Her lengthy new book tells you that... and a whole lot more. "I hope my book helps readers to understand and sort through the issues when they read health claims," she notes. "I want the reader to feel like he or she is in control of their personal food situation... I want them to go back to enjoying what they are eating."
Hallelujah to that sister! Mr. Bad Food has spent the past six years reading and writing about food issues. Instead of feeling totally at ease with what's good and what's not so good, I think I am more confused about healthy eating than when I was a bachelor living hand-to-mouth from fast food bags. (**)
My confusion is not my fault, Marion says. "It's a matter of marketing versus real information," she says. What that means is the "news" we read about a new magical food is sometimes fed to us by trying to sell us that very food!
So how does Marion expect us to unclutter our minds and feel at one with food? Well, for starters, through insightful, informative book chapters like:
• The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate
• Fruits and Vegetables: The Price of Fresh
• Organics: Hype or Hope
• Genetically Modified, Irradiated, and Politicized
• Milk: Subject to Debate
• Yogurt: Health Food or Dessert
• Soy Milk: Panacea, or Just Another Food
• Fish: Dilemmas and Quandaries
• Frozen Foods: Decoding Ingredients Lists
Other revealing topics include sugar, water, eggs and foods marketed for kids. The latter is a pet peeve of Marion's. "Kids are vulnerable; adults know the difference between hype and fact," she said. "Even babies recognize brands. The food makers want to convince kids they need their own foods -- food with funny shapes and colors and cartoon characters on the box.
"The food makers shoot for 'the pester factor,' knowing parents will give in. And that makes it difficult for parents. Parents have to work really hard to overcome these tactics." So when you boil it all down, what are the rules for eating and enjoying food?
Marion serves up her top 5: Eat less: Consume fewer calories, which is easiest to do by avoiding fat and sugar, and eating smaller portions...Buy takeout foods and fast foods in the smallest containers.Order half-portions or divide foods in restaurants.
Reserve sweetened foods for dessert and special occasions. Move more: Being more active is a no-brainer, she says. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables: Everyone agrees on this but you have to make an effort. Ready-to eat versions aren't as easy to buy as potato chips . Go easy on junk foods: That means soft drinks, candy and snack foods that are low in nutrients but high in calories, fat, salt and additives. They should be once-in-a while treats.
Keep to the edges: Stay away from the center aisles of the supermarket, and don't buy anything in a box. If you do have to buy a boxed food, make sure it has five ingredients or less!
What's that? I hear someone asking, "But Mr. Bad Food... why should we follow advice from a woman named Marion Nestle?"
It's simple. Check out Marion's impressive bio and you'll see why food makers, food sellers and food marketing types alike cringe when they hear her name.
Marion Nestle is a Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecula biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Her first faculty position was in the Department of Biology at
Brandeis University.
From 1976-86 she was Associate Dean of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where she taught nutrition to medical students, residents, and practicing physicians, and directed a nutrition education center sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. She has been a member of the FDA Food Advisory Committee and Science Board, the USDA/DHHS 1995 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and American Cancer Society committees that issue dietary guidelines for cancer prevention. Her research focuses on the analysis of scientific, social, cultural, and economic factors that influence dietary recommendations and practices.
She is the author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002) and Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism (2003), both from University of California Press.
In 2003, Food Politics won awards from the Association for American Publishers (outstanding professional and scholarly title in nursing and allied health), James Beard Foundation (literary), and World Hunger Year (Harry Chapin media). Safe Food won the Steinhardt School of Education’s Griffiths Research Award in 2004.
Her latest book, What to Eat (North Point Press, a Division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux), is to be published on May 2. The sure-to-be-bestseller goes on sale next Tuesday, but you can avoid the long lines at checkout and get your copy of What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating now by simply clicking on the title and buying now from Amazon.com.
Still hungering for more on Marion and her about- to-be-released book? Check out Marion's website, www.foodpolitics.com or www.whattoeatbook.com.
(**) Most important REMARKS by Jacques Girard…
The more I read articles such that above news items, etc., and freely share them with you, my dear readers, absolutely unafraid to do so although the sources may be viewed by some as "the competition", the more I become re-convinced that the Ultimate Answers lie WITHIN our Sub-conscious Minds’ ENDLESS reservoirs of ABUNDANT Knowledge and Truth!
As I have written herein several times before, and shall again: ANY/ ALL ACCURATE information which you seek and need, if you are to – once and for all – eradicate all your unwanted, ugly, awkward, embarrassing, unhealthy excess fat, weight, bulges and inches...Always IS at your ENTIRE DISPOSAL Every split second of Every Minute of Every Hour...Day and Night!...
Doing your S.L.I.M. For Life or The I.D.S. Modulations © will AUTOMATICALLY keep on sending these to you using the intuitive, silent, unmistakable message centers...also known as your Inner Voice... your Inner Intelligence...your Higher Self...
By the faithful practice of your Modulations, they become honed... refined...super-sensitized...clear and incredibly sharp, and This Is Defintely So!
My (**) was to bring to illustrate the fact that Mr. John McGran, aka "Mr. Bad Food", (the Editor-In- Chief of "eDiets" e-Magazine and its recent "Glee", both excellent publications bringing to the public's attention many cutting-edge articles written by "Experts" as well as advertisements for their own and other diet plans), freely admitted that, after six years as a reader and writer on foods, diets, and related topics, he is "now even more confused" about the latter than he was as a care-free bachelor...And, in another part of the above article, he admits "still needing to lose 30-35 lbs."!...
EXPERTS in desperate need of HELP themselves is what I see in all this...scrambling in every which direction for answers and formulae that work and CAN BE trusted...and even after agonizing years of study and sacrifices to become Degreed...they too still "SEEK", fumble and err (judging from the endless retractions of earlier "Experts' Advice" and other "Facts" they had previously set down as "die-hard Rules...Dos and Don’ts", such as: coffee and wine is Bad...then, Good...and countless other such dietary Certainties followed by Reversals...New Findings, and the like...) when, all the while, THE Ever-Correct Answers lie WITHIN them, as they do within each and everyone of US...You and Me...patiently waiting to be called upon to "do their thing" for us... whenever we Sincerely Ask!
Worst of all, the "Meyvens" (Yiddish for "Experts" and other knowledgeable "Connoisseurs" – also known as "know- it-alls" :o))... incessantly speak and write in terms convincing enough to scare or motivate Millions of chunky people to run to the drug store or to their wallets to get their credit cards in order to buy BILLION$$$ of Dollar$$$’ worth of pills, potions, lotions, diet plans and foods, drugs, exotic treatments... sign up for long-term fitness programs they seldom use...or, worse yet, very dangerous surgical procedures...ALL at Enormou$ CO$T$...
When THE ANSWERS...SOLUTIONS...drugless REMEDIES...proper, pleasant. Totally SAFE, comfortable eating, drinking, exercising practices are at YOUR and Anyone's comfortable reach who will Sincerely DESIRE and Dedicatedly ASK for the materialization of your fondest dreams and most pressing needs of Good Health, Physical, Mental and Spiritual balance and harmony...
Simply by LISTENING, while feeling Totally Relaxed, to Your The I.D.S and/or S.L.I.M. For Life Modulations © thus, attract and welcome Wellness, Peace and Beauty...for Life!
YES! even Mr. McGran and all the respected contributors to his and other publications dealing with Weight, Health and Well-being CAN "get" all this and End THEIR search, Uncertainties and honest mistakes, Any time They so Desire. Best of all, at a most reasonable one time rate...it lasts "for ever" and This Is Definitely So! :o)
P.S.: FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO to my Mexican friends! Abrazos!
Jacques
Pry that mouse out of your hand for a second -- it's time for another show of hands. Today's question: Who amongst us feels comfortable and in control when doing the grocery shopping?
If you raised your hand, good for you -- you are in the minority when it comes to feeling confident about your food-shopping prowess.
The rest of us can't be blamed for stressing while sauntering aisle-to-aisle at our favorite supermarket. So many choices -- as many as 50,000 -- are calling out to us.
Sure, you want to do right for you and your family, but how is the super busy man or woman supposed to have a firm grasp on what constitutes a healthy meal?
-Oh sure, you think you read or heard something good about that package with the label screaming ORGANIC! Or maybe you saw something great about fish and its omega-3 fatty acids on TV...or was that something bad about fish and its mercury content on the internet?
And can a bowl of Trix or Lucky Charms really be part of a nutritious breakfast? Go ahead... scream. Then ask yourself the question you've asked yourself countless times: What to eat!?
Marion Nestle is a world-renowned expert on nutrition and the "politics of food" and she has asked herself that very same question many times, too. Recently though, Marion stopped asking and started telling... via her supersized new book ‘What to eat…’ ’(see below)
Fun-Sized Fact: Marion's last name is pronounced nessle, not nest-lee like the chocolate bar.
Yes, that book title is a mouthful. But after reading the 600-plus page book you'll not only enjoy the taste it leaves in your mouth, but you'll also bask in the calmness it spreads through your besieged brain.
Digest Marion's smorgasbord of food sense and there'll be no more asking WHAT TO EAT? In fact,you may actually begin enjoying those weekly trips to the supermarket. Well... I did say almost ...
Mr. Bad Food (John McGran) caught up with Marion just the other morning. Well, it may be more accurate to say Mr. Bad Food WOKE UP Marion at 6:30 a.m. yesterday. It seems there's a 3-hour time difference between Pennsylvania and California, and when a PR liaison sets up a phone interview for 9:30 a.m., she means Pacific Time not Eastern Time, the time zone where this interviewer happens to live.
Marion, who you may have heard of from her previous best sellers Food Politics and Safe Food, proved a very good sport. She not only stayed on the phone to discuss her newest release, but she also ended up revealing her favorite junk foods (Bar-B-Q potato chips, frozen yogurt and chocolate-covered ginger) to Mr. Bad Food!
Marion's message of food and health is a simple one: "Eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, go easy on junk foods."
Her lengthy new book tells you that... and a whole lot more. "I hope my book helps readers to understand and sort through the issues when they read health claims," she notes. "I want the reader to feel like he or she is in control of their personal food situation... I want them to go back to enjoying what they are eating."
Hallelujah to that sister! Mr. Bad Food has spent the past six years reading and writing about food issues. Instead of feeling totally at ease with what's good and what's not so good, I think I am more confused about healthy eating than when I was a bachelor living hand-to-mouth from fast food bags. (**)
My confusion is not my fault, Marion says. "It's a matter of marketing versus real information," she says. What that means is the "news" we read about a new magical food is sometimes fed to us by trying to sell us that very food!
So how does Marion expect us to unclutter our minds and feel at one with food? Well, for starters, through insightful, informative book chapters like:
• The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate
• Fruits and Vegetables: The Price of Fresh
• Organics: Hype or Hope
• Genetically Modified, Irradiated, and Politicized
• Milk: Subject to Debate
• Yogurt: Health Food or Dessert
• Soy Milk: Panacea, or Just Another Food
• Fish: Dilemmas and Quandaries
• Frozen Foods: Decoding Ingredients Lists
Other revealing topics include sugar, water, eggs and foods marketed for kids. The latter is a pet peeve of Marion's. "Kids are vulnerable; adults know the difference between hype and fact," she said. "Even babies recognize brands. The food makers want to convince kids they need their own foods -- food with funny shapes and colors and cartoon characters on the box.
"The food makers shoot for 'the pester factor,' knowing parents will give in. And that makes it difficult for parents. Parents have to work really hard to overcome these tactics." So when you boil it all down, what are the rules for eating and enjoying food?
Marion serves up her top 5: Eat less: Consume fewer calories, which is easiest to do by avoiding fat and sugar, and eating smaller portions...Buy takeout foods and fast foods in the smallest containers.Order half-portions or divide foods in restaurants.
Reserve sweetened foods for dessert and special occasions. Move more: Being more active is a no-brainer, she says. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables: Everyone agrees on this but you have to make an effort. Ready-to eat versions aren't as easy to buy as potato chips . Go easy on junk foods: That means soft drinks, candy and snack foods that are low in nutrients but high in calories, fat, salt and additives. They should be once-in-a while treats.
Keep to the edges: Stay away from the center aisles of the supermarket, and don't buy anything in a box. If you do have to buy a boxed food, make sure it has five ingredients or less!
What's that? I hear someone asking, "But Mr. Bad Food... why should we follow advice from a woman named Marion Nestle?"
It's simple. Check out Marion's impressive bio and you'll see why food makers, food sellers and food marketing types alike cringe when they hear her name.
Marion Nestle is a Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecula biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Her first faculty position was in the Department of Biology at
Brandeis University.
From 1976-86 she was Associate Dean of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where she taught nutrition to medical students, residents, and practicing physicians, and directed a nutrition education center sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. She has been a member of the FDA Food Advisory Committee and Science Board, the USDA/DHHS 1995 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and American Cancer Society committees that issue dietary guidelines for cancer prevention. Her research focuses on the analysis of scientific, social, cultural, and economic factors that influence dietary recommendations and practices.
She is the author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002) and Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism (2003), both from University of California Press.
In 2003, Food Politics won awards from the Association for American Publishers (outstanding professional and scholarly title in nursing and allied health), James Beard Foundation (literary), and World Hunger Year (Harry Chapin media). Safe Food won the Steinhardt School of Education’s Griffiths Research Award in 2004.
Her latest book, What to Eat (North Point Press, a Division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux), is to be published on May 2. The sure-to-be-bestseller goes on sale next Tuesday, but you can avoid the long lines at checkout and get your copy of What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating now by simply clicking on the title and buying now from Amazon.com.
Still hungering for more on Marion and her about- to-be-released book? Check out Marion's website, www.foodpolitics.com or www.whattoeatbook.com.
(**) Most important REMARKS by Jacques Girard…
The more I read articles such that above news items, etc., and freely share them with you, my dear readers, absolutely unafraid to do so although the sources may be viewed by some as "the competition", the more I become re-convinced that the Ultimate Answers lie WITHIN our Sub-conscious Minds’ ENDLESS reservoirs of ABUNDANT Knowledge and Truth!
As I have written herein several times before, and shall again: ANY/ ALL ACCURATE information which you seek and need, if you are to – once and for all – eradicate all your unwanted, ugly, awkward, embarrassing, unhealthy excess fat, weight, bulges and inches...Always IS at your ENTIRE DISPOSAL Every split second of Every Minute of Every Hour...Day and Night!...
Doing your S.L.I.M. For Life or The I.D.S. Modulations © will AUTOMATICALLY keep on sending these to you using the intuitive, silent, unmistakable message centers...also known as your Inner Voice... your Inner Intelligence...your Higher Self...
By the faithful practice of your Modulations, they become honed... refined...super-sensitized...clear and incredibly sharp, and This Is Defintely So!
My (**) was to bring to illustrate the fact that Mr. John McGran, aka "Mr. Bad Food", (the Editor-In- Chief of "eDiets" e-Magazine and its recent "Glee", both excellent publications bringing to the public's attention many cutting-edge articles written by "Experts" as well as advertisements for their own and other diet plans), freely admitted that, after six years as a reader and writer on foods, diets, and related topics, he is "now even more confused" about the latter than he was as a care-free bachelor...And, in another part of the above article, he admits "still needing to lose 30-35 lbs."!...
EXPERTS in desperate need of HELP themselves is what I see in all this...scrambling in every which direction for answers and formulae that work and CAN BE trusted...and even after agonizing years of study and sacrifices to become Degreed...they too still "SEEK", fumble and err (judging from the endless retractions of earlier "Experts' Advice" and other "Facts" they had previously set down as "die-hard Rules...Dos and Don’ts", such as: coffee and wine is Bad...then, Good...and countless other such dietary Certainties followed by Reversals...New Findings, and the like...) when, all the while, THE Ever-Correct Answers lie WITHIN them, as they do within each and everyone of US...You and Me...patiently waiting to be called upon to "do their thing" for us... whenever we Sincerely Ask!
Worst of all, the "Meyvens" (Yiddish for "Experts" and other knowledgeable "Connoisseurs" – also known as "know- it-alls" :o))... incessantly speak and write in terms convincing enough to scare or motivate Millions of chunky people to run to the drug store or to their wallets to get their credit cards in order to buy BILLION$$$ of Dollar$$$’ worth of pills, potions, lotions, diet plans and foods, drugs, exotic treatments... sign up for long-term fitness programs they seldom use...or, worse yet, very dangerous surgical procedures...ALL at Enormou$ CO$T$...
When THE ANSWERS...SOLUTIONS...drugless REMEDIES...proper, pleasant. Totally SAFE, comfortable eating, drinking, exercising practices are at YOUR and Anyone's comfortable reach who will Sincerely DESIRE and Dedicatedly ASK for the materialization of your fondest dreams and most pressing needs of Good Health, Physical, Mental and Spiritual balance and harmony...
Simply by LISTENING, while feeling Totally Relaxed, to Your The I.D.S and/or S.L.I.M. For Life Modulations © thus, attract and welcome Wellness, Peace and Beauty...for Life!
YES! even Mr. McGran and all the respected contributors to his and other publications dealing with Weight, Health and Well-being CAN "get" all this and End THEIR search, Uncertainties and honest mistakes, Any time They so Desire. Best of all, at a most reasonable one time rate...it lasts "for ever" and This Is Definitely So! :o)
P.S.: FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO to my Mexican friends! Abrazos!
Jacques
posted by Jacques Girard, Ph.D. at 7:12 PM
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