Baraka_Guru

Too large a proportion of the vegetables North Americans consume in their diet is made up of fried or mashed potatoes and the lettuce fixings they put on their meat sandwiches. (I wish I were joking.) You may overlook the way food is organized because it is so common. Have you noticed that most menus and cookbooks are categorized by type of meat? It might seem obvious, but many of us build our meals around the choice of whether we want beef, poultry, fish, etc. That is the focus. The problem? A vast majority of the nutrients available in food is found outside of meat. Why, then, is the North American diet built around meat? Good question. The answer to this will also provide clues as to why we eat so much junk.

Rather than dwell on the what, why, and wherefore of our obsession with meat, the best thing we can do for our health is educate ourselves on the subject of nutrition, and this is the aim of this thread. Guccilvr and I came up with this idea, as we find that time and time again, people have misconceptions of food. We feel that there are many myths perpetuated by marketing and media to the point that people have become lost on this subject. Nutrition as a subject is usually reserved for college programs for dietitians and nurses. Most public school boards only offer basic education on nutrition that rarely extends beyond looking at the food pyramid and talking about fruits and vegetables.

This is where TFP comes in. We welcome you to present your nutrition questions. If you wish, go as far as posting your typical daily food intake and activity level and ask people to evaluate it. Just keep in mind that most of us aren’t nutritionists or dieticians, so the advice we have is based on reading and experience. It’s always recommended to consult your physician in matters of health. The purpose of this thread is to get people thinking about myths and misconceptions about food, and there are many.

One example of a common misconception is the low-carb diet craze. Thanks to Dr. Atkins, there is an entire book and food industry built on the idea that drastically eliminating carbohydrates from one’s diet will essentially trick your body into burning fat as though it were melting butter. Okay, I’m probably exaggerating, but that is in essence what it’s about. I have yet to hear from a respected nutritionist or dietitian practitioner or organization that endorses such a dieting strategy. Actually, they almost invariably point out that low-carb diets are potentially dangerous and in most situations only cause the loss of water weight mostly, in addition to some fat and muscle weight. Yes, muscle too!

Another example is that calories are bad. Many think that eating as few calories as one can get away with will lead to weight-loss success. In most cases, this isn’t true. It isn’t that easy. In most situations, doing so will only lead to hunger and, ultimately, failure. What people tend to overlook in this mindset is that it isn’t about the number of calories as much as it is where those calories are coming from. Calories are not all equal. An inadequate breakfast vs. a real fruit-laden, seed-sprinkled, maple-syrup-touched bowl of steel-cut oatmeal: An inadequate breakfast will spike your insulin and cause your energy to crash later, leading to sugary/greasy food cravings and lethargy, and/or it will prevent your metabolism from gearing up early in the day, leading to problems later. The oatmeal? It will fill you up and stabilize your blood sugar, carrying you for a few hours before your next snack or meal. It’s not about number; it’s about choice, and the oatmeal is just one of many choices for starting your day off right.

These are kinds of thing we want to open for discussion. If you have a goal, your food plan should be geared toward it. There is no perfect diet, but there are sound strategies for long-term health. One thing to bear in mind is that a common thing people say when they decide to lose weight is, “I’m going on a diet because I want to lose weight.” This is fine, but from experience, you will find the people who take the approach of long-term lifestyle changes instead of task-based dieting are the ones who are most successful. The key we will always come back to is this: Balance.

So post your questions, concerns, ideas, plans, desires, needs, goals, etc., and we will do our best to teach and learn from one another. With hope, perhaps we can start building our meals on a foundation that extends beyond our choice of meat. We will dispel the irrational fears many of us have of fat and carbohydrates. We will learn how to start our days with adequate breakfasts. We will eat and be merry, not to mention healthy.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot