“What are we supposed to eat?”
People today are more and more confused about nutrition recommendations, despite the fact that they have not changed substantially in the last 50 years – eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and less of the other stuff.
If the guidelines are so simple, why are we so confused?
The first problem is that when it comes to nutrition education, government agencies do not have the funding to compete with food marketing dollars in promoting dietary recommendations.
Food companies spend billions of dollars annually advertising and promoting their products to the public — on television, in magazines, on billboards, in movies.
People take this “health information” not realizing that it is heavily influenced by these companies wanting to sell their product.
Due to lack of funding, even nutrition education in schools is funded by the private sector. In our province, the BC Dairy Foundation funds nutrition education programs. This not-for-profit organization has the dual mandate of “increasing consumption of milk in B.C. and delivering innovative nutrition education programs.”
We can be glad that Coca-Cola is not running these programs, but can also question if it presents a bias in its information.
The second problem is that even within our government, there is a conflict of interest between health and business.
If the government wanted to make a simple recommendation like, “eat less meat,” they would have the beef industry and the pork industry opposing them. They would need concrete scientific evidence proving that these food items cause poor health.
Unfortunately, scientific studies are not clear cut and are subject to interpretation. Consequently, nutrition guidelines are usually political compromises between what science suggests and what is good for the food industry.
So what or who should we believe?
What you need to realize is that most nutrition information you receive has some bias.
Food companies want you to eat more of their foods, more often, and therefore will use any nutritional claim they can to encourage you to buy their products. However, most of the time you are be better off eating less (portion control), eating mostly unprocessed foods and limiting junk foods.
- Serena Caner is a registered dietician who works at Shuswap Lake General Hospital.