Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Food is good!

I wish I'd made it to the Theobroma Cacao: Ancient Crop, Medicinal Plant, Surprising Future symposium that was in town this week. How cool is this...science, poetry, and chocolate tastings!

Because of the Valentine's Day tie-in, I guess, the story from the symposium seems to be Chocolate May Contain Health Benefits. It actually isn't a new discovery...scientists have been studying phenolic phytochemicals (components of cocoa, red wine, tea, coffee, fruit, vegetables, herbs...in other words, plant-based foods) for years. Evidence suggests that these micronutrients have cardioprotective benefits, and may have synergistic effects with each other as well as macronutrients like amino acids to optimize metabolic function.

Or as I prefer to think of it: food is good for you.

With my frequent rants about obesity I probably come across as a food cop type, and I'm not, not really. I love food. I don't believe there's any food that ought to be taken off the market. I even eat at McDonald's.

What I do think is that many people are...naive. They get bombarded with good information, bad information, and incomplete information, and maybe somebody heard the "Hey, chocolate is good for your heart" story on the top 40 radio station this morning and used it as an excuse to buy the King Size Snicker, which would be a poor application of that bit of incomplete information.

There's a good paper (Reductionism and the Narrowing Nutrition Perspective: Time for Reevaluation and Emphasis on Food Synergy) on the 5 a Day web page. (Who pays the bill: the produce industry.) It highlights the importance of an "increased emphasis on overall dietary pattern" rather than focusing on one particular component or food.

Something to consider when making lunch...not flavonoids, not carbs, not calories, but lunch.

You can't be completely lazy, you can't be completely dependent on restaurants, you can't believe every advertisement or book, but it is not that hard to eat a reasonable and healthy diet.

I think I've determined that I'd like to be a nutritionist when I grow up. These are the stories that get me fired up, that spur me into doing more research and compel me to write absudly long blog posts I doubt anyone reads. I want to deliver the message: food is good.

(Too bad I'm already grown up, and have become accustomed to the standard of living provided by a lower management job and an 8-hour day. I do toy with the idea of chucking it all, going back to school, finding part-time jobs that will meet the mortgage, and then entering the exciting world of making half my current salary as a nutritionist when I graduate. Then I think, maybe I should just keep blogging.)

Posted by Nic at February 12, 2004 12:42 PM | TrackBack