I will NEVER diet or follow nutritional advice again

[holmessweetholmes]

I thought I was pretty clued up on healthy eating and on why certain foods were good or bad. Then I read 'In Defence of Food' by Michael Pollan. It is astonishing to read about how utterly clueless, completely untrue, or often deliberately misleading, official nutritional advice is. And incredible how simple it is to eat healthily. Anyone who has ever dieted/low carbed/low anythinged should read this book.

It's very interesting. What stops governments from crossing the sugar industry? In the US it must be the vast amounts of money they give - is that right, can they do that, or just lobbying power and the ability to swing votes- trying to remember US political shows.

Here, is it taxes? Or something else.

I remember growing up in Aus we had adverts about the goodness of mushrooms, eggs, protein. Not sure if they still do it, and Aus isn't avoiding the obesity increase. But they did have public service ads about non-processed food which was good.

And also why doesn't the fact that high sugar and processed food costs heaps in terms if the health care bill have an effect? Must be short term politics v long term increase in costs.

anyone criticising dairy on MN is tantamount to advocating devil worship.

The adverts like Nutella who are trying to convince parents that a chocolate spread is good for children totally does my head in.

I don't know, Marsha. I find it fascinating and quite scary, but I am not at all politically knowledgeable unfortunately.
There are some very positive points in the book too though. As Pollan says, eating the way he recommends would have been much harder twenty years ago. The rise of organic food, farmers' markets etc, the slow food movement and the increase in public interest in cooking all point to at least some movement in the right direction. Interestingly, none of those good things are the result of anything the government says, as far as I am aware. Maybe while they carry on plugging the low fat nonsense and the silly labelling, more people will slowly get fed up with it and turn to the lovely food providers sprouting up around them ...

I thought the Jamie Oliver programme on school meals in the US was an eye opener.

boxes and boxes of frozen crap (I mean really crappy food) the ONLY option for kids.

shocking.

I didn't see that, BravePotato. Sounds awful. My kids have stopped having school lunches because, as with many (from what I gather), the menu sounds pretty good but the meals fail to live up to the descriptions.

I've just done a food shop. Bought fruit and veg, milk, butter etc and household goods from the supermarket and absolutely nothing with added crap at all. Then stopped off at the farm shop on the way home and bought meat for the week, plus a bit more (local) fruiit and veg. Total bill for both shops came to just under my normal weelly shopping bill
I guess the more expensive meat was balanced out by the lack of biscuits, bread (am making my own), cereal, etc.

The regulations on packaging and marketing need tightened up.

And tv/billboard/magazine ads should be banned.

As well as junk food sponsorship of sports events.

Definitely, Weatherall. It's amazing how misleading they can be without actually lying.

Although I shall be trying not to obsess about it, I'll be very interested to see what effect my new lack of diet will have on my weight. Or rather, my shape, as I am not going to be weighing myself.

Also, it will be interesting to see how 'natural' I can keep my diet. Meals out will be a bit of an unknown quantity.

Ooh - HercShipwright - didn't spot you on the thread! Massive fellow Cabin Pressure fan here! .

Bravepotato I actually felt sorry for those kids. There were 5 yr olds who were all having breakfast at school and their breakfast was a bowl of Cheerios with sugary strawberry milk. The thought of giving a 5 yr old all that sugar made me feel sick.
JO worked so hard to get them to swap to plain milk then in a short while, they'd switched back to the crappy milkshake saying the kids weren't enjoying the plain milk.

I meant felt sick about all that sugar for breakfast every day. I'm sure people have the odd indulgence of a load of sugar but to have it everyday as breakfast is awful.

the power of those food manufacturers, and the grip they have on schools was chilling.

Luckily not that way here (yet)

I always find the McD marketing strategy fascinating as well. They don't make money on their kids' meals, but they play the long game, knowing that people crave what they ate in their childhood....so clever, so simple, so effective!

I suppose if you have more money than ever finding ways to advertise can always be found.

Particularly easy if you're selling something quite addictive.

Not exactly the same, as smoking is worse for you, but remember when they clamped down on tobacco and silk cut just did picture ads.

All that healthy choices stuff, it's so easy to get food to look like it's healthy and say that it is even when it's not.

Yes mcdonalds is shit food but you don't have to eat it every day like school meals. I was really impressed with how JO was tackling it. It was such an uphill struggle for him. I'd love to know if that school kept it up.

I don't feel hopeful, thepowerofme

Yeah. The crap food industry had too much influence.

I really rate JO for what he did in uk schools too. Who knows if we were on that slippery slope too.

My friend has just started work in a primary school and she was telling me that so many kids have awful lunches like a pack of Belgian waffles and nothing else or a only a ready made chocolate pancake. I was shocked that people are still ignorant even though schools have strict regulations and do bring it up with the parents. I think I take it for granted that most people want to feed their kids healthy food but that's not always the case. I get a lot if info on parenting here and there are tonnes of threads on healthy packed lunches that I assumed almost all parents take the guidelines on board but a hell of a lot of parents don't.

It is so hard weaning kids off sugary stuff when they are used to it. It's a battle I'm determined to win with mine. Their diet isn't bad compared with that of lots of kids, but they still eat too much sugar. Cereal is a tricky one - it's so convenient and they always ask for it.

I don't think all cereal is bad though, there's a big range of how sugary/evil they are. Weetabix, shredded wheat and some types of muesli are OK and even with the others there is a sliding scale. We have a range in our house so they don't have the same type every day (they don't always have cereal anyway) and I avoid the really sugar-coated/sugar-packed ones. But I wouldn't just say "all cereal is bad" - look at the packet, think about what it's actually made of. Shredded wheat is just wheat.

I have a friend who started eating stuff as close as possible to its original state So chicken leg better than nugget apple but not Apple pie etc If something is not recognisable from its original form she won't touch it, changed her health and life

Interesting conversation. I agree very much with the general principals of the Pollen book. However, I think that the problem is the nutrition industry - ie, separating food into nutrients instead of a holistic approach towards food. What I mean is food in its social and cultural role, rather than its micro nutritional role. Societies with strong traditions of family meal times have lower problems with obesity than those where this has broken down. Food changes from something to be enjoyed with others to bring something to fill ones stomach. Breaking food down into nutritional goodies and baddies further separates us from the pleasure of food and into something to feel guilty about. This reminds me of America and it's puritanical streak resulting in all kind of weird moral hang ups on anything pleasurable (eg sex), resulting in all kinds of underground bizarre activity, strange repressions and wired obsessions . The demonisation of certain foods has resulted in all the freaky orthorexics around spouting their (frankly dangerous and definitely bonkers) ideas about cleanses and clean eating. Maybe it is too late for society to change, but I'll remain with my atavistic view of food as something to enjoy with and for others, and to be enjoyed for pleasure, send not because it is good for me.

Argh - too many spellingerrors above to correct. Damn autocorrect wnd trying to type on an iPad mini!

I very much enjoy what I eat, more than before, but then I'm not on a diet.

I still think it's processed food that's doing it. If a culture avoids that in any way then it helps.

Going back to the cereal, BeeBlanket, yes there are ok ones but my dc won't eat them! Cheerios or Rice Krispie Multigrain Shapes are the least sugary ones they will eat, but they are still pretty bad. They could do with eating eggs or something to fill them up better, but they are not keen.