Recently I spent some time traveling round the United Kingdom. It does not take a long time for me to realize how incongruous the message of healthy eating has been.
If you already eat a predominantly healthy diet, you have already made lifestyle choice. You are part of a niche group, while most people continue to eat as they have always eaten. It is easy to get caught in your niche, believing that everyone thinks like you.
When the go, you are out of the familiar, and when you eat is faced with multiple choices whenever you are hungry.
And these choices can be jarring. Here is why:
Message 1
Major supermarkets stock a truly impressive range of foods. In the last 40 years we have seen a massive growth in the quantity of product available at all times of the year. Supermarkets in the United Kingdom (Sainsbury 's, Tesco, Asda, He etc.) are made all kinds of fruit and vegetables and the aisles of the ready-packaged meals. The choice was amazing.
The message: "You can enjoy a complete with all kinds of fruit and vegetables in the large and varied diet".
Message 2
Many of the cafés and small restaurants seemed to lack imagination. Many times in the menu on the left me shaking my head. The only vegetables on offer were chips or fries. Becomes very heavy fat/carb combinations with meals. I ordered a steak meal (expect some veggies, salad and other spices). What I got was a piece of steak on top of the Mashed potato, with half a plate of fries.
I do not want to offend any British but the law of supply and demand must be at stake here. People were queuing up to order ' stodge '. Forget the fruit and veg. If it is beige or brown--then gulp the. This became the norm.
The message: "Yeah we know exists fruit and veg around, but we all know, you really want to eat bulky fried stuff."
Despite the appearance of the salad is served all sandwiches and wrapped with fries. (via Kate Pugh).
Message 3
TV: I laughed and laughed to see cost ads, where glamorous models would talk about saving 20 calories here or there, or enjoy a ' lite ' version of this product. What is the point in saving 20 calories, when your daily diet is mainly fries?
The message: "You are overweight and want to start consuming food products."
Change food culture before going by cost
Now I really understand and respect, Jamie Olivers election campaign. There is no point in ' guilting ' people to buy diet foods when their basic dietary wishes do not do them any good. From the beginning, we must keep training on basic food choices. Maybe some cafés begin to take small risks offers more than just "xxxxx" + fries. Maybe a little color start to appear on the plate.
I am not sure how shifts happen, but we have plenty of sushi restaurants-a wonderful healthy fast eating disorders choice in my own hometown. Supply have held parallel with demand.
How can you help?
In the last few months I have been quietly thinking diet Blog. Go forward my simple goal is: to help educate people on basic healthy eating. I know that many of the regular readers have a very advanced understanding of nutrition (so the rigorous debates on different dietary dogma).
But I encourage you to be part of a community, and to 6 months in the course of the next want to transform this site into a goldmine salient healthy eating disorders advice and guidance. While it is great to understand the finer points of gluconeogenesis or ketosis, is the average person on the street were sold the lie, drink a diet Coke will make him healthier despite eating half a pound of fries per day.
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