Portion Distortion: Then and Now?

Portions are out of control in the Standard American Diet. Do you know how much food you ate yesterday? If you had meat what size of serving of meat? Whatever happened to the single burger? Few people are aware of how much food they eat. Portion sizes of today’s food tends to exceed standard serving sizes due to our past experiences at family meals, the size of servings at restaurants, supersize meals, large bakery products and larger cups of soft drinks all contribute to the problem.

Typical portion sizes and calorie content of foods in the marketplace versus calorie content and portion sizes 25 years ago.

Food	Portion size Calories 25 years ago	Marketplace portion sizes Calories now
Bagel	3- inch diameter, 140 calories	6 -inch diameter. 350 calories
Cheeseburger	4.3 ounces, 343 calories	7.1 ounces, 535 calories
French fries	2.4 ounces, 210 calories	6.9 ounces, 610 calories
Soft drink	6.5 ounces, 85 calories	20 ounces, 820 calories
Muffin	1.5 ounce, 167 calories	6.5 ounce, 724 calories

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How To Cook?

We are becoming a nation of microwave cooks. Just pop a fully cooked meal into the microwave and we can have dinner in just 5 minutes. But wait – the finished product often does not resemble the picture on the box and/or the taste resembles the dinner you had last night – only the pasta shape has changed. Sometimes I think they use the same sauce of some kind and just alter the name of the dish slightly.

Now days it is a well known fact that the family is busier with jobs and activities outside the house and the term “housewife” has actually disappeared into oblivion. Home economics is not taught in schools as it was a few decades ago, and convenience reigns as the most important marketing ploy when it comes to food preparation. Our kids have no idea where the food comes from unless it comes in a box or wrapped in plastic. We know the Nutrition Facts (calories, etc) but the list of ingredients takes up more room than it should and reads like a foreign language.

The following article presents some easy creative ideas that may help make a cooking experience easier and more appealing and even flavorful. Try them – you may become your own gourmet chef without much effort. Just in time for Christmas Dinner?

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Nutrition Myths

It is time to put to rest some nutrition misinformation that has dominated the media for a number of years now. Here is the nonsense and the sense of some of the most prevalent myths – it’s time to move away from them.

Gluten -Free Foods are Healthier. Unless you are truly sensitive to gluten or have been diagnosed with celiac disease, you may miss out on some healthy whole grains if you choose gluten-free foods.

You only need to limit salt intake if you have high blood pressure. 90% of us will develop high blood pressure and some of us are sodium sensitive. We get plenty of sodium in processed foods and should try to limit our total intake to no more than 2,300 milligrams a day.

Sugar is toxic. There is no evidence that shows that sugar causes disease on its own. However, a high sugar intake can replace the healthier habits of learning that carbohydrate intake can be healthier if we consume more complex carbs (fruits, whole grains, vegetables) and less highly refined carbs (sugary drinks and foods with added sugars).

Fresh Produce is healthier than canned or frozen. Foods which are picked fresh and immediately canned or frozen may even have more nutrients than fresh produce. In fact, your body more easily absorbs nutrients like lycopene when they’ve gone through the canning process.

The term “natural” means healthier. The term natural on a food label has no FDA defintion, so it has no meaning in terms of health or that it is “organic.”

Farm-raised fish isn’t healthy. Today’s farm-raised fish has just as much and maybe more healthier omega-3 fats than wild-caught. Also farm-raised fish may have less mercury. They are now more sustainable and when from reputable farms can be raised with fewer antibiotics and no added coloration.

Margarine is loaded with unhealthy trans fats. This depends on whether the margarine is in stick form or tub form. A better choice is the softer tub margarine that is less hydrogenated and thus has less trans fat than the more saturated and trans fat content found in the stick form.

Source: Environmental Nutrition.

For more myths:

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THE STANDARD AMERICAN DIET (AKA SAD)

A 2010 report from the National Cancer Institute on the status of the American diet found that three out of four Americans don’t eat a single piece of fruit in a given day, and nearly nine out of ten don’t reach the minimum recommended daily intake of vegetables. On a weekly basis, 96 percent of Americans don’t reach the minimum for greens or beans (three servings a week for adults), 98 percent don’t reach the minimum for orange vegetables (two servings a week), and 99 percent don’t reach the minimum for whole grains (about three to four ounces a day). “In conclusion,” the researchers wrote, “nearly the entire U.S. population consumes a diet that is not on par with recommendations. These findings add another piece to the rather disturbing picture that is emerging of a nation’s diet in crisis.”

A dietary quality index was developed reflecting the percentage of calories people derive from nutrient-rich, unprocessed plant foods on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher people score, the more body fat they tend to lose over time and the lower their risk appears to be of abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides. Sadly, it appears most Americans hardly make it past a score of ten. The standard American diet reportedly rates 11 out of 100. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, 32 percent of our calories comes from animal foods, 57 percent from processed plant foods, and only 11 percent from whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. That means on a scale of one to ten, the American diet would rate about a one.

Adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors may have a strong impact on chronic disease prevention: not smoking, not being obese, getting a daily half hour of exercise, and eating healthier—defined as consuming more fruits, veggies, and whole grains, and less meat. Those four factors alone were found to account for 78 percent of chronic disease risk. If we ticked off all four, we may be able to wipe out more than 90 percent of our risk of developing diabetes, more than 80 percent of our heart attack risk, halve our risk of stroke, and reduce our overall cancer risk by more than one-third.

That is what this blog is about – how the SAD diet affects our food culture positively and negatively. There is much work to do about our lifestyles that can help change the course of the health of our bodies as well as the health of our environment – and the sooner the better. Let’s get started.