REPOST: Striving for the perfect diet is making us sick

The Scriptures hath declared: "Man does not live on bread alone". Likewise, man cannot live on cleansing juice or a carrot stick alone. The bottom line, as this Popular Science article stresses, is that healthy eating is all about balance—a nugget of wisdom fad diets often make us forget.

Image Source: popsci.com

Leafy greens, like kale, can't be responsible to run your entire body.

Americans today have a complicated relationship with food, to put it kindly. Sure, mega-portioned processed meals and spiking rates of diabetes still dominate headlines. But in a climate that now includes $70-a-day juice cleanses, four gluten-free lifestyle magazines, and a “superfoods” industry set to hit $130 billion in 2015, we’re also a culture fascinated with achieving some perceived pinnacle of well-being.

As a growing number of people dramatically retool their diets in the pursuit of health, some are cutting out half the categories on the food pyramid altogether. In certain cases, this hyper-controlled eating becomes a compulsion, and the anxiety of consuming something deemed “bad for you,” like a piece of cheese, feels paralyzing. The result is a new kind of eating disorder doctors are calling orthorexia. A recent case study defines it as “a pathological obsession for biologically pure and healthy nutrition.” Co-author Thomas Dunn, a psychologist at the University of Northern Colorado, explains that just as anorexia is driven by a fear of being fat, orthorexia is driven by a fear of being unhealthy. The former fixates on quantity, the latter on quality.

Such draconian diets can lack essential nutrients, and they make the vitamins and minerals a person does get from meals of exclusively, say, leafy greens, impossible for the body to absorb. This can lead to fragile bones, hormonal shifts, and cardiac problems, along with psychological distress and entrenched, delusional thinking. In other words, the opposite of the intended effect.

Just as anorexia is driven by a fear of being fat, orthorexia is driven by a fear of being unhealthy.

Because orthorexia was first identified less than 20 years ago, there’s no real estimate of how many people have the disease. “Our culture is promoting health now, which is great,” says Sondra Kronberg, a spokesperson for the National Eating Disorder Association. “But people of certain temperaments take healthy eating to an extreme.” They agonize over sourcing and cooking methods, isolate themselves from social situations, and develop magical thinking about what certain foods can do.

Worse, many people now self-diagnose conditions like non-celiac gluten intolerance, ripping through every online FAQ and testimonial they can find. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, encounters this scenario routinely. “We see patients who don’t know what to eat anymore because they identify food as the source of all their issues,” he says.

Prescriptive books, blogs, and social media expose a vulnerable population—informed, sensitive, Type-A people—to behaviors that may hurt them, says Jennifer Gaudiani, associate director of the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders in Denver. And patients’ black-and-white thinking makes treatment tricky. “People need to relearn how to view food,” Dunn says.

For the vast majority, eating is, unsurprisingly, all about balance. “Sometimes you’re at a party and there are fries,” says Kronberg. “Your body really can handle that one meal.”

I'm Kevin Foote, reminding you that there are no shortcuts to achieving better health and fitness. Let's talk more about staying fit on this blog.

Does keeping fit mean giving up on bacon? Not really

Fats, in the right amount and with the right kind, can fit into a healthy diet. But does that mean bacon doesn't have any place at all in our diet?

Let's tell it like it is: fat makes up a huge part of bacon. Almost half of this processed meat’s fat composition is saturated, and saturated fat has long been known to raise bad cholesterol levels. The American Heart Association thus recommends limiting saturated fat intake to just 13 grams a day on a 2,000-calorie diet.

 

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Also, bacon, like any other processed meat, can put you at higher risk of certain cancers, especially when it contains large amounts of nitrates.

A wise advice: Try, as much as possible, to eat real fat, the kind that is untransformed by the human hand, like organic butter, extra virgin olive oil, and nut butters; perhaps even bacon straight from the pork belly.

 

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But for the sake of convenience, you can also have bacon straight from the grocery chiller, though in moderation. Three strips, equivalent to nearly 1 ounce of bacon, are enough to tide over a craving. Choose the ones that have less saturated fat and calories per ounce, or try leaner alternatives like turkey bacon. This helpful guide lists the fat and calorie content of some brands.

 

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Also, you might want to rebrand bacon as a condiment instead of your main meal. Bacon lends a strong enough flavor to salads and sautés. Try it with vegetables like asparagus, beet greens, and spinach.

I am Kevin Foote, born and raised in Colorado, and a fan of everything that's good and non-fattening. Subscribe to this blog for more options for healthy eating.