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June 28, 2007
Ukranian Dehydration, Vegitarianism, The Food Pyramid, and Why I Still Have a Little Bit of a Gut
I've been slowly (verrrrrry slowly) been trying to eat healthier and exercise more. Mainly I want to be more fit in general, and have it last into old age, but I wouldn't mind dropping a few pounds either. I've been having a hard time though (as I'm sure many, many people do) sorting through all the differing ideas about what healthy eating entails. I've been using a website called SparkPeople to track what I eat. It does it for free, has a huge database of foods I can input, and adds up my totals for your basic nutrion label factors for each day. Plus exercise tips/trackers and message boards where people can trade ideas and find support. I admittedly could use the site with more regularity, I lose interest every so often, and I enjoy seeing what I'm really eating rather than what I believe I'm eating. The only problem is, to me, SparkPeople bases a lot of its concept of healthy eating on that damn food pyramid.
While I was growing up, I remember my parents going through different food phases as they tried to shape up our family's health. I remember a brief, ill-planned vegitarian phase that resulted in my eating a lot of bread and pasta, since at that age there was NO WAY I was going to eat any actual vegitables There was also the high protein era, which for my family occured many years before Atkins became a craze. Although we don't entirely follow either of these models anymore, I think there is something to each. Maybe I just got those diets ingrained in me to a degree, although I think we wouldn't have canine teeth and certain digestive bacteria if we weren't supposed to enjoy a nice steak now and then, though I also don't want to spend all my time eating grilled fish and bacon and ignoring the bounty of grain products. At any rate, I think Atkins at least did a good job of pulling Americans off a diet of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and putting down that third helping of appetizer bread at the resturaunts-- a high protein approach really improved things for my grandfather, who was a Coca-Cola-at-Breakfast type and couldn't say no to ice cream. And I've never felt healthier than when I was learning to be vegitarian in my late teens.
However, neither of these approaches, both having their pros and cons, is the sanctioned, much-taught, and lauded diet advocated by our government. And, as I've been talking to more and more people about this health stuff, I've discovered a lot of the ideas that are generally upheld in this country are considered pretty crazy elsewhere. For example, a friend of mine who was born in the Ukraine and immigrated as a small child got into a debate with me recently about the virtues of hydration. It sounded pretty strange to me to hear that her grandparents always warn her against the ill effects of too much water, especially chilled water. I'm also more wary of the "standard diet" since reading an article that suggested the government standard of "adults should get twenty minutes of cardio exercise a day" is being upped because so many adults in this country are obese that twenty minutes isn't enough for the average American to stay healthy. It makes me wonder if our diet guidelines are altered as well not for general health, for matinence of a healthy weight, etc., but instead for weight loss and mending the bad habits so many of us have fallen into. Pick up any magazine and their diet and exercise types are almost assuredly geared towards that magazine's target audience, so how closely should you read that magazine you pick up at the gym?
I don't have any conclusions to conclude my post with, but I wouldn't mind some feedback on others' thoughts on the myriad of nutritional information out there. I love pondering this and would love to hear other perspectives, even if they seem as out there from my perspective as my Ukrainian friend's ideas about water. Also, has anyone out there managed to find a balance between a love of cooking (cream! oil! abundance in every gourmet recipie!) and the often comparatively bland, light sort of health recipies? I love incorporating cheese and such into my dishes, but all that cheddar has definitely contributed to my gaining ten pounds in the past five years.
To finish off this food-oriented post, I'll post a picture of a wonderful soup we found in Slovenia on my recent trip. It was called Jota, and was a sort of sourkraut/sausage stew. The boys loved it so much they blew off a morning hike to get a second bowl.
| By Spike | 03:02 PM