Chefs should not be teaching nutrition. That is our job. This recent headline makes the case: “Kids Spurn Jamie Oliver’s Healthy Lunches”. You may have noticed, in recent weeks, every time you turn on the TV, Jamie Oliver seems to be on, discussing his mission. It is a noble one and he should be applauded for his understanding that something needs to be done. However, by following a more conventional definition of nutrition, his healthy lunch options may be missing too many of the elements necessary to win over kids.

In recent months a Harvard study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition caused a sensation with its conclusion that dietary saturated fat is not correlated with the development of heart disease.  As expected, to counter 40 years of medical advice to consumers to avoid saturated fat, has caused a backlash. Even Harvard has revised their initial findings, stating that lowering the saturated fat content of the diet can lower the risk  heart disease, depending on what replaces the saturated fat in the diet. Duh!   

Once again, this demonstrates the problem with nutritionism and reductionist thinking when studying foods and health risks. A study to truly identify the issues with saturated fat or any other single element found in food can never be accurate because the whole diet of each person who either develops heart disease or not, needs to be examined.  Phytonutrients, found in high amount in fruits, vegetable, grains and legumes are the great modifiers of all natural nutrients found in food and a saturated fat diet that contains plenty of these foods as well as appropriate amount of EFAs and monounsaturated fat, is going to be fine. Why is this so hard to understand? It does seem like a waste of research money that they keep going over this ground.  Here are two takes on this subject from fairly normal people.

Nutrition Data Blog

Steve Parker, Md.

Abstract of the Harvard Study

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A recent study published in the UK caused a big kafuffle in the organic industry when it claimed there was no nutritional benefit to organic produce over conventional. The researchers looked at studies conducted over the last 40 years, and while the organic foods often did contain a higher amount of vitamins and minerals, they decide the difference was not “nutritionally” significant. In a single piece of produce, a 17 % difference in beta carotene, as one study found, may not be significant, just as they said. But what if that 17% were missing from everything you ate, day after day, year after year?  Would that make a difference? Probably, but that is the holistic nutrition perspective, not the conventional.

I put that concept out there because it needs to be said. Good health is easier to achieve if all the food consumed has the maximum amount of nutrients possible. However, the important aspect of the study to note, is that the studies they looked at examined vitamin and mineral content. Unfortunately, they did not look at the phyto-nutrient content, the new superstars in the health world, linked to prevention of many diseases prevalent today. As part of the plant’s defense system, phyto-nutrient content goes up in food when the plants are attacked by bugs or fungus.

In this blog post Rachelle Wood, owner of Positive Change Nutrition shares her Top 10 Calorie Cutting Tips for weight loss. Rachelle Wood has helped PEI lose almost 35, 000 pounds to date! This article was first posted on Rachelle's company website's nutrition blog.

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