As Americans want more protein and unprocessed foods in their daily lives, the decisions they make as consumers are becoming harder as politics and corporate money creeps in.
As the new, five-year U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans has offered updated recommendations for a healthy diet, we’re again confused on what to eat – or more importantly, what not to eat. As this list is a lot longer, this is where it gets confusing.
I don’t have a lot of trust in those telling us what to eat and what not to eat. I remember a few years back when plant-based meat was all the rage, and after reading the ingredients list, I soon realized it was nothing more than glorified dog food selling for high prices.
I’m not sure I trust the World Health Organization under the United Nation’s flag or even our own secretary of Health and Human Services. I like the “Make America Healthy Again” slogan, but I think we need to be careful of the motives governing it.
In the past, we were encouraged to eat some bad ingredients just to make food corporations money, and we all liked the conveniences of these foods at quick stops.
We are now being told to avoid highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates and packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat or other foods which are salty or sweet, such as chips, cookies and candy. These super-tasty products make up more than one-half of the calories in the U.S. diet and have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
Obesity is falling in the U.S. and one of the causes is GLP-1 medications.
We’re told to stay away from fried foods, sugary snacks, white bread, sodas, alcohol, butter and processed meats and other foods we really like. I think we realize there are ways we can eat some of these foods if the makers clean up the ingredients.
If food processors, restaurants and consumers would use less salt and sugar, we would all be healthier, but salt and sugar are what makes food taste better. Somehow, we need to find healthy replacements.
It has been reported eating two large slices of ham daily can increase colon cancer risk by 18 percent. But why is there so much salt in some hams? I realize salt is used in the curing process, but there has to be a way to preserve the product and keep the taste without using so much salt.
Why are our bread products so full of gluten, when one can go to Europe and eat all of the bread products they want?
One big problem with food in the U.S. is we don’t know who to believe when it comes to what’s healthy or not.
We’ve always heard how chicken is better for you than beef, but today I picked up an article titled “Think chicken is healthier than beef? New study says not so fast.”
While I certainly agree with the study, it is confusing.
It looks like we’ll still have to rely on our commonsense and good information to find out what’s best for us, but until Americans start demanding healthy foods, nothing will change.
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper available online and in print. For more information, visit www.wylr.net.
