The nutrition world is about to get interesting. Not that it wasn’t interesting before, but I think we’re going to see some pretty good battles in 2o11.
I’m writing this because I just finished watching the trailer for “Forks over Knives“. Another nutrition documentary that’s along the lines of Food Inc.
I’ll be honest, I kind of enjoy watching our never ending search for the ‘Darth Vader’ of Nutrition. That one ultimate bad guy we can blame all of our woes on.
Saturated Fat, Sugar, Carbs, Milk…heck even protein spent it’s time in the dog house in the early 1900’s.
So Forks over Knives seems to be the Vegan response to the Paleo movement (Disclosure – I’ve only seen the trailer)
Basically this looks like the ‘meat bad’ response to the ‘meat good’ argument.
I doubt we’ll ever admit that it is our rampant out-of-control consumerism that leads to obesity and disease. Or that a large part of the success of our media-driven food economy is based on the absolute need to exploit the human body’s amazing ability to consume far more than it should without breaking down (in the short term anyways).
So while Paleo people will espouse the benefits of Meat and Fat, Vegetarians will espouse the benefits of Fruits and Vegetables (and grains sometimes), and still others will espouse all the other crazy diet beliefs in between, it is kind of cool that we can sit back and watch with an understanding that they are all ‘mostly right’ and have a lot to share to advance Nutrition as a science.
In fact, in my opinion the dividing line between them is only really visible at the extreme ends – when they start pointing fingers at what they believe to be the End-All-Be-All of dietary evils.
In other words, while everyone battles it out, I’ll be right here, not stressing, and sticking with the same mantra that has been in Eat Stop Eat since it’s first draft in 2006:
Eat less, while enjoying the foods you eat. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of herbs and spices. And maybe most importantly, spend less time stressing over the types of food you are eating.
Of course, ‘lots’ is a pretty subjective word, so it could be expanded to be “choose fruits and vegetables when possible” and “experiment with herbs and spices”.
Other than that just apply a little common sense. A donut a day is fine in my books. A box of donuts – not so much.
BP
PS- You can watch the trailer here ==> www.forksoverknives.com
PPS- The perfect human diet might just be a meat eating vegan who knows how to cook and prepare food and likes to have the occasional chocolate, pastry, coffee, beer, wine and sometimes scotch, and rarely ever stresses about what or why he or she eats. 😉
