Make Healthy Foods Taste AMAZING!

I saw this headline today “ADA Survey Shows More Families Eating at Home” and clicked through to read more. According to this survey of roughly 1,200 pairs of parents and children:

  • At-home family meals increased from 52 percent in 2003 to 73 percent in 2010.
  • Most families eat out less often, with an average of 57.2 families eating out less than once a week.
  • Aside from hunger, most children said taste was the main reason they ate, and said it would be easier to eat more healthfully if the food tasted better.

While I am encouraged by the first two points that contradict much of the trend data I have seen in recent years with respect to meals eaten away from home, the third point was most interesting to me.

This quarter I decided to audit the quintessential Bastyrian nutrition course “Whole Foods Production” taught by renowned author of Feeding the Whole Family Cynthia Lair. I have taught my own versions of whole foods cooking classes and incorporated whole foods cooking demonstrations into classes, community talks and events for several years but I have never taken a formal cooking class. I know from my experience both cooking and serving at different vegetarian restaurants prior to pursuing my nutrition career, that healthful food can taste amazingly good and often much more interesting than the standard American fare. I also know both from personal and professional experience, many people do not know how to make healthy foods in general and vegetables in particular, taste great.

What excites me most about the Whole Foods Production class is that the hundreds of students who take this class each year will go forward to spread the knowledge and skills (often with enthusiasm) related to making healthy foods taste great. When I go to a restaurant where the salad consists of iceberg lettuce topped with a few pale, mealy tomato slices, maybe a bland cucumber slice, and a few croutons sprinkled on top I think about how I, a longtime vegophile, would not eat vegetables the way I do if this was my regular option!

So here’s a question for all of you….what makes healthy foods taste GREAT to you? Do you already know how to make these foods taste good? Let’s get a conversation going to drive the trend towards eating better not because it will make us skinny or live longer (though these are certainly noble goals) but because we will enjoy eating that way!

New Lunchables… Progress Not Perfection

As a subscriber to Today’s Dietitian I received a press release recently from Kraft Foods announcing the expansion of their “Wholesome Product Line” of Oscar Mayer Lunchables. According to the article the new varieties include:

Chicken Strips made with 100% white meat chicken and Chicken + American Sub Sandwich which features rotisserie seasoned chicken and bread made with 8g of whole grain. Both products are good sources of protein and calcium and join the Lunchables with water roster introduced last year that offers quality meats, cheeses and spring water. (Lunchables Fact Sheet)

I’d read about this far when I rolled my eyes, annoyed that my subscription to a trade magazine makes me a target for this kind of propaganda. Then I thought I ought to take a closer look at the products before dismissing them completely. Generally speaking, I try to steer clients away from highly processed, packaged foods when possible and stick with a more whole foods approach. However, I also like the mantra “progress not perfection” so I need to know what to tell the client who is very clearly going to buy her kids Lunchables and merely wants to know if these new ones are better than their forebears. So, I read on.

The short answer to this imaginary client question is: yes. However, I discovered the press release doesn’t include the remainder of items in these conveniently packaged meals such as the crispy rice treat or Nilla Wafers and Kool-Aid Fun Fizz Tropical Punch Drink Drop (not sure what those are but without the addition of vitamin C to make parents think it’s a good thing I suspect no one would place them in the “health food” category). But I guess we shouldn’t be so picky, after all we are now getting a water beverage option, 8 grams of whole grain (though this is a tricky spin since we are really concerned about the amount of FIBER not the amount of whole grain…this label claim is typically a marker for a food being hawked as “healthy” that really isn’t), a full serving of fruit, and supposedly better quality chicken in at least two of these offerings – all for $3.49. What’s wrong with that?

(Sigh.) The dilemma I face is that as much as I want to be pragmatic and to work with clients “where they are,” (and I actually do this quite well) it is really difficult for me to embrace foods like Lunchables, even if they have evolved as a slightly better product from a pure nutrient content perspective. It gets back to my own broader nutritional view. The reality is that Lunchables aren’t likely to ever fit a predominantly “whole foods approach” to eating (and I don’t mean the famous upscale grocery chain – just food in its simplest form without a bunch of additives to prolong the time it spends on a shelf) even with the bottle of water and Mandarin oranges.

Kraft Foods is merely responding to a vocal part of the market clamoring for healthier, yet convenient foods to feed kids. They are in the business of selling food and we want cheap food that we don’t have to spend much time preparing. (Yes, I know that the simple, whole foods I promote can be easily and inexpensively prepared at home, but this requires time and skills, whether it’s nutritious or not, and in case you haven’t noticed, Home Economics is a dying art – if not already dead.) But here’s the thing, if we want convenient and cheap food (and it’s clear we do) then we will not shed the lengthy ingredient lists of foods like Lunchables any time soon.

Though the improvements to Lunchables don’t satisfy those of us yearning for short, easy-to-decipher ingredient lists using only stuff we’d find in a home kitchen, and there is probably still plenty of added salt, sugar and fat to entice the kiddos to chomp these down and beg for more, these latest changes do represent progress. Manufacturers like Kraft are making efforts to offer foods lower in sodium, fat and calories and ultimately this is a good thing. I view foods like microwavable meals and Lunchables as symptoms of larger cultural issues related to food – it’s production, distribution, how we view it, how we eat it, and the importance we attach to it. Ultimately what I’d like to see amounts to a cultural revolution and such a thing isn’t likely to come about from anything industry initiates…after all, the food industry is driven by us (at least in part).

So what’s a dietitian interested in a more “whole foods approach” to eating to do?

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi

I cook and I teach others who want to cook. I minimize the highly processed and packaged foods I buy and eat, and I encourage others to do the same, but I’m not a zealot about it. Not everyone is ready for a major overhaul of their eating (whether they need it or not). I can help most by being knowledgeable, compassionate, and realistic – and hopefully, a good role model. I don’t think I need to embrace products like yuppified Lunchables, but I do need to recognize that the changes I want to see aren’t likely to happen quickly. I must adhere to my mantra and accept progress without perfection, at least for the moment.

Spinach, Burgers, Peanut Butter, Eggs…What Next?

I am troubled by the number of current news headlines related to not only the massive egg recall due to salmonella outbreaks but several other food recalls as well. Note I am troubled, not surprised. I recently read Paul Roberts’ disturbing book The End of Food (as uplifting as the title suggests) in which he writes about both the past and future of our industrialized food system. As you can imagine the future is a big question mark but he predicts increases in evidence that our food system is not only unsustainable but seriously broken – unsafe.

Normally I read such gloom and doom prophesies with skepticism, knowing such travesties could happen but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will happen. I try to stay positive, focusing on the evidence of change I see all over the country in terms of re-establishing local and regional food systems via the growth in farmers markets, CSAs, small farm cooperatives, and even home gardens. I find hope in the fact that people with varied political views have watched films like Food, Inc. and have made changes or are at least thinking about changes they can make in their food buying habits.

I am not convinced however, that we really grasp the trouble we are in right now in terms of our food system. The fact that eggs from one or two large farms can sicken so many people across a huge swath of the country is one thing, the fact that we don’t know how it started or what to do about it is quite another.

I’m tired of the onus of responsibility for not getting sick being on us, the eaters. If I want to eat my eggs cooked over medium or my burgers medium rare then it’s my fault if I get sick.  I’m also tired of reading that companies are so generously volunteering to recall tainted foods given they don’t have to do so according to current laws. So we should give them a badge of honor for making some effort to take back defective products? What is wrong with this picture?

So, this is a rant. I don’t have the answers – just more questions. I believe the local food movement is important but I still rely on our industrialized food system for foods I either can’t get locally or can’t afford at the “true cost” of those foods. I struggle with the fact that I need to change my personal eating habits to save the world, knowing that my habits alone won’t do the job. I already eat way less meat than the average American, lots of plant foods including organic, locally or regionally grown varieties, and aim for more whole than processed and packaged foods. Despite what the optimists advocate, all of this clearly isn’t enough.

Don’t get me wrong – these practices do keep me healthy and feeling good most of the time and that is part of my reason for making these choices. But I don’t have any illusions I am saving the planet or helping to feed any of the billion or so “food insecure” people worldwide. One thing I do know is that we all need to get angry and then, more importantly, take some kind of action. As the cost of food rises, as it will most certainly continue to do with rising oil costs rippling throughout the food production and distribution chain, we must demand it be safe. How this will happen will be an ongoing source of debate I’m sure.

Meanwhile, I will continue to be optimistic and do my small part to support alternatives to the current food system and think about the famous Betty Reese quote “If you think you’re too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”

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