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August 2020

Reasons to Eat: Taste and Well-Being

In one of the classes that I teach in lifestyle modification, classes that run 4 hours through the dinner hour, students have enjoyed an assignment that consists of building a salad with deliberate thought given to why each ingredient is included. The goal is to build a salad around mostly vegetables so that it is fat-free, high in fiber, and without added salt. Each person brings a 1-serving salad, and then trades the salad with another person in the class. Each salad comes with a list of the ingredients (a list of vegetables and fruits) and a reason why the person thought that a particular item has some specific role to play in promoting good nutrition. Of course, the salad was constructed with good-tasting items that were also pleasant to the eye, but the emphasis was on a specific nutrient (soluble fiber, calcium, potassium, beta carotene, etc.). The goal is to go beyond the “taste-only” as a reason for consuming any particular food item. This idea of selecting a food because it is good for the body currently might appear to be a novel idea, especially if one notices that school lunches contain commercially prepared pizza, tacos, burritos, etc. School nutrition officials, when asked why they serve these same items that students can get a few blocks down the street from the school, answer, “We serve these because kids like them and will eat them.” It would surely be preferable for the stated reason to be that is was beneficial to the health of the student.

Goal: Good Nutrition

The goal of the activity in this wellness class is very simple: Include items in the salad because they provide specific nutrients that are good for the body. They may also have an appealing taste and texture, but the focus is on good nutrition. Most everyone can remember the food items in the past that were served because they were thought to provide needed nutrients. For example, liver—although we now see that it is not a very healthy item and should be avoided. Liver was formerly served because of its high iron content. How about the super-high-fiber All-Bran breakfast cereal that was choked down by many people because the doctor prescribed it for preventing constipation? Bananas, the single most constipating food one can consume, have been prescribed for potassium for years. The FDA is allowing oatmeal manufacturers to legally state on the package that it does what the oatmeal prescribing clinicians have known for many years: it lowers the amount of cholesterol in the blood, even if there is no reduction in fat consumption. (Your great-grandmother knew that oatmeal was good for you many years ago!) Even mainstream medical education is getting into understanding the power of food. The University of Arizona Medical School will soon provide medical students with education about the uses of substances in foods (plants such as herbs and spices) that may be good for the body. Food is powerful. This concept is new for many Americans, but other societies have used foods for both preventing illnesses and diseases and in healing for centuries.

Not an Either or Proposition

Contrary to what the so-called “humor” writers like to say over and over (it used to be funny, but it’s getting a little old now), Americans really are shifting out of the old disease-thinking mentality, when it comes to the connection between food taste and nutritional quality. Disease-thinking said, “This food must be healthy because it tastes so bad” and “This food tastes so good, it must be bad for me.” Wellness thinkers know that there is no automatic connection between taste and nutritional quality. In fact, many people have progressed to a point where they now see that taste is not either good or bad. Every individual has particular items that they like and also some items that they do not like. Rather than thinking that tastes are neither good nor bad, think that various tastes can just be “different,” depending on what one learns. This leads us automatically to the following set of recommendations that are designed to motivate people to bring mindfulness to the nutrient value of foods included in their meal planning.

Think about It

 Think about the specific nutrients that you want to include in your eating style.

 If you have not given much thought to the nutrient value of what you currently eat, keeping a food diary for a week will help you identify areas that need your focus.

 Keep it simple. Trying to remember the milligrams of this item and the grams of another item can get overwhelming. It is usually unnecessary to buy an expensive nutrition book. Many grocery stores actually have free pamphlets located right next to the foods discussed in the handouts. These pamphlets have lists of the amount of the nutrients. This is known as “point of purchase” education. Pick up and read.

Why Collard Greens and Corn Tortillas?

There are 2 approaches that I recommend. First, one can do what my students did with the salad building. They included 6–8 items and every item was selected with a particular nutrient in mind.

1. kidney beans	Nutrient: soluble fiber (lowers cholesterol)
2. fresh spinach	Nutrient: calcium (strong bones)
3. carrot slices	Nutrient: beta carotene (healthy tissue)
4. tomato wedges	Nutrient: vitamin C (healthy connective tissues)
5. mushroom slices	Nutrient: potassium (blood pressure control)
6. green pepper slices	Nutrient: vitamin C (healthy connective tissue)
7. broccoli	Nutrient: calcium (strong bones)

Approach number 2 consists of adding 1 particular food item as an extra ingredient specifically to make an impact on the nutrient value. The following are examples of how to do this:

 Oat bran added to any breakfast cereal to increase soluble fiber and aid in lowering cholesterol.

 Chopped collard greens added to any type of steamed vegetables to increase the calcium content and aid in strengthening bones.

 Mustard greens added to any salad to increase the calcium content and aid in strengthening bones.

 Adding powdered milk to coffee to increase calcium intake (strengthen bones) and neutralize the negative effects of caffeine on bone tissue.

 Wheat bran added to bread recipes that you fix in your bread machine to increase fiber and thus keep the gastrointestinal system healthy.

 Beans (any variety such as black, garbanzo, navy, etc.) added to every soup that you make to increase the soluble fiber and thus lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood.

 Crumble corn tortillas into your chili to increase the calcium content and strengthen bones.

Final Recommendation

These are little modifications with big impacts. Try them. Come up with others. Remember, wellness-thinking says, “The reason that this food tastes so great is because it is so nutritious!”