Everybody knows the secret to living a long and healthy life is to eat right. We desperately strive to make good food choices everywhere we go, from purchasing all-organic meats and produce to asking for low-fat skinny lattes at our favourite coffee shop.
The association between eating "good" food and boosting general health seems hard wired in the general public. Evidence suggests, however, that many of these connections are not scientifically supported at all. John Sloan, a doctor with UBC Medicine has written a new eBook called Forbidden Food which examines our obsession with healthy food and the plethora of new fad diets that have emerged in recent decades.
We are all familiar with ideas and beliefs surrounding the negative consequences of consuming trans-fats, sugar and salt, especially in relation to the development of obesity and diabetes. But where do these beliefs, which have become so ingrained into our culture and permeated society’s collective conscious, come from?
According to research presented in Forbidden Food, the source of many of these beliefs may be a surprise to many. For instance, the idea that fats are bad was started more than 60 years ago with the observation that populations living in Europe during World War II who were on the brink of starvation on a daily basis were also observed to have lower rates of heart disease than their wealthy American counterparts. Americans at the time who freely consumed what was considered luxury foods such as meat, which happens to contain high quantities of saturated fat, had increased risk of atherosclerosis and other types of heart disease as a result of their diet.
“[It’s] only in the last 10 years or so that it’s become clear, although it certainly has not penetrated the general cultural consciousness that there is absolutely no outcome to be obtained by cutting back or otherwise modifying types of fat,” said Sloan.
The book Forbidden Food mentions several other examples of food myths that have little credible scientific backing which we frequently accept as common knowledge. Sloan uses the term ‘orthorexia’ to describe our society’s unhealthy fixation with what is considered healthy eating.
Sloan examines scientific studies of the past 50 years in his new book and said that many of the so-called healthy choices that we strive to make are merely superstitious. According to Forbidden Food even in cases where it has been proven that eating specific foods can prolong life, the net effect can be astonishingly insignificant. It turns out that even choosing healthy options over fast food over an entire lifespan would only lengthen it by a few minutes on average.
“People want to deny themselves the pleasure of eating what they enjoy, but the science doesn’t back it up. So I’m hoping with my new book to liberate people from their superstitious eating habits,” said Sloan. “It runs counter to common wisdom, of course [but] the only bad food is food that tastes bad; you should eat what you love and love what you eat.”
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