With the "new" food pyramid, it is recommended that one eat eight to ten
servings of fruit and vegetables each day. Now that doesn't sound all that
bad until you start to count. Let's see;
a banana on your cereal that counts one,
a salad for or with lunch, that counts two,
an apple a day (well maybe for lunch), that counts three.
At this point, dinner (supper for those of the old South) will have to carry
the water if we are to get all our vegies. So;
a serving of green beans, that counts four,
another salad, that counts five.
What are we to do? Still three to five short of the "goal". Aha! It's all so
simple. We just count breakfast cereal (oatmeal perhaps), bread, potatoes,
rice and pasta as vegetables and then we get there.
Coffee addict? No problem, coffee grows on a tree, must be a vegetable. Same
for tea.
Now you're getting into it, have a handful of peanuts and count them as well,
after all they're a legume just like soybeans but they taste better. Why not
have a bag of Frito's. You bet, made from corn, what could be more
healthful.
If you doubt this is the approach taken by our enlightened citizenry, just
count the fruit and vegetables in the shopping basket in front of you next
time you are at the grocery. Typically, a quart of low fat milk, box of
sugared cereal, and perhaps a can of coffee; that represents breakfast. Nose
around and see that there isn't much for lunch, probably because the person
eats lunch on the run or at a fast food palace. Maybe there's a loaf of
bread, and margarine (made from soybean or cotton seed oil so maybe it
qualifies as vegetable as well); surely not butter. And since peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches are no longer politically correct (some people have
peanut allergies so you really shouldn't eat peanut butter in their presence,
better to eat it at home.) No doubt the shopper is planning a gustatory
outing, there are a couple of frozen pizzas (remember tomato sauce is
slathered over the crust) as well as frozen dinners that always comes with a
scoop of potatoes and some green gob. Maybe a package of mushrooms, broccoli,
bunch of bananas and couple of apples round out the fruit/vegetable portion of
the attempt at good nutrition. Of course there's a bottle of wine (or two),
does that count as a fruit? Six pack of beer (supposedly made with barley,
but most likely a bit of corn and wheat found its way into the recipe as
well), upscale crackers (wheat, rice or multi-grain), prepared dip (bean or
avocado), bag of chips, and yes, for dessert there's ice cream, chocolate
cookies, bag of candy, and maybe some doughnuts from the bakery.
Counting from the above; banana, cereal, coffee, bread, pizza, wine, frozen
dinner, pasta, peanuts, apple. That's enough; got our eight to ten and then
some.
How sad it is that in the interest of good nutrition, we have prostituted the
health of this nation. Doubt it? Look again at that shopper in front of you
and guess his/her age, weight and physical condition.
Shoe (from whence the quote at the beginning came) is right, vegetables are
what food eats, at least if you want to stay trim and healthy.
Now it comes to pass that the Federal Government is supporting health fads in
a most unusual manner. By having Medicare pay for life style management in
the name of an alternative to heart-surgery the Government is embarking on a
radical experiment.
Dean Ornish is author of some five books that are by his own designation,
"best sellers". Topics range from sex to heart disease. The underlying
premise is vegetarianism. If you give up meats (chicken and fish included)
and subsist on beans and green things you will enjoy a long life (at least it
will seem like you are living for a very long time as you deny yourself the
pleasures of this world.)
In the Wall Street Journal, (October 4, 1999) it is reported that Medicare
will pay for as many as 1800 elderly Americans with severe heart disease to
try Dean Ornish's radical ultra low-fat diet, to see if it could be an
alternative to heart surgery. Now I am not opposed to scientific studies to
evaluate the influence of diet on the outcome of a disease. Rather, I do not
see how Medicare can contribute. We have a fine institute at the National
Institutes of Health that is deeply involved in research. These scientist are
carefully trained in the design of experiments that permit interpretation of
the results. No such discipline is allowed in the Medicare "experiment".
This is simply a boon-doggle that is being foisted upon the Taxpayer. To
whose benefit? It obvious will be to Dr. Ornish and his publishers.
One could ask, why not a "Shoe Study" in which a group of medicare recipients
are given the choice of selection of a main meat dish in at least one hearty
meal each day. Even if they die quickly, they surely will die happy, that's
more than you can say for the Ornish bunch.
jsw/991004
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