U.S. Diet Proposals Reflect Nation’s Lack of Fitness
The new recommendations call for most women from 35 to 70 years old, for instance, to eat 1,600 to 1,800 calories a day, and for most men in that age group to eat 2,000 to 2,200 calories. Previously, the recommendation for most such people, then assumed to be active, was about 600 calories more.
I think I’m not too far off the mark here, but I know too many of the calories I take in are the worst possible kind.
Of course, there are always problems with oversimplifications: the food pyramid is a good example.
Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, said the changes being made were minor and would not make any difference.
The Agriculture Department, she said, “is still not dealing with serious deficiencies in the pyramid lumping together high-fat cheese and fat-free milk, and making no distinction between nuts and fish versus fatty meats.”
You can make almost any food non-nutritious if you really try. And then there’s deep-fried candy bars . . . .
While on this topic I decided to look into the calories in beers: I was pleasantly surprised to see how few calories (in some cases none) separated the various indistinguishable mass-market lagers versus the premium beers I prefer (living in the most densely-microbrewed part of the world has many advantages, lots of them coming in glass bottles).
For instance, Anchor Steam and Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser differ by 3 calories per 100 milliliters, or 10.65 calories in a 12 oz serving (14% or so).
I’m a firm believer in moderation without deprivation, and this would be a good chance to practice that: I’d rather drink one good beer than two poor ones, and I need to start thinking more carefully about my other choices as well. Just because I work on a university campus doesn’t mean I need to eat like a student (there’s a reason those guidelines start at 35, not 20).