• 1What are Nutritional Claims? (VIDEO)
  • 2Understanding Nutritional Claims
  • 3All Natural: Less is More?
  • 4What is Organic?
  • 5Organic: Is It Better?
  • 6What Makes a Food Whole?
  • 7Functional Foods
  • 8What Makes a Functional Food?
  • 9Antioxidants are Heroes
  • 10Adding Nutrients to Nature
  • 11How Much Fat? Low Fat, Light & Fat Free
  • 12Be a Label Detective!
  • 13Good Choices, Healthy Balance
CHAPTER 13

Good Choices, Healthy Balance

PART 1

Don’t Forget the Fundamentals

Just the Facts
Nutrition Is A National Problem
We are so inundated with health messages and food marketing that it’s easy to sometimes miss the forest for the trees. Particularly since these trees (all of the details on which food ingredients are good, better or best) can be both very interesting and very distracting. While the details are certainly important, we also need to keep the big picture clearly in mind. READ MORE

There will, of course, continue to be exciting new discoveries and developments in nutrition science. And there will undoubtedly be some surprises: different foods will have their moment in the spotlight, some will be found to have unexpected benefits, and others will be found to be not as bad (or not as wonderful) as we once thought.

But whatever future nutrition research reveals, whatever new functional “superfoods” are discovered, whatever marketing trends are pushed at consumers, we have very good reason to believe that the fundamentals of healthful eating are going to stay the same. “Eating well is not, never was, and never will be about deciding which nutrient class to abandon,” says Dr. David Katz. “Eating well is, always was, and always will be about choosing the wholesome foods made up of all three nutrients classes.” LESS
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PART 2

A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life

The principles of balance, variety and moderation will remain the basis for a healthy diet, and, along with exercise, the basis of a healthy life. Knowledge is power and it’s hard to find a better example of this power than knowledge of nutrition claims, from an understanding of the function of major food groups and micronutrients to the ability to decipher food labels. The stakes are high, but the knowledge is there for the taking. READ MORE

“Nutritional diseases,” said an eminent authority of the U.S. Public Health Service, “in all probability constitute our greatest medical problems, not from the point of view of deaths, but from the point of view of disability and economic loss.” Yep. That was from 1935 too. In that report, the USDA also pointed out that “15 cents a meal can buy either a good or a poor diet.” The prices have certainly changed, but the basic economics haven’t. A healthier diet is within the reach of everyone. LESS
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