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STOP WATCHING THE CLOCK
FOOD FACTS, FOOD FADS
Men’s Health went to over 300 experts and asked them what makes for a healthy diet. Here are the actions they recommend. The higher the number, the greater its importance.
| Score | Action |
| High Priority | |
| 79 | Control calories to control weight |
| 76 | Reduce all dietary fats |
| 71 | Increase physical activity |
| 71 | Enjoy your food |
| 70 | Eat a balanced diet |
| 69 | Get the RDAs of vitamins and minerals |
| 65 | Reduce saturated fats |
| 65 | Limit alcohol intake |
| 63 | Avoid raw eggs, meat and seafood |
| 62 | Boost fiber to 20 grams per day |
| 61 | Eat fish instead of meat |
| Low Priority | |
| 16 | Make breakfast the biggest meal of the day |
| 14 | Avoid irradiated foods |
| 13 | Avoid charred or blackened foods |
AVOID FADS
The experts also said most of us need not worry about sugar. It’s problem for people who are obese (it’s got lots of calories but little nutrition) or diabetic (they can’t metabolize it properly). For the rest of us, though, avoiding sugar is of only moderate importance.
Rated lowest of all was avoiding irradiated foods—68 percent of respondents put this among the Probably Worthless, right down there with avoiding charred of blackened foods. Neither appear to pose any significant health risk.
MORE SURF, LESS TURF
Fish is lower in saturated fat than meat, and the oil in fish—especially cold-water varieties such as salmon and mackerel—helps your cardiovascular system by keeping blood from clotting and preventing hardening of the arteries, IF you do eat meat, the experts recommend limiting portions to three of four ounces choosing lean cuts such as flank steak and using low-fat cooking methods such as broiling and braising.
GET MORE FIBER
Insoluble of soluble? It doesn’t matter how you get your fiber. What’s important is that you do get it. “People eat so little fiber, we’ll take anything,” says Dr.Blackburn. “Whatever you can find –some peas in your stew—put them in!”
A high-fiber diet fills you up without filling you out, keeps you regular, helps lower your cholesterol level and may help reduce the risk of colon cancer. The nutritionists advocate getting at least 20 grams per day. A breakfast of oatmeal, whole-wheat toast, a pear and banana would give you more than half that amount. The highest-fiber foods are fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.
PRACTICE SAFE EATING
While many people are worried about pesticides on fruit and vegetables, the experts rated it 34 out of 44 on their list of priorities.
More than three-quarters of the nutritionists thought it wise to avoid raw foods, particularly eggs, meat and seafood. Raw eggs and chicken can harbor salmonella bacteria, a common cause of food poisoning. Raw seafood can harbor viruses or parasites. Buy only from a reputable dealer, or avoid raw seafood altogether.
DON’T FEAR SAYING “CHEERS”
The nation’s top nutritionists plainly don’t support prohibition. But they’re staunch believers in moderation when it comes to alcohol. “There’s no evidence, unless you are driving, that drinking alcohol in limited quantities is bad for you,” says Judith S. Stern, Sc.D., a registered dietitian and professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. Alcohol in excess (more than two drinks per day) is another story: It will destroy livers as well as lives.
LET CHOLESTEROL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF
Cutting cholesterol scored surprisingly low. Only 14 percent of the experts rated it Extremely Important. It’s not that cholesterol is insignificant, but, again, if you follow the priorities outlined above, you’ll have already taken care of it. Those polled felt that excessive concern about this issue to the exclusion of all others could lead you to eat foods that are low in cholesterol but still dangerously high in fat. For example, potato chips fried in vegetable oil contain no cholesterol, but 72 percent of their calories are from fat.
DON’T SWEET THE TECHNICALITIES
If you’ve never been able to keep straight the difference between saturated, unsaturated, monounsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats, here’s good news: You don’t have to. The trendy notion that you should trade saturated fats for heart-smarter monounsaturated and polyunsaturated ones is “putting the cart before the horse,” according to Dr.Blackburn. Most of the foods that are highest in total fat—ice cream, cheeseburgers and doughnuts, for example—are also highest in saturated fat. So if you simply cut down on all fatty foods. You’ll cut down on saturated fat as well.
How much fat should you eat? The nutritionist advise following the American Heart Association’s recommendation that total dietary fat comprise no more than 30 percent of calories.
KEEP IT BALANCED BUT LEAN
You’ve heard the old nutritionists’ creed: Balance your diet among the four food groups, and make sure you get the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals. These concepts are certainly not passé; roughly 90 percent of those surveyed said they’re still high priority. Yet those notions now clearly take a backseat to cutting fat and controlling weight.
The weakness of the four-food-groups approach is that it doesn’t provide enough guidance to prevent you from eating too much fat and amassing too much of it on your body.
If you make fat-fighting your number one priority, however, it quite naturally leads you toward fulfilling those other guidelines. “If you phase out the high-calorie, high-fat foods in your diet, you’re going to have to replace them with something low-fat—cereals, fruits and vegetables,” says Dr.Blackburn. An emphasis on those foods moves you closer to meeting your RDA for vitamins and minerals. It can also move you closer to balancing your diet, which for most Americans is overladen with high-fat meat and dairy products.