Wednesday 15 October 2014

21st Century Nutrition

In the 21st-century we are time poor and to make our lives easier we are surrounded by convenience foods, take away foods, and junk foods sometimes masquerading as health foods. Let’s take a look at some of these foods.

The most time poor and convenience meal that we eat each day is breakfast. We quickly grab a breakfast cereal, pour some milk over it and wolf it down in less than three minutes flat. Unfortunately though, breakfast cereals are junk food.  Just read the label. They are full of processed grains, sugar and salt. To make our lives even easier food manufacturers have invented the breakfast biscuit, it can be eaten on the move. The food manufacturers extol the virtues of this healthy biscuit. But it is no better than breakfast cereals.

Most people go from breakfast to lunch without eating any snacks. Those that do snack would grab a muffin or a chocolate bar to fill them up. When they do get to lunch they go out to the local convenience store and buy sandwiches, wraps and other convenience packaged lunch items. Although I believe these meals are healthier than breakfast they still leave a lot to be desired.

Evening meals may consist of ready meals, microwave meals or other convenience foods. These meals tend to be cheap so they have minimal amounts of healthy protein and vegetables and tend to be heavy on potato and grains. They also tend to have more saturated fat, salt and sugar. Yes SUGAR – just read the labels!

We also seem to have lost the art of preparing healthy foods. Just go back two generations and people would have at least grown their own vegetables, might have had an apple tree in the garden and may have even kept a pig, chickens for eggs and meat and maybe even a cow for milk.

People would have made their own milk, yogurt and whey. They would have used the whey to pickle foods for the winter such as gherkins, sauerkraut, onions and beetroot. They probably would have had fresh vegetables from the garden on a daily basis. If they slaughtered an animal such as a chicken they would have eaten the meat and made stock from the bones.

If they had slaughtered a pig they would have eaten the whole animal not just the choice cuts. They would have eaten the liver, heart and kidneys; made sausages from the intestine, eaten the brain and trotters. Most of us would turn our nose up at these parts of the animal these days.


Perhaps we should take a step back in time for a healthier lifestyle and cut out the convenience foods. 
This post was written by Wandsworth Nutritionist Steve Hines from Front Line of Nutrition.


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