18.3: Practical Applications of Dietary Guides

The dietary guidelines form the basis of a “prudent diet”—There are many reasons to believe that following the advice would be healthful, and there are few, if any, reasons to believe the advice would be harmful. A prudent diet balances benefit against risk.

As said earlier, the MyPlate guide focuses on providing adequate amounts of essential nutrients. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other general recommendations can be used to choose foods within the food groups of MyPlate. For example, if you choose low-fat or fat-free milk in the Dairy Group, you are following the guideline to choose a diet lower in saturated fat. Also, since fat-free and low-fat milks are lower in calories, this choice helps some people maintain healthy weight, another guideline.

Dietary changes made gradually are more likely to be successful. For example, it’s hard to switch abruptly from whole milk to fat-free milk. You can make the switch by combining whole milk and low-fat milk, gradually increasing the amount of low-fat milk. Then, you can combine low-fat milk and fat-free milk. Once you switch to fat-free milk, even low-fat milk may taste like cream, and you can use it instead of cream in your coffee. Similarly, you can switch from sugared to diet soft drinks by gradually replacing more of the sugared drink in your cup with the calorie-free version. Better yet, switch from sugared soft drinks to plain water, though that’s harder to do.

Toward a More Personal Balance

While food guidelines are useful tools, they can’t be depended upon to do the whole job, because really effective menu-planning should take into consideration more specific characteristics of an individual or a group. A fundamental axiom is that food doesn’t become nutrition until it passes the lips. Although some cultures view certain worms and termites, for example, as delicious, many of us would say that we wouldn’t eat them if our lives depended on them. In fact, some people do refuse unfamiliar foods which could save them from malnutrition

Many of us routinely refuse to eat familiar foods as well. The first President Bush has said he is familiar with broccoli—and will not eat it.

Dietary guidelines encompass a wide variety of preferences. In selecting from the Protein Group of MyPlate, for example, one can choose among a variety that includes lentils, fish, eggs, beef, and tofu (soybean curd).

The Calorie Budget

Whatever our food preferences, our choices must be made in light of our energy needs. Our calorie requirement represents a kind of budget, within which we must meet our nutrient needs. Clearly, the smaller our budget, the more careful we must be in how we spend the calories.

A strenuous athlete, burning perhaps 5,000 calories a day, can live in nutritional luxury. An athlete’s need for protein, and most other nutrients, isn’t much more than that of a non-athlete of the same sex, age, and size. So by eating at least twice as many calories, the athlete can afford some free-spending.

The caloric need of an athlete today is closer to that of the average man living in the early 1900s. In those days, an average man engaged in enough physical labor to burn some 4,000 calories a day. Today, an average man of the same size uses only about 2,500 calories because he’s far more sedentary.

Aim for a healthy weight (for "healthy weights" see Table 3-1 in Chap. 3): Americans should aim to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. (DGA) Be as lean as possible throughout life without being underweight. (ACS) Use up at least as many calories as you take in. (AHA)	Choose whole grains (e.g., whole wheat, brown rice, oatmeal, barley): Choose fiber-rich whole grains for most grain servings (AHA) At least half your grains should be from whole grains. (DGA) Choose whole grains instead of refined grain products. Limit your intake of refined carbohydrate foods, including pastries, candy, sugar-sweetened breakfast cereals, and other high-sugar foods. (ACS)
Be physically active: Get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity each week (or a combination of these), preferably spread throughout the week. (ACS, AHA, DGA)	Eat less meat, saturated fat, and trans fat: Consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fats and keep trans fat consumption as low as possible. (DGA) Choose poultry and fish without skin and prepare them in healthy ways without added saturated fat. If you choose to eat meat, look for the leanest cuts available and prepare them in heathy and delicious ways. Select fat-free and low-fat dairy products. (AHA) Minimize your intake of processed meats such as bacon, sausage, lunch meats, and hot dogs. Choose fish, poultry, or beans instead of red meat (beef, pork, and lamb). Prepare meat, poultry, and fish by baking, broiling, or poaching rather than by frying or charbroiling. (ACS) Aim for more of a plant-based diet. (DGA)
Eat a lot of vegetables and fruits: Get at least 2 1/2 cups of vegetables and fruits each day. Emphasize whole fruits and vegetables; choose 100% juice if you drink vegetable or fruit juices. (ACS) Eat a variety of vegetables from all the subgroups--dark green, red and orange, legumes (beans and peas), starchy, and other. (DGA) Eat a variety of fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables and fruits without high-calorie foods with fruits and vegetables. (AHA)	If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation Those who choose to drink alcoholic beverages should do so sensibly and in moderation, defined as up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men (DGA, AHA, ACS)
Limit sodium intake: Consume less than 2,300 mg per day of sodium. (DGA) Choose foods with less sodium, and prepare foods with little or no salt. Limit intake to no more than 2300 mg sodium per day, with an ideal limit of no more than 1500 mg. (AHA)

Table 18-1: Consensus of Diet and Exercise Advice. Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA)¹ , American Cancer Society (ACS)2, American Heart Association (AHA).³

Some nutrient needs change with the number of calories consumed, but most do not. So most adults today must get much the same quantity of nutrients from much less food. In terms of a nutrition budget, each calorie we spend must bring a higher nutritive return. Foods which supply many calories, but rather few nutrients, defeat this purpose. In other words, when sugar, alcohol, or fat is a major source of calories, nutritional adequacy can be a problem.

This doesn’t mean we can’t eat such calorie-dense foods as candy, potato chips, and pastries. It simply means that if we are sedentary, we can’t eat as much of them, and must offset their caloric density with nutrient-dense foods. We also could increase our caloric budget by being more physically active.

Eating for Health and Pleasure

Those who grimace at broccoli and salivate at the thought of chocolate should be assured that eating for health can also be eating for pleasure.

Start out by making small and gradual adjustments that make for a better diet. Choose healthier versions of favorite foods: cheese with less fat, canned soups with less sodium, a hamburger instead of a cheeseburger, pepperoni and mushroom rather than pepperoni and sausage on your pizza. Add a leaf of dark-green lettuce and a slice of tomato to your sandwich. And don’t forget the possibility of eating smaller portions of favorite foods. How about taking twice as long to eat a half-cup of your favorite ice cream, instead of your usual full cup of the low-fat version you don’t like as well?

When nutrition education challenges pleasure, pleasure tends to win. It’s perhaps the central thesis of this book that we need not stifle pleasure to survive. We need only be realists when we look at our pleasure and the essentials for good health. For each gustatory joy, there’s a balance of good sense.

Chocolate candy and potato chips are not evils; they are foods to be eaten in smaller amounts, or infrequently in larger amounts. Knowledge of nutrition is, in the fullest sense, not an injunction to somber sacrifice. It’s a guide to balance, to the use of reason and hard-won knowledge as aids to healthier lives.

Even with good nutrition knowledge, our personal experiences and feelings about food encompass a wide range. There are those who take no pleasure in eating, and those who take ecstatic, obsessive pleasure in eating. There are those who eat only to satisfy hunger, and those who see food as medicine. And it’s hard for one type to understand the other. The personal stories at the end of chapter 3 give some insight into such differences.