Such a simple question has become so complicated. In the words of Michael Pollan, author of the New York Times best-selling novel, Omnivore’s Dilemma:
“As a culture we have arrived at a place where whatever wisdom we may once have possessed about eating has been replaced by confusion and anxiety”.
As IF training coaches we are repeatedly asked the question stated above by customers. It is the reason why we push food logs and hold nutrition challenges. Customers have lofty weight loss goals and want to find the mystical diet that is conducive to reaching success as quickly as possible. Too often people are looking for the proximal explanation when it comes to eating, or in other words the immediate answer that’s quick and easy. “Tell me what to eat and tell me how much” may sound familiar. This requires tedious work on our part such as examining food pyramids, glycemic indices and RDA charts. In my opinion the distal explanation is far more important. The reason being that it addresses why the individual’s current diet simply isn’t working. Carrying out an extreme diet may help you lose weight but we all know that it won’t stay off in the long run. It’s impossible to maintain the unrealistic caloric, food group, food item and behavioral requirements for the rest of your life. A diet is simply a band-aid solution in that it is a temporary patch up for a much more complex problem.
A couple weeks ago I had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Kitsilano and the place mats on the table featured a map of Italy illustrating the country’s wine and pasta regions. Italy is a country with traditions dating back to the Romans and the claim to fame for foods such as risotto from Venice and pizza from Naples; wines such as Chianti from Tuscany and Brunello from Lombardy. What would the map for Canada look like? Nanaimo bars, wild salmon, poutine and fast food? I’m being facetious but it’s a reality that we don’t have traditional food staples like most other countries in the world. This is due to our mosaic society and our relatively new status as a nation state.
It is my opinion that this puts us even further behind the proverbial 8-ball in our world of convenience and constitutes the ‘distal’ explanation that I speak of. Everyone leads an extremely busy life and there’s not much time for anything, including eating. When we do manage to find 5 minutes to inhale our meal it’s often fast food, refined or unhealthy comfort food.
What should we eat? Somehow the most fundamental of activities has come to require an incredible amount of expert help from dietitians, nutritionists, doctors and training coaches. Not to mention the help of investigative journalists who find out where our food actually comes from and how it’s processed. When it comes to providing nutritional advice to customers I encourage you to dig beneath the simple advice such as pointing out RDA’s and portion sizes and stimulate their intellectual sphere of health. Challenge them to examine why it’s so difficult in our environment to eat well and discuss solutions. This is obviously a daunting task so if you'd like a great starting point, check out the novel Omnivore's Dilemma when you get a chance.
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