What we believe

Today's nutrition lecture was pretty awesome so I thought i'd share some cool things that my sponge of a mind has soaked up.  I can't sleep and its almost 3am so if my spelling and grammar are no good you can blame it on my semi delirious state or my hair colour - take your pick.

Misconceptions are the biggest "red flags" of the medical and nutritional world.  Sadly if we hear something that sounds scientific, amazing or slightly convincing we tend to allow ourselves to be rather impressionable and endorse false nutritional claims and information.  Some of the issues discussed were dieting remedies and products to help improve one's appearance.  For starters the word "diet" sounds so evil when really all it is refering to is what someone consumes so don't immediately draw conclusions based on all the crap out there and there is a lot!  Theres the low carb diet, the atkin's diet, the apple diet, the cabbage soup diet, the lemon detox diet and a million types of diet pills and supplements that really do nothing for you.  You will find that more just speed you up with excessive amounts of caffeiene and guarana and thats about it and you're paying so much money for such a scam.

I also want all readers (if there are any) to recognised that my health related blog entries are based purely on my current knowledge and personal opinions.  Please do not take word for word as the completely right or correct for you or your body.  Be rational and obviously scrutinise me if need be.

ANYWAY

What to remember:

1. There is NEVER EVER a quick fix. 
Anything that claims there is can't be good for you or is telling lies.  Take the biggest loser for example - say someone loses 3kg in a week... its NOT all fat.  Glycogen and water are huge players in this misconception so don't think "why can't i lose that much fat".  Same with cellulite creams.  Rubbing your thighs will help your circulation but it doesnt matter what you rub on.  It doesnt have to cost you an arm and leg.

2.  Nutrition and product claims are VERY misleading
So you have your packet of chips and it claims to be 6% of your RDI.  On what basis?  Everyone is different.  There is no requirement to have energy percentage on the packet but companies do it voluntarily and it can be very misleading.  So lets say my packet of chips is in fact 6% of my daily energy.... oh wait.... thats just a serving which is usually about 25-40g.  So in fact I could have about 3 serves but because im not an adult male that RDI doesnt really mean crap anyway.  Also please note 'Light' and 'lite' are different.  It can refer to light in colour, taste etc.  Same with 99% fat free - theres probably like 30g of sugar that will just go to fat storage anyway.  Reduced fat cheese?  Most cheese (cheddars) are about 40% fat so they still may indeed mean its 30% instead.

3.  Check credibility
A lot of the crap you find on the internet lacks credibility (such as this).  People avoid mentioning that they are not Dieticians or Nutritionists and nobody asks questions.

4.  Avoid trashy magazines and articles in the newspaper
As I know from being a former journalism student - newsworthy crap does sell papers and magazines.  If it sounds extraordinary it probably isnt well researched.  Someone may have purely done a survey of 10 people, called it a study and then the sunday times will write their "Icecream causes cancer" article and people will believe that its been scientifically proven.  Read journal articles because they need scientific proof and lots of peer reviews before being publisged.


5.  There are no "Good foods" and "bad foods" (yes this is probably a contradiction from previous posts)
Never think a food is good or bad.  No one food will make you super healthy.  Too much of something may make you unhealthy but if you eat things in moderation and remain active you can have your cake and eat it too.  Its all about frequency, quantity and nutritional value.  Thinking something is absolutely forbidden is wrong but making better personal choices will help you to stay healthy.  Too much of something after all is never a good thing.

As I said - I preach a lot of crap and have many personal theories but they are based around some degree of education and a home library full of nutritional text books and government and medically endorsed journals/books.  I obviously don't recommend people to ulliminate food groups unless they have serious health risks.  I recommend EVERYONE get a food allergy test.  Intolerances to food are so so dangerous - celiacs can become infertile etc.