Being a science major, I find myself observing other students especially in the cafeteria where the conversation isn't very taxing and my eyes can wander. Observing what people eat is very interesting and especially amongst the swim team. One interesting aspect about swimmers is the amount of food we can consume daily. One of my friends, about 180 and 6 feet tall can easily out-eat a 250+ pound football player in one sitting. Eating is more of a chore for him. He always jokes that if he could just put the food directly in his stomach he would be immensely happier. He makes a good point. As an athlete, eating to fuel your body for the next work out and not over eating is a tricky endeavor. Eat too little and you suffer at the next workout...but eat too much and you gain excess weight. Eating as an athlete is an additional responsibility on top of scheduled practices and events.
After reading Food Rules and listening to the dietary lectures in class last night, people's eating habits in the cafeteria catch my attention more. For example, everyone is told that yogurt is good for you...it's natural, healthy, low-fat, etc. When in reality, the yogurt that is the best for you, nutritionally speaking, is the yogurt that no one likes to eat. Greek yogurt is not sweet, but almost has a sour taste which most consumers do not prefer. Greek yogurt contains less than 14 grams of sugar, low carbohydrates, live bacterial cultures, and a whopping 20 or more grams of protein in one serving. Here's an experiment for you that is pretty simple and doesn't cost any money: go to the grocery store and in the yogurt section find another yogurt that has less sugar or more protein. It's not possible. Why? Because food manufacturers know that yogurt is becoming a healthy food fad. Therefore they make their yogurt taste good by adding sugar or changing the product label to various eye catching colors. Anything to make their yogurt compete better on the consumer shelf.
Back to the main point, the yogurt in the cafeteria has more than 20 grams of sugar in one serving and only 5-6 grams of protein. Sure it tastes good and with the common thought that yogurt is healthy, everyone in the cafeteria eats it and adds granola. The granola has lots of added sugar in addition to the excess carbohydrates. Whenever I see someone eating a bowl of cafeteria yogurt and granola this scenario runs through my head and sometimes I voice my thoughts but no one cares. The yogurt tastes good and they think it is healthy so they will keep eating it regardless of who tells them otherwise.
I find this concept especially interesting because today with the over availability of food individuals have the ability to create their own fate, if you will, about what they consume. In today's supermarket, you can find "food" products that everyone will like and eat. Added sugar, added sodium, and excess chemicals to prolong shelf life all have effects on developing children. Children grow up eating what tastes good and this creates eating habits that may lead to health problems.
The rules we read for class are just that, rules. If it's any indication of how many parking tickets and speeding tickets the town of Boiling Springs gives out daily, then it's probably safe to assume that people don't like following rules. Individuals will eat what they like to eat regardless of who tells them otherwise unless they give themselves a reason to change. Food Rules was written because of the surplus food supply that we just have to consume...if someone makes it, someone is going to eat it. The trick is to know your body and know what works for you.
Over the years I have experimented myself with what I eat and then watched the results. I found that a high protein diet with lots of vegetables and some carbohydrates works the best for my body and metabolism. However, the discipline to maintain this diet is not as readily available.
Accompanying my reflection on Food Rules are some rules of my own:
1. Oil and spice and everything nice.
2. Baked goods are best from scratch, but never from a box.
3. If you can't pick up off the ground or kill what you are eating, it's probably not real food.
4. Cheese is an essential and delicious part of the food pyramid.
5. If my grandmother doesn't have a recipe for it or doesn't use it in a recipe, I probably shouldn't eat it.
I enjoyed reading your unique perspectives on eating as an athlete. I'm sue we've all heard or read that Michael Phelps consumes of 10,000 calories when he is in training. I have always thought that athletes should be taught how to eat in season, but also once they are no longer competing. All too often, ex-athletes continue to eat like athletes (habits, once formed, are so difficult to break) and end up unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see how you reflect on our reading for this week, specifically, Pollan's call to abandon nutritionism and reductionism when it comes to the food we eat. Not all proteins are equal, and in fact, as we move from leaves to seeds, we are seeing all sorts of imbalances in our diet (e.g., omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratios). Thanks for sharing.