Thursday, August 14, 2008
10 Superfoods That Should Be in Your Daily Diet
Supercharge your diet with these doctor-approved upgrades
As Told to Max Alexander, Best Life
More on this in Health & Fitness
My interest in what is now known as integrative medicine began many years ago when I was a teenager and witnessed my grandmother battle a breast-cancer recurrence. In those days, it was typical for patients receiving chemotherapy to be confined to a hospital bed. Nothing was done to stop her decline—not nutritionally, not physically, not really medically—and she eventually wasted away and died in her bed.
A few years later, in medical school, I began suffering from ulcers and migraines. None of the physicians I visited provided any significant relief. Month after month, I tried to find a cure. Hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Rolfing massage—nothing worked. Out of desperation, I stopped eating the roast beef, burgers, and fried chicken I'd been raised on in favor of whole grains, legumes, and fruit. The idea that nutrition could help fight pain and illness was, in the medical community of the 1970s, unheard of. Yet within weeks, my ulcers and migraines disappeared.
As the medical director of the Block Center of Integrative Cancer Treatment, nutrition now plays an important role in the individualized treatment plans we develop for our patients, as well as for those patients interested in the prevention of other diseases. There is a significant amount of research that shows that eating the wrong fats and proteins, primarily from animal sources, but also including omega-6-rich vegetable oils, can actually inflame cells and create a perfect environment for cancer, like a dry forest waiting for a spark.
By contrast, diets based on plants and cold-water fish or omega-3 supplements lead to a "wet forest" that can affect the cells by reducing inflammation and work toward extinguishing the cancer spark. In patients who already have cancer, the right diet can help them tolerate chemo and radiation. At the grocery store, kale, tomatoes, and mushrooms probably won't have a single label touting their nutritional benefits, but that's only because fresh produce doesn't have much of a marketing department.
Here are 10 superfoods to integrate into your daily diet:
Garlic
This is a powerful organosulfate that's important in detoxification. It will help clean your body of leftover chemical residue from drugs or pollutants, secondhand smoke, and metabolites from alcohol.
Tofu
It's made from soybeans, which have all the benefits of other beans, including stabilizing blood-sugar levels to prevent diabetes. Try stir-frying it.
Mushrooms
Maitake and shiitake mushrooms are among the best sources of beta-glucan, which is known to stimulate the immune system. They also contain the protein lectin, which hinders cancer-cell growth.
Blueberries
These have an extraordinary amount of anti-oxidants, but many people are surprised to learn that one of their compounds, flavonoids, makes you smarter by boosting neuron signals in your brain. Look for wild varieties, which pack more antioxidants.
Kale
Possibly the healthiest food on earth, kale is rich in isothiocyanates, a phytochemical that suppresses tumor growth. Kale also contains indoles, nitrogen compounds that prevent lesions from converting into cancer cells.
Flaxseed
"In addition to omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseed contains lignans, which are antioxidants that suppress tumor growth. If you can't find flaxseed cracked, buy it whole, grind it, and then sprinkle a teaspoon over cereal.
Beans
Like other legumes, kidney and garbanzo beans are high in saponins, which are compounds that shield your DNA from invasion by so-called free radicals—unstable atoms that damage tissue and are associated with cancer.
Carrots
Besides beta-carotene—which helps prevent many types of cancer—carrots contain falcarinol, a chemical that slows the growth of cancer cells.
Tomatoes
Eat ripe tomatoes every summer. They're loaded with lycopene (an important phytochemical with antioxidant properties) and glutamic acid (an amino acid), which work together to prevent prostate cancer. Shop for organic varieties with a deep red color at your local farmers' market.
Strawberries
If you do a lot of grilling, eat strawberries. They're high in folic acids that scavenge the carcinogenic amines that are created when meat is cooked over high temperatures. They're one of the most important foods to buy organic, because they have a unique capacity for leaching pesticides.
Keith Block, M.D., 54, is the author of the forthcoming Life Over Cancer. He lives in Illinois and surfs Lake Michigan year-round.
Best Life online: Get recipes for Dr. Block's favorite mousse, pie, and cobbler at BestLifeOnline.com/drblock.
Provided by Best Life
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Diabetes Treatment - Diet Therapy
As published by Ezine Articles
By Waheed Hassan
A lot of people are suffering from either type 1 or type 2 diabetes and their number is constantly increasing. There is strong need to understand the role diet plays in the treatment of diabetes. If one properly manages the diet he eats he can easily overcome the major diabetes complications.
Dietary treatment for Type 1 Diabetes
1. Integrate and synchronize meals (that is, the metabolic load) with the time(s) of action of the insulin treatment to minimize high peaks of blood glucose as well as episodes of hypoglycemia. It is recommended that the individual's usual food intake is used as a basis for integrating insulin therapy into the eating and exercise patterns. Patients on insulin therapy should eat at consistent times synchronized with the time-action of the insulin preparation used.
2. Reduce saturated fat to 10% of total energy or less. People with diabetes have an increased risk of coronary heart disease and this dietary change may reduce it.
3. Keep salt intake low, because people with diabetes have an increased risk of hypertension.
4. Avoid or take moderate quantity of alcohol. Large intakes carry the risk of hypoglycemia; irregular drinking can disturb glycemic control.
5. In children and adolescents should make sure intakes of essential nutrients are adequate.
Dietary treatment for Type 2 Diabetes
Dietary change has a greater potential to improve type 2 diabetes as most of them are obese diet plays a major role in controlling type 2 diabetes.
1. Reduce body weight by eating fewer calories and taking regular exercise, and keep at it! Even modest weight loss improves metabolic control. About three-quarters of type 2 diabetics are overweight or obese, and weight reduction is the first line of dietary management. To help patients lose weight and keep it off is a challenge for the physician and dietitian. Diabetics have a stronger incentive to lose weight because this improves their disease as well as their figure, but sulphonylureas or insulin (not metformin) tends to stimulate appetite. Some who succeed in losing weight may be able to go off medications or even go off insulin.
2. Reduce saturated fat. Increased LDL-cholesterol may be more pathogenic in type 2 diabetes than non-diabetic people.
3. Emphasize low glycemic index foods
4. Increase intake of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grain cereals (which increase fiber intake and mostly have low glycemic indices).
5. Keep salt intake low and increase potassium intake.
6. Avoid excess alcohol but 1-2 drinks per day with meals are acceptable.
7. Forget carbohydrate exchanges
8. There is no need to be obsessed about reducing sucrose. The glycemic effect of sucrose is about the same as that of most starchy foods.
By simply following dietary principles we diabetics can have better control on the disease and live a happy and healthy life just like non diabetics.
Diabetes can be managed and even reversed. I have reversed it ,if you also want to reverse follow this link - Diabetes Cure. I have explained here a 100% guaranteed cure to diabetes through magnetic therapy.
If you are unable to reverse your diabetes by applying this therapy I can bet that you have not followed the steps properly.
In order to find a diet plan designed specifically for you just click Diabetes Information
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Waheed_Hassan
By Waheed Hassan
A lot of people are suffering from either type 1 or type 2 diabetes and their number is constantly increasing. There is strong need to understand the role diet plays in the treatment of diabetes. If one properly manages the diet he eats he can easily overcome the major diabetes complications.
Dietary treatment for Type 1 Diabetes
1. Integrate and synchronize meals (that is, the metabolic load) with the time(s) of action of the insulin treatment to minimize high peaks of blood glucose as well as episodes of hypoglycemia. It is recommended that the individual's usual food intake is used as a basis for integrating insulin therapy into the eating and exercise patterns. Patients on insulin therapy should eat at consistent times synchronized with the time-action of the insulin preparation used.
2. Reduce saturated fat to 10% of total energy or less. People with diabetes have an increased risk of coronary heart disease and this dietary change may reduce it.
3. Keep salt intake low, because people with diabetes have an increased risk of hypertension.
4. Avoid or take moderate quantity of alcohol. Large intakes carry the risk of hypoglycemia; irregular drinking can disturb glycemic control.
5. In children and adolescents should make sure intakes of essential nutrients are adequate.
Dietary treatment for Type 2 Diabetes
Dietary change has a greater potential to improve type 2 diabetes as most of them are obese diet plays a major role in controlling type 2 diabetes.
1. Reduce body weight by eating fewer calories and taking regular exercise, and keep at it! Even modest weight loss improves metabolic control. About three-quarters of type 2 diabetics are overweight or obese, and weight reduction is the first line of dietary management. To help patients lose weight and keep it off is a challenge for the physician and dietitian. Diabetics have a stronger incentive to lose weight because this improves their disease as well as their figure, but sulphonylureas or insulin (not metformin) tends to stimulate appetite. Some who succeed in losing weight may be able to go off medications or even go off insulin.
2. Reduce saturated fat. Increased LDL-cholesterol may be more pathogenic in type 2 diabetes than non-diabetic people.
3. Emphasize low glycemic index foods
4. Increase intake of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grain cereals (which increase fiber intake and mostly have low glycemic indices).
5. Keep salt intake low and increase potassium intake.
6. Avoid excess alcohol but 1-2 drinks per day with meals are acceptable.
7. Forget carbohydrate exchanges
8. There is no need to be obsessed about reducing sucrose. The glycemic effect of sucrose is about the same as that of most starchy foods.
By simply following dietary principles we diabetics can have better control on the disease and live a happy and healthy life just like non diabetics.
Diabetes can be managed and even reversed. I have reversed it ,if you also want to reverse follow this link - Diabetes Cure. I have explained here a 100% guaranteed cure to diabetes through magnetic therapy.
If you are unable to reverse your diabetes by applying this therapy I can bet that you have not followed the steps properly.
In order to find a diet plan designed specifically for you just click Diabetes Information
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Waheed_Hassan
Friday, August 1, 2008
75% of Greeks are overweight as southern Europe abandons traditional Mediterranean diet
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:49 PM on 30th July 2008
Obesity is on the rise across southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East as people on the shores of the Mediterranean abandon the lean diet of their ancestors and opt for fatter and faster foods, a U.N. agency said Tuesday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said that in the 40 years to 2002 daily calorie intake in countries including Greece, Italy and Spain has increased by 30 per cent, more than the 20 per cent recorded in northern EU countries.
Healthy option: The traditional Mediterranean diet is falling out of favour with southern Europeans
This has made Greece the EU country with the highest prevalence of overweight and obese people: 75 per cent. More than half of the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese populations are overweight too, according to a paper presented at a recent workshop by U.S. and EU academic institutions.
The report says the typical Mediterranean diet based on olive oil, fish and vegetables also is declining in the Middle East and North Africa, where eating habits are changing and calorie intake increasing.
Mediterranean people have used higher incomes to add a large number of calories from meat and fats to a diet that was traditionally light on animal proteins, said FAO senior economist Josef Schmidhuber, who authored the paper.
What they now eat is 'too fat, too salty and too sweet' he said.
The country that registered the most dramatic increase was Spain, where fat made up just 25 per cent of the diet 40 years ago but now accounts for 40 per cent.
The report also attributed the change in eating habits to other factors, including the rise of supermarkets and fast food restaurants at a time when a more sedentary lifestyle means fewer calories are needed.The agency noted that many in the Mediterranean are no longer following the diet of their ancestors, even as Spain and other countries push to have the traditional regimen put on the U.N.'s list of protected world cultural treasures.
Last updated at 1:49 PM on 30th July 2008
Obesity is on the rise across southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East as people on the shores of the Mediterranean abandon the lean diet of their ancestors and opt for fatter and faster foods, a U.N. agency said Tuesday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said that in the 40 years to 2002 daily calorie intake in countries including Greece, Italy and Spain has increased by 30 per cent, more than the 20 per cent recorded in northern EU countries.
Healthy option: The traditional Mediterranean diet is falling out of favour with southern Europeans
This has made Greece the EU country with the highest prevalence of overweight and obese people: 75 per cent. More than half of the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese populations are overweight too, according to a paper presented at a recent workshop by U.S. and EU academic institutions.
The report says the typical Mediterranean diet based on olive oil, fish and vegetables also is declining in the Middle East and North Africa, where eating habits are changing and calorie intake increasing.
Mediterranean people have used higher incomes to add a large number of calories from meat and fats to a diet that was traditionally light on animal proteins, said FAO senior economist Josef Schmidhuber, who authored the paper.
What they now eat is 'too fat, too salty and too sweet' he said.
The country that registered the most dramatic increase was Spain, where fat made up just 25 per cent of the diet 40 years ago but now accounts for 40 per cent.
The report also attributed the change in eating habits to other factors, including the rise of supermarkets and fast food restaurants at a time when a more sedentary lifestyle means fewer calories are needed.The agency noted that many in the Mediterranean are no longer following the diet of their ancestors, even as Spain and other countries push to have the traditional regimen put on the U.N.'s list of protected world cultural treasures.
Lifestyle changes and food crisis
As published in The Hindu Business Line
August 1, 2008
Written by A. Srinivas
People in the developed world are eating more than what is good for their health. The increase in demand for meat products, thanks to the popularity of fast food and eating out, is the single biggest reason for the depletion of grain supplies that has precipitated the food crisis, argues A. Srinivas.
Dietary shifts such as snacking and eating on the move, the norm in many developed countries, are on the increase in India too.
The debate on the ‘food crisis’ has overlooked an important issue — that lifestyle-related factors are playing a big role in expanding the demand-supply gap. The availability of cheap food in the post-War years, spurred an extraordinary rise in calorie intake in the rich countries, in particular.
Now, an impression has been created that, with the onset of diminishing returns in intensive agriculture, demand has outpaced supply, as a result of which hunger and starvation will loom large, unless further land is brought under modern agriculture. However, in advancing such a view, the factors underlying the rise in demand have not been fully understood.
While there can be no excuse to promote ethanol, given the poor rate of energy conversion from food to fuel, the real problem lies elsewhere: people in the developed world are eating more than what is good for their health. Such behaviour confounds the consumer choice theory, which says that individuals buy what is best for them. The answers to the food problem cannot be sought within the framework of conventional economic theory.
For instance, a rise in income does not explain why people in the developed world (and now the well-to-do in India and China) generally prefer to consume more sugar, fats and refined grain than fruits and vegetables — that too, in greater quantities than their bodies need. There are a number of influences that distract an individual from eating the right kind of food in the right quantities. Two of them stand out: the popularity of processed, fast food and the inclination to eat out in restaurants.
Dietary shifts
Since the 1950s, the US and Europe have moved away from home-made food, instead buying their packaged, largely meat-based, takeaways and snacks from supermarkets and eating out in restaurants that offer a range of cuisines.
For a number of psychological reasons, such a lifestyle shift has led to people eating more than before, impacting grain availability in poorer regions.
The demand for meat products is the single biggest reason for the depletion of grain supplies. Of the two billion tonnes of cereals produced annually, nearly half goes to feed the animals meant to be eaten.
Growing non-vegetarianism in places such as India is a recent, additional factor. Therefore, to label the food crisis as ‘Malthusian’, or one of shortage is to miss the point. Dietary shifts occur in all populations as they urbanise and industrialise. For example, in China, per capita availability of cereals has remained flat since 1980, with pulses declining since then. But the per capita availability of eggs, fish, meat, cooking oil, fruits and vegetables has increased sharply. Per capita availability of food (all categories) varies from less than 2,000 kcal in malnourished regions to above 3,500 kcal in the US, and between 3,000-3,500 in Australia and most of Europe, with countries like China lying between these extremes.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, average daily consumption in 2000 was 300 calories more than in 1985. Attempts to regulate the fat content in packaged food in the 1980s and 1990s spurred a backlash in the form of higher consumption of meat and other fat-rich foods.
In his book, The Challenge of Affluence, Avner Offer, an economic historian at Oxford, explains how snacking and eating out led to an increase in obesity in the US and the UK between 1950 and 1990. Offer points out that the proportion of overweight men (those with a body mass index over 25) in the US increased from 51 per cent in 1970 to 67 per cent in 2000. In the case of women, the increase was sharper, from 41 per cent to 62 per cent.
People ate more over this period because more was available, even though their levels of physical activity had fallen. They would regret their choices later for reasons of health and appearance, and resort to dieting — now a billion-dollar industry, which, like drug de-addiction, has a very low success rate.
‘Emotional tranquiliser’
The impact of eating out on obesity has generally been overlooked. Offer points to a high correlation between the density of fast food restaurants and the rise in BMI.
He cites a US study which says that if the density of restaurants were to rise by 10 per cent, BMI would rise by 1.74 per cent. Besides restaurant density, lower price of food and decline in smoking pushed up weight, but not as much as restaurants.
Delving into “psychology of craving”, Offer says that restrained eaters, or those on a diet, tend to let go when they eat out. Eating can restart despite satiation when the food on offer is exciting, particularly in the case of restrained eaters. Offer explains: “Restrained eaters typically turn to food in search of comfort and relief. Food acts as an ‘emotional tranquilliser’.
Distress is the most reliable precipitant of a binge. Here, again, there is a difference: in response to stress, ‘normal eaters’ hold intake steady or reduce it, while ‘restrained’ eaters increase it. In company, people eat more. Noise, itself a form of stress, stimulates eating; hence the ubiquity of background music in restaurants and pubs.”
Eating outside the home claimed less than 10 per cent of food outlays in the UK in 1955, but that share touched about 25 per cent by 1995. In the US, eating out constituted more than 45 per cent of food outlays in 1995, as “the appeal was convivial as well as culinary”. The per capita number of fast food outlets in the US doubled between 1972 and 1997.
“The calorie-dense, palatable, fat-rich hamburger, pizza, fried chicken and ethnic take-out cuisines rose from 3 per cent to 16 per cent of US food outlays between 1963 and 1993,” Offer says. Portions also increased, typically of fast foods. Snack foods accounted for 34 per cent of all food purchases in the UK way back in 1987.
Unhealthy habits
How did eating habits go awry? The disintegration of the family meal system, which started in the 1950s in the US and the UK, coincided with the rise of packaged, processed food, take-away joints and unhealthy eating habits. In the 1950s, people ate at home thrice or four times a day. Six out of every 10 men in the UK took their main midday meal at home.
With a greater variety of food becoming available in the marketplace, this custom fell by the wayside. The time spent on preparing meals fell sharply. British multiples increased their shares from a fifth to three-fourths of the grocery market between 1950 and 1990. American supermarkets increased their share from 15 per cent to 61 per cent of the food retail business in the same period. In the 1950s, they stocked 5,000-8,000 items, rising to more than 25,000 different items by the 1980s.
Snacking, eating on the move, became the norm. American sales of sugared soft drinks increased from 21 gallons per head per year in 1968 to 40 gallons in 1994. There are indications that dietary distortions are on the increase in India as well.
The size of the global processed foods industry is estimated at $3.6 trillion. Restaurants and hotels make up another $1 trillion, according to the International Hotel and Restaurant Association. India’s food processing sector accounts for about 7 per cent of its gross domestic product, or about $70 billion, while the restaurant sector’s size is estimated at $20 billion ($110 billion in China) — figures that could be underestimates, given the size of the unorganised sector in these categories.
The share of trade, hotels and restaurants has risen from 14.3 per cent of GDP in 2000-01 to 25.1 per cent of GDP in 2007-08.The packaged food industry is growing at about 20 per cent per annum. Worldwide data on food consumption does not adequately take into account intake outside the home.
Given the changing lifestyles of the 300 million consuming class, particularly in urban areas, this might hold true for India as well. In sum, a growing number of people are not taking the right decisions on how much and what to eat.
Modern lifestyles induce people to eat more than their bodies need, even if they are aware of the pitfalls. At the crux of the food crisis is a psychological disorder arising out of affluence — people being out of tune with their own bodies.
August 1, 2008
Written by A. Srinivas
People in the developed world are eating more than what is good for their health. The increase in demand for meat products, thanks to the popularity of fast food and eating out, is the single biggest reason for the depletion of grain supplies that has precipitated the food crisis, argues A. Srinivas.
Dietary shifts such as snacking and eating on the move, the norm in many developed countries, are on the increase in India too.
The debate on the ‘food crisis’ has overlooked an important issue — that lifestyle-related factors are playing a big role in expanding the demand-supply gap. The availability of cheap food in the post-War years, spurred an extraordinary rise in calorie intake in the rich countries, in particular.
Now, an impression has been created that, with the onset of diminishing returns in intensive agriculture, demand has outpaced supply, as a result of which hunger and starvation will loom large, unless further land is brought under modern agriculture. However, in advancing such a view, the factors underlying the rise in demand have not been fully understood.
While there can be no excuse to promote ethanol, given the poor rate of energy conversion from food to fuel, the real problem lies elsewhere: people in the developed world are eating more than what is good for their health. Such behaviour confounds the consumer choice theory, which says that individuals buy what is best for them. The answers to the food problem cannot be sought within the framework of conventional economic theory.
For instance, a rise in income does not explain why people in the developed world (and now the well-to-do in India and China) generally prefer to consume more sugar, fats and refined grain than fruits and vegetables — that too, in greater quantities than their bodies need. There are a number of influences that distract an individual from eating the right kind of food in the right quantities. Two of them stand out: the popularity of processed, fast food and the inclination to eat out in restaurants.
Dietary shifts
Since the 1950s, the US and Europe have moved away from home-made food, instead buying their packaged, largely meat-based, takeaways and snacks from supermarkets and eating out in restaurants that offer a range of cuisines.
For a number of psychological reasons, such a lifestyle shift has led to people eating more than before, impacting grain availability in poorer regions.
The demand for meat products is the single biggest reason for the depletion of grain supplies. Of the two billion tonnes of cereals produced annually, nearly half goes to feed the animals meant to be eaten.
Growing non-vegetarianism in places such as India is a recent, additional factor. Therefore, to label the food crisis as ‘Malthusian’, or one of shortage is to miss the point. Dietary shifts occur in all populations as they urbanise and industrialise. For example, in China, per capita availability of cereals has remained flat since 1980, with pulses declining since then. But the per capita availability of eggs, fish, meat, cooking oil, fruits and vegetables has increased sharply. Per capita availability of food (all categories) varies from less than 2,000 kcal in malnourished regions to above 3,500 kcal in the US, and between 3,000-3,500 in Australia and most of Europe, with countries like China lying between these extremes.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, average daily consumption in 2000 was 300 calories more than in 1985. Attempts to regulate the fat content in packaged food in the 1980s and 1990s spurred a backlash in the form of higher consumption of meat and other fat-rich foods.
In his book, The Challenge of Affluence, Avner Offer, an economic historian at Oxford, explains how snacking and eating out led to an increase in obesity in the US and the UK between 1950 and 1990. Offer points out that the proportion of overweight men (those with a body mass index over 25) in the US increased from 51 per cent in 1970 to 67 per cent in 2000. In the case of women, the increase was sharper, from 41 per cent to 62 per cent.
People ate more over this period because more was available, even though their levels of physical activity had fallen. They would regret their choices later for reasons of health and appearance, and resort to dieting — now a billion-dollar industry, which, like drug de-addiction, has a very low success rate.
‘Emotional tranquiliser’
The impact of eating out on obesity has generally been overlooked. Offer points to a high correlation between the density of fast food restaurants and the rise in BMI.
He cites a US study which says that if the density of restaurants were to rise by 10 per cent, BMI would rise by 1.74 per cent. Besides restaurant density, lower price of food and decline in smoking pushed up weight, but not as much as restaurants.
Delving into “psychology of craving”, Offer says that restrained eaters, or those on a diet, tend to let go when they eat out. Eating can restart despite satiation when the food on offer is exciting, particularly in the case of restrained eaters. Offer explains: “Restrained eaters typically turn to food in search of comfort and relief. Food acts as an ‘emotional tranquilliser’.
Distress is the most reliable precipitant of a binge. Here, again, there is a difference: in response to stress, ‘normal eaters’ hold intake steady or reduce it, while ‘restrained’ eaters increase it. In company, people eat more. Noise, itself a form of stress, stimulates eating; hence the ubiquity of background music in restaurants and pubs.”
Eating outside the home claimed less than 10 per cent of food outlays in the UK in 1955, but that share touched about 25 per cent by 1995. In the US, eating out constituted more than 45 per cent of food outlays in 1995, as “the appeal was convivial as well as culinary”. The per capita number of fast food outlets in the US doubled between 1972 and 1997.
“The calorie-dense, palatable, fat-rich hamburger, pizza, fried chicken and ethnic take-out cuisines rose from 3 per cent to 16 per cent of US food outlays between 1963 and 1993,” Offer says. Portions also increased, typically of fast foods. Snack foods accounted for 34 per cent of all food purchases in the UK way back in 1987.
Unhealthy habits
How did eating habits go awry? The disintegration of the family meal system, which started in the 1950s in the US and the UK, coincided with the rise of packaged, processed food, take-away joints and unhealthy eating habits. In the 1950s, people ate at home thrice or four times a day. Six out of every 10 men in the UK took their main midday meal at home.
With a greater variety of food becoming available in the marketplace, this custom fell by the wayside. The time spent on preparing meals fell sharply. British multiples increased their shares from a fifth to three-fourths of the grocery market between 1950 and 1990. American supermarkets increased their share from 15 per cent to 61 per cent of the food retail business in the same period. In the 1950s, they stocked 5,000-8,000 items, rising to more than 25,000 different items by the 1980s.
Snacking, eating on the move, became the norm. American sales of sugared soft drinks increased from 21 gallons per head per year in 1968 to 40 gallons in 1994. There are indications that dietary distortions are on the increase in India as well.
The size of the global processed foods industry is estimated at $3.6 trillion. Restaurants and hotels make up another $1 trillion, according to the International Hotel and Restaurant Association. India’s food processing sector accounts for about 7 per cent of its gross domestic product, or about $70 billion, while the restaurant sector’s size is estimated at $20 billion ($110 billion in China) — figures that could be underestimates, given the size of the unorganised sector in these categories.
The share of trade, hotels and restaurants has risen from 14.3 per cent of GDP in 2000-01 to 25.1 per cent of GDP in 2007-08.The packaged food industry is growing at about 20 per cent per annum. Worldwide data on food consumption does not adequately take into account intake outside the home.
Given the changing lifestyles of the 300 million consuming class, particularly in urban areas, this might hold true for India as well. In sum, a growing number of people are not taking the right decisions on how much and what to eat.
Modern lifestyles induce people to eat more than their bodies need, even if they are aware of the pitfalls. At the crux of the food crisis is a psychological disorder arising out of affluence — people being out of tune with their own bodies.
Nutrition Notes: "Lean" Asia Changing Before Our Eyes
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 :: infoZine Staff
As published by Kansas City InfoZine
By Karen Collins, MS, RD, CDN - Rapid economic changes in Asian countries like China and India have ushered in marked nutrition and lifestyle changes. As Western foods and lifestyle habits traverse the globe, countries long known for leanness are now facing an obesity epidemic - one that has developed even more quickly than it did in the U.S.
Washington, D.C. - American Institute for Cancer Research - infoZine - In China, incidence of overweight and obesity in most population groups has more than doubled in less than 10 years.
According to a 2002 survey, about 30 percent of adults were overweight or obese. While that's small compared to 66 percent of adults in the U.S., this is a dramatic change for a population where excess body fat was once rare. Change is occurring even faster in youth. The proportion of those aged 7 to 17 who are overweight or obese has increased three-fold since the 1980s, especially in the larger cities.
India still faces problems with malnutrition and underweight, especially among poor and rural populations. However, about 25 percent of men and 36 percent of women face health risks associated with overweight. This represents a dramatic increase from the 2 to 3 percent who were overweight in the 1970s. Over-nutrition is especially a problem among wealthier and urban groups, where it may affect as much as 46 percent of the population.
Just as in Western countries, this increase in overweight is bringing a surge in health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. In fact, some research suggests that similar levels of body fat may pose even more health risk in people of Asian descent.
Urban areas in India are facing increased rates of metabolic syndrome - a constellation of medical problems such as hypertension and diabetes that is linked to excess waistline fat.
Even children in India are increasingly developing high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome. Overall, in many Asian countries, more deaths are now attributed to chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes than to infectious disease and nutritional deficiencies.
One factor: diet is changing in these countries with Westernization. China's historically low-fat, plant-based diet is being altered substantially. Vegetable consumption is dropping and the country has seen increases in red meat, animal fat and total fat consumption, which are linked to greater overweight. Recently, high-sugar soft drinks have begun adding even more calories. Food surveys in India show greater consumption of fried food and increases in average calories and saturated fat consumed (generally from high-fat meats and dairy products).
At the same time that fat and calorie consumption are increasing, populations are moving from rural to urban areas and increasingly relying on cars and buses for transportation instead of walking and bicycling. This increase in sedentary lifestyles burns fewer calories, causing the higher-calorie diet changes to create an even more dramatic effect on weight.
Government officials in these countries have already sounded the alarm, noting that the cost of dealing with the anticipated increase in health care expenses could be devastating. It's a tough sell, however, because after years of famine and malnutrition, many see excess body fat as a sign of health and prosperity. As an ironic twist, Western countries are now highlighting the traditional Asian plant-based diet and active lifestyle as a potential answer to our mounting obesity-induced health crisis.
As published by Kansas City InfoZine
By Karen Collins, MS, RD, CDN - Rapid economic changes in Asian countries like China and India have ushered in marked nutrition and lifestyle changes. As Western foods and lifestyle habits traverse the globe, countries long known for leanness are now facing an obesity epidemic - one that has developed even more quickly than it did in the U.S.
Washington, D.C. - American Institute for Cancer Research - infoZine - In China, incidence of overweight and obesity in most population groups has more than doubled in less than 10 years.
According to a 2002 survey, about 30 percent of adults were overweight or obese. While that's small compared to 66 percent of adults in the U.S., this is a dramatic change for a population where excess body fat was once rare. Change is occurring even faster in youth. The proportion of those aged 7 to 17 who are overweight or obese has increased three-fold since the 1980s, especially in the larger cities.
India still faces problems with malnutrition and underweight, especially among poor and rural populations. However, about 25 percent of men and 36 percent of women face health risks associated with overweight. This represents a dramatic increase from the 2 to 3 percent who were overweight in the 1970s. Over-nutrition is especially a problem among wealthier and urban groups, where it may affect as much as 46 percent of the population.
Just as in Western countries, this increase in overweight is bringing a surge in health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. In fact, some research suggests that similar levels of body fat may pose even more health risk in people of Asian descent.
Urban areas in India are facing increased rates of metabolic syndrome - a constellation of medical problems such as hypertension and diabetes that is linked to excess waistline fat.
Even children in India are increasingly developing high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome. Overall, in many Asian countries, more deaths are now attributed to chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes than to infectious disease and nutritional deficiencies.
One factor: diet is changing in these countries with Westernization. China's historically low-fat, plant-based diet is being altered substantially. Vegetable consumption is dropping and the country has seen increases in red meat, animal fat and total fat consumption, which are linked to greater overweight. Recently, high-sugar soft drinks have begun adding even more calories. Food surveys in India show greater consumption of fried food and increases in average calories and saturated fat consumed (generally from high-fat meats and dairy products).
At the same time that fat and calorie consumption are increasing, populations are moving from rural to urban areas and increasingly relying on cars and buses for transportation instead of walking and bicycling. This increase in sedentary lifestyles burns fewer calories, causing the higher-calorie diet changes to create an even more dramatic effect on weight.
Government officials in these countries have already sounded the alarm, noting that the cost of dealing with the anticipated increase in health care expenses could be devastating. It's a tough sell, however, because after years of famine and malnutrition, many see excess body fat as a sign of health and prosperity. As an ironic twist, Western countries are now highlighting the traditional Asian plant-based diet and active lifestyle as a potential answer to our mounting obesity-induced health crisis.
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