Nutritionally Speaking: Love That Eating Alone / Why Aren’t Large Food Companies Making Good Food?

Dear Dr. Meinig: Being single and living alone, I find fixing meals and eating a difficult chore. It seems all suggestions for meal planning and packaging is designed to help families or party givers. Almost no thought is given to the large group of people who must eat alone. Do you have any suggestions to help? – A.L.

 

Dear A. L: People who are live-aloners are so for numerous reasons. As a group, they tend to be very self dependent, capable, and have high personal regard and esteem. Paradoxically, when it comes to eating they often do not think themselves worth the time to prepare decent meals. “Why bother?” or, “It’s too much trouble,” is frequently heard.

As a result, they grab a television dinner or a can of soup and a few soda crackers. They raid the refrigerator for three days old or older leftovers and get their energy charged up with lots of coffee, tea, cokes, beer and other highly processed convenience foods. None of these have sufficient amounts of the daily food requirements all of us must have each day.

The number one rule is no different for singles than for families. Each of you is the most important person and being in your life. Investment in one’s self protects body assets and therein one’s monetary assets as well. We wouldn’t dare take such bad care of our autos, houses, and other physical properties. No matter how busy or fatigued it is imperative that you plan three good meals a day.

The task is much easier if you plan a week’s menu in advance. This means many purchases can be larger than those made when shopping on a day to day basis. Remember one of the best ways to obtain most of the essential food items is to eat raw foods. Singles have an advantage in this regard as family planning usually means pleasing the tastes of each member and this often results in more cooking rather than less.

Raw vegetables in a wide variety of salads and as side dishes to other items in the menu are particularly helpful. Foods of different colors add not only attractiveness but better, balanced food value.

Some protein at every meal is often neglected or thought to be non-essential. Fish, poultry, meat, eggs, cheese, nuts, and seeds are starting places around which this most important part of our diet can make each meal plan more successful.

One hundred per cent whole grain bread without preservatives and whole grain cereals add carbohydrate punch to our day’s menu plan. Raw dairy products such as butter, milk, cream are available locally.

You are important enough to make eating festive. A picturesque pleasant setting should be used if available, colorful placemats or table cloths, napkins, candles all make eating more festive and enjoyable…treat yourself as the king or the queen that you are.

 

Dear Dr. Meinig: From what you and other nutritionists have been saying it is finally sinking in to me that much of our food really isn’t very good. I’m still having trouble seeing why large food companies would produce inferior products. Many of them are so big and have so much money, why wouldn’t they be interested in putting out good food rather than the bad you claim they do? – P.P.

 

Dear P. P.: One of the biggest problems that surrounds good food is its perishability. As our metropolitan city areas grew larger and larger in size, distribution of foods became more and more difficult. A few early, enterprising men discovered that by devitalizing foods, they would keep for very long periods. Wheat, for instance, was one of the first. High speed milling removed its outer shell and its bran at a sacrifice of two thirds of vitamin, mineral food value. However the remaining flour or cereal could be shipped long distances or stored for indefinite periods without spoiling. Insects, molds, and microbes found such refined grains unsuitable to sustain their lives but they do relish the original grain product. Unfortunately, what won’t sustain the life of bugs and insects won’t sustain us either.

White flour has suffered a loss of 30% of its protein, 41% of fat, 92% of fiber, 59% calcium, 79% phosphorus, 84% iron, 50% copper, 92% manganese, 86% of its vitamin B but no loss of calories. Why do insects know this is an inferior product but we don’t?

The government has aided and abetted this processing of foods by instigating laws and regulations to prevent the sale of spoiled or adulterated foods rather than encouraging better distribution. While good in principle, this policy led to more and more use of pesticides and preservatives which often hides the product’s mediocrity. Large food manufacturers have always been more interested in protecting profits than in health and they have powerful lobbyists in Washington to enhance their investments.

Legislation is vitally needed to encourage the production and distribution of foods on a basis of their nutritional goodness not merely on the question of its commercial expediency. Manufacturers will, of course, defend their position to the last inch. They defend it with millions in advertising budgets, high paid lobbyists, hiring well known medical and other professional people to create pseudo, scientific evidence to favor their products and to actually huckster their wares. They provide research funds to colleges and universities to such an extent that any individual voicing criticism appears to be lacking in sound judgement and is called a charlatan and [a quack]!

Commercial propaganda is profitable and financially self-sustaining. Education and enlightenment is not. However, the public is slowly awakening. It is the choice of foods made by individual persons today that will determine their physical condition tomorrow. The past generation has been brought up to a large extent on devitalized food and has accepted this poor diet as a normal standard. The phenomenal growth of health food stores, and even super markets now have health food sections, attests to the public’s growing awareness of the advantages of better edibles, and there is an increasing desire to ignore adulterated and misbranded devitalized foods. We have come a long way but still have a long way to go. At least some of you are now shoppers of nutritional goodness.