|
Stick to the Middle of the Road
Recent news releases from the American Heart Association say we eat too much
sugar. It is true that many of us may eat more calories than we need, and sugary
foods often lack
nutrients. But why do we eat more of these and other high-calorie foods than we
need?
Research by well-known nutrition experts like Ellyn Satter and Leann Birch tells
us that making a food off limits makes us want to eat more of it. And common
knowledge tells us this is true.
On the other hand, eating only candy, cookies, and chips is not healthy. Filling
up on foods that offer little more than calories leaves us short of important
nutrients for the body to grow, work properly and recover from illness and
injury.
The phrase ‘moderation in all things’ is a good guide for sugar, soft drinks,
and other high calorie snacks and desserts. Ellyn Satter has some great advice
on how to take a middle-of-the-road approach.
|
♦ |
Be reliable about feeding yourself and
your family meals and snacks that taste good. Skipping meals leads to
being too hungry to be choosy about what you are eating. With defenses
down, you are more likely to grab a high calorie snack than to put a
healthy meal on the table.
|
|
♦
|
Healthy foods can and should taste good.
Vegetables may need a teaspoon of butter, meat a sprinkle of salt, fruit
a spoonful of sugar. Really, moderate amounts of these seasonings are
okay, unless you are on a special diet because of an illness.
|
|
♦
|
Do not graze along all day and evening.
Instead, space out meals and snacks to let hunger build between times.
|
|
♦
|
Pay attention to eating. Do not watch
TV, read, send text messages or talk on the phone during meals and
snacks. If you are on automatic pilot while eating, you are not likely
to notice when you are full. Eating will not be satisfying so you will
want to continue eating past the point where you are comfortably full.
|
|
♦
|
If you are going to have dessert, put
one serving at each person’s place when you set the table. Eat it
before, with or after other parts of the meal. Everyone gets one but
only one dessert serving so they still have ‘room’ for other foods.
|
|
♦
|
Serve chips or fries occasionally at a meal
so they are just another food, not a treat.
|
|
♦
|
Once in a while offer unlimited sweets
like cookies and milk at snack time. Everyone may eat quite a bit the
first few times. But soon the excitement will wear off and you will eat
less, especially if you pay attention when you eat.
|
|
♦
|
Soft drinks are an adult beverage not
appropriate for children until they are in upper grade school. Then
serve them occasionally at snack time. Soft drinks should not replace
milk at meals for any age group. Drink water to quench thirst.
|
All of this advice is based on discipline and permission. Adults and children
need the discipline of structured meals and snacks, and the permission to eat
food that tastes good in amounts that will satisfy them.
Read more about Ellyn Satter’s common sense approach to healthy eating by
subscribing to her online newsletter at
www.ellynsatter.com/contact.jsp
or look for the second edition of her book Secrets of Feeding a Healthy
Family, published by Kelcy Press, 2008.
|
