The Emergence of Nutrient Density at the Retail Level

The marketing of the nutrient density of foods seems to be underway. Reportedly now on display at the Whole Foods store in Santa Fe New Mexico, the ANDI Index for "healthier food choices" has made a more public debut and we wonder to what took so long?

The ANDI Index is short for the Aggregate Nutrient Data Index is being promoted by a Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD. It is central to his business called "Eat Right America". Some of the foods--the top 30 super foods--are listed on a blog and at Fuhrman's web site. But there is not much else according to a few key word searches on google.

Even so the march toward making the foods we eat nutrient transparent at the retail level has begun. It is terribly interesting this is being done by someone appearing as a regular medical doctor--is he not part of the very profession maligned by the allopathic establishment for being un-educated in nutrition and nutrition practices? Of course.

But the point here is nutrient transparency through the promotion of nutrient density: once you know what's in the foods you buy you can begin to make better eating choices on the nutrient contribution they make to your life. Not a bad deal.

"The Good Things of the Earth"

In the Baha'i Writings people are urged to eat "the good things of the Earth".

On the surface it is a clear, easy to understand statement. This, no matter what one's position on the statement. But just what are the good things of the Earth?

Today we have no simple, easy or clear idea of what those good things might be. In fact we have confusion over the very nature of goodness itself and eating most anything.

To discover and exploit the nature of what good things to eat will be our focus for this new year.

Are We Challenged by Nutrient Deficient Ingredients?

Let's assume some of the ingredients in the foods we eat are nutrient deficient. Then how do you respond?

The Education of Eating

We ask general questions here: Has eduction not failed us on learning what to eat and what not to eat? Does education not continue to fail us on how to get basic nutrition for life? Should education educate us on what to eat and what not to eat? Why has education failed us on what to eat and what not to eat? How ignorant has education made us of what to eat and what not to eat? What will be the outcome of your life, my life if we let our current educational practices to fail us on what to eat and what not to eat?

Is being fat and unhealthy a demonstration of the failure of education to educate us on what to eat and what not to eat?

Have we not evolved to a point where common sense cannot suffice and education is absolutely essential on what to eat and what not to eat--as it had for nearly all the past history of human life?

The Potassium-Sodium Baseline in Nutrition

In what has to be one of the clearest articles I have read on the nutrition of the acid/alkaline balance, Jack Challem, the author, makes an interesting point on the evolution of the human acid-alkaline baseline: our evolutionary diets were potassium dependent and our current diets potassium depleted. This inbalance, he says, is causing wide-spread nutritionally related diseases.

From the work of the Paleo Diet scientist Loren Cordain, Ph.D., a professor and researcher in the department of health and exercise science at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, we are told that we have evolved a biological baseline of 10:1 in regards to potassium in ratio to sodium. Over the course of modern times that balance has drastically inverted to a 3:1 ratio with sodium way out front of a fast disappearing potassium.

Since "the human genome has changed only minimally since behaviorally modern humans appeared in East Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago", according to research done by S. Boyd Eaton of Emory University in Atlanta, Cordain's statement on our evolutionary dependence on potassium could be pointing to a source of wide-spread imbalance of the acid/alkaline balance in our diet.

A Simple Goal: Can You Eat Your Way To Health?

The Chinese say we can eat our way to health. Who said it and when, exactly, I do not know. But it sounds good. The fellow in the link above is quite prescriptive of this simple goal and has some good this and bad things to say about the achievement of health through eating. There are many like him and he is cited because of the seeming limitless ways prescribed to eat one's way to health.

Even so, the results of following this simply stated goal would be obvious: either you are healthy because of what you eat or not. No if and or buts. Immediate.

Can you imagine?

So simple a goal. So simply defined the results. So elegantly prescribed the duties of the farmer, the processors, the grocers, the cooks; let alone the scientists and the politicians. Everyone would know what to do. There would be no weasel room because if what you did along the course of achieving this simple goal--it would not matter what part you play--if the results were not health you'd be out.

Either what you do leads to health or its out. Simple. Done deal. Transparent.

Just what kind of baseline is this simple goal? Of course it would be a prime policy baseline in that it argues the question "What should we do?" Answering this question is at the heart of any policy making process and no one would be an expert because we all would have a stake in seeking an answer to the question. And the results would always be the same: health.

But wait you say. Just what defines health? And the answer is, of course, what you eat.

More Than The Removal of A Link

As of today I have removed an original link posted on this blog at its inception: Quack Watch.

It has been removed not because it contains some valuable information not otherwise available on actual quacks involved in food issues, but because the founder himself has become embroiled in a widening mess of legal controversy that centers himself on the definition quackery itself. Here is a link, out of many, that addresses this issue http://www.quackpotwatch.org/ There is also information on Quakwatch itself, http://www.quackwatch.com/

The legal mess at Quack Watch has thrown a cloud of concern over the credibility of watching quacks.

Yet, the problem remains for all who seek a balanced and credible assessment of Controversial Food Issues: what's for real (and can be trusted, perhaps, with your life) and what's fake and must be discarded (before it submerges you in illusion and, perhaps, kills you).