There are
few things
as
controversial
as exactly
what
constitutes
‘healthy
eating’.
Everyone
wants to eat
more
healthily,
and
producers of
food want
their
customers to
believe that
whatever
they’re
selling will
help them do
that.
Somewhere
along the
line, the
truth gets
lost in the
noise.
In
objective
terms, most
nutritionists
agree that
the best
path to
healthy
eating is to
eat all the
different
food groups
in
moderation.
These means
to avoid fad
diets that
restrict one
food group
and go
overboard
with
another, and
not to eat
too much of
whatever
your
favorite
food might
be. The key
is to eat
some
carbohydrate,
protein and
fat at each
meal,
hopefully
balancing
out things
like pasta
and rice
with meat or
other fats
and
proteins.
However,
it is also
necessary to
restrict
calorie
intake,
which
basically
means not
eating too
much
overall. How
many
calories you
need varies
depending on
your gender,
how old you
are and what
kind of work
you do, but
somewhere
between
2000-2500
calories per
day works as
a general
rule.
A more
controversial
part of the
drive
towards
healthy
eating is
that some
food
ingredients
are
generally
considered
to be
unhealthy in
any quantity
– and the
big food
manufacturers
aren’t happy
about this,
because
these
ingredients
tend to be
cheap, or
tasty, or
useful, or
all three.
Preservatives
are a good
example, as
are
pesticides
and
sweeteners,
and
consumers’
attempts to
avoid these
have led to
manufacturers
being forced
to go to all
sorts of
lengths to
remove them
from their
foods.
Governments
have got in
on the
healthy
eating act,
too, with
many of them
mounting
campaigns on
it in an
effort to
drive down
obesity and
other
food-related
conditions.
The most
common one
is the
message to
eat five
portions of
fruit and
vegetables
per day,
which has
led to a
marketing
feeding
frenzy, with
other
campaigns
including
anti-salt,
pro-oils,
anti-trans
fats, and
sometimes
anti-junk
food in
general.
