Nutrition Part 2: Quality

Vegetables, nuts and seeds, some meat and fish, some fruit, very little starch and no sugars

As I wrote last time, reducing the quantity of the food consumed is a good start. However, the quality of what one eats is also important to ensure that the body and the mind (and the soul) is getting the nutrition required to perform to one’s full potential. Nutrition relies on two things - quantity, and the quality of the calories consumed. Once more, this is why pills like Ozempic are illusory solutions and are more than likely counterproductive because they have the potential to make users even more laissez-faire about the food they consume than they were before they started on them.

But this story of Ozempic as a panacea for a health problem largely caused by overconsumption is not only a mistaken way to approach the problem, it is ironic. The irony is that one company is selling a product that aims to prevent people from buying food and drink products from other companies. Also, Ozempic has the potential to put a dent in the established dieting sector impacting companies like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.

The deeply problematic nature of the ownership of food, the profiteering associated with medicine, and the government neglect of the health of the citizens they purport to represent, is a sorry story to say the least. And, the tragedy is that millions of people suffer because of a capitalist system that, whether intentional or not, places profits above human, animal and planetary welfare.

In a startling study conducted by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch found that

  "…a few powerful transnational companies dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and

supermarkets…" 

In the US, four firms controlled more than 40% of the entire food and beverage market. You might think this is not a problem, food needs to be produced, transported, sold and so on otherwise we don’t have food to eat. But there are many reasons why such a concentration of ownership is a problem for consumers and for the planet. Many of the biggest issues including failures to produce informative food labelling, the contamination of our food caused by industrial scale farming as well as the cruelty to animals resulting from industrial scale rearing and slaughter of animals for food, and the lack of environmental protections stem from the control these mega-corporations have over the market, influence over consumer options and that they have on politicians. Additionally, in the US, it has been revealed that the food industry contributed US$175million to the two political parties. In Australia, there is evidence of similar influence on politicians by the largest food and beverage conglomerates. No wonder politicians in the US, and in Australia, do so little, often do nothing, to force the companies that own and control the food system to change their practices in ways that would better protect consumers, animals and the planet.

One other issue that stems from the concentration of food ownership and production is unregulated food and drink advertising. Fast food advertising saturates all forms of media. It used to be TV advertising, now it’s everywhere on social media including YouTube and TikTok. In Australia, the advertising of major sporting events is dominated by fast food companies and gambling. In the 1980s, when I was growing up it was tobacco and alcohol. Political pressure has put an end to this. Thankfully. But today, two new scourges, on-line gambling and foods and beverages that are rich in calories and poor in nutrition are creating major 21st century social and health problems. Just like the US, the food system has been highjacked by companies that have maximising profits as their major goal. Junk food is cheap to produce and can be sold at a premium and companies with a huge amount of political clout persuade governments, and convince the public, of the health benefits of their products to ensure there is no regulation on what they do, say or claim about the quality of the food they sell.

Many experts claim that we won’t be able to fix the obesity epidemic unless we transform the entire food system in ways that mean that nutrition precedes profits. I too have long held similar views about the food system, environmental damage, poverty, etc., However, the THW takes a more proactive stance. Rather than wait for divine intervention or some other miraculous event to change the way that food is owned, grown, produced, sold and advertised, like many individual Hercules’, we as collective individuals need to act. The time is now. The scale of the problems arising from a food system that is almost entirely based on profits that are made from people’s overconsumption of cheap and unhealthy foods is so urgent that we cannot sit idly by and wait for change. Then, there are also the profits pharmaceutical companies make from peddling medicinal solutions to these problems rather than getting people to eat less and better foods and exercise which creates the vicious cycle that is the global obesity and diabetes epidemic.

This is a political and economic problem of some scale. Where, inevitably the solution will lie with the transformation of national and global systems of food and health provision. But until it is transformed, rather than wait for corporations to see the ills have created or hope that our politicians will see the light and act, there is something proactive that we can do. We can change how much we eat, what we eat and where we purchase our food. In doing so we can improve our own lives and possibly the lives of those close to us. In time, we might lead the revolution that saves the world from obesity, rescues millions of animals from unimaginable cruelty and bring the planet from the brink of destruction. What THW is proposing is nothing short of Herculean. But here at THW, huge, seemingly impossible challenges don’t deter us. Not one bit. They inspire us.

What can we do?

In the last post the focus was on the number of calories. Going back two steps, the first thing to do is to exercise. If THW had to choose between exercise or nutrition for health. THW would choose to increase exercise before anything else. However, this post is not just about saving ourselves. It is about transforming the world. To transform the world, exercise very much a social good. Ethical and healthy nutrition will do more to preserve the world. Luckily, we are not limited to just one change. So, for a healthier and fitter you, by all means exercise. For a much healthier and fitter you, exercise and eat the appropriate amount. Eat only as much as you need. No more, no less.

Step 3, and you’ll be even closer to being Herculean. Step 3 is get your calories from high-quality foods. Not only will you feel better and give yourself the best chance of optimally fuelling performance. On an individual and household level this change will be extremely positive.  Collectively, though, shifting our individual habits can force changes in the foods offered by retailers which in turn could feed back into the production system. Buying from local producers where possible gives them greater capacity to compete with large producers sending a market signal to those large producers to change their production practices. 

I’m certainly not the first to make this point. It has been one that has been around for some time. THW adds its voice to a push to eat more sustainably and ethically produced food. Meat is a good place to start unpicking this question of how to consume sustainable amounts. Vegetarians and Vegans have made a choice not to eat meat at all. This is certainly one approach to cutting the production of meat. Most people in the world will not make, what they think, is such a dramatic move. But there is another way. According to research published in the Lancet, and which is also supported by Greenpeace, if all of us ate 300grams of meat a week, then the world could sustain meat production without environmental collapse. Reducing our meat consumption to this level would mean that all the world’s meat needs could be supplied by farms that were non-industrialised grass fed, pasture raised, antibiotic free meat. All these things are better for us, improve the lives of animals bred for human consumption and might be one of the steps we need to take the rescue our planet from destruction. When put this way, reducing meat consumption sounds like a no-brainer. But what might seem like common-sense is often unpopular or the message is drowned out by the noise made by those that benefit from the status quo.

Despite the message that less meat consumption would be benefit us individually and collectively, the average American consumes over 100 kilograms of meat a year. Many other countries, including Australia, have similar levels of consumption of meat as the map below shows. 

300 grams of all types of meat a week would amount to 15 kilos of meat per person per year. Even if we doubled this to 30kg, the amount of meat being eaten around the world would shrink dramatically. The dramatic reduction in demand would provide the opportunity to eradicate the industrial scale production of meat, free up land to grow vegetables and whole grains, reduce the amount of pollutants that animals produce and remove antibiotics from the food system hopefully increasing antibiotic effectiveness once again. The list of benefits to humans and the planet is a long one. Still, despite the overwhelming evidence that less is more, and the urgency that we need to act to save lives and the planet, the interests of big corporations and meat producers drive up meat consumption globally.

If we reduced our meat consumption even to 30kg per person per annum, not only would we be eating healthier meat, we would also be healthier. There is a load of evidence that the healthiest diet is one made up of predominately vegetables, with nuts and seeds and some meat, fish, whole grains and fruit thrown in.

There is a lot more to say about quality of food and the power of good nutrition to preserve life rather than endanger it. I’ve learned a lot from peter attia,gabriel lyonand from years of contemplating the question of nutrition. The one common factor amongst the smart nutritionists I’ve read and spoken to is that eating a diet very low in processed foods and being responsible for the vast majority your own meals is the shortcut to healthy eating. It’svery difficult to eat poorly if you buy vegetables, nuts and seeds, wholegrains, eggs, some meat and fish, some fruit, and very little processed food. It can be done, but I believe that with a diet consistent with the above ingredients the quality question is largely resolved and one can at the same time almost certainly deal with the quantity issue as well. Not entirely, but if you’d tried to hit 3200 calories a day eating a diet based on 40% protein, 30% carbs and 30% fats (saturated fats such as avocado, olive oil, fatty Omega-3 fish, etc,), comprised of mostly veg, nuts and seeds, some meat and some fish, a little dairy, wholegrains, almost no processed foods or fats, you’ll know reaching that number can be challenging. That’s my target and without a protein supplement, I’d struggle to make that number of calories about half the time.

I’ll leave it here for now and return to the topic in future posts where I will discuss macros, supplements and fasting amongst other things. For now, eat healthy and exercise. Be Herculean.