Unaware as I may be regarding when or how it first started, what I do know is that I have had a stronger than your average interest in diet and nutrition since I was fairly young. I was never particularly overweight, always verging more on the scrawny side throughout my childhood and teenage years. I struggled a lot with self-image and was always overly self-aware and self-conscious, particularly as a teenager and especially through college and University.
When trying to think back to a more nutrition naive mind- one not filled almost to the brim with information, opinions, facts, "facts", evidence, beliefs, contradictions, dogma, teachings, musings, and pure nonsense, the time I could best think to was when I first started University. I would've been 18 at the time, and I was a relatively intelligent guy, not sure about switched on, but as I said had always been fairly interested in being healthy and aware that diet was a key function of this (again no idea from where that spawned).
Thinking back I can say that my original idea of a healthy diet, which I had absorbed from the ether (see society, my parents, TV), possibly like most, consisted of salads, fruit, WHOLEGRAIN carbs, low fat meat, low fat dairy, low fat this, low fat that, low fat fat, and then a bit of salmon and a few nuts. I had a good grasp of the importance of protein- mainly important to me because I wanted to shake the scrawny 12 year old look- but apart from that I guess I just bought the same lines as most people- veg and fruit good, wholegrain good, lean meat good, fish good, low fat dairy good, nuts good, red meat more than once per week disastrous, whole fat anything death.
So when I left home and went to University, my first dalliance with adulthood, this was the kind of stuff I ate- tuna, chicken, semi skimmed milk, low fat yogurt, fruit juice, breakfast cereals, pasta, rice, beans, salads, a bit of veg , occasionally eggs, sausages, bacon would be thrown in there for a treat if I was feeling courageous one day. I can remember that if I ever thought "ah I need to be super healthy" for a short period the things that would come to mind to prioritise would be big salad, nuts, fruit. Again probably like the majority of people.
I certainly wouldn't have bought red meat more than once a week (erm cancer of every organ? no thanks!), actual butter, whole fat milk or yogurt, eggs more than a few per week (instant heart attack at 18 years old, again i'll pass), basically anything with animal fat I guess were to be very afraid of- bar our Lord and saviour the salmon. So, non sea-based animal fat to make it specific (although whether I would have bought seal or penguin had they been available is unknown). I was so fearful of that rich creamy cholesterol going straight into every vessel, my arteries, veins, my capillaries even! and chocking them all creamy and full that I avoided buying these things, walked straight past them at the supermarket. On the ultra rare occasions I would buy bacon, steak or pork chops- the bin would get the fat- RIP poor hypertensive bin, I threw away boxes of statins for a time to try and keep the guy around (mainly due to his high levels of efficiency in the art of being a bin), however we eventually lost him- evidence if any further is even needed that animal fat is a stone cold killer, even of inanimate objects.
Since leaving University (the first time) and entering an even scarier world, my idea of what is healthy and as such my own personal dietary choices have evolved a lot and they continue to do so with regularity. Such is the reality with the realm of nutrition- there is always more to be read, someone else's opinion to take on board, another podcast episode, another article or study and another avenue or tangent to go down that makes you rethink something you have had as one of your pillars for years or maybe even your whole life, even though you don't really remember where it came from or why you uncritically believed it in the first place. Nutrition is definitely a topic where you do not benefit from sticking rigidly to a set of beliefs- maybe that applies to everything? -but with nutrition you quite literally, physically, don't get the benefits that you possibly could if you were more open minded.
It is particularly the case that open mindedness is a crucial tool with nutrition I feel because for some strange reason we all seem to be imprinted with these tenets, or pillars, that are nigh on unshakeable- eg the animal/saturated fat fear, wholegrain heroes, salads as health food, red meat cancer stuff etc. We repeat them like matras, like they were passed down by the big man himself- carved into our minds like commandments on a tablet.
- You order steak at a restaurant a couple of times and someone will bring up cancer- or your "bowels being full of rotting flesh"
- Eat the fat from your meat, purchase full fat anything, eat a single solitary egg and someone will say "oh my gaaad, aren't you worried about cholesterol???"
- Eat a salad for lunch or anything seen as healthy for that matter "oooh errr this man's body is a temple", which bizarrely is used as a quasi-insult, go figure
- Order a pizza, chips, fried chicken, buy some crisps or sandwiches and you get the all clear- ...scanning for problems...no mantras necessary...all good - no comments
What is this strangeness and why does it pervade us so deeply? Fact is most people don't think of nutrition when they think of food, and in the brief moments that they do these mantras make them feel safe, like they know what they're doing and that yeah they may not eat perfectly - but at least they don't break any of the commandments- thou shalt not eat animal fat.
It is only the suspiciously strange (apparently) individuals who have the desire and willingness to dedicate their free time/career to taking an interest in nutrition that are able to shake themselves of these pre-ordained mantras. All too often they end up uploading a few different, but arguably equally as, or even more troublesome new mantras in their place, as is the nutrition game. It's a heated world filled with claims and counter-claims, facts and counter facts, evidence and counter evidence, no wonder no-one knows what is going on and people end up going strictly down their own paths- something which is obviously not just the case with nutrition. Now that we are saturated (scary word I know) with information there appears to be an abundance of evidence for whatever you desire evidence for and if you want it you got it. With nutrition this is especially so, as even the strongest journal based scientific evidence is for the most part moderate quality at best due to methodological constraints- see ethical review boards being unwilling to allow participants being either monitored 24/7 for life or locked in a cage and fed the study diet or the control diet. Throw in to the mix the amount of money there is to be made from food- everyone needs it every day- and therefore the sheer power of some food corporations and lobbying groups who want a piece of the proverbial pie. All of this is a recipe (man its easy to make food related puns) for even those who do try to "educate themselves" (yeugh) struggling to get far with regards any firm conclusions, or get far but its far deep down into a pit, a pit where they consume only raw vegetables as this is what they have landed upon as their master diet.
Then there are the majority, the majority who sadly do not give the idea of nutrition much of a thought. Food is for eating, for making one feel good, for being social, for fitting in, for exciting ones taste buds- food is not for building, for repairing, for maintaining and running the incredible machine that is your body. I personally think this very point is sad and it is something I struggle with. Why don't most people give nutrition the attention it warrants? I believe based on my own experience and understanding that what you eat is the single most important modifiable factor in living a healthy life, yet it seems the subject is given next to no thought generally. When considering food choices the weighing of pros and cons generally extends to: does it taste nice or not? how much is it? how does it make me feel in this moment? Nutrient profile, what the human body needs, health and what other foods have been eaten that day or that week sadly don't get a look in. That is sad, sad for everyone, and also costly for everyone, costly in money spent on healthcare for the multitude of chronic diseases all attributable almost solely to diet, but also costly with regards lives lost because of it, not only deaths but also loss of healthy years. There is surely nothing more sad than the thought of losing healthy, active, pain and disease free years of your life. Paying attention to nutrition can be a major tool in helping you to keep this loss to a minimum, I would argue it is one of the only tools that you can equip yourself with to take matters in to your own hands.
My mission is to help people to shake the lazy mantras that are actually harming rather than helping them, to spread the importance of being more nutrition aware - how having even a little more knowledge can be powerful in shaping a much more fulfilling and healthier life, to share some of my own experience, knowledge and beliefs that I have formulated, and to continue formulating even more using scientific evidence and the opinions and experience of like minded nutrition fanatics.
Most of all I want to instil within everyone some level of Nutrientelligence... nutrient-intelligence... (sorry!)
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