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Beyond the Food Guide
by author Vincent Ziccarelli, RDN

For optimum nutrition it is critical that we move beyond the recommendations of Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Living by choosing whole, non-processed foods from each food group every day. Whole foods are rich in vitamins and minerals, dietary fibre, and healthy fats and carbohydrates—all nutrients we need for peak nutrition.

Whole foods from each food group offer the functional food compounds our bodies require. Whole grains are the primary dietary source of niacin, complex carbohydrates, soluble and insoluble dietary fibre, vitamin E, chromium, and phenolic compounds.

Vegetables and fruit are rich sources of vitamins C, folacin, fibre, vitamin K, magnesium, bioflavonoids, sulfurophanes, and other phytochemical antioxidants.

Dairy products and alternates provide our bodies with essential amino acids, calcium, and vitamins D and A. Additionally, fermented dairy food products such as yogourt usually contain probiotic bacteria, which support friendly intestinal bacteria colonization for overall digestive help.

Meat and poultry are our primary sources of vitamin B₁₂ and heme iron (the most absorbable form) while cold-water fish provides our bodies with the highly essential omega-3 fats eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA) acids.

Another important food group that is often overlooked, particularly due to our society’s obsession with weight loss, are healthy fats from raw nuts, seeds, extra-virgin olive oil, walnut oil, flax oil, and hemp seed oil. Many of these foods provide the essential omega-6 fatty acid called linoleic acid, as well as alpha linolenic acid, oleic acid, and many naturally occurring forms of vitamin E.

Unlike a vitamin supplement that provides only a select amount of vitamins whole foods offer a package of food factors that work in synergy to keep us healthy and ward off disease. Research consistently demonstrates that diets rich in whole foods, particularly plant foods, reduces the development of most degenerative diseases afflicting modern society. Nutrients in whole foods work together to support our body’s functions to promote growth and repair of cells and tissues, to strengthen our immune system, to promote detoxification processes, to counteract free-radical attack within our bodies, and to provide our cells with the necessary energy to do work, speed metabolism, and therefore give us energy and a healthy body weight. A balanced diet of whole foods from each food group provides the body with the nourishment it needs to thrive.

Nutritional Insurance

In a perfect world, people would grow their own fresh food under optimal soil conditions, would not skip meals, and would eat enough whole foods from each food group to attain quality nutrition. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Sensible supplementation with balanced or specific supplements can fill in dietary inadequacies. For instance, vitamin B₁₂ supplementation is essential for vegans since their diet is often inadequate in this vitamin. B complex vitamins may be necessary for individuals with anxiety disorders who may require higher levels of these nutrients for therapeutic effect. The take-home message is to supplement sensibly and be informed of proper dosages through credible sources.

Extreme Nutrition

Unfortunately there appears to be an all-or-nothing approach to nutrition in North American culture. For the last decade, fats were shunned because of their connection to obesity and heart disease, and as a result important essential fats and healthy fats, known for their heart and brain health properties, were also compromised in the diet. Food industries capitalized on the low-fat food fad, which misled people into thinking we were eating healthier by avoiding fat.

Instead we started to eat too many foods loaded with unhealthy refined carbs and depleted in healthy fats. Today’s high-protein, low-carb diet includes loads of protein-rich foods and cuts out healthy whole grain carbs. An extremist mentality prevails and cheats us of the full health potential of common sense nutrition.

I encourage you to opt for balanced nutrition. Long live the whole food groups.

Vincent Ziccarelli, RDN, is head dietitian and nutrition researcher at the Canadian Center for Functional Medicine. He also consults with clients on nutritional therapies. Contact him through editorial@alive.com.

Source: alive #265, November 2004