{"id":28266,"date":"2018-03-23T03:42:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T10:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28266"},"modified":"2018-03-23T11:20:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T18:20:03","slug":"demystifying-nutrition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/03\/23\/demystifying-nutrition\/","title":{"rendered":"Demystifying nutrition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cara Rosenbloom is trying to educate people about nutrition. In 2016, she co-authored the cookbook Nourish<\/em>. (photo from Cara Rosenbloom)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When grocery shopping, how do you decide what to get when you are looking at items not familiar to you? Do you look at the ingredients? Are you drawn to packages that claim to be natural, whole food, organic?<\/p>\n

Marketing and manipulation often go hand in hand. And it can be challenging to differentiate between products that actually offer added value and those that just say they do.<\/p>\n

For the past 10 years, dietician Cara Rosenbloom has been running Words to Eat By, which provides nutrition education. For example, what does organic really mean in terms of food and nutrition?<\/p>\n

When it comes to a product\u2019s organic claims, Rosenbloom said, \u201cI think the most important thing that people need to know about organic is that the word has nothing to do with health. An organic claim on a food does not mean it\u2019s healthier for you. Organic is a method of farming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of the term \u2018organic\u2019 is regulated in Canada and has very clear guidelines about which foods can have that term stamped on it. It has to do with how that product \u2013 if it\u2019s an animal, how it was raised … or, if a plant, how it was grown. But, once that organic product is used in a food product, the resulting food may not be a health food. Perfect examples are Kraft Dinner and Doritos. They now have organic versions. Those are not health foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Cara Rosenbloom (photo courtesy)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rosenbloom said claims that organically grown foods contain fewer chemicals are misleading. \u201cEven foods that are grown organically still use pesticides and fertilizers. They\u2019re just organic versions of it,\u201d she said. \u201cThe word \u2018chemical\u2019 is not used appropriately in nutrition literature, in the way the media describes food. Many things are chemicals and aren\u2019t bad for you. Water is a chemical! You need a degree in chemistry almost to understand how molecules are put together…. If you think organic food is just grown naturally in the sunshine, you\u2019re wrong. Organic farmers use natural pesticides and herbicides. If you want to call those chemicals, too, then that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenbloom writes a monthly column in the Washington Post<\/em>, where she focuses on debunking myths and educating the readers about wellness, so people can make informed decisions about their nutrition.<\/p>\n

In her interview with the Independent<\/em>, she touched on how people get scared off by the \u201cdirty dozen,\u201d a list of fruits and vegetables believed to contain the highest amount of pesticides. In 2017, the Environmental Working Group\u2019s dirty dozen were strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples, peaches, celery, grapes, pears, cherries, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers and potatoes.<\/p>\n

Rosenbloom explained that, too often, consumers avoid buying produce altogether if they can\u2019t find organic versions. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously the wrong message, and not what any dietician would recommend,\u201d she said. \u201cI wrote an article about how the dirty dozen list doesn\u2019t hold weight in terms of pesticides. It\u2019s a flawed list and has no scientific credibility. I educate people that organic is fine if you choose that, but not to fear fruits and veggies that are conventionally grown. The bottom line is that you need to eat fruits and veggies, whether you choose to eat organic or not, because they\u2019re just a healthy thing in the diet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that Jan. 18, 2017, Post<\/em> article, Rosenbloom interviewed food toxicologist Carl K. Winter about the dirty dozen list, which, he said, \u201cfailed to consider the three most important factors used in authentic risk assessments \u2013 the amounts of pesticides found, the amounts of the foods consumed and the toxicity of the pesticides.\u201d And, she notes, \u201cEven the Environmental Working Group doesn\u2019t recommend avoiding the items on its own dirty dozen list. Their website says \u2018the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure. Eating conventionally grown produce is far better than skipping fruits and vegetables.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the claim that a product is natural, Rosenbloom explained that, while the organic label is closely regulated, the natural label is not. \u201cAnything can be deemed natural,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s not something you want to count on. A lot of foods that are high in sugar, let\u2019s say, can still say they are natural, because sugar comes from plants and that\u2019s natural.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word natural doesn\u2019t have a base definition that companies must satisfy in order to use that term on their foods,\u201d she continued. \u201cSo, if you look at a product that says it\u2019s natural, it doesn\u2019t really tell you what that means. It lets you figure it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more big companies that make processed food use the word natural \u2013 and misuse it. And this is leading to fewer consumers having any trust in the label natural.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to vitamin supplements, Rosenbloom said more is not better. \u201cThere are certainly times when your body does need certain vitamins, but a lot of people are spending a lot of money on vitamins they just don\u2019t need,\u201d she said. \u201cThen there are false promises made with things like vitamin IV drips and other popular myths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenbloom has written about how to tell the difference between processed, ultra-processed and whole foods, as well as how to buy seafood that is produced in a safe, sustainable way, and much more. In 2016, she co-authored a cookbook with Chef Nettie Cronish, called Nourish: Whole Food Recipes Featuring Seeds, Nuts and Beans<\/em>. It features 100 recipes, all of which are original and co-developed by the authors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focused on beans, nuts and seeds in the book because these are nice sources of protein,\u201d said Rosenbloom. \u201cAnd nuts and seeds are healthy fats that are underutilized by most people in the diet, with most people relying mainly on animal-based foods for their protein. We wanted to explain that you can include seeds, nuts and beans in everyday recipes, and these 100 recipes show them how.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not solely a vegetarian cookbook,\u201d she added. \u201cIt encourages people \u2013 wherever they are at, vegetarian or not, whoever wants to buy the book \u2013 to try out the recipes, which include meat, chicken, fish, seafood and vegetarian.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was to say, \u2018Whatever you\u2019re eating, here\u2019s a way to add seeds, nuts and beans, to get more of those healthy ingredients into your diet.\u2019 Take salmon, for example. It might be crusted with sesame seeds, or oatmeal might have some hemp seeds or flax seeds in it. So, we just enrich foods you eat anyway with the goodness of seeds, nuts and beans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenbloom is on Facebook and Instagram (Words to Eat By) and her website is wordstoeatby.ca<\/a>. For her latest Post<\/em> articles, visit washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/wellness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cara Rosenbloom is trying to educate people about nutrition. In 2016, she co-authored the cookbook Nourish. (photo from Cara Rosenbloom) When grocery shopping, how do you decide what to get when you are looking at items not familiar to you? Do you look at the ingredients? Are you drawn to packages that claim to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8002,6073,2864,7990],"class_list":["post-28266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-cara-rosenbloom","tag-food","tag-health","tag-organic-farming"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}