Marija Ocokoljic

KEEPING UP WITH FOOD PINK OR RED LIPSTICK? HOUSE OF CARDS OR GAMES OF THRONES? IPHONE OR SAMSUNG? MARGARINE OR BUTTER? We keep up with so many fast changing topics everyday – fashion, beauty, technology, news. Lately they are joined by nutrition as well. Unlike fashion or beauty, nutrition is a bit more serious. Choice between pink or red lipstick will not have such serious consequences as the one between the food which causes heart disease and the one that can cause cancer. Nutrition is serious business. And it seems to be harder and harder to keep up with it. For years now the media and public, powered by so many experts seem to have been launching almost seasonal nutrition trends. Remember animal fat? A while back it was demonized to the point of being taken as your biggest enemy. We were urged to cut it down as much ass possible, switch to low fat foods. But then it came back. We learnt the difference between good and bad fats, agreed that we actually need fat to survive. So, if we stick to good ones we are ok. But which were the good ones? Cooking on vegetable oils seemed like a good choice for years. Until we found out that the process of hydrogenation needed to make vegetable oils solid turns them into trans fats. Not your friends. The same reason, turned the choice of margarine over butter to favor back to butter, despite the high percentage of milk fat, going up to 80%. So we abandoned it for a while and then came back to it few decades later. Point of view of experts regarding dairy follows this pattern as well. In 2005 and 2010, the USDA’s (United Stated Department of Agriculture) dietary guidelines increased the recommended servings of milk from two to three cups a day. Experts at the Harvard School of Public Health recommend a different food pyramid. They claim milk isn’t an essential part of a healthy diet. And what about meat? If there is a food group where this on again off again relationship comes to full light it is meat. Pork has always been the bad guy in the meat family. But according to Time.com, a lean cut like pork tenderloin or center cut pork chop is a good choice for your health, says Kate Patton, registered dietitian with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart and Vascular Institute. “Pork tenderloin is actually as lean as chicken breast,” she says. So pork is coming back. And on the topic of demonized animal products, team from BBC's Trust Me, I'm A Doctor conducted research about various alternative used in cooking. DR Michael Mosley says for The Daily Mail: Sunflower oil, supposedly the healthier alternative, is far worse. Even lard, so demonized it has entered common usage as an insult, is preferable to sunflower oil and its closely related cousin, corn oil. Seriously, lard? It often borderlines on conspiracy theory. During lunch at work a colleague states that she does not give salmon to her kids. Those you buy in the supermarket are full of Antibiotics. Since the launch of omega 3 acids salmon has been the hero of meats. Today, we hear more and more about them being contaminated. Wasn’t that the story about chicken a while back? The only constant you can rely on today is sugar. It is bad for you. Well at least we have that as a simple choice. Avoid it. For all other food groups, with all the trends switching, can you keep up?