Columnist's note: This is not to be mistaken for a New Year's resolution.
Food and diet is becoming an increasingly complicated thing nowadays. It was always complicated, but we just didn't know how much so until fairly recently and we've been doing it wrong for probably thousands of years. We'll probably continue doing it wrong for another couple of thousand.
Generally, my rule is only good food is good for you and everything else is harmful. Broccoli and spinach are great. Asparagus and bell peppers are regulars on my plate.
I thought that would make my sister, the holistic nutritionist, satisfied. Then I told her I don't eat breakfast and she rolled her eyes, telling me exactly why I was pretty much performing harakiri each morning. After skipping breakfast, it seems like it's no longer important if I consume a leafy green or a bag of chips and a block of cheese. My blood sugar is swimming with the fishes either way.
It's pretty well established that we should all probably be vegan, avoiding meat at all costs. That's not only because animals aren't the best sources of the nutrients they provide us, and they do provide some value, but also largely because raising animals is an incredibly wasteful practice. It's incredibly inefficient considering what goes into producing a pound of meat.
There are a lot of diets, and the Canadian one isn't really all that good for us. There's the Caveman diet or the Mediterranean diet, along with more catchy ones like the Atkins diet. Still other people just go off carbs or off dairy or off fruit. Then there are the raw foodies who don't believe in cooking anything just as their eponymous title suggests.
People go off a lot of things and then go on a lot of others. You can go on multivitamins or coffee.
I get more and more interested in the food I consume, but I still have no plans to eat breakfast no matter how many dirty looks my sister, who is safely two provinces away, gives me.
The Canadian Food Guide is also kind of terrible considering how outside interests influence it. The Canadian Meat Council got the recommended servings of meat upped when they complained that Canadians weren't being told to eat enough.
Popcorn is part of the grain group, as well as non-whole grains, like white bread. I'll never understand eating white bread. Even white pastas and rice are confusing choices to me now. Our country's food guide treats all of those the same as their whole-wheat counterparts.
They only suggest making half of the grains whole grains when it's easy and much better to cut out the refined grains completely. People will try to fool you with something called "brown" bread, but it isn't whole wheat.
The problem, of course, is that we generally eat things that taste good rather than things that are good for us. That doesn't mean things that are healthful don't taste good. I like broccoli. I prefer the taste of whole grains to the overly refined white cousin.
The healthier choice doesn't need to be a negative notch on the flavour scale.
There are some who argue the food system is to blame. Some say it's an individual's choice to eat terrible food, while others say healthy choices should be made as readily available as poor choices.
Eat less or perhaps no meat, more vegetables and drink a glass of olive oil each day. It sounds like a plan.
