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New Ideas that Build on Decades of Experience with Healthy Foods

(Courtney Carpenter, MS) -- It is an irrefutable fact that our metabolisms decline over time.  However, this is almost never directly addressed in diet books nor in iconic public health initiatives such as the food pyramid.

Regardless of this oversight, many observe that a healthy fifty year old cannot eat like a healthy fifteen year old without gaining weight.  So why are we not promoting this knowledge to counter the campaigns that equate refined and processed foods with youth, to which many of us aspire openly?  Publicizing the suggestion that adults should eat more vegetables in place of snack foods should not be that far fetched!

All adults observe the resilience of children, who even with sometimes very limited diets early on, thrive ultimately.  For children whose weight is normal, snacks are often as important as meals.  Healthy foods can include bread, pasta, cereal and chips, especially for kids who are physically active.

Most individuals who pay attention to their food choices and activity level find there is a balance between the two that may be relied upon over time, although it does change.  How can we teach this skill without seeming dogmatic or joyless about food? Each of us knows someone in their thirties or older, who insists on eating like a teenager, and is beginning to notice the repercussions on their health.  I routinely suggest that people, who have not tried a particular vegetable or any other healthy food, since they were five, should try that food again without their original bias. Surprise and enjoyment expand with their new-found choices in the vegetable kingdom!

Most adults know that eating multiple servings of any refined food at one sitting is not recommended. Still, shouldn't we find a way to talk about a sliding scale of carbohydrate calorie consumption that limits these more significantly as we get older?  It seems unfair to let people who have not gotten this message on their own risk their own health and stress an already overburdened health care system.

Ideally, guidelines could start by encouraging a 50/50 mix of non-starchy vegetables and fruits and those carbohydrates composed primarily of starches, as opposed to fiber.  Everyone aged ten to twenty nine would have plenty of leeway to eat foods denser in calories whenever energy needs dictated. 

Beginning in one's thirties everyone could be coached to "add 5 (percent more vegetables) for every 10 (years of your life)."  This would mean that for those 30 to 39 years old, 55% of  carbohydrate calories would be vegetables and fruit, for one's forties a 60% goal would be established that would rise in a person's 50's to a 65% recommendation.  The final benchmark for our later decades would be a 70/30 split between non-starchy vegetables and fruit and more refined, primarily grain based carbohydrates that could fit along with beans, bananas and sweet potatoes into the thirty percent column.

Clearly, each of us has to take responsibility for the foods we feed our families and ourselves. Everyone needs the encouragement that comes from feeling good while eating well, but long before that we should take and give the encouragement necessary to make choosing wisely over time a priority rather than a luxury indulged in only by those "in the know."  Taking this on to a community level could provide another public health avenue for reducing health care risks and costs as our population ages nationwide.

Courtney Carpenter, MS is the nutrition consultant for David's Natural Market. She has been working in natural food stores as a consultant since 1982. She has a master of science degree in Human Nutrition Science from The University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and a bachelor of arts degree from The College of William and Mary in Virginia. Her articles for the Foundation reflect her own perspective on health, wellness and nutrition.