English
It’s been more than 20 years since both obesity and the number of diets to follow both increasing We’ve gone from demonizing fat, to sugar, to too much meat and animal products, to carbohydrates, or blame our parents for having transmitted the gene for obesity or having taught us poor eating habits. To Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University, however, the culprit is actually food industry itself.
The truth is that few people know what to eat. And apparently the food industry knows very well how to take advantage of this ignorance, promote dubious truths about food to encourage consumers to eat up more of these nutritionally bankrupt new products, which have been invading the supermarkets in recent years. Nestle wants to shed light on the ins and outs of the food industry, because she is fed up with the lies and manipulation of an industry which, honestly, cares far more for their money than our health. Here are some rules that will help you make healthy choices when going to the market.
1. Do not eat anything your grandmother would not identify as food. So that cereal bar with a strange white layer of sticky “dairy product” which promises to be“just like drinking a glass of milk and eating cereal”: you guessed it, it’s not real food.
2. Try to walk about in the outermost aisles of the supermarket, where you will often find fresh produce and healthier options. Everything you find in the centre aisles is generally loaded with sugar, artificial colours, preservatives, hydrogenated vegetable fat and other nasty ingredients that you probably will not feel like eating.
3. How can a cereal be healthy and good for your figure, if it’s sugar-coated? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Any product that calls itself “healthy”, “light” or “diet” is already highly questionable.
4. Do not eat so many animal products. Nobody wants to ban the occasional feast on a good piece of steak from time to time, as long as it’s of organic origin. But just keep in mind that the same amount of water that a person spends showering for six months is spent to produce only one kilo of meat. Incredible, right?
5. Do not buy products off the “prime-time” eye level shelves. Generally, the food industry pays a lot of money to occupy this privileged shelf space in supermarkets, to sell their unhealthy products at a high price.
If you want to enjoy real food, rent apartments in Vienna, and enjoy a good, authentic Wiener schnitzel made with organic meat, check out the organic restaurant “Hadiwere.”
