14 DAY TRIAL // Many anti-diet eaters who also happen to have weight issues use the old excuse that eating healthy is too expensive when it comes to making a change in their lifestyle. As it happens, they’re completely right in their assertion, but that’s not to say an improvement can’t be brought about with less money as well. As Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Public Health Nutrition, puts it for USA Today, a recession-proof healthy diet is not an impossibility.
In order to come up with the foods that we should also replace our fast-food lunch box with, Dr. Drewnowski analyzed the items currently available in the average US supermarket and then took into consideration most contexts that might deter us from eating healthy (like living in an area where fresh vegetables were not an option, not having time to cook, and so on and so forth). The conclusion is extremely simple: living healthily by changing our diet and thus dropping the unnecessary pounds around the waist is not utopia material: it can be done, but only if we have the will to try to.
“Drewnowski is out to rehabilitate the potato, just not the french-fry version. He says it’s time to welcome protein-rich eggs back to the table. Spinach? Excellent if you can afford it. If not, iceberg lettuce has merit, he insists. No time to cook from scratch? Or live in a low-income neighborhood where good fresh produce is scarce? Frozen veggies can be better buys anyway, he says, and even canned if you watch the sodium. ‘The message is now shifting from the most nutrient-rich foods to the most affordable nutrient-rich foods,’ says Drewnowski.” USA Today writes of Dr. Drewnowski’s efforts towards making people aware of the possibility of living healthily by eating healthily even in recession.
Of course, the most important consequence, if people managed to make this change, would be seeing an immediate decrease in terms of bodyweight. Alarming figures for the US indicate that two-thirds of adults are either overweight or obese, while the same figures have reached sky-high quotas in children, with estimates saying the future generation will see a life expectancy lower than that of the current one. Recession is only the last drop in the ocean, swerving the situation towards disaster, nutritionists stress.
Because of this, forgetting for a second about the meal value of fast food or other similar foods is essential, because we can get the same kind of value with just a little effort on our part. Returning to the basics, such as the potato, the apple, milk, beans, lean meat and fish can guarantee a drop in bodyweight, while also ensuring a healthier existence. Whether we can do that is, of course, entirely up to us.