This week, I’m presenting a serialized version of a talk I’m
giving this weekend, a talk that will compare two diets and their
health-promoting and health-defeating properties. The talk will follow two men,
Paul and Tom, throughout their day, cataloguing what they eat and how their
days go. While I generally am not a big advocate of calorie counting, I’m going
to do some basic number crunching this week in order to make a point; mainly,
however, I’m going to focus on the nutritional content of the food each of
these men is eating throughout the day.
I hope you enjoy this little creative endeavor.
7:00 am – Tom wakes up feeling groggy – to understand why
he’s groggy, you’ll have to wait until later in the story. Fortunately, today,
he didn’t hit the snooze alarm too many times. Tom has a fairly regular
regimen, and he does the same thing more or less every day. He’s a pretty
consistent guy and he isn’t a big fan of change. He wanders, bleary-eyed, to
the shower and hopes the water will wake him up a bit.
Paul wakes up at around the same time feeling refreshed
after 8 hours of sleep. He’s also got a pretty consistent routine, and while he
doesn’t spring out of bed, he feels up to taking a 20-minute jog before
breakfast.
8:00 am – Both men are showered and ready to eat.
Paul has a small bowl of yogurt (1/2 cup), almonds (1/2 cup)
and berries (1/2 cup), and washes it down with a cup of green tea. In this
meal, Paul is getting a whole host of health-supporting compounds, starting
with probiotics.
- Probiotics
will help keep Paul’s digestive system working properly, helping him to digest
and absorb his food all day, and helping him fight off anything that might have
come in on his food.
- The
fiber in the nuts and berries will help keep Paul feeling full longer, so he’s
less hungry throughout the day, and, in the long run, will help keep Paul’s
cholesterol down.
- Antioxidants,
found in the berries and the green tea, will help Paul’s liver to breakdown
toxins he might encounter in his environment, will help his immune system fight
off viruses and bacteria, and will help keep his body in good cardiovascular
health.
- Finally,
the substantial serving of protein he’s getting will help him maintain a steady
blood sugar through the morning, so he’ll have enough energy to get through
work without dozing off.
Tom, on the other hand, doesn’t have any food on hand to eat
at home, so he’s going to have to make the first of several trips to McDonald’s
that he’ll make today. Because he’s got a bit of extra time, he’s going for the
hotcakes and sausage this morning, washing it down with a glass of orange juice
and a medium nonfat latte.
- Though
they may taste good initially, the saturated fats in the hotcakes and sausage
will predispose Tom to high cholesterol, obesity and high blood pressure in the
long run.
- The
sugar in the hotcakes and especially the syrup make Tom more likely to develop
diabetes later in life, and will cause Tom more immediate problems later on
today.
- The
sodium in the meal, of course, contributes to Tom developing high blood
pressure.
- And
finally, Tom’s gotten nearly no antioxidants! This is going to make it
especially hard for Tom’s body to deal with the stresses he’s going to suffer
as a result of this breakfast.
A plus for Tom’s meal is that he is getting a good amount of
protein in his meal, but it’s outweighed by the massive amounts of fat, sugar
and sodium.
The tally so far:
Paul – Calories: 410, Saturated fat: 5.8g, Sugar: 20g,
Sodium: 174mg, Fiber: 7.2g, Protein: 26g
Tom – Calories: 1000, Saturated fat: 10g, Sugar: 60g,
Sodium: 1160mg, Fiber: 3g, Protein: 27g
9:00am – Both men arrive at work. Paul is relaxed and
motivated, having biked to work. Tom arrives feeling pretty amped up and ready
to go, having finished his morning coffee.
11:30am – Tom is a little worse for wear. The pancakes and
coffee that he had for breakfast caused his blood sugar to rise very rapidly,
which made him feel great in the short run, but a few hours later, his blood
sugar is plummeting. He’s starting to feel restless and is having difficultly
paying attention to his work. He’s got a big report due this afternoon, and so
when someone at the office says they’re going on a coffee run, he’s first in
line with his order – another latte.
Paul is also starting to feel a bit peckish, but his blood
sugar has remained relatively steady this morning, so he doesn’t need to eat
quite as much, and happily eats a handful of almonds.
The continuing tally:
Paul – Calories: 575, Saturated fat: 6.9g, Sugar: 21.1g,
Sodium: 174mg, Fiber: 10.7g, Protein: 33g
Tom – Calories: 1180, Saturated fat: 16g, Sugar: 73g,
Sodium: 1290mg, Fiber: 3g, Protein: 37g
So that’s the morning! As you can see, Tom hit 1000 calories
at breakfast alone. While most Americans eat more than 2000 calories in a day,
2000-2500 is a good benchmark to assess an average ‘healthy’ American diet.
Additionally troubling is that, at 16g of saturated fat, Tom is already at 80%
of the recommended daily intake. Though there is no defined daily intake of
sugar itself, you can see here that Tom has consumed nearly four times as much
sugar as Paul, and about a quarter as much fiber.
