food is complicated

[cellio]

My doctor says that my "bad cholesterol" is a smidge high (good's fine) and I should cut down on dairy and red meat. I eat very little red meat (really not much meat at all, though lots of fish), but I did bump up the dairy intake a bit in pursuit of calcium after learning of some family medical history this summer. Ok, fine, I'm perfectly willing to take calcium/D supplements instead, go back to soy milk instead of yogurt for breakfast, etc, but it does raise a question for me.

Presumably it is possible to find the right combination of nutrients in nature, without taking supplements. Sure, our understanding of "right" has changed over time, but for at least several decades I gather that we've grokked the importance of basic vitamins and minerals, and I don't remember supplements being nearly so prevalent a few decades ago as they are now. So how does one get enough good stuff (calcium, protein, vitamins) without getting too much bad stuff (cholesterol, sugar, excess calories), without supplements? What is the canonical modern (wo)man supposed to eat? (The last time I looked at the food pyramid it wasn't very helpful for gleaning details. It also assumed 2000+ calories/day, which a sendentary blob like me shouldn't eat.)

Comments

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

You (and me, and almost anyone with the capability to post here) lead a life that is almost completely UNnatural.

If you engage in hard manual labor outdoors from sunrise to sunset six+ days a week, a diet rich in saturated fats and cholesterol won't hurt a bit. This whole "use the body as little more than a life support system for the brain" thing is kind of new and we haven't really adapted to it.

I suspect that the "right" answer is a choice between taking an ax to your computer or taking vitamins. There are some days when that choice is not so easy.

[cellio]

Hmm, good point. This would suggest, in pre-industrial cultures, a higher proportion of these kinds of health problems among the upper classes, particularly upper-class women. I wonder if that data is available. (It's not as simple as health problems, of course; the lower classes had plenty of those too, just different ones -- malnutrition rather than calcium deficiencies, etc.)

I suspect that the "right" answer is a choice between taking an ax to your computer or taking vitamins.

Oh, trust me -- my answer to that one is going to be "pass that economy-sized jar, will ya?". I don't long for the good old days of earning my daily bread by the literal sweat of my brow.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

This would suggest, in pre-industrial cultures, a higher proportion of these kinds of health problems among the upper classes, particularly upper-class women.

Not necessarily--in pre-industrial cultures, everybody was getting more exercise, not just the downtrodden masses. Walking is walking, whether you're a gentleman taking an afternoon constitutional or a farmer steering a plough-and-oxen :-)