Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating
The Dietitians of Canada have declared March to be “National Nutrition Month“. Now I’m not one to argue that more education in nutrition is desperately needed on the planet right now. But unfortunately, not everyone defines nutrition, and more importantly, health, in the same way.
There is a relatively wide schism between how a holistic nutritionist like myself sees healthy eating and how a dietitian sees it. So while this month will probably see food pyramids taped on to school walls with their one-size-fits-all approach to eating being firmly ingrained in the minds of our nation’s youth, I’ll be questioning whether this style of eating is actually right for anyone.
The holistic approach to nutrition looks at the entire person as an individual, seeing the challenges unique to that individual and where that person is going out of balance. One problem with the Canada Food Guide is that there is no differentiation between the needs of individuals. I’m not going to thrive on the same food you’re going to thrive on. That’s just the facts – we’re different, our body chemistry is different, we come from ancestors who ate differently and thus we have different nutritional needs.
Continue reading Why I Dislike Food Pyramids: What ‘Real Nutrition’ Looks Like