Are you confused about healthy eating guidelines? Are you struggling to include the ‘5-a-day’ that the government is recommending? Is ‘5-a-day’ even enough? Are you aware of how much of each macronutrient, i.e. carbohydrates, protein and fat, you should be consuming? Is it even necessary to count these macronutrients?
In this series of three blog posts, I will be explaining three different healthy eating guidelines by three different organisations. These three healthy eating guidelines, or plate graphics with advice on what we should put on our healthy plates, are:
1) UK Government Eatwell Guide
I will introduce each of these in a separate post, as well as give you my opinion of them. This is the first of the three posts, the other two will be available soon.
1) UK Government Eatwell Guide (by the Public Health England)
(click HERE to enlarge the picture)
The first guideline I’m introducing is the Eatwell Guide by the Public Health England. As you can see in the picture of the plate, the government recommends that starchy carbs (bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes) should make just over 1/3 of the food we eat, the same amount as vegetables. In terms of veg, the more specific advice is the good old ‘5 a day’. Fats have hardly a noticeable sliver of the plate, i.e. the advice is to keep your diet very low fat, and more specifically, to choose unsaturated fats. Dairy products and dairy alternatives get a reasonable portion of the plate, due to the calcium in them, but the advice is, as above, to choose lower-fat products. Although, not directly included on the plate any more (unlike in the previous version of this guide, the Eatwell Plate), high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt treats (crisps, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, sugary soft drinks, ice cream) are still included in this guide (bottom left, off the plate).
My issues with this guideline are the following:
The large proportion of processed (packaged) food on the plate.
I’m sure you see what I mean when you look at the drawings on and off the plate. We should aim to eat mostly real whole foods, or food that has no ingredients but IS an ingredient! But our government is recommending that we mostly eat packaged ‘food products’ rather than whole foods. These are the ultra-processed foods that have been in the headlines recently as causing cancer and other illnesses.
Avoiding fat at all costs.
This is no more supported by research. Fats coming from natural sources can (and should) be part of a healthy balanced diet. I’m particularly frustrated with the government advice to choose unsaturated vegetable oils and margarine, while the more natural and healthy fats, butter and ghee, are included in the high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt treats (butter and ghee are not pictured on the actual guide but they are mentioned in the explanation on the NSH Choices website as foods that are “not needed in the diet”).
Too small a proportion of vegetables on the plate.
This section should be much larger and cover most of the plate – between 1/2 to 3/4 in my opinion. Dried fruits do not belong in this section, as they are very high in sugar and therefore should be amongst the ‘off-the-plate’ high-sugar treats.
The large proportion of starchy carbohydrates.
An intake of this much starchy refined carbohydrates can potentially be a health risk to some people, and probably is one of the causes of the current health situation in this country, with epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes and other lifestyle diseases. Particularly those who have blood sugar issues, insulin resistance, pre- or full-blown diabetes, cardiovascular conditions or inflammatory conditions, these foods can be really harmful. Starchy vegetables, such as root vegetables and squashes can, instead, have a place in a healthy diet even in people with the conditions mentioned above, albeit in lower quantities than in healthy people’s diets. Hence, in my opinion, starchy vegetables should replace most of the starchy carbs in this section.
Sugar-free and lower-sugar drinks in the fluids section (off the plate, top right).
Sugar-free drinks are included in the graphic, while “lower-sugar drinks” are mentioned in the explanation on the NSH Choices website. No drinks that have been sweetened, whether with sugar or no-sugar/no-calorie sweetener, should be included in the amount of fluid needed for health, due to their negative health impact. I’m worried that “sugar-free” will be interpreted by most people as in “diet coke is ok as it’s sugar-free”. It’s not!
The next post in this series will discuss the BANT Wellbeing Guidelines.
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