Saturday, March 6, 2010

Response to Ashley's post Regarding low-fat diets

Ashley made a post criticizing Pollan's view on "low-fat" diets. Pollan disapproves of using altered, low-fat products instead of just using natural products even if they do have a higher fat content. After making her own meal using a low-fat product, Ashley did not share the same views as Pollan regarding food catered to America's low-fat obsession. She claimed the low-fat product she used was delicious and low-fat diets in general are healthy.
Although I do not agree with Pollan on many things, I do have to disagree with Ashley and take Pollan's side regarding diet foods. Diet foods are in no way equivalent to normal products. Many low-fat, low-calorie, or low-sugar foods I have had taste in no way like regular food. Not only do they taste bad, usually the nutritional value is inferior to the natural food. The altered products also usually have a suspiciously long list of ingredients that I cannot pronounce and that look nothing like names of actual foods. Ashley did bring to view a study showing a low-fat diet reduced cholesterol in a test group though she failed to mention if they were eating natural low-fat foods or altered low-fat foods.
I do believe that the country has an obsession with the words "low-fat" on labels. Low-fat, according to the FDA, just means a large quantity of the food can be eaten in a day without exceeding the daily recommended serving. I personally do not believe that the taste and possibly poor nutritional value of a product are worth risking just for the label "low-fat" on a product.

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