When it comes to nutrition – as with so much else in life these days – it seems that opinion often trumps science.
That's one of the reasons that Dr Federica Amati, Lecturer in Nutrition at London’s Imperial College School of Medicine, decided to write her new book, Every Body Should Know This. Dr Amati explained pretty effectively to Claire Byrne why we should all be making nutrition a priority in our lives:
"What’s really clear from evidence around the world and from really strong studies, is that making changes to your diet is the most powerful way to help reduce your risk of chronic diseases, which now are – the diseases that most of us will die of, sadly, are nowadays diet-related chronic diseases. So, really, the power of food is becoming so clear."
Reconnecting with food is crucial, Dr Amati believes, in getting us to where we should be when it comes to nutrition. And that means not only taking food more seriously, but also re-finding the joy in our food and making time for food, rather than looking at it as something that has to be consumed quickly so we can get on with other things.
The alternative is likely to be more and more diet-related chronic diseases and conditions, some of which Dr Amati outlined:
"To date, the biggest killer we have is heart disease and heart disease is driven in large amount by hypertension – so, high blood pressure – and we know that diet and lifestyle have a direct impact on our blood pressure. That’s one example. The other is this growing rate of obesity that we see across the population and across all age groups now. Obesity is a chronic condition that is caused by a food environment that is not supportive of health."
There’s also type-2 diabetes and, of course, various forms of cancer. All directly linked to nutrition. And, Dr Amati told Claire, making the right choices when it comes to nutrition starts... at conception:
"One of the key messages from my book is really the importance of the first one thousand days. And that is the period between conception and second birthday, where, you know, entire bodies are formed in the womb and the placenta is a brand-new organ that we create to support this new life and every single cell, every single organ, the blueprints of those organs and the actual structure are laid down during pregnancy."
The effects of diet on mental health are just as significant:
"There are some good trials that show that if you change diets, if you make some changes to the foods you’re eating, you can actually decrease the severity of conditions like depression by a really measurable amount."
So what are the top things we should be doing to improve our diets? Dr Amati advises focusing on what we can add, rather than what we can take away because it tends to be the things that are missing from our diet that drive disease:
"Add more plants on your plate. And by that I mean beans, legumes, lentils. Add more nuts and seeds if you’re not allergic to nuts; they’re a wonderful food. Having a handful or two a day is so good for us. Add more green leafy veg. Add more fruit. Sometimes fruit is demonised. When we're talking about whole fruit, not the juice, just whole fruit eaten in pieces or bites, that’s so good for us."
We should also try as much as possible to make our meals from scratch at home in order to avoid the non-nutritive additives like artificial sweeteners and emulsifiers that are in so many foods and that we didn’t evolve to eat on a regular basis.
You can hear the full conversation between Claire and Federica Amati by clicking above.
Dr Amati’s book, Every Body Should Know This: The Science of Eating for a Lifetime of Health is published by Michael Joseph.
