Page 35 - Silver Lakes June 2021

LIFESTYLE

THE EVOLUTION OF

HEALTHY FOOD

By Michelle L. Raymond

hile rummaging through my salad as a lunch meal. Breakfast consisted messages about what is healthy and what
collection of old magazines (a of cereal with milk or yoghurt with fruit; diets to follow.
Wgenetic trait, I’m sure, passed dinner suggestions were as simple as
down from my grandmother who kept a protein with cooked vegetables and We are faced now with the dilemma
every tram ticket she ever used for reasons a starch. That was healthy eating in the of deciphering what is ‘opinion’ versus
I’ll never know), I came across a magazine nineties - how things have changed! medical fact and what is ‘right’ for our body
published in 1999. It was both nostalgic versus the latest fad. And more often than
and hilarious to see the adverts back then Today, we have things called SuperFoods, not, we have to use our common sense.
and what was trendy. I shudder at the protein shakes, meal replacements and
thought of what I used to wear. smoothies. It used to be a joke, back in Food, at its most basic, is fuel for the
the day, when people looked into the body to function optimally. Instead, we
I had kept the article specifically because it future and saw flying cars and meals in the indulge in it, we abuse it, we use it as a
was about health, wellness and nutrition - form of pills. They were not too far wrong. tool for discipline and control (“Finish your
a topic I have always had, and still have, a I remember meeting a woman from Los food because there are starving kids out
keen interest in. It described a meal plan Angeles who barely ate anything. Instead there.”/”If you clean your room, I’ll give you
for maintaining good health and vitality. It of food, she swallowed over 50 different a sweetie!”), and it is often the very reason
suggested what foods to avoid and what types of supplements a day. and focus of all our social gatherings.
foods to introduce or ramp up. Some of it is
still relevant today. Some of it - well, is not. Nowadays, deciding on what to eat seems Going back to the article I found - there,
much more complicated, especially having right on the opposite page, was a full
Sugar, as everyone knows, was described to consider various foods that arrived out page advertisement that would draw
as ‘bad’ and in the red box of foods to avoid of nowhere. (I am still of the opinion that anyone’s attention. A gorgeous woman,
at all costs. Processed foods like deli meats Kale comes from another planet and is not wearing a rather small bikini, standing
and crisps were also a no-no. suitable for human consumption). Quinoa suggestively next to a hunky man, on a
(pronounced keen-wah), chia seeds, yacht surrounded by crystal clear water
Here is where it got interesting. Avocados coconut water, gluten-free pasta and and blue sky, both looking so healthy,
and eggs were portrayed in a ‘bad light’ wheatgrass shots came onto the scene fit and tanned - an almost perfect image
due to their high fat and high cholesterol around the introduction of social media. portrayal of the adjacent article about
content and should be consumed on rare Anyone with an internet connection could health. It was then that I had to giggle.
occasions. There was no mention of raw position themselves as ‘an expert’ and The advert was for none other than Peter
vegetables other than the inclusion of a create compelling, but often misleading, Stuyvesant cigarettes!!

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