‘Go Big Read’ campaign begins with lecture on healthy eating

UW-Madison health officials promoted the importance of good nutrition and healthy eating Tuesday as part of a weeklong “In Defense of Food” lecture series.
 

The lecture series is focused on the Go Big Read program’s current reading selection, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” and will feature a keynote lecture by the book’s author, Michael Pollan, at the Kohl Center Thursday.
 

Gail Underbakke, nutrition coordinator for UW Health’s preventive cardiology program, used Tuesday’s lecture to examine common misconceptions about nutrition and ways for people to make healthy eating choices.
 

“We have developed a dichotomous view of foods in this country: good foods and bad foods. I don’t think that is appropriate. I think there is room for almost all foods,” she said. “It is just what you put it with and how you balance it out.”
 

Echoing a major premise of “In Defense of Food,” Underbakke said the growing disconnect between processed final foods and the original food source is a major contributor toward poor nutrition in the United States.
 

“We have come so far away from basic food that if it doesn’t have a shiny cover and it’s not perfect, then we don’t think that it is good enough,” she said. She went on to question the nutritional value of some so-called health foods.
 

“Why not just eat a piece of fruit?” she said.
 

Ironically, Underbakke said, as consumers have become more interested in nutrition, they have become an irresistible target for the food industry. According to Underbakke, the food industry appeals to consumers through a combination of their fear, misinformation and lack of knowledge, resulting in a lucrative market for “functional foods.”
 

Functional foods, she said, are advertised to tap into a consumer desire to eat healthily but often hide food’s true nutritional deficiencies behind flashy labels and claims backed by questionable science.
 

“The challenge as a consumer is to ask, ‘Do I believe that? Does that make sense based on what I know?’” Underbakke said.

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