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Food frustrations

I never thought I would say this but... food is stressing me out.

The simple act of eating has turned into an exercise of studying labels for sodium, sugar, calories, carbs, and aspartame, among many other things.

I’m so confused about how much of this I should eat and how little of that I should eat that reading the labels in the supermarket is merely for show.

When did eating the right foods become so complicated?

Take low fat yogurt as an example.

I thought I was doing the best think limiting my fat and eating low fat yogurt but as it turns out, the yogurt I was buying was full of aspartame, or artificial sweetener, which is not good for you.

Then there was the veggie burgers I was eating. Again, I thought I was doing the right thing by cutting down on my red meat but as it turns out, I was buying veggie burgers that were full of salt, which again, is not the best thing for you.

How can you possibly win?

There are the foods that make your cholesterol go off the charts and the foods that make the so-called good cholesterol. Until recently I didn’t know there were two kinds of cholesterol, I just thought I wasn’t supposed to eat a lot of eggs.

There are the foods high in saturated fat to stay well away from and then the foods with the good fat, which the body needs.

There are the fruits and veggies that are good for you and there are the fruits and veggies that are really good for you.

Then there’s caffeine that used to be bad and now researchers say it’s good in the fight against cancer.

There are high protein pundits and complex carb gurus.

There are heart-smart choices, low fat options, and energy boosting supplements.

The list of herbal supplements to boost and enhance your diet is too long and too complex to even begin to enumerate.

How can anyone be expected to keep up?

If you’re anything like my mum, you jump on every new study currently in vogue.

The family has currently been instructed to eat six to seven almonds every day.

She doles them out, like some throwback to a wartime rationing matron, each time expounding on the virtues of the simple almond nut, which has been proven to lower cholesterol. Didn’t you know?

I give the nuts two weeks.

Before almonds we were ordered to sprinkle flaxseed oil on every salad.

This trend had currently fallen by the wayside. In fact I think it lasted about five salads, was forgotten and then the oil went bad.

Before the flax, we were adding bran to our cereal and before the bran it was green tea.

(There was a general uproar when this was introduced – what was she thinking asking Brits to give up their Tetley’s orange pekoe tea? I was practically weaned on that stuff.)

As it turns out, the orange pekoe is good for you too.

Next she wants us eating three grams of fish oil every day, as instructed by a heart doctor who appeared on Oprah.

Now I’m not knocking the health merits of each trend. But the way of eating, as I once knew it, has gone. It has lost its spontaneity. It has become a regimented affair.

It is now measured and functional and even boring.

The more the scientists are finding out, the more I wish they would just keep their research to themselves.

How can we be expected to remember about the flax and the bran and the oil and the almonds?

More importantly, how can we be expected to eat corn on the cob without butter and salt? Or tuna with no mayo? Or crackers without some delicious Stilton cheese and a baguette without Brie?

Then again, I guess it’s all about the skim milk. Let me explain.

The idea of replacing two per cent milk with skim a couple of years ago was unimaginable.

Sure, the skim milk was drinkable in a mug of tea and almost tolerable in cereal, but there was no way I could have a glass of it.

Since then I have adapted and I know I couldn’t stomach a creamy, fatty glass of two per cent milk. It’s funny how that happens.

Now I’m the first to admit it all seems a little overwhelming at times – getting in the essential vitamins and nutrients, having three to five servings of fruits and veggies and getting enough protein in there to function.

Not to mention exercising at least 30 minutes a day, getting between seven to eight hours sleep every night and limiting the amount of stress in your life.

But I think it’s all about slow change.

More importantly, it’s all about realizing that gone are the days of bacon and egg weekends, or my staple dinner throughout university, a can of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

And forget about stopping at McDonald’s on the way home from work.

Doctors say we need to change our eating/living habits because we just can’t go on like this anymore.

So I’m trying to listen, to make some healthy changes and to figure out what all those labels mean.

In fact, in my desk drawer I have an orange and a can of tuna.

But why can’t they taste as good as a Big Mac combo?