Don’t rule out ‘bad’ foods — they can do you good

Editor’s Note: This week Team Crave welcomes nutritionists Joannie Dobbs and Alan Titchenal, making the move from the Sunday features section. Their practical advice on good eating will run on the third week of each month.

Classifying foods as “good” and “bad” would seem to simplify following a healthful diet. It is a common scare tactic used by nutrition zealots insisting that you should avoid certain foods completely if you want to be healthy. This approach is nothing new. Throughout history, fear has been used to control people’s actions.

Our food choices too often are driven more by fear than by sound science. Unfortunately, attempts to choose only food considered “good” and healthy can easily backfire over time.

Avoiding the majority of food on somebody’s bad list can leave you short on one or more of the essential nutrients key to good health.

This can occur even for those who can afford very expensive wholesome food — nothing but “superfoods!”

Three foods have been maligned for decades: eggs, beef and milk. Removing these completely from the diet makes it difficult to get an adequate supply of some essential nutrients.

Many will say that it is possible to meet nutrient needs without consuming these animal products, but doing that correctly would require a concerted effort to choose food very carefully, consume a lot of calories, include fortified food and take dietary supplements.

Clearly, getting vitamin B12 without animal food in the diet requires a supplemental source of the vitamin.

So let’s look at each of these three foods to see what makes them special and how they contribute to a healthful diet.

THE INCREDIBLE, EDIBLE EGG

Both the egg white and yolk provide high-quality protein along with significant amounts of 13 essential vitamins and minerals that are mostly in the yolk.

Egg yolk is one of the few foods that provides vitamin D, with one egg supplying about 10 percent of a day’s recommended intake. In addition, eggs are among the richest foods in the nutrient choline, with two eggs providing about half of an adult’s daily recommended intake. Adequate choline is important for many things, including normal fetal brain development, adult brain function, muscle function and preventing fat accumulation in the liver.

Egg yolk also contains the phyto­nutrients lutein and zeaxanthin, which are beneficial to eye health. These compounds make the yolk yellow. Although these phytonutrients are higher in food like dark leafy greens, they are absorbed into the body more efficiently from eggs.

You may be thinking, “What about cholesterol?” Yes, eggs contain a significant amount of cholesterol. But decades of research have indicated that for the vast majority of people, cholesterol in the diet does not significantly increase blood cholesterol levels.

The liver synthesizes cholesterol, and when cholesterol is higher in the diet, the liver decreases its production. As a consequence, there is little or no change in blood cholesterol as cholesterol goes up or down in the diet.

WHERE’S THE BEEF?

High consumption of beef, and red meat in general, has been linked to a variety of health problems. This does not mean that if a lot is bad, consuming none is the best option.

It’s simply not an all-or-nothing thing.

The growing misinformation about beef is concerning because, like eggs, beef offers high-quality protein and one of the richest sources of many B vitamins. Beef is especially rich in well-absorbed iron and zinc, nutrients that are harder to absorb from plant food and especially important for women and growing children. Overall adequate intake of protein is important for maintaining both muscle and bone health, as well as immune function.

People often are surprised that lean beef can be lower in calories compared with other protein sources. A 3-ounce portion of lean beef provides 25 grams of protein in just a bit more than 150 calories. To get that amount of a lower-quality protein from black beans would require consuming double the calories, from peanut butter nearly triple and from quinoa about four times the calories of lean beef.

MILK DOES A BODY GOOD

Like eggs and beef, milk provides a high-quality protein. Of course, milk also is rich in well-absorbed calcium. These are important nutrients for building bones in youth and maintaining bone health with aging.

Many foods and their nutrients contribute to bone health, but including milk and milk products in the diet can fill common bone-related nutrient gaps. Also, foods like yogurt are continuing to be studied for their contribution of “probiotic” bacteria that appear to have positive effects on health.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Single foods don’t make a diet good or bad. Rather, it is reasonable amounts and proportions of a variety of food in the diet and the sum of all the parts that make a diet healthful.

Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., and Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., are nutritionists in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dobbs also works with University Health Services. Contact them through crave@staradvertiser.com.