Alton Brown's Four Lists

I'm not a huge Alton Brown fan; but my husband likes his scientific approach to food & cooking and loves to watch his show "Good Eats," so occasionally I'll watch it with him. This past January, Brown hosted a much-talked-about "Good Eats" episode entitled "Live and Let Diet" in which he talked about a four-list eating plan that helped him lose 50 lbs. over nine months in 2009.

Now I could stand to drop a *little* weight, but nothing like 50 lbs. So why am I talking about this non-diet diet? Because I think his approach was good: it's nutritionally focused, not energy/calorie focused. And instead of only telling me what NOT to eat (although he does that as well), his lists emphasize what I SHOULD eat.

So here they are (the comments in parentheses are mine):

Eat Daily

• fruits
• whole grains
• leafy greens
• nuts (healthy fats)
• carrots (an orange food = beta-carotene)
• green teas

Eat 3x per Week

• oily fish (more healthy fats)
• yogurt
• broccoli
• sweet potato (another orange food)
• avocado (still more healthy fats)

Eat/Drink 1x per Week

• red meat (animal protein)
• pasta
• desserts
• alcohol

Skip Altogether

• fast food
• soda (high in sugars)
• processed meals/frozen dinners
• canned soup (high in sodium)
• "diet" foods

I definitely don't eat quite like this all the time, but it's nice to have some guidelines and something healthy to strive for.

Sadly, these lists are a lot more clear (to me, at least) than the government-approved food pyramid, and I think NPR and the Washington Post agree:

"[A]s in the past, translating scientific data into clear and useful recommendations poses political pitfalls. The [government's dietary] advisory committee's emphasis on a 'plant-based' diet, for example, has caused much consternation among the powerful egg and meat lobbies who say the term might be misunderstood as advocating a vegetarian diet. ... By law, the guidelines must reflect the recommendations from the scientific advisory committee. But policymakers have broad discretion about how and whether to update the food pyramid. The current version, called MyPyramid, was unveiled in 2005 and has been widely judged a failure. ..." - from the WashPost

Obviously something's not working, since recent studies have found that 40% of kids' diets come from "empty calories" (TIME) and affluent Americans are increasing, not decreasing, their consumption of junk food (WSJ). Bummer. If only the government could give it to us straight, instead of obfuscating the facts for the sake of the big food lobbies ...

Note: The photo above was found here.