I am officially done reading books about nutrition.

It’s just too depressing to keep reading them.  I just finished reading Marion Nestle’s What to Eat and I don’t think there’s anymore I’d like to know.  I just don’t want to hear anymore about the politics behind food marketing.  Between the companies that will try to convince you that sugary cereals are good for your kids and the various food lobbies that all have their own agenda, it can feel as though we’re being set up to fail in our food choices.

Besides, the common thread from all of the books that I’ve read (and I’ve not come anywhere close to reading them all) is that processed foods are bad and unprocessed foods are good.  And really, if we’re all being honest, we knew this already.  The appeal of processed foods is that they are just so EASY.  And we can all try to justify it by saying that it’s how everyone eats.  But that doesn’t mean it’s a good way to eat.

I’m still left with questions about what is the “best” way to eat.  I’ll never understand whether dairy is “good” or “bad” for you.  And whether you should only eat full-fat dairy products or low-fat.  I don’t know if sugar is the worst thing you could possibly eat or OK in moderate amounts.  And are there good sugars and bad sugars??  If anyone knows these answers to these, I’d love to hear them.  :)

For my family, I’m going to continue to try to eat thoughtfully and use common sense in our food choices.  We’re still continuing with our no-processed food plan.  This month we’ve given up all vegetarian “meats.”  That’s another one of those things that I kind of knew wasn’t good for us to be eating, but I told myself it was OK because it wasn’t as bad as other options.  It doesn’t seem like anyone has all of the answers about what type of food we should be eating, but if we all start thinking about our food choices, we’ll be much better off.