The green road to health

(July 10, 2002) A good, healthy diet includes a lot of fruit and vegetables and cereals. Eat plenty of fatty fish, but go easy on meat and fatty dairy products. Water is better for you than pop or coffee. That's all there is to it.

We are overloaded with advice from nutrition experts, both with and without basis in research. One day we read in the evening paper that we should eat lots of rice, pasta and potatoes. A week later we hear that "fast carbohydrates" (as are found in bread and pasta) aren't good for you after all.

EASY DOES IT: Nutrition expert Kaare R. Norum places moderation at the top of the list for healthy eating. (Photo: Jarle Ree)

And having finally learned that there's danger lurking in eggs and shrimps, another expert tells us what we eat has no effect on the level of cholesterol in the blood samples taken by the company doctor. "Eat lean meat," says one. "Keep meat to a minimum," says another.

Kaare R. Norum, professor of nutrition and well known throughout Norway from appearances on TV and in the press, cuts straight through the tabloid jungle.

"The traditional diet is usually healthy for the local population. Traditional Masai food is right for the Masai tribe in Africa, and Inuit food is right for the Inuits of the Arctic. Likewise, the traditional Norwegian diet – based on food from the plant kingdom and a good deal of fish – is right for Norwegians.

From rice to French fries

"It's when food traditions suddenly change, for example when Asians start eating American fast food or the inhabitants of Crete start using butter instead of olive oil that problem arise," says Norum.

He explains how lifestyle and eating habits change in step with the growth of large cities. Food is no longer brought by horse and cart to the local market, but is transported over long distances to central supermarkets, where it may be kept for a long time on the shelf or in warm storerooms. Some foods have to be salted to keep long enough, and the fat has to be saturated, because unsaturated oils go rancid quickly under such conditions. Sugar and sweet foods, on the other hand, keep well.

"So the traditional diet will come to consist of salted foods, saturated fat and sugar. This can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular problems, and we see a tremendous increase in these diseases in the poor parts of our world," he says.

In addition, our new lifestyle and housing give less opportunity for children to run around and play hide-and-seek, Norum points out. It's the combination of a wrong or too rich diet together with too little physical activity that causes problems.

"In Norway, for example, we have a relatively good diet. The problem is that we do not use our bodies as much as we should. We move less than we used to, and there is less physical work to be done at home,” he says.

"When we continue eating as though we were manual workers, the result is overweight. Overweight is one of the greatest health problems in the world today; diabetes and high blood pressure are pandemic. This is due to an imbalance between our intake of energy in the form of food and the energy we use through physical work or exercise."

Cereals rather than meat

On the one side are overweight and illnesses due to unbalanced diet. On the other side, hunger in large parts of the world. Wouldn't a transition to less meat and more cereals help to redress the balance? We remember from school diagrams of the food chain showing how much cereal is needed to produce one kilo of meat.

"Yes, in number of Western countries, including Norway, it would be advantageous from a purely health point of view to eat less meat and more vegetable food," says Norum. "But this is not the case everywhere. In a country like India, for example, where the consumption of meat is low, some meat is important for women's and children's health, as meat makes it easier to absorb iron from plants."

The emphasis is on a little meat. In addition to Asian food, Norum also gives Italian cuisine as an example of a low-meat tradition, referring to the use of meat as a topping on the pasta. "In comparison, Norwegian spaghetti dishes look like a great runny meat ball in tomato sauce with a little bit of pasta underneath," he says.

Norum has taken part in nutrition research with a number of different countries, including Japan.

"Japan and Norway are both rich industrialized countries, but they have a very different disease picture. Japanese food is based on rice, which is positive. But due to the high salt content of soy sauce, there are many cases of high blood pressure in Japan. Cancer of the stomach is also relatively common, while the main cause of death is stroke. In contrast to Western countries, Japan has relatively low cardiovascular disease and breast cancer, although an increase in the number of breast cancer cases has been registered as a result of Western influence on diet.

The Japanese have responded by producing a soy sauce with a markedly reduced salt content, and trying to limit Western influences. Efforts seem to be proving successful – the Japanese have the highest life expectancy and remain healthy longest.

Dare we eat the apple?
"The lesson from Japan confirms that a healthy diet is made up of fruit, vegetables, cereal products and fish. Fruit and vegetables protect against cancer and prevent cardiovascular diseases. A mainly vegetable diet is therefore healthy," explains Norum. And we don't need to worry about setting our teeth into an apple or munching on a carrot. "Concern about damage to health from pesticides on fruit is exaggerated and not really based on facts," he says.

"Many extensive studies have shown that residues of pesticides on fruit and vegetables have very little effect on the development of cancers. The reason many people are concerned is that we now have such advanced chemical analysis methods that we are able to register minute amounts of chemical. 

"This does not mean that we should not take reports about chemical residues on fruit and vegetables seriously. Farmers should not use extra insecticide just to be on the safe side or spray their crops the day before harvest. But we can protect ourselves quite simply through washing our fruit before we eat it," says Norum.

He hopes to show the importance of food from the plant kingdom in a planned hands-on exhibition at Tøyen, near Oslo, which is also intended to be used as an educational resource for school children.

And the professor eats as he preaches – for breakfast he has porridge oats, low-fat milk and a few raisins five days a week. But he admits that he allows himself a treat at the weekends, with good cheeses and pickled herring dishes.

Intro story: Feeding the world