La mentira de la piramide nutricional
Cita:
Animal v. plant foods in human diets and health: is the historical record unequivocal?
Marion Nestlea1 c1
a1 Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, New York University, 35 W. 4th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10012–1172, USA
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An ideal diet is one that promotes optimal health and longevity. Throughout history, human societies have developed varieties of dietary patterns based on available food plants and animals that successfully supported growth and reproduction. As economies changed from scarcity to abundance, principal diet-related diseases have shifted from nutrient deficiencies to chronic diseases related to dietary excesses. This shift has led to increasing scientific consensus that eating more plant foods but fewer animal foods would best promote health. This consensus is based on research relating dietary factors to chronic disease risks, and to observations of exceptionally low chronic disease rates among people consuming vegetarian, Mediterranean and Asian diets. One challenge to this consensus is the idea that palaeolithic man consumed more meat than currently recommended, and that this pattern is genetically determined. If such exists, a genetic basis for ideal proportions of plant or animal foods is difficult to determine; hominoid primates are largely vegetarian, current hunter—gatherer groups rely on foods that can be obtained most conveniently, and the archeological record is insufficient to determine whether plants or animals predominated. Most evidence suggests that a shift to largely plant-based diets would reduce chronic disease risks among industrialized and rapidly industrializing populations. To accomplish this shift, it will be necessary to overcome market-place barriers and to develop new policies that will encourage greater consump-tion of fruits, vegetables and grains as a means to promote public health.
Key Words: Optimal diets; Dietary recommendations; Plant-based diets; Palaeolithic diets
Correspondence:
c1 *Corresponding author: Professor Marion Nestle, fax +1 212 995 4194, email
marion.nestle@nyu.edu
En este paper de 1998 publicado en The Nutrition Society, por una investigadora de la Universidad de New York, se expone cómo cuando las asociaciones de nutricionistas intentaron hacer que la gente basara su dieta en productos vegetales, los productores ganaderos y lecheros presionaron tanto que obligaron a rediseñar la piramide nutricional.
Los nutricionistas tenían preparada una pirámide en la que la carne quedaba relegada a la cúspide, vamos que la piramide que a todos nos enseñaron en el colegio, la diseñaron los ganaderos y sus presiones, pero no los profesionales de la salud.
También aborda el consumo de carne por ancestros y compara con las dietas de otos homínidos, aunque concluye que ni una dieta necesariamente omnívora, ni una vegetariana geneticamente predispuesta pueden ser concluidas, afirma que cuanto menor es el consumo de carne, mientras se ingieran los nutrientes necesarios, mayor es la esperanza de vida y el estado de salud. Extrapolable esto a la longevidad de los grupos en el paleolítico.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ine&aid=795456
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