Today is the 22nd day of my 28-day detox. I miss coffee, biscuits & cakes and a glass of wine in the evening, but not desperately. What I am most tired of is having to explain. Perhaps I should not call this a detox. Too often, I get looked at as if I’m some kind of fanatic who does not know how to enjoy life. And moreover, that I am doing something that is not going to make me any healthier anyway.
The other day, a friend told me that in the BBC programma The truth about food, the detox-myth had been debunked. When measuring all kinds of values in blood and body, the detox group had not scored significantly better than the control group. What, I asked, had both groups been eating, or not eating? It turned out the detox group had been juice fasting, while the control group had ‘just been eating healthily’. Well, looks like I would have been in the control group then. I am not juice fasting, I am simply eating healthily. In other words, detoxing does not equal juice fasting, but to many people it does.
What is healthy?
But what is healthy when it comes to food? I remember in primary school we were taught about the ‘schijf van vijf’, issued by the Dutch Voedingscentrum (Nutrition Society) , a circle divided in five equal parts, each part representing a food group that you had to make sure you ate something from every day. They were:
1. Vegetables and fruit
2. Bread, cereals, potatoes, rice, pasta and legumes
3. Dairy, meat, fish, egg
4. Fats and oils
5. Beverages/liquids (unspecified!)
A few decades later, the schijf van vijf had fallen into disgrace and was called something else. It is back now, exactly the same pentahedron, now complemented with five guidelines for healthy eating.
The Voedingscentrum is a government-funded institute for the promotion of healthier and more responsible eating. It provides ‘scientifically sound, honest’ information. And indeed I think if most people followed their instructions, many would have a much healthier diet than they do now. But there is so much the Voedingscentrum does not take into account. There is so much that people do not know about food. Food science is much more imprecise and tentative than many of us think, indeed, than I used to think.
Since I have started reading books about food, I am finding out that we have been misinformed on many occasions. I am starting to realize how food producers and the pharmaceutical industry have a huge influence on the advice we get. And so on and so forth.
To me, it is still a bit of a jungle and I am not at all sure that I have a clear view yet of what I should and should not eat. For now I am sticking to my plan, which is not too hard, and I feel fine. Meanwhile, I am trying to get more enlightened on the truth about food – whatever that may be.
04/04/2011 at 8:21 pm
Food is an industry. Supermarkets are united within Centraal Bureau LevensmiddelenHANDEL. Food is trade and ‘massa is kassa’. Today is my 8th day and I decided to tell only some friends that I ‘eat different’. The word ‘detox’ made some people even non-supportive to me. Hey, I am eating lovely fresh food. I eat different and if you want to have a beer or wine with me, you have to wait for another few weeks.
Don’t read too much about food, it will give you stress and anger. Unhealthy;-)
05/04/2011 at 6:48 am
In the past week, reactions varied from disdainful to all but aggressive. Apparently, people are (unpleasantly, uncomfortably) touched – why? Interesting question.
06/04/2011 at 1:57 pm
[...] not juice fasting, what exactly is this detox thing I’m doing? Like I wrote earlier, the truth about food is not so easy to define and food science not as unambiguous as we’d like. The plan I’m [...]