Well, it’s 12:35, and it’s looking a lot like I’m going to skip our company’s holiday party (which started at noon and goes til 3PM). I mostly think this is a good thing. I had a great night last night (had brown rice California roll and a salad from Whole Foods) and a pretty good breakfast this morning (a breakfast sandwhich with just half the english muffin and fruit).

But I don’t know that I’m on track enough to deal with the holiday buffet at the Grand Hyatt. I actually haven’t attended this party for years, so it’s not like it’s a big problem to skip it again.

Anyways, I digress. I really wanted to point folks to an interesting series of articles over at Weight of the Evidence. Regina Wilshire (who is apparently a neighbor of mine) is promoting controlled-carbohydrate nutrition, a concept I like a lot.

On Wednesday, she started a series of posts looking at the question: what is a healthy diet?

I agree wholeheartedly with her idea that our diets are (typically) terrible when it comes to nutrition. In part 1, she writes:

I think in the never-ending quest to define what makes a healthy diet we’ve lost sight of the most critical key to health - nutrient-density. We set our sights on macronutrients a long time ago (carbohydrate, protein and fat) and left the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, elements, essential fatty acids and essential amino acids) to take care of themselves in the belief that a varied diet will provide.

I think this is critical. What if our cravings for food are simply the body’s attempt to get nutrients? And yet, most of us stuff ourselves with foods that are either practically nutrient-free, or worse, are downright harmful–full of trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, saturated fats, etc.

But in part 2, she makes a point I hadn’t really considered: how many nutrients we give up when we eat “doctored” foods (e.g., low-fat cheeses). She writes:

Often the very foods we’re told to avoid or reduce significantly are often the ones that offer the higher levels of essential nutrients! Take cheese as an example.

Cheddar cheese is packed with nutrients when it is made from whole milk. Yet we’re told to eat reduced/low-fat cheese instead because the fat adds too many calories. But take a look at how many nutrients you lose by eating the low-fat cheese instead of the whole milk cheese (from the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference):

These are significant nutrient losses in an attempt to save just 65-calories.

Very interesting. Cheese may or may not be the best example (there are lots of folks who don’t have cheese as a healthy food for a variety of reasons), but it really does make a clear case that processed foods shouldn’t be the foundation of a healthy diet.

You’ll probably notice that I titled this post “managing carbs.” I’m convinced that there is a carb connection to compulsive overeating. And I think the idea of a “low-carb diet” is not only valuable, but a really humane way for some to approach their weight issues. But there’s some baggage with the concept of “low carbs” that I think causes people to throw the baby out with the bath water. More about that one of these days.

But I sure like the idea of a nutrient-rich diet. I was doing really well when I was focusing on whole foods and nutrients (doing more from SuperFoods Rx for example). Now to get back there…it’s a great place to be!