Eat My Unsaturated Shorts

Food luddites! Worried about depression? I've let you off too long, but now I will show you no mercy. If I said that because an alcoholic is more likely to have a dodgy liver than a tee-totaller then no-one should drink any alcohol you'd think I was being ridiculous. If I said that because taking ecstasy is safer than horse-riding all jockeys should be forced to take ecstasy you'd assume it was a joke. But when it comes to whole foods and processed foods, that's pretty much what we're expected to swallow. Research suggests, and most irresponsibly too, that if you eat a lot of processed food you're more likely to become depressed than if you eat a lot of whole foods. I dare say that is true, but it is also meaningless. If you have dark skin you're more likely to live in the jungle than if you have light skin, but that doesn't mean anything other than the fact that jungles are in parts of the world where most people have dark skin and pale people don't tend to move into the jungle, generally because they don't have many of the sort of job and lifestyle opportunities that would attract most people from industrialised nations to them.

And similiarly, well alright not really similarly, but the stupidity is similar, there's no point in talking generally about 'processed foods' and 'whole foo

Image via Wikipedia

ds' unless you're on some sort of fanatical mission. Processed foods aren't bad, any more than dark-skinned people live in jungles. Some things in processed foods are bad for you, especially in excess, and some processed foods have these things in excess, meaning that you can't eat very much of them without a negative effect on your health. If you campaign against processed foods you forgo the opportunity to actually teach people about what is bad for them, what things in what processed foods will have a negative effect on them if they eat more than a certain amount and don't eat other things which they need. Frozen vegetables are processed foods - do they make you depressed? The research doesn't know, as far as I can tell. It looks like they went to the trouble of doing a big load of research but just on 'whole foods' vs 'processed foods', and not finding anything more specific out - what a big waste of time and money.

Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: "This study adds to an existing body of solid research that shows the strong links between what we eat and our mental health. Major studies like this are crucial because they hold the key to us better understanding mental illness." No, Andrew, this one doesn't add to anything that anyone with any sense would regard as a body of solid research, and we're in a right mess if this counts as a major study, and it doesn't help us to understand anything, it's too vague. "The UK population is consuming less nutritious, fresh produce and more saturated fats and sugars." That's true - is there evidence that saturated fats and sugars contribute to depression, more than bad nutrition generally and the effects of resultant poor physical health? If there is, it isn't from this useless study. Either way, that would be good to know. Margaret Edwards, head of strategy at the mental health charity SANE, said: "Physical and mental health are closely related, so we should not be too surprised by these results, but we hope there will be further research which may help us to understand more fully the relationship between diet and mental health." Let's hope so - with meaningful results, to take the taste of this under-cooked rubbish out of our mouths.

that's all from me for now

see you around

Pop Song Of The Day: Playa biquini (Modular)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Depression link to processed food (news.bbc.co.uk)
• You think what you eat (fightingmonsters.wordpress.com)
• Physical problems 'often mental' (news.bbc.co.uk)
• GPs 'poor at spotting depression' (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Depression, Lifestyle and Processed Food (psychcentral.com)
• Luigi Gratton Extravaganza 2009 Nutrients Vitamins Minerals Good Nutrition Balanced Nutrition Herbalife Formula 1 Formula 2 Formula 3 (slideshare.net)
• Obese 'struggle to earn living' (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Depression Linked To Eating Processed Foods (takepart.com)
• Enjoy the Soy: It's nutritious, delicious and easy to use (newswire.ca)
• links for 2009-11-02 (blogs.sun.com)