Nutrition taking precedence over taste or vice-versa depends upon the taste buds of the individual and also the perception for health a person possesses. There have been a slew of campaigns on health, diet, and calories et al by which governments and non-profit organizations are constantly driving awareness in people. There are legislations aplenty like printing the calorific values of eatables- especially fast foods and junk food on the wrappers so consumers understand the nature of nutrition they consume. Despite many such regulations, bad diets continue to mar the food markets with gay abandon.
A recent study reveals that some baby foods are abound in sugar and fat than cheeseburgers and chocolate biscuits on the pretext of being healthy. Poor nutrition which otherwise would take a toll on a baby’s health seems to be the prevailing fact if another survey is to be reckoned with. The survey results on 100 baby foods exposed the absolute lack of nutrition and rather than being benign, they were found to be high in sugar and saturated fats. According to children’s food campaign joint coordinator Christine Haigh “… some are worse than junk food”.
Food manufacturers have a different yardstick to justify their stand in that they claim the studies and surveys are based only on a meager 100 gram basis, whereas ‘in total’ the foods had a relatively modest amount of sugar and fat.
Look into the other fact. Doctors in India feel that junk food is the cause of asthma in children- the truth, which couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment – on the ‘World Asthma Day’ observed every year on May 5. Childhood Asthma is on the rise in India, which Doctors attribute the probability of occurrence due to junk foods. The reasoning is that for normal development of the lungs, essential vitamins and minerals are necessary, which children do not get from junk food. The needle of suspicion point towards junk foods apart from reasons like genetics and environment, though doctors acknowledge that research is yet to be carried out in that direction.
If this is one side of the coin, a baby has been reported to consume nearly 3000 calories a day. Believe it or not! The consumption is staggering, which is 500 calories more than recommended for grown-up men. However, the prematurely born baby Agatha Holloway is fed with nutrition equivalent to 20,000 calories, as she was underweight as a sixteen month old and weighed only 17 pounds. Her diet consists of porridge with clotted cream for breakfast and toast with chocolate spread followed by mid morning snacks such as avocado and hummus. Fatty puddings, meat, roasts and foods drowned in olive oil, butter and cream are other generous doses of food that the baby has to eat for her health maintenance.
The general adherence to basics of abstinence from monounsaturated foods, fatty items and foods of high calorific values outweighs uncommon examples as above. Only the rarest of rare cases qualify for heavy inputs of fatty diets with caution and expert advice. And the need to think twice before going in for baby foods at random is another desideratum that would certainly reduce the problems of tiny toddlers to a greater extent.
About the Author
Venkat Ramamurthy is a Freelance Writer from India and writes on different topics. He has a Diploma in ‘Freelance Journalism’ from ‘The Writers Bureau College of Journalism, Manchester, U.K. The college has awarded him the coveted ‘Red Seal Diploma’ for successful published Freelance Writer. He has several published works to his credit. His maiden work ‘One Indian’s View of Diet: How Food Habits Can Make or Break a Person’ was published in ‘The Positive Health’ published from Portsmouth U.K. His travel articles ‘Legacy of City of Pearls’, ‘The Seat of Nawabi Culture’ and articles on social malice ‘Far from Maddening Crowd’, ‘Operation Crush’ were aired in the web portal hyderabadnews.
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