Portion control, mindful eating, and why you shouldn’t exclude chocolate, potatoes, wine or bread from your diet
- Four food items sometimes deemed bad for us have multiple health benefits and should form part of our diets
- Mindful eating and portion control, advocated in recent Canadian and UK food guidelines, are the way to go, experts say.
How much should we eat? For maximum health, should we observe an unbending attitude to anything that isn’t healthy – chocolate cake, for example? Or should we approach food with some elasticity?
My grandmother lived by the adage, ‘A little of what you fancy does you good’. That meant a slice of excellent bread (not the whole loaf); a nip of good brandy (not the bottle); a few of the finest chocolates (never the whole heart-shaped box).
The phrase was made famous by a risqué music hall performer, Marie Lloyd, towards the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. She sang:
I always hold in having it if you fancy it / If you fancy it, that’s understood / And suppose it makes you fat? I don’t worry over that / ’Cos a little of what you fancy does you good.
“Little”, then, is the operative word, Though the “fancy” is key too; I don’t know about you, but I never fancied a bowl of broccoli.
And a lot of foods that get a bad rap – especially in these days of lean, clean, zero-carb eating – are actually essential to good health.