List: ‘10 unhealthy health foods’

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Chameleons [1]. I know little of them. But I do know some varieties change colour [2] – to blend with their surroundings. Colour change is also an expression of a chameleon’s physiological condition, and a social signal to other chameleons. But I digress. My point is that changing colour lets a chameleon appear something it’s not. Similar to what a hypocrite does. Folks, everything isn’t always as it seems. That’s so with food healthiness too. Naturally (pun intended) some foods are unhealthy – as even the proverbial drover’s dog [3] knows. But other foods conjure up perceptions of healthiness that are false. Today’s list, from Yahoo!7, is ‘10 unhealthy health foods’ [4]. I know food healthiness is a continuous variable and not a binary (i.e. yes or no) one. Before I read this list I thought seven of the ten were up the healthy end; and three (i.e. muesli bars, granola and muffins) were less healthy. So this list has changed my perception of the healthiness of the other seven. Okay then. But what interests me more is how all ten came to receive their healthiness reputation. Smart marketing, maybe. Or a focus on some ingredients whilst ignoring others. Who knows? I don’t. Anyway no food is 100% healthy. But it makes intuitive sense to eat foods near the spectrum’s healthy end. Though the occasional lapse is unlikely to be detrimental.

P.S. h/t Sweetheart Vivienne for sending me today’s list.

farmdoc's blog post number 59

Better late than never. Please forgive the cliché. Anyway Australian Men’s Health Week finished last Sunday. Therefore I’m only three days late. Men’s health is an important matter whose profile needs raising. As the website says, though men have specific and often serious health issues, they tend to tough it out and go it alone – and they shouldn’t. Nowadays I don’t treat patients and I don’t work in public health, so the only men’s health I think much about is mine. Sillily I don’t have a GP. It’s said that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. Guilty as charged, sir. I see a dermatologist and an ophthalmologist irregularly, and my only other gesture to health proactivity is some screening blood tests once each year. I had this year’s on 2 June. A few days later, the Melbourne Pathology envelope arrived. As I eased it open my heart was thumping – an annual occurrence – and then I sighed with relief. You beauty. No red ink. All okay. In my diary I keep a list of my health problems. Each year the list lengthens. It never shortens. On the current list every item is minor. But at some stage one won’t be minor. It’ll only take one. I hope it’s later rather than sooner. The later the better.