Where Is The Diet Specialty Section?

Where Is the Diet Specialty Section?

Those that have medical dietary requirements have a difficult job to shop for food. It is easy to overdose on salt, sugar, and fat if you do not read the labels. It is peculiar when you find an item that says it is low salt, but when you read the label, it is high in fat or sugar. The food industry may have done well in producing low fat or low sugar, or low salt items but they have usually overcompensated with one or more of the other food types that you want to control.

Try to find a yoghurt that is low fat and also low in sugar. Try to find a mustard or mayonaisse that is low fat and also low salt. Try to find cheese that is both low fat and low salt. Try to find low salt and fat sausage or sandwich meats. Look at the breakfast cereals and find all of the high salt and sugar content. Many of the items advertised as healthy are not really healthy. And most restaurants offer us meals that exceed our needed daily calorie content for the day.

I am no dietician, but I have had dieticians and nurse educators tell me that white is no good when comparing breads and pastas and that high fiber grains are better than processed grains. Why the American diet is made up of so much bad stuff is beyond me. Sure some people can tolerate it all of the time and some can occasionally, but most of us should be avoiding it all of the time.

Many people just cannot wheel our shopping carts up and down the isles and just select items without reading the labels. It is not just shopping that is a lot of work, but meal planning is too.
We all like variety in our foods. Now the proper selection of foods need to be selected for the day and portion control is also essential. This is time consuming, especially doing it for the first time.

Meal planning means trying to serve meals and snacks that are healthy, nutricious, appealing, tasty, and at the end of the day do not exceed daily maximum limits of salt, sugar, fat, and calories.

All of the supermarkets in my area in New Jersey have combined low salt, low sugar, and low fat items with the regular items available in each section of the stores. This means that if you are looking for low salt dressings you have to search through all of the other salad dressings too. People looking for low fat, sugar, and salt items are going to do it for all sections of the store. The first supermarket chain that establishes a specialty diet section will have a competitive advantage. And if the food industry provides the market with enough variety of items many people will look, find, and buy their products. And if a restaurant chain specializes in low fat, sugar, and salt items then they would have a pretty big following.

Americans spend billions of dollars at health clubs, nutrician counselling, diet drugs, counselling for diet disorders, gastric operations, so called "diet foods", medical and hospital visits, and prescriptions that could be limited or avoided altogether if the food industry including restaurants offered better quality food and nutricianal guidance. I do not want to call some of the food poison, but those items should be eaten occasionally and also limited by portion control.

Many of us do not have the time and maybe the inclination to eat healthier and will suffer the consequences with illnesses that can be avoided and premature death. It is up to each of us to learn more about proper nutrition and we must work to provide proper diets for ourselves and our families. But it is also up to the industry to offer healthy products for us to purchase.