Changing Foods In Changing Times (1976)

home oriented society. The bread winner was the man of the house. Women were literally homemakers, keeping house and cooking meals, big hearty meals because meal times were family traditions. Even breakfast was a sit-down family affair. The food was substantial and so were the calories. These traditions remained much the same from World War I through the roaring 20s and changed in the 30s only to the extent that some depression Americans didn't get enough to eat. Period. World War II changed everything. The entire nation geared itself for war. Farmers took factory jobs. Women began working on assembly lines. Meat and canned goods were rationed and nutrition became a government concern. Better diets were promoted in many ways. Breakfast cereals were a vital unrationed food and cereal makers voluntarily began adding thamin, niain, and iron to help meet wartime needs. After the war, more and more women took jobs outside the home. They spent less time shopping and preparing food. A new lifestyle had evolved and the food industry responded. Thus, the appearance and acceptance of convenience foods during the 50s and 60s. Few housewives were willing to spend as much time in the kitchen as their mothers did. Today's working mother just doesn't have time for yesterday's lifestyle. She hears those who criticize processed foods, but she knows these foods give her time for other things. Nevertheless, there are many questions on her mind. What can you eat nowadays? One day it's some problem with canned foods. Then a magazine article quoting some scientist who claims one single vitamin can solve everything. And then there's the uh the talk shows. They have all kinds of people on criticizing one food after another. Actually, they're usually promoting some diet book they've written. That's the one thing they don't criticize. Bye-bye, sweetie. Oh, and the newspapers. Now, they either quote one scientist and scare you to death or they talk to several and leave you so confused you don't even care. When it comes to cereals, I have been eating cereals all my life. Hi, Mom. Hi, sweetie. But today you hear so much criticism of cereals and processed foods in general that I just really don't know what's best for my family anymore. All I really want to know is are cereals nutritious? How can I find out? And what about those sweetened ones people talk about? Because of today's interest in food, the public is exposed to a confusing mass of information. Some accurate and some not. To get a balanced perspective, it's helpful to listen to food and health professionals whose job it is to sort out the facts and educate the public. It's no wonder people are confused about foods and nutrition. The body requires at least 45 different nutrients and no one food contains them all. One of the first things we learn about nutrition is that fat, protein, and carbohydrates are all needed together with vitamins and minerals. Yet people keep asking which nutrient is most important or which food is most nutritious. This is Anita Yana Chicken, public health nutritionist. One thing that makes our job difficult is the misinformation the public receives about nutrition. It gets people concerned about food and they seek easy answers like fat diets or too much emphasis on a single nutrient. I sympathize with editors and reporters. They have a tough job separating facts from all the exaggerations. It's tough enough for me and I've been trained in nutrition and health and spend full time at it. Most Americans are concerned about fats and rightly so. Fat gives you more than twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrates. Yet, many Americans consume about twice as much protein as they need without realizing that animal protein is usually accompanied by a substantial amount of fat. Carbohydrate foods, on the other hand, are mistakenly avoided as fattening by many people when they're actually low fat sources of energy and nutrients. When it comes to enriching or fortifying foods, some people miss the point completely. The fact is that certain foods are so widely consumed and relatively inexpensive that they are ideal carriers of nutrients that people need. Salt, for example, is a good carrier for iodide and milk for vitamin D. Likewise, breads and cereals are effective carriers of added nutrients. Several years ago, we implemented a flour and cereal enrichment law in Arizona. We worked with professionals in the food industry to get the facts straight so that we could develop regulations which were effective and realistic. We learned that most ready to eat breakfast cereals were already fortified, so they were no problem. And the large corn and flour millers cooperated immediately. It's been a tougher job to get the small tortilla shops to enrich their products. But real progress has been made. When people ask me about cereals, I explain that even though most ready to eat cereals are fortified, no one cereal provides all the nutrients you need, and neither does any other food. If you look at a cereal box, you'll see the nutrition information in a form developed by the Food and Drug Administration. This type of labeling which is appearing on more and more foods has been a big step in minimizing the confusion about which nutrients various foods contain. Nevertheless, people are still confused by such things as misleading single food animal studies. Dr. D. Mark Hegstead, former chairman Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council, became so concerned about this that he decided to prove just how unound single food animal research can be. His results demonstrated that even such common foods as milk, hamburger, bread, cereal, spinach, potatoes, and orange juice did not support normal growth and development in young laboratory rats when each food was the only source of nutrients. The rats thrived only when fed a nutritionally complete diet. Just the opposite of single food diets is the way certain foods supplement one another. Dr. James Kirk of Michigan State University explains, "This cereal is fortified to provide 25% of the recommended daily amount of seven key vitamins and iron in a 1 oz serving. It's fortified at this level because many nutritionists recommend that breakfast provide about 1/4 of the day's nutrients and calories. This pattern, now common among ready to eat cereals, realistically recognizes that cereals are served with milk more than 95% of the time. Thus, the nutrients added to these cereals are deliberately chosen to complement the nutrients present in milk. Let me show you what I mean. This chart shows a proportion of key nutrients in a cereal and milk serving. Cereal is shown by the gray area, the milk shown by the dark area. Notice that the cereal is high in iron, some B vitamins, vitamins A, C, and carbohydrates. Whole milk is low in these nutrients, but an excellent source of calcium, protein, and phosphorus. Both foods, of course, contain nutrients. In addition to these, when you eat cereal with milk, you are combining plant and animal proteins. Normally, your body utilizes each type of protein to a different extent. But when you combine them, the nutritional value of the plant protein is increased. Macaroni and cheese, chicken and noodles, and a ham sandwich are other popular combinations of plant and animal proteins. Whenever we're speaking to parents or dental hygienists, one of the questions asked most frequently is, "Do pre-sweetened cereals increase tooth decay?" The answer is no. And this answer is derived from several investigations, one of which was carried out here in Boston at the Foresight Dental Center. Our study involved about a thousand children 7 to 11 years of age from 690 families in metropolitan Boston. This is an area without significant amounts of fluoride in the drinking water. The participants received all the breakfast cereals they wanted, both regular and pre-sweetened free for 2 years, so that their consumption of cereal was higher than average. Complete dental examinations were made at the start of the study and at annual intervals. In spite of the children's free access to unusually large quantities of regular and pre-sweetened cereals, no increase in tooth decay could be related to the cereal consumption. Similar conclusions have been reported by other dental researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama. Tooth decay is an extremely complicated disease and as you know, sugar is involved. However, the sugar content of a food is not the only important factor. The frequency of eating, the stickiness of a food, the length of time that it's retained on the teeth before it's washed away or swallowed, whether a food is taken as part of a meal or part of an in between meal snack. All of these factors are important in determining whether or not a given food contributes to the process of tooth decay. Cereals are consumed most frequently as part of a meal and with milk most of the time. These are probably the reasons why these studies did not show any increase in tooth decay resulting from the consumption of either regular or pre-sweetened cereals. Why were pre-sweetened cereals developed in the first place? Because that's the way many people were eating their cereal was sugar. One has to recognize that sugar is consumed in many foods during the day, but rarely with the level of nutrients found in these fortified cereals. A fortified cereal and its pre-sweetened counterpart are similar nutritionally. Let's look at the nutritional composition of two popular cereals. This chart shows the nutrient composition of 1 oz of corn flakes and pre-sweetened corn flakes. Notice the similarities between these two cereals. The pre-sweetened cereal is fortified with the key vitamins and iron the same as the nonpeetened cereal. There is a lower level of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium in the pre-sweetened cereal. Yet, the amount of these differences is not significant in the total day's diet. There is no simple way to eliminate tooth decay. However, it may be reduced. The most important method is by water fluidation. Other important methods include the reduction of in between meal eating, good toothbrushing and flossing, and regular checkups with your dentist. Today's breakfast is often prepared and eaten at different times by different family members. And quick to serve foods are increasingly important. More women are working than ever before. In 1975, 37 million American women were in the labor force, and 50% of the working married women had children under 18 years of age. In many homes, children must either get their own breakfast or skip the meal. Today, 25% of all breakfasts include cereal. It's become a mainstay, not a mere component of breakfast. In fact, a serving of ready to eat cereal with milk is now the number one home breakfast choice. And why? Because today's lifestyle imposes the need for this convenience food now found in more than 90% of all American homes. Cereals are not a perfect food and no one claims it. Currently, efforts are being made to add additional minerals to cereals since many diets are deficient in them. But this has to be done without affecting the taste or consumer appeal. for a product that no one eats makes no nutritional contribution at all. Realistically, cereal manufacturers have to offer a variety of products to meet the taste preferences of a large and diverse population, like these brand cereals, which are just now being recognized as an important source of fiber. Since studies have shown that only one out of 20 school children eats an adequate breakfast, if cereals can combine taste appeal, convenience, and nutrition, they can make a major nutritional contribution. A recent analysis of the breakfast eating patterns of nearly 300 children showed that those who tended to eat ready to eat cereals skipped breakfast only 6% of the time, while those children who didn't eat these cereals skipped 20% of the time. This indicates these foods are playing an important role. Today in this land of plenty, the average citizen eats better and for a smaller part of his paycheck than any citizen in the world. This is due not only to the American farmer and our agricultural productivity, but also to the most efficient food processing and distributing system in the history of mankind. Because of today's lifestyle, choosing the right food is more important than ever. And that's where nutritional labeling can be a big help. You can learn the facts not only about hot and cold cereals with and without milk right from their packages. You can also find out about other breakfast items from bread wrappers, milk containers, and some egg cartons. If you're interested in good nutrition at breakfast, there's really no excuse for ignorance anymore. Cereal makers are constantly trying to strike a workable balance between what science says people need and what they actually buy. In other words, cereals will continue to use the facts about needed nutrients, as they have over the years. But keep in mind that no matter what is added to a cereal, if that cereal doesn't satisfy your taste or fits your lifestyle, you're just not going to buy it. All the vitamins and minerals in the world don't mean a thing if you can't get your child to eat. Today's shoppers can learn more about food and nutrition in one year than their grandparents could in a lifetime. And just as no single food can provide all the body's nutrients, no single point of view has all the answers about nutrition. It takes a balanced view, one that considers the roles of science, education, and industry to cut through the confusion and understand how today's foods fit the needs of today's lifestyle. [Music]