About the book
The food hourglass was written by Kris Verburgh. It describes the impact of nutrition on the ageing process and on the development of age related diseases like diabetes, heart disease and dementia. It provides a framework for eating healthily: the idea is that you replace as much of the products on the top by products on the bottom. The bulk of the book consists of an explanation on the three groups in food (sugar, protein and fat) and an explanation of every step in the hourglass (what you should(n't) eat and why). At the end there are also some example recipes.
My opinion
This is a book which I find very easy to read and understand. I like the idea that food is the best way to stay healthy and that your diet should not be a diet (does that make any sense?). The author also explains that you can apply his framework however strictly you like. This does make it easier to apply: when you do eat something that isn't very healthy, you don't feel bad for not following your 'diet'. In that way you don't get demotivated to continue trying to eat healthy.
I know there have been criticisms on this book. One of those was that the food hourglass doesn't say how much you ought to eat of which food. I personally don't mind that. Even when quantities are advised like they are in the food pyramid, I do not weigh how much vegetables, meat,... I eat. Ever.
Another criticism I had read was that, while he criticises some self proclaimed diet gurus for using a small selection of scientific studies to claim that their view is the right one, the author doesn't always make proper use of scientific studies either. I did notice that there's a huge emphasis on studies that are published in journals with a high impact factor, but I find this overemphasised. A study published in another journal can be good too! (I suppose it'd be best to read articles and judge for oneself whether the study was properly conducted, but that would take up too much of everyone's time I'm afraid. On top of that, most articles are not widely available for reading...)
There are some things I miss in the book too. For example, there's no info on coconut oil. The author recommends cooking with olive oil because it has unsaturated fatty acids. But in other sources of information I've read that these kind of oils don't withstand heat very well. Coconut oil consists of saturated fats. While it is less healthy to consume saturated fat, it is more stable in high temperatures than olive oil.
This book is on food and, but somehow I miss the mentioning of biological vs conventional food. It is recommended to wash and dry vegetables properly before eating them (as to remove most of the pesticide residues), but my personal preference is to buy organic foods that are better for our planet too!
How I use it
This book had definitely pushed me to change the way I eat a bit. I'm not strictly following 'the diet', but I did make some changes.
- I eat very dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.
- When I put food on my plate, I take more vegetables and less potatoes/rice/pasta.
- I eat less bread than I did before. I wasn't eating that much anyway, but I tried to cut it down a bit more.
- I eat oatmeal more often.
- I replaced some of the milk I consume with almond milk.
- I drink less frizzy drinks. Before I read the book I had up to 1 glass of coke a day, and now I think I have about up to two a week.
- I eat a bit more fruit.
Sincerely,
R.
