Nutrition: What is Food?
Thu, Nov 01, 2018 3:54 PM
Helpful, but outdated information
In terms of general layout of information, this is a helpful resource to help students navigate into an introduction of the different types of nutrients that are present in varying food types, how these nutrients get there in the first place, and their roles in the body. They also provide helpful graphics, interactive diagrams, and readings of text to teach of where the nutrients come from, and their impact in the body. However, there are a few areas of issue. One is in that the animations and diagrams rely on the use of Adobe Flash; in 2020, Adobe will be ending all Web based support of Flash, making any online material utilizing it unusable. In order to keep this science object open for use in the future, the interfaces need to be redone to run off of some other software, like HTML5. The other issues arises from how many of the current standards of the FDA concerning diet are slow to change with the proliferation of scientific data contradicting aspects of their regulations, as well as corporate finances influence these regulations. In terms of cooperate misguidance, an example is how dairy is portrayed as an essential source of calcium. Upon closer inspection, the calcium levels in dairy products pale in comparison to those found in meats, and even more so from dark leafy greens. However, to support corporate interests, dairy companies handily donate finances towards the FDA's efforts, to guide people to buy their products. Finally, FDA warnings about how fats cause heart disease show an example of how stagnant their regulations are to change their policies with new scientifically supported data. This belief arose in the 1960's and 70's that "if you eat fat, you become fat" in the debate for whether sugar or fat caused heart disease. Since then, we have learned that the metabolism breaks down foods in a way that does not allow for that, and that in fact LDL cholesterol, which upon buildup leads to heart disease, is the byproduct of sugar consumption in the diet.