All together now: Moderation

Well, of course it’s frustrating when health experts and people you trust change their opinions about what we should be eating. Why wouldn’t it be? But on the other hand, perhaps we’re being too literal about how we respond to those recommendations. After all, just because someone tells you kale is beneficial and fights cancer, that doesn’t mean you need to eat it for breakfast every day.I’m not being sarcastic, either. There was a wonderful article in The Sunday New York Times (Jan. 5) by a woman who had a history of cancer in her family and had a kale shake every morning. She was, she said, one of the original health-food store shoppers. But at recent doctor visits she learned that many of the “healthy” foods she’d been eating had had the opposite effect on her body. At this time of year (that is, the time of year when we make resolutions that we intend to ignore), I make a bore of myself by repeating the same word: moderation. Just because pomegranates are good for you, that doesn’t mean you need to eat them every day. One multivitamin pill a day is probably good for you; three probably are not. New on the list of foods that we used to feel like you couldn’t get enough of is cow milk. I mean, certainly there have been murmurs for the past few decades about cow milk being better for cows than for humans. But now the Harvard School of Public Health and Nutrition has published a paper that makes it sort of official. The study on calcium and specifically milk was released last July (I know, that was several months ago so this isn’t exactly breaking news, but it’s still fairly fresh). It disputes the government recommendation that children especially should have three glasses each day of cow milk. Calcium is important, the study notes. But there are other ways of getting it than just cow milk (which, while it does offer some benefits can also lead to increased risk of prostate and ovarian cancers). And speaking of moderation, Harvard Health also warns that “dairy products can be high in saturated fat as well as retinol (vitamin A), which at high levels can paradoxically weaken bones.” Avoid breakfast cereals, energy bars and fortified milk, which have lots of vitamin A. Now, don’t go throwing all the milk out of your refrigerator. Keep drinking it (if you like it) but don’t feel like you need to force a bunch of it into your diet every day (or into your children’s meal plans). There are other ways to get calcium, including supplements (Harvard Health recommends supplements that offer both vitamin D and calcium). Dark leafy greens are a good way to get calcium, but eat them in moderation. And speaking of moderation, let’s note that the kale backlash is now in full swing. It peaked as a go-to food sometime in 2013; the humorist Dave Barry officially took it on in his year-end wrap-up published Dec. 29. (He says of kale, “Even goats will not eat it. Goats, when presented with kale, are like, ‘No, thanks, we’ll just chew on used seat cushions.’”)Broccoli is also a dark vegetable that Harvard Health recommends, with the added bonus (this is true for all dark leafies) that it provides lots of vitamin K, which strengthens your bones. You know what else strengthens your bones? Exercise, something which (especially in winter) we might not get enough of. And this relates to calcium because … one of the main reasons we try to get a lot of calcium into our bodies is because it strengthens our bones. And the message with exercise is, of course, do it moderately.Try to work out often but remember to give your body a break, too. So, back to milk. I don’t really like milk as a general rule. But I do put it in my coffee (always) and I am, apparently, one of the few people in America (perhaps the world) who thinks that oatmeal without milk is not worth eating. I cook the grains in milk (at very low temperature) and then add more milk (and a bit of sugar) before I eat it. I usually add some healthy chopped nuts and dried fruit. The other night I had dinner at No. 9 in Millerton, and a nice milky panna cotta dessert custard was served with finely diced pears and a topping of toasted cocoa nibs. They were fantastic, so I bought a bag of nibs from Guido’s in Great Barrington. I’m still experimenting with them; they have a kind of strong wine-yquality that isn’t completely lovely. But they were nice on my oatmeal. I toasted them lightly in a skillet first and then added them to my oatmeal with a handful of currants, which offered a sweet and sticky contrast to the crunchy, sourness of the nibs. I will continue to experiment on the nibs and report further at a later date.