The Diet Variety Index

The evidence linking inadequate or unbalanced diets to the majority of the diseases grows from year to year. There are two major components of this problem, the first is the actual quality of the food produced and eaten which has progressively fallen over the past 50 years as intensive agriculture has replaced more traditional mixed husbandry, land has become depleted of essential minerals and output increased with simple fertilizers which produce higher yields of less nutritious food. When the nutritional content of common foods are compared now with the same foods of 50 years ago there are recorded falls in minerals and vitamins of 50% or more. So to gain the same nutritional input we should be eating double portions of our carrots or greens! The second component of the problem is more complex. Patients visiting their doctors often inquire whether their diet has anything to do with their illness. They are usually reassured that if they eat a little meat, fish, cereals, fruit and veg, in other words a "good mixed diet" they'll have nothing to worry about. What though, is a good mixed diet?

Ten years ago I began a study to look into this matter and have come to the conclusion that there are many people who think they eat well but in fact have a very low variety in their diet. I developed a simple questionnaire which takes about five minutes to complete and a minute to analyze which measures their "Diet Variety Index" This can be compared with the population average to assess just how good their diet variety is in these terms.

What does it matter?

Today many foods are grown on depleted soil, many animals graze on mineral deficient pastures, many foods are denatured by processing or through storage. This leads to vitamin and mineral deficiencies in the foods we buy, and if we restrict ourselves to a small number of foods grown in a limited region the problem can be very serious. If however our range of fruit, grains and vegetables is wide and comes from many different sources the chances of serious deficiency in all of them is lessened. Some people, because of inherited digestive problems may find certain foods difficult to digest, lactose and gluten intolerance are widely known, these people will probably have more serious health problems if their diet variety is low and includes the offending foods, simply because these foods will represent a large proportion of their dietary intake. Such people would suffer far less if their diet variety was high, when the occasional offending food would represent a very small proportion of their diet. The same argument would apply to the growing problem of food allergies. Although once sensitized to a particular food even a small quantity can produce a severe reaction, the early development of over-sensitivty may have been associated with repeated large intakes of the food "undiluted by many other foods"

A Simple Solution to a Big Problem

Is it possible that by simply increasing our diet variety we coulkd eliminate or at least minimize the effect of so many food-induced diseases? I honestly believe it could be that simple. Check out your own "Diet Variety Index".