Moderators: JeffN, carolve, Heather McDougall
nine9s wrote:Jeff,
I often wonder about something I experienced a few years ago. My employer sponsored a “health” seminar where a registered nutritional dietician, with a master’s degree, talked. During the talk she answered two questions of mine and the answers seemed to be wrong on what I would think is very basic knowledge in your field. I wonder if you agree that it was a case of incompetence and I wonder if you see this lack of knowledge often entertained by some in your field (while not to the extreme sited below, I often see similar missinformation in print, etc.) And if you do see that it is common, do you see any particular cause for it?
The two topics/questions:
During one point of her seminar, she said fruit had no protein. I raised my hand to ask if she meant it had low protein or if she actually meant none. She said, “none, fruit has no protein.” After the seminar I researched fruit nutritional information and found that while some fruit, such as apple, is very low, that others have over 10% of their calories as protein and that an assortment of commonly eaten fruit balances out to about 8% of their calories being protein (which is more than human milk has) and certainly is not “none.”
Then later she said vegetables have not fat. Again I raised my hand to ask if she meant low fat (which is not even the case as many vegetables have 10% to 15% range) or no fat. She said, “no fat, vegetables have no fat.” At that time I did not have the knowledge to quote the fat percentage of different vegetables, so I offered as a rebuttal, “how do you get vegetable oils then.” She said something along the lines, well there is a very scant amount of fat but it takes huge quantities of vegetables to get oils, so for single servings of vegetables, there is no fat.
nine9s wrote:Then later she said vegetables have not fat. Again I raised my hand to ask if she meant low fat (which is not even the case as many vegetables have 10% to 15% range) or no fat. She said, “no fat, vegetables have no fat.” At that time I did not have the knowledge to quote the fat percentage of different vegetables, so I offered as a rebuttal, “how do you get vegetable oils then.” She said something along the lines, well there is a very scant amount of fat but it takes huge quantities of vegetables to get oils, so for single servings of vegetables, there is no fat.
JeffN wrote:However, if we step back and take a bigger picture look at all professions today, is it not the same? How many really good professionals in any profession are there? Maybe 1-5%?
The reason the RD gave the answers they did is because that is the generic info that is taught in relation to the Food Groups. Each food group is assigned an average value for protein, carb and fat, to make analyzing a diet easy. It is a general tool for estimates and not a precise way to analyze food or diets
Using this system, the average value of protein assigned per serving of fruit is 0, and the average value of fat assigned per serving of vegetable is also 0, which ar not 100% accurate.
You can see a sample of the generic meal planning exchange list here and where they get the misinfo from
http://www.indiacurry.com/diabetes/diabetesexchange.htm
The 0s for protein in fruit and 0s for fat in vegetables were from rounding down the averages, which per serving were low.
In Health
Jeff Novick, MS, RD
karin_kiwi wrote:I sympathise, Jeff. My mother went back to get a degree in human nutrition (she's followed McDougall-type principles for over a decade) and it nearly killed her. The programs and teaching staff are funded by meat, dairy and food technology industries here in New Zealand, as I guess they are in most places. A few of the staff were willing to let her write about "alternative" diets as long as she referenced things correctly and to the nth degree, but many more absolutely refused to accept her essays or answers, regardless of how much core scientific/biological theory she used, articles from top peer-reviewed journals she cited, statistics from epidemiological data she sourced and so on. Having to choose between writing garbage she knew was wrong to get decent grades or writing the truth to get barely passing grades caused her severe emotional stress that took years to get over. The refusal to look at the evidence was such a betrayal, by the very people who set themselves up as experts on human health as it related to nutrition. It's one thing to be ignorant if one has not seen evidence, it's quite another to be willfully ignorant in the face of the evidence.
Quiet Heather wrote:I've wanted to pursue becoming an RD for many years, and the one thing that's held me back is knowing that I would disagree with much of what is taught on nutrition. Recently, however, I've come to the conclusion that America needs more RDs who actually know what they're talking about, and sitting through a few years worth of "garbage in, garbage out" is a small price to pay to become one of the few good RDs out there. It might take me five or more years to complete my degree since I have to work full time and take care of my three kids, but I'm going to do it.
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