Week 1 Nutrition Stats

And now for the nutrition stats for Mark’s first week in the Food Desert!  First off, way to go, Mark, for at least trying to make your meals as healthy as possible and with as much variety as is to be found in a convenience store!

Here’s the nutritional breakdown of Mark’s first week:

Protein - averaged 17% of total intake

Fat - averaged 38% of total intake (25% of which was from saturated fat sources)

Carbohydrate - averaged 43% of total intake

Cholesterol – averaged 432 mg/day

 

Let’s compare his intake to the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which serve as a compass for healthy eating and helps individuals to maintain calorie balance over time and achieve/sustain a healthy weight while focusing on consumption of nutrient dense foods and beverages.  These guidelines were last updated in 2010, with another update due out this fall.  An executive summary of the latest version of guidelines can be found here:   http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/dietary_guidelines_for_americans/ExecSumm.pdf

 

The guidelines are established for Americans ages 2 and older, and include both healthy individuals and those at increased risk for chronic disease. 

 

Let’s take a look some of Mark’s challenges this week and how his intake compares to the Dietary Guidelines, first looking at fat and cholesterol content.  The 2010 Dietary Guidelines recommend that individuals consume less than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol per day.  Looking at Mark’s average intake over the past week, he exceeded this recommendation by 44%.   I’m sure this was not by intention.  It is just due to the nature of the convenience store diet.  Secondly, of the fat intake, less than 10% should be from saturated fat sources.  Mark’s average intake for the week was 15% higher than this recommendation, again likely not by intention, but resulting from limited availability of healthy substitutes in the convenience stores Mark visited.    

 

Next, let’s look at whole grain intake.  The guidelines recommend to:  “Consume at least half of all grains as whole grains. Increase whole-grain intake by replacing refined grains with whole grains and to limit the consumption of foods that contain refined grains, especially refined grain foods that contain solid fats, added sugars, and sodium.”  Both of these guidelines would prove to be challenging for Mark during this first week in the Food Desert.  Initially, Mark had trouble finding bread at all, and then when he did find it, it was in the form of buns (hot dog or sub), and made without whole grain.  He did eventually find wheat bread in one store, but it was definitely not a common food in each of the stores he visited.   He was also able to find flour, but only white flour. 

Another guideline calls for increasing vegetable and fruit intake, while also eating a variety of vegetables, especially dark-green and red/orange vegetables and beans and peas.  Fruits most definitely were very limited in Mark’s intake this past week.  Again, not by intention, but because they were scarcely available in the stores he visited.  Mark was only able to find a few pieces of fresh fruit the entire week, and while he did find somewhat of a variety of vegetables, most were from canned sources.

Life in the Food Desert certainly posed a challenge for Mark to follow the Dietary Guidelines.  Imagine those individuals who must regularly rely on convenience food stores for procurement of groceries.  Lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lower fat foods, typical of convenience stores, can easily lead to intake of more minimally healthy processed foods which in the long term can negatively affect health status.