We learn early on in life that good food promotes health. But what’s not so simple is how many of those nutrients we absorb, or what impact the way something is farmed has on the quality of the produce.
Nicknamed ‘The Simple Scientist’, Dr Anneline Padayachee has a bit of a superpower; being able to break down complex research to help consumers make better choices. Farmers are among her favourite people, for the role they play in providing us all with important nutrients.
Dr Anneline is a wealth of food facts, like how Egyptians discovered sourdough bread by accident; or that the bacteria present in yoghurt eat lactose, therefore making it a more easily digestible form of dairy than milk. But food scientists have a far-reaching job from food safety to product development or creating new products.
“It’s important to remember, we eat food not nutrients. No one sits down to a plate of pills.”
Dr Anneline finds our obsession with things like protein powders and collagen supplements can be a distraction from what happens on farm.
Farmers are the start of it. They create food.
“Farmers are the start of it. They create food. They create nutrients essentially. What happens after it leaves them, it could be modified, transferred or changed. But what farmers create right from the get-go, they are the creators of nutrients, edible nutrients,” she explains.
When looking at food, Dr Anneline recommends analysing three key things:
- Nutritional Composition – low, medium or high.
- Your Digestive tract – does the food agree with you, allowing nutrient absorption.
- The 80/20 Rule – 80 per cent nutritious food, 20 per cent fun
If the food is nutritious, but there is a problem with the individual’s digestive enzymes, that would be a good place to start looking before resorting to dispensing vitamins, according to Dr Anneline.
Processing food
Dr Anneline also shares her concerns over the NOVA classification that grades processed foods. A classification of 1, for example, is unprocessed. A classification 4 is ultra processed.
“The theory behind NOVA is, the more processed a food is, the worse it is for you. That is actually extremely simplistic,” she shares. Cooking meat is a form of processing, so too is milk pasteurisation.
“The most processed food in the entire world is baby formula because it must be for such an underdeveloped digestive tract. That doesn’t make it bad. Yoghurt and bread are processed foods – they could be a category 3, as are jellybeans and cookies. Nutritionally, they’re completely different.”
Dr Anneline suggests looking at the total quality of the diet. A bowl of porridge in the morning, a salad and protein for lunch and roast veggies at dinner coupled with a sweet treat before bed, gets a big green tick from her.
“You can actually have lollies and marshmallows in your diet. Yeah, I said it! The problem is, are you having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“Right now – fat is evil, sugar is bad, protein is the best thing since sliced bread. Let’s get some balance back into the debate.”
A positive trend, Dr Anneline has noticed, is the consumer’s interest in where their food comes from.
She loves learning about regenerative farming practices and sustainability innovations happening across our country.
This is a great opportunity for farmers to be repositioned as the creators of nutrition.
“This is a great opportunity for farmers to be repositioned as the creators of nutrition. You cannot take the farmer out of that equation. They are the start of the health cycle.”
Some take-home advice from Dr Anneline is to eat the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, white.
“I don’t need to give you the details of why it’s good for you. But if you eat colour, you’re getting that assortment.”
And finally, she says, eat the treats. “The emotional side cannot be discounted. Any birthday that doesn’t have cake is just sad!”
Food is a field that impacts every single one of us, but breaking it down can be complex. Thankfully, Dr Anneline, “The Simple Scientist” is happy to do the hard work for us. She points out that if our car breaks down, we take it to an expert in mechanics, unfortunately if someone has a concern about food, they don’t do the same thing.
“And that’s a car, which is so much cheaper in value and easily replaceable than the human body.”
If Dr Anneline achieves her ultimate goal, of making a food documentary, we’ll all have a lot more access to her insights, keeping food science as simple as possible.
As always it’s important to seek individualised nutritional advice from a qualified professional.
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