There you are, waiting for a doctor’s appointment in the early afternoon of the day the government released new dietary guidelines. These recommendations basically reprise what everyone surely knows: It’s ideal to eat large amounts of fruits, vegetables and whole grained foods; it’s wise to eat smaller amounts of meat, butter and cheese. Fresh foods are preferable to processed, excessive salt is not your friend, and transfats are best avoided altogether.
That any American could possibly be ignorant of these helpful notions, after more than a century of federal bureaucratic lecturing, you have your doubts.
That few of your fellow citizens find it easy to follow the guidelines, you know quite well. For there, across the room, is living proof.
It’s a woman with her little daughter, who is probably between 2 and 3 years old. The child is cheerful but restless and she’s rolling around in her chair while eating from an envelope of enriched cornmeal (cornmeal, ferrous sulfate, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid), vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: corn, soybean, or sunflower oil), whey, salt, cheddar cheese, (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), partially hydrogenated soybean oil, maltodextrin, disodium phosphate, sour cream (cultured cream, nonfat milk), artificial flavor, monosodium glutamate, lactic acid, artificial colors (including Yellow 6), and citric acid.
Soon the little girl motions to her throat.
“Thirsty?” her mother asks kindly. The girl nods.
So the woman reaches for a sippy cup, and into it from a large container she pours a chartreuse mixture of water, sugar, table salt, carbohydrates, electrolytes (110 mg sodium, 30 mg potassium, 93 mg chloride), high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, glucose, fructose, and sugar.
After gulping the Gatorade, the toddler returns to her Cheetos. You are watching this, and you think several things. First: How deplorable, the poor little thing is growing up on junk food, and will be obese and malnourished, with tooth decay to boot! No wonder she’s restless — all that sugar.
You consider whether you should intervene, maybe by telling the mother that Cheetos and Gatorade aren’t very good for her child.
You wonder how long it would take her fist to reach your nose, at the same time feeling a pang of sympathy: How furious you’d be, if someone dared to meddle in how you fed your children.
And you think: Oh, stop judging. Who among us hasn’t given our children junk food on occasion? Perhaps she was running late, and grabbed the first things she saw at a convenience store. Isn’t some food better than none?
Then an actual helpful thought occurs. Why not offer to run out and get the child a banana (contents: banana) “to go with her snack”? Perhaps you could make a comradely, one-mother-to-another joke about the new dietary recommendations, with all their emphasis on fruits and veggies.
Too late: The nurse is calling your name. Your final thought as you gather your things is: Wow, I sound just like a lecturing bureaucrat.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
