Since the beginning of Camp Timberlane and the first meal that
was served here, H. and Sharon have tried to provide the campers with
filling, nutritious food at mealtimes. Nutrition (or the lack of it)
has never really been a problem at camp, as long as the kids were
served their fortified cereals, drinks, and breads, It has not been a
problem, that is, because it has not been seriously looked at until
now, and by only one counselor in particular, Brian Lifsec. Defending
the Hikens, however, Brian realizes that it is not only the camp diet
that needs reexaming, but the whole American fancy for excessive
starch, sugar, fat, and salt in most of the foods we eat.
Brian allocates and has been practicing for the past two years a
course of eating that includes unprocessed grains (wheat, barley,
corn, and bran), fruits and vegetables, milk and milk products, and
seafood. IN other words, a wholesome diet could be written from the
four basic groups of foods.
The dangers of processed sugars are known to all, yet heeded by few.
This is one of Brians strongest complaints--the inability of
people to have any self-control over their sugar intake. most
processed foods contain incomprehensible amounts of sugar, which can
be found situated high in the foods list of ingredients (meaning a
greater quantity in weight than any ingredient following). If our
breakfast cereals are to be the one meal to load up on vitamins and
minerals that might not otherwise be obtained, then how can the
cereal manufacturers slaughter that synthetic nutrition by placing
sugar as the first or second ranking ingredient, as in the case with
most popular cereals sold today?
The subject of bread is another tricky misconception. As author Dr.
David M. Rueben notes, bread used to mean wholesome loaves of raised
dough made of milled grain, yeast, salt, eggs, and other natural
ingredients. The ingredient panel from todays white
breads reads like a page from the ordering catalog of the
Ohio Scientific Chemical Company. The information should not be in
the form of a guessing game as to its derivation, but rather
like a pleasing conglomeration of nutrition.