Can the consumption of chips be linked to an increased risk of mortality? That’s what, in principle, seems to tell us a recent study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This is a cohort study in which 4440 people have participated for more than eight years: during these eight years and through a questionnaire a record of the participants in the study was kept, using as a control group the persons who They consumed less potatoes per week.
The conclusions of the study tell us that the risk of mortality was higher among people who ate chips two or more times per week while those who consumed potatoes with another type of cooking did not show that increased risk. But are it really the chips that increase our risk of dying?
French fries are not the cause, but an indicator of poor diet
As Susanna Larsson, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, points out to the Independent , really the chips are not the most important factor that has caused the deaths of the people participating in the study, but they can be an indicator of a bad diet in general.
The fact that more than two servings of chips per week are consumed in the diet may be linked to a diet not as healthy as it should be, something that is related to other more serious diseases such as coronary disease or obesity, than to its they increase the risk of mortality.
Do not blame a single food on your diet
Every so often it becomes “fashionable” to blame a food or a nutrient present in our diet for most of the ills that occur to us. It happened in the past when we blamed (wrongly) the fats of the obesity epidemic, and it is happening now, we believe with more success, with other foods such as sugar or palm oil.
The problem with this perspective is that the solution proposed by the industry is to eliminate that food or “harmful” component in the products, but encourages us to continue maintaining a wrong food pattern. This is what happens, for example, with “sugar-free” products: we have a very close example in the recent appearance of the Nocilla without sugar, which, despite not containing it, is still a bad nutritional option.
A bad food pattern, based on processed products and messy foods, will still be bad even if we eliminate the chips . The change to a healthy diet must be global: not changing one processed by another.
Do not sanctify the “superfoods”
The same happens, but conversely, with the growing presence of so-called “superfoods” in our diet . If your diet is unbalanced, based on processed products and well watered by alcohol every day, it is useless to eat chia seeds to ensure that you take a good dose of calcium. If the rest of your diet is a disaster, the impact of the fact that you include a “superfood” in your diet will be practically nil.
The important thing, as I said this morning the dietitian-nutritionist Aitor Sanchez in Melodía FM precisely speaking of the “superfoods”, is the eating pattern. Within a healthy diet and in the right amounts, these “superfoods” can have benefits, but it is more important that you consume in your day to day with some frequency.
If you want to eat potatoes, do it in a healthy way
If you love potatoes , you can include them in your dishes if you cook them in a healthy way, if you accompany them with quality food and, above all, within a healthy eating pattern.
