Laparoscopic gastric bypass provides better results (Reuters)

Reuters - Performing gastric bypass surgery to reduce the weight of morbidly obese patients using a laparoscopic method, rather than the conventional more invasive "open" abdominal method, reduces postoperative complications, the need for a second operation, and shortens hospital stays, new research shows. Nevertheless, laparoscopic gastric bypass is more expensive.

In the not-too-distant-past, a very large fast food provider came out with new French fries. In media interviews they proclaimed they now had the best-tasting French fries and they would soon claim the number one market share position from the current, world-wide, undisputed leader in the fast food industry.

Many say the new fries do taste better but the number one position hasnt changed.

You may ask what this has to do with nutrition, and youre right to be asking. Its very simple: being number one in the food industry has almost nothing to do with being the best tasting, most filling, most nutritious or anything of the sort. Its all about whos the best at getting the most money from customers and spending the least amount of money to do it.

Can you make a better burger or salad than the drive-through spot down the road? I sure hope so. When you make your own food, youre usually focused on how its going to taste or what ingredients youre going to use, or the someone-special youre cooking for. During this process, you never open a spreadsheet to calculate earnings per food-unit.

Do you even know what a unit of food is?

All of the fast food joints sure do.

So if taste isnt the priority for the most successful food providers, do you think nutrition is at the top of the list either? To obtain good nutrition, you first need to be working with ingredients that are nutritious to begin with. If you were to take the top ten list of superfoods containing the highest amount of nutrition per bite, beef patties, white flour buns, potatoes, iceberg lettuce and soda would be no where in sight. There are also plenty of interesting chemicals found in these foods to keep them fresh tasting as well. These chemicals act as embalming chemicals for the foods. While they are not instantly toxic to your body, they are most certainly not good for you.

Unfortunately, we see so many people living under an assumption that eating well is expensive or that they dont have time to eat well. Whats worse is that those who think they eat well, dont have the ability to quantify what that means.

Some fast food places are now making fast salads. Most are made from very narrow selections of vegetables and fruits, but they are certainly a better choice that a hunk of meat on a bun, regardless of how it has been cooked. How much refined sugar is in that low-fat dressing though? Some salads can give you as many calories, from refined sugar, as youll find in the burger!

At this point, some people throw their hands in the air and exclaim that the only other solution is to eat nothing at all. This is complete nonsense. The reason why it is important to understand why some food choices are bad and why others are better is to empower you with the ability to make choices. Sometimes those choices are good for you. Sometimes those choices are not good for you, but at least when you know the difference youre more likely to steer yourself towards better eating, better nutrition and better health.

Dave Saunders is a wellness coach and national speaker. Discover more vital truths about health and wellness at http://www.glycowellness.com and http://www.glycoblog.com.

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