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PLUMBING CONNECTION
AUTUMN 2016
MEN’S HEALTH
DR BERNIE CRIMMINS
Certain meals such as breakfast and lunch to me have
a stark, scientific ‘fill me up with something reasonably
healthy in a short time frame’ message, but dinner has
connotations of enjoyment and family communication. I
couldn’t imagine sitting down at dinner and worrying about
what was ‘bad’ in it or even feeling guilty that I was eating it
at all. Food would become a fiend rather than a friend.
The other big thing I want in my diet is balance. And that
is the big thing that most fad diets dip out on. The current
Australian Dietary Guidelines cover this. Guideline 2 says
that we should enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods from
these food groups every day:
∫ Plenty of vegetables of different types and colours, and
legumes/beans
∫ Fruit
∫ Grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain
and/or high cereal fibre varieties, such as
∫ breads, cereals, rice, pasta, noodles,
polenta, couscous, oats, quinoa
and barley
∫ Lean meats and poultry,
fish, eggs, tofu, nuts
and seeds, and
legumes/beans
∫ Milk, yoghurt,
cheese and/
or their
alternatives,
mostly reduced
fat
PS: And drink plenty
of water.
I have no qualms whatsoever eating something from all
the food groups despite some recent diets telling people
to avoid major food groups such as grain foods and dairy
products. In the words of ELO – confusion. For the vast
majority of people, grain foods and dairy products are fine.
THE SHEER VOLUME
Liking a wide range of foods as I do, I must control the
main problem affecting blokes when we eat: the volume.
We eat too much boys! Importantly, it is the volume of food
relative to the amount of energy we burn each day, in a
society with energy-saving devices everywhere and a work
situation that is largely sedentary. It is important to note
that Dietary Guidelines are not thought up on a whim. There
is a huge amount of research and ratified scientific data
that goes into preparing them.
I certainly believe blokes eat differently to females. We eat
more, drink more and do both more quickly. We are also less
likely to be able to prepare a healthy meal for ourselves as
we tend to cook less than our female partners. I think blokes
perceive cooking as being time consuming, so fast food
options are more attractive and hence we tend to eat more
‘fast’ or ‘junk’ food, getting lots and lots of calories in a very
short period of time. Or we just skip that meal, particularly
breakfast and just have a fag and a cup of coffee instead!
We don’t plan our day very well either with cooking and diet
being low priorities.
I know that there are a lot of SNABs (Sensitive New Age
Blokes) out there who do the cooking, but I’m not one of
them. I could survive if I had to and I can read a recipe, but
I have no spontaneity or flair. I hope to improve this in my
third book, Blokes’ Food, where I will cover in-depth my
thinking on diet and also look at some basic healthy cooking
techniques and recipes – it seems every author must do a
cookbook, but believe me, mine will be different.
I hate the necessity to label oneself as a
particular type of food follower, but if I had
to, I’d say I’m a Mediterranean-style of
eating fan. The roots of this probably
stem from the wonderful peasant
foods from countries like Italy,
Greece, and Spain, and the
subsequent delicious and
healthy staple foods
that emanated from
the necessity to
survive on very little.
The ingenuity of people
to make beautiful
basic and healthy
food from raw plant-
based ingredients has been
amazing.
The Mediterranean type diet should be modified a bit
because of Australia’s wonderful and close association with
Asia and the Subcontinent, and the delightful and healthy
foods that come out of those regions. Is there such a way of
eating as MeditterAsian?
THE NEW FOOD PYRAMID
Nutrition Australia has just recently updated their
Healthy Eating Food Pyramid, which I am happy about as it
is basically a Mediterranean-type pyramid with the bottom
two rungs switched around. This is at great odds with
the current dietary flavour of the month, the Paleo Diet,
which restricts wonderful grains including bread, cereals,
legumes, and potatoes, as well as dairy products. I couldn’t
cope with that and I think that their time machine overshot
the mark and should have dropped them off when peasant
foods were being created.
Without pasta, noodles, rice and potatoes, many societies
would have not survived. These wonderful, nutritious foods
have survived for centuries with delicious and extremely