Share

If you’re anything like me, you love a well-seasoned plate of good ol’ soul food (something I have missed very much since being in London). But no matter how good it is, soul food just isn’t healthy for us.

At Hampton University’s 29th Annual Conference on the Black Family, a group called Hebni Nutrition Consultants, Inc. offered a solution: combine the homemade foods you crave with the healthy versions you detest. In their seminar, “Eating Strategies for Wellness with Soul,” Weaver and Gaines described their Soul Food Pyramid, a culturally sensitive edition of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Pyramid. The pyramid includes a serving guide for people with diabetes and a way to measure servings in the palm when a measuring cup is unavailable.

Portion control was also an issue discussed at the conference. The “Portion Distortion” part of the seminar showed the audience the difference between what is regularly thought of as a portion compared to what a true portion of food is. Along the same lines, when you eat out at restaurants, they usually give you a portion that could easily be shared between two people. Yet, because it’s in front of our face, we tend to eat the entire meal. Then when we cook at home we follow the same mindset that portions need to fill up an entire plate and thus the cycle of eating huge portions continues. That’s my theory anyway. The upshot is, when you realize this and make an effort to stop after eating half of your served meal. Get a doggy bag; that’s what they’re for. After eating smaller portions here in London, and then going back to North Carolina for a visit, I couldn’t even finish half a meal at The Cheesecake Factory. And I didn’t try to force myself to either. You might have to train yourself to do it, but you’ll be glad once you do. Your body knows when you are full; it’s the eyes and brain that deceive you into thinking you need to finish everything a restaurant serves you.

The mission of Hebni Nutrition Consultants, Inc. (HNC) is to provide nutrition education and strategies to prevent diet related diseases. HNC is committed to improving consumer’s health by providing comprehensive nutritional information to culturally diverse populations through seminars and community education programs. Basically their goal is too fight obesity in this country, specifically in minority communities. And if you’re curious as to why this type of fight is needed, check out these statistics:

• The weight epidemic hits African-Americans harder than most others. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 60 percent of African-American men and 78 percent of African-American women are overweight.

• More than 28 percent of African-American men and 50 percent of African-American women are obese.

• A recent study predicts that 20 years from today, all of America will be obese.

The bottom line is, if you want to be a healthy YBP, you have to mind what and how much you eat. We’ve written some great posts on healthy eating, so click these links for more tips: The Unwanted Holiday Guest, Hypertension in the African American Community, How to Cook…(even when you don’t feel like it), Diabetes, and Counting Calories.