PINOYS AT THE TABLE
When it comes to matters of the stomach, most Filipino adults can do more to eat healthy.
By Grace Roxas, Contributing Writer
Whether it's from a busy schedule or a misguided attempt to diet, more and more Filipino adults-especially city-living, career-bound 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings-are revving up their mornings on an empty gas tank by skipping breakfast.
What other basic nutrition rules do grown-ups, years removed from their grow-go-glow pyramid in grade school, like to break? The habit of drinking enough milk, going easy on high-sodium condiments and sauces, and eating enough fruits and vegetables.
Weight management consultant Mitch Felipe of Fitness First observes that missing breakfast is one of the most common habits she encounters among working people who go to her for advice. "They either have brunch or go to lunch but sometimes when they do, they tend to overeat after being deprived of a proper breakfast," she says.
Lunch is usually the biggest meal of our day but dinner, which is recommended to be on the light side, turns to be as heavy, if not heavier. "Most people are usually most relaxed during dinner and for those living with families, dinner is a time for get-together so there's a tendency to eat more," Felipe adds.
Richer diet and flavor
"Filipinos are carnivorous," says Medical City dietitian Fides Salve Palencia. This echoes a trend noted in the Household Food Consumption Survey (HFCS) undertaken in 2003 as a major component of the National Nutrition and Health Survey conducted every four years by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute.
While fish comprise 11.7 percent of the average Filipino food consumption compared with 9.2 percent for meat, the survey notes that intake of meat and meat products has been increasing since 1978.
However, as much as Pinoys love meat, other animal products are hardly as popular-particularly milk. "We are not trained to drink milk from childhood, except in more affluent families who can better afford to buy this expensive beverage and can have their children's diet well monitored," points out Palencia.
Milk and milk products make up only 5.6 percent of the daily Filipino diet. This partly explains the fact that 84 percent of Filipino households do not meet the recommended calcium intake. There are more families deficient in calcium than in the other major nutrients including iron, which is lacking in more than 80 percent of Filipino families.
Felipe and Palencia agree that the proliferation of fast-food chains mostly serving meat-heavy Western fare may have something to do with the Pinoys' growing preference for meat. But the growing variety in processed meat products in supermarkets and sari-sari stories is also feeding this hunger for meat.
Felipe has noticed that fast-food chains tend to be favored by the less well-to-do, while the well-heeled usually sit down to a restaurant meal when they find the time later in the day. Employees doing field work and those putting in irregular hours like call-center agents are also more likely to eat food on the go.
Palencia notes that when they do eat breakfast, Filipinos in all economic brackets love to have processed meat-from the popular hotdog, which is the
baon of choice among both rich and poor kids, to traditional meat products like
tocino and longganisa, which even fast-food chains carry on the menu.
Besides processed meat, another food item that is well loved across socioeconomic brackets is seasoning or sauce, either as
sawsawan or dips for fried or broiled meat, or as base for dishes like
adobo, menudo, and caldereta.
The Filipino palate is far from bland. "Even when their food is full-flavored already, most still feel they have to add condiments like soy sauce and
patis," says Felipe. "That's a health no-no that's common but usually taken for granted, so I usually make it a point to tell my clients to avoid sauces in their food."
These flavorful distillations and extensions on a dish also sit well with rice-hungry Pinoys. As rice toppings, sauces and condiments allow us to maximize the experience of eating the favorite local staple without spending a penny more for the
ulam.
Rice is king
The HFCS survey also validates what any true-born Pinoy knows to be the instinctive call of the native stomach-eating rice. Cereals and cereal products, mostly rice and derivatives, account for more than 40 percent of the food consumed in a typical household. No surprise then that nine of every 10 Filipino households meet the daily recommended intake for niacin, a nutrient abundant in rice.
Carbohydrates in general seem to form a big part of the Filipino food preference, contributing 70 percent of the total dietary energy in household diets, according to the HFCS.
For the poor, rice is filling and cheaper than protein. For everyone, even
merienda where rice is absent would be a carb-heavy affair with pasta, bread, and other wheat-derived snack foods. Spaghetti or
pansit won't nearly be as complete without some toasted bread on the side.
During main meals, rice-plenty of it-will accompany a one- or two-dish meal for lunch or dinner, depending again on the budget. The economically better-off will usually have at least two dishes, one meat- or fish-based, the other vegetable-based.
"One-dish meals with a lot of soup are usually very practical for families on a budget. Having the soup means they need less of the actual
ulam which is fish or meat and it can be eaten by everyone including very young children," Palencia says.
More of less
Still, Palencia notes that the continuing popularity of water-based and vegetable-containing traditional dishes like
sinigang, tinola, and nilaga makes the Filipino diet fare better than the fattening, oil-based diets of some Western countries.
But only very slightly-the HFCS shows that the differences in Pinoy and Western diets appear to be diminishing, given the growing popularity of fast-food fare and fried processed meat.
Fats are slightly gaining on carbohydrates as a source of dietary energy. From 15 percent in 1993 to carbohydrates' 74 percent, fats now account for 18 percent of dietary contribution to carbohydrates' 70 percent. Protein holds steady at 12 percent over the 10-year period.
But as of 2003, still only four of every 10 Filipino households meet the recommended per capita daily energy intake while no more than three out of four families meet requirements for all the other nutrients except protein, which is sufficient in seven out of 10 households.
In terms of actual food, this correlates to lowering consumption of other nutrient-rich food items. The HFCS pegged us as a "rice, vegetable, and fish"-eating population, but the vegetable part of our diet has been disappearing over the years. Aside from vegetables, our collective taste for corn, roots, tubers, and fruits is also tapering off.
Felipe and Palencia don't share a very happy view of the Filipino eating pattern. Filipino adults are not healthy eaters in general. But eating more of what's nutritious and good is only half of it, they said.
They suggest having more meals within the day, but in smaller servings. Not only will this enable the body to use the food more efficiently, this will also allow for more variety in the food composition.
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