The changing American diet.

It's report card time. So, using the government's latest data (through 1993), we've graded the nation's eating habits. The results: We're barely scraping by with a C+ average. The grades rate both what we eat and-more importantly--how we've changed what we eat over the last 20 years. For example, even though we still eat too many eggs (cholesterol-rich egg yolks, actually), they got an "A" because we're eating fewer of them.

The charts overestimate what people actually eat, because they include the food that gets thrown away ... before or after it reaches our plates. Nevertheless, the figures are computed the same way each year, so comparisons are reliable.

In fact, the USDA's oldest records, dating back to 191 0, can sometimes teach us the most. For example, we're eating 20 pounds more sugar and other sweeteners than we did in 1973, but around 70 pounds more than we did at the turn of the century. Flour and grains are up, but we're still eating a hundred pounds less than we did in 1910. Indeed, for many foods, what our great-grandparents ate is what we should be shooting for.

RELATED ARTICLE: MILK: B+

The good news: Skim and 1% fat milk continue to inch higher and whole milk continues to fall. The bad news: whole and 2% milk (which isn't really low-fat) still account for 77 percent of the milk we drink. What's more, we're drinking less milk of all kinds since the USDA started keeping records in 1910. Why? Our graph on soda may hold a clue.

RELATED ARTICLE: FRUITS & VEGETABLES: A-

While we continue to eat more fresh vegetables, the only ones that weigh in at more than ten pounds per person per year are potatoes (83 lbs.), lettuce (28 lbs. , onions (15 lbs.), and tomatoes (14 lbs.). Not carrots (8 lbs.), not sweet potatoes (4 lbs.), not broccoli (3 lbs.).

White potatoes account for a fifth of all the vegetables we eat, yet we're still about 100 pounds short of what we ate in 19 1 0. Maybe that's a good thing; one out of two tubers now ends up frozen--that means greasy french fries.

Fresh fruit also appears to be in a long-term uptrend. The only members of the more-than-ten-pounds-per-person-per-year club: bananas (27 lbs.), apples (19 lbs.), oranges (14 lbs.), and watermelon (13 lbs.--if you count the weight of the rind).

RELATED ARTICLE: DAIRY PRODUCTS: C-

Cheese, most of it fatty, has doubled since 1973. It's now at an all-time high ... and not because people are packing more Swiss-on-rye for lunch. Mozzarella (pizza cheese) explains much of the increase. Yogurt (which was barely visible before 1970) has held steady since 1985. Ice milk (used mostly in fastfood shakes and soft-serve cones) had its big jump in the 1950s and 1960s. "Other Frozen Products" (mostly low-fat frozen yogurt) are up smartly.

RELATED ARTICLE: SWEETENERS: F

It's a bull market in sweeteners: everything is up ... including waistlines. You'd think that more artificial sweeteners would mean less sugar and other refined sweeteners. Don't bet your aspartame on it. Over the last ten years, refined sweeteners jumped by 20 pounds per person. The American sweet tooth is out of control--just one more reason more of us than ever are obese.

RELATED ARTICLE: FLOUR, GRAINS, & BEANS: B

In 1910, our grandparents ate about 300 pounds of flour and cereal grains. While we eat less than 190 pounds a year, that's up 50 pounds since the century's low in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, some of that increase is in cakes, cookies, doughnuts, and pastries rather than pasta, bread, and cereals.

RELATED ARTICLE: FATS & OILS: D+

In the 1950s, (cheaper) margarine overtook butter and shortening outpaced lard. Those shifts relieved our arteries of unwanted saturated fat, but we could do better. For one thing, the trans fat in margarines and shortenings (mostly hidden in fried foods and fatty baked goods) still threatens our hearts. For another, the total amount of fat we eat-like the average American's belly-is still swelling. Coincidence?

RELATED ARTICLE: BEVERAGES:D-

We now drink almost twice as much soda as milk or coffee, and five times more soda than fruit juice. You think most of it's low-cal? Think again. Some three out of every four cans or bottles of soda contain sugar. As far as sales go, only beer comes close to "the real thing." Where's it going to end?

RELATED ARTICLE: MEAT, POULTRY, & FISH: B-

While we still eat more beef and pork (about 110 pounds a year per person) than poultry and seafood (about 80 pounds a year), the trends are looking good. Over the last six years, we swapped five pounds of beef for ten pounds of chicken. If only much of that chicken didn't end up, skin and all, battered and fried in artery-clogging shortening.

RELATED ARTICLE: EGGS: A

We're still on an egg roll. Since our 403-per-person-per-year peak in 1945, eggs have fallen steadily, although the curve seems to have flattened out in the 1990s. We now swallow 236 eggs a year--less than one a day. Both concerns about cholesterol in the yolk and breakfast-on-the-run are responsible.

RELATED ARTICLE: E is for Exercise

Older? Exercising? Vitamin E may curb some of the muscle damage caused by exercise, say researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

Every day for 48 days, William Evans and co-workers gave nine sedentary men under 30 and 12 sedentary men over 55 either a (inactive) placebo or 800 International Units Daily Allowance) of vitamin E.

On the 49th day, the men stopped taking the E and were told to run down an inclined treadmill for 45 minutes (they got a five-minute rest after every 15 minutes). On day 52, they started taking the E (or placebo) again for eight more days.

Twelve days after running on the treadmill, urine tests showed that the placebo-takers had signs of muscle damage while the vitamin-E-takers didn't. Why?

Here's how Evans (who is now director of the Noll Research Center at Pennsylvania State University) interprets this and other studies: "Older people have a blunted immune response to exercise. Vitamin E seems to enhance the response."

He recommends that older people take 200 to 400 IU of vitamin E a day, because "immune function is important to recovery and adaptation to stress of all kinds."

American Journal of Physiology 264: R992, 1993.

Fishing for Answers

Yes, seafood is healthier than meat, poultry, or other foods that have more saturated fat. But no, it may not offer any special protection for your heart.

In 1986, Alberto Ascherio and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health asked nearly 45,000 male dentists and other health professionals to complete a questionnaire about their eating habits. Then the researchers compared the seafood consumption of the 1,543 men who had bypasses, angioplasties, or heart attacks over the next six years with the seafood consumption of the men who had no heart troubles.

The results: zippo. Men who ate six or more servings of seafood a week had no lower risk than men who ate seafood less than once a month.

But, says Ascherio, if men who eat fish once or twice a week have a lower risk than men who eat no fish, the study wouldn't have detected it, because "we had very few men with no fish consumption."

It's also possible that seafood may help people who already have heart disease. They were excluded from the study.

New England Journal of Medicine 332: 977,1995.

Nibbles

* In a national survey of some 3,000 medical residents and physicians who were practicing pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, or family medicine, roughly half answered incorrectly when asked how to treat low milk supply, breast abscesses, and some other common breast-feeding problems.

Journal of the American Medical Association 273: 472, 1995.

* The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the number of Americans who died after eating Listeria-infected food dropped from 481 in 1989 to 248 in 1993. In 1989, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cracked down on Listeria in hot dogs, chicken salad, sliced turkey and roast beef, and other ready-to-eat meats.

Journal of the American Medical Association 273: 1118,1995.

Don't Drink to This

Here's some news you won't hear from the beer, wine, or liquor industry: Alcohol may raise the risk of colon cancer. But aspirin might neutralize the risk, say researchers from Harvard Medical School.

In 1986, Edward Giovannucci collected diet, weight, and other information from more than 47,000 male health professionals who were 40 to 75 years old. Over the next six years, roughly 200 of the men were diagnosed with colon cancer.

Giovannucci found that men who drank more than two servings a day of beer, wine, or hard liquor were twice as likely to get colon cancer as men who drank once every four days or less. However, alcohol didn't increase the cancer risk of drinkers who took aspirin at least twice a week.

What's Giovannucci's advice for people who want to avoid colon cancer? "A diet based on a generous intake of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain foods; replacing red meat with poultry, fish, and low-fat dairy products; avoiding excess alcohol; and engaging in even modest amounts of physical activity."

Journal of the National Cancer Institute 87: 265, 1995.