Wasting food

Some people overeat because they are trying to numb unpleasant emotions, or prolong the pleasurable ones.  Others eat too much because it just tastes good, and they indulge beyond the point of self-nourishment in an act of rebellion or greed.  And some individuals eat until they finish what's on the plate whether they are still hungry or not, because they can't stand the thought of letting food go to waste.  Often, if these people are parents they will dutifully finish what's on their kids' plates along with their own! ...and lecture the children on being wasteful, to boot.

 

Learn to practice the fine art of eating the best and chucking the rest!

 

We live in an age of plenty. Throwing away a cup of overcooked pasta or one leftover hamburger patty isn't going to hurt anyone, nor would forcing yourself to finish every meal save a starving child in Somalia from the ravages of malnourishment.  It goes without saying that everyone should strive to be conservative, and try not to take more than you need at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Likewise, it is not necessary to prepare a double-recipe knowing your family will only barely finish half of it.  Because throwing away food is wasteful... there is no argument about that. But it is no more noble, or useful, or wise to treat your own body as a garbage can for disposing of unwanted food! Maybe you hold the notion that your body will somehow make good use of the extra food beyond what it needs to sustain itself.  It won't!  It stores the excess food as fat! Which, let's face it--most of us won't need to rely on as an energy source anytime within our lifetimes.  So the food still goes to waste, inside the body, in the form of unused, unhealthy fat.

 

For the longest time I couldn't bring myself to throw away food, even if I knew it wouldn't get eaten. I'd put leftovers in the fridge and then let them rot until I "had" to throw them away. Or I'd eat the same thing meal after meal until I'd finished the whole amount, even if it was no longer appealing to me and even if I truly would've preferred to make something new and eat that instead.  What did this accomplish? It instilled a desire to overeat when the food was fresh, in an effort to "dispose of" the leftovers in a way that wouldn't make me feel guilty or result in my ritualistic self-punishment of forcing myself eat it later.  Now, knowing that I can eat only what I want, when I want, and toss the rest, means that I have no reason to stuff myself on extra bites that don't really serve any purpose beyond adding on extra pounds of fat over time.

 

Don't guilt yourself into eating food you don't want just so it won't be "wasted."  Remember that no matter whether it ends up being tossed in the trash or stored as fat in your body, it is not being utilized for any useful purpose. And if you spy someone else giving you a dirty look when you scrape your plate into the garbage can, ask yourself whether you believe that person to be any smarter or better or healthier than you simply because they finish every last bite, or save leftovers until they go bad, or force themselves to eat the same thing for every meal until every last scrap is gone.  Put waste in a garbage can, not in your body.

Not all yogurts were created equal

I love yogurt. With it's live bacterial cultures, high calcium content, and protein to boot, it is often praised as a healthy, wholesome snack--especially for women, who have a higher RDA for calcium than men but too often fail to eat enough dairy or meat to reach nutritional requirements.

But have you ever looked at your yogurt label? I mean, really looked at it?? I was shocked to discover that my favorite brand contains 14 grams of sugar per serving. That's more than the sugary fruit and grain bars I'd long ago deemed too "candybar-like" to be a regular addition to my diet! Also, to my chagrin, the second ingredient on the label...? High fructose corn syrup. Why, Yoplait? Why???

I learned firsthand that not all yogurts are created equal. A quest to find what to do about it revealed the following article, from Health Action newsletter.

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Yogurt: Health food... or dessert?

Plop a 1960s shopper down in the yogurt aisle of a 1990s supermarket and she’d probably drop her loaf of Wonder bread. Yogurt’s come a long way, baby.

On the upside, it’s got less fat than it did 30 years ago, when yogurt first showed up in supermarket dairy cases. On the downside, it’s looking a lot more like dessert than health food.

For children, you can now find yogurt with added candy, Jell-O, or Trix "fruity colors"—that is, the same artificial colors and flavors that make some kids think they’re getting fruit instead of sugar when they eat Trix (make that "Tricks") cereal. For adults, you can find flavors like chocolate eclair, coconut cream pie, and caramel praline.

If you’re looking for dessert, almost any yogurt is better than cakes, cookies, pies, and the rest. But if you’re looking for a healthy food, you’ve got to be choosy.


The Best
You can’t beat a cup of plain low-fat or fat-free yogurt. It can have as much as 400 mg of calcium—40 percent of the Daily Value (DV)—more than a glass of 1% or fat-free milk
(30 to 35 percent of the DV). And, like milk, it also has protein, B-12, riboflavin, potassium, magnesium, and zinc. The only exception: Yogurt has no vitamin D because, unlike milk, it’s not fortified.

What’s more, people who have trouble digesting lactose (the naturally occurring sugar in milk) should have no problem with yogurt. The "live and active cultures" digest the lactose for you.

Whether those Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus—the bacteria in yogurt—have other benefits is unclear. But even if they don’t, yogurt’s still a bargain. All those nutrients for just over 100 calories is a steal.

That is, if you eat it plain. Not that it has to be eaten alone.

Yogurt’s natural tartness makes it a perfect foil for a sweet, ripe banana, juicy fresh (or frozen) berries, or even canned (unsweetened) pineapples or peaches. Throw it in the blender or spoon it into a bowl. Either way, you get one of the five daily servings of fresh fruit that could cut your risk of cancer.

Plain fat-free or low-fat yogurt is a Best Bite if there ever was one. Unfortunately, that’s not the way most people eat it.

The Next Best
People who would never let a sip of chocolate milk cross their lips think nothing of eating a cup of sweetened yogurt. Yet an eight-ounce cup of Dannon Lowfat fruit-on-the-bottom has six teaspoons of added sugar. A glass of Hershey’s Chocolate Fat Free Milk has four.
Now you’re talking 240 calories in a snack that many people gulp down in 240 seconds. You could have spent the 100 calories from the added sugar on a banana or a couple of cups of low-fat microwave popcorn.

Judging by the calories in other brands—whose manufacturers are more secretive than Dannon—six teaspoons of sugar is par for the course for yogurts with fruit. (Flavored yogurts like coffee, vanilla, and lemon may have "only" four teaspoons.)

All that sugar means more calories and less calcium-rich yogurt.

Since the calcium comes from milk, that means you’re also getting less potassium, magnesium, zinc, etc. Plus, the sweeter the yogurt, the less likely you are to add your own fruit.
Still, if it’s a choice between sweetened yogurt and no yogurt, get the sweetened. Just try to pick the best ones. That means the most calcium and fruit and the least added sugar.
But while food labels list calcium and sugar, there’s no way to tell how much of the sugar comes from the milk and fruit and how much is added.

So we gave Honorable Mentions to yogurts that kept the calcium up to at least 300 mg (30 percent of the Daily Value) in eight ounces.

Just because a yogurt didn’t make an Honorable Mention doesn’t mean it’s dishonorable. More than a few just missed the cutoff for calcium. When push comes to shove, most yogurts are more nutritious than most ice creams, frozen yogurts, or prepared puddings.

One more thing: If coffee’s your flavor, you may end up with an unwanted shot of caffeine. And, in most cases, there’s nothing on the label to clue you in. For the record, an eight-ounce container of Dannon Lowfat Coffee Yogurt contains 45 mg of caffeine. That’s about what you’d get in half a cup of brewed coffee. Six ounces of Horizon Organic Nonfat Cappuccino have 25 mg. Dannon Light Cappuccino and Stonyfield Farm Nonfat Cappuccino have none.

The Least Best
Why did some lines strike out?

Too little calcium. A few brands—like Colombo, Jell-O, Light n’ Lively, SnackWell’s, and some lines of Breyers—had less calcium than their competitors. Is that because they have more sugar? Or is it because other brands have more milk solids? The companies won’t say.
Artificial sweeteners. Though the aspartame (NutraSweet) in "light" yogurts cuts calories to 100 or less, its safety isn’t 100 percent certain.

Heat-treatment. SnackWell’s is heat-treated to get rid of the off-flavors that arise when chocolate mixes with the acid made by yogurt’s beneficial bacteria. Unfortunately, the heat also kills the bacteria.

The information for this article was compiled by Wendy Meltzer.

See link for comparison chart

Full article and comparison chart here

The Skinny on Diet Sodas

Everyone knows that when you are on a diet, regular soda just isn't on the menu. But order up a diet soda, have as many as you want, and you are doing a great job, right? Well, maybe not so much.

There is, and always has been, a lot of press surrounding diet sodas and artificial sweeteners (which are what give diet soda its sweet taste). For years, it has been suggested that these enticing and oh-so-delicious beverages not only rot your stomach lining and your teeth, but even can rot your brain....anyone remember the mid-90's urban legend about certain diet sodas killing memory brain cells?

I am not convinced either way on any of the above, but what I can talk to you about is the potential risks and benefits that are associated with diet sodas such that you can make your own decision to drink on up or pass on by.

Let's break it down into some "Myths and Facts":

Diet soda destroys your stomach lining.
MYTH/FACT (depending). Soda is acidic. Acidic foods and beverages can be hard on certain people's digestive systems but in general, our bodies are pretty good at adjusting. An occasional soda here and there is not going to wreak havoc on your stomach if you don't have underlying conditions to begin with. If you are having problems with acid reflux, indigestion or ulcers then, indeed, sodas probably aren't the best and you should avoid as they will exacerbate these conditions.

Diet soda rots your teeth.
FACT. As stated above, soda is acidic. Acid is hard on your teeth. Continuously drinking soda throughout the day is definitely not a good thing to do if you want to preserve a sparkling smile. My advice: if you want to enjoy a soda (diet or otherwise), do so through a straw and brush your teeth immediately after.

Diet soda kills your brain cells.
MYTH(??). I actually consider the jury to be still out on this one. It really has more to do with the artificial sweeteners and other artificial ingredients than anything else. We really don't have all the answers when it comes to long-term effects of artificial anything. While it appears that regular (in other words: in moderation) human consumption of FDA-approved additives is perfectly safe, there is no 100% guarantee.

Diet soda helps you lose weight.
MYTH. This actually falls in a gray zone but is in the neighborhood located much closer to myth-land. It is true that there are no (or very few) calories in diet soda and all things considered, if you reduced your calorie intake and increased your energy expenditure through exercise, a diet soda or two each day will not help or harm. And we do know that regular soda is full of empty calories and sugar so getting away from this stuff is a good idea. The issue here with diet soda is that recent studies suggest that the taste of it may actually trick our bodies into wanting the calories it has been "promised" by the sweet tasting beverage, thus essentially sabotaging our best laid plans.

Diet soda, in moderation, is probably just fine.
FACT. As with anything, moderation is the key. If you enjoy diet soda, go ahead and have one-just not every day/all day. Better choices when the thirst strikes: water and decaf iced tea (particularly green or white). If plain water bores you, try the sparkling kind or throw in some limes, lemons or other fruit for flavor.

Full article here

Artificial additives linked to hyperactivity

Cadbury and Mars to ban artificial food additives
Cadbury and Mars have promised to remove artificial additives from a range of their sweets following a study last week that confirmed a link with hyperactivity in children.

Mars brands which currently use one or more of the suspect additives include Starburst, Skittles and peanut and plain M&Ms. The confectionery giant has committed to removing E104 from M&Ms and all artificial colours from Starburst and Skittles by the end of this year.

Cadbury sweets containing the additives include Maynards wine gums, Bassett Murray Mints, Barratt Flumps and varieties of its Trident chewing gum. A spokesman from Cadbury said that the company had already begun a programme to replace artificial additives in its biggest brands such as Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts and Jelly Babies but has now extended that to all other sweet brands before the end of 2008.

The moves will increase pressure on the Food Standards Agency to support a total ban on the additives.

Prince Charles joined in the debate yesterday at the launch of the Year of Food and Farming, when he warned that a generation of "over-industrialised" children may be poisoning themselves with food additives.

Full article here.

Choosing a healthy breakfast cereal

How healthy is your breakfast cereal?
Choosing a healthy breakfast cereal is not a simple task. The cereal aisle is a long one, full of contradictions. You'll find cereals made with refined grains with nearly no fiber, and cereals made with whole grains and bran boasting 7 grams or more of fiber. There are cereals with so much sugar they seem more like boxes of little cookies. And there are cereals with sugar listed far down on the ingredient list.

But it's well worth the effort, experts say. If you eat cereal almost every day, either for breakfast or as a snack, the cereal you choose can say a lot about your health. It can add a lot of good stuff to your diet -- or it can add a whole lot of nothing.

Choosing a healthy breakfast cereal is mainly about getting some whole grains. There's no excuse not to get at least one serving of whole grains if you eat cereal for breakfast. Recent research suggests those who eat more whole grains are at lower risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Taste or Nutrition?
The trick is finding a breakfast cereal that is full of healthful attributes, low in sugar, and has no saturated fat and trans fat -- but still tastes great! It doesn’t matter how good for you a cereal is; if it doesn’t taste good, you’re probably not going to eat it day after day.

Of course, one person’s perfect whole-grain cereal with less sugar is another person’s bowl of sawdust. If you like breakfast cereals that come in lots of colors and artificial flavors, then yes, you probably do have to choose between taste and nutrition. But if you like a cereal with natural flavors from toasted whole grains, and maybe some nuts and dried fruit, you'll have many healthful cereals to choose from.

And yes, dried fruits do add nutrition to your cereal. A quarter of a cup of raisins, for example, has about 1 1/2 grams of fiber plus 4% of the Recommended Daily Value for vitamin E and about 6% each of the Daily Value for vitamins B-1, B-6, and iron, magnesium, and selenium. But when you look on the nutrition facts label for Raisin Bran, for example, you might be shocked to see there are 19 grams of sugar in a 1-cup serving. What’s going on is that any sugars -- even those from natural sources like dried fruit -- are counted in the sugar grams listed on the label. It may be helpful for the consumer to review the ingredient listing of a Nutrition Fact label to identify added sugars rather than reading the amount of total sugars in the product.

How Much Sugar?
Does the ingredients list for your cereal look a lot like that on, say, a box of cookies? One ounce of Mini Oreo cookies has 11 grams of sugar and 130 calories (34% of its calories come from sugar). And sugar is the second ingredient listed (enriched flour is first). Lots of cereals have ingredient lists that look similar -- like Cookie Crisp Cereal, with 44% calories from sugar.

The U.S. Government's Dietary Reference Intakes recommend that added sugars not exceed 25% of total calories (to ensure sufficient intake of micronutrients). And while there isn’t a specific guideline for cereal, it makes sense to aim for a cereal that gets 25% or less of its calories from sugar. (If the cereal contains dried fruit, this could be a pinch higher.)

While you can find plenty of cereals with 5 grams of fiber per serving or more, some of them go a little bit over the "25% calories from sugar" guideline. But if the percentage of sugar calories is still below 30%, the first ingredient is a whole grain, and the cereal tastes good, it may still be a good choice overall.

8 Good-Tasting Picks
After some taste testing and input from acquaintances, I came up with eight picks for the best-tasting healthful breakfast cereals. The cereals on my list had to have a whole grain as the first ingredient and 5 grams of fiber per serving. Sugar had to be around 25% calories from sugar or less, unless dried fruit was among the top three ingredients. I also tried to choose cereals that are easily found in the supermarket.

Post Grape-Nuts Trail Mix Crunch: 5 grams fiber, and 22% calories from sugar. The first three ingredients are whole grain wheat, malted barley, and sugar, followed by raisins and wheat bran.
Fiber One Bran Cereal: 14 grams fiber, 0% calories from sugar. First three ingredients are whole-grain wheat bran, corn bran, and cornstarch. This cereal only appeals to some people. I would suggest enhancing the flavor with cinnamon, fresh or dried fruit, and/or roasted nuts.
*Fiber One Honey Clusters: 13 grams fiber, 15% calories from sugar. The first three ingredients are whole-grain wheat, corn bran, and wheat bran.
Quaker Oatmeal Squares: 5 grams fiber, 19% calories from sugar. The first three ingredients are whole oat flour, whole-wheat flour, and brown sugar.
Shredded wheat: 6 grams fiber, 0% calories from sugar (for a generic brand). The only ingredient is 100% whole grain cereal. I enjoy this with added fresh or dried fruit and nuts. If you opt for the frosted variety, it has 6 grams fiber and gets 23% of its calories from sugar.
*Frosted Mini Wheats: 6 grams fiber, 24% calories from sugar. The first three ingredients are whole-grain wheat, sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup.
*Raisin Bran: 7 grams fiber, 40% calories from sugar (in Kellogg’s brand). The first three ingredients are whole wheat, raisins, and wheat bran). Sugar is listed fourth in the ingredient list, but many of the calories from sugar come from the raisins.
Kashi Heart to Heart Honey Toasted Oat Cereal: 5 grams fiber, 18% calories from sugar. The first three ingredients are whole oat flour, oat bran, and evaporated cane juice. This is a higher-fiber alternative to Cheerios. I think they taste better, too. But that may be because there is more sweetener added (the evaporated cane juice).

Read the full article here.

* indicates a personal choice (even I wouldn't eat some of these "healthy" options!)

What's the Buzz: Protein

Protein is an essential nutrient that is important to good health. It is used by our bodies to produce and grow muscles, hair, nails, skin and internal organs. Proteins used for synthesis within the body are comprised of amino acids, many of which the body cannot produce on its own. We therefore must ingest protein to supplement the body's amino acid production to enable us to grow, heal, and function normally.

The great thing about protein is that it's not only delicious and nutritious, but easy to get in a variety of forms! Everyone knows that meat contains protein, but so do dairy products, nuts, legumes, and other sources.

Foods that are high in protein:
Meat, fish (including canned tuna)
Eggs or egg substitute
Milk
Yogurt
Cheese (including cottage cheese)
Beans
Soy
Nuts (including peanut butter)
Seeds
Lentils (including peas and chickpeas)
Tofu
Wheat germ or wheat gluten, as contained in--
*Some whole-wheat pastas (check label, look for at least 10g protein per 1 cup serving)
*Some cereals (check label, look for at least 5g protein per serving)

Surprisingly, even though the list above is rather specific, most people consume adequete amounts of protein in their regular diet. The body just doesn't need much to meet it's requirements. In fact, most Americans consume more than enough protein daily. Only a few specific groups of people are at risk for being protein-deficient, including elderly women and people with illnesses or eating disorders. Protein should make up approximately 10-15% of your total daily caloric intake, according to the recommended daily allowances (RDA) set by the Food and Nutrition Board, with the other 85% coming from fat and carbs (15% and 70% respectively). Ideally, one should consume 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, meaning someone who weighs 120lbs should consume about 43 grams of protein per day and someone weighing 180 lbs needs roughly 64 grams of protein per day unless otherwise advised by a physician. Consuming more than 30% of your daily calories from protein can have adverse effects on the body, as the relative reduction of carbohydrates can cause it to enter a canabalistic state known as "ketosis." Excess protein consumption is especially a concern due to the fact that most sources of animal-protein (meat and dairy) are high in unhealthy saturated fat.

Someone who is having trouble meeting the recommended daily allowance for protein through their regular diet might consider drinking protein shakes, such as the following recipe:

Banana/Peanut Butter Shake (12 grams protein)
8 ounces fat-free milk
1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
1/4 - 1/2 banana

Blend until smooth in blender.

Protein powders can also be used as an additive to any smoothie/shake-type recipe to boost protein content. A simple alternative is to purchase ready-made meal replacement drinks, such as Ensure, Boost, or SlimFast (check label, look for at least 9-10 grams of protein per 8oz serving). However, remember that these are meant to be meal "replacement" drinks--they are quite high in calories and are NOT intended to supplement your regular meals!

Technically this isn't about food...

But I like coffee, and I like exercise, and so I was intrigued by the following article:

Exercise Plus Coffee May Ward Off Skin Cancer
A coffee habit, coupled with regular exercise, may help prevent skin cancers better than either factor alone, new research suggests.

The study was done only with animals, however, and it's not a reason to abandon standard sun-protection habits. "You should not give up the sunblock," said Dr. Allan H. Conney, senior author of the study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings aren't entirely new. "In earlier studies, we found caffeine and exercise -- either one by themselves -- inhibited ultraviolet light-induced skin cancer in mice," said Conney, the director of the Laboratory for Cancer Research at the School of Pharmacy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. But the new research shows that "the combination [of the two] works better," he said, providing a dramatically better anti-cancer result. Both caffeine and exercise seem to help kill the UVB-damaged cells before malignancy sets in. "We really don't know how that happens," Conney said.

In the study, his team looked at four groups of hairless mice. The rodents' exposed skin is very vulnerable to the sun. One group was given caffeinated water to drink each day, the equivalent of a person drinking a couple of cups of coffee a day, Conney said. Another group ran voluntarily on a running wheel, the equivalent of a person running two or two and a half miles every day, he said. (These mice will happily go on an exercise wheel if one is available, Conney said.) A third group had both the caffeine and the exercise, while a fourth group had neither and served as the control group. The mice in all four groups were exposed to lamps that generated UVB radiation that damaged the skin cells' DNA.

While some degree of healthy, programmed skin cell death ("apoptosis") was seen in all four groups of mice, the caffeine drinkers and exercisers were best at killing off the damaged cells, the researchers found.

To find out how different the four groups were in terms of killing off damaged skin cells, the researchers looked at physical changes in those cells. They also looked at chemical markers, such as enzymes, involved in killing damaged cells. The differences were dramatic. The caffeine drinkers showed a 96 percent increase in damaged cell death compared to the control group and the exercisers showed a 120 percent increase. Even more significant, the mice that drank caffeine and ran on the training wheel had a nearly 400 percent increase in cell death of damaged cells.

A spokesman for the Skin Cancer Foundation urged caution in interpreting the study findings, however. "It will take years of extensive testing to determine whether this will be a worthwhile concept before you can say anything specific about it," said Dr. Michael Gold, founder of the Gold Skin Care Center in Nashville, Tenn.

"Mice and humans are very different. That said, we do know that caffeine applied topically has been popular as a 'cosmeceutical' anti-aging ingredient and might be useful in helping prevent non-melanoma skin cancers," Gold said. "The concept of systemic caffeine needs to be addressed further. We also know that moderate exercise is an immune moderator and can help ward off cancers and other diseases."

He echoed standard advice to wear sunscreen when out in the sun. "If you are exercising outside you must wear sunscreen no matter what," Gold said. "If you don't protect yourself from the sun while exercising outdoors you are increasing your risk of getting non-melanoma skin cancers and melanoma. Protecting yourself from the sun is currently the only proven way to prevent skin cancer."

Read the full article here