Tuned in to nutrition with Radio Nutrition

Has the lock down affected your eating habits?  Eating more and enjoying it less?  Eating better?  No change? Just a few very looonnnnng months ago, our busy lives meant that our food choices were dominated by food prepared by someone else.  Convenience food, restaurant food, fast food, take out, grab and go snacks and processed food.  Who had time to cook?  Not to mention the skills, let alone the kitchen tools.  If you could eat very well by buying food someone else had prepared, why cook?  Added bonus: no kitchen clean up.   

My how things have changed.  In the course of one weekend we went from being too busy to cook, to having nothing but time on our hands. 

Someday scholars will analyze the impact of the lock down on our food behavior.  All we know for sure right now is that eating at home became the new norm.  In fact, it was the only option.  You might be eating restaurant take-out, frozen foods, prepared food from the grocery store or home-cooked meals, but you were definitely eating at home.  

Judging from the empty shelves at the grocery store, we’ve been eating a lot of pasta, rice, beans, canned soup and frozen pizza.  Not much tofu though.  One hilarious photo showed grocery shelves where everything had been stripped away except the tofu, the little packages sitting all alone. Based on the months-long shortage of flour and sugar, we can also assume high consumption of homemade cookies, muffins, cakes and banana bread.  Strangely, fresh produce, fresh meat, yoghurt, cheese, commercial bread and milk have remained plentiful.  Months later, food companies are still struggling to keep up with the demand for canned soup. The flour situation has improved, but if the lock down persists into winter, that could change quickly.  Frankly given the incessant media hysteria and fear mongering, I would not discount that possibility.  Plan your holiday baking accordingly.

Will we become permanent converts to the joys of cooking?  Or will people drift back to their previous food habits if daily life ever gets back to normal?  I don’t see daily home cooking taking root without permanent fundamental changes to how people live. If we’ve learned anything during the lock down it’s this: cooking is very time consuming.  Easy to do when there’s nothing else going on all day.  But if you go back to your long commute, long work day and busy schedule, you probably won’t be cooking dinner from scratch every night.  

Did all this home cooking result in healthier eating?  Maybe, maybe not.  There is a widespread belief that home cooked food is automatically healthier than prepared food.  After all, you can control the ingredients and the portions.  True, but if you want healthy meals, you have to plan healthy meals and purchase healthy ingredients.  All that flour and sugar went somewhere.  Possibly to peoples’ thighs.

According to Grub Hub, the most popular food searches so far this year include spicy chicken sandwiches, red velvet cupcakes, vanilla shakes and cheeseburger sliders.  According to PepsiCo’s recent financial report, people have been scarfing up snack foods like Fritos, significantly boosting the company’s income.  Not exactly the picture of healthy choices.  

I recently surveyed a large group of friends about how the quarantine had affected their food habits.  These were retired women, so it was a rather select group, not representative of everyone’s experience.  They all know how to cook (even if they don’t always enjoy cooking),

Host Immunity isn’t about hospitality. It’s about the ability of your immune system to fight infections and heal injuries. Many nutrients are critical for immune function. Which is why I find it puzzling (or disturbing) to hear medical professionals dissing the importance of nutrition for immunity.

Host immunity is your body’s defense system. Listen up to learn about key nutrients that support your defenses.

almond, sesame and peanut butters

I’ve been thinking about nut butters recently because some almond butter appeared in my pantry. It was an ingredient for a particular recipe, but of course I had to have a spoonful. Yum! It’s got a lovely mild/sweet flavor, and I wondered why I haven’t been buying it more often. I am now.

All of which also made me think of the nutrition aspects of nut butters. In their natural form, nut butters are very similar to each other. They have decent protein and healthy fats. They’re a great addition to anyone’s diet, but are especially useful for vegetarians and vegans for the protein.

These days we’ve got lots of nut butter options in the average grocery store. You can find them in jars, and some stores have machines so you can have fresh ground nut butter. That way you know you’re just getting ground nuts, no additives.

Unfortunately, many nut butters are doctored up to keep the oil from separating or to add sweeteners. Some have added oil to make them more spreadable. Walnut butter seems particularly likely to include added fats and sweeteners.

Here’s the breakdown for 2 TB of some common nut butters you can find at most grocery stores. The values are for natural versions of these butters. In other words, no added sugar or texturizers or other stuff like (gah!) palm oil. Added sugar would change the carbohydrate and calorie content. Added fat would dilute (reduce) the amount of protein and carbs, although not significantly.

Nut butters are also good sources of iron, potassium, zinc, magnesium and vitamin E.

In my opinion, “best” isn’t defined by the type of nut. It’s defined by “natural”. No added palm oil (gah!), coconut oil (ugh!), sweeteners or other additives. Just nuts, perhaps salt. So check the label before buying. Other than that, choose the nut butter that fits your needs and taste preferences. Here are some uses:

* They’re all great spread on toast, pita or bagels. * Make nut butter sandwiches. Add honey, jam, fresh fruit slices (banana, apples, pears) or thin sliced cucumber or shredded sweet pepper.* Wrap up a tortilla with nut butter and perhaps some fresh chopped vegetables like cucumbers or grated carrots, or dried fruit or just plain. Figs and almond butter… hmmm.* Peanut butter is especially good for Asian style peanut sauce, used on noodles or tofu or vegetables. Tahini is an essential ingredient for hummus.* Use as a dip for raw vegetables* Spread on crackers for a snack* Use to make a salad dressing. Tahini dressing is one example.* Make cookies! Peanut butter cookies are well known, but try using almond butter instead.* Here’s another idea: include 2 or 3 different nut butters in a gift basket.

To sum it up, nut butters are a great source of protein, healthy fats and other nutrients for vegan and vegetarian diets. Even better, they’re delicious and versatile. Anyone moving towards a more plant-based diet should include one or more nut butters in their food repertoire.

podcast originally published Jan 2016.

model of fructose molecule from WikiMedia

While doing a spring cleaning on old blog posts, I found several on fructose. It was a popular topic years ago, thanks to high fructose corn syrup hysteria. Unfortunately, the potential problems of excess fructose intake haven’t gone away, so time to revisit this topic.

Here are links to previous blog posts on fructose:

Another Reason to Avoid Too Much Fructose

More on Fructose

Does Fructose Cause High Blood Pressure?

It’s safe to say calories have hijacked our thinking about diets, nutrition and food. It took maybe half a century for that to happen. Now we operate on the belief that:

* Calories = nutrition* The fewer calories in a food the healthier the food* You have to count calories everyday* If you cut back a certain number of calories you will lose a predictable amount of weight in a set time period

These entrenched beliefs now run our food supply, based on the ASSumption that everyone spends the day adding up the calories they eat.

* Food packages all have sciency-looking Nutrition Facts panels that proclaim “calories per serving” right at the top. Which creates the incentive to monkey around with normal food to make the “calories per serving” number lower. Result: insultingly awful stuff like low fat/low sugar ice cream or “reduced fat” cheese and artificially sweetened soft drinks.* Restaurants are now obliged to post calorie counts for menu items. This is supposed to make people lose weight. Again the ASSumption being that restaurant patrons will (1) notice the numbers and (2) avoid menu items with big numbers and (3) not make up the difference later at home by eating a half gallon of ice cream.

The obsessive focus on calories started back in the early 20th Century. According to the entertaining essay “Death of the Calorie“, calorie counting took over the weight loss industry in the mid-20th Century and the rest is history. Calorie counting took on a life of its own.

Our trust in calorie counting comes from our tendency to trust anything that looks like science. Numbers create a sciency sheen, and calories are all about numbers. Therefore it must be true that if you simply cut out 3500 calories (the amount of caloric energy in one pound of fat) from your precisely known calorie requirement (sarcasm alert) over the course of a week, you’ll lose exactly one pound of fat. I doubt that that has ever happened to any dieter in the entire history of the human race.

Admittedly, my profession has been on the front lines of promoting calorie obsession from the get go. If you study nutrition, the energy value of food is a huge focus. Nutrition professionals can start to think everyone is as preoccupied with calories as they are, which results in nonsense like restaurant menu cluttered up with calorie numbers.

The essay points out some of the accuracy issues I’ve discussed in the past.

* Calories listed on a food package are not accurate. They can be off by up to 20%. And that’s only if someone checks the accuracy by analyzing the food. The number on the label could be off by more, but if no one bothers to check, the company is unlikely to recognize the problem and fix it.* As for your own daily energy (calorie) requirement, you can calculate it with one of several popular predictive equations, but none of the results will be 100% accurate. * Plus your energy needs can vary day to day depending on what you eat, the weather, your activity level and so forth. * Speaking of activity level, there is a widespread tendency to overestimate the amount of energy burned by physical activity, such as a daily 30 minute walk.* And depending on what you eat and the mix of gut microbes, you may not even absorb all the calories you consume. * Simple calorie counts do not account for the different calorie sources: carbs, protein and fat (and alcohol). All are handled differently by your metabolism.

A recent study claims everyone — regardless of age, gender or physical size — should eat 30 grams of fiber a day. Is that even reasonable? Do fiber supplements count?

Ever since the beginning of the obesity epidemic, the holidays have been turned into an exercise in non-stop food guilting.  You’re supposed to spend the season obsessing about calories. I completely disagree.  This is not helpful.

I have not written about obesity per se in a long time.  Not because it isn’t an issue anymore.  Far from it.  I just don’t see the point of harping on it as a thing.  It’s very negative.  People struggling with their weight don’t need to be reminded or badgered or blamed or made to feel guilty and ashamed.  They know.  Some take action, mostly by dieting.  Sometimes those diets work, frequently not.  Other people have stopped trying; some of them have taken the opposite tact — defiance and body positivity.  Accept me as I am.

The people running Weight Watchers noticed this trend and rebranded the company.  WW, as it’s now called, is focused on health and wellness, not numbers on the scale.  The meetings (optional) are about supportive communities of like-minded people, not about inducing guilt or policing what people are allowed to eat.

This is all fine, as there’s good evidence that focusing on health and fitness rather than a number on the scale is a much better strategy.  In fact, some diet styles by default end up helping people control their weight without calorie counting.  The Mediterranean diet, and other plant-based diets are most notable for this effect.  Many people who switch to vegan diets end up losing weight as bonus.  There’s something to be said for just eating healthy food, and not worrying about whether a potato has 90 or 110 calories.

Nevertheless, the obesity epidemic forges ahead, and is spreading around the world, as societies become more sedentary and rising incomes allow people to eat more food.  A large survey of over 3.6 million people in Britain found that people with BMI of 30 or more had their lives shortened by 4.2 years for men and 3.5 for women.  Cancer and heart disease were the main culprits.  Interestingly, the lowest risk for heart disease mortality was at a BMI of 25; for cancer it was 21.  So being at the higher end of the normal weight range isn’t a bad thing for your health.  By the way, this study simply looked at mortality, not at existing diseases and the impact of those on quality of life.  It also didn’t look at fitness.  That would be useful.  I suspect that, even if you’re slightly overweight, being more fit would be protective.  Just as being normal (or even low) weight, but sedentary and over-fat is definitely not healthy.

It’s My Genes

These days, plenty of people plagued by excess weight are quick to blame their genes, and give up doing anything at all about their diet, even so much as adopting healthier food choices.  It’s in my genes, why bother?  In fact, that’s not correct according to a recent review of the topic.  I was even surprised at the rather bleak picture painted about the lack of good information about genes and weight.  Only two genes have been linked to obesity:

* MC4R, which is specifically associated with morbid obesity

* FTO, which is more widespread

All the other dozens or hundreds of genetic possibilities have not panned out.  In fact, it’s become clear the link between genes and weight is vastly more complicated that just identifying a couple of genes that cause obesity.  Genes are turned on or off in response to environmental cues or to other genes.  For example, a variant of FTO seems to make people more responsive to images of tempting foods.  You would expect those people to struggle more with controlling food intake, and with their weight.  But one study showed that people with that FTO variant actually lose more...