Follow-up to "The Drugging of Our Children"

Yesterday, we had a bit of discussion on my post about The Drugging of Our Children. As luck would have it, Ross Enamait posted this article about the dangers of food additives to kids and their connection to hyperactivity and other disruptive behaviors in this post at his blog. I really can't top what he had to say, so I'm going to paste my favorite part here for all to enjoy...hop over to Ross' blog to read the rest.

It is not the child's job to read up on the dangers of food additives. We as parents must assume this responsibility. Being a parent is a responsibility and privilege. Part of this privilege means taking care of our children. Children don't buy food. We buy the food that they eat.

If you care about your children, you will make educated decisions regarding nutritional habits. Just because your child wants something doesn't mean that they will always get it.

Top notch post by Ross.

Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Last week, I put to rest another book. This time it was The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one and the 400 or so pages flew by. It's not an overly technical read, quite enjoyable. There was really only one point of contention that I had with anything said in the book and that was his mention of "the previously discredited Dr. Robert Atkins" or some such statement. I've never seen any scientific research that can actually discredit Dr. Atkins, but the dogma of today makes him seem like a quack. We can only hope that one day people see the truth about avoiding the types of foods Dr. Atkins advised us to avoid, namely the processed garbage that is the cornerstone of the Food Guide Pyramid.

The book is setup in three parts following four different food chains: industrial agriculture culminating in a McDonald's meal, industrial organic, pastoral organic at Polyface Farm, and a hunted and gathered meal. The first part of the book is both riveting and appalling, with loads of very interesting stats. Pollan describes how two crops are dissected into their constituent parts to be rebuilt into the tens of thousands of food products lining our store shelves. These two crops are corn and soy. Corn provides starch, soy provides protein, and either or both can provide the fat that make up the myriad products that you see in your local supermarket. These two crops are so ubiquitous that corn is in at least 25% of the processed foods in the grocery and soy is in around 2/3 of them. That really puts the $3-4 a box for some junk food into perspective. It's just another mix of corn and soy with some stabilizers thrown in for good measure.

In the first section of the book, we also get an in-depth description of the sex life of corn and Pollan describes the evolutionary changes that maize underwent to become the corn that we know today with its huge kernels and reliance on humans for pollination. We follow a single proverbial bushel of corn to its various destinations, 60% of it into feed for cows, 20% processed into Twinkies and Pop-Tarts, etc. This corn is a particular breed (I think it's called "#2 Corn," but can't recall exactly) that humans don't typically eat directly. Most of it goes into our industrial facilities to be turned into either animal protein or junk food.

Speaking of animal protein, Pollan gives a small but significant synopsis of the issues of corn-feeding cows vs. grass-feeding them. One issue is the proliferation of E.Coli 0157:H7 in the guts of corn-fed cows. This is the nasty virulent strain that causes all kinds of ills to those unlucky enough to ingest it. The way it works is that cows are ruminants, intended to eat grass. When fed corn, the intestinal tracts of the cows becomes acidic, killing off all but the most acid-resistant bacteria. These acid-resistant bacteria are the 0157:H7 strain of E.Coli. So it would seem logical to not feed them corn, but corn-feeding is how we manage to turn out cheap, abundant meat quickly. A corn-fed cow comes to market weight in only 14-16 months, while a grass-fed cow takes several years to come to full weight. But since the high-corn diet makes the cows sick, they have to pumped up on antibiotics and are also fed growth hormones to speed the process. All of this goes into the food we eat, not to mention the poor fatty acid profile of typical feedlot meat, very high in omega-6 fatty acids, with little omega-3 and conjugated linoleic acids. Luckily, farmers are now selectively breeding cows to tolerate a diet of corn. Whew! I almost thought we might resort to something illogical like putting the cows on grass.

But I digress. Here are some other interesting tidbits from this section:
- America produces 17.5 billion pounds of High Fructose Corn Syrup per year. BILLION! That's 8.75 million TONS of a product that didn't exist until 1980.
- Americans consume 158 pounds of added sugars per person per year. That's an increase from 128 pounds in 1985.
- Forty-five of the sixty products at McDonald's contain corn.
- Twenty-three of the thirty-eight ingredients in a McNugget are corn-derived.
- One in three kids eat fast food daily.
- One in three kids will get diabetes (one presumes a large subset of the 1-in-3 that eat fast food daily). For African-Americans, that number is two in five.

Section two is about organic farming, specifically two kinds of organic farming: industrial organic and pastoral organic. First, he explores the industrial organic complex. Think Whole Foods where you can buy organic everything and most of it isn't from your local food producers. Strawberries from Chile, asparagus from California, etc. The ingredients of an industrial organic meal travel an average of 1500 miles to get to your plate. It may be more healthful than a meal of conventionally grown foods, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily more environmentally friendly. Pollan explores the notion of organic TV dinners and the organic farms that sit right next to conventional farms, run by the same people. It is an interesting concept to ponder. On the one hand, eating organic is more healthful for the eaters and doesn't douse the land with petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides. More land under organic control means fewer chemicals in our land and waterways. On the other hand, is an organic Snicker's any better than a conventionally produced one? We have the power to produce nearly anything organically, but does that make it a good idea to do so? And since organic foods must be trucked or flown in from far away, is it more or less environmentally friendly than eating a locally produced meal of conventional agriculture products?

Pollan's week at Polyface Farm sounds truly intriguing and enlightening. Polyface is a true pastoral farm. They raise cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rabbits on their 450 acre farm, most of which is wooded. The animals are rotated through the available pasture in a precise dance that ensures each animal gets to eat the food most appropriate for it, all of it grass-based. Joel Salatin, the farm's owner, actually calls himself a "grass farmer". He ensures that the grass receives the proper natural fertilization and amount of rest before reintroducing the cows to feed and drop their patties, which the chickens then come behind later and peck through to eat the grubs. The trees are planted strategically to keep the wind from destroying the pastures and are used as a sustainable lumber operation. Everything about this farm, from the way the manure is turned into fertilizer (through the use of pigs) to the way the chickens are slaughtered (open air, viewable by anyone) is sustainable. Little of anything on the farm is brought in from outside and the entire farming operation is produced on-farm by the work of the sun and the animals coordinated in a natural rhythm. And because Salatin believes in buying local, he refuses to ship his products anywhere but the local Virginia and Maryland markets, which is why Pollan ended up there working the farm. One chapter talks about Pollan's internal struggles with slaughtering a chicken and turning the chicken waste into yet more fertilizer.

Next up, Pollan investigates vegetarianism and the ethics of eating meat. He cites Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, several times. Singer is a noted animal rights activist and vegetarian. But the really interesting part of Singer's take on animal rights is that he doesn't disagree with responsible farming of the type performed at Polyface. That one of the most vehement opposers of using animals for food can't find an argument against allowing cows, pigs, and chickens to live the lives of cows, pigs, and chickens, only to later be used as food speaks volumes to the responsibility and sustainability of grass-based farming. Aside from the health benefits of eating properly raised animal products, turning away from the conventional agriculture so predominant in our cheap food culture is friendly to the environment and to our animal brethren.

Finally, Pollan goes on his own hunting and gathering expedition to create a completely (or mostly) home-grown meal. His goals are to hunt a California pig and gather chanterelle mushrooms. He meets a fellow that is well-versed in pig hunting and mushroom gathering that agrees to take him out. After he successfully bags a pig, he goes through all kinds of emotions, ranging from disgust at himself for enjoying it to thankfulness for the pig that became part of the never-ending circle of life. The description of mushrooms is absolutely fascinating and I won't give away all of the details here, but thinking of the network growing below the ground, of which a mushroom is only a small little part, is incredible. It is like a brain network within the earth.

All in all, I absolutely loved this book. I give it 5 stars. Sure, not every conventional farmer is like the Iowans he interviewed, but he does a good job of exploring the issues surrounding our food chains, of which we are increasingly removed and which is amazingly opaque. Understanding where our food comes from, how it is grown and processed, and how it gets to us is the best way for returning to a healthful life.

McDonald's Tastes Better

According to three to five year olds

Researchers ordered some food from McDonald's - chicken nuggets, hamburgers, fries, carrots, and milk - and fed it to the preschoolers. The catch was that each preschooler received two meals, one containing a chicken nugget, a part of a hamburger, some fries, a couple carrot sticks, and some milk all packaged in McDonald's wrappers and the exact same meal packaged in plain wrappers. Note that all of the food came from McDonald's, the only difference was the wrapping. And the findings:

For example, 76 per cent favoured the fries presented in the branded packaging, compared with 13 per cent who liked the unbranded fries better. And while 60 per cent of the children preferred the McDonalds-branded chicken nuggets, only 10 per cent favoured the nuggets presented in plain wrapping.

These findings really illustrate what many of us already know: the mind controls the body. McDonald's advertising does an excellent job of convincing people that the food is high quality and delicious. I've read studies before that showed that younger children have trouble even distinguishing advertising from regular programming and their trusting nature makes them more likely to believe hyperbolic claims. The children even preferred McDonald's branded carrots over the non-branded carrots.

I've seen a similar instance of the "mind thing" before in a college job as a server at Red Lobster. Most people know that calamari is squid. But I recall more than one occasion where a family came in and ordered some fried calamari (delicious morsels!), which the kids had never had nor knew of. None of us would tell them what it was until they tried it. The general consensus was that it was delicious. Then when we told them it was squid, it suddenly ceased to taste good. Their minds had convinced them that it was repulsive while their taste buds were slapping their eyes silly from the deliciousness.

The mind-body connection is probably how people manage to keep eating foods that make them feel horrible (see: donuts, Twinkies, Ring Dings, etc), or to eat foods that are supposedly healthful but that actually damage health. Because we believe something is healthful or makes us feel good, the mind allows us to ignore the problems that those foods cause.

And here's more good reason to turn off the TV:

The study also found that children in homes with more televisions were more likely to show a preference for the branded meal, suggesting that fast-food commercials exert a strong influence.
....
Experts have estimated that the food and beverage industries spend more than $10 billion each year to market products to US children.

More TV time equals more advertisements viewed, which gives more time for an influence to be exerted. The industry is spending quantities of money that no parent can hope to overcome to make kids say "I want!" Unfortunately, more and more of us turn over our, and our children's, entertainment to the talking picture box.

My wife mentioned one possible confounding factor though: familiarity. Humans are naturally reluctant to try unfamiliar things, so perhaps the children are just gravitating towards the name they know versus the unknown factor.

What the World Eats

Time Magazine has a series of 15 pictures showing the weekly food intake of some families around the world. Obviously this is not a representative sample of much since there are only 14 families shown and there are some 6 billion people in the world. A few observations:

* Some people spend A TON of money on food each week - Of the 14 families, only 5 spend under $100/week. The range of expenditures is $1.23 in Chad to $500.07 in Germany. Obviously it's not a straight comparison because some of these countries have a lower per capita income. In Chad, $1.23 might by 50% or 75% of their weekly income, while the German family spending $500/week might be spending only 25% of their income.

* Look at all the junk and convenience food - Even the foreign families have picked up the American trend of indulging in prepackaged, manufactured food. Read the lists of favorite foods: pizza, potato chips, chocolate fudge cake with cream, ice cream, hot dogs, frozen fish sticks. Also note the weekly expenditures of the families selecting such foods.

* Some families manage to eat very well on little money (relative to US standards) - The families that spend the least tend to have what looks to be the most nutritious food selections, even considering the difference in cost-of-living. Check out the Ahmeds of Cairo (Slide 9, $68.53 for 12 people), the Aymes of Ecuador (Slide 10, $31.55 for 9 people), the Batsuuris of Mongolia (Slide 12, $40.02 for 4 people) and the Namgays of Bhutan (Slide 14, $5.03 for 12 people). While it doesn't seem that the Namgays have much food for 12 people, they certainly have a nice selection of produce. Look at all of the produce that the Aymes and Ahmeds have for their families.

* A few families manage to eat very poorly on lots of money - I'm going to pick on the Revises of North Carolina (Slide 5) as they are close enough to my home state of Kentucky to be comparable in terms of cost-of-living. For a family of 4, they spend $341.98 per week. The food consumption for the week chosen includes two pizzas, multiple bags of chips (four?), plenty of fast food in the front right corner, and lots of sugary "juice" in the back right by the chips. If you look closely, you'll spot a few tomatoes and what appear to be grapes hidden amongst the junk.

The dollar amounts make me wonder if they are showing us monthly expenditures. I am rather frivolous with spending on food (and frugal in other areas to allow that) as I like fresh produce and meat and I eat like a horse. My wife and I still spend less than $80/week for organic produce (where available), chicken, eggs, grassfed meat, plenty of olive oil, and a couple of lunches out each week (mostly by her as I'm too particular about what I eat to not make my own food). In fact, if not for the lunches away from home, we'd probably come in at less than $60/week (I smell another post brewing). We don't eat out very often, nor do we eat chips, frozen foods (other than occasional frozen vegetables), or other convenience foods, keys to keeping expenditures low.

How about your weekly expenditures? Where does your food money go?

Heart Healthy Lunchroom

An email came out recently at work that mentioned our new "Heart Healthy Lunchroom". I found myself sitting mouth-agape reading what they find to be "Heart Healthy". Here is the bulleted list of options available in the cafe.

• new, guilt-free French fries or chicken tenders, now being fried in zero-trans fat oil and zero-transfat butter
• an array of fat-free salad dressings and more fresh fruit are now available at the salad bar
• vegetables on the steam table are perfectly steamed without any butter
• 100-calorie snack packs in the vending machines
• Nestea green tea, Propel fitness water and Crystal Lite coming soon

Let's just start with the first one: "guilt-free" French fries and chicken tenders. There is (or rather should be) nothing guilt-free about French fries and breaded, deep-fried chicken. Fry it in zero-trans fat oil, fry it in water, fry it in air...it's still a fried potato or a heavily breaded and fried piece of chicken. Regardless of what the potatoes are fried in, there will still be very high levels of cancer-causing acrylamide. Second, the oil is no doubt a polyunsaturated blend because we wouldn't want to fry in saturated fats. We all know that they are deadly. But as long as the fries are trans fat free and low in saturated fat, they're not bad for you. Puhlease! The greater the level of unsaturation, the greater the instability of the fat. Polyunsaturated oils, being highly unsaturated, are highly unstable, which means that at the extreme temperatures required for frying, they will oxidize and turn rancid. Saturated fats would be a much better choice here. Not to mention the high sugar hit and insulin load of those potatoes. The high temperature frying probably also causes some denaturing of the proteins in the chicken and there's the grain-based flour coating, that is also starchy and probably also contributes some of that delicious acrylamide. Still guilt-free?

The second and third options aren't so bad. More fresh fruit is good. We could do without the fat-free dressings though. But again, we all know that fat is bad for your heart. Ugh! And it's good to know that the vegetables have not a single touch of butter. We wouldn't want to have any fat at all in our diets. Nevermind that fat is absolutely necessary for proper vitamin absorption and that people eating fat-free dressing absorb far less of these essential vitamins than those eating normal dressings.

One-hundred calorie snack packs as heart healthy? Let's check Nabisco World and see just what offerings we have for a 100-calorie snack. First up, I see Lorna Doone Shortbread Cookies. Cookies! Always a solid nutritional choice. Then there are the Teddy Grahams. How could something that cute be bad for you? Ritz Snack Mix, Wheat Thins, Peanut Butter Cookie Crisps - I know that my diet is deficient in those essential food groups. We continue with Ritz Chips and Cheese Nips and finish off our journey with...yes folks, those are Oreos and Chips Ahoy cookies that you see! And let's not forget the granola bars and pudding. But worry not my Heart Healthy Friends, they are all low in fat. And there's probably only 18-20 grams of carbohydrate, most of it sugar. It's ok though...they're low fat and we all know that sugar isn't bad for you. Now let's consider some other 100-calorie "snack packs". You can have a medium apple at about 75 calories. 30 grapes or 15 raw almonds or 10 oil-roasted almonds - all about 100 calories. Three cups of raw broccoli or 20 large baby carrots or...have I made my point? There are so many healthful 100-calorie options that will actually fill you up and provide some vitamins and minerals as to make the 100-calorie Snack Packs a joke. Of course, focusing on calories is a misguided effort anyway, one that has gotten us into our current obesity situation, but that's a topic for another post. Seriously, eat some beef jerky (preferably without MSG and nitrates) and some nuts for your snack. Or have a piece of fruit. Remember: There is no such thing as junk food. There is junk and there is food. Cookies, chips, etc all qualify as J-U-N-K.

And finally, the last option. I can't really find anything negative to say about this one. I was quite intrigued by the heading of the email and was quickly disappointed at the offerings. Instead of pushing meat, vegetables, nuts, and fruit, they are providing access to the same stuff only in a "more healthful" package. But to not be a complete nay-sayer, at least there is an attempt to provide more healthful options. They may have missed the mark by a bit, but the groundwork is laid. And 1.5 out of 5 isn't bad, is it? Batting .300 is pretty decent if you're playing baseball.

Britain: Consumers Force McDonald's to Close

Consumers Support Farmer's Market Instead of McDonald's; McDonald's Closes

In the town of Tavistock in the UK, consumers have changed their buying patterns to purchasing locally grown produce from the Tavistock farmer's market. Because they are choosing unprocessed foods over unhealthy, highly processed McDonald's, business was no longer viable for McDonald's. The local Mickie D's has decided to close it's doors. That's what happens when consumers make choices based on their health. It's really not that hard to eat right: build your diet around meat, vegetables, nuts, and seeds; add in some fruit and starchy tubers (sweet potatoes, squashes, pumpkins); and avoid sugar. None of those things will ever lead you near a fast food joint.

New York City Bans Trans Fats

New York City Bans Trans Fats

Here's a follow-up to my last entry. New York City has banned trans fats in restaurants. There are some limitations to the law, such as food served directly from a manufacturer's package, but all in all, this will cause some sweeping changes in the restaurant industry. Will it improve health? That's debatable. Eating food fried in polyunsaturated soy or corn oil is only marginally healthier than eating food fried in trans fatty oils. Eating sugar is as bad or worse than eating trans fats. Both sugar and trans fats do serious damage to the arteries causing cholesterol to come to the rescue to try to repair the damage (for which cholesterol gets blamed no less). Both of these items should be minimized in, or better yet eliminated from, a healthy diet.

I'm still not sure that I'm for this given that once the government decides to regulate, they rarely decide to unregulate. What will they decide is bad for us next? Steak? Eggs? Beer?

Here's another link I stole from Dr. Michael Eades' blog: 10 Worst Trans Fat Offending Foods. The first picture is poutine, a Canadian specialty of french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. It's hard to imagine that the "average" person only eats 5.8g of trans per day given the amount in those items. Now you know what to avoid. If you need something to replace margarine, try butter (yes, the real stuff isn't bad for you), coconut oil, palm oil, or olive oil.

Louisville, KY Trans Fat Ban

I'm a few days late on this one: Louisville Discusses Trans Fat Ban. And Restaurants Oppose Trans Fat Ban.

My home city of Louisville, KY has proposed a trans fat ban in restaurants in the interest of public safety. I'm a bit torn on this one. I hate government regulation. Little good comes when the government regulates. And I am all for personal responsibility. There is already too little of it in our litigious world. On the other hand, trans fats are the absolute worst thing you can eat short of arsenic. They are a man-made fat which serves only to clog your arteries, damage your fatty acid profile, and destroy the fluidity of your cell walls.

Of course with government regulation, people may actually begin thinking that fast food isn't so bad for them. One guy in the second article said 'he'd favor a ban. "If they can put out a product that's healthier for me, then why shouldn't they?"' It will only be healthier in the same sense that smoking 1 pack of cigarettes a day is healthier than smoking 2 packs. Not eating fast food on a regular basis is the only healthy option. And keep in mind that there is no way that the restaurants will return to frying in healthy saturated fats like coconut and palm oils; they're saturated and we all "know" that saturated fat is bad for us. There's an area that the government has already screwed up - should we let them continue regulating what we eat?

Crack-Donald's Is At It Again

It's been awhile since I posted...I've been getting things taken care of to start my new job (started today). Here's a gem that my wife forwarded to me today: McDonald's adds gyms to restaurants

Well, McDonald's is at it again, trying to spit-shine that public image. Now they've opened seven test locations with "high-tech mini-gyms" for kids. Basically kids can play video games or watch TV so long as they are exercising at the same time. For instance a bike lets them play a game as long as they are pedaling. McDonald's claims it to be an effort to fight obesity or something. In reality, it is an attempt to bring in more business and increase profits. Fast food companies are not in the charity business; that is, they exist to make money. Any action they take is an attempt to make more money. If it is not, they are doing their shareholders a disservice. And considering that health (and body composition) is 75% diet and 25% exercise, it's not difficult to see that a steady diet of McDonald's is going to win out over any level of exercise anyway.