Six Reasons We're Not Eating Healthier

Here is WebMD's 6 Reasons Americans Aren't Eating Healthier:

1. Calories
2. Diet and Exercise
3. Breakfast
4. Fats
5. Carbohydrates
6. "Functional" Foods

I'd like to offer my own 6 reasons why we're not healthier, basing them on those from WebMD.
1. We focus on calories, instead of food: 1000 calories from Twinkies is not the same as 1000 calories from lettuce, which isn't the same as 1000 calories from chicken. If you think it is, I suggest some reading on the role of insulin in fat storage.
2. We consider walking to be exercise: One day, less than a century ago, walking was transportation. Now it's exercise. People walk around the block and call it being "physically active". Walking is a great start for those that are inactive, but lets stop acting like walking is going to keep people healthy. Your heart rate should go up to where there is some difficulty talking.
3. We are convinced that breakfast is different from the other meals: Post and General Mills have convinced us that breakfast needs to be sweet. We feed our kids enriched Sugar Bombs and Pop Tarts before stopping off at Starbucks for a Sugar-ccino and sugarberry muffin. Eat a real breakfast of eggs and bacon. Or eat last night's leftovers. Breakfast doesn't have to be a grainy, sugary mess that sends your blood sugar skyrocketing so that you're starving again 2 hours before lunchtime.
4. We are convinced that some types of fat are bad for us: Especially that dastardly saturated fat. Get your fat from nuts and olive, coconut, and palm oils. And if you eat grassfed meats, dig into the fat in them too. Saturated fat isn't a killer. The polyunsaturated fats that we're told to eat just may be though (three cheers for immunosuppression!). I really love when some well-meaning, but misguided nutritionist lumps trans fats in with saturated fats, or worse says that trans fats are the same as saturated fats. But that is the nonsense that the American Heart Association continues to push, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.
5. Somehow, we listen to people that tell us to eat more grains than produce: Our government bases its Pyramid on grains. Dieticians are constantly touting the benefits of whole grains. Get your carbohydrates from unprocessed produce, like fruits, vegetables, tubers, and squashes. Grains are an alien food to the human body, having been consumed in quantity for about 10,000 years. There is absolutely nothing in a grain that isn't found in a fruit or vegetable without all of the nastiness that comes with grains like lectins and phytates.
6. We expect food manufacturers to give us healthful foods: This whole "functional" foods craze drives me nuts. Real food is already functional. Meat, eggs, seafood, produce, and nuts are about as functional as it gets. And they don't need a colorful package with Spongebob Squarepants on them and bright red banners telling us how good they are for us. Food manufacturers will add whatever they can to a product to make it a) cheaper and b) more attractive to your health-consciousness. Profit, profit, profit is the motivation of these companies.
7. We listen to the media rather than listening to our bodies: This one is a bonus. The media cares about stories, not truth. One day it's "Low Fat Diet Cures Cancer" and the next we hear "Low Carb Diet Knows the Last Digit of Pi". Stop changing your diet everytime Regis Philbin, Oprah, Kiran Chetry, or some other "news" host unveils the next big diet breakthrough. There is nothing new in the world of eating! People have been eating the right way for hundreds of thousands of years. If you eat real food, your body will tell you what, and how much, to eat. Cut the processed junk. Stick to food without nutrition labels.

It boils down to listening to your body. Ditch the food products. Eat real food, that which is grown, not manufactured. Stop dieting and just change your lifestyle. Eat the original low-carb diet, based on fresh fruits and vegetables and plenty of meat, eggs, and seafood. Ditch the grains and replace them with produce. Your body will thank you.

Forbes' Picks for "Healthy Desserts"

With great anticipation, I opened this article on Forbes about Healthy Desserts. I anticipated bowls of berries with coconut and cinnamon and other fruit concoctions, sufficient to satisfy the sweet tooth, but without loads of sugar. Boy was I wrong. Ok, I really didn't anticipate that. I anticipated pretty much what was in the article. Let's look a bit deeper into these options for eating dessert without adding pounds to your waistline.

• MaggieMoo's 16-oz Creamy Mango Zoomer - 2.5g fat, 400 calories - So let's do some simple math here: 2.5g fat * 9 calories per gram = 22.5. Subtracting that from 400 gives us another 388 (rounded) calories to account for. If we assume, very conservatively, that the remaining calories are half from carbohydrates and half from protein, we are left with 188 calories from carbs or, dividing by 4 calories per gram, 48.5 grams of carbohydrates, mostly from the sugar and fruit. Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that there's relatively little protein in this treat, so it's probably somewhere more like 70-80g of sugar. In 16oz. That's probably worse than a Coca-Cola. But it's low-fat, so it's "healthful". At least it is made with real fruit.


• Yogen Fruz Non-fat Frozen Yogurt - 0g fat, 120 calories - Rejoice! This one is fat-free! We can eat it to our heart's content and gain nary an ounce! Excuse my cynicism. 120 calories is 30g of combined carbohydrates and protein. Any bets on which one dominates this frosty treat?


• WholeSoy & Co. Creme Caramel Frozen Yogurt - 1g fat, 120 calories - Nearly identical nutrition profile as the Yogen Fruz above. But wait, this one is made with soy! Needless to say, I'm unimpressed.


• Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Light Ice Cream - 6g fat, 200 calories - More of the same. Light. 54 calories from fat and 146 from carbs/protein or nearly 40g. Bet ya it's sugar.


• Cold Stone Creamery's Birthday Cake Remix Creation with Light Cake Batter Ice Cream - 6g fat, 220 calories - Light, light, light! It must be alright. Oh look, I can rhyme. Add 5g of carbs/protein to the Ben and Jerry's above.


• TCBY's 16-oz., Beriyo Smoothie - 2g fat, 230 calories - 2g of fat equals 18 calories. So the other 212 probably come predominantly from SUGAR! That's 53g of carbs/protein for those keeping score at home. I bet once again that it's not protein giving us most of those calories.


• Stonyfield Farm Organic Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk Low-Fat Frozen Yogurt - 1.5g fat, 120 calories - Low-fat. Bleh....still 106 calories, mostly from sugar.


• Dreyer's and Edy's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Slow Churned Yogurt Blends - 3.5g fat, 120 calories - Let's just go ahead and make it clear that anything with the words "Chocolate Fudge Brownie" in its name is unlikely to ever be good for you. And for the low-fatters, over 25% of the calories in this one are from fat.

So what is being touted as "healthy" is more of the same low-fat/fat-free gibberish that we've been hearing for 20 years. It's obvious by the fact that they list nothing other than fat and calories. This is the same gibberish that has 2/3 of Americans overweight. Unfortunately, people still have this notion that if they don't eat fat, they won't get fat. The reality is that all of the sugar is cranking up insulin and burning out insulin receptors, leading to Type II Diabetes. All of the insulin has the body in fat storage mode, so it's impossible to lose the pooch around the middle. And to make sure we're eating "healthy," we take away the fat, which serves to keep the sugar from entering the blood as quickly ( i.e., lowering the insulin response and helping to negate the effects I described above).

If you want an ice cream treat, don't trick yourself into thinking that it's going to be healthful; it's not. So enjoy the full-fat ice cream. The full-fat stuff is likely to have less sugar and because it has fat, it will satiate you much better, meaning you'll eat less of it. The blood sugar/insulin spike will be lower, wreaking less metabolic havok on your body. Those of us fighting the low-fat dogma have a long road ahead of us.

Some Fun Links

Regina Wilshire did it again with this review of the findings of the 15th Annual European Conference on Obesity. Check out those very interesting stats on fat and saturated fat. I can't wait to see the low-fatters scramble to cover their rears again. I bet they'll claim that all of those Eastern Europeans a) drink red wine/beer/creek water/fruit juice/some other common trait that amounts to absolutely jack, b) are genetically predisposed to be obese, or c) some new version of nonsensical ad-hoc hypothesis.

Ross Enamait briefly talks about food additives.

Here is a cool article about The History of Mealtimes that I found a few weeks back. I don't have any profound wisdom to draw from the article. I just found it very interesting.

Even Da Vinci knew how to live well: Da Vinci's Guide to Healthy Living. Pretty well spot on. And he doesn't advise avoiding fat or carbs; just advises using real ingredients.

Mr. Wanjek Responds

I recently wrote an email to Chris Wanjek for his article on Live Science titled "The Atkins Paradox?" A few days ago, I received a response to my email. This is a copy/paste, so all typos are his.

Greg,

Thanks for your message. You make many good points. I don't write the titles. I hate paradox. But I don't think I was promoting the impossible-to-follow Ornish diet. I just recapped what the study said, almost to the word, that long-term weight management on Atkins is questionable.

My (tainted) experience goes back to the early 1990s at Harvard, where as a student my department was among the first to study the Med diet of fish but little other meat. So that's what got me going on this. Back then, Dr. Atkins posed regularly for teh camera in front of bacon, pork chops and, yes, lunchmeat. There was much talk about "eat the kind of foods you love..." We thought is was kind of funny back then and never dreamed his diet would be so popular.

I'm in Japan this week, where the Atkins diet sounds very funny to the folks here. Obesity is lower than 5%, and the diet is largely (white) rice and vegetables with some fish. Heavy people here confess to eating to much pork and beef.

From a public health view, Argentina has the highest beef consumption and the highest rate of colon cancer. Japan has high salt intake and high rates of stomach cancer. The U.S. has a high rate of fat consumption and the highest obesity rates by far in the world. When you step back to see the whole world as one big study, these kinds of things are revealed.

Again, thanks for your message.

-chris

I'd like to first make note that he addressed me as Greg, rather than Scott. Also, he didn't really address many of my points and still doesn't back anything up with facts. But I would like to address the few statements he does make. I'm not returning them to him via email because I'm not sure he read the first one.

Dr. Atkins advises avoiding processed meats. If he truly did pose with lunch meats (and I have no reason to doubt that he did), it is a shameful marketing ploy. It's the same marketing ploy used by Nutri-System and their "I can eat chocolate every day." Every diet has to pass itself off as "eat all the foods you love" even though eating all the foods you love is probably why you need Nutri-System/Atkins/Ornish/etc in the first place. It is an unfortunate fact of our dietary world. However, if he attracted just a few people to read his book and see that processed meats are taboo, perhaps it was worth it. So many people think any low-carb diet is Atkins. My low-carb diet would not be described as Atkins. It probably fits within the macronutrient ratios, but many foods that Dr. Atkins would allow are rarities for my hunter-gatherer diet.

I always question those studies that show fat to be responsible for a society's ills. For instance, citing that Americans eat more fat and are more overweight seems very short-sighted. The American diet isn't characterized only by more fat. It's also characterized by more sugar, more processed carbs, fewer fruits and vegetables (and therefore, fewer vitamins and minerals), more highly processed packaged food, and more fast food. These studies never tell whether the meat that was eaten was grass-fed or grain-fed, fresh or in the form of a salami. Did the people eat alot of pepperoni and the authors just classified it all as "meat"? What types of fat were eaten? Trans fats are killers and polyunsaturated fats (which we're told to eat in abundance) are known for their ability to suppress the immune system and their propensity for attack by free radicals.

The heavy people in Japan confess to eating more pork and beef. But what else do they confess to eating? How is the pork and beef cooked? Is it breaded, fried, and thrown into a sugary sauce? Have they adopted a standard Western diet, rife with fast food, fried junk, sugar, and processed carbs? If so, it is irresponsible science to blame pork and beef. And then there are the cultural confounders. Americans move little and sleep little, both of which are known factors in obesity. Can we attribute the low obesity rate in Japan solely to diet? Okinawans live long healthy lives - is that solely attributable to diet? No; it is also attributed to their low stress, family-oriented life. Americans are nomadic. We leave our families and live a fast-paced, stress-filled life, cranking out loads of cortisol in the process. It's not black and white. I see too many studies that have numerous variables, yet they only make a decision about one of them and it's always conveniently the one that supports their hypothesis. Remember that correlation doesn't equal causation.

As for Argentinians and "the highest rate of colon cancer," I'm not sure that's true. According to The Weston A. Price Foundation, the US has a higher rate of colon cancer and lower consumption of red meat. According to colon this site, the "main factors that initiate colorectal cancer are consumption of cooked red meat (due to heterocyclic amines) (Gerhardsson de V et al 1991; Reddy S et al 1987), high intake of refined carbohydrates (Franceschi S et al 2001), poor vitamin and mineral intake, alcohol consumption, smoking, bile acids, fecal mutagens (DNA-damaging agents), fecal pH, and compromised detoxification enzymes (Winawer SJ et al 1992)." S o it's not necessarily red meat, but cooked red meat or, more appropriately, overcooked red meat. Meat should be cooked slowly and not well-done. (Why would you want it well-done anyway? All of the flavor cooks out.) Also note "high intake of refined carbohydrates" and "poor vitamin and mineral intake," two factors which most surely affect the US. A 1975 article in Cancer Research mentions Finland, a country with a high-fat intake and a low colon cancer rate. And then there are the meat-eating Mormons with similar or lower colon cancer rates compared to the vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists. It isn't as cut and dry as so many nutritionists would have us believe. Humans have eaten red meat, and lots of it, for hundreds of millenia, yet they weren't dropping dead from colon cancer until relatively recently. Again, a look to our genetic roots points us in the right direction - sugar and refined carbohydrates are not part of the diet that shaped our genome.

When you step back to see the world as one big study, what is revealed is that there are so many confounding factors across groups to destroy most any hypothesis. That doesn't stop people from arriving at the conclusions that they want to see though. "Oh look at those Americans eating all of that fat and look at how big their waistlines are. Let's disregard the baked potato and bread they had with their steak and focus on the butter and animal fat. And then there's the fat in the cake they ate." So keep that in mind when you read reports that fat (or any other single nutrient) is responsible for all of society's ills.

Eat like a caveman and you won't experience the debillitating diseases of our modern culture. Eat meat, vegetables, nuts, healthful oils (like olive, palm, and coconut), fruits, tubers, and squashes. Earn your carbs by exercising intensely. Avoid processed foods, grains, sugar, polyunsaturated oils, and fast food. It's really rather simple.

The Atkins Paradox?

I found this lovely article by Chris Wanjek today. As you can imagine, that article made me shake my head in disgust. He is so far off-base, repeating the standard party line that I had to send him the following email:

Chris,
I have to disagree with you regarding your column on "The Atkins Paradox". First, I have to make it known that I find it hilarious that whenever a high fat diet shows weight loss, it's a paradox. We have The Atkins Paradox, The French Paradox, and The Inuit Paradox. There's always something to explain it away. Genetics (ha!), red wine (HA!), or some other ad hoc hypothesis. One day people will realize that the paradox is that our so-called nutritionists ignored reality for so long and advocated a low-fat diet. Second, you mention some cad eating a package of bologna and washing it down with a Diet Coke as being on the Atkins Diet. He may be following the letter of the law, but he's certainly not following the spirit. Dr. Atkins focused on meat and vegetables, not pork rinds and artificial sweeteners. I bet Dr. Ornish wouldn't agree that fat-free Twinkies are a good food choice, even though they fall into the macronutrient guidelines of his diet. Of course, he won't stop that from letting him attack Dr. Atkins. In fact, I bet someone following a proper Atkins diet eats far more vegetables than someone following the standard American diet. Perhaps you should better acquaint yourself with what Dr. Atkins really preached. Have you even read The Atkins Diet? And then there's the ad hominem attack on Dr. Atkins about his fall on ice. When you can't attack the science, attack the person - is that how it works? You can surely do better than that.

You mention the "mountains of data" supporting the saturated fat/heart disease myth. I urge you to read The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo. You'll see just how much selective science has been used to create the government guidelines. It goes against everything you've been taught. Perhaps it'll open your eyes to the facts: saturated fat isn't a killer and cholesterol isn't a killer. Do you know why it's hard to get to 10% fat on the Ornish Diet? It's unnatural! The human body is designed to run on fat for a majority of the time. Fat stimulates the hormones that suppress appetite as does protein. Carbohydrates, on the other hand, do not. There is a reason people associate a low fat diet with starvation; they are always hungry due to the lack of fat and protein.

You mention that humans have been eating a carbohydrate-based diet for the last few millenia, but what about the hundreds of thousands of years before the advent of agriculture? What did hunter-gatherer humans eat up until about 10,000 years ago? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't a plant-based diet. Grains weren't available in any quantity and the caloric cost of processing them to be edible ( i.e., to reduce their antinutrient content) was higher than the calories garnered from them. It wasn't until we figured out how to grow large quantities of grains that we were able to turn to a carbohydrate-based diet. Think about it logically: plant matter is seasonal; animal food is not. Humans EVOLVED on a diet based on animal products - meat, organs, fat, and bone marrow - and somehow they weren't keeling over from heart disease and cancer. The one year-round staple food before the global distribution network that we enjoy today was meat. Meat of all kinds. And I guarantee you that hunter-gatherers weren't picking up the nearest sharp rock to trim the fat. In fact, they relished the organs and fat more than anything. Check out The Weston A. Price Foundation and Dr. Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet for a good look into the diet that humans evolved on.

I would absolutely love to see you support this statement with some facts: "Country by country, populations become obese when they adopt an American diet high in animal fat and simple sugars." Quite frankly, it is bunk. First, check the archeological records and see that human health began to suffer when we adopted a (drum roll) grain-based diet. Height suffered, dental health suffered, and population boomed. A high carbohydrate, grain-based diet is good for population growth, but not for human health. Second, I would argue that the obesity epidemic began after the USDA Food Pyramid which focuses on grains, grains, and grains to the exclusion of meat and fat. In fact, the paradox here is that we're told by the goverment that we should eat more grains, a food which MUST be processed, over fruits and vegetables, which can be picked fresh off a tree or from the ground and eaten right on the spot. Our biggest problem isn't meat consumption; it's food product consumption. Too many people focus on food products rather than on food. If it comes in a colorful box, it's a food product. If it can be killed with a stick or dug from the ground, it's food.

Chris, please stop repeating the standard party line of "eat less fat," "animal foods are bad for you," and "Dr. Ornish knows all". Open your mind and do some research beyond what the media reports. This week they love low-carb because it's a story that sells. Next week they'll hate it because it'll be a story that sells. It's unfortunate that Live Science is buying into that, pushing a vegetarian diet and vilifying that which has never been given a fair shake anyway. Note that Ancel Keys' cholesterol hypothesis, on which the saturated fat tripe is based, was flawed from the beginning. He selected only the data that proved what he wanted to prove, discarding the other two-thirds of the data that proved his hypothesis to be nothing but a cloud of smoke.

The biggest problem with The Atkins Diet isn't the diet itself, but the way that most people implement it with using low-carb this and low-carb that, rather than going for the foods on the original low-carb diet: meat, vegetables, nuts, fruit, and tubers. And here's the irony: if people would simply eat foods that don't come with a Nutrition Facts label and a list of health claims, they would likely be eating the right things. Macronutrient content matters little if you're eating meat, vegetables, nuts, fruit, and tubers. The body will naturally regulate intake with nutrient-dense, satiating foods. Eat from the above five groups of whole, natural foods and Atkins, Ornish, Sears, et al will be out of business. Of course, so will all of the nutritionists...keeping us confused about what to eat is good for business, even if it's not good for our waistlines.

I could continue debunking the nutrition information on Live Science's site, but I think I have continued long enough.

Respectfully,

I am awaiting his response and will let you know if I get one.

The Calorie Equation

I had a discussion recently with a guy regarding the ever-prevalent dietary advice about calories. According to most dieticians, losing weight is as simple as eating fewer calories than you burn off. And while it is that simple, it's not that easy. The source of the calories makes a huge difference in how they affect the body. This is a part of my article "The Myths of Healthy Eating Part II" from awhile back.

We have all heard the news that we should reduce calories in order to improve bodyweight. Unfortunately, this is an overly simplistic way of looking at the body. The low-fat diet is based largely on the fact that a gram of carbohydrate contains fewer calories than a gram of fat: four vs. nine. The signs in the grocery store bread aisle read "Gram for gram, carbohydrates contain fewer calories than fat." While true, this statement is terribly misleading. "A calorie is a calorie" thinking assumes that the human body is a perfect thermodynamic engine; that is, it assumes that all calories are burned the same within the body regardless of their source. It also negates the fact that the hormonal pathways of processing the three macronutrients – carbohydrate, protein, and fat – are different.

The assumption that "a calorie is a calorie" means that a person following a 2,000 calorie per day diet could eat 2,000 calories of Twinkies or 2,000 calories of lettuce or 2,000 calories of chicken all with the same effects. I'm willing to bet that the person eating only Twinkies would not fare as well as the person eating lettuce or chicken.

We need to consider the "Thermic Effect of Food." The Thermic Effect of Food is the way in which a gram of protein, carbohydrate, or fat changes the metabolic rate. Basically, it takes the body twice the energy to break down a gram of protein as to break down a gram of carbohydrate or fat. This means that the gram of protein may report to the stomach with four calories, but following digestion and, taking into account the energy used to break it down, only about 70% of those calories are available. Fat has a thermic effect of about 3%, meaning a net gain of 97% of the calories in the fat you eat, while carbohydrates have a thermic effect of 5-10%.37 As you can see, different macronutrients affect the metabolic rate in different ways.

So based on the Thermic Effect of Food, it appears that restricting fat is a good idea since protein and carbohydrates cause a greater increase in the basal metabolic rate. However, this ignores the very real, very important hormonal effects of food. There is a simple reason that low carbohydrate diets work and work well: restricting carbohydrates decreases circulating glucose, which decreases insulin, which allows the body to access stored fat. When people think about energy, they think about that which they eat. However, most of us have a huge amount of energy stored around our waists (some more than others) in the form of fat.

But how does food affect hormones? In order for nutrients to be shuttled into the muscles, liver, and fat storage of the body, they need help. This help comes in the form of insulin. Insulin is secreted in response to carbohydrates and protein; carbohydrates cause a significant insulin dump, while protein has only a small effect on insulin. A large fat meal can cause an insulin response, but fat is effectively hormonally neutral. The rub here is that when insulin is circulating, the body will not release stored fat. You can see that the carbohydrate-heavy, low-protein, low-fat diet that is commonly touted keeps glucose and insulin levels elevated, which makes losing weight hard without following the starvation diet. So hormonally, a calorie is not a calorie – some calories (those from carbohydrates) tend to put the body into fat storage mode.

A calorie cannot be a calorie. If all calories were equal, then the macronutrient composition of the diet would have no effect on bodyweight. Studies, however, show this to be absolutely untrue. One study showed that a diet "high in protein and/or low in carbohydrate produced an ~2.5-kg [ 5.5 lbs] greater weight loss after 12 wk of treatment."38 Another study points out that "The ideal weight loss diet, if it even exists, remains to be determined, but a high-carbohydrate/low-protein diet may be unsatisfactory for many obese individuals" and that there are metabolic advantages to a low-carb diet.39 Finally, a study from 1957 by Kekwick and Pawan showed that even on a 1000 calorie diet (hypocaloric by any measure), patients on a 90% fat diet (with 10g of carbohydrate) and 90% protein diet (5g of carbohydrate) lost weight, while those on a 90% carbohydrate diet (225g of carbohydrate) lost little or none. Those on the fat diet lost the most, while some of those on the carbohydrate diet actually gained weight that they had lost on the fat or protein diets.40

"A calorie is a calorie" is dying a slow, painful death. Many in the nutrition field refuse to let go of this trite and worn out way of thinking despite mounting evidence that it just isn't true. In fact, just altering the level of omega-3 fats in the diet changes body composition. 41 To steal a phrase from John Berardi, "A fat isn't even a fat, let alone a calorie a calorie!" This isn't free license to eat all the protein and fat you want, ala Atkins, but it does illustrate that simply replacing "high-calorie" fat with "low-calorie" carbohydrates or protein doesn't work by the simple mechanism hoped for.

37 http://www.nap.edu/books/0309085373/html/114.html
38 http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/5/899S
39 http://www.sportsnutritionsociety.o...-2-21-26-05.pdf
40 Kekwick, A, Pawan, GLS (1957) Metabolic study in human obesity with isocaloric diets high in fat,
protein or carbohydrate Metabolism 6,447-460
41 http://www.johnberardi.com/articles...c_sep212001.htm

My big beef with "calorie is a calorie" thinking is food quality. Telling someone to eat more or less calories (depending on whether the goal is adding or reducing mass) doesn't tell them what foods they should be eating. People that focus on calories don't generally change what they eat so much as they change the package that it comes in. Instead of potato chips, they eat Baked Lay's. Instead of regular snack foods, it's fat-free this and low-fat that. That doesn't solve the underlying problem of inadequate vitamin and mineral intake and improper macronutrient portioning.

It also doesn't address differences between different types of the same macronutrient. For instance, is 50g of carbs from grapes identical to 50g of carbs from a Hershey's bar? The smart money is on "No!" It all breaks down to glucose, but along with those 200 calories (50g * 4 cal/g) from the grapes comes fiber, vitamins, and minerals. But if you only think calorically, the source is irrelevant. Are monounsaturated fats no different than trans fats? Both contain 9 calories per gram. But it doesn't take a genius to know that these two fats affect the body in drastically different ways.

There is a very simple solution that is also easier to implement. Eat like a Modern Forager: meat, vegetables, nuts, oils (olive, coconut, and palm), fruits, tubers, and squashes. Along with the reasons detailed in the article such as biochemical responses to food in the body and the thermic effect of eating, protein and fat stimulate the release of the appetite-suppressing hormones: peptide YY, cholecystokinin, and leptin. This effect of these two macronutrients will help you control your caloric intake. On the other hand, eating a standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is very difficult because the overabundance of carbs plays with your blood sugar causing you to have constant insulin spikes and hunger.

Stop thinking about calories and start thinking about food.

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.