Food News

What's healthy, what's not

2006-11-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

This article in the New York Times is about a grocery chain that had a panel of nutritionists rate the foods they carry based on how "healthy" they are. Here are some things to think about while you read it:

1. There is no perfect food.

2. Those food companies that are complaining about this rating system and using the USDA guidelines to defend themselves are the same food companies that lobby to help shape those guidelines in the first place.

3. Is our problem with food in America really about ignorance regarding what's "healthy" or not, or is it about deprivation and how we feel about our bodies and lessons we learn about how to relate to food at a young age?

4. Is there anybody who goes into the grocery store thinking "ah, yes, these processed foods are healthier for me than vegetables"? Are those stars actually about guilt more than they're about education? Is all of the information we have thrown at us about the "right" food choices about guiding us intellectually, or is it about an attempt to guide us emotionally through shame? What does that say about how we think about ourselves?

Another "duh" story

2006-10-17T16:49:00.000-04:00

From this BBC story:

"Campaigns promoting healthy eating - such as Jamie Oliver's school dinners initiative - encourage positive body image in teenagers, a study has found.

Ekant Veer at the University of Bath said they were more effective than campaigns telling overweight teens they needed to slim down."

What's more, I think that when we're given a lot of bad body messages, we eventually start to hear any talk about nutrition and food as "you suck, you're bad, you're wrong for being overweight, you have to lose weight," rather than "let's talk about making healthy choices." I bet those kids are hearing the same thing. If we're going to look at how we talk about nutrition on a national level--and I think we should--I think it would be beautiful if we could learn how to talk about it without also making negative statements about fatness. Fat is often correlated with poor health, but we need to attack our attitudes about food before we attack our own bodies.

I've been reading a couple of books, Overcoming Overeating and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter. One of the primary messages of the book is that we overeat as a form of rebellion against a society that tells us that we're supposed to starve ourselves if we're fat when we also learn to use food as a way to comfort ourselves. I think their message (which has a lot more to it than this) is a good one, and worth checking out.

Hello, researcher bias, how are you?

2006-10-16T09:48:00.000-04:00

Some French guys did a study to prove that fat people are stupider.

Other things that determine intelligence: Your skin color and the bumps on your head and the size of your skull.

Seriously, when does the witch-hunt begin?

How not to eat poo spinach

2006-10-13T08:24:00.000-04:00

The e. coli in the spinach came from cow poo. It's funny; we talk about factory farming and how it's awful and so on, but we rarely think about how that might affect our veggies.

During the whole e. coli outbreak, the most interesting thing I read was this. Did you realize that the e. coli couldn't have been washed off? That it got into the leaves through cut stems from a contaminated blade? Do you know what that means?

It's easy to avoid greens contaminated in that way! You can do it even while you save money! How? Don't buy bagged greens.

I know, it's easier to buy bagged salad. I know: You feel like you won't ever eat salads if you don't buy them in bags. I get it. I am not bagged greens innocent, especially when it comes to spinach and shredded lettuce for tacos.

The thing is, it is so easy to buy a head of romaine and make a salad with it. When I'm making a salad, I peel off the romaine leaves at the beginning of the process, rinse them, and put them in my bowl to drain while I cut up my veggies. By the time I'm done cutting things up, the water has mostly run off of the romaine and I can just tear it up and throw it back into the (now dried) bowl.

Do you really want to pay people that much for a plastic bag? This is the argument that actually wins me over, usually. I am not one to freak out about how clean my food is, but damn, a dollar for a bag when I can do five minutes of work instead?

Do you really trust someone else to clean your greens? Think about how many leaves go through a processing plant for, say, Fresh Express, which we see everywhere. Do you really believe they get that clean?

Even if you do trust their cleaning methods (I go back and forth on this), it has become very obvious that it's a little scary to get greens with cut surfaces. I think I'd much rather get them attached to their stems or roots at this point. Just to be safe.

I also think that greens from a bag always taste just a tiny bit rotten, and smell a little funny.

--

Then again, you know, during the whole outbreak you were probably still more likely to get in a plane crash than to get e. coli from your spinach.

Decaf has caffeine!

2006-10-12T12:26:00.000-04:00

I thought it was already well known that decaf coffee contains some caffeine. Apparently, I was wrong, and so I share.

Hi! Have you missed me? Did you wonder why I wasn't talking to you about e. coli?

Well, I am back, for now. Also in the news:

People who aren't really that fat think that they're not that fat, despite what the government says.

Blah blah blah if you lose weight using fascist measures, you have to keep up those fascist measures. That is to say, really, that if you've lost weight, you probably know how to do it again, right? You're also smart enough to know whether weighing every day is good for you or makes you crazy, right?

Why I haven't been posting

2006-09-05T10:36:00.000-04:00

Someone posted a very sweet comment on the last entry about how they miss food news, and I guess I don't want to neglect this forever.

The reason I've not been posting is a combination of disgust with the way the media talks about obesity and a lack of inclination or time to do the research to point out exactly where the coverage goes wrong. Lately, I've read that obesity is a "pandemic," and that it's more troubling than starving children, and it seems that every time the subject comes up in the news there are words like "dire" thrown around.

It's a little hard to take. I understand a certain amount of concern about obesity, but for the most part I think this alarmist behavior is coming from a small amount of concern and a whole lot of disgust. You can hear it in the language used and see it in how rare it is that we talk about the actual reasons that obesity can be unhealthy and simply assume that it's bad, and it must be stopped, the great blob that's eating the world.

Also, I find myself constantly enraged at the way we ignore how obesity is also a class issue, how we can talk about fat people while so many people in this country are uninsured and can't even get basic health care, let alone any help at all about their weight save "you should lose some," which is an attitude that propogates self-loathing and--

[rant, rant, rant, foam]

See, this is why I haven't been posting much lately. I go look at the health news and end up angry and bitter and unable to post coherently. I also find that I'm unwilling to post about, say, copper levels in fish or other nutrition news that's unrelated to obesity, because that feels kind of fake.

If you, dear readers, have any suggestions as to how I can deal with this, do let me know. I have considered an in-depth post once a week, something where I actually do the research. It is possible that I will be more able to deal with the news as the latest wave of obesity noise passes, and I will post more often. It's hard to say. I do want to keep this blog going, though.

Eating for eyesight

2006-08-15T13:06:00.000-04:00

Check it out, other vegetables besides carrots can help you keep your eyesight. Eat your squash and corn and peas!

Obesity: Infectious?

2006-08-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

This article in the New York Times is a surprisingly good read as well as containing fascinating subject matter. The article is largely about how bacteria does a lot of our digesting and how differences in the bacterial balance in our guts might affect how well we use calories (and therefore how much we weigh), but the author also touches on the idea in our culture that people who are fat are simply lacking in will and somehow flawed.

Check it out.

Hrmph.

2006-08-10T10:21:00.000-04:00

Oh MY GOD the babies are FAT!

(Perhaps Thursday should be sarcastic day. It is needful, after yesterday's article.)

Is obesity the new race?

2006-08-09T14:11:00.000-04:00

This blog totally veers away from nutrition and into obesity issues, but I do think they're related, and I have a feeling that's how my career will look, as well. This article is about fat rights, and I think it's an interesting read. The writer has a lot to say, but I notice that she doesn't actually back up saying that obesity causes health problems with any data from studies, when those studies do, in fact, exist. That is only interesting because at several points in the article, fat activists are quoted as saying that there's no evidence that obesity causes health problems. It seems to me that the author wasn't taking them as seriously as she should; we must answer fact with fact, on either side of the debate, or it all gets lost in noise.

Fruits and veggies for moms and babies.

2006-08-08T12:28:00.000-04:00

WIC, the US program that gets nutritious food to new mothers and their babies, has added fruit and vegetables to the foods one can purchase with a WIC voucher.

I think that's pretty awesome.

Oh, wow, and WIC also has a program that allows new mothers to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers markets. I've often heard it said that "eat local" is the cry of the rich and middle class, that it's too expensive for poor people to eat nutritiously, and programs like this help ease that concern at least a little bit.

Salt

2006-08-07T13:38:00.000-04:00

Salt is back in the news. We're being told that we eat way too much of it, and that it causes high blood pressure. The last time I heard anything about salt, it was that, actually, if you don't have blood pressure problems, it won't hurt you. Now they're saying that, er, maybe it will, maybe it has a cumulative effect over time.

It can't hurt to limit intake of highly processed foods, certainly, and that's where you get most of your salt.

I wonder what we'll hear next!

Lying to ourselves

2006-08-02T14:40:00.000-04:00

My reaction to the news that 75% of around 3100 obese people claim to eat healthfully and 40% of them claim to exercise vigorously three times a week is complicated.

On one hand, some of those people are certainly telling the truth. If started a diet or an exercise program a week ago and you catch me to ask me questions about my lifestyle, it's possible that I'm going to tell you that yeah, I work out three times a week and yeah, I eat healthfully, but I'll leave out the part about only having done that for a week or two. Or a month or two. Obesity is not a snapshot; it's a long, long story.

A few others may eat healthfully and work out three times a week, have done so for years, and also be fat. It happens, though I don't personally know anybody for whom this is true.

Most of these people, though, are lying to themselves. Take a look at this study (link swiped from PastaQueen).

It is very, very easy to lie to ourselves about how much we eat, largely through misestimating serving sizes, the things we drink, and eating out more than we think we do. Even when one is keeping a food diary, it's awfully easy to round down calories in a serving as well as serving size often enough to miscount by hundreds of calories a day. This is why I hate calorie accounting, personally. It's a practice full of pitfalls, one that requires careful measurements, absolutely no extra splashes of olive oil, and an attitude that isn't about trying to play the numbers game and still get as much food as you want.

It's also surprisingly easy to lie to ourselves about how much we exercise. It's easy to forget that, yeah, while I certainly walked every day for the past two weeks, before that it was super hot or super cold and I maybe walked once or twice a week, if even that. We also lie to ourselves about the time we spend on each session. Did you really walk for 45 minutes, or did you walk for 30 and spend 15 talking to your neighbor? Or did you spend 20 minutes working out, 15 stretching, and another 10 puttering around in the locker room?

Weight really, truly is about calorie balance. There is, perhaps, a little bit of wiggle room due to how our metabolism works (mysteriously), but a pound of fat is 3500 calories of energy, so if you eat 3500 calories that you don't use, it gets stored as fat, and if you burn 3500 calories that you don't eat, you lose a pound of fat.

Also, seriously, what kind of survey was that? "Do you eat healthfully?" Lord, define "healthfully." Define "vigorous exercise." How did they even define their weight categories? The survey can pretty much bite me, but it does highlight the fact that we tell ourselves a lot of lies about our health, and that being a little more honest with ourselves about our ability to change as well as what needs changing can be a truly amazing thing.

Obesity vaccine

2006-08-01T11:22:00.000-04:00

Today's big news, and this time I'm not kidding, is that researchers found a vaccine that prevents rats from gaining weight even if they eat the same amount as some rats who aren't given the vaccine and do gain weight.

If this is applicable to humans at all, it's a big deal. We won't know for years, though.

Watermelons

2006-07-31T16:20:00.000-04:00

Today's earth shattering news is that watermelons have more antioxidants if they're stored at room temperature.

The truly interesting question about watermelons, to my mind, is: Salt or no salt?

I'm a salt girl.

Friday Fiesta

2006-07-28T12:39:00.000-04:00

This week has been all about tacos. I had tacos for lunch three days in a row, and I blame it entirely on the New York Times Dining section.

The author of this lovely article and I share the same taco beginnings: Old El Paso taco kits. Those were birthday meals when I was a child, and these days, no matter how often I have them, they are still an awesome treat. I make them with chicken or black beans as often as I do with ground beef.

Much more rare than an Old El Paso taco kit, when I was a child, was a crispy taco from Taco Bell. I can't enjoy them quite as much these days; I'm too aware of the low quality, and I dislike eating beef from anywhere from bougie/organic grocery stores, but sometimes I get a Taco Bell craving that absolutely nothing else can satisfy.

My favorite taco by far is something similar to what Mark Bittman describes here. I haven't yet looked for freshly made corn tortillas, but I assume that when I do, my chicken taco with crumbly queso fresco, cilantro, and lime juice will soar to new heights.

This bout with tacos is not yet over. I go through taco phases a few times a year. Last time it was bean tacos; this time it's Taco Bell and chicken tacos. These are good times.

It really isn't just stubbornness

2006-07-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

Some kids have genetic reasons for not liking vegetables.

I am a big advocate of trying to make healthy food taste better for kids. The article I linked warns against dosing vegetables with too many sauces, but it's really amazing what a little bit of melted cheese, some sesame seeds, a little butter, or even just chicken broth can do to make a vegetable that much more tasty. Besides, what is going to be better for them: A pile of macaroni and cheese, or broccoli with a little bit of cheese sauce on it? It's all about making compromises, and remembering that you don't just want to make your kid eat certain things now, you also want to create healthy tastes and habits for later in life.

Old people and drinking

2006-07-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Apparently, old people can derive massive benefits from having one to seven alcoholic drinks a week. Their risk of heart problems goes down by 26%.

I say that now is the time to cultivate that taste for wine that I've been considering for years, oh yes.

(I chose this article instead of the approximately two hundred million articles out there on childhood diabetes, plate size and overeating, and a million and one other things having to do with fatness. Meh.)

Addiction transfer

2006-07-25T15:42:00.000-04:00

Buried amongst the stories about the complication rates for bariatric surgery was this story from Naples, FL about how bariatric surgery patients often turn to other addictions after surgery and how it's possible that there's a neurochemical basis for this behavior.

1. Isn't all behavior neurochemical at some level?

2. I have thought about this a lot in my own struggles with weight loss. I think that it's not just bariatric surgery patients. I also believe that not all people who have problems with eating are prone to addiction; I know that my behavior when it comes to eating can certainly resemble addictive behavior and that treating it as such helps me tremendously, but I also know other fat people who have trouble losing weight and don't describe their issues as anything resembling addiction. I like articles like this, though. I like it when people examine the root causes of eating behavior in terms of neurochemistry and treat it like the complicated issue it is, rather than the simple idea that a fat girl is "filling a void" or "eating to deal with her emotions." It is never that simple.

Tomorrow: Something that doesn't have to do with weight loss surgery. I promise.

Weight loss surgery

2006-07-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

40% of the people who have weight loss surgery endure some kind of complication. Does anybody know how that compares to other kinds of surgery?

I used to be pretty adamantly against weight loss surgery; it's a high risk operation that is all about not being fat anymore. These days, I'm a little more laid back about it. I figure if you need a tool that extreme to do the job of learning how not to eat so much, well, go for it. Just, you know, know what you're getting into.

Friday Food Blog

2006-07-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

Today, my food joy came from this, which is an entry on Chez Pim, which is one of the food blogs I check every day.

It's a lovely entry, even though it's all about fish. I sometimes wonder if I'd like fish if it was always super fancy. After all, the one time I had ceviche at a nice place, I kind of loved it.

The consequences of diabetes

2006-07-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

This article in USA Today (which I swiped from here) is about why everyone's so het up about diabetes. It's not just that people are getting sick; it's that a lot of people are getting sick and then not getting proper treatment due to poverty or not really understanding how bad things can get for them.

The article is eye-opening for me, because I always think of diabetes as a very manageable disease and kind of ignore the fact that people often don't take good care of themselves. I brush off all the talk about a diabetes-induced healthcare crisis without thinking about all of the people who really can't afford treatment, even with insurance. It's interesting, scary stuff.

Fat teens die early?

2006-07-18T08:48:00.000-04:00

The news is all over the place: If you were fat at age 18, you are much more likely to die in middle age than if you weren't fat.

However, the researchers didn't bother to adjust for or examine whether losing weight after 18 and keeping it off makes a difference. Since the majority of people who are significantly overweight as teens become overweight adults, there's a chance that all this study is telling us is what we already know: That being overweight has an adverse affect on your health, and maybe also that being overweight for longer is worse than becoming overweight later, but as far as I can tell, the researchers have nothing to say about that either.

I think this particular news story is alarmist, and that it's being spun to sound a lot more significant than it actually is. It's almost as if the people doing this study set out solely to prove that kids shouldn't be obese because it'll hurt them later, but it's not very convincing when they don't account for weight gain or loss later in life.

Diabetes and Alzheimer's

2006-07-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

One more reason to avoid getting diabetes: It is linked to Alzheimer's.

I haven't read enough to see whether they're talking correlation or causation, but either way, it's something to watch out for more information on.

Freaky Friday

2006-07-14T08:34:00.000-04:00

Today I bring you the Dayalets. From the text on the site: "As you can gather from the cover above, they were vitamins, but they were so much more. They were glimpses into the HELL that awaits people whose vitamin consumption is unbalanced or inadequate."

That is so very, very true.

Thanks to the friend who pointed these out, and apologies for the title of this entry, which I could not resist.