But the box says it’s good for me?

The Real Question: “Since when did eating a bowl of cereal become theraputic?” – Micheal Pollan

My biggest beef with the American food industry, and perhaps the food industry in general is its consistent labelling of random foods as being healthy. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing except that people fall for it. We’re so busy, or we perceive ourselves as being so busy that we rely on someone (something really) else to tell us what is healthy to eat.
I’ve fallen for it to.
Take a look at the grocery store shelves. You’ll find find boxes of cereal, bags of assorted chicken parts, and a hundred varieties of frozen pizza. Read the labels and I’m sure you’ll find some claims making the food healthy. A good source of calcium, some say, loaded with antioxidants and whole grains, pipe up others. The rub is, most of that stuff if fortified, or added to the product during production. While this process is helpful in ensuring people get adequate amounts of micronutrients, it isn’t nessisarily healthy per se. At best it just is, at worst, it does nothing. For example: research on antioxidants has proved lack luster at best, the fortification of foods with antioxidants does not seem to have the same effect as consuming the amount of vegetables and fruits needed to “naturally” take in antioxidants.
The bottom line is, don’t believe food packaging.. It is designed with the intention of making people want to buy a certain food as opposed to another. If you’re wanting to be healthy in your eating habits, the answer is simple. Eat fruits, vegetables and as much real food as you can. I’ll be lenient there by defining real food as food you cook as opposed to food you heat.

What Should I Eat? Part 2

The problem I have with most diets is their tendency to demonize certain foods.  Many of them begin on the premise: You’re overweight because…”  and then go on to describe how easy it is to lose weight using their system.  the truth is, if you do happen to be overweight, it’s likely due to multiple, not so easy to correct factors.  If you do choose to go on a diet, do so in efforts to remain healthy and avoid future health problems (like diabetes).  The hard truth is that there is no easy way to lose weight.  But there are people out there who will encourage you on your journey.

Here’s a run down on a few of the more popular diets these days:

Atkins:   I’d imagine that most Americans over the age of 20 are familiar with this particular diet, which had a surge of popularity in the late 90s.  The basic premise: cut out refined carbohydrates and simple sugar.  The science:  To encourage ketosis (the process of using fats for energy, a process commonly used by nerve cells) by restricting refined carbohydrates, and, thus, lowering blood insulin levels (high blood insulin levels discourage ketosis).

South Beach: The south beach diet also focuses partly on carbs, but introduced the glycemic index, which is basically a way of measuring the effect a carbohydrate source has on your blood glucose, and subsequently your blood insulin, level. High glycemic index scores have a high effect, and vice versa.  The south beach diet uses this scale to determine “good” and “bad” carbs.  Good carbs can be readily eaten, while bad carbs should be avoided.  This diet also groups fats into “good” or “bad”.  ”Good” fats are unsaturated non trans fats. This diet was established not as a means to lose weight, but rather as a means to avoid cardiovascular disease.

Ornish: Another diet created with the intent to avoid/fix cardiovascular disease.  This diet also focuses attention on fats, though this time placing a blanket ban on all fats.  This diet also bans refined carbohydrates* (typically these carbs fall in the high glycemic index “bad” carb category.) This diet was created by Dean Ornish, in effort to combat coronary artery disease. 

The Zone: The zone diet focuses on balancing protein, carbohydrates and fats.  The theory behind the diet is that, in the right balance you will enter “the zone” in which your insulin levels, glucagon levels and hormone levels will be in perfect harmony, thus making you feel better and lose weight/gain muscle.  From personal experience, I know this diet is difficult to get in to, and takes a lot of effort, at least at first, balancing food in proper amounts. 

Paleo:  The Paleolithic Diet, which is known by a number of different monikers, presumes that humans stopped developing during the paleolithic period (before the development of agriculture about 10,000 years ago).  This is less a diet in the traditional sense as it is a style of eating.  People following this eating style eat meat, plants, seeds, nuts and fats according to what was presumed to be eaten by paleolithic man. 

There are plenty of diets out there, all promising to provide fast and easy results.  Most will even deliever short term results.  The key component when it comes to losing weight: consuming less/using more calories.  Increasing exercise while consuming a constant am0unt of calories will lead to weight loss. Consuming less calories while maintaining a constant amount of exercise will lead to weight loss.  Over time.  Patience and determination are key.

So what should I eat?  Maybe a little of everything, but only when hungry.  Often I find I eat because I am bored, or for comfort or just because there is food around.  Unless you’re trying to gain weight for some reason, avoid these behaviors.  If you’re trying to lose weight, eat less.  Not less often, but less at a time.  Buy smaller plates, drink water instead of juice or soda, don’t feel the need to finish your plate, stop when you feel full and eat again later, when you’re actually hungry. 

If a particular diet plan works for you, and is something you can maintain long term, then go for it, but don’t do anything for instant results.  As with everything, the best results are earned, not stumbled into.  Any significant change is a journey, and a challenge.  Something that should be enjoyed but also respected.  Strive for the life long path and avoid claims of shortcuts, there aren’t any really worth your time…or at least not in my opinion.

* A quick note about Refined Carbohydrates: Refining is the process of taking something as it naturally occurs and converting it into a more desirable (and generally more “pure” form). As far as grains are concerned this process could be called “whitening” in that the refining process is resposible for producing white breads and rice.  The refining process removes wheat germ and wheat bran, which are the outer layers of grain and contain fiber and minerals.  Fiber is said to reduce the rate at which other foods are absorbed, lowering the glycemic index of carbohydrate rich foods.  Refined carbohydrate sources are commonly enriched, meaning nutrients are added to make up for those lost in the refining process, but still contain less nutrients than unrefined or whole grains.

What Should I Eat? Part 1

Many among us are plauged by the question of what should be eaten.  At any given moment, we are fairly aware of what we want to eat, but somewhere in the back of our minds a confused voice whispers: “yea, but should I really be eating that?” It often doesn’t help that hundreds of external forces are serving up conflicting ideas on the matter.  Diet plans claim to have the answer, as do late night infomercials, even that big dude at your gym has a couple of cents to throw in.  The problem isn’t  that there is no answer, but rather, a series of more questions.

First off, a primer as far as eating is concerned.  Ever heard the word nutrient?  It’s pretty likely you have (they’ve got that stuff in shampoo these days…), but no one’s ever bothered to lay out what that word even means.  We get the general idea that it’s heathly or something, and the advertisements are pretty happy to leave it at that.  The fact is, nutrient is just a general term for stuff our bodies use from stuff that we eat.  From there we have macronutrients (from the greek makros meaning long or large) and micronutrients (from greek mikros meaning small).  The macronutrients are Proteins, Carbohydrates (Sugars), and Lipids (Fats), and Water.  These nutrients got the prefix macro not only because their chemical structures, compared to micronutrients, are generally large, but also because our bodies need a relatively large amount of these nutrients.  Similarly the micronutrients are needed in relatively small amounts.  Micronutrients include vitamins (you know, A, B,C,D…etc) and minerals (Ca++, K+, Na+ [typically metallic ions]).  Another term associated with nutrients is essential.  An essential nutrient is one that your body needs in order to function, AND that is not made naturally by your body.   The classic example of this is Vitamin B12.  In contrast, a nonessential nutrient is one that your body makes in adaquate amounts.  The classic example of this is Cholesterol. 

So what does all that really mean?  In the grand scheme it means that no matter what you eat, it gets broken up into the aforementioned constituents.  It is helpful information to know, in my opinion, because it helps to analyze the foods you are eating.  The way that I eat, or at least try to eat, is by thinking of everything I eat as being a representative of a certain macronutrient.  Some foods are easy to classify–like meat, which is generally mostly protein–while other foods, like cheese, might be a bit more sketchy.  I make my decision using the nutrition information chart (which is based on the food pyramid, which I will discuss later).  Basically, I look at the gram amounts of protein, fats and carbohydrates.  If something has more carbs relative to protein and fat, then I consider it a carb.  After that I just balance the amounts, something like 30% protein, 60% carbs and 10% fat.  Personally I don’t do the math, I just control the portion sizes.  Of course everyone eats differently.