Healthy Bytes

Fluoride - the FDA hands bottle water manufacturers a prize

read time: 293 words, about 2 minutes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the ok to bottled water manufacturers to decorate their labels with the claim that ‘fluoridated water may reduce the risk of tooth decay‘. (Watch how quickly the ad claims come).

The American Dental Association (ADA) let out a hip hip hooray…
ADA executive director James B. Bramson, D.D.S.:

“Thanks to the FDA’s decision, bottlers can now claim what dentists have long known—that optimally fluoridated water helps prevent tooth decay.”

But wait, there’s more…
The FDA says - and the ADA agrees - this ‘health claim‘ is not for infants (or bottled water marketed to infants). Why? Because lesser amounts of fluoride are ‘appropriate’.

Fluoride beyond the optimal amount creates a risk for “fluorosis” in teeth while they’re developing, before popping through the gums. Fluorosis damages tooth enamel. The results are a white spotting or streaking, and in the extreme - brown spotting on the teeth. There’s some nice pictures here.

Interesting. Teeth don’t only ‘develop’ in infants.

The ADA guidelines for fluoride and kids up to age 6 (which you can get here) advise:
- infant milk/formula - no fluoride. So if your using dry or concentrated formula, use fluoride free water (purified, distilled, deionized, reverse osmosis filtered).
- fluoride toothpaste - not under the age of 2 and no swallowing under the age of 6.
- fluoride mouthwash/mouthrinse - not under the age of 6.

In the next post we’ll take a look at how it came to be that fluoride was added to our tap water. Another tale of corporate and government intrigue. As they say, one person’s trash is another person treasure… or not.
Plus, how to make your own toothpaste… it’s rather simple. I’ve been doing it for sometime.

Obesity - are drugs the answer

read time: 226 words, under two minutes

CBS Evening News is running a series this week on obesity.

Last night’s topic - Is Obesity About Willpower Or Wiring?

Per Dr. Rudy Leibel:

“There are a set of genes that we have acquired as a result of evolution over the past several millions of years that are designed to save energy; to make us efficient; to favor the ingestion of food.”

Researchers have isolated at least 30 to 40 genes that affect body weight.

Dr. Leibel again, on willpower and obesity:

“I’m saying that when you look at something as complicated as body weight, there is a biology. There are basic hormonal and neurologic phenomena that actually dictate this kind of very complex behavior”

He believes that within the next 10 years there will be “medications” that will “help reduce our collective girths.”

Let’s try some of that ole logic…
- obesity has been climbing for 30 years and has doubled over the past 20 years. - genes haven’t really changed over the past several million years.
- prior generations - with virtually the same genes - didn’t have near the incidence of obesity we have today.
- prior generations didn’t need “medications” to not be obese.

So, why are we focussing on “medications”. Why don’t we look at what has changed.
(hint: the prevalence of extremely processed food products rather than real food.)

The year in medicine

Already “the year in…” is starting.

Here’s Time Magazines Year in Medicine.

Interesting read.

Just say no…

… to another helping.

Many Americans gain 4-7 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years. And then…

50% start a diet in January.
How many succeed in taking and keeping it off?

You know, not many.

Gaining weight is not inevitable.

When you’re out socializing:

- limit the alcohol
- fill up on veggies and fruit rather than bread and other starchy and/or high calorie options
- have half a desert

A little extra isn’t terrible. But a little extra over and over again adds up.

Product Spotlight on Bread

Convenience has two faces. In order to save time – to mass produce, sacrifices are made. Case in point - bread.

First let’s look at wheat, the main ingredient in bread. Domesticated wheat – bred to grow faster, resist disease, increase yield among other things has sacrificed many of the nutrients in the original wild varieties of wheat – spelt, kamut, emmet, and farro are a few. Cool names too! Scientist are now breeding these ‘lost’ nutrients back into domesticated wheat. Kind of strange, why not go back to the wild variety?

Second, let’s look at leavening or what is done to make the dough rise. Today, super fast acting yeast cultures with special flours and conditioners make bread rise fast. Time, after all is money. Back in the old days, bread was made with a long slow fermentation using a culture of wild yeast and lactobacillus bacteria along with some other critters and enzymes. The result was a nutritious loaf with a sour tang – what we call sour dough bread.

So what’s the big deal? What’s wrong with our technologically ‘advanced’ mass-produced bread? Well, we now understand that fermenting grains, in this case, via the long slow rise of bread makes the grains easier to digest by breaking down the gluten and making the nutrients more bio-available. Nutrients are also added from the by-products of the various critters in the fermenting culture.

Further, grains have a compound called phytic acid, which while in our gut, bind to minerals that are essential to our health – like calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron and copper. Finally, the long fermentation breaks down much of the starch converting our loaf of bread from what is usually considered a refined carbohydrate into a complex carbohydrate.

There are many fine artisan breads being baked out there using the time honored tradition of a long slow fermentation using wild cultures – breads with crisp crusts, hearty textures and oh so much flavor. If you’d like to try baking a loaf or two or eight yourself, check out the posts on No-Knead Bread at Tasty Bytes.

A matter of convenience

read time: 94 words, under a minute

12% of folks are opting for “pre-made” Thanksgiving where they pick up a prepared meal. Up from 7% last year…a 71% increase.

Why… it’s more “convenient” than doing the shopping and cooking.

In fact, convenience is the #1 priority for food choice among Americans. It weighs in at 53%. Health… 30%.

The flip side of that is the inconvenience of a too convenient life.
You see, to make eating so much more convenient, compromises must be made. The inconvenience of compromised food choices is poorer vitality and health, and often disease. Not very convenient.

News flash: hunger no longer exists in America…

read time: 249 words, about a minute

… according to the Federal government.

Every year the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) measures American’s “access to food“. They used to apply the term “hunger” and associated word forms to the group of people who can least afford to buy food.

No more. You see “hunger” is a physiological state. This report does not measure that state; therefore, it’s not scientifically accurate to use the term. So says the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies.

This report measures “food security“. Thus, folks who can’t afford to eat have “very low food security“. Doesn’t that sound more pleasant? Something you can make better with a pill?

Hah! you think I’ve had more than my daily dose of resveratrol and I’m making all this up, don’t you. Verify here. Go ahead (I’m not sure I could make this up).

Hey, let’s Google it…
By golly, Results 1 - 10 of about 223,000 for “low food security”.
(I think they all point to this report).

Ok, now we’ll Google “hunger”.
Well, there ya go… Results 1 - 10 of about 44,800,000 for hunger.

Does that unscientific test mean more people (roughly 200 times more people) are simply experiencing a transient physiological state rather than a persistent state of reality?

Or maybe it simply means more people are semantically challenged.

Oh, 12% of Americans (about 35 million) have very low food security. Not sure how they semantically express that. That number has increased for five years running.

Sweet Potatoes… hold the marshmallows

According to the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commision, sales of sweet potatoes a.k.a. yams peak during the month of November. No doubt many a Thanksgiving table will feature a casserole of butter and brown sugar coated sweet potatoes hidden under a blanket of (no doubt another hot November seller) mini marshmallows.

I have to admit my family would have my hide if I didn’t make the candied yams. My family loves their traditional Thanksgiving dishes and don’t dare mess with tradition! I heard a mighty ear full during my early cheffing career while trying to ‘explore new tastes.’ Then when I decided to be more health conscious and cut back on the sugar and butter - whoa! Mom’s favorite dish was messed with! I went home with my head hung low and the dish barely touched. So I have learned not to mess with tradition when it comes to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner! …though I have managed to accidentally forget the mini marshmallows the last few years…

If I could re-write the traditional menu, I would make this sweet potato dish that our good friend R shared with us a few years ago. For a more colorful salad, use a mix of yellow, orange and purple sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette

Amount Measure   Ingredient — Preparation Method
——–  ————      ——————————–
Dijon Vinaigrette
2 tablespoons Bragg’s apple cider vinegar or White wine vinegar or White Balsamic Vinegar
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

1 1/2 pounds Sweet potato or Yams — steamed and diced
2 each scallion – thinly sliced

Whisk together dijon vinaigrette ingredients.

Cook sweet potato by putting halved unpeeled sweet potato in a single layer in a steamer. Steam til tender - about 1/2 hour. Remove from heat and cool. Peel and dice into 1/2 - 3/4″ dice.dice.

Toss sweet potatoes with scallions and vinaigrette. Serve at room temp or slightly warm.

Enjoy!

Labels - what’s really inside

Sticking with our Thanksgiving theme, I popped into a neighborhood chain grocery store… camera in hand.
I took a bunch of pictures of labels… I take bad pictures :<

So I pulled these up on line...

Some Nutrition labels are hard to find.
Ocean Spray is one of them. Here’s the Nutrition Data for Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce from NutritionData.com.
It doesn’t include the ingredient list, but as you can see: SUGAR… 105 grams

Next on the list - stuffing:

You have your Nutrition Facts from Nutrition Data which show… yep, once again: SUGAR. 3 grams
Then you have the ingredient list - ouch. Sugars, trans-fats and other fun things.

Now for the Sweet Potatoe course…

More SUGAR - 35 grams - (and we’re not even close to desert yet). Ahh, but check out the Vitamin A.

And now for desert…

Finally, a manufacturer that doesn’t hide the label.
This is Libby’s Easy Pumpkin Pie Mix. Comes in a can.
Trans-fat. It says 0g, but total fat is 0.5g. The FDA allows the label to say 0g if it is 0.5 of less. The FDA only likes whole numbers I guess.
And of course, there’s sugar. Natural Flavors is a code phrase for MSG. Vitamin A is good.

As we say (repetatively), the back of the label can be quite revealing.

Red wine… your daily vitamin?

read time: 359 words, about 3 minutes

The press has been abuzz recently with the results of a study by Harvard Medical School and National Institute on Aging. (Well at least the press I read)

The study looked at the effects of resveratrol on a high fat diet.
Resveratrol is in grapes skins and red wine (made from grapes).

The subjects: 55 male, middle-age (1 year old) mice.
The study: the mice were fed a high fat diet (or as one scientist labeled it - a “McDonald’s diet”)…60% of the calories were from fat. The experimental group was also given a high dose of resveratrol.

Both groups got tubby.
The control group developed signs of future diabetes including grossly enlarged livers and high blood levels of glucose and insulin.
The experimental group did not. The control group also died much sooner than mice fed a standard diet.
Again: both groups got fat, the resveratrol group neither had high blood glucose or fatty liver.

Additionally, the experimental group lived longer and were as agile and active on exercise equipment as mice on a normal mouse diet. Their cholesterol levels were no better than the control group.

Oh, these mice were given the equivalent of 100 glasses of red wine…
I wouldn’t advise you to try to replicate the study with yourself

The study was published in the November edition of Nature… your Library may subscribe to it.
There was also a write up in the New York Times.

Another recent study published in the FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) showed aged mice given Cabernet Sauvignon red wine experienced significantly less memory loss.

And one more study - again mice and resverarol. This time from the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in France showed the mice were able to run twice as far and had a lower heart rate.

This line of research (with resveratrol) stems from the “French Paradox”. A phrase coined by Dr. Serge Renaud in the early 1990’s. The wine drinking French eat a high calorie/high fat diet… but don’t experience the cardiovascular disease Americans do.

Now don’t you feel better about that glass of wine?