Healthy Bytes

Chocolate – a divergent fork

read time: 127 words, under a minute

This seems crazy to me…
The Chocolate Manufacturers Association is petitioning the FDA to allow a couple of changes in chocolate.

They want to replace whole milk powder with whey, and cocoa butter with vegetable fat.
Why?
To reduce costs… by about 2/3rds on each ingredient.

But it WILL taste different (not as good).
For the most part, people are mighty picky about their chocolate.
I don’t think they’ll accept a “taste” difference.
It could be New Coke all over.

Meanwhile, heading in the other direction…
Hershey is adding two new products to its premium/”healthy” chocolate line of flavanol (antioxidant ) rich dark chocolate.

Chocolate – specifically, cocoa beans – have health benefits. It’s the added sugar and milk that wins candy a spot on the list of no-no’s.

Gung hay fat choy

Today is the Chinese New Year…
the year of the pig.

Don’t take that as a license to “eat like a pig” for the next 12 months.

$2.6 million of anxiety

read time: 195 words, about a minute

As you likely know, the Super Bowl “event” was this past Sunday in the U.S.
Because ad slots are so expensive during the Super Bowl, advertisers go all out and the ads tend to get quite a bit of attention.

A 30 second slot this year costs $2.6 million. That’s just the air time, not the cost of producing the commercial.

At the UCLA Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, they scanned brains of 10 volunteers as they watched the 33 commercials.

According to neuroscientists Dr. Joshua Freedman who was involved in the study:
“Fewer than 20% of the ads triggered nerve activity in the reward and satisfaction areas of the brain — those areas that are known to be involved in making associations and forming connections with people or things.”

So basically… not too many warm fuzzy feelings, and, folks may remember the commercial – but not the product.

Dr. Freedman continues…
“The majority of this year ’s commercials, on the other hand, predominantly activated anxiety regions of the brain, centered around the amygdala, the hub of our fear and emotional responses.”

Oh yea, last year over 50% of the commercials stimulated the reward and satisfaction area.

What do you THINK?

read time: 119 words, just a minute

Do you believe your thoughts have as much – if not more – power as drugs?

Of course you have heard the term “placebo effect”.
This is when a person receives an inactive pill or treatment, yet experiences results similar to folks who receive an active pill or treatment.

Many dismiss it as being “all in their head”. Funny thing is, placebos tend to illicit the desired result 30-60% of the time. Active medications seldom do dramatically better.

And some people are paying attention. In fact, people are actually studying the brain-body connection… you know, in a SCIENTIFIC way.

Research is showing that the brains of placebo receivers in clinical trials have nearly identical neurochemical changes as the drug taking folks.

Be nice

I stumbled on an interesting article on CNN Health - How to raise a compassionate child
Now I’m not a parent… well not a parent of two legged kids, just the four legged variety.
But I found this article very interesting. The world could use more compassion.

Now it causes cancer, Now it doesn’t

read time: 463 words, about 2 minutes

How tired are you of conflicting results?
I mean one study says eating blabla will prevent (fill in the blank malady). Then another study comes along and says blabla does not have an effect on (fill in the blank malady).

My sense from a lot of people is, in some ways they’re numb to all these “studies”. At minimum, they’re confused and frustrated. When it comes to teasing and toying with your health and the quality of your life, well, it seems a bit cruel.

You can’t blame the researchers in most cases – assuming they don’t have a hidden agenda that has significantly tilted the research.

But here’s the thing – in my strong opinion – all of this research, or at least the interpretation of it, tries to fulfill a much greater role than it possibly can. Often this is driven by hope, mortal fears and our inherent need to make things better.

Additionally, while a particular study may look at one particular food, or one effect, it cannot completely control everything else. For instance, “subjects” that are apt to ‘eat a healthy diet’ are also apt to practice numerous other healthy habits. Since they’re probably healthier to begin with, the results they experience may significantly differ from the results a less healthy person will realize.

Let me explain.
Think about a couple phrases you’ve probably heard a billion times:
Eat a balanced diet
Everything in moderation

These are very, very, very core truths and the first filter you should use for everything.
A> There simply is not ONE thing, not ONE food.
B> There’s an inter-relationship among the systems in the body. What you eat does not have a single effect on a single system. Nor is the effect generally noticed immediately.
C> You need a plethora of nutrients to thrive. Eating a small number of foods won’t get you there.
D> The body is pretty forgiving. It can take sporadic and temporary stresses. But constant stress and malnutrition have a cumulative effect.

All this to say, that yes, for example, blueberries are very good for you. But, simply adding blueberries to a bad diet is not enough to absolve the effects of a bad diet. It’s only enough to tilt the scale a little.

While there is value in research findings, understand them in perspective. And try to understand why a particular food or advocated diet is good or bad. For instance, in the case of blueberries - they’re very good anti-oxidants. So to increase your anti-oxidant intake, blueberries are one of the best ways.

So when you turn on the evening news and here about the “latest” miracle food or miracle exercise, understand the limitations of research. And don’t abdicate your responsibility to consistently eat well for the health of it.

Consumer satisfaction with health insurance plans

Read time 229 words, over a minute

The Commonwealth Fund and Employee Benefit Research Institute surveyed users of “Consumer-Driven Health Plans” (CDHP). These would be the plans that combine a high-deductible health insurance plan with a tax-free Health Savings Account to cover medical expenses.

The few news articles I’ve seen about this survey focus on ‘CDHP users are dissatisfied because of cost’

According to the survey, 53% of the CDHP folks were not satisfied with their out-of-pocket expenses versus 21% of folks with a comprehensive plan.

Of course the out-of-pocket expenses don’t include the plan premium.
So my first question is… Who paid more for “health” care when considering both out-of-pocket and premium. And I suppose if you’re using tax free money for the out-of-pocket expenses with the CDHPs, that’s a factor as well.

Two other findings stood out to me.
One, 93% of folks with CDHPs rated their health as good or excellent compared to 89% of folks with comprehensive plans.
Secondly, total medical expenses as a percentage of household income was much higher for CDHPs versus folks with comprehensive plans. 23% of CDHP folks are paying 10% or more of their household income for medical expenses versus 9% of comprehensive plan folks.

So one may surmise, the primary reason for choosing a CDHP is cost. What this survey doesn’t truly answer is which plan is the best value.

Read more about the survey here.

The year in medicine

Already “the year in…” is starting.

Here’s Time Magazines Year in Medicine.

Interesting read.

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.

Generic acetaminophen drug recall

read time: under a minute.

The generic version of Tylenol sold at places such as Wal-Mart, CVS and Dollar General was recalled yesterday. Seems some of the capsules have added metal fragments.

For Perrigo - the manufacturer - this is the third product recall in 5 years. Lovely.

Read more.