The Good Breakfast

The quick answer:  Eat a healthy breakfast.  Shun the packaged products in favor of real food.  Whatever you eat, be sure you get more fiber than added sugar.

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Temporary Diet or Permanent Change?

There were two excellent articles on weight loss last week.  One article summarized the research on dieting to lose weight.  Here are the startling findings:

1. Dieting to lose weight is a reliable predictor of future weight gain.  You’ll lose weight in the short-term, but because you starved yourself rather than reform your life style, you’ll gain more weight later. 
2. Dieting to lose weight is a risk factor for future eating disorders.  It doesn’t happen to everyone but an eating disorder, such as anorexia, is a difficult condition that’s best avoided.
3. Dieting becomes progressively less effective.  The first time you diet the pounds seem to melt away but with each subsequent diet there is less and less effect. 

The second article was about diet reformation—featuring a once-obese English girl suffering progressive heart disease.  She set a goal to lose 98 pounds and keep it off.  It’s one thing to lose weight, and quite another to keep it off.  But this girl has kept it off for 2 years and shares her experience in a blog, Hungry, Healthy, Happy. 

The key to her success:  meal plans that incorporate stepwise healthy diet improvements plus regular exercise.  Sounds like our Healthy Changes.  Even if you don’t need to lose weight, this is a better way to live.

Here’s her quote:  "I needed to lose 100 pounds, but since the thought of that was daunting, I started off by taking small steps. I cut out junk and processed foods, and stopped eating takeout. I replaced it with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. I gave up alcohol for six months, which really helped kick-start the weight loss, and I started cooking everything from scratch.

Previously, I only knew how to put something in the microwave or in the oven, so cooking was completely new to me. One of the things I always said from the beginning was that I never wanted to stop enjoying food. I didn't see why losing weight had to mean that -- and it didn't! I still enjoy all the foods I once ate too much of, I just make healthier versions of them so I know exactly what is in them.

I started off the way I intended to spend the rest of my life, by creating a healthy and sustainable relationship with food and finding workouts that I loved.  I truly think that is the “secret” to me keeping the weight off."

Breakfast

Breakfast is the easiest meal to make healthy.  As the first meal of the day, it’s a good place to start one’s diet reformation.  The simplest rule is to eat food close to its original form—real food, minimally processed.  Our basic rule is to eat food with more (natural) fiber than sugar.  As the year progresses, we’ll apply this simple rule to nearly all packaged foods.

There’s a rationale behind the fiber>sugar rule:  The latest AHA recommendation for heart health asks women to eat no more than 24 grams of sugar (6 tsp; based on weight men get 9 tsp).  The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 calls for us to eat at least 14 grams of fiber for each 1000 calories.  So a typical 2000 calorie/day diet for a woman would be 28 grams of fiber (found in plant foods) and not more than 24 grams of sugar.  Thus the fiber>sugar rule.

We eat breakfast six days a week, fasting on Sunday.  Most days we eat a mixture of healthy grains, nuts and fruit, but sometimes, we eat eggs in some form, sometimes with bacon.  I usually finish with buttered whole-wheat toast.

Breakfast Compote Recipe

The first recipe we shared was for our Breakfast Compote (pictured above).   The ingredients vary with the seasons.  We love the fresh peaches of late summer, but there’s always apples or blue berries (kept in the freezer).  Flaxseed, ground daily, is a good source of healthy omega-3 fats as well as fiber.  When Valencia oranges are available the beautiful wife prefers her cereal with fresh-squeezed OJ. One of those Swiss things.

Swiss Muesli Recipe

On account of the BW being half-Swiss we have traveled to the homes of her ancestors in Switzerland.  The Swiss are remarkably health conscious.  Despite their world-famous chocolates, they’re careful eaters and enjoy the highest longevity of any nation. 

A century ago the Swiss nutritionist, Dr. Bircher-Benner, invented a breakfast cereal called muesli using local products like oats, apples, hazelnuts, and cream.  A recipe can be found in this post.

Healthy Change #4

 Please comment: In the next post we'll revisit the cereal aisle.  It's not all bad, there are a few healthy packaged cereals, especially if you enjoy them with fruit.  Please share your favorite breakfast recipes.

Deep Thoughts

The quick answer:  Natural food contains all the elements essential to life, in their proper form and ratio.  In contrast, the primary criteria for factory food are cost, shelf life, and taste—not the ability to sustain life, which is difficult to measure.  To ensure the survival of the species, write a weekly menu based on natural food.

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In The Dark of the Night

Ever woke up in the dark of the night, unable to get back to sleep?  It happened to me.  Later, sitting alone in the living room, thinking bigger than usual, my thoughts went to the creation of the world, and of our food supply. 

Though incredibly complex, our world is made up of just 92 elements.  Some elements are common, like nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon (the main elements in air), or hydrogen and oxygen (the elements of water).  There’s plenty of carbon in plants too, but some elements are quite rare. 

But here’s the deep question:  Are all the elements essential?  Does each have a purpose?  If you believe a wise and efficient God created—better said, organized—the world it follows that everything in it has a necessary purpose.  I find that easy to accept; it's intuitive.

Which leads to the next question:  Is there a reason for their relative abundance?  This is too complex a question for the wisest scientist to answer, but by the rationale of the last question it follows that there’s both reason and need for the relative abundance of those 92 elements.  We need more of some, just a dash of others.

Take cobalt—it’s the main molecule in vitamin B-12 (also called cobalamine), and we know that B-12 is essential to life.  We need just a bit, but it's essential to our well being.  Or selenium—found in seeds but especially Brazil nuts, and theorized to be protective against certain cancers, like prostate cancer.  It makes sense to me that in time we'll find that all the elements are essential to life in some way. 

Survival of the Species

This is where my mind went during that long night:  The elements—in their relative abundance—are necessary and essential to the planet and to the species that inhabit the earth. 

I believe this, but understand that the question is likewise too complex for Science to answer.  For example, it’s estimated that there are 9 million species of life on the planet.  That includes a certain specie of greatest interest—mankind.

Of the roughly 9 million species, only a million or so have been identified.  The great majority remains unknown.  We’ve done a good job with birds—it’s rare to find an undiscovered bird.  But most species, like the fungi family, are pretty much strangers to us. 

Closer to home, microbiologists have only identified a small fraction of the bacteria that live within our G.I. tract and are our digestive partners.  So the species—and the means for their survival—are so complex they likely will never be fully understood, at lerast by Man.

The Wisdom of Natural Food

As the dawn was breaking I came to this conclusion:  To get all the elements in their proper frequency, it’s best to eat food as close as practical to the form of it’s original creation.  The survival of mankind can best be assured by eating natural foods—meaning plants, with a little meat, as close as practical to their original form.  By doing this, we get the proper amount of all the elements. 

We likely won’t be able to prove in our lifetime that a diet of factory food is a threat to mankind.  But an omniscient God didn’t design factory food.  Factory food was designed to use the cheapest possible materials, and provide the greatest appeal, even addictiveness.  The range and ratio of the elements in factory food is all out of whack.

So, if you’re a God-fearing person, it makes sense that the wisest decision is to eat a diet of minimally processed, natural food and very little factory food.  To do that, you’ll need to eat with purpose, guided by a thoughtfully prepared menu.  No more highly processed foods full of additives like Mac ‘n Cheese, Top Ramen, frozen corn dogs or chicken nuggets, etc.  That was my deep thought of the night.

The Weekly Menu

The quick answer:  A weekly menu will save money, reduce waste, improve your diet, and protect your family’s health.  Failing to plan (by writing a menu), is planning to fail.

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Order and Chaos

Savvy housewives and busy executives know what to do when the chaos of life threatens to overwhelm:  Make a “to do” list.  There’s something comforting about just writing it all down.  If the written list is impossibly long, take the next step:  Prioritize.  Lists—whether written on a Big Five pad with a #2 wooden pencil, or spoken into the latest smart phone—protect us from the chaos of life. 

In our home the essential lists are the daily “to do” note and the weekly menu.  We’re not perfect, but when we slip we suffer the consequences.  Everyone knows what happens when there’s no menu—you fall back on fast food or factory foods.  One reader revealed the family fare if there wasn’t a menu: take-out pizza, Mac ‘n Cheese, or Top Ramen.

If you want to eat healthy—it’s essential to write a weekly menu.  That’s sufficient reason to make writing a weekly menu our #3 Healthy Change.

 Five Menu Steps

1. Invite requests.  To convert the family to healthy eating, get them involved.  There’s power in participation.  If they don’t give input, they can’t complain about the outcome.  
2. Make menu writing a ritual.  Set a time, like Saturday morning.  Use routine to simplify, like a theme for each day of the week.  (Examples: Mexican on Monday, pasta on Tuesday, soup on Wednesday, fish on Thursday, or a roast on Sunday.)  Having a baking day each week is another helpful ritual.
3. Check your inventory.  The two most wasted foods are fresh meat and produce.  So note what’s about to go bad in the refrigerator.  Then check the freezer—the biggest problem with frozen food is maintaining turnover.  Finally, check the pantry.  Last time we cleaned the pantry we were amazed at how much food was past the “use by” date. 
4. Compose the menu.  Check past menus for ideas.  Newspapers or food blogs feature seasonal foods (the time when they’re cheapest).  Some cooks have one day to try new recipes.  Post the menu for all to see.
5. Make a shopping list.  We’ll talk more about shopping lists next quarter, but a menu-based shopping list saves money and trips to the store.

Menu History

The classic cookbook of the late 19^th century was the Fanny Farmer 1896 Cook Book.  The book, still in print, is a snapshot of food tradition in the late 1800s.  Menus are based on whole foods—there was little processed food available (refined flour was a recent innovation). 

What did a typical dinner look like in 1896?  It was a substantial meal: soup, a meat dish, some form of potato, two vegetables, finished with a cooked dessert.  Cooking was a big job in those days.  The book includes instructions on how to build a fire and bring your stove to cooking temperature—no easy task.

There’s an important point here:  Cooking is a lot easier now—but we shouldn’t make it too easy.  The big mistake of the 20^th century was too much convenience in the form of easy-to-serve factory and fast foods.  You must remember this: If you want to be healthy you have to cook, or be on good terms with a cook.

Per W of W Living, what might the 21^st century diet look like?  First of all, there’s a lot less of meat and potatoes. There would still be 2-3 servings of vegetables, but in a variety of colors reflecting our longer seasons, with just an occasional potato.  There would be more seafood, often served with salad, plus meat and cheese would be used more to garnish vegetables.  Any bread or pasta would be whole grain, and fruit would be the most common dessert. 

That’s the 21^st century W of W menu:  A variety of vegetables with a little meat or cheese to add flavor, whole grain pasta or bread, and mostly fruit for dessert.  It’s a fraction of the work that Fanny Farmer (or their maids) had to do, but it’s definitely healthier.

Please comment: Sometimes we get busy and fail to write a menu, but then we realize life is less hectic when we do the planning step of weekly menu preparation.  Got a favorite way to write menus?  Tell us about it, or share one of your favorite meals.  In the next post we’ll share our menu for this week. 

When Goliath Blinks

After tobacco, the world’s biggest health problem is excess sugar intake.  This isn’t news—but there is a growing chorus of alarm from concerned people like you and me. 

Because the primary source of added sugar is soft drinks, our first Healthy Change said, “If you consume sodas (or other sugary drinks), limit yourself to one (12 oz.) serving per week.”  It’s a change you can live with.

Well the Goliath of the soda world is Coca-Cola and for over a century they’ve ignored their critics, not deigning to acknowledge the issues . . . until now.  The other day Goliath blinked.  Coca-Cola, the most valuable brand in the world, announced a new strategy:  They’d like to join the dialogue on unhealthy sugar intake. 

It’s not usually a good thing when Goliath wants to play with you.  To revise an old warning, “’Everyman for himself’, cried Goliath as he danced among the chickens.”  So I didn’t expect anything noble of Coca-Cola.

Goliath’s Big Lies

Coca-Cola hasn’t quite been brought to its knees, but it is feeling the pain of “negative public sentiment” regarding their obesity-causing sugary products.  They’re fully aware that US (per capita) soda consumption has been declining since 1998 due to public concern, per the Beverage Digest.  So now they want to make nice.

A new advertising campaign will attempt to make two points in Coca-Cola’s defense.  Both, in the view of WOWL, are a form of lying.

First, Coca-Cola will claim that all sources of calories cause weight gain.  This is based on a common error often repeated by people who should know better:  “A calories is a calorie.”  What they mean is that a calorie from an apple will have the same effect as a calorie from a sugary Coke.  This is patently false and ignores human biology and a mountain of research.  There is no evidence that anyone has become obese eating apples, or benefited from fewer apples.

The second lie is that Coca-Cola has a history of providing drinks with fewer calories.  If they are referring to Diet Coke or Coke Zero this is less than an outright lie but not quite the truth either.  There is no evidence that diet drinks prevent or reduce our epidemic of obesity—they’re part of the problem. 

Diet drinks are believed to reinforce the infantile desire for the sugary foods marketed by Food Inc.  So while they appear to provide fewer calories, sweet cravings are reinforced and those addicted simply consume calories from other sugary products.  

There’s also no evidence that the new vitamin-added drinks improve health—time will reveal what new ills they present.  Frankly, water is the best drink, and vitamins are best consumed in their natural habitat—real food.

Exercise Can’t Solve Obesity

One more lie:  A Coca-Cola ad slated to run before the Super Bowl shows people exercising, as though you could walk or run and simply erase the toxic effects of sugary drinks.  You can’t.  Exercise is good for lots of reasons but it’s best to exercise and limit soft drinks, we suggest, to one (12-oz) serving a week, or if you prefer, none at all. 

The beauty of the once-a-week Healthy Change is that you’ll find yourself skipping the drink some weeks and that’s real progress against our most unhealthy addiction: excess sugar.  Once one pushes sugar off the center of our diet, we can rediscover traditional flavors.  Now that’s progress worth talking about . . . but what does Coca-Cola have to offer?

Skip's Peanut Butter

The quick answer:  Pity the peanut butter makers as they try to please the health-conscious public.  First they drop HFCS, then trans fats, lower the salt, and now they search for a “natural” product.  They should try Skip’s recommendation (below).

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How a Peanut Butter Was Named And I Became “Skip”

If a boy has the same given name as his father, he’s likely to get a nickname.  For example, I was nicknamed Skippy by my grandmother and it stuck, shortened to Skip as I got older.  Grandma never told me how she chose my name, but I think I know.  At the time, there was a popular comic strip called “Skippy.” 

The Skippy of the comic strip was a mischievous but lovable, all-American boy, wise beyond his years, given to philosophical observations.  Frankly, that’s how I would describe myself today, though it makes the beautiful wife laugh. 

In its time, Skippy was as popular as later characters like Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes.  There’s more to the story because a food product got its name from that comic strip—Skippy Peanut Butter—or at least used the name, which had been copyrighted.  Which leads us to the topic of peanut butter, and trans fats.

Peanut Butter and Trans Fat

The problem with peanut butter, in the beginning, was oil separation.  In the ‘20s, a California food chemist named Rosefield stopped separation by mixing in hydrogenated vegetable oil.  Rosefield licensed his invention, to Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and then launched his own brand, Skippy Peanut Butter.  

This resulted in the peanut butter you knew growing up—it didn’t separate, had a long shelf life, but was darned unhealthy.  It took about 75 years for the public to become aware of the toxicity of hydrogenated trans fats in peanut butter.

Growing up, schoolmates often called me Skippy Peanut Butter.  I’ve heard that a thousand times or more.  Which clearly qualifies me to talk about today’s subject: healthy peanut butter.

Healthy Peanut Butter

What makes a healthy peanut butter?  It’s pretty simple: 

1. Start with fresh peanuts (depending on storage conditions, older peanuts may contain aflatoxin, a carcinogen and mutagen from fungus growth).
2. Follow the fiber>sugar rule (food products should contain more fiber than sugar).
3. Use healthy—natural, minimally processed—oils (if oils are added).

While hanging around the PB aisle in the grocery store, a young mom picked up a jar of almond butter.  Of course I asked her why and she explained she has a child in preschool and that all preschools forbid peanut butter sandwiches.  It’s an interesting thought—the next generation is getting their start on almond butter.

In-store Peanut Butter

Some health food stores have grinders that let you make fresh peanut butter.  Sounds like a good idea but there’s a problem:  the freshness of the peanuts.

I like the way you can buy whole grains and legumes from bins in such stores but have you ever taken a close look at the nuts?  Typically they’re rancid (by the action of oxygen in the air) and oxidized oils are toxic.  Shelled nuts need to be refrigerated, or at least kept in airtight containers. 

It may look funny, but I’ve opened the bin lids and sniffed the nuts in my local health food store.  Anything with omega-3 fats, especially walnuts, typically smells rancid.  The roasted peanuts (yes, they’re legumes, not nuts) are especially bad, in fact it’s hard to buy fresh peanuts.  Check the ones at the ballpark—if they don’t pass the sniff test, give them to the loud, obnoxious guy behind you.

So fresh-ground, in-store peanut butter is a bad idea because the peanuts aren’t fresh.  Every few years Consumer Reports tests peanut products for aflatoxin and the worst are always the in-store made peanut butters.  There’s a government limit, 20 parts per billion (ppb), and the top selling prepared brands, like Skippy and Jif, have the lowest levels, around 1 ppb. 

Healthy Peanut Butter

The challenge now is to prevent oil separation without adding trans fats.  Stirring peanut butter to remix the oil is a pain and I usually spill some, which makes the BW frown. Now that people have wised up to trans fats, new ways are being used to prevent separation.  One option is to do nothing and if you walk through the peanut butter aisle at your supermarket you can find brands with the oil sitting on top of the peanut butter.  Here are options to stop separation:

Method #1:  Mix in fully hydrogenated vegetable oils.  Basically, when you hydrogenate unsaturated oil you make it more saturated, but you create partially saturated trans fats.  If you continue to hydrogenate the oil it becomes fully saturated and few trans fats remain.  This fully saturated oil is added to some brands of peanut butter, Skippy Creamy, Jif Creamy, and Peter Pan Peanut Butter (the latter containing both fully and partially hydrogenated oils) are examples.

I reject peanut butter with hydrogenated oils.  Such oils are highly processed, beginning with petroleum solvent extraction of the oil from the seed, deodorization with blasts of superheated steam, and finally hydrogenation.  Hydrogenation is done at temperatures between 500-1000 degrees F, by exposing the oil to a metallic catalyst (usually nickel) and bubbling hydrogen through it.  It’s definitely a highly processed product.

Method #2:  Mix in palm oil.  Palm oil, rich in vitamins A and E, has been used for millennia around the world.  Like olive oil, it comes from the flesh rather than the seed (unlike palm kernel oil) so is minimally processed, without use of solvent extraction.  It’s a thick oil, so does a pretty good job of preventing oil separation in peanut butter, though not completely.  I think palm oil is a good enough solution to separation.

Peanut butters titled “Natural” usually include some palm oil to prevent separation.  The FDA requires that peanut butter be 90% peanuts so if more palm oil is used it must be called a spread.  Whichever the name, I consider them healthy products, as long as added sugar isn’t greater than fiber.  Warning:  The FDA doesn’t regulate what “natural” means so you have to trust Food Inc not to fib.

Recommended (by Cook’s Illustrated taste test) brands:

• Jif Natural Creamy PB; ingredients—Roasted peanuts, sugar, 2% or less of palm oil, salt, molasses.  The Cook’s Illustrated taste test ranked this the best non-hydrogenated PB (#2 rank overall).
• Skippy Natural Creamy PB; ingredients—Roasted peanuts, sugar, palm oil, and salt.  Also recommended by Cook’s Illustrated, though in 5^th place.

Method #3:  Micro mill the peanuts to minimize separation.

This sounds a little like how milk is homogenized to keep cream from separating, so until they share more about their process, I’m uneasy that the fats aren’t damaged.  In the homogenization of milk, the fats are so damaged they must be quickly pasteurized (cooked) to prevent spoilage.  Both Trader Joe’s and Costco (Kirkland Signature brand) are in this category. 

• Trader Joe’s Creamy Salted Peanut Butter uses unblanched peanuts.  This means the fibrous husk on the shelled peanut isn’t removed so it’s the only brand with more fiber (3 gm) than sugar (1gm),  The ingredient list is simple:  Dry roasted peanuts, salt. 
• Kirkland uses the sweeter Valencia peanut so there’s no added sugar.  The ingredient list simply says: Roasted Valencia peanuts, sea salt. 

Skip’s Ideal Peanut Butter

“Natural” is the future of peanut butter—nothing hydrogenated, perhaps a little palm or coconut oil to control separation.  Right now I’m sticking with Skippy Natural Creamy PB. 

But if I were to introduce a new brand, lets say Skip’s Homemade Peanut Butter, I’d make it with Valencia peanuts for natural sweetness, keep the husk on the peanut for more fiber, add a little healthy palm oil to minimize separation, and finish it off with a bit of molasses and sea salt.  One more thing:  a glass jar—I’m uneasy about chemical extraction from plastic containers.  Funny that no one, to my knowledge, has offered this yet.

Please comment:  What’s your favorite peanut butter.

Death by Trans Fats

The quick answer:  After slashing your sugar intake, the next biggest favor you can do for your health is to eliminate trans fats.  Avoid hydrogenated foods especially those from the deep fat fryer.

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The Deadly Toll

Like David taking on Goliath, we start the New Year with a head-on attack against the modern American diet’s (MAD) two biggest killers: 

1. Excess sugar, the subject of Healthy Change #1, and
2. Trans fats (this week’s target, in Healthy Change #2). 

People die from hydrogenated trans fat.  A team led by Harvard’s Dr. Walter Willett calculated in 1994 that hydrogenated trans fats caused at least 30,000 cardiac deaths each year.  Later the upper range of deaths was put at 100,000 per year.  Though the mechanism of harm is unclear, trans fat is inflammatory, and increases bad LDL cholesterol while robbing good HDL cholesterol. 

Deaths from related causes (Alzheimer’s Disease, obesity and diabetes, etc.) likely increase the trans fat death toll.  Trans fat is also a risk factor for depression, and infertility in women. 

According to the French EPIC study, higher intake of trans fat is linked to 75% greater risk of breast cancer.  There are seriously good reasons to avoid products with trans fat.

You’re probably wondering how a food product of such proven harm could still be allowed on the market.  Here’s one answer:  Congress rarely interferes with profitable products.  Think about the reluctance of Congress to ban cigarettes, an even greater killer.  It’s business as usual—remember that prophetic warning about “conspiring men”?

Trans Fat History

Briefly, the first big trans product was Crisco shortening, introduced by P&G in 1911.  Crisco was brilliantly advertised as being modern, cheaper, and more convenient than lard.  Women quickly rejected lard, a traditional food of known safety, for a modern invention of unknown healthfulness.  This is a repeating mistake with 20^th century factory food.

Other major trans fat products followed:  margarine, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and a plethora of processed foods make from refined flour, sugar, salt, and hydrogenated oils.  One thing you can say about trans fats is they have a long shelf life.  Can any cook remember throwing out Crisco because it became rancid? 

Trans fats consumption took off with the fast food trend.  It’s tragic, but French fries are our #1 consumed vegetable and trans fat offers the stability needed for the hot oil in the deep fat fryers.  Ditto for onion rings, corn dogs, donuts, most fried chicken—anything cooked in a deep fat fryer.  One exception, though healthfulness is still a concern: In ‘n Out makes their French fries without trans fats.

Two Heroes

In a prior post I discussed two heroes:  Dr. Mary Enig and Dr. Fred Kummerow, both of the U. of Maryland.  For years, as the toll from heart disease rose in step with the modern American diet, Dr. Enig argued that trans fat played a role due to it’s inflammatory effect.  Atherosclerosis is basically a disease of inflammation.  Critics defending the food industry derided her but she continued her campaign with remarkable courage and time has shown her to be right.  For more information, read her book Know Your Fats.

Dr. Fred Kummerow's most recent act in our behalf was a 2009 petition to the FDA that trans fat be “banned from the American diet.”  In a statement he said, “Everybody should read my petition because it will scare the hell out of them.”  At the time Dr. Kummerow was 94 years young.

Encouraging Progress

Last October a N. Y. Times article noted a healthy thing:  Per the 2010 NHANES study, the average level of cholesterol in the US dropped below 200.  What was even better, the drop was in the bad LDL cholesterol; the good HDl cholesterol made a slight increase.  Triglycerides also showed improvement, down 10% from 2002.  So what caused the blood lipid improvement?

The article theorized a reason for the improvement in cholesterol:  A drop in our intake of trans fat!  In a separate study, the CDC found a 60% reduction in serum trans fat levels from 2000 to 2010.  This is real progress and there's a blood lipid benefit but we still have a ways to go. 

There was another fascinating fact in the article:  Cholesterol level dropped not only in those taking statin drugs (which lower cholesterol but at a cost)—levels also improved in people who don’t take statins.  Due to the cost and side effects of statin drugs, this is a topic that deserves more attention.

Avoiding Trans Fats

How much trans fat can you safely eat?  The answer, according to the respected National Academy of Sciences, is zero.  Although Food Inc continues to sell them, the best goal is to avoid trans fats completely. 

Hardly anyone buys margarine anymore, though I fear for the poorest among us because as a dying product it’s now the cheapest thing in the butter aisle.  Likewise, if you travel down the chip aisle—pretty much owned by Frito Lay—there are few products that still include hydrogenated vegetable oils. 

Unfortunately there are still lots of products with trans fat, especially fast foods (noted above).  Store-bought cookies, pies, pastries—in short most baked goods, whether fresh or frozen—are typically full of trans fats. 

The FDA made the mistake of allowing Food Inc to put the label claim “No trans fat” on any product with less than ½ gram of trans fat.  This is tragic because, depending on serving size, trans fat can still comprise 7% of calories.  The best thing is to avoid anything deep fat fried and check packaged goods for the word hydrogenated on the ingredient list.  There’s still a lot hydrogenated stuff lurking in the MAD.

Please comment:  What questions do you have about healthy fats or oils?  In our next post we'll share a recipe for oven roasted fries—a replacement for French fries.  Have you had an interesting experience with trans fats, or trans fat avoidance?  Please share, your comments make this blog work.

Laguna Beach Walk

There's nothing quite like a Saturday morning drive to the Farmers' Market.  In Laguna there's a tradition of eccentric characters who assume responsibility for greeting people.  The most famous of the Laguna greeters was Eiler Larsen who died in the '70s after years of standing on the corner of Forest Avenue cheerfully greeting perfect strangers.  Eiler, a Danish immigrant, could have been the model for Forest Gump for he once walked across the US on the way to Laguna and having found a town as funky as he was, made it his home.

When I saw this cheerful soul standing on Eiler's corner, hard by Main Beach, I jumped out of my car to take this picture.  With the mission of greeting the world, this was one happy guy.

Main Beach is rich in character.  On the opposite corner I found a young couple passing out invitations to come to Jesus.  Impressed with their sincerity I stopped to talk.  "Do you think you'll get to Heaven?" they asked.  "I'm doing my best," I replied.  I couldn't help but mention that when I was their age, I spent 2-1/2 years as a missionary tromping around Central America.  That got me some respect but I had respect for them also.

Forest Avenue is named for the Eucalyptus trees that once graced the neighborhood.  They were planted in the 1880s as a way to homestead government land.  Only a few have survived but the street was given new life by the charm of the shops and botiques. 

There's a saying, often expressed by people taken aback by the funkiness of Laguna Beach:  "Only in Laguna!"  It's not always a compliment but I love this town and most of the characters in it.  I just started going to the Farmers' Market a few years ago.  It's a great place to walk around on a sunny Saturday morning and you can count on meeting someone you know, or wish you knew.  It's a great little market.

The beautiful wife once sent me to buy a chuck roast.  I came back with one that cost $12/lb.  It seemed a lot to pay but the guy below (with his sweetheart getting him ready for a picture) was a good salesman.  The beef, from an Oregon ranch, is pasture-raised, finished on alfalfa, and then dry aged for 21 days.  We invited the kids over and had it for Sunday dinner.  Best, and healthiest, chuck roast we had ever eaten; worth every penny.  There's a URL for his website in the picture.

Katie, picture below, is a hard working girl and an advocate for "good, healthy food."  She makes an incredible chili.  I once bought a quart (it's not cheap), added a can of beans to it and took it to the church chili contest.  Won the first place ribbon, thanks to Katie.  Katie was pleased when I told her about it. 

On this day I tried to buy some of her beef stock.  She buys bones from a butcher and cooks up big batches.  Unfortunately she was out, but it's on my list to catch her when she has some in stock. You can visit her blog, "How to heal a cowboy."

 

Oh, I almost forgot.  I have a book report on Fat Chance, by Dr. Robert Lustig.  You may know Lustig for his YouTube video on the dangers of fructose, "Sugar, The Bitter Truth".  If you want to understand what the fructose in refined sugar or HFCS does to your body, check the video.  The video ends with a poignant endorsement of the natural fructose in fruit:  "When God makes a poison, He wraps it in the antidote."  So enjoy your fruit.

Lustig makes the point in Fat Chance that the primary factor behind today’s disastrous obesity epidemic is excessive dietary sugar (in all forms) and refined grains.  As noted before, sugar and refined carbs drive insulin levels up and insulin causes fat to be stored in your body, and keeps it there.  So to reduce body fat, you have to keep insulin in a healthy range. Here are highlights from Lustig's thoughts:

#1.  A high insulin level drives the storage and retention of fat.  The three primary causes of high insulin are:  a) any sugary high G.I. meal; b) a history of high G.I. foods (which make you insulin resistant so the pancreas has to pump out even more insulin), and c) persistent excessive stress which increases insulin through the action of cortisol, the stress hormone. 

#2.  So, per #1 above, reducing the sugar in your diet is just one of three possible remedies.  Insulin resistance and protracted stress may also be factors.  How do you know if you have insulin resistance?  It’s not easy to determine but because of the link to visceral fat, your waist circumference is a simple test.  If a guy has a waist over 40”, or a girl over 35“, you’re likely insulin resistance.  Lots of people have it. 

Another check is the waist-to-hip ratio.  If the ratio is greater than 1.0 for men (meaning your waist is bigger than your hips) or .85 for girls you may be packing the dangerous visceral fat around your organs that is linked to insulin resistance.  This is a good reason to consult your doctor. (Percutaneous fat, the stuff around your waist you can grab, is less a worry.)

#3.  I have a little experience with stress, the 3^rd cause of high insulin.  In this difficult economic time there’s plenty of stress to go around.  Stress can be a deep-rooted problem and we’ve talked about it here and here.  The only thing I might add is to get plenty of exercise (besides relieving stress it also turns up your metabolism), stay close to your loved ones, and trust in the good Lord.

#4.  A diet rich in fiber is another way to keep blood glucose levels in a healthy range.  Fiber slows the absorption of sugar so you get a longer benefit of a meal and keep hunger in check.   Fiber has lots of other benefits—more reasons to eat a plant-based diet.

Talking so much about refined sugar and other refined carbs has put a dark cloud over me this week, so I thought a stroll through Laguna would help.  And that’s my report on Saturday morning in Laguna, and Lustig’s book, Fat Chance.

The Skip Anti-Diet

The quick answer for shedding stubborn fat:  Rather than starving yourself with the diet de jour, learn to eat real food per the W of W.  If stubborn fat persists, adapt Skip’s W of W based Anti-Diet (see below) to your unique needs.

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When the Smoke Cleared

Diets come and go but do you remember the Scarsdale Diet? 

Like many diets, the Scarsdale Diet had its 15 minutes of fame.  The diet was no worse than most, I suppose, but the cardiologist inventor missed most of the glory.  The reason for the missed glory was his sudden death at the hands of his jilted girlfriend, Jean Harris, headmistress of an exclusive girls school. 

The doctor had left her, the newspapers revealed, for someone “younger and blonder.”  Ms. Harris hadn’t meant to kill her cheating lover, she claimed at her trial.  She had come to his home to kill herself and he died of accidental gunshot—in his own bedroom—when he tried to stop her.  The jury, in view of the three neatly placed bullet holes in his chest, didn’t buy her story.

Ms. Harris, after 12 years in prison, retired to a New Hampshire cabin where she gardened and lived quietly until her recent death at the age of 89.  Harris’ death caught my attention because I’ve been thinking of inventing my own diet.  On the remote chance I might have my 15 minutes of fame, I’m doing my best to keep the beautiful wife happy. 

Why We Get Fat

In the recent post titled Please, Whatever You Do, Don’t Resolve To Lose Weight in 2013, the quoted experts said we gain fat not because of the fat we eat, but because of our excessive intake of sugar and refined carbs common to factory foods.  The sugar we consume goes to our blood, raises our insulin level, and the elevated insulin packs the sugar into our cells in the form of triglycerides and then keeps it there. 

So, if you want to carry around less fat—eat less sugar and refined carbs.  This is not just about vanity—eating less sugar reduces our risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other maladies. 

Two Hard Facts About Fat

The above was a simple explanation of a complex process but it omitted two hard facts:

1. Some people, through no fault of their own, are simply more prone to gain fat.  They can gain fat on the same diet that makes others thin as fashion models.
2. Fat, once gained, isn’t easy to shed and the longer you carry it around, the more it wants to stay with you.  Worse, for the very obese, there may be a point of no return.

So it’s understandable that people are driven to try the diet de jour, even though they know about the Word of Wisdom.  As you know, I’m not qualified to offer diet guidance, being neither MD nor PhD,  At WOWL we don’t believe in starvation by diet, instead we advocate eating real foods that are high in nutrients and low in calories.  But if I had eaten the WOWL way and was still struggling to shed persistent fat, I would try what I humbly call—The Skip Anti-Diet.

Skip’s Anti-Diet Diet

There are three stages to Skip’s Anti-Diet: 

Stage 1:  Use one’s best judgment to follow the W of W, guided by the 52 Healthy Changes.  This isn’t easy—the BW and I struggle to live all the changes—but it’s important to keep trying.  Get plenty of exercise also, it will turn up your metabolic furnace.

Stage 2:  If I wanted to lose more fat, I would step up the process this way: 

• Pay particular attention to sugar reduction (only 1 soda per week, buy candy a piece at a time as a treat not a regular snack). 
• Eat only whole grains.  Avoid white (polished) rice, pasta that’s not whole grain (eat your pasta al dente—less cooking reduces the glycemic index (G.I.) and avoid sugary sauces).  Eat only cereal, bread, cookies, or crackers that have more grams of fiber than sugar.  The fiber>sugar rule is important.
• Eat a salad with dinner.  The G.I. of leafy greens and salad ingredients like avocado is zero.  Zero!
• Eat homemade soups.  Soups are economical, filling, and low in insulin-raising calories.  Legumes generally have a low G.I.
• Eat more meat; if you eat two servings of beef and poultry a week, add a serving.  Increase your servings of fish also; I love shrimp or crab salads. 
• Get enough sleep, at least 8 hours, maybe 9—we crave sugary snacks when tired from lack of sleep plus fat is consumed during the last hours of sleep when sugar is low.  Sleep is a fat burner—in the last hours of sleep, when blood sugar is low, a process called ketosis burns fat to give energy to the brain. 

Stage 3:  Ask you doctor if this even lower G.I. diet would work for you and try it for 90 days:

• Drink water exclusively.  No sugary sodas and only a few pure juices. 
• Eat lots of vegetables but no potatoes or other starchy roots (yams are OK, especially with butter or cheese—which have a G.I. of zero). 
• Besides eating salad at dinner, enjoy a salad with soup for lunch.  An EVOO with vinegar dressing is healthy and further reduces G.I.
• Restrict bread and make it whole-wheat sourdough.  Sourdough whole grain breads, especially rye bread, have a low G.I.  I’d eat the little bread I got with butter or cheese or make a tuna or meat sandwich.
• Limit snacks to nuts (nuts have healthy fats and very low G.I.), vegetables like celery (zero G.I.), cheese, and a little fresh fruit.
• Double your meat intake and enjoy eggs and bacon for breakfast a couple of times per week.  (The high-meat Atkins Diet really does work but keep your menu healthy per the W of W.)  Eat grapefruit with breakfast several days a week—foods with acid also reduce G.I.
• Eat a full dinner, early in the evening if possible, but no snacks after dinner.  Go to bed a little hungry. 
• No packaged cereals, candy, cakes, or cookies, with this exception:  Treat yourself to a single dessert each week as a reward for compliance with Stage 3 rules.

Please Comment:  The idea here is to maintain a healthy W of W diet but tip it towards a lower G.I. by steadily reducing factory foods in favor of farm foods while adding eggs, milk with cream, cheese and meat to provide low-G.I. replacement calories. The W of W calls for "sparing" use of meat products—allowing flexibility for each person's needs.  The promise of the W of W is one gains "hidden knowledge" which can include how to eat and remain fit. 

I found The Complete Idiot’s Guide to GLycemic Index Weight Loss to be a good resource, if you want to know more.  The BW wife has started an experiment with the Skip Anti-Diet—she looks great, really, but thinks her Levi's are a little tight.  We’re monitoring blood sugar trends and eating the right stuff. We’ll let you know how it works.  Please share what works, or doesn't worki, for you.

Toxic Sugar

The quick answer:  Sugary drinks, whether real or imitation, are a leading cause of chronic disease and premature death.  Pure water is the healthiest drink.

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Two Biggest Diet Problems

The two worst problems with the modern American diet are sugar (in excess) and trans fats (in any quantity).  We’ll address trans fats next week; this post is about the 100 lbs of sugar consumed annually by Americans, much of which goes to our waist.  No one puts that much sugar in their food, they don’t have to—sugar is the #1 additive in processed foods. 

The most toxic source of sugar—whether sucrose (table sugar), corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup—is soda drinks.  So we start the year with Healthy Change #1:  If you consume sodas or other sugary drinks, limit yourself to one (12 oz.) serving per week. 

I’m not trying to destroy the Coca-Cola or PepsiCo companies—but if they don't offer healthy products they'll destroy themselves.  One other thing:  Healthy Change #1 includes the chemical substitutes used in diet drinks, which simply reinforce our sugar cravings. 

Sugar History

Sugar in the early 1800s was a special occasion treat.  Traditional sweeteners were natural, local, and seasonal: honey in the summer, maple sugar in the winter.  The nation couldn’t overdose on honey—first, there wasn’t enough, and second, honey doesn’t have that effect.

When the Word of Wisdom was revealed in 1833, American consumption of sweeteners stood at 10 lbs per year—about 3 tsp a day.  Now, depending on the data source, we eat 21-30 teaspoons daily.  The AHA recommends no more than 6 tsp (24 grams) daily for women, 9 for men (based on their greater weight).  The AHA guidance seems a wise goal.

In his 1925 book, Food, Health, Vitamins, the pioneer English biochemist, R. H. A. Plimmer made a foreboding but prophetic comment about sugar in America: “The Americans, with their love of candy, are the largest sugar eaters in the world.  Incidentally, cancer and diabetes, two scourges of civilization, have increased proportionately to the sugar consumption.”

Few heeded Plimmer’s warning—our sugar intake continued to increase, as did the incidence of diabetes and cancer.  Add to that list the illness that has since grown to be the #1 cause of death: heart disease.  

Toxic Sugar

In the ‘70s Dr. John Yudkin of England warned of sugar’s toxicity in his book Pure, White and Deadly,” (published in the US as Sweet and Dangerous, now a collectors item).  Yudkin made the link between our sugar intake and heart disease when so-called experts were wrongly blaming saturated fats. 

The science establishment, committed to the Lipid Theory of heart disease, turned on Yudkin with a vengeance and it became politically incorrect to mention Yudkin or his work. Time has shown Yudkin to be right, lipids weren’t the big problem, but a generation was wasted. 

Food Inc’s reduced-fat response to the Lipid Theory had worse consequences:  Traditional saturated fats were replaced with hydrogenated vegetable oils containing transfats, and low-fat foods had extra sugar added to improve the taste.  In this false move, we added both trans fats and sugar do our diet.  We not only didn’t reduce heart disease, we increased the problem of overweight and diabetes. 

Scary Sugar

The author today who has done the most to warn of our sugar addiction and correct the Lipid Theory error is Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories.  Here are quotes, beginning with Taubes’ closing paragraph from Good Calories, Bad Calories:

“Sugar scares me . . . I’d like to eat it in moderation . . . but I don’t actually know what that means, and I’ve been reporting on this subject and studying it for more than a decade. If sugar just makes us fatter, that’s one thing.  We start gaining weight, we eat less of it.  But we are also talking about things we can’t see — fatty liver, insulin resistance and all that follows.  Officially I’m not supposed to worry because the evidence isn’t conclusive, but I do.”

Dr. Craig Thompson (head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in N.Y.):  I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can.

Dr. Lewis Cantley (director of Harvard Medical Schools cancer center):  Sugar scares me.

Please Comment:  Share your best ways of protecting your family from the effects of our sugar addiction.

Looking Ahead

Where Now?

In the beginning, my plan was to write a book on the LDS Word of Wisdom.  Books have been written before.  John and Leah Widtsoe, unusually well qualified, wrote an excellent book The Word of Wisdom, A Modern Interpretation, but that was 75 years ago and much has changed. 

A daughter suggested I begin by writing a blog.  A blog, she explained, could be a conversation, a way to share information and learn what people want to know.  So the first post, back on November 19, 2010, was titled, A New Conversation.  The response was good; thanks to a plug on the popular design blog Black Eiffel—over 1000 people visited the blog and 31 made comments to that first post.

We’re starting our 3^rd year now.  The blog has become our mission—a nonprofit service project free of advertisement or gimmicks.  It seems to be working; the number of readers has steadily grown. 

Thanks to your support, this blog is the world’s leading exponent for fully living the Word of Wisdom.  When I say that the BW laughs, but that’s my claim. 

Three Things

There have been two consistent reader requests:  The first is a list of the 52 Healthy Changes.   This month we’ll add this list to the sidebar, with links to each Healthy Change.

A second common request is for recipes.  We started posting recipes last year and we will add a recipe list to the sidebar for easier access.  Because it’s so much work to develop a recipe, we’ll also post recipes suggested by readers but only after we’ve tried the recipe in our home.  So please share your favorite healthy recipe, either in a comment, or by email to skip (at) word of wisdom living (dot) com.

Finally, our growth mainly comes from readers sharing the WOWL URL with their friends.  So to start 2013, would you please spread the word to five more of your friends?  Or even to all of your friends and contacts?  Thanks.

Your Suggestions

So what should we do in 2013?  Please share your thoughts on what is needed to advance the agenda for WOWL.