One More Comment About Fats

The quick answer:  On the subject of fat, once much maligned, mounting evidence attests that the fats found in nature (minimally processed) are healthy and necessary.  The fats produced in factories aren’t.  It’s that simple.  Warning:  This post is longer that usual, but it's important information.

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The Fate of the Edible Oil Industry

I know the subject of the week is exercise, but the public perception of fats is at a turning point and that’s a good thing.   So here’s a visit to the supermarket fat/oil aisle, a new look at an old study, and a summary of a video that defends saturated fat.

Behind the vegetable oil giants like Unilever (Best Foods), ConAgra (Wesson Oil), Mazola Oil, and Kraft Foods, there’s a $55 billion industry largely out of sight—the edible oil producers.  These companies refine and hydrogenate vegetable oils for Food Inc.

A handful of companies like Archers Daniels Midland and Cargill Foods dominate.  Their major products include vegetable oils and shortening, corn syrup sweeteners, and by-products sold as fillers for processed foods or fed to livestock. 

These valuable companies face a conundrum:  If nutrition reformers (like you and me) prevail—they have no future. 

Instead of eating factory oils, people will return to eating natural oils like butter and olive oil.  There will still be a place for tropical oils (coconut oil or palm oil) but these are minimally processed and is best done offshore, where the fruit is grown. 

The issue is these healthier oils come from the flesh, not the seed, so can be minimally processed.  Think of the ancient tradition of crushing olives (not the seeds) for their oil.  Seed oils (including soybeans, a legume) require more extensive processing, including solvent distillation, deodorization, and bleaching. 

The Fat/Oil Aisle

The space given to food groups in a grocery store says a lot.  In my grocery store, mayonnaise and vegetable oils (pictured above) each got 6 feet of aisle space.  In contrast, olive oil got 9 feet, as did salad dressing.  We’ll talk about the salad dressings in a future post.

The vegetable oils are mainly soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, and peanut oil.  They used to come in blended mixtures but they’re now mostly sold alone.  Notice the oil sprays on the top shelf?  I found EVOO in a spray so took some home.  See what’s in the very top right corner?—coconut oil.  Coconut oil is getting a bit of shelf space respect.

The Misguided War Against Saturated Fat

The edible oil industry grew rapidly after WWII, driven by the false idea that polyunsaturated oils (typically hydrogenated) were healthier than saturated oils.  The truth is we need all forms of fat (saturated and unsaturated) but we need it from natural, minimally processed sources.  How did we come to falsely fear saturated fats? 

Back in the ‘60s scientists struggled to understand the cause of heart disease, which had become our #1 killer.  The politically correct theory said heart disease was caused by saturated fats, which are natural, and that the answer was to eat polyunsaturated factory-made fats. 

This theory was examined in the Sydney Diet Heart Study done 1966-1973, which had the test group avoid traditional saturated fats in favor of polyunsaturated fats (including factory oil products like margarine).  The control group ate their normal diet, which wasn’t all that healthy. 

The result of the test was a surprise—the group eating the polyunsaturated (factory-processed) fats didn’t have less heart disease . . . they had more.  In fact they had 55% more heart-related deaths!  This should have caused an intense study to find what caused these additional deaths (plus sending some flowers to the families of the deceased volunteers) but because the finding was politically incorrect, it was ignored.  Stuff like that happens in the food business.

Recently NIH researcher Dr. C. Ramden reexamined the Sydney data.  Ramden concluded that the culprit was the higher level of omega-6 fat in the form of linoleic acid, an 18-carbon fat.  To better understand, look at the forms of 18-carbon fats:

• Saturated form:  The saturated 18-carbon fatty acid is called stearic acid.  This is a good fat that has many uses in humans.  Studies show, for example, that it reduces our “bad” LDL cholesterol.  Animal fats are about 30% stearic acid. 
• 1 carbon unsaturated (monounsaturated):  This is called oleic acid, the principle fat in olive oil and avocados.  Benefits include improving the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol, and, it’s thought, reducing high blood pressure.
• 2-carbon unsaturated:  This is called linoleic acid, an omega-6 fat, and predominates in corn oil and safflower oil.  The body needs linoleic acid; it’s the source of an essential fat, but generally we eat too much.
• 3-carbon unsaturated: Alpha-linolenic, an omega-3 fatty acid, is abundant in plants and is beneficial to humans.  The long-chain forms found in pastured animal fats, but especially is cold-water fish, are essential to life. 

This quick look at the various 18-carbon fats shows benefits of each but suggests that the ratio in our diet is critical to health.  For example, a 10-year Harvard study of 50,000 women found significant relief from depression for women who ate more omega-3 combined with fewer omega-6 fats. 

In Defense of Saturated Fats

To learn more about the benefit of the much-maligned saturated fats, see the YouTube video, Enjoy Eating Saturated Fats: They’re Good for You.  Dr. Miller is a heart surgeon and U. of Washington professor.  He gives an excellent history of how a healthy traditional fat was wrongly accused of causing obesity and heart disease but is now more and more recognized as healthy.  Unfortunately, Dr. Miller, who once backed the low-fat Ornish Diet, now favors the high-fat diet hunter-gatherer Paleo diet.  While it’s true that certain indigenous tribes thrive on this diet, it’s a shame Dr. Miller hasn’t tried the Word of Wisdom diet—a variety of natural foods for modern man. 

How To Eat Healthy Fats (and Oils)

Typically, if it’s solid, it’s fat and if it’s liquid, it’s oil.  Whatever the form traditional fats, minimally and properly processed, are essential to life:

• Saturated fats found in animal products, especially if the animals are pastured, are good for you.  Enjoy your eggs, butter, and meat sparingly. 
• The tropical oils are healthy if carefully processed.  So coconut oil and palm oil, though more saturated, can be good for you.
• Likewise the mono unsaturated fats found in olive oil and avocados are healthy.
• Finally, the polyunsaturated fats found in fish (especially cold-water fish), are particularly healthy because they are richer in omega-3 fats (of the long chain type). 
• Plants, unprocessed, are also a source of omega-3 (short-chain) and other healthy fats.  The oils found in nuts are quite healthy.  Edible seeds, as in the germ of wheat, contain a blend of healthy oils.

Please comment:  How is your understanding of dietary fats evolving?  Do you still cringe at the taste of full fat milk?  Is you husband enjoying cream on his oatmeal?  What do you use for salad dressing?  Salad dressing makes the fat-soluble nutrients in salads more bio-available.  So they’re good, but not all types are healthy.  There’s an idea being promoted that more fat in your diet can mean less fat on your body.  Does this make sense?  Share your thoughts on fat.

Remembering to Walk

The quick answer:  For better memory, try and remember to walk.

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Sensible Eating

I suppose you’ve noticed how I’ve come under the power of readers who make comments.  For the third year now, our focus is helping people “eat smarter, look better, and live longer.”  Those who comment shape our thinking and guide the research.

So we appreciated the comment in the last post, from a woman who walks 5K daily.  "Walking," she said, "helped me through the passing of my husband."  She also finds it a good anti-depressant, one with beneficial side effects. 

She also, ahem, gave this compliment:  “Love the blog; looked a long time for W of W sensibility before I found it.  Thank you.”

Sensibility!  All this led me to this Biblical thought on a recent walk:  We should exercise as Jesus did—by walking.  You learn when you walk and ponder; think of the teachings Jesus delivered during walks.

Memory

We know walking is good for the body, but what helps the brain?  A NY Times article, “How Exercise Could Lead to a Better Brain,” summarized a recent study.  There is a link between exercise and the genes in brain cells, even in laboratory mice.  One study of elderly mice found 117 genes that expressed differently when the mice ran, rather than sit around.

Running isn’t the best exercise for many people but walking is also beneficial.  A recent one-year study assigned 120 older people to one of two exercises:  stretching or walking. 

Though there are benefits to both exercises (stretching, for example, has been found to improve vascular health) walking was uniquely good for the brain.  The hippocampus is the part of our brain involved in storing and organizing short-term memory.  Starting about age 20, we lose about 1% of our hippocampus each year.  The hippocampus is one of the first areas damaged by Alzheimer’s disease.

In this study the group who walked actually reversed hippocampal shrinkage.  In one year of walking they regained two years of hippocampus loss.  In addition, the walkers had higher levels of BDNF, a chemical that creates and organizes new brain cells.  The walkers also performed better on cognitive tests.

Want a younger brain with better memory?  Walk!  Or better yet, dance.  Dancing is like walking, but also involves coordination with a partner, and other nice things.

Next Post

I know the theme of this week is exercise, but I think you readers understand this quite well.  So, in the next post we'll revisit fats—healthy and unhealthy.  I think 2013 might be the year Americans forget what they’ve been told and really figure out fats.

The Exercise Generation

The quick answer:  If you want a long and healthful life, you have to sweat, regularly.

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The Good Life

That’s not me in the picture; it’s the late, great, Jack LaLanne.  Jack could be the poster boy for how to live, but not just because of those biceps.  LaLanne lived a long, healthy live—96 vigorous years—and then passed after a brief illness (pneumonia).  Through exercise he maximized the good years, and minimized the sickly time.  We wouldn’t have a Medicare crisis if more people could live like Jack.

So though this is a blog primarily about nutrition, exercise is one of the thirteen themes.  For nearly six millenia of recorded history, mankind had no choice but to follow the Biblical injunction, “By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”  The Industrial Revolution, in just over a century of inventing laborsaving devices, made sweating optional. Unfortunately, it gave birth to the "couch potato."

The old way was healthier than the modern because now, the less we worked the more we ate, and the more we ate the less we wanted to move.  The automobile is the classic laborsaving example:  There really isn’t much left to automate—windows and doors open and close at the push of a button and some models can even parallel park.  It's ridiculous.

So the 21^st century presents a new imperative:  Reinvent a society where sweating is an essential component—or die ugly. 

Exercise

Though it’s generally recognized that it’s healthier to exercise, we don’t know very much about which methods are best, or how long or how often to work out.  There are exceptions to the "exercise is better" rule—for a hard-to-diagnose few, exercise can be problematic.  If you suspect you’re one of those few, it’s best to see your doctor before starting a new workout.

An exercise book came out, titled The First 20 Minutes.  I haven’t bought it yet, but I’ve read excerpts and reviews and find these helpful main thoughts:

1. Inactivity:  Inactivity, not cancer or heart disease, is our greatest public health threat.  To live well, we must exercise.  Protracted sitting, even if you exercise, can be unhealthy.  So avoid long periods of sitting; get up every hour or so and take a stroll, or climb some stairs.  Just do something.
2. Exercise:  From the title of the book, the first 20 minutes of exercise brings the greatest benefit.  If you just did 20 minutes a week, you’d be better off.  But it would be best to do multiple workouts.  Government sources recommend 150 minutes weekly, as in 30 minutes for each of 5 days.
3. Aerobic:  Aerobic exercise is when you work out for an extended time, at least 20 minutes, at a sustainable level.  The research is incomplete but suggests aerobic exercise is a primary determinant of longevity. 
4. Weights:  Strength training is important and there’s a principle called “overload” that suggests you need to do something extra hard to improve.  So mix up your routine with intervals of extra effort. We’ll address strength training in a future post.
5. Stretching, as in Yoga or the forms of Pilates, is also beneficial.  There’s interesting research that shows a stretching benefit for vascular health.  This is also a subject for a future post.
6. Weight loss:  Exercise doesn’t promote weight loss by itself—you don’t have time to sweat off an unhealthy high-calorie diet.  But exercise is an essential component of healthier living, and keeping weight off.   There is a weight loss benefit, however, for pre-breakfast workouts with eggs eaten for breakfast.
7. Mental:  Exercise has mental benefits—improves brain function, slows progression of dementia, reduces anger build-up, and improves stress tolerance. It's smart to exercise.

You Design It

Most gyms have trainers that will help you design a workout that builds strength and minimizes injuries.  But busy people need a program that fits their lifestyle.  If I was a hard working office guy, I would try to get in 20 minutes before breakfast most days, interrupt desk time with quick strolls that included stair climbing, and take a brisk lunchtime walk in the sunshine (even when it wasn’t shining). 

You don’t need a gym.  If I sat on my porch for a day I’d see the following:  Several committed people who run by our house about 5:00 a.m.; groups of homemakers who walk and talk together around sunrise; animal lovers walking their pets morning and evening; a few guys jogging or cycling at midday or after work.   

The challenge is for us all to recognize the laborsaving century is over and learn to enjoy laborious activities again.  Plant a kitchen garden or do your own yard work; I’m a cheap guy but there are other benefits to working outdoors.  There are lots of internet-based workouts also.

From my own experience I offer this guidance:  First, be the tortoise, noi the hare—start slow, then steadily add difficulty.  Second, do something you enjoy but that makes you sweat, but do it in a way that’s convenient.  Third, get a nice outfit for working out.  Style matters; if you run around the neighborhood in your regular clothes, people will just think you’re late to wherever you’re going and won’t appreciate your improving shape.  

Please comment:  You can read the comments from the two prior exercise posts, go here for 2011 or here for 2012.  Please share your best exercise, or tell about the benefits of what you've done.  We should inspire and encourage each other.

Butter over Donuts

The quick answer:  Good fats (like butyrate, found in butter) reduce cancer risk.  Bad fats (refined, used in deep fat fryers) increase cancer risk.  For better health, enjoy natural fats.

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Themes

As you know, the Healthy Changes that constitute W of W Living rotate through 13 themes, and we visit each topic quarterly.  In the first four posts of the year we covered these themes:

1. Slash consumption of added sugars (#1:  One soda drink per week, or less).
2. Eat healthy fats (#2:  Nothing deep fat fried).
3. Organize your cooking (#3:  Write a weekly menu).
4. Eat grains whole (#4:  Breakfast cereals must have more natural fiber than sugar).
5. Next week the topic is exercise (#5:  Exercise at least 30 minutes most days.)

Judging by the sparse comments on breakfast, I think most everyone gets the fiber>sugar rule and the importance of whole grains (that is, grains with their natural fiber intact).  So could we revisit the subject of fats, Healthy Change #2?

Fat and Cancer

It’s hard to think of a subject where the public has been given more bad information than fats.  The beautiful wife, for example, still prefers reduced fat milk even though I’ve pointed out a Harvard study linking such products with a higher risk of infertility.  It’s not that we’re seeking another child—six was plenty, for us at least.  But if a factory-processed food reduces fertility, might it not have other harmful effects?  It’s just hard to put a lifetime of erroneous information out of one's head. 

This week I learned two new things about fat and cancer: 

• A study links prostate cancer to the processed fats used in deep fat fried foods. 
• A natural fat found in butter, butyric acid, reduces the risk of cancer.

Toxic Deep Fat Fryer Fats

University of Washington scientists announced a study showing that men who consumed deep fat fried foods at least weekly, had about 1/3 higher risk of getting prostate cancer and an even higher risk of the more aggressive version.  This is a new and important finding.

Previous studies had indicted grilled meats (meats cooked at high temperature) as a risk factor for prostate cancer but we learn now that deep fat fried foods are even more dangerous.

Foods cooked at high heat contain toxic advanced glycation endproducts (AGE) which cause chronic inflammation, a risk for a host of disorders, including, beside some cancers, atherosclerosis (plaque and hardening of arteries associated with heart disease).  What makes the commercial deep fat fryers especially toxic is the number of days the fats remain in the fryers at high temperature.

Deep fat fried foods have previously been linked to cancers of the breast, lungs, pancreas, and esophagus. So Healthy Change #2  Never eat deep fat fried foods, deserves more emphasis.  To read more about the prostate cancer study go here. 

Butter Fights Cancer

I’ve learned to live without donuts and French fries, but it would be harder to give up butter.  Fortunately, there’s another reason to enjoy butter—butyric acid, a short-chain, 4-carbon, saturated fat (also known as butyrate).  Butter is the main dietary source of butyric acid, containing 3-4%. 

When certain rats are fed high-fat diets they get real fat.  But if butyrate is included, even though it’s a fat, they don’t.  Pretty interesting because who would have thought that eating butter might help humans avoid adding fat?  Butyrate also reduces inflammation, insulin levels (while improving insulin sensitivity), and the risk of metabolic syndrome. 

In addition to butter, we can produce butyrate in the G.I. tract from the fiber in our diet—bacteria living in the gut that help with metabolism section the fiber into butric acids.  So both butter and fiber are sources of butyrate.  In the Women’s Health Study, those who ate more foods rich in fiber had less inflammation, and fewer heart attacks.  Butyrate appears to also reduce the risk of breast and colorectal cancer.

Summary

One nutrition goal is to forget what we were told about fats.  We keep learning how natural fats are essential to good health, and how highly processed factory fats are harmful.  Enjoy healthy fats, including butter, olive oil, and coconut and palm oils.

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.