Antioxidants

The quick answer:  There’s a billion or more fires within you—in the cellular mitochondria that produce your life-giving energy.  You need the energy, but you also need to provide the antioxidants that protect against the fire’s oxidation by-products—free radicals.  

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Antioxidants

We make energy at the cellular level—mitochondria, microscopic organelles within our cells—oxidize, or burn, glucose to create life-giving energy.  The harder working the cell—think of heart muscle—the more mitochondria there is.  One problem: oxidation also results in free radicals, which are molecules lacking an electron.  If they don’t get that electron, they’re like a bull in a china shop, wrecking other molecules to steal an electron. 

Nature provides a solution to the oxidation/free radical problem—antioxidants.  Antioxidants supply the needed electron and some can do it cyclically, over and over.  We get antioxidants from healthy foods, but the body can produce them also.  The melatonin produced when we sleep in the dark is a potent antioxidant protecting you all through the night.

The world of antioxidants is remarkable complex—we know little about them but it appears there are thousands of varieties.  Fruits, vegetables and grains—the basics of a natural diet—are rich in antioxidants but they provide different types.  To get an adequate supply, you need to eat a variety of natural foods.  It’s more than just the sum—there seems to be a synergistic effect from a variety of antioxidants.

Phony Antioxidants

Three of the vitamins are potent antioxidants—vitamins A, C, and E.  Some minerals, like selenium, are also powerful antioxidants.  The folks in the supplement business got excited about the protective powers of antioxidants and rushed a variety of products to the market.  Scientists have tried to provide supporting data but, to my knowledge, factory-produced antioxidants have not proven to be as helpful as natural sources. 

There was an antioxidant study in the news recently with a result that shouldn’t surprise a reader of this blog.  A 14-year study of over 5000 older adults found no protection from antioxidants against stroke or dementia. 

Basically, they gave people a diet questionnaire and divided them into three groups: most, average, or least dietary antioxidants.  At the end of the study there was no difference found between the three groups. 

Does this negate the importance of antioxidants?  No!  Here’s why:  A closer look showed the difference in antioxidant intake between the groups to be 90% due to the antioxidants in coffee and tea.  Apparently, with the exception of coffee and tea, the diet didn’t vary much among the groups and—no surprise—even though there are antioxidants in these hot drinks, there wasn’t an overall health advantage. 

The tragic thing about the study is the money wasted would have been better used to study people who really do eat differently—our readers.

Sunscreen for Plants

Here’s an interesting thought about antioxidants.  Plants need the sun to grow but they also must protect themselves against oxidation from the sun’s UV rays.  Imagine how you would survive naked to the sun from morning ‘til night.

So the surface, or skin, of plants is rich in antioxidants.  The small fruits like berries have a lot of skin for a small mass.  Ditto for the leafy greens, like kale and spinach.  This works also for grains, which are even smaller.  So be sure to include berries, dark leafy greens, and whole grains in your diet.

Antioxidants and Cancer

Free radicals cause oxidative stress and this has been linked to a higher risk for cancer, including breast cancer.  In addition to oxidative stress, one study found women with the lowest blood level of vitamin A to have twice the risk for breast cancer.  Those with the lowest blood level of vitamin E had triple the risk. 

That’s scary.  So eating a diet of natural foods rich in antioxidants—and getting plenty of sleep—is doubly important.

The beautiful wife reminds me that posts work best if kept to 600 words.  People tend to start skimming if the posts are longer—a beautiful daughter-in-law confirms this.  So I must stop, with this week’s Healthy Change:

Loving Vegetables

The quick answer:  Vegetables—learn to love them or prepare for an ugly death.

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Food and Reverence

Mike Pollan, best-selling author and U.C. Berkeley journalism professor, wrote perhaps America’s best nutrition book—In Defense of Food.  A prior post endorsed this book.  Pollan opens by giving away the book’s message in three succinct sentences:  “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”  He goes on to say, “. . . eating a little meat isn’t going to kill you.”

Actually, I think Pollan could have used just two sentences, because if you eat mostly plants—high in nutrients, low in calories, full of filling fiber—you won’t want to eat “too much.” 

Recently I read an explanation of the Jewish dietary code for kosher dining.  The writer acknowledged there wasn’t an obvious reason for some restrictions—like not mixing dairy and meat on the same plate—but thought it important to obey God, nonetheless.  The dinner table, he wrote, can be much more—it can be an altar.  I’ve thought a lot about this, how dining can help sanctify the lives of our families.

So combining all this, if I were to write a book today this would be my opening prescription:  “In eating, show reverence for God’s second best creation—our food supply.”  This suggests minimal processing—not adulteration—of food and implies a duty to care for animals, over which Man was given dominion.

Written more concisely:  To sanctify your life and optimize your health, eat mainly plants, minimally processed, seasoned with a little meat and fish.  Could it be said more simply?

Vegetables

Americans are unique in their dislike for vegetables.  The nutritionist David Ludwig agreed:  “In my experience, hating vegetables is essentially an American trait.  I never saw anything close to it during my travels through Asia, Europe, and South America.” 

In learning to love vegetables Healthy Change #2—Never eat deep fat fried foods—makes things worse.  French fries are America’s favorite vegetable.  So we have a bigger problem—if you throw out French fries, Americans eat, on average, less than one serving daily of vegetables, instead of the recommended 4-5.

Of the thirteen quarterly rotating themes of Word of Wisdom Living, vegetables alone are addressed twice, or 8 times in a year.  I don’t think it too much—the biggest challenge of healthy eating is for Modern Mankind to relearn eating vegetables.

Recent Discoveries

Around the world, people eat all the parts of plants—the fruit, seeds, roots, stalk, etc.  Here’s news from the book, Nutrition and Health about a particular part of plants, the leaf:  “One of the most remarkable surprises in nutrition studies in the last few years was the discovery of the remarkable dietary qualities possessed by the edible leaves of plants.  Among vegetable foods, only the leaf is rich in calcium, and is also rich in vitamins A, B and C, as well as fiber.”  The book, I should note, was written three generations ago in 1925.  Here's one more reason to eat salads: Leaves are also surprisingly rich in omega-3 fats.

In a prior post, In Defense of Veggies, we told of the remarkable benefits of the vegetable groups, including the dark leafy greens, cruciferous family, orange, and red veggies, and the alliums (garlic, onions, etc).  A salad with a nice oil and vinegar dressing should be eaten at most dinners. 

This post also notes how colored vegetables improve our appearance.  Scientists in Great Britain found a salutary improvement in skin color for people eating orange and red vegetables.  They not only had better skin color, they looked healthier.  So drop those French fries and enjoy some carrots, or a sweet potato.

One more thought:  If you don’t yet garden, consider planting a vegetable garden this spring.

Healthy Change #6:  This is the easiest of all the Healthy Changes but it's the start of a new outlook.

Do The Math

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans—our official healthy diet guide—recommends we eat five vegetable servings daily.  For food groups without powerful lobbies—vegetables are the best example—I trust the Dietary Guideline of five servings.   (For food groups with well-funded lobbies, like dairy, or edible oils, I take the guidance with a grain of salt.)  A serving is the amount that will fit in the palm of your hand—about 2-4 ounces, depending on hand size and food density.  Doing the math, five veggie servings a day with allowance for waste is:

• Two adults—about 15 lbs. per week.
• Mom, dad, and three grammar school kids—20-25 lbs.
• Family of six, ranging from toddler to high school—30-40 lbs.

Please comment:  It’s best not to force children to eat vegetables—that’s not a fight you can easily win.  A better idea is for mom and dad to eat vegetables with pleasure.  And get the kids their own copy of the Pixar classic, Ratatouille.  Ratatouille, is a traditional French dish of stewed vegetables—a fact not made clear in the movie. 

How do you help your children, and spouse, to love vegetables?  What is your favorite vegetable recipe?  Give us your best shot—veggies are the true test of Mom's seduction skills.

Olive Oil 101

The quick answer:  The extra virgin olive oils in your supermarket may not be all that innocent.  Try the California oils and see if you don’t like them better.

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The Problem with Olive Oil

I should be addressing this week’s Healthy Change subject—vegetables—but we’ll get to that tomorrow.  Today we have a more interesting comment from a reader:  What brands of olive oil can be trusted?

It’s a great question.  I don’t know the answer but I think that collectively our readers might.  So I’ll offer some information to start the conversation and ask for comments. 

When I wrote the recent post disparaging vegetable oils, I noted that olive oil now gets equal shelf space in the local supermarket.  That’s a big change from a decade ago and I noted an important difference between the two food groups:  There were just a few vegetable oil brands (Best Foods, Wesson Oil, Mazola Oil, Kraft Foods) but there was a plethora of olive oil brands.

I returned to the store and counted the olive oil brands—14.  It’s odd that the food giants haven’t dominated such an ancient product.  Three countries—Spain, Italy, and Greece—produce ¾ of the world supply, but other Mediterranean countries like Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia play a role, as does Argentina, Australia, and, drum roll, California. 

California is a relatively recent player (it produce 3% of the world supply).  The original Spanish friars planted olive trees around the missions but the industry slowly died due to the low cost of imported oils.  In recent decades there’s been a revival and excellent California olive oils are now available.

Benefits of Olive Oil

I have to be brief here as the beautiful wife said the last post was too long.  There’s an excellent summary of EVOO benefits here.  A brief summary:

1. Anti-inflammation:  The plant nutrients, especially polyphenols, have potent anti-inflammatory effect.
2. Anti-cancer:  An Italian research institute reviewed 25 studies of olive oil and cancer.  The results confirm the cancer risk reduction effect of olive oil, especially for breast cancer.
3. Cardiovascular:  Besides the anti-inflammatory benefit, olive oil is rich in antioxidants, including vitamin E and beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor).  Both are beneficial to vascular health.

Who Can You Trust?

There’s a big problem with olive oil:  Real olive oil is far more costly than other vegetable oils, so you can make a lot of money by slipping in cheaper oils.  In his later years, Mark Twain wrote a nostalgic book about his youth called Life on the Mississippi.  In the book he recounts, or imagines, a dialogue between two traveling salesman.  One brags about the money that can be made by shipping cottonseed oil to Italy where it is chemically treated and bottled as olive oil for shipment back to the US.  It’s a slippery business.

More recently, a UC Davis study found over 2/3 of the imported EVOO brands sold in California aren’t what the label claims—they’re mixed with lower grades or other oils.  One of the California EVOO brands also failed the test.  (It should be noted California growers funded the testing.)  For EVOO labeling, there’s no law against cheating, as the FDA hasn’t set standards for olive oil grades.

Olive Oil Aisle Visit

Here are a few things I noted in the olive oil aisle:

• Price —Olive oil costs more; prices ranged from 27 to 76 cents/oz. (in the 500 mL size), though most cost in the 50-60 cent range.  Why the difference in price?  I couldn’t tell—except the more expensive came in more interesting bottles.  It’s a big question with olive oil—what justifies a higher price? 
• California olive oil—I looked for domestic olive oil but everything was imported, even from less known countries like Tunisia.  California olive oils are gaining popularity, but they’re not that common yet.  I later found a bottle—Trader Joe’s Extra Virgin California Estate Olive Oil.
• Taste test —The beautiful wife and I tasted three extra virgin olive oils—two imported and TJ’s California EVOO.  Conclusion:  I thought the California EVOO tasted much better; the others had a heavy, almost-rancid taste.  The California oil had a fresher grassy taste.  Better yet, TJ’s 500 mL bottle only cost $6.00.  Not in our taste test:  Costco offers a California EVOO from Cullen Creek; per Costco, you have to buy a liter but it's a good value we want to try some day.

Please comment:  Do you have a favorite olive oil?  Please share your experience.

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.