Interesting read by Rob Waters about corporate food and the nanny state in Forbes.

A recent “article” – actually a “commentary” which apparently does not need to be grounded in reality – by Patrick Luciani refuted the view that the food industry is at the root of the obesity epidemic.

He begins by pointing out that BMI is flawed (which is true) but this does not mean that we don’t have an excess of overweight and obesity in Canada as Mr. Luciani would have us believe. Just because the measurement tool isn’t accurate doesn’t mean that we don’t have a problem.

Luciani continues by suggesting that some people choose to be fat and are content with their weight. Yes, there certainly are people who are overweight and are perfectly content and healthy. However, there are also many others who are unhappy with their weight and who are suffering negative consequences both social and health.

His third argument is that humans have always been gluttons and that the onus is on us as individuals to control our eating; not on the food industry. These three arguments don’t seem all that cohesive to me.

I certainly agree that the food industry is not entirely to blame for the state of obesity in our country. It’s got many different causes and the food industry is but one of them, albeit a large one.

For once I was really impressed with the comments on this article. Rather than rephrase them I’m going to share a few below:

1. The writer is promoting a harmful line of thought when he says:

“And modern medicine has made it easier to carry around that extra weight. Cholesterol-controlling statins, diabetes and blood-pressure medications and bariatric surgeries have lowered the medical costs of those few extra pounds.”

What we take from this is that an unhealthy life-style is no problem – just take some pills.

The treatments he casually mentions have their own limitations and side effects. Aside from this, many older people are suffering from weight exacerbated joint problems that severely impair their mobility and/or require costly surgery.

2. Some of us like the way we are just fine. Some of us don’t.

I didn’t…

 

3. Such paper thin arguments piled up to justify the author’s agenda. The BMI is flawed (which it is) so there is no obesity epidemic? There were some overweight people 300 years ago so we can ignore the things that are leading to so many of us being overweight now. There was a poorly designed tax in another country that didn’t work so we should just give up on broader solutions. People are overweight because they simply choose to eat more and that’s uninfluenced by our evolutionary drives, our upbringing, or our environment that encourages overeating (research would beg to differ).

The insinuation that public health advocates are inflating the crisis for their own benefit is a typical projection by those who do view the world from a “what can I gain” perspective, not the “how can we best help people help themselves” approach advocated by those who want to do something.

It’s no wonder the author’s book was nominated for a Donner Prize as it furthers the Donner Foundation’ agenda to denigrate what communities and governments can do and put the blame on the individual.

 

4. This author’s opinion is truly a stretch. What percent of the population do professional athletes make up? Definitely not enough to impact the overall obesity statistics. There are many, many reasons for people gaining weight, but all age groups are getting heavier and this needs to be addressed. In our current lifestyles making the healthier choices is the more difficult choice and any way we can change this is worthwhile. Trying to deny or explain away the obesity statistics is not helpful.

 

 

I know cleanses are nothing new for me to blog about but I felt compelled to respond to this article in the National Post. Specifically, to the suggestion that it can be a good thing that you feel fatigued during a juice cleanse. The spokesperson for the company providing the juices to the author (more on that later) stated: “Simply, if you’re putting less into your body, you’ll have less energy,” explains Snyder, “but fatigue can be a positive.” Apparently it can be a positive because it can spur you to have better sleep. It’s also advised to ease-up on your exercise routine during a juice cleanse.

You know what else can help you have a good sleep without depriving you of sufficient calories and nutrients? Fresh air and exercise. It seems ridiculous to me that you would want to consume a diet that leaves you feeling fatigued. Your diet should serve to improve your energy and mood.

I also find it a little inappropriate that the author is essentially promoting a line of juices through this article. If she had included scientific evidence to support the use of juice cleanses and had not named a brand of juices, and interviewed their spokesperson, the article might have a little bit more credibility. As it stands, this article is essentially an advertisement masquerading as journalism.

Oh great, the latest headlines on salt: People eat too much salt but surprising report questions if eating too little could be harmful. Not exactly, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report, based on a review of studies pertaining to salt/sodium consumption and health. The report indicated that there may not be much benefit to reducing sodium consumption below the current recommended maximum of 2, 300 mg/day. They also looked at a few studies that found sodium consumption much below this amount might actually be detrimental to health. However, these studies all had major flaws and most looked at patients with serious health issues rather than looking at sodium reduction in the general population as a preventative health measure. You can access the full report, or the report brief here.

Yes, the report states that there is no research available to support reducing sodium consumption to 1, 500 mg/day, or less. Yes, the report also suggests that there may be some risk in reducing sodium consumption to 1, 500 mg/day in certain subsets of the population. That doesn’t mean that there may not be benefit in reduced sodium intake for those outside of those population subsets. It just means that there’s currently no research to support recommendations of less than 1, 500 mg of sodium per day. More research could be conducted and it may be the case that there is benefit, or not, the point is that we don’t know.

What we do know is that there is a benefit from reducing sodium intake to no more than 2, 300 mg/day and that most Americans (Canadians may be slightly worse due to the salty formulations of our packaged and fast food) consume in excess of this: on average, 3, 400 mg/day. Even if there proves to be no benefit to consuming as little as 1, 500 mg of sodium a day we can still benefit from a drastic reduction in sodium intake. Don’t let the headlines fool you into thinking that you might be harmed by reducing your sodium intake.

Back in February Alex Jameison (you may know her as Morgan Spurlock’s vegan girlfriend in Supersize Me) announced on her blog that she was no-longer vegan. For some reason this has just been making the headlines in the past couple of weeks, although her devotees and members of the vegan community were quick to comment. While many people have been supportive, others have been incredibly cruel; wishing cancer upon her! And that just rubs me the wrong way.

Why do we need to label our dietary practices and fit them into pretty little boxes? Why must we either be carnivores or vegans? And why must we judge each other so harshly based upon those labels?

In my mind, it’s ludicrous to attack someone for trying to be healthy and for following her biological urges to do so. I hate to break it to these people, but humans were not born to be vegans. We are omnivores by nature. This doesn’t mean that some of us can’t be healthy while subsisting on a vegan diet. But I don’t think that those of us who consume animals and their by-products should be vilified for doing what comes naturally to us.

The Australian government has come out with an initiative to make healthy lifestyle choices less overwhelming. It’s called: “Swap It, Don’t Stop It” and provides the message that all foods and activities can be a part of a healthy lifestyle. They provide suggestions for making healthier food choices and physical activity choices as well as resources such as planners, an app, and links.

Tomorrow is Food Revolution Day and the theme is “Cook it. Share it. Live it.”. The website has links to events happening around the world. Even if there’s no official event happening in your community try to prepare at least one meal yourself/with your family and incorporate as many locally grown/produced ingredients as possible. And mark your calendar for 2014 so that you can become involved with, or spearhead, an event in your community.

An article in the New York Times refers to a recent study that showed we consume most of our added sugar in solid foods rather than from sugar sweetened beverages. I’d like to point out that the sugar and calories in beverages tend to come with little or no additional nutrients. This may or may not be the case with foods. The calories in beverages also tend to be less satiating than the calories in foods.

The author suggests looking at where sugar is listed on the ingredient list as ingredients are listed by weight. Yes, this is true but the problem is that sugar is now frequently listed in numerous forms in the ingredient list. You should probably take the time to scroll through the entire ingredient list to see how many different forms of sugar are included. Here’s a link to a list of the many names that sugar takes. It makes grocery shopping more time-consuming and complicated to do read labels thoroughly but it’s worth it for your health. Another trick: try purchasing/growing as many foods without food labels as possible and cooking your own meals so that you can be in as much control of what goes on your plate and in your mouth as possible.

The California Walnut Board’s been busy lately. The latest study funded by them, to be published in the June issue of The Journal of Nutrition, found that consumption of whole walnuts and walnut oil had a positive effect on blood vessel function following a meal as well as improving the effectiveness of HDL (the “good” cholesterol). This is all lovely but I have a few questions.

I wonder how walnuts and walnut oil fare in comparison to other nuts and oils. I also wonder if there are any long-term implications for these findings. A short-term effect of consumption of a food, both positive and negative, means little in the big picture. Sure, it may very well be true that consumption of walnuts improves cardiovascular health but such a small study (only 15 participants) over such a short period of time: 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, four hours and six hours after administration of treatments really doesn’t tell us much about the impact of walnut consumption on long-term health.

I complain about unscientific practices a lot but science like this is just as bad. Give me a large, long-term, double-blind, study with unbiased researchers and then we can talk about the miracles of walnuts.

Apparently posting photos of your food online is the latest indication of an eating disorder. The idea is that frequent postings of food photos is an indication of food playing an extensive role in your life. Interesting theory.

The people I know who are posting food photos are those whose work is related to food. That would include myself. While I appreciate that some people find the posting of food photos to be annoying (sorry guys… I’m not going to stop), I know that others enjoy seeing them and we can often be inspired by seeing each others meals.

Until I see some research to back-up these claims that posting food photos is related to unhealthy relationships with food I’m going to conclude that this must have been a slow news day as it seems to be a fairly inane article.