The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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Margaret Atwood must be proud - the disgusting meat products appearing in Oryx and Crake are just around the corner, if PETA has anything to do with it. Following the current trend of offering large bounties, as Google currently does with the X-Prize, PETA is offering a $1 million prize for what NPR summarizes as the “development of commercially-viable ‘test-tube meat’ - meat grown through a lab process, not from a live animal.” PETA’s website outlines the contest in further detail:

PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
• Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states.

Judging of taste and texture will be performed by a panel of 10 PETA judges, who will sample the in vitro chicken prepared using a fried “chicken” recipe from VegCooking.com. The in vitro chicken must get a score of at least 80 when evaluated in order to win the prize.

In vitro meat production would use animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce.

And I thought everything tasted like chicken… As long as the FDA mandates labeling test-tube SPAM, I don’t personally mind PETA and others throwing money at fake meat. Seriously though, can’t they spend the money on making tofu more appealing? And don’t members of the target audience, non-meat-eating people, already have non-meat alternatives? Does PETA really think they’re going to convert meat-eaters into vegetarians with fake SPAM?

At any rate, it’s all very interesting. It’s good to see PETA doing something that doesn’t involve bloody babies on a stick in front of McDonalds.

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I recently received this e-mail from someone at Fleishman-Hillard, who apparently represents Gatorade in PR matters:

Great post on calorie disclosure. Did you know that you would have to take 2,640 more steps to burn off the calories in vitamin waters? Propel has one-fifth of the calories and punches up water. With that said, we would like to invite you and your readers to view our channel on YouTube at http://youtube.com/PropelFitWater…

I’ve long been fascinated with the growing fitness water trend and the marketing games they play. For instance, as Mark’s Daily Apple points out, most fitness water manufacturers will market a calorie claim on the label (only 10 calories!), but the bottle holds more than one serving. Does anyone here measure out their serving size when drinking water from a bottle? I don’t either.

At any rate, after reading the e-mail, I was interested in what people have to say about Propel. However, I couldn’t find any articles comparing Propel to other products - beyond short articles like the one at Trying Fitness, there doesn’t seem to be much info. To satisfy my curiosity, I bought several enhanced water products, tried them myself, and put together a comparison.

My personal takeaway? Fitness waters are nothing more than “dietary supplements” with bottled water from unknown sources thrown in. Drink regular water and eat varied colors of fruits and vegetables to get the same nutrient naturally. If you need some tips on drinking more water, Diet-Blog lists a couple to get you started.

photo credit: thelifeledger

Bot (www.botbeverages.com)

Flavor Tried
Berry Bot; refreshing, clean, only slight aftertaste; tastes like water with a little flavoring.

My Take
The clean taste isn’t the only thing that’s refreshing about Bot - it’s also the only product whose label reflects the calorie count of the entire bottle. While technically accurate, it’s still purposefully misleading to market one bottle of fitness water as 2.5 servings, then place in bold letters “Only 10 calories!” It’s also nice to see only ingredients I recognize, including pure cane sugar. Definitely top of my list.

Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 12 fl oz, 1 per container
Calories: 40 per serving (40 per container)
Sugar: 9g per serving (9g per container)
Vitamins per serving: B3 10%; B12 10%; B5 10%; B6 10%

Ingredients
filtered, deionized water, pure cane sugar, natural flavors, citric acid, niacinamide (vit. B3), calcium D pantothenate (vit. B5), pyridoxine hydrochloride (vit. B6), cyanocobalamine (vit. B12)

photo credit: thelifeledger

Vitamin Water (www.vitaminwater.com)

Flavor Tried
XXX (Acai, Blueberry, Pomegranate): too sweet, no aftertaste, good flavor; tastes like fruit punch, not water.

My Take
Vitamin Water gets a lot of rave reviews. As long as you’re expecting fruit punch as opposed to a clean water taste, you’re in for a treat. In my opinion, it also gets high marks for using real sugar and no preservatives - it could stand to be less sweet, but at least it’s not using sugar alternatives or HFCS. I would treat this as a soda alternative, something I drank maybe once a day - it’s not as healthy as water, but it’s a good lot better than a Coke.

Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 8 fl oz, 2.5 per container
Calories: 50 per serving (125 per container)
Sugar: 13g per serving (33g per container)
Vitamins per serving: C 100%; B3 10%; B12 10%; B5 10%; B6 10%

Ingredients
vapor distilled, deionized, and/or reverse osmosis water, crystalline fructose, cane sugar, citric acid, vegetable juice (color), ascorbic acid (vit c), natural flavor, berry and fruit extracts (acai, blueberry, pomegranate and apple), magnesium lactate (electrolyte), calcium lactate (electrolyte), monopotassium phosphate (electrolyte), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), cyanocobalamin (B12)

photo credit: thelifeledger

Voosh (www.drinkvoosh.com)

Flavor Tried
Acai, Blueberry, Pomegranate: refreshing, clean taste; good balance between sweetness/flavoring and clean water.

My Take
I’ve never heard of Voosh, but I’m glad I tried it - with a pleasant, clean taste, the flavoring complements the water without overpowering that refreshing, quenched taste I get from water. It’s got more junk than Bot, including electrolytes which I tend to steer clear of, but many people like. In my opinion, this is a fantastic alternative to Propel or Gatorade - what you lose in some “repleneshment” and nutritional additives from Gatorade products, you gain in lack of sucralose and preservatives. Voosh is second to Bot on my list.

Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 8 fl oz, 2.5 per container
Calories: 50 per serving (125 per container)
Sugar: 13g per serving (33g per container)
Vitamins per serving: C 100%; niacin 10%; B12 15%; pantothenic acid 10%; B6 10%

Ingredients:

water, crystalline fructose, citric acid, vitamin blend (ascorbic acid, grape seed extract, niacinamide, d-calcium pantothenate, vitamin b12, pyridoxine hcl), fruit and vegetable juices for color, natural flavors, magnesium lactate, calcium lactate, potassium phosphate

photo credit: thelifeledger

LifeWater (www.sobelifewater.com)

Flavor Tried
Blackberry Grape: too sweet, slight aftertaste, good flavor; tastes like syrup-based beverage, not water.

My Take
I had high hopes for LifeWater. I like many other Sobe beverages, and expected this to be no different. And to be honest, if I hadn’t gone to the local whole foods grocery store (Earth Fare in my area) and discovered Bot and Voosh, LifeWater would have been my favorite pick. While not as overpoweringly sweet as Vitamin Water, it’s still obviously not water, and doesn’t quench my thirst like water should. It also lists things like food starch and gum arabic that I expect from more processed products - perhaps that’s the reason Sobe markets LifeWater as a “Vitamin Enhanced Water Beverage” instead of a fitness water or something similar. All in all, it’s not a bad drink, and like any of these I’d drink LifeWater over any soda, but there are definitely better ones out there.

Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 8 fl oz, 2.5 per container
Calories: 40 per serving (100 per container)
Sugar: 10g per serving (25g per container)
Vitamins per serving: C 100%; E 20%; niacin 10%; pantothenic acid 10%; B12 10%; B6 10%

Ingredients
filtered water, sugar, natural flavor, citric acid, ascorbic acid (C), grape skin extract (color), sodium citrate, modified food starch, l-theanine, vitamin e acetate, calcium phosphate, gum arabic, calcium pantothenate, yerba mate exctract, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), cyanocobalamin (b12)

photo credit: thelifeledger

Propel (www.propelwater.com)

Flavor Tried
Kiwi-Strawberry: bitter aftertaste, doesn’t quench thirst, tastes unnatural.

My Take
Here we go, the drink that started this whole article. I tell you what, I don’t like soda, but I think I’d drink a Sprite over this stuff. It tastes bitter and doesn’t slake my thirst, probably due to the sucralose (Splenda) used to sweeten the drink. Also, the “natural kiwi and strawberry flavors” listed in the ingredients taste anything but natural - I can’t tell what it tastes like. Sorry Gatorade, but I’ll pass on this drink - I’d rather have the higher calorie count of one of the other drinks than sucralose, sucrose syrup and bad taste. Or, just drink water.

Nutrition Information
Serving Size: 8 fl oz, 2 per container
Calories: 10 per serving (25 per container) (yes, I know mathematically this shouldn’t be the case, but that’s what’s listed on the bottle)
Sugar: 2g per serving (4g per container)
Vitamins per serving: C 10%; E 10%; niacin 25%; B12 4%; pantothenic acid 25%; B6 25%

Ingredients:
water, sucrose syrup, citric acid, natural kiwi and strawberry flavors with other natural flavors, sodium citrate, potassium citrate, sucralose, vit c (ascorbic acid), vit e acetate, niacinamide (b3), calcium disodium edta (protects freshness), calcium pantothenate (vit b5), pyridoxine hydrochloride (b6), acesulfame potassium, vit b12

How about you - did I dis or skip your favorite fitness water drink?

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photo credit: Nutsboutnuttn (Allison)

Lately, I’ve been suffering from a sweet tooth - I can’t get enough chocolate to satisfy my “craving,” and grapes just aren’t cutting it. I know enough now to just keep it out of the house so I don’t have access to it, but it’s nice to know my “addiction” might be more based on biology and less on my lack of will-power. According to an article on Science Daily, scientists found the brain can sense caloric values of foods independent of taste mechanisms:

Their finding that the brain’s reward system is switched on by this “sixth sense” machinery could have implications for understanding the causes of obesity. For example, the findings suggest why high-fructose corn syrup, widely used as a sweetener in foods, might contribute to obesity.

In their experiments, the researchers genetically altered mice to make them “sweet-blind,” lacking a key component of taste receptor cells that enabled them to detect the sweet taste.

In analyzing the brains of the sweet-blind mice, the researchers showed that the animals’ reward circuitry was switched on by caloric intake, independent of the animals’ ability to taste. Those analyses showed that levels of the brain chemical dopamine, known to be central to activating the reward circuitry, increased with caloric intake. Also, electrophysiological studies showed that neurons in the food-reward region, called the nucleus accumbens, were activated by caloric intake, independent of taste.

Significantly, the researchers found that a preference for sucrose over sucralose developed only after ten minutes of a one-hour feeding session and that neurons in the reward region also responded with the same delay.

So I eat chocolate, my brain releases an amount of dopamine relative to the caloric value of the chocolate, and I inherently place a higher value on chocolate because of the pleasant feelings it invokes. It’s like someone designing our bodies knew we wouldn’t eat enough if there weren’t some biological prompting. Frankly, I don’t know if this is good news or not - it’s like I’m my body is biologically designed towards obesity! Or, at least, our current society, with all it’s abundant and ready access to high-calorie foods, warps our biological mechanisms.

At any rate, I just need to keep grapes in the house, and evict the chocolate.

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1. The biology of obesity

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Eating Fabulous points to this Consumer Reports article on designing a heart-healthy diet. Advice offered includes recommended fruits and vegetables to load up on, designing a diet around the “Mediterranean eating plan,” and whether “heart-healthy supplements” actually promote heart health. Their supplement advice is particularly interesting, as they investigate three supplements currently marketed as heart-healthy, including B vitamins (like folic acid) and fish oils. For example, here’s what they have to say about vitamin E:

While considerable observational evidence has associated high intakes of vitamin E with protection against heart disease, several large-scale clinical trials have failed to find persuasive evidence that vitamin E supplements yield any benefit to the heart. In fact, some suggest the opposite.

Upshot: We feel that taking supplements of vitamin E to lower your risk of heart disease is a waste of time and money.

Consumer Reports also recommended eating a diet with enough “healthy fats” (as opposed to those nasty ones the USDA recently reported on) and various colors of fruits and veggies to ensure a wide variety of micronutrients. Personally, I’ve always thought consuming vitamins and nutrients naturally is probably much healthier than taking supplements. Of course, there’s so many chemicals in our food now, maybe it doesn’t matter.

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Medical News Today carried a story about a program at Ohio State University where doctors are storing large amounts of medical information on secured USB drives for heart surgery patients to carry with them. Should the patient suffer an emergency, the treating physician could review the patient’s entire history quickly.

“We usually include their most recent clinic visit, ultrasounds of their heart, heart catheterizations and, in some instances, if it’s important, we may have images of their heart,” says Dr. Curt Daniels, a cardiologist at Ohio State University Medical Center.

Dr. Daniels and his staff came up with the idea of using the jump drives. Daniels says the medical history of some heart patients is very complex, and if they ever find themselves needing medical attention in another city or country, every minute matters. That’s where the jump drive can help. Any doctor, anywhere in the world, can simply plug it into their computer to answer any questions they might have.

“What heart surgeries have they had? How should their heart really be arranged, and how strong or weak is their heart? Do they have valve problems? Is that part of their history? Having that information right away, we believe, will improve medical care for our patients,” says Daniels.

I tried tracking down exactly what application, if any, is used to store the data, but couldn’t find anything. I suspect they simply use encryption software to protect the data, and store files in folders. It would be interesting to see someone develop a software application that encrypts the data, automatically runs when the USB drive mounts, and provides a searchable index to all information stored on the drive. Extra points for automatic language translation for patients travelling to other countries.

If you’re interested in creating one of these jump drives yourself, work with your doctor to accumulate the medical information pertinent to you and use a program like TrueCrypt to protect your data. Just make sure you carry instructions on decrypting the data, and don’t leave both the drive and the instructions at the same restaurant in Italy.

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