The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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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photo credit: M J M

According to a recent article on Food Navigator, a USDA study found the increased rate of obesity in US adults is matched by an increased rate of fat and oil consumption. This follows the generic advice you find almost anywhere - cut fats and sugars, lose weight. The study identifies processed foods as the culprit for the fat consumption trend.

American consumption of added fats and oils has increased dramatically over the past 35 years, exceeding government recommendations and affording a need for healthier processed foods.
The findings form part of Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in the US Food Consumption, 1970-2005 - a report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that shows Americans are failing to meet the Federal dietary recommendations.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, two-thirds of US adults were either overweight or obese between 2003-2004, compared with 47 percent between 1976 and 1980.

The report shows this correlates with a swell in added fats consumption of 63 percent between 1970 and 2005 and a 19 percent increase in added sugar and sweeteners.

I wonder if anyone has conducted a study on the obesity trend of communities before and after fast-food restaurants move in? If not, they’ll have to act fast - I bet it’s getting hard to find one-horse towns without a McDonalds.

photo credit: thelifeledger

Childhood obesity is becoming such an epidemic that many schools are taking steps to increase the nutrition and exercise awareness of both their students and their students’ parents. Take, for example, this article covering changes recently instituted by five Philadelphia schools:

Five Philadelphia elementary schools replaced sodas with fruit juice. They scaled back snacks and banished candy. They handed out raffle tickets for wise food choices. They spent hours teaching kids, their parents and teachers about good nutrition.

As a result, “the number of kids who got fat during the two-year experiment was half the number of kids who got fat in schools that didn’t make those efforts.” Which is great, but of course not nearly enough. What we need is more education and awareness about what we feed our children. For instance, the cereal we feed them.

A recent article on Medical News Today about children’s cereal caught my eye. The article cites a recent study conducted by Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, which concluded that children’s cereals are higher in calories, sugar and salt than adult cereals, despite marketing claims to the contrary. The article goes on to summarize the study:

[Marlene] Schwartz and her colleagues examined 161 breakfast cereals from four leading manufacturers and compared nutritional values of children’s and nonchildren’s cereals to national guidelines. They found that when comparing nutrients per gram, children’s cereals were higher in calories, sodium, carbohydrate, and sugar, but significantly lower in fiber and protein. They also found that the majority of children’s cereals, 66 percent, failed to meet national recommended nutritional standards for foods sold in schools.

I couldn’t find a copy of the study itself, so I thought I’d conduct a spot-check myself. When selecting children’s cereal and adult cereal, I concentrated on marketing and shelf placement in the grocery store, as one Yale Rudd Center study points out that

Children are exposed to an estimated 10 000 advertisements for food per year, 95% of which are for fast foods, candy, sugared cereal and soft drinks (13). By pre-school, the child begins to have preferences for certain products and, according to McNeal, is a ‘consumer by influence’ (14). Advertisers place cereal boxes at child eye level because they know that toddlers can recognize brands of cereal and request them from their seat in the grocery cart.

Based on ads and shelf placement, I selected three cereals marketed as “healthy” children’s cereals and two “healthy” adult cereals, because let’s face it - comparing Trix to Allbran is just a tad unfair, and you shouldn’t be feeding your child that un-food anyway. Let’s see how they stack up.

Children’s Cereals

Cheerios

photo credit: Z(-_-)F

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 cup (28 grams)
Calories, without milk: 100
Sodium: 190mg
Sugar: 1g

Ingredients
Whole grain oats, modified corn starch, sugar, oat bran, salt, calcium carbonate, oat fiber, potassium phosphate, corn starch, wheat starch, vitamin E

Kix

photo credit: sajrow

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 1/4 cup (30 grams)
Calories, without milk: 110
Sodium: 210mg
Sugar: 3g

Ingredients
corn (whole grain corn, meal), whole grain oats, ugar, corn bran, modified corn starch, corn syrup, salt, calcium carbonate, trisodium phosphate, vitamin E, misc vitamins

Wheaties

photo credit: tape

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 3/4 cup (27 grams)
Calories, without milk: 100
Sodium: 190mg
Sugar: 4g

Ingredients
whole grain wheat, sugar, salt, corn syrup, trisodium phosphate, BHT, misc vitamins

Adult Cereals

All-bran

photo credit: davekellam

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1/2 cup (31 grams)
Calories, without milk: 80
Sodium: 80mg
Sugar: 6g

Ingredients
wheat bran, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, malt flavoring, calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, salt, sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid (vitamin c), misc vitamins

Special K

photo credit: Paul Cheek

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 cup (31 grams)
Calories, without milk: 120
Sodium: 220mg
Sugar: 4g

Ingredients
rice, wheat gluten, sugar, defatted wheat germ, salt, high fructose corn syrup, dried whey, malt flavoring, calcium caseinate, misc vitamins

The Comparison

I think visually, so I’ve created a table with what I think are the most important comparisons to draw between the five cereals. *I’ve changed the serving size to make the numbers directly comparable.

The takeaway I get? Eat fruit, not cereal. If you need to serve cereal, Cheerios looks like the least evil. The other takeaway? I need to find a new recipe for my bran muffins.

photo credit: chiodachic

Trans fats take one more step to earning the infamy associated with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. A study recently conducted on Wistar rats shows pregnant or nursing mothers fed a diet enriched with hydrogenated vegetable fat causes symptoms associated with obesity, even when the offspring never consumes that same diet. Scientists split the rats into four groups, and the results were striking:

Pregnant and lactating Wistar rats were fed with either a control diet (C group) or one enriched with hydrogenated vegetable fat (T group). Upon weaning, the male pups were sorted in four groups: CC a mothers were receiving C, and pups were kept on C; CT - mothers were receiving C, and pups were fed with T; TT a mothers were receiving T, and pups were kept on T; TC a mothers were receiving T, and pups were fed with C.

… Offspring of TT and TC rats had increased white adipose tissue PAI-1 gene expression. Insulin receptor was higher in TT than other groups. Ingestion of hydrogenated vegetable fat by the mother during gestation and lactation could promote deleterious consequences, even after the withdrawal of the causal factor.

That result bears repeating: offspring that never ate the high-trans-fat diet still exhibited symptoms of obesity, including insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes. Science Daily’s article includes this explanation of the study’s results:

“We know that foetal growth is influenced by the mother’s nutritional status,” explained Brazilian nutritionist Luciana Pisani. “Fats play a fundamental role in foetal development and changes in dietary fatty acids has important implications for foetal and postnatal development. Heavy ingestion of very hydrogenated fats rich in trans fatty acids increases risk of cardiovascular diseases and reduces insulin sensitivity and so leads to type 2 diabetes. We need to investigate this further as this has important implications for people’s own diets, especially pregnant women.”

Interestingly enough, Science Daily’s article also linked to a similar study on junk foodconducted in 2007:

Mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy and breastfeeding may be putting their children at risk of overeating and developing obesity, according to a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and carried out at the Royal Veterinary College, London. The research suggests that pregnant and breastfeeding women should not indulge in fatty, sugary and salty foods under the misguided assumption that they are “eating for two”.

The study*, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, found that rats fed a diet of processed junk food such as doughnuts, muffins, biscuits, crisps and sweets during pregnancy and lactation gave birth to offspring which overate and had a preference for junk foods rich in fat, sugar and salt when compared to the offspring of rats given regular feed. The research team behind the study believe the findings have implications for humans.

The more we study HFCS and hydrogenated fat, the more obvious it becomes we are killing ourselves by replacing food with man-made substances. I’m betting Michael Pollan’s non-scientific claims may eventually be backed with scientific studies - the more natural food and less man-made “food” in our diets, the healthier overall we’ll be.

The takeaway? Stop eating fried peeps. Yes, in case you were wondering, the picture above is someone’s fried peeps. Gross.

photo credit: jon.nelson

Consumerist turned me to the latest battle in the war on the restaurant industry - making calorie information readily available. San Francisco’s new ordinance requires any restaurant with more than 20 locations to display calorie information on menus or posters, and carries a $500 fine for each violation. This is great news, since bills requiring restaurants to display calorie information, which common sense tells me is a necessary part of treating the obesity epidemic, has historically been fraught with resistance. As the article on Consumerist points out,

San Francisco joins New York City and Washington’s King County in the battle to protect consumers with information, a fight that has not gone well for municipalities. California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a bill that would require nutrition labeling throughout the state, and New York City was barred by a judge from enforcing its regulations until April 15, when the plan may be tossed altogether.

The CPSI is serious about this issue. In a press release marking the San Francisco bill, the CPSI outlines their vision of the future:

No one expects to learn the price of your restaurant meal by checking online in advance or by finding out only after you’ve ordered. And at chain restaurants, where menu items are so carefully calibrated and standardized, it would be easy for chains to put calories right on menu boards and even more nutrition information on printed menus.

…It’s hard to imagine that not many years ago, packaged foods in the supermarket did not have to bear the standardized, easy-to-read Nutrition Facts labels. We’re optimistic that twenty years from now, it will be hard to believe that calorie counts were confined to web sites and tray liners, and absent from menus and menu boards.

In order to empower all of us to assist in the fight for what seems like common sense legislation, the CPSI maintains a “Menu Labeling” resource site at http://www.cspinet.org/menulabeling/. Information offered includes a template for requesting menu labeling legislation from your governor, up-to-date news on menu labeling legislation and PDF documents on different related topics. For example, the PDF document on “Myth vs. Reality: Nutrition Labeling at Fast-Food and Other Chain Restaurants” lists and refutes commonly-used responses to requests for calorie information, like the one I received from Disney recently:

Myth: Special orders are common, and it would be impossible for a menu to list nutrition information for all possible different food preparation options and combinations.

Reality: Restaurants only would have to provide nutrition information for standard menu items as “offered for sale.”

• Menu labelling does not apply to customized orders or to daily specials (neither are standard menu items).
• If restaurants can provide nutrition information on websites and brochures, they should be able to put those numbers on menus where people can see them and use them when ordering.

For my part, I’ll be sending an e-mail to my governor and continuing to write about calorie information in restaurants. What about you - would you like to see your municipality or state adopt legislation requiring restaurants to list calorie information in the restaurant?