The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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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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photo credit: Tomsimages.com

Foods high in antioxidants used to be the latest fad; in fact, if you’re a cranberry farmer or sell acai & pomegranate smoothies, it probably still is the latest fad. According to the free radical theory, antioxidants cure everything from heart disease to obesity - even aging! A recent study, however, revealed not only that there’s some truth to the myth, but exactly how antioxidants interact with our bodies:

No matter how pleasant a meal is, eating causes what’s known as oxidative stress. As we digest our food, we create sometimes-harmful molecules known as free radicals. But antioxidants — healthful compounds in fruits and vegetables — can help by neutralizing the free radicals.

The scientists found that the antioxidant capacity of volunteers’ blood plasma samples declined after eating a test meal that lacked antioxidants. But the scientists also found, for the first time, that consuming grapes with that same test meal prevented the decline in plasma antioxidant capacity of the volunteers during the first two hours following the test meal—the time digestion is the most rapid.

And where can you find these magic antioxidants? According to the USDA, the top fruits include acai, cranberries, blueberries, plums, apples and strawberries.

Fetched from Food and Drug Administration Press Releases

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting consumers, food service operators, and food retailers that New Era Canning Company, New Era, Mich., is broadening its nationwide recall of canned vegetable products for a third time because of the potential for its foods to be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum (C. botulinum).

Slashfood linked to a tip at Ideal Bite on how to tell the difference between genetically modified, conventional and organic fruits and veggies by reading the sticker:

• A four-digit number means it’s conventionally grown.
• A five-digit number beginning with 9 means it’s organic.
• A five-digit number beginning with 8 means it’s genetically modified.

Of course, that begs the question - if I do find a GM fruit or veggie, how exactly has it been modified? Wikipedia lists a couple of documented GM controversies. Personally, I just buy local when possible, and trust in the organic industry for the rest. I have to put my trust somewhere, since I don’t grow my food myself.