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Why It’s Finally Time to Learn A Crucial Food Lesson

Blogger Pooja Mottl made a pointed observation about our collective health recently in the Huffington Post. Mottl says that despite supermarket recipe cards and countless blogs and articles about food and food preparation, “it’s not happening — we aren’t getting this ‘healthy food’ into our mouths.” Why? Simple, she says. We don’t know how to cook.

It seems like a bizarre assertion that with the last decade’s renaissance of food TV and food-themed media, Americans would still not be cooking. Could it be that many of us are involved in a grand food delusion in which we know the names of all the celebrity chefs but don’t ever pick up a spatula? Could it be that all of this food information is sliding right past us like the egg off of a McMuffin?

It could. The decline in cooking for ourselves continues despite rumblings that the recession has brought some families back to the kitchen. The fact is, everyone is working, and food companies are selling the antidote to our time-crunched lives. And it seems those food shows may be doing very little to actually help our skills – they just serve as more passive entertainment. Restaurant food sales continue to soar and packaged food companies thrive, and no one is donning an apron to pass down those valuable cooking skills to the next generation.

As Mottl points out, the consequence of not knowing basic cooking skills is relying on others to do our cooking for us. When our meals come from restaurants, prepared food shelves, and grocery store buffets, it heightens our intake of fat, salt and calories. The bottom line is that we can read this blog or any other blog, we can read articles or magazine tip lists about the benefits of wild blueberries and leafy greens, or the disease preventing properties of fruits and vegetables, or how to incorporate omega-3s into our diet. We can watch top chefs battle it out using fresh, exotic ingredients. None of this will help our health if we aren’t cooking for ourselves.

It’s Time: Learn How to Cook

Yes, Chef, cooking is power, and it’s time we rouse ourselves from the learned helplessness that is nurtured by the prepared food options that orbit around us. It’s time to learn the fundamentals of cooking our own food. Here’s why:

  • Cooking is an expression of creativity.
  • Cooking will give you a feeling of satisfaction.
  • Cooking will save you money.
  • If you cook, your kids will learn good habits.
  • Cooking means you’ll have control over what your kids eat.
  • If you cook, you and your family will be healthier, have fewer diseases, and live longer.

Here’s how to begin.

Buy some tools.
Stock up on some staples. Do you have a good knife? A saucepan? Getting the tools of the trade is an inspiring and necessary first step. Go on a culinary shopping spree, or collect them little at a time. If you are still using your grandmother’s rusty old baking pan, replace it for something new. You can always keep the old one – for posterity. 

Make space in the kitchen.
Tell the microwave to shove over and find your go-to space to set up your mise en place. If you’re struggling space-wise, consider investing in a moveable cooking counter. Or install shelves to move some of what’s on the counter up.

Stock the basics.
If there are no new edibles making their way into your house tonight, you’ll need to make something out of nothing, and that requires having the basics. Stock up on necessary spices. Keep rice and stock in the cupboard. Store frozen wild blueberries in the fridge. Can you make a family-sized frittata with nothing but eggs and a few random leftovers? Then you’ve arrived.

Learn the moves.
There is alchemy to food, and having the basic cooking techniques under your belt is a skill that will serve you beyond the recipe card. Know how to sauté, bake, braise, brown, chop, and mince. Learn from a friend, a book, a video or a class. Call your mom, or call your co-worker who’s a whiz with a spatula—they’ll be charmed by the compliment.

Save time to shop.
Cooking begins with groceries. Buying fresh daily may become an enjoyable new habit, but you know your schedule—if evenings disappear in a puff of Ramen noodle smoke, planning ahead is crucial.

Make cooking a ritual.
It’s not always possible to spend hours cooking a meal every night, and chopping onions may be Martha Stewart’s idea of relaxing, not yours. But if cooking is part of your life, the preparation that precedes it is part of the ritual of eating. Talk to the kids, catch up on the news…this is your life, and cooking is part of it. Enjoy.

Buy a book, subscribe to a magazine, or take a class.
You don’t have to cook your way though Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If you love pasta, start with a book about pasta. Stir fry sound like fun? Start with a book about Asian cooking. Or, subscribe to a real cooking periodical so the new ideas keep coming to your doorstep. If classes sound like too much of a time investment, cooking classes are available online.

Share the love.
It’s a brand new day—and everyone can share in the glories of cooking. Take the burden off you and put it on another family member at least once a week, kids included.

Take it on the road.
Put your cooking to the test with a cooking group. Invite a family, some neighbors, or your yoga buddies over once a month and put your skills to work. Then, reciprocate by heading to their house the next month, where all you have to do is taste.

Create your own cooking “Couch to 5K”.
Call it the McChicken to Chicken Stew—give yourself six weeks to become someone who cooks. Create a schedule, walk before you run, and meet your goals. Your family and your body will thank you.

You will thank you.

.

High Fructose Corn Syrup: Bumpy Ride for a Fraught Sugar

High fructose corn syrup has been on a roller coaster ride over the last few years, and the fun isn’t over. Its ups are marked by big agriculture subsidies, and a starring role in everything from wheat crackers to cranberry juice. Today, the obesity epidemic has changed the way we perceive this mercurial ingredient, resulting in a precipitous down. Foods in restaurants and store shelves are shunning it – wheat crackers and cranberry juice included. Has this ingredient been rightfully snubbed? Why do we love it? And will changing its name and the public’s perception help us or hurt us?

What is HFCS?

It’s no surprise that high fructose corn syrup is made from corn. Kernels of corn are soaked to extract their starch, and enzymes are used to turn the glucose in the starch into fructose. The result is an ingredient that is part fructose and part glucose, where the fructose portion can range from 42% to 90% depending on the application. It differs from the white crystals that we know as table sugar, which comes from either sugar cane or sugar beets, and is pure glucose.

Food producers fell instantly in love with HFCS, and as a result, it is used as a sweetener in many foods. Part of its appeal is that it’s cheaper (the corn crop in the U.S. is heavily subsidized). It’s also perfect for processed foods – it extends shelf life, retains moisture, and doesn’t mask flavors. Looking for HFCS? Look no further than most any grocery store shelf. It’s in fruit drinks, sodas, crackers, breads…the list of processed foods that have HFCS is long, which means it’s a major source for calories in the American diet.

The Allure of Sweet

We love sweet food. While the salt-sugar-fat combos can send our taste buds and brains into heavenly overload, it doesn’t take a food engineer to create new ways for us to reach sweet nirvana (although it helps). We have simply evolved to love sweet, sugary food, no tampering required.

Foods that are sweet provide energy, and they release endorphins in the brain. And, natural sugars, like those our ancestors would have eaten, contain necessary nutrients. But those we consume today often have had their nutritional value refined away. Our body still works like the body of a caveman, and we are living in a very modern world, where food is abundant and we no longer must run for our lives from tigers. The fact is, it’s not our fault – our love affair with sweet is only human. It’s just that our physiology is in the Stone Age.

Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Evil?

Studies have reported that the combination of fructose and glucose has more negative health consequences than glucose sugars. Some studies show high fructose corn syrup contributes to obesity more than other sugars, it disrupts metabolic function, and it could contribute to diabetes and liver disease. This speculation about its evils has had major implications in the industry, and when First Lady Michelle Obama said she won’t feed her daughters HFCS, it virtually completed the journey of the falling gauntlet. Now, more and more products on grocery store shelves and food chains have publicized their elimination of the ingredient from their food to appease the public, replacing it instead with cane or beet sugar.

However, the results of the negative effects are not confirmed by researchers. Some studies have reported that HFCS is no more a contributor to obesity and disease than any sugar, be it from a cane, a beet or a maple. Some say that blaming the ingredient for the cause of the country’s ills is simplistic. According to Elizabeth Abbot, author of Sugar: A Bittersweet History, the debate about which sugar is worse is a false debate: HFCS and sugar from cane or beets are equally bad, she says. Why blame one and let the other off the hook?

Bad Rap or Re-Wrap?

Regardless of whether high fructose corn syrup is to blame for America’s health woes, The Corn Refiners Association wants to give it a makeover. Now, ad campaigns promote it as a natural ingredient (it’s made from a benevolent veggie) not a black hat food responsible for the global health crisis. The association is also pushing the FDA for a name change, from HFCS to “corn sugar”.  The High Fructose Corn Syrup website, SweetSurprise.com, uses both “HFCS” and “corn sugar”. The site promotes research from the American Diabetes Association, the American Medical Association and other sources that support the fact that high fructose corn syrup is the same as table sugar – in its calorie content, its chemical composition, and the way it gets metabolized.

While The Corn Refiners Association states its intention is to eliminate confusion for consumers by naming the ingredient in a way that better represents what it is, detractors say that adding to the confusion is really the motivation: the name change is just an effort at whitewashing by Big Food in order to lift sagging profits. FDA-sanctioned name changes for well-known foods are fairly uncommon, but prunes were given the OK to become dried plums, and products like canola oil started out as low erucic acid rapeseed oil. While these name changes enhance a brand that may have received a bad rap or simply improves a name that sounds unappealing, the act of renaming also brings to mind companies that rename in order to remove an ugly history from of the public’s mind. Phillip Morris’ bid to become Altria, for example, was done to distance itself from negative publicity, and in some ways, it follows the trajectory of HFCS. Rightly or wrongly, HFCS’s reputation has been similarly stained.

The Big Picture on Sweet

If you have decided to avoid HFCS or sugar altogether, sugar alternatives present options on our quest for sweet. Organic Authority reminds us of some less familiar foods that invigorate taste buds with superior sweetness. They include brown rice syrup, for instance, which contains complex carbs and is a less-sweet cooking alternative, and good old honey – it contains nutrients, so you are not consuming considered empty calories, and it’s super sweet, so you won’t need nearly as much.

In the end, the best way to avoid the health dangers from HFCS and other sugars is to avoid health-sabotaging foods like soda, and trade processed indulgences for naturally sweet fruits – those odd-looking things encased in their own colorful, natural packaging, just like they were for our ancestral caveman.

Read more about agriculture subsidies from Michael Pollan and why HFCS hides dangers that don’t only have to do with human health.

Remember the search engine called BackRub? Ever wonder what happened to Datsun? Explore these and other Famous Name Changes. 

Fruit & Veggie Slackers – Are You One?

We’ve said it here before. Most Americans are not eating their daily requirement of disease preventing, health boosting, weight managing fruits and veggies. A new report from the CDC this month says as much – only 33% of adults consumed two or more fruits a day, while just 26% consume three or more veggies.

More bad news? Who needs it. It used to be that avoiding being force-fed Brussels sprouts at dinner time was worth a little bad health. Better to live it up and enjoy life. But those days are over – enjoying nature’s bounty does mean living it up. First, it’s easier than ever – frozen fruits and veggies are always available and have just as much of the taste and nutrition as fresh. And, eating colorful foods from the rainbow means eating sweet, crunchy delicious foods that offer a bang to your brain and energize your body in the short term. In the long term, they offer powerful anti-aging nutrients, cancer prevention, and heart disease prevention. There’s simply no reason not to commit to getting your daily dose.

The wild blueberry lovers at Facebook got hip to the news and started fighting back by putting their own ways they defy the odds on the wall. Veggie smoothies, raw food munching, juices…how do you get your daily dose? Join the conversation (and pick up on some yummy recipes that make nutrition irresistible while you’re there). Or, if you’re feeling serving-impaired, put a few of these ideas to help you get fruits and vegetables into your diet on your own wall.

Stop undercutting your health. Longevity, wellness, and weight management is right there in your freezer, in your fridge, in your fruit bowl and on your plate. Don’t be a fruit and veggie slacker – dig in!

Spotlight On: Plants for Human Health Institute

Part One: Tapping Our Global Resources 

There is something exciting going on in North Carolina.

The North Carolina State University Plants for Human Health Institute wants to change the way America views the foods that come from plants.

In a remarkable effort of research and outreach, PHHI is working to shift the American consumer’s view of plant food crops from something that fills us with flavorful calories to a powerful source for protecting and enhancing our health.

This difference, which preoccupies the Institute, is in understanding that these foods crops provide phytochemicals, not just nutrients. (If you recall your Phytochemicals 101, you know that they are the nutrient-rich components that provide fruits like blueberries and carrots with their color and act as agents of protection. They are nature’s “anti” shield that works against inflammation and free radicals.) This unique effort consists of multi-disciplinary research and groundbreaking work in areas such as genomics and plant biochemistry. It is an effort that aims to bring plants with enhanced nutritional properties into plain view to all consumers and make underappreciated crops available to the public.

A Brand New Vision

Such a mission may seem herculean, considering the hurdles faced by the modern consumer. Dr. Mary Ann Lila is the Director of the Plants for Human Health Institute, and she was recently named the first David H. Murdock Distinguished Professor at the school. According to Lila, the ability of certain foods to promote health and inhibit disease has caught on in recent years, and while awareness has increased, the work of PHHI helps consumers sort through the nutritional madness.

Lila acknowledges that blueberry-themed research has been a force for linking different areas of the campus together at the college. As a scientist, she gives a nod to the Wild Blueberry Association as an organization she particular appreciates for valuing science and making strong efforts to adhere to the truth. However, she recognizes that it isn’t something that can be relied upon in the industry. “The general public is a bit overwhelmed with all of the ‘exotic’ and unusual new introductions in the superfruit category in particular and the sometimes overstated health claims that are used in marketing sometimes without scientific validation,” she said.

As an antidote, Lila advocates a new kind of food knowledge for the American consumer. “Research and subsequent publicity substantiating health benefits, and providing succinct, clear advice on how to capitalize on these health benefits leads to increased consumer savvy and awareness,” she said.

Bolstering Immunity, Enhancing Metabolism

We have discussed in this blog the use of foods as a pharmaceuticals and as a way to prevent disease. But Lila’s view about foods is slightly different. While she agrees that functional foods contribute to health benefits on multiple fronts, including cardiovascular health or strength and endurance, she does not consider foods as targeted to a specific mode of action like a pharmaceutical. Rather, they are best used as general preventative treatments that bolster overall immunity and enhance metabolism. In her work at the Institute, she is unearthing the potential of foods around the world that strike this two-fold nutritional gold.

Many of the students that come to work at the North Carolina State University lab do so because they are interested in this unique opportunity – one that combines outreach, agriculture, and an understanding of the different communities on the globe. “They crave the international outreach and chance to work with cultures on food knowledge that has not been well researched in the western world,” said Lila. That’s certainly what they find at PHHI.

Around the Globe

Studying locally valued food crops has taken Lila and her colleagues to many far-reaching parts of the world. In an effort to identify plants that hold promise for human health, she has engaged in work with traditional healers in developing nations and with Native Americans who are bridging the gap of modern technology with traditional medicine. She has also studied food crops that are virtually unknown outside of the region can have major implications for health. “Some leafy green vegetables in Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia have ten-fold the levels of phytoecdysteroids (metabolism-enhancing adaptogenic compounds) than commercially-available spinach,” said Lila.

Her work has also included isolating phytochemicals that counteract malaria and working with scientists and students from around the world to explore natural products for biomedical use. Her focus on secondary compounds – phytochemicals that aren’t directly involved in a plant’s normal growth and defend the plant against stressors – may help humans defend themselves against diseases, just as they defend the plant. (Read more about Lila’s work with phytochemicals at Southeast Farm Press.)


Next – Promising Research for a Favorite Berry

The work at PHHI has only just begun. The Institute’s faculty will double this year, clinic trials are on the rise, and in an exciting move, the USDA will embed researchers on the campus to collaborate on work in blueberry research.

“Getting blueberries in there at the ground floor level has helped to spur momentum for research,” Lila said. “It dovetails and synergizes with what we are already doing, and makes us a tour de force for blueberry research worldwide.”  She refers to blueberries the “cohesive force” of the Plants for Human Health Institute.

Recently, Lila and her colleagues presented research at the Bar Harbor Group involving Parkinson’s and other neurodegeneration studies. In Part II of our discussion, we’ll examine the fascinating potential of this work and other promising research at the PHHI.

Read Part Two: Betting Big on Blueberries

Plate of Prevention: Should Your Food Be Treating You?

Scientists and researchers around the world are engaged in finding cures for disease. They are isolating components in food that could help prevent cancers and diseases of aging, they are engaged in clinic trials of pharmaceuticals, and they are studying the mechanisms of the body to discover how and why diseases occur to make strides toward prevention.

While this worthwhile research persists, the irony is that every day we can be part of treatment and prevention of disease. After all, we eat at least three times a day. Why wouldn’t we be using that opportunity to do what thousands of researchers are in their labs trying to do?

Since the late eighties we’ve heard the term “functional food” – food with health-promoting or disease-preventing property. More recently were introduced to the concept of superfoods – foods like blueberries with a particularly high concentration of phytonutrients. But we often think of those foods as isolated and special, categorized as such for their unique nutritional power.

Instead, perhaps we should be viewing all our food as poised to improve or deteriorate our health. Do you see your meals as disease preventing measures, or simply sustenance and enjoyment?

How We View Food

A recent report from the Hartman Group, a research and marketing firm that focuses on health and wellness, sheds a little light on our views about wellness, including how we view food when it comes to treatment and prevention. According to the report, consumers are more apt to see foods as useful in preventing health issues rather than treating problems. The report includes the following data:

  • 56% use foods to prevent high cholesterol; 30% to treat it.
  • 46% use food to prevent cancer; 10% to treat it.
  • 41% use food to prevent high blood pressure; 15% to treat it.
  • 27% use food to treat osteoporosis; 10% to treat it.

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, when it comes to being overweight or obese, it’s the exception to the rule of prevention-not-treatment. Nearly equal numbers of respondents said they’re using foods to prevent excessive weight or treat it.

Food as Treatment

There are plenty of authors and nutritionists that advocate the use of food (whole foods that are readily available, not herbs and tinctures) as treatment for disease and ailments by urging us to choose the right foods or food combinations. From white turnip fasts for fibroids to cabbage for depression, advocates say we can prevent addiction, allergies, even ADD, in addition to cancers and heart disease.

There are undisputed ways of treating disease with food as well. Celiac disease is treated by adopting a gluten-free lifestyle, for example. Diabetes has long been known to be a nutritional disease despite non-food treatments. A recent follow-up study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health
indicates that people with metabolic syndrome may be able to reverse symptoms (in as sense, treat them) through diet. The potential of reversing cognitive ability and other diseases of aging are currently being researched as well and hold fascinating potential for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, age-related memory loss, even neurodengenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

We also tend to see aging as a disease to be treated. According to the Hartman group study, older people are most likely to be concerned with “treating” aging, while younger people use foods more for energy or stress reduction without concern about anti-aging. While the two are likely to intersect, it may be one example of having the disease before we treat it rather than relying on prevention.

But beyond these food treatments, a shift in views about all foods that go into our mouths is brewing. Talk to nutritionist and laypersons alike, and you’ll likely find them say that they are seeing their food differently – as something that will be incorporated into their body to promote general health and well-being as opposed to seeing it as something tasty, filling, indulgent or fast. They look at their plate and they see medicine.

Food as Prevention

Termed “defensive eating” by the American Dietetic Association, eating for prevention means harnessing the power of vitamins and minerals in food and extracting an aggressively protective, or “anti” effect. For example, because wild blueberries contain nearly 100 phytochemicals, and phytochemicals they are agents of protection: they are antibacterial, antiinflammtory and anitoxdant among a host of other “antis”. Getting “anti” on your diet means you are eating for prevention.

While using food to prevent disease is more common than using food as treatment, sometimes treatment can just be prevention that’s happening too late. Consider those who have experienced cardiovascular events and subsequent operations who use diet as compulsory treatment when prevention could have lessened the chances of having the event in the first place.

But evidence suggests food-as-medicine is intensifying, and not at the grass roots – it may be happening from the top down. Recently, doctors have actually begun prescribing healthy foods to patients. As part of an initiative taking place at three Massachusetts health centers, doctors have been giving out free passes to farmer’s markets to those who need them. It should come as no surprise: for years some doctors have advocated going to the fruit and vegetable aisle in order to avoid going to the medicine cabinet. Here is The Color Code author Jim Joseph on prevention:

“By changing what you eat, you can reduce your blood pressure, lower your blood sugar, and diminish the risks of cancer, heart disease and macular degeneration. You can do all these things without pricey pharmaceuticals, just be adopting a more healthy, semi-vegetarian diet—one loaded with dark leafy greens, deep organ vegetables and vibrant red and blue fruits. […] As a Greek adage says, ‘It is the function of medicine to help people die young as late a possible.’  Food is precisely the medicine that let’s you do that. Colorful food that is.”


What’s Your Treatment Plan?

Do you view your food as treatment, prevention or something else entirely? Today, if you’re not viewing what’s on your plate as your three-times-daily “dose” rather than just a palliative for hunger, give it a try. Try seeing everything that goes into your mouth as part of your Rx. It might give you a very different view of how you are “treating” your body and your health.

Want more information? The USDA has information about diet and disease.

Suffering From Too Much? 6 Foods That Will Simplify Your Life

Be honest. Does your kitchen need a pare down? It’s easy to accumulate too much these days: too much health information, too much “healthy” food, and just too much stuff. (Do you really need an egg to be scrambled inside the shell?) If you have cartons of low fat this and lite that sitting around on your shelves and you still don’t seem to be able to fill that nutritional void, it may be that you need less, not more.

Instead, try a simpler view of nutrition: focus on how just a few things can keep you healthy — simple whole foods, simple preparations, and simple principles of nutrition that you know intuitively make sense on your plate and in your body. WebMD has isolated their own super six that stand out particularly for women, and we think they are worth repeating. Here’s our simplified version of their list of foods, along with their most significant benefits, that provide super nutrition and don’t require elaborate supplements, eating schemes, or strange kitchen instruments.

While it’s important to point out that these foods don’t provide everything you need, the nutritional protection is wide ranging, and it’s a great start toward paring down the complicated messages of good health that we are exposed to.

So start thinking of your kitchen as a desert island where you can only bring a few of the most important nutritional foods. These foods ought to be on that list. We’ve also provided a Keep it Simple tip that will help you stay on track without complicating your new super-simple life.

Now, about that popcorn grabber you’ve got on order….

1. Low-fat yogurt
Low fat yogurt offers protection from digestive problems, and evidence suggests it could decrease breast cancer risk. It covers you for servings of low fat dairy and is high in necessary calcium.

Keep it Simple Tip: Forget those with added fruit. You’ll just be adding sugar and convince yourself that, as WebMD nutritionist points out, “those two blueberries in the bottom constitute a serving.”

2. Fatty fish
Fatty fish such like salmon provide omega-3 fatty acids that are a dietary must and help protect against major health threats such as stroke, heart disease –even arthritis and joint pain.

Keep it Simple Tip: Only DHA or EPA forms of omega-3 can be directly used by the body. The simplest thing to do is go with the fish source and not those found in mayonnaise.

3. Beans
Beans are great source of protein and fiber, and lentils may protect against some cancers and heart disease.

Keep it Simple Tip: Beans get a bad rap for being boring and pedestrian, but their diversity is no snore: if you think refried with cheese when you think bean, instead think red clover, kudzu, mung beans, alfalfa sprouts, black cohosh, or chickpeas.

4. Tomatoes
Tomatoes have lycopene, and lycopene is a powerful antioxidant. It can also help fight heart disease and protect against UV damage, naturally.

Keep it Simple Tip: Having sauce? Making pizza? Try tomatoes and olive oil and get the wonderful taste of the season. If you are addicted to jars with happy chefs on the label, let them go for your own stripped-down concoction.
 

5. Vitamin D
Ok, it’s not a food. But you can get it easily through fortified low fat milk, fortified orange juice, or fish, such as salmon and tuna. It facilitates the absorption of calcium and reduces risks of diseases that women are particularly prone to, such as osteoporosis.

Keep it Simple Tip: The simplest Vitamin D supplement? The sun. How’s that for simple? You can actually absorb this vitamin through any exposed skin on any cloudless day. Shrouding ourselves in SPF may have been the prescription for health in years gone by, but in moderation, sun provides an excellent source of your D.

6.  Berries
You know we love ’em: wild blueberries have major cancer fighting antioxidants. There’s simply no reason not to be getting this powerful protection for your cells, heart, and skin every day.

Keep It Simple Tip: Lug that enormous frozen resealable package of wild blueberries through the checkout and into your freezer. Now, lavish your breakfasts, salads, entrees and desserts with them every chance you get. It’s the most convenient, simplest way to get your daily servings.

Happy Simplifying!

Apps for Healthy Kids: Bridging the Nutrition Gap with Innovative Tech Tools

When it comes to kids, what’s not to love about technology?

Wait, that was a rhetorical question.

Sure, there’s the hours of inactivity, the distractions of texting, the exposure to negative content…but there’s also the powerful way it exposes kids to positive messages in fun, innovative ways.

That’s the thinking behind the initiative from the First Lady and the USDA. They are inspiring developers to make games and apps that are truly useful (and truly cool) when it comes to health, and kids are getting the benefit.

Apps for Healthy Kids is part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. The goal of Let’s Move! is to make a dent in the startling obesity rates of today’s kids – rates that have tripled in the past 30 years and are threatening the latest generation’s health and longevity.  The Apps for Healthy Kids competition hits kids where they live – smack dab in the world of phone apps and computer games. By creating apps and tools, developers and aspiring developers from all around the country are delivering the major concepts of health in a way that’s tech- fabulous.

It’s been called a “web-based intervention” – inspiring behavioral change through interactive content and social media. Submissions must incorporate certain concepts that will further this entertaining education, including things like increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, making food group education fun, and understanding calories. Through these colorful, whiz-bang, superfast tools and games, the message of health is expected to reach the ears of those who need to hear it.

Lots of people with a penchant for creating interactive tools (and a passion for health and nutrition) have gotten their game on. It’s worth it: there’s a $10,000 prize in it for the grand prize winners in both the Tools and Apps categories, and other cash prizes for honorable mentions and most popular, and some specifically for students. Judges are experts in the software and gaming fields, and winners get a trip to the White House as well!

The submission deadline has passed, but voting is in full swing until August 14th, so even if your app isn’t in the running, voting for your favorite is just as much fun. Simply browse through the robust selection of submissions, and cast your vote while the competition is hot.

Here are some apps and tools in competition that we think sound particularly downloadable:

“Habit Changer”

This tool makes you aware of your daily habits and guides you through change. It gives you experiences – your choice of email, web, or text – that lead you through the skills you need to solve the issues you face (like changing eating habits or incorporating good food and activity).

“Chef Solus”

This talking food label game brings the food label to life for kids. Kids scroll over different parts of the food label while Chef Solus talks (along with written text) to teach them how each part of the food label helps them make healthier choices.

“Smash Your Food™”

A realistic and surprising guessing game that lets children see and hear foods like a milkshake, or a burger, explode – while learning how much sugar, salt and oil their favorite foods are hiding.

“Work It Off!”

This mobile application for Android phones teaches children the correlation between the calories they eat and the calories they burn. The user verbally speaks a food name into the phone and is given options to “work it off”.

“Lunch Line”

This game mimics a real-life school lunch-line with a fast pace, categorized layout, and dozens of food choices, empowering children to increase their nutritional savvy as they play. Kids ultimately learn to choose foods quickly and intelligently and apply their knowledge to their daily life.

“Revolting Vegetables”

In this veggies-attack-themed game, episode 1 features The Uneatables: The villianous mobster, Al Capoche, has caused the farmers’ vegetables to come to life.  Now Capoche and his vegetable mob threaten to overrun the whole town.

“Balanced Meal”

In this app, kids enter information like age and gender, and then drag food around to put it on the scale and then see if you have the right amount of calories for the day, creating a great way to visualize a “balanced” meal.

Go ahead – embrace technology for health’s sake! Check out the apps, view the video, vote and show support at Apps for Healthy Kids.

Warts & All: Food & Health Survey Reveals…Us

The International Food Information Council Foundation’s fifth annual Food & Health Survey takes an extensive look at Americans’ eating, health and physical activity habits, as well as food safety practices. In other words, they reveal us for what we are and what we think when it comes to eating and staying healthy. The unsurprising headline? That many Americans are concerned about their weight.

A whopping 70% say they are concerned about their weight status, and 77 % report trying to lose or maintain their weight. At the same time, we don’t have a solid handle on our calorie needs and intake, and despite being extremely weight-conscious, we are not using exercise to assuage those concerns.

Here are some additional findings about the American consumer that we found interesting:

69% are changing the amount of food they eat
 
63% are changing the type of foods they eat

12% accurately estimate their recommended daily calorie intake for weight maintenance

73% are focused on trying to consume more whole grains

53% are concerned about the amount of sodium in their diet

86% say taste has the largest impact on food and beverage purchasing decisions

58% say healthfulness does

73% are satisfied with the healthfulness of products offered at their supermarket

77% do not meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines

68% actively use the Nutrition Facts Panel

74% of those who use the Nutrition Facts Panel rank calories as the top piece of information they use

10% say they have either eliminated caffeine from their diet

View the full findings (warts and all) at  www.foodinsight.org.

Wicked! Are Bread Sins Going Unpunished?

Even the most ardent healthy eating enthusiast will agree that there’s more to a well-rounded diet than fruits and veggies.

There is also Grain.

Grain is simply a staple no matter where in the world you live. Italians consume loads of pasta, Asians devour tons of rice – even the ancient grain of the Incas, quinoa, has had a resurgence. Grains aren’t just the foundation of a good diet – in their minimally processed form, they have huge health benefits.

Current dietary guidelines recommend eating 6 to 11 servings of grain products daily, including at least three whole-grain foods. (Find the recommended amount of grains for your age and gender.) While the Department of Health and Human Services called for 75% of Americans to meet whole grain intake goals by this year, only 7% reportedly do. While grains are consumed heartily, for most of us, they are not whole grains.

Breadly Sins

Grains have earned their good food classification, but when it comes to processing, they take a devilish turn. It’s not that processing is all bad. Some minimally processed grains can get the thumbs up, like brown rice, barley, and oats, for example. That being said, substituting whole grains for refined grains can help lower risk for diabetes, stroke, heart disease and some cancers. If you’ve taken up brown rice over white and darker breads for white squishy ones, you’re on the right track –  you are preserving the vitamin and mineral-rich “germ” of the wheat that gets stripped out in the refining process.

Deceptive Foods

 Divine Caroline helped pull back the curtain on deceptive foods in a recent post about supermarket breads. Deceptive foods are those with healthy-sounding names (termed “healthful halos”) that hide the fact they should be on the Don’t list. She outs breads that hide towering sodium amounts, bleached flour and high fructose corn syrup, despite their deceptively healthy names. (Does Healthy Choice 7-Grain Bread sound nutritious? Better check the label.)

It’s a good idea to get bread savvy: when it comes to grains, marketing jargon can obfuscate food evils. Common misnomers include stone ground, organic and 7-grain. While these terms sound healthful, they don’t designate a whole grain product, and they may hide a multitude of diet and nutrition sins to boot.

Another common bread blunder is seeking out brown breads as a way of separating “good” from “bad”.  Avoiding white by choosing tan colored breads is well-intentioned, but a toasty color doesn’t always mean whole wheat. Breads can be colored by caramel and molasses, turning evil white to a seemingly angelic brown without the advantages.

Addressing the Grains (Hello, Grains)

Any food made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley or another cereal grain is a grain product. Bread, pasta, oatmeal, breakfast cereals, tortillas, and grits are some common examples. (MyPyramid.gov provides a reference list of what foods fall into the grain group.) When we refer to grains, we are generally referring to these subgroups:

1. Whole Grains

Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel — the bran, germ, and endosperm. Examples include whole wheat flour, bulgar and oatmeal. Often, cereals can be labeled “whole grain” because they include the entire corn kernel in its ingredients, even though the cereal also contains corn syrup and artificial dyes.

Whole grain foods also contain higher amounts of fiber, and some contain significant amounts of bran. But research suggests that it’s the whole-grain that delivers abundant amounts of antioxidant vitamins and phytochemicals that appear to act together to provide protective effects.

2. Refined Grains

Refined grains have been milled, a process that removes the bran and germ. This is done to give grains a finer texture and improve their shelf life, but it also removes dietary fiber, iron, and many B vitamins. By removing the germ and bran from the grain, whole grains are turned into refined carbs stripped of nutrients. Some examples of refined grains are white flour, white bread and white rice. Most pitas, tortillas, and crackers are made with refined grains, though some are not, and some may be a mixture of both refined and whole.  

3. Enriched & Fortified Grains

Many refined grain products have key nutrients, such as folic acid and iron, that were removed during the initial processing and added back, earning them the name enriched. White rice and white bread are enriched grain products, and their packaging indicates as much. This means certain B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid) and iron are added back after processing. (Fiber is not added back to enriched grains.) In addition, some enriched grain foods have extra nutrients added. These are called fortified grains, a term you’ll recognize from many cereal packages.

4. Multigrains

We often hear the term multigrain when we shop for breads. It sounds healthful enough that we tend to associate it with whole grain. In fact, multigrain means what it says: different types of grains have been included, and none of them have to be whole grain. Multigrain breads are as likely as any bread to have enriched flour as their first ingredient.

Shopping for Virtuous Grains: The Bottom Line

Are you gazing affectionately at a virtuous bread product or are you staring evil in the face? No guesswork is required to figure this out: Simply check the ingredient list.

  • If “whole” doesn’t appear in the first ingredient you see, it’s not a whole grain product, and you may be treading in the land of bad bread.
  • Don’t trust the marketing. Any whole or multigrain brand name could still contain refined grains, so pay attention to ingredients.
  • High fructose corn syrup at the top of the list? Hydrogenated oil making an appearance? You’re in black hat territory, no matter what the                                                                  angelic name on the package is.
  • Finally, check the fiber content. If the Nutrition Facts has less than 2-4 grams of fiber content per serving, say buh-bye, bread.

Armor Up, America – We’re in the Salt Battle of Our Lives

Recently, news concerning the nation’s salt intake brought some tough love to American consumers. Tough enough to prompt the author of the study, which was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to be quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, “This is not good news”. True enough. It is in fact alarming news, proving that when it comes to salt, the term “silent killer” is no misnomer.

Adults, the study indicates, should eat less than one teaspoon of salt each day, while 70% of the population should eat less than 2/3 of a teaspoon. But in fact, only 1 in 18 people meet this goal. With heart disease and hypertension numbers on the climb, it looks like a true battle royale, with NaCl donning the armor.

It’s Not the Salt Shaker

This insidious mineral stepping into the gladiator arena is sodium chloride. Used traditionally for food preservation, it is something necessary for human life in small quantities and harmful – even deadly – in excess. It is a major player in the fight against high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease.

Decades ago, putting down the salt shaker may have been solid advice for maintaining good health. But today, minding the shaker is old school. If you are a human being consuming food in 2010, you know your salt issues originate elsewhere:

  • Processed food: tomato sauce, soups, condiments, canned food, prepared mixes…
  • Restaurant foods
  • Cold cuts / meats
  • Baked goods
  • Grain-based products

In addition, some medications include sodium, and we can even be taking in a significant amount sodium from natural sources, such as well water. In fact, the Mayo Clinic determines that a mere 6% of salt originates from the shaker while 77% of salt intake comes from processed food. The rest comes from salt added while cooking and natural sources.

We could shake all day long and never reach the amount we get from processed of prepared food.

Salt is Part of the Golden Trinity

We have talked about David Kessler here in previous posts, and the recent salt news has catapulted him into the mainstream. Currently, more of the public is hearing about his mission to understand and expose the golden trinity of taste for what he feels it is: a concoction created by food companies to seduce the brain chemistry into making us eat and crave more. The recipe? Fat, sugar and salt that bathes food in startling amounts, in the most appealing and scientifically proven combination. Arguably, it’s the NaCl gladiator’s most powerful weapon.

It’s really no wonder that 1 in 3 U.S. adults has high blood pressure, and the government estimates that 9 in 10 will develop it in their lifetime. We at risk, according to this study, are often eating twice their daily requirement of sodium.

Salt Reform

FDA’s anti-salt initiative begins later this year and would eventually lead to legal limits on the amount of sodium allowed in food. Its plan would be phased in over ten years and would not be voluntary. Restaurants are targets as well, and while some have said they will voluntarily reduce salt in items on the menu, they may also be required to visibly post amounts. Recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg began a national campaign to cut salt levels, and food companies were recruited to comply. Starbucks and Heinz were one of 16 that agreed to cut salt levels in their products.

While regulation debates rage on, some eschew regulations and prefer to enter the gladiator ring for a one-on-one. For those, there’s one dagger of knowledge that can help us get medieval on salt starting now.

Sodium is an Acquired Taste

Your secret weapon is knowledge. We know, for instance, that salt is an acquired taste. It’s acquired by the processed and prepared foods we eat over our entire lifetime and the result is that low sodium foods taste bland.

But as we take steps to reduce sodium in our diets, our taste sensitivities will adapt. We will appreciate foods for their true flavor. The process of adapting takes about 8-12 weeks – that’s the amount of time it takes for a shift in taste preference to occur in most people.

Give yourself 8-12 weeks.

The American Heart Association offers these tips to get you started.

  • Choose fresh, frozen or canned food items without added salts.
  • Select unsalted nuts or seeds, dried beans, peas and lentils.
  • Limit salty snacks like chips and pretzels.
  • Avoid adding salt and canned vegetables to homemade dishes.
  • Select unsalted, lower sodium, fat-free broths, bouillons or soups.
  • Select fat-free or low-fat milk, low-sodium, low-fat cheeses and low-fat yogurt.
  • Learn to use spices and herbs to enhance the taste of your food.  Most spices naturally contain very small amounts of sodium.
  • Add fresh lemon juice instead of salt to fish and vegetables.
  • Specify how you want your food prepared when dining out. Ask for your dish to be prepared without salt.
  • Don’t use the salt shaker. Use the pepper shaker or mill.

Now that you are armed with tactics, remember that they must be combined with strategy. In the end, according to Kessler, we must change our relationship with food by understanding that hyperpalatable foods that use hyperportions of salt are not our friends. They should be understood as harmful and be duly replaced by healthier foods and their own positive associations – until we get to the point where the golden trinity of taste is no longer what we crave.

Best of luck, gladiators. Let the games begin.

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