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  • Lemon Buckwheat Pancakes with Sugared Berries, Cherries, and Apricot

    Lemon Buckwheat Pancakes with Sugared Berries, Cherries, and Apricot

    Below is the first of Tony the Chef’s targeted recipes for different metabolic typologies. These recipes accompany Patti the Nutritionist’s dieting guidelines, which we will be releasing in pieces of the next couple of months. For now, enjoy the food and soon you will learn how to integrate this recipe into a larger framework for your body.

    Pancakes, thanks to Flickr user: WayTru

    Pancakes, thanks to Flickr user: WayTru

    PANCAKES:

    • 1 32 oz. bag Arrowhead Mills Organic Buckwheat Pancake and Waffle Mix
    • 1 teaspoon lemon zest, finely chopped (per serving made)

    Make pancake batter according to the instructions on the package.  For ‘Type A’ bodies, use the non-dairy version.  Once batter is completed, just incorporate the zest into the batter.   Make pancakes as directed. Garnish with sugared berries (recipe follows).

    FRUIT:

    • 2 cups lemon juice
    • ½ cup sugar
    • ½ cup dried mixed berries
    • ½ cup dried cherries
    • ½ cup dried apricots

    In a small saucepan, simmer together lemon juice and sugar over medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved.  Add all the dried fruit.  Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes. Refrigerate uncovered to cool.  Serve over above pancakes instead of or in addition to syrup.  Enjoy.

  • Book Review: Safe Food by Marion Nestle

    Book Review: Safe Food by Marion Nestle

    What if this latest peanut-salmonella outbreak in 2009 was completely preventable?  What if the procedures to prevent it were already in place?  Even worse, what if we didn’t even have a food safety system at all?

    NOTE: This article is the 2nd part of a series about Food Safety in the United States. You may want to read the first part to better understand this article:

    Part 1: Food Safety – A Recent History

    After reading Marion Nestle’s Safe Food, you will see the world of irony and contradiction finds a comfortable home in food safety.  Or should we say, a lack of food safety.  For it becomes painfully obvious in Nestle’s work that, in fact, we do not have a food safety system in the United States and a wide array of interests are actively working to keep it that way.

    Going Down to Get Up

    But before Nestle’s takes us down that dark road, we are introduced to this dysfunctional world very quickly with the story of how Starlink genetically modified corn made its appearance throughout the food supply in countries with bans on GMO crops.

    Quick Facts about this Title

    Her treatment of the subject acts as an interesting twist on the typical introductions you generally see with non-fiction books.  We meet all the players, agencies and of course trickery in a haphazard fashion, instead of having it all methodically laid out.  The method is good – because if you are thirsty for facts, it prepares you for the coming Thanksgiving-like feast.  An avalanche of professional observations and research accompanies every point in this book.  For better or worse.

    This style immediately establishes credibility and you will not find yourself asking whether or not the author is qualified to speak on the subject.  With a Ph.D. in molecular biology form UC Berkeley, a spot on the FDA’s Food Advisory Committee and Science Board and the USDA/DHHS Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, Marion Nestle does not really need a formal introduction to remind the reader she knows what’s going on – her prose does the job for her.

    And it’s Nestle prose that sets up an interesting dichotomy around which the entire book spins.  She breaks the world of food safety into two what we would call observational positions:

    • Science Based – ‘Benefits and Costs’
    • Value Based – ‘Fear and Dread ‘

    As she explains throughout the later parts of the book, parties involved with actually making food safe tend to view the situation in a purely scientific sense – ie, the benefits of GMO far outweigh the risks – whereas consumers in the general public use value based judgements – ie, the fear of what GMO could be outweigh the benefits.

    One of her central tenets is that the food makers need to satisfy the public’s value based concerns with the same perniciousness they purportedly apply to the science side of the equation – if we want to feel as if we have a safe food supply.  She claims this would go a long way to assuaging many people’s fears – an slightly provocative argument that would be a radical departure from how risks are currently evaluated.

    After the three – yes three – introductions, we get that the book contains two prominent sections and smaller rejoinder about pathogens, GMO crops and food terrorism, respectively.  But before you think she adopts such a staid format to the detriment of the book, keep in mind how explosive and controversial the subject matter she is dealing with really is.  Billions of dollars are the scale agribusiness operates on and Nestle handles each topic with the proper respect.

    After you find Nestle’s rhythm – which admittedly is not the easiest thing to do – the structure of the book fades away and you won’t find yourself burdened by it.  Other heavy lifting, however, is mandatory.

    Novel Concepts, Descriptive Means

    The cover…

    The book’s first section rips right into the meat of the issue, literally.  We get a first-hand account of the history of efforts and interventions that have been tried to implement a known protocol for ‘pathogen reduction’ called HAACP.  You’ll get a real sense of how much resistance there is on the part of industry to implementing these new controls.  Particularly disheartening was the section dealing with the government’s efforts to test ground beef for e.coli immediately before the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak of the early 90s.  From Page 77:

    “On October 14, the day before the rule for ground meat was to take effect, the federal court in Austin, Texas, issued an injunction that blocked the labeling plan, saying that the Jack in the Box outbreak was insufficient to justify ‘any departure from the normal rule-making procedures.’  Industry groups hailed the injunction as ‘a victory of fairness over bureaucracy.’  That very week, however, three children in Texas died from eating ground meat contaminated with E. coli O157:H7…”

    Similar tales of false starts and questionable means plague the history of food safety and Nestle pulls the curtains back in a fashion that is even and balanced.  You get the sense throughout her work that she, as an educator and public health advocate, is indeed enraged – even disgusted with the ways in which the system works but she never belies herself into a sycophant-like rage.  Instead, Nestle beautifully walks the tight-rope, delivering an objective review of the facts – a rare event in the charged world of food.

    GMO as Savior or Satan?

    Nowhere is this sensibility more pronounced than in the second part of her book, where she covers GMO crops.  Nestle gives her audience a good background on the issue and again dives into the core of the issue.  This time she focuses on the disconnect between researchers who better understand the mechanics of biotech foods and the consumers – reintroducing her dichotomy of science and value based arguments.  Particularly good is her chapter covering the ‘Politics of Consumer Concern’ – where she feels more comfortable in giving her opinion on the issues.  From Page 225:

    “What seems more surprising [about the food industry] is how much the industry’s unyielding opposition to labeling damages its own cause.  If public trust is the key to successful marketing, biotechnology companies should freely disclose their methods, economic goals, and products.”

    While she does give opinion, her treatment of the subject is really great because it, again, is able to show an objective view of the facts.  Sure, Nestle peppers her texts with her observations and opinions but she gives a fair shake to an industry she is usually in direct opposition to.

    The conclusion of the text is an applied section about how the politics of food safety play into bio-terrorism.  The section has a real strapped-on type feeling, especially considering how closely this book was published to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, mere blocks from her NYU teaching post.  Still, the section comes off as half-baked, possibly a move suggested by publishers to include a terrorism-related topic to move a few more copies in the wake of 9/11.

    Take the Good with the Bad

    Nestle covers all subjects thoroughly, at times too thoroughly.  Often complex analysis of super specific issues creates a significant hurdle to understanding the issues for most people outside of the world of nutrition and health.  You are constantly reminded as a reader that Ms. Nestle is a first and foremost an academic.  Her brilliance is frequently on display but so are her verbose explanations.

    It’s not that any concept she includes is particularly challenging in and of itself but taken together with the enormity of her topics, the political nature of the issue and the alphabet soup of acronyms you’ll find, Safe Food makes for a challenging read.  Observe a paragraph here where Nestle tries to explain the difficulties in determining food allergies (from page 173):

    “The widespread use of soy proteins – transgenic or not – in foods such as infant formulas, meat extenders, baked goods, and dairy replacements might be expected to increase the prevalence of soy allergies, but the increase would be difficult to detect unless it affected large numbers of people.  Worse, because methods to diagnose food allergies are unavailable or imprecise, the allergenic potential of most genetically modified foods is uncertain, unpredictable, and not easily tested.”

    Any reader of Nestle’s previous books would quickly recognize her academic style – and have formed their own opinion no doubt – but new readers should be warned.  Nestle expects her audience to come to this book with a significant background on the topic.  If upon hearing ‘GMO’ you are reminded of failed automakers or little green men from Mars, you might want to look elsewhere for a book.

    (Re)visit This Work

    But also realize this book’s high barrier of entry is also what makes it so good.  The more you read it, the more you know you are dealing with one of, if not THE, authority on the subject.  Yes, the prose bends towards the tone of an academic journal at times but if you want to understand the world of food safety, this is the book.

    The exceptional insight into every dimension of this crisis, the balanced view from both sides of each issue and her ability to educate – even entertain – at times, makes this a great read for anybody with a background in health or food.  Therefore, we highly recommend Safe Food as it provides both acumen into the most pressing issues related to food safety as well as a detailed context for understanding the issues (purchase this work on Amazon to support Nutrition Wonderland).

  • Mailbag: Smart Balance versus Butter

    Mailbag: Smart Balance versus Butter

    Question:

    We are having a discussion about whether buttery spread – such as Smart Balance is better than using butter?!?!

    http://www.smartbalance.com/

    what do you think??

    Thank you!!
    Claire from Los Angeles

    ##################

    Smart Balance is not good for you in the relative scheme of things.  It is a chemical conglomeration of esterified oils – which means they take all these different oils, blast them apart, combine them with caking agents which come together to form this new age margarine.  Its WAAAY better than old fashioned margarine, made from trans fat, but still not a natural food.  That stuff about the flaxseed oil helping is really nonsense – processing destroys the bioavailabilty of omega-3s.

    Ideally, you want to eat your essential fats, that is Omega3 and Omega6, in a 1:1 ratio.  Most Americans get about 15-20X more Omega6 than Omega3, precisely because of this processing problem.  Omega3 is very sensitive – it will degrade at room temperature even – and only in a small number of foods (flax, walnuts, wild salmon).  Omega 6 is everywhere and stands up to heat and processing much better…so you can see where this goes.  Smart Balance will have a high Omega6:3 ratio – making it an inflammatory food.

    We would much rather see you eating butter, but realize the type of butter you are eating here is key.  You really want to find butter from grass fed cows.  This type of butter will tend to be a bright yellow orange – the more orange the better.  This is an outward indication the cows feed on grass, which is rich in beta-carrotene – an orange flavonoid that will tint your butter (it will be more orange in the spring, when grass first starts to grow).  This is an unrefined, real food that contains high amounts of omega3 fats along with a dizzying array of vitamins and minerals – all very bioavailable.  Try and find Raw, Grass Fed butter if you can – this is even better for you.

    People lament that butter is high in saturated fats, which have been linked to heart disease.  While this is true, that information is related to a more outdated view of heart disease.  Heart disease is truly an inflammatory disease, not one of cholesterol.  Its when cholesterol gets oxidized that we have problems and eating natural foods decreases inflammation in the body.  Additionally, there is no research to back up the idea that saturated fats even translate into cholesterol in the body – the mechanisms are very very complex and still not fully understood.

    The degree of processing in foods is always an indication of whether or not you should be eating them.  ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM PROCESSED FOODS!  Ignore whatever the label says – you have no idea how bought and paid for those labels are.  Smart Balance is highly processed; if it was not, the oils would simply separate and youd have something along the lines of salad dressing.  Butter is clearly the winner here.

    ##################

    Follow-up:

    Ok – one more question
    Salted or unsalted butter??  – or is that an obvious one?

    Claire, LA

    ##################

    The salting is important but pretty irrelevant considering how little the amount of salt in your butter will contribute to your overall salt intake.  The big thing to pay attention to in all your food is the quality of inputs – by that I mean, how good was the stuff that went into making it?

    If you buy butter from factory farm cows – who eat crap corn product, it once again creates that high Omega6:Omega3 inflammatory fat ratio, much like Smart Balance.  If you get butter from pasture cows that eat grass and hay like they are supposed to (they have 2 stomachs for a reason!), the nutrient profile increases dramatically.

    This ideology extends into everything you eat.  If you put an organic carrot next to conventionally grown carrot, you probably wont see a difference – but your body will.  Organics come from soil not artificially enriched and not bathed in hormone disrupting pesticides – which is why they are always preferred.

    Of course finding these foods is always hard, not to mention their cost after you have found them.

    For cooking, the most readily available unrefined oil is extra virgin olive oil.  You want to use it in low heat cooking (steaming) because it can oxidize easily due to its monounsaturated fat chemical alignment.  For higher heat cooking (BBQ, Sauté), use raw coconut oil or the grass fed butter – they are saturated fats, which can take heat very well.  Both the oils are readily available if you have trouble finding grass fed butter.

  • One Fat, Two Fat, Is Any Fat a Good Fat?

    One Fat, Two Fat, Is Any Fat a Good Fat?

    One of the most confusing things when it comes to proper nutrition is the role of fats. We’re constantly told that fats are evil things which will expand our bellies to the size of hot air balloons. This constant anti-fat attitude is behind many of the popular diet trends, which focus on cutting fats and carbs and replacing them with proteins. But not all fats are the same, and not all of them are bad for you. In fact, many fats are very good for you. Recent research has found that the low-fat diet trend is simply wrong for us– we’re not supposed to have no fat in our diets. you just have to know which is which.

    The Good

    The Good – CIS Unsaturated

    Because they’re called by their names more than their general category, you might not even know that the good fats are even fats at all.  The fats that are good, in general, are ones that are cis-unsaturated.  In chemistry, fats are carbon strings with hydrogens attached to them. “Unsaturated” means that the carbons are not bound to as many hydrogens as they can. So fats can be monounsaturated (only one hydrogen less than the possible maximum), polyunsaturated (2 or more less) or saturated. And of the unsaturated fats, there are two main forms: cis and trans. This has to do with how the carbons bond to each other where there is a hydrogen missing. In nature, they bond in what is called a ‘cis’ manner, which creates a bend in the molecule. When we artificially change monounsaturated fats into other fats, they instead form a ‘trans’ bond, which is almost straight.

    Our bodies are naturally very good at breaking down and utilizing the cis-unsaturated fats.  They fit better into the enzymes in our bodies which cut apart the carbons and chop up the molecules for use. That said, have you heard of cis-unsaturated fats? Probably not. They don’t appear on nutrition labels as a category, and are rarely referred to as such by the media.

    Olive Oil is loaded in monounsaturated fats

    What you might have heard of, though, are Omega Fatty Acids, Oleic Acid, Palmitoleic Acid and Linoleic Acid. These are all cis-unsaturated fats. The benefits of these kinds of fats are well explored by scientists. They contribute to lower cholesterol levels and reduced risk of heart disease. They’re connected with positive effects from intelligence to weight loss. In fact, eating them is better than cutting your fats period. Studies have shown that increased intake of these unsaturated fats, like in a Mediterranean diet which includes large amounts of olive oil (chock full of unsaturated fats), leads to all kinds of health benefits [1,2,3]. In general, they’re really, really good for you.

    The foods that are highest in unsaturated fats include:

    • avocados
    • nuts (like walnuts and pecans)
    • vegetable oils (like canola oil, olive oil and grapeseed oil)

    They’re found in animal products, too, but animals tend to have saturated fats as well as unsaturated ones. In general, the FDA recommends that no more than 30% of your overall calorie consumption comes from unsaturated fats, or 67 grams given a 2000 calorie diet.

    The Bad (but not sooo bad)

    Saturated fats are often touted as the bad guys. But they’re not quite as bad as they’re portrayed. These are seen as the main culprit behind high blood cholesterol and are known to raise bad LDL cholesterol levels. Unlike unsaturated fats, though, they don’t lower good HDL cholesterol levels.

    Extra Virigin Coconut Oil – a good saturated fat

    Don’t write them off as terrible for you just yet. Unlike trans fats, saturated fats occur naturally in high concentrations, particularly in animals. Some studies have found that a little saturated fats actually increases the benefits of some unsaturated fats when eaten together [4].  Still others have found that diets high in certain saturated fats from vegetables not animals, like unrefined, cold pressed coconut oil , might even be good for you [5,6].  Diets that are low-carb but high in protein and fat, for example, don’t automatically increase the risks of heart disease. Other studies have had mixed or even positive results from diets with saturated fats. One in 2007, for example, found that lower risk of heart disease was associated with increased fat intake so long as it wasn’t trans fat, including benefits from eating more saturated fat.

    The key, it seems, is moderation, not complete extermination of saturated fats from our diets. The USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services say that up to 10% of your daily calorie intake can come from these fats, which are found in meat, cheese, dairy products and tropical oils like palm and coconut oil.

    The Ugly

    A Trans Fat – notice how straight it is

    The worst fats for you, by a landslide, are the trans fats. While other dietary fats have redeeming qualities, trans fats seem to have none. They’re almost entirely man-made, created by adding hydrogens to other fats. This process, called hydrogenation, turns oils into the semi-solid margarine and other products that are associated with trans fats. These trans fats are useful because they have a longer shelf life, are hard enough to stay solid at room temperature, and yet can even be malleable cold. Unfortunately, there’s a cost for their benefits.

    Trans fats, in general, are bad for you. They raise your risk of diabetes and heart failure, particularly by raising “bad cholesterol” levels in the body. But they don’t stop there. They not only raise LDL (bad cholesterol) levels, they lower HDL cholesterol levels – the good ones. In 2006, a scientific review of fats from the New England Journal of Medicine stated clearly that “from a nutritional standpoint, the consumption of trans fatty acids results in considerable potential harm but no apparent benefit.”

    For many years, margerine like Country Crock was loaded with trans fat. They have reduced the amount greatly but it is still in there.

    The damning evidence against trans fats comes from a study of 120,000 female nurses from 1976 to 1990. The Nurses’ Health Study found that the risk of coronary heart disease nearly doubled for every 2% increase in trans fat calories consumed instead of carbohydrates. Considering the same increase in risk takes a 15% increase in saturated fats and that eating the other unsaturated fats actually lowers heart disease risks, there seems to be no reason to eat trans fat at all. And if that weren’t bad enough, trans fats have also been linked to liver problems and even infertility.

    Trans fats are the ones found in fried foods, commercial baked goods, shortening and margarine. Based on the source list, it’s not surprising it’s not healthy. The American Heart Association says that no more than 1% of your total daily calories should come from trans fats to maintain a healthy heart, and, in general, any increase in trans fats increases your risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.

    How To Get The Good Without Too Much Bad Or Ugly

    Now that you know what to look for, you can make more informed choices about your meals when you hit the grocery store. Read the nutrition labels carefully. For example, “no trans fat” can still contain up to 6% trans fat according to US guidelines, and ‘high’ or ‘low’ fat aren’t as important as the kind of fat. Just because something contains 10 g of fat doesn’t mean it’s awful for you – check and see if the fat is saturated or unsaturated.

    The best way to keep your diet healthy is to do little things to replace your trans or saturated fats with cis-unsaturated ones. For example:

    • cook with olive oil or sunflower oil instead of butter or margarine
    • eat fish, which is high in Omega Fatty Acids but low in other kinds of fats
    • grilling instead of frying your meat
    • removing the skin from your chicken breast can reduce saturated fat levels by 30%-50%

    Doing these type of things will decrease your risks of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and a bunch of other diseases.

    Before I get my head chopped off in the comments for saying fats are healthy, don’t get me wrong – most Americans already eat way more fat than we should, of any kind. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to cut down your fat intake if you’re looking to make your diet a bit more nutritious. But if you already eat somewhat healthy, are at a normal weight and are just looking to improve yourself, cutting the fat out of your diet entirely isn’t the way to go. Ideally, even if you’re trying to lose weight and eat healthier from a less-than-healthy starting point, you shouldn’t see all fats as the enemy. My point is that fats really are good for you, in the right amounts.

  • Food Safety – The Recent History

    Food Safety – The Recent History

    he early part of 2009 has witnessed one of the largest food contamination cases in US history.  The Peanut Corporation of America had a salmonella outbreak in one of their factories, contaminating the majority of peanut-butter containing products in the United States.  Unfortunately, this outbreak is not an isolated incident across the industry.

    E.coli O157:H7, Listeria, Staph and Campylocbacter cause millions of bacterial infections every year.  The prevalence of these pathogens relates directly to how food arrives into your home today – a process that has radically changed over the last 20 years.   Here, we review the recent history of food borne illnesses and how they relate to the consolidation of the food industry.

    Food Borne Illness

    Contaminated foods are far more common than you probably think.  Estimates suggest as many as 1 in 4 Americans, about 75 million people, suffer from food borne illness once every year while another 350,000 less fortunate people are hospitalized and 5,000 die.  People typically associate food contamination with meat – and for good reason.  The frantic hand-washing after handling most meat products strikes some as reactionary but it makes more sense when you see the numbers.

    Chicken Contamination in 2007

    Consumer Reports ran a large study, testing 525 raw chickens in early 2007 and found a stunning 83% of all chickens were infected with salmonella or campylobacter bacteria.  Even more alarming, the majority of both bacteria’s tested were resistant to one or more antibiotics – largely resulting from the factory farm practice of giving their birds a constant, low level of antibiotics to retard hunger. [1]

    All this is made worse by the dramatic consolidation of poultry slaughterhouses in the last 20 years, pushing ever greater numbers of chickens into tight spaces – the ideal environment for disease.  We could spend all day making the connection between factory farming and pathogens in food but that’s for another article.  The problem of food contamination goes way beyond meat products – they are only part of this story.  Before, we really get going, here is a primer video with the food safety czar Dr. Marion Nestle:

    The most recent fiasco with peanut butter better explains many of the other issues involved.

    Peanut Butter Under the Microscope

    The speed with which the peanut butter fiasco unfolded speaks volumes as to what we are up against with the way our food system is put together and ensuring its safety.  On January 16th 2009, Kellogg’s recalled some of their Austin brand peanut butter sandwich crackers at the request of the government.  Within a week, 130 more products from all sorts of manufacturers had been recalled.  By the end of the month, 19,000 people in 43 states had been sickened and 8 had died from complications.

    No bacteria in the shell

    With a little investigation, the FDA and CDC found the entire outbreak could be traced to one plant in Georgia owned by the Peanut Corporation of America.  It may be hard to imagine that one single plant could contaminate a good majority of the entire nation’s supply of peanut butter in under a month but that seems to be what happened here.

    To better understand how this could happen, the Times ran a great piece last month that starts to scratch the surface into the realities of the modern food system.  This is an excerpt from that piece that talks about inspections briefly but you will get the idea (emphasis mine):

    “Plant employees said they typically had advance knowledge of state inspections and that last month, when they were tipped off that federal investigators were coming, the employees were told not to answer questions. Where the state had found no major problems, the federal team found many, like the leaky roof, and swab tests showed salmonella living on the plant floors. Plant managers had not decontaminated the peanut butter processing line after detecting salmonella, the federal report shows.

    In examining Peanut Corporation of America’s records, federal investigators discovered that company tests had found salmonella 12 times since 2007. The inspectors said they got the records by invoking a bioterrorism law.”

    Conflicting standards, a lack of funds, lax oversight and carelessness were all apart of this salmonella epidemic.  The Peanut Corporation of America may be the poster child for all of this but similar practices surely go on elsewhere due to the exact same circumstances that created this situation.   The reality is that it is very hard for any of us – including the safety regulators in charge of this operation – to know where the next firestorm will erupt.   Looking back shows us an almost identical set of circumstances that led to the last major outbreak prior to peanut butter – spinach.

    Spinach Is Food Safety in a Nutshell

    The e.coli O157:H7 outbreak in pre-washed spinach back in late 2006 was the last poster child for food safety reform.  The incident was widely covered in the media, excellent news pieces were authored about the problems – especially the eerily prophetic article published in the Washington Post, whose last line concluded “Unless something changes, we will have another outbreak.”

     

    Extent of Spinach Outbreak, CDC

    Tainted spinach fully captured the national spotlight when the CDC first made public the problem.  From their first bulletin (emphasis mine):

    “Public health officials in multiple states, with the assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are investigating a large outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Thus far, 50 cases…have been reported from CT (1), ID (3), IN (4), MI (3), OR (5), NM (2), UT (11), WI (20).  Eight patients developed the hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and one patient died.  Most cases are recent: for those with known illness onset, the range of onset is 08/25/2006 to 09/03/2006.  The outbreak is likely ongoing.”

    What’s important to note here is that by the time the first bulletin was issued, we were already dealing with contamination from coast to coast.  Essentially, the problem was nationwide before anyone even started to do anything about it.

    A quick response by government agencies mitigated the damage but still almost 200 people feel ill and 3 died as a result of the outbreak according to the CDC.  Follow up reports on the incident get us even closer to understanding just how intertwined our food system is now.

    The CDC worked with local California officials and conducted their own investigation into the exact source of the contamination.  Their findings suggested a nearby cattle farm who leased part of their land out to a spinach farm had runoff that was contaminated with the same genetic strain of e.coli that sickened large parts of the country.  Also suggested was that maybe a single wild pig may have run through the cattle manure and then the spinach.

    Reused water likely spread e.coli across America

    How could a single pig contaminate the entire nation’s spinach crop?  Surprisingly, it was quite easy.  Prepared spinach is ‘washed’ in water that gets reused over and over and over again.  It is assumed that the equipment and water are sterile but if one pathogen gets in, it easily spreads through the entire system.  After the spinach was bagged and trucked away, you can easily see how just one little pig sickened 200 people from coast to coast.

    Understanding the Centralized Food System

    Food safety issues are more important now because the concentration of food production in the United States has increased substantially over the past 20 years.  The USDA published an insightful look at the US food production landscape back in May 2007 – and its results highlight just how concentrated most food related activities are today.

    The report mostly focused on consolidation in food retailers – like the move from traditional supermarkets into warehousers like Sam’s Club – but it also found that food production and distribution  consolidated at a remarkable clip.

    How food production has concentrated, USDA

    Just in the period from 1997-2002, nearly every major food industry saw its four largest firms grow far larger.  Cookie makers, water distributors, seafood purveyors and milk producers saw their rates of consolidation climb anywhere from 10-100%.  Additional consolidation was seen in both the cattle and hog industries mentioned further down in the report.   In short, agribusiness is slowly becoming the de facto method of food production – and that means new controls are urgently needed.

    Tying the Pieces Together

    With dramatic uptakes in food industry consolidation, more and more of our food is coming from fewer and fewer places.  As we saw with both the peanut butter and spinach incidents, just one plant or one field can now contaminate the entire country in mere days.  Consequently, food safety becomes a bigger issue because there is a greater likelihood for contamination at every step.  Higher density farms, big processing plants and warehouse food retailers put massive amounts of ingredients together in ways whose ramifications we are only beginning to comprehend.

    While smaller food brands, organics and farmer’s markets have grown at a strong clip, they are nowhere near offsetting the dramatic consolidation going on inside the agribusiness industry.  Stronger food safety measures, like the agreement the California Leafy Green growers instituted after the spinach ordeal, need to be put into place everywhere.  It should not take outbreaks in each food group for proper food safety measures to become the norm, but, without an overarching national food safety framework, massive liability has been the only successful tool in motivating agribusiness to secure the food supply.  Here’s hoping things are a bit different this time around.

    NOTE: This article is the 1st part of a series about Food Safety in the United States. You may want to read the first part to better understand this article:

    Part 1: Book Review: Safe Food by Marion Nestle

  • Patti’s Food Substitution List

    Patti’s Food Substitution List

    Eating better isn’t easy. Most of the choices you have to make about food come at you quickly, when you are often far from the information you need. And how many people even know what tef is?

    We have decided to put together a handy list of which foods make the best, healthy substitutes for the unhealthy foods you are already eating.

    This should help quiet that persistent argument that eating healthy means giving up the foods you love. On the contrary, almost every food on the unhealthy side of this list has a very similar, if not identical cousin on the healthy side.

    Eating well is more about knowledge than limitations. We hope this helps you open the door.

    Note: Both charts can be re-categorized by clicking on the column headings

    Patti’s Food Substitution Chart
    Traditional Food Healthier Alternative(s)
    Vinegar (white) Raw + Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, Rice Vinegar, Plum (umeboshi) Vinegar
    Milk (Cows, Pasteurized) Almond Milk, Rice Milk/Organic Soy Milk, Raw Organic Cow’s Milk
    Butter, Traditional Spectrum Spread, Flax seed Spread, Raw, Organic Butter, Clarified Butter (Ghee)
    Cheese (Cow’s Milk) Goat Cheese, Feta Cheese, Rice Cheese, Raw Milk Cow Cheese
    White Bread Sprouted Multi-grain Bread, Sprouted Whole Wheat, Rye Bread + Linseed – real!, Whole Spelt Flour Breads
    Saltines, Refined Wheat Crackers Brown Rice Crackers
    Beef/Lamb – Factory Farm Pasture-Raised + Grass-Fed Beef, Pasture-Raised + Grass-Fed Lamb, Seitan-meat substitute, Fermented Soy (Tempeh)
    Chicken – Factory Farm Pasture-Raised Chickens, Cage-Free Chickens
    Eggs – Factory Farm Pasture-Raised Eggs, Cage-Free Eggs, Omega-3 Enhanced Eggs, Tofu Scramblers
    Pancakes, Refined Grain Whole Buckwheat Pancakes, Multi-grain Pancakes
    Waffles, Refined Grain + HFCS Buckwheat, Gluten Free Waffles
    White Sugar Brown Turbinado Sugar, Stevia, Rice Syrup Crystals
    Syrups, ‘Maple’ + HFCS Agave Syrup, Maple Syrup
    Honey Raw + Unfiltered Honey, Agave Syrup, Local Honey
    Orzo – Rice Shaped Pasta + Couscous Quinoa
    Refined Grain Pastas Whole Wheat Pasta, Brown Rice, Quinoa, Amaranth, Tef, Buckwheat (soba) Noodles
    White, Wheat Flour Whole Spelt Flour, Whole Buckwheat Flour, Brown Rice Flour
    White Rice Brown Rice, Red Rice, Wild Rice
    Potato Chips Sweet Potato Chips, Taro Chips
    Corn (GMO) Chips Blue Corn Chips, Rice Chips
    Peanut Butter Almond Butter, Cashew Butter, Sesame Butter, Organic Peanut Butter
    Roasted Peanuts Raw Almonds, Pecans, Macadamias, Cashews (dry roasted)
    Salted Sunflower Seeds Raw Pumpkin Seeds
    Pizza Brown Rice Flour Pizza with Rice Cheese, Whole Wheat Pizza with Buffalo Cheese
    Salt, Iodized Celtic Sea Salt (Gray), Himalayan (Pink), Salt Lake Salts (Red)
    Jellies – w/ HFCS Fruit Juice Sweetened Preserves
    Vegetable/Cooking Canola Oil Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (High Flash Point)
    Salad Dressing Soy Oil Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Flax Oil, Avacado Oil
    Soup Bouillon Organic Chicken Broth, Free-Range Broth, Vegan Vegetable Buillon
    Dark Soft Drinks/Sodas Fruit Juice sweetened Spritzers
    Citrus Sodas Club Soda + Lemon/Lime and Stevia
    Coffee Whole Leaf Teas (Danelion Root in Spring, Chicory, Green, Black), Tecchino Coffee Substitute, Mushroom Coffee
    Candy + Milk Chocolate Dark Chocolate (+60% cocoa)

    Revisions

    Version 1.0 of this chart was released on 2009-03-16. All revisions will be noted here.

  • Recipe: Low Fat Curried Grilled Chicken Salad

    Recipe: Low Fat Curried Grilled Chicken Salad

    Chicken Salad Sandwich, thanks to Flickr User Rick

    • 4 cups grilled boneless/skinless chicken, finely diced (pasture-raised if possible)
    • 1 celery stalk, finely diced
    • ¼ cup red onion, finely diced
    • ¼ cup English cucumber (seedless), finely diced
    • 1/8 cup California raisins (organic)
    • 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or flat leaf parsley
    • 2 cups regular plain yogurt (raw if possible)
    • 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed and strained lemon juice
    • 1 teaspoon madras (yellow) curry powder
    • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
    • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

    Preheat a small pan to medium heat then place the curry powder inside, dry (no fat, no water).  Stir the powder around in the pan to toast the spices.  Your goal is to brown the powder slightly but evenly and to release the fragrances.  It will be obvious when this happens.  Remove from heat and set to the side.

    In a mixing bowl, combine the yogurt, lemon juice, and toasted curry.  Using a whisk, whip the mixture until together and yogurt is yellow from the curry .  Now combine the rest of the ingredients and using a spatula fold the blend together.  At this point, you should adjust seasonings to your liking as well as add more yogurt for consistency, if desired.  Enjoy with pita bread, fresh green leaf lettuce, and tomato slices.

  • There Is Something Fishy About Intelligence

    There Is Something Fishy About Intelligence

    I often hear people say that Asians are smarter.  Many would say that any differences in intelligence (or at least performances on tests) are due to their consistent cultural focus on learning and perfection. However, there might just be another reason they do better on math and science tests: they eat a lot of sushi (a fact of which I am very jealous).

    You’ve probably heard people say that fish is better for you than any of the red meats.  Fish are chocked full of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, and are considered to be highly nutritious by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the US Department of Agriculture (in a roundabout way) – which include fish in their recommendations for healthy eating.

    The Real Food Pyramid, Harvard School of Public Health

    But above and beyond their normal health benefits, researchers have found another reason to eat seafood – it might just boost your intellect.  At least that’s the claim of some fresh-caught research from Sweden, which found that a fish-laden diet improved the cognitive performance of teenage boys even when a whole slew of other variables were taken into account.  They suggest that something in fish has a strong, positive impact on intelligence – which might just explain why fish-heavy cultures like those in Asia and the Mediterranean seem to do so much better on IQ tests.

    The Research

    Researchers in Sweden studied how diet affected intelligence scores of teenage boys. They followed the dietary intake of fish in boys from age 15 until age 18, when they take their Swedish Military Conscription mental tests. The boys who ate fish at least once a week scored at least 7% higher than those that didn’t.  Eating fish more than twice a week boosted them up almost 12%.

    Surstromming, A Popular Swedish Dish (Flickr: Wrote)

    The researchers didn’t just look at fish consumption. They compared a wide range of variables, including ethnicity, location, educational level, well being, and exercise and weight. But even with taking all these variables into account, it was clear that fish consumption had a significant positive association with improved cognitive performance. Regardless of their backgrounds or influences, simply eating fish made them perform better.

    Watch this BBC Science short about another experiment relating to Omega-3 consumption and childhood intelligence performed in England – the results speak for themselves, literally. They won’t let us embed the movie unfortunately – just click on the picture below to view it:

    BBC Science: Does Omega-3 Help Children Learn?

    What’s so great about fish?

    The biggest benefit of fish is that they are a rich source of Omega-3 Fatty Acids, which are also common in tofu, nuts and soybean products.  Our diets generally lack Omega-3s.  Research has found that these unsaturated fats have positive effects on everything from heart rhythm to immune function. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration actually approved of a qualified health claim for dietary supplements of omega-3 fatty acids relating them to a reduced risk of heart disease – a stamp of approval not given to most supplements.  Continuing research suggests Omega-3s positively impact arthritis, asthma, lupus, kidney disease, cancer, and even depression.

    Not only does fish have Omega-3s, it’s generally high in protein and low in fat.  A 3-ounce cooked serving of most fish and shellfish provides about 20 grams of protein, or about a third of the average daily recommended protein intake.  And not all protein is created equal – fish protein is top notch, containing an abundance of essential amino acids.  Seafood is a great alternative to beef, poultry and pork as a protein source because it tends to be lower in fat and is loaded with the essential meat minerals like iron, zinc and calcium. You can spare yourself even more bad fats and up the good ones by getting your filet grilled with lemon juice and olive oil.

    Get Your Diet Swimming

    Adding fish and seafood is an easy way to boost your health and your mental performance.  Instead of having the steak, try the grilled salmon instead.  Ideally, you should eat seafood twice a week or more as a source of protein. Think tuna sandwiches for lunch or a catfish filet for dinner.  The best benefits come from fresh fish, so get to know your local seafood markets.  Buying from fishermen supports the local economy and gets you the best prices on top-of-the-barrel health food.  And if you don’t live near the water, don’t panic – there are lots of great, frozen seafoods to choose from.

    Wild salmon, yum

    If you’re worried about sustainable seafood or environmental impacts, print out your regional Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The yearly guides stay up to date on which fisheries are doing it right and which are destroying their stocks, so you can eat healthy and feel good about it. And, if you’re worried about quality, avoid the fish on the higher end of the food chain. Being on top might make them excellent to eat, but it also makes them more likely to contain environmental toxins like mercury picked up from eating other fish. A nice lowly catfish is environmentally sustainable and less likely to contain high concentrations of toxins.

    If you just can’t stand the taste of fish, consider adding an Omega-3 supplement to your diet. While it’s not as good as the ‘reel’ deal, it’s at least a start.  But don’t give up on fish too quickly – there are a lot of varieties out there, and taste ranges.  There are lighter tastes like catfish and tilapia which might appeal to those who find salmon too fishy.  At least try a few different fish before you give up on liking ocean dwellers.  Supplements are rarely, if ever, a good substitute for simply eating healthy foods.  If you truly can’t stomach fish, try tofu or soy-rich products that also contain high levels of Omega-3s.

    And for those of you like me who love seafood, research like this is just another excuse to go out and celebrate with a nice fillet.  Not only are you eating healthy, you might just be getting smarter for it.

    Source:
    Åberg, M., Åberg, N., Brisman, J., Sundberg, R., Winkvist, A., & Torén, K. (2009). Fish intake of Swedish male adolescents is a predictor of cognitive performance Acta Paediatrica, 98 (3), 555-560 DOI: 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2008.01103.x

  • Meet Tony the Chef

    Meet Tony the Chef

    Nutrition Wonderland would like to introduce you to a new column we will be featuring from time to time on the website called, Tony the Chef.  A long time friend, Tony will be sharing his thoughts to help you understand what the world of food looks like from the inside of a busy commercial kitchen.  The column will feature insights into the considerations chef must make to his customers – and to his bosses, what kind of factor money has on the ingredients he uses, the interplay of corporations and food politics  and, most importantly, his famous recipes.  Below, the Chef says hello – maybe you should say hello back.

    Tony the Chef

    My love for food has always been around.  As a child, I logged many hours in the kitchen with my mother.  It was often that playtime was forfeited to inquire what she was whipping up for supper.  Of course, after a while, I picked up a few things and later on in my teen years, I got a chance to flex my culinary muscle.  As dear mom was moved to the night shift at her place of employment, I took over the responsibilities of creating an evening meal for my father and me.  Most of the time, I would just try to recreate or improve upon my mother’s recipes.  Occasionally, I felt brave enough to experiment with my own and this was such a delight!  There were disasters, sure; however, that’s what cooking and life, really, are all about.  You will not know success without a few failures here and there.  So, I continued to cook throughout high school and then I graduated.   Now what?

    I was accepted to the University of Texas in Austin.  I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish there.  All I knew is that all of my best friends were going to UT and attending a University was something my parents wanted for me.  I went and I tried to find something I could “deal” with for the rest of my life.  The idea of being stationary at a desk for a long period of time was a little frightening for me.  I found nothing and to everyone’s surprise I dropped out of U.T. – with all its glory – and enrolled in classes at the Texas Culinary Academy (a Le Cordon Bleu program) just up the road in Austin.  You see, food, cooking and being a chef, was what I wanted to do all along.  It was a decision that I have not regretted since.

    Life in Colorado, Not Bad

    I completed culinary school with flying colors and landed my first cooking job at the Sheraton Resort in Steamboat Springs, CO as part of my school’s externship program.  The program only lasted three months but I decided to stay and work for three years.  In that time, I worked hard and was promoted quickly from an entry-level cook all the way to Sous Chef.  I had certainly found my niche.  During this time, it was an eccentric, but respected, old friend that turned me on to food awareness and what happens to my food before it hits the plate.  The information that I’ve learned from this gentlemen really opened my eyes so much that I have changed my lifestyle and I have joined his side to help deliver the message to unsuspecting consumers so that we can get food back to how nature intended – real.

    My love for Colorado was superseded by true love for a woman so I came back to Texas to be with her.  Blissfully, the current chapter of my live takes us to Dallas.  I am the Chef de Cuisine for the Westin City Center Dallas in downtown.  I oversee the restaurant there, 650 North.  Since speaking with the gentleman above in Colorado, I have seen a few unrelated changes; people are becoming aware of what they are eating.  Vendors are eliminating harmful products in their food and corporations are starting to offer their customers more of a choice.  Me, I push to offer only the best ingredients and I like the direction in which food is going.  Still, the actions are on a very small scale and there is much to be done.

    I love being a chef.  I feel a real connection between my purpose in life and food.  I like how it has the power to appeal to so many people, and I enjoy preparing it so that it is appealing to them.  Food most certainly sustains life.  It should not take life away.  Please take the time to view this site and revisit often.

    Thanks,
    Chef T.

  • Integrative Medicine on Capitol Hill

    Integrative Medicine on Capitol Hill

    On Thursday, the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing called, Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation to assess how complementary medicine will be incorporated into President Obama’s challenge for Congress to pass health care reform in 2009. Barbara Milkulski (D), Maryland and Tom Harkin (D), Iowa chaired the committee that invited a distinguished panel of famous complementary practitioners to report their findings from field work.

    The proceedings can be see in their entirety here:

    Dr. Mehmet C. Oz, Director, Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY was the first speaker (minutes 27-33). His speech to the committee was based upon the idea of movements where Oz advocated having patients become their own advocates in the health care system. His proposal included four points:

    • 1. Create a Smart Patient Movement, where people learn how to take of themselves before needing medical intervention
    • 2. Massively upgrade the information systems surrounding health care to be upgraded to systems like Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health – where patients store their medical records for all types of health professionals to see.
    • 3. Establish a ‘culture of wellness’ – defined as giving patients a more total platter of options in how they want to be healed. Physicians would be joined by ‘Health Coaches’ – people like physical therapists, social workers and acupuncturists – who help people become healthier before they need reactionary, Western medicine.
    • 4. Expand his ‘Health Corps Movement’ – a program is based upon the concepts of Peace Corps, whereby passionate young adults tutor their peers, in schools, on becoming more healthy.

    Following Dr. Oz was Dr. Mark Hyman, Founder and Medical Director of The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA – (watch minutes 68-74 in the video).

    Dr. Hyman

    Hyman’s major point was an affront to most of the medical community – that the entire system and approach to modern disease is completely wrong. Because most of the health crises in American revolve around chronic diseases, the reactionary, allopathic model of medicine is outdated. He wants a system that proactively addresses the debilitating symptoms of chronic disease before they ever form. From his speech [emphasis mine]:

    “We must address the underlying causes of illness and chronic disease. If we, give the wrong type of care, we will simply be doing the wrong thing – better. [We need to change not] only the way we do medicine but the medicine we do. This new paradigm of functional medicine is a system of personalized, patient-centered care based on how our environment and lifestyle choices impact on our genes to create imbalances in our genes and biologic systems….It is the best solution to our health care system.”

    Continuing with Dr. Oz’s point, Dr. Hyman hammered on the point of the need for health coaches to assist doctors in creating a healthy environment. He outlined three major initiatives he wanted to see in Obama’s upcoming health reform act:

    • 1. A radical shift in public investment towards training and research facilities that proactively address the needs of chronic disease, with the US creating a federal training center.
    • 2. Expand already existing and proven functional medicine projects, compromised of doctors and other health professionals, that demonstrate a new model of care.
    • 3. Create a White House cabinet position that coordinates all of these functions.

    Next up was Dr. Dean Ornish, Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Sausalito, CA (minutes 78-82) who mainly reinforced the points made by earlier speakers, adding that the systems he has implemented show impressive cost reductions. He stated that 75-80% of all medical costs are now related to chronic diseases – heart disease, obesity, diabetes – and that he was able to eliminate almost 95% of those costs with functional medicine approaches.

    Dr. Weil

    Finally, Dr. Andy Weil, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona, Vail, AZ (minutes 82 – 92) turned his focus onto why medical costs are so high in America. He made the point that our high tech medical system costs so much that there is no possible way to treat the numbers of sick people present without a different approach. He advocated low, very low tech medicine – simple breathing techniques and laughing – as examples of therapies he uses on a regular basis. He was adamant on changing the culture around alternative therapies with proper education.

    Thoughts…

    The Q&A afterwords between the doctors and senators involved the nagging question of how to make these changes happen. It was distressing to see just how little of an idea this important regulatory body had in terms of what they should be doing to improve health. Consistently, throughout this hearing, you would see the panel of health professionals imploring the senators to use the doctors’ collective talents.

    But it strikes us as so odd that – as these doctors talked with the exact group responsible for implementing these policies – yet none of the senators take notes or have drafts of the necessary legislation on hand to amend with new ideas. All of this genius is sitting before them, unloading mountains of brilliant – and often proven – ideas as these legislators just sit and watch when it is they who have the responsibility to act on this information.

    Hello? Is anybody home? Oh…you are busy with lobbyists. Sorry to interrupt.

    Each one of these CAM advocates made the case for prevention and better information preventing diseases before they happen, and they did it eloquently. Each outlined a path to this new world of health care, demonstrating the numbers and how this should be the way forward. They made concrete recommendations – a White House level voice for wellness, re-educating health professionals at medical schools, implementing health coaches and expanding the Health Corps – that could have immediate effects. Dr. Hyman’s presentation was one of the best speeches on the subject we have ever heard.

    Seeing as this conference was focused on helping craft the complementary medicine portion of health care reform, it is regrettable, if not inexcusable, that these senators – on the health subcommittee no less – could not even start to show how they will implement the wisdom bestowed upon them at this hearing. The time for discussing these issues has long passed and action is urgently needed. Functional medicine is used by millions every day but the American system of medicine discourages its use at every turn. It is our hope a few of the people on the government’s side watching this presentation could synthesize just 1% of what was being said to them and craft it into meaningful policy.

    Read each presenter’s official submitted statements to the committee: