A New Vice Tax?

All of us who either smoke and/or drink know of the ridiculous taxes they have on the vices. Many would argue that it’s for a good reason and I can see the logic there. No matter how much your raise the price of cigarettes and alcohol there will ALWAYS be the people who will spend their last penny for a smoke or a shot of bourbon.
That being said, have any of you heard of this new tax they’re wanting to put on Junk Food? Many people argue that raising the price of junk food will force people to buy healthier things. I firmly disagree. I think the same principle is in effect here. Those people who are essentially addicted to the simple carbs, mountains of sugar, and liquid diabetes are still going to buy these products regardless of the price.

Avg. American Consumes 21% of Calories from Beverages...

My solution? I feel we should all collaborate and try to buy more fresh produce locally instead of getting all our produce from Mexico, Africa or China. We should go to (or in this day and age re-open) Butcher Shops and select our own cuts of meat. Use that extra corn for fuel or plastics and STOP FEEDING IT TO THE COWS! Cows are meant to eat grass with the exception of a bit of grain here and there, give them their natural diet for chrissake. Buying more local goods will cut down on the miles your food puts in before it even hits your plate. It may go bad sooner but hey, that’s what they did in the “good ole days”. People went to the market every other day or so and bought everything they needed for the next day or two days.

But I digress. People today are too lazy to do much of anything. We’d much rather unwrap a package and throw it in the microwave, than to cook. Consider the size of dinner plates from just 40 years ago to today. They’ve grown almost 10 times as big. And cooking? Forget about it. The average American Family eats out four to five times A WEEK! With all that money we spend on someone else making us fat, we could spend it on a good quality foods that we can turn into a great dinner with a little know-how. No, people today would rather have it delivered, thrown through their window, or brought out to them on a satellite dish.

Anywho, that’s my rant. Back to the junk food tax. Here’s a quote from a study by the Archives of Internal Medicine: “an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda could result in a decrease of nearly 56 calories per person per day. That could mean the loss of 5 lbs per person per year and a reduction of obesity-related diseases, the authors write. ” You come up with your own conclusions on that but me personally, I think it’s bullshit.

This is how people used to get their food...

If anything, let’s bring down the cost of produce in supermarkets. In case you didn’t know, the reason produce is so pricey is the fact that they are shipped half way across the world. When you consider stores like Whole Foods, they have a very pricey ORGANIC label on them. Yep, the healthier a food is the more money you’ll have to shell out. How much sense does that make?

So, I’m curious. I want to know what everyone else thinks on this. Enlighten me!

Holy Ignorance Batman!

Really? We just now get a nationally public article about the benefits of exercise? Yes you can lose weight and tone up (duh!) but oh wait….it helps to keep away colds? AND cancer?! WHO KNEW?! Get a grip people, exercise is beneficial no matter how you slice it. If you need an article like THIS to prove it…well then I feel sorry for you.

From Newser:

Exercise Curbs Colds, Even Cancer

Moderate, regular activity is like a ‘drug’ that boosts immune system

I foresee another Y2K in 2012. Any thoughts?

What Gives?

So folks,

 

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything around here. However, I am making some plans, gonna do some changing and start writing regularly.

 

Prepare yourself for a bunch of new articles in nutrition, lifestyle, my life (like anyone would really care), and other random stuff.

 

In the meantime, you owe it to yourself to check out this dude’s blog.

 

Check back in a few days for some new schtuff.

 

-Rob

 

Vitamins!

1. List which vitamins are more likely to be deficient in your diet and why. Suggest possible food choices to increase consumption of those vitamins.

A recent study has shown that almost everyone is deficient in Vitamin D. The Adequate Intake recommendation for Vitamin D is as follows:

Ages 19-50: 200 IU (or International Units, which is not a technical measurement of weight, but more a measurement of the potency of a capsule. In this case, a vitamin capsule.)

51-70: 400 IU

Over 70: 600 IU

These amounts are the bare minimum level of vitamin d in the body. As most people know, vitamin d is essential for calcium absorption. D is also a fat soluble vitamin, which explains why it’s found added in milk. Vitamin D was added (fortified) in milk back in the 30’s to take down rickets. It doesn’t really occur naturally in milk.

Of course one natural source of D is sunlight. However, the basic guideline for getting your D from sunlight is time out in the sun for 5-30 minutes between 10am to 3pm at least twice a week without sunscreen.

Not necissarily the best way to get your D

D doesn’t occur largely in nature, but is most richly found in halibut liver, cod liver oil, salmon, tuna, and mackerel. The FDA is currently going back on research to find out what a good amount of D is. Professionals are suggesting anywhere from 2,000-4,000 IU’s a day.

These amounts have a ton of benefits such as: fat loss, can help boost performance in athletes (it is considered a performance enhancer after all), and can possibly extend your life!

2. Describe ways to conserve vitamins when handling and cooking foods.

There are many views and opinions expressed about this. The general consensus among experts is that when choosing the most nutrient rich fruits and vegetables, frozen is the absolute best choice. This is due to the fact that when farmers pick their crops it is at its absolute peak of freshness and very nutrient dense. Shortly afterwards, it is flash frozen, packaged, and shipped to the supermarket. Minimal processing is involved. It’s not picked weeks before it’s ripe and shipped in muggy trailers across the country to eventually end up rotting in your local produce section. The next best thing would be canned vegetables, as the process is generally the same, but the sodium levels in canned vegetables can be higher.

The easiest way to get your nutrients!

Another good source is to buy your beans and lentils dry and cooking them yourself. Not only is it cheaper but also allows you more freedom in the preparation.

Now if we were to prepare fresh vegetables, the best way to preserve as much as the nutrients as possible, is to steam. Boiling vegetables in water can drain all the minerals and vitamins away with the water it was boiled in. Simply steaming in steamer basket in a pot, or using those new fangled steam bags from ziplock, can make it quick and easy to prepare your favorite vegetables.

Also, a lot of people don’t realize that refrigerating certain fruits and vegetables can actually make them lose their nutrients, such as tomatoes. Which is always best to buy your fresh produce on a weekly basis (or heck even in an ideal world a daily basis using your local farmers market) and leave out the ones you will prepare fairly soon to keep the powerhouse nutrients intact.

Who Is Responsible for Making Us Fat?

As I worked at my lovely neighborhood market of Wal-Mart fame, I began to think (as I always do) about how well the general public knows about nutrition and what they’re actually putting into their bodies. As I was filling the cold racks full of refrigerated tubes of fat inducing biscuits. I happened to glance down at one of the smaller 8 oz tubes, and was absolutely shocked at a number on the nutritional label. A single serving (One measly biscuit) has, are you sure you’re ready for this?, 3.5 grams of trans fat! Yep, one of these gut grenades will give you 1.5 grams over your daily limit.

Hate to burst your bubble, but the doughboy wants you dead!

And this isn’t the first shocker that I’ve seen working at a grocery store. I’ve been lucky enough to stock some of the shelves down the aisles. Countless items have either been hit or miss, and I’ve been lucky enough to store these little nuggets of information in my head for later shopping.

Which got me thinking. How interesting would it be to take a survey and just ask random people questions about nutrition and see what the average joe knows about it.  I also thought, yes the problem with obesity in america is the copious amounts of easily accessible refined carbs and sugar. Yes, even the price of eating healthier costs more (believe me I know).

Too many fitness gurus and nutritionists shun the growing fat population of America like Pat Robertson shuns homosexuals.

God Hates Fat People!

Growing technology and television, escalators and moving sidewalks, and motorized scooters at mega mart stores are all contributors and supporters of the growing obesity in America sure. Lets not forget, it is after all, cheaper to buy a dozen of those snack cakes from that pigtailed harlot than it is to buy a dozen apples.

But that brings me to the next point. Sure we’re largely responsible for the way our country is, but what about the suits behind all those snack cakes taunting you from the snack aisle? Could they be playing a big part in the demise of the overall health of America?

I pledge alliegience to...?

Over the next few months, I’ll be writing and researching and surveying people to get facts, and just to see what the general population knows about nutrition.

Protein (Low-Carb) and Irradiation

Awesome! I’ve looked forward to the protein chapter since the beginning of the semester.

Protein is quite possibly THE most important, yet most misunderstood macronutrient in human history. It is the building block of all sustainable life on this planet, the amino acids it provides absolutely critical to functions in our body. It’s worshiped by body builders, strength athletes, and the recreational gym rats. It’s been the main form of sustenance since the dawn of time to all cultures.

Protein is critical to gaining, maintaining, and losing weight. The latter being the first topic of discussion for this post.

1) What are the pros and cons of a high-protein diet like the Adkins diet?

If I may, I’d like to just brush on the history of the Low-carb diet. For those of you who think this is a fairly new thing, you’d be surprised to know that it is nothing new.

Once upon a time, I believe it was 1862, there lived a man named William Banting. At the ripe old age of sixty-six, was a stoutly five foot five and well over two hundred pounds. William never considered himself to be lazy or overly indulgent at the table. After his thirties he began to pack on the pounds, despite any effort he put to keeping it at bay. He began exercising and gained new muscular vigor and as most will attest to after working out, a prodigious appetite, and yet continued in the weight gain. He constricted his caloric intake which, again like most, did not move the scale and left him tired and weak. He tried everything and yet no decrease in weight, exactly the opposite.

Banting went to the best doctors of his day, tried purgatives and diuretics and yet the weight increased. Finally he found a surgeon named William Harvey, who had heard a lecture on diabetes in Paris. See, in our bodies, the liver secretes glucose, the substance of sugar and starch. In diabetes this glucose collects excessively in the bloodstream. Harvey created a dietary regimen based on this discovery. Knowing that saccharine and farinaceous diet is used to fatten certain animals, Harvey believed that diabetes contributed to obesity, and that cutting out starches and sugars he could reverse this effect.

Harvey, then using Banting as his guinea pig, began his – what we would now call “low-carb” diet – on Banting. Banting avoided bread, milk, beer, sweets and potatoes. He dropped fifty pounds by early 1864. All other bodily ailments have seemingly disappeared from him and he was a new man.

As you can see, this particular style diet has been around for over a century. It was only after the notorious Robert Coleman Atkins, MD broke into popular fitness culture with his “Atkins Diet”. Now some refute and others praise the low carb diet for many reasons.

The pros of a low carb diet are many and I will discuss just a few that I feel are very important and yet largely overlooked by the general population.

-Our bodies were evolutionarily tuned for low carb dieting. Look back thousands of years and take a look at our ancestor’s dinner plates. Chances are you’ll find copious amounts of protein and fats. Yes there were

carbohydrates there, but I can guarantee you won’t find any refinement here. Save for maybe white rice in Asia and potatoes in Europe, you won’t find anything that wasn’t created by nature. Sugar of all things, was consumed in its raw form, either from cane or sugar beets. You won’t find any High Fructose Corn Syrup or artificial sweeteners. Just what Mother Nature gave to them and what they can harvest to provide to their families.

-A few studies have shown that increasing protein while decreasing carbohydrate consumption actually LOWERS LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentration with a raise in HDL cholesterol concentrations. Oh, no! Lookout saturated fat intake has been shown to do the exact opposite! Prove it to me. Show me some good solid proof of a study done on humans that can prove increased saturated fat intake can be detrimental to cardiovascular health.

-There is a term many people aren’t aware of but should be: Thermic Effect of Feeding. What this means is, all macronutrients need metabolic processing to be digested, absorbed and ultimately stored. To simplify it even more, when you eat a certain food it requires a certain amount of energy to break it down and be used, energy in-energy out. This lead to the theory that a stalk of celery had negative calories. See some believed since it’s low kcal count, it would actually require more kcal to break it down in the body than the actual kcal the food contained.

Why Haven't You Read This Yet?

These are just a few of the pros, if I continued on this would become more of an article in a nutrition journal than a simple chapter assignment.

A few cons of Low-Carb dieting are as follows:

-Ever heard of the Glycemic Index? If any of you have seen a Nutri-Sy

stem commercial I’m sure you have. However, most people greatly misuse and misunderstand this potentially easy to use system. For a solid description check out http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/diabetes/glycemic-index.html. Glycemic Index can be misleading because it doesn’t take into consideration the portion size. Glycemic Load is more important. All this being said, low-carb diets restrict (sometimes to the point of obsession) a lot of otherwise healthful fruits and vegetables, due to their Glycemic index.

-This brings me to my next point. Super restrictive low carb diets do not have adequate fiber intake. First timers to low carb can suffer cramping, constipation, and bloating. Unless fiberous vegetables and selective fruits are consumed, low carb dieters could suffer chronic GI problems.

-Anyone who has done low carb and never made it past the first week, you’re not alone. It generally takes a little over a week or so for your body to completely deplete it’s glycogen stores in the muscles, and convert fats and protein into a source of energy rather than the more easily accessible carbohydrates. This leads to a significant reduction in energy as your body strains to pull every bit of glycogen from your reserves. When your body does eventually become efficient on fat and protein rather than carbs you lose a lot of water weight, which explains the sometimes significant initial drop in weight for people starting a low carb diet.

-A lot of people think that low carb, also means low fat. Nonsense, if you go low carb, up the fat as you increase your protein intake. Without the addition to fat with the high protein and lowered carbs, you will have a hard time controlling your hunger and your eventual binge on sugary sweets.

Sources:

http://t-nation.com

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

150 Healthiest Foods on Earth by Jonny Bowden

2) Is irradiation a safe process? Discuss the benefits and possible risks of irradiated foods?

Although more is to be found about the irradiation process of foods, it should be noted that like everything else in this world, it is not a cure all solution to all our food issues. It can be beneficial in the fact that yes, it kills off microbes, but consider that piece of meat. It’s still riddled with hormones and antibiotics, minus the e-coli. I think the benefits and risks can be measured out evenly when it comes to irradiation, certainly it has prevented many possible food borne illnesses since its advent, but it doesn’t destroy everything. Proper food preparation and handling is the ultimate practice to ensure that your food is most likely to just give you heartburn rather than a life altering illness.

Welcome

Hello everyone, and welcome. To the two people who may actually read this, Thank You. Spread the word if you find it informative, please!

Hope you enjoy it. If you want to learn anymore about this little blog I’ve started check out the about page.

-Rob K.

Fast Food and Butter

I thought I’d start off this first official post with an assignment I had to do for my nutrition class. It sure as hell opened my eyes. I hardly, if ever, eat fast food and this definitely sealed my decision on if I ever will again or not:

1. Write down a meal you might eat at a fast-food restaurant and calculate the fat in that meal. If no more than 30 percent of you total daily calories should be from fat, what are substitutions you could make to decrease the total amount of fat?

For the sake of a discussion, I’ll post what maybe an average American may eat at a McDonald’s chain.

Big Mac: 540 kcal – 260 kcal from fat. Total Fat: 29g. 50% DV

Large Fries: 500 kcal – 220 kcal from fat. Total Fat: 25g. 17% DV

Large Coca-Cola: 310 kcal – 0 Total Fat. 0% DV

To add insult to injury I’ll add dessert:
12 fl oz cup of M&M’s McFlurry: 620 kcal – 180 kcal from fat. Total Fat: 20g. 59% DV

Hahaha oh god. Lets add all this up shall we?
Total Kcal: 1970
Total Fat for Meal: 74g
Daily Value for said Fat: A whopping 126%

For added measure I’ll show you sodium and carbohydrates:
Carbs: 290, read it again, 290 fiber and protein-less refined carbohydrates. That’s 97% of your daily value. Add to the fact that these carbs will make you go into a glucose induced coma, and you’ll be sure to be packing on some fat with this meal. It’s no wonder I vowed to never eat fast food. For the sake of your health, you might consider doing the same.

Sodium: 1600mg that’s 67% of your daily value. IN ONE FLIPPING MEAL!

I certainly hope that was an eye opener. Very few people actually take the few precious seconds to consider what they’re putting in their body.

This meal definitely deserves an overhaul of EPIC proportions. Although I’d never suggest anyone eat here, under the only circumstance that it were your only chance of survival after a post-apocalyptic scenario where all the radiation has cooked all the food to a perfect, microorganism free, crisp. That being said, we could find a meal replacing the latter, with a few “smarter” choices.

Let’s first off choose something with a slight bit more fiber and leaner protein:
Premium Caesar Salad w/ Grilled Chicken:
Total Kcal: 220 – from fat: 60
Total Fat: 6g 13% DV
Carbs: 12 4% w/ 3g of fiber
Protein: 30g
Sodium: 890mg 37% DV
Here we go, way better. That protein and “healthier” fat and the shot of fiber, will keep you fuller longer than any carb laden burger and fries.

If you get a fruit and yogurt parfait without the granola (saves you unnecessary carbs and sugar) you could essentially get some good fats from the dairy and some nutrients and fiber from the fruit.
Total Kcal: 130 – 15 from Fat
Total Fat: 2g 3% DV
Total Carbs: 25 8% DV
Sodium: 55mg 2% DV
Protein: 4g

Totals for this meal:
Total Kcal: 350 – from Fat: 75
Total Fat: 8g 13% DV
Total Carbs: 37g 12% DV
Sodium: 945mg 38% DV

Seems like a more likely choice now huh? Is it any wonder why our fast food obsessed country is so obese? Would it kill people to actually use their kitchen for something other than storing their ready to eat, pre-packaged meals? No, 30-40 years ago we all ate at home and rarely ate out. Everyone cooked in those days and look at state of health back then. Notice a difference?

2. A friend knows you are taking a nutrition class. She asks you how to choose the best cooking oil or butter/margarine. What advice could you give?

I have all sorts of comments about these two things. Both could have devastating effects on, not only your waistline but, your overall health as well.

Depending also, on what this person cooked. I would have to choose butter though.

In a nutshell here’s why:
REAL butter is full of vitamins. Vitamins A, E, K, and D to name a few. These are all fat soluble vitamins, so hence why it’s important it’s in butter.
Minerals are also present, such as selenium, and iodine.
With all the craze surrounding fatty acids, you’ll be pleased butter contains it’s share. Butyric Acid is used in the colon as an energy source, and is known as an anti-carcinogen. Lauric acid has antimicrobial and antifungal properties. Mind your 3′s and 6′s too as butter contains a bit of each of the omega fatty acids.
Sure butter contains some cholesterol, but despite all the confusion, it’s needed for nervous system, brain and intestinal health and development in youngsters. Human breast milk is loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol.
Used in moderation it can become a great staple of a healthy diet. Just go easy on the stuff, and don’t believe everything you hear about margarine. Even the healthiest brands can contain trace amounts of trans fats. Just as with buying anything “Whole-Wheat or 100% Whole Grain” you should look for the word “enriched” in the ingredients, you should beware the word “Hydrogenated”