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The Basics

Of all the pillars of wellness, nutrition is probably the most dynamic (at least on the surface).  And by “dynamic”, I mean that what we consider nutritious is in a constant state of flux.  Additionally, technology and bio-engineering continue to afford manufacturers “creative license” when producing our food and beverages.  All of this adds up to some very unhealthy (and sometimes toxic) products in stores.

Despite all that, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Certain nutritional principles stand the test of time, regardless how convenient, inexpensive and tasty food becomes.  Fresh vegetables, water, fruits and high quality protein (wild game, fish, nuts, etc.) remain the currencies of wellness.  In ancient times, there were no labs to process food or supermarkets to sell it.  The were no convenience stores, restaurants or fast food drive-thrus.  Our ancestors were responsible for their own food procurement.  So, much of their physical activity came from survival – eat or die.  And according to archaeological evidence, their diet primarily consisted of fruits and nuts.  Meat and fish came later as they discovered ways to catch/kill their prey.  About 10,000 years ago these hunter-gatherers became farmers as the rise of agriculture began to take hold.  The world changed forever as they were able to cultivate a dependable food source.

By most accounts, the “diseases of affluence” that are so prevalent today were virtually non-existent back then.  There are advocates who propose that we adopt a similar lifestyle to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.  Actually, there are diets (Warrior Diet, Paleo Diet, Intermittent Fasting, etc.) built around this whole concept.  Genetically and nutritionally, this is how our bodies were meant to eat.  But alas, times have changed a little since then with things like commutes, work, soccer games, karate practice, (did I mention work?) all dominating our daily schedules.  Plus, it’s not all that practical to chase a chicken around your yard every night for dinner.  So, the key is to find a way to meld the best of these two lifestyles.

From Grain To Grocer

Arguably, the best and worst thing that has happened to food is capitalism.  To be honest, I’m by no means an economic expert, but I really can’t think of a better economic system where consumers dictate market conditions (that’s the theory, at least).  However, free markets are not without fault.  The profit motive plays a part in virtually every decision a business makes.  Unfortunately, this profit motive morphs into greed more often than not, which means the greater good often takes a back seat.

Unscrupulous multinational agribusiness and meat packers wield enormous influence on the whole food chain, thanks to their powerful lobbyists.  From grain to grocer, these companies have adulterated our food in unthinkable ways.  Huge marketing budgets are absolutely necessary to create an “all natural” or “healthy” image (commercials trying to prove that point or farm image on the product).  But, don’t be fooled.  Growth hormones and antibiotics added to our meat insidiously affect our health.  Factory farming has led to deplorable and inhumane conditions for animals (videos and documentaries illustrate this better than words ever could).  For those who couldn’t care less about the welfare of your meat before they’re slaughtered (full disclosure: I am an omnivore), ponder this: the close quarters in which animals live has a direct correlation to pathogenic bacterial (e. coli) outbreaks that you see on the news.  A handful of companies control the vast majority of farms in this country, which means their power base is highly centralized.  They’ve industrialized the farming process (factory farming) to the point where animals are essentially given steroids and grains to fatten them up and reduce the time it takes to mature.  This is not healthy meat that these manufacturers are bringing to market.  And, I haven’t even touched on the environmental impact.

Crops are really no better.  Large agriculture conglomerates have gotten legislation passed that has enabled them to patent life.  Essentially, this means that they own the rights to most of the seeds used to grow most of our vegetables, so they can basically do what they want to these seeds and the farmers who try to use their own.  And, they have.  Crops have been manipulated at the genetic level (aka: GMO – genetically modified organism) and are treated with a cocktail of synthetic chemicals such as fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.  To be fair, the jury is still out on GMOs, but the other aforementioned chemicals can have serious, negative long-term affects on your health.

By now, you’re hopefully probably asking yourself “shouldn’t the government be regulating all of this”?  The folks who run agencies like the FDA and the USDA reads like a who’s who from these same companies I just mentioned.  Basically, there’s a revolving door between those companies and our government agencies.  So, I’ll let you come to your own conclusions (but, you don’t need to be a CSI investigator to figure it out).

And all of this is really just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Of all these questionable unethical practices, the “coup de grâce” is convincing everyone that these problems don’t exist.  I encourage you to read everything with a healthy dose of skepticism, and do your own research.  This is the only way to educate and empower yourself, which is how we unify, organize, and fight back by getting legislation passed.

But, I digress lest the Food Libel gestapo come looking for me.

Standard American Diet (S.A.D.)

From farm to fork, our food is literally being hijacked and poisoned without our knowledge.  And to make matters worse, multinational food companies invest absurd amounts of money in R&D to make food as addictive as illicit drugs.  Studies show sugar and fat work on the pleasure centers of the brain responsible for releasing endorphins.  Sugar and simple carbohydrates are especially dangerous.  An alarming portion of our daily diet comes in the form of some version of a simple carb – white bread/dough, snacks, sodas, juices, desserts, etc.  In small amounts, these foods are not ideal, but they’re not all that dangerous either.  The problem is that the term “small amounts” is about as foreign as Aramaic for most Americans.  In a culture where bigger is better and more is virtuous, it’s hard to dial down cravings.  From super big gulps to super sized meals, we are being bombarded with some of the unhealthiest food choices EVER created.  Our bodies were not designed to consume these types of food.

The main problem with consuming large quantities of simple carbs over a long period of time is your insulin response.  Every time you eat something, your digestive sytem breaks down the food constituents into three main macronutrients – glucose (sugar), lipids (fat), and amino acids (protein).  During sugar metabolism, your pancreas produces a huge spike of insulin that shuttles glucose to your liver and muscles for later use, where it is stored as glycogen.  (Note: sugar and processed carbs are both broken down to glucose and thus are metabolized the same in your body).  After about 30 minutes, your blood sugar dips leading to irritability, fatigue and even more cravings.  Problems arise when, after several years of this roller-coaster high carb diet, your cells shut down after being inundated with insulin for such a long period of time.  This is the beginning of Type 2 diabetes, but is also the beginning of your problems.  Inflammation is an even bigger, and more life-threatening problem.  It can manifest itself in various forms, from arteries to joints.  Consuming a highly processed carb diet has been linked to obesity, heart disease, cancer, stroke and a host of other autoimmune diseases.  So, buyer beware.

Don’t get me wrong, glucose (along with the other macronutrients) is necessary for survival.  As a matter of fact, your brain uses about 100 grams, on average, per day just to function.  You’ll need even more if you live an active lifestyle.  But here’s the rub, millions of Americans eat way more than 100 grams of sugar daily and do virtually nothing physically active (walking to the car or pressing the button on your remote don’t count).

Large food companies (Big Food) use three criteria to bring their products to market – taste, convenience, and price.  Believe it or not, seemingly harmless corn plays a central role in all of this.  Derivatives of corn can be found in almost every packaged and processed food on store shelves.  From the well known high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to lesser known maltodextrin, corn is the veritable chameleon of food ingredients.  Government corn subsidies allow these companies to manufacture food with corn derivatives (e.g. – highly processed carbs) below cost, thus bringing them to market at a desirable price point for many consumers.  But, what’s the hidden cost?

In addition to the myriad of health problems for adults, children seem to be the unknowing victims of this whole mess.  Predatory marketing and foods littered with almost every unhealthy food constituent imaginable has led to soaring rates of child diabetes, cholesterol and obesity.  When I was growing up playing actually meant engaging in physical activities like baseball, basketball, tag, swimming and the like.  These days powerful gaming consoles and computers have reduced all of that to “virtual activity”.  Crappy diets and lack of movement seek to afflict our children with a lifetime of diseases.  Some experts have projected that, unless things drastically change, this could be the first generation that doesn’t outlive their parents.  You can actually start to see this come to fruition with folks (average Joes/Janes and celebrities alike) dying in their 30s, 40s and 50s…way too early.  And those that don’t go that route, end up with a list of preventable medical problems, which forces them to become a lifetime customer of Big Food’s cousin, Big Pharma.

Are you starting to get the picture yet?

What Can You Do?

• Healthy food is your right.  Educate and empower yourself.  I hope to have a small (or large) part in that.
• Eat more vegetables, and be creative.  Colors are important in nature, the same is true with vegetables.  So, mix it up.
• Support farmers and restaurants that absorb higher costs for more wholesome food options.
• Buy local and organic.
• Drink more water.  Don’t worry about reverse osmosis or filtered or whatever at this point (unless you’re so inclined).  Even tap water is better than soda.
• Move something.  Shake something.  Lift something.  Do something.
• If you eat meat, look for free-range, hormone and antibiotic-free choices.  Ask for wild fish…avoid farm raised fish, if possible.
• Eat smaller portions.  Food either goes to waste or to your waist.
• Set a healthy example for your kids.
• Write/call your local politicians and demand legislation that puts the onus on multinational companies to bring higher quality food to market.  Make them step their game up. Change WILL come…it’s the essence of free markets and democracy.  There is strength  numbers.

Health is a pay now or pay later game.  Healthier food choices will cost a little more, but the potential trade-off is a vibrant, healthy life, free from the shackles and crushing debt caused by being a life-long customer of pharma cartels, hospitals and insurance companies.

Food can be your medicine or your poison, you decide.

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NYTimes.com recently posted an article about sugar’s (cane and beet) overtaking of Big Food’s beloved high-fructose corn syrup in popular food items.  In the article, a market research analyst was quoted as saying “Sugar was the old devil, and high-fructose corn syrup is the new devil.”  According to the Dept. of Agriculture, consumption of the two was even in 2003, but sugar gained a slight edge in 2007.

Multi-national food companies like Pizza Hut and Kraft have started replacing the oft-vilified HFCS with sugar.  This should come as no surprise, but taste tests, consumer surveys, and potential profit margins always seem to trump consumer health.  Even the FDA considers both sweeteners natural, which I find disturbingly interesting given the chemical processes that HFCS goes through to bring it to market.

No one really knows the exact origins of sugar, but thousands of years ago, people used to chew the sugar cane stalk in order to extract the sugary liquid.  Many years later, the process that transforms this liquid into crystals was discovered in India.  And many years after that, other civilizations took this process and learned how to mass-produce it by creating the first large-scale sugar mills and refineries.

The process that produces high-fructose corn syrup was discovered in the early 1920s and assimilated into many processed foods and beverages in the 1970′s.  As the name suggests, this sweetner is derived from corn.  There are several chemical processes that occur to get it to its sweetened state.  Food manufacturers began substituting sugar with HFCS because it’s cheaper to produce and transport.

Health Implications

The real question, however, is if there is any real difference between the two, from a health perspective?  The short answer is a resounding no.  They are both high-glycemic carbs and the way your liver metabolizes them is virtually the same.  They also cause a spike in blood sugar and insulin, with the excess sugar stored as fat.  Much of it could theoretically be burned during exercise, but with today’s sedentary lifestyle so pervasive, that isn’t the case.  And more importantly,  high carb diets and excessive insulin levels have been implicated in being central to the body’s inflammatory response, which can lead to problems like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and joint pain…among others.

You’ll find sugar/hfcs in foods like sauces, snacks, dressings, candy, desserts, cereals, some “low-fat” products as well as beverages like juices and sodas.

I’m not naive enough to think that one can totally avoid sugar, so they key is moderation as I often preach to my clients, family and friends.  And, artificial sweeteners are even worse.  Dr. Mercola’s site (search: artificial sweeteners) has a plethora of information on artificial sweeteners as well as a very good book, named “Sweet Deception,” on the subject.

Natural Alternatives

But, if you do have the discipline, means and access to avoid sugary foods, you may begin to wonder: what are some natural alternatives?  Sweeteners like xylitol, agave nectar, and stevia are gaining popularity because they don’t affect the blood sugar the way processed sugar does.  I’ve never really had a sweet-tooth or cravings for sugar in general (aside from an occasional carrot cake slice), but I’ve personally tried these in tea and they all have distinct tastes, so experiment to find out which ones you like.  Other alternatives like rice syrup, date sugar, and maple syrup are used by some folks as well.

Regardless of which sweetener you pick, the take home message is moderating your consumption of anything sweet.  Being judicious with or eliminating your intake sugary foods will help control insulin spikes and the subsequent, inflammatory health issues that can result after long-term use.

In the NYTimes.com article, Dr. Robert H. Lustig (a pediatric endocrinologist) says: “The argument about which is better for you, sucrose or HFCS, is garbage. Both are equally bad for your health.”  The truth is so sweet.  I’m impressed that an allopathic physician has taken this stance.  Do your health a favor, and drastically limit (or if you can, avoid) both of these sweeteners.

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