Super Food: Ginger

The benefits of ginger are overlooked in Western world largely I think because we often see ginger served with Japanese food, and Americans tend to equate anything resembling an Asian herbal remedy to a mysterious kung fu wizard with a 3 foot goatee and a green tea fetish.  HAI!

Researchers have started studying ginger and through the scientific method have started to climb on board with 4,000 years of ancient Asian white rice samurai magic. It turns out; ginger is good for more than just cleansing the palate after spicy tuna rolls.

Ginger is highly recommended for nausea (I have been supplied many a candied ginger pill while racing as nausea is a common side effect of distance running), reportedly because elements of ginger aid in “gastrointestinal transport”. For this reason ginger is recommended to pregnant women and people subject to motion sickness.

Ginger has also been shown to reduce the instance of certain kinds of cancer and aid in the treatment of other devastating illnesses. Ginger is an antioxidant and contains what scientists have defined as 6-gingerol which reduces the depletion of naturally produced antioxidants in the body and inhibits production of nitrous oxide (a harmful free radical). Diabetic rats given ginger supplements have been shown to have higher levels of antioxidants and have reduced nephropathy compared to control groups. Scientists suspect that the ginger is helpful in treating this disease because it aids in blood vessel balance. Some cancer patients may have a call to be optimistic, as ginger has been shown to kill ovarian cancer cells, and slow the growth of colon cancer.

Ginger is used sometime to control inflammation and act as a pain killer for cramping, arthritis migraines, even heart burn. Ginger has been shown to relieve pain in some arthritis patients when all other forms of pain killers failed. Ginger has even been shown to thin the blood and lower cholesterol, aiding in the prevention of heart disease.

The beauty of Ginger is that it is common in most markets, cheap, keeps for a while in the fridge, is safe to take in large doses, and not many people are allergic to it. So eat up, put it in your soups and in your salads. Bake it with your chicken and soak it in your soup. For a simple fix, soak a few slices in hot water & throw in some lime, brown sugar and honey for a delicious tea. Zest up your lemonade, make your own salad dressing or sauté it with your vegetables. Ginger is just another example of why it is important to have a varied diet full of a variety of fruits, vegetables and tubers and I have made an active effort to always have some in the house.

Next Time on Popular Excuses:  Is it OK to blame Fast Food?
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Reading List
10 Benefits of Ginger (with links to other articles)
NY Times article on Ginger & Cancer
Worlds Healthiest Foods - Ginger
Wiki on Ginger
Ginger Recipe - grouprecipes.com: Ginger Honey Dressing
Ginger Tea Recipe

It's Ok - It's a Fried VEGETABLE!

Sure – frying food adds extra calories and some extra fat to your diet, but so do raw almonds and olive oil. What’s the big deal?

The short answer is this: Humans evolved to be eaters of mostly vegetables, fruits, nuts and some meat. The human body doesn’t need the amount of fat consumed when you eat fried food and moreover doesn’t know you live in the 21st century so it thinks you are desperate to eat any food you can get your hands on. The brain wants you to eat sugar fat and salt until you are sick and will make you crave as much of it as you can eat.

It is for this reason I believe fried food is the cornerstone of the obesity problem in America – second only to sugar and followed closely by a sedentary lifestyle.

But there is another possibly better answer to why fried food is so bad for you.

People describe fats as falling into two groups “good fats” and “bad fats”. Good fats are the mono and poly unsaturated fats like Omega 3 and Omega 6. Good fats have a molecule chain that is flexible and provides building blocks for your body that allow for the best cell membrane composition, allowing for optimum containment of nutrients in the cell. The American heart association suggests 25% - 35% of your daily calorie consumption come from these types of fats. A few generations ago when obesity was 2/3 of what it is today and less than 1% of the population had type II diabetes consumption of fat as a percent of calories was closer to 45%.

Bad fats are saturated and trans fats. For the most part saturated fat comes from animal products. Saturated fat is created in the body so it does not need to be consumed (which is why it’s considered bad), and the rule of thumb is that no more than 7% of the calories in your diet should come from saturated fat. So a 2,000 calorie diet should have about 15 grams of saturated fat. For reference, one tablespoon of butter has 100 calories, but 7 grams of saturated fat.

Trans Fats are in a class by themselves, and it is the trans fats that in my opinion are the REALLY bad fats. There are a few naturally occurring trans fats, but the vast majority comes from man made partially hydrogenated oils. Partially hydrogenated oils are so pervasive you probably have no idea how much of them you are eating unless you are vigilant about checking ingredient lists. The FDA suggests 1% of your diet comes from trans fats, but I would suggest that anytime you eat food where the nutrition is listed on the box it came in, make sure it has NO added trans fats. Even a small increase of trans fats in your diet can greatly increase your risk of heart disease.

Trans fats are called so because of the layout of their carbon and hydrogen molecules. Without getting too much into the chemistry, trans fats are created when you expose oils to very high heat in the presence of hydrogen; a process which causes the fat to solidify. The solidification process adds a hydrogen atom to the fat molecule which creates a stiff fat structure. It is this stiff structure which makes trans fats bad because they clog your arteries and cause heart problems. The rigid structure is also a terrible building block for cell membranes and allows vital nutrients to pass through your cells.

Trans Fats were originally marketed as a health alternative because trans fats aren’t saturated. But I think the real reason trans fats are so popular is because the food industry loves them; trans fats are cheap (they're almost always made from corn or soybean oil), it's easy to transport and it almost never goes bad. Think about it, Crisco doesn’t melt and slosh all over the place and when was the last time your shortening spoiled?

Trans Fats also affect your cholesterol in the worst way possible. Cholesterol comes in two forms LDL - bad, and HDL - good. The LDL is bad because it clogs up the arteries, and HDL is good because much like a cleaning crew it travels through the body gathering up LDL and depositing it back into the liver where it can be properly disposed of. It is easier to lower your bad cholesterol by eating more good cholesterol than it is to simply cut out bad cholesterol.  Good cholesterol is an essential part of your diet.

With that information in mind, here is a quick fat comparison:

Good fats: raise good cholesterol and lower bad cholesterol.
Saturated fats: will raise both the good and bad cholesterol.
Trans fats: lower good cholesterol and raise bad cholesterol It is this way that trans fats are a double whammy and the worst possible combination for maintaining vascular health.

Even local governments and the food industry have picked up on how bad trans fats are for you. Within the past few years both New York and California have passed bans on restaurants using artificial trans fats to cook.  Labeling on food as being trans fat free is becoming so commonplace, the FDA actually cracked down on foods advertising no trans fats as being misleading to customers who then think the so labeled products are also low in fat.  And of course, some trans fat free labeling is just absurd.

Yes, let us THINK ABOUT IT!

Avoid all partially hydrogenated oils – opt to go hungry instead of eating them. Go through your freezer and your pantry and throw all of them away – don’t think about it – just do it – do it today. There is no room for partially hydrogenated oils in your life because the bottom line is

THEY’RE KILLING YOU.

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Next time on Popular Excuses: Superfood: Ginger
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Reading List:
http://www.bantransfats.com/
Ban on Trans Fats MSNBC
http://www.fda.gov/
Harvard School of Public Health
The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods, Fats p. 81-95

Our Juice has Antioxidants!

Being a health minded shopper, almost every packaged food that actually makes it into my cart has some sort of health claim on it. Low Fat! Rich in Omega-3! All Natural! Organic! and the topic of today’s article: High in Antioxidants!

My husband asked me the other day what Antioxidants did – and though I know that they are good for me, I had no idea why. I looked online and found lots of articles on good sources of antioxidants, but only WebMD had a comprehensive article on what purpose antioxidants actually served. The following description relies heavily on that article.

Everything organic has cells, and those cells are subject to oxidation when exposed to oxygen. This natural and healthy process breaks down cells, and the body uses the food one eats as the building blocks to rebuild those cells. This rebuilding process is the reason eating right is crucial to your health – you quite literally are what you eat.

Through the process of oxidation, 1% - 2% of the cells don’t die, but the DNA in the cell becomes mutated, thus creating a free radical. Free radicals float along in your body and can attach to other cells which can cause those other cells in your body to reproduce improperly and without restrain. This is where disease begins, including devastating diseases like heart disease and cancer.

Now the antioxidants come in. Antioxidants can be consumed and are created in the body. Antioxidants capture the free radicals and prevent them from producing damaging cells throughout the body.  Some work by stopping the replication process from continuing.

While there are many sources of antioxidants, most humans are also in daily situations which generate free radicals, including exposure to pollution, smoking, asbestos – even the sun. Because the body is exposed to all of these toxins at a much higher rate than humans had evolved to handle, antioxidant consumption is a crucial part of your diet.




Some great sources of antioxidants:
Red Beans
Blueberries
Cranberries
Artichokes
Strawberries
Walnuts
Cloves
Potatoes
Red Peppers
Broccoli

This brings me to a point I’ve made several times in past which is that variety in your diet is extremely important. Vitamin C and Vitamin E are both antioxidants, but they work differently – C prevents free radicals from being a threat and E interrupting their reproduction and protects cell membranes. Additionally, because it is so easy to work antioxidants into your diet, there is absolutely no reason to turn to fattening juices or dried fruit to consume them. In fact, you can have a meal completely devoid of fruit and still consume some of the best sources of antioxidant on the planet.  Still Curious about Flavonoids? I will write on it soon, I promise!
­­­­­­­­­Jeffrey Blumburg, PhD professor of nutrition at Tufts University explains it best:

“We can’t rely on a few blockbusters to do the job. You can’t eat nine servings of broccoli a day and expect it to do it all. We need to eat many different foods. Each type works in different tissues of the body, in different parts of cells. Some are good at quenching some free radicals, some are better at quenching others. When you have appropriate amounts of different antioxidants, you’re doing what you can to protect yourself.”

I guess when it comes to antioxidants; Variety is the spice of living!

Next Time on Popular Excuses: Yeah they’re fried, but they’re still veggies – what is so bad about that?!?
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Reading List
seniorjournal.com - best sources of Antioxidants
webmd.com article

Semper Fidelis Milkshake

Listening to NPR the other morning I was officially horrified.

Over 25% Americans in their late teens and early twenties are now so overweight, they have been deemed to fat to fight as members of the armed services. Too fat to join the army. The weight limit for girls is 241. For men 259. Additionally body fat percentage limit for women 36% men 30%. Twenty-seven percent of teens are over this threshold.

This should be shocking to you, especially since only 15 years ago the percent of teens who fell over this threshold was 12%. Moreover 1,200 persons a year are already members of the armed services are now being discharged because they can’t maintain this fitness standard (an expensive issue). So, coupled with other issues like lack of high school education and drug use or criminal records only 1 in 4 teens are eligible to enlist and stay enlisted.

The problem, not mentioned in the report, is worse still among minorities. Minority teens who want to take advantage of the educational opportunities of the military (including college and graduate programs like law school and professional military careers) are now not able. Great, now our youth is getting fatter, less disciplined and dumber.

You might be asking: Shouldn’t 18 year olds be responsible for their own weight problems. Don’t they have no one to blame but themselves if they can’t drop the weight to joined the armed forces and take advantage of the opportunities there?

No.  Not in my opinion.

I’m all for personal responsibility and I expect it from older individuals, but the fact is 80% of obese children end up being obese adults and it is no mystery to me why. Do we expect young children who are stuffed full of 700 - 1000 more calories a day than they need from the age of toddler to young teen suddenly divert from the diets ingrained in them their whole lives and embrace eating habits with fruits and veggies half the calories NONE of the trans fats, one quarter of the high fructose corn syrup and half the salt? Most adults can’t do that, how do we expect teenagers to be able to?

Get the fried meat and pizza out of the schools (and homes), ditch the chocolate and strawberry milk and teach kids that eating healthy isn’t an option - it’s a necessity. I know sugar drinks and breaded food tastes better than the healthy options, but it shouldn’t be up to kids to be able to choose junk food as a meal on a regular basis because it's not only holding them back IT’S KILLING THEM.

DAMN this topic gets me angry.

Click Here for the Army Weight Calculator

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Next Time on Popular Excuses: By request - Antioxidants
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Reading List
NPR Article: Too Fat To Fight
“Food, Inc.” by Karl Weber - Article “Childhood Obesity” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation p.259
CNN Blog: Are Fat Soldiers a National Security Threat

Super Food: Vitamin C

I grew up hearing lots of old wives tales and superstition about Vitamin C so it was difficult for me to write this entry. Difficult because everything I read in my research enforced what I had been told about Vitamin C as a child. I thought I was going to go digging and find that everything I thought I knew about Vitamin C was a joke and that dietary supplements are about as useful as a magnetic bracelet, but apparently – the old wives were right.

Vitamin C, (or Ascorbic Acid) is a kick-ass vitamin, and you need it in your diet every day.

Vitamin C aids in collagen structures and therefore is good for the skin and cellular health including wound healing and ocular health. Since it is an anti-oxidant it is said to help the body remove the free radicles that cause cancer from outside toxins including cigarette smoke.  Vitamin C is even shown to reduce the risk of stroke in some studies. During sickness and stress the levels of Vitamin C in white blood cells is depleted, which is why your mother always gave you orange juice when you got sick as a child.  I wouldn't recommend juice, but if you get sick, avoid further complications (like pneumonia) by loading up on your Ascorbic Acid intake!

I imagine our hunter gather ancestors had their fill of Vitamin C because high amounts of it can be easily incorporated into a diet high in vegetables. Check out these common fruits and veggies and how high in Vitamin C (given their low calorie content) they are.

Spinach 51 mg (20 calories a cup)
Red Pepper 190 mg (50 calories a piece)
Kale 186 mg
Broccoli 113 mg
Parsley 9mg (2 tablespoons)
Green Peas 27 mg
Tomatoes 23 mg (60 calories a piece)
Strawberries 59 mg (100 calories a cup)
Carrots (raw) 9 mg (surprisingly low - but still healthy)

Delicious!

Other foods that contain Vitamin C: famously; limes but also garlic, blueberries, cabbage, apricots, shiitake mushrooms, avocado, corn, yam... the list goes on

Some words of warning: Vitamin C is destroyed when exposed to air, so if you cut up oranges for your kids, beware that about 40% of the Vitamin C is gone by the time they go for them at lunch. If you are a Whole Foods salad bar person, understand that the early morning slicing of the fruits and veggies they set out for you greatly reduces your Ascorbic Acid intake by the time you get there for your late 2:00 lunch. If you eat too much Vitamin C you are likely to get some pretty severe cramps. Vitamin C needs vary greatly from person to person, so you’ll have to use some self analysis to see how much is too much. The rule of thumb is 1500 to 2000 mg a day, but the RDA is much lower than that, closer to 60 mg a day.

So - enjoy your Vitamin C (but please without the juice).

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Next Time on Popular Excues:  Too Fat to Fight
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Reading List:
"Healing Foods" Michael Murry N.D p. 112
WHFoods: Vitamin C
VitaminCfoundation.org/
Web MD Vitamin C

Farm Fresh to You

Recently, I was introduced to a magnificent service provided by Farm Fresh to You; a California based co-op of farmers who deliver to your door your choice of seasonal, organic and locally grown produce.  Awesome.

At first I was skeptical, but what sold me most about the service was the variety (I feel obligated to eat food that I have paid for). I haven't written about this yet, but variety in your diet provides an important mix of vitamins and micronutrients which are essential in helping the body thrive. Variety is hard for me to incorporate into my daily diet and any chance I am forced to "mix it up" I go for it. Additionally there is no commitment, and I can cancel any individual order as long as I give two days notice. I can choose the size of my delivery (small, medium, large, extra large), I can choose a box of all fruits, all veggies, mixed fruits and veggies, "fast" mixed (fruits & veggies that can be eaten raw), I have a list of "no" items I wish to never receive . Finally, I can swap fruit for fruit, or veggies for veggies.

So far so good.

I signed up for the medium sized box of fruits and veggies delivered every other week. The cost is roughly $31 with delivery included the following:4 Navel Oranges, 2 Braeburn Apples, 2 Murcot Tangerines, 2 Minneola Tangelos ½ lb Strawberries, 1 Eureka Lemon, 1 lb Asparagus, 2.5 lb Cabbage 1 Red Chard, 1 Cauliflower, .5 lb Mixed Lettuce, 1 Green Leaf Lettuce, 1 Bunch Carrots, 2 Yellow Onion, 4 Small Potatoes

I received my first box of groceries a few days ago. This is what I saw when I opened my door Wednesday Morning:

Now – was it worth it?

Emotional Factor: My husband and I love eating what feels like fresh clean food. I feel good supporting California Farms, and it is nice to know that our food probably isn't touched by much more than 2 or 3 people (picker, packer, delivery man), rather than a supermarket full of grubby nose picking hands.

Food Review: Carrots are out of this world.They are sweet and crisp and clean. The apples were great also and the oranges were- according to my husband, better than the apples. I made a stew out of the potatoes and onions (it was hearty!) The rest of fruit and veggies will be sampled this coming weekend.

Cost Review: To compare the cost I went to Whole Foods market and priced out organic and locally grown produce. In order to come up with the price I weighed fruit of similar size and if food came in packages larger than what I was delivered, I divided the Whole Foods cost to come up with quantities that looked comparable (for example, the strawberry container was about 2x the size of what I was delivered, so I divided the cost of the strawberries in half). The result - at Whole Foods - for the same or similar product I would have paid: $30.84. Now - I wouldn’t usually buy organic lemons or tangelos, but if you ARE inclined to purchase those fruits and veggies locally and organically - Farm Fresh To You is almost a break even.

3rd party review aka Mom Review: "I was delighted as I unpacked my Farm Fresh box. Initially I was pleased to see that the size of the box was ample and, indeed, filled to the brim with a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. In addition to varieties that I am familiar with, there were a few vegetables that I wouldn’t have been inclined to purchase if I were shopping at the grocery store or farmer’s market. I will try to incorporate them into our dinner this week and if I find that we don’t enjoy them or that I avoid trying them, I know that I can have any particular fruit or veggie omitted in the future. Plus – it’s worth noting that the convenience of having this great selection of food arrive on my doorstep is a bonus!!"

My Conclusion: Farm Fresh to You is the embodiment of everything I believe about living a healthy lifestyle with a hectic schedule. The food is good and there is plenty of it.  These farmers are my people and having found them my joy knows no bounds.

To Contact & Order:

http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/

Phone: 800.796.6009

If you are inclined to order mention me: "Jessica Danger Bohn" – in Encino and I get some free stuff, I think.  If not, don't worry about it.

Use this code for $5 off your order: 6164

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Next Time On Popular Excuses:  Super Food - Vitamin C

Michelle Obama’s “Lets Move” Program

On the heels of an extremely controversial and potentially $1,000,000,000,000.00 dollar health care bill, I think it is important that First Lady Michelle Obama’s pet project is taking on childhood obesity.

Solving this problem may well save our country billions of dollars in health care costs the next 40 years if it is solved. She has started a program called “Lets Move” - and the program is filled with useful information and neat tricks to help parents help kids live a healthy lifestyle.

Childhood obesity is a tragedy, and my heart bleeds for children who are stuffed with addicting unhealthy food as a way to quiet them when they are being noisy, reward them when they do well, or the most egregious of errors, sustain them long tem because their parents can’t be bothered to microwave a $2 bag of broccoli. My heart also bleeds for parents who trust in food industry self regulation and deceiving labeling which make junk food seem like an important part of a child’s diet, and a suitable replacement for healthy natural food. I wonder how much of childhood obesity really is a result of parental wilful ignorance and how much of it is adults being fed the lies of processed food so heavily for the past 30 years it is truly unfair to expect them to “know better”.

Obesity is a real and quickly growing problem.  The following images are from the CDC illustrating obesity rates in America over the past 18 years.

The statistics on childhood obesity are staggering: In minority groups the childhood obesity rate is 50%. Really think about that - one half of children in minority groups are not just heavy or chubby, but obese - roughly 30 or more pounds overweight. And this weight problem is only going to get worse given the fact that minority groups are the ones most likely to have diets heavily laden with cheap worthless food found in convenience stores and fast food “restaurants”.

Consider this: a pound is roughly 3500 calories. If you increase your calorie intake by 100 calories a day, you’ll likely gain 10 lbs (365 days x 100 calories) in a year. A fast food burger has about 900 calories in it, and that is without the soda, fries or milkshake. Given the average American child needs about 1,200 - 1,800 calories a day (depending on gender, lifestyle and age), it is pretty easy to see how someone who has fast food as a cornerstone of their diet will often be way over their daily allotment, and will quickly pile on the weight. Not to mention the total lack of proper nutrition and high intake of saturated fat that comes with a fast food diet.

Obesity can lead to many dangerous conditions like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease but it wasn’t until I watched Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” (ABC 9 pm Friday) that I realized how dangerous obesity can be. The show profiled a family, all of whom were heavy, and focused on the 12 year old boy - easily 70 pounds overweight. The show accompanied him on a visit to a doctor who immediately saw physical signs of diabetes in the child. Diabetes, the doctor explained is dangerous not only because reduced quality of life but complications can cause loss of limbs and blindness and life expectancy is reduced by 30 to 40 years. Had this kid had diabetes (he did not, thankfully) he would have an expected life span of 40 years.

Hearing this story infuriated me. I’m not sure when the responsibility of one’s weight is shifted from the parent to the child, but certainly 12 is on the young side of that line. Furthermore, I’m not sure where the responsibility of healthy eating shifts from the food industry to the individual, but when I read Lucky Charm’s Boxes and Tostidos Chips boasting how much FDA recommended grain is in each serving, I think the line becomes increasingly difficult to draw.

Michelle Obama’s position is that this condition is killing our children, and it is so easily overcome, it is absurd we are struggling with it. I totally agree with our First Lady (and I have hired a landscaper to help me plant a vegetable garden in her honor). Obesity is a major contributor to diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and a whole host of other health problems that are expensive to the system and reduce the quality of life. The idea that half of the children in our minority population and 30% of the kids in our middle to upper class population will have these expensive problems should scare anybody paying attention much more than the added cost of our new health care system.

Here are some of the highlights of the Lets Move Program:

Healthy Choices - a support system for parents including extensive education and access to information about good quality foods. This includes a new food pyramid.

Healthy Schools - Better Food in schools, where children get most of their calories during the day

Physical Activity - Getting kids to get rigorous physical at least an hour a day, coupled with the NFL so kids can see some of their role models encouraging physical activity.

Healthy Food that is Affordable and Accessible - a government program helping to bring healthy affordable food to areas in the country without this access. Also, information on bringing Farmers Markets into neighborhoods. I am going to write more on this topic very soon!

Telling people the truth about their diets (hint: you aren’t eating nearly enough vegetables, and you don’t need to eat that bread) is a total uphill battle further complicated by the food industry’s advantage of billions of dollars in advertising, years of food industry propaganda, and tasty tasty sugar, fat and salt to combat you.

I wish First Lady Obama luck in her endeavors.
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Next Time on Popular Excuses: Farm Fresh To You - Fresh Veggies & Friut to delivered to my door!
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Reading List:
The CDC Site
Lets Move Program
Jamie Oliver's Site
Burger King Nutrition Facts