Astrogirl » trans-fatty acids

Time to Clean it Up

Nicole — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:04:08 +0000

We were in St. Louis for a month (returned late last night), and during that time, I gained some weight. I did work out quite a lot, so I’m sure it wasn’t all fat, some of it undoubtedly was. I have a lot of signs of inflammation, my digestion is messed up, and I’m just not feeling tip-top.

The problem is that these trips tend to involve a lot of drinking, social activity and a lot of eating out. This means my self-control goes out the window, and I wind up eating things I shouldn’t. Having gluten intolerance cuts way down on an entire class of low-quality neolithic foods, but my diet was still pretty lousy. I also had gluten-free pizza twice (I made it myself), and I used up a loaf of gluten-free bread in the month I was there. It’s the best gluten-free bread I’ve ever bought in a store (Glutino), but it’s still not so awesome that I can’t avoid it in the future.

In short: I’ve been eating crappy food, drinking too much booze, and I have not been sleeping enough. The sleep is easier to fix, and that should take about a week. The drinking is easy to fix because I can just stop drinking. Pulling certain foods back out of my diet…that’s always a bit harder. Basically, I’m leaning a lot more paleo/primal than I have been for the last month.

Here’s the list that needs to get the axe:

Corn – This eliminates virtually every commercial gluten-free cracker and bread. Disallowing the oil means that I probably can’t eat anything deep-fried outside the house since corn oil is in almost every single fryer on earth. This makes it really easy to eliminate the next thing.
White Potatoes – I’m not sure they actually are a problem in and of themselves, I know that I can’t seem to draw the line and just eat a little bit of french fries. The fries are, of course, all fried in mostly lousy fats, and many contain trans-fats, so it’s best to just not eat them.
Legumes – Needless to say, this one is very hard to avoid in the wild because there’s soy in seemingly everything. I don’t eat a lot of it, but I have some tofu shirataki noodles to use up first, then I’ll cut it. I’ve only been eating soy sauce for a couple of months after not eating it for a very long time, so that won’t be too hard to drop. Virtually all soy sauce that I encounter in restaurants contains wheat, so it was only something I ate at home anyway.
Dairy of certain types – UHT Pasteurized, anything with vegetable gums or preservatives, cheese or dairy that I know or suspect is not 100% real (think American cheese, for instance). If it could have junk in it, I shouldn’t eat it. I plan to stick mostly to my raw milk share, and I’ll eat some of that as yogurt. I’m sure I’ll eat cheese at home.
Nuts and seeds that are high in polyunsaturated fats (and their oils) – This one is controversial with a lot of people because, well, a lot of literature says that these oils are very healthy. I’m sticking to macadamias and cashews anyway. Yes, I know that some paleo types think we shouldn’t eat cashews, but they are mostly monounsaturated fats, and I don’t agree with the reasoning anyway. Cutting nuts out of my diet is hard for me, and my goal really is to cut the polyunsaturated fat content in my diet rather than to stick to someone else’s rules. Avocados and olives are fruit, so they and their oils can stay (and are mostly monounsaturated), though I don’t really eat avocado oil. Peanuts are a legume, and are possibly the worst offender when it comes to overloading oneself with Omega-6.
The rest of the grains (rice, millet, etc) and pseudo grains (like quinoa and buckwheat) – I don’t seem to have problems with them, however, so I’m not in a big hurry there. I don’t eat that much of these anyway.

Already axed are gluten-y grains – Wheat, Rye, Barley, Spelt, Triticale. Can’t digest them, don’t eat them anyway. As I look over this list, the bad stuff I’ve been eating is all fried potatoes. Not entirely, but mostly.

Tomorrow, I will have to do some shopping. I was able to produce lunch and dinner out of what I had on hand, and I can definitely make breakfast tomorrow…but then things start to get a bit more grim. On the bright side, the fridge was so empty that I could see how badly the glass shelves and the produce drawer needed cleaned, so now that’s done.

Follow Up On Saturated Fats

Nicole — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:24:30 +0000

One of the blogs I read regularly has a nice summary of studies related to saturated fat and health.

You’ll find it here: The Dirty Little Secret Of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis

Zero Calorie Sweeteners

Nicole — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:33:51 +0000

I am suspicious of all zero calorie sweeteners, even stevia. I think they promote an endless cycle of sugar cravings in a lot of people, but what it really boils down to is this:

This is from a margarine commercial well-known to those in my age group. We can see where telling everyone to eat margarine got us, so I’m not going into the trans-fat travesty here.

I think most of us have heard that aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet) is bad stuff. Some doctors even claim it’s inappropriate for diabetics because it messes with blood sugar, but mostly, we hear about it being bad for our brains or causing cancer or whatever. Most of the websites talking about this seem a bit nutty, but there was talk in the summer that the FDA might ban it.

There are also studies that show sucralose (Splenda) might be bad for you, and I’m sure we all remember the very public saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet N Low) scare.

Agave nectar is NOT a zero calorie sweetener. Some people seem to have the idea that it’s magical stuff. The only actual claim made is that it’s lower on the glycemic index than other sugars, but it has the same caloric value as honey (about 60 per Tablespoon). Agave nectar is mostly fructose, which is why it’s supposedly better for diabetics (and thus it’s G.I. rating). My guess is that most people who are so into agave nectar would not buy “artificial” diabetic products, many of which are sweetened with refined fructose. Agave nectar IS refined fructose.

Anyway, moving on.

You’ve probably only heard great things about stevia because, like agave nectar, it’s billed as “all natural.” I’m not going to refute that claim since I don’t have issues with it. I do have issues with it’s effects, and I happen to think its taste leaves a lot to be desired. Taste is hard to refute, but I don’t think this is:

An intra-arterial catheter was inserted into the rats after 5 weeks, and conscious rats were subjected to arterial glucose tolerance test (2.0 g kg 1) during week 6. Stevioside had an antihyperglycemic effect (incremental area under the glucose response curve [IAUC]): 985 20 (stevioside) versus 1,575 21 (control) mmol/L 180 minutes, (P less than .05), it enhanced the first-phase insulin response (IAUC: 343 33 [stevioside] v 136 24 [control] U/mL insulin 30 minutes, P < .05) and concomitantly suppressed the glucagon levels (total AUC: 2,026 234 [stevioside] v 3,535 282 [control] pg/mL 180 minutes, P < .05).

It causes a release of insulin. This is a drug-like effect. If you’re not consuming sugar – let’s say you’re sweetening your black coffee with stevia – do you really want insulin released? Is that I good idea? I sure would not want to use this in green tea or coffee if I’m trying to, say, do an intermittent fast. It also may lower blood pressure, which may also not be a good thing.

The moral of the story here is that There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. You’ll pay for it one way or another, and the best thing to do is to get used to the actual taste of foods. If it’s Christmas, your birthday or Thanksgiving and you’re not a diabetic who will have serious problems from ingesting sugar, just eat the real thing. If you really want a soda, just have the real item. High-fructose corn syrup is more natural than any of the artificial sweeteners, and studies keep popping up that diet soda does NOT help people lose weight or stay thin anyway.

Along with colleague Ken Williams and principal investigator Michael Stern, M.D., Fowler examined the association between consumption of diet and regular soft drinks and weight gain in 622 non-overweight adults. The researchers measured each participant’s Body Mass Index (BMI) and individual soft drink consumption at the beginning of the study, and the participants returned for follow-up measurements seven or eight years later.

After adjusting for age, gender and ethnicity, the investigators found that regular soft drinks were not significantly associated with the development of obesity, but diet soft drinks were.

“Preliminary analysis of the data showed that for every can or bottle of diet soda that a normal weight person drank per day, there was a 65 percent increase in the risk of becoming overweight and a 41 percent increase in the risk of becoming obese for every can or bottle consumed,” Fowler noted.

If none of that suits, there’s always fruit. A ripe bananas is very sweet, and it’s always in season at the grocery store. If you really need a sugar hit, raisins, dates and dried figs all contain a lot of tasty, tasty sugar in the form mother nature intended.