The Roasted Bean and the Person-Quantity

An astute reader brought to my attention the following news story:

Coffee is Leading Source of Antioxidants in U.S.

If that doesn't work for you, try:
Joe Gives Free Radicals a Jolt

Curious, (and excited because I love coffee) I dug up a few more words from the study's lead, Mr. Vinson himself:

"It's not that the antioxidant content of coffee is that high, but it's the one thing that so many of us do every day,"

Background: He and his group settled on about 100+ foods that Americans typically eat, calculated the antioxidant values of those foods, and projected those values onto, I believe, a person-quantity variable.

It's that person-quantity variable that muffles the meaning of this headline. A person-quantity is like a man-hour. If it takes 3 men 2 hours each to perform a task, then the task takes 3 times 2 or 6 man-hours. If 20 million Americans drink 16 ounces of coffee each day, then 20 million times 16 ounces is 320,000,000 person-ounces. That's quite a lot more person-ounces than say 1 million Americans who drink 6 ounces of red wine each day, even though red wine has at least as much antioxidant might as coffee.¹

So, you might have a fairly moderate antioxidant value, but if you multiply that by a fairly large person-quantity (lots of Americans who drink lots of coffee) you arrive at a downright flashy and misguided headline.

It reminds me of a study that made the rounds in my graduate years which found inner-city youth - whose diets were a wreck - somehow clocked in with potent vitamin C levels. Where were they getting all that vitamin C? Guess.² I guess a headline from that study could have read "(This) Provides More Vitamin C Than Any Other Food or Beverage in an Urban Youth's Diet." I quake to think what that might lead people to consume more of. (California quakes too.)

Mr. Vinson also said that his group discovered dates have the highest antioxidant value based on serving size, but "Americans just don't eat that many dates."

Or figs.

~~~~~~¹ Numbers [somewhat] fabricated. For explanation purposes only.
² Rhymes with "clench thighs".

Bucketfuls of Polyphenols

While researching tedious data on the fig, because I love doing that stuff, I found this table. Wow. I had no idea.

Polyphenols is a broad term encompassing lots of more specific plant chemicals (phytochemicals), including the flavonoids (e.g. quercetin), tannins (in tea and wine) and others known to have tremendous anti-cancer, anti-heart-disease, antioxidant, and, at least according to Pliny the Elder, wrinkle-smoothing abilities. So polyphenols is a bucket term, and boy do figs have bucketfuls!

The serving size listed in this table for figs (fresh, not dried) is 100 g., about 3 Calimyrna or 4 to 5 Black Mission figs, that's all - less than 100 calories.

Found in (pdf):
The Functional Food Properties of Figs

(The other surprise about this table was where barley ranked. Barley?)

Fig, Black Mission

"Figs are restorative. They increase the strength of young people,
preserve the elderly in better health and make them look younger
with fewer wrinkles."
- Pliny (52-113 AD)

I suspect the accolade of the fig is due to its laxative effect. But fewer wrinkles? Pass the figs, please.

Cantaloupe

I often eat while at my computer. There are walnut crumbs nestled between my keys, raisin essence stuck to my mouse, and a smear of watermelon juice across my screen. I've taken to stretching a piece of plastic wrap over my keyboard to prevent my keys from gumming up and sticking in the down position.



Right now I'm eating cantaloupe, that same cantaloupe you see up there. Mmmm, I got to say, this is one fine melon. So fine I ran its numbers too, out of curiosity. (See right for nutrients in one cup, cubed.)

If a 54 calorie serving can pack 108% of the DRI for vitamin A (mostly cancer-fighting carotenoids), and 98% for vitamin C, well count me as a cube consumer.

Sadly the Dietary Reference Intake for vitamin C is only 60 mg. So 98% of 60 mg. probably doesn't qualify as "packing". Still, Flintstones Chewables only offer 50 mg, and Centrum only 60 mg. I think I'll stick with a cup of cubed cantaloupe for my 60 mg., thank you. I'm not in the mood for FD&C blue #2, FD&C red #3, and FD&C yellow #6 at the moment.

Corn Numbers

All this corn talk had me curious about the numbers, so I ran them. One ear of white corn, about 6 3/4 to 7 1/2 inches long (Who knows how those sizes were calculated. I can only hope, being the data-lover I profess to be, that someone or something took lots of time to measure lots of ears of shucked white corn to arrive at a reproducible measure of central tendency, so it may be used as a guidepost in this dandy nutritional analysis program.), something between one-half and two-thirds cups of kernels, provides:



No real surprises there, except for the last three, all B vitamins. Apparently, corn supplies between 10% and 14% of the DRI (used to be RDA) for those nutrients. Not bad for around 100 calories - and from a food that isn't enriched, fortified, or otherwise chemically tinkered with, if you discount genetic engineering.

I took a look at yellow corn while I was at it. Nutritionally, it looks like white is similar to yellow, save for a little less carbohydrate (and calories), and vitamin A (provided by the pigment in the yellow variety). I'm guessing the bi-color cob falls somewhere in between. I shouldn't downplay this difference too much - that orange pigment, beta-cryptoxanthin, is a fairly strong antioxidant and has been found to reduce the risk of lung and colon cancers.

Oh well. Beta-cryptoxanthin be damned. Given a choice, I'd opt for the paler of the two.

I wonder what's more popular, the white or the yellow?

(I should have mentioned - beta-cryptoxanthin is fat soluble (as are lots of the pro-vitamin A pigments, e.g. beta-carotene) meaning it's best absorbed when there's a little fat in the belly when you eat it. I'm certainly not defending a butter-slathering ritual, but, well, there you have it.)

Corn on the Cob

It's summer, baby.



Ingredients

Corn on the cob

~~~~~~
1   Shuck corn

2   Boil a lot of water.

3   Drop corn cobs into boiling water. Retrieve after three minutes.

4   Serve hot with a rub of butter and a sprinkle of salt, maybe pepper.

Enjoy!

Plumping Their Bottom [Line]

Well, I'll be. Paul Krugman, Op-Ed writer for the New York Times (not pictured), has my same gripe. Big business doesn't give a damn about your adipose tissue. They care more about plumping their bottom line, and if that results in your plump bottom, so be it.

He demonizes groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom - the one I refer to in my Super Nonfoods post, the group that claims obesity in America isn't a problem, nor a threat, certainly not an epidemic, in fact not even an issue - for subsidizing this plumping, and for their careless lack of regard for those who may be harmed in the process.

What kind of group stalls passage of bills that would require schools to offer healthier foods? Tell me. At least adults are in a position to make choices about their health, but 10-year-olds? Kids stuck in school cafeterias? That's dastardly.

Mr. Krugman condenses his argument splendidly:

"The debate over obesity, it turns out, is a lot like the debate over global warming. In both cases, major companies protect their profits not only by lobbying against policies they don't like, but also by financing advocacy groups devoted to debunking research whose conclusions they don't like."

Read his "Girth of a Nation" here.

ConsumerFreedom.com did not take his assessment sitting down. They (in the person of Paul Campos) publicly criticized Mr. Krugman's:

"... remarkably naive analysis of the economic factors driving arguments about weight and health."

Arguing that he:

"... ignores the fact that many scholars with no connection to the food industry dispute the claim that increasing weight represents a serious health problem."

Read ConsumerFreedom.com's rebuttal, "Campos Lectures NY Times' Krugman On Obesity" here.

What side are you on? Do you believe that America's weight gain does no harm - the claim of pro-obesity forces, as described by Mr. Krugman? Or do you think the glut of Super Nonfoods is wrecking havoc with America's health? I guess the side I take is evident.