Carrageenan, Its Use Doesn't Gel

I've been tempted to buy soymilk again. 'Tis the season of eggnog, hot chocolate, and warm spiced chais ... since dairy milk doesn't mesh with a Bix constitution, soymilk proved a great alternative. It's also convenient. While I've had success with homemade cashew and almond milks, they're not always at the ready. Thanks to Dean Foods, the largest dairy distributor and processor in the world, and owner of the ubiquitous Silk Soymilk, I could easily pick up a quart of this stuff while shopping.

But I don't do the soy anymore...

The day I read the American Heart Association's grim review of soy protein and soy isoflavones (a review I've summarized in the bulleted list at the bottom of this post) was the day I hung up the soymilk.

There's a third reason why I won't buy Silk Soymilk (besides its health risks, and patronage of a company - Dean Foods - whose business is factory farming): carrageenan.

What is carrageenan?

Carrageenan is a food additive. It's used as a thickener, or "texturizer". It's extracted from certain types of marine algae or seaweed, which gives the impression that food containing it is "all natural". Unfortunately, it produces a response in animals' gastrointestinal tracts that is anything but natural.

An intensive and very persuasive review of 45 studies of carrageenan was published in the government-funded journal Environmental Health Prospectives (EHP) in October, 2001:¹

Review of Harmful Gastrointestinal Effects of Carrageenan in Animal Experiments

The author, Dr. Joanne Tobacman, concludes:

"There seems to be enough evidence associating carrageenan with significant gastrointestinal lesions, including malignancies, to avoid ingesting it."
- Tobacman, Carrageenan May Cause Stomach Lesions, Cancer

Apparently there was enough evidence that in 1972 the FDA considered restricting its use in food. No restriction came to pass. In 1979 they indicated a regulation was in the works. No regulation ensued.

Carrageenan is languishing on the FDA's GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) list. Probably the only reason it's there is via trust that manufacturers will use a heavier-weight version of carrageenan, one thought to be less toxic. It is this distinction - high molecular weight (undegraded) carrageenan vs. the known-to-be-harmful low molecular weight (degraded) carrageenan - that was intended, among other things, to be spelled out in the 1970's regulation ... the one that never materialized.

Thanks to Tobacman and the research she meticulously nitpicked, we now know this distinction may be pointless:

"Bacterial action, stomach acid, and food preparation may lead to degraded carrageenan by transforming the higher molecular weight form of the gum into the lower molecular weight form."
- Tobacman, Carrageenan May Cause Stomach Lesions, Cancer

Let's Talk Amounts

Below is a Table from Tobacman's Review. It lists carrageenan content in a few popular foods. I wish soy milk had been included.


Click for larger.
Take a look at the percent carrageenan in frosting mix (3% to 4%). Remember that figure. When guinea pigs were given 2% degraded carrageenan for 20-30 days, all of them developed ulcerations in their colon, and 75% of them developed >200 ulcers! When given a 1% undegraded solution, 80% developed ulcerations. They went as low as 0.1% and still routinely produced ulcers in these animals.

That's just a guinea pig, you say? In fact, mice, rats, ferrets, rabbits, and monkeys all developed ulcerations (rats were most susceptible to cancers) when fed carrageenan. Those are just animals, you say? Tobacman conducted her own studies on human breast tissue, with foreboding results:

"At concentrations as low as 0.00014% ... carrageenan was associated with [mammary] cell death. ... The destruction of these cells in tissue culture by a low concentration of a widely used food additive suggests a dietary mechanism for mammary carcinogenesis not considered previously."
- Filament Disassembly and Loss of Mammary Myoepithelial Cells after Exposure to alpha-Carrageenan

Just last month (November 2006), Tobacman et al. published results of a study on human intestinal cells:

"These results show, for the first time, that exposure of human intestinal epithelial cells to carrageenan triggers a distinct inflammatory [reaction]."
- Carrageenan Induces Interleukin-8 Production through Distinct Bcl10 Pathway in Normal Human Colonic Epithelial Cells

Ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, and possible cancers of the colon, breast, and prostate. No, thank you. I'm not that enamored of Silk Soymilk or any other carrageenan-containing food to risk these ailments. It's not as if manufacturers have no options. Locust bean, guar, and xanthan gums provide similar thickening traits as carrageenan without the risks.

I guess it's back to my nut milks ... 2006, the year of the nut.

________¹ The EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. I say this because I like to believe there's some entity that's not in the business of being in business. I'm not so dewy-eyed to think my beliefs apply to a division of the US government, but at least the NIH can be a little more objective than, say, Dean Foods.

Photo of Irish moss, a type of red algae used to extract carrageenan, by Richard Aumonier, a sculptor based in London.
________

Recycled Livestock, Recycled Safety Label

I see. If you're going to be growing the same animal, why bother creating a new label for it:

FDA: No Safety Labels Needed on Cloned Food

There are people who make their food decisions based on factors other than food safety. Why not give them a label? It's the considerate thing to do. I mean, what harm is there in a label? Especially given the number of folks who say they're uncomfortable with animal cloning:


The FDA is due to make their no-label-needed announcement today. If you'd like to tell them how you feel about it, it's easy. Just visit the FDA's "Dockets Open for Comment" site and select "Submit Comment" next to the subject of interest. (You may need to click the "Sort" button above "Published Date" until you see the date 12/28/06.)
________
Chart source: Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, Public Sentiment About Genetically Modified Food (pdf), 2006.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Someone drizzled chocolate on them while my back was turned.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies. I've included a cookie-for-cookie comparison to traditional oatmeal raisin cookies (Quaker's recipe). Differences are primarily a result of decreasing butter and replacing some with oil, decreasing sugar, and replacing all-purpose white flour with whole wheat flour.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups rolled oats, not quick-cooking
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
pinch ground cloves (optional)
pinch ground ginger (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter, soft or at room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup raisins
________
1   Preheat oven to 335°F.

Note: That temperature has a lot of trial and error behind it. Unfortunately, all ovens are different. You may need to bake a few test cookies to determine your optimum temperature.

2   Mix together dry ingredients: oats, flour, spices, baking soda and powder, salt. Set aside.

3   Cream butter with sugar until fluffy and homogenous. Whisk in oil, honey, egg, and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients and raisins for about a minute or just until no dry flour is evident. Refrigerate for 15-20 minutes.

Note: I used a refined almond oil which contributes little flavor of its own. Unrefined oils, especially peanut oil, will lend a unique flavor - not that there's anything wrong with that. The oil replaces some of the butter in this recipe to reduce saturated fat. But let's face it, a cookie is a cookie.

4   Use about 1 rounded tablespoon of batter for each cookie. Drop dough loosely onto cookie sheet leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove immediately from pan with a spatula and place carefully onto a flat surface. After about 5 minutes or when sturdy enough to move, transfer to a wire rack for cooling.

Note: Try to keep the batter loose, cookies will cook more evenly.

Insulated cookie sheets do a nice job of baking the cookie without frying the bottom. Although, I regularly use two inexpensive aluminum sheets stacked together for the same effect.

If that drizzled chocolate appeals to you, just melt some chocolate chips or other semi-sweet chocolate bar and spoon designs over the top. Chocolate can be melted in a microwave oven or in a bowl set over simmering water (A double boiler or bain marie performs this function but isn't necessary.)

Enjoy!

Weight Loss, a Cinch - Revisited

Lavender and petite américaine raised a point I failed to mention in my previous post. In my enthusiasm to report the science, I lost perspective. Thank you both for your more sane interpretation.

Here's a table from the study I cited previously. Below is the author's explanation for that one data point that fell out of range.

Click for larger.

"It was noticeable that those patients who maintained weight loss (case 11, table II, [that 7kg/15lbs in the last column] ) were those who bought new clothes that fitted at their reduced weight and warned them when their weight increased."

In fact, the waist cord and abdominal studies were conducted to test the theory that clothes worn snugly around the midsection can assist in weight management.

So, even though I'm kind of titillated by the idea of a functional waist ornament, it was always a clothes issue, or as Critser (author of Fat Land) calls it, the Theory of the Belt:

"There is what might be called the theory of the belt, which holds that people will watch and maintain their weight better if they are warned that they are gaining weight by clothing that makes them slightly uncomfortable."

________

Weight Loss, a Cinch*

While reading Greg Critser's Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, I came across a provocative and surprisingly effective method for preventing regain of pounds shed: a waist cord. The technique was lost among research findings of the 1980s and 90s because, well, it just wasn't fashionable. I mean that both figuratively (Atkins, South Beach, Zone, even Weight Watchers were definitely more vogue-y) and literally (tying fishing line around your midsection doesn't lend itself to midriff-baring chic.)

In 1981, Garrow and Gardiner published some of the first findings.¹ After significant weight loss - achieved through jaw wiring - 7 women were fitted with a waist cord, 9 were not. Those with the cord regained about 12 pounds in 10 months (14% of weight lost), those without the cord regained about 39 pounds (58% of weight lost). Those are some mighty fine statistics, made evident in the mighty fine graph below:


A 1986 study published in the International Journal of Obesity reported similar results using an adjustable cord (it could be tightened but not lengthened) during a protein-sparing fast.²

Method

Garrow used a 2 mm nylon cord. It remained in place 24 hours a day:

"... ideally it had to produce no indentation of the skin with the patient supine but make a white (not red) line on the skin when the patient was seated. The length of the cord was adjusted until this tension was achieved, and the knot was then sealed by melting the ends of the cord gently, taking care not to burn the patient."

Given that "those who complete weight-loss programs ... regain two-thirds of it back within 1 year and almost all of it back within 5 years."³, a waist cord seems like the way to go. It's less invasive and less costly than gastric bands, gastric balloons, and gastric bypass. And I hypothesize it operates by a similar mechanism: pressure against the wall of the stomach stimulates nerves that signal to the brain that the stomach is full.

All we have to do now is make it fashionable.

(Click here for a more rational interpretation of this study. :)

* Forgive me.
________¹ Garrow JS, Gardiner GT. Maintenance of weight loss in obese patients after jaw wiring. 1981.
² Simpson GK, et al. Intermittent protein-sparing fasting with abdominal belting. 1986.
³ Thomas PR. Weighing the Options: Criteria for Evaluating Weight-Management Programs. 1995. National Academies Press.

Photo: Someone from Ebay with comely belly.

Organic Farming Bad for the Environment?

Last week's Economist has been raising hairs in the green community with its controversial article "Voting with your Trolley", which questions the benefit of three food-buying trends: organic food, fairtrade food, and local food.

Here's a wrap-up from their Leader of what they said about organic food:

"Organic food, which is grown without man-made pesticides and fertilisers, is generally assumed to be more environmentally friendly than conventional intensive farming, which is heavily reliant on chemical inputs. But it all depends what you mean by “environmentally friendly”. Farming is inherently bad for the environment: since humans took it up around 11,000 years ago, the result has been deforestation on a massive scale. But following the “green revolution” of the 1960s greater use of chemical fertiliser has tripled grain yields with very little increase in the area of land under cultivation. Organic methods, which rely on crop rotation, manure and compost in place of fertiliser, are far less intensive. So producing the world's current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn't be much room left for the rainforest."

Am I contributing to deforestation by buying organic? I'm torn on this one.

________Photo of California's Salinas Valley, "America's Salad Bowl", from the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Vitamin C Burns Fat

It's sad how these gems get buried in the hot-news heap.

A small study from Arizona State University this summer found that low levels of vitamin C in the blood were linked to decreased fat oxidation.¹ (Fat oxidation involves the breakdown and burning of fat for energy.)

"Individuals with marginal vitamin C status oxidized 25% less fat per kg body weight during a 60-minute treadmill walk as compared to individuals with adequate vitamin C status."

The researchers also found that participants with the lowest vitamin C status, and the lowest ability to burn fat for fuel, tired more easily during exercise. It led them to speculate:

"Vitamin C depletion may result in weight gain by two mechanisms: indirectly by fatigability and exercise intolerance, and directly by lipid [fat] accumulation."

In keeping with the theme - at the start of the trial those with the lowest levels of vitamin C in their blood had the highest body fat mass.

Mechanism

Vitamin C assists in the manufacture in the liver of the molecule carnitine. Carnitine is necessary for fat oxidation - it alone can transport long chain fatty acids across a mitochondrial membrane to be "burned" or metabolized for energy.

We've known for a while that vitamin C is used to make carnitine, and that carnitine is used to metabolize fat. Why it's taken so long to investigate vitamin C's impact on fat directly sets my flab to burn.

Are Americans Getting Enough Vitamin C?

Up to 17% of Americans are vitamin C deficient.
Up to 23% of Americans are vitamin C depleted. (This was the study's "marginal status".)

Add those together and you get about 40% of Americans who are not getting at least adequate amounts of vitamin C.²

(I consulted data from the very large, trustworthy, comprehensive, and tax-dollar-supported NHANES III report. It reflects intake from 1988 to 1994. Intakes for vitamin C today may be higher - or lower.)

Right on Target: During recruitment for participants, this study screened 78 non-smoking men and women from a campus population (aged 18 to 38). About 40% of this group had marginal vitamin C status (from a blood test). The non-smoking criterion was important - smoking, even just breathing passive smoke, reduces blood levels of vitamin C.

How Much Vitamin C Does the Job?

The vitamin C-depleted participants in this study consumed a diet that provided about 40mg/day. They were the "marginal" consumers.

The RDA for vitamin C is 75mg for females, 90mg for males. Add 35mg if you smoke.

The vitamin C-repleted participants in this study consumed a diet that provided about 40mg/day, plus were given a 500mg/day supplement. In 4 weeks that supplement increased their vitamin C blood levels by 30% and resulted in raising fat oxidation 4-fold when compared to depleted subjects.

Last Word

If you decide to supplement with vitamin C based on this study, that is, with 500mg/day, consider that intakes of more than about 200mg at a time don't appreciably affect blood levels. (What doesn't get absorbed goes on to the colon for fermentation by bacteria. Yum, yum, eat 'em up.) I'd recommend buying a low-dose supplement and taking it 2 or 3 times/day.

________¹ Marginal vitamin C status is associated with reduced fat oxidation during submaximal exercise in young adults
² Vitamin C Deficiency and Depletion in the United States: The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988 to 1994

Photo: Homegrown. An average Clementine has about 36mg vitamin C, a medium orange (2.5 inches in diameter) has about 60mg.

World Population - 160,000 BC to 2050 AD

Below is a graph I scanned from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. I hope he doesn't mind. It shows the growth of the world's population from Paleolithic times to present and beyond.

Click each for larger.
Is it possible? Another 2.6 billion mouths to feed in the next 44 years? That's double the population of the most populated country in the world right now.

It brings to mind my post, The Paleolithic Diet, 5 - A Diet for the Planet?, where I questioned the feasibility of applying a meat-centered diet to today's 6.6 billion inhabitants, where the author of The Paleo Diet explained that his meat-centered diet would result in "massive starvation of unprecedented proportion on the planet", and where Ronald commented with a way to make it work: "More meat in our diet and reduce excess population, obviously the solution is Soylent Green." Then Melinda chimed in, "[cannibalism] made logical--and ecological--as well as spiritual sense to me." She swears, "I know this'll make me sound very weird (I'm not, actually)."

So, Melinda isn't weird, Ronald is solution-oriented, and Dr. Cordain has in mind the honorable goal of optimizing everyone's body mass index (BMI).¹ I have to say, I'm holding on to civility by a thread. I mean, cannibalism is inconceivable to me; it's certainly not in fitting with The Paleo Diet's practices ... is it? :

Neanderthals Were Cannibals, Study Confirms
________¹ This does not imply knowledge of the beliefs of Melinda, Ronald, or Dr. Cordain.

PAM is Fat

The Nutrition Facts label on PAM's rear leads one to believe that PAM® is fat-free. (Note PAM's frontal solicitation also.)
Click for larger.
No fat, no calories, no protein or carbs, no nothing. Nothing, that is, if you can pull off the feat of spraying for no more than 1/3 of a second, the listed serving size. Even then you'll end up depositing about 0.27g of PAM, which is, for all intents and purposes, pure fat, onto your cooking surface. That 1/3 second spray contains about 2.4 calories, not zero - the same amount of calories found in 0.27g of any oil. If your action of depressing and releasing PAM's nozzle lasts for a more practical 1 second, you'll lay on about 7 calories, mostly from fat. If you're singing a Christmas jingle while spraying your cookie sheets, you might inadvertently spray several grams of additional fat. Of course, given the 184g of fat in the cookie dough's 1/2 lb butter (2 sticks), it's an iota.

Why am I saying this? Three reasons:

1. PAM is fat. It's a superlative achievement of marketing that a product made from fat can be advertised to appear fat-free.
   
   
2. If you're going to use fat, why not smear a little extra virgin olive oil, tasty almond oil, or rancid-free peanut oil onto your pans, potatoes, and pasta? Why not ditch the grain alcohol and propellant?
   
   
3. I'm curious to know how many people can count to 0.33 seconds.

The Paleolithic Diet, 5 - A Diet for the Planet?

If it's true that the Paleolithic Diet describes the best way for modern man to eat, a plan that would reduce human suffering caused by cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, dermatitis, autism, celiac disease and other gastrointestinal diseases and autoimmune disorders - then how can it not be unethical to send disease-inducing grain to the billions starving in drought-afflicted, war-torn, and economically disadvantaged countries? Not to mention those without sufficient food in this country?

There's little question, at least in Cordain's mind, that the Paleolithic Diet is meat-based:

"The fossil evidence as well as the ethnographic evidence from groups of hunter-gatherers studied in historical times suggests that the diet of pre-agricultural humans was derived primarily from animal based foods."
- The Paleolithic Diet and Its Modern Implications: An Interview with Loren Cordain, PhD

Shall we replace our shipments of grain to these countries with lean meat and seafood? Is that a realistic prescription?

Let's look at the planet as a whole. Is this diet a reasonable approach for feeding the bulk of the world's 6.6 billion inhabitants? Cordain: "Without cereal grains, there would be massive starvation of unprecedented proportion on the planet." And a Cordain-approved reader review: "... only about ten percent of the world's population could be adequately sustained on a Paleo-compatible diet."

Which 10% does he suggest we spare? I found his answer chilling:

" ... in most western countries, cereals are not a necessity, particularly in many segments of the population that suffer most from Syndrome X and other chronic diseases of civilization. In this population, a return to a Stone Age Diet is not only possible, but highly practical in terms of long-term healthcare costs."¹

He suggests we spare those people in western countries whose economic resources allow them to arrive at middle age with chronic diseases, but sacrifice those whose journey beyond youth may be cut off by hunger and malnutrition? Ouch.

I can't say I always make my food choices based on how they affect the rest of the world's population. But I'm not writing a book recommending how people should eat. If I was, I might have researched this aspect a smidgen more.
________¹ All quotes via The Paleo Diet.
Cartoon by Clay Bennett.