Eat Well Guide

The Meatrix and Meatrix 2 were produced in part by Sustainable Table.

Your author has a fine regard for folks who don't just complain define a problem, but offer a solution. The folks at Sustainable Table offer their Eat Well Guide, an online directory of places that grow or sell sustainably raised foods. Just enter your zip code.

The Meatrix 2

Back in January I posted a teaser for the sequel of the award-winning web animation The Meatrix.

The sequel has arrived -->

There are plenty of disturbing facts. One that makes me cringe is a scene, 2/3s of the way through, of calves being fed blood. Why this practice continues, especially in light of our failed efforts to get Japan, et al, to reopen their markets to our beef, evades me.

Whole Grain Test

Below are 6 food items. Can you tell which, if any, are not considered "whole grains"? (I'm looking for what the FDA will consider "whole grain" for a label.) (Click pic for a close-up.)


Leave answers in comments. If your answer is wrong but your justification worthy ... full credit. I'll be back with the dirt in a little bit.

Here's a little help:

From left to right, starting at the top with the bread:

1. The bread is made with 100% whole wheat flour.
   
2. The oats are rolled.
   
3. The peas are split.
   
4. The barley is pearled.
   
5. The rice is brown.
   
6. The flour is whole wheat.

Here's some background:

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005, recommends that Americans consume 3 or more servings of whole grains per day, with a goal of at least half of their grains coming from whole grains.

But what's a "whole grain"?

The FDA is floating a draft document intended "to provide guidance to industry about what the agency considers to be "whole grain" and to assist manufacturers in labeling their products."

In general, a "whole grain" may be ground, cracked, flaked, or intact - but should consist of the grain's bran, germ, and starchy endosperm in the same proportions that they exist in the original grain.

Here are the answers:

1. The bread is whole grain. Bread that is made entirely from whole grain flour may be labeled "whole grain".
   
2. The oats are whole grain.
   
3. The peas are not whole grain. Soybeans, lentils, beans, chickpeas, etc. are not grains but legumes.
   
4. The barley is not whole grain. Pearling removes some of the bran which must be present as per the definition. Barley that is just dehulled, with the bran intact, is whole grain.
   
5. The rice is whole grain.
   
6. The flour is whole grain.

That's how the FDA sees it. I personally don't think of flour or products made from flour as whole grains (even if they're made from whole grain flour) because they have a higher glycemic index, and can produce a faster rise in blood glucose after ingestion, compared to lesser-processed whole grains.

Infiltration

"Having a smoking area in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool."

- Thomas Pfeffer of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles, on his support of a Calabasas, CA law - the first of its kind in the US - that bans smoking in public places.


~~~~~~Picture of swimming pool in Lahore, Pakistan thanks to Darwaish.
Quote via Newsweek, via MSNBC, via Greg German of Quilcene, Wash.

Antioxidants in Foods

In response to my post on drying pears, Zombie (possibly NSFW :) asked:

Q. Does the drying out affect the nutritional value any?

A. Some, yes. Although, since drying removes primarily water, many nutrients remain intact. The drying method is important. Lower temps (don't go over 145ºF), shorter drying periods (cut fruit into smaller pieces), and use of a preservative all conserve nutrients. I use ascorbic acid as the preservative. Sulfur compounds are often used because they're so effective, if toxic. Unsulfured or non-preserved dried fruits are lower in nutritional content.

A plus side to drying is that nutrients become concentrated. Minerals (iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc), fiber, and taste! are all provided in greater amounts, per volume, when compared to the original fruit. Of course, calories concentrate too.

But you raise a good point. What about nutrients whose properties we're only recently discovering? How much of an antioxidant punch is left in dried fruits? I went looking, and the answer was surprising.

Many people think of vitamin C or E in a food as the primary antioxidant. In truth, there are hundreds of antioxidant compounds in foods, each with their own properties. For example, the vitamin C in a tomato has been shown to degrade upon heating, yet another of its antioxidants, lycopene, actually increases in bioavailability after heating. Something similar has been measured in a Russet potato, where baking for 50 minutes decreased levels of some antioxidants and increased others. To add more confusion, these compounds have been hypothesized to act synergistically, or in an integrated fashion, when performing their radical-quenching activities.

So, they really need to be viewed as a unit. Wu et al. (2004) (pdf) did just that when he measured total antioxidant capacity in 28 foods. Here's what he found (Click for larger):

ORAC: Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity - a measure of a food's antioxidant strength.
Take a look at the plum vs. the prune (dried plum). Gram for gram, the prune had a higher total antioxidant capacity (TAC) than its fresh counterpart. You would expect this since the plum has a higher moisture content. But if drying had a significant detrimental impact on TAC, this might not be the case. I'm a little disappointed he didn't measure the TAC of grapes. Raisins are my undoing.

While you're looking at this chart, note the antioxidant power of nuts. Maybe you're thinking, as I did, that it must be the fat in nuts which is providing all that antioxidant effect. Curiously, it's not. Wu found the water-soluble components in nuts had far greater radical-fighting ability (42 times greater for pecans) than nuts' fat-soluble components.

This is one more reason to opt for foods, dried or not, over supplements.

Dried Pears

I hesitated showing a picture of them. They look so scabby. Google "dried pears" and this sure isn't what you'll see. But they're the essence of pear! And when I'm craving dried fruit, I'm not craving sulfur dioxide, or sodium metabisulfite ... at least I don't think I am. These are preserved with a little vitamin C which cuts down on browning and retains more nutrients than non-preserved fruit.

I had been using the oven to dry foods for a few years. This winter I came into a dehydrator. I'm still experimenting with it. The oranges and kiwi didn't go over, but the pears, oh, the pears.

Ingredients

4 pears (Bartlett have great flavor)
2 to 3 cups water, enough to cover fruit
4 tsp. ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C)
Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

~~~~~~
1   Choose very ripe fruit. It's better to use overripe fruit and slice off bruises than perfect-looking yet tough and tart underripe fruit.

2   Wash fruit thoroughly. I recommend using a citrus-based fruit and vegetable wash such as Fit^® or Veggie Wash^® that can remove residual waxes and agro-chemicals. This is especially important since you won't be peeling the fruit.


3   Pour room temperature water into a non-reactive bowl (glass or stainless steel). Dissolve ascorbic acid in water. Use 2 tsp. ascorbic acid per cup of water. Add lemon juice.

Note: Don't use bottled lemon juice. You're adding the lemon for its antioxidant properties and vitamin C which are reduced in packaged products. Note the reduced browning of the treated pears on the left vs. the untreated cores on the right. (Click pic for larger.)

I use the same ascorbic acid that I add to yeasted bread recipes. (Available mail-order from the Baker's Catalogue, $3.25 for 1/4 lb.)

4   Cut pears into quarters lengthwise. (May also be halved but will take longer to dry.) Carefully scoop out seeds and core. Soak pears in treated water for 10 to 15 minutes, not longer than 1 hour. Drain. Distribute evenly on a drying tray (or cookie sheet if you're using your oven). Dry at 140ºF for about 6 hours. Reduce the temperature to 120-130ºF and continue drying for an additional 18 to 24 hours.


Note: Drying temperatures and times are not hard and fast rules.¹ They vary based on the size of the fruit, the moisture in the fruit, how crowded pieces are on the tray, and the method used for drying. (I use a Nesco American Harvest Dehydrator.)

5   Allow fruit to cool for a few hours without covering. Package in plastic bags and allow to condition for about a week. Conditioning distributes residual moisture. You can eat them sooner but the center may be softer than the edges.

See my post on Antioxidants in Food for a take on how drying affects nutritional value.

________
¹ The web is awash in info on drying fruits. And by the looks of it, agricultural extensions of universities have spent a lot of time drying:

Colorado State University: Drying Fruits
Virginia State University: Drying Fruits and Vegetables
Clemson University: Drying Fruits
University of Georgia: Drying Fruits and Vegetables (pdf)

They Got 'Em All

Pursuant to the discovery of the third confirmed case of BSE in 27 months, the USDA has sent signals that it has decided to go ahead with plans to scale back testing.

US Testing Schedule
2003 - about 55 cows/day
2006 - about 1000 cows/day
Future - maybe 110 cows/day

US cattle herd: 95 million, of which 40 million are slaughtered each year. That chart on the right would show a more accurate perspective if the y-axis stretched to 40,000,000 not 12,000. But then you might not notice the blip that represents cows tested.

"This would be a tenth of a percent of all animals slaughtered. This starts to be so small that in our opinion, it approaches a policy of don't look, don't find."
- Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union

How the US Rates Among Nations¹
Japan tests all cows
UK tests all cows over 24 months
Europe tests all cows over 30 months
US will test 0.1% of all (40,000,000) cows

~~~~~~¹ Source: US Congressional Press Release, Jan 2004, from Congressman George Miller (D-California) who proposed testing all cows slaughtered.

Bones of Contention

I really wanted this study to vindicate my claim that a gram or more of supplemental calcium (Ca) a day couldn't possibly be what the evolutionary king intended, and therefore couldn't possibly be a failsafe bone-saving device. I really, really wanted to cry "I told you so!"

But I can't. Not yet at least. Certainly not by the results of this massive $18 million (tax-dollared), 7-year, 36,282-woman-strong, government-sponsored clinical trial:

Calcium plus Vitamin D Supplementation and the Risk of Fractures

Here's a New York Times' summary:
Big Study Finds No Clear Benefit of Calcium Pills

It's not that the study found any great benefit to taking supplemental Ca plus vitamin D (CaD). In fact, its findings were pretty nebulous:

• A mere 1% increase in bone density at the hip
  
• Similar rates of bone fracture between treatment and control groups
  
• Similar rates of colorectal cancer (calcium was previously thought to be protective) between treatment and control groups

So why aren't I gloating?

1. Because unambiguous benefit might have been found if the study's design was a hair more rigid. You'd at least want to see a control group with intake of CaD measurably different from the intervention group. That wasn't the case here. The control group was allowed to follow their regular diet and take any supplements they wanted, up to 1000 mg Ca and 600 IU vitamin D. The intervention group received 1000 mg Ca and 400 IU vitamin D. I'm shuddering to think that allowed instances where the control group actually had a higher intake.

Since participants were not restricted from taking personal calcium or vitamin D supplements, they had a relatively high calcium and vitamin D intake at enrollment and intake rose even higher during the trial so the impact of study supplementation may have been muted.
- Jean Wactawski-Wende, PhD. Study’s lead investigator. From NIH press release.

2. Because I'm not convinced that doctors, dietitians, or other delegates of health, not least of which calcium supplement makers ($993 million from sales in 2004), will stop recommending sizeable daily doses of Ca based on this uncertain outcome. Since the study was too big to be repeated anytime soon, if you have a political, economic, or career-minded interest in seeing Ca venerated, you'll spin these results to your liking:

“The study’s findings of slowed bone loss and the reduction in hip fractures for some groups suggest a role for these supplements in preventing hip fracture in generally healthy postmenopausal women and support the current Surgeon General’s recommendations for these nutrients.”
- Joan McGowan PhD. Senior scientific editor of the Surgeon General’s report on bone health and co-author of this paper.

I personally have a tough time reconciling how the study's findings that CaD did not significantly reduce fractures equates to "support [for] the current Surgeon General’s recommendations for these nutrients". Oh, the politics of nutrition.

There was one finding I'm quietly relishing - because it legitimizes my atypical calcium-supplement stand. The women who took the CaD supplements had a 17% increase in kidney stones. That was on only 1000/mg Ca - or less - considering only 59% of the women in the treatment group took the full dose. The passing of a stone is one painful proposition, one that shouldn't be discarded lightly (the proposition, not the stone).

I know I'm in the minority, especially among my health-community peers, but I hold to the belief that there are lots of things a woman can do to protect her bones other than engage in lopsided pill-popping. It looks like the president of the National Osteoporosis Foundation, Dr. Ethel Siris, is sidling up to that idea:

"Enough is enough," Dr. Siris said. "Too much of a good thing isn't a good thing."

I guess this leaves me still sitting on my hands waiting for someone to show why my breakfast doesn't have to look like NASA space food rations.

US Works to Reassure Japan on Mad Cow

By Libby Quaid
The Associated Press
Sunday, March 12, 2006; 2:41 PM

"WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is trying to reassure Japan and other foreign customers of American beef while awaiting further tests on a suspected case of mad cow disease."

How about a little homeland reassurance, guys?

Who wants to wager that even if bovine spongiform encephalopathy is confirmed in this cow, it will be written off as a random, isolated case from an animal whose flesh never made it into the human food chain?



Update:
LA Times, March 14: Alabama Animal Tests Positive for Mad Cow

"Public health is not at risk for the fatal brain disease because the infected cow did not enter the food chain, federal officials say."

I guess that's settled.
I have to side with the commenters. Since cows get BSE from eating infected flesh of other cows, where are all the cows that ate the infected feed that this cow did? Not in the food chain, right?

Policosanol for Cholesterol Reduction

See my Policosanol Update for some disappointing news.

If my cholesterol was high, and my attempts at diet and exercise weren't successful enough to lower my numbers down to where the NIH's National Cholesterol Education Program recommends (total cholesterol: less than 200, LDL: less than 100, HDL: above 40), and I was facing a well-intentioned physician who was scribbling a script for a statin ... I might try policosanol first.

Not that there's anything wrong with statins. I'm just a little too familiar with their deleterious side effects, both to the body and the pocketbook. And given the precarious state of the government's prescription drug benefit for seniors (Medicare part D), I wouldn't be too eager to embark on a costly long-term therapy likely to follow me into my rapidly approaching senior years.

Policosanol is actually not one substance. The word is a general, inclusive term for many ("poli-") waxy or fatty alcohols. These aren't alcohols in the whisky or wine sense, but fats that just happen to have an alcohol component. The bulk of the research was done with policosanol derived from the waxes of sugar cane (shown above). It can also be extracted from yams and beeswax. Some studies looked at one or another of its components, e.g. octacosanol. But the mixture or poli-blend was shown to be more active than any individual component, inferring a synergistic effect.

The research on policosanol shows it to be statistically equal to or better than many statins it was compared to [including simvastatin (Zocor^®), pravastatin (Pravachol^®), lovastatin (Mevacor^®)] at lowering cholesterol, leading the American Heart Journal in 2002 to call it a "very promising" alternative to statins.

Rather than fill a paragraph with lots of numbers, I've swiped a table from Mark Janikula's outstanding review article Policosanol: A New Treatment for Cardiovascular Disease? that summarized doses and their effects (see right). I was planning to list citations for supportive research at the bottom of this post, but since Mr. Janikula did it so well in his review, I'll refer you there.

Summary of Benefits

Similar to statins:

• Reduces total cholesterol (TC)
  
• Reduces LDL cholesterol

Additional to statins:

• Decreases oxidation of LDL cholesterol
  
• Increases HDL cholesterol
  
• Reduces blood clotting
  
• Improves liver function
  
• Improves symptoms of cardiovascular disease (e.g. angina, oxygen uptake)

Adverse Reactions
Side effects for policosanol were found to be equal to or less than placebo:

• The muscle pain and weakness characteristic of statins was not seen in those taking policosanol.
  
• Adverse affects on the liver seen with statins were not measured in policosanol takers - in fact liver enzymes improved.
  
• In a 5 year trial with over 6000 patients, people taking placebo were hospitalized more often than were people taking policosanol.
  
• In a study of almost 28,000 patients, only 86 (0.31%) reported adverse affects, and the most common side effect reported? Weight loss.

Primary Mechanism
Policosanol is thought to act in a similar manner to statins, that is by inhibiting the manufacture of cholesterol in the body, primarily in the liver where the lion's share of cholesterol is made. If research continues to support this mechanism, policosanol use, as well as statin use, may occasion the need for supplemental CoQ₁₀. See my post, Statins and a Not-well-publicized Side Effect

There are other mechanisms which haven't been fully explained. One results in reduced platelet aggregation, that is, a reduction in blood clotting. Dare I use that nonsensical phrase: it thins the blood. This is good if you're looking for ways to help blood move through partially clogged vessels, but not so good if you're planning surgery or any other body-piercing activity. So, if you're taking warfarin (Coumadin^®) to ward off blood clots, it's a good idea to consult with your physician before trying policosanol.

Under the Radar
Why isn't policosanol getting the same press as its possibly lesser cousin, the statin? For one, policosanol was discovered, developed, and researched primarily in Cuba, the land of sugar cane. Now, I'm not a political junkie, but I believe our trade embargo with Castro's communist nation, an embargo that bans scientific exchanges, is still intact.

For two, I would speculate that US pharmaceutical giants don't see to profit as handsomely from an uncomplicated natural product derived from sugar cane, as they do from their proprietary concoctions. And since lucrative patent rights would be an uncertain prize, you won't see these companies stuffing their sales reps' attaches with brochures and samples and branded perks like policosanol pens, policosanol mouse pads, policosanol umbrellas, and policosanol melon ballers.

Drawbacks
Since we can't import the actual policosanol (or even a recipe for same) that Cuban studies are finding so promising, we have to do with a homemade variety which may or may not prove as effective. Even if we could buy Cuba's product (Canada can since it hasn't imposed a trade ban), regulation of supplements in this country is so rinky-dink there's no guarantee that what the label says is actually inside the bottle.

Still, I'd give it a try.

Update: May 17, 2006 - Policosanol fares poorly in recent study.