On Thursday, the USDA is set to unveil a new and simple graphic to help people choose what food to eat. The useless food pyramid, which has been confusing consumers for over 25 years, will be replaced by something more simple, according to the New York Times:

The circular plate, which will be unveiled Thursday, is meant to give consumers a fast, easily grasped reminder of the basics of a healthy diet. It consists of four colored sections [wedges], for fruits, vegetables, grains and protein, according to several people who have been briefed on the change. Beside the plate is a smaller circle for dairy, suggesting a glass of low-fat milk or perhaps a yogurt cup. read more…

What you need to know:

This is not the first time the USDA is changing the pyramid. Here is a picture of the original pyramid, which actually made some sense showing at the bottom foods that should be consumed more, and at the top food to consume less. The problem with the original pyramid is that it did not differentiate between whole grains and refined grains (white bread for example). And fat is not all bad – for example the fat in avocado, or nut and seeds.

In 2005, the USDA rolled the Pyramid over on its side to create MyPyramid, a totally unintelligible and useless graphic.

The USDA hopes that the new graphic, which reportedly has half of the plate dedicated to fruits and vegetables, can promote better food consumption habits.

But there is a bigger problem here. How can the USDA, a government body set up to promote agriculture and sales agricultural commodities be also charged with health recommendations? There is an inherent conflict of interest in helping farmers sell more corn, soy, and milk and at the same time helping people consume less food.

The government efforts are but a tiny drop in an ocean of savvy food marketing. Don’t hold your breath or expect the new campaign to instantly help America make better choices.

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This is a guest blog post by Andy Bellatti, MS.

Here’s a product I recently tweeted about – the latest Dunkin’ Donuts beverage — the Mountain Dew Coolatta.

A small (16 oz.) one contains almost 13 teaspoons of added sugar, while a large (32 oz.) contributes no less than 25 teaspoons of sugar.

The 25-ingredient list also caught my eye.  Check it out:

Frozen Neutral Base [Water, Neutral Base (Sugar, Glucose, Fructose, Silicon Dioxide, Malic Acid, Xanthan Gum)], Mountain Dew Coolatta Concentrate [Treated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Orange Juice Concentrate, Sodium Hexametaphosphate (to protect flavor), Xanthan Gum, Ethyl Alcohol, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Caffeine, Sodium Benzoate (preserves freshness), Gum Arabic, Sodium Citrate, Glycerol Ester of Rosin, Calcium Disodium EDTA (to protect flavor), Erythorbic Acid (preserves freshness), Yellow 5, Brominated Vegetable Oil].

You know it’s a bad sign when you make a can of Mountain Dew seem like “the sensible choice”.  We’ve got the usual suspects here — a myriad of sugar synonyms, artificial flavors, all sorts of multi-syllabic additives, petroleum-based dyes, and the belle of the processed-food ball: high fructose corn syrup.

While those red flag ingredients are familiar to many, it is that last ingredient — brominated vegetable oil — that most people aren’t aware of.  And, in this case, what you don’t know may indeed hurt you.

Brominated vegetable oil is a key ingredient in artificially citrus-flavored drinks like Mountain Dew, Fresca, and some varieties of Gatorade.  It serves two main functions — it is a stabilizer and also responsible for that slightly cloudy look these beverages have.

In essence, take a vegetable oil, add some bromine atoms and — voilà, you now have brominated vegetable oil.  For the record, liquid bromine — also found in photo paper, car seats, mattresses, and carpeting — is corrosive and extremely hazardous to our skin and lungs.

So what’s the problem?  Well, bromine is fat-soluble and builds up in our tissues.  A 16-ounce soft drink made with brominated vegetable oil contains approximately 2 milligrams of bromine.  Oddly, the only peer-reviewed, published studies I have come across on this topic are ones ranging from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, all of which were done on rats.  That said, the results are far from encouraging.  Upon consuming feed that contained brominated oils, the rats developed a variety of ills — ranging from decreased levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol to myocardial degeneration.

Before anyone shrugs this off with “well, rat studies don’t always apply to humans” or “the rats probably received ridiculous, toxic doses”, it is worth pointing out that brominated vegetable oils are banned in the European Union.  Alas, the good ol’ FDA ensures us it’s just fine in acceptable doses.  You know, in the same way that the European Union eliminated artificial colors from their food supply over behavioral concerns in children while the United States continues to pump them out at higher amounts than ever before?

Per FDA law, brominated vegetable oils can be used “as a stabilizer for flavoring oils used in fruit-flavored beverages”, and must only be used in amounts that do not exceed 15 part per million in the final product.

Here’s the odd part.  As of February of 1984, the FDA stated that the use of brominated vegetable oils is “pending the outcome of additional toxicological studies on which periodic reports at 6-month intervals are to be furnished and final results submitted to the Food and Drug Administration promptly after completion of the studies.”

Where are the studies showing its complete safety?  And, why, especially following the bans of brominated vegetable oils in other countries, does the United States not only keep including it in beverages but also not decide this topic might be worth revisiting?

Some members of the scientific community dismiss concerns by stating that a human would have to drink endless amounts of Mountain Dew to have the health-damaging effects seen in the rat studies from decades ago.  Sound like a familiar argument?  It’s the same one that comes up when aspartame’s health effects are questioned.  However, an absence of myocardial degeneration or fatty liver does not mean a product is safe, in the same way that exposure to certain levels of radiation may not cause death in a matter of days, but can nevertheless increase cancer risk over the course of a decade.

In the meantime, brominated vegetable oils are yet another nail in the coffin for clear sodas and other artificially-flavored citrus beverages.

Andy Bellatti, MS, is a Seattle-based nutritionist, writer, and speaker, and is the creator of the Small Bites blog. He expects to take his Registered Dietitian exam this Summer. You can follow him on Twitter @andybellatti.

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This is a guest blog post by Dr. Ayala Laufer-Cahana M.D.

Have you ever noticed the low glycemic Index (GI) term on food packaging and wondered what it means?

The GI also makes frequent appearances in many popular commercial diets and diet books – including the South Beach Diet, Nutrisystem, the Zone diet and Sugar Busters.

Is a low GI diet indeed healthier? Is it useful for weight maintenance?

What is the GI?

The glycemic index, developed initially for the treatment of diabetes, ranks carbohydrate-containing foods based on how they affect blood sugar levels when eaten in isolation. Carbs that break down quickly, like white bread and potatoes, have a high GI, and those that release sugar into the blood stream more gradually, like fruit, have a low GI. Foods are scored on a scale of 0 to 100.

Is low GI food better? Will it help me lose weight?

Blood glucose fluctuations elicit a cascade of hormonal reactions, which potentially affect both metabolism and hunger, and a low GI diet’s ability to decrease hunger and control weight regain showed some promise in a few short term studies.

Low GI corresponds quite often with the age-old understanding of what’s good to eat. Most highly processed grain products have a high GI, whereas minimally processed grains, whole fruits, legumes, and non-starchy vegetables tend to have a moderate or low GI.

On the other hand pure fructose and ice cream have a very low GI, table sugar and high fructose corn syrup have only a moderate GI, and potatoes and white rice are the root of all GI evil, with a GI of about 100.

A few other things to dampen down your enthusiasm for the GI: It’s difficult (and costly) to test, there’s inter-lab variability, although the type and proportion of sugar or starch in a food affects GI, so do a lot of other factors in the meal—the way the food’s been cooked, the presence of fiber, protein, fat, alcohol or acid will all affect the glucose response—and there’s plenty of inter-personal variability.

Finally, the GI of the food matters much less than how much of that food you’re eating.   To really make the GI useful you’ll need to calculate glycemic load (GL).  The GL takes into account the GI, the amount of carbs in that food and the portion size, and will be a better predictor of how your blood sugar will be affected by that certain meal component.

To be quite honest, even diligent adherence to GI charts will leave you guessing about your own sugar level fluctuations after a meal.

Creating processed low GI foods is easy!

If the GI concept really takes on, food processors will have an easy time creating new foods with the hot new low GI buzzword as a selling point: Replacing table sugar with fructose will lower the lab-tested GI. However, it most likely will add nothing to our health, and may even do harm.

In honor of my host, Fooducate, I’ll have to end with:

What to do at the supermarket

GI is helpful in the management of diabetes, but at this point, GI for weight-loss or for general well-being is neither practical nor is its validity fully established.

A better strategy is to look at the ingredients: The amount of added sugar in a food matters much more than its glycemic index.

Dr. Ayala

Ayala Laufer-Cahana M.D. is a pediatrician, artist blogger and co-founder of Herbal Water Inc.

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Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of grilling season for America. For good or for bad, our appreciation for fallen heroes is intertwined with families and friends getting together to celebrate the season’s first bar-b-que. So when you raise your first glass of wine / ice cold beer, don’t forget to toast to those who made all this possible for us, the young men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Our tips:

1. Steak is not the only food that’s grillable.

2. Try a whole chicken, rubbed with spices & minced garlic, grilled over a nice low-medium flame for an hour or more. It’s heavenly.

3. Fish, whether whole or filet, are the best over flame, plus a nutritional powerhouse.

4. Vegetables, when grilled right, are amazing. Try to get the slightly burnt carmelization going with red bell peppers and you’ll know what we mean.

5. Buy lots of fruit and prepare a fresh fruit salad as the opening act to the feast.

6. Say no to overly processed hot dogs and burgers! Choose a low fat cut of beef and have it ground for you. Prepare your own patties. Make them small.

7. Portion control is important. Nobody says you have to down a 12 oz steak.

8. Calculate in advance how many people you’re going to be cooking for so that you won’t have too many orphaned leftovers. Nothing worse than being full and yet still eating an extra steak just so that expensive meat won’t go to the trash or the dog.

What are you planning to prepare this weekend?

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Hi folks, a personal note today.

My wife and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary and are off to an extended weekend in Milan, Italy. Aside from having a few days sans kiddos, this will be an interesting opportunity to fooducate ourselves up close on the difference in food culture and shopping between the US and Italy.

Italian culinary culture has brought so much to the world, it is really exciting to get there to experience it from up close. Whether pasta, pizza, gelato, or a strong espresso, Italians know how to enjoy food. We’ll try to bring back some interesting insights and pictures from our discoveries.

If anyone has interesting suggestions for good food in Central Milan, please shoot away in the comments below.

-Hemi

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Here’s an interesting move in food retail. Walgreen’s pharmacy will start selling fresh produce, as well as freshly prepared food, in 15 locations in the San Francisco Bay area.

This is just a tiny fraction of its stores across the country, but if successful, this could be revolutionary.

What you need to know:

Pharmacies, especially in cities, command prime real estate locations. That means they get a lot of foot traffic daily. And as we all know, aside from drugs, they sell tons of junk food and beverages. Entire aisles of products that 20 years later have you buying in the drug aisles. A nice business model.

Now consumers will have more favorable options, easily accessible, and hopefully not too expensive. Let’s hope this experiment succeeds.

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Here’ a question we got from Lillie, a Fooducate community member

Can you help me and your other readers understand how it is that shrimp have no fat, but lots of cholesterol?  Why don’t they have fat, if they are a living animal?

Great questions.

What you need to know:

We’ll start with the second question. Shrimp actually does have fat, but a very small amount of it. A 3 oz serving has just 1 gram of fat, none of it saturated. Compare that to the same serving of salmon with 11 grams of fat, or beef with 15-25 grams for a comparable portion. But smaller fish such as sardines also have just 3 grams of fat.

Regarding cholesterol – a quick reminder – cholesterol is a waxy substance found only in animal organisms, not plants. It is a lipid, or a fat, in plain English. But it’s weight is measured in milligrams (a thousandth of a gram) compared to “regular fat” that we measure in grams.

Cholesterol levels in shrimp are high, about 150mg per 3oz serving, which is 50% of the daily max. (Math:  150mg of cholesterol is still just 15% of the 1 gram of fat in a serving of shrimp)

If you are worried about cholesterol, the good news is that the cholesterol in food, including shrimp, does not directly translate to high blood cholesterol. It’s saturated fat that raises our levels of blood cholesterol.

That’s not to say the cholesterol in food doesn’t have any effect on our metabolism, but for most healthy adults, the cholesterol in shrimp should not be of concern.

By the way, shrimp is an excellent source of protein, Omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, vitamin D and vitamin B12.

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Summer is almost upon us, bringing with it endless days of sunshine, hot weather, and warm weather foods.

Today we’d like to turn the blog post over to you, dear readers, and learn a bit about your summer diet plans. Not diet as in “losing weight”, but rather foods that you enjoy preparing and eating during the hot months.

Please fire away in the comments below, with ideas and recipes for dishes and drinks that are healthy, tasty and easy to make. Make sure to vote on other people’s suggestions.

Later this afternoon we’ll update this post with the most popular suggestions.

Thanks!

UPDATE:

Looks like Christine’s Watermelon ice pops are a hit! …

“we toss watermelon in the blender then freeze in ice cube trays or those Popsicle maker things. Its like a Popsicle but with only one ingredient.”

Farmer’s markets and backyards seem to be an inspiration for many of you as well, with corn, tomatoes, and even beets mentioned below.

“Corn.  I cannot wait for fresh, sweet corn.  On the cob (I eat it raw when it’s right off the plant! but you can boil/steam if it you must), grilled, chowder, in a salad with chopped fresh zucchini and some herbs.  Oh corn, how I’ve missed you.”

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In the early 1990′s Congress enacted the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), which gave the FDA power to require food manufacturers to label product with nutrition and ingredient information.

The law was enacted in order to better inform consumers what is in foods, so that they can make better choices. In the 20 years since, this assumption been proven wrong – we are fatter and sicker than ever.

And nothing like a witty comic strip to prove the point:

(Thanks David, for alerting us to this sad commentary on the state of our food system.)

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At Fooducate we’ve long claimed that most nutrition bars are closer to candy bar than food. But that has not stopped the multi-billion bar market from continually offering consumers with more options.

Abbott Labs is no exception. It is expanding its Zone Perfect line with 2 sweet and salty additions:

ZonePerfect Sweet & Salty bars work hard for the body and the taste buds – they’re an excellent source of protein (10 grams), a good source of 19 vitamins and minerals, and are rich in antioxidants (Vitamins C & E, and Selenium). read more…

We took a closer look at the new Cashew Pretzel Bar to see what all the fuss was about.

What you need to know:

The bar is 200 calories, 3.5 teaspoons of sugar, 10 grams of protein, barely any fiber, and lots of vitamins and minerals. Despite being a “salty” snack, there are only 300mg of sodium.

Here is the ingredient list:

Soy Protein Nuggets (Soy Protein Isolate, Tapioca Starch, Salt), Roasted Cashews (Cashews, Peanut Oil, Salt), Yogurt Chips (Dried Cane Syrup, Fractionated Palm Kernel Oil, Nonfat Milk, Nonfat Yogurt Powder [Cultured Nonfat Milk], Soy Lecithin, Lactic Acid Powder [Modified Corn Starch, Lactic Acid], Natural Flavor), Pretzels (Wheat Flour, Salt, Corn Syrup, Yeast), Corn Syrup, Fructose Syrup, Caramel (Corn Syrup, Sugar, Nonfat Milk, Fractionated Palm Kernel Oil, Glycerine, Milk Protein Concentrate, Cream, Natural Flavor, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Disodium Phosphate), Soy Protein Isolate, Brown Rice Syrup, Peanut Flour, Peanut Butter, Fructose.
Less than 2% of the Following: Glycerine, High Oleic Safflower Oil and/or High Oleic Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Xanthan Gum.
Vitamins & Minerals: Calcium Phosphate, Ascorbic Acid, d-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Magnesium Oxide, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Calcium Pantothenate, Ferrous Fumarate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin A Palmitate, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Folic Acid, Chromium Chloride, Biotin, Sodium Selenite, Sodium Molybdate, and Cyanocobalamin.

The wonderful source of protein is overly processed soy. The yogurt chips contain more sugar and fractionated oil (which is very high in saturated fat) than they do milk. You are welcome to count the number of instances of sugar, conveniently highlighted above. The vitamins and minerals are all added on to the product and not inherent in the actual ingredients.

In all, a lot of hard work to put together sugar, salt, and fats with some cashews and vitamins.

By the way, Abbott is a pharmaceutical company, not a food manufacturer.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you want a treat, by all means buy a snack bar. But don’t think of it as a nutritious replacement to a meal, or as a weight loss tool. Always read nutrition labels and ingredient lists. And when you see a list as long as Zone Perfect’s, stay away.

And if you’re itching for a sweet and salty snacks -  how about some raisins and roasted cashews?

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