Ritz has a new cracker on the market and it’s made with Whole Wheat!

The reason we want whole wheat and whole grains in our diet is:

1. the whole grain contains many more nutrients than a refined grain

2. the celebrity nutrient in whole grains is fiber, something most of us are lacking in our diet.

3. whole grains in a food are an indicator of a less processed product.

So this new Ritz cracker with 5 grams of whole grains sounds healthy right? Let’s take a look…

What you need to know:

We are kind of disappointed to read the nutriton label and discover that the 5 grams of whole grains are translated to less than 1 gram of fiber per serving!

But our disappointment did not end there.

Here is the ingredient list:

unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), whole grain wheat flour, soybean oil, sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, leavening (calcium phosphate, and/or baking soda), salt, high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin.

As you can see, the first ingredient in this cracker is refined flour, stripped of its nutrients, only to have some of them added back (hence “enriched”). The whole wheat, referred to boldly in the front of package, is listed only as the second ingredient.

Additionally, this product contains trans-fats – just look at the partially hydrogenated oil listed as an ingredient.

Last but not least, high fructose corn syrup is used here. This usually indicates a low quality, high profit margin processed food.

Bottom line – stay away.

What to do at the supermarket:

If crackers are your thing – choose those with 100% whole wheat, or close to that. Look for 2, 3, or more grams of fiber per serving. And no partially hydrogenated anything.

Please note that the serving size designated on cracker packs is usually very small. For example here, 5 crackers seems like a very small portion. You may need to do some multiplying to figure out the true calorie count you are consuming.

One more thing. Aside from the cracker itself, the toppings count too. Our favorite healthy recommendations include, hummus, avocado, sardines, and low-fat cheese.

What’s your favorite Cracker?

We’re running a short cracker survey to learn what’s important for you when choosing crackers. Please take a minute to answer 3 questions. One lucky respondent will win a $25 gift card of her / his choice. (Expires August 28). Click here for the survey.

UPDATE: Survey is closed. Winner has been notified.

You can also tell us what your favorite cracker is by scanning you favorite cracker and liking it on your Fooducate Android App or iPhone App.

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Corn syrup is used abundantly in our food industry. You’ve probably seen it as an ingredient on many products at the grocery store. You can actually buy corn syrup as a product for your recipes. But what exactly is it?

1. Corn syrup is a liquid sweetener derived from corn starch (or maize).

2. Corn starch is used extensively in processed foods and drinks because it is less expensive than sugar, doesn’t crystallize as easily, adds flavor and softens the texture of food.

3. Light corn syrup has been processed to remove all color and doesn’t contain much flavor, while dark corn syrup has had caramel color and molasses added to it.

4. Corn syrup is NOT THE SAME AS from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The vilified HFCS is is derived from corn syrup that is processed with enzymes to create a sweeter syrup with a higher percentage of fructose.

5. Corn syrup is made of sugar and oligosaccharides. Both are carbohydrates. Another carbohydrate, by the way, is starch.When we refer to “sugar”, we mean one of the most simple forms of a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates can be “complex”, such as starch, or “simple”, such as table sugar (sucrose).

6. Oligosaccharides, which make up about 50% of corn syrup, are a form of carbohydrate that is almost as simple as sugar, but  have a few more molecules attached to them. So they are a little more complex, but not enough to be called a starch.

7. The more simple a carbohydrate, the quicker your body absorbs it, causing your “blood sugars” to rise up very quickly, but then drop just as fast. This will make you feel hungry pretty quickly after you’ve eaten something with a high sugar content. Ideally, we want to consume more of the complex carbohydrates, giving us blood sugar levels that don’t fluctuate as much throughout the day.

8. While corn syrup doesn’t have the bad rap of HFCS, it is still loaded with sugar! If corn syrup is listed as one of the top ingredients in a food product, it’s probably a good idea to steer clear of it..

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(HFCS Commercial Spoof on Saturday Night Live)

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is considered worse than the devil by many consumers today. The liquid sweetener, which has been an integral part of our food system since the early 1980′s, has been blamed for  skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates in this country.

High fructose corn syrup is derived from surplus corn, and costs half the price as table sugar. That has made it very popular with food and beverage manufacturers for over 30 years.

But it seems that the good times for HFCS are about to end.

Many manufacturers who used HFCS in their products are switching back to sugar. And they’re telling consumers about it too. Today, 1 in 50 products in the supermarket is labeled “No HFCS”. That’s a ten-fold increase compared to just 5 years ago. (Source: Food Navigator, May 11, 2011). Examples include Sara Lee, Some Pepsi drinks, Newman’s Own, and Hunt’s.

Although the current scientific consensus is that HFCS is nutritionally identical to sugar, at least one study has shown otherwise.

Regardless of the science, the public consensus is that HFCS is not a good ingredient to have in food. 35% of consumers look for HFCS when choosing foods, compared to only 20% in 2006.

The Corn Refiners Association has made numerous attempts to convince America that HFCS is safe, but they all seem to backlash.The most recent attempt, changing the name HFCS to “corn sugar” is meeting with lawsuits from the sugar industry.

[Image via The Daily Green]

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether HFCS is different from sugar or not, the fact is we are consuming way too much of both. So instead of worrying about your soda being sweetened with sugar or HFCS, how about switching to water?

More than anything else, a highly sweetened product is not something you want to consume regularly. When you see HFCS on a product label, it usually is indicative of a cheap processed food. Try to limit the number of products like this that you put in your shopping cart.

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This is a guest blog post by Kiyah Duffey, PhD.

In a petition to the FDA last September, the Corn Refiners Association urged the regulatory agency to consider an alternative name for use on product labels: allowing the use of “corn sugar”, it argued, as opposed to HFCS would help consumers understand that it [HFCS] is “simply a sugar made from corn.”

Yeah, right.

Let’s be honest. Call it high fructose corn syrup, call it corn syrup, call it an amazing sweetener that makes your coke delicious and cost just pennies to make; I call it unnecessary and worth avoiding. So do several consumer groups including the Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumers League who said:

“Permitting HFCS to be called ‘corn sugar’ would allow manufacturers to conceal this ingredient from consumers…HFCS has been the name of this ingredient since the FDA’s original GRAS [generally recognized as safe] affirmation regulation in 1983.”

In the field of nutrition and obesity research, HFCS was plunged into the spotlight in 2004 for its hypothesized role as a potential contributor to the obesity epidemic. According a study using nationally representative data, HFCS consumption increased 1000% between 1970 and 1990 and in 2000 accounted for > 40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages.

In the decades since those early articles were published the scientific community seems to be in agreement: HFCS does not uniquely contribute to weight gain and obesity independent of its association with the consumption of high sugar, high fat, and highly energy dense foods. But that doesn’t mean that it’s off the hook, at least not in my book.

And the FDA seems to agree: it is expected to take up to 2 years to decide whether to allow food manufacturers to change HFCS to corn sugar on ingredient labels.

Here’s the thing about HFCS, regardless of whether it has any independent association with weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or any other chronic disease one could think of, the very presence of this ingredient is a talisman of (to borrow a term from Michael Pollan) a “food item” — something that looks like food, something that companies want us to think is food, but which is in fact a creation of science.  We, the consumer, know of course to look for it in things like soda (although even this is changing) and flavored fruit beverages, but HFCS is sneaky, and can be found in some unexpected products ranging from soup to salad dressing, crackers to bread. What’s more, it is usually found alongside a list of at least a half a dozen or more ingredients that the average person cannot pronounce and can only guess at their origin and purpose. In short, it should provide one very clear piece of information to you, the consumer: this is not a real food, and it’s best to avoid it.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you see HFCS in the ingredient list, look closely at what else is listed. Generally, you’ll see a laundry list of additives and preservatives that are probably best to avoid. For many food items, it’s possible to find an alternative that does not have HFCS, but beware that any food with a lot of added sweeteners, of any kind, should be consumed sparingly- especially if you’re looking to keep your waistline trim.

Kiyah Duffey, PhD. conducts nutrition and obesity research at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill.

She writes about food, family, and parenting as a full-time working mom at ourregularlyscheduledprogram.com and knownutrition.org.

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March 1 marks the beginning of National Nutrition Month – an annual campaign that is sponsored by the American Dietetic Association (ADA). The goals are simple – raise awareness of informed food choices, good eating habits, and exercise. Another stated goal is to “promote the ADA and its members to the public and the media as the most valuable and credible source of timely, scientifically based food and nutrition information.”

Noble goals indeed, and very timely.

But is “Nutrition Month” effective at all?

A few observations from endless conversation with dietitians, consumers, and food brands:

1. “Scientifically based” is problematic for many people, who refuse to be pacified by soothing assurances, even if they come from the ADA and the government (FDA).

Example: Artificial food colorings. Red #40 has been shown to mess with kids’ neural activity. It is being phased out in Europe. And yet here, studies (many paid for by the food industry)  say it’s perfectly safe. The fact that junk food companies are sponsoring the ADA does not help either.

Another example: margarine was touted as the “cure” for saturated fat of butter, but it turned out to be even worse due to trans-fat. What foods are being recommended as healthy today that we’ll be shaking our heads at 20 years from now?

Yet another example: High fructose corn syrup. Science has been saying it is no different than sugar for 30 years. And yet many people shun it as if it were the devil. Whether or not HFCS is bad or not, its presence in a food is a sure indicator that is overly processed, has inferior ingredients and is poor in nutritional value.

Get where we’re going with this?

2. A drop in a bucket. While Nutrition Month is a nice idea, over at Micky D’s and Coke, every month is junk food month. Actually every hour of every day. Hands down, on every media you can think of, people are more apt to meet a promotion for a burger or liquid candy (aka Soda) than they are for anything healthy. Money buys mindshare, and the “good guys” fighting  the nutrition war are severely underfunded.

3. Dietitians are an unaffordable luxury. We’ve spoken with many people who could use dietetic help. For the most part, they seem content in finding information online instead of visiting a real-life dietitian. But the same people don’t hesitate to go to their family physician the minute someone is feeling ill.

So why doesn’t every household have a family dietitian?

We think dietitians are a crucial part of fixing America’s health problems. It’s just that Doctors get all the respect, money and attention, not dietitians. And because doctors visits are so expensive, we pay medical insurance that lets each individual doctor’s visit be relatively cheap. Nobody will think twice about a co-pay of $10 or $20. But a session with a dietitian will cost you $100. Who can afford that?

Will insurance companies wake up and start to subsidize dietitian visits? We certainly hope so. Because ultimately, obesity and food disease prevention is much cheaper than “cure-ation“.

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photo credit: Jorge Bach, CSPI

Last week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petitioned the FDA to ban certain types of caramel coloring because their production process creates carcinogenic chemicals:

In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown coloring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulfites under high pressure and temperatures. Chemical reactions result in the formation of 2-methylimidazole and 4 methylimidazole, which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukemia in laboratory mice or rats. read more…

The studies were conducted by the National Toxicology Program, a division of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.

What you need to know:

Although soy sauce and other products contain caramel coloring, it is in small amounts. The problem with soda is the large amount of coloring per serving. And, CSPI says, to put the risk of cancer in context, the far bigger problem with sugary sodas is obesity and obesity related diseases.

Here’s a typical cola ingredient list

Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavors, Caffeine.

Let’s remind ourselves -

• The amount of sugar in a cup is 7 teaspoons.Many people drink multiple servings per day.
• Most soft drinks use high fructose corn syrup, whose effects on metabolism scientists are still arguing over.
• Phosphoric acid leaches calcium from bones, among other things.
• And now we learn that the caramel coloring used is carcinogenic.

Need any more reasons to quit soda, or at least drastically reduce drinking occasions to Christmas and your birthday?

What to do at the supermarket:

Do yourself and your family a favor. Limit your consumption of soft drinks. Just skip the beverage aisle in the supermarket. Learn to enjoy tap water.

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In the previous posts we provided general guidelines for choosing bread and discussed whole grains.

Today we’ll take a look at the other ingredients in bread. To do this, we analyzed the ingredient lists of over 2,000 breads.  The average list had  20-25 ingredients! That’s 5 times more ingredients than you need for a basic bread (flour, water, yeast, salt). It’s important to note, some ingredients, such as dough conditioners used in tiny amounts are not required to be labeled!

Here then, is a list of the most common bread ingredients, with brief explanations where required.

1. Flour - Less than half of the breads included whole wheat flour, the rest were refined or enriched flours.

2. Salt – required for flavor and to balance the fermentation by the yeast. See #4.

3. Water – try baking bread without it

4. Yeast- yeast is a living organism. It ferments the carbs in dough and converts them to carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise.

5. Vitamins & minerals – this is what’s added to refined flour  – Vitmin B1 (thiamin), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), Vitamin B3 (niacin), folic acid, and iron. Whole grain flours do not need the addition because they contain these nutrient and more in the bran and germ. In fact, enrichment means returning that which hath been stripped away through the refinement of the wheat…

6. Soybean oil – oil or fats used in bread make the crumb (texture) more tender and rich in flavor (and calories!) They also extend shelf life to some extent, preventing the bread from going stale. Soybean is the cheapest possible oil, and thus is used most. If you prepare your own loaf – try olive oil.

7. Wheat gluten -  Gluten increases the dough’s ability to rise. It also increases the bread’s structural stability and chewiness. Although gluten is naturally present in flour, it requires substantial kneading to be released.  Adding wheat gluten is a shortcut.

8. Calcium sulfate – better known as plaster of Paris – is a clear white rock found in nature. Used here as a dough conditioner. Commercial bakeries employ various dough conditioners for several reasons: (1) to shorten dough rising times (2) to increase shelf life and (3) make the dough easier for their machinery to process.
9. Mono and di-glycerides, ethoxylated mono and di-glycerides – derived from animal or plant sources, these additives have multiple roles – they are dough conditioners (improve texture, increase volume), emulsifiers, and release agents (make it easier to get the bread out of the baking pan). A dough conditioner

10. High-fructose corn syrup – many breads employ a sweetener to improve taste as well as help the dough rise. (Yeast love sugar – they ferment it to create carbon dioxide which is what makes the bread rise. HFCS is the cheapest sugar, and that is why manufacturers use it.
11. Calcium propionate – a preservative that inhibits mold and bacterial growth. Considered safe, but in the early 1990′s it was linked to attention deficit disorder in children.

12. Soy lecithin – a very popular additive that helps bind the various ingredients in the bread, improves shelf life and also helps. Read more on soy lecithin.
13. Sodium stearoyl lactylate – used as an emulsifier used as a dough conditioner. It maintains texture, increase the volume of the loaf, keeps fats mixed well with the dough, and serves as a humectant, to absorb more water per loaf (cheapest ingredient is water!). It is also slightly sweet.
14. Monocalcium phosphate – a leavening agent and preservative.

15. Enzymes – decrease the time it takes dough to rise. The two most popular enzymes used are Amylase and Protease.
16. Ammonium sulfate - food for yeast. Helps the dough rise faster.

17. Ascorbic acid – this is vitmin C. It’s not added for your health, but rather to create a slightly acidic environment for the yeast to ferment more effectively, thus decreasing the time it takes the dough to rise (sound familiar?)
18. Honey

19. Azodicarbonamide – another dough conditioner. It also bleaches the flour (makes it whiter). It’s considered safe in the US at up to 45 parts per million, but is banned from use in Europe because studies showed it could cause asthma or allergic reactions.

20. DATEM – an acronym for Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Monoglycerides. Another dough conditioner used to improve volume and uniformity. It is considered safe by the FDA, but a study in 2002, on rats, showed “heart muscle fibrosis and adrenal overgrowth”.

Sources:

• Fooducate’s database product analysis
• A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives
• FDA
  
• Wikipedia
  

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It’s not Halloween, but somebody’s already putting on a mask. More precisely, some-THING. Goodbye High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), Hello CORN SUGAR. Make no mistake, these are one and the same.

So why the name change?

The answer: Marketing, of course.

HFCS has been battered in the past few years by consumers concerned about its health effects and possible link to obesity. As a result, sales of the cheap sweetener – often found in soft drinks, snacks, condiments, bakery items, and whatnot – have been in a downward spiral. Ad campaigns last year did not help. Companies began switching back from HFCS to “real sugar” (Dr. Pepper, Sara Lee, and others) in response to consumer fears.

The Corn Refiners Association hopes that this name change (which may take several years to approve through the regulatory channels) will help turn the liquid sweetener’s fortunes around.

What you need to know:

HFCS is a processed product, manufactured from surplus corn, yielding a cheap replacement to table sugar. In the early 1980′s many food manufacturers started using it instead of sugar as a cost cutting measure. That’s about the same time obesity rates started to skyrocket in the US.

So is there a direct connection?

Most scientists agree that HFCS is no better and now worse than plain sugar. The big problem is that Americans consume way too much of both. Some math:

• According to the USDA, every man woman and child in the US consumes approximately 40 pounds of sugar and 40 pounds of HFCS every year.
• That works out to 25 tsp of added sweetener per day.
• Which is 400 calories!

Whether you think HFCS is the devil or not, reducing your daily intake of all added sugars is a wise strategy for you and your family.

What to do at the supermarket:

We’ve added corn sugar to our list of sugar synonyms. When looking at product ingredient lists, watch out for any combination of these hiding in the list. Often times manufacturers divide the added sugar into several names so that it won’t appear as one of the first ingredients in the product.

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Behemoth food processor Sara Lee announced yesterday that it will cease using high fructose corn syrup in its Soft & Smooth and 100 percent Whole Wheat bread lines. The reason – consumers, especially moms, have asked the company to make this change. But will this change make the bread any healthier?

Most dietitians and health professionals agree that HFCS and sugar are equally bad in the amounts being consumed by the average American today. There are a few studies showing that excess fructose may lead to health problems. But both sugar and HFCS contain fructose in similar amounts. Agave nectar is almost all fructose, yet enjoys a health halo.

So the issue here, for the most part, is not scientific, rather market based. Many parents don’t buy products with HFCS because of what they symbolize – highly processed junk food. Sara Lee, like many other food manufacturers in the past few years, is wise to disentangle itself from such a negative ingredient.

That said, there are a lot of REAL improvements Sara Lee can make to improve the nutritional value of their breads. Let’s take a look at the newly formulated Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Whole Grain White Bread…

What you need to know:

1. Sugars. The serving size of 2 slices is 150 calories. With it comes 4 grams of sugar (1 teaspoon). In this version they are from table sugar. In the previous version of the product they came from HFCS. Why sugar in bread? Dump it all together.

2. Fiber. The fiber count is important; after all the company claims the bread is an Excellent source of whole grain (This product contains 35% of its grain as whole grain and provides 10 g of whole grain in a 2 slice serving. USDA recommends consuming 48 g of whole grain every day). Unfortunately this only translates to 3 grams of fiber (12% of the DV). On the bright side, it is 50% more fiber than the product had in its previous incarnation.

3. More Whole Wheat. Here’s the full ingredient list:

Enriched Bleach Flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Water, Whole Grain [Whole Wheat Flour, Brown Rice Flour (Rice Flour, Rice Bran Including Germ)], Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Yeast, Cellulose, Contains 2% or Less of Each of Following: Calcium Sulfate, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of the Following: Mono- and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Peroxide, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Enzymes), Guar Gum, Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Distilled Vinegar, Butter (Cream, Salt), Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate and/or Calcium Carbonate), Corn Starch, Natural Flavor, Vitamin D3, Soy Lecithin, Soy Flour.

It tells the real story – whole grain is the THIRD ingredient, only after the processed, fiber poor “enriched flour” which makes up most of the product.

Sara Lee should avoid confusing their loyal consumers by naming what is basically a white bread as whole wheat (Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Whole Grain White Bread).

What to do at the supermarket:

When choosing bread, go for those marked as 100% Whole Wheat. You’ll get a better deal on the fiber. Sugar should be zero or close to it. And the shorter the ingredient list, the better.

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Last week NPR held an interesting debate about the taxing of sugary soft drinks. Representing the Cokes and Pepsis of the world was Maureen Storey of the American Beverage Association. In her words:

Soda is comprised mostly of water. A full-calorie soft drink has 90 percent water, and a diet soft drink is 99 percent water. Water is the most important nutrient that we have…

Of nutritional value, there is either high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose, and that does provide energy or carbohydrates. And if we are active and need a refreshing beverage after a nice, long walk or a run, you can have a beverage and quench your thirst and stay hydrated…

There are some studies that show that particularly with children, children who have been exercising may not drink enough water to get back to the hydration point that they need to be at. So with a little bit of flavoring and a little bit of sweetness, they will drink enough, then, to get back to where they need to be.

A little bit of sweetness? HELLO! How can you say that 8 teaspoons of sugar in a cup “a little”? How do you take your coffee Mrs. Storey? with a bit of water added to the sugar?

People, the best way to rehydrate your children and yourself is water. The only reason some children are reluctant to drink water is because at a very early age they were conditioned to drink soda or the supposedly healthier apple juice.

As for diet drinks, you may want to reconsider after reading this.

What to do at the supermarket:

The quickest, easiest way for you to shed pounds, save money, and start enjoying the flavor of food in your meals, is to skip the beverage aisle at the supermarket. Challenge yourself to drink just water for a week. It won’t kill ya…

Thank you Dan Mitchell for bringing this to our attention.

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