Search results: a life in food

This semester I answer students questions about nutrition on Tuesdays in the student-run Washington Square News.  Today’s is about fiber.

Question: We tweeted and linked to the article you were cited in The New York Times on Tuesday, and you mentioned the importance of fiber in a diet. How much fiber is good to have in a daily diet, and what does it do for our bodies? What are good sources of fiber — cereal bars, granola bars? How much is too much fiber?

Jane Brody, Personal Health, March 20: Calories are everywhere yet hard to track

The human body has a very complex and redundant system to make sure the brain gets the sugar calories it needs to function, Dr. Nestle and Dr. Nesheim explain in their book. At least 100 different hormones, enzymes and other chemicals — with more likely to be discovered — act to regulate appetite and to assure that people eat enough to maintain brain function.

But it is these very systems that go into overdrive during starvation (translation: a reduced-calorie diet), making it so difficult for people to lose weight.

Mark Bittman, Opinionator, March 21: Is a calorie a calorie?

Ultimately, the calorie is political: marketing affects instinct, and Nestle and Nesheim really shine in their analysis in this realm. (Their slogan: “Get organized. Eat less. Eat better. Move more. Get political.”)

When I asked Nestle what she would do, given that people in the United States were obviously eating too many calories and that the resulting excess weight was costing all of us life years and money, she answered quickly: “We need a farm bill that’s designed from top to bottom to support healthier diets, one that supports growing fruits and vegetables and making them cheaper.

We need to fix school lunches so they’re based on fresh foods, and fix food assistance programs so people have greater access to healthier foods.”

Atina Diffley, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works, University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

I blurbed this one, with much pleasure: “Turn Here Sweet Corn is an unexpected page-turner.  Atina Diffley’s compelling account of her life as a Minnesota organic farmer is deeply moving not only from a personal standpoint but also from the political.  Diffley reveals the evident difficulties of small-scale organic farming but is inspirational about its value to people and the planet.”  The book comes with an insert of glorious photographs illustrating the history she recounts.  The political?  The Diffley’s fought to keep an oil company from running a pipeline through their property—and won.

David Hanson and Edwin Marty, Breaking Through Concrete: Building an Urban Farm Revival, University of California Press, 2012.

Wonderfully photographed visits to a dozen urban farms all over America from Seattle (P-Patch) to Brooklyn’s own Annie Novak’s Eagle Street.  The authors asked hard questions and got honest answers.  This is a great resource for anyone who wants to get started, and the beautiful farms and farmers are well worth a look.

Jennifer Cockrall-King, Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution, Prometheus Books, 2012.

Cockrall-King went international.  She visited cities in the U.S., England, France, Canada, and Cuba to see what urban farmers were doing to create alternative food systems.  They are doing plenty.  This looks like a great excuse for ecotourism, dropping by, seeing for yourself, and getting to work.

I’m getting caught up on my journal reading and just ran across an editorial from The Lancet, January 21.  It takes on the UK government’s “personal responsibility” approach to health promotion based on the idea that

gently ‘nudging’ people to change their unhealthy behaviours was the key to public health.

Even the UK government has to admit that the nudge approach isn’t working.  Now it is telling physicians in the National Health Service (NHS) to nag:

use every contact with patients and the public to help them maintain and improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

The Lancet asks:

Is this a realistic, sensible, and effective recommendation? We would say not.

Effective, evidenced-based public health measures do not include nudging people into healthy behaviours or getting NHS staff to lecture patients on healthy lifestyles.

They include measures such as raising taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, fatty foods, and sugary drinks, reducing junk food and drink advertising to children, and restricting hours on sale of alcoholic drinks….Focusing on other approaches is foolish.

The nudge and nag approaches need one thing: the firm elbow.

Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has issued five recommendations for fixing diets and food systems:

• Tax unhealthy products.
• Regulate foods high in saturated fats, salt and sugar.
• Crack down on junk food advertising.
• Overhaul misguided agricultural subsidies that make certain ingredients cheaper than others.
• Support local food production so that consumers have access to healthy, fresh and nutritious foods.

De Schutter explains:

One in seven people globally are undernourished, and many more suffer from the ‘hidden hunger’ of micronutrient deficiency, while 1.3 billion are overweight or obese.

Faced with this public health crisis, we continue to prescribe medical remedies: nutrition pills and early-life nutrition strategies for those lacking in calories; slimming pills, lifestyle advice and calorie counting for the overweight.

But we must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms.

Governments, he said:

have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are accessible, and how they are marketed…We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges.

…Heavy processing thrives in our global food system, and is a win-win for multinational agri-food companies…But for the people, it is a lose-lose…In better-off countries, the poorest population groups are most affected because foods high in fats, sugar and salt are often cheaper than healthy diets as a result of misguided subsidies whose health impacts have been wholly ignored.

Much to ponder here.  Let’s hope government health agencies listen hard and get to work.

For further information, the press release adds these links:

• Nutrition diagrams for developed and developing countries
• The mandate of the Special Rapporteur
• The Universal Human Rights Index

My Tuesday Q and A for NYU’s Washington Square News:

Earlier this week I received a 3-page, single-spaced letter—plus 4 pages of charts and figures–from Andrew Briscoe III, the President and CEO of the Sugar Association.

I opened it with some trepidation because the last letter I got from the Sugar Association threatened to sue me (to read it, click here and scroll down to the Controversies section).

Whew.  This one merely expresses general concerns about:

the misinformation reported on added sugars consumption and the overstatement of added sugars contribution to increased caloric intakes.  Americans do not consume 25 percent of their calories from added sugars. We write to provide you with accurate data….

I don’t think I ever said that the average American consumes 25% of calories from sugars (although some surely do) but I have complained that the Institute of Medicine’s “safe” level of intake of sugars is 25% of calories.  This is higher than public health recommendations to restrict sugars to 10% of calories or less.  It is meant as an upper limit, but is often interpreted as a license to eat this much.

One quarter of daily calories from sugars is too high for something that provides no additional nutritional value.

The letter concludes:

The Sugar Association is committed to ensuring that all advice consumers receive regarding sugar intake is based on the best available scientific evidence and related data.  The American consumer will be better served by dietary advice that is science-based, practical and accurate, no matter the issue.

Can’t argue with that.  But as with all matters concerning nutrition, the issue is which science you choose to cite and how you interpret it.

Mr. Briscoe uses the term sugars, plural, because sucrose, HFCS, syrups, honey, and other such things are all sugars.

How much do Americans actually consume?  Mr. Briscoe was kind enough to provide USDA tables that address this question.  These describe the availability of sugars in the food supply, not necessarily what people are actually eating.

My interpretation of the tables is that they say:

• Sugars comprise 17% of total calorie availability.
• Adjusted for waste, the availability of sugars is about 27.5 teaspoons per day per capita (meaning everyone:  men, women, and tiny babies).
• Translating this into calories: 27.5 teaspoons x 4 grams per teaspoon x 4 calories per gram = 440 calories per day per capita.
• On a 2000 calorie diet, that’s 22% of total energy intake, although it will be lower for people who take in more calories.

The CDC has just released a summary of intake of added sugars among children and adolescents, in calories per day.

At 4 calories a gram, 400 calories is 100 grams or 3.5 ounces.  Can these calories contribute to weight gain or other health problems?

You bet.

As Mark Bittman put it in his New York Times column this week,

Let me state the obvious: there is no nutritional need for foods with added sugar.

All of this is part of the bigger question: How do we regulate the consumption of dangerous foods? As a nation, we’ve accepted the need to limit the marketing and availability of tobacco and alcohol. The first is dangerous in any quantity, and the second becomes dangerous when overconsumed.

And added sweeteners, experts increasingly argue, have more in common with these substances than with fruit.

No wonder the Sugar Association uses its own interpretation of the science to suggest that current levels of intake are benign and that no level of intake poses a risk.  Mr. Briscoe’s letter says:

No authoritative scientific body that has conducted a major systematic review of the scientific literature has a found a public health need to set an Upper Level (UL) for total or added sugars intake.  Every comprehensive review of the scientific literature concludes that, with the exception of dental caries, no causal link can be established between the intake of sugars and lifestyle diseases, including obesity.

I’m glad he mentioned dental caries.  Karen Sokal, a physician in California, has been tracking the onset of tooth decay among children in Latin America who are now consuming sodas and candy on a daily basis.  She writes:

Mark Bittman’s excellent editorial, “Regulating our Sugar Habit,” (Feb 27) concludes that eating too much sugar has become “the biggest public health challenge facing the developed world.”  Indeed, it poses a big health challenge for the entire world, especially developing countries.

In my 30 years of global health work, I have seen an explosion in the marketing and consumption of non-nutritious foods and beverages followed by a dramatic rise in childhood tooth decay and obesity. Quarterly business reports praise the food and beverage industry’s increased profits based on increased sales in “emerging markets.” The NY Times article on Kellogg’s purchase of Pringles (Feb 12) stated, “The snack business is growing faster and has greater appeal internationally,” which analysts noted “appears somewhat out of sync with the trends toward better-for-you snacking.”

Governmental regulations to ensure the production and marketing of healthful food and beverages must be applied worldwide and protect the health of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Indeed, they must.  The Sugar Association has much to answer for in its opposition to public health recommendations to eat less sugar.

My weekly Q and A for NYU’s student newspaper, Washington Square News

Nutritionist’s Notebook: Snacks on a schedule

by Marion Nestle

Published February 28, 2012

Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is the author of “Food Politics” and, most recently, “Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.” Each week, she will answer student questions about nutrition, health, and food. 

Question: Do you have quick food recommendations for busy students who tend to skip breakfast/lunch or who don’t have time due to busy scheduling? Are there any grab-and-go options that you would recommend?

Answer: From the perspective of nutrition, two principles apply to on-the-go food. Look for fruits and vegetables whenever you can get them, and choose foods that are as unprocessed as possible. The closer you can get to eating basic foods, the more nutrients they contain for their calories — in nutrispeak, they are of high nutrient density.

To see what options might be available, I went to the dining hall at the Kimmel Student Center. Alas, chips are at every counter and cash register. You can do better.

Some healthy choices are obvious: bananas, pears and five kinds of apples. Others are carrot packs, yogurt, hard-cooked eggs, and hummus with pretzels.

You have to search hard for the other interesting options. A helpful manager pointed to snack packs of organic dried banana chips, mangos and goldenberries. Goldenberries look like raisins, which would be another good choice, but I didn’t see any. I also didn’t find any packages of nuts. These are great as long as you don’t eat too many. If you want your dorm cafeteria to carry items like this, ask!

Sandwiches work if they are not too big and unwieldy. The Pret a Manger on Astor Place offers half sandwiches in a stiff, thin cardboard. These are easy to eat on the run.

I avoid power bars. They violate my “no more than five ingredients” rule and I don’t particularly like the way they taste. If I want something sweet, I’ll go for the dark chocolate Brazil nuts I found at Kimmel. If you just eat a couple at a time, they are worth the price.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Feb. 28 print edition. Marion Nestle is a contributing columnist. Email her at dining@nyunews.com.