One last article, and I’m off to bed:

Beer ingredient may fight prostate cancer

PORTLAND, Ore. - For many men, a finding by Oregon researchers sounds too good to be true: an ingredient in beer seems to help prevent prostate cancer, at least in lab experiments. The trouble is you’d theoretically have to drink about 17 beers a day for any potential benefit. And no one’s advising that.

Researchers at Oregon State University say that the compound xanthohumol, found in hops, inhibits a protein in the cells along the surface of the prostate gland. The protein acts like a switch that turns on a variety cancers, including prostate cancer.

Dr. Richard N. Atkins, CEO of the National Prostate Cancer Coalition, said the experiments are encouraging and “perhaps men could take it in pill form someday.”

There’s a fun profile of - and interview with - “diet scold” Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating and Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health in Salon.com. Fans of Morgan Spurlock might recognize Nestle from Super Size Me: “She’s the only person in the movie who is able to offer a coherent definition of a calorie.”

Here are a few excerpts:

In “What to Eat,” Nestle demystifies the American foodscape, exposing the ways that nutritional advice is tainted by food marketers and the diet industry. Readers will find there’s much to be learned by taking a 611-page extended shopping trip with her. For starters, many foods with healthy reputations — most yogurt and fruit drinks and many cereals, even those promoted as high-fiber or high-protein — are loaded with sugars, and should be treated as dessert, not breakfast. Junk food is fortified and packaged to make it sound healthier than it is: As Nestle writes, “Vitamin-enriched sodas are still sodas. Organic gummi bears are still candy. Trans fat-free snack foods are still salty and full of rapidly absorbable carbohydrates.” And, sorry, raw cookie-dough eaters; today’s eggs are more likely to be contaminated with salmonella than they were just a few decades ago.

The Q & A on organics is the most interesting exchange, I think:

You’re enthusiastic about organic food. Why should people choose organic?

One reason absolutely overrides all others. There are no pesticides or chemical fertilizers used in the process, which means it’s much less harmful for the environment and for farmworkers. Certainly organic farms can be about as productive, and the food is at least as nutritious, and quite possibly more nutritious than conventional or industrially grown products.

There’s been a lot of controversy about the organic standard. What makes you trust it?

I talked to a lot of people who are in the organic business — farmers, producers, product developers, inspectors — and they all think it’s legit. Everybody involved with it seems to feel that it is a process with a lot of integrity. For one reason: they all watch each other. And really, the only thing that they have going for them is the credibility of the process, and if that process isn’t credible, it’s going to hurt everybody.

That said, there is tremendous pressure on organic farmers to cut corners, and those pressures come not only from the USDA, but also from Congress and the industrial food industry. To the extent that politics can weaken the organic standards, the industry does stand to lose the credibility that they’re now holding onto with their fingernails.

Do conventional food producers want us to think that the organic certification process is corrupt?

Of course they do. They want you to think that organic production is dirtier, because it uses natural fertilizer. They want you to think it’s not as productive. They want you to think that it’s less nutritious.

Go check out the whole thing here.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: DawnWatch
Date: May 22, 2006 9:00 PM
Subject: DawnWatch: “Petri dish certified” — Los Angeles Times article 5/22/06

The Monday, May 22, Los Angeles Times has a fascinating article headed, “Petri dish certified; Growing meat in a lab sounds far-fetched, but some scientists see it as an inevitable evolution. Whether it’s practical remains to be seen.” (Page F3)

It opens:

“The new good-for-you meat won’t be pork or grass-fed beef, and it won’t be made of soy. If the efforts of a few future-minded scientists succeed, it will taste and look like old-fashioned meat — only it’ll be raised in a lab, not on a farm.

Several groups of scientists are cultivating edible meat in dishes from animal muscle cells. The technology, which involves choosing the right starter cells, stimulating and fine-tuning their growth for taste, texture and nutrients, has a way — a long way — to go before meat could hit supermarkets. But these researchers insist it will be a more efficient way to produce a staple of the American diet — and will make meat healthier to boot.

“Growing lab meat, they say, will mean scientists can control levels and types of fats (such as omega 3 fatty acids), protein and other substances and produce a product less likely to be contaminated with such food-poisoning culprits as E. coli.

“‘Suddenly a McDonald’s breakfast sausage patty could protect you from heart disease instead of giving you heart disease,’ says Robert Lawrence, director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

We are given an idea of what would be involved:

“To culture meat, scientists cut a small piece of muscle from a pig or fish, or use a few cells cultured in a lab. (Popular starters include embryonic myoblasts, which are cells destined to become muscle cells, or adult muscle ’satellite’ cells, which help muscle recover from injuries.) The cells are placed in a dish or bioreactor then ‘fed’ with a fluid containing a combination of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, sugars, salts and growth factors.

“Early success came in 2002, when Touro College biology professor Morris Benjaminson reported growing fish meat in the lab. He and his colleagues cultured the flesh using pieces of muscle tissue (about 20 square centimeters) harvested from anesthetized, living goldfish.

“The tissues were doused with fibroblasts (cells that form connective tissue), incubated and nourished with either fetal cow serum, maitake or shiitake mushroom extract or fish meal.

“Within a week, the fish muscles increased up to 89% in size.

“Collaborator James Gilchriest, also a researcher at Touro, marinated a batch of the cultured fish — which the researchers said ‘resembled fresh fish fillets’ — in olive oil, lemon and garlic before breading and deep-frying them.

The full article is available on line here or at http://tinyurl.com/lx9nh

Focusing on health, it make no mention of animal protection issues but opens the door for letters to the editor against the cruelty of factory farming and slaughterhouses. A great source of information on factory farming is www.FactoryFarming.com

The Los Angeles Times takes letters at letters@latimes.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

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In a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, March 2006 edition, researchers found that a diet of increased, soy, fiber, almonds, and plant sterols was as effective as popular statin drugs in lowering cholesterol. The only noted side effect was weight loss. “We’re hoping to make cholesterol control within the grasp of the average person more than it has been,” he added. “The advice that’s been offered so far has left many people with no option other than to take a statin.” The study was also interesting because some participants had previously participated in studies of statins, so direct comparisons were possible.

If you recall, eighteen months ago, research was published that indicated eating fruits like blueberries also lowered LDL cholesterol as well or better than statins. Statins are popular because doctors are either not up to date on the latest studies concerning statins versus diet changes, or unable to convince patients to effect enough of a lifestyle change to incorporate certain foods into their diets. I myself was able to lower my cholesterol from over 250 to under 170 by simply cutting out all meat and dairy, and increasing my intake of soy, fruits, and fiber. I also experienced the side effect of losing weight.

Increasing fiber is relatively easy. There are a number of very high fiber cereals out there that do not contain lots of wasteful sugar. Replacing cows milk with soy milk will increase your soy intake, and is probably much healthier anyway. Almonds are common enough to get any any supermarket, and there are plenty of legitimate plant sterol supplements at the market.

When I was 18 I had a cholesterol number of 270, which was rediculous. What is even more rediculous, is that I took years to change my habits. I was prescribed a statin, but it was horrible. It left me dizzy and sick to my stomach all the time. I took it for two weeks and never went back. All it took was diet. I’m glad to see the science is backing me up.

References:

Reuters Story
News Target

Like many companies, the one I work for provides snacks for employees. Also like many companies, the one I work for provides junk food for snacks. Since I’ve been on my strict diet, I’ve not partaken in any office snacks, save the occasional fresh apple. The work environment of my company is very intense, so snacking is very common in the office culture. Until I got a handle on my snacking, I have to admit I used to partake in the potato chips and pretzels that were available Not something to be proud of. So I will be doing a multi-post series, about office snacks.

The winner of this weeks’ post, is Sunshine’s Cheez-Its. This is a snack, I have to admit, I’ve not had in many years. It touts that it’s made from real cheese derived from skim milk, and that it’s a baked snack. This particular snack comes in a 1.5 ounce bag, so light, you’d almost think it’s empty. The entire package makes up a single serving.

There are 220 calories in this single serving, 100 which come from fat. That makes this snack a horrible 45% fat. Not even close to healthy. It’s a lightweight, fat ridden waste of time. Cheez-Its get a failing grade from me. If you’re hungry and need a snack, just have an apple.

Yesterday I posted about frozen lasagna, and I mentioned that a lasagna meal would most likely include garlic bread. Today, using the data from the wonderful www.nutritiondata.com, I am posting my findings on garlic bread, specifically Pepperidge Farm’s frozen Crusty Italian Bread, garlic style. It’s not pretty.

First, I looked at serving size. One serving of garlic bread is 50 grams, which equates to just under 2 ounces. Two ounces of bread would satisfy very few people, and it’s more likely that a person would eat two pieces or more. One piece of garlic bread contains 186 calories, 86.4 which come from fat. That’s right, 51% fat. Nowhere near the desired 30% level that would qualify this is a healthy food. About the only saving grace, is that it’s low in cholesterol. Who cares though? It’s just plain bad for you. Take nearly 400 calories from two pieces of garlic bread, plus the 760 calories from the lasagna, and you’re on the way to obesity and death. Ciao!

In today’s world of tight schedules where hardly anyone has time to make dinner from scratch, frozen dinners have become the lifesaver for many families. When looking at a frozen dinner, one looks for a tasty meal and hopefully some nutrition. Lasagna is a very popular choice for frozen dinners, and Stouffer’s “Lasagna with Meat & Sauce” is a very popular lasagna choice. In this post, I will be examining this product and also offering a healthier and tastier alternative. I would like to note that I am getting my nutritional information from the very well done site www.nutritiondata.com.Now into the details. A serving size from this product weighs 595 grams. For all you non-metric people that is 1.31 pounds of lasagna. Seems like a large portion to me. In that serving, there are 767 calories, 268 which come from fat. That would make this food 35% fat, and just over the 30% threshold needed to be considered healthy. If you add garlic bread to this, forget about it. You’ll be way over 35%.

The serving also provides 38% of your daily allowance for cholesterol, a whopping 85% of your daily allowance for salt, and a surprisingly decent 64% of your daily allowance for calcium. However, considering there are better ways to get calcium, say a multi-vitamin, the high level of calcium does little to make this healthy. Since this lasagna would most likely be paired with garlic bread, the total meal is unlikely to be healthy at all. The amount of salt, cholesterol, and preservatives give this meal a failing grade for me. No way to make it healthy, and I’m sure the taste is somewhat muted by being frozen and preserved.

As I have said in previous posts, I am a dietary vegan, and this Xmas my fiancee and I enjoyed a vegan lasagna for our dinner. We used standard pasta sauce from the store, soy cheese from Soya Kaas, and subsituted meat with fresh carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, loads of garlic, and a bit of olive oil. Kelly made two pans of this great lasagna the day before. By making two pans all at once, she assured that for the rest of the week, she would have great tasting lasagna to eat, and while it did take a couple hours to make, the taste is worth it.

We took pictures to document the process of making the lasagna to show just how easy it is, and how much better it looks than a piece of frozen dinner lasagna.

The vegetable mix where you can see the carrots, yellow squash, zucchini and garlic.

The lasagna noodles waiting to be used.

The cooking of the veggies.

The first layer of veggies.

And now the cheese.

Here you can see the layers of the uncooked lasagna.

A cooked lasagna, and it looks awesome!

Another shot of the cooked lasagna.

Heaven is served!

Kelly’s gourmet food critic shot.

I hope you can see how appetizing a homemade lasagna is. The lasagna was great, and one doesn’t miss the meat or preservatives from a store bought frozen lasagna. As I said, while it took a few hours one day to make, Kelly made enough to last a week or more, and for the result, it was time well spent.

The first food I investigated was the BK Veggie. All the information I am pulling for this post is accurate as of December 23, 2005. I used this pdf available here from Burger King itself.

I’m starting with the BK Veggie because it’s supposed to be a healthier option. It’s a vegetarian option, but I believe no fast food restuarant will guarantee anything to be 100% vegetarian. It definitely isn’t vegan.

Let’s start of by comparing calories with the flagship Burger King product, the Whopper. The default Whopper order has 670 calories. The BK Veggie has 420 calories. If you add cheese, the Whopper now has 760 calories, and the BK Veggie has 470 calories. The Whopper actually adds two slices of cheese because…well, I’m not sure why. You can shave 80 calories off the BK Veggie by holding the mayo. The Whopper actually has 160 calories dedicated to just mayo!

So the healthiest way to eat a BK Veggie would be to hold the mayo and cheese. That gives us a reasonable looking 340 calories per sandwich. Now we want to look at fat, and the mayo becomes important. Without the mayo the BK Veggie has 8 grams of fat and 70 calories that come from fat, which would make this a 21% fat product. Actually, that’s pretty good. That would be a reasonable meal. Most people would keep the mayo however. That brings that sandwich up to 16 grams of fat and 150 calories from fat, meaning the product is now at 36% fat. At most you should have fat make up 30% of your calories. So the default BK Veggie is too fatty. Throw in the fact that most BK Veggies are sold with fries, and well, why even bother? For comparison, a Whopper has 350 calories from fat, a whopping (pun intended) 52% of its total calories. Insane.

In conclusion, a BK Veggie gets a middling grade from me. If you have just a BK Veggie, no cheese or mayo, it’s not a wholy unhealthy option. Even two BK Veggies for dinner wouldn’t be bad for you. In reality, though, most people get a soda and fries with it, which pretty much voids any benefits you would gain. A lot of people eat fast food while they’re traveling, and in airports, I don’t know that this would be available there. You’d be better off just packing a bag of carrots.