Category Archives: Soda

Stevia: Good or Bad?

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 Sugar is one of the most dangerous ingredients on the market. It’s addictive, added to almost every processed food, and will make you overweight, depressed and sick if you eat too much. In fact, Americans eat close to 130 pounds of the stuff per person per year (4 times more than the recommended daily allowance), likely because it is so addictive. That’s why it’s exciting to know there are alternative sweeteners made in nature, like “stevia,” that don’t wreak havoc on your health – or do they? That’s what I went on a quest to find out. Here’s what happened…

What Is Stevia?

For those of you that are hearing about stevia for the first time, it is a plant that is typically grown in South America, and while it’s extract is 200 times sweeter than sugar, it does not raise blood insulin levels. That’s what makes it so popular. However in 1991 the FDA refused to approve this substance for use due to pressure from makers of artificial sweeteners like Sweet n’ Low and Equal (a one billion dollar industry). But in 2008, the FDA approved the use of rebaudioside compounds that were derived from the stevia plant by Coca-Cola (Cargill) and PepsiCo – hmmm doesn’t that sound suspicious? Not until a major food company got involved did stevia become legal, and only after it had been highly processed using a patentable chemical-laden process…so processed that Truvia (Coca-Cola’s branded product) goes through about 40 steps to process the extract from the leaf, relying on chemicals like acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, and isopropanol. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens (substances that cause cancer), and none of those ingredients sound like real food, do they?

Stevia plant

 

The whole leaf stevia that you can grow in your backyard (and has been used for centuries in countries like Brazil and Paraguay) remains a non-approved food additive by the FDA. However, rebaudioside A (the stevia extract) that was approved by the FDA has not been used for centuries and long term human health impacts have not been studied and are still unknown. The sweetener/sugar industry wields powerful influence over what is ultimately approved at the FDA, and this is just another example where they are influencing decisions that don’t make sense. How can a chemically derived extract be deemed safe in processed food and a plant from mother nature not?

What Kind Of  Stevia To Avoid

Truvia1

The 40-step patented process used to make Truvia should make you want to steer clear of this stevia product alone, but there are two other concerning ingredients added (not only to Truvia but other stevia products as well). First, erythritol is a naturally occurring sugar that is sometimes found in fruit, but food manufacturers don’t actually use the natural stuff. Instead they start with genetically engineered corn and then go through a complex fermentation process to come up with chemically pure erythritol. Check out the manufacturing process below:

E-Manu-process

“Natural flavors” is another ingredient added to powdered and liquid stevia products, likely due to the fact that once the stevia leaf is processed it can develop a metallic taste. Manufactured natural flavor is contributing to what David Kessler (former head of the FDA) calls a “food carnival” in your mouth. This makes it difficult to stop eating or drinking because the flavors they have synthesized will trick your mind into wanting more and more. When companies use manufactured flavor, they are literally “hijacking” your taste buds one-by-one; that’s why I recommend putting products that contain “natural flavors” back on the shelf.

SteviaIntheRaw1

PureVia1

“Stevia in the Raw” sounds pure and natural, but when you look at the ingredients the first thing on the label is “dextrose” – so it’s certainly not just stevia in the raw. And Pepsi Co’s “Pure Via,” also pictured above, isn’t exactly pure either with this ingredient being first on the label, too. Dextrose is a sweetener that’s also derived from genetically engineered corn and has a long complicated manufacturing process, just like erythritol.

untitled

 Even certified organic stevia can have sneaky ingredients added, like this one above which has more organic agave inulin than the stevia extract itself. Agave inulin is a highly processed fiber derivative from the blue agave plant. Also on the ingredient list is an item you are probably familiar with from those little packets sometimes found in boxed goods – silica (pictured). It is added to improve the flow of powdery substances and is the same ingredient that helps strengthen concrete and creates glass bottles and windowpanes. It may cause irritation of the digestive tract (if eaten) and irritation of the respiratory tract (if accidentally inhaled). While it is non-toxic and probably won’t kill you in small quantities, it’s definitely not a real food ingredient I would cook with or that I want to be putting in my body.

 

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Defining “Real Food”

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Have you ever tried to define the phrase “Real Food?” Most people seem to have an instinctive understanding of what it means, but when put to the task of actually coming up with a definition, it can get surprisingly complicated. It’s tough to figure out where to draw the line.

Whole Food

If you pluck an apple off a tree and eat it right then and there, that’s about as “real” as you can get, right?  But what if that tree has been sprayed with pesticides? What if that apple has been turned into applesauce, in a large-scale production facility (think: thousand-gallon vats of applesauce in a huge factory)? Does the production method and scale make a difference? What if they’ve added citric acid so it doesn’t turn brown?

Apple

For another example, let’s consider milk. Unless it’s raw and straight-from-the-cow, it’s been processed in some way.  Most store-bought milk has been homogenized and pasteurized.  On top of that, milk produced in large plants has had all of the fat removed using a centrifuge (the days of “skimming” are long gone), and then had the fat added back in to the desired percentage. So “whole milk” has actually been mixed with milk from hundreds or thousands of other cows, then separated, then put back together, then homogenized, then pasteurized. Do you consider that “real food?”

Milk

When I was asked to teach a lunch and learn on “Real Foods” a few years ago, I needed a working definition of “processed.”  I came up with what I call the “Kitchen Test” definition.  It’s not perfect, but I find it gets close — and, perhaps most importantly, sparks conversation as we try to figure this out:

Unprocessed food is any food that could be made by a person with reasonable skill in a home kitchen with readily available, whole-food ingredients.

Processed Foods

The crux of this definition, really, is “whole-food ingredient.”  By that, I mean a food that’s as close to its natural state as possible. Fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, whole grains, meat or fish… you get the idea.

Ultimately, I find it comes down to buying foods that don’t come with a label, and for those that do come in a package, reading the list of ingredients carefully. I consider each and every ingredient. If it would, at least in theory, be possible for me to grow or make all of those individual ingredients from scratch, and then combine them in my kitchen to make that particular food, I consider it to be real food.

Have you taken the time to define “Real Food” for yourself?  If not, why not take a moment right now to consider it?  Then share your definition in the comments!

 

 

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Heavy and Light Foods Part 1

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Heavy (High Calorie Density) Foods

We have all probably felt light or heavy depending on what we eat. A big Thanksgiving meal, for instance, will leave you heavy and tired. A heaping plate of cucumbers and carrots leaves you light and energetic (if not still a little hungry). So what’s that about?

Well, for one thing, obviously the quantity matters. If you eat too much you’ll feel heavy. But the other thing is that some foods truly are “heavier” than others and vice versa. What we call those in calorie terms are “high or low density foods”. In the most basic terms, if you want to gain weight, eat high-density foods. If you want to lose weight, eat low-density foods.

So, here is a list of the top 5 high density foods to avoid and part 2 will be the top 5 low density foods to enjoy.

Heavy Food List

1- Chocolate -While I LOVE chocolate, I also know that it is super highly dense. One ounce of Dove Dark Chocolate for instance is over 150 calories! In one ounce! Chocolate fudge, chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies, etc are all heavy (but delicious!) foods. Chocolate is densely packed and made from sugar and cocoa butter. It’s also really easy to overeat on, so while it is a treat, I try to limit the amount I eat because it is so heavy. Those little brownie bites also have about 150 calories EACH!! Yikes! If you want the chocolate flavor without so many calories, shred a small amount of dark chocolate onto some chopped strawberries in a fruit salad. Dark chocolate satisfies the chocolate urge more than milk chocolate. People who like milk or white chocolate usually are into  the sugar and fat, and are not really chocoholics. For true chocolate lovers another low-cal way to enjoy chocoate could be to experiment with cocoa powder (that is naturally sugar and fat free) recipes.

2- Cheese- Again, another delicious, highly dense food. One ounce  or about 3 dice-sized pieces- of cheddar cheese has close to 120 calories. Similar to chocolate, eating cheese will make you gain weight because it doesn’t take many bites to pound down a lot of calories. A quesadilla or nachos are examples of food with far too much cheese. Instead, opt for parmesan or other very flavorful cheese on top of a salad for instance instead of the bland and high cal American, cheddar, and cream cheeses that are easy to overdo. Some mozzarellas, low-fat string cheeses, and low fat cottage cheeses are still somewhat dense but better choices in cheese.

3-Flour products - Tightly packed (and especially white) flour products have a lot of calories for the bite. These include bagels, pastas, some breads, cereals and flour tortillas. A 2 oz mini-bagel has 100 calories! If these flour products are made with sugar and fat such as muffins, cakes, sweet breads, etc they are even more highly dense. And if they are topped with cheese, cream cheese, butter, honey or anything else, they are even heavier! If they are fried (like a donut) then add it up even more. One small chocolate cake donut has about 260 calories! To enjoy flour products, try whole-wheat flour, especially high-fiber varieties, but still be careful to limit the quantity.

4- Sugary products - Anything that has sugar listed as the first or second ingredient has too much sugar in it and is a high density food. The names for sugar could be: sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, mollasses, honey, maple syrup, and anything with the ending -ose such as dextrose, sucrose, fructose, etc. This means pretty much any regular soda is a high density food. While you can get 12 oz for 150 calories, most of those ounces are water.

One ounce of sugar syrup is over 100 calories, so a soda has about 1.5 ounces of pure sugar! Anything made with sugar and one of the above products is guaranteed to be heavy and cause weight gain and health problems if consumed regularly. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 100 calories from added sugar (the kind found in fruit for example is not included in this). That means only about 6 teaspoons of sugar. Less than what is in one can of soda or about one bite-sized brownie. Instead, calm your sweet tooth with fruit as dessert. Its natural sweetness is mellowed by the fiber and water content of the fruit.

A golden brown color and oily touch are indications of fried food

5- Fried Food  -Really any food that is fried is going to be a dense food, but especially if it has any of the above ingredients in it as well. For instance, a donut is a fried flour product with added sugar and maybe chocolate too or a cream cheese filling!

Other fried foods include fried chicken, fried fish, French fries, fried cheese sticks, sopapillas, chimichangas, tempura, potato chips, apple fritters, turnovers, Monte Cristos and pretty much anything at a carnival (think funnel cakes!). Oil (no matter what kind, olive, peanut or canola) is super dense with about 240 calories per ounce!! That is the densest of them all.
All of these fried foods are deep-fat fried which means they are dunked into a vat of this high density liquid that permeates into the rest of the food. If you are looking for an easy way to gain lots of weight, just eat oil or fat based foods like these fried foods. Instead of frying food, try using spray Pam to keep food from sticking without adding much in terms of calories, or eat food that is broiled, steamed, oven-roasted, grilled, microwaved or even lightly sauteed instead.

So there is my list of the top heavy foods. Now that you know how to gain weight and become heavier (by eating these heavy foods), check out this light food list to become lighter!            

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Don’t Be Fooled: Gatorade is Garbage

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Gatorade

So what’s the real truth about Gatorade?  It’s all over the place.  We’re supposed to drink it during our workouts, our runs, and even for hangovers.  The world’s top athletes are endorsing it and even Tiger Woods has his very own line of Gatorade (okay, that doesn’t mean much anymore).  It’s an amazing concoction of electrolytes that provides hydration and increased performance for all of our athletic pursuits.  It makes us run faster, longer, jump higher, lift more weights, and recovery more quickly.

Or does it?

Is Gatorade really healthy for us?  Is it the true miracle drink that it’s marketed as?  Will it really make us perform better and longer than our non-Gatorade drinking competition?

Gatorade was invented at the sports laboratories at the University of Florida in 1965 and tested on the football team, the Florida Gators (hence the name Gatorade).  The original concoction consisted of water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate, and lemon juice.  The football coach and his players hailed Gatorade as a savior to their hydration problems during hot summer workouts and the long, intense football season.

But, like everything else, someone along the way discovered that Gatorade could be produced less expensively by using artificial sweeteners and corn syrups.  Until this year, Gatorade’s top two ingredients were water and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the evil artificial sweetener that’s in everything these days from soda to bread.  In 2010, Gatorade changed its formula from HFCS to a sucrose-dextrose mix.  Same animal, different name.

So what exactly are we drinking when we pick up a bottle of the nectar?  Let’s look at Gatorade’s ingredients in comparison to the ingredients of Coca Cola.

Carbonated Soda vs Gatorade

Coke
Carbonated Water
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Caramel Color
Sugar
Phosphoric Acid
Caffeine
Citric Acid
Natural Flavors

Gatorade

Water
Sucrose Syrup
Glucose-Fructose Syrup
Citric Acid
Natural Flavors
Salt
Sodium Citrate
Monopotassium Phosphate

Turns out they’re strikingly similar, aren’t they?  True, Gatorade no longer has HFCS, but what do you think those other syrups are?  Yep, you guessed it.  They’re just manufactured corn syrups with different names, all made in the same factories with the same cheap corn used in HFCS.  And after reading the ingredient lists, does this still sound like something you want to suck down during a 10-mile run or an intense gym session?  Gatorade and soda aren’t too dissimilar when you really look at it.  Pump some carbonation into your bottle of Gatorade and it’s soda, isn’t it?

Gatorade does do one thing. It replaces electrolytes. But what is the big secret behind the ingredients that do this? To replace electrolytes you don’t need some tricky formula, man made chemicals, refined sugars or colors. All you need is simple real food sources that provide a few key minerals like sodium, chloride, potassium and magnesium.

Here are 4 ways to replenish your electrolytes naturally and give your body some serious nutrition at the same time. Remember to choose organic ingredients whenever possible.

 

1. Juice Celery + Apple + Lemon – This juice combination works wonders for replacement of electrolytes.  The celery has a natural source of sodium, potassium, magnesium, cholride, and phosphorus.  Apple provides additional potassium and natural sweetness.  Lemon is the highest electrolyte containing citrus fruit.

2. Stir Sea Salt + Baking Soda + Lemon Juice + Maple Syrup into 8 ounces of Water – THis is a great natural remedy for serious endurance athletes – You might htink drinking baking soda is a little weird, but it’s been used for centuries to threat various aliments.  In this case, it’s added to the mis because it makes the body less acidic and provides an adiitional source of sodium bicarbonate. 

3. Shake Raw Coconut Water + Chia Seeds – Raw coconut water has a ton of electrolytes and potassium that will not only help you stay hydrated but also keep your body from getting any cramps.  It is completely natural and very low in sugar.  Combine this with a packet of chia seeds and you have a 1-2 punch!  Chia seeds are an incredible energy food – full of omega 3 fatty acids, protein, and fiber.  These seeds have the ability to keep you from getting dehydrated because they can hold 9 times their weight in water! There are travel packs available that don’t need refrigeration either – perfect for just throwing in you gym bag or purse.

4. Blend Frozen Banana + Almond Milk + Kale – This smoothie is extremely hydrating.  Tha banana provides a good source of potassium and magnesium which help regulate your fluid stores.  Almonds are extremely rich in magnesium and potassium.  When you make your almond milk, make sure you add sea salt (store bought almond milk arleady has salt added to it).  Kale is a superfood and another excellent source of magnesium and calcium.

No go outside and sweat, so you can enjoy one of these delicious drinks!

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Why Fruit Juice is Not So Great

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We currently have an overabundance of peaches at my house right now. We have been picking and picking and eating them at every meal and snack and still can’t get through them. We’ve been giving them away left and right and still have piles of them. Not that I am complaining. I LOVE peaches. But I also don’t want to see them go to waste.


These are just a few of the peaches. This basket carries about 7 lbs and we have at least 10 basketfuls left on the tree!

Anyway, so I was telling a friend about this and she recommended that I juice them as a way to get through them. And I said, well, I just don’t want to have all that sugar since fruit juice isn’t that good for you. She seemed surprised that I would say that. We do have a juicer and it’s nice to have a vegetable juice drink every now and then. We’ll even sometimes throw in an apple or something to sweeten it up, but in general we try to avoid pure fruit juice. From my friend’s comment I thought maybe it was representative of the view that juice is good for people. When really, it is not.

Juice is a concentrated, processed form of the fruit. Most of the fiber is gone when it is juiced -especially the store-bought juice. Juice from your own homemade juicer is better because it still has quite a bit of pulp and it hasn’t been filtered and pasteurized which changes the juice composition somewhat.


You can watch this whole video or just from about 5:00 to 5:30

But it is still a lot of sugar! I thought this informative post did a good job of showing how much sugar is in each beverage. While soda and large sweetened coffee drinks certainly have the most sugar, juice still has way more than we should be eating. Fiber is so important because it slows down the sugar in the bloodstream (and does a variety of other wonderful things in the body).  When we drink pulpless juice, it is essentially a sugar spike, just like soda or anything else. And if you think about it, to make a cup of juice you would probably have to juice about 5-10 fruits to get that cup. Now how often have you eaten 5-10 fruits in a sitting? And how much easier is it to drink it?!

The other thing about juice that you must be careful with -as with any beverage that has calories- is that our hunger and our thirst are two different mechanisms. So when you are thirsty, you can drink a lot of calories and still be hungry. Whereas were you to eat those calories in the form of food and drink water, you would get those “full” signals to your brain much more effectively.

So, while juice may be slightly better than soda because of its vitamins and minerals, the best choice is to just drink water and eat the whole fruit. Second best if you do drink a glass of juice make it very small and homemade. Store-bought juices will always be more processed than homemade, just like everything else. And finally, the least beneficial choice would be store-bought. If you do buy store-bought, then go for the 100% fruit juice without any added sugars. In these last two less-than-stellar choices, if possible, add ice and sparkling water to the juice to lessen the sweetness as well.

So, that still leaves me with a big question. What do I do with all these peaches?! Any good peach recipes anyone?

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