Just had a flick through the Health section of the Xmas edition of a very popular celebrity news magazine. I don’t do this very often, as I can’t usually bear the very low level of information included in the pieces. I sometimes flick through the pages in hope that this issue they may have actually brought something of value to their readership. I’ve as yet failed to have my hope rewarded.
To give you an example of what I mean, here was a tip (there were many to choose from) given to ‘Keep it healthy this Christmas’-
‘If only a salty snack is good enough, avoid peanuts and opt for pretzels instead, which are much lower in fat’.
I’ll only touch lightly on the salt issue as it can get quite complicated, not only due to the biochemistry, but as I’ll briefly explain, why food manufacturers include it in their products (believe me it has nothing to do with food preservation), lets look at the simple message being given.
Replace a fairly nutritious, natural, unaltered food with a highly processed, specially designed frankenfood devoid of any real nutritional content.
The rationale? Because it’s lower in fat. Seriously? Are we still in the 80’s?
As I’ve begun to show you, whether you are looking to slim down or just feel and perform better, you had better get your fats right. And I’m not talking about lowering them either. If you really want to excel you should learn which fats to actually increase in your diet.
But this seemingly innocuous substitution is even more devastating than you would believe.
Here’s the ingrediants list for salted peanuts:
Peanuts and ……ummm….salt
If you look at the nutritional content of a peanut (not actually a nut, but a legume (a type of bean)), they actually stack up pretty well. They are high in fiber, low glycemic, high in mono and polyunsaturated fats, a source of protein, and have a fairly complete array of minerals and vitamins.
Now let’s look at the most basic version of a salted pretzel:
Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Sea Salt, Dextrose, Dried Yeast
Let’s dissect this little beauty. First ingredient; Wheat Flour. Phew, where do I start? Most of us in the UK are probably from European decent, that causes us trouble where wheat is concerned. Europeans were part of the first wave of humans that spread out of Africa, at that time our diet was primarily carnivore and didn’t contain much wheat. Why is this an issue? Well, wheat contains a protein called gliadin (a component of gluten), to which we (Europeans) were not exposed, as we had left before it became a staple in the diet. Therefore our DNA was not given a chance to adapt. The Humans left in Africa (and subsequently their descendents today) were exposed for millennia to this food and gradually their DNA evolved to be able to tolerate the gliadin. Us Europeans might adapt in the next 40,000 years, but I doubt it, as we are now influencing evolution in a funny way, but I digress.
A gluten intolerance is part of Celiacs disease and causes all sorts of issues which would take a book to describe. Short and simple version, Celiacs and health are incompatible.
Next problem with wheat, it’s processed. Again, the why’s and how’s and the eventual effects of processing would require an encyclopedic length explanation. Simply put, processing strips the food of nearly all of the nutrients required for their metabolism in the human body. Not only does it not provide you with the nutrient, it actually depletes you of nutrients as they are scavenged from other areas of the body to compensate for the shortfall. Don’t think this is serious? In an upcoming piece I’ll describe a new theory that places this directly at the heart of pretty much all Human disease and ageing.
I’ll provide just one of the effects of processing, that is to alter the glycemic index. The glycemic idex is a measure of a foods ability to raise blood glucose (sugar). Pretzels have a glycemic index of 84. To put that in perspective table sugar (sucrose) has a glycemic index of 65, peanuts are around the 20 mark. Might as well eat spoonfuls of sugar as opposed to pretzels. And guess what? Pretzels are promoted towards diabetics as a healthy snack. Erm…a little bit sick, I might suggest.
Crack/ Snack Addict
Next ingredient: vegetable oil. I won’t go into the whole hydrogenated (or partially) and trans- fat route as this can be dependent on many factors. What I do want to briefly share with you is why the food manufacturers include oil, sugar and salt in almost all processed food. If you look back at the ingredients of the pretzels you can confirm this for yourself:
Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Sea Salt, Dextrose, Dried Yeast.
The manufactures use vegetable oil as it is promoted as being a healthier fat….ummm…not quite. The same goes for sea salt, as though sea salt is somehow completely different to regular table salt. And finally dextrose….isn’t that glucose? Have a look on the labels of some processed foods, if you know what to look for, sugar usually appears more than once, but just labelled with different names.
But why the inclusion of those three items? Sugar, fat and salt. Hmmmm…
Before I get into that, I’d like you to be aware of one fact, most food manufacturers are now owned by tobacco companies. Do you think tobacco companies most important product is tobacco, or now even food? Not a chance, the companies trade in addiction. Bear that in mind, as you read on.
Former FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration (funny bedfellows?)) commissioner David Kessler, MD, goes into detail about exactly how this works in his book, The End of Overeating. Definitely worth reading, but once you open Pandora’s Box, you’ll have a hard time keeping the last bit of hope left inside.Kessler quotes research by Adam Drewnowski that shows it's the combination of sugar with fat and/or salt that makes people go crazy. Give someone a packet of sugar and tell them to go to town and you won't get much enthusiasm. Same thing for a stick of butter. But combine the ingredients (cake frosting anyone?) and watch out.
Drewnowski conducted a study where he added various amounts of sugar to five different dairy products ranging from skimmed milk to heavy cream. People gave low marks to sweetened non-fat products like sweetened skimmed milk and low marks to unsweetened high-fat products like a heavy cream/vegetable oil blend. But any high-fat product that had sugar added, or any high-sugar product that had fat added, scored higher than any other nation other than the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest.
This combo (sugar, fat, and/or salt) creates what Kessler calls "hyperpalatibility." Rats given a chance to eat these combinations will literally gorge themselves. Apparently, so do humans.
Sugar, fat, and salt is what makes food "compelling" according to the food executives that Kessler interviewed. Take potato skins, for example. Typically, the potato is hollowed out and the skin is fried which provides a substantial surface area for "fat pick-up." Then some combination of bacon bits (usually contains sugar) and cheese is added. The result is fat on fat on fat on fat, much of it loaded with sugar and salt.
Is this stuff addictive? Does the Pope sh*t in the woods? Ummm…might have confused my sayings there…anyway…
Sara Ward of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied the willingness of animals to work for a food reward even when they're not hungry. She used Ensure, a pretty poor meal replacement drink (which has the magic combo’) that doctors give to older patients who aren't eating enough. The tipping point at which the animals would no longer work for the "reward" was just slightly lower than that for cocaine.
Manufacturers use these combo’s of ingredients to make them irresistible and to make us overeat them.
Then they also cleverly pair those foods with an actual emotional or visual experience, which become stored as pleasant associations to the food – you know; the happy group of friends partying with a tube of ‘crisps’ on a TV commercial or the use of the ‘flavour of the month’ Hollywood actress in their advertising. Pretty soon, you've got a customer for life.
Now you know how they can be so confident with the slogan ‘Once you pop, you can’t stop’.
Sooooo…..back to the health experts suggestion of substituting a peanut for a pretzel…uhhh…I’m assuming in the next issue they’ll be suggesting swapping out your sweetener for speed as it has a much more favourable effect on your metabolism and it’ll also help curb your appetite.
Be wary of who you give your mind and body to. Remember it’s the most precious thing you do or will ever own, treat yourself with the respect you deserve.
Finally in respect to the initial tip, here’s my revised version
‘Out at a party and want to indulge in the nibbly’s? Leave those nasty pretzels alone, why not try a peanut instead, hell, it’s a celebration, throw the boat out and have a chocolate covered one instead’.
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