Few Absolutes

True confession – I, the vegan of nearly 30 years, ate a marshmallow the other night. I didn’t plan to. I’d thought I’d just eat a graham cracker as my treat when everyone else ate s’mores. But I actually ate a marshmallow inside the graham cracker for the first time in decades. Marshmallows have more sugar and corn syrup than anything I ever eat, and gelatin which I “never” eat. It tasted ok; it tasted like nostalgia for childhood. It isn’t something I’ll do again for decades, but it was a fun evening and the marshmallow was part of the fun. Following up on my last blog, my choice wasn’t too much or too little, it was just right for the time.

Few food choices should be absolute. Most people know how they should eat but when they eat without being mindful of their choices their diets don’t reflect what they know. A little extra sugar at a party is fine as long as one makes the choice to eat that cake and ice cream mindfully, enjoying each bite, because it isn’t a daily indulgence. Less healthy options can be part of a healthy lifestyle and treats should be included in one’s diet as special, not regular food items.

Healthy diets need balance and moderation. It isn’t accurate to classify foods as either “good” or “bad” with two exceptions. No person should ever consume trans fats or processed meats. The former is indisputably related to heart disease and the latter to cancers of the pancreas, stomach, colon, breast and prostate. Those are two absolutes that should undeniably be avoided. But other food products are not as absolute, certainly not the way fad diets suggest. (Tobacco products are a third absolute as they are irrefutably related to oral and lung cancers and heart disease but it they aren’t food products.)

If it were easy to select healthy foods to maintain a healthy diet, then diet programs and products wouldn’t be a billion-dollar business. Still, informed consumers can make choices and will know to be skeptical about any diet plan that relies completely on absolutes. A program that requires “only” eating their packaged foods is as much a red flag as a program that requires completely cutting out an entire food group such as carbohydrates or eating only raw foods.

A diet that cuts out carbohydrates cannot be sustained so these dieters regain the weight they may have lost when they begin the program. Carbohydrates do not make people fat, in fact, they are necessary for a healthy diet. People gain weight by eating too many calories. People that are overweight tend to eat more carbohydrate calories than are necessary mostly because they are prominent in prepared foods and chain and fast food restaurants because they are inexpensive and easy to produce. Carbs are not bad! They just need to be eaten in moderation as a part of a balanced diet.

Non-fat diets are a fallacy. It is impossible to completely cut fats. Nor should one want to. Fats are necessary to metabolize vitamins. In fact, vitamins in tomatoes are unavailable without added fat. Although trans fats are not good choices, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in the forms of canola and olive oils, nuts, and fish are healthy and even reduce risk for cardio vascular disease. Saturated fats in the form of beef and dairy are no more caloric than the healthier fat options but are less healthful and increase cardiovascular risk so should be eaten more sparingly.  

Raw diets are not all good! Many vegetables need to be cooked for the nutrients to be available to humans. Broccoli, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are among the vegetables that offer little nutrition when eaten raw. Raw diets aren’t necessarily all bad, but the diets need to be considered part of an overall nutritious diet, including healthy foods that are cooked to make them nutritious.

With few exceptions, foods aren’t all good or all bad. Most are just right and even less healthful options can be part of a healthy diet when eaten sparingly as treats. Consider a few of your indulgences and plan on fitting them into a healthy lifestyle without remorse.

Protein Facts

Proteins are important to a healthy diet but most people eat more protein than is recommended and often choose less healthy sources of protein. Personally I have chosen to eat a vegan diet for nearly 30 years. It makes me feel great and I create a smaller carbon footprint, contributing to my own health and the health of the environment. But I do not try to influence everyone else to become vegan. I would like to get people to stop making two assumptions, though, to help them select their own proteins more wisely. First people tend to ask “How do you get enough protein in your diet?” and the second assumption is invariably “So you must eat a lot of tofu.” Whether you choose to eat a plant-based diet or to eat animal proteins, you might want to learn a little more about recommended protein intake.

Every cell in the body is made of proteins that are constantly being broken down and replaced. Amino acids gleaned from dietary proteins are the source of our cellular protein. Proteins are absolutely necessary parts of the diet, however the “average American diet” tends to include twice the recommended dietary allowance for protein. Anyone in America eating a healthy diet from a variety of foods will get enough protein without having to supplement or pay special attention to what he eats. The best diet includes a variety of wholesome foods rather than focusing on any one type of nutrient. The right amount of protein depends on one’s weight, but the guideline is to keep a diet in which 10-30% of the calories come from protein. More specifically, recommended dietary allowance is 0.80 grams of protein a day for every kilogram of body weight. That means that a diet for a 150-pound adult should include 54 grams of protein a day.

Yes, protein does come from tofu but also from many other sources. A vegan diet like mine gets most of the protein from nuts, seeds, beans, and peas. Grains (particularly quinoa), fruits and vegetables (particularly spinach and broccoli) contain protein, but not as much as the other sources and cannot be the sole source of protein. People that eat animal proteins get them from dairy, fish, poultry, and red meat. One cup of cooked beans has 6 grams of protein, raw almonds have 30 grams, asparagus and broccoli have 7 grams, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes have 5 grams. A cup of milk has 8 grams of protein and an 8-oz container of yogurt has 11 grams. A 3-oz portion of meat contains about 21 grams of protein.

People are not very likely to experience serious health issues if they eat more than 0.80 grams of protein per kilogram of weight a day. The problem is that animal sources of protein tend to be higher in calories and saturated fat (associated with cholesterol) than plant-based foods. So the person that eats more than the recommended dietary allowance of protein each day is most at risk of experiencing the health risks associated with too many calories and saturated fats (heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancers, etc). By association, cutting back on animal-based proteins is a fairly easy dietary change can result in desired weight loss. (People with kidney disease need to reduce protein intake to help the kidneys function properly, but I refer here to people without kidney disease.)

Americans have become used to including meat and dairy at each meal now that food production has reduced the cost of animals as a food source. Including meat as a complement to plants for the evening meal rather than meat as the primary focus of the meal will have the effect of weight loss. Consider lean beef or chicken stir fried with fresh vegetables over a bed of brown rice rather than a larger-than-recommended portion of steak or chicken with a small portion of string beans and mashed potatoes. Replacing sausage at breakfast with an egg white omelet tossed with mushrooms and tomatoes will still provide animal-based protein but with fewer unwanted calories. Other ways to select healthier proteins include using black or pinto beans rather than or as a supplement to less hamburger meat in chili and sauces, selecting low-fat dairy products, choosing lean meats, and using egg whites without the yolks.

So, in answer to the questions I always get when someone learns my diet excludes animal products: I get plenty of protein using beans and nuts as my primary source. And although an ounce of tofu offers about 20 grams of protein, I probably eat it once or twice a month.

Thinking Outside the (Lunch) Box

A passage I read in a novel last month has stayed with me. The woman protagonist was about to prepare herself lunch when she was distracted by someone knocking on the door. As the scene proceeded and she answered the door I wondered to myself, “But I want to know what she prepared for her lunch.” Well, she returned to the kitchen table and I was disappointed to learn that she had made herself a sandwich.

Couldn’t the author think of something more creative – and nutritious – than a sandwich? I was disappointed on so many levels. Many people are perplexed about why they try to lose weight and they cannot. Some of them have gotten the message that they need to have a nutritious breakfast. People that skip breakfast weigh more than people that do not. Moving along to lunch, these very people who cannot understand why they aren’t losing weight need to look closely at their lunch habits. Taking lunch to the office from home will always save calories (and money). And avoiding sandwiches, whether one eats out or packs lunch, will also help shed unwanted pounds. Sandwiches are traditionally packed with empty calories and added preservatives, salt and sugar. We can construct one right now. Whole wheat bread purchased in packages from the grocery store will contain healthy fiber. But a single slice will have at least 100 calories. That is a lot of calories when it hasn’t been filled yet. Nutritionally the sodium content is relatively high (at least 7% RDA per slice) and the nutrient level relatively low (highest content is calcium and iron, about 4% RDA for each mineral). White bread has more saturated fat and simple sugars than whole wheat bread.

Condiments will add salt and sugar.  Mayonnaise will add the most fat and calories (90 calories for one tablespoon including 10 grams of fat and 90 milligrams of sodium).  Yellow mustard would be the wiser choice with only 3 calories, 57 milligrams of sodium, and 0.2 grams of fat in a teaspoon-size serving (Dijon has 5 calories and 120 milligrams of sodium).

People put all different things into their sandwiches, but processed lunchmeat is a popular filler. Two thinly sliced pieces are considered a serving. Ham adds about 92 calories and 730 mg of sodium. Lean ham cuts calories to 60 calories and about 596 mg of sodium. Turkey breast adds about 45 calories and 436 mg of sodium but smoked ham adds an additional 30 mg sodium to that. Roast beef will add about 70 calories and 410 mg sodium. But those are figures for the things people control as they prepare lunch at home. Most deli sandwiches will have portions at least three times this amount.

A single slice of processed American cheese adds 60 calories, 250 mg sodium, and 13% saturated fat recommended for the day. A slice of cheddar cheese adds 113 calories, 174 mg sodium, and 30% saturated fat for the day. Swiss adds 110 calories, 115 mg sodium, and 25% fat for the day.

Overall, a single sandwich (2 slices of bread, 2 slices of processed meat, 1 slice of cheese, condiments) means at least 500 calories and a lot of salt and saturated fat. At the very least, one sandwich represents about 25% of daily calorie intake recommended for most people.

There are many healthier and more creative lunch options. A smaller portion of dinner from the night before is easy to pack in small containers for lunch. Add a piece of fruit and the lunch is complete, nutritious, and easier to prepare than a sandwich. Two tablespoons of prepared hummus has 50 calories and eaten with carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, and celery is a filling and nutritious option. A can of beans (white, kidney, black, garbanzo, …) in a food processer with favorite herbs (thyme, cumin, cayenne, sage, …) ends up providing many spread alternatives. Heating up a serving of prepared soup from a cardboard container adds another 80 calories or so and rounds off the meal well but adds 400 mg sodium (about 640 mg of sodium if the soup is in a can).

A potato, baked in its skin (microwave for about 8 minutes) has only 160 calories, virtually no saturated fat, and 17 mg of sodium. Sour cream would add about 400 calories, half the recommended saturated fat for the day, and 180 mg sodium, though. Cheese sauce clearly is not the best choice (475 calories, 53% recommended saturated fat for the day, and 382 mg sodium). Adding salsa is the wisest option (10 calories, no fat, and 230 mg sodium in a 2 tablespoon portion). Top it with steamed broccoli and scallions to add more flavor and nutrition.

Salads that are primarily made of vegetables are perfect options but be careful to avoid the fat-, sodium-, and calorie-packed prepared salads, dressings and cheeses. Pre-washed greens with some carrots and green peppers and a handful of black beans or walnuts and raisins is a good choice when tossed with a little olive oil and lemon juice. This idea has as many combinations as there are people with their preferences for salad ingredients. Exchanging olive oil and walnuts for sesame oil and sunflower seeds changes the flavor to offer variety through the week.

Healthy lunch options can be varied, colorful, and exciting. There is so much more to lunch than a sandwich. As for that novel, I’m pleased that the plot and character development were much more enticing than the lunch the protagonist made that day!

Making Healthy Food Choices a Little Easier

I know that most people try their best to treat their bodies well and to serve their families healthful foods. Few things make me happier because I would like everyone to feel the exuberance that results from being fit. I’m not referring to beauty as synonymous with being thin or having swimsuit-lovely figures but to the energy and joy experienced from having a healthy heart. Being fit means more than being one’s optimal weight. Being fit means being able to briskly walk across a parking lot without feeling out of breath, keeping up with one’s kids as they bicycle around the neighborhood, and feeling the heart pump with exercise but not like it feels as though it will explode.

Creating a healthy heart requires aerobic exercise by sustaining an increased heart rate. But I’ve blogged about that previously and I will again. A healthy heart also requires a diet rich in wholesome foods. And that is what I will blog about today.

A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will help anyone maintain a healthy weight and healthy lipid and cholesterol levels. The result is a healthy heart and elastic arteries so that blood is less likely to clot, blood remains a healthy viscosity, and arteries can accommodate blood pumped by the heart.

But recognizing healthful foods can be challenged by the way foods are packaged and marketed. A food product labeled “low fat” is not necessarily healthy. It probably means that the version labeled “low fat” has fewer fat grams than the “regular” option but it could still contain more fat than the minimum daily requirements recommend. Food engineers also probably replaced the fat with added sugar and salt to replace taste lost by reducing fat. Similarly, foods labeled as “diet” or “low calorie” may have fewer fat grams and fewer calories than non-diet options but they still offer too little nutritional value to make the calories worth ingesting.

Even vegetarians can choose unhealthy options. Potato chips, soda, and cheese pizza are all vegetarian options, after all, and I don’t think anyone would be fooled to think that would be a healthy diet. Fake meat products made with soy, such as lunchmeat replacements, turkey alternatives and sausage substitutes often contain more chemicals, sodium and fat than lean beef, pork and poultry. Beans, nuts, and legumes are healthier protein options.

Many people are surprised to learn that the foods they eat are not as healthy as they thought. They had the right intentions when they replaced foods with low fat options and meat substitutes. But marketing food products is big business and food companies are motivated to present their products in a way that is often confusing, perhaps even deceiving.

Figuring out how to eat well doesn’t need to be difficult, however. Wholesome foods will be the best option. Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, and lean meats (if one decides to eat meat) will always be healthier choices than produced and packaged foods. I think Michael Pollan’s advice was concise and accurate when he suggested a few recommendations. He recommends selecting foods with no more than 5 ingredients. That is an easy way to read a food label! More than 5 ingredients indicates that the food probably has been so processed that it has little in common with the original food item. Pollan also has said that if your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, then it isn’t. All food options were whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean meats before food manufacturing became big business. Another of Pollan’s recommendations is to shop only around the periphery of a grocery store, where produce, dairy, and meats are shelved. Interior and frozen food aisles contain mostly packaged and processed foods with more than 5 ingredients and less likely to be recognized by Grandma as food.

Food manufacturers are motivated to make selecting healthy foods more confusing than it really is. The exuberance of being fit can be achieved by exercising and choosing wholesome foods and making those choices feels great!

Maintaining “Resolve”

This is the last full week of January; how are you doing with your new year resolutions? People have usually begun to drop off their intensity and interest for the goals they set for themselves a month ago. It might be because their resolutions were too vague to maintain such as “I resolve to be a better person.” It might be because their resolutions were not reasonable such as “I will lose 10 pounds a month until summer swimsuit season.” Human behavior requires that goals be measurable and attainable for us to stay interested, such as “I will add two servings of vegetables to my meals each day” or “I will park at the far end of the lot to get a brisk walk each morning and evening.”

A clear difference between those last two “resolutions” and the first two is that the latter are set as intended habits. We can schedule our activities and plan our meals in a way that adjusts our habits. We can track our success in adjusting our habits by reviewing our calendars or activity logs. Scheduling, planning, and tracking activities make them more obvious and easier for us to maintain interest. For instance, I could decide on a healthy habit to omit sodas, alcohol and juices from my diet, drinking unsweetened water, tea and coffee instead. It would mean planning to bring a water bottle or an insulated flask of tea with me when I leave the house in the morning. I could track my success by marking days on a calendar indicating the days I did not drink calories. I would be healthier because I would have ingested less sugar and salt, reducing my risk for certain cancers, heart disease, and diabetes.

Oh, and by the way, I would have reduced my caloric intake by about 200 calories a day per drink if I omitted sodas, alcohol and juices from my diet, drinking unsweetened water, tea or coffee instead. It takes about 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat. So by cutting out sodas, alcohol, and juices I could eliminate at least 200 calories from my diet a day and lose nearly two pounds a month. And that is by doing nothing else! If my second new habit is to use stairs rather than elevators each day or to take a brisk walk during lunch hour then I would be conditioning my heart and lungs and burn even more calories.

If our new year resolutions are really ways to improve our health then we don’t need to become frustrated by setting resolutions to “lose weight” or to “get healthy”. Weight loss and healthy hearts will become welcomed secondary benefits to developing new healthy habits.

Think of a healthy habit you can adopt for the month of February. Make your resolution to change your habit, not to achieve a goal. Plan your day to include that habit and track daily whether you maintained your commitment. If you miss a day, just start over the next day without looking back.

Chances are you will have maintained that resolve longer than a traditional new year “resolution.”

Resolve to Improve Wellness

I spent some time looking out at the cardio room in the gym last week. It was more crowded than usual, a reflection of the annual mid-January rush to sign up for gym memberships in support of people’s new year resolutions. I was encouraged to see people I hadn’t seen before, committed to treating their bodies well. Unfortunately, many of them didn’t realize that they were really wasting their time. I wanted them all to better understand how to use exercise to improve their health.

One woman walked on the treadmill for about 12 minutes. Sounds fine, but she was walking at a speed slower than I can imagine her walking in the mall. I watched a gentleman on the stationary bicycle. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t have been able to keep it balanced if he were pedaling that slowly on a real bicycle. I’m concerned that these people will not continue their new exercise programs for long if they don’t see benefit however they define benefit. I also love efficiency and one thing that bugs me is wasting time. So I am an advocate of getting the most out of one’s time in the gym. As long as you are putting in the time on the machines, then I say make it worthwhile!

Aerobic exercise is necessary for good heart health. Aerobic exercise increases heart rate and can be any enjoyable activity that maintains an elevated heart rate, including bicycling, swimming, brisk walking, dancing, jogging, running, and cross-country skiing. Aerobic activity burns calories, conditions the heart and lungs to reduce risk of heart disease and stroke, increases good cholesterol, reduces risk for type 2 diabetes, reduces depression, lowers risk of premature death, and helps to tone the body by reducing the fat layer that lies over muscles. To benefit, however, requires at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 times a week. The 30 minutes can be distributed in three 10-minute segments over a day, but the activity must be moderately intense. Moderate intensity is usually interpreted to mean that the body is working hard enough that the person can talk but not sing. Or on a scale of 0 (sitting in a chair) to 10 (highest level of effort possible), the person judges her intensity at a 5 or 6.

Any increase in intensity and amount of exercise will enhance the benefits noted from the bare minimum criteria above. Increasing aerobic activity to 5 hours a week also reduces risk of colon and breast cancers and prevents weight gain.

Perhaps I just didn’t see the higher intensity work by the people I watched in the gym last week. Sadly, I am not optimistic that is so. Any enjoyable aerobic activity will be beneficial as long as people exercise long enough and at adequate intensity. Usually committing to exercise with a friend will help sustain the program. For many people activity that requires least equipment and financial investment such as brisk walking or dancing is best. For others, structured time such as basketball games and tennis matches are motivating.  It doesn’t matter what the activity is as long as it is sustained at a moderate intensity level.

I encourage everyone to exercise and as long as they are spending their time doing the activity, may it be most beneficial. The reward will be a longer, healthier life. That is a resolution worth maintaining!