by Denis Faye
While I generally avoid ease-dropping, it was a challenge to ignore the kindly old man at my daughter’s soccer game this weekend fawning over the bag of Werther’s sugar-free candies he was sucking on. Apparently, he was diabetic, so it was with great joy that he’d discovered a way to side-step the necessary austerity measures. “They’re sugar-free! They’re good for you!” he rhapsodized as he shoved the bag under his grandson’s nose. “Have another one! It’s healthy!”
Every cell in my body wanted to leap from my seat and get in his face with a stern lecture on the true nature of these sugar-free sweets. Firstly, they’re sweetened with sugar alcohol, a low-calorie sweetener that absorbs though the intestines and can cause gastric distress. And secondly, while they may still contain a few calories, they’re also completely void of vitamins, minerals, or fiber. In other words, they’re little brown balls of flatulence-inducing empty calories. They’re not good for you at all!
But as I said, he was kindly, so instead, I used the moment to channel my energy into contemplating the many ways the food industry loves to pull the nutritional wool over our eyes when it comes to bad foods re-engineered to be “healthy.”
Bad Bread
White bread, pasta, cereal and rice are nothing new. In fact, they’re basically the Patient X of weirdly-manipulated foods. For some reason, long, long ago, society decided the best way to consume wheat and rice was to strip them of their bran and their hull – the only part of these grains containing vitamins, minerals, fiber, and (in my opinion) flavor.
When science caught up with the practice and figured out this negative impact, they didn’t stop doing it. Instead, they half-solved the problem by enriching the white products with artificial vitamins and minerals. They did not, however, re-introduce fiber, which plays an important role in foods by slowing the absorption of carbs. When too many carbs are introduced into the blood stream too fast – from, say, Wonder Bread – it causes all kinds of problems, including diabetes and obesity.
So, not only are white breads, rice, and breads major causes of society’s bulging waistline, but the artificially “enriched” nutrients are arguably less nutritious then their naturally occurring brethren. For example, a study from the Institute of Environmental Science for Human Life in Japan shows that naturally occurring vitamin E is more bioavailable than synthetic vitamin E. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9062530?dopt=Abstract]
If you want to be sure you’re getting the good stuff, ignore the front of the package and check out the ingredients list. If the grains listed don’t start with the word “whole,” put it back on the shelf.
Omega Eggs? Give me a break!
By now, “frankenfoods” has come to represent the many horrifically genetically-engineered foods, such as corn and soybeans, being forced into our food supply by the likes of Monsanto, but a quick trip to the grocery store will reveal some equally freakish – and much more identifiable – fare to avoid. As a general rule, if a food didn’t have a nutrient and now it does, you’re better off without it.
For example, the omega-3 fatty acid fortified egg. Although the technique they use to fortify the eggs is relatively benign – they feed the chickens lots of flaxseed – why not just eat the flaxseed yourself? That way, when you buy eggs, you can spend the extra money that the omega-3 enrichment would cost on assuring they’re free-range/cage-free. And for the record, cruelty-free eggs tend to have a high omega-3 count naturally. And when you eat the flaxseed, you get a host of other great nutrients, including, you guessed it, fiber.
Chocolate Chicanery
And then there’s omega-3 enriched candy such as Gimme Omega 3 Dark Chocolate. I don’t think I need to dissect this one too much except to point out that their marketing points to these three health benefits:
- 45% Cacao
- 250mg Omega 3 from Flax
- Yum!
I was not aware that “yum!” was a health benefit, but that’s good information.
More like Sucragross
From there, frankenfoods get even weirder. My new favorite is Splenda Essentials, a zero-calorie sweetener containing fiber. First off, if you’re eating a healthy diet of fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains, you probably don’t need more fiber and even if you did, getting it from an artificial sweetener is a bad move. Splenda, or sucralose, is sugar chemically combined with chlorine so that the body can’t process. It’s been animal tested and FDA-approved. However, there are a few, somewhat fringe researchers who claim it shrinks the thymus gland and enlarges the liver and kidneys. They also point out that this sweetener was discovered in 1976 and therefore hasn’t been around long enough to show any long-term effects. I’ll get my combo sweetness and fiber hit from a bowl of blueberries instead, thank you very much.
Nutrition is a confusing subject, but there are a few basic tricks to it. The more something is processed, the less likely it’s good for you. Humans have never, and probably will never, be able to improve on what Mother Nature came up with. Also, if you think you’re getting away with something nutritionally, you’re not. Bad food will always be bad for you. Just follow these two rules. You should be okay. And if you’re not sure, have a look around the soccer field. If there’s a guy with glasses and a beard giving you the stink-eye, you’ve probably made a bad food choice.
Formerly “weight challenged,” Denis Faye dropped 50 pounds following a 5-year jaunt through Australia, a trip that helped him become the extreme sports and fitness enthusiast he is today. His sports include swimming, scuba, rock climbing, spelunking, mountain biking, trekking, and—most importantly—surfing. He’s been a professional journalist for 20 years, writing for Outside, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, Wired, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, GQ, Surfer, and Pacific Longboarder. Denis now writes for Beachbody, which provides effective home workout dvds such as the very popular P90x program and the cardio workout dvd, TurboFire.
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