May's 1st blog post

Hidden sugar and fat is another way that virtually all the big food companies have secretly made your food more addictive, as well as more fattening.Apple sauce, breakfast cereal, even pasta sauce all have added sugar.Virtually any sauce or dressing you like has added sugar and fat. Why do kids only like ranch dressing so much?  It’s sweet.Things that originally have a high water content (like veggies or chicken wings) are fried which removes the water and replaces them with fat.  If you get wings in a restaurant, they’ve probably actually been fried 2-3 times.  One at the factory, and multiple times at the restaurant.Consumers even started getting smart and avoiding the word “sugar” on labels – so companies started putting in 4-5 different types of sugar – honey, molasses, high-fructose corn syrup – so that sugar could get pushed further down on the ingredient list.Some breads even have a lot of sugar – McDonald’s hamburger buns are on a sweetness level of 7 out of 15. Ketchup is around an 8 or 9, while Pizza Hut pizza sauce is close to a 10 or 12 out of 15.Added sugar is everywhere – and not just in your frosted flakes.Apple sauce, breakfast foods, your morning orange juice that is slowly killing you, you name it – added sugar.

Added chemicals and flavors are another way to create flavors and get you hooked.Hot chocolate, for example, has almost no chocolate in it. It’s a high school science experiment.  If that terrifies you, it should.  It’s basically made up of some dairy replacements (for that creamy quality) and then has added sugar and artificial flavors.There are billion dollar businesses designed to make food taste like something that it’s not.So instead of including dairy products in your food, the artificial flavoring companies can remove that and just make it taste like there’s dairy in there

April's 2nd blog post

When we see food we like, or see something that reminds us of food we like, the brain immediately releases dopamine which starts that craving process. And once we get that food in our mouth, it again releases even more dopamine.  

There are a few main ways that smart food marketers are having you eat a lot more than you think:

1. Processing
2. Hidden Sugar, Fat & Salt
3. Added Chemicals and Flavors

Processing is one of the ways that the food industry sneakily makes you eat more.Processing basically removes the bran, husk, shell, fiber, and some other things in your food – making it easier to eat a lot more and a lot quicker.  It’s baby food for adults.Boneless wings? So you can scarf em down.Deep fried anything?  The water content is replaced with fat.  Creating that crispiness you like so much, and a much stronger flavor.Buttery, creamy rolls and sauces?  Fat helps bring out the flavor, and also gives that soft “melt in your mouth” texture.

April's first blog post

One study, a researcher added various amounts of sugar to five different dairy products – skim milk, whole milk, half and half, heavy cream, and heavy cream with safflower oil.  The point of the various dairy products was that they each had varying levels of fat. Skim milk had almost no fat, while cream and oil contained more than 50% fat.

When people were asked  to rate the ones they liked the best, low marks went to the sweetened skim milk (high sugar, low fat), and to unsweetened cream (high fat, low sugar).  But when you mix the same amount of sugar into low-fat and high fat products, people prefer the higher fat mix with high sugar.

In other words, it wasn’t just fat or sugar. It was fat and sugar that was addictive.

Another study done on humans, kept male subjects in a ward where their food intake could be measured.  For the first few days they were fed a diet designed to keep them at their current body weight (which was around 3,000 calories since they were already overweight).  They were given a diet that was 50% carb, 30% fat, and 20% protein.

The participants were then allowed to eat whatever they wished from two free vending machines that contained a variety of things like meats, cheese, bread, cereals, pastries, desserts, french fries, etc. The men were asked to follow their typical eating patterns as closely as possible.

Given the opportunity to eat without restriction, the participants ended up eating an average of 4,500 calories a day. One guy ate almost 7,000 calories.  Not only did they over-eat, something interesting happened to their food ratios: they ate a lot more fat (usually coupled with sugar) and less protein. Their fat intake increased to 40 percent, and protein intake decreased to 12 percent.

febuary's 2nd blog post

Being overweight may not entirely be your fault – as it turns out, certain combinations of food are more addictive than others.  Interestingly (and unsurprisingly) enough, the food industry has learned to exploit these things.  Just how addictive are these foods though? In studies done on mice to find out how hard they are willing to work for certain foods (and thus measure there desire for it), the breaking point for foods high in sugar and fat were a step below cocaine.  Animals are literally willing to work almost as hard to get either one.  

1st blog of February

One of the side effects of the “war” on fat was a plethora of processed products with reduced amounts of fat.  These products typically have labels saying “low-fat” – “reduced fat” or “fat-free”  The problem is that these products are not healthy at all.  Foods that have had the fat removed from them taste like cardboard, no one would want to eat them.  For this reason, these foods are usually loaded with sugar, artificial sweeteners or other unnatural chemicals.  We now know that fat is harmless and sugar is bad. What this means is that the “low-fat” foods are usually much, much worse than their “regular” counterparts.  Bottom Line: If a product has the words “low-fat” or anything similar on the label, then it’s probably bad for you.

Unfortunately, most people don’t even read ingredients lists before making a purchase.  But even for those who do, food manufacturers still have ways of disguising the true contents of their products.  On ingredients lists, the ingredient that is most of is listed first. The one that is second most of is second, etc.  If you see sugar in the first few spots, then you know that the product is loaded with sugar.  However, food manufacturers often put different “types” of sugar in their products. A food may contain “sugar,” “high fructose corn syrup” and “evaporated cane juice” – all different names for the exact same thing… sugar.  This way, they can have some other healthier sounding ingredient number one on the list, but if you were to add the amounts of these three different types of sugar, sugar would be at the top.  This is a clever way to mask the true amount of refined sugar in processed foods.Bottom Line: Make sure to check whether a product contains more than one type of sugar, in that case the sugar may really be among the top ingredients.

2nd blog of January

You should enjoy being young because when you eat a lot of sugar it may accelerate the aging process.  A 2009 study found a positive relationship between glucose consumption and the aging of our cells.  Aging of the cells consequently can be the cause of something simple as wrinkles to something as dire as chronic disease.  But there is other alarming evidence that sugar may affect the aging in your brain as well.  A 2012 study found that excess sugar consumption was linked to cognitive health.  A 2009 study in rats showed similar findings.  A 2013 study estimated that 180,000 deaths worldwide may be attributed to sweetened beverage consumption.  While you may be aware that too many calories from any source will be stored fat if not burned, what you may not connect is the lack of other nutrients in sugar actually makes it easier to eat gobs of it with no physical effects to warn us of the danger that lurks.  Food rich in fiber, fat and protein all have been associated with increased fullness.  Sugar will give you the calories, but not the feeling that you've had enough.  That's why you can have an entire king-size bag of licorice with it's sky high gycemic index at the movies and come out afterwards ready to go for dinner.

1st blog post of january

Excessive sugar in the diet is not the best idea when it comes to healthy living. 500 extra calories a day from sugar is just what you need to gain 1 pound.  While its been widely noted that excess sugar can increase the overall risk of heart disease, a 2013 study in the journal of the american heart association displayed strong evidence that sugar can actually affect the pumping mechanism of your heart and could increase the rate of heart failure.  The findings specifically pinpointed a molecule from sugar (as well as from starch) called glucose metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) that was responsible for the changes in the muscle protein of the heart. These changes could eventually lead to heart failure. Approximately half of the people that are diagnosed with heart failure die within five years.  Move over salt and hypertension, you've got competition. Sugar, as it turns out, is just as much of a silent killer. A 2008 study found that excess fructose consumption was linked to an increase in a condition called leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone that tells you when you've had enough food. The problem is, we often ignore the signal our brain sends to us. For some people though, leptin simply does not want to work, leaving the person with no signal whatsoever that the body has enough food to function. This in turn can lead to over consumption of food and consequently, obesity. Why the silent killer? Because it all happens without symptoms or warning bells. If you've gained weight in the past year and can't quite figure out why, perhaps you should look at how much fructose you're feeding your body.