Bites

originally posted in Out of the Past

“The bad news is what’s for dinner. The good news is there’s lots of it.”

Take a seat at the dining table and open the menu. Order anything you please; it’s on the house.

Sound too good to be true? Well, you’re right. There is a catch.

Like the old good news/bad news vaudeville gag suggests, the menu often makes the dinner. What’s on the menu is largely determined by where you are dining and when.

If you’re in a U.S. city in the 1940s you’ll be as likely to order chop suey as meatloaf. If the war is over, you’ll pass up the soybean casserole for a Swiss steak or maybe a rib roast. For dessert, there’s pudding cakes and chiffon pies. On your way out, pocket a bag of that new candy, M&Ms.

As Sylvia Lovegren points out in her book Fashionable Food, diets are closely linked to history. Wars, inventions, politics and Wall Street have more influence on what Americans eat than any chef, cookbook or diet guru.

The 1950s were a time of prosperity in the U.S.. Everyone had a barbecue, it seemed, and Shish kebabs were popular. “South Pacific” was the top movie and hula hoops were the fad. Televisions were showing up in homes along with TV dinners, Party Mix and condensed soup.

Protein built strong bodies back then and real men ate well-marbled steaks and pot roasts. Sophisticated gourmets cooked with coq au vin, prepared smorgasbords, and served Baked Alaska for dessert.

Then came the 1960s, a time of cultural revolutions, the Vietnam War and social unrest. Julia Child and The Galloping Gourmet taught us how to make green beans amandine, paella and chocolate mousse. We discovered Twinkies, fondue and McDonald’s.

In the 70s Nixon opened the door to China and Chinese cuisine, Californians wore mood rings and Earth Shoes, and group encounters were popular. We started eating quiches and crepes and main dish salads. White spirits became the drinks of choice and granola appeared at the breakfast table.

The 80s were epitomized by a booming stock market, BMWs, Nancy Reagan’s red dresses, aerobics and Ralph Lauren. It was a time when Americans were eating out, having power lunches in corner bistros, taking afternoon tea, ordering Cajun and buying organic in the supermarket.

It was only 10 years ago, or so, that eggs and butter turned bad and pesticides were accused of causing cancer in children. That’s about when we started becoming concerned about red meat, nitrates, artificial dyes, additives, hydrogenated fats and cholesterol.

Lately, the economy has dulled and fat consumption is down. Salsas, Thai cuisine, and beans are trendy. Microwave foods are much improved.

Are we going to enjoy fat-free potato chips, beefalo burgers or plantain salads in the late 90s? That may depend less on taste than what happens in Bosnia, how the Presidential election turns out, who wins next year’s Oscars, or the price of Wrigley’s spearmint gum.

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1996. All rights reserved.

Results of a University of Illinois study suggest that eating two CocoaVia® dark chocolate bars a day not only lowers cholesterol, but it can also lower systolic blood pressure. The study was published in the April, 2008, issue of Journal of Nutrition.

John Erdman, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition, attributes the drop in cholesterol numbers (total cholesterol by 2 percent and LDL or “bad” cholesterol by 5.3 percent) to the plant sterols that have been added to the CocoaVia® bar and the drop in blood pressure to the flavanols found in dark chocolate.

Forty-nine persons with slightly elevated cholesterol and normal blood pressure were recruited for the double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study. Blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body weight, and other cardiovascular measures were measured throughout the eight-week study.

“After starting the CocoaVia® bars, we saw a marked differential effect on blood cholesterol,” said Ellen Evans, co-author of the study. According to Evans, a CocoaVia® bar contains 100 calories, so adding two to your daily diet means you have to cut out 200 calories elsewhere.

“But, if you’re already having a chocolate snack each day, why not pick one that’s going to have a beneficial effect on your health? I think one of the reasons so many people wanted to be in the study is that they’re looking for something they can reasonably do, and this fits into that category,” she said.

And, if you eat the chocolate bars in combination with a lifestyle change, such as adopting a heart-healthy diet or adding 30 minutes of moderate physical activity each day, you might have a 10- or 12-point reduction in cholesterol, she said.

According to Erdman, who chairs the Mars Scientific Advisory Council, the Mars Company has spent millions of dollars studying the biological impact of the flavanols found in cocoa beans and learning how to retain their benefits during the refining process.

“And we know that flavanols are still present in dark chocolate after processing. But milk chocolate is processed differently, and most flavanols are lost,” he said.

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Phenolic compounds with powerful antioxidant capabilities are prevalent in most foods, but a new profiling method developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemists distinguishes the slight variations in the types and amounts of these compounds in foods that could indicate significant health benefits.

Scientists James Harnly and Long-Ze Lin presented their method and findings at an Experimental Biology conference in San Diego, Calif.

The new profiling method allows for a detailed identification of the approximately 6,000 different phenolic compounds found in most foods, including fruits, vegetables, spices and dietary supplements.

Using the new method, Harnly and Lin have identified nearly 60 phenolic components in Ginkgo biloba leaves, including many that had never before been detected in the popular herb. They also used the unique profiling method to differentiate phenolics in more than 360 other foods, such as Mexican oregano, Fuji apple peel, soybean seed, broccoli, dry beans, tea and coffee.

Source: ARS News Service

It is no accident that Slow Food has its roots in Italy, a country much less enamored of the “folly of Fast Life” than the United states, and you have to wonder whether it’s realistic to think the American way of eating can be reformed without also reforming the whole American way of life. Fast food is precisely the way you’d expect a people to eat who put success at the center of life, who work long hours (with two careers per household), get only a couple of weeks vacation each year, and who can’t depend on a social safety net to cushion them from life’s blows. But Slow Food’s wager is that making time from slowing down to eat, an activity that happens three times a day and ramifies all through a culture, is precisely the wedge that can begin to crack the whole edifice. To eat slowly, in the Slow Food sense, is to eat with a fuller knowledge of all that is involved in bringing food out of the earth and to the table.

- Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food

No matter how pleasant a meal is, eating causes what’s known as oxidative stress. As we digest our food, we create harmful molecules known as free radicals. But antioxidants — healthful compounds in fruits and vegetables — can help by neutralizing the free radicals.

This is yet another good reason to eat at least some antioxidant-rich foods at every meal, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemist Ronald L. Prior.

In four recent clinical studies with healthy female volunteers, Prior and co-investigators found that the antioxidant capacity of blood plasma in the volunteers declined after eating a test meal that lacked antioxidants. The scientists also found, for the first time, that consuming grapes with that same test meal prevented the decline in plasma antioxidant capacity of the volunteers during the first two hours following the test meal - the time digestion is the most rapid.

Prior noted that omitting antioxidant-rich foods from meals could lead to cellular damage by free radicals. Such damage is thought to increase risk of atherosclerosis, cancer and other diseases.

Prior’s experiments were part of a larger study that compared the ability of the human body to use the antioxidants in Bing cherries, dried plums, dried plum juice, kiwifruit, red grapes, strawberries and wild blueberries. Scientists used an ARS-developed method called ORAC, short for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, to evaluate the fruits’ antioxidant capacity. They documented their findings in 2007 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

Source: ARS News Service

Couples pursuing a pregnancy can increase their chances with the right diet, according to Plan To Get Pregnant.Written by Zita West, author of more than a dozen books on pregnancy and childbirth. Zita claims there are foods that will boost fertility a boost:

• Orange fruit and vegetables such as peaches, apricots, carrots and mangoes contain vitamin A which helps to produce male and female sex hormones.
• Nuts, seeds, eggs and whole-grains help male and female fertility because of their vitamin E.
• The zinc in lean meat, sardines, broccoli, eggs, oatmeal, spinach and dried apricots aid egg and sperm production.
• Selenium in brazil nuts, meat, fish, eggs, sunflower seeds, butter and oats support male and female fertility as well as aiding healthy sperm.

New findings at the US National Cancer Institute provide evidence that people who eat a lot of red and processed meats have greater risk of developing bowel and lung cancer than people who eat small quantities.

The research is published in the latest issue of PLoS Medicine.

The researchers used data from a large US diet and health study, which began in 1995 and involves nearly half a million men and women aged 50-71.

A separate study by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center suggests that by simply eating four or more servings of green salad a week and working in the garden once or twice a week, smokers and nonsmokers alike may be able to substantially reduce the risk of developing lung cancer.

“This is the first risk prediction model to examine the effects of diet and physical activity on the possibility of developing lung cancer,” says Michele R. Forman, Ph.D., lead author of the study. “This finding is exciting because not only is it applicable to everyone, but it also may have a positive impact on the 15 percent of non-smokers who develop lung cancer.” says Forman.

The other risk factors include exposure to secondhand smoke and dust, family history of cancer and the patient’s history of respiratory disease and smoking.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men and women, with more than 213,000 estimated new cases diagnosed each year according to the American Cancer Society. Smoking tobacco accounts for more than eight of 10 lung cancer cases.

A recent study published in the Journal of Periodontology suggests routine intake of dairy products promotes periodontal health.

The study authored  by Dr. Yoshihiro Shimazaki of Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, analyzed the periodontal health of 942 subjects and determined that those who regularly consumed dairy products such as milk, cheese and yogurt had a lower instance of gum disease.

“Research has suggested that periodontal disease may affect overall systemic health. This study reinforces what much of the public already knows – the importance of dairy in helping achieve a healthy lifestyle, including a healthy mouth.”

Study participants aged 40 through 79 were examined on two periodontal parameters that can indicate gum disease, periodontal pocket depth (PD) and clinical attachment loss (CAL) of gum tissue. Researchers observed that subjects that consumed 55 or more grams of products containing lactic acid each day had a significantly lower prevalence of deep PD and severe CAL, therefore demonstrating a lower instance of periodontal disease.

Periodontal, or gum, disease is a chronic bacterial infection that affects the gums and bone supporting the teeth. Periodontal disease is a major cause of tooth loss in adults and has been connected to the development of heart disease and increased risk of stroke, and can contribute to complications from diabetes, respiratory disease or osteoporosis.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston have genetically engineered carrots to make the vegetables a better source of calcium.

Calcium deficiencies in the diet lead to conditions such as brittle bone disease and osteoporosis, one of the world’s most prevalent nutritional disorders. Doctors usually prescribe more calcium and better calcium uptake as one solution to treat osteoporosis. Increasing levels of calcium absorption from foods would have a significant global impact on this disease.

In a study in 30 human adults, those who ate the modified carrots absorbed 41 percent more calcium than did those who ate the unmodified carrots.

A report on the research appears in the January 15, 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ten years have passed since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completed its review of the literature pertaining to the consumption of whole-oat sources of soluble fiber and a reduction in blood cholesterol concentrations. Since that time, additional studies have been done regarding oat-soluble fiber consumption, cholesterol, and other physiologic vectors related to cardiovascular health.

A scientific literature review comparing these recent studies of oat and cholesterol-reduction found that virtually all have reached the same conclusion as the FDA a decade ago. Namely, consumption of oats and oat-based products significantly reduces total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations without adverse effects on high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or triglyceride concentrations.

Titled “The Oatmeal-Cholesterol Connection: 10 Years Later,” the review was published in the January/February 2008 issue of the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

Leading the review was Dr. James W. Anderson, professor of medicine and clinical nutrition at Kentucky University’s College of Medicine. “Whole-grain products like oatmeal are among some of the best foods one can eat to improve cholesterol levels, in addition to other lifestyle choices,” he stated.

Separate reviews have suggested that eating oatmeal can reduce your chances of getting high blood pressure, type II diabetes and gaining weight.  Oatmeal also contains simple unique compounds that may protect against premature hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis.