For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week vitamin C fights colds for real, working out less may be more and why you’re eating more than you realize.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• Vitamin C Is Beneficial Against the Common Cold, Review Suggests <<Finally the science is consistently supporting something I’ve suspected for awhile: vitamin C does appear to help with colds. It seems it reduces cold incidence in stressed people, and shortens the duration in some cases. (ScienceDaily)
• Confessions of a recovering diet food junkie <<This story is very much like my own, except that I lost 15 pounds when I stopped dieting. (Washington Post)
• Why Four Workouts a Week May Be Better Than Six <<Interesting new study about  how overexercising may have unintended negative consequences. Four workouts per week seems to be the happy medium, at least for busy older adults. (New York Times)
• Dark Chocolate and Red Wine the Food of Love and Health <<No really, Valentine’s Day can be healthy. (ScienceDaily)
• How Advertising Targets Our Children <<Have kids? This will make you want to unplug the TV for good. (New York Times)
• Yet another food worry? Nanoparticles. <<Looks like the FDA is ignoring another mystery substance that is now in our foods and other products. Should be a fun ride. (Food Politics)
• Infant Gut Microbiota Influenced by Cesarean Section and Breastfeeding Practices; May Impact Long-Term Health <<Very interesting new data on the importance of gut bacteria, and how they are shaped at birth and as an infant. (ScienceDaily)
• What’s the Right Way to Season a Cast Iron Skillet? <<I learned a lot from this. Smart stuff. (Lifehacker)
• egg salad with pickled celery and coarse dijon <<Egg salad is one of my favorite foods, and now I’m dying to try it with pickled celery. (smitten kitchen)
• Calorie Detective <<Although I’m no fan of counting calories, I’m also not a fan of lying about them. Keep in mind that if you’re eating pre-made or packaged foods, you’re almost certainly eating more than you realize. (New York Times)

What inspired you this week?

Photo by {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester}

It’s no secret that my favorite foods rarely have labels. Whenever possible I recommend starting with raw ingredients from the produce aisle, fish counter and butcher, and building your meal from scratch. Seasonal ingredients from your local farmers market are better still, and tastier to boot.

But I’m also aware that we don’t live in a perfect world, and sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances that aren’t particularly conducive to healthy eating. Eventually most of us will end up staring blankly at the back of a plastic container or cardboard box, wondering what evils will descend upon us if we choose this packaged morsel over another.

Food labels have become stupidly complicated, not to mention misleading. Instant oatmeal mixes have “30% more protein” (huh?). Several brands of granola and crackers at my favorite health food store include “love” on their ingredient list (how is this legal?). Products without any animal-based ingredients proudly showcase that they’re “cholesterol free,” as if it were possible for plants to produce cholesterol (or dietary cholesterol even had a measurable impact on your health). And sometimes it seems like every processed food under the sun has the American Heart Association’s stamp of approval (Thanks guys, real helpful.).

Don’t kid yourself, these labels are not about health. They’re about selling more food at higher prices. The data consistently show that people (that includes you and me) are willing to pay more for a product if we think it has a special health benefit. Unless the system changes, expected to be bombarded with misleading food labels for the rest of time.

Fortunately, navigating the insanity is fairly simple. Do your best to ignore all the front of package health claims assuring you that this high-fiber, low-cholesterol, antioxidant rich product will improve every aspect of your life. Instead flip to the back and look for the one thing that will really tell you how healthy it is, or isn’t: the ingredients.

Real food is made from real ingredients, things you should recognize. Real food is not made with unpronounceable chemicals, dough conditioners, preservatives, or 14 different kinds of sugar. Why does Wonder Bread contain Datem and/or Azodicarbonamide? Because its manufacturers want it to have a shelf life that extends beyond the apocalypse. That way when the zombies run out of brains to eat they can still buy Wonder Bread.

Bizarre chemicals are a telltale sign of preservatives and other ingredients that are added to enhance a food’s sell-ability, not it’s healthfulness. Fake food doesn’t breakdown or go bad because the microorganisms that cause decay cannot thrive on it. It doesn’t support life, theirs or yours. Adding synthetic vitamins does not negate this flaw.

To avoid the traps of food marketers, you have to call their bluff and turn straight to the ingredients. The best packaged foods are more convenient versions of things you could make yourself. Simple foods like trail mix, dehydrated vegetables and fruits, jarred or canned vegetables, frozen fruits and vegetables, and perishable dips like salsa and hummus are at the top of my list of healthy packaged foods, so long as I recognize the majority of the ingredients listed.

You can tell almost everything you need to know about a packaged food by looking at the ingredients. Foods are made from other foods, food-like products are made from synthetic stuff in a lab. The best choices lean more toward real than fake.

The only caveat I’d add is that food manufacturers are not stupid, and many have realized that people distrust foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). As a result some of them have replaced this cheap, uber sweet source of sugar with other forms that appear better because they sound natural. Alarms should go off in your head when you see anything that sounds like a sweetener, even if it’s made from fruit or grains.

If it’s impossible to find a version of what you want without added sugar, just try to get the one with as little as possible. Ingredients are listed in order from largest amount (first ingredient) to smallest amount (last ingredient), so if any of the first three to five ingredients are sweeteners you should be suspicious. At this point you can glance at the sugar content and serving size data to see how much sugar you would actually be eating. I try to keep non-dessert foods under 10 grams of sugar per serving (preferably under 5 grams), and anything over 15 grams I consider to be dessert even if it’s a savory food.

There are a handful of decent food companies that go out of their way to make real food from real stuff. But they aren’t easy to find, and the front of package labels and health claims are little help. I dream of the day when ingredient lists are the only information that is allowed on the front of a package. Until then it’s up to us to ignore the health claims and search the package to see what it’s actually made of.

Do you read the ingredients when you buy packaged foods?

Photo by mattburns.co.uk

Food marketers have been at it for nearly a century. They’re saving us time, making it ever easier for us to consume their products, and all they ask in return is to charge us a little extra for the “convenience.” Bless their hearts.

When pressed, most of us will acknowledge that the top priority of food marketers is not to make our lives easier or tastier, but to get us to eat (and spend) more. What’s truly remarkable is that despite knowing this, we still parrot and defend their ideas as ardently as if we’d thought of them ourselves.

Do you really believe Krispy Kreme makes the best doughnuts, Ben & Jerry’s makes the best ice cream or life is impossibly difficult without pre-sliced bread? My guess is you probably do, or at least did at some point.

But the reality is none of these things are true, and that we think they are is just a sign of brilliant marketing.

Food isn’t like other products. There are people who buy every single gadget that Apple creates, and if Apple started making twice as many products per year those people would still buy them all. But humans can only eat so much food, which makes it difficult for food companies to expand their market and be competitive.

Enter “added value.”

Sliced bread, instant oatmeal and single serving Go-gurt are all examples of foods designed to be easier to eat. And companies correctly assume that we are happy to pay more for the free time these conveniences allot us.

But does this freedom really make our lives better?

I would never argue that time doesn’t have value. Though I think there is a strong case for slowing down and taking time to eat mindfully, I certainly see the appeal of fast and portable food. As a PhD student, writer and website owner I know what it means to be busy.

But convenience is not the only thing you get when marketers sell you on their products. You also eat more, and you eat worse.

Because sliced bread is easier to eat, people tend to eat more of it, along with whatever they choose to put on top. Additionally, since real bread quickly becomes stale when cut into smaller pieces food companies have had to find new (non-ecofriendly) packaging and add preservatives, dough conditioners and other chemicals to keep breads soft.

The ingredient list on a loaf of Wonder Bread is truly remarkable:

Wheat Flour, Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup or Sugar, Yeast, Contains 2% or Less of: Ferrous Sulfate (Iron), B Vitamins (Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Folic Acid), Barley Malt, Soybean Oil, Salt, Calcium Carbonate (Ingredient in Excess of Amount Present in Regular Enriched White Bread), Wheat Gluten, Dough Conditioners (Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Mono and Diglycerides, Calcium Dioxide, Datem and/or Azodicarbonamide) Vitamin D3. Calcium Sulfate, Vinegar, Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Phosphate and/or Ammonium Chloride) Cornstarch, Wheat Starch, Soy Flour, Whey, Calcium Propionate (to Retain Freshness), Soy Lecithin.

In contrast the bread I buy at Acme, my local bakery, is made of flour, water, yeast and salt. Special loaves may contain olives or herbs, but you get the general idea.

I have to cut it myself and it doesn’t last long if I leave it on the counter (it freezes absolutely beautifully), but the bread at Acme is also some of the best tasting bread I’ve had in my life.

Are you shocked that my Acme loaf costs around $2, while Wonder Bread costs close to $4?

I don’t eat much bread, because it is not particularly healthy. But I enjoy burgers, pizza, sandwiches, naan and other traditional foods way too much to cut it out completely. Reasonable quantities of bread can easily be incorporated into a healthy diet, particularly if you exercise regularly. But bread is not health food and eating as little as you’re comfortable with is generally a good idea.

We do not need unhealthy foods to be more convenient or less expensive. And if you’re going to put health aside and eat them anyway they should also taste absolutely amazing, not good or even pretty good.

Does pre-sliced bread really make the cut? I don’t think so.

Sliced bread was never a great invention, it was great marketing. ”The best thing since sliced bread” was derived from an ad campaign claiming it’s invention was “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.”

The phrase may be perfect for describing brilliant marketing (“The best added value campaign since sliced bread”) but do we really need to continue propagating the message that low-quality convenience food is the best invention of the past 100 years?

If we want a true benchmark for greatness, maybe we should change it to “the greatest thing since the iPhone.”

Just for fun, here’s a video of Seth Godin’s TED talk about marketing and the sliced bread campaign.

How great is your bread?

Originally published September 1, 2010.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Why eating organic food doesn’t make you a jerk, how a pastry chef in Paris keeps his man-ish figure, and how NOT to get your husband to eat better.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato, Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• The FTC vs. POM Wonderful: the latest round <<Remember when POM Wonderful claimed their mass-marketed juice could cure cancer? Turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate. (Food Politics)
• When you eat may be as important as what you eat <<Timing is important, and so is rest. There is some really interesting new rodent data that overnight fasts help control weight even when the exact same number of calories are eaten. Will be interesting to see how this works in humans. (Obesity Panacea)
• Does organic food make you a jerk? <<Excellent debunking of some pseudo science that was making headlines this week. Thanks Grist for calling BS of the week.
• How I Eat <<Interesting discussion by pastry chef and awesome food blogger David Lebovitz on how he manages to stay thin while eating what he loves. I appreciate his emphases on everyone needing to find their own healthstyle.
• Food Fight or Romantic Dinner? Communication Between Couples Is Key to Improving Men’s Diets <<While I agree that communication in relationships is important, I think this study also brings to light how important it is for us to learn how to make healthy food taste good (or more accurately, what healthy food actually is–––I know plain ground turkey is never on my menu). (ScienceDaily)
• More Physical Education in Schools Leads to Better Grades, Study Suggests <<Nice to see such a carefully designed study. These were very young kids too. Start them young! (ScienceDaily)
• Lower Blood Pressure Naturally <<Hey guess what, it’s not that hard. And you have lots of options. (Whole Health Source)
• 4 Health Benefits of Turmeric <<Turmeric spice lowers the carcinogenicity of grilled meat, and other fun facts. (Dr. Weil)
• Calcium Supplements May Be Bad for Your Heart: Study <<I wasn’t sure if I should post this, but if you don’t know that calcium supplements increase heart risk (and prostate cancer risk) you definitely should. This is not a new finding. But I was annoyed by the commentary they used from an osteoporosis physician that he disagrees with the data for no apparent reason. Did no one tell him that calcium doesn’t protect against osteoporosis either? Don’t you wish doctors bothered to look at the data before giving their opinions? (Medline)
• COCONUT RICE SALAD WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND CORN <<Um, yum. (The Year In Food)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Good stuff this week, particularly the new data about why diets don’t work, why probiotics do work and some interesting examples of how the food industry is responding to the food movement. Oh yes, and the invention of super broccoli.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links on Twitter (@summertomato), Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Study Shows Why It’s Hard to Keep Weight Off <<Some interesting new data explaining why diets don’t work. (New York Times)
• Consumers ‘don’t pay attention to nutrition labels’ <<Am I the only one who thinks this might be a good thing? The labels are only there to confuse you. (BBC News)
• UK scientists grow super broccoli <<BS of the week. Hate to break it to these guys, but broccoli was already perfect. Seriously, aren’t there bigger fish to fry? (SF Gate)
• In Defense of Industrial Food <<I disagree with this, but I’m not calling BS because he brings up some important points that should be answered by the real food community. (TIME)
• Lunch with Michael Pollan: Two Words of Warning <<Pollan is right about what the food industry is doing in response to the food movement (spin!), and the next few articles illustrate exactly what he means. (Michael Ruhlman)
• Marketers use artisan label to evoke more sales <<I noticed the artisan pizzas at Dominos and the farmers market pizza at RoundTable. Who is falling for this stuff? (USA Today)
• The Candification of Our Food: The Case of the Fruit-Less Fruit Snack <<This is very important and everyone with kids (or planning to have kids) should read it. (The Atlantic)
• The ineluctable return of the McRib <<This is so well-written I had to share it, and I applaud Francis Lam for his bravery. (Salon)
• Science Probes How Probiotic Yogurts Affect Your Gut <<Super cool new research about how probiotics affect the function, not the population of gut flora. (Medline)
• The apple orchard and a savory squash, apple and quinoa crumble <<This is a delicious looking fall recipe, I’ve been all about the winter squash this year. (Cannelle et Vanille)

What inspired you this week?