That fountain of knowledge, Dr Karl has a great post about food addiction on the ABC’s Science website.
Dr Karl almost seems surprised when he discovered these large multinational food polluters use neuroscience to get their customers addicted. I call them food polluters because for the most part they remove the healthy components (like the germ and bran of wheat) from their ingredients and add unhealthy, addictive chemicals.
I wrote a post on Kraft over two years ago that revealed how their scientists had colluded with the likes of cigarette makers PhillipMorris on how to make their products addictive. I am glad that the science is catching up and consumers are gradually finding out the truth.
After many years of my own personal research and experience I have come to the conclusion that to live a healthy life, it’s far more important to leave unhealthy options out than to take expensive supplements. I tried this myself for a full year and with making the one change of avoiding all packaged, processed and fast foods, lost 10kg and friends kept telling me I looked younger!
Vested interests are mounting a major campaign with the price of milk right now and between the farmers, processors and retailers the politics is heating up. How can the major supermarkets sell a litre of milk for less than $1 and what are the consequences of this?
Intensive dairy farming
To me, the more important question (aside from the effects on the farmers themselves) is what happens to the quality of food when prices are forced so low? Let me illustrate with a recent trip to the supermarket looking for tomato paste. Woolworths had their Select own brand, but where were the ingredients from? China, the home of melamine milk. Leggo’s had another bottle that was packed in Australia with local and imported ingredients, which could have come from China as well for all we know. But the Leggo’s 500g Tomato past with no added salt (even better) won the day with made in Australia from local ingredients. I couldn’t even tell you the price because that’s not even a factor in these matters.
The point is that most of these no brand or Woolworth’s and Cole’s brands and Aldi too for that matter simply outsource their ingredient fulfilling to the cheapest provider. I am sure quality and the integrity of the ingredients is a poor second to price.
Read more…
Salt Production
Salt intake is a major factor in our health, but how much do we know and how aware are we of the facts? This is a great quiz on the ABC health website. I scored 7/10 but some of the detailed questions do test you. See here…
Take The Salt Test
Did you know…
1. To lose about half a kilogram a week the body needs an energy “deficit” – that is less calories eaten than burned by the body – of about 500 to 600 calories (2,100 to 2,500 kilojoules) a day.
2. For every kilogram of body weight lost, ongoing food intake should be cut by about 25 calories (105 kilojoules) a day to ensure the weight stays off.
3. So if you lose 10 kilograms, for the rest of your life you have to eat 250 calories (1050 kilojoules) less a day.
This all assumes of course you don’t alter your activity levels.
This is according to Dr Leeds, who is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at the University of Surrey.
Hearty portioner’s have difficulty stopping eating at the buffet, their problem is they eat too much in single sittings.
Grazer’s or Mindless Muncher’s snack steadily throughout the day.
If you are both, I’d say you really have some problems, but there is a strategy for each.
STRATEGIES
- The most important thing for the Hearty Portioner is to slow down your eating as they typically eat too fast.
- Next is to portion your food in such as way as to fill your plate with the low energy dense foods such as salads and vegetables and keep the energy rich foods such as meat, cheese and anything oily or deep fried such as chips (fries) in smaller portions to the side.
- As much as possible try to avoid buffet style eating where you can fill up your plate as much as possible and keep going back. Sometimes it’s best to simply avoid the temptation.
Read more…
The Lifestyle Therapies Spring Newsletter is out.
Lifestyle Therapies Spring Newsletter
In this issue Dianne Hermans speaks about why she loves physiotherapy as a profession. We discuss what it means to be wholistic, have a Pilates update and some news about statin medication and muscular pain. We introduce professional motocross rider Steven Sommerfeld who expresses his appreciation for the services he has received from Lifestyle Therapies. We also introduce our Naturopath/Nutritionist Stephen Johnson and finally discuss some of the politics and advice regarding food.
Now this is not good news for those that love their food, well what I mean by that is food quantity not quality. Calorie restriction is basically eating less and if you love to eat like a horse, aside from the weight problems this causes for some, the evidence that it speeds up the aging process keeps growing. Scientists have known for a long time that animals such as roundworms and rodents live much longer when their food is rationed. But you can’t always assume that this will translate to humans, although it makes it more likely and it certainly makes sense. Food is a fuel and just like your car the more it burns, the more wear and tear and the more exhausts that are produced.
Science magazine has just published a study titled…Calorie-Counting Monkeys Live Longer. Professor Richard Weindruch and colleagues at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center reveal that calorie restriction is indeed successful at improving survival and delaying disease in rhesus macaques, whose average life span is 27 years. “We have been able to show that caloric restriction can slow the aging process in a primate species,” Dr Weindruch announced.
The calorie restricted group of monkeys received 30 percent fewer calories than those on unrestricted diets. After 20 years, 80 percent of the animals given restricted diets are alive, compared to half of the unrestricted animals. Cancer and cardiovascular disease incidence is over 50 percent lower in the calorie restricted animals, and impaired glucose regulation has not been observed. “So far, we’ve seen the complete prevention of diabetes,” Dr Weindruch stated. Additionally, brain volume, motor control, working memory and problem solving abilities appear to be better maintained in the restricted monkeys.
Sterling Johnson, who is a neuroscientist in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health explains… “It’s not a global effect, but the findings are helping us understand if this dietary treatment is having any effect on the loss of neurons in aging. “Both motor speed and mental speed slow down with aging,” Dr Johnson explained. “Those are the areas which we found to be better preserved. We can’t yet make the claim that a difference in diet is associated with functional change because those studies are still ongoing. What we know so far is that there are regional differences in brain mass that appear to be related to diet.”
Read more…
The evidence of the benefits of turmeric as an anti-inflammatory and anti-disease food simply keeps mounting by the day. The benefits seem to stem from curcumin which is a component of the spice turmeric that is commonly found in curry. It gives the deep yellow colouring to foods and guess what – I found it in its natural root form at my favourite green grocer, the Big Mushroom in Cleveland.
Now I am no cook, but I have found lots of things to add this turmeric root to including mashed potatoes, soups and my favourite – eggs. Use olive oil to fry some onions, then slice in some tomato and garlic and add grated turmeric, it gives it this very pretty deep yellow colour. Then fry an egg with it and it’s simply delicious. It’s the deep colours in a lot of foods that indicate the presence of strong antioxidants like in the case of turmeric. Best of all, it has a very pleasant, yet subtle taste and is not overpowering or hot at all.
I encourage you to do some of your own research on the health benefits of turmeric and find a local supply and start adding it to your cooking today!
When certain things pop up that motivate me to take the time to comment, then I post a blog. I had one such occasion this evening. The kids came home with some food stuff for their school lunches – they went with Mum of course! Well, they came back with Kraft, Chicken In a Biskit. They know that we NEVER buy Kraft (Philadelphia Cream Cheese being the only seldom exception) but their usual 20 pack Arnotts Shapes were out of stock.
I have scanned the ingredients for you so you can see what’s in them. It should be illegal to call this stuff food, let alone feed it to kids. Firstly you will notice that the first three ingredients are some of the biggest scourges in our highly processed nutrient poor western diet. And look, they call it oven baked as if that’s got to be good for you – well at least, I guess, it’s not deep fried!
Read more…
Recent Comments