Category — Healthy Living

Good Morning America is about to “break” a story on the processed/cured meat connection to cancer.  This is based on some research by the World Cancer Research Fund, and their recommendation to limit the amount of processed meat your kids eat.  There’s an article from the BBC here.  Not new news for many of us, but it bears repeating and remembering, especially now that back-to-school is upon us . . . .

Update:  yet no mention of nitrites/ates and their connection to cancer, which is well established.  This “report” just focused on the sodium and sat. fat content.  Craziness.

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Several months ago, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) helped break news of a secret meeting where lobbyists from the chemical industry and food companies collaborated on a plan to mislead consumers about the risks of BPA.  You can see the entry on their Enviroblog here, including a damning internal meeting memo.

EWG’s online community was outraged, and at the EWG’s urging, called two of the companies represented by name in the memo to denounce the campaign.  Coca-Cola responded, but as yet, there is no word from Del Monte.

You can help put pressure on Del Monte – find out how here.  And for an encyclopedic treatment of BPA, also from the EWG, click here.

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Do you know the Hungry Girl?  She’s Lisa Lillien and she has a great web site and daily email about nutrition and weight loss that you can subscribe to for free (“tips and tricks for hungry chicks!”).  Although I’ve been a subscriber for years, I definitely pick and choose what I take from the Hungry Girl’s emails.  She gives lots of good advice about counting calories and food awareness, and she highlights new diet-friendly foods and all the time, but a lot of those foods have loads of artificial ingredients, which I try to avoid.

The fabulous Hungry Girl also often gives up the 411 on nutritional information for restaurants and “fast casual” places – she is correct that knowledge is power when it comes to taking charge of your waistline and your health.  A lot of places have made this information available on-line (try Googling “Bruegger’s nutrition information” or “Panera nutrition information,” etc.), but many places have been loathe to disclose.

Well, because so many cities and states are requiring restaurants to post their nutritional data, more information is becoming available every day . . . including (finally) info. on Friendly’s, a place that I actually eat sometimes with my daughter.  There is this Honey BBQ Chicken Supermelt sandwich that I dream about, and, well, after checking the stats just now, I don’t think I’ll ever order it again.  Even I, a dyed-in-the-wool calorie-counter and health-conscious consumer, never anticipated the disaster that is that sandwich . . . . check it all out for yourself here, (scroll down to the second reader question) and also find info. on food at the Cheesecake Factory, Olive Garden, IHOP, T.G.I. Fridays & Applebee’s – places I know for sure some of you eat.  ‘Fess up.

Next time you’re going to one of these places, take a peek at their nutrition info. before you leave, and try to choose something that’ll fit into your daily budget for fat and calories.  Even if you’re not counting calories, etc., you can think about how you’ve been eating in a given week – if there’s been a lot of junk or rich food and not a lot of greens and fiber, you might want to try easing up a bit at, say, Friendly’s.  And if you want to damn-it-all and enjoy that Supermelt, well, you know what you’ll have to do to make up for it afterwards. 

Belly up!

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This just in from Reuter’s Health – so if you were choking down green tea in an effort to stave off the big C, you can stop.  But if you drink it ’cause it tastes great and makes you feel good, keep it up . . . .

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Ahhh, “balance.”  It means different things to different people, but most of you would probably say you’re continually striving to achieve it, right?  That its state is an ever-elusive destination?  It is for me. I know it when I feel it, but I don’t feel as regularly as I’d like.

I’ve been thinking about balance this week ’cause it’s been a crazy week for me, and yesterday I woke up feeling overwhelmed.  When I’m feeling like that, I try my best to tune in and listen to what I might need to perk me up and chill me out, and yesterday it was to skip working out in the gym and to enjoy the great weather a little bit instead.  So I decided to work in the yard for a while after I did the camp drop-off.

Now, this was not easy for me.  Know this about me, I can get a little bit compulsive about things – you may have guessed this just reading the few entries I’ve posted already.  I’m regimented, dedicated and driven in most things I take on – exercise being one of my biggies.  And when I say “exercise,” I don’t mean a stroll around the block, I mean a heart-pumping, muscle-engaging, sweat-producing ass-kicking workout.  But in the last few months I’ve finally learned that balance in matters related to exercise can be better for me, overall, than killing it every day.

I got here the hard way – again.  I’ve had a series of relatively minor over-use injuries over the years, but since January, I have been dealing with a stubborn case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and until recently, I was unable to do any exercise at all that involved my feet.  I had to quit going to my fabulous trainer, who I’d been seeing twice a week.  The arm bike (yawn) was my friend, and even my daily activities had to be very circumscribed.  I was panicked.  I was sure that this would lead me to balloon to proportions I’d never before witnessed.  And you know what?  It didn’t.  I did gain a little weight, and I did spread out a bit from lack of weight training, but I could still wear my clothes . . . albeit with a few extra handles in places they hadn’t been. 

And after doing some soul-searching, what I finally have admitted to myself is that my compulsive exercise ways, although commendable, routinely get me in trouble, and that really what I was doing was abusing my body instead of improving it.  So, in honor of turning 40 recently, I’ve made a resolution.  To take it easier on myself.  To take better care not to pound on my body every single day – each week to incorporate one day of yoga, at least one day of water exercise (have you tried aqua jogging?  It’s a killer workout and zero impact), a little more biking, a little less running.  So I’ll still watch the weight and not allow myself to gain, as I have for the last 18 years, but I’m going to try to stop worrying about the exercise component so much and instead, learn from the experience and move forward in a more gentle way.

I’ve read it before, and I’m reminded of it here again – Pema Chodron has said:

“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all . . . you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”

Think about it – what freaks you out, what’s going on in your life, and what can it teach you for the future?  Maybe you need to be gentler with yourself, too.

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There’s a good article in today’s N.Y. Times about how people who work with food manage their fitness.  Check it out here.

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Yesterday, the Mass. DPH issued a public health advisory on bisphenol A (BPA), warning pregnant and breastfeeding women and children up to two years old to avoid exposure.  Although heralded by some as a “landmark warning” about BPA’s toxicity, the DPH stopped short of calling for a ban on BPA.

You’ve probably heard about BPA before, it’s been in the news a lot lately.  BPA is used in hard polycarbonate plastic food and beverage containers, including some water and baby bottles and sippy cups, as well as in the epoxy lining of food and infant formula cans.  But BPA is an estrogen “mimic,” meaning that it activates the same receptors in the body as estrogen does.  In fact, according to the Center For Science In The Public Interest (CSPI), BPA was first studied in the 1930s as a synthetic estrogen for women.  Chemicals like BPA are known as “endocrine disruptors.”

BPA leaches into food and drinks, and numerous studies show that BPA exposure is associated with a wide range of adverse health effects including breast cancer, infertility, early-onset puberty in girls, diabetes and obesity. The DPH advisory also cites recent studies that found BPA can interfere with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

I think that Congress needs to step up and ban the chemical in food and beverage containers, period, no qualifications. And while a ban is being implemented, the FDA should follow Massachusetts’ lead and initiate a public education campaign to educate consumers on avoiding BPA exposure.

You can read the related article in today’s Globe here.

Want to find out more about hard plastics?  Read CSPI’s informative article “Hard Questions About Hard Plastic,” which includes information on how to reduce your exposure to BPA, and a key to what all those recycling numbers on the bottom of plastic containers mean.

A couple of tips from me:  Eden Organics is the only manufacturer I know of who currently produces canned goods in BPA-free cans.  You can get Eden brand foods at Whole Foods.  And if you’re using canned tomato products, try finding some packaged in aseptic brick pacs instead – such as the Pomi brand, which is also available at Whole Foods.  Those Tetra Pacs are BPA-free too.

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Leaves and twigs . . . colon-blow . . . whatever you call it (these are some of my husband’s favorite disparaging terms for fiber), we’ve been hearing it for a while, now – “eat fiber.”  But even I find it hard to get 25-30 grams of fiber into my daily diet, and I eat a ton of fruits and veggies and very little processed food.  And then there is the matter of all those new foods with fiber added – yogurt with fiber!?  Fiber in a diet drink?  I don’t go for those sorts of Franken-foods, but a lot people do, and so one wonders . . . is the fiber that’s added to those as good for you as the naturally-occurring stuff?

Turns out it’s not, according to the Center For Science In The Public Interest.  Their article, “Fiber Free For All,” was published in the Nutrition Action Healthletter last summer, but to date it’s the best run-down on fiber I’ve seen. 

One strategy for getting your requisite grams is to start off your day with a bowl of high-fiber cereal, or a high-fiber, low-calorie bran muffin like these from the Zen Bakery.  Little tip from me – Trader Joe’s sells these under their own name – they’re called “Apple Cranberry Bran Muffins,” and they’re much better if you heat them a little in the microwave before you eat them.  Word to the wise!  They are VERY fiber-y and a bit of an acquired taste . . . but they’ll give you a good boost of fiber for only 80 cal.  I eat one of these almost every morning (along with 3/4 c. of Fage 0% yogurt and some fruit).

For snacks or an on-the-go breakfast, Gnu Foods makes some great fiber bars.  They’re higher in calories, around 130 per bar depending on the flavor, but each bar has 12 grams of fiber, and the flavors are tasty – and they’re a lot less hardcore than the cakes.  The Cinnamon Raisin and Orange Cranberry flavors are my favorites.  I’ve been eating these since they were first launched, and now they’re available at most Whole Foods – you can buy a few and see which flavors appeal to you.

Page 6 of the CSPI article has a list of foods and their fiber counts – try something new this week, bulgur pilaf, perhaps?  Get those numbers up!

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