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Movie Review: The Future Of Food May 28th, 2010

future_food

This documentary about genetically engineered food is really eye-opening.

Eye opener #1: Much of the US public probably does not even know that we’re eating genetically modified food. Lots of it. Genetically modified corn, soybeans, canola, and cotton (which were non-existent in the 1980s) are now so commonplace that approximately 95% of American soybeans are genetically modified  (GM), as well as 50% of corn and 50% of canola. It is estimated that around 70% of processed foods contain GM ingredients. Considering that about 90 cents of every dollar spent at the supermarket goes toward processed foods, chances are you’ve been unwittingly consuming GM victuals since the mid-1990s, when they began appearing in stores.

So what?
Well, besides the ethicality (is that a word?) of corporations owning the rights to natural crops like corn and soy, there are also unknown health effects. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) states, “Genetically Modified foods have not been properly tested and pose a serious health risk. There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation.” The AAEM also called for a moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, and for physicians to advise their patients to avoid GM foods. Since the massive invasion of GMOs into the food supply from 1990s, chronic diseases and food allergies have doubled.

More than 25 countries have banned or partially banned genetically engineered foods, including 15 countries of the European Union, Japan, Thailand, China, Philippines, Brazil, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Australia, New Zealand, and more.  This also means that these countries will not accept imports of genetically modified foods (also called genetically modified organisms, or GMOs) from the US.

Eye opener #2: In the US, genetically engineered foods are considered by the government to be “substantially equivalent” to traditional foods, so they are free from any additional regulations and companies are not required to label GMOs on food labels.  So, we have absolutely NO IDEA when we are eating GMOs.  (The countries of the EU that allow GMOs require that all GMOs are labeled.)

As I’ve ranted abut before, as consumers our money is our vote.  Without labels on genetically modified foods, we don’t even have the choice to vote against them by not purchasing them!  The choices we make at the supermarket influence the future of our food, but we are now being denied our choices.

Eye opener #3: Seriously shady politics.  As usual, US food policy is driven by profit rather than safety.  Against the advice of both government and independent scientists, GMOs were approved by Michael Taylor, a Deputy Commissioner of the FDA who, not so coincidentally, was previously the Senior Counsel of the largest producer of genetically engineered foods: Monsanto (my arch nemesis!).

Eye opener #4: Lack of safety research. Because GMOs are not labeled in the US, there is absolutely no traceability, causing a lack of understanding of the effects and safety of GMOs.  For example, if you were to feed your baby formula, and your baby were to have some sort of reaction to this formula, you would have NO IDEA that this reaction could be caused by GMOs, because GMOs are not labeled.  However, if they were labeled, you could take your baby to the doctor, the doctor could document the issue, and statistics could be kept on the effects of GMO foods.

It is completely absurd to allow such a new, controversial technology into our food system without any long-term testing!  It’s rumored that the Japanese, who are deeply concerned about the health effects of genetically modified foods,  stated: “We will watch the children in the United States for the next 10 years.”  Our government has turned our children into lab rats for the world.

Eye opener #5: The biotech food industry has done nothing for the consumer (no better taste, no better nutrition).  They claim, however, that genetically engineered foods will solve the world hunger problem.  This claim is absolutely ridiculous for 2 reasons:

a) The reason why about 800 million people starve every day has nothing to do with the amount of food available.  The problem of hunger is not a production problem, it is an access problem. We’re, in fact, overproducing the major commodities (corn, wheat, soy) to the point that farmers cant even recover their production costs because the market is over-saturated.  When countries like the US subsidize their crops, they undercut the markets of developing countries, causing poverty & hunger in third world countries.

b) One of the most ironic things about biotechnology industry claiming that it’s going to feed the world is that it has created a technology called the “terminator gene”: a suicide gene that is put into crops so that after one planting cycle,  it will “commit suicide”.  The seed is sterile.  You can not re-plant the seed.  So after one crop cycle, the plant is done and you must BUY more seeds.  (There are 15 patents by 1st world countries on terminator genes.)  Can you imagine what is going to happen if this terminator gene spreads to crops around the world?

Because I believe that knowledge is power, I recomend that everyone watch this movie to become educated on the issues we are currently facing that undoubtedly effect you, your children, and the entire human population.

For more information, and to download the movie, check out the film’s website: www.thefutureoffood.com

____________________
Breakfast: Lots of cherries!
Lunch: Pasta with marinara
Dinner: Falafel sandwich from Maoz

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This Is Your Milk On Drugs May 26th, 2010

I thought that by now nearly everyone had heard about hormones in milk. Yet, people continue to buy conventional milk! I’m baffled. Maybe more explanation will finally wake people up about this?!

Bovine Growth Hormone
Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), or Bovine Somatotropin (BST), is a protein hormone that cattle naturally produce. Back in 1937, it was found that injecting this hormone (extracted from cadaver cows) increased lactating cows’ milk production by preventing mammary cell death. There was very limited use of this technique until the 1980’s when the practice began to increase.

In 1994, agribusiness giant Monsanto (one of Powered By Produce’s arch nemesises!) artificially synthesized this hormone using recombinant DNA technology and called it recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rBST), also called recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) .

How it works
An average dairy cow begins her lactation with a moderate daily level of milk production. This daily output increases until, at about 70 days into the lactation, production peaks. From that time until the cow is dry, production slowly decreases. This increase and decrease in production is partially caused by the count of milk-producing cells in the udder. Cell counts begin at a moderate number, increase during the first part of the lactation, then decrease as the lactation proceeds. Once lost, these cells generally do not regrow until the next lactation.

Farmers are recommended to make the first rBGH application about 50 days into the cow’s lactation, just before she peaks. The rBGH then sustains already-present mammary cells, limiting the rate of production decrease after production peaks. After the peak, production declines with or without application of rBGH, but declines more slowly with rBGH than without. This decrease in the rate of production decline permits dairy cows to produce more milk over the span of a lactation – at its best, this will be seen by seven to eight more pounds of milk being produced per day than would be produced without rBGH.

The controversy
Increased use of rBGH has caused health problems for the animals and has resulted in “additives” to our milk (among them: rising levels of pus, antibiotics residues, and a cancer-accelerating hormone called IGF-1).

Animals
Whenever cows are forced to produce more milk, they become more susceptible to udder infections called mastitis. Mastitis is a condition which can increase the amount of cow’s pus which ends up in the milk. (Yes, PUS IN YOUR MILK!)

Monsanto’s own data shows that there is a 79% increase in mastitis (udder infections) and a resulting 19% increase in somatic cell counts (pus & bacteria in the milk). In fact, the warning label on Monsanto’s Posilac drug (their brand name for rBGH) explicitly states: “Cows injected with POSILAC are at an increased risk for clinical mastitis (visibly abnormal milk). The number of cows affected with clinical mastitis and the number of cases per cow may increase…. In some herds, use of POSILAC has been associated with increases in somatic cell counts [pus & bacteria].” The warning label goes on to say “use of POSILAC may result in an increase in digestive disorders such as indigestion, bloat, and diarrhea…. Studies indicated that cows injected with POSILAC had increased numbers of enlarged hocks and lesions (e.g., lacerations, enlargements, calluses) of the knee…and…of the foot region.”

And true to American agricultural form, instead of removing the offending factor from the equation, we just pump more antibiotics in to the cows’ diet to combat the infections caused by the rBGH. (Really makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?) Antibiotics that leave residues in our milk. Mmmm…

Humans
The growth hormone also stimulates an increase in insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in the cow’s milk. Recently, Eli Lily & Co, a manufacturer of rBGH, reported a ten-fold increase in IGF-1 levels in milk of cows receiving rBGH. The IGF-1 protein is identical in both cows and humans and it is not destroyed by pasteurization. (Some sources even say that the pasteurization process actually increases IGF-1 levels in milk.)  Nor is it destroyed during digestion. Instead, it is readily absorbed across the intestinal wall.  (Some research shows that it can be absorbed in the bloodstream as well.)  And while IGF-1 is naturally present in humans, research suggests that elevated levels are associated with breast, colon, and prostate cancers.

Monsanto’s own tests, conducted in 1987, demonstrated that statistically significant growth stimulating effects were induced in organs of adult rats by feeding IGF-1 at low dose levels for only two weeks. While there is no evidence that this same effect occurs in humans, the Cancer Prevention Coalition concludes that, “Drinking rBGH milk would thus be expected to significantly increase IGF-1 blood levels and consequently to increase risks of developing breast cancer and promoting its invasiveness.” The Harvard-based Nurses’ Health Study found higher blood levels of IGF-1 in women with breast cancer than in those without. Studies suggest that pre-menopausal women below 50 years old with high levels of IGF-1 are seven times more likely to develop breast cancer. Men are four times more likely to develop prostate cancer.

Labels
A milk carton from Maine’s Oakhurst Dairy stating, “Our Farmers’ Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones” became the subject of controversy on July 3, 2003 when the dairy was sued by Monsanto over their labels. Oakhurst eventually settled, agreeing to add a sentence saying that ‘according to the FDA no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH-treated and non-treated cows.’ But this statement is simply not true. Both Monsanto and FDA scientists have acknowledged the increase of IGF-1 in milk from treated cows. Higher amounts of pus and antibiotic residues in the milk were noted are as well.

label

This misleading addition to the label was written by the FDA’s deputy commissioner of policy, Michael Taylor, previously Monsanto’s outside attorney who, after running policy at the FDA, became vice president of Monsanto. (Could this revolving door between Monsanto and the government regulators be the one of the reasons why the FDA isn’t protecting US consumers?)

Corruption
In the late 1980s, one FDA scientist was fired after expressing concerns about possible health problems related rBGH-treated cows. Other like-minded FDA scientists had been stripped of responsibilities or forced out. Remaining FDA whistle-blowers wrote an anonymous letter to Congress, complaining of fraud and conflict of interest at the agency.

In 1997, the potential link between rBGH and cancer was one of the topics revealed in a four-part news series set to air by a Tampa-based Fox TV station. Just before the series was shown, however, Fox received letters from Monsanto’s attorney, threatening “dire consequences for Fox News.” The show was postponed indefinitely. The reporters who had created the series later testified that they were offered hush money to leave the station and never speak about the story again. (They declined.)

In 1998, six Canadian government scientists testified before their Senate that they were being pressured by superiors to approve rBGH, even though they believed it was unsafe. They also testified that documents were stolen from a locked file cabinet and that Monsanto offered them a bribe of $1-2 million to approve the drug. Monsanto responded to the alleged bribe, claiming that the scientists misunderstood an offer for research money. (Eventually in 2005, Monsanto was fined for offering bribes to 140 Indonesians, as the company tried to gain approval for their genetically modified cotton.)

Progress (sort of)
Growth hormone producers were unsuccessful in banning “rBGH free” labels on a national level, so they have now taken their fight to the state level. Currently, Ohio is considering legislation that would prohibit the use of the “rBGH-free” label. Countries around the world have completely banned rBGH from being used in cows as long ago as 1990. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the whole European Union all prevent rBGH from being used in their countries (and prevent imports of dairy from the US containing rBGH). The United States is more than a decade behind and now there’s a chance that we might not even know when this drug is used in the milk we drink if this Ohio rule stands.

With the spread of information about rBST, there has been a widespread consumer demand for hormone-free milk. Many large corporations (WalMart, Starbucks, Kroger, Dannon, and Yoplait, for example) have completely removed hormone treated milk due to consumer demand. This goes to show that consumers are still at the top of the food chain. We can dictate the direction of this fight!

What you can do

  • - Look for “rBGH-free” labels on all of your dairy products.
  • - Purchase USDA certified organic milk. To be certified organic, cows can not be treated with growth hormones.
  • * (It is important to note that “rBGH-free” and “organic” labels have absolutely nothing to do with humane treatment of the animals.)
  • - Choose dairy alternatives such as soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, or hemp milk.
  • - Let your grocer/coffee shop/deli/ice cream parlor know that you want hormone-free dairy products!

*Note* Throughout this post I solely referred to “milk” but the truth is that effects of rBGH apply to all dairy products including cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream. (Imported European cheeses are rBGH free because the EU has banned rBGH.)

____________________
Breakfast: Strawberries and cherries
Lunch: Amy’s burrito and more cherries (I love cherry season!)
Dinner: Mini pizza made on a whole wheat tortilla with tomato sauce and Daiya vegan mozzarella. After I took the picture, I added some dried basil & oregano.

food 002 food 006 (2)

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Mike Tyson Goes Vegan May 25th, 2010

Yep, you read that right! Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson announced in an interview earlier this month that he has converted to a vegan diet.

mike-tyson

It’s always great to see celebrities spreading the word about veganism and animal abuse because they have the ability to reach so many more ears than, say, my humble little blog here. It’s an added bonus when a world class athlete goes vegan because it helps to break the “wimpy vegan” stereotype.

But, I think often times celebrities are viewed extremists and/or elitists, so even when they speak out about important issues, many people tend to view it as a rant from an ivory tower, or some sort of “alternative lifestyle.” Most people won’t be persuaded to go vegan by Mike Tyson (or Moby or Natalie Portman), but rather by their friends, family, or by simply being exposed to the facts.  Either way, I’m glad to have Tyson on our “team”!

Check out this list of other famous vegetarians and vegetarian athletes.

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Breakfast: Granola bar
Lunch: An artichoke (my favorite!)
Dinner: Veggie burger and salad

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Meatless Monday #33: Veggie Stir-Fry with Quinoa May 24th, 2010

About quinoa

Quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”) is a fantastic grain substitute (even hough it’s not technically a grain – it’s actually a seed).  High in protein, calcium and iron, and a relatively good source of vitamin E and several of the B vitamins, quinoa is also a complete protein because it contains an almost perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids.

Some types of wheat come close to matching quinoa’s protein content (oats and buckwheat, for example), but grains such as barley, corn, and rice generally have less than half the protein of quinoa. Quinoa is 12% to 18% protein and four ounces (about 1/2-cup) will provide a child’s protein needs for one day. Plus, quinoa provides valuable starch and fiber.

Quinoa would be a worthy addition to anyone’s diet, supplying variety as well as good nutrition!

How to cook quinoa

Quinoa naturally contains a waxy coating which is bitter in taste called saponin. It is extremely un-tasty so it has to be removed through rinsing. Most packages of quinoa has been pre-rinsed to remove the coating of saponin, but check the package to be sure.

If you buy quinoa with its saponin coating still on, you have a task of rinsing it vigorously in a strainer (with very small holes because the grains are so small), then soaking it for several hours in water, then re-rinsing it.

Rinsed quinoa can be cooked just like rice. Add quinoa to boiling water (about 1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water), cover, and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Let it cook for about 15 minutes. The “germ” (looks like a small curl) will separate from the seed (you eat both parts) and the quinoa will be light a fluffy.

quinoa 1

Use quinoa in almost any dish where you would use rice! For a veggie stir-fry, just cook veggies in an asian sauce/marinade (I used Trader Joe’s Island Soyaki) and serve over your quinoa.

quinoa 2____________________
Join the the Meatless Monday movement! One day a week, cut out meat to reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.

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By The Numbers May 20th, 2010

Travel for another wedding, immediately followed by illness, led to a lack of posts this week.  Although I’m not fully recovered, I’m back to the grind today.

—

Sometimes numbers speak louder than words. I find these numbers absolutely shocking.  And I am glad I no longer contribute to them.

(All numbers below are from the book Gristle.)

per year

per month

per week

per day

per hour

per minute

per second

The food choices you make every day determine the difference between life and death for these animals. Each day, you can make a choice that either supports cruelty to animals, or helps to end it. You have the power to save animals from miserable existences on factory farms and painful and terrifying deaths in slaughterhouses with nothing more than your choice of what to eat. Please make compassionate food choices.

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Breakfast: Cantaloupe
Lunch: Vegetable Pho (pronounced “fuh”), a Vietnamese soup with noodles, broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, basil, and tofu
Dinner: Soy chorizo tacos

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The Politics Of Organics May 12th, 2010

Food corporations are just like all other corporations, their goals are profit and growth.  The reason food corporations are interested in organics is because it means growth.  For conventionally raised foods, the growth rate is 1-2% per year, but since 1990, organics have grown 20% annually.  And even more attractive than the growth opportunity is the fact that people are willing to pay more for organics.

But if organics are so lucrative for food companies, why are there so few organics in grocery stores?  Because organics are as much about politics as they are about farming practices.

The USDA Organic seal indicates that producers followed a stringent set of rules and, most importantly, lets you know that the growers were inspected.  (Conventional food producers are not.)  But, like any rules, there is room for interpretation and this interpretation puts the USDA, the organization in charge of the organic program, in flagrant conflict of interest – its principle charter is to promote conventional agriculture.

Opponents of organics (and there are many) work hard to make you doubt the reliability of organic certification, to weaken the Organic Standards, and to make you wonder whether organics really are better than conventionally grown foods.

Reliability of the label
The Certified Organic seal is just about the only legit food seal (as opposed to “Free Range”, “Natural”, or “Cage Free” labels, which have absolutely no standards or inspections, and thus, no meaning).

To be certified USDA Organic, the food producers did not use any synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers; they did not plant genetically modified seeds, use fertilizer derived from sewage sludge, or treat the seeds or foods with irradiation; they kept records of everything they did, showed the paperwork, and showed everything on their farms to inspectors from a USDA-accredited certification agency, for both announced and unannounced inspection.

The Organic Standards call for hefty fines for violators, but since the standards went into effect in 2002, there are no reported fines. Fred Ehlert of Quality Assurance International (one of the largest companies doing USDA-accredited organic certifications) stated that “organic producers care about what they are doing and go to substantial trouble and expense to grow foods without pesticides, to keep records, and to pay for inspections and certification.” He adds, “the only thing we are selling is credibility.”

Political appointees at the USDA are always looking for loopholes in the organic regulations to favor convntional growers. (If Organic Sandards are weakened, you will really have something to doubt about purchasing them.)  For example, before issuing the Organic Standards, the USDA said it would be ok for farmers to use genetically modified seeds, irradiation, and sewage sludge, and still call their product organic.  After a barrage of 275,000 angry letters, they dropped this idea.

With vigilance like this, the Certified Organic label remains trustworthy.

Are organics better?
The idea that organics might be better for you and for the planet very much annoys critics. Imagine what is at stake if organics continue to grow.  All of the conventional food producers, chemical fertilizer producers, herbicide producers, and pesticide producers would suffer.  Conventional growers are eager to make sure that nothing even slightly indicates that organics might be better. This helps explain why the USDA is so grudging about organics.

One criticism of organics is that productivity drops without the use of pesticides and fertilizers. It was found that farmers who convert from conventional to organic report only small declines in yields. They also report that the loss in income due to lower yields are offset by the savings in fuel costs. Studies found that organic farms are equally profitable, are nearly as productive, they leave the soil in much better shape, and use energy more efficiently.  The difference in productivity is small, but the payoffs are large.

If crops are grown without pesticides, it seems obvious that there will be less pesticides in the soil, in water, and in our bodies. Plenty of research confirms this. If you’re thinking “So what?” or “Pesticides are safe,” consider the harm they cause to farmworkers and “nontarget” wildlife, and the fact that they kill pests.

Critics also say that organics are more dangerous because they are grown with composted manure, instead of chemical fertilizers, and therefore come in contact with more microbes and bacteria. But this argument does not hold. In order to be certified organic, farmers have to follow strict rules about the use of manure to make sure harmful microbes are destroyed. And they are inspected on this. Conventional growers do not have to follow these rules, nor are they inspected.

Now for the big quesiton – are organics more nutritious? If organics are grown in better soil, you’d expect them to be more nutritious. You would be right. The mineral content in plant food is directly related to how much is in the soil. Research has shown higher vitamin levels and antioxidant substances in organic produce. There is no reason organic foods would have fewer nutrients than conventional food, and there are several reasons why they would have more.

But the important thing is this: If you eat any fruits and vegetables, you’re eating nutrients that can not be obtained from any other source. Produce is loaded with healthy substances. Fruits and veggies are the only source of Vitamin C, folate, and beta-carotene. They provide half the fiber in American diets (the other half is from grains) and they contain phytonutrients which protect against disease.

So, is organic better? Of course it is! But not necessarily for nutritional reasons. Joan Gussow, former head of the nutrition department at Columbia University stated it well: “Shouldn’t we hope that people will choose organic foods on grounds more reliable than whether they contain a little more carotene or zinc? Isn’t the most important story that organic production conserves natural resources, solves rather than creates environmental problems, and reduces the pollution of air, water, soil… and food?”

There are many good reasons to buy organics, and I do.

____________________
Breakfast: Cereal with rice milk
Lunch: Sandwich with a Morning Star Chik Patty
Dinner: Pasta and salad

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The NEW Four Food Groups May 11th, 2010

Most of us grew up with the USDA’s old “basic four” food groups, first introduced in 1956:

1) Protein: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, nuts
2) Dairy: milk, cheese, yogurt
3) Grains: bread, cereal, rice, pasta
4) Fruits & Vegetables

In 1992, the USDA created the Food Pyramid Guide as a visual aid:

USDA_Food_Pyramid

The Food Pyramid has continuously generated controversy among health experts.  For example, certain dietary choices that have been linked to heart disease (such as three cups of whole milk and an 8 oz. serving of hamburger daily) were technically permitted under the pyramid’s guidelines. The pyramid also lacked differentiation within the protein-rich group (”Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts”).

Some of the recommended quantities came under criticism for lack of clarity. For instance, the pyramid recommends 2-3 servings from the protein-rich group, which is intended to be a maximum. Yet, the pyramid recommends 2-4 fruit servings, but this is intended to be the minimum.

The fats group as a whole have been put at the tip of the pyramid, under the direction to eat as little as possible, which is largely problematic. Under the guide, one would assume to avoid fats and fatty foods, but fat is essential to our health. Unsaturated fats from a natural source can actually aid in weight loss, reduce heart disease risk, lower blood sugar, help brain function, and even lower cholesterol. These fats can be found in olive oil, nuts, seafood, and avocados.

So, in 2005, the USDA revised its dietary recommendations and created the MyPyramid, which re-arranged the food groups, adjusted some recommended serving sizes,  and also included the importance of exercise (that’s the figure walking up the stairs).

newfoodpyramid

There are claims that the USDA was (and continues to be) unduly influenced by political pressure exerted by food production associations in the creation of the MyPyramid. Food industries, such as milk companies, have been accused of influencing the USDA into making the colored stripes on the MyPyramid larger for their particular product.

The milk section is clearly the easiest to see out of the six sections of the pyramid. This makes individuals believe that more milk should be consumed on a daily basis compared to the others. (More milk than fruit? Really?) Furthermore, the inclusion of milk as a group unto itself implies that is an essential part of a healthy diet, despite the 60% of people who are lactose intolerant (not to mention the number of cultures that have historically consumed little if any dairy products).

The Harvard School of Public Health states this about the new MyPyramid:

“The recommendation to drink three glasses of low-fat milk or eat three servings of other dairy products per day to prevent osteoporosis is another step in the wrong direction. Of all the recommendations, this one represents the most radical change from current dietary patterns. Three glasses of low-fat milk a day amounts to more than 300 extra calories a day. This is a real issue for the millions of Americans who are trying to control their weight. What’s more, millions of Americans are lactose intolerant, and even small amounts of milk or dairy products give them stomachaches, gas, or other problems. This recommendation ignores the lack of evidence for a link between consumption of dairy products and prevention of osteoporosis. It also ignores the possible increases in risk of ovarian cancer and prostate cancer associated with dairy products.”

Since the introduction of the “basic four” food groups over 50 years ago, we’ve learned quite a bit more about nutrition, including the importance of fiber, the health risks of fats and cholesterol, and the disease-prevention powers of nutrients found exclusively in plant-based foods.  We’ve also found that that plant kingdom provides excellent sources of nutrients once only associated with meat and dairy, namely protein and calcium. And with all the controversy (nutritional and political) surrounding the USDA’s Food Pyramid, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) developed the NEW four food groups.  This no-cholesterol, low-fat plan supplies all of an average adult’s daily nutritional requirements, including a substantial amount of fiber.

The New Four Food Groups

PCRM_new 4 food groups

1) Fruit
3 or more servings per day
1 serving = 1 medium piece of fresh fruit, 1/2 cup cooked fruit, 4 oz juice)

Fruits are rich in fiber, vitamin C, and beta-carotene. Be sure to include at least 1 serving per day of fruits that are high in vitamin C – citrus fruits, melons, and strawberries are all good choices. Choose whole fruit over fruit juices, which do not contain much fiber.

2) Vegetables
4 or more servings per day
1 serving = 1 cup raw vegetables, 1/2 cup cooked vegetables

Vegetables are packed with nutrients; they provide vitamin C, beta-carotene, riboflavin, iron, calcium, fiber, and other nutrients. Dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli, collards, kale, mustard and turnip greens, chicory, or cabbage are especially good sources of these important nutrients. Dark yellow and orange vegetables such as carrots, winter squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin provide extra beta-carotene. Include generous portions of a variety of vegetables in your diet.

3) Whole Grains
5 or more servings per day
1 serving = 1/2 cup rice or other grain, 1 oz dry cereal, 1 slice bread

This group includes bread, rice, tortillas, pasta, hot or cold cereal, corn, millet, barley, and bulgar wheat. Build each of your meals around a hearty grain dish – grains are rich in fiber and other complex carbohydrates, as well as protein, B vitamins, and zinc.

4) Legumes
2 or more servings per day
1 serving = 1/2 cup cooked beans, 4 oz tofu or tempeh, 8 oz soymilk

Legumes, which is another name for beans peas, and lentils, are all good sources of fiber, protein, iron, calcium, zinc, and B vitamins. This group also includes chickpeas, baked and refried beans, soymilk, tempeh, and texturized vegetable protein.

*Note* It is important to include a good source of vitamin B12, such as fortified cereal, fortified soy milk, or a vitamin supplement.

Try the new four food groups and discover a more healthful way to live!  The largest killers of Americans – heart disease, cancer, and stroke – have a dramatically lower incidence in those consuming primarily plant-based diets. Weight problems – a contributor to a whole host of health problems – are also reduced by following the new four food groups recommendations.

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Breakfast: Cereal and rice milk
Lunch: Amy’s Macaroni & Soy Cheeze
Dinner: Tempeh cooked in Trader Joe’s Island Soyaki sauce
with loaded baked red potatoes (loaded with: Tofutti’s vegan sour cream, Daiya vegan cheese, bac’n bits, and fresh chives grown on my balcony)

food 003

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Meatless Monday #32: Pasta Salad May 10th, 2010

This weekend, I bought a bag of fresh, organic veggies from Eastern Market for $4.00. The bag included: a head of iceberg lettuce, carrots, celery, a tomato, and a cucumber.  I used these veggies (except for the lettuce, plus broccoli) to create an awesome pasta salad.

Once the pasta is finished boiling, drain it then chill it in the freezer or refrigerator.  Add chopped veggies and your favorite dressing (I used Newman’s Own Caesar).

Super easy and super tasty.

 Pasta Salad 005

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Join the the Meatless Monday movement! One day a week, cut out meat to reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.

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Lies May 6th, 2010

This article is from CNN.com, by Jonathan Safran Foer

Beyond the unhealthy influence that our demand for factory-farmed meat has in the area of food-borne illness and communicable diseases, we could cite many other influences on public health, most obviously the now-widely recognized relationship between the nation’s major killers — heart disease, No. 1; cancer, No. 2; and stroke, No. 3 — and meat consumption.

Or, much less obviously, the distorting influence of the meat industry on the information about nutrition we receive from the government and medical professionals.

In 1917, while World War I devastated Europe and just before the Spanish flu devastated the world, a group of women, in part motivated to make maximal use of America’s food resources during wartime, founded what is now the nation’s premier group of food and nutrition professionals, the American Dietetic Association.

Since the 1990s, the group has issued what has become the standard we-definitely-know-this-much summary of the healthfulness of a vegetarian diet. The association takes a conservative stand, leaving out many well-documented health benefits attributable to reducing the consumption of animal products. Here are the three key sentences from the summary of the relevant scientific literature.

One: Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for all individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence, and for athletes.

Two: Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavonoids and other phytochemicals.

Three: Vegetarians and vegans, including those who are athletes, “meet and exceed requirements” for protein, the paper notes elsewhere.

And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggest that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores.

Finally, we have the really important news, based not on speculation, however well-grounded in basic science such speculation might be, but on the definitive gold standard of nutritional research: studies on actual human populations.

“Vegetarian diets are often associated with a number of health advantages, including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease” (which alone accounts for more than 25 percent of all annual deaths in the nation), “lower blood pressure levels, and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index” (that is, they are not as fat) “and lower overall cancer rates” (cancers account for nearly another 25 percent of all annual deaths in the nation).

If it’s sometimes hard to believe that eschewing animal products will make it easier to eat healthfully, there is a reason: We are constantly lied to about nutrition.

Let me be precise. When I say we are being lied to, I’m not impugning the scientific literature but relying upon it. What the public learns of the scientific data on nutrition and health, especially from the government’s nutritional guidelines, comes to us by way of many hands. From the start, those who produce meat have made sure that they are among those who influence how nutritional data will be presented to the likes of you and me.

Consider, for example, the National Dairy Council, a marketing arm of Dairy Management Inc., an industry body whose sole purpose, according to its Web site, is to “drive increased sales of and demand for U.S. dairy products.”

The council promotes dairy consumption without regard for negative public-health consequences and even markets dairy to communities incapable of digesting the stuff. As it is a trade group, the dairy council’s behavior is at least understandable.

What is hard to comprehend is why educators and government have, since the 1950s, allowed the dairy council to become arguably the largest and most important supplier of nutritional-education materials in the nation. Worse, our present federal “nutritional” guidelines come to us from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the very same government department that has worked so hard to make factory farming the norm in America.

The USDA has a monopoly on the most important advertising space in the nation, those little nutritional boxes we find on virtually everything we eat. Founded the same year that the American Dietetic Association opened its offices, the USDA was charged with providing nutritional information to the nation and ultimately with creating guidelines that would serve public health. At the same time, though, the USDA was charged with promoting industry.

The conflict of interest is not subtle: Our nation gets its federally endorsed nutritional information from an agency that must support the food industry, which today means supporting factory farms. The details of misinformation that dribble into our lives (like fears about “enough protein”) follow naturally from this fact and have been reflected upon in detail by writers like Marion Nestle.

As a public-health expert, Nestle has worked extensively with government — on “The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health,” for one — and has had decades of interaction with the food industry. In many ways, her conclusions confirm what we already expected, but the insider’s perspective she brings has lent a new clarity to the picture of just how much influence the food industry, especially animal agriculture, has on national nutrition policy.

She argues that food companies, like cigarette companies, will say and do whatever works to sell products. They will “lobby Congress to eliminate regulations perceived as unfavorable; they press federal regulatory agencies not to enforce such regulations; and when they don’t like regulatory decisions, they file lawsuits. Like cigarette companies, food companies co-opt food and nutrition experts by supporting professional organizations and research, and they expand sales by marketing directly to children.”

Regarding U.S. government recommendations that tend to encourage dairy consumption in the name of preventing osteoporosis, Nestle notes that in parts of the world where milk is not a staple of the diet, people often have less osteoporosis and fewer bone fractures than Americans do. The highest rates of osteoporosis are seen in countries where people consume the most dairy foods.

In a striking example of food industry influence, Nestle argues that the USDA has an informal policy to avoid saying that we should “eat less” of any food, no matter how damaging its health impact may be. Thus, instead of saying “eat less meat,” which might be helpful, it advises us to “keep fat intake to less than 30 percent of total calories,” which is obscure to say the least.

The institution we have put in charge of telling us when foods are dangerous has a policy of not (directly) telling us when foods, especially if they are animal products, are dangerous.

We have let the food industry craft our national nutrition policy, which influences everything from what foods are stocked in the health-food aisle at the local grocery store to what our children eat at school.

In the National School Lunch Program, for example, more than half a billion of our tax dollars are given to the dairy, beef, egg and poultry industries to provide animal products to children, despite the fact that nutritional data would suggest we should reduce these foods in our diets.

Meanwhile, a modest $161 million is offered to buy fruits and vegetables that even the USDA admits we should eat more of. Wouldn’t it make more sense and be more ethical for the National Institutes of Health, an organization specializing in human health and having nothing to gain beyond it, to have this responsibility?

The global implications of the growth of the factory farm, especially given the problems of food-borne illness, antimicrobial resistance and potential pandemics, are genuinely terrifying.

India’s and China’s poultry industries have grown somewhere between 5 and 13 percent annually since the 1980s. If India and China started to eat poultry in the same quantities as Americans — 27 to 28 birds annually — they alone would consume as many chickens as the entire world does today.

If the world followed America’s lead, it would consume more than 165 billion chickens annually, even without an increase in population. And then what? Two hundred billion? Five hundred? Will the cages stack higher or grow smaller or both? On what date will we accept the loss of antibiotics as a tool to prevent human suffering? How many days of the week will our grandchildren be ill? Where does it end?

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Breakfast: Cereal & rice milk
Lunch: Medley of stuff from the lunch buffet accross the street: noodles, rice, tofu, and two veggie salads
food 057
Dinner: Bean burrito and Cheesy rice & bean burrito from Taco Bell (I was in a rush, starving, and in an unfamiliar neighborhood!)

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Meatless Monday #31: Mushroom Quesadillas May 3rd, 2010

A tasty twist on a Tex-Mex classic.

Choose a variety of mushrooms (honestly, I don’t know mushrooms well enough to even know what kinds I have here – I just grabbed whatever the store had to offer).

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Chop the mushrooms and sautee them in some olive oil.

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Once cooked, remove the mushrooms from the pan.  Add more olive oil to the pan and lay a tortilla flat in the pan. Top the tortilla with shredded cheese (sharp white cheddar is a good option).

On a side note, I tried using Sheeze vegan cheese and was not impressed; I would not reccomend it.mushroom quesadilla 003

Add mushrooms over the cheese and cover with another tortilla. Flip the quesadilla in the pan and let cook for about 1 more minute.

Remove the quesadilla from the pan and cut into quarters (once slightly cooled).

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I served mine with a side of black beans, to which I added chopped tomato and jalapeno.

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Join the the Meatless Monday movement! One day a week, cut out meat to reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.

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