Month: May 2014

Food and eating have always been an issue for me. I have at times been a few pounds over but always my exercise and metabolism have taken care of me. Food is a very emotional issue in our society, we eat because we are depressed, we eat when we are happy, parties are all about food and drink. I have been thinking a lot lately about my feelings and attitudes about food and thought that I would share them now as my slowly creeps up over the last few weeks.

My Own Eating Issues

I have always had a big appetite and a fear of a lack of food. I have never gone hungry, well maybe for a couple of weeks traveling in Australia when I lived on Mars bars and Coca Cola, but I have also eaten poorly very often. When I first moved to Calgary my wife and I were quite poor and she promised me that we would always have food, and we have. So I have to wonder why whenever I am packing for work I need about 3000 calories of food. I ride a bike to work everyday but that amount of food I put away is crazy.

When of the things that I believe that our body will do is adjust to the amount of food that we eat. If I eat a lot of food my metabolism will go up and if I eat very little food then my metabolism will go down. If I brought half as much food I am convinced that my metabolism would go down and my probably would not plummet.

So why with a proper thinking mind do I continue to eat so much?

I believe that there is still an emotion that fears hunger. I think that if I do not have a big bag of food beside me and constantly taking in calories that somehow I will suffer badly in some way. I bet I am not the only one with these emotions of fear of loss without food. Most people with a problem have that problem for one of three reasons, medical, probably only a few, eating to much, or doing not enough exercise.

If you are like me and worried that maybe you are eating to much food then maybe the best thing to do is understand that these emotions of starvation maybe at the back of your mind but at the same time make conscious decisions about what you are eating and when and as that candy bar or coke is going into your mouth try to remember that this food is not going to make you healthier, it has no nutrients but instead it is just a waste of calories that you are eating.

In one of the most rigorous studies ever conducted to determine how well people comprehend the information provided on food nutrition labels, researchers have found that the reading and math skills of a significant number of people may not be sufficient to extract the needed information, according to an article published in the November issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

So after seeing that report and of course precious little on what the problems really were that people had trouble with I thought I would pull out a box of Honey Nut Cheerios (They are for the kids, really I am not just right now popping them in my mouth as an evening snack) and a box of Kelloggs All Bran and am going to try to decipher what the lies are on the labeling.

A List of Food Labeling Lies

1. First of all we all need to know that labels lie. The best example of lying on labels is that PAM cooking spray is low in fat….It is all fat folks but the “serving size” is so low in actual grams of fat that the company can call it fat free or some ridiculous thing.

2. Serving Size – This is dumb but on the Honey Nut Cheerios it says that a serving is 3/4 of a cup or 30 grams I think because they want to use the fact that it is only 110 calories a serving (without milk, I tried to eat my cereal this morning with water instead and it was terrible), my Kelloggs All Bran says that a serving is 1/2 cup which is actually 36 grams. The difference in this case is that the All Bran wants to use the number of 12 grams of Fiber per serving so they decided that I should eat a half cup as a serving (I really eat about a cup instead in real life).

3. % Daily Value – Here is the worst part of the food labeling. There is a percentage Daily Value for Fat, Carbs, Cholesterol, Sodium and even Saturated and Trans fats but the numbers are not broken down on the box. Am I to assume that it is for and average sized man? Average sized Woman? It is a kids cereal so is it for a kid? What if you are following Atkins? Or the Zone Diet? How does this compare to Weight Watchers point values? I am really serious about this, as I look around the box no where does it say who and what kind of diet this is based on.

4. Percentages of Micronutrients – Here in Canada there is more stuff on the food label.There are also on this food label fifteen essential nutrients. These nutrients include such Vitamins and Minerals as Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Vitamin D, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamins B6 and B12 (the un named B vitamins), Folate, Pantothenate, Phosphorus, Magnesium and Zinc and also display percentages of value using the secret code but I am under the impression that there is no real way to measure how much folate I need, how much is borderline deficient and how much is dangerously high. I think the jury is really still out on how much of each of these nutrients that we really need for sure.

5. Finally the food label on the bottom tells us what the product is actually made of. I am not sure why, but most of the parts of a lot of foods are unknown chemicals to most people. We have often heard that if you can not pronounce the ingredient then it is probably bad for you but I am not sure if that is really true and would love to know more about this.

6. Missing stuff – The one thing that I do see on one label and not the other is that there may be traces of nuts. As the father of a school aged child I know that many people have issues with nut allergies and there are other allergies such as Gluten and lactose that we only hear a little bit about but I can imagine those parents must pull their hair out trying to figure out whether a food is OK or not. I would love to se the food labels be a lot better at mentioning these things in the future.

I am sure that the FDA and the big food companies will never see this blog post but really I am sure I am not alone in wondering why food labeling is so bad in a society where people have to be careful of what we eat but hopefully as more people pay attention we will se changes to product labeling that will allow us to make more healthy and better decisions of what we should and can be eating.

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I would like to start this post just by saying that I know that there are many horrors of alcohol abuse and not just benefits of beer and that there are many reasons why drinking alcohol may lead to an early exit but at the same time I just bottled my fourth batch of home made beer, Barons Beer actually, and thought that it would be fun to come up with a great big list of why beer is good for you.

Benefits of beer for all of us

Cancer preventer – A compound found only in hops, which are used to make beer, have been discovered as benefits of beer to prevent cancer. Of course we all know that hops are an ingredient in beer and therefore Xanthohumol has high hopes of making beer a new anti cancer drug. Xanthohumol flavinoids have been tested and its use is hoped to be a preventative treatment against prostate and colon cancer and even may be a form of hormone therapy for women.

Getting your vitamins – A friend of mine used to say there is a pork chop in every glass of beer but recent studies show that there is vitamin B6 in beer increases the level of vitamin B6 in a beer drinkers blood which has been shown to decrease the level of homocysteine which increase the chances of heart disease.

Reducing chance of heart disease – another of the benefits of beer is that alcohol drinkers had higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, often called the “good” cholesterol, which is a protective form of blood fat. The alcohol drinkers also had lower levels of fibrinogen, a protein that promotes blood clots, as well as elevated levels of other molecules (platelets) that prevent the clotting and stickiness of blood cells.

Reduction in Kidney stones – A Finnish-U.S. study of beer-drinking, middle-aged men was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1999. The report stated that an increase in beer consumption may reduce the risk of developing kidney stones. Results showed that there was a 40 percent lower risk of kidney stones in beer drinkers, but the researchers were stumped as to whether the benefits of beer results were due to water, alcohol or hops.

Defying the bad of X-Rays – Beer helps reduce chromosomal damage from radiation exposure thanks to beta-pseudouridine. According to a study by the Japanese researchers from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, and the Tokyo University of Science Blood samples were taken from test subjects before and after they had drunk about 630ml of beer. Apparently, when the samples were exposed to X-rays and other types of radiation, after the subjects had drank the beer their samples showed at least 30% fewer aberrations in the blood cells.

Memory Booster – A Swedish team has shown that mice fed with moderate amounts of alcohol grew new nerve cells in the brain. The full implications of the Karolinska Institute research – which appears in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology – are unclear on the benefits of beer, but Stefan Brene told the BBC: “We believe that the increased production of new nerve cells during moderate alcohol consumption can be important for the development of alcohol addiction and other long-term effects of alcohol on the brain.”

Slow the Aging Process – In a study published in the March issue of International Immunopharmacology, scientists at Austria’s Innsbruck Medical University found that hops, a key ingredient in beer, affect the production of neopterin, a telltale sign of inflammation, and levels of the amino acid tryptophan (low levels are associated with more inflammation.)

Keeps you Awake – Although there is no caffeine in Beer, beer was found to reduce neopterin production and suppress degradation of tryptophan, according to a study. (Tryptophan is also commonly cited as the reason people feel tired after gorging on Thanksgiving turkey.) This suppression might be connected with the calming effect of beer,” the researchers note, “since its normalizing effect on the tryptophan balance improves the availability of the ‘happiness hormone’ serotonin.” And who wouldn’t want happiness to be more available?

OK and now a few more benefits of beer from me

Relaxation – This is a good one for almost anyone that has sat on a patio on a spring or summer afternoon. The relaxation and relief of stress is famous for those having a beer even if the conversation always seems to turn to those office politics that get everyone riled up.

Reduces inhibitions – As we all know there are times we wish that we had gotten up and said something, either to those at work or a pretty girl at a bar and for this the alcohol in beer is a very good lubricant to the mind and mouth and will help in those situations where shyness gets the better of us.

Excuse for bad behavior – although there is no link to bad behavior and beer, many people have been known to say or do bad and ridiculous things and in the case where someone had consumed to much beer before this well there is a good excuse just waiting to be used.

So the next time someone looks down their nose at you for the stories that you tell about the night before and the beer that you drank. Come back here and point out that you were just doing the healthy thing there are benefits of beer and having a couple of beers is great.

Health benefits of Beer, 4.2 out of 5 based on 5 ratings

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