is a calorie just a calorie?

A number of folks have asked me about the guy who lost weight eating the junk food diet.  Is it true?!?  Can you really eat junk food and still lose weight?

Here's my understanding of what happened.  Mark Haub, a Nutrition Professor, wanted to prove a point about how we make choices in food.  He went on a month-long diet to lose weight by eating junk food.  Taking a multi-vitamin, a protein shake, one serving of vegetables a day, and restricting his calories, he did lose weight.

But, and this is a very important, he did it to prove a point.  He wanted people to think about the choices they make.  He also wanted to highlight food costs and how that sometimes drives choices.  Yes, you can lose weight eating garbage; however it is a very unhealthy, unsustainable way to do it.  People got so excited about the headline that they failed to read the article(s).  Within 36 hours of starting his diet Mr. Haub began to not feel well.  Now that this 30 day phase is done he plans to continue his experiment by gaining weight through eating healthy foods.

While eating excessive calories, even healthy ones, can cause you to gain weight, eating junk food is not a good idea as a weight loss plan.  This way of eating is nutritionally deficient (even with protein shakes and vitamins); if we deprive our bodies for an extended period of time we will eventually begin to have accumulated health problems.  Is a calorie just a calorie?  I truly do not believe that is true.  Perhaps on a superficial level it is true but on a deeper level we need to remember that our bodies require whole foods and balanced nutrition to be healthy.

What's more important, at least to me, and I'm sure other nutrition professionals, is the response the publicity about this experiment created.  So many people were very excited.  They wanted to eat the junk food.  They failed to read that he ate 600-800 less calories per day than his body needed.  They also failed to read that he did this as an experiment to see how people would respond.  People went straight to the idea of junk food as a way to get what they wanted.

When I work with people to help them lose weight we almost always begin by avoiding the body weight scale.  We work instead on changing what they are eating.  On learning how to make healthy substitutions and how to recognize what, how, when and why they are eating.  As they begin to eat foods that provide more nutrition to their bodies people frequently find they begin to feel better.  Many folks find they may even be losing some weight without even trying.  This could be a factor of breaking the addictive cravings for sugar and fat.  It is frequently also learning to recognize the signals your body sends.

This experiment certainly provided a good conversational base and is definitely "food for thought."







photo:  Larry D. Moore | Wikimedia Commons

the egg saga continues

If you have access to the internet it's pretty much a given at this point that you know about the enormous egg recall.  You may even have heard that the salmonella contamination actually went back as far as 2008.


Obviously this issue raised a lot of questions about sanitary practices, animal health management, and even about FDA/USDA oversight or lack thereof.  I'm sure a lot more people are either not eating eggs or considering raising their own chickens.  And I talked with a number of people who wondered how price the cost of eggs was going to go once the full recall was in effect.  Especially if you are buying free range, organic eggs you are already paying a premium.  One person even jokingly asked me if I thought there would be a bailout of the egg producer since, "We've already bailed out everyone else who made huge mistakes and [hurt] the consumer in search of profits."


I confess I wondered what was going to happen with all those recalled eggs.  Hundreds of millions of eggs were recalled.  That's a lot of money.  Well, it turns out those eggs are not going to be destroyed or flushed down the drain or disposed of.  Stephen Jannise of Distribution Software Advice has written an article that explains how all those eggs are going to remain in the food chain.  They're going to be sent to "breakage plants" where they will be pasteurized to "clean up" the pathogenic bacteria and then it will be turned into egg product such as egg beaters or the "scrambled" eggs that appear in many buffet breakfasts.  Stephen does an excellent job explaining the recall (there's also a good graphic showing the egg distribution) and I encourage you to read the article.


The FDA is now considering requiring that all eggs be pasteurized before they are sold.  I'm not a big fan of this.  First of all, when pasteurizing an egg, even though it's not cooked, the proteins begin to bind together.  Secondly, although there are no studies that I can find I know that pasteurization can have a negative effect on dairy.  Furthermore, I agree with the tone of the article linked to above.  The FDA, instead of looking at the enormous supply chain, overcrowding, unsanitary, inhumane conditions, and the lack of oversight wants to over-regulate it and require pasteurization.  I see that as a problem.


More importantly I'm not convinced that there won't be a problem with the pasteurization process, meaning some contamination might still make it through. I wonder how much of this liquid egg product will wind up in the food chain for use in baked goods and other commercial applications.  


At this point I believe the safest thing is to only get fresh eggs from sources you trust, not to eat liquid egg products, and to avoid scrambled eggs from commercial establishments.


photo:  Stephen Depolo

reorganizing the pantry

Summer is all but over and Fall is just around the corner.  At this time of year I like to start cleaning out my clothes closet for the change in seasons.  I also go through my pantry so that I can re-organize it.

There are two reasons that I do this.  The first is that things just get messy.  With various different people putting things away the organization slowly dwindles down to nil; finding what you're looking for becomes a challenge.  Especially in my pantry where there is a side "wing" making some things harder to see.

The other reason is that I like to make note of my ingredients, see if I need to replenish anything, and make sure that I am using what I have on hand.  Beans and other dry goods are best if used within a year, I find that beyond that they start to get "old" and may not cook well.

I also like to take this time to check my stock of dehydrated ingredients, tomatoes, peppers, other vegetables, and fruit, so that I can take advantage of the summer bounty if I need more.  My herb garden isn't producing in huge quantities yet, but in past years I've also dehydrated herbs to use during the year. This is a great way to  know we are getting organic, pesticide-free foods that we can use during the upcoming year.

If your pantry is looking a little disorganized, consider taking some time (it doesn't usually take very long) to re-arrange the contents so that you can find things easily.  This would also be a perfect time to start pruning your pantry of non-food ingredients such as HFCS, BHT and TBHQ.  Knowing what you have on hand will help you reduce overbuying such as when you buy 3 jars of olives because you can't find the 2 jars that are already there.  It will also help you better plan meals for the upcoming busy Fall season.