Healthy Food & Healthy Living by Dr. Ayala

Americans get twice as many calories from beverages as they did in the 1960s, a new study says.

What would you eat if you had 450 calories to spare?

A recent study by Kiyah Duffey and Barry Popkin, from the Department of Nutrition of the University of North Carolina shows that the consumption of calories from drinks of US adults almost doubled from 1965 to 2002.

The average American consumed 458 calories per day from beverages in 2002. This is an astounding figure. Unfortunately, these beverages are an additional source of calories, not something we are substituting for other foods. Sweet beverages are a very significant source of extra, for the most part empty, calories

The study quantified trends and patterns in beverage consumption among 46,576 American adults aged 19 and older using nationally representative surveys of food intake. Over these 37 years, total daily intake of calories from beverages increased by 94 percent. Beverages in 2002 account for 21 percent of daily energy intake among U.S. adults, with a shift to higher calorie, lower nutritional value drinks. This amounts to an additional 222 calories from all beverages daily.

There is growing evidence linking consumption of caloric beverages with increased weight gain and diabetes.

For most of human history, babies were weaned from breast milk to water. Beverages such as wine, beer, fruit juice and milk were consumed infrequently. The human body does not seem to “register” calories from drink, and food consumption is not adjusted and reduced to compensate for the caloric intake from drinks.

It seems like beyond infancy solid food satisfies hunger.
Beverages satisfy thirst and do not satisfy hunger.

I will describe just a few studies to illustrate this point:

Nutritionist Barbara Rolls from Penn State gave women water, diet soda, regular soda, orange juice, milk or no drink before lunch. Total intake was 104 calories greater for those given caloric beverages than those given diet soda, water or no beverage without significantly affecting satiety ratings (see here).

In the Jelly bean study Purdue University researchers gave men and women 450 calories a day of either soda or jelly beans for a month, then switched them for the next month and kept track of total consumption. Candy eaters ate less food to compensate for the extra calories. Soda drinkers did not, so they ate more calories than usual.

So let’s go for the low hanging fruit. Although it is difficult to curb hunger, and eat less food, it shouldn’t be that hard to replace sweet drinks with non-caloric drinks for hydration. The list of the caloric good guys is short: Moderate amounts of wine and other alcoholic beverages are beneficial to cardiac health, and an important part of our culinary culture. Low fat, skim milk or soy milk is also a good nutritional source of protein, carbohydrate, calcium and vitamins A and D. For me that’s it. I wouldn’t personally waste any calories on any other drink. Fruit and vegetable juices have some nutritional value, but I am not a supporter of them. Even freshly squeezed fruit juice falls short nutritionally from eating the whole fruit, forms the habit of expecting beverages to be sweet, and most of the commercial fruit juices are of very little nutritional value, and full of simple sugars and calories.
The list of calorically sweetened, nutrient poor beverages is very long, and includes carbonated and noncarbonated beverages, sports drinks, energy drinks, and high calorie smoothies. Fortifying caloric drinks with minerals or vitamins does not redeem them; they are still liquid candy.

Most of the beverages we drink to hydrate ourselves should be with no calories.
Ayala

Roasted squash and chestnut soup, with mulling spices

This is a terrific fall soup, perfect for the holiday season. It is easy to make, and requires no pre-prepared soup stock. The aroma of the mulled spices is festive and somewhat surprising in a soup. I plan to serve this soup at the Herbal Water holiday party next week, in cups, with a cinnamon stick.

Ingredients:
2 butternut squash, peeled, halved lengthwise and cored
1-2 acorn squash peeled, halved lengthwise and cored
1 large onion
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 pound peeled roasted chestnuts
1-2 tablespoons honey
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

For the mulling spices:
1-2 cinnamon sticks,
1 teaspoon whole allspice
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
Orange peel (orange part), of about half an orange
Gather the mulling spices into a muslin bag, teaball or cheesecloth pouch. The orange peel and cinnamon stick can be allowed to roam free in the pot, as they would be easy to fish out.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the squashes, cut-side down, on a baking pan and bake until tender, about 40 minutes. Cut into large chunks.

In a large soup pot, over medium-high heat, sauté onions until translucent.
Add the chunks of roasted squash, honey, salt, pepper, and half the chestnuts
Add water to cover by 1.5 inch.
Add the mulling spices
Simmer over moderate heat for 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Remove the mulling spices.
Puree soup with an immersion blender (this is an inexpensive kitchen tool that saves a lot of cleanup. You immerse the blender into the pot in which the food has been cooked, and easily puree it with a switch of a button. If you don’t have it, you can use a blender or food processor).
Crumble the remaining chestnuts into the pureed soup.
Taste and correct seasoning

To serve:
Garnish with freshly toasted pumpkin seeds (excellent source omega 3), or a cinnamon stick.

Ayala

Herbs, Spices and Chocolate top the USDA list of antioxidant capacities of foods

It was so good to see my favorite foods top the antioxidant chart.  What a great excuse to eat more chocolate!  The Agricultural Research Service scientists published the antioxidant capacities of 277 selected foods a few days ago.  

      

A brief introduction to antioxidants: Oxidation is a normal physiological chemical reaction, occurring in every living cell, and critical to life.  Oxidation can also be damaging. Oxidative stress occurs when the production of harmful molecules called free radicals is beyond the protective capability of the body’s antioxidant defenses. 

 

Plants and animals maintain complex systems of multiple types of antioxidants, which are substances that are capable of counteracting the damaging process of oxidation. Antioxidants are nutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as enzymes (proteins in your body that assist in chemical reactions) and phytochemicals (molecules, such as Phenols, Terpenes and Flavonoids produced by plants). They are believed to play a role in preventing the development of such chronic diseases as cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, and cataracts.         

               

The study measures antioxidants by the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) method.  This is one of the ways you can check the ability of a food to fight against free radicals.  The values are expressed in μmol of Trolox Equivalents (TE)/100g.

 

The top 20: Cloves, cinnamon, oregano, turmeric, cocoa powder, cumin, parsley, basil, baking chocolate, curry, chocolate powder, sage, mustard seed, ginger, black pepper, thyme, marjoram, chili powder, dark chocolate, semisweet chocolate.

 

But the values these top 20 have are not just high.  They are exponentially higher than other antioxidant rich foods.  For example: cloves – 314446, cinnamon- 267536, sage- 32004, thyme- 27426, Compare to- 100% pomegranate juice- 2341, blueberries- 6552, blackberries- 5347, apple (red delicious, with skin) – 4275.

 

By the way, peeling the apple just about halves its antioxidant capacity.

 

So while I agree it’s not reasonable to eat 100 grams of thyme or cinnamon, you can see that adding just a pinch to your food or drink adds a lot.  Herbs and spices are very potent foods.

 

On the other hand, eating 100 grams of chocolate is no effort at all.  The caloric content of chocolate cannot be more different than that of fresh herbs though.

 

Dr Ayala