Dairy, dairy, quite contrary

I’ve already written a bit about dietary fat and some of the evidence that it’s not the demon in our food supply that we’ve been told it is. It keeps coming up though. For example, let’s see how fat is portrayed in the 2010 USDA healthy eating guidelines. These guidelines emphasise the need to eat ‘nutrient dense’ foods, where:

...the nutrients and other beneficial substances in a food have not been “diluted” by the addition of calories from added solid fats, added sugars, or added refined starches, or by the solid fats naturally present in the food.

Yes, I added the emphasis. I thought it needed emphasising. And in case you are wondering, yes, they are suggesting that, for example, milk can only be considered ‘nutrient dense’ (and therefore good for you) if it has had the fat naturally present in it removed. On the one hand, this is not a surprise- it’s the usual ‘fat= bad’ message. But...it is surely a strange state of affairs where changing a food source from it’s natural state is considered a healthier alternative. 

At some point I want to look at how we got to this point where a ‘good’ food is one that is stripped of its natural contents. The history of this is really interesting- lots of twists and turns, bad science, good science with bad interpretations, intrigue, politics and murder. Well, ok not murder. But death from heart disease does feature. You’ll have to wait for that one, though. 

For now, let’s just focus on dairy. Why? Well, I can’t help but feel sorry for dairy. I think it got shafted in the whole low fat movement, to be honest. We were told to fear saturated fat and its partner-in-crime, cholesterol and dairy is full of both. The dairy farmers must have been spitting when the Heart Foundations and nutritional ‘experts’ started calling for people to leave the full fat milk where it belonged- in the cow. Here they were selling a product high in calcium, protein and vitamins and completely natural, and it suddenly wasn’t good enough. 

But then they rallied, perhaps realising that they would now be able to sell two products instead of one- low fat for the health conscious, and full fat for the rebels. 

While milk, cream and cheese got the low fat treatment, butter was thrown out the window altogether. Actually, it had been on the way out for years, with the support of the Heart Associations who pushed margarine with their mono and polyunsaturated fats made from natural plant seeds as a much healthier alternative. The Butter V Margarine fight is billed for another day- it deserves it’s own post. Let’s think about milk, cheese and yoghurt.

Does removing the fat from a glass of milk really make it more nutritious? 

Milk (the basis of all dairy, remember) contains vitamins A, D, E, and K, among other things. These vitamins (useful for seeing, preventing rickets and absorbing calcium, protecting cells from damage and helping your blood coagulate so you don’t bleed to death, respectively) are fat soluble. The less fat there is in the milk, the less you get of these little helpers. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater (something you should never do). Here’s a little chart to illustrate this point- based on the values on this fabulous site.

You can of course fortify your skim milk with vitamins after you take out the fat. This is actually mandatory in some countries in order to make skim milk as nutritious as it was when it had the fat in it. It’s a good marketing tool in other countries- Rev can plaster ‘with Vitamin D!!’ all over their cartons, thus making it look like they are doing us a favour. 

But even if we ignore the vitamins (the oh so essential, fat-soluble vitamins), there are other important reasons to consider letting full fat dairy back in our fridges. Here’s a recent study from Australia which looked at the association between total dairy intake and mortality. They found that 

• There was no association between dairy intake and death (you weren’t more likely to die if you ate more cheese), but

• People who ate the most full-fat dairy were the least likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

The authors seemed quite surprised by this finding, and didn't really explain their findings except to say that more research was needed- but it’s one among many studies showing an seemingly inexplicable relationship between whole dairy and good health outcomes. Inexplicable because we expect a food so full of fat and cholesterol to do us nothing but harm. But here’s an example of another recent study from Harvard where they found that eating full fat dairy meant higher levels of a special fatty acid, which in turn meant better blood work (lower levels of bad cholesterol, for a start), and a lower risk of type-II diabetes. The people who had more of this fatty acid circulating around were also slightly slimmer. Since this fatty acid is (you probably guessed) found in the fat part of dairy, drinking your milk skim means you get far less of it. 

Nutrient dense? And how! I’m sure we will be hearing more about the benefits of milk in the future as we start to explore this from a 'dairy might be good' rather than a 'dairy is surely bad' perspective. 

We'll probably hear a big fat “I told you so” from the Dairy Council, too.

Forty days later

Counting back, I’ve now been sugar free for...40 days. Wow, that’s a long time. Well done me! Also, I just made the connection that I started at the beginning of Lent. Huh. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in giving up sugar at this time of the year. But anyway, here I am 40 days later, and I thought it was time for an update. You know, am I losing weight? Do I feel better? Do I miss sugar? Will I be desperately hoping the Easter bunny is real and has left me some chocolate eggs on Sunday?

Let’s start with weight. Sugar is an excess calorie, so I could lose weight just by cutting it out and therefore reducing my overall daily calories. On the other hand, I’ve thrown caution to the wind and am eating full fat dairy- you can read why, here. I’ve also been kind to myself while withdrawing from sugar and haven’t stinted on other (non sugar) treats like potato chips and nuts, both of which are fatty. Fat has more calories than sugar, so I may actually end up eating more calories this way. Hmm.

This is probably why I’ve been drawn in the past to low-fat, high carbohydrate approaches in preference to low-carb, high fat approaches. It’s rational to think that you should remove the food group with the highest calories (fat), but it’s also simplistic. The body doesn’t process everything we eat as energy in the same way. One of the really important things I learned about sugar in David Gillespie’s books and from my own forays into the research is that fructose in sugar interacts with our appetite controls in a very dangerous way. 

Now that I’m avoiding fructose like the plague, I’ve found that I’m eating way less in a day than I used to. I could do a side by side comparison of my food then and now but I’d be too embarrassed about the ‘before’ shots. I’ve already revealed what used to be in my snack cupboard as well as some of the stupid ‘diet’ foods I used to know and love. 

But as an example of how things have changed, I’m now almost snack free. I used to be a mid-morning, mid-afternoon and evening snacker. I think this was made worse by being an at-home mummy because I would be feeding my baby boy things at all hours (babies snack a LOT) and would just naturally have a little something myself as well. Now I don’t snack during the day at all- I’m just not hungry between meals, and even my meals are smaller. I’ll admit that the after-dinner snack habit has been harder to break. This is definitely a habit, not hunger, but I’m aiming to change this as well. I know I snack more after dinner if I’m just watching TV without anything else to do (I’m a chronic multi-tasker, I can’t just watch TV), so I’m trying to make sure I have things to do, like...writing this blog.

[This reminds me of a study I read when I was looking into the exercise question. These researchers looked at the energy consumed by teenagers when they did typical daily activities. They found that when teenagers watch tv, they eat. When they exercise, they eat (well, presumably after). And for both of those activities they consume more energy than they burn. In fact, the only activity where the teenagers didn’t eat more calories than they burned was doing homework.  Perhaps this is partly because homework is not traditionally a snacking activity (unlike watching tv). But I think it might also be because the brain is actively engaged in something, rather than free to ponder the snacking possibilities. So there you go, homework is good for you (and I’m sure that’s the line they used in the media release for that particular study). And you, dear blog, are like homework to me. In a good way.]

So, to answer your question (or the question which I posed on your behalf- you're welcome) is that yes, I have lost weight. I wish I could give a figure here because I’m all about the data, but I was determined when starting this whole sugar-free thing not to get caught up in weighing myself endlessly. With the result that I (perhaps stupidly) failed to get a baseline weight to go from. I know from weighings in the not too distant past that I was at least a certain weight, so I can say for almost certain that I’ve lost at least...

(drum roll please)

3.2 kg

Yesssssss. I need to lose more, but the best part is knowing that, however gradually things move, they are moving down, not up. I don’t need to watch my weight anymore. My body is doing that for me, because I stopped blindfolding it.  Er, with a blindfold made of sugar...Ok, I need to work on that metaphor, but hopefully you get the picture.

So, weight loss, check.

I’m feeling good too. My skin is great (I’ll have to look into that one sometime), I’m not as moody, I don’t get highs and lows throughout the day caused by what I eat. It wasn’t easy for about three weeks- I definitely wanted sugar. I wouldn’t have thought I could come out the other side and just feel completely uninterested in sugar, but...here I am.  I have a box of home-made fructose free chocolates in the fridge which I made last week, and I’ve eaten about three of them. They are delicious, I just don’t crave them. I forgot about them actually. I’ve also got some of the coconut bread I made a few weeks back sitting in the freezer, waiting for a time when I want it. I’ve asked myself today whether I really honestly would say no to an Easter egg if, say, I were to find one in the garden Sunday morning after the Easter bunny has been by. And totally honestly (but grammatically confusingly), yes, I would say no. I know I feel dreadful if I eat sugar now- I’ve done it a few times accidentally (canned corn, I’m looking at you!). It’s not worth it.

So, I don’t think I’ll go back. I can’t promise- it’s not easy to avoid sugar totally, and it’s an addictive substance. It’s definitely trickier when eating at other people’s houses even if they are trying to be sensitive to your sugar-free needs. Not because of obviously sugary treats which I don’t care about saying no to, but because of hidden sugars which they may inadvertently serve up. Like the time I was eating dad’s home-made spaghetti sauce and after a process of cross-examination to rival any court room managed to work out that the reason it tasted sweet despite being ‘sugar free’ was that dad had innocently added just a dash (or two) of barbecue sauce which on inspection had about 40% sugar. I may just have to take the sugar hit every now and then and put up with the consequences, because this stuff is everywhere. But I don’t want it, so I won’t seek it.

So, forty days in, here I am. If you want to ask questions or comment about any of this, the comment box below will be happy to oblige. And any suggestions about homework/blog topics I should tackle in the future are also welcome. That’s unless you have given up commenting on blogs for Lent- in which case, you must wait until Sunday.

Happy Easter everyone J

Oooh the regret

Today seems like a good day for an alcohol-themed post. 

Image by 'Clock' from Wikipedia. 

Clock and wikipedia don't necessarily endorse my work, although I endorse theirs :)

Why? Three words: Jo’s Hens Night. Last night, for the first time in at least two years (maybe longer, I honestly can’t remember) I went out to some trendy* nightspots† with a bunch of fabulous gals, all friends of the most fabulous Johanna who is getting married next Saturday. Much fun was had by all, particularly at the life drawing class.

A JG original. Completely self-taught!

Much drinking was had by all, particularly at...everywhere we went. I’m still recovering. So this post will be light on the research and possibly on the coherence. But I remembered that someone (Sharon**) asked me to do a post on alcohol in the off the grid world, and now seems as good a time as any to address it. If I’m not eating sugar, can I drink alcohol (fermented sugar)? The answer, clearly, yes. Why? Well, thanks to Wikipedia, here is a sugar molecule- fructose is on the right, and glucose is on the left:

Sugar as a scientist sees it

And thanks to me (copying what I found on Wikipedia but making it prettier), here is ethanol.

Alcohol minus the bottle

Notice the ever so slight difference. Basically fermentation changes the sugar. So alcohol both is and isn’t sugar. And mostly, isn’t. As long as the alcohol isn’t mixed with something sweet, it’s pretty much ok for a fructose-free-person like myself to drink. For example, a typical dry white wine has 0.3g of fructose per 100g and red wine even less. Apple cider, which is made of fermented apple juice,  has about 0.5g per 100g. Beer (which I don’t personally drink- blurg) is made from malt, and the sugar in beer is maltose and glucose, so beer is completely fine if I could bring myself to drink it. Shots of vodka are fine from a fructose perspective (from a morning after perspective, they are not fine). If you ever want to check out a particular type of drink, here's a great site which breaks down the specific sugars so you know what your body is facing.

One of the things I have learned about sugar (and part of my decision to quit eating it) is that the fructose part of the sugar is processed by the liver. The liver turns it into triglycerides (fats) which are sent into the bloodstream and do all kinds of harm. Alcohol is similar to fructose the sense that the liver also has to deal with it. But, the liver uses a specific enzyme to deal with the alcohol and turns it into carbon dioxide and water. In moderation, the body can deal with alcohol pretty well, and there is some evidence that there are health benefits to drinking alcohol such as an increase in HDL (good cholesterol) and an effect similar to aspirin in preventing the little platelets in your blood (teeny little cell parts in your blood which should, by rights, be shaped like little plates, but which are not) from sticking together or clotting, which can mean less risk of heart attack or stroke. (These benefits are mainly for older people.) And obviously the sugar question is a just side issue when thinking about the negative consequences of drinking in whatever the opposite of moderation is (ie, last night). Today's hangover is the obvious minus. And then there's the raft of health complications which can come from long-term drinking in large quantities... 

So, on that bright and cheery note, and with half a mind to personally never drinking again anyway after last night, that’s my summary of drinking fructose-free. If you want to stay away from sugar, alcohol is fine, just don’t drink sweet wines (e.g., dessert wines), spirits with sweet mixers or (unfortunately) cocktails (unless they are made with entirely non sweet ingredients- and if you find such a cocktail, please let me know!). 

*I assume they were trendy. What would I know? Do people even say trendy anymore?

†Maybe they were clubs? Or pubs? Does 'nightspot' cover it or is that something only old people say?
**Possibly a pseudonym

Ghost Stories

Well, I’m back from good old Tas, and Easter is approaching rapidly. Thanks to my recent discovery that it is possible to make my own chocolate, I’m not worried about feeling like I'm missing out on treats this Easter. And let’s be honest, commercial Easter egg chocolate is pretty awful: bland, sugary and gritty (unless you get the really expensive chocolates of course). Surely they are just re-using the same unsold eggs year after year?

Mmmm last year's chocolate...

Egg pic by luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net. I added the recycle symbol though. Wasn't that clever?

Anyway, I started thinking about the way I’ve handled Easter in other years, and from there, it was a natural step to musing about the Ghosts of Diets Past. When I think Diet (with a capital D ie, a structured diet program, as compared to just ‘trying to be good’ with what I eat), I think Weight Watchers. I specifically remember doing the old WW at Easter time one year because I had calculated that I could have two Red Tulip ‘bird eggs’ Easter eggs (candy coated with solid chocolate inner) for 2 (or maybe 3, I can’t remember) WW points. I would save up my points during the day so that I could savor a couple of bird eggs after dinner. 

With these and similar tactics, I’ve ‘succeeded’ with WW twice- both times I lost around 10kg. This is about the same amount I need to lose this time, so why am I not doing this again? The clue is that it worked for me twice. Twice. Meaning that I regained the weight. Meaning that it doesn’t really work, unless my definition of success is to be looking trim and feeling gorgeous for a month or two before slowly regaining what I worked so hard for. Unless I want to pay the WW monthly fee and count points for the rest of my life (I don’t), then I need another answer, and hence I'm trying the whole quitting sugar thing.

Is it just me, though? Am I just too greedy or just not motivated enough, or [insert shortcoming here]? There is evidence that Weight Watchers and similar calorie restricted programs work (for example, here and here. However, the research into these programs is usually very short term. The outcomes they measure are usually after 6 or at the most 12 months. What happens in the longer term? Well here’s a chart from this study which looked at weight loss maintenance up to 5 years after dieting:

Weight loss maintenance years 1-5 post diet. From: Anderson, Konz, Frederich & Wood, 2001

The bottom trend line shows the weight loss over time of people using calorie restricted diets which use normal foods (programs like Weight Watchers, although this program wasn't specifically studied). While they initially lost an average of around 9kg, just two years later they had regained more than half of this amount, and 5 years later they were only 2kg lighter than when they started. This is an average, remember, so for some the weight regained was more than this, for some it was less. The top line shows the trend for people using more extreme diets (very low energy diets usually involving meal replacement with a shake or similar and a very restricted calorie intake). For these guys the initial weight loss was much greater (around 24 kg) but two years later they had also regained more than half of what they lost, and 5 years on the average dieter had regained 13kg.

So, it seems that the diet success story is pretty short-lived for the average weight-loser, it’s not that long before they are in a position where they will probably need to diet again. While there is a lot of research into the reasons behind weight-regain after ‘successful’ dieting, there are few helpful answers. Some studies (here and here are examples) suggest psychological factors, such as satisfaction with the new weight, body/self-image and ability to handle stress as important. But there are also internal metabolic factors to take into account, for example these guys hypothesise that the body’s internal systems are more geared towards gaining weight than losing weight. Neither answer is all that encouraging, but it’s clear that we don’t know the full story, either way. There’s a lot more to learn about how to lose weight and keep it off.

I’m wondering if a key part of the secret (for me anyway) is not to Diet (with a capital D) at all. I’ve found that all this does is make me focus more on food. I spend all day (well, a lot of it anyway) thinking about my next meal, or snack, planning how many points I have, deciding whether I can sneak in a birds egg or not. Weight watching is all well and good, but food watching is counter-productive, in my experience. Then there’s the problem of what happens when the Diet stops.  

I really, really don’t want to say it because it’s so clichéd, but you know I’m leading up to the word lifestyle. As in 'this is a lifestyle, not a diet'. I can’t live with counting calories (or points), watching what I eat all the time, negotiating with myself to keep away from X so that I can have Y, but...turns out I can live without sugar. At least, so far. It may sound strange to anyone who feels that giving up sugar would be a major hassle, but the sugar free thing has been far, far easier to live with than WW or any other Diet I’ve tried. I’m past craving sugar now. I don’t find that I am looking for snacks between meals or after dinner. I’m not actively watching my portions but I’m sure I’m eating less. Even with the chocolate and coconut cake and the full fat milk and the cheese (oh, the cheese!), yada yada, I’ve lost a few kilos in a few weeks. I’m not dieting (sorry, Dieting), I’m just living sugar free.

Can I lay the Ghost of Diets Past to rest forever? I don’t know, but I’m hopeful.

Free your chocolate

When I wrote my last post, I planned to take a few days break while I visited family in Tasmania. I thought I should come back to my blog on Monday next week, and maybe do a post reflecting on the fact that I’m staring down the barrel of a sugar-free (and therefore chocolate free) Easter. I’d talk about how my very supportive husband decided that we should have Easter cheeses instead of Easter chocolate, and how I felt this was a very ‘off the grid’ thing to do, and that I decided to call it Cheester.

Well, two days into visiting mum and dad, and I’ve thrown all those ideas out the window because I just made delcious, fructose free chocolate from scratch! Now THAT’s off the grid. Thought I'd better write down what I did before I forgot the details. Here is a sneak peek for those who can't be bothered scrolling:

(For those thinking “huh? There are a range of ‘sugar free’ chocolates available from every health food store you care to name, not to mention the health food aisle at the supermarket”, here’s a quick run-down on why I’m making this from scratch. Basically commercial sugar-free chocs (and most sugar-free sweets as well) contain maltitol (or a similar sweetener) which is a sugar substitute. Although these are not the same as cane sugar, many of them act like cane sugar when they enter the body. For example, maltitol becomes glucose and fructose just like sugar. So no, I can’t have those if I want to stay off fructose. Also where’s the fun in that? I’ve never made chocolate before, I feel like Nigella Lawson right now.)

The idea for making chocolate started back in Melbourne when I found some blocks of 100% cacao in Jones the Grocers. The blocks are by Willy’s World Class Cacao and Chocolates from the UK. I had watched a TV series about Willy who is a passionate chocoholic who wanted to make and sell these 100% cacao as a gourmet cooking ingredient. He sources the cacao beans from places like Venezuela and Madagascar. You can order the blocks online and have them shipped from the UK, but Jones the Grocer stocks them in Australia, so I happily purchased two 180g blocks of the Madagascan black 100% cacao (at $20 a pop) and took one with me to Tasmania to present to mum and dad who are also trying to be fructose free.

For anyone who hasn’t tried 100% cacao before, let me tell you it is strong, bitter stuff. It tastes like the very essence of chocolate, minus the sugar and cream.

Mum and I decided to try making some (edible) chocolate from this, and with the help of a friendly local health food store (who not only gave us a recipe but supplied us with the right ingredients), we were able to do this pretty simply. The recipe handout is credited to Roar Vanilla. It called for cacao powder and agave syrup (which has a lot of fructose), so we had to experiment a little. We also added soy lecithin as an emulsifier which I'll explain further below.

But without further ado, here is our version, adapted from theirs, which is 100% fructose free, very simple, and delicious. 

Fructose-free chocolate

• 80 grams cacao butter, chopped finely (we sourced ours from the health food store)
• 40 grams chopped/grated 100% cacao
• 3 Tablespoons dextrose syrup (see below)
• 3 x rock salt crystals (we used Himalayan salt- long story but mum wanted some anyway so we happened to have it. I’m sure normal salt would do!) You can leave salt out altogether if you choose
• 1 tsp lecithin granules soaked in 1 Tbs boiling water (health food store had these but we also saw them at the supermarket health food section)

Dextrose syrup:

Stir 100g boiling water and 230g dextrose in a saucepan on the stove until the dextrose is dissolved completely. It should go from being a white liquid to a crystal clear one (see pics). You could halve this recipe as you don’t need much (I used 3 tablespoons) but it seemed easier to do all the stirring in this quantity than a smaller one.

When dextrose is dissolved and syrup is clear, take off the heat and place to one side.

Note: Dextrose is glucose, so you may be able to just use glucose syrup from the baking section of the supermarket instead of making the above. Glucose syrup is much thicker than the syrup described above, so I’m not 100% sure it would work the same- if you try it, let me know how it goes!

To make the chocolate:
Place at least 2cm of water in a pot and put a bowl on the top to make a bain-marie. Don’t let the bowl touch the water.  Heat the pot until the water boils, then remove from the heat.

Add cacao butter to the bowl.Stir until melted. It melts pretty quickly into a clear but yellowish oily liquid

I'm melting...

Add salt crystals (optional)- these will dissolve during the next steps.

Add 3 tablespoons of the dextrose syrup. You can add more if you wish- depends on how sweet you want it to be.

Add 2 teaspoons of the watery-lecithiny mixture (see pic of what our lecithin mixture looked like- ours was not fully dissolved in the hot water but the lecithin granules were soft and pretty quickly broke down further in the chocolate mixture).

Lecithin is an emulsifier, and we wanted it to help the syrup and cacao butter to mix better- which on our observation it seemed to. The original recipe did not have this step at all, so you could leave it out if you prefer, but I’ve left it in because we think that it helped the texture of our chocs.

Add half of the 100% cacao, stir until it melts into the mixture, and then add the second half and do the same.

Ours had a bit of a foamy look on the surface as you can see. I think on reflection this was the lecithin and perhaps I should have left it to dissolve further. However, it didn’t affect the texture (which was entirely smooth) or taste of the final chocs.

The liquid at this point was very thin, much thinner than I was expecting to be honest.  

Pour into molds or ice trays.

Ours made 36 chocs- 16 in the heart mold and 16 in the ice cube  tray.

Put in the freezer or fridge to set. Ours went in the fridge and by about ½ hour they were set enough to pop out of the mold and eat. Here they are again.

My babies. I'm so proud.

As it doesn't have any cream or milk, it obviously makes a pretty dark chocolate which we estimate tastes about the same as 80% dark chocolate. Mum pronounced it ‘as good as Lindt’. The texture is chocolate heaven- it melts so deliciously in the mouth. When I do it again, I’ll experiment with adding some chopped hazelnuts or similar to the chocolate in the last step. Yum!

I guess the only other thing worth posting is the cost. The cacao 100% bar was $20 and we used 40g so $4.44 worth. The cacao butter was $19 for 250g and we used 80g, so $6.08 worth.  So the main ingredients cost $10.52 for 36 chocs.  Up to you whether you think it is worth it- I loved doing it and will enjoy experimenting with different versions.

If you do try this, be sure to let me know, below. I’d love to hear how you go, especially if you experiment with any modifications.

So that’s it. A long post, but a pretty easy recipe in the end, and the result was fabulous. I’ll be making more of these at home for Easter, although we might keep the cheese idea as well. J

Boring necessity or faithful friend?

I promised it and here it is: a fibre-themed post. I know, I know, when it comes to nutrition, you can’t get any more boring than fibre. But trust me, like the Transformers, there’s more to fibre than meets the eye. Plus this is a short post, so it's easy to digest.

Digest, geddit?

Ahem. Anyway, I’m not historically a fibre-phile. I hardly ever ate lentils or wholemeal pasta (brown pasta, eurgh). I’ve often been baffled as to how to include veges in the meals I made for the family (the answer: microwave some frozen peas!). And even though I knew that yes, fibre is good for me yada yada, I wasn’t convinced it was as groundbreaking and important as nutritionists would have me believe. So I said, ‘yeah ok’ and then I switched to wholemeal bread. What, that wasn’t enough?

With my new hat on as (very) amateur armchair nutritionist, here’s what I've learned- fibre is a gem when it comes to nutrition and health. But that’s the conclusion, and I have to start at the beginning. Before I start though, I have to warn that once you start reading up about this sort of topic you’ll come across some definitely undelicious sounding words, like ‘gastric emptying’, and ‘fermentation in the intestine’. I’ll try to keep these at a minimum in my short-cut explanation of things below. Excuse me if I go too far in the other direction and refer to your ‘tummy tum’. I have a one year old at home so it’s hard to judge sometimes.

Firstly, fibre comes in soluble and insoluble forms, and they don’t have the same effect on the body. Insoluble fibre adds bulk to what you eat, which fills your stomach up quickly, making you feel physically full (I’ve explained more about fullness in my previous post). Insoluble fibre also speeds the movement of food through the digestive system. It’s the fibre that you associate with, um, number twos. It’s the fibre that Darren Hinch wanted us to try in the All Bran challenge.

Soluble fibre is the fibre that is...soluble. Well, technically it absorbs water rather than being ‘dissolved’ in it, and it becomes viscous –gooey or gummy according to my thesaurus, yuck – and this not only helps add a physical feeling of fullness to your tum, but also slows the digestive process, meaning that your stomach doesn’t get empty quickly. (Yep, I mean gastric emptying is delayed- gross!).

But other than slowing things down, digestion-wise, soluble fibre seems to be the good fairy of many body processes which affect our health. It slows the absorption of glucose, which means that you don’t get a sudden blood sugar spike from eating carbohydrates if you also eat soluble fibre. It lowers cholesterol and does good things to your intestines. Things you probably don’t want to know about, but which you should be grateful for all the same. New research suggests that fibre plays a positive role in your immune system, somehow changing inflamed immune cells into anti-inflammatory, healing cells. So instead of being sick little cell-patients, they have been inspired by fibre to become  tiny cell-doctors. How cute. (I'm glad it doesn't take them 7 years of training though. But then, I wouldn't want under-qualified cells running around my immune system either). Well anyway, here’s the news report version of this study which is far more understandable than the original research article.

In other words, eat more soluble fibre, you won’t regret it.

If you look for fibre on the nutrition information panels of foods, you will notice that soluble and insoluble fibres are lumped together under ‘dietary fibre’. This is because the dietary reference intake for fibre (25-30 grams per day) is for both types combined. On the one hand, this makes sense because many foods that are high in fibre include both insoluble and soluble, so you may as well count both together. On the other hand, lots of foods that I think of as ‘high fibre’ are biased toward one type of fibre, with hardly any of the other. If you are eating wholemeal bread to increase your fibre intake, you are increasing your insoluble fibre intake, and getting very little soluble (0.08 grams per slice). An apple has both, but more soluble (2.3 grams) than insoluble (1.6 grams). If you’re interested, here’s a website with a handy breakdown of the soluble and insoluble fibres in different types of food. Thanks internet! 

So, fibre. I’m sorry I ignored you. You seemed boring, but you are not. Let’s be friends.

I’m off to Tasmania tomorrow. The Apple Isle- how appropriate! Also home of Lactos, wondrous purveyors of delicious cheese. Oh and also family. Point is, I won’t be blogging for a few days :)

It's food, Jim, but not as we know it

I’ve realised that part of going fructose free is going to mean drastically reducing my intake of processed foods. Many of them are laced with sugar, for a start, but I also feel like if I’m going to take this step- and it’s a pretty big one – then I can’t ignore the other crap I’ve been eating.

I don’t really know how this stuff crept into my life, to be honest. A diet yogurt here, a jar of pasta bake sauce there...a heady combination of easy availability, lack of time for cooking, and the perpetual search for the perfect ‘diet’ food.  It’s kind of embarrassing to me that I’ve made it to 32 without really evaluating the quality of what I eat.

The question is, where to stop.  Are tinned tomatoes ok? Do I go organic as much as I can? Do I want to make my own bread? (Answer: no). I’ve got some thinking to do, but not today. Today is daylight savings Sunday. I’m finding it hard enough to work out what time it is (every clock says something different- argh!), let alone work out whether paying an extra couple of bucks for organic meat is worth it.

Instead, I thought I would amuse myself and take a look at some of the buzz word laden manufactured foods which used to be in my cupboard. You know, the 99% fat free, low GI, added fibre, no added salt, all ‘natural’ ingredient, ‘healthy’ processed foods. Hopefully this exercise will make me think twice before going down this pointless road ever again.

There are so many to choose from that I thought I’d start with breakfast. Then, if I find trashing food in this way to be fun, I’ll keep going with other meals :)

Before I start, I think I need more photos in my blog.

Photo: Arvind Balaraman http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1058

Mmmm Fruity. No, that would be way too easy. I’ll stick to products that at least try to make us think they are healthy. 

Let’s start with one of my favourites. Special K. Keeps you looking good. I’ve eaten this often, and I believed the hype: low GI and high in protein which will keep me full for longer, so I won’t be needing that mid-morning biscuit. Great! And that’s why I’ll be able to keep wearing that mini skirt well after fashion and good sense tells me not to (YouTube let me down with the ad- anyone remember it?). What is so special about Special K? Well:

Cereals (62%)(rice, wheat), wheat gluten, sugar, wheat flour, minerals (calcium carbonate, iron, zinc oxide), salt, barley malt extract, vitamins (niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin, thiamin, folate).

Not a ridiculously long list, especially if you ignore the vitamins and minerals which are obviously good. Hmm though, why are they adding vitamins and minerals? Wholegrains contain vitamins and minerals. Could it be that the 62% cereals are not wholegrain? Sure enough, a serving of Special K is only 10-20% wholegrain, which is pretty low. Cheerios are 70-80% wholegrain.  I’m not going to bang on about wholegrains because they frankly bore me, but the deal is that wholegrains include fibre, vitamins and minerals. If you are eating a non-wholegrain (part grain??) then it is pretty much just starch. As well as plenty of starch in your bowl of Special K, you also get a teaspoon of sugar courtesy of the manufacturers in every serve you eat. 

Up & Go (Vive)

Mmm Up & Go. All the goodness of drinking a Weetbix. If you can stomach the idea of a breakfast that you drink, here is the ‘Vive’ version of the Up & Go. I chose Vive because they are marketed as ‘light’, compared to the normal Up & Go. They are also marketed as low GI and high in fibre, with lots of vitamins and minerals including calcium. The ingredients list is below, from the Sanitarium website. 

Filtered water, breakfast cereal (6%) (wheat maltodextrin, hi-maize™ starch, inulin, corn syrup solids, barley beta glucan, oat flour), skim milk powder, soy protein, sunflower oil [contains antioxidant (tocopherols) (contain soy)], cane sugar, fructose, berry purees (0.7%) (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry), apple puree, minerals (phosphates of calcium and sodium), acidity regulators (332, 300), flavours (contains wheat), vegetable gums (460, 466, 407), fermented red rice, vitamins (C, A, Niacin, B12, B2, B6, B1, folate), salt

Both the Vive and the Up & Go original are 98.5% fat free- but the ‘light’ aspect of Vive is that it has much less sugar (12 grams per serving- just a measly 4 teaspoons) than the regular Up & Go (27 grams- gah!). But all those ingredients- what are they for? Consider this alternative: Milk, berries. Blend. High in fibre, low GI. Lots of vitamins and minerals, including calcium. The light and satisfying way to help you get through your morning, without all the crap of the Up & Go Vive.

Finally, some healthy yogurt, a staple in my fridge for years. I chose Forme No Fat ‘Satisfy’ Yogurt which is not only low in fat (ok, no in fat), but is designed to keep you full for longer because it is a yogurt with added fibre. Mmm. The thought of the added fibre actually turned me off this product for ages, but I have tried it and it is ok. Not yum, but ok. It’s a diet yogurt, what more can I expect? In it you will find

skim milk, milk solids, water, dietary fibre (inulin), fructose, thickener (1442), halal gelatine, flavours, acidity regulators (330, 331), sweeteners (951, 950), live yogurt cultures: s.thermophilus and l.bulgaricus 

Ok, the fructose is a surprise, and not a nice one. There are also two artificial sweeteners. Inulin is the fibre. Unfortunately, research shows that inulin doesn't perform that well when it comes to keeping you feeling full.  Soluble fibre needs to be gummy in order to slow down digestion and add a feeling of fullness. Inulin is unfortunately not all that gummy. No wonder I wanted a real yoghurt after I ate this one. Just for comparison, here is the list of ingredients in normal, full fat plain yoghurt (Jalna Greek Style):

Whole milk, cream, live cultures (lactobacillus acidophilus, bifidobacterium, lactobacillus casei).  

I’m eating that one from now on. 

On the topic, here’s a little story from a research study that I came across (here). The researchers wanted to compare inulin to another fibre called lupin-kernel as a replacement for fat in a breakfast sausage. Participants tested the fibrous sausages, and gave feedback such as ‘Dry, fibrous, gristly, stringy, tough” (24% of participants) and ‘bland taste’ (14% of participants). Nevertheless, the researchers concluded: “Both inulin and lupin-kernel fibre appear to have potential as fat replacers in meat products”. Sure they do, if you don't care about taste or texture.

So, what have I learned? First, the goal in manufacturing 'healthy' foods seems to be to trick us into feeling full. Adding fibre and protein to things that don’t traditionally have fibre or protein is the tactic of choice. But if you think about it, it's weird that you can buy a cereal that contains protein and a dairy product that includes fibre. Second, the focus on being low in fat means that sugar sneaks by without a murmur. I would never add four teaspoons of sugar to my cereal, but that is what I get in the ‘light’ version of Up & Go. And third, this is a little subjective, but it doesn’t seem to matter whether the food is tasty or actually nutritious. The food and the experience of eating no longer matter, as long as the nutritional panel on the product looks something like ‘healthy’. I wonder how long it will be until they just stick actual cardboard pieces in a cereal box and sell it as the ultimate low fat, high fibre breakfast.

I know I can’t expect much more from manufactured, processed, convenience foods, and I should have known better, to be honest. And yeah, I'm not exactly leading a trend here in rejecting them- I'm sure most of you saw the light a long time ago. 

Anyway, there’s no shame in admitting I was wrong. So, goodbye Forme. As my dad might say, you are not the one for me (ha ha).

Whatever doesn’t fill you, makes you...hungrier?

19 days in! I'm feeling good. Not great, but good. Sleep is definitely not my friend at the moment, and I’m not sure what that’s about- maybe a withdrawal side effect, maybe nothing to do with this sugar-free life. On the craving side, not much to report, which is a plus (although as I typed that, I suddenly really wanted licorice, really badly, damn).

Here’s another plus: I’ve definitely felt fuller lately, even though I'm eating less. Strange, but true. Of course I’ve changed quite a few things about my diet. I’ve cut almost everything sweet out (except fruit and veg of course) because if it’s sweet, it’s most likely sugared. I’ve also added fat back into my diet: no more ‘low fat’ versions for me. And along the way I’ve also probably added more fibre as well through fruit and veg and other healthy stuff.

I wanted to look at the whole fullness thing in more detail because I don’t really understand it. Why do different foods make us feel ‘full’?  Is there a magic combination of foods which will help me to feel not just full of food but satisfied and not looking around for more? Or do I just need more self-control to stop me licking the plate clean and then helping myself to the post-dinner TimTam?

There are two parts to determining how much we eat at a meal. If something is delicious, we eat more of it. (mmmm licorice...stop that). So our perception of food and the positive feedback we get from eating is really important. We also get feedback from our bodies, telling us when to stop. As these guys point out, to reduce your energy intake you either have to decrease the ‘morishness’ of your food, or increase the feedback from the body (or your response to that feedback) that stops you eating.

Eating boring food might be a great way of reducing your meal size and (in the long term) your weight, but try serving your family a couple of boiled parsnips for dinner tomorrow and see what they think about this idea (feedback can be posted below!) Perhaps our tastebuds are spoiled brats with all the food choices that we have, perhaps we just have too much (inborn? socially developed?) expectation that food should taste good, not bad. Either way, I’m not convinced that it’s plausible long term to work on energy intake by eating only unappealing food.

Nope, it’s going to have to be up to the body on this one- so, what can you do for me, digestive system? Turns out it can do quite a lot, but in the interest of keeping this post readably short, here is the cutback version of some processes which are far, far too complex for me to understand with just some light reading in my spare time. But, keeping to the shallows, I’ve gathered a few interesting facts for your edification.

The most obvious signal to stop eating is the physical feeling of fullness in your stomach as it fills up with all that yummy food. If you get through the entree and main and feel like you are bursting, this is your stomach trying to say ‘hey, don’t get dessert on my account, I’m done here’. Fibre is great at filling the stomach, but fat and protein also play a role. (I’ve learned some great things about fibre while researching this, but I’ll save that for another day. Bet you can’t wait!). The body doesn’t just rely on the ‘full’ feeling to make you stop. A hormone called Cholecystokinin (which is also helpfully called CCK, a far easier-to-type name) is stimulated in the small intestine, particularly if you eat a lot of fat and protein. CCK helpfully sends a signal to the brain to say ‘enough already’, just a brief message to get us to stop for this particular meal. We have the ability to ignore or overcome this signal and keep eating, and we regularly do. It’s a handbrake rather than a tire clamp. Stimulating CCK during one meal has little effect on what you eat for the rest of the day (as I read here), but may make us more sensitive to the full feeling in future meals. There is an article specifically about this hormone here if you are interested.

Another important hormone in helping us put the fork down is leptin. Leptin is made primarily in your fat stores, and the greater your love handles, the more leptin is whirling around the body, which should mean that you eat less. Leptin seems to be the body’s way of keeping tabs on your nutritional status. It sends ongoing messages to the brain saying ‘hey there, no need for big, high energy meals right now, there’s plenty of fat to get us through winter’ (I’m paraphrasing, of course). If there’s a lot of leptin, it also increases the amount of energy you burn. What a gem- I love this little guy!

The catch is that it seems we can become resistant to the effect of leptin. In fact, to quote these researchers, “Most forms of obesity are associated with diminished responsiveness to the appetite-suppressing effects of leptin”.  You knew I couldn’t go a whole post without mentioning fructose- my sweet nemesis- so here it is. When fructose is processed by the liver, the liver produces triglycerides. These fatty little fiends have been shown to block the uptake of leptin in the brain, meaning that while the leptin is talking, the brain isn’t listening.  These researchers showed that this leptin resistance can develop without any outward sign (such as weight gain)- until we also start eating high calorie meals- then BAM! we gain serious weight because leptin is not able to tell the brain what is going on. If this is true, then eating high calorie food in conjunction with fructose is a recipe for obesity. And fructose is terribly easy to eat.

I'll just mention as well that there seem to be important links between leptin and CCK, including evidence that if either hormone is reduced or blocked, then the other doesn't work as well as it should.

So there you have it, a whistlestop tour of how your body wants to help you [insert pic of Uncle Sam in your imagination]. There are a bunch of processes, hormones and signals that we as choice-wielding humans can listen to or ignore, and a bunch of foods which can turn the volume up or down. And if this all feels too complex, there is always the boiled parsnip option :)