What To Drink Part 4: The Flavored Milk Fiasco

Credit to:

Niklas Bildhauer/Wikimedia Commons

So back to What To Drink.  We started with juice:
What's Wrong With Juice?


Then, we covered milk, the good:
What's Right With Milk?  Part A
What's Right With Milk?  Part B


and the bad:
What's Wrong With Milk?  Part A
What's Wrong With Milk?  Part B


Today, let's take another look at milk as it relates to kids and schools.  


School Milk


Unfortunately, schools aren't likely to adopt raw milk in the near future.  There is just too much hype and fear about it.  Okay, that is a battle for another day, but what about the milk that is offered and is promoted.  What can we do about it?  


For one, we can make it organic and try to find the best sources for it as possible, i.e. healthy cows fed grass.  On Eat Wild there is a list of 100-Percent Grass-fed Dairies by state.  It would also do a world of good to support these smaller dairies and local sources!


Second, perhaps we can get the stuffing out of our government and policy maker's ears about fat.  Guess what?  Low-fat milk isn't saving kids from obesity.  In fact, the added sugar is making the problem worse.  Kids need fat and saturated fat is healthy.  Scared of increasing triglycerides that correlate with heart disease?  Stop eating all that carbohydrate because that's what's contributing to high triglycerides, NOT the saturated fat.  Not convinced?  Read the whole story at Mark's Daily Apple's Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat.  So let the kids drink WHOLE MILK.  


Third, we can offer kids real, unprocessed vegetables as part of their school meals so that kids will actually get the calcium, vitamins, and other minerals they need from their food.  Ideally, we can also downgrade their intake of grains so that they can actually absorb these vitamins and minerals from their food.  Kids can start to value real, whole foods instead of thinking food just comes from a package, carton, or can.  Here is a disturbing clip from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on how little kids know about vegetables.  Watch and cringe:





Fourth, we can fight the flavored milk campaigners who think that kids won't drink milk unless it is "flavored," otherwise known as "sugared." Yes, believe it or not, there is a campaign to keep chocolate milk in school.  This dairy industry-funded campaign, Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk, includes advertisements, petitions, and activism to raise public support.  The campaign could cost them between $500,000 to $1 million, according to their marketing group.  Unfortunately, the funds they are using come from commodity producers through a USDA-administered program.  


Will kids still drink milk if it's plain?  Yes!  Despite the doomsday studies sponsored by the dairy industry, kids will still drink milk.  It will take them some time to adjust, and sales will drop, but perhaps that is a good thing.  Kids might actually start drinking more water and have more appetite for healthy meals if we supplied them in schools.  Imagine that!  

The Flavor of Milk

Why are they pushing so hard for flavored milk?  If they were trying to get kids healthier, wouldn't they try to promote the unflavored milk?  

Here is where Big Corn comes in with the money, power, and surplus.  Guess what sweetener is most common in chocolate milk?  High fructose corn syrup?  Bingo!  Unless you live in a cave, you've probably heard how HFCS is looking worse and worse, held responsible for metabolic syndrome nasties like increasing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, to just name a few. 

Did you know that flavored milk has the same sugar as a soda?  Read this post from Consume This First and another from Chef Ann, the Renegade Lunch Lady, who is making strides revolutionizing school lunches (see more below).  Doesn't it seem a little contradictory to decry soda, when flavored milk and juice both have the same amount (if not more) of sugar?  Do they really think the vitamins and minerals can overbalance the destruction (and addiction) caused by the sugar?  The funny thing is that you can get your vitamins and minerals from real food without the sugar.  And real food trumps that which is engineered and processed any day.  

Still think the sugar isn't a big deal?  According to USDA guidelines (which are horrendous, but standards nonetheless),  only 10% or less of total calories should come from added sugars.  Just taking the added 4 teaspoons of sugar in one 8oz container of flavored milk, that's nearly half the sugar allowed in a day for children up to 9 years old.  Just think of all the other sources of added sugar in a child's day: cereal, snacks, other flavored drinks, juice, processed foods, etc.  Even on a supposedly junk food- and soda-free diet, most kids are getting WAY too much sugar!  It is no wonder that on average we are consuming twice our allotment of sugar a day!  


Think I am crazy?  Try taking an inventory of sugar in a child's foods for one day.  If you aren't reading labels, you should be!    

Who Is Making A Difference?

Jamie Oliver's revolutionary TED speech

Chef, author, and nutritional advocate Jamie Oliver is attacking the flavored milk in our schools with his campaign for school lunch reform.  His passion and astounding presentation will make you emotional.  Seriously.  

There is another TED speaker: Renegade Lunch Lady, Chef Ann Cooper.  

Chef Ann has been a vocal proponent for school lunch reform, including the removal of flavored milk from her school districts.  She has dubbed flavored milk "soda in drag."  Her TED speech sounds remarkably similar to Jamie Oliver's.  Really makes you disgusted with school lunches and ready to take action, doesn't it?  

The Good News

With the help of prominent supporters like Oliver and Cooper pushing school lunch reform, some schools are saying enough is enough.  Think kids won't drink milk unless it is flavored?  Think again.  

• Berkley, California, and Boulder, Colorado, took flavored milk off the menu in their school districts under the leadership of Chef Ann Cooper.  
• Washington DC has banned the sale of flavored milk in their public schools and others may soon follow.  
• The Florida School Board is contemplating the change too.  
• Others school districts like those in Connecticut have put restrictions on the amount of sugar allowed in flavored milk.  While this is a step in the right direction, the allowed sugar is still too high.  From that link, just look at TruMoo 1% chocolate milk from Garelick Farms, which has 31g of sugar in 8oz of milk.  That's the same as Rockstar Energy Drink or Mountain Dew!  
• Other school districts like those of Barrington, Illinois restrict the days flavored milk can be served by having "Flavored milk Fridays."  

For another summary on the recent debate, check out this recent (Sept. 2010) New York Times article: A School Fight Over Chocolate Milk.

Bottom line: If you are going to let kids drink milk, go full-fat, organic, grass-fed, and raw if at all possible.  Sugar does NOT need to be added to everything a child eats and drinks!  

Keep reading for more debunking of other popular drinks!  Next time let's talk chocolate milk and sports recovery.  


Next segment: What To Drink Part 5: Chocolate Milk for Recovery?

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

I apologize in advance for being wordy lately.  You are forewarned.  Truth is, I am passionate about nutrition, so much so that I am often screaming on the inside with frustration at the world.  Today is no different, but I want to share my frustration and the sunshine of hope for change.  Some people are on the right track, we just need to enlist more!

Today I attended a luncheon to highlight author and sociology professor Jan Poppendieck and her new book, Free For All: Fixing School Food in America.  To be honest, I haven't read her book yet, but let me report on my experiences today.  If you are a parent or just a concerned citizen like me, please read this and help!

The Big Picture

First off, I totally agree that school lunch is a problem, a serious problem and it needs fixing.  There is a problem when tater tots and pizza are still on the menu even at "progressive" school districts like those in Santa Cruz.  Looking at the menu for elementary school lunches shows only 3 days out of 18 without cheese.  Pasta and bread are present every day.  Further digging into the website shows fat-phobia (low-fat everything is promoted) and misinformed juice and smoothie recommendations.  We won't even go into the "healthy" whole grains.  For instance, as a snack idea, Katie Jeffrey-Lunn, MS, RD, CDN, LDN recommends combining at least two of the five food groups into a healthy snack.  Try to imagine the effects of cereal and fruit, both high glycemic, without any satiating fat or protein to balance that sugar intake.  Talk about sugar high, binge eating, and inevitable crash.  Bet that is satisfying.

Okay, no argument that there is a problem with school lunches.  Jan Poppendieck recommends attacking the problem at a systemic level.  She wants universal school lunches available to every student--no more selling food to kids.  Among the benefits, she listed a relaxing, enjoyable, shared lunchtime experience similar to that she remembers from summer camp.  No one has to stress over food or money or the social stigma attached to kids who can and can't pay for their lunch.  I can relate to this as one of the "weird" kids who brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every. single. day.  I never had the money to supplement my lunch with snack foods until high school and then the cookie and snack cake options were a daily regularity for me. The fact that ubiquitous junk food in schools has not improved and has only gotten worse is disturbing to say the least.  Is that how we want to be fueling the minds of our youth?

Next, Jan went over her ABCs of the school food crisis.  "A" is for a la carte food items that undermine the nutritional integrity of the lunch program.  She asked how schools can offer a healthy menu while still offering junk food on the side.  School lunch should be an extension of the nutritional education, not in direct contradiction with it.   "B" is for business and bottom-line.  Kids are unable to make informed, responsible decisions because they have been bombarded with multi-billion dollar ad campaigns targeting them as junk food consumers.  She advocated for school leaders to say NO to the junk food vendors; that money from junk food is not worth the health (I would add "or moral") price.  "C" is for the chilling culture of compliance.  The current three-tier system of free, reduced-price, and full price is an administrative nightmare.  A universal school lunch program would be more efficient and save money in the long run, although its start-up would be very costly.  She asked for school leaders to see the educational potential in making school lunch part of the curriculum, practicing what we preach.  To fund this bold plan, she introduced the plan to tax soda and use the revenue to fund school lunch programs.

So here are the issues I want to tackle.  Doubtless there are hundreds more, but let's just start somewhere.

Sugar Here, Sugar There, Sugar Everywhere

Problem #1:  The public (this includes educators and those making policy) does not see the sugar in grains or grasp the full extent of sugar infiltration into our food products.  

Grains are a hidden sugar.  Heck the the American Diabetes Association doesn't see the sugar in grains.  They list whole grains among their Superfoods and of course fat-free milk and yogurt, without a distinction of source, so you can get a nice, healthy dose of grains from those grain-fed cows.  ALL carbohydrate breaks down into sugar, and sugar spikes blood sugar.  Fiber and fat mitigate the situation, but processing grains makes them high glycemic and no amount of fiber is going to fix that.  And don't tell me about all the vitamins and minerals we are missing out on by not consuming bread, pasta, and rice.  It's called vegetables, people.  Go to the source.

We all know that sugar is bad for us, so we don't eat candy.  Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  What the public doesn't understand is that sugar is in nearly everything.  And I'm not talking about the hidden sugar of grains (which I might add are in everything too!); it's real sugar and its guises as high fructose corn syrup, honey, agave, maltodextrin, splenda, xylitol, glucose, fructose, etc.  Sugar is in your condiments and tomato sauce, your dried fruit and frozen meals, and especially in your ranch dressing on top of your healthy salad.  It's in your chips and dips, sauces and spices, and baby foods.  It's in your sandwich bread and processed meats.  It's in your bottled beverages, even sports drinks and vitamin-enriched water.  Need I go on?

When Oprah Talks, The World Listens

Oprah recently had a show devoted to diabetes.  Through showing actual diabetics and voicing their stories as well as the science behind the disease, the message is clear: Diabetes is preventable.  You just have to want to change and make the effort.  Fortunately, the show also highlighted hidden sugar in common foods like ketchup and ranch dressing.  Hopefully the public will get a bit more label-savvy and think more about their food choices.  There is a startling figure circulated at the show:

Women who drink one can of soda a day, increase their risk of type 2 diabetes by 83%.

Now this really gets scary when you couple that with a statistic from a 2009 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy: 

41% of children (ages 2-11 years) and 62% of adolescents (ages 12-17 years) in California drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day

OMG!  Isn't that a wake up call?  How can we allow schools to sell such poison in the cafeteria or vending machines or to allow kids to bring it from home?  What are we doing to our kids?

Problem #2: A revolution in school lunches requires funding, lots of funding.  

One way proposed by Jan was a soda tax.  The revenue from taxing soda could fund an overhaul to the school lunch program.  But my god, we couldn't even agree on a soda tax!  Most people were for it, but the naysayers were scared of overregulation and losing funding if soda consumption actually decreased.  Isn't it worth the risk?  What makes soda any different from tobacco?  Does it have any redeeming qualities?

Do As I Say AND As I Do

Problem #3: If educators and educational planners cannot serve themselves healthy food, how can they expect to serve students healthy food?

Our menu at the luncheon consisted of mixed green salad with a choice of soybean-red wine vinegar herb dressing or miso dressing, beets with red onions, cooked herbed carrots, cooked broccoli, whole grain rolls, corn crumb-breaded chicken, and some sort of cheesy pasta.  Okay, you know by now what I would say about the whole grain rolls, miso dressing (it's soybean based and likely sweetened), pasta, and corn-crusted likely factory farmed battery cage chicken.  But soybean oil--are you serious?!?  Vegetable oils including soybean oil and canola oil are highly processed, often partially hydrogenated (yummy trans fat!), and too high in omega-6 fatty acids (remember, we want to decrease the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, since omega-6 are associated with health problems and omega-3s are much more beneficial).  I had the veggies sans dressing and felt like an alien.

In addition to the lunch buffet table was a table (a whole table!!!) devoted to cookies.  Here we are trying to fix school lunches and we can't even go a meal without a freakin' cookie!  Are you serious?!?  How can we expect to feed kids the right way when we can't even feed ourselves healthy foods?

The biggest problem: NO ONE (except my paleo friend and I) took issue with this meal.  It was praised by all.  Can you hear my inner voice screaming with frustration?

What Is Healthy Anyway?

Problem #4:  If educators don't have the information on what is healthy, how can they teach nutrition to students?

There is no consensus about what is actually healthy food.  I have my take and I believe it is backed by solid scientific studies, but I know that Nestle and Kraft and General Mills are all funding research to back their products, to find data to support their "high fructose corn syrup is okay in moderation" ideology.  Want to be sick?  Check out the Corn Refiners Association's Sweet Surprise website showing how "natural" high fructose corn syrup is because it comes from corn, a natural grain.  We'll leave out the discussion of GMOs and how corn production is anything but natural, requiring fifty gallons of oil for pesticides and fertilizers to produce an acre of corn on land totally unsuited to large-scale agriculture (read The Vegetarian Myth for more brain-food).  

But really, what is healthy?  Will my knowledge be turned on its head a few years down the line?  My suggestion is that we stick to what makes the most sense and is the simplest solution, Occam's Razor.  It makes sense to eat what we have eaten for millions of years: meat and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, and little starch.  Our digestive tract is built for this and our bodies thrive on this.  We can force dairy, grains, sugar, beans, and processed foods into our lives, but are we better off when we do?  The archeological record shows healthier people before agriculture, not after.  Our medical prowess is keeping us alive longer and saving more infants and children from a premature death, but civilization also brought the modern Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke.  While perhaps not the simplest solution for the changes it requires, it is the simplest nutrition and makes the most sense.  At least to me.  N=1 

Why Bother?

Problem #5: Why me?  Why should I care?  Who am I to do anything about this?

Why can't we just keep feeding our kids the same old crap and have some other generation clean up the mess?  Why should it be us?  Why doesn't the government care about us and eliminate the poisons in our food?  Why do we actually have to be adults and do something about it?  Why, why, why--who does this sound like?

Here's why: The benefits of a universal school lunch program overwhelmingly defeat the costs.  Jan lists the camaraderie of the children who get a stress-free, healthy lunch.  Kids wouldn't have to spend money on food or drink, stigmatize themselves for their ability or lack of ability to purchase items, or rely upon their skewed sense of what is healthy from years of advertisement bombardment and relatively little nutritional teaching.  School food can illustrate health lessons by introducing kids to unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, improve their eating habits, and help them integrate their learning with practical applications. Changes taken now might be costly, but they'll pay for themselves in reduced healthcare costs down the line.  It'll be cheaper in the long run to eliminate the administrative burden of the three-tier system.  It'll reduce the cost and waste of preparing meals that go uneaten now since student participation is voluntary.  It'll create healthy bodies and fuel young minds.  

In Santa Cruz, we are in a unique location to support our schools through our rich agricultural and meat production resources.  There are local organic farms, grass fed cattle, and free range poultry all at our doorstep.  Why don't we take this opportunity to support local business and supply local, healthy foods to our schools?  Remove the junk!

Am I just spouting insanity or do you want to help make this happen? As Willy Elliott-McCrea from Second Harvest Food Bank said today, "It isn't a matter of can we do this, but will we."  

For more information about Jan Poppendieck, here is an interview with Jan at salon.com.  Her book is purchasable through Amazon.  

For more information on Fixing School Lunches check out the Go For Health! initiative at the United Way, UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust, Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and Santa Cruz Education Foundation.  

Representative Sam Farr is sponsoring the Children's Fruit and Vegetable Act to provide more funding for school food.  

Ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support the Child Nutrition Reauthorization 2010 to invest in child nutrition programs through this Second Harvest Food Bank form.    

Just Say No...to Juice?

No, you haven't entered the Twilight Zone, but didn't I tell you that we are turning everything we know about health and nutrition on its head?  Nothing is sacred; nothing is safe.  Especially not juice.

52-10 is a health initiative run by Go For Health! of Santa Cruz.  It's campaign is designed to promote a healthier lifestyle and reduce childhood obesity rates.  While you'd have to be crazy not to see the benefit in 5 or more fruits and veggies a day, 2 hours or less of screen time (tv, computer, or video game), 1 hour or more of vigorous exercise, and 0 soda or sugar sweetened beverages, not everyone understands that last prescription.  What exactly are "sugar sweetened beverages"?  Does that just mean artificial sugar or do natural sugars fit in this equation?

My argument is that fruit juice is no different than soda to your body, or your child's body.  Surprising?  Of course it is!  This is a HUGE blow to the fruit juice industry creating "healthy" alternatives to soda and their kin.  This is also a touchy subject for parents who wouldn't dream of letting their kids drink soda and yet fuel them with juice (even 100% juice) at every opportunity.  Just.  As.  Bad.

The Straight Juice

I know this comes as a shock.  Who hasn't chosen 100% juice over those inferior sugar-sweetened ones with the self-satisfaction of being a mindful, informed, better-than-the-masses consumer?  Who hasn't felt better about themselves for choosing Jamba Juice over other fast food?  I know I have. We all know that soda is the devil, energy drinks are its mutated offspring, and fruit juice is natural and full of the "good" stuff.  We ALL know this.  But we are being duped.  They are really no different, especially if you overload on the juice thinking it's the best choice.

Why so bad?  Anything easy comes with a price.  There is a cost to convenience.  Processed foods are easier than home-cooked, but we know they are not on par nutritionally and come with the burden of additives and preservatives.  Drinking juice is so much easier, more convenient, and more instantly gratifying than dirtying ourselves with actually eating a piece of fruit.  But it comes with a price.  Not only does juicing a fruit take away its satiating fiber that keeps you from eating a bushel of apples at one sitting, but it also strips the nutrients found in the original fruit.  According to Mark's Daily Apple, calorie for calorie, juice contains more sugar than the fruit itself.  You can easily drink more sugar than you could ever hope to eat in whole fruit.  Juice's lack of fiber allows its sugars to spike your blood sugar since there is no fiber-mediated regulation of digestion that you get when you eat the whole fruit.  Okay, so more sugar and less nutrition.  "Yeah, yeah," you say.  These are "pretty obvious" said in the most smug Professor Gilderoy Lockhart voice.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

That Pesky Juice Stain

Of course we all know that despite the bogus "okay in moderation" campaign of high fructose corn syrup producers, HFCS is the ultimate evil.  But fruit is another source of fructose, and it is not as benign as we may think.  The short story: there is a deadly cycle of fructose leading to fat storage and telling your brain you are still hungry.

For example, fructose has the opposite effect of glucose on the hypothalamus section of the brain controlling feeding behavior.  While blood glucose levels are sensed by the brain and signal a secession to eating, fructose bypasses this metabolic step and actually promotes food intake to continue instead of signaling an end to eating.  That's terrifying!  More dangers to kids from drinking juice are highlighted in this article from ScienceDaily, namely: increased risk of obesity (Note: this is a point of contention with studies citing evidence for and against), heart disease, high blood pressure, cavities, bone fractures, and impeded growth.  Lastly, and I can personally attest to this fact that just like fructose can desensitize your insulin, it can desensitize your taste for sugary foods, requiring more sugary foods to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Interlude: Perhaps we should have taken Ben Franklin's rants more seriously: "Hot things, sharp things, sweet things, cold things All rot the teeth and make them look like old things."

So, how does it fructose metabolism work?  Basically, fructose goes to your liver for processing.  Fructose undergoes enzyme reactions in the liver leading to glycogen synthesis (to replenish liver glycogen storage, its energy source) and triglyceride (fat) synthesis once the glycogen stores are filled up.  Triglycerides are released into the bloodstream and some become incorporated into very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDLs), the precursor to small, dense LDL particles that are the baddest of the bad.   Here is a technical article on fructose metabolism, another that's a little more digestible, and wikipedia's layman summary.

Believe it or not, excessive fruit and fruit juice can lead to higher risk of gout, as this study shows.  Notice, not only soft drink consumption, but fruit and fruit juice consumption lead to this increased risk.  Gout is a painful joint swelling as joint tissues accumulate crystals of uric acid, a by-product of overloaded fructose metabolism in your liver.  Uric acid also promotes insulin resistance, meaning cells become desensitized to insulin and it takes higher and higher levels of insulin to do its job: getting glucose from the blood into the cells.  Too much glucose or insulin in the blood is toxic, and the burden to produce more and more insulin to elicit an effect is taxing on the pancreas.

Now take a deep breath, and continue down the rabbit hole with me.

Not only does high fructose intake increase the risk of gout, but it can more direly lead to a fatty liver, known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disorder (NAFLD), whose long-term effects are not yet known.  We do know that NAFLD can progress into more dangerous liver inflammation, which has been linked to liver cancer and cirrhosis, so they seem to be a possibility here too.  Another complication of NAFLD is insulin resistance (yes, that again).

And don't go thinking that table sugar is much better than fructose because table sugar is fructose bound to glucose in the form of sucrose, and the fructose portion is what leads to problems.  Fructose is a fructose is a fructose, no matter the source: sugar, HFCS, or fruit.



 Fructose, according to Robert Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist, is a poison.  Above is a great (albeit LONG) presentation on the evils of fructose.  He cites studies that show fruit juice intake leads to increased risk of obesity and type II diabetes.  He argues that fructose leads to hypertension (high blood pressure), myocardial infarction (heart attack), dyslipidemia (elevated fats in the blood), pancreatitis (inflamed or infected pancreas), obsesity, hepatic (liver) disfunction, fetal insulin resistance, and habituation if not addiction.  All of these serious health problems are also associated with alcohol which is metabolized the exact same way by the body, causing Lustig to call fructose "alcohol without the buzz."

This is actually a very fitting analogy because, in my personal experience, overloading on carbohydrates without much protein or fat makes me feel literally drunk.  I get dizzy, giddy, and light-headed just from  sweet BBQ-slathered ribs and side of sweet potato fries and cole slaw.  Seriously.  Lame.  Godforbid I actually consume alcohol!  One drink and I am sloshed.  Can you say cheap date?

Knowledge is Power: What's the Next Step?


Lustig's suggestion:

• Get rid of every sugared liquid in the house. Kids should drink only water and milk.
• Provide carbohydrates associated with fiber.
• Wait 20 minutes before serving second portions.
• Have kids buy their “screen time” minute-for-minute with physical activity.

Robb Wolf's suggestion: ditch some of those high energy carbs and replace them with fat to avoid becoming an Always Hungry Carb Crash Zombie (AHCCZ).  According to his article "42 Ways to Skin the Zone," an AHCCZ is getting too many carbs too often.  While low-carb diets (as long as they are rich in protein and fat) create satiation and reduced hunger, carbohydrate-rich diets (say like the one promoted by the USDA food pyramid???) increase hunger.  The answer?  Reduce high density carbohydrate sources in your diet (i.e. grains (duh), starches, high glycemic fruits, and any fruit juice since they are ALL high glycemic) by replacing some with fat and making less energy dense carbohydrates like veggies your go-to's.    Lean meats, fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and NO sugar, NO grains, NO dairy, and NO legumes actually works.  Believe me.

Finally, read labels.  Don't buy anything with high fructose corn syrup and its guises: isoglucose, maize syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, and glucose/fructose.  Also avoid any added sweeteners like:

sugar, white sugar, brown sugar, cane sugar, confectioner’s sugar, corn syrup, crystallized fructose, dextrin, honey, invert sugar, maple syrup, raw sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, corn sweeteners, evaporated cane juice, glucose-fructose, granulated fructose, high fructose corn syrup, fructose, malt, molasses, and turbinado sugar. 

And guess what?  Sorry to burst the "all natural" sweetener bubble, but agave nectar is essentially high fructose corn syrup.  Even though it sports a low glycemic index and may be all natural, it is still fructose to your body and a nice, high, concentrated source of it.  Sorry.  Here are some arguments against agave as a "natural" sweetener.

In conclusion: make fruit juice a rare treat, if a treat at all.  Instead: eat the whole fruit.  You are unlikely to overeat the real, whole fruit filled with its nutrients and fiber.  Also, just as important: eat plenty of vegetables--DO NOT make fruit your only or major carbohydrate source!

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

Can't stand cold water this chilly time of year or just hate its plain, wet taste?  Try tea!  Try brewing tea and NOT adding any sugar or milk.  Dare you!  First, try fruity herbal teas (or "infusions" as my husband would correct me since they lack tea leaves).  The dried fruit adds a sweetness that will get you over your sugar hump.  Next, try all different kinds of infusions and teas until you find some you like and can stand without the sweetener.  As with all things processed, the less processing the better, so loose leaf is preferable to tea bag, with regard to taste too.  Always check the labels to avoid soy, corn, wheat, and sugar that wheedle their way into everything.

I found unsweetened tea to be a great way to gain back my sense of sweetness and love of undiluted flavor.  Try it hot or chilled!  In fact, I am going to get a steaming mug right now...

Instead of ending with a recipe, let me feed your mind:

With crimson juice the thirsty southern sky
Sucks from the hills where buried armies lie,
So that the dreamy passion it imparts
Is drawn from heroes' bones and lovers' hearts.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Diabetes Doesn't Have to be Part of a Complete Breakfast

I have said it before, but it bears repeating: the single, most effective change in your diet is changing your breakfast.  It is the simplest change to implement and starts your day on the right path.  Change your breakfast first.


Let's discuss why a change is necessary.  What makes the traditional American complete breakfast so wrong?


Read this article from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.  Did it make you scream like me?  Shouldn't educators know better?  ARGH!  Here are some gems:

Waffles might soon be on the menu at two Watsonville elementary schools, if the Pajaro Valley Unified School District gets $27,000 in state grants they've applied for to improve their breakfast programs.

and:

 The kids could munch on yogurt, muffins, string cheese and waffles while teachers take attendance.

the kicker:

 "It definitely won't be doughnuts," she said. "We want to provide a nutritious breakfast."

THIS is why there is a problem, Houston.  Educators can't see that waffles (drenched in syrup of course) and muffins (especially if they are whole grain and/or contain sugared fruit) AREN'T a better choice than doughnuts.  Can the protein and fat (how much do you want to bet the yogurt and cheese will be reduced-fat?) in the pasteurized, grain-fed dairy even come close to balancing out that refined sugar?  Can you see why there might be such high incidence of ADHD amongst children fed so much sugar?  Doesn't it irk you that the educators who should know better don't have a clue? *screaming at the top of my lungs with frustration!!!*


You Call This Complete?


Okay, so why not feed kids what everyone tells us to: cereal and milk?  You have all seen the commercials; they're part of a complete breakfast.  A bowl of cereal alongside a piece of fruit, toast, glass of OJ, and glass of milk.  Classic.  Breakfast cereal as our morning staple has been inGRAINed in our culture for over a century.  Let's balance the books on the "complete breakfast" and discuss why this is NOT optimal fuel for anyone--especially kids!

1 cup of let's say a middle of the road cereal like Cornflakes (probably too bland for most kids, but let's err on the side of seemingly less sugary breakfast cereal)
Fat: 0g, Carb minus Fiber: 23g, Protein: 2g    Zone Blocks:  2.5 Carb

(here is my source for nutrition facts and Zone diet lists like this are useful based on the 3g of Fat per block, 7g of Protein per block, and 9g of Carbohydrate per block--usually taking only the highest macronutrient of a food)

1/2 cup of 1% milk    Zone Blocks:  0.5 Protein and 0.5 Carbohydrate (combo food)  (we are using "healthier" 1% fat milk since we all know that fat is bad but skim milk tastes like water)

1 banana     Zone Blocks: 3 Carb  

1 cup orange juice     Zone Blocks: 3 Carb  

1 cup 1% milk  Zone Blocks:  1 Protein and 1 Carb    


1 slice of classic Wonder bread  Zone Blocks: 2 Carb


1T jam  Zone Blocks: 0.5 Carb (because we all know that butter is bad and high fructose corn syrup-laden jam is SO much healthier--hey, its fruit, right?)

Zone Block Totals for this "Complete Breakfast": Fat: 0  Protein: 1.5  Carbohydrate: 12.5


Even worse, let's cut out the cereal and feed our kids a "nutritious" waffle breakfast with each waffle at 2 Carbohydrate blocks and 2tsp syrup accounting for each additional Carb block.  Two waffles with a modest 2T of syrup delivers 7 blocks of Carbohydrate with NO fat and NO protein.  That atrocity isn't even taking into account the heavy processing and high fructose corn syrup.  Sound nutritious?

Results of the Complete Breakfast:

1.  Quick energy followed by a crash soon after--ever feel like a mid-morning nap?  Perhaps this "complete" breakfast is one reason why we have such a coffee addiction...

2.  Lack of concentration--you are on a hormone roller coaster, good luck staying focused!  According to the Zone diet, a balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates is essential to balance your hormones and give you and even keel.  This makes sense to me--I have definitely felt sleepy after a huge pancake breakfast or pasta meal.  Imagine how the kids feel flying high on sugar from breakfast!

3.  Hungry within hours--since this meal was so overbalanced with carbs, you'll be hungry soon after.  There is no satiety here.  A breakfast deficient in fat spells hunger since fat is what slows down your digestion and promotes satiety.  Don't get me started on how much the non-fat movement is misinformed, unhealthy, and downright dangerous...

4.  Cranky and moody--yup, more perks of the hormonal roller coaster!

5.  Insulin resistance--since you gave your body a nice megadose of sugar to deal with good luck not overreacting to all subsequent foods you eat.  See more system mechanics here.

6.  Fat storage--the excess carbohydrate must go somewhere after you fill up your muscle and liver cells.  Guess where?

Let's get to know our pal, Glucose

Glucose is a fuel for the body.  Your body needs it and your brain can't function without it.  It is a simple sugar that all carbohydrate sources break down into.  The speed of carbohydrate digestion (breaking a carbohydrate down into its constituents) depends upon the chemical bonds between the sugars that make up the carbohydrate and the presence of fat, which slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream.  The bloodstream is where is all goes down: glucose enters, the hormone insulin is released to get it out into the cells before its levels become toxic and lead to all sorts of nasties.  Glucose is used for energy in muscle and liver cells, but excess is stored in fat cells, making you fatter.  Thus, too much carbohydrate makes you fat.  But that is a story for another day.  Read Pasta Sans Pasta for more information about glucose and blood sugar.

What Glucose Means To Your Body: The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index measures how quickly glucose enters your bloodstream after you ingest a food item.  Quick transfer means your body has an insulin crisis on its hands.  The glycemic index is based upon a scale where pure glucose is 100 for 50g of pure carbohydrate to rank its rapid transfer from your digestive system to your bloodstream compared to 50g of carbohydrate in other foods.  Another lesser-used standard used is white bread, which would be set at 100 and glucose would then be 140 (funny when you realize bread is nothing but sugar to your body).  Either way, shoot for foods below 50 to have a lower glycemic diet.  These foods tax your body less and don't put you on a hormonal roller coaster.  What carbohydrates are low glycemic?  Most fruits and veggies (tropical fruit and root veggies are exceptions).  The more you process and refine a source, the worse it becomes.  For example, take table sugar (sucrose) at an average of 68 on the glycemic index.  With glycemic indices of 42 (All-Bran) to 113 (New Zealand's Fruity-Bix), seemingly healthy breakfast cereals are as bad or worse than sucrose to your body.  Let me say that again since it is so important: processing grains makes them as sugary or even more sugary to your body as pure sugar.

Limitations: the glycemic index measures carbohydrates and their glucose entering the bloodstream, so it doesn't apply well to protein or fat.  Also, it measures 50 grams of carbohydrate of the food in question, which may be quite a hefty quantity of some foods and nowhere near appropriate serving size.  Finally, everyone's body is different, so I suggest you try to figure out your own responses to foods to see how they effect you.  HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that since you have been eating bread forever and have never felt anything wrong there is no reason to give it up.  WRONG!  Try going without grains for 2 weeks.  Then, introduce grains back in and see what happens.  If you really went cold turkey on all grains, then you'll likely get sick from eating them again or at the very least have a terrific carb hangover the next day.  Bleary, puffy eyes, crankiness, congestion or drippiness, repetitive snooze button pressing: these are the gifts of grain.  Good luck taking back bread/rice/pasta and re-entering the grain-induced coma.  Dude, I get a sniffle just from eating rice!  Seriously!

To summarize: the glycemic index measures how fast carbohydrates in food are broken down into their constituent sugars during digestion so that the sugar glucose enters the bloodstream.  Values close to 100 spike your blood sugar rapidly, while those lower on the scale are less likely to overload your bloodstream because they are entering at a rate insulin can handle.  Shoot for foods below 50 to have a lower glycemic diet.

Here is a comprehensive website listing of foods and their glycemic values from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Here is a searchable database for looking up different foods.

Let's look at our complete breakfast above for how it tallies in glycemic index:

Cornflakes      Glycemic Index: 92 (from this chart's USA value)

Milk               Glycemic Index: 11-41 for skim milk to full fat
(since there is no 1% milk from the USA in the database)
Banana        Glycemic Index: 51  
Orange Juice     Glycemic Index: 52  
Bread (say Wonder bread)  Glycemic Index: 73
(believe it or not, this is middle of the road for all breads, even whole wheat)
Jam (say Strawberry)  Glycemic Index: 51

and our nutritious alternative:
Aunt Jemima waffles  Glycemic Index: 76
Maple flavored syrup  Glycemic Index: 68

Another Layer of Complexity

The glycemic index only gives a partial picture of food since it doesn't account for portion size.  The glycemic load is another scale that takes into account portion size with the idea that consuming low quantity of high glycemic food has the same effect on the blood as higher quantity of lower glycemic food.  It is calculated by quantity of carbohydrate in the food (minus the fiber) in grams times glycemic index value divided by 100 (the last step is optional and some GL values are given in numbers greater than 500).  When divided by 100, the numbers are lower than the GI scale. Values of 10 or less are considered low and values 20 and greater are high.  Some foods that are high on the glycemic index are lower when you take into account how much carbohydrate is in them--this includes high glycemic fruits filled with water and fiber (ex. watermelon with a glycemic index of 72 but only a glycemic load of 4).  Not surprisingly, the concentrated sugars in dates and raisins place them high on both glycemic scales.

For the most part, foods we should avoid anyway that are high on the glycemic index also have a high glycemic load.  Most fruits and vegetables are low are both scales.  The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition's listing also provides glycemic load values on its chart.

Check out the chart for the GI and GL of common foods.  Notice those "healthy" cereals that are part of a "complete" breakfast.  Nice to know that sugar is part of a complete breakfast.

Let's look at our complete breakfast above for how it tallies in glycemic load (remember, values of 10 or less are considered low glycemic load):

Cornflakes      Glycemic Load: 24 (from this chart's USA value)

Milk               Glycemic Load: 1-5 for skim milk to full fat 
(since there is no 1% milk from the USA in the database)

Banana        Glycemic Load: 13

Orange Juice     Glycemic Load: 12
Bread (say Wonder bread)  Glycemic Load: 10
Jam (say Strawberry)  Glycemic Load: 10


and our nutritious alternative:

Aunt Jemima waffles  Glycemic Load: 10
Maple flavored syrup  Glycemic Load: 15


So, what are high glycemic foods?

Grains are!  Most breads come in at 40-75 on the glycemic index (5-12 GL), pastas 45-60 (15-30+ GL), and grain-based breakfast cereals are almost laughable: not only are their glycemic indices close to (even exceeding!) 100, but their glycemic loads are reaching and exceeding 20.


Here are some examples:
71 GI / 18 GL  for Golden Grahams (I used to eat those like chips and devour a whole box in a day!)
76 GI / 17 GL for Total (more like Totally sugar--I thought this was a bland, healthy, adult cereal!)
74 GI / 15 GL for Cheerios (the "heart healthy" food)
89 GI / 23 GL for plain, old Rice Chex!

82 GI / 22 GL for Rice Crispies (snap, crackle, pop!  is that the sound of your insulin?)
Can you believe that Special K (69 GI/14 GL) is basically the same as Fruit Loops (69 GI/18 GL) to your body?


As a college kid, I thought that eating cheap cereal was great because it was fortified and "healthy" enough to be my 3 meals a day!  OMG


Some grains and legumes are a mixed bag: some low, some high, but really not ideal when you take into account antinutrients, gluten, and lectin (see Pasta Sans Pasta for more discussion about these).

The next highest glycemic index foods are root veggies like starches and some fruits, mainly tropical varieties.  For example, corn (54 GI/ 9 GL), carrots (47 GI/ 3 GL), beets (64 GI/ 5 GL), potatoes (50-80+ GI/ 10-20+ GL), and sweet potatoes (61 GI/ 17 GL).  We already covered fruits and their lower proportion of carbohydrate accounting for a lower glycemic load in most cases.  Here are some examples: apples (38/6), grapefruit (25/3), grapes (46/8), mango (51/8), orange and peach (42/5), and strawberries (40/1).  Starches (including grains, pasta, and potatoes) are the storage form of energy in plants.  Your digestive enzymes rapidly convert starches to glucose, hence their high glycemic index values.  Preparation and types of starches can effect their glycemic index quite significantly, but safe to say they are medium to high regardless.  Check out our discussion of sweet potatoes from a previous post.

Besides root and starchy vegetables, other vegetables are not listed on the glycemic index or load charts.  This is because they have so little carbohydrate content that one would have to eat an enormous amount to get any glycemic rating.  So you can eat your veggies guilt free!

Lesson Learned?

Eat your fruit and veggies.  Eat high glycemic root veggies, fruits, and other starches in moderation.  Sadly the "complete breakfast" is a money making myth propagated by mega corporations to sell their sugary products.  And to whom do they advertise to seal the deal?  Children, who can pressure their parents and keep the myth alive from generation to generation.  From the article on school breakfasts, it looks like these companies have done a great job duping the general public and educators alike.


But now you know better.  A REAL complete breakfast is balanced fat, carbohydrate, and protein consisting of real, whole foods (if anything, we've learned to err on the side of lower carbohydrate quantity, NEVER higher).  Our paleo-style prescription of eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar, no grains, no legumes, and little to no dairy holds water when applied to the glycemic scales.  And now you know why it says "some fruit" and not all you can eat.  There is more to this story with type of sugar and the evils of fructose, but we'll save that for next time, Gadget, next time.


In the meantime, here is my fruit for the day.  After this, it is all veggies.  To some, this may be more morning sugar than they can take, and since everyone is different, I suggest you experiment to see what your body thrives upon.  This is sweet enough for the sugar-fiend inside me, but chock full on antioxidants and insulin-boosting Ceylon cinnamon.   Delicious!

Hot Apple Berry Cinnamon Breakfast
So syrupy sweet with cinnamon spice--it fragrances the house and warms your belly!
Cooking Time: start to finish less than 10 minutes


Ingredients:
1 apple  (medium to large or 2 tiny ones), sliced into bite-sized slivers
1/2 to 1 cup frozen berries
Ceylon cinnamon


Method:
Toss apple slices with plenty of cinnamon in a microwavable bowl or on a microwavable plate.  Microwave uncovered for 2 minutes.  Remove, add berries (still frozen, right from the freezer bag is fine).  Dash cinnamon on top.  Microwave another 2 minutes until berries are warm and syrupy.  Remove, dust again with cinnamon if desired (and I ALWAYS desire).  Stir to combine and feast upon this warm, fruity delight!  And for extra deliciousness, drizzle in any remaining cooking fat from the breakfast skillet.  Yum!




My Complete Breakfast breakdown:
2 egg   Fat: 2  Protein 2  GI: 10 (from here)  GL?
1 Aidells chicken apple sausage   Protein: 2B (unknown GI, GL)
1T coconut oil    Fat: 4B  (unknown GI, GL)
1 apple    Carb: 2B  GI: 38  GL: 6
1/2c berries   Carb: 1B  GI: 32 (from here) GL:?

Zone Block Totals: Fat: 6  Protein: 4  Carbohydrate: 3  with GIs all under 50 and GLs all under 10 (for those that are known, and from what we have learned above, it seems reasonable to assume that the others are in this range too).  Although not perfectly Zone, it works for me for my goals since I am trying to go low-carb and fuel myself on fat!
My results: no hunger for 5 hours, superb concentration and focus, high energy, clear head, motivation, and most importantly: happiness!
Give it a try!




Final Thought:
Knowledge is power and with great power comes great responsibility.  So what are you going to do with this knowledge?

Cereal