Last year, I tracked everything I ate for eight days in January and four days in February.  (See my blog posts here and here.)  My idea was that my January tracking would provide me with some baseline data about my diet, then I would do a “check-up” each month to see if I had made any improvements.  You can see how long that lasted.

I have made significant changes in my diet since then (the biggest change being that I’ve given up using cow’s milk), so I felt it would be useful to track my food intake again.  I wanted a better picture of what my diet is like now and how it has changed since last year.  To that end, I tracked everything I ate for six days last week, then plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet for analysis.  I came up with some interesting data.  To simplify, I’m just going to compare my current diet with January 2008.

First, the macronutrients.  My daily average calories dropped from 2217 to 2154.  The calories from fat dropped from 26% to 23%.  Some of that change went to protein (which rose from 14% to 15%) but more to carbohydrates (from 60% to 62%).  Of these numbers, I consider the percentage of calories from fat the most significant.  (The USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends, “Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories”, although there are some nutritionists, such as Dr. McDougall, who consider lower levels to be safer, as low as 10%.)  I am pleased with this reduction in my fat consumption.

In January 2008, about 8% of the calories in my diet came from animal protein.  Animal protein accounted for about 59% of my total protein intake.  Last week, about 7% of my calories came from animal protein, which represented about 46% of my total protein intake.  Another measure of animal food intake is dietary cholesterol.  My consumption of dietary cholesterol decreased by 15%, from an average of 127 grams per day to an average of 108 grams per day.  (The American Heart Association recommends, “Aim to eat less than 300 milligrams of cholesterol each day.”)  While I am not prepared to give up eating all animal-based foods at this time, I think it is healthy that I have been shifting away from them somewhat.

My consumption of dietary fiber increased 25%, from an average of 24 grams per day to an average of 30 grams per day.  (A USDA fact sheet states, “The Institute of Medicine recommended 19 to 38 grams of fiber per day, depending on age and gender.”)  Meanwhile, my consumption of sodium decreased about 10%, from an average of 2243 milligrams per day to an average of 2028 milligrams per day.  (The American Heart Association says, “Aim to eat less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day” while the USDA’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans adds the following advice, “Individuals with hypertension, blacks, and middle-aged and older adults. Aim to consume no more than 1,500 mg of sodium per day.”)

So by all measures, my diet improved over the past year and a half.  I am pleased to see these numbers, which confirm that the changes I have made in my diet are making a difference.

However, these averages do not tell the whole story.  While I was tracking my food intake, a trend that I have previously noticed became quite clear.  When I eat at home, I eat better than when I eat away from home.  I am in the habit of preparing healthy meals and generally reach for healthy snacks when I am home.  When I eat in a restaurant or at someone else’s home, sometimes I choose to eat less healthy foods because it is a special occasion, and sometimes I don’t have much choice–I don’t want to be rude and refuse to eat food that my host has prepared.  It turned out that during three of the six days I tracked, I ate all my meals at home, and for the other three days, I ate one or more meals away from home.  I decided to analyze these separately to see what difference it really made when I ate away from home.

The results were striking.  I averaged 2079 calories per day when I was at home and 2230 calories per day when I ate away from home.  Calories from fat increased from 21% to 25%.  Calories from protein increased slightly, from 14% to 15%, while calories from carbohydrates dropped from 65% to 60%.  My dietary cholesterol consumption increased from a daily average of 79 grams to 137 grams, an increase of 73%.  Fiber consumption dropped 18%, from 33 grams to 27 grams, and sodium intake increased from 1427 milligrams to 2629 milligrams, a whopping 84%.  By all measures, I ate better when I prepared my own food.

While it did take time and effort to track and analyze my food intake, the knowledge I gained is well worth it.  Having quantitative data that shows the improvement in my diet reinforces my commitment to making healthier food choices.  I will pay more attention to my food choices away from home.  I will try to implement strategies like packing snacks to eat on the road or eating before a party so I eat less junk food during the party.  All in all, I am proud of the progess I have made.

Last week, I kept track of everything I ate for six days. I will post soon about what I learned from the experience, but I wanted to share one thing now: Beware of the donut!

Of course, I’ve heard numerous times that donuts, cakes, pies, and other pastries are high in fat. Duh! But when you go to a donut shop and get a box of fresh donuts, they don’t come with a nutrition guide. It’s so easy to just gobble them down, completely ignorant of what you are really eating.

I don’t eat donuts every day, maybe just once a month. When I was little, my mom would sometimes get up early on a weekend morning and go buy a box of donuts as a treat for the family. A box of a dozen donuts for a family of five meant two for each of us, plus two more that could be shared. Now, I usually only eat donuts when my family eats breakfast at Tim Horton’s, either because we’re on the road or just for a special outing, and I generally eat just one donut.

Last week, we stayed at my parents’ house, along with relatives from out of town. A box of donuts was procured, and I ate not one, but two (for old times’ sake). Then I entered them into the online food tracker and got quite a shock. One Tim Horton’s Old Fashion Plain Donut has 19 grams of fat. I thought there was a mistake. Whoever had entered the item into the database must have typed the wrong number; 19 grams of fat seemed ridiculously high. I went to the Tim Horton’s website to check. There was no mistake. My two donuts had given me 520 calories and 38 grams of fat, including 18 grams of saturated fat! There were days that I tracked my food intake when my total fat intake for the day was 41 and 42 grams; I had eaten almost that amount just for breakfast.

Even the Timbits donut holes are impressively unhealthy. Just one Timbit ranges from 50 calories (Apple Fritter) to 90 calories (Sour Cream Glazed), and from 2 grams of fat (Honey Dip, Banana Cream, Lemon, Blueberry, and Strawberry) to 5 grams of fat (Old Fashion Plain). Eating just one of each of the nine flavors of Timbits listed in Tim Horton’s nutrition calculator (not even a full 10-Timbit snack pack) provides 580 calories and 23.5 grams of fat, including 11.5 grams of saturated fat.

I think from now on, I’ll have to limit myself to eating one or two Timbits instead of eating donuts. It would probably be better to give them up altogether, but for now, I’ll work on weaning myself off of them so I don’t feel deprived when I give them up.

Many years ago, as a poor college student, I started asking for just water to drink when my husband and I ate in restaurants.  It was a cost-saving measure.  You may think that it doesn’t matter much because a drink is only a dollar or two, but add tax and tip, and multiply by how many times you eat out in a year, and it becomes a substantial chunk of change.  My husband usually got a soda pop and I would drink some of his, but I ended up drinking more water and less pop as a result, as well as reducing our bill.

Now I am more nutrition-conscious, so the health benefits of drinking water instead of pop are a stronger motivating factor.  I don’t miss having other beverages; I get plenty of flavor from my meal.  It’s just something I do.  I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself at all; once in a while I’ll splurge and have a blended fruit drink.

Twice in the past couple weeks, I’ve been offered a drink at someone else’s house, told them I would prefer to drink water, and was then offered a bottle of water.  Though I feel like I’m rejecting their hospitality or putting down their shopping choices, both times I have told them that I would prefer tap water.  Seeing their incredulous expressions, I’ve awkwardly explained that I think bottled water is wasteful.  Why spend the natural resources to bottle water and truck it around when perfectly good water comes out of the tap?  I trust in the safety of tap water, it tastes fine to me, and I don’t see the point of spending money on bottled water.

I feel like I’m a pretty rational person.  It just seems strange to me that my views on drinking water seem to be foreign to so many people in our society.

While reading a bag of Jelly Belly gourmet jelly beans, I noticed the Product Guarantee on the back.  It begins, “Your Jelly Belly(r) confection items are made of the finest food ingredients.”

The finest food ingredients???  According to the list right next to the Product Guarantee, those ingredients include soy lecithin, sodium citrate, citric acid, fumaric acid, lactic acid, malic acid, phosphoric acid, tapioca dextrin, red 40 lake, yellow 5 & 6 lake, red 40, yellow 5 & 6, blue 1 & 2 lake, blue 1, beeswax, carnauba wax, salt, and caffeine.

If those are the finest food ingredients, the food I cook must be of pretty poor quality.  The only one of the above that I ever use in cooking is salt, and I use very little of it.

I need to either stop eating candy or stop reading the labels.  I used to chew a piece of gum on my long drive home from work as a small treat for making it through the day, but I gave that up after reading the ingredients and finding that it contained talc, among other un-appetizing ingredients.

I have heard several people give the advice that when grocery shopping, one should stick to the sides of the store and stay out of the aisles.  The thought is that less-processed foods tend to be located on the sides, while more-processed foods (which are less nutritious) tend to be found in the aisles.

I find this advice too simplistic.  Yes, some of the healthy food I buy is found on the sides of the store: fresh fruits and vegetables, yogurt, fish, and an occasional loaf of fresh-baked whole grain bread.  But also found on the sides of the store are donuts, cakes, pies, eggs, milk, cheese, meat, and prepared deli foods.  Those don’t rate as healthy in my book.

In the aisles of the grocery store, I buy no-salt-added canned tomato products, canned beans (sure, they have more sodium than if I cooked dried beans, but they’re so much more convenient), canned pumpkin, canned tuna, oatmeal, barley, wheat germ, whole-wheat pasta, and brown rice.  Good stuff!

Don’t worry about where in the store you’re shopping, just pay attention to what you’re putting in your cart.  Stick with whole foods (“simple” foods that don’t need a brand name, like “apples” or “rice”) and minimize consumption of animal-based foods.  It’s as easy as that.

Okay, so the raisins aren’t really new and improved, but the packaging is.

I buy raisins in a big canister, then portion some out into a little plastic container to take them in my lunch.  However, since I’m staying at my parents’ house for a couple days and packing my lunch with the food they have on hand, today I ended up with a box of raisins.

It’s a nice box of raisins: a good size (1.5 oz/42 g), with a picture of raisins on the front and the proclamation “Great value” (maybe that’s the brand name–these raisins are marketed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.).  In addition to advising me to eat fruits and vegetables (“5 A Day The Color Way”) and encouraging me to recycle, and in addition to the standard, legally-required Nutrition Facts box, this package tells me that its contents are:

• 100% Natural
• Fat Free
• High in Potassium
• Cholesterol Free Food
• 0g Trans Fat Per Serving
• Gluten-Free

Is it me, or is this an excessive amount of information for a box that measures 3 inches by 2 inches by 7/8 inch? (That’s 7.5 cm by 5.5 cm by 2 cm, for my metric-utilising friends.)

The thing is, all of these claims are true.  I want people to be informed about nutrition and make healthy choices.  So why does this bother me?  It goes back to the issue of people paying too much attention to specific nutrients and not looking at the big picture (with the ideal being a whole foods, plant-based diet).  Of course, some people do need to pay attention to specific aspects of their diet–those with celiac disease must avoid foods containing gluten, for example.  But I suspect that anyone who actively avoids specific food components because their health depends on it already reads labels carefully and has a good basic knowledge of what to look out for, and thus would not be stumped by something like a box of raisins that didn’t explicitly state that the raisins were gluten-free.  (Or maybe gluten contamination is a problem with raisins that I’m not aware of.)  For most people, though, these types of nutritional claims merely add to their confusion about what exactly healthy eating is.  The box wouldn’t say “Fat Free” if it weren’t a positive thing (no one puts big bright labels on food trumpeting “High in Sodium!”).  So obviously fat is bad, right?  And we should avoid it, right?   Take a look at the people who buy “low-fat” and “reduced fat” foods.  How many of them are “low-fat” themselves?  Merely reducing the amount of fat consumed, without improving the quality of the overall diet, does not lead to health.

It would be a cheap shot to blame Wal-Mart for the raisin box.  But it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault that these kinds of nutritional claims are so prevalent on food packaging.  Not enough people recognize that a box of raisins is a healthier snack than a “100 calorie pack” of crackers or cookies.  I can’t blame the raisin producers for their efforts to compete.  In the short run, I hope their efforts are successful and they can convince more people to eat raisins instead of junk.  In the long run, I hope that more people will become educated about nutrition so these types of claims will have less sway on the public.

I am recovering from a gastrointestinal illness that put me out of commission for a couple days.  One of the first things I did after becoming sick was make Jell-O so it would be ready and waiting for me in the fridge when I felt up to eating something.

When my stomach had settled somewhat, I started by eating soda crackers.  Then I moved on to Jell-O and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup before graduating to white rice and a fortune cookie.

While I was lying in bed feeling crummy, I reflected on the fact that the food I was eating while I was sick to try to help me get healthy again was food that I would not consider particularly good for me when I was healthy.  Though I was tired and my thoughts were fuzzy, this didn’t make sense.  If I were sick and not eating much, shouldn’t I be eating the healthiest possible food to get the most concentrated nutrition to help me get healthy again?

Of course, a major consideration for selecting a food when sick is that it is easy to eat and won’t upset the stomach again.  Soup and Jell-O are slurpable, thus taking minimal energy to ingest.  Soda crackers are widely considered to be well-tolerated by those with nausea (just read any advice to women with morning sickness and you’ll find them recommended).  So there is an element of logic in my choices.

However, the main reason I chose those foods is because those are the foods my mother gave me when I was sick when I was a child.  Eating those familiar foods brought me comfort.  The condition of being sick is linked in my memory with eating red Jell-O; in fact, I was disappointed that we didn’t have strawberry Jell-O in the cupboard and I had to settle for blue “mixed berry”-flavored gelatin.  I would have preferred homemade chicken noodle soup but I didn’t have any in the freezer and was not up to cooking.  Being sick, Campbell’s was an acceptable substitute, whereas I refuse to eat that salty soup when I am feeling healthy.

When I was feeling well enough to surf the net a bit, I found some guidelines for home care for children with diarrhea or vomiting that appear to have been written for nurses at a pediatric practice to give parents.  The feeding recommendations include soups and starchy foods like crackers, toast, oatmeal, and rice.  They also include fresh fruits and any kind of vegetable (with a note to avoid buttering the vegetables).  Among the foods to limit is Jell-O.  Although I have zero memory of being served vegetables while sick, I was inspired by these guidelines to eat some peas and I felt better (though possibly just for psychological reasons).

I think I was onto something in my tired, sick, rambling-thinking state.  Food for the sick can meet those criteria of being easy to eat and not-irritating, and also be packed with nutrition.  Homemade soups can be much less salty and contain more vegetables than canned.  Brown rice and oatmeal can provide whole grains while also being easy to digest.  Fruit is fantastic stuff, sweet and tasty and packed with fiber and vitamins and who knows what else–I think it could be sufficiently tempting to someone who is sick, pureed if necessary.

The logical part of my brain definitely thinks it’s time to overhaul what foods I consider appropriate to feed a sick person.  The trick will be convincing the emotional part of my brain the next time I’m sick and I want the comfort of my old stand-bys.  The good news is that my son is only four; I have time to get him accustomed to eating healthier foods when he is sick so that he will reach for them for comfort when he is older.

While canned products in general tend to have an insane amount of sodium, it is possible to buy canned tomato products with no salt added, and they taste great.  For several years now, I have made an effort to buy canned tomato products with no salt added.  Why add extra sodium to my family’s diet when it’s not necessary?

I prefer to buy my tomato products at Kroger, because they have Kroger-brand no-salt-added tomato sauce, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and stewed tomatoes.  Buying store-brand products saves me money.  Until recently, our local Meijer store didn’t have no-salt-added diced tomatoes at all, and all the no-salt tomato products they carry are name-brand and more expensive than what I can buy at Kroger.

Just recently, I was ticked off when I was looking for no-salt-added tomato sauce at Meijer.  I looked high and low.  I knew they had one brand of it, somewhere, but I didn’t see it.  Finally, I found it behind a display rack of pepperoni attached to the shelf.  Yeah, nice one.  Don’t just hide the healthier product, hide it behind packages of processed meat products.  Thumbs down for Meijer when it comes to canned tomato products.

At my grandparents’ house last weekend, I flipped through the April 1, 2009 edition of Family Circle magazine, which happened to have a cover featuring cupcakes with pastel frosting.  I don’t read magazines regularly, so I was surprised and taken aback when I saw an advertisement promoting high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.  From a quick internet search, I learned that the Corn Refiners Association has lauched a “multimedia campaign to correct the record on high fructose corn syrup” which “highlight[s] the nutritional equivalence between high fructose corn syrup and sugar.”  Their 2008 Corn Annual was called “Changing the Conversation about High Fructose Corn Syrup” and “serves as a commemorative review of this extraordinary effort.”

The Corn Refiners Association sponsors a website called SweetSurprise.com, which claims to offer “The Facts About High Fructose Corn Syrup”.  On their site, you can watch three television ads which all have the same storyline: one person isn’t concerned about eating/serving food with HFCS, another person says “You know what they say about it?” but then can’t come up with what (supposedly negative) things are said about it,  then the first person “educates” the other about HFCS.   The messages that the Corn Refiners Association want you to take home are that HFCS is made from corn, is natural/has the same calories as sugar/is nutritionally the same as sugar, and (like sugar) is fine in moderation.

Yes, HFCS is made from corn (duh, it’s high fructose corn syrup).  So?  I buy sugar made from sugar beets grown in my home state of Michigan (trying to support my local economy).  After it’s been refined, does it matter whether it came from corn, sugar beets, or sugar cane?  I suppose they’re emphasizing that as part of the “natural” message, figuring people are more comfortable eating a product refined from a plant rather than synthesized in a laboratory.  I appreciate that gut instinct, but on the other hand, “natural” does not equate with “healthy” or even “safe”.  (Snake venom is “natural”.)  Each of the ads features a comparison with sugar, assuming that people are comfortable with sugar and consider it innocuous and unoffensive, and that they will transfer those opinions to HFCS if they believe it is similar to sugar.

The “fine in moderation” part of the message sounds all well and good, but it’s trickier than it looks.  First, define “moderation.”  Your idea of how much HFCS is acceptable in a diet may be different from my idea.  Then, consider the foods that tend to contain HFCS.  They tend to be cheap, highly processed foods with minimal nutritional value.  Whether they were sweetened with HFCS or plain old sugar, they would still be junk foods.  In fact, I avoid foods with HFCS not because I’m convinced that HFCS is so dangerous, but because HFCS in the ingredient list is a strong indicator that a food is unhealthy.  It’s the same reason I avoid R-rated movies; an R rating doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t like a movie, but it usually indicates a level of violence or vulgarity that turns me off.

The SweetSurprise website has an article by a registered dietician called “Teach Your Children the ABC’s of Healthy Eating.”  It says “high fructose corn syrup… is often mislabeled as ‘bad’, but there is no scientific evidence that this ingredient contributes to childhood obesity or diabetes any more than sugar, honey or any other food ingredient.”  Hmm… Let’s think about that.  There’s no evidence that HFCS contributes to obesity any more than sugar.  But how does sugar contribute to childhood obesity?  This is an area where the Corn Refiners Association doesn’t seem to want to repeat their claim that HFCS and sugar are equivalent.  The same article recommends a “balanced breakfast” of a “toasted whole wheat English muffin with American cheese slice, Canadian bacon, cooked egg and glass of orange juice”, so I’m not sure how much I’d want to trust their hired dietician anyhow.

One last note: There are a number of anti-HFCS videos on YouTube, including some that spoof the Corn Refiners Association ads (such as this one).  If you’re interested, check them out; it’s a good way to waste some time.

Considering the popularity of my previous post comparing 2% milk with soy milk, I figured I would do a similar post comparing milk and rice milk.

I am comparing Meijer 2% Reduced Fat Milk to Trader Joe’s Unsweetened Original Organic Rice Drink Non-Dairy Beverage (hereafter referred to as rice milk).  The serving size is one cup (240 mL) for both.  I will type the nutrient category, then the value for the 2% milk, then the value for the rice milk.

Calories: 130, 120
Total Fat: 5g, 2.5g
Saturated Fat: 3g, 0g
Trans Fat: 0g, 0g
Cholesterol: 20mg, 0mg
Sodium: 130mg, 100mg
Potassium: 400mg, (no value given)
Total Carbohydrate: 12g, 23g
Dietary Fiber: 0g, 0g
Sugars: 12g, 10g
Protein: 8g, 1g

Vitamin A: 10%, 10%
Calcium: 30%, 30%
Vitamin D: 25%, 25%
Vitamin C: 4%, 0%
Iron: 0%, 4%
Phosphorus: (no value given), 15%
Vitamin B12: (no value given), 25%

So what does this tell me?  They have a similar amount of calories.  Rice milk has half the amount of fat as milk, less sodium, and no saturated fat or cholesterol.  It also has significantly less protein.  Rice milk has about twice as many carbohydrates as milk, but contains fewer grams of sugars.  Thanks to supplementation, both have the same amount of vitamins A and D; also thanks to supplementation, rice milk has the same amount of calcium as milk, as well as a substantial amount of vitamin B12.

At this point, I feel comfortable with the generalization that plant-based foods are healthier than animal-based foods.  While rice milk is certainly a processed food product and is a far cry from whole grain rice, I consider it a healthier alternative to cow’s milk.  For the limited amount that I use (I’ve had this half-gallon container in my fridge for a couple weeks), I’m not going to fret about it not being a “whole food”; instead, I embrace it as an option.