Noshtopia

Weaning Sugar Wednesday #7: So What Exactly Is "Added Sugars?" The AHA Answers My Letter

 

In last week's report on my going sugar light adventure, I questioned whether 25g of sugar a day was even realistic living in your basic American suburbia. There was some heated challenges of my interpretation of the American Heart Association's definition of what 25g/day of added sugars meant.

I'm totally okay with being wrong if I'm wrong, but instead of going on an endless debate of who's right and who's wrong, I said let's be fair and go ask the source themselves, the AHA. So, I wrote them on their Facebook wall, yes the modern day letter, because why not? Isn't that what social media is about, interacting with your community. I asked them to clarify and be a bit more specific about what what their added sugar standard is and what it means.

The AHA answered, and here is what they said:

Hello, Stephanie, and thanks for reaching out.

The American Heart Association recommends a limit on added sugars, not naturally occurring sugars contained in fruit. Additionally, the AHA recommends a diet pattern rich in fruits and vegetables. Even though they may have naturally occurring sugars, fruit also contributes fiber, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients important to good health.

The major sources of added sugars in American diets are regular soft drinks, sugars, candy, cakes, cookies, pies and fruit drinks; these are the foods that should be limited.

Most women should not eat or drink more than 100 calories (25 grams) per day from added sugars, and most men should not eat or drink more than 150 (37.5) calories per day from added sugars.

There should not be a limit on fruits or vegetables. For additional information, please see the Sugars 101 section of the AHA website.

So, there you have it straight from the source, and let me tell you, that Sugars 101 section of their site is fabulous and filled with a cornucopia of information, and you MUST check it out. Sugars 101 clarifies more specifically what their sugar standards mean far more clearly than that press release I originally linked to.

What was most helpful was a list of, "Names for added sugars on labels." This folks is worth printing out and learning.

 

Everyone can look at the same thing differently

Also, "added sugars" specifically means any sugar added to a food versus adding sugar into your overall diet. Without specifics, things can be interpreted a multiple of ways, and what I found intriguing about the discussion last week is that it shows that there is an assumption that everyone is clear on what food labels and talk mean.

Watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution has been eye opening to me in seeing that, no, we shouldn't assume that people are educated and understand the same thing in regards to food, nutrition, and labels. I mean the kids didn't even know french fries came from a potato. I thought I was pretty educated about foods and nutrition, and apparently, there was much for me to learn about sugars.

The Mayo Clinic also has a really fabulous source of "Added Sugar" information like why added sugar is in so many foods in the first place, why added sugars can be a problem, and most useful, the different names added sugars can go by like fruit juice concentrate.

As far as the AHA saying that there should not be a limit with fruits and vegetables, I would challenge that a bit because there are those who would take that literally, and eating too much fruit and it's juices is still not good for you because there is still large amounts of sugar. I would stick to the Gov. Food Pyramid recommendation of 1-2 cups of fruit per day depending on if you're a kid to adult, and male or female.

I'm still sticking to magic number 25

I still like the idea of getting my daily sugar consumption as a whole no matter if it's from natural or added sources down to 25g/day. I like the number 25, and I do think it is a realistic number, even on the low side. Of course, ideally, I'd also like the bulk of those 25g to come from natural sugars versus added.

On what I'm eating, I can happily say that my consumption of baked goods like cookies and cakes has dropped almost by half since I started this journey. I'm still struggling with the sugar filled drinks, but that is okay. We tackle one thing at a time, and the fact that I'm eating less cookies is a miracle in itself.

The belly fat loss

On the physical front, I have also dropped 1/2" from my gut in these 7 weeks doing only the sugar wean. I have almost no fat on my body except my gut, and I'm not being overly conscious here. I do have an amount of belly fat which runs in my family (my waist is above 30"), and trying to get rid of that belly fat has been a major challenge which I have deducted has been hard to trim down because of my previous large sugar consumption of sugars most of which is the added kind (80g/day).

I'm more concerned about getting the belly fat down not to look hot in a bikini but to reduce the amount of visceral fat around my organs which according to the Mayo Clinic has been linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, colorectal cancer (which my dad had) and other health problems. I am at high risk for diabetes and heart disease because of family history, particularly diabetes. All four of my grandparents had it, and my mom has it, so yeah, I want to do whatever I can to prevent or prolong getting diabetes.

So, this week I feel way more educated about added sugars, and I hope you all do to! Thank you so much to the AHA for responding so quickly to my question.

How has your sugar weaning efforts been going?

iPhone Food Photo Tip: Simple Way To Make Food Look More Interesting

Earlier this month, I mentioned that as an experiment I was nixing my Nikon D50 for 6 months and only using my iPhone camera for all my food photos for Noshtopia and Noshtopia Phoenix because the iPhone is much easier to carry around and the photo quality is nearly the same.

Many people have asked me how my pictures turn out so cool looking, so I thought I'd share a tip today. This one trick is so easy, you'll probably go, "Doh!"

A common way to take a picture is to center the food in the window with either the camera vertically straight or horizontally straight, like in this example, where I took a picture of lunch I had with pal @captcaffeine in the cafeteria at his work. So, cafeteria food is not very exciting in itself, BUT, we can make it look interesting by doing one simple thing....

 

...tilting the camera angle either to the left or to the right when vertical like in this example, OR...

 

....flipping the camera horizontal and tilting the camera up or down like in this example.

 

Now see, don't the last two images look far more interesting than the first one? Cafeteria food now has taken on a much more appealing look, and all I did was simply tilt or flip the camera so the image was not dead on straight.

In the last picture, the horizontal view, I also moved the camera in closer to get a bigger view of the salad so people could see the fixings better.

During this whole photo shoot, the food never moved, only the camera angle, and camera distance to the food.

Happy iPhone camera food shooting!

Quick Lunch: Soup and Sushi

 

Had lunch the other day with @elizabethhannan over at Whole Foods to chat about life and social media over fresh nosh. I had this odd craving for soup and sushi, so I got a small bowl of chicken, spinach and orzo soup with a side of spicy tuna rolls with avocado, carrot and lettuce in a rice wrapper.

One of the big reasons I love Whole Foods is because their pre-packaged food to go is always fresh and filled with variety. Yes, it's a bit more pricey than most, but in my book, I'm fine paying a few extra bucks for fresh foods free of anything artificial or preserved.

What's In Your Healthy Kitchen? Here's 10 Things in Steph's Kitchen

Whole Living asked a few renowned chefs and nutritionists what healthy things they keep in their kitchens, and then created this list of 34 items for a natural pantry. Most of the list is pretty generic like frozen fruit and herbs with a couple specifics like soba noodles and pomegranate molasses of all things.

The list overall is a good one so do check it out. For everyday eaters who live in the 'hood, and are not renowned experts like myself, I thought I'd share 10 items I use regularly to help keep me vibrant and in the skinny jeans.

 

• Trader Joe's Organic Herb Salad Mix: For bagged salad this stuff is awesome and for me it makes about four salads. I eat something green everyday, but lately, I've been eating this stuff because it the mix includes four of my favorite things: dill, frisee, arugula, and radiccchio.

Jamie Oliver TED talk: Teach every child about food

This is a really fascinating video of Jamie Oliver's talk at the recent TED conference. Most shocking, but not really, "Diet related disease is the biggest killer of people in the United States."

This is why I feel very passionate about food and how/what we eat because it has so much impact on our health, thus my philosophy on eating wellness.

So, what did you think of Jamie's thoughts?

Weaning Sugar Wednesday #6: Is 25g Of Sugar A Day Realistic Living In The Hood?

  

For my going sugar little journey, I'm working on cutting down my daily sugar consumption from 80g/day to about 25g/day or 100 calories (there are about 4 calories per gram of sugar). I got the 25g/day goal from the American Heart Association who recommended that amount for good heart health.

I picked the AHA standard because they are a respected health group and because initially 25g/day of sugar sounded doable and realistic. But now, into week 6 of my sugar wean, I am wondering if that 25g/day is realistic or even possible to maintain long term living in your basic American suburban town where mall food, fast food, and lab coat concocted food reign supreme. Sugar and salt are added to almost everything just to make stuff sweeter even if it doesn't need to be sweeter.

 

Will an apple a day keep the sugar away? Well, a medium sized Red Delicious apple is about 13g of sugar.

Here's another small example. I love orange juice, and you would assume that drinking organic juice would be healthy right? Well, just one 8oz glass (one cup) of Organic Valley orange juice is 26g of sugar. Therefore, just drinking one cup of OJ will already push you over the AHA's 25g/day standard.

One of those small packets of Sugar in the Raw you see in Starbucks has 5g of sugar, so putting just two packets in your latte will set you back 10g of sugar which is almost half of your 25g daily allotment. The Sugar in the Raw is actually a good analogy. Just five of those packets equals the 25g/day recommendation. 

Eating just one Sprinkles Red Velvet cupcake will set you back 45g of sugar.

 

How about the drinks section in your average 7-Eleven or Circle K? Well, eliminating plain water, sparkling water, and diet sodas, most drinks will have anywhere from 25-45g of sugar, and worse yet many will have high fructose corn syrup in it including "healthy" drink Gatorade. I don't count the diet sodas because I don't do artificial sweeteners because they make me feel ill.

And just because you drink organic or "good" drinks from the Whole Foods drink section doesn't mean you will do better either. I buy almost all my drinks at Whole Foods and between juices, bottled teas, sodas, and fruity fizzy drinks, nearly 50% of my 80g of sugar a day were mostly coming from those drinks. I was shocked to learn just how much sugar I was drinking versus eating.

Sugars also show up in things that you wouldn't normally think of either like toothpaste, mouthwash, and medicine. Did you know that Nyquil has high fructose corn syrup in it and Robitussin uses corn syrup and sorbitol in many of their products. They do have a specific sugar and sorbitol-free Robitussin.

The benenies of weaning

So, if you have a sweet tooth like me and the many others in America, then getting down to a 25g/day of total sugars is going to be a challenge. It's not impossible, but for realz, you are going to have to be very conscientious of reading food labels and then choosing wisely. I won't say, "then limit" because that will trigger the Inner Resistance Monster because he sits up when a whiff of deprivation hits the radar where as saying "choosing wisely" is more open and gives the feeling of options.

Because there is so much sugar to be found in our foods, and it's common to also have an emotional attachment to sugar, I recommend slowly weaning versus going cold turkey on the sugar because the process will entail less suffering. I swear there have been days where I have felt literal withdrawal shakes.

On an up note, the other day, I chose to eat a cup of edamame over a tangelo for afternoon snack as one small way of cutting back on the sugar. The edamame was delicious!

So, how's your sugar weaning week been going?

Are Michael Pollan's "Food Rules" Really Good Rules?

I enjoy Michael Pollan's books like The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto because he is informative and gets you to really think about what you put into your mouth and why. People can get overly passionate or one-sided when it comes to their food beliefs which is cool, we all should be free to express ourselves. I feel that Pollan wants you to be informed and decide for yourself.

His new book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual is out, and I'm excited that there is a new book for me to devour, but the title dismays me instantly because coming from the unreasonable and twisted world of weight loss and diets, the phrase "food rules" creates a Pavlovian response in me to be immediately turned off.

Did ya really have to use the word "rules"

Saying "food rules" to me is no different than saying "diet rules." I get the same defensive *ugh* response because it just reminds me of the depressing and frustrating feelings you feel when you're on a diet to lose the muffin top. In my book, the word "rules" makes me feel things like judgmental, deprivation, life sucking, and strict. Again, I do better when things are about choices and have a feeling of openness.

But, I get it, using the word "rules" is provocative and sells books, so I go ahead and read this book because I do like Pollan's stuff and I'm going to be open minded that he may just surprise me, and pleasantly, he did in this book.

Food rules is basically something I can't shut up about here on this blog

I will say this straight off the bat, I enjoyed the content book and feel it has good useful information, but I still feel aversion for the title. I would rename the book something like, "Say Yes to Food." Here are 64 things you ideally want to say yes to when eating your way to good health.

And now a perfect segway into why I loved this book, Food Rules is basically eating wellness, my whole philosophy on eating your way to vibrant health. Pollan and I are practically uni-brain on this topic. I talk about eating wellness ALL the time as my long time readers, friends, and family know. In this quick video, I explain how eating wellness helped me keep off 30 lbs.

As I say, one way or another, you are going to pay for your health either via the fork or through the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. I personally would rather eat my way to optimal health and support the farmers and food producers who operate consciously.

The Western diet is not a matter of if but when you will get sick

Pollan makes an excellent point and has facts to back him up in that consuming the Western diet full of processed and lab made foods will lead to illness and dis-ease. Four of the top ten chronic diseases in the US can be tied directly to what we eat.

One of my favorite of the rules is to not eat where you buy your gas. Those gas marts are simply junk food havens. The only real food I have ever seen at a gas mart is the random bananas and apples someone puts on the counter in a small weaved basket.

I would add to that gas station rule, do not eat anything that has a TV cartoon character or movie action hero plastered all over the packaging. Do you think Superman would himself eat or drink something that looks like glowing kryptonite? I think Spiderman would lose his spidey sense if he ate glow in the dark cheese curls and questionable meat nuggets all the time.

WebMD has written about seven of the rules, and HuffPo lists five more. Here's a nice Q&A with Pollan over at the New York Times.

Going after one the sources of the health crisis

One last thing that I also totally agree with Pollan about is that another way to fix our growing health crisis instead of health-care reform is to go deeper and start at one of the biggest sources contributing to making people sick in the first place, what we eat. I think too in the future we are going to see a lot more cracking down on the food industry much like the tobacco industry went through.

Food Rules is definitely worth reading. I would also say that this book is not an all-or-nothing reference but provides some really good guidelines to refer to. Again, find foods that work for your body and lifestyle, and will help you achieve the health goals you're striving for.

And one last think I particularly enjoyed about Food Rules is that the book is small and very easy to digest. I read the whole book in less than an hour, and felt mindfully nourished afterward.

Chocolatey Twist: Dark Chocolate With Krispy Quinoa

 

Chocolate with rice krispies is one of my favorite chocolates, and believe it or not, it's hard to find a dark chocolate version. I also love Quinoa because it's tasty and is a protein-packed grain. So, when I saw this Alter Eco Dark Chocolate Midnight Crunch with krispy Quinoa, I was throwing confetti. Okay, not literally, but in my head a parade was commencing.

And this krispy Quinoa dark chocolate might as well be the perfect Noshtopia snack because not only did I have to refrain myself from inhaling the whole thing in one sitting because it was so delicious, the bar is:

• GMO-free
• Vegan - therefore dairy and egg free
• Soy-free
• Gluten-free
• Emulsifier-free
• No artificial anything
• Organic
• Fair Trade Certified

On top of all that goodness, the cacao and Quinoa is from Bolivia, and the bars are made in Switzerland which in my book is major awesomeness because I have always had really good Swiss chocolate experiences.

The next Alter Eco flavors I want to try are Dark Mint and Dark Velvet. Have you tried the Alter Eco chocolates...thoughts?

Simple Healthy Fettucinne Dish And Farmer's Market

 

I spent a very lovely Spring day at one of our local farmer's markets this Saturday. Over at Noshtopia Phoenix, here is a pictorial of the cool things I saw at the Old Town Farmer's Market.

 

And here is a very simple and healthy Fettucine dish with garlic, hot house tomatoes, and pine nuts I made using the very cool looking handmade Decio Pasta, a local Phoenix maker. This dish is so tasty and simple and uses 5 ingredients minus garlic salt.

Noshtopia Gets Mention in LA Times Food Daily Dish

In my opinion, every food blogger should also be active on Twitter because it can expose you and your work not only to some awesome food lovers and kindred spirits, but to media exposure opportunities as well. Yes, the folks at the media biggies are constantly weeding through Twitter looking for cool stuff.

 

For example, on Thursday, Noshtopia was mentioned for the first time in the LA Times Daily Dish Food Blog which is so exciting on many levels and yeah, this girl did some cartwheels. Yes, we got this opportunity because I do my best to create helpful and good work here at the blog but mainly I believe that it is because I'm active on Twitter @noshtopia and @skinnyjeans where I've gotten some notice and tweeting time with @LATimesFood, and she's very cool.

Through Twitter, I've also gotten some tweet time with some of the women's, wellness, and food magazines and sites.

The mention in the LA Times blog by the way was a complete surprise, and I didn't even know about it until Saturday morning because I spent Friday off from Twitter. Yes, it is also good to take a day or two to stay away from the tweeting.

So, food bloggers get your tweet on! The food community on Twitter is really pretty cool, and it can open you up to so many possibilities you have no idea!