What you think is healthy... isn't

The constant onslaught of information, usually from large corporations, governments, etc., as to what is healthy quite often isn't.  My beloved friend Mary Jo, who I have often mentioned here, asked me the other day if honey is really a healthy option.  This got me thinking, there are lots of products that are sold to us as healthy but really aren't.

Honey is a perfect example of this; it is a natural product made be bees and flowers - mother nature in her pure state.  As I said last week sugar is the new tobacco and honey has around 53% fructose.  Each teaspoon has nearly 4g of fructose, which means it can exacerbate pre-existing insulin resistance.  However, raw honey has antibacterial properties, while processed refined honey lacks many of these beneficial properties.  It is extremely difficult to find raw unprocessed honey on sale in any store.  In America, 75% of the honey on sale in supermarkets may be ultra-processed to the point that all  inherent medicinal properties are completely gone.  Nearly all "fake" honey is made in China.  The Food Safety News (FSN) tested 60 jars which all came back negative for pollen which is a clear sign of ultra-processing.

The FSN has stated:

"The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies.  The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others have also ruled that without pollen, there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources."

For example; the FSN discovered that 100% of honey sampled from drug stores (Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS Pharmacy) were absent of pollen.  76% of honey samples bought at grocery stores such as TOP Food, Safeway, QFC, Kroger, Harris Teeter, etc., were absent of pollen and 77% of honey from big box stores such as Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart and Target, were also absent of pollen.

So your honey needs to come from a reliable source and for it to be raw and organic for you to receive all the beneficial properties that honey has to offer.

Other examples of the not so healthy foods are:

Agave Nectar - like honey, people think it is a good natural sweetener, but it has a much higher concentration of fructose than regular table sugar or even high fructose corn syrup!

Low-Fat and No-Fat foods.  I have often written about these.  If you remove the fat from foods you also remove the taste.  Taste has to be replaced with something otherwise no one will want to eat these products.  So, large amounts of sugar and salt are added to replace the lost taste.  You also need to remember that the human body needs some fat to absorb fat-soluble vitamins.

Fruit Juice, another sugar bomb.  Fruit has high concentrations of fructose, but it also has high amounts of fiber.  When you eat the whole fruit, the fiber content stops the fructose being released quickly into the blood stream and therefore causing a blood sugar spike.  Eating the whole fruit means that the sugar is released more slowly over a longer period of time.  Making juice - even fresh, means you remove the fiber and all you have left is sugar water that is flavored.

Butter got a bad rap for years because it is a saturated fat that we were told was really bad for heart health.  The government (The McGovern Report 1977) told us that we should be using vegetable fats instead.  So, America and then Europe turned to vegetable oils and margarine to replace butter and other fats.  This was just the beginning of what is now a huge heart disease and obesity problem.  Their insistence on changing to vegetable fats only made heart disease statistics worse.  Margarine, for example, is just a whole mix of chemicals with some oils added.  Take a tub of margarine and leave it in the sun and watch what happens.  Margarine is the closest thing on the "food" list to PLASTIC.

Protein Bars, granola bars, "health" bars... they may be high in protein and low in carbs but they are full of artificial flavorings and made with a whole host of chemicals.  If you need quick energy reach for a handful of raw nuts.

Cholesterol Lowering foods, like Danacol, etc.,  these boast a nutrient called phytosterols, which have been proven to lower cholesterol in humans.  However, there is "some science" that suggest the phytosterols can actually contribute to weakening the cardiovascular system and even contribute to heart disease - the jury is still out on this one!

Sports drinks such as Gatorade, Powerade, etc... do not just replace electrolytes after your workout, they are also packed full of sugar.  So if you really want to rehydrate afterwards, just plain old water is great o coconut water (not more than 1 per day).  Sports drinks should only really be used by professional athletes with high intensity training sessions.  I run between 8 and 10 km every day and never use anything other than water after a run.

Gluten-free diets are really in vogue at the moment.  Celiac Disease is a real and terrible disease that needs a specific gluten free diet, in 2015 gluten intolerance without celiac disease was finally recognized officially.  I know many people who have been diagnosed with gluten intolerance or celiac disease and most peoples' initial reaction is to try and substitute everything with gluten for gluten-free foods.  After all, who can live without pasta or bread or biscuits or cake?  Well, guess what?  You can!  Now I do get it, a person has just been told they can no longer eat all those things they have grown up on, and the desire is to find something to replace them with.  But just think for a minute... gluten free cake is still... cake.  Just because a package has been stamped with the gluten-free logo DOES NOT MEAN IT'S HEALTHY.  Chances are it will be full of sugar, salt and chemicals.

The one thing you can do to be sure you are making healthy choices is to eat REAL FOOD; whole fruits, fresh vegetables (and frozen - they are just as good and often conserve their vitamins and minerals), fresh, preferably organic meat, poultry, fish and eggs.  If you are vegetarian/vegan, the same applies, make it REAL and you'll be just fine.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Sugar tax... at long sweet last...

Sugar has been BIG NEWS of late.  There has been so much talk about the dangers of sugar and how it is being called the new tobacco, etc... And what's more, it's true.

Sugar is really bad for you, in fact I have written several posts on the subject the first of which was back in 2012; Dare I say sugar and heroin in the same sentence?

However, sugar is such a part of our lives that we don't even realize it.  It was so "cool" to drink Coke like in the movies (way back when), and now sugary drinks are a part of most peoples' everyday life.  Hidden sugar is in the most unsuspecting foods, making it difficult for people to calculate just how much sugar they ingest daily.

And then there is the non-stop marketing of processed foods and drinks which are packed full of sugar - even the supposedly "healthy" ones such as non-fat foods or granola bars... take out the fat and you need to replace the lost flavor with something, which is usually sugar and/or salt.

The one thing food manufacturers look for is what is known in the industry as the "bliss point"; that is the perfect mix of sugar, salt and fat that makes you - the consumer, wanting to eat more and more of your favorite processed foods.

Obesity is a huge problem (no pun intended), both adult and, more worryingly infant obesity are on the rise.  If being fat was just a question of appearance then... well, hey - that's up to you.  But being overweight or obese means a whole host of HEALTH problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, double risk of Alzheimer's, and several cancers...

All very serious diseases.

There are now lots of people campaigning against sugar, Dr. Aseem Malhotra and celebrity chef
Jaime Oliver are the first 2 to spring to mind.  Last week the anti sugar campaigners have won a small victory.  Now, I say small as we are yet to see the outcome of the new SUGAR TAX to be implemented in the United Kingdom.

Yes, the chancellor announced in his annual budget that a new sugar tax will be applied to the soft drinks industry in the UK.

The new tax is aimed directly at high-sugar drinks, in particular carbonated drinks.  However, this does not include fruit juices and milk-based drinks.

The tax will be imposed on drinks companies according to the volume of sugary drinks that they produce or import.  There will also be two levels; one for total sugar content above 5g per 100 milliliters, and another higher tax for drinks with more than 8g or sugar per 100 milliliters.  This could be about 18p and 24p per liter.

So, the products with the highest rate of the sugar tax will be Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Lucozade and Irn-Bru with the lower rate being applied to Dr Pepper, Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes Indian Tonic water and alcohol-free shandy.

For the moment, the sugar tax is on soft drinks and not all sweets such as chocolates and cakes as soft drinks are not seen in the same light as say a cake.  A cake can be thought of as a special treat whereas soft drinks are just a part of everyday life.  For example, as far as teenagers are concerned, soft drinks are their number one source of sugar intake and younger children get a third of their daily sugar intake from them.

This sugar tax is a direct attack on childhood obesity and, in my opinion, something that should be implemented in all countries.  The British Chancellor expects to gain 520 million Great British Pounds per year from this tax which he says will be spent on increasing the funding for sport in primary schools.

Teaching our children healthy habits from an early age is fundamental for all aspects of life.  There is a primary school in Scotland called St. Ninians which has it's pupils running a mile a day during school time.  They have noticed that the children are better behaved, settle into lessons quicker and there are no obese children in the school.  This initiative is being implanted in other schools and a study is being designed to analyze the results.

Here in Spain, my son who is in his second year of primary school, only has 2 lesson a week of physical education - too little as far as I am concerned.

So... what's the rest of the Western World going to do about it?

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Menopause Part 2

A few months ago my friend Mary Jo asked me to write a post about how to eat better during the menopause.  I am pleased to say that many of you found that post interesting and informative, and Mary Jo suggested that I could inform you all of other problems related to the menopause.

Well, here is the follow-up post concerning weight gain during the menopause.

A lot of women experience weight gain during the menopause, and it seems to deposit itself in one of two places - or both.  These places tend to be around the middle and/or the bust.  Lots of women who have never had a tummy suddenly find that they have a bulge.

Now bust enlargement due to the menopause is loved by some women who are suddenly enjoying a cleavage they never had before.  However, others find a large bust makes them look older, even matronly - think Mrs. Doubtfire!!!!

This weight gain is - as usual, down to hormones.  From the age of 40 onwards, the levels of estrogen in a woman's body will start to fluctuate drastically.  The idea is that less estrogen means smaller breasts as the milk glands shrink when the body passes it's child producing time.  However estrogen should be counter balanced by progesterone and progesterone levels can drop off 120 times quicker than estrogen levels.  This causes what doctors call "estrogen dominance", which can keep breasts large, even as overall estrogen levels drop.

At this stage in a woman's life, fat and estrogen team up together, dominant estrogen acts as a magnet for fat, storing it in certain areas such as the breasts and abdomen.

These stored fat cells can expand and produce estrogen of their own in order to help balance mood and wellbeing, and also for protection for your bones and heart.  Unfortunately, your body has decided that these expanded fat cells are really really important for survival and so they are extremely resistant to dieting.

However, through following a certain diet you can target those problem areas, by balancing your hormones correctly.  For this type of weight reduction, Max Tomlinson, a Naturopath from London, has devised an eating plan based on a Mediterranean-style diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, fish, healthy oils and no sugar, processed foods, little meat and a little alcohol.

Dairy products can be very high in estrogen.  Cow's tend to be milked constantly through other pregnancies, meaning that their hormone levels are very high.  Vegetable milks such as almond, coconut or rice milks are better.  However it is better to avoid soya milk as it may contain plant estrogen which can contribute to erratic and unbalanced hormones.

Favor citrus fruits as they contain a compound called d-limonene, a substance that has been shown to help the body break down and remove excess estrogen.  You can also increase your calcium D-glucarate intake by eating more legumes and fruits such as; peaches, nectarines, plums and cherries.  This helps to inhibit the action of enzymes that reduces the impact of estrogen on breast tissue.

We all know that vegetables are amazingly healthy, but in this case you should eat them raw or lightly steamed.  Cruciferous vegetables such as; broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, are rich in a chemical compound called dindolylmethane which helps the body to metabolize excess estrogen.

Eat brown bread.  Whole grains are so much better than refined grains.  Whole grains will boost your intake of insoluble fiber.  This is useful as the fiber binds itself to excess estrogen in the digestive tract and removes it.

You really need to cut back on sugars and that includes alcohol as sugar in the diet increases blood sugar levels which, in turn, stimulates the release of insulin.  Too much insulin motivates fat storage in the body and interferes with the delicate balance between estrogen and progesterone.

Alcohol also has a toxic effect on liver function which stops the liver breaking down estrogen and other hormones effectively.

Junk food is also a no no.  Highly processed foods can contain pesticides, herbicides and/or growth hormones which can disrupt hormones.

Get up and move.  Walk, swim, cycle - which ever you prefer but do it everyday.  Make sure you stay active.  I also recommend yoga or pilates.  Stretching and muscle tone is very important as we get older.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Look after your man

This one is particularly close to my heart.  My father has struggled for years with his weight and, as a consequence, his health.  He is obese, has type 2 diabetes, early stage heart disease and is on a huge amount of medication.

I think that what upsets me the most is his apparent lack of wanting to help himself.  His wife does everything she can to keep him on a healthy diet, but he views going out to a restaurant as an excuse to not eat healthily - problem is, he eats out a lot.

Thing is, men tend to look after themselves a lot less than women.  Stress is a big problem and men tend to deal with this a lot harder than women.  My own husband will reach for the ice cream when stressed, for others it's a packet of biscuits or chocolate, or a few pints down the pub with his friends.

Jeremy Clarkson hit the papers this week for his unsightly pot belly while filming his new TV show. Thing is, that kind of fat around the middle is far more dangerous to your health than being obese all over.

Subcutaneous fat around the thighs that is more prone to women is a "healthy" fat.  It doesn't move, it just stays there and is difficult to shift.  However, belly fat sits behind the abdominal wall and is free to move around the body and it's this kind of fat that can clog arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes.

42% of men die before the age of 75, compared to 26% of women, men are also 60% more likely to develop cancers that affect both sexes, and 70% are por likely to die from them.

So what can you do to help your man, with or without him realizing?

If your husband or boyfriend is overweight and has an allergy to all things healthy and even refuses to admit he has a problem:

"My blood sugar levels are stable and within their normal parameters", my father stated on Saturday...

"And so they should be," I answered, "You're on medication for that, if they weren't within range while medicated then I'd be driving you to the doctor's not back to your hotel!" I almost screamed desperately.

Men are extremely competitive, so try exercising together.  Exercise is important for everyone, whether you are overweight or not, so it will be good for you too.  If your partner is very overweight then you might like to start with something simple like walking and gradually build up in distance and speed.  Adopt a dog, having a reason to go for a walk will actually make him get off the sofa.  If he likes going to the gym then buy him some new funky workout gear, it might motivate him to show it off! Also, recent British study of 3,500 couples working to reduce their risk of heart disease found that the men that worked out more and saw higher rates of improvement in their health, worked out with a partner.

Quit sugar and refined carbs.  Let's face it, the majority of us love a biscuit with out tea, or a dessert after a nice meal, but the fact is that there is so much hidden sugar in foods nowadays that most of us don't even realize how much we are consuming.  Change white bread to wholegrain and eat as little as possible.  For example, only have toast for breakfast twice a week - maximum.  The other days have fruit, not juice, or a protein breakfast.  Omelettes are great in the mornings.  Don't forget avocados either, these are a great source of healthy fats and fiber, so pack those in to your diet.  Put less sugar in cakes, if you bake, and use a smaller teaspoon to add sugar to drinks if you can't get him to switch to stevia.

Don't have bread and/ or potatoes with every meal.  I don't even have bread in the house.  Nowadays there are loads of healthier options that you can substitute.  Cauliflower is really in fashion at the moment, you can use it to make pizza bases, rice and other side dishes.  It's even great roasted with garlic and olive oil!  Love mashed potatoes, you can sub them for mashed butter beans, for example.

Eating more fruit and vegetables is really important for health and not just for your waistline.

Take and unflattering photograph of him and stick it on the fridge door.  A friend of mine had a small pig "toy" that oinked when the fridge door was opened and the light came on!  Hey, you never know, it might work as a deterrent.

Big often isn't better.  Big plates, big glasses lead to bigger portions.  Use smaller plates and when it's just the two of you, smaller wine glasses too.  Using a smaller wine glass means consuming 125ml instead of the 250ml bigger ones.  This will cut your partner's alcohol intake by  half and the calories too.  A small glass contains 106 calories while a larger one is closer to 252.

Supplement with Omega 3.  Omega-3 fats are found in oily fish such as salmon and also in walnuts.  They have great anti-inflammatory properties which have been shown to lower type 2 diabetes risk by 33%.  You can also take them as a supplement - krill oil is best as it is water soluble so much easier to assimilate by the body.

It also seems that shorter holidays are better for you than a two week break.  Studies have shown that a two week holiday can compound stress levels.  It seems that preparing for a long break and then trying to catch up afterwards can be just as stressful as not having a holiday.  It would appear that one long weekend break every 6-8 weeks, and evenly spaced one-week holidays throughout the year are healthier.

Above all, don't mention the word DIET.  Men believe that women go on diets and that dieting is unmanly.  Make it a lifestyle change for better health and there are loads of ways to improve both your diets by being adventurous in the kitchen, it doesn't all have to be grilled fish and salad.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com 

Preventing Premature Death

In a recent article, Dr Michael Greger tells the story of what made him become a doctor.  His 65 year old grandmother had been sent home in her wheelchair to die.  She had been diagnosed with end-stage heart disease and the doctors had said there was nothing more they could do for her.  At just 65 years of age her life was ending.  However, his grandmother wasn't willing to give up so easily.

She saw a report on television about a man called Nathan Pritikin, an early lifestyle-medicine pioneer who had earned himself a reputation for reversing terminal heart disease.  What did she have to lose?  She booked herself in for a supervised plant-based diet and exercise program.  The story goes that they wheeled her in and she walked out on her own.

Dr Greger says he'll never forget that.  Within 3 weeks, his grandmother was walking 10 miles a day.  He was still a child, but he got to play with his grandmother again and it inspired him to study medicine.  In fact, his grandmother, who was given a death sentence at 65, got to see her grandson graduate and she later died at the ripe old age of 96.

Back then - and even now, the medical profession is suspicious of the power of food on health.  Even now, a lot of the medical profession uses drugs to slow the progression of disease, and surgery is used to bypass clogged arteries, but disease is almost always expected to gradually progress until the patient eventually dies - usually after years of ill health.

However, what we do know now is that once we stop eating a diet that promotes clogging of the arteries, our bodies can actually heal themselves.

It has been assumed for years that lots of the diseases that can kill us are pre-programed into our genes.  Diseases such as high blood pressure, heart attacks and even cancer.  However our genes actually only account for about 10-20% of risk.  The other 80-90% of risk is down to our lifestyle and our diets.  The typical Western diet is the number 1 cause of death and disability.

There are just 4 simple healthy lifestyle factors that have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic

diseases:

1. Not smoking
2. Not being obese
3. At least half an hour of exercise everyday
4. Healthy eating (Consuming more fruits, vegetables and whole grains and less meat)

If you can acquire these 4 healthy habits then you may be able to eliminate more than 90% of your risk of developing diabetes, more than 80% of your heart attack risk, reduce by 50% your risk of suffering a stroke, and reduce your overall risk of cancer by more than a third.

A lot of this is down to a tiny "thing" on the tip of each of your chromosomes called a telomere.  Each of your cells has 46 strands of DNA coiled into chromosomes.  At the tip of each chromosome there is a tiny cap called a telomere - think of it like the plastic tip on the end of your shoelace.  Every time your cells divide, a tiny bit of telomere disappears, and once the telomere has completely gone then your cells can die.

Telomeres can start shortening as soon as you are born, but when they are gone, then you are gone too.  The good news is that what you eat can protect your telomeres.

Diets rich in fruits, vegetables and other antioxidant rich foods have been associated with longer, protective telomeres.  On the other hand, diets high in refined grains, fizzy drinks, meat, fish and dairy have been linked to shortened telomeres.

However, there is more.  In the White Mountains of California, a type of tree called the bristlecone pine has been growing for almost 4,800 years.  In the pines' roots an enzyme can be found that seems to peak a few thousand years into their life span which actually rebuilds telomeres.  It has been aptly named telomerase by scientists.  The great thing about this discovery is that once the scientists knew what to look for, they found telomerase in human cells too.

Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel Prize in Medicine winner in 2009 for her discovery of telomerase and Dr Dean Ornish teamed up to see how they could activate telomerase in humans.

The duo found that after just three months on a plant-based diet, together with exercise, significantly boosted telomerase activity.  They also did a 5 year follow-up study which found that the telomeres of the control group who had not changed their lifestyles had predictably shrunk with age while the group that had changed their lifestyles showed that their telomeres had GROWN.

Not only had they not shrunk or stayed the same, they had actually grown, suggesting that a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity which can reverse cellular aging.

Yet again, here is proof that a plant-based diet is the healthiest way of eating.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com