PAMPs in your processed food

First of all, maybe it would be a good idea to identify what are processed foods.  Processed foods are anything that has been treated, chopped, minced and/or had ingredients added to them.  Think minced meat (even if it is just that...), ready- prepared ingredients such as pre-chopped onions, or bagged lettuce.  Processed foods does not JUST apply but does include, sausages, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc..

Unprocessed foods are; steak, whole fish, untouched foods such as onions, leeks, tomatoes, cabbage, etc..

So, what is wrong with minced meat, ready-chopped onion, etc???  Well, a group of molecules called Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs).

These molecules are undetectable in fresh foods, but are abundant in junk food, processed foods, pasta sauces and sandwiches.  It is believed that these PAMPs grow during the manufacturing process where the foods are chopped and refrigerated.

These PAMPs are believed to increase the risk of conditions such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes, causing our immune systems to overreact and therefore damaging our health.

Scientists at the University of Leicester have tested the effects of a low PAMP diet and have compared it to lowering a person's risk of type 2 diabetes by more than 15%.  Dr. Clett Erridge, the lead researcher has said;

"It has been understood for many years that frequent consumption of highly processed
foods, particularly processed meats, is associated with increased risk of developing a range of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity."

Dr. Erridge and his team have discovered the mechanism by which processed foods increase the risk of developing these diseases.  They have discovered that the molecules that contaminate processed foods arise from the overgrowth of a specific type of bacteria during the refrigeration or food manufacturing process.

"These can cause our immune systems to overreact in a manner that might be damaging to health when we eat foods containing these molecules," Dr. Erridge said.

The researchers tested volunteers on a diet low in PAMPs for 1 week, the result was that the diet had vast beneficial effects on the health of the volunteers.  First of all their white blood cell count decreased by 11% - a high white blood cell count can indicate other problems such as infection, stress, inflammation, trauma, allergy, or indicate certain diseases.

Secondly their LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) was reduced by 18%.  The volunteers also lost an average of 0.6kg in weight and 1.5cm from their waist circumference in just 1 week.

The reductions in waist circumference and the decrease in the white cell count are equivalent to lowering their risk of type 2 diabetes by more than 15%.

The researchers believe that by testing the levels of PAMPs in foods during processing could help manufacturers discover during which part of the process the PAMP molecules are arising and therefore be able to eliminate them:

"Crucially, we have found that some processed foods do not contain these molecules, and our results suggest it should be possible to manufacture almost any current food in a manner that results in a low content of harmful PAMP molecules," said Dr. Erridge

Removing the molecules from food could make foods healthier without changing the taste, texture, cost or ingredients.  So, could there be a "healthy" future for junk and processed foods?

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

How what you eat NOW can affect your future children

Yes, I have ranted and raged about processed foods, too much sugar, and too much salt for years.  However, until relatively recently the clinical studies that were published were biased, for example:

"The Importance of Breakfast Cereals" sponsored by Kelloggs or

"The need for milk produce on a daily basis." sponsored by Danone

Yes, I made these up to make a point.  Clinical trials and studies cost money and until relatively recently the people with the money were the big companies such as Danone, Kelloggs, Coca Cola, etc..

However, over the last few years, we are getting more and more unbiased information from studies carried out at universities with public funding, studies that have not succumbed to the pressure of the lobbyists for the big food companies.

One such study shocked me this week; Dr. Ian Myles from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the lead author on a study published in Nutrition Journal, which looked at the effect the Western diet and lifestyle has on people's immune function.

Unsurprisingly, it found that processed and junk food were to blame for the whole host of problems such as; increased inflammation, reduced control of infection, increased risks of cancer, and increased risk for allergies and auto-inflammatory disease.

Now, as if this wasn't scary enough, the study authors go on to explain that poor dietary choices get

"encoded" into both DNA scaffolding and into the gut microbiome (environment).  This means that food and lifestyle choices can create permanent changes in the balance of bacteria in our bodies which can cause the immune system to weaken.  This also means that those changes can be passed onto our children during pregnancy.

Dr. Myles says he was surprised by how heavily gut bacteria determined a child's health:

"Our bodies are a kind of mini-ecosystem, and anything that disturbs our bacteria can alter our health in profound ways," he says.

Dr. Mercola has written extensively on the importance of gut health and the flora contained within, and how any disruption can lead to many health problems in the future, here is a brief summary of what he has to say:

"Research shows that your gut flora can affect numerous processes in your body, including your metabolism, energy production, nutrition, and genetic expression.

"Your intestinal microflora is unique, although your will likely have one of three general "communities" of bacteria.  This microbial balance is exceptionally sensitive to environmental conditions, beginning at birth.  Children who are born with severely damaged gut flora are not only more susceptible to disease; they are also more susceptible to vaccine damage.

"Choice of foods can alter your microflora in a matter of days, for better or worse.  The ideal way to optimize your gut flora is to include fermented foods in your daily diet.  While most probiotic supplements contain no more than 10 billion colony-forming units, one serving of fermented vegetables can contain 10 TRILLION colony-forming units of bacteria.  Fermented foods also give you a wide variety of beneficial bacteria, so all in all, it's your most cost effective alternative."

Next week, I'll talk about fermented foods.  Also, one thing we should all remember on a daily basis:

If it has an ingredient label, you really shouldn't be eating 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 

Legal Drug Pushers

Food manufacturers are pushing drugs legally.  Salt, sugar and fat are just as dangerous to our health as other "hard drugs".  And, the western world has been hooked on these three for so long that no-one really knows when it started.

However, the side effects of these drugs are not the ones you would normally associate with "hard drugs".  Sugar - especially in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup, puts a great strain on the liver, raised levels of fat in the bloodstream and  a whole range of problems, which are all associated with cardiovascular disease.

Excessive intake of salt has been linked to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease and over-consumption of fat to obesity, diabetes and other related epidemics.

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for fat for women is 70g and for men 90-95g, for children aged 4-18 years of age it is 25-35% of total calories.  RDA for sugar for women is 25g or 6 teaspoons, men 37.5g or 9 teaspoons and children should keep sugar intake to 6g or less per day.  RDA for salt in adults is 2,300mg (2.3g) equivalent to about 1 teaspoon.  In children aged 2-3 years 1,000 mg (1g), ages 4-8 = 1,200 mg and ages 9-18 = 1,500 mg.

So what is being put in our food and why?

Food manufacturers put extra salt, sugar and fat in foods to make them taste better.  They even have a term for it: "BLISS POINT".  This is how manufacturers describe levels of sugar, fat and salt in processed foods that are so appealing they guarantee we will be coming back for more.

Michael Moss, an award winning investigative writer, has spent more than three years investigating the science of junk food for his new book: Salt, Sugar and Fat: How the food giants hooked us.

His investigations have uncovered an unsavory amount of tricks employed by food manufacturers to tempt us into buying foods that are often extremely unhealthy.  Tricks such as changing the physical shape of salt to altering the chemical make-up of sugar and even giving crisps a louder crunch.

Moss spoke to many executives and scientists at multinationals such as Pepsi, Kraft, Kelloggs, Unilever and Mars and discovered that at the heart of all the corporate strategies are three legal drugs: salt, fat and sugar.  Moss also found that there is no limit as to how far the industry will go to harness the seductive powers of these 3 drugs.

Companies use the results from MRI-scanning to study the sensory power of food - for example, how sugar lights up our brains the same way it does after someone has taken cocaine.

Their objective is to achieve the perfect link between food and pleasure in consumers' brains to make us come back for more, so the industry has become obsessed with finding that "BLISS POINT".

In the case of sugar, the Bliss Point is the precise amount of sweetness that makes food and drink most enjoyable.  There is a vast amount of work involved with pinpointing the Bliss Point; it means scientifically testing thousands of customers' preferences, intricate mathematical formulae, and analyzing surveys of populations for cultural and demographic differences.  For example; in China, people in the south of the country have a sweeter tooth than those in the north.  Bliss Points can also vary by age no just geographically; studies show that the Bliss Point for children can be an amazing 36% sugar content in food - three times that of most adults.

This means that the manufacturers who manage to hit on the most Bliss Points generate by far the biggest profits.  However, their profits come at a cost for the general public - those Bliss Points come with the side effects of many of their customers becoming dangerously obese and close to addiction.  The junk food industry even labels its most faithful customers as "HEAVY USERS", says Moss.

Moss, who works for the New York Times, managed to persuade three of the biggest food manufacturers to let him sample their products with significantly reduced levels of salt, sugar and fat, while researching his book.  He soon discovered how powerful these 3 ingredients can be.

Kellogg produced a salt-less version of a savory cracker that Moss loves:

"Without any salt, the crackers lost their magic.  They felt like straw, chewed like cardboard, and had zero taste," he says.

The same happened with soups, meats and breads that other manufacturers made for him including Campbell: "Take more than a little salt, or sugar or fat out of processed food, these experiments showed, and there is nothing left.  Or even worse, what is left are the inexorable consequences of food processing; repulsive tastes that are bitter, metallic and astringent."

However, it is still cheaper for food manufacturers to make sugar, salt and fat more alluring by interfering with their chemical make-up than attempting to make their products more appetizing.

Moss reports that Nestlé's scientists are actually modifying the distribution and shape of fat globules in foods to affect the way they feel in the mouth.

Research on brain reaction to food reveals that the pleasure of fatty foods is as much about the FEEL as the TASTE.  We feel fat through the trigeminal nerve, located above and behind the mouth.  It sends tactile information about fat to the brain, and the better the experience, the bigger the craving.

It isn't just the food manufacturers adding too much to processed foods.  At Cargill, the U.S. based world's leading salt supplier, scientists are pulverizing salt into a fine powder so that when consumed, it hits the taste buds faster and harder, improving the "flavor burst", says Moss.  It is developments such as these that have made crisps (potato chips) more irresistible than 20 years ago.

And it sin't just salt.  Sugar is also being altered in many different ways.  Not only have food scientists created enhancers to boost the sweetness of sugar by up to 200 times, one component, fructose, has also been crystalized into an additive that boosts the allure of foods with a naturally low content.

The Food and Drink Federation in Britain is keen to be seen in a friendly light and argues that its members are being responsible by lowering salt levels to help customers make healthy choices.

The Federation's Director of Food Safety, Science and Health, Barbara Gallani says:

"UK food and drink manufacturers' efforts to tackle obesity and diet-related diseases are long-standing."  

 She states that members of the Federation have voluntarily cut salt levels by 10% in the past 5 years and improved product labeling.

There is no current evidence that food is actually addictive, and Ms Gallani bases the Federation's defense on that,

"Recent scientific reviews show there is no evidence to suggest food addiction exists in people, either to specific foods or to nutrients like sugar or fat."

I am still trying to reconcile myself with her classing SUGAR as a NUTRIENT!

However, on the other side of the pond, Moss says no one is more aware of the problems caused by salt, sugar and fat than the processed food companies.

In 1999, the 11 heads of the largest U.S. food companies met in secret to discuss how to tackle the emerging obesity epidemic by managing recipes and strategies.  However, no positive action followed, these companies are totally dependent on these 3 ingredients and no one is willing to be the only one to probably lose profits against the others by producing healthier products for their customers.

In the UK, manufacturers have reduced salt in their products over the past 10 years.  However, obesity levels continue to rise, probably because companies have found a way to relieve the pressure put on them about making their products healthier.

Moss explains in his book that when food makers have to reduce on of the three key ingredients, they often increase the levels of the other two to make up for the lost appeal.  Therefore, products labeled "low salt" may have higher levels of fat and sugar.

"It is one of the industry's most devious moves," says Moss, that is why we must all be very wary of products whose labels proclaim: "Now low in..."

Proof of this is in the fact that most executives at the big food companies tend not to eat their own products, according to Moss,

"I found that many of the executives I talked to go out of their way to avoid their own products," he says, "especially if they have run into health problems." 

They prefer to eat fresh foods and take regular exercise to stay fit and healthy.

I believe that if the industry is going to put its customers first then the way to go is to gradually reduce salt, fat and sugar over time.  There is evidence that our taste buds do adapt over time.  Obviously a drastic cut too quickly would be rejected but a gradual one would go unnoticed.  However, if you really want to be healthy, my advice is to follow the example of the executives and eat fresh foods and take regular exercise - processed foods are not doing any of us any favors.


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com