Note to Mothers

[Source]

Just Drink Water

Remember, kids: Fruit drinks are eeeee-vil.

Check out the full infographic by clicking here.

[Source]

Moderation and Personal Responsibility Have Worked Out Well For Paula Deen

“The worst, most dangerous person to America is clearly Paula Deen. She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations and she's proud of the fact that her food is fucking bad for you. I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it is okay to eat food that is killing us. Plus, her food sucks." 

-Anthony Bourdain

Remember when I wrote about the speculation that Paula Deen is secretly diabetic? Speculate no more!

This morning, the 64-year-old Deen announced to Al Roker that she has Type 2 diabetes, and admitted that she’s been hiding this secret for three years “because I had to figure out things in my own head.”

Deen appears to have been waiting for an opportunity to monetize her diagnosis. She’s inked a deal with Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical giant that provides her with diabetes medication. Deen announced today that she and her family are going to start appearing in ads for the company.

But aside from pushing drugs, Deen’s not planning to make any dietary changes, other than curbing her sweet tea addiction.

When asked about whether she will make a change in how she cooks on her show, “Paula’s Best Dishes,” Deen didn't give a direct answer, instead encouraging viewers to practice moderation. 

“Here’s the thing, you know, I’ve always encouraged moderation,” she said. “On my show, you know, I share with you all these yummy, fattening recipes, but I tell people 'in moderation... You can have that little piece of pie ...'" 

"I have always eaten in moderation," she said. "You know, people see me on TV two or three times a day and they see me cooking all these wonderfully Southern, fattening dishes. That’s only 30 days out of 365," she said. "And it’s for entertainment. And people have to be responsible. Like I told Oprah a few years ago, honey, I’m your cook, not your doctor. You are going to have to be responsible for yourself."

Oh, yes. Moderation and personal responsibility have worked out REALLY WELL for Deen. After all, thanks to diabetes, she's landed a lucrative deal with Novo Nordisk! She can still eat "that little piece" of Savannah High Apple Pie as long as she gets free insulin and Victoza injections from a pharmaceutical company! And best of all, she can continue to reap the benefits of peddling ridiculously unhealthy food while admonishing her fans to "be responsible for yourself" and gobble down pills! WIN-WIN!

Let’s be real: Type 2 diabetes can be prevented. Regularly chowing on sugar -- whether in the form of Twinkies or Deen’s Deep-Fried Cheesecake, causes insulin resistance and keeps glucose in the bloodstream -- which in turn forces the pancreas to crank out even more insulin to deal with the blood sugar, which in turn causes more insulin resistance, and on and on. The vicious cycle doesn’t end as long as we continue to poison ourselves with sugar. Taking drugs doesn’t fix the underlying problem; it just manages the symptoms.

(Want more information about the sugar-diabetes connection? Read this article over at Mark’s Daily Apple, or check out my Paleo guide.)

I don't think Deen's "the worst, most dangerous person in America," but she can’t simply be dismissed as a kook with a taste for gross food, either. She has a large following, and is prominent enough to influence hordes of television-viewing home cooks -- many of whom are the primary food gatekeepers for their families. By announcing that diabetes can and should be handled with drugs rather than dietary changes, Deen’s made herself the willfully oblivious poster child for America’s diabetes problem.

[Source: MSNBC, Nom Nom Paleo]

The Opposite of Paleo (In a Can)

On a shopping trip to 99 Ranch this morning, M and I stumbled upon the most stunningly anti-Paleo canned food product we've ever seen: FRIED GLUTEN WITH PEANUTS.

The ingredients of this Taiwanese delicacy? "Wheat gluten, peanuts, water, soy sauce (soybean, wheat, salt), sugar, salt, soybean oil, monosodium glutamate, spices."

Gluten? Check. Legumes? Check. Sugar? Check. Soy? Check. Omega-6-packed oil? Check.

It's like someone decided to pick everything that Paleo eaters avoid and then mash 'em all into a little can.

Seriously: Can you think of another product on a supermarket shelf that's more off-the-charts anti-Paleo? I can't.

There's not a single ingredient in the can (except water, salt, and maybe "spices") that isn't anathema to folks who eat Paleo.

On the plus side, it's vegetarian-friendly, and the can makes a nice paperweight.

The World's First Huffable Soft Drink

Are you bored with your HFCS-infused carbonated beverage? Is sucking a straw too physically strenuous for you? Have you found yourself snorting a can of Cheez Whiz for dinner on a Saturday night, wishing you could power-wash it down with a pressurized stream of sugary soda?

Well, if you're in the U.K., your dreams are about to come true.

Introducing Turbo Tango, the huffable soft drink in an aerosol-pressurized spray can!

With a retail price of £1.60 for 375ml, the product is aimed at teenage consumers.  

Britvic collaborated with a team of more than 40 developers to create what is claimed to be the world’s first plastic aerosol drink.

Simon Stewart, marketing director at Britvic said: "Teen consumers told us they found the category 'samey' and were ready for something genuinely new and different. The reaction to Turbo Tango has been amazing from consumers and customers -- we’ve certainly never had teens trying to buy a pack from us in research before."

Labelling on the cannister advise users to "Hold upright and squirt in your mouth (and nowhere else)."

What excellent advice!

My favorite quote from Mr. Stewart: "With Turbo Tango, we’ve gone one step further and come up with a world first that really is ‘soft drink meets squirty cream.'"

Yum?

[Source]

Cereal Killers

I love these:

More here.

10 Items From Kauai's Costco That Your Costco Doesn't Carry

1. Two aisles of nothin' but macadamia nuts (chocolate-covered and otherwise).

2. A fridge case full of sashimi-grade ahi tuna.

3. Leis made of candy.

4. Fresh poke.

5. Poi, poi, and more poi.

6. Chicken & pork lau lau (surprisingly Paleo -- complete list of ingredients: taro leaves, chicken/pork, butterfish, salt).

7. Kalua Pork -- also pretty darn Paleo.

8. Char-Siu Manapua -- for people who want their pork slathered in sugar and encased in a sweet, fluffy bun.

9. Hawaiian Purple Sweet Potatoes (a.k.a., post-workout snacks).

10. My personal favorite: "Luau" fruit punch syrup -- obesity in liquid form!

But no matter which Costco you visit, please remember that cheese ravioli ain't Paleo.

PepsiCo's Drinkifying Your Snack

It may surprise you to learn that PepsiCo, the largest food-and-beverage company in the U.S., doesn’t just make cola. Eighteen of its brands, including Tropicana, Gatorade, and Quaker Oats, are billion-dollar businesses. And collectively, these brands are responsible for many of the ultra-processed, insanely-sugary snack foods that are killing us. Plainly put, PepsiCo is making people fat and sick.

[Image]

But according to this week's New Yorker, PepsiCo’s CEO, Indra Nooyi, wants the company to help battle the obesity epidemic, and to “lead the fight in the public health realm.” How? By selling "healthy," “scientifically advantaged” snacks that are “good for you."

“It’s not a question of selling less,” Nooyi has said. “It’s a question of selling the right stuff.”

Wow! Does this mean PepsiCo’s going to stop selling, say, PEPSI? Or TOSTITOS? Or AUNT JEMIMA SYRUP (which lists corn syrup AND high fructose corn syrup as its two primary ingredients)?

More after the jump...

Nurses: Pass on the Freebies

In the immediate wake of Star Wars Day and Cinco de Mayo, it may have escaped your notice that today was National Nurses Day. But don’t fret: National Nurses Week runs through May 12, so go celebrate by giving your favorite nurse a high five.

But once your excitement dies down a bit, stop for a moment to ponder the slings and arrows our nurses endure to help keep us healthy -- including irregular hours, night-shift work, physically and mentally draining responsibilities, and lack of sleep. (Two of our mighty 5 a.m. crew members are nurses, and I'm amazed at how they’re able to blast through CrossFit workouts before heading to the hospital for their shifts.)

All of this excess cortisol is taking its toll on the nursing profession as a whole. In May of 2008, the Journal of American Academy of Nurse Practitioners published a study of “the incidence of overweight and obesity in nursing professionals,” and found that 54 percent of the five thousand nurses surveyed were clinically obese or overweight. More than half of these nurses also stated that they “lack the motivation to make lifestyle changes” despite their excess weight.

Thankfully, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Dunkin’ Donuts and Cinnabon are here to save the day.

According to its Twitter feed, Sprinkles handed out free cupcakes to nurses today.

On Monday, Dunkin’ Donuts is delivering thousands of free donuts to hospitals AND giving away sweet, sweet beverages to nurses.

Cinnabon’s even more generous, offering free sugar bombs to our nation’s nurses all week long.

Did you notice that only purveyors of sugary, grain-based desserts are "celebrating" Nurses Week by giving away their products to nursing professionals? Is it just a coincidence that the manufacturers of the #1 source of calories in the Standard American Diet are trying to shovel their evil concoctions into the mouths of our health professionals?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I suspect that these junk food peddlers know exactly what they're doing. It's no accident that they've decided to target an industry full of people whose high stress levels have triggered insatiable sugar cravings: They know full well that  nurses are particularly susceptible to sugar binges due to their elevated cortisol levels. And so these companies have decided to leverage Nurses Week as an excuse to distribute free samples and get more folks hooked on their dietary crack.

Well played, sugar-pushers. Well played.

[Previously: Cupcakes are Evil]

Popcorn & Sleep Deprivation Go Together Like Ponch & Jon

Don't you hate it when you fall asleep eating popcorn? I mean, there's still so much crap to ingest! The popcorn bowl's still full -- and those (obviously caffeine-free) Cokes are going to lose their fizz, dammit.

Thankfully, modern science has come up with the answer: BioFuel Caffeinated Popcorn.

Think sugary kettlecorn, only "loaded with caffeine." You know -- so you can stay up and eat more kettlecorn. And possibly some red velvet cake-battered onion rings, too.

The ingredients in BioFuel Caffeinated Popcorn? "Sugar, light brown sugar, caffeine, canola oil, and salt." And probably some corn, too.

I'm so glad our greater scientific understanding has created this altogether healthy, artistic, and culturally sensitive food product for all to enjoy. Because who needs sleep, anyway?

[Source]

Deen: Diabetes Denier?

Paula Deen has reportedly been concealing her Type II diabetes to avoid charges of hypocrisy for foisting her obesity-promoting recipes on us fat Americans.

Not surprisingly, media reports are pointing to the high fat content in her cooking -- but no one's seems to bat an eye about the truckloads of sugar that she dumps into her gut-rotting concoctions.

Case in point: Deen's "Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce." Back in 2009, when I first wrote about this stupifyingly trashy sugar bomb, I, too, ignored the sugar content, focusing instead on the fat and calories:

This barf-tastic recipe contains 10,460 calories and 718 grams of fat. It's supposed to feed 12, so if you're one of the dozen people digging into this heart attack of a dish, you'll be consuming 870 calories and 60 grams of fat. It's a nutritional Chernobyl.

If I'd have been more diligent (and enlightened), I would have pointed out that this five-star rated recipe also contains 1,280 grams of carbs and 1,082 grams of sugar. That's 90 grams of sugar per serving -- the equivalent of stuffing your face with three full-sized Snickers bars. Or five scoops of chocolate ice cream. Or slurping up a cuppa coffee with 22 sugar cubes in it.

My two cents: Deen should just re-brand herself as an out-and-proud Type II diabetic. After all, she clearly doesn't have a problem pushing nutritional garbage on TV and sickening her audiences (regardless of whether they actually end up cooking and eating her recipes). (See, e.g., Deen's Cheesy Ham & Banana Casserole -- which features, among other incongruous ingredients, crushed potato chips and white bread). And besides: No one believes that eating her food's going to lead to anything other than metabolic syndrome and early death anyway.

Note to the Epic Meal Time guys: Hire her now, before she's too sick to show you how to make Twinkie Pie and Peanut Butter Cheese Fudge dipped in Shrimp & Chocolate Tortilla Soup.

Oh gawd -- I think I just barfed a little in my mouth.

Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream

One of my five food rules: Only cheat when it's absolutely worth it.

I rarely deviate from strict Paleo eating. (Example: In the past several months, I've eaten only one sugary dessert. And THAT one was totally worth it.) It hasn't been all that hard for me to pass up grains, legumes and sugar; I've never been a huge fan of any of the above. I don't have a sweet tooth.

BUT: If -- after careful consideration -- I'm absolutely certain that the pleasure of downing a non-Paleo food item is going to totally eclipse any resulting intestinal distress, I'll have zero qualms about eating it. And once the decision's made, I don't go about it half-assed. I go all out.

Case in point: I drove by Humphry Slocombe today (after picking up rabbit from 4505 Meats -- yes, we're cooking and eating Easter bunny flesh this weekend) -- and as luck would have it, there was a parking space right up front. Visions of Chris Cosentino's Boccalone Prosciutto ice cream danced in my head. I parked the car and hustled inside.



Sadly, there was no prosciutto ice cream on the menu today. But my mind was made up: I wanted to taste every flavor on hand. I tried spoonfuls of Salt & Pepper, Jesus Juice, Ancho Chocolate, Salted Licorice, and whatever else looked sufficiently weird and tasty.

After priming my palate with a sufficiently large bolus of sugar, I ordered a scoop of Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee ice cream (because I love me some Blue Bottle coffee), with a scoop of Secret Breakfast ice cream on top. Secret Breakfast is, of course, "ice cream with bourbon and toasted cornflakes, including so much Jim Beam that the scoops always run soft."

My very first cup of ice cream in 2011, in all its glory:

Booze. Coffee. Cornflakes. Dairy. Sugar. Total faileo, and my gut is going to hate me for it.

But it was delicious.

Life Lessons from the New York Times Magazine

Planning to do some reading? This weekend's New York Times Magazine is jam-packed with healthy goodness.

The cover article by Gary Taubes (you know -- the author of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and "Why We Get Fat") is about the eeeevils of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which we discussed a couple of days ago.

But wait -- there’s much, much more crammed into this little issue! For example:

Mark Bittman shows you how to make lamb -- and how to carve it in three cuts!

James Vlahos spells out exactly why you need to ditch your office chair!

Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology. Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin. “Excessive sitting,” Dr. Levine says, “is a lethal activity.” 

Maggie Jones examines why we need to get more sleep!

Not surprisingly, those who had eight hours of sleep hardly had any attention lapses and no cognitive declines over the 14 days of the study. What was interesting was that those in the four- and six-hour groups had P.V.T. [psychomotor vigilance task] results that declined steadily with almost each passing day. Though the four-hour subjects performed far worse, the six-hour group also consistently fell off-task. By the sixth day, 25 percent of the six-hour group was falling asleep at the computer. And at the end of the study, they were lapsing fives times as much as they did the first day...

Americans average 6.9 hours on weeknights, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Which means that, whether we like it or not, we are not thinking as clearly as we could be.

And Gretchen Reynolds surveys a bunch of talking heads in order to find the BEST EXERCISE EVER.

Other than Taubes' piece, this article was the one that piqued my interest. According to the exercise physiologists interviewed, three movements -- all of which are familiar to any CrossFit enthusiast -- stand head and shoulders above the rest:

Burpees (a.k.a., the King of all Exercises):

Ask a dozen physiologists which exercise is best, and you’ll get a dozen wildly divergent replies. “Trying to choose” a single best exercise is “like trying to condense the entire field” of exercise science, said Martin Gibala, the chairman of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

But when pressed, he suggested one of the foundations of old-fashioned calisthenics: the burpee, in which you drop to the ground, kick your feet out behind you, pull your feet back in and leap up as high as you can. “It builds muscles. It builds endurance.” He paused. “But it’s hard to imagine most people enjoying” an all-burpees program, “or sticking with it for long.”

Squats:

“I nominate the squat,” said Stuart Phillips, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University and an expert on the effects of resistance training on the human body. The squat “activates the body’s biggest muscles, those in the buttocks, back and legs.”

...The squat, and weight training in general, are particularly good at combating sarcopenia, he said, or the inevitable and debilitating loss of muscle mass that accompanies advancing age. “Each of us is experiencing sarcopenia right this minute,” he said. “We just don’t realize it.” Endurance exercise, he added, unlike resistance training, does little to slow the condition... Most physiologists believe that only endurance-exercise training can raise someone’s VO2max. But in small experiments, he said, weight training, by itself, effectively increased cardiovascular fitness.

“I used to run marathons,” he said. Now he mostly weight-trains, “and I’m in better shape.”

Intervals:

High-intensity interval training, or H.I.T. as it’s familiarly known among physiologists, is essentially all-interval exercise. As studied in Gibala’s lab, it involves grunting through a series of short, strenuous intervals on specialized stationary bicycles, known as Wingate ergometers. In his first experiments, riders completed 30 seconds of cycling at the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four minutes, the volunteers repeated the interval several times, for a total of two to three minutes of extremely intense exercise. After two weeks, the H.I.T. riders, with less than 20 minutes of hard effort behind them, had increased their aerobic capacity as much as riders who had pedaled leisurely for more than 10 hours...

The only glaring inadequacy of H.I.T. is that it builds muscular strength less effectively than, say, the squat. But even that can be partially remedied, Gibala said: “Sprinting up stairs is a power workout and interval session simultaneously.”Meaning that running up steps just might be the single best exercise of all.

(What's your poison? Burpees, squats or intervals? Something else entirely?)

So what have we learned from just one issue of the New York Times Magazine?

• Meat is tasty, but skip dessert. 
• Sleep a lot. 
• But when you’re up, don’t sit: Do burpees instead.

Sounds like a plan.

Sugary Things to Avoid This Weekend

It's April 15! Go ahead and celebrate finishing your taxes -- but do your best to steer clear of the following:

South Korean Ice Cream - because it'll make you think you can breakdance.



[Source]

Carved Bananas - because they're the stuff of nightmares.

[Source]

Cookie-Stuffed Cookies - because it all ends up in the same place: Your butt.

[Source]

Oversized Donuts - because just looking at them will give you diabetes.



[Source]

Free Cinnabon (on April 18) - because you know better.

[Source]

Monster Volcano Wedding Cake - because it'll look pretty much the same when it exits your body.

[Source]

Stay strong.

Sweet Poison

The New York Times Magazine just published a lengthy write-up by Gary Taubes about the long-term toxicity of eating sugar and high fructose corn syrup. (And as a special treat for all you Robert Lustig groupies, he's prominently featured in the article.)

Taubes argues that sugar doesn't just make you fat, insulin resistant and diabetic -- it may also promote cancer growth:

As it was explained to me by Craig Thompson, who has done much of this research and is now president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the cells of many human cancers come to depend on insulin to provide the fuel (blood sugar) and materials they need to grow and multiply. Insulin and insulin-like growth factor (and related growth factors) also provide the signal, in effect, to do it. The more insulin, the better they do...

“I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can,” Thompson told me, “because I believe ultimately it’s something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer.” [The director of Harvard Medical School's cancer center, Lewis] Cantley put it this way: “Sugar scares me.”

Me, too.

[Source]

[Update 4/15/11: Who's been keeping the lid on the evils of sugar? The lobbyists, of course.]