More Food Marketing BS

 

Many people think that what is printed on food packaging is regulated by the FDA and that it therefore cannot be inaccurate or misleading. Unfortunately this is not really true. The actual nutrition label on the package is regulated but little else. Companies are forbidden from printing outright lies but this leaves lots of room for the marketing department to get creative. They realize that healthy sells, so they invest a lot of creative thought into giving their products a so called "health halo", especially when they are not that healthful at all.

"When food marketing is done well, it slips right through the radar of your critical thinking," says Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of food studies and nutrition at NYU and no relation to the food giant of the same name. "It is intentionally designed to make you think emotionally, and before you know it you have picked up a box of junk masquerading as healthy food."

Here are just a few of the ways that you are intentionally being manipulated.

NO CHOLESTEROL!

Cholesterol is only found in animal products. So seeing a no cholesterol claim on any plant based product - say a jar of peanut butter or a bottle of vegetable oil - is not untrue. It is just meaningless. It has no less cholesterol than similar products without the label claim. None at all.

MADE WITH REAL FRUIT/VEGETABLES!

We all know that fruits and vegetable are good for us and that we should probably be eating more of them. So does the marketing department. Remember that the ingredient list on food packages is in order of weight. The farther down on the list an item is, the less of it there is. So if the "real" fruit or vegetable is in the top four or five items on the list it is probably significant. Otherwise it is noise. The same as saying that your salad is "made with real pepper" because you ground a few flakes on top of it. But it is worse than just getting very little "real fruit/vegetables". What you do get is more likely grape or apple juice or processed fruit/vegetable powder. Again not a lie. But not what you are lead to expect.

KETO!

Ketogenic foods contain little or no carbohydrates, especially added sugar. But this by no means is a synonym for healthy. Foods with the keto claim are often ultra-processed and contain additives and artificial sweeteners that are of questionable safety. Probably not what you were looking for.

GLUTEN FREE!

Many gluten free versions of breads, pastas and baked goods are very low in fiber and firmly in the ultra-processed category, making them an unhealthy choice. Even better, you will frequently find this claim on foods that contain no gluten anyway. I have even seen wine advertised as gluten free, as if grapes had any gluten in them to begin with. Unless you have celiac disease or a diagnosed gluten sensitivity there is no reason to avoid gluten in the first place. The number of celebrities swearing by it does not make it a health food.

UNCURED!

Deli meats and hot dogs are normally preserved using synthetic nitrates and nitrites, which are known to raise the risk of some cancers. What to do to coax you into eating them anyway? Preserve your sausage with celery seed powder! It is an "all natural" source of nitrates and nitrites and your body can't tell the difference. "Uncured" may sound healthier, but it isn't. But who cares as long as you buy it.

 

These examples barely scratch the surface of the many ways that you are mislead, misinformed or manipulated into buying something you think is good for you that is really only good for the manufacturer. After all, they aren't the ones it will make sick. What can you do? Be skeptical and don't rely on anything you see on a food package except the ingredient list and the nutrition label.

Does Anybody Really Need Suplements?

 

More than half of all American adults take a supplement product every day, a figure that rises to over 70% among those aged 65 or older. In fact, the use of supplements is so widespread, it has become a $37 billion business. What benefits are people expecting from this? Is it sensible or just a huge marketing triumph and waste of money?

You will often hear that supplementing is a waste of money because we can get all the nutrition that we ever need from our food. This is true. In an ideal world, we'd all be eating copious amounts a variety of nutrient-dense foods such as fruits and vegetables and getting all the essential vitamins and nutrients our bodies need for optimal health. But, here on planet Earth, we're far from that healthful eating ideal.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans, on average, eat only about one fruit and one or two vegetables on a typical day. This helps explain why millions of people fall short of the recommended intakes of some vitamins and minerals. For instance, more than 1 in 3 children and teens (ages 9 to 18) don't meet recommended intakes for calcium and vitamin D, according to a study in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Fortification efforts, such as the Food and Drug Administration's requirement that folic acid be added to many cereals and breads, have paid off. Folate levels in women increased by 50 percent between 1993 and 2006. This is critical, since folate helps prevent birth defects. But wait! Isn't adding folate to bread, well, supplementation?

This is the best justification for regularly taking a nutritional supplement - taking a daily multivitamin with minerals may be helpful in closing the gap between what we need and what we actually eat.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that supplements helped adults meet the recommended intake of certain minerals, such as calcium and magnesium in men and women, as well as iron for women. Another study by the National Institutes of Health found that in children and teenagers (ages 9 to 18), taking supplements added nutrients (for example, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins A, C, and E) for which intakes would have been inadequate from food alone. 

Even those of us who eat a well balanced diet of clean foods may still be missing some key nutrients. Unless you happen to be eating soy, kale, collards, okra and pomegranats you may be coming up short on Vitamin K. Not eating a lot of Brazilnuts, spinach or oatmeal? You may be shortchanging yourself on selenium.

If you have the time and tools to accurately track your micronutrient intake and the ambition to carefully plan and prepare your meals, then the odds are good a supplement would not do you much good. For the rest of us, they are a sensible, affordable insurance policy against dietary deficiency.

Phytonutrients Give Produce its Coloful Cachet

 

When it comes to fruits and vegetables we are often told to eat a wide variety of different colored produce - in addition to just eating more. Ever wonder why that is? 

Plants provide an enormous variety of nutrients. Phytonutrients - literally, any substance of plant origin that provides nutrition - number over 5,000. Phytonutrients contain different pigments which give them their color. Focusing on eating a variety of colors will increase your intake of different nutrients to benefit various areas of your health.

Its also a simple way to ensure you are getting a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and proteins without having to delve into the nutritional contant of each thing you eat (not that you would).

Want to know what red's got that green doesn't? Here is a quick read that will explain what each color contributes to your diet - and your health.

Yes, It CAN Happen to You

In 2023, American consumers lost $10 billion to fraud, and by far the most common swindles were internet imposter schemes. According to a CNBC report, nearly 854,000 people filed complaints to the FTC about imposter scams in 2023, representing about a third the total consumer fraud reports that the agency received. Consumers lost $2.7 billion to such scams and the average loss was $800. How many such scams went unreported is anyone's guess.

An imposter scam is when someone pretends to be someone you trust to persuade you to send them money, or to give them information that they can use to steal your identity (any your money) later. A scammer may falsely claim to be a romantic interest, the government, the IRS, a relative in distress, a well-known business (Amazon is especially popular with scammers), or a customer or technical support expert. A particularly popular scam is to claim to be the "security department" at a company you do business with claiming that there is suspicious activity on your account and asking for you help to get to the bottom if it.

Surprisingly, Millennials, Gen X, GenY are about 30% more likely to fall for such schemes than are people over 60. But older people are much more likely to get in deeply and lose more money than younger ones. For example, victims age 80 and older had a median loss of $1,450. By comparison, the typical loss didn’t exceed $500 for those younger than 70.

Right about now you are congratulating yourself for being too skeptical, to well informed or just too smart to fall for any such nonsense. And yet hundreds of people just as skeptical, informed and smart as you are do fall for them every day.

Internet scams are carefully designed by scammers and criminals to manipulate your emotions and tap into your unconscious biases, so you are practically hardwired to fall for them, says cybersecurity expert and computer scientist Daniela Oliveira, an associate professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In one study a group of people who ranging in age from 18 to 89 were sent a variety of  so-called “spear-phishing emails,” that is, phishing emails that are somewhat tailored to the individual and targeting different approaches such as finances, health, ideological issues, legal issues, security and social issues. If the user took the bait and clicked on the link in the phishing email, they were sent to a fake, innocuous webpage, and the researchers recorded a hit. 

At the end of the study, the participants were asked to read a set of 21 phishing emails and rate how likely they would be to click on each one. People indicated a very low likelihood that they’d fall for them even though 43 percent of them took the bait during the study and clicked on the links at least once and 11.9 percent clicked more than once when they were not told in advance that the email was a scam.

So yes, even you can fall for it. 

Here is the rest of the CNBC report, including suggestions for how you can reduce the odds of getting caught up in an internet scam yourself.

 

Healthy Soda?

 

Carbonated prebiotic sodas with names like Olipop, Poppi and Vive Organic that promise to boost your fiber intake – and your health – by feeding the trillions of microorganisms that live in your gut. Even Coke and Pepsi are muscling their way into the fiber game.

"There's been so much research that has shown that if you consume more fiber, you are healthier," says Hannah Holscher, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois. She says fiber does way more than just help keep us regular. It helps control blood sugar levels and lower cholesterol and inflammation. A review of 185 studies and dozens of clinical trials found that diets rich in fiber were linked to a lower risk of major health problems like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. 

Say no more! Big Soda's marketing experts are on the case! Now your fizzy, sugary indulgence comes with inulin, a pre-biotic fiber. Healthy soda is here at last!

Not so fast.

Justin Sonnenburg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University says when it comes to added fiber in foods, "the intuition in the field is that that's probably better than nothing."

But it's not at all clear that prebiotic fibers added to processed food and drinks have the same health benefits that come from eating a variety of whole foods that are naturally high in fiber. For one thing, says Sonnenburg, the purified fibers that are added to foods are much simpler structures than fiber naturally found in plant foods. And this means they get fermented faster, by microbes that live near where the small intestine meets the large intestine. That means those purified fibers might not reach the microbes living further down the large intestine – and they need to be fed, too.

Translation? Less unhealthy does not equate to healthy.

 

 

Can You Touch Your Toes?

 

We talk here a lot of the important benefits of exercise. Strength training to slow or prevent muscle loss. Cardio for heart health and to keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. Balance to prevent falls and preserve mobility. There is another very important type of exercise that too often gets ignored, especially as we age: flexibility and stretching.

Flexibility is the ability of the muscles and tendons to lengthen and stretch in response to movement and allow a joint to move through its range of motion. A good stretching program is important to incorporate into your daily routine to help maintain flexibility. Losing range of motion in our joints compromises our mobility.

Stretching allows for greater movement in joints and improves posture. It also helps to release muscle tension and soreness, and reduces the risk of injury. Lastly, it may also help increase circulation, muscle control, and improve balance and coordination. 

Everyone should incorporate stretches into their exercise routine but especially seniors. With age, we gradually lose the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion. By age 70, 25%-30% of overall flexibility is usually lost. Some joints are affected more than others. For example, a shoulder flexion loss of 15% was observed in one study between 20-30 year olds and 70 year olds whereas a study on hamstring flexibility observed a 30% loss between similar age groups. 

The good news is that stretching exercises are simple (not to be confused with easy, especially at first), can be done by most anyone (including many people with physical limitations) and require no special clothes or equipment. Here are some guidelines for stretching effectively from the National Institutes for Health.

• Take a deep breath and slowly exhale as you stretch.
  
• Hold each stretch for 30 seconds to give the muscles ample time to relax.
• Don’t bounce while you stretch, this increases your risk of injury.
• Only stretch until you feel tension in the muscle, not to the point of pain.
• Always warm up before stretching by moving around for 5 to 10 minutes, such as going for a walk. 

By incorporating a stretching program into your week, you may benefit from increased flexibility, relaxation, and an improved quality of life. Here are some stretching exercises to get you started.

Help! I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

 

There is a joke that goes like this....

"For some people a good day is a call from the kids. For others, going out with friends. Still others take adventure vacations. For me, a good day is when I can stand up and get both legs in my pants without falling over."

I still think that is funny, possibly because I can relate to it. (I have conceded and put mine on sitting down now.) But there is nothing funny about falls, especially if you are 65 years old or older.

Falls in the home are the second leading cause of death among the elderly and closing in on number 1, rising about 25% in the last few years. For people over 75, most falls occur on the stairs and even if such a fall is not fatal, the consequences can be dire. Every year, 3 million older adults are treated in emergency departments for injuries related to falling. With over 800,000 hospitalizations due to fall injuries like broken bones in the wrist, arm, or ankle, hip fractures or head injuries.

Here are some things you can do to reduce your risk.

#1. Take it seriously! Pay attention. By simply by watching your feet and being conscious of where you’re stepping, you can reduce your risk of falling dramatically — especially when walking up or down stairs. The stairs are not the place to multitask or check your phone.

#2. Stay active! Get regular exercise, including stretches and balance exercises. Get out. Walk. Move. Use it or lose it.

#3. Light the way. Keeping areas well-lit can help you see obstacles before you trip over them, and using nightlights or having illuminated wall plates can help you stay balanced and oriented as you head for the bathroom at 3am.

#4. Add safety features to your home. All stairs should have a railing—and you should always use the railing when walking up and down stairs. And if there are slippery areas in your house, add non-slip tape or carpeting to reduce the risk. Walking around on a hardwood floor in your socks is a great way to end up laying on it.

#5. Bathrooms can be risky places for falls because of water pooling on tiled floors. Adding bars to shower walls can help prevent slipping injuries while bathing, and adding a rug with a non-slip backing can help reduce this risk. I wont even mention having a rubber bathmat in the shower. You already do right?

#6. When doing work around the house, always make sure you are on sturdy footing and your work is well illuminated. Better yet, have your kids fix it. They owe you.

#7. Have your phone with you even when you are just puttering around at home. If something should happen, you want to be able to get help.

No one expects to take a serious fall. And yet it happens millions of times every year. And it CAN happen to you.

Five Aging Myths You Can Stop Worrying About

 

Most of what we hear about aging comes from two sources. Aging "experts" who are not all that old and marketing departments trying to separate older people from more of their money. Here are five things that we all know for sure about aging that are just not so.

1. A sunny, positive, optimistic disposition increases your life span.

2. Working too hard for too long will put you in an early grave.

3. If people in your family tend to die young, you will too. Its all about genes.

4. Aging is the worst! Getting old just sucks.

5. It’s too late to do any good by giving up bad habits like smoking, eating crap and
    an exercise routine that primarily consists of watching TV.

None of these things are true. Read more about each of them here. Then go annoy your children.

Managing Your Biological (Physiological) Age

 

We spoke a bit last week about the differences between our chronological and biological age. If you used the calculator I provided (or another one you like better) you should now have an idea how the two age numbers differ for you. I, for example, have a chronological age of 72 and a biological age of 63. That is definitely better than having it the other way around, but it left me feeling that I can do better.

Biological age, also called physiological age, is a measure of how well or poorly your body is functioning relative to your actual calendar age. If yours is lower than your chronological age, congratulations. You are doing something right. But what if the reverse is true, or there is not much difference between the two for you. Is there anything you can do of lower your biological age - or at least slow biological aging down?

The sort answer is yes. But it is not to be found among the many amazing, incredible anti-aging supplements crowding the TV commercials and drugstore shelves.

Genetics matters. Just as specific diseases run in families, longevity does also. An Adventist Health study shows that with optimal lifestyle habits, such as no tobacco or alcohol use, regular exercise, vegetarianism, and effective management of stress, people generally have an average life expectancy of about 86 years. Anything above that suggests a genetic component. If you have family members who have lived longer than 86 years, chances are you'll live a long life too. 

But there is not a lot that you can do about your genes. (Although the emerging science of epigentics may eventually change that.) That leaves - yes, you guessed it - your lifestyle.Healthy habits can have a significant impact on your longevity and biological age. These include:

• Exercise habits
• Eating habits
• Stress levels
• Alcohol consumption
• Level of education
• Amount of sleep
• Sexual and romantic relationships
• Tobacco use and exposure to other environmental toxins

Since the impact of lifestyle - for good or for bad - compounds with time, the sooner you adopt healthy habits the greater the impact will be. But that definitely does not mean that it is ever too late to get started. Here is a 6-step plan to begin lowering your biological age. What do you have to lose?

Five Easy Ways to Eat Your Veggies

 

Ok so you are SO tired of hearing that. Seems like the solution to everything is stuffing more vegetable into your reluctant maw. If, like me, you were traumatized by your mom's firm belief that vegetables were best prepared by boiling them for 12 hours, eating more of them can be an even less appealing prospect. And about 90% of Americans don't eat enough of them.

This is really a shame. Vegetables are a great source of healthy nutrients like fiber, potassium, folate and vitamin A. They also play a big role in helping people lose or maintain weight since all that fiber helps fill you up. Plus, when you're eating more low calorie vegetables there's less space for eating higher-calorie, less-healthful foods. 

If you are tired of heading to the grocery store armed with a list and good intentions only to throw away most of the vegetables that you dragged home, here are five really easy ways to work more of them into your diet.

1. Experiment with how you prepare them.

Growing up, there was one way to prepare vegetables in my home - boil them until you could eat them with a straw. As soon as I was living on my own, vegetables were banished. You too may think you don't like vegetables, but maybe you just haven't tried the right preparation. You can boil them if you want but it is probably the worst way to prepare them, since you leave a good deal of their nutrients behind in the water. Try steaming them. Its fast, they don't overcook and the nutrients are preserved. Tossing them in a little garlic and olive oil and roasting them works especially well for root vegetables and has an amazing power to make even Brussels sprouts taste, well, good. Saute them in a pan. You can even eat them raw!

2. Expand beyond dinner.

Add spinach or peppers or tomatoes to your omelette. Onions are a vegetable and what isn't better with onions? Stuff your sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and peppers. Toss some cucumber or carrot into your smoothies. You don't have to do anything weird or disgusting (sorry, just not a green smoothie guy). But vegetables are not just for dinner.

3. Find your crock pot and use it.

The crock pot is truly one of cooking's great inventions. Toss a bunch of stuff into it, go on off to work and when you get home, dinner is ready. Soups and stews are both easy to make and a natural place to dump those vegetables that you brought back from the store last week. Soup is a great way to eat more vegetables because you can add a whole lot of produce to your soup pot. Toss some carrots into your chili (I know I said nothing gross but this is not, I promise). 

4. Snack on vegetables.

Keep some veggies cut up into snack-sized pieces in your fridge. You are saving so many calories snacking on them that you can afford to go a little decadent on your dip. Ranch dressing, cottage cheese, cream cheese, salsa and hummus all work to jazz up the carrots, celery and cherry tomatoes. And speaking of hummus, make your own. Just puree a can of chickpeas in your blender with some bell peppers and whatever spices you like. Or roast something weird like kale with olive oil, salt and spices to make healthy snack chips. No one will know.

5. Sneak them into sauces.

Adding extra vegetables to your sauces and dressings is a sneaky way to increase your veggie intake, especially if you have picky kids. While you’re cooking sauces, such as marinara sauce, creole dishes or pesto simply add some veggies and herbs and spices of your choice to the mix. Onions, carrots, bell peppers, and leafy greens like spinach all work well. Just cut them up small. Pureeing roasted root vegetables can make for rich sauces with an Alfredo-like feel.

So there are a few ideas to get you started. If you don't like any of these, here is a list of 22 ways to work more of these nutritional ninjas into your diet routine. You may enjoy the challenge of doing something good for yourself. Heckfire, you may even discover that you like it!

Animal Protein: Best to Worst

If you are vegetarian or vegan, you can skip this. For the rest of us, meat, poultry and fish form the foundation of our protein consumption. While there is plenty of protein to be had from non-meat and even non-animal sources, many people turn to animal products for most of theirs. Does it matter which meats you choose? Is one type healthier than another?

The answer turns out to be yes, though with the exception of processed meats the differences are not vast. Still, small differences can add up to big results over the years. So here is a handy chart showing the best (salmon) to worst (bacon) sources of animal based protein. Use it as you will.

Protein Problem? What Protein Problem?

 

Never one to miss a marketing opportunity or let facts get in the way of profit, protein has become a darling of the food industry. It seems to be showing up in everything from breakfast cereals to candy.

Protein deficiency can be a serious health risk, and it’s a common cause of malnutrition in many parts of the world. Protein is a macronutrient, meaning it is required in large amounts in the diet for proper growth, development, and overall health. But the truth is, it is very rare for people to be protein deficient in the United States. In general, if you’re eating enough calories, you’re probably naturally eating enough protein. More than enough, in fact. On average, Americans consume about twice the recommended amount.

In fact, over-consumption of protein can be detrimental. Overloading your diet with protein can mess up your macronutrient balance. Eating high amounts of protein is usually achieved by eating lots of meat and dairy products, and these are often high in saturated fat, and low in fiber.

The recommended daily intake of protein varies depending on your overall health and how much physical activity you have in your day. The current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is 46 grams for women and 56 grams of protein for men. But this can vary a lot based on your body weight and level of physical activity. A good rough estimate for your requirements is 0.4g per pound of body weight. So a 200 pound person would need about 80g per day.