On Saturday I decided that it was the right time to try intermittent fasting (IF). As I explained in part 1 (“20 hours without eating: the intermittent fasting experiment“), IF is essentially giving your body a break from food for a set period of time, and then eating the calories and nutrients you need during a specific window. If you are trying to lose weight, the key is during your eating times you take in the appropriate nutrients while maintaining a reasonable and healthy caloric deficit.

In my case I chose to fast for 20 hours, starting at 9PM the previous evening and having only water (and a cup of coffee) until 5PM the next day. I also asked my wife to make dinner for the family to be ready at 5 or so, just so that when the fast was over I could actually eat something substantial and more importantly, planned (in my mind, no plan might equal disaster food-wise). I also asked her to make something extra tasty .

Of course, I wasn’t sure if I could even make it that long mentally. Could I actually last 20 hours without giving in to cravings of, well, anything? How would I do physically and more importantly, emotionally? I decided to go for it, knowing that if things got too out of hand I could always stop. The results were pretty surprising.

Play by play experience of 20 hours of intermittent fasting

These are some of the highlights of how I felt throughout the day. To be fair, I did write this after the fact, but this is what I remember.

9AM: The morning went well, but I discovered right off that bat that the smell of toast makes me instantly hungry. Even burnt toast, which is what happened when I was making some toast for my 5-year old. However I resisted the urge to make a piece for myself and moved on. Small victory, but victory nonetheless. Other than the momentary desire for buttered toast, hunger was no problem. Reasonable energy, and my head was on straight.

10AM: Stomach was definitely starting to grumble a bit, mostly stimulated by the breakfast we made available for the kids (papaya slices, apples, and whole grain toast). Emotionally I was doing OK with it; no desperation for food at all. But I also realized I needed to get busy with the day’s work to take my mind away from food.

11AM: Definitely starting to feel hungry. Oddly I had forgotten until this point that I was allowed to drink water, so I had a large glass and that instantly helped the hunger. Emotionally I was definitely starting to get grumpy, but to my surprise the water also helped with that almost instantly.

Noon: Hungry, but staying busy and drinking water. A little bit of sweating, but I believe it was more from the work I was doing than from blood sugar, though I could definitely feel some jitters from either the cup of coffee I had (first thing in the morning before I decided to fast), or from lack of food – truly not sure. Energy was good otherwise. The rationalization head games tried to take hold (“just one cracker?” kinds of thoughts), but I just kept moving and drinking water.

1-2PM: Similar to noon, but I remember clearly thinking a lot about the fact that I only had 4 hours to go until I could eat. Having a solid goal helped quite a bit. Energy was fine, and emotions had settled a little. No desperation feelings surprisingly.

3PM: Feeling a bit lightheaded once or twice. A little foggy mentally, but not bad (it could be that I was simply more focused on it – I’m probably foggy normally ). Energy was up however, and a perceived feeling of calmness was also very distinctly present. I had to run to the local home supply store to pick up a few things, and was able to navigate the checkout aisle with no interest at all in the junk food that normally tries to jump into my cart (another small victory).

4:00PM: Time for my run. Energy was excellent – I would go as far as to say abundant – and motivation was high considering I only had an hour to go before eating (I was definitely looking forward to that).

The run (4:15-5:15 or so): Before running I wondered if I would experience any physical effects from having not eaten all day. Cramping, lightheadedness, lack of energy? None of the above. In fact, the run went really well. I finished and did a handful of crunches and push-ups for good measure.

5:30PM: Time to eat. I gave myself a one hour window to eat for the evening so that I didn’t overdo it, and that seemed to work. I had promised myself that I could eat as much as I wanted at dinner as long as I started with a large salad. Fortunately my wife was prepared with a great salad of greens, dried cranberries, her excellent vinaigrette, a little blue cheese, and some chopped hazelnuts. Salad never tasted so good. And that was actually a good point – my lack of food all day really sharpened my enjoyment of the salad – I had two servings. After that, a family recipe of thick cut lean pork chops (from a local sustainable farmer) with vegetables was dinner, with a small glass of white wine and a large glass of water. Finally I had a cookie for dessert – and although this was refined sugar, it was a limited indulgence.

by 6:30, I was finished eating for the day, I was stuffed, and felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

Evening/Post-fast: On a normal eating day, by suppertime I am generally really, really tired. I sometimes feel like I could fall asleep at the table. Today it was the opposite. In fact, by 7:30 I had exceptional energy – possibly from the run, and possibly from the experiment – I can’t be sure. I did the dishes and was energized to write this post.

All in all a great day.

Takeaway on IF

This was certainly not easy, yet not nearly as difficult as I thought either – especially on the emotional front. Hunger was there without question, but the water really helped. A few mental tricks also worked (like keeping in mind that I could eat anything I wanted at 5, thinking about the positives of getting back in shape) to keep going. I was feeling so good by the end of the day that I considered doing it again the next day, but I would rather use it as an intermittent motivational tool rather than a daily routine at this point. Instead I’ll practice “clean” eating habits by focusing on whole foods for a few days – and then possibly another fast. We’ll see.

Benefits:

• True sense of accomplishment: By the end it felt really, really good not only to demonstrate to myself that I had the willpower to do it, but it really kickstarted a week of healthful eating.
• A distinct feeling of serenity late in the fast: This really surprised me, but was a tangible benefit. I felt as though I was flowing through the day rather than fighting my way through it.
• Abundant energy: I have not felt that much energy in a while, particularly without caffeine being involved.
• No ill effects on exercise: No cramping, great energy, and the will to keep running until my goal was reached.
• Greater enjoyment of the foods I ate after the fast: The foods I ate tasted incredible, from the salad to the wine. The lack of food during the day I felt really sharpened my enjoyment of the meal. Granted, my wife’s meals are always excellent, but the fasting really accentuated her cooking (yes, that was a shameless suck-up. Never hurts. ).
• Hydration was excellent. I estimate I drank easily 12 glasses of water, particularly with the run.
• [Update: I had very little soreness from the run, which is a good sign. I also did a mild fast the next day, limiting my eating window from 2-6. I also successfully said no to pizza and cake on Sunday in favor of waiting for better food later - another victory.]

Downsides:

• I will leave room for the possibility that it could have had some adverse effect on my metabolism, but I doubt it. Time will tell.
• Required mental focus: It did require a fair bit of focus to make it through, but I would say no more than it does to prepare 6 meals for a single day (a common approach to healthful eating). I also think that it had a lot to do with trying to be very conscious of the experience to track how I was doing. I have a feeling that the next time will require much less mental energy having one under my belt.
• Some occasional lightheadedness, and possibly a blood sugar low early in the day (not sure). On blood sugar however, if that was the case, I suspect that has more to do with my body expecting sugars (because I’ve trained it to expect excess sugar) than an actual need. More research however is in order.

A few things learned:

• Do NOT work on your food journal while you’re fasting. I tried this for a few moments, and not only did it make me feel hungry, but I could feel the groundswell of emotion coming up. Yikes.
• Set a goal: When fasting, use the simple strategy of reward when the fast is over. Know what time you are shooting for, as that marker will help pull you through.
• Avoid food aromas that turn on your hunger switch if possible.
• When you return to eating, take it slow. You might be inclined to scarf down your food, but don’t – it may make you feel ill.
• Likewise, when you start eating for the day, make sure you are getting the nutrients you need.
• Take natural supplements if that is right for you. In my case I’ve been taking whole food supplements from Whole Food Nation (thanks Robin), and I experienced no nausea or ill effects from taking them only with water, though your experience may be different.

Healthwise I also tend to think there is nothing wrong with occasional fasting. [Warning: Soapbox alert] In this country especially our food-obsessed pendulum really swings toward hyperfocus on eating in my opinion. The idea that the body needs to be fed all day long seems a little extreme to me, and says more about a culture of abundance than actual science (yes, them’s fightin’ words, I know). There are plenty of studies to prove either view; but for me, I don’t really want to be that food-focused with every aspect of life. Not to mention, obsessing over every crumb and calorie is an approach which for me has never worked.

Likewise I don’t subscribe to the “a calorie is a calorie” or “food as fuel” mentalities either. Food should be pleasurable, not just raw energy. It is one of the most meaningful ways that we communicate across cultures, and it says a lot about the spirit of a person and their home. When I eat a meal, I want to enjoy it thoroughly as a sensory experience that satisfies not only caloric or nutritional needs, but is a true experience in the pleasure of eating. And ultimately that is the mission of Almost Fit: figuring out how to enjoy food without it being to the detriment of health. Seems simple enough. [end Soapbox]

The bottom line? I loved it, and I’m definitely going to do it again between days of eating normally. I may also adopt a more moderate fasting style, where I limit my daily eating window to 6 hours. I’m not sure yet, but it sounds like another great experiment.

Oh and one last thing: What was the result weight-wise, considering my goal of losing 10 lbs this month? You’ll have to wait until the next post to find out.

Ed note: Thanks for reading Almost Fit. If you enjoyed this series, please consider sharing it with one of the buttons below.

And one more time with the Heavy disclaimer: Note that I am not a doctor, and this is not a recommendation as such. If intermittent fasting is something that interests you, you should do your research, talk to your doctor, etc. Fasting is certainly not for everyone, particularly people with known or underlying health conditions, eating disorders, and so forth, so use caution and think it through. Thanks again.

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The idea of intermittent fasting (IF) has intrigued me for some time. I am a big fan of the website Fitness Spotlight, and have read their exhaustive research on the subject of IF several times, always wondering whether it is realistic for me. Today, I gave it a shot.

A little context: Before I tried the fast I had a doctor’s appointment at which I discovered a) that I had already lost two pounds on the year at that point, and b) my blood pressure was surprisingly good (122/78) despite increased stress right now. This was great news since it was a significant improvement from borderline high blood pressure a year ago, and made me feel as though my longterm dietary changes have helped my overall health. Of course one measurement is not enough to establish a trend, but I’ll take it until the next BP check. Although I am far from in ideal condition weight-wise, my other vitals appear to be pretty good.

Good news at the doctor’s office, even a little, is a great energizer.

Second, this morning I got up with the kids at around 7:00AM, and felt motivated to go hard after my general dietary goals. I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything last night after about 9:00PM or so. Having been reading about the paleo/primal methods of eating over the past few days, and the use of intermittent fasting in combination with it, it occurred to me that I was in an ideal state to give it a try. I knew that I had a 3-mile run scheduled for the afternoon, so I was curious to see not only how I would deal with it throughout the day, but how it would affect my energy levels.

Why fasting?

In the bigger picture, I am intrigued by fasting because in a sense it de-emphasizes food as something to obsess about. Current trends in the diet world often include eating lots of small meals and pre-packaged snacks to “keep the fire burning”. I think there is some merit to this perhaps (stabilizing metabolism makes sense intuitively); but I think the opposite end of the spectrum is worth exploring. In many countries around the world people do not seem to need to eat constantly just to stoke the fires; when it’s time to eat, it’s time to really eat. When it’s time to do something else, food isn’t part of that activity. I’m not sure which way is better, but I have a feeling that thinking about food all day long by scheduling everything around 6 or more eating times and bringing snacks and drinks with us everywhere from car rides to doctor’s visits may not be the best solution.

That was a long way of saying I enjoy keeping an open mind on the subject, especially because there are simply no one-size-fits-all absolute truths in diet and exercise.

I also think that giving your digestive system a break, or an opportunity to recover, makes intuitive sense. Whether or not it leads to effective cleansing and restoration I can’t say; but it seems logical to give such a vital system a break once in a while.

[ed. note: I'll discuss more of the benefits in part 2.]

Quick summary of intermittent fasting (at least the way I did it)

For the uninitiated, the rules of intermittent fasting are relatively simple: No food at all for a set period of time, but water is fine. Water with lemon is preferred in part because it helps with hunger and additionally because it’s good for your liver. Note that in religious disciplines it is not uncommon for water to also be prohibited during a fast. This is far from a religious thing for me, so I opted for the water.

One of the chief strategies in intermittent fasting is to use your sleep time to your advantage. Sleeping for 6-8 hours means you don’t eat during that period; so starting a fast the night before is a great idea, and ultimately what I did.

Generally folks who fast successfully seem to fall into two categories. Quoting from Mike’s article on Fitness Spotlight (“Intermittent Fasting 101: How to start burning fat“):

Daily Fasting: Typically done every day and only giving the person a smaller eating window in which to get their calories. (for example, a 18hr daily fast would mean someone would only eat every day between the hours of Noon and 6pm). You will see varying times from 15-19 hours for daily fasting as seen with the Warrior Diet, Leangains, and Fast-5 approach.

Fasting 1-3x a week: This could also be called alternate day fasting/calorie restriction (for those doing it every other day). This is just fasting of usually longer periods 18-24 hours but only 1-3x a week. Many variations to play with here like the Eat Stop Eat method (24 hr fasts 1-2x a week).

I chose the latter option, fasting for 20 hours.

Finally, another key to fasting is what is called “clean eating” during eating times. This basically means eating whole foods with an eye on nutrients and meeting caloric guidelines. Again, the idea is that if you need to be eating at a calorie level that will keep your metabolism flowing, but if you are trying to lose weight, that you maintain a healthy caloric deficit. I’m not too concerned about the calories; but the nutrition is essential.

Heavy disclaimer: I should take a moment to note that if this is something that interests you, you should definitely read not only the Fitness Spotlight article, but do your research, talk to a doctor, etc. Fasting is certainly not for everyone, particularly people with known or underlying health conditions. This particular article makes it pretty clear that there is no magic formula for fasting that will work for every person. Your approach to fasting may be radically different from another person, ranging from a wider window of eating daily to 24 hour periods. Combining exercise can be effective, but it depends on whether you are an irregular exerciser or an athlete in perpetual training. In other words, this is not a one size fits all situation – there are simply too many variables. As Mike says, if something isn’t working for you, change it!

Common fears of fasting

If you read any of the forums where folks discuss the idea of fasting, you quickly notice that people generally fall into either the “I do it and love it” camp or the “oh my Lord that is so bad for you/dangerous/I could never do that/you could die” group. I am somewhere in the middle – listening to the concerns on one hand, but interested in the benefits as well.

The most important factor that seems to get confused is that contrary to the fearful mindset, you are not starving yourself. You are simply changing the time at which you eat. In fact, the idea is to reduce the window during the day in which you eat, but when you do eat you emphasize greater quantities of whole foods that provide the necessary nutrients and calories for a healthy diet.

The mental game

As longtime readers of Almost Fit know, I have clearly identified that food has some significant emotional ties for me. In fact, that is the biggest challenge for me diet-wise. The physical feelings don’t generally bother me when I’m less than full; it’s the emotional part that gets a little (or a lot) funky. When I’m trying to make a significant dietary change I almost always get irritable and, on a bad day, a sense of “hungry desperation” takes hold. I can get quite emotional about it, and completely irrational. Not fun.

So how would IF affect my emotional state?

Additionally, I purposely avoided activities that might bring out cravings. Television was off limits, as well as any reading on new recipes for lemon bars or smoked bacon.

The physical game

Physically I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I had a strategy: Stay busy, and stay hydrated. Simple as that. I knew for sure that I’d feel the pangs of hunger, but I was more curious about the blood sugar effects.

I was also really interested in my overall energy level with no food; so often we convince ourselves that lack of food is the cause of low energy, when in reality it may be that the real culprit is poor food choices.

Lastly, knowing that I had a 3 mile run scheduled, I was really interested to see how I’d feel pushing exercise on nothing but water. Would it cause low energy, cramping, lightheadedness, or worse?

Going for it

With a plan in hand, I chose to go for it – I decided to try a 20 hour fast, which meant I would not be eating until 5PM. I also knew that if things got too frenetic I wasn’t exactly stuck on a desert island; I could always stop if it started to feel wrong.

So how did it go? Stay tuned for part 2.

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In the previous article, “5 Reasons Why I Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup“, I described at length the first five out of ten reasons why I don’t believe a word from the Corn Refiners Association (CRA), much less their expensive ad campaign to try to convince consumers that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is actually good for you. Although they may succeed in that attempt, in my opinion, the campaign is really designed to accomplish something bigger: confuse the public into a state of inaction. And unfortunately, it’s working. I have read more comments across the Web and heard, even from my own family members, more expressions of confusion over the subject than I possibly ever have.

I guess that’s what you get when you spend $30 Million dollars on an ad campaign.

Although my budget is eh, slightly less, my hope is that this series, alongside the many others on the Web (many of which are much more concise, for what it’s worth), will help folks to see through the thin veil that the CRA has dropped over common sense.

Here’s a quick summary of the first five of my reasons:

1. Fructose and HFCS are not the same. This we know. And, it’s important.
2. HFCS is used in foods that would not normally contain sugar – as an unnecessary sweetener and chemical preservative
3. HFCS in its most common form is no sweeter than sugar. This is true – and a great distraction
4. HFCS is manufactured using Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s). It is not “Natural”. CRA, get your facts straight.
5. The environmental damage from subsidized corn overproduction far outweighs its value

For more details on 1-5, see the previous article – which incidentally, set the record for the most visits for a single article on Almost Fit. Thanks for reading – I really do appreciate it.

Common Sense: It’s What’s for Dinner

For this final installment, my focus is on something my 7th grade shop teacher was big on reminding us to do, particularly in those awkward moments at the band saw. Here’s a clip from 7th grade that I replay often in my mind, particularly around power tools:

Mr Lewis, shop teacher extraordinaire: “Son, what the heck are you doin’?”
Me: “Um…not sure..Mr. Lewis?”
Mr. Lewis: “Boy – All you gotta do is use your basic common sense. Use some common sense, son!”
Me: “OK. Should I turn the saw on then, sir?”
Mr. Lewis: “Boy? Sit down before I have to make Willin over here clean up the fingers you’z about to cut off.”
Me. “Thank you Mr. Lewis Sir.”

One thing to note: as I mentioned in the first articles, I am not a physician or nutritionist. But it is my belief that you don’t need to be to understand the issues. You just need a desire to learn about it and an ounce of common sense to make your own decision. It’s not as complicated as it’s been made out to be.

Here’s the conclusion to the list. Thanks for reading.

6. Diabetes and HFCS have a strong relationship – and an unexpected connection to another deadly substance

As readers of Almost Fit are aware, one of my chief motivations for changing my dietary and physical habits is to stave off what I feel is likely the inevitable for me: diabetes. I have a long family history of diabetes on both sides of my family, including parents, grandparents (my grandmother died from it), aunts, and uncles. Add in my own lifelong struggle with obesity, and I feel that it is in all likelihood only a matter of time before I’m next on the insulin train.

The good news is, I believe I have the power to alter the course in my favor by making changes now.

Sugars in general are usually the target of discussions on diabetes; things like simple carbohydrates are often cited as a common culprit. But there is also scientific evidence that shows a link between HFCS and diabetes that is not present in table sugar.

Science primer part 2: Reactive carbonyls and HFCS

From Mercola.com:

“HFCS, a liquid sweetener commonly used in soft drinks that contains both fructose and glucose, has been accused of causing diabetes, particularly in children, and a recent study further supported this theory.

The study investigated 11 different soft drinks and found “astonishingly high” levels of reactive carbonyls, which are thought to cause cell and tissue damage.

Reactive carbonyls are associated with diabetes, as they’re found in higher levels in the bloodstreams of people with the disease. Reactive carbonyls are linked with the unbound structure of fructose and glucose molecules in HFCS, and are not found in table sugar.”

There is a lot of information on the Web on reactive carbonyls, but this piece I find supremely disturbing:

According to a study done in 2002 (here), reactive carbonyls may also cause significant artery damage, but from a different source: SMOKING CIGARETTES. That’s right: The study showed a direct link between reactive carbonyls that were a result of cigarette smoke exposure and arterial damage. Exposure over time leads to atheroma – which is one of the chief causes of heart attacks – and heart disease.

So the question is, is there a link between reactive carbonyls in HFCS and those in cigarettes? The study doesn’t specifically address it. But folks, this is all the information I need to make a decision against adding unecessary sweeteners like HFCS to my diet. Unless I’m looking for an excuse to keep consuming HFCS, there is simply no good reason to keep taking it in. If I’m looking for ways to stay away from diabetes and heart disease for as long as possible, there is no arguing the fact that consumption of HFCS does not help me on that journey.

For the record, I’m not a big fan of the reactive carbonyls argument for one reason: the CRA will undoubtedly dispute any negative health findings by funding counter studies that tilt the evidence in their favor (which is easy to do, as you’ll see).

However, I’ll say it again: Unless I’m looking for an excuse to keep consuming HFCS, eliminating it from my diet will only improve my health.

It’s pretty simple. In my opinion, it sounds a lot like common sense.

7. Just because something is proven “not unsafe” doesn’t make it safe, much less beneficial

There is a lot of misinformation on this subject too – but this time it comes from the corporations who fund studies to try to prove that their product is essentially what I call, “not unsafe” – which is vastly different from proving that a product is good for you. This is a key distinction, because its relatively easy to prove something is not unsafe. It’s much more difficult to prove that something is not only safe, but beneficial – particularly with manufactured food.

In cases like these, the most important rule? Consider the source. It is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out who, exactly, is funding the studies these days when the politics of food are involved. But more often than not, I’ve found that the slant of an HFCS-favorable result comes from studies sponsored by interested parties.

And sometimes, its all in how you ask the question.

I’ll give you a good example of why this is important:

If I were to conduct a survey by asking people on the street, “Are you opposed to murder?” I would likely get an overwhelming response that says, “Yes, absolutely. Opposed to it. For sure.” Let’s say I get 96%, with 4% who are undecided (scary, I know).

But what if I rephrased the question and said, “Are you opposed to a life lost, if it means a life saved?” The results would be quite different, and probably much less clear cut. Then, using the second poll’s results, I could likely make the case that my study concluded that the country is divided on the issue of untimely death in any form, from abortion to the right to die.

In other words, when you have an agenda, it’s pretty easy to twist statistical and scientific data. In fact, lobbyists have made a science of it.

For an interesting read on the subject of statistics (yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron), read The Honest Truth about Lying with Statistics, by Cooper B. Holmes. Another good read is How to Lie with Statistics, a classic written by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis. Both books are excellent eye-openers on how you can prove just about anything with a handful of scary numbers and an opinion.

Bottom Line: Don’t forget that you can use your own common sense on these ideas. You don’t have to be a chemical engineer to understand the results of unbiased studies, or what the difference is between “not unsafe” and “safe and beneficial“. You also don’t have to buy the results of a study when their is clearly an agenda behind the questions. Don’t accept the idea that it’s too complicated for our fragile consumer minds to grasp. It’s pretty easy to see through it, if you keep your eyes open, and you’re not distracted by Big Corn’s $30 million dollar shiny objects.

The old axiom, “Numbers don’t lie” is true; but it’s lesser known corollary, “Numbers don’t lie…But Salesmen Do” is probably more accurate in this case.

8. Foods with HFCS are often cheap, and of poor nutritional quality

There are all kinds of exceptions to this rule – for example, I was shocked to see that Ghirardelli Chocolates have HFCS – but common sense will tell you that better quality, more nutritious food, does not generally contain HFCS. Cheap, industrially produced and nutritionally deficient foods on the other hand, often do.

Lack of nutrition, and the over-availability of fructose in a diet is a truly deadly combination. Because fructose inhibits satiation, we tend to eat more. This effect is increased greatly when the diet lacks nutrients. Your body craves energy, but it also signals cravings when there are nutritional lacks that needs to be rectified. Pregnant women are a very visible demonstration of this effect, who often have hard-to-explain cravings. One school of thought is that the body is seeking the nutrients that it needs by craving foods that it recognizes as having those nutrients. (Anecdotal example: Pregnant women who are deficient in iron have been known to have a craving for dirt – a common source of iron).

Thus, if you eat foods that lack the nutrients you need, your body will send signals that encourage you to keep eating until the nutrients are acquired. Well, again, common sense here: If you are eating foods that don’t have those nutrients, your body will continue on it’s quest to find them, telling you to keep eating.

Granted, this is an oversimplification; But it makes sense.

Along the lines of common sense, I really enjoyed this quote from an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The article focused on the fact that several local market chains are banning HFCS from their stores altogether. When asked, a Mother who avoids HFCS said:

“”I try hard not to add that to my family’s diet,” said Hunt. “I just don’t think we need to do that. I’m sure there’s a lot of arguments on both sides, but I just sort of feel intuitively that it’s better not to.”"

Well said. That Mother’s intuition is important, and shouldn’t be discounted by someone selling a product.

9. To support Corn farmers (a good thing) and reduce taxes (a great thing), you should buy less corn – and HFCS in particular

This reason has nothing to do with personal health, and everything to do with saving the country $4 billion dollars in taxes for which each and every one of us taxpayers chip in. From Mercola.com:

“[...] President Bush signed a bill requiring taxpayers to pay farmers $4 billion a year, over a ten-year period, to grow more corn. More corn when the U.S. is desperately trying to find ways to get rid of the current surplus corn produced here. More corn when farmers are currently selling it for over a dollar less per bushel than it cost them to produce it. A $190 billion bill to grow more corn when planting less corn would increase the price farmers receive for it, and eliminate the extreme surplus. If farmers don’t benefit from this bill, then who does? The Archer Daniels Midlands, Tysons and Coca-Colas of the world. “ – Mercola.com (“Why Corn Is Not Your Best Food Choice“)

In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan doesn’t explain how buying less corn benefits corn farmers - he has a corn farmer himself explain it. Here’s Pollan’s summary of the information:

“A farm family needs a certain amount of cash flow every year to support itself, and if the price of corn falls, the only way to stay even is to sell more corn. Naylor says that farmers desperate to boost yield end up degrading their land, plowing and planting marginal land, applying more nitrogen – anything to squeeze a few more bushels from the soil. Yet the more bushels each farmer produces, the lower prices go, giving another turn to the perverse spiral of overproduction.”

I highly recommend this book if you want to get a better understanding of why corn overproduction is undermining much of the Midwest and costing us, by some estimates, $5 billion dollars a year in government subsidies.

So how does reducing consumption of products with HFCS affect our taxes? The truth is, very little that we do has an instant impact on this problem. But in 3 years, the decision on whether to continue to run small farmers out of business to make way for government-subsidized Big Corn interests comes up for consideration again. Making small changes in our purchases may not seem like much, but collectively reducing our corn consumption makes economic sense, and may help to keep vital small family farms in business.

I believe in this kind of change; creating change through personal choices – as in where you put your money – really works.

A good, simple example? Years ago we decided to only buy Fair Trade certified coffee beans. That meant that at the time, we couldn’t buy coffee at Trader Joe’s, since they didn’t have anything that was Fair Trade certified. While we shopped elsewhere, my wife and I sent numerous notes to Trader Joe’s on our purchasing choice, and our desire to buy coffee that is ethically produced. Lo’ and behold: Trader Joe’s now offers at least 4 versions of coffee beans that are Fair Trade certified. I can’t say for sure that we were the tipping point, but we do drink a lot of coffee – and now, we can buy it ethically at a reasonable price at Trader Joe’s.

10. Common Sense, For The Win: The real issue is overconsumption of calories, and the availability of HFCS makes that excessively easy

For me, this is the most compelling reason, above all else. I am not a nutritionist or a chemical engineer, so I know that it’s possible that the things I accept as truth on those fronts could change. But for me, a reasonable person with an ounce of common sense, it is pretty clear that at the end of the day, we’re suffering from obesity, heart disease, and a whole slew of health problems because we simply consume too much – and we’re consuming the wrong things. Too many calories, and too many calories from non-natural sources. HFCS does not help in any way, shape or form to solve this problem – in fact, it is one of the leading causes of over-consumption because it is in 80% of the industrial food supply.

From an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“A single 12-ounce can of soda has as much as 13 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup. And because the amount of soda we drink has more than doubled since 1970 to about 56 gallons per person a year, so has the amount of high fructose corn syrup we take in. In 2001, we consumed almost 63 pounds of it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA suggests most of us limit our intake of added sugar — that’s everything from the high fructose corn syrup hidden in your breakfast cereal to the sugar cube you drop into your after-dinner espresso — to about 10 to 12 teaspoons a day. But we’re not doing so well. In 2000, we ate an average of 31 teaspoons a day, which was more than 15 percent of our caloric intake. And much of that was in sweetened drinks.” (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL)

HFCS makes cheap food cheaper and makes you hungry for more (the 6th grade science that adding simple sugars to satisfy the body’s craving for energy makes you want more). The lack of nutritional value in those cheap foods also makes you eat more, since you are not giving the body the nutrients it needs. The preservative quality of HFCS makes foods have a greater perceived value because they last longer (and you eat more), and ultimately we’re again consuming more fructose, in it’s worst, unbound form, than we would by eating real food.

In other words, we are reinforcing the quantity equals value philosophy, which is in my opinion one of the reasons that we’re in this health crisis in the first place. If you pay a reasonable price for better quality food, the simple fact is you eat less. It’s better for your health, better for the seller of the food, and better for the planet.

Years ago consumers objected to the idea that starting kids on the path of cigarette smoking was in our collective best interest. Yet overconsumption is far more dangerous in the long run in my opinion than even smoking (although I am certainly not suggesting that smoking is a good idea either ). If you start early on a path of taking in too much fructose in any form – sugar, HFCS, or otherwise – you are guaranteed to have significant health problems later. Guaranteed. With smoking, you are much more likely to have significant health problems later, but you might get lucky and the cancer bus might pass you by. Not so with attacking the liver and pancreas for a lifetime. In my view, it is guaranteed to be a losing proposition.

In the end, it’s pretty simple

For me, I think the solution to our health crisis is right in front of us. It’s not finding new drugs to allow us to continue down the path of over-consuming garbage food that we are sold; It’s not finding excuses to keep infusing more artificial substances into our food to make us crave more of it. It’s something our great-grandparents knew a thing or two about: If you eat moderate amounts of real, whole foods, of which HFCS is certainly not, you will see positive, lifelong results on both a personal and (hopefully) global level.

In other words, it comes down to a simple phrase: Eat Real Food in Moderation.

Thanks for reading Almost Fit.

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Sources and resources

I’m reprinting this list from the previous article, with a few additions. Please do check these concepts for yourself and make your own decisions. I know I have.

Foods and products containing HFCS:

http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php/2005/06/09/foods_and_products_containing_high_fruct

Focus on fast food that contains HFCS:

http://www.foodfacts.info/high-fructose-corn-syrup.shtml

Dangers of excessive fructose consumption via HFCS and sugar:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/5/911

A link to the Bray Study, 2004 (full text):

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/4/537

A great summary of the importance of insulin and it’s relationship to fructose

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/07/14/insulin-part-one.aspx

Citations:

• http://ajpheart.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/283/2/H591
• http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/30/tea-extract-could-reduce-hfcs-diabetes-link.aspx
• http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2006/07/22/debate-about-dangers-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup.aspx
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL
• http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
• http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/4/537
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603294.html
• http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241209472_eng.pdf
• http://blogs.webmd.com/healthy-recipe-doctor/2008/01/high-fructose-corn-syrup-new-bad-boy-in.html
• http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup
• http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-soda2-2008aug02,0,1313143.story
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523163049.htm

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Can somebody PLEASE tell me what the FDA is smokin’?

We all know that plastics used in bottles and cans were recently implicated as very clear risk factors for infants and young children, but a new study that was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that adults may also be at risk – big surprise.

While the health concern certainly gets me to think twice about using that Nalgene bottle, I have to say that my thoughts really do soar into the upper levels of outrage when I start to think about this. Why? Simple [RANT WARNING]:

In classic lassez-faire fashion, the FDA refuses to act upon continuing evidence that implicates bisphenol A (BPA) in our current health crisis. Essentially they are saying that the low doses of exposure are safe, so they don’t want to do anything about it – as usual. But do you think they are accounting for the cumulative effect of ingesting foods from multiple containers over the span of time, which is typical of the American processed food diet that I grew up eating? I doubt it. Consider my experience with years of overconsuming soda, which I mentioned in my article on high fructose corn syrup (On High Fructose Corn Syrup – and Weapons of Mass Destruction). I was drinking sometimes 4 or more cans of soda a day, all most likely lined with the stuff.

So the question becomes, what will kill me first – the HFCS and overall caloric intake of overconsumption, or the toxic plastics that leak into the soda? I’m kind of joking there, and well, kind of not. . .

Why the FDA continues to remain a staunch supporter of BPA in food is beyond me (because if you have the power to stop something, and you don’t, as far as I’m concerned that demonstrates your support), but, my suspicion is this: the telling factor was contained in a quote from an industry representative when asked about the situation. Here’s a quote from the article:

“Industry representatives argue that the plastic epoxy resins used to line cans will be particularly difficult to replace. “Acidic foods will corrode the metal of cans, so you have to have a coating in there; it’s the reason why canned tuna has a shelf-life of three to four years,” says Steven Hentges, a chemist and BPA expert with the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. “Finding an alternative liner that works as well and is safer would not be easy.”" – USNews.com

So what you’re saying is, we really won’t be able to sell as much product if we have to change our practices – and you wouldn’t want THAT, now would you???

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the naive impression that external political and economic factors were not supposed to be the top priorities for the FDA, but they clearly are. It is one reason why I actually rarely trust anything that comes out of the FDA anymore. There are too many fingers in the pie to trust the validity of their studies and edicts on what is safe and what is not. But you gotta’ admit: It is a great system if you are a manufacturer of food products – make your questionable product a political and economic conundrum, and you can count on the FDA to stay hands-off.

My apologies to let some of my cynicism slip out here, but folks, this is NOT the first time that the corporate citizen’s agenda has been prioritized over the health and welfare of the people to whom they sell their products. Realistically, I doubt that BPA is the sole cause of any of these diseases (I think overconsumption in general is a bigger target), but how many of these isolated “safe in low doses” chemicals does it take for the FDA to reform its lack of concern for the people it is supposed to protect? How many of these “safe in low doses” chemicals and fake food products have to be added to the American mainstream food chain before any of the politically appointed bureaucrats at the FDA grow a conscience?

And another thing: Why does much of the rest of the world get this right (Canada, for example, who banned BPA earlier this year), leaving each one of us American citizens to explain to non-citizens why the American government won’t do what’s right for it’s own people – even when it comes to infants? Oh that’s right – because Big Government is apparently more concerned with preserving corporate profits than human welfare. But that’s no surprise if you’ve been awake for the last decade.

And I have to say here, while I’m ranting, that this is not just at the Federal level. It’s State government too. Want an example? Here’s a quote from the results of the highly publicized campaign to ban BPA in California:

“SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 30 (AScribe Newswire) — Bowing to a deceptive, no-holds-barred campaign by the chemical industry, the California State Assembly has failed to approve a bill that would have made the state the first in the nation to remove the toxic endocrine disruptor BPA from baby bottles and children’s drinking cups.

By a 35-30 vote on Friday, the last day of the two-year legislative session, Assembly members rejected Senate Bill 1713 by Sen. Carole Migden of San Francisco, which was sponsored by Environmental Working Group (EWG). Fifteen members of the Assembly were either absent or deliberately did not vote.” – AScribe Newswire, care of highbeam.com

My question is this: What does it say about the state of things when even the consumer giants like Walmart and Toys-R-Us are willing to take action, but the Food and Drug Administration seems to have lost every pen in the house (“…well gall durn dang it, looks like we can’t sign the dotted line. You chemist fellas are in luck today!”)?

But ya know, maybe I misunderstood. See I was under the impression that the FDA’s slogan, “Protecting and Promoting Your Health [italics theirs, not mine]” was aimed at, ya know, ME. How self-centered. I guess I should have realized that the the Chemical Industry is the target. Good Job, FDA. They are alive, well, and getting better all the time.

[END RANT]

Here’s a link to the article on USNews.com.

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Despite the Corn Refiners Association’s $30 million dollar attempt to suggest that we poor unintelligent consumers are simply confused about the wonderful benefits of a diet that is rich in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), I still find their benevolent story hard to, ahem, swallow. I guess you could say that I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. The suggestion that it is our own dimwitted ignorance that causes some of us to avoid HFCS, and that the big government-subsidized businesses associated with corn refining really only have OUR best interests at heart by adding a chemically-produced sweetener to our foods, is insulting at best.

Before I get into it, here’s my disclosure: Although I like to think from time to time that my ever-expanding forehead is thanks to excessive cerebral exercise and fits of right brain vs. left brain blindfolded fire-juggling mental ping-pong matches, I will confess:

I am not a rocket scientist (in the literal, or figurative, sense – but don’t tell my younger sisters I actually admitted it) – so don’t take my word for it. I am also not a physician, or a nutritionist. These are my conclusions, but your mileage may vary. Thus, my suggestion is very clear: Read about it for yourself and make your own decisions.

BUT, to me, that is the best part, because in my opinion, you don’t have to be a scientist, nutritionist, physician, or politician (I jest) to see through the murky veil that the CRA is casting. All you need is a little common sense, to take responsibility for what you eat, and an ability to read at a 5th grade level. Toss in a little discernment when you watch expensive television ads, and you can find the truth.

Because as you might have noticed, and as one reader pointed out in the comments in part 1, the novel notion of “truth in advertising” is very much dead.

[Pause, take a breath. Resume.]

On with the show.

10 things we really know about HFCS – or – “Uh, Whutt, Mr…Kottehhr?” – Vincent Barbarino, evil genius/HFCS consumer

I’ve recently spent a fair amount of time reading the why’s and wherefore’s of HFCS, and I have to say that as expected, there is a lot of conflicting information out there. But in the end, I don’t think it is as complicated as it is often made out to be. Unfortunately, I think some of the confusion is coming from those of us on this side of the fence whose good intentions turn into a little bit of blind enthusiasm. We are so excited to help others that we wind up making bigger assumptions that sometimes turn out to be false. The problem is of course that those assumptions become ammunition for the other side. My goal with this series is of course to ensure that I’m not contributing to that cycle, and hopefully set some of those misconceptions straight.

Oh, and one other thing…

I should clarify that my criteria for the credibility of a study begins with the basic question: Who paid for it? What is their agenda? If the study was sponsored by the CRA or any of the indirect affiliates that the corn industry uses, it has about as much credibility with me as a drunken speech on honor and nobility by Joey Butufuoco. And if you’re too young to remember who that is, just trust us old folks. He’s not the model of royalty that Bevis and Butthead made him out to be.

I’ve broken this list into two posts, primarily to make it easier to digest. And metabolize.

Here goes.

1. Fructose and HFCS are not the same. This we know. And, it’s important.

The distinction between fructose and HFCS is important to get straight. Why? Because the mixing of facts between straight fructose and HFCS is the number one argument that is used to distract from the legitimate reservations on ingesting HFCS. Sadly this misunderstanding has led to a lot of easily-dispelled myths being put forth by well-intentioned folks who do not have a zip code in the back pocket of Big Corn.

HFCS vs. Sugar: A quick science primer

Here are the basics: Sugar, or sucrose, is a bound, naturally occurring compound that is composed of equal parts glucose and fructose. It’s made by plants, in it’s whole form, naturally. HFCS is an unbound version of fructose and glucose with a completely different molecular structure. It is not made by plants (although it is made IN, ahem, plants, like power plants (sorry. couldn’t resist the bad pun).

HFCS is manufactured through a chemical process that breaks down natural components of sugars, extracts and converts the remaining compounds into industrially “usable” substances, and then recombines the usable bits to make a viscous syrup. It is par for the course for industrial food: break down natural foods into individual components, strip out what they consider “usable” in the manufacturing process, fundamentally change it with more chemical processing, and then recombine it into something that sells. (For a detailed description of this process, and one of the references for this series, see this link from the Weston A. Price Foundation: The Murky World of High Fructose Corn Syrup.)

Both sugar and HFCS contain fructose, but the form that it takes in HFCS (monosaccharide) is vastly different in chemical terms than the bound version that occurs in natural sugar (disaccharide).

So does it matter that much of the fructose in HFCS is not bound to glucose?

Fructose, in the form of either sugar or HFCS, is processed by the liver almost exclusively. This is important because the liver converts a good portion of fructose into triglycerides in the body. The unbound, synthetically produced fructose component of HFCS is processed differently than the bound fructose component of sugar. Fructose in HFCS is “shunted”, meaning that it skips any processing that occurs in the cells of the whole body to extract that fructose and then send to the liver. The unbound version goes straight to the liver, quickly. And even more important: in it’s unbound state (meaning fructose that is not bound to glucose), it is processed much more quickly into fat than a natural, whole food.

Secondly, despite the spin in the ad campaign, HFCS does NOT typically contain equal parts fructose and glucose (as sugar does). Unbound fructose is the majority share, generally 55% in foods drinks that use it as a sweetener. The CRA is quick to point out that this difference has not been proved to show substantial difference in how fructose is processed by the liver, but the results (often depending on who sponsors the study), vary greatly.

So from a scientific perspective, where does the rubber hit the road? From an article on Mercola.com:

“[HFCS] is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form (soda), its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.

Among them:

• Diabetes
• Obesity
• Metabolic Syndrome
• An increase in triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels
• Liver disease”

Bottom line? There is one indesputable scientific fact in this debate: HFCS is not a whole, natural food in any way – it is an industrial product. Sugar on the other hand, is a natural food with a dietary track record of many thousands of years of human consumption. HFCS? About 35 years or so – a 35 years where we have become the fattest, the fastest, in our history. Coincidence? Maybe. But I doubt it.

What we do know from our extensive experience with any sugar is that if you DO eat sugars of any kind, it should be in very moderate amounts. It shouldn’t be added to everything you eat to make it cheaper and last longer…but I’m getting ahead of myself. If you are going to eat moderate amounts of sugar, eat it only in the foods that really need it – and eat the real thing, not a synthetically invented substitute without an extensive track record of human safety.

2. HFCS is used in foods that would not normally contain sugar – as an unnecessary sweetener and chemical preservative

Because the food industry uses HFCS in foods that would not normally contain a sweetener, we consume more fructose in particular, on whole. Rather than replacing the fructose we would have eaten in sugar, all we did was increase our consumption of both – even when we’re not seeking sweet foods.

Again, this is a great distraction from the other big use of HFCS: As a preservative in most industrial food products.

In industrially produced foods, food manufacturers add HFCS for a few reasons:

1. It adds sweetness of course, which means consumers will eat more of it (humans by nature seek out sweeter foods – likely because they generally contain more energy)
2. It is a great preservative, so products can be transported farther, stored longer, and so forth, ultimately making it cheaper
3. It is a cheap way to add a “natural” look to preserved food

Here’s why this matters: Think about it – many traditional foods we eat do not normally have sugar (much less a chemical preservative and sweetener) added as part of the recipe in the first place. A good personal example is the artisan bread I make. The basic recipe is very simple: flour, water, salt, and yeast. While some natural sugars and carbohydrates occur as a result of the combination of the ingredients, I do not need to add any sugar at all – it is what it is.

Compare that to the traditional white bread we have grown up eating – which typically contains a fair amount of HFCS to keep it “fresh” for days or weeks while it’s trucked all over the globe. If you eat this bread, not only are you getting the sugars that result from a breakdown in carbohydrates (which the healthy human body can handle), but you are getting an additional shot of fructose from the HFCS as a preservative (and I would add, slight sweetener to encourage us to eat more), delivered directly to the liver to become triglycerides. Why? because the manufacturer has found a cheap way via HFCS to keep the bread “fluffier” for a while, and hopefully (in my opinion) get you to crave it.

So in the end, we are consuming, on whole, way too much fructose, because manufacturers have unnecessarily slipped an HFCS Mickey into most industrially produced food products. Although those small quantities may not in themselves seem significant (again, which Big Corn is quick to point out), spread that over 80% of all industrial foods we eat, throw in a soda or two (or four, for me in those days), and then top it off with eating the natural sugars we normally eat, and the obesity epidemic suddenly becomes pretty darn obvious: We are eating too much of the sweet stuff.

Remove the HFCS, and remove half of the problem.

3. HFCS in its most common form is no sweeter than sugar. This is true – and a great distraction

I bring this up for one significant reason: This argument is a great muddying-the-waters point for the CRA, because they love to point out how wrong this perception is, which MUST mean everything else you’ve heard is wrong too, right? It’s that old tactic again – distract from the real issue for long enough, create confusion on irrelevant points, and people will just give up.

The idea that HFCS is actually sweeter than sugar is for the most part, not true. The truth is that pound for pound, the most common form of HFCS is of the same sweetness as sugar. I’ve read numerous sites that get this confused, stating anywhere from 6 times as sweet to 150 times as sweet. This is simply not true. HOWEVER, I’m not sure that I see this (even if it WERE true) as an important argument anyway.

To me, the bigger problem is that we develop a craving for sweet things when we eat them, which food manufacturers understand all too well. In other words, adding a sweetener, regardless of whether it’s sweeter than sugar, is a win for the manufacturer because a) the product is more desirable to your brain because it has a sweetener (which translates to energy), b) the product lasts longer, adding the perception of value, and c) it’s cheaper to produce, so the packages contain more of it.

Sweeter or not – our food often doesn’t need it. Unless we’re trying to develop an overconsumptive addiction and gain some weight. Is that what we’re trying to do, as consumers? Who’s idea is that, anyway?

4. HFCS is manufactured using Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s). It is not “Natural”. CRA, get your facts straight.

This one really annoys me, and it has ever since 7-Up (famous for their, “Make 7 – Up Yours” campaign) tried to pull a fast one by putting “100% Natural” on their HFCS-laced soda. Even the FDA couldn’t be persuaded, which says a lot. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of HFCS begins as genetically altered corn, which is easier to grow in volume as a monoculture. Sure, it is possible that some random strain somewhere got mixed in with the batch of GMO corn, but even if that were the case there’s one big catch: two of the enzymes used to manufacture HFCS are always genetically modified to make them more stable during the heating process.

GMO’s are associated with some pretty heavy duty side effects, some of which you can read about here. But for me, one of the most important is that it has been shown that the consumption of genetically modified foods often leads to dangerous food allergies (more so than their organic counterparts). And if you develop a food allergy to corn, you are going to have a heck of a time finding products in this culture that aren’t touched by corn. This is made worse because if you do develop an allergy to corn, it’s not just the genetically modified versions that you are allergic to – it is ALL varieties.

Put plainly, if you are skeptical at all of genetically modified food, you should simply avoid HFCS. Why care? Beyond the immediate knowledge that it leads to food allergies and a slough of other provable health problems, the most important reason is that genetic modifications have no track record in human consumption as being safe. To put it plainly, the process is so new that we have no idea what the longterm ramifications of messing with nature are going to be. In our history, this is generally not a good idea.

It doesn’t require a lengthy discussion by the leading thinkers – it requires common sense.

5. The environmental damage from subsidized corn overproduction far outweighs its value

Rather than rephrasing this, I’m just going to quote from an interesting article in the Washington Post earlier this year. What do you think?

“Most corn is grown as a monoculture, meaning that the land is used solely for corn, not rotated among crops. This maximizes yields, but at a price: It depletes soil nutrients, requiring more pesticides and fertilizer while weakening topsoil.

“The environmental footprint of HFCS is deep and wide,” writes Pollan, a prominent critic of industrial agriculture. “Look no farther than the dead zone in the Gulf [of Mexico], an area the size of New Jersey where virtually nothing will live because it has been starved of oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt. Then there is the atrazine in the water in farm country — a nasty herbicide that, at concentrations as little as 0.1 part per billion, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites.”

Milling and chemically altering corn to form high-fructose corn syrup also is energy-intensive. That’s not to say that corn is evil and other foods aren’t; all crops require energy to grow and transport. What makes corn a target is that federal subsidies — and tariffs on imported sugar — keep prices low, paving the way for widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup and, in the process, keeping the American palate accustomed to the sweetness it provides.

Corn is a useful crop with high yields, although it uses more fertilizers and insecticides and causes more soil erosion than other crops, according to David Pimentel, a professor in Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Organic corn is not a large part of the industry, but it should be,” he says. Pimentel published a study in 2005 demonstrating that, over 22 years, growing corn organically produced the same yields as conventional growing and used 33 percent less fuel.”

You may not be concerned with this reasoning – it’s a personal decision whether you support the notion that we’re damaging the earth in our current food production practices. However, it affects us all not only in our quality of life, but in the things we pay for, like fuel. The subsidized overproduction of corn costs a huge amount of natural gas and petroleum to produce, particularly through the use of synthetic fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizers are generally made from fossil fuels, which if you haven’t been paying attention, are in increasingly short supply. And when supply is short, price goes up.

Who do you suppose are the winners and losers in that scenario?

The amazing part is, you don’t have to use rocket fuel to grow plants – as many, many farmers are proving by growing, profitably, organic crops. It’s possible. It just takes effort, thought, and support.

Sign me up.

Part Three: High Fructose Corn Syrup – The Cure for Common Sense?

That concludes part two. Hopefully you made it through without much damage. [UPDATE]: Here’s part 3, “High Fructose Corn Syrup – The Cure for Common Sense?“

Here are some resources for you to check out if you want to read further. As I said in the beginning, this decision is my own – and my sole recommendation here is that you read for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

If you are curious about what foods contain HFCS, you can either read the labels, or you can check these links for extensive (and incredibly useful) lists of foods that are tainted with HFCS:

Foods and products containing HFCS:

http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php/2005/06/09/foods_and_products_containing_high_fruct

Focus on fast food that contains HFCS:

http://www.foodfacts.info/high-fructose-corn-syrup.shtml

Dangers of excessive fructose consumption via HFCS and sugar:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/5/911

A link to the Bray Study, 2004 (full text):

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/4/537

Sources for this series

Here are a handful of sources for this series. I encourage you to read them for yourself. A complete list will be included in the conclusion of this series. Thanks for reading.

• http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
• http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/4/537
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/AN01588
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603294.html
• http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241209472_eng.pdf
• http://blogs.webmd.com/healthy-recipe-doctor/2008/01/high-fructose-corn-syrup-new-bad-boy-in.html
• http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup
• http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-soda2-2008aug02,0,1313143.story
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523163049.htm

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There are very few things that I avoid more consciously these days than High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). And despite what you may have been led to believe recently by a gigantic ad campaign, people like me do not make this choice out of ignorance as a consumer.

As you have likely seen, the Corn Refiners Association is in full swing on a huge ad campaign to restore the broken faith of the American public in the benefits of using HFCS in our collective diet. In one ad, the CRA suggests that there are not solid reasons for avoiding it – in fact, it is kind of, well, what all the healthy, cool kids drink. The Mother who avoids HFCS is portrayed as far less informed (she is made to look like the fool, actually) than the Mother who happily feeds her children HFCS-laced products. In fact, the Mother who avoids HFCS for her kids has nothing better to say then, “….um….nice shirt?”

What are not mentioned in the ads are, well any real facts at all. Things like the minor detail that HFCS is not considered safe, even by the food producers themselves, for infants. Though from anything I’ve been able to find, they won’t say exactly why. Or that HFCS, not just fructose, has recently been linked to increased rates of obesity and diabetes, yet again.

Is it any surprise that the Corn Refiners Association and Big Tobacco are related through their PR companies and strategists?

So what is the truth about HFCS? And what are the solid answers surrounding why I think it should be listed next to industrially produced trans fats as something we should avoid?

High Fructose Corn Syrup. It Does a Corporate Body Good.

Like most people my age, I grew up with HFCS as a staple food ingredient in most of the things I ate. By the time I was about 10, the HFCS revolution was in full swing, finding its way into everything from industrial lowfat milk to toothpaste. Being cheaper than traditional refined sugar, (about 20% cheaper, on average, which is a substantial savings when you’re talking millions of units), and a friendlier sounding (and again, cheaper) preservative than other chemicals, HFCS gave the food industry a welcome economic boost. In fact, when Coca Cola switched to HFCS, it was estimated that it gave Coke a $70 million dollar advantage over Pepsi, which was a lot of advertising dollars 30 years ago.

HFCS was that benign new substance that was integrated into as much of 80% of the foods we eat, by some estimates. And we loved the sweetness. We also loved the perceived added value, as food prices were artificially low, and foods with it typically lasted longer because it is such a good preservative. Somehow, the campaign against preservatives (remember the ads with the phrase, “No additives – and No Preservatives”) missed HFCS. I doubt this was a coincidence.

For me, I would be really interested to know how much soda I actually consumed before I gave it up. I no longer drink soda at all – not diet or otherwise, except on the rare occasion when I have to choose between drinking ocean water and a vodka tonic because I’ve been set hopelessly adrift in the Aegean Sea. In that case, the HFCS tonic wins – and I’m good with that. Truth be told, I may, on occasion, pretend to be a castaway and force myself to drink one on the rare night out. Maybe. But only for medical reasons.

(So See? That Proves it! HFCS can INDEED Save Your Life! I may have a future in the PR industry if this whole blogging for dollars thing doesn’t work out…)

Back to uh, reality… When I was in my teens, I easily consumed 2-4 cans of HFCS-fortified soda a day (it was in the days when soda vending machines were still common in schools). By my mid-twenties, working in the boom of the software industry when free drinks were a favorite caffeinated perk, I consumed probably 3-4 cans on an average workday. However, in my time in the gaming industry that consumption rose dramatically. I consumed on some days 8 or more cans of soda looking for energy to keep me awake during the all-too-common back-to-back 20-hour workdays. In those days, my longest workday was 46 hours, all powered by free food and soda.

On that particular workday, I stopped counting Mountain Dews when I hit a dozen.

(Is it any wonder that I’m now overweight?)

The best part of that little story? Shortly after I did that, I realized I was drinking way too much soda, so I gave it up, mostly. And what did I replace it with?

Why, free juice of course! Which..also…contained….HFCS….

As you might imagine, my weight did not improve with that adjustment.

At any rate, I think I’ve drank my fair share of the stuff. And although I no longer partake of soda, I must say that when I see that new Coke ad, it makes me look twice.

The Proverbial Bottom Line, or, “G’head – Eat Dessert First”

Before I give you the reasons why I distrust anything that comes out of the sugary sweet mouth of the CRA (soft-pedal it why don’t ya), I want to be clear: my opinion about what is occurring in their ad campaign is simple. One of the best tactics that a dishonest, for-profit organization or group can use in politics is to encourage the dilution of the truth through rhetorical, meaningless dialog. It’s a war of attrition. The goal is that people will get tired of hearing about it, get confused by conflicting messages, and just want a simple yes or no answer, when often there is none. The result? The awareness of what is wrong eventually just goes away, and people just take the path of least resistance. And when HFCS is everywhere, you can imagine what that path is.

This tactic very clearly works. Whether it is an indictment on the phony reasons for destroying another country (oh not THAT again), or washing over immoral activities while in office, we are more often than not bamboozled by the powers that be into just letting things go based on the ridiculous argument of, ”I’m tired of hearing about it – can’t we just talk about something else?” In other words, the dodging of the truth gets dragged out for so long that eventually we as a group simply become bored with the subject and want to think about something else. As in, “War? Do we still have to talk about that? blah blah blah…What’s really important is “oh no he did NOT just say that to the judges” – - on American Idol.”

And this coming from a household that *may* have voted for Mr. Cook. Just sayin’.

I think this is why it’s important that we keep the discussion about HFCS alive – but with a focus on common sense. The food industry wants us to believe that food science is the privilege of the educated few, and that we mere mortal consumers are not capable of understanding the complexities of how to eat without an awful lot of handholding. In my estimation, this is simply corporate spin to keep us buying whatever they say we should buy. But if you step outside of the consumerist whirlwind for a second, the truth is not so hard to determine.

The dangers and negatives of genetically modified, industrially produced, NON-natural foods (despite what the multimillion-dollar CRA ads say) are not going away despite the idea that we’ve already been talking about it for a while now. Of course, the CRA hopes that in the case of High Fructose Corn Syrup that attrition will set in, as it usually does. If we keep the pedantic side of “discussion” confusing for long enough, maybe the truth will be obscured by sheer volume of opinion, and eventually, when we’re all looking at something else, their subsidized profits will return to the glory days. Either that, or the bait-and-switch will be dragged out long enough until they can find another goldmine to replace it.

Sorry CRA. I’m not giving up just yet.

My Full Meal Deal, or, “Would you like to Upsize that?”

Thanks for reading part 1 in this series on High Fructose Corn Syrup. Part two gets into the good stuff – the first half of 10 Reasons why I Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup at pretty much all cost, being a castaway with a vodka tonic notwithstanding. I’ve broken it into three parts because in case you haven’t noticed, I tend to get a little passionate about the subject. And as my Wife can attest, when I get worked up, I can get a little bit long winded.

And I never even took typing class. Stay tuned.

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According to the proposal, this would not affect small businesses. Here is a summary, as quoted from the Multnomah County Health Department’s information site:

PROPOSED POLICY

1. Applies only to major chain restaurants with at least 15 nation-wide outlets.
·Small businesses are exempt to avoid undue financial burden.
·About half large chains already have nutritional analysis done for their menu items.
·Most food prepared in chains is standardized in terms of ingredients, cooking instructions,
and portion sizes.
2. Applies only to standard food items on the menu for at least 60 days.
·To leave ample room for culinary innovation.
·To minimize the need for frequent re-printing of menus.
3. Requires disclosure of calories, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, and
carbohydrates.
·Limited to five nutrition factors to minimize confusion by consumers
4. Point-of-purchase decision-making.
·Nutrition information easily accessible on the menus and menu boards.
·Nutrition information as prominent as pricing information.
5. Disclaimer for nutrient content variation.
·To offer some protection to restaurants.
·To provide lee-way for slight variations in overall serving size or quantity of ingredients.
6. The Health Department will offer technical assistance to restaurants.
[...]

This reminds me of a discussion we recently had on Iowa Avenue, where a lot of folks had some serious concerns over the idea (42 comments, which may be a record there), while I think it’s fair to say that the majority of readers were in favor of the idea (Iowa Ave. readers, correct me if I’m wrong there – it was just my impression).

According to today’s article, the Oregon Restaurant Association (ORA) is of course lobbying heavily against it. Their reasoning? Giving more information to consumers will only confuse them.

Regardless of the spin surrounding “healthy options” on menus, this in my opinion is an Orwellian insult to their customers, and I’m amazed that more consumers don’t see it (or maybe we are all just sheep after all, as the ORA suggests). For the record, ORA, I for one am not confused when I see caloric information on the nutrition sheet that you have to ask for at McDonalds (at least, last I checked, years ago). If the staff can find the sheet buried somewhere behind the ketchup boxes, I can read it without going into a information overload seizure.

What’s more, although I’ve been working hard to avoid fast food (see my article here, “20 tactics to kill the fast food habit“), I know that if I were to go into the local Carl’s Jr. and see that the chili-cheese fries had “1410 calories” as the article pointed out – I KNOW it would make me think twice, and likely convince me to make a better choice. Without that information, I might reason, “well how bad can it be?” I would have guessed maybe half that number, and been significantly wrong.

But according to the restaurant lobby, I would be overwhelmed and confused by SO MUCH information.

C’mon.

It should be noted, too, that liability for the information is being completely released from restaurants with this measure (though I am sure a lawyer may be able to find an exception, as is their duty). The county seems to be going the extra mile to relieve restaurants of as much burden as possible, since they are offering to assist with caloric measurement (or so my interpretation of that statement goes).

My opinion is that yes, chains of 15 nationwide restaurants or more should be required to display the information. As long as it does not impact small business, I am all for it.

What do you think? Should chain restaurants of 15 outlets or more be required to display nutritional information, with the help of the county?

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When it comes to food, exercise, and our obsession with obesity, the French appear to break all of the rules of Western thought. By and large those who live a traditional French lifestyle eat for pleasure and satisfaction, they often smoke (arguably a stereotype), and they drink regularly. Despite a diet proportionally high in things like saturated fats, the French have remarkably low rates of heart disease and obesity. Welcome to the French Paradox.

On a visit to Paris with my wife and our 7-month old son, I experienced this firsthand. When you walk the streets of Paris, you are tempted with the most sensual culinary delights imaginable: Delicately handmade pastries, beautiful chocolates, freshly baked bread from ovens that have been used for sometimes hundreds of years, full fat, unpasteurized cheeses, and fresh crepes. And that’s just what you can see in the window displays. When you see overweight people in Paris, they are almost never Parisians; in fact, in my experience it was the easiest way to identify my fellow Americans!

Those who practice a traditional French lifestyle seem to break our most commonly accepted dietary notions. They typically:

• Consume 60% more saturated fats than we do in proportion to our overall intake, primarily through dairy. This includes rich cheeses, real butter, whole milk, and yogurt.
• Do not eat low fat products or use or chemically derived sugar substitutes.
• Eat fresh bread daily that is made from refined white flour.
• Regularly consume both lean and fatty meats including pork, duck, beef, chicken, and a few others (someone hide Mr. Ed), as well as fish.
• Drink alcohol with lunch and dinner, and the alcohol is often unregulated. Meaning, where we have a soda fountain, they may have a cask of wine available for refills.
• Smoke cigarettes. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a stereotype since the French typically smoke less than several other European countries, and only a few percentage points more than Americans, on whole. That said, we found in Paris that the smell of cigarette smoke was abundant, yet for some reason we didn’t mind (neither of us are smokers).
• Eat late at night, much later than we do – Often eating heavier foods for supper at around 9 or 10, followed by a dessert course.
• Do not go to the gym or exercise much more than we do (the reasoning being why waste your life in such a way, when you could be enjoying it?).
• Do not obsess about the chemical composition of the foods they eat, and they do not rely on science and industry to tell them what is good or bad. That is what Mother is for.

With all of this dietary rule-breaking, the French simply should be dying off like flies from heart disease. I mean after all, high fat foods? Simple carbohydrates and sugar-filled deserts? Cigarettes and alcohol? No Stairmaster for 3 hours a day? According to our experience, our industrial and governmental science, and our gigantic devotion to every miracle-cure product and approach we can turn our eyes to, their collective hearts should all be congealed, seized up like French-made Peugeot diesel motors full of hardened, varnished sludge.

The truth is that the French typically live 3 years longer than we do, with only an 8.3% rate of heart disease, and a low occurrence of obesity (though sadly this is increasing as Western ways infiltrate French daily life).

So how do they do it?

According to folks like Dr. Will Clower, Michael Pollan, and Mirielle Guiliano (and place me squarely in this camp, by personal experience), it comes down to this: The French simply eat real food in moderation. They eat good food, just less of it (they eat until they’re full, and then they stop). They generally don’t eat the overly-processed, low fat, low carb, hydrogenated chemically substituted well-preserved food-based products that we do. Dr. Clower’s catchphrase: “If it’s not food, don’t eat it.” Michael Pollan? “Eat food. Not Too Much. Mostly plants.”

How to eat rich foods and not gain weight

How can you implement the French approach? What do the French do that allows them to eat what they want, when they want, and still not gain weight?

Here is a list based primarily on the writings of the three authors cited above. Of course, their books provide much more detail on the scientific (and anecdotal) evidence that supports the effectiveness of these ideas, and provide specific techniques on how to implement them. Here’s a sample of the guidance they provide:

• Identify honestly what you eat, think about it, and make changes very slightly and gradually. Remember that you are changing these dietary habits for the span of a lifetime, so they have to be simple, livable adjustments. From Mireille Guiliano, “The answer to weight gain is never dieting.”
• Eat only real food, not processed food alternatives, “faux foods”, or food-like products (particularly high fructose corn syrup).The good news is this means you get to eat butter, bread, and chocolate again.
• Eat for the pleasure of eating, rather than as a means of fuel. Treat your mouth more like a sensory tool and less like a Flux Capacitor.
• Eat at regular times. In France, they maintain a social stigma against between meal snacking. In fact, many of their cars do not have cupholders.
• Eat seasonally, locally, and shop several times a week. And as Michael Pollan says, don’t buy your fuel at the same place you buy it for your car.
• Don’t rely solely on “Nutritionism” to tell you what is good for you; use common sense, and eat real foods. If Great-Grandma wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it. This is a simplification here; read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for a much deeper explanation of the dangers of relying on science and industry alone to tell us what we should eat.
• Your dietary emphasis should be on green leafy vegetables, or animals who are fed those vegetables.
• Eat fat! Just the right kinds, particularly dairy and naturally occurring fats in plants (think avocados not corn oil). In fact, the lack of fat intake may actually be one of the root causes of many of our health problems like heart disease and diabetes.
• Quantity does not equal quality. Buy the best you can afford, and be willing to spend a little more (although I’ve found that the cost levels out when you’re eating less).
• Train yourself to eat less by enjoying your food more, eating slower, putting less in your mouth per bite, and eating for sensory pleasure. Realize that portion size has grown 3 times what it was 50 years ago!
• Don’t eat mindlessly or be distracted when you’re eating by things like television or the computer.
• Incorporate wine into your diet in moderation.
• Don’t stuff yourself. Learn the often forgotten feeling of fullness with practice and patience. For example, eat half of what you normally would, and wait for half an hour. If you’re starving, you know it wasn’t enough. If you feel physically good, that is the feeling of being full. Practice identifying that feeling, and it becomes second nature with time.
• Try to get all of your nutritional needs met through whole foods rather than supplements whenever possible (there is an ongoing, raging controversy as to whether supplements actually have much benefit out of the context of the whole food from which they were derived. [Update: After reading further, personally I believe that they DO have benefit, but only the right kinds. Industrially produced, synthetic supplements are not only worthless nutrition-wise, they can be dangerous. Whole food multivitamins, on the other hand, are a proven source of nutrition. For the "real" thing, and to gain a better understanding of the issues involved, see Robin's blog, Whole Food and More.]).
• Learn to cook, and make time to do it. We often say that we don’t have time to cook, but in reality in the last 15 years most of us have somehow made 2-3 hours time for other things like surfing the Internet. It is ultimately a matter of choosing our health as a priority.
• Make ethical choices in what you eat. Develop a relationship with what you put in your body, understand how it affects you, and recognize that your choices impact the environment. This is an interpolation of the French diet in a sense since it is not a conscious concern of theirs, generally, but in a world of genetically modified foods and questionable shortsighted farming practices, it helps you to identify “real food.” The French concept of the Terroir reflects a profound respect for the land that provides the good things in life – it is a principle that helps when trying to make wise choices.
• Don’t view your weight or your choices as a pass/fail situation. View it as a commitment to improving your life over the long haul.

All of these steps, for me, boil down to this: Eating real food in moderation simply works. It may very well be the solution to the French Paradox.

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This article is part 2 in a series. The first article is here: “Retrain Yourself on Food Portion Sizes – Part 1.” If you enjoy this series, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit or sharing it with others via Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, or your favorite social media tool. Thanks.

In case you haven’t been on speaking terms with your scale for a while, or you’ve been avoiding all forms of news and information in favor of continuing to blindly support that questionable Krispy Kreme investment, it may come as a surprise to you to learn that we Westerners have a bit of a problem with our weight.

(And yes, that last statement is my official entry for the Understimator of the Year Award, which I have a sneaking suspicion is somehow tied to the Darwin Awards.)

In the, “what the heck is wrong with what we’re eating” category of Almost Fit, today’s article is part 2 of the discussion of portion size. And I’m going to reveal the spoiler for this series, so look away if you don’t want to know the truth: The portion guidelines I’m going to list at the end of this series probably won’t work for you (at least not at first, if you’re anything like I was 6 months ago).

In my experience of 20+ years of dieting, quite honestly portion control was never really effective over the long haul. I’d do pretty well for a while, but ultimately I slipped back into my old ways. And it always left me feeling like, “Wow, what is wrong with me? Why do I lack the willpower to make this happen?”

While I take firm responsibility for my choices dietary and otherwise, it is a question worth careful consideration: Why couldn’t I do it over the long term? Was it just a character flaw that I should accept? I think that for me there were lots of internal and external factors, but one of the biggest reasons was this:

I was simply eating too much of the wrong, supposedly healthy things.

Specifically, my focus in portion control was to eat the exact prescribed portion sizes of everything BUT whole, real foods (with a few negligible fruit exceptions). Lots of low fat, low carb, low calorie products, shakes, diet soda, diet bars, and so forth, but next to no real, whole foods.

That, if you have been reading here at Almost Fit for a while now, has changed.

What I’m not doing now

Understanding what a real portion is at the center of changing the way I eat, and is one of the core principles of eating Real Food in Moderation. It is coupled directly with WHAT I’m eating. But more on that later. For now, here are the things that I’m NOT doing when it comes to portion size:

1. I don’t weigh my food.
2. I don’t use a ruler to measure the size of my food.
3. I don’t use a calorimeter to measure the caloric density of my food.
4. I don’t count calories!
5. I especially do not count fat grams.
6. I don’t measure my fluid intake (unless I’m exercising heavily).

What I am doing now

1. I focus on eating as many fresh fruits and vegetables as I can eat, and I don’t worry about measuring those portions. I eat as much as I can, so long as I’m not bursting at the seams. So far, I can’t get enough.
2. I do not treat what I eat like a chemistry experiment, focusing on the measurements of micro components of the food as a basis for my decisions. I keep my vision at a macro level, looking at the overall picture of what I’m eating. I focus on enjoying food for the sensual experience of eating, not the “fuel” factor.
3. I do not consume measured amounts of supplements at this point. I have not been diagnosed with any major vitamin or mineral deficiencies, so thus far I’m finding the nutrients I need in the foods I’m eating; the effect of taking in nutrients as part of a whole food has been demonstrated to be substantially greater than consuming supplements that contain the extracted parts of those foods. As Michael Pollan points out in his book In Defense of Food, we don’t even know the science behind how the components of whole foods are symbiotic, and so far we’ve often gotten it wrong.
4. I use several basic rules of thumb to “recalibrate” what I expect a portion size to be (I’ll be describing those very soon).
5. I use smaller bowls and plates – not to trick myself. Or maybe I am. I’m not sure – my diversion is so effective that even I can’t tell when it’s working.
6. I am retraining myself to identify when I’m starting to feel full, and then I stop.
7. I eat smaller bites.
8. I eat a small portion of ice cream, the real stuff, nightly. Yes, after 8PM. Yes, full fat Haggen Daas.
9. I weigh myself generally every day, but measure my progress by the month. I’m in it for the long haul.

My focus now is on eating the best I can afford, just less of it. What does this imply? The biggest surprise to most “dieters” is I’m eating lots of naturally occurring fats from natural sources, and I’m losing weight doing it. It means no more processed chemically fortified blue skim milk; I drink real, whole milk (raw if I can get it), just less of it (you need less because its richer). That includes real, whole milk cheeses from grass-fed cows. Crackling fresh artisan breads. Decadent chocolate. Cream in my coffee. Ice Cream, with real sugar, fat, and whatever else that beautiful cold comfort confectionary wizard can imagine.

And the result? My weight is down nearly 23 lbs. this year, without significant exercise yet (I’m working on that); my blood pressure is lower (I checked it today, and my high and low pressures have dropped into the “middle” ranges, as has my pulse rate); my cholesterol is fine; heartburn is gone; and I am enjoying food.

No, I am LOVING food. And getting thinner for it.

So how is this possible? Although I’m eating great food, it definitely requires some retraining. Before we get to the actual techniques for estimating a reasonable portion size for just about everything, the next part is going to discuss some prerequisites to making this work. Nothing complicated really; no supplements, products, hacks, or surgeries – just rethinking what makes you feel good when you eat.

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Ed. note: This is just a post-April Fools Day update: This may be a complete fabrication…I may have completely imagined it…but you be the judge. If you like this story, please consider buying the live Jackalopes I’m selling on eBay Pets, or purchasing the pieces of an alien craft that look remarkably similar to the silver sheathing on rolls of household insulation that I have from our remodel. Or, if that doesn’t interest you, you might consider subscribing to Almost Fit. Its your call.

Anchorage, AK – A newly discovered plant that has been unearthed in the Arctic is proving to be the most effective natural weight loss compound found to date, with no known side effects. Global warming may be having an unexpected benefit: incredibly rapid weight loss, completely naturally.

In a press release issued by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, researchers at the North pole have discovered a plant compound that apparently kept dinosaurs lean, and may explain the genetic mystery of the dietary habits of Eskimo cultures who have historically eaten incredibly high levels of saturated fats with little or no negative effects on weight and cholesterol. The new compound is derived from what researchers have named Lactuca Shackliola, or, “Shackleaf lettuce” (pictured).

“We pulled up the core sample, and there it was, stuck to the outside of the coring rod,” Sylette Rivermorelandstein points out, holding a photo of a purplish wilted leaf stuck to a metal rod.

“Most of our samples pull up a lot of silt and occasionally plant matter, but nothing like this. Its a direct result of global thermal incubation,” she said. “For some reason, I just had to taste it. And it was quite good!”

The next morning, Rivermorelandstein stepped into her orange thermal suit, and something felt different. She cinched her belt down, and to her surprise, it was loose. Very, loose.

“The only thing I noticed beyond the suit fitting differently was that I had an odd taste in my mouth, sort of metallic, or like the taste of a dentist’s mirror. I didn’t think much about it really, but the suit was a little odd. I thought I had put someone else’s on.”

In passing, Rivermorelandstein mentioned this oddity to the resident medical technician, who was also curious. After weighing her, the technician noted that Sylette was significantly lighter than she was the previous day, when she had been weighed to evaluate whether she could safely walk on the ice at the coring site. Rivermorelandstein had lost 7lbs in her sleep. That after having eaten a dinner of a large reheated Pizza Hut Deep Dish Meat Lover’s pizza, a 2-liter bottle of Coke, Stouffer’s lean cuisine lasagna and a South Beach Fudge bar.

“Up here in the higher latitudes, you can really pack away a lot more at mealtime. Plus the extra cushion keeps ya warmer,” Ron Steadlefield, Ph.D., the head researcher and medical assistant for the team said. “But you’ve really gotta avoid the Shackleaf – the stuff just melts the pounds right off. And that equals lower body temperature, which can be lethal in the environments we’re confined to.” Steadlefield has also lost a significant amount of weight eating Shackleaf.

After a few hours of digging driven by curiosity and a six pack of Pete’s Wicked Summer Brew Beer, they unearthed a large stash of leaves, which photos show look surprisingly similar to dark green version of traditional Romaine. After taking samples that were prepared for temperature-controlled transport back to the research facility at Cambridge, the researchers did something unusual – they decided to try it again, in a salad, to see if they could replicate the results that Rivermorelandstein had experienced.

By the next morning, they had lost collectively 54.8 lbs among a team of 8.

At the lab at Cambridge, further analysis including radiocarbon dating revealed that the samples are roughly 175,000 years old, preserved completely intact by the frozen tundra. In recent years, scientists have seen this substance before, but struggled to explain it’s origin. The plant matter was discovered in the stomachs of thawed pre-historic polar predators, and has genetic similarities to an unusual DNA chain recently identified among native tribes of the North. The difference is no one ever thought to taste these compounds, and then step on the scale the next day.

“We hypothesized that the coexistence of the DNA and the existence of a similar compound in the stomachs of mammoths was because, well, mammoths probably consumed a few hominids here and there,” said Steadlefield.

“This really changes everything,” Fergal Luellen, Ph.D., the Director of Research for the institute’s Polar studies program remarked. “We have done every test known to man on the samples that we collect. We simply never thought of putting them in a salad.”

The researchers were also able to retrieve seed pods and have successfully grown the species under controlled conditions using grow lights. Some students were reportedly growing samples in their closets. The lab-tested samples of the new growth show that the potency of the leaves has not diminished.

The potential uses for the leaf are tremendous from a medical perspective, and it means a possible revolution in the diet and weight loss industry. The university is compiling a list of requests for retail distribution, including Whole Foods Markets. Marketed under its given name of Shackleaf lettuce, the new weight loss miracle leaf may be available in higher end food emporiums in the United States in late 2008. The European Union is waiting for further analysis, and to essentially wait and see what happens in the American Market.

“I’d eat it – yeah absolutely!” Marla Schriver, a tollbooth operator in New Jersey and a lifelong dieter said. “I mean, if dinosaurs coulda’ eaten it and lost weight, heck I’m getting up there in years too – I could eat some dinodiet food. Sure whatever, why not, ya know? I mean, are you kidding me?”

The FDA is already beginning trials of the plant, and expects to yield a definitive answer in the fall.

[UPDATE: The FDA has approved the use of this plant. It will be free to every citizen, young and old, tall, height-challenged, thin, and weight-endowed, and distributed with our tax returns next April. April 1st, actually...]

If you found this article even the least bit, er, interesting, please consider sharing it via StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks! And remember…April Fools day next year is only 364 days away…

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