The New American Diet

I typically browse on menshealth.com once a day to check-out any health or exercise related articles. Maybe, now, having taking this class, I can justify and attribute reading online articles to being "green" conscious and not just because I do not have the money to buy magazines. Nonetheless, yesterday I found an interesting article about a book title The New American Diet by Steve Perrine and Heather Hurlock. Menshealth presented this book to represent a code of laws: the laws of "Leanness". As I continued to read, I realized these laws have been the very nutritional knowledge we have discovered this semester in this course.

The Law of Leanness #1: Know When to Go Organic
the focus of this law is the avoidance of harmful substances used in traditional farming and animal raising. Everyday we are ingesting harmful pesticides and metabolites through the foods and liquids we eat and drink. "Some of those chemicals can mimic estrogen during development, which can lead to weight gain later in life" - Sound's like Professor Hirsch wasn't joking around with saying that many of the foods we eat today are "feminizing" us men. Evidence is showing that exposure to these chemicals earlier in life may lead to problems later in life. "At the University of California at Irvine, Bruce Blumberg, Ph.D., recently reported that prenatal exposure to obesogens among mice can predispose them to weight gain later in life. The effect is likely the same in humans. In one study, the adult daughters of women who had the highest levels of DDE (a breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) in their blood during childbearing years were found to be 20 pounds heavier, on average, than daughters of women who had the least." It seems that what we eat now IS important and the sooner we change, the better. These chemicals are called "OBESOGENS" in this article. I could not think of a better term!

On a more positive note the article continues by mentioning some hope: "Environmental Health Perspectives found that children who ate fruits and vegetables free of organophosphorous pesticides for just 5 days reduced their urine concentrations of those pesticides to undetectable levels." Some other ways to limit our pesticide intake is to "Go Organic" on the most pesticide ridden fruits, they are as follows: peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears. Another way to limit pesticide intake is to eat more of these fruits and vegetables, which are said to have the least pesticides: onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwis, cabbages, eggplants, papayas, watermelons, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.

The next section in this article is the Law of Leanness #2: Stop Eating Plastic- this was an interesting view and I suggest you read it.

Following this section was the the Law of Leanness #3: Don't Eat the Viking
This section starts by saying:When was the last time you took a dose of weight-promoting hormones?
Okay, when was the last time you ate a burger?
The meat many of us eat is a cocktail of obesogens and hormones."A 1999 European study concluded that people who eat meat from cattle treated with growth hormones are taking in hormones and their metabolites: estrogens in the range of 1 to 84 nanograms per person per day, progesterone (64 to 467 ng), and testosterone (5 to 189 ng)." These hormones are endocrine disrupters and interfere with our normal hormonal balance, leading to obesity along with other problems.

"To bring this all home, imagine you've been in a terrible plane crash in the Andes, like those poor souls depicted in the movie Alive. The only way to survive is to pick one of the dead folks to eat. You're given the choice of an obese, grotesquely muscled, man-boob-toting Minnesota Vikings lineman with shrunken testicles who's been injecting himself with hormones for a dozen years, or someone of normal size and body type and hormonal function. (One of the Kardashian sisters, maybe.) Which would you choose?

Well, every time you eat conventionally raised beef, you're choosing the Viking." - I found this humorous but it gives a visual perspective to the kinds of effects these hormones can have.

Once again hope is put before us. The article goes on to list the benefits of organic and grass fed beef:There's a better way. "Organic beef has none of the weight-promoting steroid hormones of conventional beef, while grass-fed beef has been found to have more omega-3s and more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA is a fatty-acid mixture that's been linked to protection against cardiovascular disease and diabetes; it can also help you lose weight, according to a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."

The final section, the Law of Leanness #4, goes on to describe some negative effects of soy? I was unaware of this information and also some not-so-new news in the form of HFCS, or High Fructose Corn Syrup.

This information was less shocking after taking this course, but I know that many people are unaware of this phenomenon. Fighting for organic and locally grown foods in our University and school systems across NY should be pursued for the health and prosperity of our populations.

REFERENCE:

1. http://menshealth.com/new-american-diet/lose-weight2.html