Why you should ditch your bread maker

Short answer - you don't need it.

A few days ago in the comments I promised someone a positive post and so here it is. It's about a new cookbook I recently bought and am very excited about. It's called, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking and after a quick read and a trial run, I'm willing to bet it lives up to its billing.

The premise is simple and builds off the concept of no-knead bread making. All you've got to do is mix the ingredients together (either by hand or via a mixer with a dough hook), stop, let rise for different amounts of time depending on recipe, put in fridge and then use on an as needed basis for up to 2 weeks! What that means of course is you've got a large batch of dough (enough for let's say 4-6 loaves) in your fridge and then when you feel like fresh, preservative free bread, where you've controlled and been in charge of every last ingredient, you simply cut off a hunk of dough, let it rise for 20 minutes and pop it into the oven in a loaf pan or on its own.

The recipes look gorgeous, extremely easy to make and with stores like bulk barn selling all sorts of different types of flour, very inexpensive.

My wife isn't as enamoured as I am yet. I'm hoping to win her over with a pumpernickel rye.

If you want your own copy Amazon.ca has it for $22.56 CAD while Amazon.com has it at $15.97 USD.

You'll also want a pizza stone (on which to cook some of the recipes) and some lidded containers that will hold large volumes of dough in your fridge.

There's a sequel too - Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients - which I'm going to buy with my next Amazon order.

Why Health Check's serving sizes are inexcusable.

Headlines this past weekend read that the FDA is about to crack down on food labels' unrealistic serving sizes.

Serving sizes matter so much because as far as the nutrition facts panels go, the breakdown of contents is described in terms of the reported serving sizes. Unrealistically small serving sizes lead to more favourable sounding breakdowns of calories, sodium etc.

For Big Food - it's not really their fault. They're just getting away with what labeling laws have to date allowed them to get away with. Of course the same cannot be said to be true about the Heart and Stroke Foundation's self-administered Health Check program. Simply put, Health Check's nutritional criteria certainly need not be based or built off of patently unrealistic serving sizes - yet they are.

To illustrate what I'm talking about let's take a look at two of the more popular categories - soups and canned beans.

First up is Campbell's Butternut Squash Gardennay Soup. The Heart and Stroke Foundation happily gives it a Health Check because it has 650mg of sodium per nutrition facts panel serving (close to 1/2 of the Heart and Stroke's total daily maximal sodium recommendation) and soups clearly help pay the bills at Health Check. But what's a serving? The panel says a serving is 250mL. 250mL is a cup. Ask any restaurateur and they'll tell you, cups and bowls aren't the same. Most folks sitting down for soup at home are going to eat a bowl.

The New York Times article linked up above also doesn't think a cup's a reasonable, real-life serving of soup and had this to say,

"Many of the soups are billed as “Heart Healthy” and claim to have a reasonable amount of salt per serving. But a shopper has to examine the label closely to understand that the salt claim refers to half a bowl. A full bowl may contain close to half the daily salt allowance recommended for people with high blood pressure."

That picture up top? That's one of my home bowls with a single "serving" of soup in it. Now my bowls aren't particularly large bowls and certainly that single cup in one of my bowls sure doesn't look very satisfying. No question, when we eat soup in our home (and I imagine in your homes too) it's 2 cups per bowl.

So now back to that Health Check'ed soup - my real life serving would therefore give me 1,300mg of sodium. That's 200mg shy of the Heart and Stroke Foundation's total daily maximum.

Think it's just me, that somehow I've either got gigantic bowls, a huge appetite or simply have it in for Health Check? Let's switch to beans.

This past weekend I read an article in the Ottawa Citizen. It was entitled, "Decoding a can of beans" and it looked at the food label of the Health Check'ed Heinz Chili Style Pinto & Red Kidney Beans. The published serving size on the beans is 1/2 a cup. According to the Citizen,

"The sodium content is very high: if you ate a full cup of these beans, a reasonable quantity, you would consume 840 milligrams of sodium",

leading dietitian Rachelle Charlebois to comment,

"If it wasn't for the sodium, canned beans would be such a healthy alternative to lunch meats"

And these are the beans with the Health Check and that photo up above includes what 1/2 a cup of 'em look like.

Health Check'ed soup and beans for dinner? Even if you eat Heart and Stroke sized portions you'd get 1,070mg of sodium (a huge and shameful to be approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation amount in and of itself). If you eat real life portions because you a) Want a substantial meal and b) Trust the Heart and Stroke Foundation enough not to weigh and measure your food, they'll hand you a heart stopping 2,140mg of sodium. 30% more sodium than the Heart and Stroke Foundation's own total daily recommended maximum!

Now toss in a glass of tomato juice (480mg sodium per glass of the stuff is ok by Health Check) and you're at 2,620mg of sodium in a single Health Check'ed meal and rapidly closing in on two days worth of maximal Heart and Stroke Foundation sodium.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has no excuses. Remember with Health Check there's an independent body in charge of setting up shop. Unlike nutrition facts panels which are are mandated from on high, Health Check can set any old levels they want and yet they've chosen to set levels that in the majority of Health Check'ed cases are downright bad for you.

So unbelievably sad, pathetic and shameful to abuse the public's trust that way.

(And don't try to talk to me about Health Check's new so-called stricter criteria - the soup'll drop to 960mg per real life serving, the beans to 720mg while the tomato juice is already "stricter" at 480mg per glass)

A pea sized bite of salmon has 3x the DHA of Dairyland's Li'L Ones yogurt with DHA!

"A Li'L Story
by Li'L Ones
Once upon a time there were Big Ones who had Little Ones. The Big Ones wanted the Little Ones to be healthy and strong, so they said to the Little Ones, "You must always eat all your meat and all your vegetables."

The Little Ones wanted to be healthy and strong too, so they told the Big Ones, "We won't always eat all our meat and all our vegetables, but we'll always eat all our Li'L Ones yogurt."

So the Big Ones read the label on the Li'L Ones yogurt, and they saw that the Little Ones were very smart indeed, which wasn't surprising because Li'L Ones has DHA. Plus it's made with whole milk to keep them healthy and strong.

So the Big Ones bought their Little Ones lots of Li'L Ones yogurt and they all lived happily every always."

Hmmmmmm.

So this Big One decided to read the label on the Li'L Ones yogurt, and this Big One decided to read the whole label, not just the front of the package, or the cute storybook on their website (as seen below).





Want to know what this Big One found?

This Big One found that the nutrition facts panel on Li'L Ones yogurt, the one the Little Ones "will always eat", the one whose website states was developed with the help of dietitians and shouts is,

"FORTIFIED WITH DHA FOR HEALTHY BRAINS, EYES AND NERVES"

Well that very same yogurt's nutrition facts panel reports that while there are nearly 4 teaspoons of sugar per serving of Li'L Ones, there are 0g of Omega-3 Polyunsaturates.


Wait a sec', isn't DHA an Omega-3 polyunsaturated fat?

So this Big One called up Dairyland customer service to ask about DHA and was told that the amount of DHA that's added to Li'L Ones yogurt is so low that labeling laws in Canada forbid them from reporting any! All told per serving there's only 25mg of DHA, an amount so small that were your toddler to eat a single pea sized serving of salmon they'd be eating the equivalent nearly 3 Li'L Ones worth of DHA! And if you managed to convince your toddler to eat a small 2.5 ounce serving of salmon they'd be getting the DHA equivalent of 64.4 Li'L Ones.

So what does Dairyland's Big One corporate Dietitian Cara Rosenbloom have to say about her company's incredibly sugary product, that as far as Health Canada's concerned has 0g of DHA yet markets itself as brain, eye and nerve food for toddlers?

"Toddlers need sufficient intake of the omega-3 fat called DHA, which supports the normal development of the brain, eyes and nerves. It can be found in salmon, trout, enriched eggs and Dairy-Oh! Milk and Li’L Ones yogurt."

Gee thanks Cara - great job promoting your company's product at the expense of properly interpreting a nutrition facts panel for the public.

[Interesting side note - Cara's a busy lady. She's also part of the Technical Advisory Committee for Heart and Stroke's Health Check program where given Health Check's laxity in inclusion criteria it certainly doesn't appear as if she's doing any better a job there at interpreting nutrition fact panels]

Saturday Stories

Stories that managed to capture my minuscule attention span this week:

Brian Switek of Laelaps covers the much bally-hoo'd report on barefoot running (complete with cool video.

The New York Times covers the story of how an all-American kid became a terrorist leader in Somalia.

Orac from Respectful Insolence schools reporters in how not to report science and medical news.

Steven Novella from Neurologica further eviscerates the Desiree Jennings dystonia case.

Julie from Dinner with Julie announces the launch of Blogaid: Recipes for Haiti. 27 food bloggers band together to create a cookbook with proceeds going to help support relief efforts in Haiti.

And for a self serving one - CBC Marketplace has me have a peek at the studies Herbal Magic suggests supports 2 of their products' efficacies.

Lastly, ever wonder what happens to a man kicked in the groin with 1,100lbs of force? Well wonder no more and watch this video from the show Sport Science (email subscribers will need to head to the blog to view):

The Majesty of Farmville

Not everyone's going to know what this video's about, but that won't make it any less funny.

It's about a "game" on Facebook called Farmville whose users litter a person's Facebook alerts with Farmville updates.

Funny Friday's video takes a look at the unbelievably intense gameplay.

Have a great weekend!

Must see TV alert!

Forgot to mention.

Tomorrow CBC's award winning investigative journalism show Marketplace will be airing their special on Herbal Magic.

Not sure how much of me will be in the show, but I was honoured to have been asked to help out and give my opinion on some of the practices going on over there.

Having seen some (or all, not sure) of the hidden video I can say it ought to be a fun show.

CBC Marketplace airs at Fridays at 8:30pm EST, Saturdays at 5:30pm and Sundays at 2:30am and 6:30am.

You'll also be able to watch it online at www.cbc.ca/marketplace from Saturday onward.

Should we be treating children for obesity?

Long term readers of my blog may know that generally I'm leery of childhood obesity treatment programs (if you've got to this page from the CBC website on bariatric surgery and teens, please be aware that this blog post has solely to do with medical weight management programs and that surgery may in many cases be an extremely appropriate teenage option).

My issues with them are pretty straightforward. I worry about what it will do to the self-esteem and body image of a child to be put through an inter-disciplinary weight management program (kid, you're so fat you need a team of doctors and dietitians to help you); I worry that kids are not emotionally or cognitively mature enough to have insight into treatment (especially younger kids); and I worry that by treating the kid we're avoiding the cause - the parents who've enabled whatever behaviours that have led their kids to need help in the first place and the environment in which we all now live.

Really the only time I think it's suitable to treat children is when there are already established co-morbidities - hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, etc. Otherwise I think we should be treating their parents and encouraging them to live the lives they want their children to live and to teach their children through role modeling rather than lecturing.

Well here's a worry I didn't have before but I do now. I worry that maybe you can't even give childhood obesity treatment programs away.

What do I mean?

Have a peek at this news article. The article's about a young girl named Paris living in Chicago. Paris is overweight and Paris' pediatrician urged her to participate in a year long program of weekly sessions with a dietitian, a personal trainer and a physician held at Chicago's Rush University. The program was offered free of charge. They'd have workouts with the trainer when they were there, and the docs and RDs would help them work on lifestyle changes.

At the outset, things went great for Paris but then life intervened. She and her family started missing appointments, Paris started eating out more often and despite an initial loss, by the end of the year Paris had gained 12lbs.

The not for profit cost estimate for the year of intensive therapy was in the neighbourhood of $4,000.

So at the end of the day here's a motivated family (they had to have been to commit to weekly visits for a year), a desperate teen with a $4,000 scholarship to an intensive treatment program - a program that provided an exemplary level of care consistent with the recent recommendations of the US Preventive Task Force, that fairly quickly the family and the teen blew off.

I know, one isn't exactly a sample size but given the challenge I see in compliance with adults, when I couple that with the inherent lack of organization of a child/teen along with the realities of life and the pressures of youth I worry that these interventions might in fact do more harm than good (harm to self-esteem and body image with a lack of demonstrable lifelong success despite the best of intentions).

Now I don't have any basis for my worries other than my gut. Hopefully there's someone out there following children through these programs into their adulthood to track their mental well being, their body image, their self-esteem and their weight, and until I see those studies saying I've got nothing to worry about, I'm going to stick to my adults only approach.

In my mind prevention is the key to dealing with childhood obesity, not treatment and while maybe I'm a broken record, here are some suggestions:

Expanded and enhanced nutritional education in schools encompassing energy balance with an emphasis on energy in and spread throughout the curriculum (reading comprehension, math, geography etc.); mandatory posting of calories on menus in schools; ridding schools of energy dense highly processed garbage; mandatory cooking courses (where parents are encouraged to attend); snack time built into the curriculum and the establishment of a national nutrition policy and food program for schools.

A federal ban on advertising targeting children.

Mandatory calorie posting in chain restaurants.

New zoning laws to ensure variety stores and fast food restaurants be further than walking distance from schools.

Massive public education campaigns on the importance of eating frequently, having breakfast, having minimums of calories per meal and snack, the importance of protein and fibre in satiety, calories needed per person per day and basic label reading.

New labeling laws to ensure more uniformity in suggested serving size and the inclusion of calories per package as well as a ban on misleading front-of-package health claims and programs.

The establishment of a nominal junk food and/or soft drink tax (a penny an ounce sounds good to me) with proceeds to subsidize the costs of fresh whole foods.

Changes to the existing tax laws so as to remove tax from healthful, whole foods.

Tax deduction status for all sports equipment, gym memberships, organized sports for kids and adults alike.

Those are just off the top of my head. Put together a think-tank and we can come up with dozens more. If we want to tackle childhood obesity we have to tackle the cause - the environment and the parents. Tackling the kids just puts them at risk for injury.

Whitlock, E., O'Connor, E., Williams, S., Beil, T., & Lutz, K. (2010). Effectiveness of Weight Management Interventions in Children: A Targeted Systematic Review for the USPSTF PEDIATRICS, 125 (2) DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-1955

[Hat tip to BMI's Director of Operations Lorne for pointing me to the article]

10 potentially fatal, yet still approved by Health Canada "natural" weight loss products

And the saddest part of this story? Health Canada knows they're potentially fatal yet instead of pulling them off the market, they've issued a warning that states,

"The risk to Canadians includes choking and/or blockage of the throat, esophagus or intestine"

So what are the products? They're the ones that contain "glucomannan", a pectin like fibre that when mixed with water (or bodily fluids) forms a gel that according to one product's website, "multiplies in volume by 17 times" leading you to feel fuller (and apparently potentially cause you to choke to death or suffer a bowel obstruction). Currently according to the Natural Food Directorate's search by ingredient feature, there are 10 such products officially licensed in Canada.

So is glucommanan so wonderful it's worth risking choking to death or a bowel obstruction? Some small scale studies do suggest that glucommanan might lead a person to lose 3-5lbs more than not taking glucomannan.

Sounds like a great plan.

So how many of our tax dollars go to fund the Natural Health Products Directorate? They're doing a bang up job.

Breaking News: Official Health Check endorsement of Pizza Hut!

'Cause nothing's healthier than taking your family to Pizza Hut for supper.

Here's the quote from the press release,

"We know that many people want healthy choices when they dine out and having Health Check on the Pizza Hut menu helps them easily identify those healthy options,” says Julie Lau, Heart and Stroke Foundation registered dietitian for BC."

What a sad, sad state of affairs.

Have they no shame?

While the options may be "less bad" than other options on Pizza Hut's menu, that doesn't make them "healthy", nor does it preclude other members of your family (or you) from ordering non-Check'ed items while they're there.

Reading the small print on Pizza Hut's website one finds that a Health Check'ed serving of pizza is 2 slices and a Health Check'ed serving of pasta is 1/3 of a tray.

(Straw poll - you've gone out to eat pizza in a restaurant, are you done after 2 slices?)

A commenter the other day said that it's meant to help folks who've already made the decision to eat out, eat healthier and I suggested that'd be like the Canadian Lung Association endorsing "light" cigarettes to folks who've already made the decision to smoke.

How do they sleep at night?

Gerber Graduates wins the dubious 2010 Salt Lick Award!

Ah Gerber baby foods, now a Nestlé company where,

"Together, Nestlé & Gerber have made an unwavering commitment to a healthier generation, one baby at a time. It’s our pledge to support the healthy growth and development of babies around the world. And, you’ll see this commitment in everything we do - bringing you and baby innovative and trusted feeding solutions from birth through preschool, and everything in between"

So together what have Gerber and Nestlé brought?

Salt. Lots and lots of salt.

This morning the Canadian Stroke Network and the Advanced Foods and Materials Network announced that the Gerber Graduates toddler food product line won the 2010 Salt Lick Award.

So how much salt we talking?

Looking at Gerber Graduates Chicken and Pasta Wheel Pickups we're talking 550mg of sodium, more than half a toddler needs in a daytime and the equivalent amount of sodium found in 2 orders of medium fries at McDonald's.

Guess they're trying to graduate them to full blown heart disease.

Great job Gerber and Nestlé, your caring for kids is truly blogworthy.

The McHealth Check? The Heart and Stroke Foundation heads to McDonald's!

Of course!

Because Canadians don't eat out often enough, right? Certainly health authorities should be doing whatever they can to encourage Canadians to eat out more often, right? Clearly it's not enough that food dollars spent outside the home have risen nearly 20% since the 70s to a whopping 54%, we should be aiming higher, right? Oh, and eating out being a seminal component of our rising obesity rate, who cares, right? Certainly not the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and really, who better to champion eating out than their atrocious Health Check program?

You know the program. It's the one that has less stringent criteria than the almost instantaneously laughed out of business Smart Choices program in the States. It's the one that gives its seal of approval to restaurant meals at fast casual restaurants like Boston Pizza to entrees that have up to 960mg of sodium (and that's the new "stricter" criteria) or nearly 2/3 of the Heart and Stroke Foundation's own daily recommended 1,500mg maximal sodium intake. It's also the one that Heart and Stroke Foundation Registered Dietitian Carol Dombrow proudly reports,

"When you see the Health Check symbol on a food package or restaurant menu, you know the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s registered dietitians have evaluated this item and it can contribute to an overall healthy diet. Look for the Health Check symbol to help you make wise choices."

Well guess what? Health Check's coming to a McDonald's near you.

Yup, the brilliant dietetic brain trust over at Health Check is about to roll out Health Check'ed items at McDonald's, Tim Horton's, Subway and other fast food restaurants.

Genius! What better way to promote health than to give Canadians a reason to feel good about eating industrially processed food-like substances rather than cooking with real whole foods?

I know, you think I must be making this up. Sadly I'm not. A few days ago I took a survey from the Heart and Stroke Foundation about their involvement in restaurants and came across question #7 (click the picture below to see it all blown up).


Here's what it reported/asked (emphasis mine),

"The Heart and Stroke Foundation is extending its Health Check program to Quick Service Restaurants, such as McDonald's, Subway and Tim Horton's. Healthy meals will be identified on the menu with the Health Check logo. Brochures explaining the program and the nutrient requirements will be supplied, and training will be provided to restaurant employees.

Do you foresee any major obstacles to the success for this program?"

Nope, I don't see any major obstacles. You see the Heart and Stroke Foundation is clearly comfortable pimping out their good name to pretty much anyone who asks, and given how pathetically underpowered their inclusionary nutritional criteria are, that opens up the door to healthy eating titans like McDonald's to help line Heart and Stroke Foundation pockets.

Outraged? Think the Heart and Stroke Foundation should be going out of their way to encourage cooking with whole foods, not eating out? Think it obscene that Heart and Stroke Foundation Health Checks will soon adorn the menu at McDonald's? Please don't stay silent, not this time. This time, if you're a concerned allied health professional, a concerned parent, or just plain concerned, please take just a few brief moments of your time and click here to send an email to Sally Brown, the Foundation's CEO, Stephen Samis, the Foundation's Scientific Director, Terry Dean, the General Manager of Health Check and copied on the email will be Health Check's Technical Advisors and Health Check's Strategic Advisory Panel.

I can only hold out hope that Health Check's partnership with McDonald's will do to them what Smart Choices' partnership with Froot Loops did - expose the Health Check program for exactly what it is - an irresponsible program that confuses and misinforms Canadians about what is and what is not healthy.

Social media folks - please tweet this (retweet button below), blog about it, link to it and just plain make noise. I haven't seen the Checks in McDonald's yet and maybe, just maybe, enough noise will make it through the few feet of sand the Heart and Stroke Foundation folks have shoved their heads into and knock a tiny bit of sense into them and put an end to this madness before it formally begins.

Don't want to do any of that? Well then why don't you at least keep your eyes open for Heart and Stroke Foundation, and apparently fast-food loving, registered dietitian Carol Dombrow eating at McDonald's and making the "wise choices" the program she proudly shills for is soon going to be encouraging everyone to make.

Filet-O-Fish anyone?

[Hat tip to blogging friend and registered dietitian Vincci who pointed me to the survey via her blog C'eci n'est pas un food blog]

Saturday Stories

This past week was ridiculously busy so not much time to read.

Before I get to the links two brief updates. Remember the teasers I was putting out regarding Health Canada? Well two things are slowing me down from giving you folks one doozy of a story. The first is that I'm waiting for an official response from Health Canada to a pile of questions I sent them. The second is that the Canadian Medical Association Journal has hired me to write the story for their news section and consequently rather than just have my snarky opinion and be done with it, I've got to do my due diligence and research all sides of the story, conduct piles of interviews and then write journalistically (see, here in the blog I can make up words) about it. I'm hoping for some time next month.

Second update? Tune into CBC Marketplace next Friday night and you can catch me on their piece on the pros and cons of Herbal Magic.

Stories that managed to capture my minuscule attention span this week:

Vincci and her C'eci n'est pas un food blog shares a whole pile of nutrition related links (including one that'll lead me to a blog post on Monday).

While Peter at Obesity Panacea continues their ownership of top 10 lists with their latest regarding annoying gym personalities.