NutritionDoc

While experts debate the role of diet sodas in health, beverage makers are moving full steam ahead with the introduction of a whole new genre of diet soft drinks fortified with vitamins and minerals, but dubbing them "sparkling" beverages for more cachet.

 

The latest entry is Diet Coke Plus, a "sparkling calorie free beverage," which is essentially Diet Coke with vit. B6, B12 and niacin and the minerals zinc and magnesium thrown in. The only other difference is a mix of aspartame and acesultame-K as sweeteners versus just aspartame in Diet Coke.

 

CocaCola's archrival, Pepsi, is not far behind. The company is expected to introduce a new zero calorie beverage called Tava sometime soon. A "sparling fruit drink" Tava is not a cola, but comes in Caribbean style fruit flavors. Their web site says it is calorie free and caffeine free, fortified with vit. B, C and E plus chromium.

 

So, if you drink diet sodas, should you opt for Coke or Pepsi's nutrient fortified versions?  While there is nothing inherently harmful about the amounts of the nutrients added to these sodas, there is nothing redeeming about them either. Adding nutrients to a beverage of zero nutritional merit will not make up for a poor diet. Nutrients work best in foods, where they are needed to help process protein, carbohydrates and fats as well as provide needed vitamins and minerals plus the bonus of phytonutrients.

 

Multivitammins have a place because they provide a balanced array of nutrients. In contrast, these beverages hawk a handful of trendy nutrients with little logic to the overall picture.

 

To me this smacks of opportunism. The number of overweight Americans is at an all time high. Yet intakes of several nutrients are suboptimal. Soft drink makers, suffering from decling sales, have come up with the "perfect" solution - fortified diet drinks for nutrient-depleted, overweight Americans.

 

In my view, this new genre of drinks is yet another unfortunate way to replace nutritious natural whole foods with a poor artificial substitute.

A lot has changed in the cracker aisle of the supermarket. Just 3 years ago, only a few brands of crackers had taken the healthful step of removing trans fats. Now manufacturers have pretty much all jumped on the bandwagon and you would be hard pressed to find a cracker that still contains trans fats.

 

The latest improvemewnt in cracker formulations, focuses on whole grains and multigrains as well as on fiber from wheat or oat brans. But do not judge a cracker by its package or its color. It is tough to tell the difference between refined wheat and whole wheat crackers. Dark or speckled crackers are not always high in fiber. And many products that brag of being multigrain or made with stoneground wheat actually contain few or no while grains.

 

The only way to be sure: READ THE INGREDIENT LIST!!!You are best off choosing a cracker that lists a whole grain as the first ingredient or the only grain. Next best is a whole grain as the second ingredient.  Be sure to check out the sodium in your cracker. Some otherwise healthful whole grain crackers do not make the grade because of their sodium content.

 

Remember:

 

1. Be skeptical of buzz words.  The words"multigrain and Stoneground" are not synonomous with "Whole Grain." And be aware a product may say it "contains whole grain" or is "made with whole grain" and yet not be 100% whole grain.

 

2. Read labels for the first ingredient. Look for whole weat or other whole grain as the first ingredient, ideally, or at least as the second ingredient.

 

3. Compare equivalent serving sizes. Some serving sizes are 1/2 oz and some are 1 oz. Do the math to make fair comparisons.

 

4. Watch out for sodium. Even healthful crackers can be high in sodium.

 

5. Skip freeloading fat traps like cheese or sour cream dips. Try a bean dip or salsa instead.

Quesadillas are bad enough. At your typical Mexican restaurant, the two plate sized (white) flour tortillas stuffed with melted cheese and with sour cream and guacamole on the side can run you 900 calories and 25 grams of sat fat.

 

Some places add steak or chicken bringing the damge to roughly 1400 calories and 40 plus grams of sat fat. It is like eating three grilled cheese sandwiches.

 

On the Border does not stop there.Its Double Stacked Club Quesadillas pile on the makings of a club sandwich. They are stacked with fajita chicken, cheese, crumbled bacon, and avacado and come with sour cream and ranch dressing.

 

Drum roll please: 1860 calories, 52 grams of sat fat, and 3440 mg of sodium. That is worse than two orders of Cheese Nachos.

 

Order the Double Stacked Club Quesadillas often enough and someday, Doluble Stacked may describe the state of your midsection.

Over the last 10 years, sales of ready to drink bottled teas like Arizona, Nestea, Snapple, Lipton, and Sobe have grown almost tenfold. While that is good news for the companies, it may not be so good for people who think they are getting real tea.

 

Oregon state University researchers have found that freshly brewed green or black teas contain 10 to 100 times more antioxidants than bottled teas.

 

The US Dept. of Agriculture found much the same. According to its analyses, an 8 oz. cup of freshly brewed green tea contains 196 mg of the antioxidant EGCG, while a cup of bottled green tea contains just 9 mg.

 

And a cup of freshly brewed black tea contains 27 mg of EGCG, says the USDA while a cup of bottled black tea has 1 mg." Many of the currently available cold bottled teas sold in the US are more like diluted sugar water than something that may help protect your health" says Oregon State researcher Rod Dashwood.

Multigrain Tostitos have " Four Wholesome Grains!" Sun Chips have "Great Multigrain Taste!" and Nabisco Wheat Thins Multi Grain Toasted Chips are "made with Whole Grain - 5 g per serving."

 

Multigrain claims are multiplying, but they do not mean much. A 1 oz serving of Multigrain Tostitos (8 chips) has more sugar than any of its "Four Wholesome Grains" - whole oat flour, whole buckwheat flour, toasted corn germ, and whole wheat flour. So what if Sun Chips have other grains, added?  Wheat Thins Toasted Chips are mostly white flour. Their 5 grams of whole grain are only about a quarter of the grain in a 1 oz serving. (12 chips).  And while Athenos Whole Wheat Pita Chips have more whole wheat than white flour, 100 % whole wheat they ain't.

 

411: Most Doritos, Tostitos, and other tortilla chips are made of whole grain corn. Tostitos Natural Organic Blue or Yellow Corn Chips - with some vit E and just 80 mg of sodium - are two of your best bets. But whole grain or not, calorie dense chips are no health food.

Which bread crumbs would you buy? Brand A consists of wheat (white) flour, high fructose corn syrup (sugar) corn syrup (sugar) partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, water, salt and a few dozen other ingredients.

 

Brand B is nothing but whole wheat flour, malt extract (sugar) yeast and sea salt.

 

Stuck? Here is a clue: Brand A has 220 mg of sodium and 1 gram of fiber in every quarter cup serving, while Brand B has 25 mg of sodium and 2 grams of fiber.

 

Brand A is Progresso Plain Bread Crumbs and Brand B is Ian's Whole Wheat Panko Breadcrumbs, which are available in health food stores nationwide. Think of Progresso Italian Bread Crumbs with 470 mg of sodium as a bottom of the barrel Brand C.

 

Panko, or Japanese style, bread crumbs are coarser than regular crumbs. that keeps them light and crunchy, Ian's is one of  the few whole wheat  Toss some in your salad. Crown your casserole with a sprinkling.  Or type " panko chicken recipe" or "panko salmon recipe" into Google, then weed out anything that is heavy on ingredients like salt or butter.

 

You will be left with dishes like the mouth watering Panko-Crusted Salmon at elise.com or the Cajan Oven Fried Chicken at cookinglight.com

 

Sometimes a simple ingredient list means a simply delicious dinner.

 

This is for Nurse Bernie in pre op: Remember when it was a big deal to walk out of your local ice cream shoppe with a scoop of butter pecan or fudge ripple in your sugar cone with sprinles on top? With half a day's sat fat, it was a splurge. But a least you could get away with 300 calories.

 

Then came waffle cones ( 160 calories) and chocolate dipped waffle cones ( 320 calories) that looked silly without a least two scoops of ice cream ( 600 calories). But 1000 calories and a day's sat fat soon seemed run of the mill to some folks.

 

Enter Cold Stone Creamery, where you choose which combination of more than 30 candies, cookie pieces, and other morsels gets mixed into your ice cream and scooped into a choco dipped waffle bowl.

 

Take a Gotta Have It Founder's Favorite. Into your waffle bowl goes not just a 14 oz softball sized mound of ice cream, but pecans, brownie pieces, fudge and caramel. What ? No Oreos, Reese's Pieces, or Gummi Bears?

 

The tab: a startling 1740 calories, 48 grams of sat fat and 4 grams of trans fat. That is roughly what you would get if you polished off 5 single scoop ice cream cones.

 

Gottta Have It now . . . Gotta Lose It next week.

This is for the Recovery Room Nurse Becky:

 

The term "maltodextrin" refers to a food additive that falls somewhere between a starch and a sugar. Starches are long chains of sugar molecules that don't taste sweet; sugars, made up of just one or two molecules are swseet. Created by breaking down corn starch maltodextrin is added in small amounts to a wide variety of foods, such as reduced fat salad dressings and ice creams, to improved texture and sometimes to add sweetness. We digest maltodextrin like any other starch. In fact, when the body breaks starches dowsn into sugars - a process that starts with enzymes in the mouth - a small amount of maltodextrin is formed naturally.

Kashi Company has a great advertising slogan:

 

       Everything that goes into food goes into YOU.

 

I think I will put that on my card.