Tag Archives: food

Chemistry Experiments Disguised as Food

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It’s not always easy to figure out what’s food and what’s manufactured calories. Some items have the best names, names that make it seem as if the product is definitely food, and quite nourishing at that. So I didn’t realize that Nutrigrain bars had 52 ingredients until someone pointed it out to me. That’s not food, that’s a chemistry experiment.

The next time I was in the supermarket, I took a look at the ingredient list to confirm the observation. I also observed that eight (eight!) of those ingredients were different names for sugar. My best guess is that if they were required to integrate the ingredients in the CRUST and FILLING instead of listing them separately as they do, then sugar would be the first ingredient and people would be less inclined to think of the product as nourishing. The marketing team developed a great name for this chemistry experiment, but that’s where the attraction ends.

Here is an actual ingredient list for blueberry Nutrigrain bars so you can see for yourself what I’m talking about. The first and only time the word blueberry appears in the ingredient list is at number 41 (of 52). The various kinds of names for sugar are in bold type. 

CRUST: Whole grain rolled oats, enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate [Vitamin B1], riboflavin [vitamin B2], folic acid), whole wheat flour, sunflower and/or soybean oil with TBHQ for freshness, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, honey, dextrose, calcium carbonate, soluble corn fiber, nonfat dry milk, wheat bran, salt, cellulose, potassium bicarbonate (leavening), natural and artificial flavor, mono- and diglycerides, propylene glycol esters of fatty acids, soy lecithin, wheat gluten, niacinamide, sodium sterol lactylate, Vitamin A palmitate, carrageenan, zinc oxide, reduced iron, guar gym, pyridoxine hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), thiamine hydrochloride (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid.

FILLING: High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, blueberry puree concentrate, glycerin, sugar, water, sodium alginate, modified corn starch, natural and artificial flavor, citric acid, methylcellulose, calcium phosphate, malic acid, red #40, blue #1.

I am not the only one who’s noticed how nutritionally bankrupt these products are. There are plenty of great “breakfast bar” and “granola bar” recipes on line if you’re so inclined and, if not, then you can buy Lara bars, which have an ingredient list that looks something this: dates, peanuts, cashews. Here is how you know that it’s food:

#1 You can find all the ingredients for sale in a grocery store;
#2 You can make it, or a close facsimile, by yourself if you want; and
#3 A six-year-old can pronounce all the ingredients.

Lastly, I found a nice recipe for homemade granola bars at Love & Lemons. It’s made with peanut (or cashew) butter, rolled oats, honey, vanilla extract, pumpkin seeds (or peanuts), sea salt, and miniature chocolate chips. That’s all. I’m going to make a batch to take on our family vacation.

Gifts from my Family

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We receive many different kinds of gifts from our grandparents, whether the ability to identify all the trees in the backyard, or a beribboned stack of letters dating from the early 1900s, or a love of card games, baseball, or building castles on the beach. My family loved to cook and eat. This is certainly my inheritance, and a large part of the reason my family ate little or no ultraprocessed food. To use a product like “Shake ‘n’ Bake” bordered on heresy. I come by my love and celebration of good, real food in the most honest way possible.  Continue reading →

Dieting: It’s Not for the Birds and It’s Not for You

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This week I’m sharing a conversation that I have had with a lot of patients lately. They want to weigh less, they know that it’s better for their health, but they cannot figure out how to make it work. I tell them that making it work requires a frame shift, a change in the way you think about food. When we talk about what that means for them, I see the lights go on in their eyes and their expressions. It’s slightly magical, every time. They leave with renewed faith and self-confidence, not to mention relief. It was never about dieting. It was about the food. Continue reading →

The Best Gift My Mom Ever Received

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There is more, of course, to my mom than what I posted last week, so I ask for your forbearance as I continue to share our stories. This is my way of preserving her legacy and keeping her nearby as we (by which I mean my “immediate extended family,” as my sister put it) figure out how to move forward on our own. Today’s post is the story of what I think may have been the best gift my mother ever received. Continue reading →

Sage Advice for a Healthy New Year

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Some of the most valuable gifts we receive are the words of wisdom that are passed along from one generation to the next, and the holidays are a meaningful time to think about them. A few years, ago, around these holidays, a few of my friends at work got talking about our grandmothers’ old-fashioned expressions, beliefs, and bits of sage advice. You may think these expressions as quaint and old-fashioned, but they are so much more than that. These sayings are the collective wisdom of our ancestors, the ones who survived to pass along their words of wisdom to the younger generation. Here are a few for which I am most grateful. Continue reading →

Nourish Your Heart and Soul with Real Food

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Nowadays there’s a lot of talk about “real” food. What is “real” food? It’s food that has not been processed, refined, stripped, polished, fortified, enriched or otherwise modified. It’s basically fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, eggs, dairy products, and meats, like poultry, beef, and game, and including all the wonderful variations of these things that our brains are capable of inventing. If it’s not food, then it’s manufactured calories. This post is designed to help you figure out how to tell the difference.  Continue reading →

I Like Patients Vertical

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If I can help it, I like patients vertical, not horizontal. I want to make sure that nobody gets a disease that could have been prevented. Sure, accidents happen. And illnesses show up every day in the lives of patients and their families who did nothing to deserve them, and who could have done nothing to prevent them. But not all illnesses. Continue reading →

Winner by a Mile

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Last year, an article entitled “Can We Say What Diet is Best for Health?” was published in the scientific literature, and James Hamblin wrote a story about it for the Atlantic. He called it “Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner is Real Food.” You know, I would have edited out the word “Real” and then called it, simply, “Food.” The original article was written by David Katz and Stephanie Meller, of Yale School of Public Health. Continue reading →

Does This Nourish Me?

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Here are some questions to ask yourself as you choose your foods:
“What should I be buying, preparing, and eating?”
“What should I be making for my family, or co-workers?”
“Does this provide me with nutrients and building blocks?”
“Does it help my body to grow, to heal, to be strong and healthy?”
“Does it nourish me?”

To thrive or not to thrive, that is the question. Continue reading →