04.23.08
Who Knows What Evil Lies in the Heart of Cheesecake?…
It seems that the consistent need for a “bad guy” in American public has extended itself to the world of food. Just like we need a “Public Enemy #1″ to be scared of when we walk down the streets, we need a “health enemy #1″ to avoid like the plague (pun not intended) to check for on labels.
 “I’ve come for you… and I’ve brought Crisco!” |
And of course, our enemy du jour is: trans fat! (Dramatic chord.)
Yes, this is the root of all evil in food. If you eat any trans fat, you will surely die a quick, yet horrible death. So check those labels for trans fat people. If there are none in there, then it is good for you!
What a load of crap. I mean, doesn’t it seem like just yesterday that avoiding carbs was the ultimate solution to preventing a miserable death by tastiness? And before that, all we had to check for on labels was the cholesterol content. Before that, it was just the calorie level that caused the most concern. (”Just for the taste of it… One Calorie!… Diet Coke! ” Never mind what aspartame does to you…)
There are two things wrong with this kind of thinking when it comes to nutrition.
 How odd that their circle seems to “cross out” both “saturated fat” and “cholesterol”…. |
First, as I alluded to earlier, this approach puts blinders on us when we look at nutrition labels. I was taste-testing a pack of Gorton’s Shrimp Temptations (final verdict - pretty good, but not worth $9/box…) and the box said that I could “indulge myself all I wanted” since there were no trans fats! Indeed, take a look at the nutrition label to the right. This is how they present it on their website, and the nutrition label does indeed back up this claim - the trans fat count per serving is indeed 0g. But the overall fat count in a serving is 12 grams, and let’s not neglect the 670mg of sodium. If you were to eat this entire box - which is not an unreasonable meal size - that would be 81% of you total daily sodium intake!
Yes, they were yummy, but I would hardly say it was safe to “indulge all I wanted”. But if I was only paying attention to the trans fat though, I just might have believed that.
The other problem with this narrow-focused thinking with respect to healthy eating is that it does not recognize that nutrition science is a very new science. We are still a long way from knowing everything there is to know. So much so that for quite a long time there, the recommended replacement for butter to keep cholesterol down was margarine. For those who don’t know, margarine contains trans fat. To put it more accurately, margarine IS trans fat. A big stick of it. This is what doctors were suggesting their patients with heart problems eat to reduce their cholesterol intake.
Almost as good an idea as those cigarettes that had asbestos filters, huh?…
The flip side of this is also that there usually seems to be one “magic bullet” cure-all good-for-you food that you should be getting as much of as possible. Right now, that seems to be whole grains. Which are indeed good for you, and you should get as much of them as you can. But let’s not forget when green leafy vegetables were the best thing going. Or anti-oxidants. Or tofu and bean sprouts…
The trick to healthy eating of course is to have as much of these beneficial foods as possible, and limit that which we know is bad for us. Oh yeah, and get up, get outside and stop reading this drivel while you’re at it too!
But before you go, allow me to share with you my guess for the next “bad guy” in the dietary world. I think it is going to be “refined sugars”. There is already some rumblings in this court, and I don’t think the “anti-carb faction” has been totally silenced - they are licking their wounds (which probably taste like bacon) and refining their message. Also, riding the wave of how whole grains are “good carbs”, the “bad carb” will soon have to come into some sort of prominence.
 Makes my teeth hurt to look at this. |
So yes, “raw” sugar (or will they call it “whole cane”?) may become the next “good” thing for you as the flip side of this coin when refined sugars are burned at the stake. Please don’t fall for it.
A Snickers bar by any other name would taste just as sweet. And will make you fat.
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Stumble it!
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Eize said,
April 24, 2008 at 12:06 am
AND I can tell you WHY refined sugar will become public enemy no. 1! It’s because of the chemicals used to make it white! Muscovado sugar will be lauded as the hero of sweetness!
Heck, we’ve been spooning brown sugar into our coffee for some years now. Way ahead of these nutritionists too! Ha!
Completely agree with you on the silliness of it all. Just whip up a meal complete with meat, veggies, and fruits and that’s it.
christian said,
April 24, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I too, an aspiring chef, doing the 9-5 taking night classes at AIW.
I read your headline and immediately had a flashback to last night as I scooped out cream cheese filling from the mixing bowl and placed it in my mouth continuously like a heroin-addict getting his fix. Felt like complete ass afterwards, but so totally worth it.
In any event, why can’t we all just eat moderately? I feel like we constantly have to watch what we eat, because we eat bad food constantly and in high volumes. (so says the kid who eats cream cheese filling by the spoonful).
Self-control could do wonders for this nation of excess. Sadly, I think I was washing my hands when they passed it out, so I missed out.
Swan said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:12 am
Amen to all that, brother. There’s a constant cycle of distraction–pay attention to the crisis du jour, and forget about EVERYthing else.
It irks me that advertisers can really say ANYthing they want. For example, a popular ‘heart healthy’ cereal is advertised as so, so, so good for you! And it tastes great, sure–with 25g of sugar per serving, it better!!! I’ve learned that you really should limit sugar to 4g per serving–so this ‘healthy’ cereal has more than 6 times the amount of sugar you ’should’ have.
No wonder there’s a rise in diabetes (or, as good ol’ Wilford Brimley says, ‘Diabetiss’).
Of course, should we really be worrying about grams of sugar or trans fat when groceries are SKYrocketing?!?! Quick, to the Costco to buy twenty 8-pound bags of rice!! Rice is being rationed!! Hurry!
We live in a culture of fear, fo’ shizzle.
brilynn said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:40 am
Sounds as though someone’s been reading In Defense of Food… agreed.
Space Ace said,
April 25, 2008 at 2:13 pm
In terms of the foods you just have to eat to stay healthy, does anyone remember when oat bran was “the thing to have”. How about when eating yogurt was the path to living to be 100?
And don’t even try to count the number of herbal supplements that will make you so healthy it will seem as if they made time go in reverse…
Eat a balanced diet.
And when you take in more calories than you consume, you will gain weight. When you use more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. In science that is known as The First Law of Thermodymanics.
Chef Matt said,
April 25, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Eize - It’s not so much a case of why refined sugars will be bad, it’s a case of how they will be focused on as the ONLY thing that are bad. Sure, they are to be consumed sparingly, but cutting them out of your diet alone will solve nothing. And that is the real point. That being said, you point on balanced diets is of course right on!
christian - indeed, self control is a big part to dieting. There is no mistaking the fact - as you obviously know - that bad food tastes good. Hell, we are selected to eat the foods that are high in calories since once upon a time in human evolution, a lack of calories was enemy #1 against our survival. But now (in US society at least) getting enough calories tends not to be the issue. Getting a healthy balance of calories from the right sources is the issue. And let me be the first to advise, cream cheese fillings/icings - while awesome - is not a good source of caloric intake.
Swan - another good point about how “heart healthy” cereals will laud their high soluble fiber content while passing over the refined sugar content (hmmmm… have we been here before?…). It’s all about reading the whole label people. And there is no doubt we live in a culture of fear. If we didn’t, there would be no point to my writing this article because we would all be more sensible anyway.
brilynn - Actually no… The Omnivore’s Dilemma is on my reading list - as is In Defense of Food - but to date I have read neither. Believe it or not, I do have a few original ideas. Even if other people have had them as well…
Space Ace - Exactly my point, the “enemy” and the “cure-all” keep coming and going. Tofu, bean sprouts, wheat germ - the list of heroes never ends, and never will. And yes, you succinctly say what I always tell people when they are looking into the latest “fad” diet for the point of losing weight: “Calories are energy. If you don’t burn them, you will store them. And your ass is proof of how your body stores them… Go eat an apple and take a bike ride some time for God’s sake…”