Category: Diet

Yesterday’s mention that I drink a kind of diet coke that doesn’t have caffeine or Aspartame prompted some questions about what kind I do drink.

Actually, it varies. Here’s a selection . . .

None of these kinds of diet coke have either caffeine or Aspartame in them. They are all sweetened with Splenda.

Here are a few notes on them:

1) Diet 7-UP used to have Aspartame but got rid of it a while back. It is the easiest form of Aspartame-free diet coke to find. One note though: There are variants of Diet 7-UP that still DO use Aspartame, such as Diet Cherry 7-UP. Beware of these. It is the regular Diet 7-UP that you want.

2) Diet Rite is also commonly found in supermarkets, and it was the first diet coke to chuck Aspartame in favor of Splenda, as far as I can tell. It comes in several flavors, which the Royal Crown company (which makes Diet Rite) switches around from time to time. They always have a Cola flavor (which, for some strange reason, upsets my stomach; I think I’m allergic to this flavor, though other people obviously aren’t), and lately they’ve had White Grape and Raspberry (which do just fine by my stomach). Occasionally they have Tangerine or other flavors. At the moment they have Cherry Cola, so I’ll see how that does with my stomach.

3) Diet Hansen’s has a BUNCH of different flavors. Pictured here are three of my favorites (which is why I had them on hand): Peach, Kiwi-Strawberry, and Black Cherry. They also have Tangerine-Lime, Ginger Ale, Root Beer, and Grapefruit. MORE INFO. The Diet Hansen’s drinks taste really good (or at least my favorites do). It’s a little harder to find Diet Hansen’s, though. I get it at Henry’s and Trader Joe’s, but I’ve also seen it showing up at some local Vons. You can also order it online.

Incidentally, all of these drinks (Diet 7-UP, Diet Rite, Diet Hansen’s) are also sodium free–so they’re not trying to Ferengi you into drinking more of their product by putting salt in it to make you thirsty (unlike most forms of coke).

There are also other, similar caffeine-free, Aspartame-free kinds of coke, but these are the ones that I drink the most and thus the ones that I had on hand.

BTW, a word about why you might want to avoid caffeine and Aspartame . . .

Most folks know that caffeine can make you feel wired, keep you awake, etc. And some people use it precisely in order to stay awake. I’m not opposed to that in principle. However, caffeine also has some side-effects that people don’t commonly know about.

If you drink enough of it quickly enough, it will raise your blood sugar (which is bad for diabetics and dieters) and it will raise your adrenalin (which is bad if you have high blood pressure or heart palpitations). INFO HERE. Caffeine is safe for most people in moderation–or at least safe enough that they’re willing to live with the obvious side-effects–but it’s something that I avoid as part of my diet since I don’t want my blood sugar raised.

Aspartame is another story. There is a huge controversy over the safety of Aspartame, and for a long time I didn’t pay it any mind. I generally don’t get freaked out about safety claims made regarding products that are being consumed by millions of people. If there’s a significant problem with the product then, in the long run, science will out.

But I started doing some research on Aspartame and found out some things that concerned me enough that I decided to cut it out of my diet. It breaks down into chemicals that I really don’t like. It does this at surprisingly low temperatures, too (lower than body temperature), which is why diet cokes that contain Aspartame frequently have gone "stale" before you open the can. They’ve been exposed to heat that causes the Aspartame to break down and they taste funny.

Even if they haven’t broken down already in the can, they will break down in your body, and one of the things they break down into is phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is something I’m familiar with from my diet and nutrition studies.

Phenylalanine is an amino acid that is common in nature. There’s some of it basically whenever we eat meat. But that form of phenylalanine is slowly-absorbed and is pretty safe. If you’re taking a nutritional supplement or chugging down diet cokes or certain protein drinks, though, it’s another story. In this setting phenylalanine is absorbed much more quickly and causes a spike of the amino acid in your blood stream.

For certain people, who can’t metabolize phenylalanine, Aspartame is very dangerous. These people have a condition known as phenylketonuria, and if they consume phenylalanine it will cause BRAIN DAMAGE.

In your body, about HALF of the Aspartame in a diet coke converts into phenylalanine, which is why products containing Aspartame are required to carry a warning label that says "Phenylketonurics: Contains phenylalanine."

Now, phenylketonuria is rare (though it is more common among people of Irish descent), and if you have it, you’d already know about it. It’s one of the things they test for right after birth, and if you’ve never been told that you have it then you don’t.

But phenylketonurics aren’t the only people who need to watch out for getting a phenylalanine spike in their blood.

Some dieters take phenylalanine because it suppresses hunger (a good thing for dieters), but in significant numbers of people it has bad side-effects, like raising your heart rate and blood pressure (not good things for people who are overweight).

If you have been chugging down diet cokes–even caffeine-free ones–and find your heart racing or pounding or your blood pressure staying higher than it should be, it may be the phenylalanine spike in your blood stream that the diet cokes are causing.

There are a lot of other criticisms that are made of Aspartame, but I already knew about phenylalanine from my own diet and nutrition studies, so when I found out that 50% of Aspartame turns into phenylalanine, that was enough to convince me to cut it out of my diet.

Y’all can make your own decisions, of course, but I’m not waiting for the science to catch up on this one. To my mind, Aspartame is too risky. I’ll stick with other sweeteners, like Splenda or Stevia.

I’ve blogged before about the use of fiber in dieting, and I thought I’d give an update about how I’m currently using it.

Fiber is a kind of carbohydrate, but it’s a kind of carbohydrate that I’m actually friendly to.

Carbs, y’see, come in different kinds. On the one hand, there are simple, refined carbohydrates like those you find in table sugar or white flour that are absolutely horrendous for you. These are positively EVIL and are the cause of everything from obesity to diabetes to hardened arteries to who knows what. Bad, bad stuff. They are instantly digestible, cause huge insulin spikes, and humans cannot healthily have them in anything but small quantities.

Unfortunately, they are cheap to produce and have long shelf-lives, so the food industry is pushing them at us right and left.

Then there are "complex carbohydrates," which are harder for us to digest and that correspondingly have a lower impact on your blood sugar. These are found in things like whole grains, and they are much better (or at least less horrendous) for us. Some humans can healthily have these in large amounts. Others (like myself) cannot. It depends on your own particular metabolism.

Then there are really complex carbohydrates. In other words: fiber. Dietary fiber consists of the carbohydrates in our food that we either cannot digest or cannot digest very much. They are digestion-resistant (in humans) and so do not spike our blood sugar. They’re still carbohydrates, though, and so they get listed on nutrition labels (like the one pictured here) under the heading of "Total Carbohydrates."

This is why you hear low-carb dieters talking sometimes about "net carbs." Net carbs are those carbohydrates that have significant impact on your blood sugar. The way to determine them is to take Total Carbohydrates and subtract out Dietary Fiber. Since we can’t really digest that, it won’t mess up your blood sugar. In the example above, the product would have 10 grams of net carbohydrates (13g – 3g = 10g).

You can also subtract out certain other carbohydrates that don’t have a major impact on blood sugar, such as sugar alcohols (MORE INFO HERE.)

It’s important for low-carb dieters to understand how many net carbs they’re putting into their bodies, but fiber isn’t just a good thing on low-carb diets. It’s a good thing for everybody, even people who aren’t dieting.

Fiber not only helps fill you up so that you don’t eat more (good for dieters), it also can help lower your cholesterol, stabilize your blood sugar, stimulate your immune system, prevent certain types of cancer, and (of course) keep you regular.

In other words, IT’S JUST GOOD FOR YOU, OKAY!

The problem is, with the food industry pushing all those simple, refined carbohydrates at us, the average American doesn’t get anywhere near the amount of fiber he should have. An average adult should get at least 20-35 grams of fiber a day, and most of us just don’t.

Which is where fiber supplements come in.

There are different types of fiber, and they help with different things. Consequently, the best type of fiber supplement to take is a mixed fiber supplement–one that combines several different types of fiber. HERE’S THE ONE I USE.

This is a powder, so I mix it with water and then drink it down–fast, before it has a chance to gel up. It is also available in capsules, but I don’t normally use those because you have to take a bunch of capsules to equal the amount of fiber you get in one tablespoon, and that’s inconvenient. (It’s also cheaper to use the powder, and you don’t have to worry about whether all the capsules will dissolve; if some of them break before the others, they might gel up and keep the others from dissolving).

I do not recommend the use of compressed fiber tablets because you never know if they will dissolve or how much.

A while back I started drinking a glass of water with a couple of tablespoons of fiber in the morning and one again in the afternoon, but recently I changed my practice since I found that I would often forget to have my fiber on this plan.

What I do now is have a tablespoon of fiber each time I eat–either right before eating or right afterwards. By coupling the fiber with when I eat, I don’t forget.

There’s a benefit to taking fiber right before you eat in that it will help fill you up fast so that you eat less. That’s not as much of an issue for me, though, since I don’t generally eat three full meals, the size of which varies. I usually have six or so small snacks per day of 200-400 calories each, so I’m not tempted to overeat on particular occasions due to having gone without food for a longer period of time. Consequently, I often take the fiber after eating rather than before.

I also take extra fiber if I’m eating something that is a little higher in carbs or calories since it will help slow down the absorption of the carbs and reduce my blood sugar spike or reduce the absorption of the calories.

It can be hard, though, to always mix a glass of fiber, drink it, clean the glass, etc.–particularly during the workday, so recently I adopted another solution to this problem: Sticking a spoonful of fiber directly into my mouth and then washing it down with water (or, more likely, a diet coke, remembring that "coke" means any carbonated soft-drink; I don’t actually drink Diet Coke since it has caffeine and Aspartame in it).

The thing is, I can’t do that with the mixed fiber supplement recommended above. There’s something about the texture of that which requires it to be mixed with water and then drunk down. If you put it directly into your mouth it instantly clumps up and sticks to your mouth and the result is like trying to clean your mouth with your tongue if you’ve got peanut butter stuck all over it–only worse.

This effect does not happen, though, with all kinds of fiber, and so when I do the spoon-in-the-mouth trick I use powdered PSYLLIUM HUSKS.

Psyllium is an excellent fiber. It’s the one that is used in most fiber supplements (like Metamucil). If you’re going to take an unmixed supplement, psyllium is the one to take. It’s very beneficial, and it–at least at the level it is normally ground to–does not stick to your mouth like peanut butter on steroids.

Consequently, it’s very easy to just stick a spoonful in my mouth, sip a little coke, swallow it, and then drink the rest of the coke–no having to get glasses, fill them with water, stir them up, clean them afterwards, etc.

I still use the mixed fiber supplement as well, but when I’m "on the go" and don’t have time for that, I use the psyllium (which, incidentally, is cheaper yet).

So whether your on a low-carb diet, another diet, or just want good health, I’d strongly encourage you to consider using a fiber supplement.

There are, however, a few notes:

1) You must drink fluids when you take fiber. They recommend something like 10-12 oz of water per spoonful. This is because the fiber is going to absorb water as it bulks up inside you, and if you haven’t drunk fluid along with the fiber then it’s going to start absorbing fluid that you need for other purposes, like keeping your innards lubricated. If you find yourself getting unexpectedly thirsty after taking fiber, this is a sign that you aren’t drinking enough fluid with the amount you’re taking.

2) You must ramp up the amount of fiber that you are taking. If you aren’t used to taking fiber and suddenly jump on a high dosage of it, it will cause uncomfortable bloating or cramping. You need to give your system time to get used to it. Start by taking one serving of fiber supplement a day, then when you’re used to that take two, then get used to that and take three, etc.

3) Not all fiber supplements are the same. Some manufacturers, in an effort to make the fiber more appetizing, will load it up with sugar, which makes it useless for dieting purposes. The brands I’ve linked above are pure–no sugar–but if you’re looking at other brands, be sure to read the nutrition labels and find out if they’ve got sugar in them (some versions of Metamucil are particularly bad in this regard).

4) Be sure that if you are taking medicines or nutritional supplements that you do not take them close to when you take your fiber. When the fiber bulks up, it could prevent them from being properly absorbed. Let an hour go by after taking fiber before you take medicines or nutritional supplements, and don’t take fiber quickly after the medicines or supplements, either.

5) If you’re taking fiber for weight loss, you should be aware that it will cause the illusion of temporary weight gain. The reason is that even a few grams of fiber absorb multiple ounces of fluid, and fluid has weight. This means that as you ramp up the amount of fiber you are taking, it will be carrying additional water with it through your system, so the reading on your scale will actually go up to reflect the extra water that is accompanying the fiber. This is NOT A BAD THING. The extra weight you see on the scale is NOT fat, it will go away within a day if you stop taking the fiber, but don’t do that because the fiber is doing it’s job in keeping you like you feel full, so you eat less and LOSE FAT (the purpose of dieting). The addition of fiber makes it look like you weigh more on the scale, but in reality it accellerates the amount of fat your are losing. It also is doing its other jobs like lowering cholesterol, stabilizing blood sugar, preventing heart disease, preventing certain types of cancer, etc.

MORE ON DIETARY FIBER.

When I first went low-carb, one of the things that vanished from my diet was milk. It wasn’t a big loss in that I had never been a big milk drinker anyway (now if I’d had to give up diet cokes–in the broad, inclusive sense where "coke" means any carbonated soft drink–then that would be another matter!), but over time I did miss it, and I’ve found a number of alternatives, which I thought I’d share with y’all.

The problem is that, unlike dairy products such as butter or cheese or heavy cream, normal milk contains way too many carbs. If you want a make-shift low-carb equivalent to milk then the thing to do is get heavy cream or whipping cream (which have virtually no carbs) and then dilute it with water to taste. For a long time, low-carbers had to do that, but now there are a wide variety of alternatives. Here are several, as found behind Door #2 on my fridge:

The best alternatives to high-carb milk that I’ve found are the two in the center: Hood’s Calorie Countdown products. Here I have their Fat Free and Chocolate varieties. They also have a 2% variety, though I generally don’t get that one.

Hood’s Fat Free Calorie Countdown, to me, tastes indistinguishable from normal skim milk, and there’s a good reason for that: It’s made from real milk, but with the carbs extracted. Along with most of the calories. As you can see if you squint a little, it has 70% fewer calories than whole milk (45 calories per serving), making it good for dieters of any kind–not just low-carbers. It also has 75% less carbs and sugar than regular milk (3 grams of each per serving instead of 12 grams of each).

The taste of Hood’s Chocolate Calorie Countdown is delicious. This is a 2% reduced fat product, so its calories are a little more than the Fat Free version. It’s got 90 calories per serving (compared to 230 calories in a standard chocolate milk). And it has 4 net grams of carbs per serving (5 total grams, less one gram of fiber), which compares to 31 grams of carb in a normal chocolate milk. It’s also got WAY less sugar: 3 grams as opposed to 29 grams! So even if you aren’t on a low-carb diet, this is a great chocolate milk to use.

Incidentally, both of these also come with 8 grams of protein per serving.

The Hood company is based in the northeast, and if you live in New England you can even get it delivered to your home. SEE THEIR WEB SITE FOR DETAILS. Out here in California, you can get it in the stores, but you may have to ask for it. Albertsons carries it and Vons used to but doesn’t have it now unless you ask (at least that’s the way it is in my neighborhood). You can probably get it by special request from your grocer no matter where you are.

Here in California there are sometimes kinks in the pipeline getting it from New England, and so I’ve also researched other substitutes, and I can tell you about the two that you see on the ends, both of which are forms of soy milk.

The first thing to know about soy milk is that while it can be low carb, it isn’t automatically low carb. Apparently the manufacturers of a lot of soy milk load it up with sugar, which completely ruins it for dieting purposes. If you’re wanting to use it as part of a low-carb diet, what you need to get is UNSWEETENED soy milk (NOT the same thing as "plain" soy milk; "plain" means "doesn’t have a flavor like vanilla or chocolate added").

SILK is one of the bigger soy milk producers. They’ve got a bunch of varieties and are commonly available in supermarkets. Here I have pictured their unsweetened version–recognizable by its green carton. It has 80 calories per serving, but only 3 net grams of carbs (4 total minus one gram of fiber). It’s also got 7 grams of protein. Now, if you’re used to reading nutrition labels, you’re saying, "Okay, so if it’s only got 3 grams of carb and 7 grams of protein, how can you get 80 calories per serving out of that?" The answer is that this is not a fat free product. It’s got 4 grams of fat per serving, which makes it quite rich tasting, and fat is not a problem on a low-carb diet.

If your grocer has any of the Silk soy milks on his shelves, he should be able to get the green-cartoned, unsweetened one for you.

Incidentally, since this isn’t actually made from milk (unlike Calorie Countdown), there’s a little difference in the taste. I initially perceived it as a faint soy-like aftertaste, but it isn’t unpleasant, and I got used to it very fast and don’t even notice it now.

The final product–on the far right–is Westsoy’s Unsweetened (there’s the key word) Vanilla Soymilk. From a nutritional perspective, this one is quite interesting. It’s got 100 calories per serving, 4.5 grams of fat, and 9 grams of protein, making it the highest in protein of any of these products. It’s also the lowest in carbs. According to the nutrition label, it’s got only ONE gram of carb per serving (5 total grams minus 4 grams of fiber, which means it’s also a good source of fiber).

Now, you may be wondering how this could be so different from the milks discussed above–how it can have so much more fiber and so much less carbs than they do–and yet taste like normal milk. The answer is that it doesn’t. This is the least milk-like-tasting product of the ones considered. It has a thinner consistency and has a kind of nutty flavor, like almonds (which is interesting, because it isn’t almond milk–THEY ALSO MAKE THAT). It’s not an unpleasant taste, but it’s just not as milk-like as the others.

I got the above carton of Westsoy Soymilk at Trader Joe’s, but it’s available in a lot of other places, including normal supermarkets, too.

Incidentally, the soy milks don’t have lactose in them so they are also good if you’re lactose intolerant–a condition that is surprisingly common around the world. I was floored when friends of mine from other countries told me that not only were they lactose intolerant, but basically everyone in their home countries was as well. It appears that most people around the planet are lactose intolerant and you can only tolerate lactose well if your ancestors drank a lot of milk straight–without processing it into cheese first–as is the case with northern (not southern) Europeans, certain groups in the Middle East, and certain nomadic groups in Africa and Asia. MORE HERE. AND HERE.

So, whether you’re a low-carb dieter, a low-calorie dieter, or have a personal disagreement with lactose . . . Cheers!

P.S. Just ’cause I know folks will ask: The packages you can see to the right of the milk cartons are tofu . . . mostly nigari tofu, which is really good with worchestershire sauce. Mmmmmm.

While wandering the Web sniffing out something to blog about, my nose latched onto an aroma of eggs. Curious, I checked it out. Apparently, in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s election, some people were having a bit of good-natured fun with the new pope’s chosen name.

Behold the breakfast of popes: Eggs Benedict XVI.

(Nod to Chew Toys for the image. And speaking of Chew Toys, I must say that I enjoyed this blogger’s blog squib from Despair.com: "Quitters never win, winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.")

Benedict XVI, when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, once said that "humor is in fact an essential element in the mirth of creation. We can see how, in many matters in our lives, God wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly."

Given the Pope’s great appreciation for humor, I think he’d also smile over the papal eggs. And then, after saying grace, I’m sure that he’d eat them.

Maybe!

In my research on dieting I’ve run across a number of indicators–both in published literature and anecdotally–that suggest weight gain is associated with lack of sleep.

The reasons why are not clear.

Some have suggested that when we don’t get enough sleep it messes with our hormones, which produces weight gain.

Others have suggested that we simply have less time to eat if we’re asleep more.

Or maybe it’s that we don’t burn quite as much energy and so our appetites don’t get stimulated.

Or maybe we’re eating more to try to boost our energy levels when we feel tired during the day.

Or maybe it’s the other way around and people who have weight gain have a harder time staying asleep (in which case forcing youself to get more sleep might not have any effect on your weight).

Whatever the casusality, there seems to be a connection between lack of sleep and being overweight.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the ability to make a really good personal test of the "Get more sleep and lose weight" theory due to my lifelong battle with insomnia.

Hey, wait . . .

If you thought Twinkies were just a cream-filled sponge that lives forever, think again. Not only do some people eat their Twinkies, they actually cook with them too!

"Twinkies, they’re not just for dessert anymore. The new Twinkies Cookbook has recipes for everything from a Twinkie Burrito to Twinkie Lasagna.

"Theresa Cogswell compiled about 50 recipes for the book.

"Many were submitted to Hostess, as part of Twinkies’ 75th anniversary celebration last year."

GET THE STORY.

GET THE BOOK.

In your excitement over the endless possibilities of using Twinkies, just be careful not to eat too many. The Twinkie Defense might not work today.

… why is it that so many mothers bottle-feed their babies in developed countries? I’m don’t consider myself a "lactivist" — someone who is hysterical in support of breastfeeding to the point of scorning mothers who feel they must bottle-feed, as unfortunately a few breastfeeding activists can be — but I found the following article from The Ecologist to be fascinating:

"Infant formulas were never intended to be consumed on the widespread basis that they are today. They were conceived in the late 1800s as a means of providing necessary sustenance for foundlings and orphans who would otherwise have starved. In this narrow context — where no other food was available — formula was a lifesaver.

"However, as time went on, and the subject of human nutrition in general — and infant nutrition, in particular — became more ‘scientific,’ manufactured breastmilk substitutes were sold to the general public as a technological improvement on breastmilk."

What was the result of this alleged scientific advance?

GET THE (SOMETIMES SCARY) STORY.

It’s no secret that in the developed world there is a widespread problem with . . . being widespread.

I have to struggle with weight issues myself, and it’s certainly something I’m familiar with.

The question is what is causing this, and there are several obvious factors that undoubtedly play a role, such as the fact there is just a lot more food available today than there was in the past and the fact that the American diet is loaded with insulin-provoking carbohydrates, and particularly lots of refined, "Give me Type-II diabetes, please!" carbohydrates like those in flour and table sugar.

Dietary conditions are not the only reason that people struggle with weight issues. There are also hormonal and even genetic influences that incline certain individuals toward obesity.

And then there may be something else.

The obesity "epidemic" may be part epidemic in an unexpected sense.

It turns out that there is at least one virus that may be related to weight gain in humans.

EXCERPT:

Unpublished studies in humans show that 20 to 30 percent of overweight people are infected with adenovirus-36, compared to about 5 percent of the lean population.

GET THE STORY.

… may keep the kidney stones away. Or so says recent research.

"Regular consumption of the refreshing drink — or even lemon juice mixed with water — may increase the production of urinary citrate, a chemical in the urine that prevents the formation of crystals that may build up into kidney stones.

"So conclude two studies presented Tuesday at the American Urological Association annual meeting in Atlanta."

GET THE STORY.

<Tongue in cheek> Just you watch. If this theory gains traction, the next thing you know the Food and Drug Administration will close down kiddie lemonade stands for prescribing medicine without a license. </tongue in cheek>

You’ve been feeling ashamed of killing innocent potatoes, corn, eggplant, and artichokes in your pursuit of a totally vegan diet, haven’t you? But you keep justifying this willful slaughter of hapless vegetables because a body has to eat, right?

Well, the solution is now at hand! Forget about going vegan. Go Fruitarian!

"Welcome to the Fruitarian site, the international meeting point for people who love to eat fruit. We eat raw fruit only … and we feel GREAT!!!!

"This site will be sponsored by ‘The International Fruitarian Foundation,’ a non-profit organization, to welcome, support, connect and defend the interests of all fruitarians around the world, to promote the style of life of living on fruit only. You will be able to learn about nutrition, fruit, seeds, fruit trees, and the environment for a better life…"

SEE THE SITE.

If you’ll excuse me now, I hear Ronald McDonald calling my name. And he’s not offering a fruit-and-seed patty.