Sunday, June 30, 2013
June 30th: Garden Update
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sugar Salt Fat: Food Addiction
A few posts back I mentioned my concern that people are unaware that many of the foods they eat are intentionally engineered to be addictive. The readers’ comments above surprise me because they’re evidence of people who are aware of the idea that food can be addictive but firmly believe it’s not true. In February, the New York Times Magazine published an exert of Michael Moss's book, Sugar Sat Fat: How the food giants hooked us. The book details specific addictive traits food manufacturers work to capture in their products. Traits that intentionally trick both your mind and stomach into thinking you’re not full and you really want MORE. There are records of experiments, focus groups and memos – none of that is up for debate; it’s just true. I’m left to hope that people denying the addictive qualities of modern America’s diet are simply uninformed on the matter.
Personally, having spent the last four years working hard to overcome my own food addictions (starting with Lean Cuisines in 2009), I empathize with anyone who is trying to change their lifestyle but finding it nearly impossible. To look at the issue as an addiction may change the approach used when trying to break the habit. Assuming, shareholders will continue to win over what's best for the common good, I do not look to lawmakers to solve this issue. This is a personal responsibility that each person must address for themselves. Doing so requires a bit of self-eduction.
In the case of children, it is the responsibility of both parents to work towards prevention of food addictions. But where does prevention of food addiction start? The womb? Formula? Baby food? Teething snacks? Five years ago I'd have given a toddler a box of Goldfish crackers without a second thought. Today I'd be unlikely to hand them a Cheerio. In fact, when O&I have children I anticipate the family looking at me as "that crazy hippy Mom" after I explain I'd prefer them to not offer my child processed snacks and sweets. You want to give my kid a squished grape or some smushed avocado - go right ahead!
The reality of this is a struggle, I know. My best friend from college, an amazingly successful and very cool art director, has a toddler in daycare. She has told me of the frustrations around limiting the amount of sugar her son is offered everyday. The only friend I have who seems to have no trouble raising a child on natural foods is a work-at-home Mom who has the ability to supervise (almost) everything that goes into her son's mouth.
I'm not suggesting I have the answers to Food Addiction and Prevention. But I am saying it is time for EVERYONE to take ten minutes and realistically consider how it effects both their lives and the lives of people they love.=
*The NY Times article (exerted from the book) is very long but also fascinating and definitely worth the time it takes to read it. Link to full article here. Credit to MICHAEL MOSS. Highlights:
In the process of product optimization, food engineers alter a litany of variables with the sole intent of finding the most perfect version (or versions) of a product. Ordinary consumers are paid to spend hours sitting in rooms where they touch, feel, sip, smell, swirl and taste whatever product is in question. Their opinions are dumped into a computer, and the data are sifted and sorted through a statistical method called conjoint analysis, which determines what features will be most attractive to consumers...
*******
The public and the food companies have known for decades now — or at the very least since this meeting — that sugary, salty, fatty foods are not good for us in the quantities that we consume them. So why are the diabetes and obesity and hypertension numbers still spiraling out of control? It’s not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers. What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.
*******
...“Sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating...
******
One of the company’s responses to criticism is that kids don’t eat the Lunchables every day — on top of which, when it came to trying to feed them more healthful foods, kids themselves were unreliable. When their parents packed fresh carrots, apples and water, they couldn’t be trusted to eat them. Once in school, they often trashed the healthful stuff in their brown bags to get right to the sweets.
This idea — that kids are in control — would become a key concept in the evolving marketing campaigns for the trays. In what would prove to be their greatest achievement of all, the Lunchables team would delve into adolescent psychology to discover that it wasn’t the food in the trays that excited the kids; it was the feeling of power it brought to their lives. As Bob Eckert, then the C.E.O. of Kraft, put it in 1999: “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere.”
Kraft’s early Lunchables campaign targeted mothers. They might be too distracted by work to make a lunch, but they loved their kids enough to offer them this prepackaged gift. But as the focus swung toward kids, Saturday-morning cartoons started carrying an ad that offered a different message: “All day, you gotta do what they say,” the ads said. “But lunchtime is all yours.”
*********
Frito-Lay had a formidable research complex near Dallas, where nearly 500 chemists, psychologists and technicians conducted research that cost up to $30 million a year, and the science corps focused intense amounts of resources on questions of crunch, mouth feel and aroma for each of these items. Their tools included a $40,000 device that simulated a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips, discovering things like the perfect break point: people like a chip that snaps with about four pounds of pressure per square inch.
To get a better feel for their work, I called on Steven Witherly, a food scientist who wrote a fascinating guide for industry insiders titled, “Why Humans Like Junk Food.” I brought him two shopping bags filled with a variety of chips to taste. He zeroed right in on the Cheetos. “This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.”
******
Carey’s quote reminded me of something I read in the early stages of my reporting, a 24-page report prepared for Frito-Lay in 1957 by a psychologist named Ernest Dichter. The company’s chips, he wrote, were not selling as well as they could for one simple reason: “While people like and enjoy potato chips, they feel guilty about liking them. . . . Unconsciously, people expect to be punished for ‘letting themselves go’ and enjoying them.” Dichter listed seven “fears and resistances” to the chips: “You can’t stop eating them; they’re fattening; they’re not good for you; they’re greasy and messy to eat; they’re too expensive; it’s hard to store the leftovers; and they’re bad for children.” He spent the rest of his memo laying out his prescriptions, which in time would become widely used not just by Frito-Lay but also by the entire industry. Dichter suggested that Frito-Lay avoid using the word “fried” in referring to its chips and adopt instead the more healthful-sounding term “toasted.” To counteract the “fear of letting oneself go,” he suggested repacking the chips into smaller bags. “The more-anxious consumers, the ones who have the deepest fears about their capacity to control their appetite, will tend to sense the function of the new pack and select it,” he said.
Dichter advised Frito-Lay to move its chips out of the realm of between-meals snacking and turn them into an ever-present item in the American diet. “The increased use of potato chips and other Lay’s products as a part of the regular fare served by restaurants and sandwich bars should be encouraged in a concentrated way,” Dichter said, citing a string of examples: “potato chips with soup, with fruit or vegetable juice appetizers; potato chips served as a vegetable on the main dish; potato chips with salad; potato chips with egg dishes for breakfast; potato chips with sandwich orders.”
“Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” published by Random House. Michael Moss won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for his reporting on the meat industry.
*******
...“Sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating...
******
One of the company’s responses to criticism is that kids don’t eat the Lunchables every day — on top of which, when it came to trying to feed them more healthful foods, kids themselves were unreliable. When their parents packed fresh carrots, apples and water, they couldn’t be trusted to eat them. Once in school, they often trashed the healthful stuff in their brown bags to get right to the sweets.
This idea — that kids are in control — would become a key concept in the evolving marketing campaigns for the trays. In what would prove to be their greatest achievement of all, the Lunchables team would delve into adolescent psychology to discover that it wasn’t the food in the trays that excited the kids; it was the feeling of power it brought to their lives. As Bob Eckert, then the C.E.O. of Kraft, put it in 1999: “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere.”
Kraft’s early Lunchables campaign targeted mothers. They might be too distracted by work to make a lunch, but they loved their kids enough to offer them this prepackaged gift. But as the focus swung toward kids, Saturday-morning cartoons started carrying an ad that offered a different message: “All day, you gotta do what they say,” the ads said. “But lunchtime is all yours.”
*********
Frito-Lay had a formidable research complex near Dallas, where nearly 500 chemists, psychologists and technicians conducted research that cost up to $30 million a year, and the science corps focused intense amounts of resources on questions of crunch, mouth feel and aroma for each of these items. Their tools included a $40,000 device that simulated a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips, discovering things like the perfect break point: people like a chip that snaps with about four pounds of pressure per square inch.
To get a better feel for their work, I called on Steven Witherly, a food scientist who wrote a fascinating guide for industry insiders titled, “Why Humans Like Junk Food.” I brought him two shopping bags filled with a variety of chips to taste. He zeroed right in on the Cheetos. “This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.”
******
Carey’s quote reminded me of something I read in the early stages of my reporting, a 24-page report prepared for Frito-Lay in 1957 by a psychologist named Ernest Dichter. The company’s chips, he wrote, were not selling as well as they could for one simple reason: “While people like and enjoy potato chips, they feel guilty about liking them. . . . Unconsciously, people expect to be punished for ‘letting themselves go’ and enjoying them.” Dichter listed seven “fears and resistances” to the chips: “You can’t stop eating them; they’re fattening; they’re not good for you; they’re greasy and messy to eat; they’re too expensive; it’s hard to store the leftovers; and they’re bad for children.” He spent the rest of his memo laying out his prescriptions, which in time would become widely used not just by Frito-Lay but also by the entire industry. Dichter suggested that Frito-Lay avoid using the word “fried” in referring to its chips and adopt instead the more healthful-sounding term “toasted.” To counteract the “fear of letting oneself go,” he suggested repacking the chips into smaller bags. “The more-anxious consumers, the ones who have the deepest fears about their capacity to control their appetite, will tend to sense the function of the new pack and select it,” he said.
Dichter advised Frito-Lay to move its chips out of the realm of between-meals snacking and turn them into an ever-present item in the American diet. “The increased use of potato chips and other Lay’s products as a part of the regular fare served by restaurants and sandwich bars should be encouraged in a concentrated way,” Dichter said, citing a string of examples: “potato chips with soup, with fruit or vegetable juice appetizers; potato chips served as a vegetable on the main dish; potato chips with salad; potato chips with egg dishes for breakfast; potato chips with sandwich orders.”
“Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” published by Random House. Michael Moss won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for his reporting on the meat industry.
Monday, June 24, 2013
10 days til the Peachtree Road Race!
Memphis has Bealle Street. Chicago: the Magnificent Mile. New Orleans: St. Charles (or Bourbon, depending on who you ask). And my hometown, Atlanta, has Peachtree Street. Home to the world's largest 10K! With 60,000 registered participants and 150,000 spectators lining the street, Peachtree Street is the place to be the morning of Independence Day. Oliver and I always do the race as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty. It's one of my very favorite family traditions (so much so that I just bought us adorable Christmas ornaments to commemorate the event)! Only ten more days - I can't wait!
Click to read: a Timeline of the Peachtree Road Race's history
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Looking back at two years of healthy living
In late summer 2011 I wrote a blog post explaining the life events that lead Oliver and I to start consciously living and eating the way we do. A few days ago I reread the post and was reminded (and surprised) of the things I had been struggling with. I still craved salty, crunchy, addictively snackable Goldfish and I was sad to have given up my beloved Honey Bunches of Oats. At the time it was hard to imagine a future in which I preferred oatmeal for breakfast and didn't miss cheddar flavored crackers.
Two years later, abiding by our family standards for heart healthy eating now comes effortlessly. Our meals are real food, high in fiber, low in sugar with an occasional major splurge (everything in moderation, even moderation). I don't think about fat or calories and I really enjoy a great trip to the gym. My blood pressure is healthy and according to a recent "dunk tank" hydrostatic test I'm 25% body fat - which is fine by me.
Oatmeal has completely replaced cereal for weekday breakfasts. Once a week Oliver cooks up a big pot which we reheat by the bowlful every morning. My favorites come and go: Last month I liked my oatmeal with a dollop of fresh ground YDFM peanut butter; this month I'm loving sweet coconut flakes sprinkled over yellow raisins and walnuts. And like the true Louisianan he is, Oliver continues to cook up Monday/Wash Day pots of beans for lunch. Black beans, red beans with andouille, pinto beans, chick peas; it changes week to week just like the oatmeal.
Beans and oatmeal, couldn't be simpler: high in fiber and really really cheap. Even if you include the box of chicken stock, bags of raisins, etc. the cost of healthy, tasty breakfasts and lunches for two adults for an entire workweek comes in under $15. That's amazing. $15 is three boxes of sugar cereal. It's two sandwiches at a deli. It's a pizza!
Our exercise routines have changed the most. We no longer go to the gym together but we still go an average of 3 times a week. (Oliver prefers to work out during the day and I usually can't make it until late in the evening.) I'll spend 30 minutes on the elliptical (level 10/rolling hills) and then 15 to 20 minutes on weights (focusing on either legs or arms - I'm pretty bad about skipping core workouts).
I also have a new perspective on the addictiveness of many packaged foods. It seems blatant and intentional and it worries me that most people aren't even aware that they're hooked. Breaking the addiction requires completely giving up those foods for long enough that you stop craving them. As you replace those fake foods with real foods your taste buds slowly to start reset themselves. With enough time you start to notice just how strange and unreal those fake foods taste. For me, it meant finally appreciating delicious fresh fruit and losing interest in corn syrupy candies and cakes. I never ever imagined that was possible for me - but hey, slow and steady wins the race, right?
Happy Summer my friends. XO
Two years later, abiding by our family standards for heart healthy eating now comes effortlessly. Our meals are real food, high in fiber, low in sugar with an occasional major splurge (everything in moderation, even moderation). I don't think about fat or calories and I really enjoy a great trip to the gym. My blood pressure is healthy and according to a recent "dunk tank" hydrostatic test I'm 25% body fat - which is fine by me.
Oatmeal has completely replaced cereal for weekday breakfasts. Once a week Oliver cooks up a big pot which we reheat by the bowlful every morning. My favorites come and go: Last month I liked my oatmeal with a dollop of fresh ground YDFM peanut butter; this month I'm loving sweet coconut flakes sprinkled over yellow raisins and walnuts. And like the true Louisianan he is, Oliver continues to cook up Monday/Wash Day pots of beans for lunch. Black beans, red beans with andouille, pinto beans, chick peas; it changes week to week just like the oatmeal.
Beans and oatmeal, couldn't be simpler: high in fiber and really really cheap. Even if you include the box of chicken stock, bags of raisins, etc. the cost of healthy, tasty breakfasts and lunches for two adults for an entire workweek comes in under $15. That's amazing. $15 is three boxes of sugar cereal. It's two sandwiches at a deli. It's a pizza!
Our exercise routines have changed the most. We no longer go to the gym together but we still go an average of 3 times a week. (Oliver prefers to work out during the day and I usually can't make it until late in the evening.) I'll spend 30 minutes on the elliptical (level 10/rolling hills) and then 15 to 20 minutes on weights (focusing on either legs or arms - I'm pretty bad about skipping core workouts).
I also have a new perspective on the addictiveness of many packaged foods. It seems blatant and intentional and it worries me that most people aren't even aware that they're hooked. Breaking the addiction requires completely giving up those foods for long enough that you stop craving them. As you replace those fake foods with real foods your taste buds slowly to start reset themselves. With enough time you start to notice just how strange and unreal those fake foods taste. For me, it meant finally appreciating delicious fresh fruit and losing interest in corn syrupy candies and cakes. I never ever imagined that was possible for me - but hey, slow and steady wins the race, right?
Happy Summer my friends. XO
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Louisiana Maque Choux
The story of the Acadians in South Louisiana is a fascinating one. One that I'm quite proud to have married into. If you want read more about it click here.
Maque Choux, takes the Acadian's traditional food base (the "holy trinity" of onion, celery, bell pepper) and combines it with the Native American influence of corn. It is often topped with a local protein: chicken, shrimp or crawfish. It's a perfect midsummer dinner!
Friday, June 7, 2013
Georgia Peach Cobbler with homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Oliver made vanilla bean ice cream and peach cobbler - both from scratch! Check our Pinterest page to see the step by step photos! So delicious.
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