We Use Real Organic Cane Sugar

On Thursday evening Eric and I went to hear author Michael Pollan speak at the Unity Church of Boulder.  Pollan is changing the way we think about food in America by exposing the “edible food-like substances” that plague most every grocery store and restaurant in America and which are advertised in every media imaginable.  I consider his book, “In Defense of Food” a must read for anyone interested in health or performance.

Pollan focused on three topics: the American diet and our health, facts about food, and how our nation might recover from its unhealthy relationship with food.

The U.S. Government preached the correctness of a low-fat diet beginning in 1977 with the McGovern Report.  Just three years later the obesity epidemic began.  As Pollan points out, “we got very fat off of this low fat campaign.”  The average American is now 11 pounds (age-adjusted) heavier than her 1980 counter-part!

Here in the CrossFit world we know that fat is a good thing; we eat it because it keeps us well-oiled, satiated, constantly PR’ing machines.  Oh, and because it freakin’ tastes good!  Can you imagine the Zone without fat blocks?  Probably not.  But the food industry took the low-fat recommendation to an extreme and cut fat from every processed food imaginable.  But fat provides taste and when it’s cut out, products like low-fat peanut butter with added sugar pop up on the shelves.  Does that seem like an oxymoron to anyone else?  Peanut butter IS fat.  To overcome the lack of taste, the food industry replaced fat with sugar, and lots of it.  Sugar appeared in things that weren’t traditionally sweet.  I remember reading food labels in college and wondering why sugar, and later high fructose corn syrup, was used in traditionally non-sweet foods such as bread and crackers.  It was also added to foods that were already sweet such as cookies and fruit juice.

Eric often points out that even the health food holy grail Whole Foods sells drinks that contain sugar.  What’s more is the food companies market them by saying, “we use real organic cane sugar.”  Thursday night Pollan pointed out that the use of real sugar is now being positioned as a health claim.  Good bye high fructose corn syrup, hello cane sugar.  Any form of extracted sugar is still processed sugar.  It’s bad for you and will give you diabetes.  Sorry Mix1.

With all the science and politics behind food these days its hard to think straight.  Pollan left us with two facts about diet.

The first is that people who eat a modern western diet – characterized by lots of processed food, refined carbohydrate, refined oils, sugar, lots of calories, and little fresh fruits or vegetables – have high rates of heart disease, type two diabetes, cancer, and obesity; higher than any other population around the world.  This is not a new development.  Medical workers in Africa at the turn of the century noticed that the moment traditional diets gave way to store food – white flour, free sugars, refined oils – that western diseases developed in the population.  Like, whoa.

His second point is that if you look at traditional diets from around the world – from African warriors that subsist off of cattle blood, milk, and meat to native americans who eat corn and beans and little meat, to cultures in Greenland that live off of seal blubber (with no heart disease epidemic) – they all produce healthy people.  They are ALL healthier than us.  Pollan pokes fun that in the U.S. we, “have created the one diet in the world that reliably makes us sick.”

So how do we get over this?  As Nicole Carroll would say, “how do we get off the crack?”  Advertising, health claims, flashy colors, nutrient load promises, and portion sizes ballooning out of control make this a large task, but by no means insurmountable.  And you’re all CrossFitters so you’re already ahead of the game!

Pollan’s mantra is simple, “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”  But what is real food?  In an earlier post we quizzed you on what exactly is real food.  Pollan has a nice set of rules for eating, and he points out with a chuckle that, “yes, we have come to a point where we need a book to tell us what food is.”

So here they are:

• Don’t buy anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.  If it comes in a hot pink wrapper and makes a claim about improving your health it’s probably something Nana wouldn’t have ever allowed in her kitchen.
• Don’t buy anything with more than 5 ingredients.  I’ll add to that and say don’t buy anything with an ingredient you can’t pronounce – especially if portions of the words include combinations of PHs, Xs, Ys, and Zs you probably don’t want to eat it – for example:
• Don’t buy anything with an ingredient you wouldn’t have in your own house.
• Don’t shop in the middle of the store because that’s where the processed stuff lurks.  The fresh (real food) stuff is on the periphery.
• Don’t eat any foods that won’t eventually rot.  Pollan told this great story about a Twinkie kept on his shelf that retained its soft spongey feel for over two years.  Ew.

So there you have it.  A recap of some insight from a guy who’s got his food straight.

The next time you’re hauling your paleo-filled tupperware in to work and a co-worker comments on your weird food habits – be proud of your weirdness – and take comfort in the fact that type II diabetes is not in your future.