Red Bull® And Reaction Time

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by Mathew H. Gendle, Darren M. Smucker, Jason A. Stafstrom, Melanie C. Helterbran and Kimberly
S. Glazer

In the past ten years, energy drink consumption has steadily increased amongst university students,  who ingest beverages like Red Bull® (RB) in an attempt to enhance mental performance.  Energy drinks like RB (which are usually carbonated and contain significant quantities of sugar and caffeine as well as blends of herbal extracts,  B vitamins,  and amino acids) are popular with university students because their consumption is typically assumed to provide increased energy and noticeable improvements in cognition.

Continue Reading >>  Red Bull® And Reaction Time.

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Organic Food: Is it Safer? Article by Jamie Hale

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By Jamie Hale

Over the past two decades the sale of organic foods has increased annually nearly 20%. Today’s organic food system includes a combination of small and large food producers, local and global distribution networks, and a wide variety of products including processed foods, fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy [1]. Recent food crises such as mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease may have decreased consumer confidence in conventional foods and swayed their buying tendencies to what they perceive as safer foods – Organic, All Natural Foods.

Continue Reading >> Ground Up Strength: Organic Food The Real Story.

And check out the comments too!

Talkin bout thin people

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In two past posts I discussed some of the misconceptions about how naturally, lifelong thin people eat and behave:

Instinctual Eating

Hunger is a Physical Feeling

I still think that it is a tad idealistic to think that thin people eat “instinctively” but, Michelle May, in this new piece, echoes some of the ideas, or at least the general gist of them, that I presented there. But while I presented it from the viewpoint of a naturally thin person, Dr. May has the vantage point of someone who has been overweight and conquered it.

I’m not sure that it has much to do with thinking like a thin person but it does provide a great deal of insight.

Ten Things You’ll Never Hear Thin People Say

Maybe you’ve heard phrases like instinctive eating, intuitive eating, or normal eating to describe someone who manages their weight effortlessly. Just how do you recognize this increasingly rare individual? One way is to listen to what they say–and don’t say.

Here are the Top 10 things you’ll probably never hear them say…

10. I think I’ll have a pizza. I deserve it!
9.  I can’t eat there; they don’t have anything I’m allowed to have on my diet.
8.  I’m totally stuffed! But since I’ve already blown it, we might as well stop for ice cream on the way home.
7.  Thanks for making me a birthday cake, but unfortunately, I’m all out of points for the day.
6.  One more trip up to the buffet and I’ll have eaten my twelve dollars and ninety nine cents worth.
5.  Hey, the calorie counter on this treadmill is broken! How am I supposed to know when I’m done exercising?
4.  My boss is such a jerk. I’ll show him! I’ll eat an entire bag of Doritos all by myself!
3.  I’ve been craving a piece of cheesecake all weekend. I wonder if I could make a healthy substitute by stirring some Stevia into 2 teaspoons of fat-free cream cheese and spreading it on a rice cake?
2.  OMG! I was supposed to eat 17 minutes ago!

And the number one thing you’ll never hear an instinctive eater say…

1.  I’m on Day 3 of the new Bahamas Cruise Diet: Phase I (14 days): I’m-gonna-fit-into-this-bathing-suit-if-it-kills-me Starvation.  Phase 2 (8 days): Order-as-many-entrées-as-you-want-followed-by-a-show-then-belly-up-to-the-Midnight-Chocolate-Buffet Binge.  Phase 3 (2 days): I’ve-gotta-lose-the-eight-pounds-I-gained-on-my-cruise Starvation.  Maintenance Phase: What-the-hell!-We’re-not-going-on-another-cruise-until 2013.

Alright, I’m exaggerating a bit here but you get the point. People who eat instinctively don’t usually diet, but that doesn’t mean they eat perfectly. They occasionally eat for pleasure or convenience even if they aren’t hungry. The difference is that they are less likely to struggle with frequent emotional eating or mindless eating. Instead, they trust their instincts to let them know when, what, and how much to eat.

We were all born to eat instinctively–just imagine a young child saying any of those ten things! For countless reasons, many people “forget” how to use their own internal cues of hunger and satiety to guide their eating. They eat when they’re sad, mad, glad, bored, or stressed. They eat because they paid for it or because it’s free. As a result they gain weight, but instead of going back to instinctive eating, they go on a diet, driving them even further from their own ability to know what their body really needs.

The good news is that you CAN relearn to trust yourself to eat without deprivation, guilt, or bingeing. While it may seem too good to be true, we’ve worked with countless people who have done exactly that–and you can too!

Eat Mindfully. Live Vibrantly!
Michelle May, M.D.

And now I want some Doritos.

You can read more of May’s articles at GUS: Michelle May

Core Strength, Core Endurance, and Back Pain: The Fitness Industry and Their Jedi Mind Tricks

I’ve  been informed of a MYTH. Apparently core strengthening does not help resolve back pain! Doing “strength” exercises for the core musculature is wrong.  It doesn’t work.

Apparently the secret is to build up core “endurance” with the right exercises.

These days you join any kind of site you get treated to countless “special email bulletins”. I must admit I find it annoying when a fitness site sends out a new newsletter every single day. But it is a convenient way for me to find countless examples of this post’s title.

Trans Fats: What People Don’t Get

 

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What people don’t get about trans fat is that many of the products that have been villainized due to trans fat content, such as regular peanut butter, have always contained less than one gram of trans fat per serving.

Why is this important?

Well, since the recent hysteria involving the unhealthfullness of trans fatty acids food labels have undergone a major change.

Yes, some foods have changed too but mostly just  the labels.

You see, many of the products that proclaim ZERO GRAMS TRANS FAT on the front label actually still contain trans fats.

If you want to be sure, check the ingredients. If it contains “partially hydrogenate oil” or any type of hydrogenated oils then it contains trans fatty acids.

“Truth About Nutrition” Marketers Agree to Pay $3 Million

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Marketers of Dietary Supplements and Devices Agree to Pay $3 Million to Settle FTC Charges of Deceptive Advertising

Marketers of dietary supplements and health-related devices have agreed to pay $3 million in consumer redress to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they deceptively claimed their products treated or prevented a wide variety of serious diseases and medical conditions.

The challenged products included an infrared sauna sold to treat cancer; and a variety of nutritional supplements sold to treat, reduce the risk of, or prevent various health conditions, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, strokes and heart attacks, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases, ulcers, herpes, asthma, and glaucoma. The marketers sold their products on their Web site and in print materials, but their main advertising vehicle was a nationally broadcast, live, hour-long, call-in radio program titled “The Truth About Nutrition.”

Continue Reading the FTC release.

Instinctual Eating

In my last post I made this statement:

“Except that nutritionists would never tell you that simply eating by your “instincts” is a magical ticket to health.”

Well, of course, I cannot speak for any and all nutritionists. I cannot speak for nutritionists at all for that matter. Many nutritionists might very well tell you that eating instinctually is just what healthier people do.

The truth is it’s not the concept I object to. It’s the word. Instinct. Instinctual. Very muddy waters, there.

Nutritionism

To follow up on the post Natural, Processed, Nutritionism, and Pollonisms I wanted to discuss further Polon’s notion of nutritionism.

Nutritionism, according to Pollan, is the idea that it is the individual nutrients in food, as discovered by science, which determines their dietary value.  He say’s that through this kind of thinking we have become separated from the natural food chain (there’s that natural word again) and have lost our eating instincts.  For instance, our instincts governing food intake.  We have become increasingly reliant on nutrition experts and since nutrition science cannot completely understand how food affects the body, relying on nutrition science is a fallacy.

Natural, Processed, Nutritionism, and Pollanisms

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I just saw this article that Leigh Peele put up and since it just so happened I had been posting and thinking about this general subject…

Pepsi Throwback Label Voodoo and

Silk Plus Soymilk Label Voodoo

I started to post in the forum thread that is attached to the article. But it got so long and rambling that I decided to put it up here.

Here is the article: Natural Things Can Kill You Too

Leigh talks about the term natural and the assumption that everything natural is healthy and safe. We’ve all heard these vague arguments about natural versus processed foods…

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the statement “all herbs are natural so they are safe”.  I can’t count high enough. And there’s the variation, “herbs don’t have side-effects because they are natural”.

The chemicals in drugs are natural as well.  Or can be.  Herbs contain chemicals.  In fact, due to the nature of plants you can never be sure how much of an active chemical you may be getting. Thus compounding the danger of side-effects from some chemicals which have a “therapeutic window”.  Below this window they are useless and above this they are toxic. This is one of the reasons for choosing standardized herb products.

Ummm…see what I mean about rambling.  That is not what this post is about.

The article and thread got me to thinking about something else.

Silk Plus Omega 3 Fortified Label Voodoo

As great as the nutrition information on food labels is; these days you have to be a master detective to detect the misleading shenanigans that companies get up to on those labels.

Omega 3 fatty acids are a particularly juicy market right now. Particularly DHA and EPA. These are ripe for a little misdirection here or some outright lying there.

One such example is Silk Soymilk Plus with Omega 3 DHA.