Dan's Plan

Hi – How’s everything? I got 2 4×4 planter boxes from Lowes – nice looking 1/2 rounds. Av going to put them together and we’ll set them up in their yard, more room & more sun. Got 1 black pepper, 1 red pepper, patty pan squash, 3 different tomatoes, basil, parsley, chives & I think that is it…can get more veg when we see the room we have left. Have to get 1 flat of marigolds to keep bugs away. Should be fun. Also when we went to the garden show we got seeds for Butter head lettuce, ital. zucchini, arugula and one other seed pkg from Italy – can’t remember what your sister got. We are now farmers – learned about worms and composting at garden show too. We are using your idea for the egg crates as seed starters, and shredding the paper grocery bags for mulch to mix in with the dirt….

That just made my day. Happy Friday everyone!

I just finished reading Marc Ambinder’s article in the May issue of the Atlantic titled, “Beating Obesity.” It is a fantastic piece (link below) that looks at the obesity epidemic from a societal, medical, political, and personal point of view. In the article Ambinder discusses his struggle with weight a nd his decision to have bariatric (stomach bypass) surgery.

One of the points he made that I found very interesting was regarding the comparisons that can be drawn between the tobacco industry and the food industry. The tobacco industry has incentives get as many people as possible to start smoking (at a young age) and to continue smoking for the rest of their lives. Likewise, the food industry has incentives to get as many people as possible to consume as much food as possible. In both cases, more consumption = more profit.

We now have a wealth of tobacco industry documents available to us that clearly show that the tobacco industry has done almost everything possible to design products and advertising that will maximize the likelihood that we will start and continue to smoke. Now think about the food industry for a moment. Do you think that everything from the additives in processed foods, to the time it takes to nuke a meal in the microwave, to the marketing that is geared toward children has not been tested and refined to maximize the likelihood that individuals will begin and continue to eat these products? Honestly, if we acknowledge that tobacco and fast food are both pretty bad for us, is there really that big of a difference between Joe Camel and Ronald McDonald?

The point here is not to absolve us from our actions or to make excuses, but rather to acknowledge that sometimes we are up against industries who have more resources and more information that we do and whose goals might conflict with our own.

Feel free to comment with ideas on what we might do to promote our health in light of this apparent conflict of interests…

“I’ve recently read some things regarding the need to eat fruits alone for better digestion. Is this real or urban myth?”

There does appear to be research that shows that food combinations do influence absorption, digestions, metabolism, and excretion. For example, Michael Pollan reminds us of research that shows lycopene, the antioxidant from tomatoes (and other fruits and veggies), is better absorbed when eaten in combination with olive oil – a long standing tradition in, for instance, the Italian eating culture. Recently, a different study from the Journal, Archives of Neurology showed certain food combinations associated with reduced Alzheimer’s disease risk.

The reduced risk of Alzheimer’s was associated with a dietary pattern with high intakes of salad dressing, nuts, fish, tomatoes, poultry, fruits and cruciferous and dark and green leafy vegetables and low intakes of high-fat dairy, red meat, organ meat and butter. Quoting the study authors (reference below), “Our findings provide support for further exploration of food combination-based dietary behavior for the prevention of this important public health problem.” But this study is more about high prevalence of these foods in your diet instead of eating specific foods at the same time. So this doesn’t directly answer your question.

I think a good approach to food is to try to have a large variety of types of foods in your diet. Eating seasonally is interesting to me and is certainly how our ancestors ate before modern food production. Then, I try to balance every meal, including snacks with some protein, carbs, fat and a source of volume (usually fiber rich sources, like salads, and lots of hydration). My old boss used to say, if you’re a hammer, the world is a nail. With that in mind, my primary objectives with nutrition are: food enjoyment, adequate nutrition, and eating in a way favorable for long term weight maintenance. I’d say, focus on those three things and you’ll probably be fine.

For argument sake, let’s say you do absorb more vitamin C by eating fruit alone, the question you must ask is are you in need of additional vitamin C (are you suffering from any vitamin C related-deficiencies)? Will a 10% increase in vitamin C absorption have any impact on your health if you’re already getting enough? However, if you are having a specific dietary problem with, for example, digestion, seeing a nutritionist can be really helpful to help sort these things out.

Hope this was helpful!