Category: health

Low Fat Peanut Butter: Not as Healthy

Ashley Bischoff16 Comments

Many people buy low-fat peanut butter in an effort to eat healthier. However, I’ve recently learned that low-fat peanut butter is created through replacing the fat with corn syrup. So, you may be getting a bit less fat, but the corn syrup is pure carbs. And since carbs don’t have the satiety of fats or protein, it’s easier to gain weight since you won’t feel as full from a given amount of food.

But, there’s no need to feel guilty about the extra fat — peanut oil is one of the good fats :). As a monounsaturated fat (just like olive oil and canola oil), it helps to lower LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) and raise HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).

Most regular peanut butter is made through hydrogenating the peanut oil (which makes the peanut oil semi-solid at room temperature). However, the hydrogenation process creates trans fats — the worst kind of fat. Trans fat tends to raise the bad cholesterol while not raising the good cholesterol (even saturated fat, which isn’t particularly good for you either, raises both the good and bad cholesterol).

In terms of peanut butter, choosing full-fat peanut butter would be a healthy decision. Or, if you’re up for it, full-fat natural peanut butter would be even more healthy (since, without the hydrogenation, it has no trans fat).

“Connie Chung Tonight” on The Zone, on Monday

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I saw a teaser for Monday’s Connie Chung Tonight. Apparently as is vogue for slow newsrooms, they’ll be evaluating diets including The Zone (or, at least that’s my understanding from viewing the teaser without sound via the overhead tvs at the gym).

I know that some of my friends are looking to lose weight or get in better shape. The Zone isn’t difficult, and you won’t go hungry either (in fact, snacks between meals are required). I’ve been sticking with it since the summer, and it’s easy to stay with it.

Connie Chung Tonight airs weekdays on CNN at 8/7c and repeats that day’s episode at 10/9c.

Saturated Fat May Increase Risk of Alzheimer’s

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

According to a study by doctors at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago, diets high in saturated fat may have a higher risk for Alzheimer’s:

People who consumed the most saturated fat — the kind of fat that comes from meat, poultry, dairy products and palm or coconut oils — had 2.3 times the risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared with those who consumed the lowest amount of saturated fats, the researchers said. […]

The news doesn’t bother me much, as I don’t have much saturated fat in my diet anyhow. Catfish, which I often eat for dinner, has 1g saturated fat (the remaining 3g fat are presumably good fat).

And, I’m not sure what kind of tuna goes into canned tuna, but it also is fairly low in saturated fat. I generally have tuna (and apples) for breakfast and lunch and, for whatever reason, I haven’t really tired of that over the past few months ;).

Fattest Cities

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Men’s Fitness Magazine has released its yearly Fattest Cities list. Though the city was 5th last year, Dallas has dropped to 9th-fattest this year (which is a good thing, I suppose). Houston retains its most-fat status from last year.

Men’s Fitness evaluated the nation's 50 largest cities between July and September 2002, looking at 16 criteria that the magazine considers “indicators, risk factors or relevant environmental factors affecting fitness, obesity and health.”

The criteria included fruit and vegetable consumption, sports participation, smoking, drinking, air and water quality, length of commute, availability of parks and open spaces and percentage of overweight and sedentary residents. […]

I’m a little surprised that Pittsburgh isn’t among the top 25 fattest cities (the list cuts off at 25). Don’t get me wrong — the city can be quaint in a rustic/industrial kind of way — but its citizens are not known for their great shape :-/.

Delays in Trans Fat Labeling

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The FDA was all set to require trans fat labeling on food products, but the food industry is dragging its feet.

Accustomed to food-labeling regulations for other nutrients, the food industry is resigned to accepting an FDA proposal requiring them to give the actual amount of trans fat, or trans fatty acids, on the label of a food product. But an additional feature of the FDA proposal is leaving a bad taste in the industry’s mouth — a 10-word footnote on nutrition labels that would read: “Intake of trans fats should be as low as possible.” […]

Some food industry groups have even “threatened to sue over their First Amendment commercial-speech rights if the footnote becomes law”, but I don’t think that the footnote is unreasonable.

[…] [S]cientists at the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine have found [that] any consumption of trans fats increases the risk of heart disease. So, the FDA reasons, if less trans fat is better, or no daily minimum is recommended, why not have food labels say just that? Thus its proposal for the footnote on food labels. […]

Trans fat not only raises bad cholesterol, the stuff that increase the risk of clogged arteries, but also lowers good cholesterol, which actually reduces risk of clogged arteries. While there are some naturally occurring trans fats in meat and dairy products, most are created when food makers add hydrogen to vegetable oil. The process, called hydrogenation, makes the oil more solid at room temperature. […]

It makes sense to me :-/. But, due to this quibbling, a rule on trans fat labeling that was initially planned for early-2003 is now expected no earlier than summertime. In the meantime, if you’re looking to avoid trans fat — called “as bad as it gets” by some — be on the lookout for “partially hydrogenated ##” on food labels — that’s all trans fat.