A Hot Dog and Popcorn at the Movies Could Take Your Breath Away

Taking a breather from cured meats and popcorn could save your lungs and your life. A recent study conducted by Columbia University Medical Center suggests that eating cured meats such as hot dogs, smoked turkey, ham, bologna, bacon or salami may double your risk for lung disease. Concurrently, recent news has shown that the pervasive lingering aroma of artificially butter-flavored popcorn can literally kill you.

Researchers found that people who ate cured meat products at least 14 times a month were 78 percent more likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than people who did not eat these meats, even after the researchers sought to account for many other risk factors including smoking, overall diet and age.

COPD is a medical condition that includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, which interfere with normal breathing. COPD is also the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.

In food preparation, curing refers to various preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, sugar and either "nitrate" or "nitrite." Many curing processes also involve smoking. Nitrates not only help kill bacteria, but also produce a characteristic flavor, and give meat a pink or red color. Nitrate (chemical formula NO3), in the form of either “sodium nitrate” or “potassium nitrate”, is used as a source for nitrite (chemical formula NO2). Herein the problem lies: the nitrite further breaks down in the meat into another compound called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide binds to iron in the blood, preventing the iron from being utilized in the body.

Iron is a key component in substances that carry oxygen to the cells and hold it there, such as hemoglobin and myoglobin. This is especially important for the cells in lung tissue. Without adequate hemoglobin and myoglobin, the lungs are deprived of adequate oxygen, which damages lung tissue by cracking elastin and stiffening collagen.

Another toxic chemical has been linked to a rare and life-threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease, medically termed as bronchiolitis obliterans. Also known as “popcorn workers lung”, because many workers at microwave-popcorn factories who are exposed to the chemical have developed the disease, which destroys the lungs. A transplant is the only cure.

Since 2001, academic studies have shown links between the disease and a chemical used in artificial butter flavor called Diacetyl. Repeatedly inhaling significant doses of heated diacetyl, a vapor that, if inhaled over a long period of time, can cause the small airways in the lungs to become swollen and scarred. Eventually, the scarring of airways can create a condition where it is possible to inhale deeply, but very difficult to exhale without extreme discomfort.

Even less is known about the health effects of eating diacetyl in butter-flavored popcorn, or breathing the fumes after the bag is microwaved. Last month, the New York Times ran a story about a 53-year old Colorado man whose fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have caused him to develop the disease. Initially diagnosed with generalized lung inflammation, the Colorado man's doctor eventually discovered that he ate at least two bags of microwave buttered popcorn per day for more than a decade. He often made it a point to inhale the butter-flavored steam that came out of the bags when he first opened them.

Diacetyl is used to add a buttery flavor to many brands of microwave popcorn, including Orville Redenbacher and Act II. Chronic exposure to heated diacetyl in food production and flavoring plants that utilize synthetic butter has been linked with hundreds of cases of lung damage. Flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million as a result of lawsuits by people sick with popcorn workers lung over the past five years. One death from the disease has been confirmed.

As usual, the evidence continues to mount that processed foods and additives create health hazards. Real whole foods do not.

You may think twice the next time you are tempted to indulge in the typical movie fare of a hot dog and popcorn. If popcorn is your fancy, try this healthy recipe:

Dee’s Healthy Popcorn Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2-cup organic popcorn kernels

1-2 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

dash of sea salt

Directions:
Cover the bottom of a medium stockpot with coconut oil. Place the pot on the stovetop (without the lid) over medium heat.
Add one popcorn kernel to the oil and allow it to “pop”.
Once the kernel has popped, add the rest of the corn kernels, stir to coat them with the oil, and then place the lid on the pot.
Within a minute or two, the corn will begin popping into popcorn. Shake the pot over the heat to prevent burning. When the popping starts to taper off, take the pot off of the heat and turn the burner off.
Quickly transfer the popcorn to a large bowl or paper grocery bag and season with a dash of sea salt. If desired, add some omega-3’s by drizzling with flax seed oil.



Sources:

Dunham, Will. Study Ties Cured Meats to Higher Lung Disease Risk. http://www.reuters.com/, April 17, 2007.

Geis, Sonya. Flavoring Suspected in Illness: California Considers Banning Chemical Used in Microwave Popcorn. http://www.washingtonpost.com/, May 7, 2007; Page A03.

Harris, Gardiner. Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to Microwave Popcorn Habit. http://www.nytimes.com/, September 5, 2007.

Could Your Diet Be Keeping You Awake?

If you suffer from insomnia or interrupted sleep, perhaps a few dietary changes could help you snooze through the night.

Did you know that certain nutrients, foods, and eating patterns can have a great effect on your ability to get a good night’s sleep?

For instance, a lack of the nutrients calcium and magnesium can cause you to wake up after a few hours and not be able to return to sleep. Calcium has a calming effect and magnesium is needed to balance the calcium and relax muscles. A calcium/magnesium supplement can be helpful, however it is important to eat real foods that contain calcium, because they also have magnesium and the other trace minerals needed for its absorption. Vegetable choices should consist of dark green leafy types such as collard greens, kale, cabbage, and broccoli, for their high calcium content. Other food sources for calcium are almonds, asparagus, blackstrap molasses, buttermilk, carob, cheese, figs, filberts, goat's milk, kelp, mustard greens, oats, prunes, sesame seeds, tofu, turnip greens, watercress, whey, and yogurt.

Which foods you eat and when you eat them can also affect restful sleep.

You should avoid caffeine-containing foods after lunchtime. Coffee, as well as less obvious caffeine sources such as soft drinks, chocolate, coffee-flavored ice cream, hot cocoa, and tea, should not be consumed after lunchtime. Even small amounts of caffeine such as those found in decaffeinated coffee or chocolate, may be enough to cause insomnia in some people. If you suffer from extreme chronic insomnia, caffeine should be completely eliminated from your diet.

For dinner or as an evening snack, choose foods high in the amino acid tryptophan. These include turkey, milk, cottage cheese, chicken, tuna, eggs, almonds, bananas, figs, dates, yogurt, and whole grain crackers or nut butter. In the brain, tryptophan is converted to serotonin and melatonin, which are natural sleep-inducing compounds. Also, did you notice that many of these foods also contain calcium?

Those late-night bacon-cheesburgers or sugary snacks can actually be keeping you awake. Avoid eating bacon, cheese, chocolate, eggplant, ham, potatoes, sauerkraut, sugar, sausage, spinach, tomatoes, and wine close to bedtime. These foods contain tyramine, which increases the release of norepinephrine, which is a brain stimulant.

Drinking chamomile tea several times throughout the day and especially before bedtime, helps calm and tone the nervous system, promoting restful sleep.

Getting a good's night sleep is imperative to good health. It not only helps your energy levels and alertness, but is also important for weight loss. Making these simple dietary changes can greatly improve your overall health.

News Flash: Chocolate is Healthier Than Broccoli!

Over the past few years, you've probably heard about the health benefits of chocolate. However, before you go making conventional chocolates a staple of your diet, it's important to understand that the health benefits are mainly due to special compounds called flavonoids that are found most abundantly in organic, raw chocolate.

Flavonoids are natural nutrients with antioxidant properties. In fact, raw, organic chocolate is one of the most antioxidant-rich foods in the world. Ounce for ounce, it has five times more antioxidants than blueberries, ten times more antioxidants than spinach, and close to fifteen times more antioxidants than broccoli!

The flavonoids in raw chocolate play some key roles in optimally supporting health:

• They prevent premature aging by protecting your cells against free-radical damage
• They help prevent stickiness of platelets, which are cells that play an important role in blood clotting
• They help your body produce nitric oxide, a compound that promotes a healthy cardiovascular system

Unfortunately the majority of chocolates on the market are not the best choices for optimally supporting health because most of them have been processed. The more chocolate is processed, the fewer flavonoids it retains. Fewer flavonoids translates to less antioxidant content and less potential health benefits. Processed chocolate becomes even less healthful due to the addition of refined sugar, milk, and oils.

Your best choice is raw, organic chocolate that has no added ingredients. Your next best choice is dark chocolate with 70% or more cocoa content, but this ranks a distant second to raw chocolate, since conventional dark chocolate is exposed to significant heat and processing. The worst choices are milk chocolate and white chocolate. Most varieties of milk chocolate have only about 25% to 50% the flavonoid content of dark chocolate, and white chocolate has no flavonoids.

Raw chocolate is chocolate in its purest form; it's nothing but pure cocoa (cacao) beans which are dried, then cracked to remove the "nibs" (the center of the cacoa bean). To make raw cocoa powder, the nibs are pressed to extract the cocoa butter, leaving a dense, rich, and bitter substance called chocolate liquor. Despite the name, this substance does not contain any alcohol. After drying, the chocolate liquor is ground into powder form. Raw cacoa nibs and raw cocoa powder are sold in natural food markets, or can be purchased on-line.

Dee's Inside Scoop on Natural Products Expo West

My husband and I recently returned from the Natural Products Expo West held in Anaheim, California, where I learned that my idea of "natural food" is quite different than the industry standard. I want to first say that overall the experience was magical and quite exhilarating. However, I was noticing a dangerous trend toward packaged and convenience food that is being "developed" and touted as healthy. There was so much to see and taste over the weekend, that I am going to be blogging about it over several days. Just to give you a preview, at the end of the first day I returned to my hotel room with aching bruised shoulders from the heavy tote bags loaded with free samples of every imaginable "health bar" and snack food the "natural" food product world can come up with. It was like the over sized Halloween trick or treat bag filled with glorified candy bars. And I cannot forget to mention the numerous vendors pushing organic chocolate bars, luring attendees to their booths by placing heaping bowls filled with little squares of each variety of chocolate, which if I had tasted every sample on the show floor I would have consumed the equivalent of several large bars of chocolate in one day. More commentary on this later.

Even though it would have been a great opportunity to showcase my flourless Dee's Mighty Muffins ™ (http://www.deesmightymuffins.com/), we decided not to tie ourselves down to a booth so we could roam the show floor checking out the newest offerings in the natural food world and attend the educational seminars offered by leaders in the fields of nutrition. I was in great anticipation of getting to hear four of my most revered heroes and mentors: Udo Erasmus, Ph.D., creator of Udo's Oil and international authority on fats and oil; Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., the First Lady of Nutrition in the U.S. and pioneer in dietary health matters; Michael Murray, ND, one of the world's leading authorities on natural medicine; and Eric Schlosser, author of the bestselling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal.

Friday morning began with a complimentary breakfast sponsored by Kashi, Horizon Organic, and Silk. I don't know what I was expecting, but it fell below my expectations. Kashi was offering all of their new cereals (all of which contain evaporated cane sugar), Horizon had milk, yogurt (the yogurt was not as creamy as some other brands that I like, and it was sweetened with organic sugar), eggs, and cheese, and of course Silk had their new flavors of soy milk and soy yogurt. There was not a piece of fruit or a vegetable to be found among the rows and rows of cereal and milk.

A conversation at the breakfast table begat a rumor that Kashi has just been purchased by Nestle. I have no first-hand knowledge of this, like I said it is apparently a rumor. The gentleman who told me this said that "we can now expect that Kashi's products will not be as credible and pure as they used to be." Looking at the sugary evidence on the ingredient lists of their newest offerings-- especially the little cereal bars that were scattered on all of the breakfast tables--I would have to agree. In fact, perhaps one of the reasons Kashi's cereals have become more sugary since 200 is because that is the year they were bought by Kellogg. I remember the first Kashi product I was happy to include in my diet back in 1992, Puffed Kashi, one of the few truly sugar-free cereals available at the time. I sure hope they keep it in their repertoire of offerings. Kashi bought by Nestle--that would certainly be more of a sellout than Kellog. Buyers beware!!!

One of the best parts of being at this event was getting to hear the experts talk about some of the latest research in nutrition and health. If you want to get the real hardcore health information, the hidden treasures of the holistic nutrition community, you have to get face to face with the innovative supplement companies, the pioneering doctors and researchers, and others who are pushing the envelope of health and nutrition. These are people whose work and beliefs have inspired me and influenced my own philosophies toward health, eating, and weight loss. Dr. Udo Erasmus is one such person. I finally got to see him in action espousing all of the wonderful information contained in his revolutionary book Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill. The title of his talk, Why Fish Oil is Not Enough, confirmed that we need to include a variety of oils in our diets, mainly from unadulterated sources like raw nuts (he advocates keeping nuts in their shells to protect the fragile oils, and cracking them open just before eating them), seeds, and even animal fat. Udo's research and expertise has convinced me that unadulterated fats and oils are absolutely essential to good health, that low fat diets are not only unnecessary but dangerous, and that the only oils that are safe to eat are those that are not heated and processed.

Vegetarian Times, You Disappoint Me

I read health magazines and nutrition journals every day. Each month, I look forward to one of my favorites, Vegetarian Times, for the yummy recipes and information on food. The magazine doesn't necessarily eliminate white sugar and flour from its recipes, but overall they are usually healthy and loaded with colorful vegetables. However, I was thoroughly disappointed by the article titled "What's the Latest on Sugar Substitutes?" in the February 2007 issue.

They reported that Splenda (patented name Sucralose) has never been shown to cause any biological or pathological problems in studies. Furthermore they quoted a Drexel University weight control specialist as saying that sucralose is "completely unmetabolized in the body, which means nothing is broken down, added, or taken away. If something goes in and comes out unchanged, it's much less likely to cause problems." They basically gave the thumbs up for Splenda use, which in my opinion is the same as misleading their readers.

Shortly thereafter, I read that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the revered surgeon who regularly appears on the Oprah show recommends the use of Splenda in his new book You On A Diet. He says that Splenda has not been proven to be dangerous.

This normally would not bother me except that both of these recent proponents of Splenda do not give the whole picture. First let me say that I love what Dr. Oz is doing on the Oprah show. I commend him for educating the public on some serious health issues and expounding on the dangers of processed foods, but I must disagree with his stance on Splenda.

Splenda is an artificial sweetener that is created in a laboratory using a complex process involving many caustic chemicals. Although the starting substance is sugar (sucrose), it undergoes a chemical process which selectively substitutes three atoms of chlorine for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sucrose molecule. This chemical reaction essentially forces chlorine atoms to form an unnatural bond with the sugar, resulting in a “polychlorinated compound”, also known as an organochlorine compound. Splenda shares many similar molecular characteristics to other polychlorinated compounds like pesticides that can accumulate in your body fat and tissues. It is impossible to predict the long-term consequences of ingesting Splenda over many years, however polychlorinated compounds have long been known for causing organ, genetic, and reproductive damage.

Sucralose research on lab rats showed up to forty percent shrinkage of the thymus gland, a gland that is the very foundation of our immune system. Animal studies also showed sucralose can cause many other problems such as:

• Inflammation and swelling of the liver and kidneys
• Calcification of the kidneys (kidney stones)
• Atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus
• Reduced growth rate
• Decreased red blood cell count
• Extension of the pregnancy period
• Aborted pregnancy
• Decreased fetal body weights and placental weights
• Diarrhea

As a chemist and a concerned citizen, I am very dubious about the safety of Splenda. With so many problems associated with the studies, I find it hard to believe that Splenda can be safe. More than that though, sucralose is patented as a manmade “chlorinated sucrose sweetener” and it is registered as “chlorinated sucrose.” Chlorinated sucrose does not exist anywhere in nature. It is foreign to our human DNA and our bodies do not recognize laboratory-synthesized, artificially-made compounds. Our bodies are designed to eat real foods that derive from the natural world. Splenda does not fit into that category.

I Was a Green Tea Study Reject

Last week I read in the Arizona Republic newspaper an article calling for cigarette smokers or ex-cigarette smokers to volunteer to participate in a study to investigate the impact of drinking green tea on the cell damage caused by smoking. I was very interested in participating since I am an ex-smoker. I also love green tea, and since I drink a cup or two of it every day anyway, I figured following the protocol would have little impact on my daily routine.

The article said that "the doctors conducting the study are testing whether green tea consumption by ex-smokers can be associated with decreased damage to fat, protein or genetic material to prevent lung cancer." Participants would be asked to drink green tea for six months, provide monthly urine samples and keep a daily log of their tea drinking and smoking througout the study. Even better, participants would gain the benefits of free health care, including dietary analyses, breathing tests and blood analyis reports. Wow, free health care, who can beat that? Sign me up today!

I quickly sent an e-mail to the study contact expressing my interest. I provided information I figured they would want: I am a former smoker. I quit smoking in November 1992. Prior to that I smoked for 13 years about 1 pack per day. I figured I was a pretty heavy smoker back then and would surely be eligible for the study.

The reply I recieved went something like this: Your smoking history indicates that you smoked
for less than 20 years; we are recruiting subjects who are or were heavy smokers. For example: smoking 1 1/2 pack per day for 14 years or more or 1 pack per day for 20 years or more. They asked me to provide more info. I did. The reply back said, "Based on your smoking history you are not eligible, we are looking for people who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day with 30 or more years of smoking. Thanks for responding."

In other words, thanks but no thanks! Oh well, I am going to take comfort in the fact that the researchers already theorize that the antioxidant qualities in green tea may reduce the damage caused by smoking. I drink green tea every day, several times a day and have done so for many years. Perhaps by this point, I have already reversed a lot of the damage caused by my former habit. I will eagerly await the results of the study to confirm my healthful habit.