Eat. Tri. Venture.

Fed Up, Katie Couric’s new documentary about the impact of sugar on Americans, particularly children, is now playing in Cleveland.  JMac and I checked it out last weekend.  If you can’t get to see it at a theater near you, I recommend dropping it in the Netflix queue.  Unfortunately, it confirmed everything I have learned over the last six months about sugar. 

The movie opens with the premise that short-sighted and incomplete science has led us down a path of low-fat, processed foods.  However, when fat is removed from a food, the food tastes bad.  So, the manufactured food companies have replaced the fat with sugar and sugar substitutes to make it palatable and encourage consumption.  The problem?  Sugar (in all of its various, fifty-six forms, including “sugar-free” substitutes) wreaks havoc on your metabolic system and entire digestive process.  No fat?  No feeling of satiety.  You eat even more and the process continues.  And through it all, the edible product companies make gazillions of dollars off your downward spiral into sickness.  The rise in obesity can be correlated to the introduction and growth of these low-fat, high sugar foods in the 1970’s. 

In addition to the general notion of how and why we are becoming metabolically broken, two other points in the movie stood out to me.  First, children are deliberately being targeted.  (Think of all of those edible product commercials during children’s television programming).  Other countries around the world have put limits on what types of “food” commercials can be shown during children’s programs.  But there is no such regulation in the United States.  The manufactured food industry has managed to stall all attempts by Congress to regulate this.  The industry has also managed to interrupt Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, which started as diet-focused, and turn it into a campaign for children’s exercise.  Also, having graduated in the near Paleolithic era of 1994, I was shocked to see how much school lunches have changed in the last twenty years.  Fast food and processed food have taken over our children’s schools.  Pizza Hut and McDonald’s are feeding our kids.  Does that even seem right?  In an effort to save money, cut costs and find alternative sources of revenue, our schools invite them to provide “food.”  But while this may solve a short-term funding situation, how much is this costing our society in the end?

Second, the movie discusses the concept of “fat on the inside.”  While someone might not look like they are fat, they can be storing a disproportionate amount of fat in their belly and around their organs, where it is most dangerous.  This, again, is particularly disconcerting in regards to children who appear to “be able to eat whatever they want” but could be getting set up for a lifetime of bad habits and eventually, disease.  Although the movie did not highlight this, I think this can also be applied to endurance athletes, who can easily imbibe on a diet high in processed carbohydrates (bagels, pasta, fruit juice, Gu’s, etc.) in the name of performance.  We could be doing more harm than good to ourselves.

In the end, the movie concludes that the most basic thing you can do to promote health and thwart this onslaught of disease is Eat Real Food.  Talk with your dollars.  Don’t support the companies whose bottom line is more important than your health and the health of your children.  The movie likens the edible product companies to the cigarette industry fifty years ago.  The industry knew the science proved their products were downright dangerous and deadly but continued to lie, deceive and promote their products anyways to the American public.  Do you honestly want to go down this road again?  Or, are you fed up now?

For more information, check out http://fedupmovie.com/#/page/home.  Sign up for the Fed Up Challenge!

I need to work on a quick, snappy response.  The short answer is, I switched to a diet free from processed grains and sugars to lose five pounds after years of counting calories failed to get me there.  But before I lost those five pounds, which I did, I found that once I got off the sugar train, a number of other daily maladies, which I did not even realize were maladies, went away as well.  Here’s the rundown:

·        Weight loss

·        Satiety

·        Improved sleep

·        Dramatic reduction in recurring GI issues (bloating, heartburn, gas—all symptoms of a high carb diet)

·        Reduced inflammation

·        Faster recovery from training, and without the use of “recovery” products

·        Increased, consistent energy, particularly at times of the day when energy used to be low (i.e. after lunch)

In addition, through subsequent research, I have learned that diets concentrated in sugar have been tied to a whole host of metabolic syndromes, cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.  Gluten sensitivity is a whole separate issue but one worth considering as well.  Besides being simultaneously laced with GMOs, which has its own subset of issues (unless you specifically look for organic or non-gmo), gluten products can cause a whole range of inflammatory, allergic responses, which one might not even suspect is the result of the gluten.  I know I did not.  But overall, I just feel one hundred times better.  I did not even realize how much my diet of low fat, “heart healthy” carbs was dragging me down. 

That being said, the easiest way to kick the sugar habit is to Eat Real Food.  As Michael Pollan states in his (life changing, at least for me) book, In Defense of Food, “eat real food, mostly plants.”  That is the best advice out there.  Don’t get bogged down in the details, at least initially.  Some experts will suggest increasing your fat intake.  Others might suggest increasing your protein.  Those are personal choices.  You need to find out what makes you feel your best.  For me, I have found that more fresh produce and veggie fats (i.e. nuts and seeds) work best.  But you cannot make that determination if your metabolic system is clogged from a diet of chemical and sugar laden edible products. 

If this seems daunting, start small.  Give up gluten for a week.  See how it goes.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised when you realize how you are not feeling.  And if that works, or if it does not, take it a step further. Give up soda or diet soda (research shows your body treats them both as sugar).  Avoid anything with corn syrup.  See what works for you.  But give it a try, you can’t lose betting on yourself.

(There are links to some of my favorite resources on the subject of Eat Real Food on my home page…including Fit, Fat Fast (metabolic efficiency for the endurance athlete), Vinnie Tortorich’s NSNG, Jonanthan Bailor’s Smarter Science of Slim, No Meat Athlete and of course, Michael Pollan’s Food Rules.  Have a great week!). 

Several weeks ago JMac asked if I would make cupcakes.  And not just any cupcakes.  He specifically requested yellow cupcakes with homemade chocolate fudge frosting.  Now for the reader who has not had (from scratch) yellow cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting, these cupcakes are quite a treat.  The cupcakes are light, moist and delicious on their own.  But the frosting takes them to a new level.  The frosting consists of dark chocolate, a little vanilla and milk, one stick of butter and a whole lot of sugar.  The sugary, buttery, rich goodness of it is absolutely mind-boggling.  I know more than one person who “doesn’t like chocolate,” JMac included, who can eat half a dozen of these tasty treats without blinking an eye.  Regardless, this request put me in a bit of a quandary regarding my own recent stance against both wheat flour and sugar.  But I agreed to make them for dessert when we had company over for dinner.  After all, JMac has been an innocent victim in the No Sugar No Grains battle, losing his beloved bread, cereal and after dinner cookies in my war against processed foods.