More Than Food

February 16, 2010

Real life kicked in with a vengeance last week. I worked at a conference for four days, and then literally ran to a train for a three day cycling trip with my family. Most meals were consumed away from home. And despite my best efforts, I feel different, and not in a good way. I’m not as lean and visibly more puffy– and that is despite cycling over 75 miles during the last three days.

I don’t often travel for work but this month is way out of the ordinary. Each week I am away from home in a significant way. Last week I attended a nurse’s conference, grabbing eggs and fruit at the buffet breakfast, a quick turkey sandwich on the fly for lunch and snacking on my personal supply of almonds and apricots when I needed a snack. But I wasn’t eating the grass fed and organic foods I am used to at home.

The three day cycling trip wasn’t alot better. We picked up some organic fruit and carrots to carry on our rides, but meals were mostly about convenience. After cycling 25+ miles during the day, no one was in a mood to cycle another 3-5 miles to dinner or the local market.

At the resort in Oxnard, we ate at the in house restaurant. Dinner was tasty enough, but I am sure that there wasn’t an organic or grass fed morsel on the plate. The complimentary breakfast was a bit less than horrifying. Fresh fruit was it’s saving grace. The eggs didn’t taste like eggs, but poured and cooked like crepes. Maybe a little too much water and starch stretching the recipe? Oatmeal was sticky and overcooked. I missed my steel cut oats at home. An abundance of high fructose corn syrup was everywhere, from the yogurt to the dry cereals, pastries and pancake syrup. I ate a few pieces of bacon and the fruit and called it quits.

Lunch was a stop at the local market on the way to Zuma Beach. We ended up buying chicken and filling in with fresh fruit, pasta salad and some potato chips. Not my pastured chicken, not olive oil in the dressing. There was just too little opportunity to balance out all those omega 6 fatty acids, despite my effort to order fish preferentially when it was available.

The truth is that when I am relying on other people to feed me, I know they are highly motivated to substitute cheaper ingredients. Soybean oil instead of olive oil; prepared egg mix instead of whole eggs; cheese food from oil and yellow dye and high fructose corn syrup in everything you can imagine: juice drinks, sodas, pancake syrup, salsas, cereals, bread, muffins, pancakes and pastries. It is a far cry from the pastured chickens and eggs, wild caught fish, grass fed red meats and diary products as well as the organic produce that is usually on our table.

Breakfast the next morning was a little better. I ordered a lox and onion omelet with fresh fruit and tomatoes. A dry English muffin with jam added needed carbohydrates for the ride home over the hills of Malibu. We snacked on fruit and almonds at our midway point overlooking the surf of Topanga Canyon and gratefully arrived home early enough for me to prepare a pastured chicken over ratatouille. We were all grateful for a home cooked meal.

I will go to my office and measure myself today. I want to see what the numbers look like and then check back after a few weeks. I still have two more traveling events this month for work. Thankfully one is in Napa, California. I am hoping for an easier time navigating the food supply there.

February 11

I just returned from four days in San Francisco at a conference, eating in the real world without my grass fed resources at hand. Traveling is another world of challenges. But it is not impossible, just very different.

You can forget about finding grass fed milk lattes. I opted for tea most of the time, and succumbed to the call of Starbucks just once over the four days. San Francisco is not exactly an outpost, and in many ways Northern California trumps SoCal in terms of grass fed availability and consciousness. After all author, Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma teaches at UC Berkeley and Alice Waters has effectively spread the organic gospel across the bay.

Still, grass fed meat was mostly found in meat cases, not the average restaurant menu. I didn’t see any mention of pastured poultry or eggs on any menu. I bought my own grass fed cheese and yogurt in the boutique markets located in the Ferry Building just steps from my hotel.

I managed the meals by preferentially ordering fish, noshing on my personal supply of almonds and grass fed cheese. I found I could buy 2 hard boiled eggs at the local 7-11 to compliment the carbohydrate-centric continental breakfast at the conference (sponsored by the American Diabetes Association no less). At least there was fresh fruit to offset the oatmeal, bagels and syrup flavored coffees.

Without a kitchen, managing to eat grass fed food products while 100 percent dependent on the food service industry is quite the challenge. Grass fed meat is on the menu, but mostly at very high end restaurants that only serve dinner. Grass fed options weren’t available at the local diners we frequented for lunch. I was guilty of being the casual diner that didn’t look up restaurants ahead of time. And for that in-between latte to smooth out mid morning hunger or give me a needed mid-afternoon bump, there was no grass fed milk in sight.

Still, there must be something about eating more omega 3 and less omega 6 as an overall approach to food. I don’t bloat and blow up with carbohydrates the way I used to. And I had my share of sourdough bread while visiting that fair city. It surprised me and made me wonder if some of the difficulty with starches and insulin resistance isn’t linked to omega three insufficiency.

Already I hear that a premier nutrition researcher is testing the theory that many folks suffering from lactose intolerance–up to 75% of the population– can handle raw grass fed milk. It will be interesting to find out if that is really true. And it will beget other questions: how much of that effect is due to the pro- and pre-biotics in raw milk? How much from less inflammatory omega 6 in the diet? How much from more omega 3?

In the meantime, my travel plans will need to include a few more ideas on how to manage to eat mostly grass fed. Maybe my next vacation will be to New Zealand.

February 3, 2010

Almost five months have passed since I switched to mostly grass fed animal products. I feel much the same as I did when I discovered that I benefited from a higher fat and protein diet–I can’t go back. I feel better, I am happier. I feel more resilient when the tough stuff happens. No one has erased my Italian heritage, but I don’t seem to engage the same. There is less of an obsessive, perseverating quality to my emotions. I feel them and they resonate, but they don’t overwhelm my thoughts.

My office colleagues are mental health therapists. They know about the study and research in their realm is crossing my desk. It is stunning. There is ample evidence that omega three supplementation has benefited many. Less depression, less anxiety, even less psychosis and schizophrenia. It makes me wonder what would happen if there was less omega 6 in the diet in the first place and adequate omega 3 came from foods it should come from: milk,cheese, yogurt, beef, eggs, chicken, as well as the fish.

In one study, an omega three supplement was as effective at treating schizophrenia as the psychoactive drugs known to cause insulin resistance and triple the risk of diabetes. Most psychoactive drugs change glucose tolerance. Side effects include weight gain, dislipidemia (elevated total and LDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, and depressed HDL cholesterol), as well as hypertension and diabetes; Basically the primary parameters of metabolic syndrome.

We have unprecedented numbers of people taking antidepressants in this country. There is far less incidence of depression and other mental health disorders in third world countries. They don’t tend to feed their animals corn and I bet they eat a much higher omega three content feeding off their grass fed animals and animal products. Is there a connection?

While I pondering these correlations, countries like Argentina–the largest beef exporting country in the world is transitioning to using CAFOs–Centralized Agricultural Feeding Operations–and feeling their grass fed cows more and more high omega 6 grain. It is a wildly profitable venture if you only look at the operational side of the equation. What will it mean down the road?

It is really expensive to treat mental health disorders. Diabetes alone accounts for 12% of the annual health care budget in the US. This phenomena deserves much more scrutiny. Studies need to be done.

January 16

I am grinding my own beef. If someone had suggested to me last year that I would be in this position, I would have laughed out loud.

It was actually pretty easy. I have a new powerful stand up mixer and an attachment for grinding meat and other foods. Since I ground 8 pounds of beef all at once, we made hamburgers for dinner, meatloaf for later on in the week and meatballs to freeze for dinner some other day. It was a great experiment and a very efficient use of about an hour on a Saturday afternoon.

SAVING MONEY
The price different between grinding our own grass fed roast and buying grass fed ground beef at Whole Foods is about eight dollars a pound. We saved over $60.00 grinding our own beef. I don’t know if that will always be “worth it”, especially if I am in a pinch for time or want to cook with smaller quantities.

The task did take two “man hours”—one of us cut up the meat and the other fed the grinder. We both learned how to use the grinder and to clean it. So the learning curve has been conquered and the process should be even more efficient next time.

I suppose the cost/benefit analysis will be determined by each person’s value system. I readily take time to purchase fresh food at farmer’s markets a couple of times a week. I clean and chop fruits and vegetables for our meals, using convenience items (ie: frozen or canned produce) on a rare occasion. None of these tasks make sense on a cost/benefit analysis. Cooking is almost therapy for me. So while I value and appreciate the outcome, I don’t presume it will be cost beneficial for anyone else.

As for the cooking, patting the meat into patties was interesting. The meat was not as fatty but seemed “stickier”. I’m not sure why. Less water content? Less fat? I tried patting the meat with water and it did seem to mold more easily.

The meat was extremely lean—and grilling grass fed meat and these hamburgers in particular takes a different level of attention from my husband, the master griller. He did a great job—they were still moist and a bit pink inside. My husband is still getting used to the taste of grass fed beef but my 14 year old hasn’t protested once. He likes it all, and never complains about getting hamburgers for dinner.

January 13, 2009
I received my lab results. It’s been five months since I started the grass fed beef experiment and I am very interested to see the numbers. They are not what I wanted to see—but I also didn’t get all the test results.

Yes, my cholesterol went down, from 249 mg/dl to 229 mg/dl. But most of the decrease can be attributed to a drop in the “good” cholesterol, HDL-C, from 58 to 53.

I am puzzled since in between these two tests, there was another test done by a life insurance company. My HDL-C in that test was up to 63 mg/dl. I remember those days. They were the days of intense bruising with both the switch to grass fed beef and continued fish oil and flax oil supplementation. Since I wanted to decrease the bruising, I stopped the supplementation for awhile and even starting to drink 1.75% fat grass fed milk (mixing whole milk with skim milk).

I starting supplementing again, but at half doses, to help quiet the hot flashes. I continued to drink the half fat milk. Other changes included finding a grass fed cow’s milk yogurt—grass fed but nonfat. I wonder if my HDL-C dropped because I decreased the whole fats in my diet. I am going to add them back in and start making my own yogurt from grass fed cow milk.

I wrote my doctor, asking what happened to the C-reactive protein test values I remember that those were the most impressive changes in my client’s test. So, I’m not done yet. More research on the grass fed side of the equation. I want to solve the puzzle.

January 10

Tonight we are going out to dinner for my birthday, a nice restaurant with close friends. I am familiar with the menu, and already know I will probably order the lamb. It is from New Zealand and grass fed. I am continually reminded how sharply my thinking and behavior has changed since I began the grass fed experiment almost five months ago.

I made a dessert for tonight—our guest’s favorite apple pie. I never liked cake, and warm apple pie a la mode is fine for me. I made my own dessert, knowing that too many desserts at restaurants these days are out sourced. With cost cutting being what it is, I cannot be sure of the ingredients.

Not having found ice cream using cream from grass fed cows (and not having an ice cream maker to fit my new stand up Kitchen Aid mixer yet)—I will concede to a small scoop of ice cream from “fresh natural ingredients”. I will prepare a latte at home with organic raw grass fed milk.

Later after dinner….

The meal is good, but I must say that I feel squeezed. I wish that this was different. I wish I could enjoy meals wherever I want to go, certain that the produce is fresh and grown as responsibly as possible, that ingredients are what they are supposed to be—not just the cheapest facsimile to get the job done. I detest the apparent degradation of our food supply.

It is sad that the push towards a more whole and wholesome food supply is not coming from the medical or the dietetic hierarchy. It is certainly not coming from the food manufacturers or food technologists. I don’t know if they have questioned the mantra “better living through chemistry.” And government regulatory agencies seem to have their hands full trying to keep business interests from drowning out science.

The push for a more healthful and honest food supply is coming from the fringe—people who have experienced for themselves the benefits of eating as close to the earth as possible for their own health, their patron’s health, for their animal’s health, and/or for the health of their soil.

I can tell that this food evolution will be both fascinating and frustrating. There are many levels to it. The most benefit will come when everyone has access to adequate fresh and whole foods grown and prepared without troublesome pesticides, fertilizers, additives, and ingredients. That is a tall order.

In the meantime there are other levels of change that benefit people. These goals deserve attention and shouldn’t be dismissed just because they don’t achieve the more complex objective to feed animals their natural diet and grow food without the assistance of petroleum based fertilizers that pollute our oceans and create dead zones. Especially during these early days of the New Year and New Year’s resolutions, everyone can consider the practical goals, including:

1. More focus on eating for health, less preoccupation with weight

8. A willingness to assess the true costs of our current food supply. Treating diabetes, heart disease, auto immune diseases, and cancer is not cheap. Destroying our ocean’s and soil’s ecosystem is not cheap. A cheap and adulterated food supply is not cheap at all.

January 5

I am running errands today and ran out of time before I got hungry and needed to eat. I just don’t eat away from home all that often, and certainly not on the fly. Eating mostly grass fed dairy and meat has impacted even the simplest food decisions. I stopped by a local market and picked up a piece of fruit and some chicken. What a mistake.

I was not surprised that the pear tasted just okay, a little under ripe and fairly tasteless. It certainly was not what I am used to from the farmer’s markets. I ate it anyway, I was getting over hungry. The chicken was almost inedible.

After more than four months of cooking mostly from basic whole ingredients, I was appalled at the briny taste of the chicken. Sure, it was marinated in a Korean barbeque sauce, but the amount of sodium in the marinade literally made my tongue burn. Is this what the American public has become accustomed to? Is this what I used to eat and enjoy? After more than two years of using non-iodized salt at home, I couldn’t help but notice the sharp and metallic taste of iodized salt. It is all I tasted and it tasted bad.

I am surprised at the intensity of these changes. Research tells us that over the years Americans have come to crave greater and greater levels of sodium in our diet. But not all foods are created equal. Despite the often heard mantra to “put the salt shaker down”, the salt shaker is not the worst culprit for most of us. Processed foods account for 70% of the sodium (salt) in our food supply.

I have known academically that people are able to wean off sodium. I didn’t realize the result would be so dramatic. I didn’t realize that cooking with better quality salt would lead me to learn how to use salt with more discrimination, more effectively as a flavoring agent. Over the years I have learned that the goal of using salt is not to get a salty taste, but to achieve a balance of seasoning that allows the flavors to meld together. The goals is to use just enough so that the salt balances the sweet, the acid, the bitter –and allows those flavors to create the most exquisite pleasure when eating well prepared and seasoned food.

I am reminded that this is what we really need to be teaching the American public. The dictate to cut out salt or only buy low sodium food falls flat. It just doesn’t take very good. Learning to use salt effectively during food preparation would go a long way towards decreasing overall sodium content–especially if it means we wean off high sodium processed foods.

The appreciation for well prepared, seasoned, and fresh food should not be the sole purview of the privileged and wealthy. Foodies don’t inherently have the corner on this truth. But the more people rely on processed and prepared food, the more their taste buds will accommodate. Excessively salted and seasoned food is what people expect. Over-seasoned and over salted processed food has become the norm.

December 23, 2009

Bronchitis again. Every December it feels like I am destined to succumb. A simple sinus infection immediately invades my lungs and I am at the doctors for antibiotics. I don’t like this, but I haven’t quite figured out how to stop my life and not get exhausted.

We celebrate three birthdays and four holidays in six weeks. It is crazy every year. I do most of the cooking and shopping and preparation. I enjoy it, but it inevitably brings me down. This year was especially crazy as both Noah and Frank had musical performances and I was scheduled for six presentations in December alone.

So I make this appointment work for me. While I know I need the antibiotics, I am well aware of their overuse. I am glad that this doesn’t happen more than once a year. But I also ask for the doctor to schedule lab tests. I want to see how my grass fed experiment is impacting the cholesterol values that got me thinking about the role of animal feed in my diet in the first place. So, I’ll go for tests after I get well. It has been a full three months, long enough for changes to be evident.

I also get on the scale. I expect to see a smaller number. It’s not. I measured 180 with clothes on –about 178 without. It is about the same. I silently groan, but I have been here before.

I first figured out I couldn’t handle a high carbohydrates diet the way it was recommended in the early 1990s. Far before The Zone hit bookshelves, I already experienced an impressive body change from eating less carbohydrate, more protein and fat. In the first six weeks of that experiment, I also changed body size radically with no change on the scale.

When I ate a high carbohydrate diet I couldn’t fit into 14’s despite 7-10 hours of exercise a week. It was maddening to struggle to lose weight. Once I shifted the ratio of carbohydrate, protein and fat, I eventually found myself comfortably fitting into 12’s. I am 5’8” and a size 12 works for me. I have to starve to fit into a 10 and I don’t ever need to do that again.

So here I am, staring at a scale that doesn’t register the changes I feel. All the holiday clothes are loose and comfortable. It’s ironic how readily my mind remembers how clothes fit the last time I wore them. So mostly I am pleased, but silently I wish again that I would have thought to measure myself before I started this experiment.

December 25, 2009

Christmas morning was lovely—even without my morning latte. I bought extra grass fed milk with family in town last week, but two half gallons weren’t touched. It has been over a week, and now I have sour milk. I’ll figure out something to make with it.

In the meantime, we stop by a local market after a bike ride to pick up some milk. It is not a Whole Foods market but I don’t have a lot of choice. After all, it is Christmas day. I haven’t been in a local market for months. It is strange to view the food as less than wholesome.

Most of the produce is not organic; all of the meat is from grain fed cattle. Most of the dairy products come from grain fed cows except some imported sheep and goat’s cheese. They do carry organic milk, but that is not the same as grass fed. There is plenty of organic corn and soy out there. Vegetarian diets don’t cut it either. Corn and soy is vegetarian. These grains are not the cow’s natural diet.

I am bemused when I pick up a half gallon of organic Horizon milk. It is now fortified with DHA—docosahexaenoic acid. DHA is a 22 carbon omega 3 fatty acid with six double bonds. It is a fatty acid that is associated with less inflammation. Why is Horizon milk adding this nutrient to their milk?

The answer is simple. It is a cheaper way to balance out the omega 6 fatty acids in milk from grain fed cows. This product can now be considered a “neutraceutical”. A neutraceutical is considered a “functional food”, a food that masquerades as a nutrient supplement.

I have never liked the idea of neutraceuticals or the misappropriation of the term “functional food”. Adding DHA to grain fed cow’s milk feels like a cheat. In this case, it is trying to make up for not feeding the animals their natural diet. It is a lousy cheat to boot. It doesn’t do anything for the cow’s digestive tract. It does not change the deplorable conditions in which the cows are kept. It does not change the problem with manure management and potential contamination of water supplies. It doesn’t change the extended problems with soil ecology and dead zones in the ocean when we artificially fertilize corn and soy so it can be fed to animals.

It does not change the fact that most of the fatty acids in the milk are omega 6 fatty acids. This is not a zero sum game. My guess is that adding more and more omega 3 to the diet to counter all the omega 6 fatty acids is not the same as not eating all those omega six fatty acids in the first place. At the heart of the problem, adding DHA to this milk product is a feeble attempt to fix the problem. The omega six fatty acids are still there. They are still inflammatory. We need to feed cows their natural diet. It’s grass.

I buy the milk, knowing we are having two families over for Christmas dinner. But I can’t wait for tomorrow. I will happily visit Saturday’s farmer’s market and buy my grass fed raw milk.

I called my colleague, Susan Dopart, MS, RD, last week. I just reviewed her book, A Recipe For Life by the Doctor’s Dietitian and wanted to set up a time to meet. She shares my keen interest in insulin resistance and I wanted to talk about my experience with grass fed products. I told her, “My body is different.”

We met on Wednesday. She said, “You look really different.”

I feel it too. My clothes fit better. I am wearing pants that I have avoided for awhile–especially during these past peri-menopausal years. Medicine defines menopause as 12 consecutive months without a period. I guess I am still “peri” since it has been only 10 months so far.

During the past two years my body has definitely reflected a menopausal bloom. I have watched my torso grow wider and thicker, and bemoaned my almost absent waistline–a stinging rebuttal to years of conscientious eating and regular exercise.

Most of my youth and early adult years I struggled with a belly. The only time I enjoyed a flat one was when I was starving myself. When I finally figured out the connection with insulin resistance in my mid thirties, I didn’t get the same flat belly I achieved with anorexia, but it was close enough. And I still got to eat. To see my belly– and the rest of my body– swelling again seemed like a bad re-occurring nightmare.

Then I took blood tests in August and got the bad news about my cholesterol. Yet, it wasn’t all bad. My HDL had increased since I started taking flax and fish oil capsules, but I didn’t like taking them. I resented the fact that my body needed a supplement to achieve a desired lipid profile.

I started to think about studies I had read regarding inflammation and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. In particular I pondered a client’s excellent experience with grass fed products. I knew I had to try the switch myself. My goal would be to preferentially eat grass fed meats and milk products, at least as much as possible.

So almost three months later, I am fitting into clothes that didn’t fit three months ago. I notice a shape and curve to my hips and torso that wasn’t there three months ago. I lie flat on the bed and feel my bones differently. I am not as bloated or thick. I am leaner everywhere.

It is remarkable and yet I am not sure what is causing the change. The calories and fat content of grass fed meat are different. When comparing boneless beef tenderloin, a four ounce portion of grass fed beef yields 130 calories; grain fed beef yields 280 calories. Grass fed tenderloin beef is about 30% calories from fat. Grain fed tenderloin is 67% calories from fat.

How much of this shift in my body is due to decreased calorie and fat intake? How much of it is due to more omega 3 fatty acids, more conjugated linoleic acid? What about the changes in my body? Is there loss of weight? body fat? water due to inflammation?

I didn’t take my measurements before I started. I didn’t anticipate the changes in my body. I was looking mostly to see if I could shift my lipid profile, and avoid taking a statin drug. Now I want to know more.

Susan and I realize that we may need to do the research ourselves. A cursory literature review by a graduate nutrition student came up empty. Is it possible that no one else has considered the impact of what we feed our animals on our own bodies?

We begin to discuss different aspects of research design. Who will the subjects be? How will we screen them? What will we measure? We agree to recruit a small number of people for a pilot study and possibly start after the first of the year.

I have shopped primarily at farmer’s markets and Whole Foods grocery stores with minimum purchased from conventional grocery stores for almost three months.  Tonight I went shopping at Costco, getting ready for my son’s birthday party.  I feel like a traitor.  I opted for organic but grain fed hamburger meat.  I bought hamburger buns.  I am aghast that they contain high fructose corn syrup.  The cucumbers and red peppers were grown conventionally.  I sold out.

In a moment of indecision, I opted for what was convenient and what would save me another trip to the market on a Saturday.  I am truly stunned at how how bad I feel.  I don’t want to eat this food.  I am already scheming on a plan to maintain my own clean, and unadulterated food supply, leaving the kids to scarf down the cheaper and more convenient fare.

I try to soothe myself with the thought that if I had bought the party package at the bowling alley, it would have been worse.   But that is hardly any condolence.

What will be served will be better than what is served at most parties.  Hamburgers and Hot Dogs for sure, but served with a salad bar (my 14 year old son’s request) and a platter of fresh grapes. And 0f course there will be ice cream cake.

I am struck by how bizarre it feels to purchase food mainstream.  I am acutely aware of how uncomfortable I feel. At the same time I am relieved to have the bulk of the food purchased and I can dedicate myself to food preparation tomorrow.  I realize this challenge– the desire to eat whole foods by purchasing food produced as close to the earth as possible–is exhausting.  The mix of work demands, end of school semester demands, preparing for birthday parties and the holiday demands has taken its toll.  The reality check feels like a sucker punch.

Until food producers switch to a much different mode, the effort to eat close to the earth will continue to demand  time, energy and money that many people just don’t have.  This is a sobering truth.