Best Nutritionist News About New Dietary Guidelines Dramatically Restricting Sugar Use

Best Nutritionist News! The Dietary Advisory Panel Aims to Curb Our Sweet Tooth and Get Americans Healthier: Here Are Some Easy Ways to Reduce Sugar in Your Diet

It always feels like there are new “findings” that contradict old information. Fitness and health magazines bleed with radical headlines. He says, she says is overwhelming, especially when we’re unsure as to where the information comes from.

It’s important, however, to discern between fads and backed scientific data. Where does the information come from? Is it backed by years of benchmarked research? And, it’s key to remember that our knowledge changes with time, with research, with new technologies and advancements. So, luckily, we’re not back in ancient Egypt using dead mouse paste to cure toothaches.
The Dietary Advisory Panel – an appointed federal nutrition panel comprised of the best nutritionists, registered dietitians, physicians, medical doctors and professors of medicine and nutrition – meets every five years to comb through the latest scientific and medical literature to prepare a report and dietary recommendations for the next edition of Dietary Guidelines. The entire report can be read here.

Once the data has been reviewed, the panel makes recommendations that, though are not official guidelines, impact the diets of millions of people. For instance, these guidelines are adopted by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture and taken into account when creating school program menus.

Two weeks ago, the panel released their recommendations, ones that have caused quite a stir. The long-time low-fat, low-cholesterol focus has shifted, leaving room for eggs and shrimp in our diets. But the big gulp has been about sugar. The panel recommend that no more than twelve teaspoons a day be consumed (for adults), as sugar has been a large factor in obesity and chronic disease in America. Considering the average American consumes between 25 and 30 teaspoons of sugar each day, more than double the recommendation, this new information can radically shift the way Americans eat . (Just for perspective, one 12 ounce Coca Cola has 18.2 teaspoons of sugar).
As a nutritionist, registered dietitian and personal trainer in NYC, this report confirmed what, I believe, we’ve all felt for a long time. The Guidelines Report stated that “Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened foods and beverages as well as refined grains was identified as detrimental in almost all conclusion statements with moderate to strong evidence.”
With our tongues geared to crave sugar, there are some practical, painless ways to reduce sugar in our diets.

Read Food Labels: A lot of sugars we consume are because we’re not even aware of the sugars we’re consuming. On food labels, ingredients are listed in order of how much each ingredient is used. If sugar, or any of its pseudonyms, are in the top five, that’s a red flag. Watch out for: fructose, sucrose, molasses, corn syrup, honey, brown rice syrup, maple syrup.

Buy “unsweetened:” This way, we can control how much sugar we want.
Cut back slowly: The idea isn’t to slash all sugar from our diet. But we can cut back. Instead of using one packet of sugar in coffee, try 2/3 of a packet … Pretty soon our bodies will find things “too sweet.”

Find yummy replacements: Proteins + fats (yes, fats) are great snacks. Almonds. Eggs and avocados. Olive oil drizzled on brown toast with feta cheese. Cutting sugar doesn’t mean cutting taste. Think of the great flavors nature has: nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla bean … all “sweet” replacements. Plus, the flavor won’t be masked by the sweet.

“Diet” is not the answer: Replacing sodas with diet soda isn’t a way to cut sugars. Artificial sweeteners are ultra sweet and can kick in the crave even more. Our bodies work in the way that, when we eat something sweet, they expect calories and nutrition. Fake sweeteners are tricky because they give neither.

Sodas aren’t our only nemesis: Water, water, water … is the best way to hydrate. Most bottled drinks have oodles of sugar, even “sports” drinks (almost seven teaspoons per can). For added flavor, add a squeeze of lemon. Or make this delicious Raspberry Lime Iced Tea!

Indulge! Say, “yes” to the caramel brownie or ice cream sundae. It’s not about being radical, it’s about changing our general diets while indulging in the occasional Nutella crepe. Our bodies will get used to the reduced sugar diet, and pretty soon, instead of eating a whole brownie, we’ll choose to share.
If we give our bodies the time they need to adjust, it won’t take long to reduce sugars in our diets and become healthier, feel better, and boost our energy with whole foods.

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Registered Dietitians Hope that This Diet Trend is Here to Stay: Eating Clean, Getting Healthy

To celebrate March Nutrition Month, we’re going to touch on some of the latest, hottest topics about nutrition, diets, and feeling healthier.

Eating clean is one such trend, something we’ve heard from celebrities, nutritionists, dietitians and even our local, hip cafes. Eating clean, though, wasn’t a trend when our great grandparents sat down to dine. They may have lived tough lives, but their nutrition was privileged because it was, essentially, based on whole foods. (Whole foods meaning minimally or not processed at all). At its most basic level, clean eating is all about ingredient awareness.

Clean eating is a pretty simple concept, actually, as the focus of health has shifted from fat content and calorie counts, to the pathway food takes from its origin to our bodies. Clean eating means we ingest as few processed and refined foods as possible, instead eating whole foods. It just makes sense.
But in a world of fast food, packaged potatoes, and everything quick and easy, consumers are finding clean eating hard going. So here are some basic rules and definitions to help navigate your way through the supermarket on the road to clean eating.

Processed foods: Processed foods are not all evil. Some processing is necessary to take bacteria and germs out of our foods (think pasteurizing milk). So unless you have a goat on your balcony, you’re probably going to need to buy feta cheese.
Processed foods are:

• Any food with a label (which means more than one ingredient was used to make it.)
• Foods that have changed form from their original inception (like a banana smoothie, or applesauce, or taking bran and germ from grains to make refined breads etc.)

Processed foods diet guide:

• If you can’t pronounce something on a label, don’t eat it.
• If it comes “ready to heat up,” take care to read the label and make sure nothing artificial has been added. You can eat clean simply by avoiding additives and pesticides.

Refined sugars: Here’s the scoop on sugar. Sugar is not the root of all evil. We want to sift through misinformation and give solid, researched data about how too much sugar can be potentially harmful to our bodies. Sugar is not addictive like nicotine, heroine, and cocaine, but there’s a part of the brain that responds to the reward behavior sugar creates. So, though it’s not addictive, people do crave it. There’s something on our tongues called the brix factor that is sensitive to sugar, so the more sugar we eat, the more our taste buds will be sensitive to it. So, our bodies create cravings, not addictions. There is now large population of people xperiencing something called NASH, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or fatty liver disease, because of too much sugar in their diets. Moreover, worldwide, eating too much sugar in our diets has had a huge impact on obesity. An integral part of clean eating, then, is reducing our sugar intake.

Grocery Shopping: We’ve got aisles and aisles of packaged joy! Grocery stores (and the food labels on the products on the shelves) are deceptively enticing. So, a rule of thumb is to shop the perimeter – the outside-in. On the outside we have our fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy products which should make up about 75% of what we eat each day. Then, when finished with the essentials, take a quick trip into the shiny packaged labyrinth to get products made from the whole grains aisle like pasta, barley, quinoa and possibly some dried or low-sodium canned beans. It doesn’t have to be costly to eat clean. It’s a matter of learning how to shop and being willing to return to the grocery store more often to replenish our fruit and veggie supplies.

It doesn’t need to be overwhelming. You can start by making small changes like reducing your intake of sugary baked goods and eating more fruit. You can start by cooking one to two meals a week and cutting back on pre-packaged meals. Before you know it you will have transitioned to a cleaner diet and you will feel more energetic and perhaps even drop a few unwanted pounds along the way.
Eating clean is trending. But registered dietitians everywhere hope this is a trend that’s here to last. The more consumers demand clean foods and transparency about GMOs in our food products (to be addressed in a later blog topic), the more companies will have to change. The more whole foods people consume, the more whole foods we’ll be supplied. In a scary age when we don’t know what we’re putting in our bodies, it’s time to stop, step back, and learn to eat better; learn to eat clean.
An easy, eating clean recipe, to get you started!

Feta Chicken with Zucchini
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lemon
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1 lb.)
1⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 medium zucchini
1⁄4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup (about 2 ounces) crumbled Feta

Heat the oven to 400°F. Drizzle 1⁄2 tablespoon of the oil in a small roasting pan. Remove the zest from the lemon in thin strips; set aside. Thinly slice the lemon. Place half the slices in the pan. Rinse the chicken and pat it dry with paper towels. Place the chicken on top of the lemon slices and season with 1/8 teaspoon of the salt. Slice each zucchini in half lengthwise, and then slice each half into 1⁄4 inch thick half-moons. In a bowl, combine the zucchini, parsley, pepper, and the remaining oil, lemon slices, and salt; toss. Spread the zucchini mixture around the chicken and sprinkle the Feta over the top. Roast until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Divide the chicken, zucchini mixture, and the lemons among individual plates and sprinkle with the zest.
Preparation time: 20-25 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

Recommended Reading:

Food Rules by Michael Pollan

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Registered Dietitian Discusses the Signs and Symptoms of Eating Disorders: Early Detection is Key to Prevention

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (#NED), and its theme is, I had no idea. This theme is particularly poignant because eating disorders remain to be taken seriously as a mental health issue, even though they have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
According to ANAD (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders), an estimated 24 million people suffer from eating disorders in the United States. To put it in perspective:

• The population of Chile is 18 million.
• 24 million people would mean that the populations of Texas and Louisiana suffer from an eating disorder.
• 24 million people need help to get healthy, yet, statistically, only 10% of men and women who suffer from eating disorders receive treatment, many of whom have to fight insurance to get treatment covered. The road to wellness must include a team: a doctor who is very familiar with eating disorder symptoms, a therapist, a psychiatrist for medication if needed, a registered dietitian or nutritionist, and if there is exercise abuse, a personal trainer or exercise physiologist.

There is so much misinformation about eating disorders, when they begin, who they effect, what they are. And caregivers, parents, and friends are scared when they see a loved one hurting. Oftentimes when the eating disorder finally surfaces, the road back to health is arduous and almost impossibly long. As with any disease, we know that prevention is key. Early intervention can stop a problem from developing into a full-blown eating disorder.
But the only way we can prevent and help detect an eating disorder early on is through education. “I had no idea,” hopes to educate. As parents, educators, care givers, and friends, it’s our responsibility to see, learn, respond and help. Some people who suffer from eating disorders are masters of disguise, while others won’t even recognize their behavior as being harmful.
We must be aware when our loved ones are most at risk and look for these early signs.
Most eating disorders and unhealthy food behaviors begin in early adolescence, in children between the ages of 12 and 14 years old. However, eating disorders in women over 50 is on the rise.
Eating disorders do not discriminate. It doesn’t matter your color, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, or race. Though more common in girls, boys, too, suffer from disorders and are less likely to ask for help since they believe it’s a “girl problem.”

Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder is huge in this country and is contributing to obesity in the US. The symptoms of binge eating disorder include:

• Behavioral signs: inability to stop eating and/or eating quickly, eating when you’re full, hiding food to eat in secret later, eating normal when you’re around people but hoarding food to later eat in secret, continuously eating
• Psychological signs: relieving tension with food, ashamed about how much food you eat, feeling detached while eating, feeling guilty and depressed about eating, feeling out of control about eating.

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulemia

• Physical signs include: rapid weight loss or fluctuation of weight, insomnia, change in menstrual cycle, lethargy, bruised knuckles and fingers (from vomiting), swelling around cheeks and jaw, bad breath, dental problems, hair loss, complaining of cold (body temperature regulation goes wonky), vomiting.
• Behavioral signs include: dieting, eating in secret, secretive about food habits (saying she’s eaten when she hasn’t), food hoarding, frequent trips to the bathroom after eating, compulsive exercising (eg, going for a run when he’s sick or if it’s snowing etc.), calorie counting, food rituals (cutting food in small pieces, eating really slow, chewing food a certain number of bites, insisting on a specific “food time”), hiding uneaten food, wearing baggy clothes.
• Psychological signs include: Using food as comfort or punishment (anxious eating or refusing food because of stress etc.), obsession about body image, weight, calories, rigid perspective of food as “bad” or “good.”

Next week, we’re going to discuss marginalized voices – those who are largely ignored when discussing eating disorders including women over fifty, men, and athletes. Education is the key to prevention.

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Recommended Websites:

• NEDA

• BINGE EATING DISORDER

Your Dieting Daughter	Surviving an Eating Disorder
The Rules of “Normal” Eating	Life Without Ed
The Body Image /survival Guide for Parents	Almost Anorexic

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