"Healthy" or "Tasty"?

Do you buy foods because they claim to be "Low Fat"? What about "All Natural" and "Trans-Fat-Free"? These popular health claims are everywhere. I've always thought that they were helpful in making good food choices.

Apparently, I'm wrong. Numerous studies have shown that people (especially if they're already overweight) actually underestimate calories and eat more when they think that what they're eating is good for them.

What's going on? It could be that people mistakenly believe that low-fat means low calorie. Maybe they feel less guilty about eating something that sounds healthy. Researchers think that a low-fat label gives people the mental permission to eat more. It reminds me of my mother's logic: Using artificial sweetener in her coffee allowed her to eat a cookie (or two) with it.

There's more. A recent study found that just by calling a food "healthy" may make you feel hungrier. Two groups of college students were given the same snack bar to eat. Half of the group was told that they were eating a "health" bar high in nutrients. The other half were told that the snack bar contained chocolate and raspberry and was "tasty." Afterwards, those in the "healthy" group rated themselves as hungrier than those in the "tasty" group.

In another experiment, researchers offered students a choice of snack bars randomly described as either "healthy" or "tasty". When given a choice, there was no difference in the hunger level of the students afterwards. Free-choice seems to lead to a higher commitment to eating healthy food.

When people feel obligated to eat healthy foods, they tend to eat more. So much for nutrition education and food labeling. Those healthy food messages may be having the opposite effect!

What should you do?

These findings lead me back to some very basic advice. Eat real food. Be aware of what you eat and how much you're eating. And most important, enjoy what you eat. Savor a piece of high quality dark chocolate and skip the sugar-free candies. Toss your salad with olive oil and vinegar and pass up the fat-free salad dressing. Enjoy a small piece of cake made with real butter rather than eating half a bag of low-fat cookies.

Exercise – How Much is Enough?

You know how important good nutrition is for your health. And you've heard plenty about getting exercise.

How much physical activity do you need? And is it really so important?

First, let's talk about why you should be physically active.

There's strong evidence that physical activity can lower the risk of many ailments, such as …

heart disease

stroke

type 2 diabetes

high blood pressure

high lipid levels

colon and breast cancer

metabolic syndrome

obesity

depression

We have good evidence that exercise can decrease the risk for lung and endometrial cancer. It can also decrease the risk for hip fractures while increasing bone density.

In children, exercise promotes muscle and bone strength, and in older adults it can mean better cognitive function.

There certainly are a lot of good reasons to be active. How much activity is enough?

2 ½ hours a week of moderately intense exercise (or 1 ¼ hours of vigorous aerobic exercise) is suggested for adults between the ages of 18 and 64 years. Healthy older adults (without a chronic medical condition) and pregnant women should try for this amount of exercise as well.

Children should get an hour or more of moderately intense exercise each day.

Is more better? In most cases, yes, if you don't overdo it. The more physical activity, the greater the benefit.

What's even more important is that some physical activity is better than none. Any moderately intense activity that you do for at least 10 minutes, counts!

If you're just starting to exercise, don't overdue it. Start slowly. Choose an activity that's practical and enjoyable. In fact, enjoyment is the most important factor in ensuring the long-term success of your exercise routine.

To learn more about exercising, go to this website, sponsored by the US Department of Health and Services, for lots of helpful information.

Salt II

Most of the salt we eat comes from processed food liked canned and "instant" soup, sauces and salad dressing, canned fish, frozen foods, noodle and macaroni mixes and the all-time kosher kitchen favorite, dried soup powder. (Here in Israel, a television ad features a soldier returning home unexpectedly during the night. Thanks to a popular brand of soup powder, his mother is able to prepare a delicious meal for him while he's in the shower!) Kosher meat (which, of course has been salted) is another source of sodium that most of us don't think about. More obvious salty foods are crackers, pretzels, pickles, deli meat, salted nuts and olives.

I recently received a sample packet of tomato rice soup. The nutritional claim was "more than 50% vegetables". That's a great pitch to dietitians. But each serving had 510 mg of sodium!

Then there are surprises. Like breakfast cereal. Who would guess that some brands of corn flakes and raisin bran have over 300 mg of sodium per cup? Here's another breakfast surprise – one serving of frozen waffles has 420 mg of sodium! Bread, muffins and cookies may also come loaded with sodium that we barely even taste. Who thinks of salt in cake mixes? One serving of yellow cake made from a mix contains 310 mg of sodium. Did I mention bourekas?

How much salt should you get each day?

The American Heart Association recommends 1,500 mg or less of sodium each day to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. That's way down from their previous recommendation of no more than 2,300 mg. With many of us getting between 2,000 and 5,000 mg of sodium daily, that's a big adjustment.

How much sodium is in salt?

One teaspoon of salt contains just over 2,300 mg of sodium. That's one reason to keep the salt shaker off of the kitchen table. Use salt sparingly while cooking and rely on herbs and spices instead to lend more flavor to your cooking.

What else can you do?

The best thing you can do is to cook your own food. The more cooking you do, the more control you'll have over how much salt you get. And the fewer processed foods you eat, the less salt (and sugar and fat!) you'll end up eating. When you're shopping for cereal and convenience foods like pasta sauce, check nutrition labels for sodium and choose brands with the least amount. Skip the powdered soup mix and make your own simple stock. Since kosher meat has enough salt in it already, use pepper, herbs and spices to season your meat and poultry.

Besides salt, hypertension can be lowered with weight loss and a high intake of fruits and vegetables.

Are governments doing anything?

In the US, New York City has taken the lead, with its "National Salt Reduction Initiative" (See my previous blog.) The United Kingdom is working with industry to reduce sodium in processed food by 10% over the next five years. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Finland have all launched initiatives to help reduce the salt in their food. Here in Israel, the Health Ministry is working with industry to gradually reduce the amount of salt in processed food.

Government intervention may force the food industry to re-formulate processed foods using less salt. That should certainly help. But it's still up to each of us to choose our food wisely.

Salt I

Once again, New York City is making nutrition news. First it was a city-wide ban on trans fat. Now they're trying to get us to eat less salt.

New York's "National Salt Reduction Initiative" aims to reduce the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25% over the next five years – a lofty goal, especially since food industry giants have been fighting cuts in salt usage for years.

According to food companies, reducing salt in processed food by 10% is easy enough. But removing more than that is harder. Why? Salt enhances flavor. Take away a lot of the salt and your favorite convenience food just doesn't taste right. If you add flavor with fresh herbs, spices and higher quality ingredients, the cost goes up and sales plummet.

Years ago, food producers removed sugar and fat from processed food. It was a "win-win" situation – consumers were eager for foods that promised weight loss and industry profited from sales. But since low-salt versions of our favorite foods don't offer anything as glamorous as weight loss, they're not as likely to be such a hit at the grocery store. With less profit for manufacturers, there's less incentive to jump on the low-salt wagon.

Here's the hard sell: Cutting back on salt affects something that can't be seen – blood pressure. We know that too much sodium (the problematic component of salt) can cause high blood pressure (hypertension) in some people. Although genes, age and medical condition play a role, it's estimated that 70% of Americans are salt-sensitive – they are susceptible to hypertension if they ingest too much salt. High blood pressure, known as a "silent killer", increases the risk for heart disease and stroke. In the US, it's estimated that 150,000 lives could be saved each year if people were to lower their blood pressure. And cutting back on sodium could help.

Most of us need less than 1 gram of sodium a day. Since we're now getting between 2 and 5 grams, it seems reasonable to cut back, especially if it could save lives.

A New Season, A New Look

Summer's here. Enjoy this delicious summer recipe along with our new blog design.

Favorite Summer Fruit Tart (Dairy)

This has become our very favorite summer fruit tart for special dairy meals. It's a snap to put together using the food processor, and you can choose from a variety of summer fruits that are in season right now. My very favorite version is apricot – the tart fruit goes perfectly with the sweet almond crust. I use un-blanched almonds and whole-wheat pastry flour. And I tend to squeeze in as much fruit as will fit!

½ cup (2.5 ounces/70 grams) almonds

¾ cup (5 ounces/150 grams) sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon almond extract

¾ cup (3.4 ounces/95 grams) flour (all-purpose or whole-wheat pastry)

½ teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons (1.5 ounces /50 grams) butter

1 egg

6-12 fresh apricots, plums, peaches or nectarines

1 tablespoon demerara sugar for sprinkling on top, optional

Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C.

Line a 9.5" (24cm) tart pan (with removable bottom) with parchment paper. Spray the paper and the sides of the pan with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Combine the almonds, sugar, salt and almond extract in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the almonds are finely ground. Add the flour and baking powder and pulse to mix. Cut the butter into pieces and add it to the mixture along with the egg. Pulse the mixture until it begins to clump together. Press the dough evenly on the bottom (not the sides!) of the pan.

Depending on the size of the fruit, cut it in halves or quarters. Starting from the outer edge of the pan, arrange the fruit, skin side up, in circles. Cut the fruit, if necessary, to fill in the center. If desired, sprinkle the demerara sugar over the fruit.

Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the fruit is bubbly. Cool the tart on a baking rack. After about 15 minutes, carefully loosen the sides of the tart from the pan with a small sharp knife. (This will make it easier to remove the sides of the pan.) When the tart is cooler, remove the rim of the pan.

Serves 8

Too Much of a Good Thing

Can you eat too many vegetables?

Apparently so.

I've written about orthorexia nervosa – a condition where a person sets severe rules about food and restricts his or her eating to the point of becoming sick.

Eating too much of one food may also be problematic.

Recently, an elderly American woman was diagnosed with a serious thyroid condition. She was nearly comatose and barely able to breathe when admitted to the hospital. The cause? Huge amounts of raw bok choy – a variety of leafy green cabbage that she ate in the hopes of controlling her diabetes.

How much is too much? In this case, it was 2 to 3 pounds (1 – 1 ½ kilo) of raw cabbage every day. Compare that to one serving size of raw cabbage, which is 1 cup or 2 ½ ounces (70 grams).

Personally, I don't know how anyone could eat that much cabbage in one day. Or any other single food, for that matter. (No, I can't even imagine eating that much chocolate daily!) But obviously, it happened. And she's not the only person who thinks that eating a certain food will prevent or cure an illness.

Cabbage is a cruciferous vegetable. And, along with broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale and other types of cabbage, it's certainly high in fiber, vitamins and disease fighting phytochemicals. But, like any other food, more is not necessarily better. Five to ten servings a day of vegetables and fruits means choosing a variety, not just one.

We've learned a lot about nutrition lately. But I'm still giving people the same advice now as I did 30 years ago:

Eat a well-balanced diet. Eat foods from all of the food groups. And eat a moderate amount.

This common-sense approach still goes a long way on the road to good health.