Which Egg is best?

Eggs have gotten a bad rap over the years.  There are still a lot of people out there throwing out egg yolks or buying liquid eggs under the premise that they are healthier for the body than real, whole eggs.  Forgive me as I get geeky here for a moment, but I'd like to provide some context for the accusation of eggs affecting our health negatively.

Not surprisingly, much of the hubub around eggs and their bad-cholesterol-reputation are a bit political in origin.  In the late 1960's, there was a disagreement in the food science community about whether or not dietary cholesterol had a significant effect on the blood cholesterol levels. Some scientists were opposed to the very idea of it, while others believed there was a firm correlation.  After years of haggling, they came to a compromise and issued the following statement: That we should not consume more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day.  Unfortunately, there is not one bit of scientific evaluation in that number.  Eggs immediately were seen as a bad food, because one egg can have more than 200 mg of cholesterol.

Note the noncommittal word "can."
Better to eat the real thing.

However, we know a lot more about the science of cholesterol now than we did then.  What we know now is: what the body DOES with the cholesterol is much more important than the number of milligrams we consume.  And it turns out, the kind of fat and cholesterol in a food have a huge affect on how the body processes them.  After some scrutiny, it was discovered that the studies linking eggs to heart disease were using dehydrated eggs, which had been liquefied, pasteurized, and spray-dried, causing the cholesterol in the eggs to oxidize.  Oxidized cholesterol causes artery walls to thicken, thus the connection to heart disease.

When some studies were finally done on real, whole eggs in the late '90s, the results were clear.  Not only was there no evidence of a significant association between egg consumption and heart disease, but people who ate 5 or 6 eggs per week had a lower risk of heart disease than those who ate less than 1 egg per week.  After all of the hype, what we discover is that eggs are good for you.

With additional research, we also understand now that not all eggs are created equal. Chickens that are exposed to pasture, where they can eat grass, insects, grubs and worms, lay the healthiest eggs.  These eggs are dramatically denser than their counterparts in omega-3 fats, which prevent obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and depression.

So, which egg is best?

The egg closest to the one you can get in nature.

An egg rich with all the healthy fats will have a yolk that is a deep, vibrant orange color.  In fact, the darker the yolk, the healthier the egg. 

If you have access to eggs raised on a pasture, these are the best.  If you live in a rural area, these are the eggs you get on a farm.  If you live in an urban area, these are the eggs that you can get at a farmer's market.

If buying eggs from a farmer is not an option for you, your next best choice is the egg is labeled high in omega-3s.  

The label "vegetarian fed" eggs is rather mixed news.  On the plus side, you know that your chickens have not been fed other chickens or any other random industrial meat product, which surely would not be that beneficial to you.  On the other hand, recall that chickens are naturally omnivores.  A vegetarian chicken has not had any exposure to the outside where it could possibly eat an insect.

Eggs to avoid? Those that have been dehydrated and gone through the oxidation process.  The government DOES NOT require labels to differentiate between eggs and dehydrated eggs.  A dry cake mix with the ingredient "eggs," for example, absolutely is using dehydrated eggs.  And those liquid egg products some folks use instead of the real thing?  Those have gone through a dehydration-liquefication process as well.  Any fast food joint serving eggs will be serving a processed egg product instead of actually cracking the real thing in the kitchen.

A malnourished chicken will lay an egg with a light yellow yolk.  I've purchased "organic" eggs at the grocery store that look like this.  And in that case, I'm the sucker.  I paid more for an egg that tastes bland and offers very little nutritionally.  

References in this post are mainly from the research in the book  Real Food, by Nina Planck

Take a hard look at your exercise habits, part 2

As you're working toward being a healthier you, it's time to take another scrutinizing look at your exercise habits.  I've written before about setting a goal of between 3 and 7 hours per week.  Now's the time to take your regular routine and step it up.

How many hours a week do you really exercise? If it is less than 7, now is the time to look at your schedule and figure out how you can ADD one more hour of exercise to your regular weekly routine.

Remember, there are lots of options.  Just because you go to the gym twice per week now doesn't mean that your third hour of exercise needs to be at the gym. In fact, this is a great opportunity to try something new.

Reading this post may seem simple.  "Yes, Josie," I can hear you saying as you roll your eyes, "I know that if I exercise more I will be healthier."  I know you know that.  What I'm interested in is for you to DO IT.

Look at your schedule.
Make a plan.
Follow through.

As for me, I've started being experimental and taking some new fitness classes at the gym. What about you? How are you going to add an hour of exercise to your schedule each week?

What the heck is Real Food, anyway?

As this blog goes forward, I'm going to be making a lot of references to "Real Food" as a way to make food choices.  While there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of blogs out there focusing on Real Food, many of them are for people who are already immersed in the real foodie culture, and some of the blogs are also religious in nature.  

What's compelling to me about Real Food is that the more science studies it, the more we realize that it is EXACTLY what we are supposed to eat.  People who eat Real Food have significantly less incidences of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer.  People who eat real fats actually loose body fat.  (Yes, you can eat fat and lose fat, it's true.  You can also eat fat and improve your health.  But more about that later.)

My work as a trainer and in my own family has been simple.  I'm interested in how real food can help regular people.  So I'm always going to refer to this kind of eating in the baby steps approach, with the complete understanding that we are all living in the modern world, most of us work full time, and we are all juggling multiple commitments in addition to our desire to be healthy and lead a long and happy life.

Here is how I remember what choices to make.  

These are all real foods and healthy fats that
 I buy at Trader Joe's.  Organic Coconut and
Olive Oils, Grass-Fed Cheeses, and butter
 made from grass-fed cows.

Think of us as the omnivores and mammals that we are.  Before the industrial revolution, we spent thousands of years evolving next to our food. We foraged, we hunted, we grew our plants in dirt, we raised our animals on pasture. And as our food evolved and adapted, we evolved and adapted. If a food made us sick, we stopped eating it.  Like every other species, we evolved WITH our environment.  Our lifespans were shorter because we died of diseases and infections that modern medicine has since found ways to prevent or treat, but there was no diabetes or obesity.  As our food has been increasingly industrialized, so has increased our problems with weight gain and food related health.

So, when I'm making choices, I think "Is this a food that I could have eaten before our food was made in factories? Is this food that my great-grandmother could have eaten?" If the answer is no, our bodies have probably not evolved to eat it.

Food our ancestors ate: (depending on the culture)

Wild fish that ate smaller fish and plants natural to their habitat
Animals that got plenty of exercise, lived in the wild, or were raised on grass pastures
Milk and cheese from animals that ate grass
Lots of grains and plants and fruits and nuts
Sugar occurring naturally: in fruit, from trees, from bees

Naturally occuring fiber in plants

Fermented Soy
Fats that came from animals: grass fed butter, lard from pigs who foraged, eggs from chickens who ate grass and grubs, cheese from cows, sheep, and goats that have been fed fed on a pasture
Fats that came from plants: olive oil, sesame oil, coconut oil, peanut oil, chocolate

Foods that have been invented in the last 150 years: (or less)

Cultivated corn and corn products

Industrialized soy and soy products
Fish that have been fed cultivated corn and raised in cages
Poultry that has been raised vegetarian (on corn) and in cages

Large Animals that have been fed cultivated corn, and other animal parts, and raised in cages
Skim milk from cows that have been fed corn
Processed cheese from corn-fed cows

Processed fiber products

Fake Meat
Snacks that come in packages
Fruit juice that has had all the fiber removed
Refined sugar, candy, and soda
New animal fats: eggs from 'vegetarian' chickens, egg-product substitutes, butter from corn-fed cows, industrial lard from corn-fed pigs
New plant fats: crisco, margerine, palm oil, soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated anything (that's the "trans" in trans-fat)

As we move forward I'll talk more about how to incorporate more Real Food into your life, and how to get rid of all that poser processed food that's been tricking you into thinking it's healthy.  Here is a recipe for homemade chicken nuggets (the ones made in a factory are the furthest from real food you can get) and here's a reminder about my great bacon and brussels sprouts recipe.

10 ways to reduce portion sizes

"Eat food. Not too much.  Mostly plants."

--Michael Pollan

Today we'll be focusing on the "not too much" part.  Most of us enjoy eating, and most of us (especially here in the US) consume more food than we need. The fascinating thing about this is that eating more food than we need is something that often happens accidentally.  We can train ourselves to be satisfied with less. 

Please note:   This post is for people who regularly eat medium to large portions and who generally do not pay attention to calorie content.  If you are someone who has suffered from anorexia, body dysmorphic disorder, or have used other forms of extreme calorie limitation, this post is not for you, and you should seek help from a medical professional.

Here are some tips for those of you attempting to balance your health by eating smaller portion sizes.

Exactly.

1) Order the small

When you order any food out, always order the small size.  Sometimes even the 'small' is more than you need, and it's really appropriate to order the kiddie size. 

2) Keep the serving dishes off the table where you're eating

Research has shown that we actually eat less when we need to leave the table to refill our plates.  When the serving dishes are in the center of the table, and the post-dinner discussion lingers on, we will continue to nibble and consume more.

3) Don't clear the table until the meal is over

This is counter-intuitive.  We tend to think that seeing the remainder of the food we've already eaten in front of us won't affect how much we continue to eat.  It turns out, we eat more when the dishes have been cleared.  You'll notice that most servers at restaurants completely clear the table before they ask if you want dessert.   (Apparently, we humans have a pretty short memory.)

4) Don't eat in front of TV and Computer Screens

We eat more in front of screens.  We aren't paying attention to our food, to its taste, or to how much we've eaten.  Creating a general rule for yourself that screen time and eating time are separate will help you out.

5) Buy smaller dinner plates and bowls

Again, this is counter-intuitive.  We tend to think that if we get a smaller dinner plate, we'll go back more often for the same amount of food.  Not so.  Researchers have found that across the board, we consume less food if we eat it off of smaller dishes. (And to get really meta on this, test subjects who ate off larger dishes and who had been told the data about consumption thought that they WOULDN'T eat more.  They still did.  That means you do, too.)

6) Never eat snacks right out of the package; put them in a smaller serving dish instead

By now you've probably figured out that I'm not a huge fan of packaged snacks as a healthy choice anyway, but if you are going to eat them, don't eat them right out of the package.  You will eat less if you put the snacks in their own small dish.

7) Drink more water

It sounds so simple, but it really helps.  Make a plan to drink more water throughout your day and throughout your meals.

8) Add an extra veggie to your meal (as suggested here)

By adding an extra veggie to your meal, you're putting more vegetables on your plate and filling up with more of the good stuff.  Even better: serve the extra vegetable BEFORE the meal as an appetizer. 

9) Slow Down

Eat slowly.  Enjoy your food and savor its taste. Take breaks between bites (a great time for drinking water!)  Before you go get seconds, sit for a few minutes to digest and to feel if you're really still hungry, or if it's really your taste buds wanting more stimulation.

10) Be mindful when you are at parties or going out to dinner with friends

We all eat more when we are in larger groups of people.  It's helpful to have an action plan before the event. You don't have to order an appetizer or an extra cocktail just because you're out with friends.  Try sharing fewer dishes among the group or ordering a dish that is heavy on the veggies.

Much of this research came from the book Mindless Eating:Why We Eat More Than We Think, by Brian Wansink

Tiny steps: Keep a journal

If you're journaling on paper,
a nice pen can really make writing feel special.

In a simple steps approach to improving your health and well-being, it's important to develop habits that not only support you physically, but support you mentally and emotionally as well.

Keeping a journal is one of the simplest steps you can take to support your mental and emotional health.  Like all of your other healthy habits, the most important thing about keeping a journal is finding a way that it fits into your life.  Some folks like to keep them online.  For me, I just keep one of those black and white composition books.

Journaling can help you organize your thoughts, increase your attention span, and help you focus.  It can also help you get out the mental clutter each day that's getting in the way of your productivity and preventing you from being your best self.

New to keeping a journal?  Here's a great way to start.  Decide whether you'll keep an electronic journal or a paper one.  Set aside a time each day, with no distractions, and write for three pages without taking a break to do anything else.  (If you're working online, that can be a real challenge!)

Things to remember:
*It's the habit of writing that's important, not the content of the journal
*Do not edit as you write.  This exercise really is about getting your thoughts out as they come to you
*Finding a quiet space with no distractions
*Resist the temptation in the middle of your writing to check your email or facebook.  You really are working to increase your attention span
*Choose a time of day when you know you can be successful.  (If you know that your morning is all about getting out the door, that's a bad time to try to journal.)


Give it a shot this week and let me know how it goes!