There was a feature article in a recent (Jan. 10, 2012) USA Today, generally very complimentary of a nutrition guidance system I helped develop, now helping some 20 million or more shoppers each week in some 1,600 supermarkets from coast to coast. But I'm not here to enjoy the view of this coverage from altitude; I want to chip away at the particulars.
I admit it: I occasionally eat a chip. Usually, when I do so, it's a whole-grain corn chip, baked or fried in canola oil, lightly salted. Sometimes it's a brightly-colored root vegetable chip. On very rare occasion (e.g., with my sandwich while watching the Super Bowl), it might be a potato chip -- either mixed in with other root vegetables, or similarly fried in canola oil and lightly salted.
Chips are by no means a mainstay of my diet, which is, by and large, optimal. I eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I practice what I preach, and -- thank goodness -- have the biometrics, anthropometrics, and overall health status to show for it.
Yes, my friends -- I think decent human beings might occasionally eat a chip. I think that healthy human beings might occasionally eat a chip. I think they do.
But perhaps not just any chip!
I would not eat just any chip. There are lots of chips from which to choose. Some, famously, are of the "betcha' can't eat just one!" variety. Those are not for me (although, again I confess, it's hard to eat just one of any chip!). Some, shockingly, have sugar at the end of a long ingredient list (apparently, some chips are sprayed lightly with just enough sugar to help reinforce that inability to eat only one, or 100!). Some have a lot of salt. Some have almost no fiber.
On those occasions when I eat chips -- equidistant between often and never -- I eat chips I can love that are most likely to love me back. Chips with a short ingredient list, rarely longer than three items (e.g., whole grain corn, canola oil, salt). Chips that are almost invariably less concentrated in sodium than, say, Cheerios cereal, by quite a wide margin. Chips that provide a generous dose of fiber, native to the whole grain.
I confess, with no shame, that I occasionally eat chips -- and when I do, I care about eating the best chips I can find. And yes, I think that choosing better chips matters. It means getting healthful, unsaturated oil -- monounsaturated, and even omega-3 -- instead of less healthful alternatives. It means avoiding an excess of sodium (many chips with short, simple ingredient lists are less concentrated in sodium than is recommended for the diet overall; in other words, the "right" chip choice can help pull your average sodium intake for the day down, not up!). It means adding to one's daily intake of fiber -- which is an area where most Americans could use some help.
But more importantly than chips, per se, is the general principle: Which specific product one chooses in a wide variety of food categories matters. In fact, it matters enough that when the effects of food choices across a wide array of categories are added up, they can mean the difference between dying prematurely, or not. They can mean the difference between keeping, or losing, 115 lbs. you don't want. That's a hefty and meaningful difference.
I know of few, if any, nutrition professionals who would not consider bread a real "food." Yet the choices in the bread aisle are staggering. Some are extremely wholesome -- providing whole grain that's good for you and little, if anything, that's bad. Some, however, are delivery vehicles for refined starch, excess sodium, unhealthy oils and/or sugar.
The difference might not warrant my consideration, or yours, if the questionable bread choices sported a skull and crossbones on the bag. They do not! Instead, almost every packaged item in a food supply of nearly 800,000 items (incredible, isn't it?) uses the prime real estate of its packaging for marketing messages. A bread will sport amber waves of grain on its packaging, and shout out "multigrain" -- and never specify that only a rounding-error portion of it all is whole-grain. You are left to figure that out.
You are also left to figure out whether healthy oil but more sodium is better or worse than more fiber but added sugar, or no added sugar but less fiber, or more whole grain but also more sodium, or multigrain but less fiber, or...
The task handed to a health-conscious shopper is quite analogous to a doctor handing you your LFTs, chem7, CBC, lipid panel, CRP, HgbA1c, biometrics, ECG, etc. -- and letting you figure out whether or not you are healthy. It's a bit easier for a loaf of bread -- but, alas, still far from easy in many cases. My wife, who is an expert cook, mother of five, extremely health-conscious, married to me, and has a Ph.D in neuroscience from Princeton University -- finds it challenging. The prosecution rests.
And of course it's not just about bread, any more than it's just about chips. Breakfast cereals vary astonishingly in nutritional quality, across a wide array of ingredient and nutrient properties, and almost every one of them has health-related messaging on the front of the pack. (e.g., "Fortified with essential vitamins and minerals," "part of a complete breakfast!" Perhaps so -- but what part?). The same is true of dairy products. For those who eat meat, there is substantial variation in nutrition among meats, cuts of poultry, fish and seafood -- none of which is necessarily obvious at a glance.
There is considerable variation in nutritional quality among nuts and seeds, based on both the variety and if/how they are processed. There is similar variation for dried fruit, canned fruit and canned vegetables. There is incredible variation in the nutritional characteristics of pasta sauce -- some of which is mostly tomato, while some contains more added sugar than ice cream topping. The jars look all but identical. Much the same is true of salad dressings.
Across an expanse of food choices from soups to nuts, there are plenty of real "foods" mixed in with plenty of food impostors. It can be very difficult to tell them apart. Some very clever people on Madison Avenue are very well-paid to help ensure that you can't.
But it's important to do so. Unless you live entirely on foods with a one-word ingredient list (e.g., broccoli; bananas; walnuts), it is very important to make such distinctions whenever choosing a food in a bag, box, bottle, jar or can.
Getting such choices wrong -- and again, there are very powerful forces in play to make it likely you will -- means getting far more trans fat, added sugar, sodium, saturated fat, chemicals, refined starch and calories than you should. It means getting far too little fiber, whole grain, omega-3 oil, monounsaturated fat, antioxidants, etc. Getting such choices right consistently can mean losing over 100 lbs. simply by trading up your groceries. It can mean more years in life, and more life in years.
I think all this matters. I live in a world where decent human beings do, occasionally, eat chips -- and certainly eat bread, yogurt, nuts and pasta sauce. I think the provision of totally unbiased, of-by-and-for-public health, independent of the food industry and correlated with health outcomes nutrition guidance -- is a good thing. I think an evidence-based system that enables a busy shopper to tell at a glance which choice in a given category is more nutritious overall than another, is a good thing. I think having someone other than the fox guard the henhouse... is a good thing.
So, it seems, do many shoppers. For these reasons, I have devoted years of my life, and worked with some of the true luminaries in nutrition and public health, to help develop just such a guidance system.
Overwhelmingly, those who experience it say thank you -- and where have you been all my life? But not everyone. Some prominent nutritionists -- notably my friend and colleague Marion Nestle, as recently quoted in USA Today -- have nary a kind word to say.
Dr. Nestle has been perfectly consistent in this regard -- allowing neither anecdote nor data to change her views. People should simply eat real foods.
But I can't help but wonder -- is she saying that she has never eaten a chip? Or anything else, for that matter, in a package? Do yogurt, bread, nuts, dried fruits, canned vegetables -- not meet the Nestle criteria for real foods?
If not, Dr. Nestle lives -- and eats -- in a very different world than I. (At least most of the time; I have very much enjoyed the several meals we have shared! No, I won't tell you what we ate...) But if these DO qualify as foods, then there are choices to be made. Choices that could, should -- and do -- benefit from objective, evidence-based guidance. If the ability to lose over 100 lbs. just by trading up to better choices when shopping does not count as meaningful in the world of nutrition and health promotion -- I haven't a clue what would.
I live in a world where decent people occasionally eat chips. So I say it's a good thing to offer the best possible nutrition guidance -- and let the chips fall where they may. I can't figure out why some of my colleagues seem to have a chip... on their shoulder.
-fin
For more by David Katz, M.D., click here.
For more on diet and nutrition, click here.
for more on weight loss, click here.
Dr. David L. Katz; www.davidkatzmd.com
www.turnthetidefoundation.org
Related reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/we-all-need-a-little-nutrition-guidance_b_804545.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/healthy-food-costs-more--a-myth_b_831608.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/holistic-nutrition_b_842627.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/healthy-food-cost_b_920107.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/food-stamps-healthy-food_b_984684.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/iom-nutrition-guideance_b_1026221.html
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Tonight: pork roast and brussels sprouts.
I'll still eat a few chips now and then, but I never bring them into the house. When I do eat a chip, it had better be a good one, not bland or poorly textured. I'm not wasting any calories on a mediocre chip. When you only have them occasionally, I don't think it matters much if they are not the most nutritious. The represent almost 0% of what you eat.
The best advice about chips to give to people who have had a weight and eating problem (70% of us) is to keep them out of the house if they are one of your hyper-addictive foods. Our obesity problem is not about the nutrition as much as it's about the behavior.
William Anderson, LMHC
Author of 'The Anderson Method - Secrets of Permanent Weight Loss'
www.TheAndersonMethod.com
Canola oil? Perhaps the chemical structure of the oil (monounsaturates) is attractive in theory, but I find that canola is a neuroactive stimulant that can interfere with sleep in sensitive individuals. High oleic sunflower or safflower oils appear to be more easily tolerated by many, and also have the advantage of not wading into the GMO controversy.
According the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 21, safflower oil contains 10.2g of monounsaturated fat per tbsp whereas canola oil contains 8.2g per tbsp. Safflower also has half the polyunsaturates of canola and slightly less (.01g) saturated fat per tbsp.
Good article. Provocative...
When I'm eating out, at a friend's place, or on an airplane - I try to choose healthier food, but I'm not fanatical about it. I figure if I'm eating healthy food at home 90% of the time, that leaves me free to splurge when I'm out. So I will gladly eat chips and other junk food, meat, white bread, sweets - it makes going out seem even more special.
And corn hardly counts as "whole grain" anything.
...i'm sure the fancy oil and sea salt simply make them psychosomatically delicious. . but, either way -- still quite tasty.
[*warning do not mix with cannabis stash*]
the taste is without compare. i buy them for holidays and limit myself to 10 a day
The healtier chips are a better choice of course, but still junk.
The only brand that is really really healthy is "Mary's Gone Crackers",
but they are not going to taste like Fritios or Lays.
I liked them. Expensive but worth it.
Any of the big corporate chips are just dangerous and should be avoided.
Last year I was at someones house and had some of these corporate chips
(I usually don't eat them) and later that night, my mouth was burning, like I drank acid or something.
The best part: "To see all of the NuVal Scores please visit one of our retail partners."
It seems that showing them how to move toward food that's more real (NuVal scores are consistently higher for 'real' foods and are highest for the purest 'real' foods, vegetables, fruits, etc.) can help. Not at all clear to me why we can't agree on the destination- while also agreeing that people can't currently get there from here, and need help.
As for getting scores only at participating retailers, I am and will remain an advocate of making scores universally available- in stores, on-line via smart-phone apps. Consensus among experts that such a system is genuinely helpful would facilitate all of that.