Strategies for Each of Your Daily Battles
This is a shopping guide, not a cookbook. But fear not, the cookbook is on its way. The Fat Chance Cookbook (Hudson Street Press, January 2014), authored by myself, Chef Cindy Gershen, and journalist Heather Millar, will provide tasty, low-sugar, high-fiber recipes for our busy lives. And I promise, they will be fast and easy. How do I know? Because Cindy’s Mount Diablo High School students tested each one in their teaching kitchen. If a high school student can make it and eat it within a school period, you can, too.
In the meantime, you need some guidance as to what to buy and not buy at the grocery store. Part II consists of lists of brand-name foods available at your local supermarket by category, alongside the amount of total sugars present. In some cases, it is easy to figure out the “added” sugar, because there are no-sugar versions. We did the yogurt exercise in chapter 3. Another example is beans. Red kidney beans have about 2 grams of inherent sugar. But Grillin’ Beans have 21 grams of sugar; that means that 19 grams have been added. You get the idea. This way, you can compare brands quickly so you can determine the healthiest choice for you and your family.
Breakfast
Breakfast is considered by most nutrition experts to be the most important meal of the day. It gets your brain going, it gets your metabolism going, and it suppresses the hunger hormone in your stomach (ghrelin) so you won’t overeat at lunch. But in our busy lives, it’s easy to turn to what’s quick, or worse, what you can eat on the go. Cold cereal. Instant oatmeal. For those die-hard “I’m gonna serve something hot for breakfast” moms, there are the ever-present microwaveable breakfast sandwiches. Gotta get out the door NOW? Cereal bars. Granola bars. Protein bars. Protein shakes. Commercial smoothies. And, of course, the teenage favorite, the Starbucks Frappuccino.
Sadly, if you’re in that category that’s serving cold cereal with milk, you’re giving your kids a huge sugar load and sending them on their way. Sugar is almost universally the second ingredient in sweetened cold cereals, and is the first ingredient in about eight of them. On average, it has a whopping 12 grams of sugar, all added, in a typical 1-cup serving. Does anybody measure? If you did measure, and your kid wants more, are you going to say, “Too bad. That’s a serving”? The path of least resistance, which won’t make you feel guilty for letting your kid go hungry, is rapidly dumping more cereal in the bowl. Or better yet, give your kid the box and let her/him pour it. You can go get dressed or check your e-mails before you have to be out the door. And what’s alongside of that cold cereal? Toast with jam or jelly? Juice? The sugar pile builds.
So what’s a person supposed to eat or drink for breakfast? The food and beverage industries “protect” you from letting the government tell you what to do. And frankly, I can’t tell you what to do, either. I don’t live in your house. I don’t buy your groceries. I don’t come to your house at six thirty in the morning to make you and your kids breakfast. I don’t know your list of “I won’t eat that,” or the habits you’ve developed that are so hard to break. I don’t balance your bank statement and decide what you can afford to buy. And buying what’s cheap is the quickest way to get sick!
What I can do is show you how much sugar is in the routine products you may have in your house and let you choose from the list of similar items that might be just as appealing but with significantly less sugar. Or, maybe you’ll see just how much sugar you’re consuming when you don’t have time to pay attention (almost always?!). You’ll be so disgusted by the amount of sugar, and so pissed off that there are so few unsugared options, you’ll decide that you can’t afford to get sick. So, you’ll vote with your pocketbook (the only thing that matters to the food manufacturers), and make educated choices on what you buy and put in your house for you and your family to eat. Half the battle is having healthy, unsugared options readily available.
Here are three quick and easy ideas.
1. Fry the bacon the night before, and heat it in the microwave in the morning.
2. Scramble two eggs and fry them in a small pan. It doesn’t take long; they do this very rapidly at made-to-order omelet stations at hotel breakfast buffets.
3. Make the steel-cut oatmeal the night before, and leave it in the pot overnight at room temperature. In the morning, scoop it into a bowl and microwave it. Takes a minute.
Lunch
Lunch is a problem, even for me. Wherever you work, your employer is cutting your time spent on lunch to increase your “productivity.” My daughter tried to buy lunch at school. The line was so long, by the time she reached the counter, the bell sounded. Plus the food at school, for lack of a better word, sucks. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) spent $2.21 per student; that’s just enough for processed, not-real food. And even with Michelle Obama’s direct intervention, the NSLP went up a whole 6 cents, to $2.27 per student. You can maybe buy two grapes for that. But the USDA just got rid of sugared drinks and desserts from school, you say? Yeah, they’re replacing them with granola bars (see the table on the sugar content). So what do the kids do? They buy their lunch at the food truck circling the school, making matters worse. Remember, your kids have bigger targets painted on their backs than you do.
How to deal with this dilemma, especially when you are away from your refrigerator and stove? This certainly can be a challenge. Some progressive school districts are overhauling the lunch menu. In San Francisco, a local vendor serving fresh, locally sourced food has been retained. The best answer is that the student brings his lunch from home. BUT: for it to work, he or she has to make it and pack it. Then they have ownership of their lunch, and it won’t end up in the garbage. They just might eat it, because they picked it. And whatever you do, no dessert. No kid needs sugar during schooltime. Same for adults. Bring a sandwich from home, preferably with whole grain bread and something green on it (you can choose what). At least you’ll know what went into it. And if you need a little something special to top it all off, try a small package of nuts. They have fiber and good fats, and are real food. Or an apple, if your kid is allergic or has no imagination.
Supper
It’s so easy to abdicate responsibility for supper. You’re tired, you’re overstressed (your cortisol is bouncing all over the place), you’re hungry, you want a reward for a hard day’s work, and you especially don’t want to clean up. Completely understandable. Bottom line, if you eat out or bring in, you lose control. You don’t know the composition of your food, and you don’t control the portion size. Abdicating more than once a week isn’t abdicating—it’s surrendering. Here are six suggestions to bring back control:
1. If there’s a way to exercise before supper, do it. Even if it’s a short bout. It will take the stress way down.
2. Have a salad first. It will fill you up, move the subsequent food through faster, and get the fiber gel going to coat your intestine. And make sure there is no high-fructose corn syrup (or sugar) in the salad dressing.
3. Don’t eat in front of the TV. Talk to your kids. They need the time and the attention.
4. Wait twenty minutes for second portions.
5. If you’re at a restaurant, consider the cheese plate for dessert. It’s super healthy, and it comes with real fruit and nuts!
6. If you don’t like cheese, at least make dessert a good one, something special that you can’t buy at Safeway. And make it a small one, or share one among the entire family. Good desserts are for taste, not for filling up.
The eccentricities of our sugar culture
As my wife Julie and I were compiling the data for Part II and writing this e-book, certain dichotomies and curiosities about the sugar content of certain foods became immediately apparent. Understanding these peculiarities are a good lesson in how you’re being manipulated, and also what you need to watch out for in order to stay healthy. Here’s what I mean:
BEANS: We’re talking BBQ beans here. Most baked beans have a range of 11–16 grams of sugar per half cup (red kidney beans have 2 grams of inherent sugar). But as I mentioned earlier, in the Bush’s Grillin’ selections, is there a range: 2 grams to a whopping 21 grams of sugar in the same size serving!
BEANS: Now we’re talking refried. Some have 0 grams of sugar on the label but still have sugars in the ingredients list. Others have 1 gram of sugar on the label, but no sugars evident in the ingredient list. How does that work? It doesn’t. Don’t believe everything you read.
BEVERAGES—JUICES: Various store-brand fruit juices have no nutritional label. Ostensibly this is because the FDA considers them “unprocessed.” Think again. Once the fruit is squeezed into juice, it is fiberless. Therefore the sugar in the juice is equivalent to “added sugar.” You’re just not allowed to know.
BREAD: Although this is not sugar, why is there sucralose (Splenda®) in a bagel, and stevia (Truvia®) in whole wheat bread? Clearly we need everything sweet, even if we are cutting back on sugar.
BREAKFAST SAUSAGE: The Johnsonville label lists 2 grams of Total Carbohydrate, but no sugar. Yet the ingredients list has corn syrup (at position three), dextrose, and corn syrup solids. These are all sugars by the FDA’s definition. Where did the sugar go?
CRACKERS: Although many crackers have small amounts of sugar (ostensibly to help them brown better), Wheat Thins have double the sugar of any other cracker. You cannot get thin on Wheat Thins. It’s interesting that Reduced Fat Triscuits have seven crackers for the same weight serving, while the standard Triscuits have six crackers. Both have 0 grams of sugar. Do they make the Reduced Fat Triscuits smaller?
HOT CEREAL: To all those who love that creamy taste of Quaker Fruit & Cream oatmeals—each serving is an envelope, but the portion seems small in comparison to their standard oatmeal packets. Indeed, each envelope of Fruit & Cream oatmeal (35 grams) is 10 grams lighter than the standard oatmeal (45 grams), in the same envelope. They both have 130 calories, fewer than the Quaker high fiber at 160 calories. But the high-fiber varieties have 7 grams of sugar, while the Fruit & Cream oatmeal ranges from 9 to 12 grams, almost double the sugar for a smaller portion.
POTATOES: Sweet potato fries. Here’s a positive one. Sweet potato fries list 8 grams of sugar, but no added sugars. That means that the 8 grams of sugar are inherent in the sweet potato. Sweet potatoes also have a lot of fiber, which mitigates the concern. If you just looked at the label, you’d think 8 grams is too much. In this case it’s not.
SALAD DRESSING—COLESLAW: Watch out for the word “Southern”! Marzetti Southern Recipe Slaw Dressing has 12 grams of sugar in two tablespoons. That’s double the ordinary amount of sugar (6 grams). Paula Deen didn’t get type 2 diabetes for nothing. . . . Other code words for excess sugar are “honey,” “sweet & sour,” and “teriyaki.”
SNACKS—GRANOLA AND CEREAL BARS: This is the new mainstay in schools due to the NSLP. Granola bars are “natural,” or so they say. Yet granola bars range between 6 and 9 grams of added sugar. And cereal bars average 12 grams of sugar (indeed, the same as a bowl of breakfast cereal). You’re not missing anything here!
SNACKS—JERKY: If I had 4 grams of sugar in 90 calories’ worth of meat, I’d be tender, too! So sugar is about one-fifth of the calories. And watch out for Matador teriyaki beef jerky! That’s 6 grams of sugar in 80 calories, for almost one-third of the calories. Woops! You know what’s nice about Pemmican organic jerkies? The poisons are ALL organic. Organic sugar, organic alcohol, organic evaporated cane syrup. Yet Pemmican’s original has more sugar than the teriyaki version by 1 gram.
SNACKS—POTATO CHIPS: You have to count your chips! Twenty-eight grams (1 ounce) ranges from fifteen chips in most varieties, to eighteen chips in Kettle Cooked Mesquite, and up to twenty-two chips in Kettle Cooked Original.
Summary
Our good friend from Memphis, Liese Nichols, always said, “A problem is something you can’t fix with money.” If you’re in poor health, you can’t fix it with money. You might counter, But healthy food costs more. Indeed, it does. But it’s like the old Fram Oil Filter commercial, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” You can pay the bill for better food now, or you can pay the bill for drugs and hospitalizations later. Good food will increase your happiness, creativity, cognitive prowess, and productivity, and reduce your weight, visceral fat, your risk for metabolic syndrome, and your medical costs. Consider it a blue-chip investment with guaranteed returns—not just for you, but for your entire family, and for our entire country. And your enemy, the food industry? They’ll do just fine, I guarantee it.