A (too) sweet breakfast

Bob and I both had oats for breakfast. I had a bowl of Kellogg's low fat granola with raisins, and he had oatmeal with a few raisins made in the microwave.

His oats had one ingredient--whole oats. Mine had whole oats, sugar, brown rice syrup, rice crisps (made with sugar) and molasses (aka sugar). Mine was 28% sugar (32 grams) and his was 0% (1 gram). Mine had 3 grams of fat and so did his. Mine had 115 mg of sodium and his had 0 mg sodium. Mine had 6 grams of protein and his had 5 grams. Mine had 4 grams of fiber and his had 6. Mine had 240 calories per serving and his had 150 calories. Serving sizes (in grams) were not the same probably because my serving size (larger) included raisins and he added raisins to his, so some of the nutrients were hard to compare.

But still, what part of my cereal was low fat, the most prominent phrase on the box? Compared to what--a candy bar? Who needs that much sugar on/in their cereal? US population consumes more than 300% of the recommended daily amount of added sugar. Since 2000 the rate of consumption of sugar is actually slowing down as is the increase in obesity. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6959843/

KNOW YOUR FAT

Adipose tissue is broadly divided into brown and white varieties. Brown fat cells express high levels of thermogenic genes and help maintain body heat by burning calories. Beige fat cells function similarly, but they are not of the brown fat cell lineage. Rather, they develop in white fat, the tissue that we typically think of as “fat.” White fat cells are involved in whole-body energy homeostasis and lipid storage and are found both under the skin and in the abdomen, where they are known as visceral adipose tissue (VAT). It is this type of fat that can help detect and eliminate pathogens as well as maintain immune homeostasis in the gut.

https://www.the-scientist.com/features/belly-fat-has-a-role-to-play-in-fighting-infections-64802

Low fat and no fat diets may be dangerous to your health

If you want to make a New Year's resolution that should be easy to keep, give up low-fat or no fat food items. For 40 years the U.S. has been on the fast track to obesity problems--diabetes, more cardiovascular problems, and decreased exercise and activity because it's just tough to do it with all those extra pounds that damage knees and hips. Now it turns out the the U.S. government, the professional nutrition organizations, academic researchers and the food processing companies (which followed government guidelines) probably had it wrong.

When I was a child about 40% of our calories came from fat--mostly animal fat. My mother cooked with lard, we drank whole milk (cream would freeze and push up the cap when the delivery was on the porch), we used butter, we ate eggs and bacon, but sugar especially when rationed during WWII and Korea was used frugally. Somewhere along the way my mother was swayed by articles on nutrition published in women's magazines--and in the 60s and 70s she switched to margarine and 2% milk, she was cautious with eggs, and bacon probably wasn't used. Lard became Crisco and then Safflower Oil and Peanut Oil for her fabulous pies.

For 40 years Americans tried to decrease their use of fat--we (at least I) bought low-fat or no-fat salad dressing, skim milk, low-fat sour cream, skinny bread, and added carbs just as the government recommended, and sugar was added to processed food to make them palatable, as the flavor and satiety  was gone. Special chemicals were added to provide texture and thickening. So we just ate more of everything because the food didn't taste or feel right and didn't satisfy. And we all got fatter and less healthy; cardiovascular diseases which had been on the decrease, began to increase; diabetes which had been relatively rare became an epidemic. In studies of low-fat, high carb diets, those studied had higher rates of premature death, not lower as was expected. Industry went along because there was a profit to be made--ordinary products like dairy and cereal were advertised as low fat; diet products proliferated and became a huge industry as did weight reduction surgery and weight clubs and support groups. Exercise products and clubs sprung up.

Researchers know more about the human body in 2016 than they did in 1966--men and women aren't the same (no matter which pronoun is demanded), blacks and Asians aren't the same, teens and elderly aren't the same, children are not just small adults, our grandparents did actually pass along culture as well as genes, and you just can't change thousands of years of evolution of our bodies' response to famine and plenty by having the USDA or HHS mandate food for school lunches and grants for academic research.

So put some butter on that toast, and fry up some bacon and enjoy the New Year while you wait for the next expert to report on why we need to believe them about climate change.

 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2564564

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/12/16/dr-david-ludwig-clears-up-carbohydrate-confusion/