Daily Recommended Values
Do you know what the daily recommended values (DV) are for everything on that nutrition label? It’s like budgeting, you don’t know if you’re doing well or doing poorly unless you have a reference point. Daily recommended values is the FDA’s way of setting reference points and it’s important to know what they are, even if it’s only at a high level.
Here are the high level numbers:
- Calories: 2,000
- Fat: 30% of calories - 65g
- Saturated fat: 10% of calories - 20g
- Carbohydrates: 60% of calories
- Protein: 10% of calories
- Fiber: 11.5g per 1,000 calories
- Sodium: 2,400 mg
- Cholesterol: 300 mg
That’s a ballpark estimate, obviously younger people who are growing will need more calories and those who are older will need less.
‘Daily Values’ Encourage Healthy Diet [FDA.gov]
Weekly Roundup
I had no idea there was an Overeaters Anonymous but it’s great that such an organization exists, this week at Fat Man Unleashed there is a guest post by Jenny Clark about the group. She gives us an inside look at Overeaters Anonymous meetings.
Can walking prevent a common cold? I’m surprised to find out that it might. Why? You’ll have to read to find out. 
NCN is on schedule, losing a pound a week.
Kevin at Weight Ladder reviews the South Beach Diet Supercharged. I’m not one for diets but if you are and have considered this diet plan, check out his thoughts on the book describing it.
Low Carb Diet Is Best!
Which is best? Low carbs? Low fat? Or the Mediterranean diet chock full of healthy fats, fruits, and veggies? Turns out that conventional wisdom, where lower fat is always better, doesn’t always win out and the latest study shows that low carbs is actually the biggest winner. This was a story featured on ABCNews and one I caught on World News Tonight.
The Study: Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA put 322 obese subjects through one of three diets. The three were the ones just described, a low far, a low carb, and a Mediterranean diet. They had the subjects participate for two years and found that the low carb dieters lost the most weight, 12 lb., and the Mediterranean dieters scored second place with an average of 10 lb. Low fat dieters trimmed seven pounds in two years.
There’s more to it so check out the story on ABCNews.
What are Nitrates and Why Are They Bad!?
Nitrates, and nitrites like sodium nitrite, are additives. They were added processed foods, usually meats like cold cuts and hot dogs, to fight botulism. The unfortunate part is that they can form nitrosamines in our intestines once they are digested. Nitrosamines are bad because they might be carcinogenic.
Does that mean you should avoid processed foods like cold cuts and hot dogs? (or anything with nitrates or nitrites) No, because a diet rich in vitamin C will prevent nitrosamines from forming. It’s that very reason that foods with nitrites find themselves packed with lots of vitamin C derivatives such as ascorbate or sodium erythrobate.
Roundup: My First Round of “Real” Golf
A few weeks ago I decided I’d like to pick up golf. Since then I’ve been practicing on my back deck hitting balls into a net from my little path of artificial turf heaven. My father had given me his old set of clubs, which were in great condition, and so I pretty started up on the habit on the cheap. Well today I played my first round of “real” golf at Gunpowder Falls Golf Course in Kingsville, MD, a little par-64 3100+ yard executive golf course. It was a great afternoon for it though the winds were a bit blustery. I have to say that my afternoon wasn’t bad considering we didn’t have a chance to warm up and I was able to hit one par-4 for par and only get bogey and double bogey on all but another four or five holes (which max’d out at double-par). It was definitely a fun afternoon and fed my desire to keep playing and improving.
This week, the Fitness Health Network offered up a nice helping of health/fitness posts:
- Weight Loss Journal featured a guest post that discussed six ways to beat fatigue.
- Obviously given the choice between fresh and canned or frozen fruits and veggies, you go for the fresh because of flavor. However, if you are choosing between frozen and canned, go with frozen because canned veggies have been shown the least nutritional value. I didn’t know that!
- Need some ideas about creating a food budget? NCN shares some of his tips and none of them have to do with $$$.
- When you are working towards a goal, occasionally you get knocked off track. Well Israel at Fat Man Unleashed has been knocked off the last few weeks and posts this weight loss confession. Stuff happens, things don’t always go as you plan, but it’s how you respond and recover that decides how dedicated you are.
- Lazy Man offers up six cancer-fighting superfoods I didn’t know where cancer-fighting superfoods. Oddly enough, I eat all of them, so double win for me!
Best Fruit Drinks for You
My wife used to drink a lot of apple juice as a child. She absolutely loved the stuff. Me? The only juice I ever drank was orange juice. Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice, usually with as much of that juicy fiberous pump as humanly possible. I always thought apple juice was like sugar water and my orange juice was the healthy goodness it was meant to be. Well, according to a study at UCLA, OJ ranks only 8th and Apple Juice ranked 10th in terms of antioxidant goodness. This makes sense though, they always say that the darker berries and grapes have the most antioxidant fighting power and oranges and apples are neither dark berries nor grapes!
Number one on the list is a fruit that has been gaining popularity, especially in the alcoholic beverage market, and that’s pomegranate juice. The other day we picked up a bottle of pomegranate liquor on a whim and we’ve had Pom brand pomegranate juice in our fridge a few times. Pomegranate itself is quite fun to eat, you crack it open, suck on the little pomegranates and then spit out the seeds.
For those vino lovers, red wine makes in at #2 and even MLM-favorite Açaí juice slides inot the #6 spot. I joke about the MLM-favorite status only because it’s this juice that is pushed by Mona Vie.
Pomegranate Juice is Packed With Antioxidants [Health.com]
Importance of Proper Hydration
Every Tuesday for the last two months I’ve played in a work softball league that starts around 6 PM. Fortunately in the last few weeks our games have been played in relatively mild temperatures, but there was a stretch where the temperatures were pretty high. Well, I’m an outfielder, generally center right or center left (we play four outfielders in our league, which I believe is standard), which means I get to stand in the sun and wait for fat old people to crush balls in my direction.
Anyway, when it’s in the 80s or 90s, even standing perfectly still out in the sun at 6PM will get me sweating and so it’s important to remain hydrated for our two and half long double headers. This usually means just a 1 quart bottle of Powerade or Gatorade (not Powerade Zero Mixed Berry though) throughout the first game.
What happens when you don’t get proper hydration? (we’re talking mild dehydration, not the headaches, muscle craps, death-type of dehydration… don’t ever let yourself get that far) I’ll tell you what happens to me, I get really irritable, sluggish, and my reaction time slows. When you’re playing in a work softball league, you’re really out there to get a little exercise, have a good time, and hang out with your friends. If you’re irritable, sluggish, and your reaction time is slow, it’s hard to have a good time. If you’re losing, it’s even worse.
The first few games of the season I didn’t bring my bottle of Powerade/Gatorade and so I felt like I wanted to go to sleep every time I stepped up to bat. Now, armed with my sports drink, I feel great and have been playing better, enjoying the game better, and overall been happier out there.
Carnival Foods
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a carnival but the same types of food served there are also served at local Renaissance festivals, wine festivals, and, well, every other festival. Newsweek took a crack at the most unhealthy carnival foods:
- Deep fried Oreos
- Cotton candy
- Corn dogs
- Deep fried Twinkie (detecting a trend?)
- Snow cone
- Funnel cake - These are my favorite, but 8.3 ounces has 760 calories, 44g fat, 80g of carbs, and 20mg of cholesterol.
- Deep fried candy bars (if you haven’t detected the trend yet…)
In summary, the foods are bad in one of two ways. Either it’s deep fried or it’s basically sugar, or it’s deep fried sugar. Deep fried is never good for you. Copious amounts of sugar is never good for you. It’s no surprise these treats are bad for you so enjoy in moderation.
Is Margarine Better than Butter?
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if margarine is good for you, bad for you, better than butter, worse than butter, which is it? The flip flopping by the scientific community has my head in a spin and I have no idea which way is up. Fortunately, in the confusion, science has prevailed and there is a scientific explanation as to which is better and why.
First, let’s talk about what margarine is. Margarine is essentially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Hydrogenation refers to the process of infusing hydrogen atoms in liquid fats, like vegetable oil, so that they are solids at room temperature. The by-product is a significant amount of trans-fat acids. For a while, margarine was hailed as better because trans-fats aren’t saturated fats, which were known to be unhealthy for you; but it wasn’t until further study (a report released in 2005 by the US Dept. of Agriculture) did we learn that trans-fats are treated the same as saturated fats in the body.
Butter is bad for you because of saturated fat, margarine is bad for you because of trans-fat. They both have their positive merits but the bottom line is that you should eat them both in moderation.
More Beets & Cabbage
Beets and cabbage have headlined the latest “best foods you’re not eating” article, this time on the Well column of the New York Times. Author Tara Parker-Pope listed these items as foods you should be eating but probably aren’t (along with simple preparation methods):
1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss chard
4. Cinnamon
5. Pomegranate juice
6. Prunes
7. Pumpkin seeds
8. Sardines
9. Turmeric
10. Frozen blueberries
11. Canned pumpkin
Of the foods listed, my wife and I do get cabbage from time to time as well as frozen blueberries in our fruit smoothies. Outside of those two, we hardly eat any of them (pumpkin seeds from time to time too, now that I think about it) and probably should integrate them more. Pumpkin appears twice, that’s interesting… since most Americans only think of them during Halloween!
