Diet and Nutrition | Health Commentary

The Coffee Fix

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:18:05 -0400

How is coffee affecting your life?Is coffee part of your daily routine? If it is, you are like millions of Americans, who start their day with a cup – or two or three – of coffee. But even if it's part of your daily routine, it makes sense to stop and ask a few questions. How much do you know about your morning pick-me-up? Do you ever think about where it comes from or how it’s affecting your body?

The coffee shrub was introduced from Africa to the Americas in the 1700s. Today, coffee is cultivated by some 25 million farmers and coffee workers in more than 50 countries. Worldwide annual coffee consumption is more than 12 billion pounds.

Coffee gets into our cups and mugs through a global commodity chain involving many people. Approximately 27 million acres are devoted to coffee worldwide, with the largest producers and exporters being Brazil, Colombia, and Indonesia.

Most small farmers sell their coffee directly to middlemen exporters who pay them below market price for their harvests and keep a high percentage for themselves. This forces these farmers into a cycle of poverty that keeps working conditions poor, wages low, and often involves child labor. Coffee workers are usually paid the equivalent to sweatshop wages and they toil under harsh conditions.

With all of this in mind, we’re left with two major questions about coffee. One, is it good or bad for your health? And two, what about the health and well-being of the coffee farmers and workers around the world?

On question one, you might be shocked to find out that coffee is full of antioxidants that dampen inflammation and are believed to be positive and preventive when it comes to chronic diseases. Studies by major journals have confirmed that coffee is a major contributor of antioxidants in the diet of Americans.

But there’s the caffeine to consider. Once it’s ingested, it’s rapidly absorbed into the blood stream in 30 to 45 minutes, and takes 4 to 6 hours for most of it to be eliminated. At low to moderate doses it increases well being, happiness, energy, alertness, and sociability – but at higher doses it can cause adverse health effects.

Back to the question of coffee farmers and workers: The Fair Trade coffee movement is a partnership between consumers and coffee growers to ensure that the growers receive a fair price for their coffee in order to make a living wage. If a farmer gets Fair Trade Certification, he can sell his coffee as a member of the Fair Trade Register and earn much more than selling in the traditional manner. If you buy Fair Trade coffee, you’re bound to drink a little easier knowing that you’ve helped those farmers get the funding and healthier lives they deserve.

As always, I’m interested in your feelings about this topic. Please leave a comment!

Salt and Your Health

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:15:03 -0400

Are you getting too much of it?The average American consumes two to three times as much salt as she or he should on a daily basis, and only 15% of that comes from the salt shaker. About 10% occurs naturally in foods, and a whopping 75% is put there by the food industry.

So what’s the problem? Excessive salt intake leads to high blood pressure, and high blood pressure, which leads to cardiovascular disease, is a silent and deadly health problem in our nation.

We need about half a gram of salt a day for normal function. But on average, Americans consume about 4 grams and many probably don’t even realize it. The food industry adds salt to everything from breakfast cereals to cheeses because it creates a taste we Americans crave. We tend to buy foods that are high in sodium and shun those that are not.

The sodium in salt is what drives our blood pressure up. Once this concentrated mineral is in our blood stream, it tends to draw in more water, expanding blood volume. And this added volume puts more pressure on the blood channels and the heart itself. The ultimate result is cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Approximately 30% of the U.S. population has high blood pressure, but some groups are more prone to it than others. Nearly 70% of Americans over age 80 have high blood pressure, for example. And African Americans are 40% more likely than whites to suffer from high blood pressure, they’re 50% more likely to die of heart disease, and 80% more likely to die from a stroke. That’s why it’s recommended that seniors and African Americans of all ages consume no more than 1.5 grams of sodium a day, compared to the 2.3 grams a day recommended for the rest of the population.

So what can we do to take more control of our own sodium intake? First, read the labels. Keep your total intake per day of sodium at or below 2.3 grams, except for African Americans and the elderly, who should only consume 1.5 grams a day. Second, watch what you eat at restaurants. A single meal often contains 4 grams of sodium. Third, remove the salt shaker from your table at home. Finally, be disciplined: studies also show that once you start to cut back, cravings disappear rapidly.

What’s your opinion on the role our food manufacturers play in our tendency to eat too much salt? Should they be doing more to keep sodium levels lower in food? Watch this week’s video, embedded in this blog post, or read the full transcript below. Then post a comment and let us know how you feel.

Fat Chemistry

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:44:37 -0400

A quick history of trans fatsWith all the talk about the nation’s obesity epidemic in recent years, we have been bombarded with information about fat content in food. But it’s not always easy to sort out the so-called “good” fat from the “bad.” In this week’s video, embedded with this blog, I offer a basic science lesson about the various fat types. To get the full background, watch the video or read the full transcript below. Meantime, here are a few essentials:

A balanced diet is about taking in the recommended portions of protein, carbohydrates and fats. The American Heart Association recommends that fats should make up 30% or less of our daily diet. The right combination of fats is critical to life. Fats are an important source of energy, they’re essential for growth and development, and they help regulate blood pressure, heart rate, blood clotting, nerve transmissions and temperature control.

One of the biggest factors in judging fats is cholesterol, the waxy substance that’s critical to the production of some hormones and vitamin D, but can also increase the risk for heart disease. The biggest influence on blood cholesterol is the mix of fats in the diet – which raise or lower the so-called “good” cholesterol, or HDL, and “bad” cholesterol, or LDL. The interplay of these two substances in your bloodstream is what determines your risk of health conditions such as heart attack.

The various types of fats, which affect your cholesterol, are categorized according to the placement of carbon and hydrogen atoms in their chemical structure, and their degree of saturation with hydrogen. They include “saturated fat,” which raises both HDL and LDL, and unsaturated fat, which tends to lower “bad” LDL and raise “good” HDL. Within unsaturated fat are two categories: “monounsaturated fat,” and “polyunsaturated fat.” A chemical process of heating an unsaturated fat yields a “trans fat,” which have the worst effect -- raising LDL and lowering HDL.

We first started making trans fats when concerns surfaced about the health effects of saturated fats in butter. By hydrogenating vegetable oil – that is, adding hydrogen atoms to create trans fats – we discovered that liquid vegetable oil turned solid and could be sold as sticks of margarine. From the 1950s to the 1980s, we thought what we were doing was healthy. But research over the years has proven that “trans fats” are actually quite bad for us.

In general, the unsaturated fats lower rates of heart attack and stroke. Trans-fats, those liquid-to-solid hydrogen creations, are the evil twin. They raise LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol, increasing your chance of heart attack and stroke.

And finally, what about those saturated fats? Still bad, but not as bad as trans fats. Saturated fats raise LDL and HDL, but the net overall effect is more harmful than it is good.

For more detail, please watch this week’s video or read the full transcript. Meantime – pay attention to your fat intake!

Diet and Nutrition | Health Commentary

The Coffee Fix

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Salt and Your Health

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Fat Chemistry

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