What do you think when you see the word “natural” on a food label? I think, “Great! Nothing’s been added to the main ingredient.”

I have preferred “natural” peanut butter for several years. That’s ground-up peanuts with nothing added except salt. The two brands that have been available to me bear the Smucker’s and Kroger labels. [They contain 150 mg. and 120 mg. of salt per serving respectively.  I might like it even better without the salt.]

“Regular” peanut butter typically adds not only salt but hydrogenated oils and sugar.

Knowing my preference, my husband recently brought home some Jif Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread. The words spread and contains 90% peanuts were the first clue that maybe this wasn’t what I considered “natural.” Sure enough, added to peanuts on the list of ingredients were sugar, palm oil, and 2% or less of molasses and salt.

A Google search led me to Snack Girl‘s post on the subject. According to her research, the only difference between Jif Natural and Jif regular peanut butter is the absence of hydrogenated oil. The problem with that, however, is that although they haven’t hydrogenated the oils in the peanut butter to give it extra shelf life, they have used palm oil, which is naturally hydrogenated!

This is one more example of why you can’t trust the front label on processed foods. They are packaged to sell the ingredients. “Low fat” may mean added sugar, and “sugar-free” may indicate added fat. If we want to eat more food and less poison, we must read the ingredients and nutrition labels.

Have you found any “false labeling” lately?

Well, it’s on my Teux-Deux list to post a blog Friday morning.

Since I’ve been busy with paying work this week (Yea!), I haven’t written the blog.

Here it is Thursday night. I sure would like to cross that off my list.

However — on my kitchen counter is a big bowl of tomatoes that grows higher and higher as my husband harvests his garden.

It’s 9:48 p.m., and I have a full day again tomorrow.

So, what to do, what to do? Blog? Or go spend an hour freezing tomatoes before they spoil?

The tomatoes win. Can’t stand to see those beautiful things go to waste!

Hey! I think I just did both! Who says you have to make choices?

Talk to Me. Do you have a garden this year? What do you give up to make sure you don’t waste the excess?

Who, me?

Well, it looks like living to 107 is out! A recent blood test indicated that my total cholesterol level is way too high!

Needless to say, I was shocked. I thought I was taking care of myself!

Surely it’s not diet!

I think I eat well: lean beef and/or chicken breast maybe twice a week, no bacon in months, a quarter-cup or so of grated cheese on salads, occasionally indulging in desserts at potlucks, fresh fruits and vegetables always available.

Fried foods? Rare to non-existent in our house. Pasta? It’s been weeks since we’ve eaten either macaroni and cheese or spaghetti, though we’ve had some rice lately.

Maybe it’s genetic.

Diabetes, maybe, but not heart disease. My mother, who admits to being overweight, was diagnosed with high cholesterol in her 70’s, and although he was a paraplegic the last two decades of his life (the result of a high school football accident), my dad’s heart and lungs were still strong into his 80’s.

What to do now?

First thing, see a doctor for a long overdue checkup. We don’t have many choices in this little town, but from what a friend said, I thought Dr. G would not be quick to recommend medication. And I was right.

So what did the doctor say?

No dietary changes, except to recommend plenty of fruits and vegetables – not surprising.

His strongest recommendation?

1) Walking. 30 minutes a day. Every day. Not 45 minutes one day, 15 minutes the next, none the next.

2) One baby aspirin every day.

3) Another blood test in 6 to 12 weeks to see if the cholesterol level drops in that time.

(He’s a good example of what he preaches, by the way. He walks two hours every morning, no matter what his schedule.)

Putting my theories to the test

I have been pretty cocky about my theories of good health, so this blood test is a personal challenge to my simplistic assumptions.

Assumption #1. Good health is simply a matter of eating the right foods and getting enough exercise. Bolstered by the words and work of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I have believed that – most of the time – when we suffer from a chronic illness, it’s because we’ve broken either a rule of good eating or been too sedentary.

Assumption #2. Long-term medication is meant to make up for our nutrition-starved bodies. They treat the symptom and mask the cause. Rather than taking an aspirin for a headache, for instance, determine what’s causing it and, if possible, fix it.

Test time

I say I’ll do anything to avoid becoming dependent on a pill. We’ll see about that, won’t we? But here’s the plan:

1) More walking. A quick check of my pedometer shows 139 minutes in the last seven days – an average of 20 minutes a day. Not that great!  Why not make this a real challenge and double my current walking time to 40 minutes a day – 7 days a week, rain or shine, sleet or snow? (There’s always the walking track at the high school gym.)

2) Oats for breakfast most mornings, not just a couple of times a week.

3) Fish oil supplements, maybe?

4) Lose weight. Though I’m not considered overweight, I’m 6 or 7 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago. Three months is a reasonable length time to shed that extra weight.

And if it doesn’t work?

Accept the situation and take the medicine. Be thankful it’s available. Determine to maintain healthful lifestyle habits. Never, ever adopt the attitude, “It’s okay to abuse my body or neglect my health – there’s a medicine that will take care of it.”

Talk to me: You’ve no doubt overcome greater health challenges than I’ve mentioned here. Were diet or exercise part of your recovery?

Diet Is a 4-Letter Word

Maybe it’s the influence of lessons learned when I lost 20 pounds as a “Weight Watcher” several years ago. Maybe it’s my local TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) group and their emphasis on lifetime weight maintenance. Or maybe it’s the implicit groan I hear when people talk about dieting.

Whatever the cause, I avoid the word diet. For one thing – diet used as a noun simply means “daily intake of food.” If we eat, we’re on a diet – whether it’s high-fat, low-fat, Western, Eastern, or Indian.

Second, “to diet” implies a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. When someone says they’re on a diet, they usually mean, “I’m depriving myself for a while because I need to take off some pounds. Once those pounds are off, I’ll start enjoying myself again.” This implies that to eat healthfully is to deprive oneself of the best things of life.

Is it any wonder some people are “always” dieting? If the dieter loses weight, she’s typically right back where she started – or heavier – when she starts eating “normally” again. If she doesn’t lose weight, she gives up or tries some other fad diet, always thinking that to lose weight means deprivation, which leads to depression, which inevitably leads to food obsession.

Choose to Eat Well

Eating well has nothing to do with quantity; it has everything to do with quality.

When we “eat well,” we feed our cells, not our appetites or our emotional vacuums. We eat the foods that God created to fuel our bodies – high-octane fuel, if you will.

The higher the quality of food, the better our cells react. The better our cells react, the better we feel and the less likely we are to crave low-nutrient foods.

Count Nutrients, Not Calories

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat to Live and Eat for Health, advocates two basic premises:

1. Our bodies are made to live;
2. Our bodies are self-healing machines  – when we supply them with the right nutrition.

Thanks to Dr. Fuhrman, I’ve become aware of two terms related to the food we consume: macronutrients and micronutrients.

According to the doctor, macronutrients are the “nutritional components of the diet that are required in relatively large amounts: protein, carbohydrate, fat.” When you read the nutritional labels on processed foods, these are the items listed in the larger box.

Micronutrients are “essential nutrients, such as trace minerals or vitamins, that are required by an organism in minute amounts” – such as Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium and iron. You’ll see these below the line on the nutrition label. Though our bodies require these nutrients in small amounts, micronutrient deficiency leads to diseases such as anemia (lack of iron), scurvy (skin disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C) and night blindness (Vitamin A deficiency). (World Health Organization)

Read the Small Print

When you read labels, pay attention not only to the fat, sugar and sodium content, but to the micro-nutritional value. Eat foods with the highest possible nutritional bang per caloric buck.

As you might guess, most of these foods come straight from nature: fruits and vegetables. And despite what you think, nutrient for nutrient, eating fruits and vegetables is less expensive than eating poorly. (See “Fruit, Glorious Fruit” for some data on this.) “Cheap” food  usually means empty calories. Nutritionally, you’re wasting your money.

I invite you to join me in a new way of talking about eating. Avoid the word diet like you avoid other offensive four-letter words.

Let’s start the campaign to stop the negative consequences of dieting, while we salivate over salad and grin for greens.

Cheryl Bryan

Talk to me: What is your reaction to the word diet? In your mind, does the word represent challenge,  failure, or something else?

Recently I heard of a casual acquaintance who went to an impoverished African country as part of a mission group. Their aim was to give medical aid to sick children. As is usual when Americans travel to such places, she was astonished by living conditions, particularly the quality of their food sold in open marketplaces with no access to refrigeration.

However, it’s not cholera or dysentery that is killing their people. It’s AIDS and malaria.

An African man asked one of the Americans what our most common diseases are.

“I suppose they’re heart disease and diabetes,” said the American.

“What’s the cause?” asked the African.

“We don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables,” replied the American.

“You mean you can’t get fruit and vegetables in your country?” asked the African.

I don’t know what the American replied, but when I heard the story, I gasped. It makes what we do to ourselves even more tragic. The African man couldn’t fathom anyone having access to prevention and not using it.

Not all heart disease and diabetes can be prevented, but we all know most of it can. It’s an ironic luxury we enjoy – this ability to choose to kill ourselves when we are surrounded by an abundant supply of prevention. It’s like an African country refusing vaccines that would cure their epidemics.

It makes our excuses – too much trouble, too expensive, too many “bad” foods available – seem rather feeble, doesn’t it?

Talk to me. What was your initial reaction to the story? Do you think it’s really that simple, that all we need to do is eat our vegetables?

I just enjoyed my smoothie of choice – one orange, a cup or so of strawberries and a few blueberries thrown into a blender with a cup of ice and 1% milk. By the time I disposed of the orange peelings and strawberry stems, returned the milk and remaining strawberries and blueberries to the fridge and took a glass from the cupboard, it was ready to pour. And I had enough left over to put into the freezer for some iced smoothie tomorrow.

No, this is not a promotion for a blender, but for fresh fruits and vegetables – not only because they’re good for you, which of course they are, but because they’re just good! My aim is to encourage people to speak of fresh produce with the same ecstasy they now reserve for plate-sized grilled steaks, double cheeseburgers, piping hot French fries and smooth, rich chocolate ice cream.

• Consider the abundant color of fresh produce. When you enter a grocery store, your eyes are immediately drawn to the produce section. Is there any more colorful aisle – with its multiple shades of yellow, orange, red, purple and green? Compare that to the meat aisle with its bank of red meat and white chicken and fish, edible only after you’ve turned them to a brown color.

• Consider the variety of flavors. In the early summer here in the Midwest, berries, watermelon and cantaloupe are plentiful and sweet. Later we’ll enjoy honey-sweet Colorado peaches, looking forward to juicy, crisp apples in the fall and Vitamin-C laden grapefruit and oranges through the winter. Even with the short growing season in the Midwest, we can expect not only sweet corn from the farm fields but carrots, beans, beets, black-eyed peas and tomatoes from backyard gardens. When did you ever hear of “steak” in season? How boring!

• Consider their availability. For all the complaints we may have about “the world today,” it’s possible to enjoy fresh or frozen vegetables from all over the world like never before.

• Consider their cost. Side by side on a recent grocery store flyer were New York strip steaks at $5.99 per pound and green seedless grapes for $.99 per pound. Ice Cream Bars were $.70 each on sale, compared to a pound of cherries for $2.99, on sale.

Both the ice cream bars and the cherries could be considered a sweet treat. The chart below shows the difference not only in fat and calories but nutritional value. Why choose brown and white when red is so much more colorful – and less fattening and more nutritious?

It’s no wonder Eve was tempted by a piece of fruit in the Garden of Eden! She had been promised it would make her wise; she also saw it was “good for food and pleasant to the eye.”

Maybe if we were told good food was forbidden – like salty fries and rich ice cream with chocolate sauce – it would be more attractive to us.

Maybe we’d look at each other and confess, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m indulging in fruit salad tonight!”