We're Moving!

This blog has been around for a good while and, well, things change. When I started it back in 2009 I envisioned it as a combination of wellness information and tales from the trenches of network marketing. But as time went by it clearly was focused entirely on the food, diet and lifestyle aspects of living a healthy life.

That's not going to change. But I am rebranding a little to better reflect that exclusive focus moving forward. The new blog (which will retain all this blog's content) is called Living Your Way to Healthy and can be found at:

https://liveyourway2healthy.blogspot.com

I hope to see you there.

Tasteless Tomatoes by Design

You've probably tasted a fresh, garden grown tomato at some point. And you've probably mentioned how tasteless the typical store-bought variety is more often than your friends want to hear. So you think store-bought tomatoes are tasteless? Well, according to research done at Cornell University and published in the journal Nature Genetics, you are right. But probably not for the reasons you think.

More than 90% of store-bought tomatoes lack a specific gene that is responsible for producing the chemicals that cause their distinctive taste. The tomatoes lost the gene as growers produced varieties selected for their size, color, shape, sturdiness and shelf life.

Your best bet for finding a tomato that still tastes like a tomato is with heirloom varieties.

Mo Pro(biotics)!

Probiotics are all the rage. Between 2007 and 2012 the number of Americans taking probiotic supplements more than quadrupled. As of 2012 that is 4 million adults and 300,000 children. In 2016, the market for probiotics reached $4.3B and was projected to grow by 38% a year through 2021. Probiotics are forecast to outsell all other supplement products by 2020.

Considerable research supports the positive impact of a healthy microbiome - the trillions of bacteria that inhabit our gut, urinary tract, lungs, mouth and skin. Human studies confirm that certain strains of bacteria can alleviate irritable bowel syndrome, stave off the diarrhea sometimes associated with antibiotic use and certain illnesses and enhance our ability to digest the lactose in dairy products.

With that much money on the table and that much projected growth, you will probably be shocked to learn that food and supplement manufacturer's marketing departments are tripping over each other to capitalize on the boom. Equally surprising, many of their claims are bulls....err, questionable.

According to Prevention magazine, there is little evidence that probiotic supplements or additives have any impact at all on healthy people, and most of the benefits touted by the companies that manufacture them are, at best, hypothetical. "There is no compelling evidence that continued consumption of probiotics if you are healthy has any benefit," according to Jack Gilbert, head of the University of Chicago's Microbiome Center. But wait! There's more.

Probiotic manufacturers have a labeling problem. Shocking, I know. In one 2015 study analyzing the content of 16 probiotic supplements from a variety of manufacturers found that only 1 accurately identified their contents on the label.

Taking a page from their fiber playbook, many supplements contain only cheap, common and relatively ineffective bacteria when in fact a dazzlingly wide variety inhabit our innards.

And to ice the cake, many of the supplements sold today pass right on through your gut before the bacteria have any chance at all to replicate there. "You often read that probiotics are supposed to colonize and then reshape the microbiome," says University of Alberta microbiologist Jens Walter. "But there is virtually no evidence that that can actually happen."

This may all change soon. Scientists are developing "cocktails" of organisms that may be more potent and posses more staying power. In the meantime, if you are a basically healthy person and are spending money on probiotics, you are not spending it on something that might actually do you some good.

All this being said, there are things you can do to nurture and care for your microbiome, and you don't need a supplement to do it.

"One of the largest influences on our microbiomes and their activity in our gut is diet," advises Susan Lynch, a microbiome researcher at UCSF. Cultured milk like kefir and yogurt brim with healthy bacteria. And fiber encourages healthy bacteria to multiply, so - surprise! - fruits, vegetables and whole grains will do more than a supplement. Also, skip antibacterial products containing triclosan. Studies suggest that is can severely alter your microbiome, and it is in everything from soap to deodorant to toothpaste.

A Brief History of Diets

The idea of dieting - as opposed to having a diet - is fairly new to human history, not really gaining traction within a mass audience until after World War II. Since then the diet industry has surged (to a $64 billion business in 2014), with this fad and that promising better health and less weight. Recently though the growth trend has begun to reverse as more and more people realize that actual nutritionists have been right all along: a varied, balanced diet is best.

Here is a rundown of 60 years of diets.

1950: The Cabbage Soup Diet
           "Lose 10 - 20 pounds in one week!"
           Well ok, but you do it by basically eating water for 7 days.
           Besides being unhealthy, you can't remain on this "diet" for
           very long.

1965: Weight Watchers
           "Follow our point system to maintain balanced, healthy
            eating habits long term."
           Combined with AA-style support groups and a simple to
           follow system rather than a list of permitted and forbidden
           foods, this is one of the few really sensible diet programs to
           come along.

1990: Diet Shakes
          "Simply replace one meal a day with one of our tasty, easy
           to use shakes, and watch the pounds melt off."
           Slim Fast Foods built a following of 23 million people on this
           promise (and $100 million in advertising). There is little
           evidence that it works long term.

1995: Low Fat Diets
          "Cut out the fat to lose weight and protect your heart!"
          Manufacturers rolled out some 1,300 new fat free and low
          fat foods in response to the government's recommendation
          to adopt a low fat diet. They pretty much all crashed and
          burned because the products were packed with sugar.

2000: The Blood Type Diet
          "Customize your diet to your own unique blood type
           and metabolism!"
          This really was a thing. Sadly there is ample evidence
          showing no variation in nutritional requirement by
          blood type.

2003: The Atkins Diet
          "Ultra-low carbs not only solve blood sugar problems
           but improve your health and energy across the board!"
          It also gave people headaches and fatigue and proved
          too difficult for most people to stick with.

2004: The South Beach Diet
          "The realistic Atkins Diet: low carbs and reduced fat."
          This quickly became the best selling diet book of all time
          and is one of the better approaches and still popular today.

2015: Gluten Free
          "Eliminate this wheat protein from your diet an enjoy
           almost unlimited benefits."
           Perhaps 3% of the US population needs to be on a gluten
           free or reduced gluten diet. The rest apparently just likes
           to eat whatever is popular in Hollywood.

2016: The Paleo Diet
          "If it worked for cave people it will work for us!"
          Experts warn that the diet, which attempts to recreate the
          meat heavy, grain and dairy free diet of our paleolithic
          ancestors is dangerously misguided. The meats available
          to our ancestors is not available to us but were "biologically
          distinct". Also, the food groups eliminated have significant
          nutritional benefits.

2017: The Ketogenic Diet
         "Burn fat instead of carbs!"
         Originally developed as a treatment for pediatric epilepsy,
         this diet forces your body into a potentially dangerous state
         of ketosis. Ketosis occurs when people eat a low- or no-carb
         diet and molecules called ketones build up in their
         bloodstream. It can indeed help you shed a few pounds, but
         Ketosis is actually a mild form of ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis
         mostly affects people with type 1 diabetes. In fact, it is the
         leading cause of death of people with diabetes who are
         under 24 years of age.

Since 2018, eating plans promoting balance and variety began making headway. The DASH, Mediterranean and Flexitarian diets were ranked #1, #2 and #3 on the US News and World Report diet plan listing. Atkins, Paleo and Ketogenic were the worst three diets evaluated.

Two Really Great Reads

I don't often recommend books because, well, its 2020 and who reads books? I do though, and here are two really great ones that anyone interested in a long, healthy and happy life really ought to be reading.

"The Hacking of the American Mind" by Robert H Lustig, MD

The first half of the book is a little challenging, dealing as it does with the biochemistry of our brain and topics like pleasure vs happiness, addiction and stimulus-response. But the second half's detailed description of how corporations have applied neuroscience to manipulate our responses to their products and messages is a real page turner. Its scary stuff but in this case knowledge really is power.


"Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything? How the Famous Sell Us Elixers of Health, Beauty & Happiness" by Timothy Caulfield

An expose of the unholy alliance between Hollywood and Advertising that brings us irresistible science-free therapies, supplements, homeopathy, colonics and intravenous vitamins. Everything from the gluten free diet craze to Kim Kardashian's $500,000 social media posts. If you suspected that celebrity endorsements were mostly bogus, you were mostly right. But you had NO idea how far its gone.