Every Saturday, a fleet of cars and trucks pulls into a windswept parking lot just off the Mediterranean. Under flapping white awnings, women slit open eggplants the size of a large man’s thumb and stuff them with a mix of chopped garlic, red peppers and walnuts. This is Souk el Tayeb, the farmers’ market that has helped make Beirut a hot destination for globe-trotting foodies. But if you want to see how the new generation of Lebanese really wants to eat, you have to go somewhere else. You have to go to Roadster Diner.
Roadster is a chain of 1950s-Americana restaurants. Its original motto, “There goes my heart,” evokes both Elvis and his artery-clogging diet. The Roadster in my Beirut neighborhood had a life-size statue of a grinning black man with huge white teeth singing into a microphone. Unlike the strenuously authentic Lebanese restaurants beloved by tourists and visiting food writers, Roadster’s nine retail franchises across Lebanon are always packed with locals.
In Europe and the United States, the so-called Mediterranean diet — rich in olive oil, whole grains, fish, fruits and vegetables and wine — is a multibillion-dollar global brand, encompassing everything from hummus to package trips to Italy, where “enogastronomic tourism” rakes in as much as five billion euros a year. Studies at Harvard and elsewhere correlate the Mediterranean diet with lower rates of heart disease, diabetes and depression. In America, health gurus like Mehmet Oz exhort followers to “eat like a Greek.” But according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Mediterranean people have some of the worst diets in Europe, and the Greeks are the fattest: about 75 percent of the Greek population is overweight.
So if the Mediterranean diet is not what people in the Mediterranean eat, then what is it?
Find out by reading the rest of the article here.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
For Healing, Meals Made to Order
JULIEN COLLOT, who is 8 and has had leukemia, has been on a low-microbial diet since his two bone-marrow transplants, in 2006 and 2007. When he developed diabetes last year, he had to go low-fat and low-sugar as well.
So Pnina Peled, the executive chef at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, makes Julien his beloved shrimp scampi with Promise, a butter substitute, and eggplant Parmesan using egg whites, whole-wheat bread crumbs and soy cheese. When Julien told Ms. Peled about his love of pumpkin spice cake, she presented him one baked with egg whites and applesauce. After he rejected the hospital’s whole-wheat ravioli, she hauled her pasta maker on the subway from Brooklyn to roll out a handmade version.
“She came in on her day off with a stack of cookbooks and sat with us to come up with a menu for him,” Julien’s mother, Jacqueline Collot, said the other day as her son relished whole-wheat spaghetti dressed with sesame oil and topped with green beans minced fine to look like scallions — Ms. Peled’s response to his stated craving for “unspicy spicy noodles.”
“What Pnina offers Julien is a combination of love of food and the freedom that was taken away for so long,” Ms. Collot added. “To see him interested in meals gives us great comfort.”
Ms. Peled, who came to Sloan-Kettering a year ago after working in some of the city’s finest restaurants and winning an episode of the popular Food Network show “Chopped,” is part of a revolution in hospital food.
Bland broths, neon Jell-O and unidentifiable white-meat products are slowly becoming scarce. Instead, hospitals like the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have extensive room-service-like menus and give patients the freedom to order meals whenever they are hungry, while the kitchen staff at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis is happy to duplicate recipes provided by parents.
Sloan-Kettering patients, too, order meals from one of 75 room-service menus — kosher, halal, vegan, low-sodium, etc. But Ms. Peled said that when she started, she saw that patients who did not find anything appealing on the menu often would not eat at all, which motivated her to make the food service more flexible.
She has a team of 35 chefs from diverse backgrounds catering to the special requests of patients, particularly the younger ones, who come to the renowned cancer center from around the globe. In recent months, one chef has been serving dal, curries and rotis to a 16-year-old patient from India; another has made yellow rice for a 3-year-old Latino boy who wanted the version like his mother’s; and a third devised a menu of low-microbial foods for an 8-year-old girl from Italy who wanted dishes that reminded her of home, like fish Francese (it has a lemon sauce).
“There’s no substitute for a good diet, and appetizing food can make all the difference,” said Dr. Susan Prockop, a pediatric oncologist at Sloan-Kettering, noting that eating well can speed recovery and keep patients off intravenous nutrition.
Dominique Symonette, the registered dietitian in charge of pediatrics at the hospital, said that cancers, and chemotherapy, often result in mouth sores, nausea, vomiting and difficulty swallowing. Low-sodium, low-sugar and low-microbial diets — which limits raw and fresh food because of the risk of infection — are common for patients with compromised immune systems or those who are taking steroids or other medications long term.
Enter Chef Peled or one of her three sous-chefs, who spend an hour each afternoon meeting with pediatric patients and their parents to discuss food preferences. (Adult patients at Sloan-Kettering can also make personalized requests, but as the mother of a 2-year-old, Ms. Peled, 37, has a soft spot for sick children.)
Veronica McLymont, director of food and nutrition services at the hospital, says the customized approach has not increased costs because when the children get what they want, less food is wasted.
Read the complete story here.
So Pnina Peled, the executive chef at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, makes Julien his beloved shrimp scampi with Promise, a butter substitute, and eggplant Parmesan using egg whites, whole-wheat bread crumbs and soy cheese. When Julien told Ms. Peled about his love of pumpkin spice cake, she presented him one baked with egg whites and applesauce. After he rejected the hospital’s whole-wheat ravioli, she hauled her pasta maker on the subway from Brooklyn to roll out a handmade version.
“She came in on her day off with a stack of cookbooks and sat with us to come up with a menu for him,” Julien’s mother, Jacqueline Collot, said the other day as her son relished whole-wheat spaghetti dressed with sesame oil and topped with green beans minced fine to look like scallions — Ms. Peled’s response to his stated craving for “unspicy spicy noodles.”
“What Pnina offers Julien is a combination of love of food and the freedom that was taken away for so long,” Ms. Collot added. “To see him interested in meals gives us great comfort.”
Ms. Peled, who came to Sloan-Kettering a year ago after working in some of the city’s finest restaurants and winning an episode of the popular Food Network show “Chopped,” is part of a revolution in hospital food.
Bland broths, neon Jell-O and unidentifiable white-meat products are slowly becoming scarce. Instead, hospitals like the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have extensive room-service-like menus and give patients the freedom to order meals whenever they are hungry, while the kitchen staff at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis is happy to duplicate recipes provided by parents.
Sloan-Kettering patients, too, order meals from one of 75 room-service menus — kosher, halal, vegan, low-sodium, etc. But Ms. Peled said that when she started, she saw that patients who did not find anything appealing on the menu often would not eat at all, which motivated her to make the food service more flexible.
She has a team of 35 chefs from diverse backgrounds catering to the special requests of patients, particularly the younger ones, who come to the renowned cancer center from around the globe. In recent months, one chef has been serving dal, curries and rotis to a 16-year-old patient from India; another has made yellow rice for a 3-year-old Latino boy who wanted the version like his mother’s; and a third devised a menu of low-microbial foods for an 8-year-old girl from Italy who wanted dishes that reminded her of home, like fish Francese (it has a lemon sauce).
“There’s no substitute for a good diet, and appetizing food can make all the difference,” said Dr. Susan Prockop, a pediatric oncologist at Sloan-Kettering, noting that eating well can speed recovery and keep patients off intravenous nutrition.
Dominique Symonette, the registered dietitian in charge of pediatrics at the hospital, said that cancers, and chemotherapy, often result in mouth sores, nausea, vomiting and difficulty swallowing. Low-sodium, low-sugar and low-microbial diets — which limits raw and fresh food because of the risk of infection — are common for patients with compromised immune systems or those who are taking steroids or other medications long term.
Enter Chef Peled or one of her three sous-chefs, who spend an hour each afternoon meeting with pediatric patients and their parents to discuss food preferences. (Adult patients at Sloan-Kettering can also make personalized requests, but as the mother of a 2-year-old, Ms. Peled, 37, has a soft spot for sick children.)
Veronica McLymont, director of food and nutrition services at the hospital, says the customized approach has not increased costs because when the children get what they want, less food is wasted.
Read the complete story here.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Calorie Postings Don’t Change Habits, Study Finds
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.
The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.
It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.
But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.
The findings, to be published Tuesday in the online version of the journal Health Affairs come amid the spreading popularity of calorie-counting proposals as a way to improve public health across the country.
Read the rest of the story here.
A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.
The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.
It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.
But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.
The findings, to be published Tuesday in the online version of the journal Health Affairs come amid the spreading popularity of calorie-counting proposals as a way to improve public health across the country.
Read the rest of the story here.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Transplant Patients Push Physical Limits
(CNN) -- If all goes according to plan, cancer survivor Kyle Garlett will compete in October's Ford Ironman World Championship, a grueling triathlon made up of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run.
And he'll do it with another man's heart pumping in his chest.
"I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't consider me a success story and a survivor," Garlett said.
His medical issues began in 1989 when he received his first Hodgkin's disease diagnosis as a high school senior. In 1995, during his third battle with the cancer, doctors ceased his chemotherapy treatment when they discovered it had weakened his heart.
Two years later, Garlett learned he had secondary leukemia as a result of chemotherapy to treat the Hodgkin's, and three more years of chemotherapy ensued.
And after five years on the waiting list, he received a new heart in 2006.
Now, the 37-year-old savors his body's capabilities.
"It's kind of like the starving person who all of a sudden finds himself in front of a buffet. And now I've got the buffet. I've got my all-you-can-eat plate, and I'm just loading it up," Garlett said.
A heart transplant may seem extremely daunting, but Garlett saw it as a more hopeful operation than his years of cancer treatments.
"Going in for chemotherapy, as a patient you know what's happening. Your body is being poisoned and you know that when you come out on the other side of it, you're going to have given up something," said Garlett, a sportswriter and motivational speaker living in Marina del Rey, California.
"On the heart transplant, though, it was completely the opposite. I knew that from the day of the transplant on, every day I'd be getting stronger. And they were now doing something that was going to fix me, improve my life."
Garlett, who says he's "not a klutz" but "definitely not a natural athlete," trains about 15 hours a week for October's Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. Closer to race time, he expects to spend 20 to 25 hours a week in intense training to achieve his goal of finishing within the 17-hour time limit.
Garlett was invited to compete in the elite event because organizers believe he "demonstrates the Ironman mantra: Anything is possible," said Blair LaHaye, director of communications for Ironman.
LaHaye said a handful of athletes are invited to take part in the event each year, but their inclusion doesn't reduce the number of slots for those who get in by doing well in qualifying events, or by winning a spot through the Ironman lottery. Garlett will compete in a half-Ironman or other long-distance event before Kona to validate his selection.
The training and competition are demanding enough for competitors without health issues. But being a heart transplant patient comes with the extra challenge of getting the organ to beat at an acceptable rate.
"When the old heart comes out, all the nerves are severed. And when the donor heart comes in, the nerves are not connected," explained Dr. Jon Kobashigawa, medical director of the UCLA Heart Transplant Program, where Garlett is a patient.
In a person whose heart is intact, "the brain will tell the heart, 'Let's go, start exercising, let's start beating faster,' " Kobashigawa said. A donor heart, however, relies on circulating adrenaline in order to get it going. As a result, heart transplant recipients must warm up thoroughly to get their heart pumping properly.
The "denervated" heart works about 80 to 90 percent as well as a normal heart, Kobashigawa said, "but through exercise, these patients who do strenuous activities, I believe, do get their exercise capacity almost to the normal range, if not normal."
It's also possible, doctors say, for the donor heart to re-innervate -- or grow nerves onto the donor heart.
Following in his footsteps
Garlett is on a trail blazed by Dwight Kroening, the first heart transplant recipient to complete the Ironman, last year in Canada.
Kroening, now 49, got a new heart in 1986 after his swelled to about twice its normal size for unknown reasons.
He was 26 at the time -- a gym teacher, coach and athlete. At first, running with his students became a struggle. Within days, he couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to rest. Soon, combing his hair and brushing his teeth became too taxing, he said.
When doctors examined him as a candidate for a heart transplant, they told him his heart was working at 8 percent of its normal capacity and he probably had about two months to live.
Kroening began exercising a week after the surgery, but soon discovered he was incapable of athletic activities that required sprinting, he said.
"I [told my doctors], there's something wrong here. I'm not able to do these things. And they said, 'Of course not,' " Kroening said.
"So being me, I was more or less bound and determined to prove that they were wrong, that I could actually train myself to be able to do these things," he said.
But overcoming those hurdles wasn't easy, even after 22 years of practice. Three-quarters of the way into the Ironman's bicycle leg, Kroening felt ill and fatigued, he said. He questioned whether he would be able to finish.
He did, in 15½ hours -- one hour longer than his target. VideoWatch Kroening compete in the Ironman »
"When we test [heart transplant recipients] on the treadmill, their peak heart rate is around 140 beats [per minute] and they can maintain that for one minute. ... When Dwight did the Ironman, we recorded his heart rate, and he was able to exercise at a heart rate of 133 beats per minute for 15½ hours," said Mark Haykowsky, a professor of rehab medicine at Canada's University of Alberta. Haykowsky studied Kroening for research on exercise habits of heart transplant recipients.
Since the Ironman, Kroening has competed in other events, including a marathon and a triathlon. He may compete in another Ironman next year in Arizona, the state where he received his heart transplant.
"I relate [the Ironman] to what I guess would be like childbirth," Kroening said. "In the process, you're thinking, 'I'll never do this again in my whole life. This is absolutely crazy.' But I think probably about three days later that I started thinking, 'Now this might be something that I might want to do again.' "
'The ultimate price'
Both Garlett and Kroening say promoting organ donation motivates them to compete in these endurance challenges.
Kroening also says he wants to make the most of his "orphaned" heart.
"I wish I could meet my donor family and ... thank them personally," Kroening said. "[I want to let them] know for 23 years, I've been taking good care of their son's heart."
Garlett, too, recognizes his donor's family, who provided the heart of a 42-year-old construction worker who died on the job.
"I never lost sight of the fact that that moment for my family of great joy was only going to be coming ... with somebody else having to pay the ultimate price like that," Garlett said.
"And that always was in my head, and this man who gave me his heart would always be with me."
And he'll do it with another man's heart pumping in his chest.
"I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't consider me a success story and a survivor," Garlett said.
His medical issues began in 1989 when he received his first Hodgkin's disease diagnosis as a high school senior. In 1995, during his third battle with the cancer, doctors ceased his chemotherapy treatment when they discovered it had weakened his heart.
Two years later, Garlett learned he had secondary leukemia as a result of chemotherapy to treat the Hodgkin's, and three more years of chemotherapy ensued.
And after five years on the waiting list, he received a new heart in 2006.
Now, the 37-year-old savors his body's capabilities.
"It's kind of like the starving person who all of a sudden finds himself in front of a buffet. And now I've got the buffet. I've got my all-you-can-eat plate, and I'm just loading it up," Garlett said.
A heart transplant may seem extremely daunting, but Garlett saw it as a more hopeful operation than his years of cancer treatments.
"Going in for chemotherapy, as a patient you know what's happening. Your body is being poisoned and you know that when you come out on the other side of it, you're going to have given up something," said Garlett, a sportswriter and motivational speaker living in Marina del Rey, California.
"On the heart transplant, though, it was completely the opposite. I knew that from the day of the transplant on, every day I'd be getting stronger. And they were now doing something that was going to fix me, improve my life."
Garlett, who says he's "not a klutz" but "definitely not a natural athlete," trains about 15 hours a week for October's Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. Closer to race time, he expects to spend 20 to 25 hours a week in intense training to achieve his goal of finishing within the 17-hour time limit.
Garlett was invited to compete in the elite event because organizers believe he "demonstrates the Ironman mantra: Anything is possible," said Blair LaHaye, director of communications for Ironman.
LaHaye said a handful of athletes are invited to take part in the event each year, but their inclusion doesn't reduce the number of slots for those who get in by doing well in qualifying events, or by winning a spot through the Ironman lottery. Garlett will compete in a half-Ironman or other long-distance event before Kona to validate his selection.
The training and competition are demanding enough for competitors without health issues. But being a heart transplant patient comes with the extra challenge of getting the organ to beat at an acceptable rate.
"When the old heart comes out, all the nerves are severed. And when the donor heart comes in, the nerves are not connected," explained Dr. Jon Kobashigawa, medical director of the UCLA Heart Transplant Program, where Garlett is a patient.
In a person whose heart is intact, "the brain will tell the heart, 'Let's go, start exercising, let's start beating faster,' " Kobashigawa said. A donor heart, however, relies on circulating adrenaline in order to get it going. As a result, heart transplant recipients must warm up thoroughly to get their heart pumping properly.
The "denervated" heart works about 80 to 90 percent as well as a normal heart, Kobashigawa said, "but through exercise, these patients who do strenuous activities, I believe, do get their exercise capacity almost to the normal range, if not normal."
It's also possible, doctors say, for the donor heart to re-innervate -- or grow nerves onto the donor heart.
Following in his footsteps
Garlett is on a trail blazed by Dwight Kroening, the first heart transplant recipient to complete the Ironman, last year in Canada.
Kroening, now 49, got a new heart in 1986 after his swelled to about twice its normal size for unknown reasons.
He was 26 at the time -- a gym teacher, coach and athlete. At first, running with his students became a struggle. Within days, he couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to rest. Soon, combing his hair and brushing his teeth became too taxing, he said.
When doctors examined him as a candidate for a heart transplant, they told him his heart was working at 8 percent of its normal capacity and he probably had about two months to live.
Kroening began exercising a week after the surgery, but soon discovered he was incapable of athletic activities that required sprinting, he said.
"I [told my doctors], there's something wrong here. I'm not able to do these things. And they said, 'Of course not,' " Kroening said.
"So being me, I was more or less bound and determined to prove that they were wrong, that I could actually train myself to be able to do these things," he said.
But overcoming those hurdles wasn't easy, even after 22 years of practice. Three-quarters of the way into the Ironman's bicycle leg, Kroening felt ill and fatigued, he said. He questioned whether he would be able to finish.
He did, in 15½ hours -- one hour longer than his target. VideoWatch Kroening compete in the Ironman »
"When we test [heart transplant recipients] on the treadmill, their peak heart rate is around 140 beats [per minute] and they can maintain that for one minute. ... When Dwight did the Ironman, we recorded his heart rate, and he was able to exercise at a heart rate of 133 beats per minute for 15½ hours," said Mark Haykowsky, a professor of rehab medicine at Canada's University of Alberta. Haykowsky studied Kroening for research on exercise habits of heart transplant recipients.
Since the Ironman, Kroening has competed in other events, including a marathon and a triathlon. He may compete in another Ironman next year in Arizona, the state where he received his heart transplant.
"I relate [the Ironman] to what I guess would be like childbirth," Kroening said. "In the process, you're thinking, 'I'll never do this again in my whole life. This is absolutely crazy.' But I think probably about three days later that I started thinking, 'Now this might be something that I might want to do again.' "
'The ultimate price'
Both Garlett and Kroening say promoting organ donation motivates them to compete in these endurance challenges.
Kroening also says he wants to make the most of his "orphaned" heart.
"I wish I could meet my donor family and ... thank them personally," Kroening said. "[I want to let them] know for 23 years, I've been taking good care of their son's heart."
Garlett, too, recognizes his donor's family, who provided the heart of a 42-year-old construction worker who died on the job.
"I never lost sight of the fact that that moment for my family of great joy was only going to be coming ... with somebody else having to pay the ultimate price like that," Garlett said.
"And that always was in my head, and this man who gave me his heart would always be with me."
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Could "Healthy Eating" Lead to Malnutrition?
From The Times
May 2, 2008
Too much healthy eating is as bad for children as too much junk
It is no surprise that children love junk food. Its makers go to great lengths to make sure that their offerings deliver a full-on, unsubtle assault on taste buds, with plenty of salt or sugar to create the sense that it is “tasty”.
But a significant proportion of our nation's children are worryingly chubby and heading for potential obesity problems in later life, it seems that others are suffering from “muesli belt malnutrition”: the overzealous application of “healthy eating” rules imposed on their daily food intake. A recent study warns us that too much fibre and too little fat can lead to vitamin deficiencies and stunts growth in the under-fives.
This means that young children who have wholemeal bread, brown pasta and piles of fruit imposed on them are getting too full too quickly and do not have room for enough foods such as dairy products, meat, eggs and fish, which have vital nutrients for growth and development.
So how do we strike a balance? Children thrive on a good variety of foods, which includes grains and potatoes such as bread, pasta, noodles, rice and all varieties of potatoes; calcium-rich foods such as milk, yoghurt, fish canned with edible bones such as pilchards; protein-rich foods such as eggs, chicken and turkey, red meat and Quorn products; plus a variety of different fruit and vegetables. The million-dollar question is how much should they have of each at various ages.
This to some extent varies with the size and appetite of your child. The World Health Organisation has provided some useful parameters.
Lower-fat milk
You can start giving toddlers semi-skimmed milk from the age of 2. Fully skimmed milk is not suitable as a main drink until they are 5, because it doesn't contain enough calories for a growing child.
Fish
Because oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines contain residues of pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs, the Food Standards Agency advises that you can give boys up to four portions a week, but that girls should have no more than two a week, because the residues can build up in their bodies over the years and can affect reproductive functions in later life. Shark, swordfish and marlin contain relatively high levels of mercury, which may affect a child's developing nervous system, so these should be avoided.
Eggs and nuts
Toddlers should have their eggs well cooked until the white and yolk are solid to avoid salmonella, while nuts for children under 5 should be given only crushed or flaked to reduce the risk of choking.
Wholegrain foods
Definitely do not add bran to children's foods and avoid giving very young children wholemeal pasta and brown rice. Too much fibre can sometimes reduce the amount of minerals, such as calcium and iron, that they can absorb and leave them feeling bloated and too full to finish their meal. By the time they are 5, young children can gradually be weaned on to wholegrain versions of cereals.
What about salt?
There is no need to add salt to the food of children under the age of three. Children in the UK manage to chomp their way through as much as 10-12g of salt daily and yet under the age of 7, children should have no more than 3g of salt each day and those between 7 and 10 no more than 5g. Once over 11, like adults, they should have no more than 6g of salt daily. Current high intakes can damage their developing kidneys and store up potential blood pressure and heart disease problems.
How much sugar?
Our children are getting about 17 per cent of their daily calories from sugar when they should, like adults, be getting no more than 10per cent. This means that four to six-year-olds should eat no more than 40g of sugar a day; seven to ten-year-olds no more than 46g and 11 to 14-year-olds no more than 50g.
If you limit children's consumption of sweets, chocolate and biscuits, along with fizzy drinks and squashes, you will cut their sugar intake. But honey in flapjacks, fruit syrup added to “orange drinks”, glucose syrup in breakfast cereals and dextrose in fromage frais all also count towards sugar intake and also need to be watched.
A good rule of thumb is to look on the nutrition label. Foods and drinks with less than 2g per 100g of sugars (this figure will include all the various forms in which sugar comes) is low in sugar, while any with more than 10g is high.
May 2, 2008
Too much healthy eating is as bad for children as too much junk
It is no surprise that children love junk food. Its makers go to great lengths to make sure that their offerings deliver a full-on, unsubtle assault on taste buds, with plenty of salt or sugar to create the sense that it is “tasty”.
But a significant proportion of our nation's children are worryingly chubby and heading for potential obesity problems in later life, it seems that others are suffering from “muesli belt malnutrition”: the overzealous application of “healthy eating” rules imposed on their daily food intake. A recent study warns us that too much fibre and too little fat can lead to vitamin deficiencies and stunts growth in the under-fives.
This means that young children who have wholemeal bread, brown pasta and piles of fruit imposed on them are getting too full too quickly and do not have room for enough foods such as dairy products, meat, eggs and fish, which have vital nutrients for growth and development.
So how do we strike a balance? Children thrive on a good variety of foods, which includes grains and potatoes such as bread, pasta, noodles, rice and all varieties of potatoes; calcium-rich foods such as milk, yoghurt, fish canned with edible bones such as pilchards; protein-rich foods such as eggs, chicken and turkey, red meat and Quorn products; plus a variety of different fruit and vegetables. The million-dollar question is how much should they have of each at various ages.
This to some extent varies with the size and appetite of your child. The World Health Organisation has provided some useful parameters.
Lower-fat milk
You can start giving toddlers semi-skimmed milk from the age of 2. Fully skimmed milk is not suitable as a main drink until they are 5, because it doesn't contain enough calories for a growing child.
Fish
Because oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines contain residues of pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs, the Food Standards Agency advises that you can give boys up to four portions a week, but that girls should have no more than two a week, because the residues can build up in their bodies over the years and can affect reproductive functions in later life. Shark, swordfish and marlin contain relatively high levels of mercury, which may affect a child's developing nervous system, so these should be avoided.
Eggs and nuts
Toddlers should have their eggs well cooked until the white and yolk are solid to avoid salmonella, while nuts for children under 5 should be given only crushed or flaked to reduce the risk of choking.
Wholegrain foods
Definitely do not add bran to children's foods and avoid giving very young children wholemeal pasta and brown rice. Too much fibre can sometimes reduce the amount of minerals, such as calcium and iron, that they can absorb and leave them feeling bloated and too full to finish their meal. By the time they are 5, young children can gradually be weaned on to wholegrain versions of cereals.
What about salt?
There is no need to add salt to the food of children under the age of three. Children in the UK manage to chomp their way through as much as 10-12g of salt daily and yet under the age of 7, children should have no more than 3g of salt each day and those between 7 and 10 no more than 5g. Once over 11, like adults, they should have no more than 6g of salt daily. Current high intakes can damage their developing kidneys and store up potential blood pressure and heart disease problems.
How much sugar?
Our children are getting about 17 per cent of their daily calories from sugar when they should, like adults, be getting no more than 10per cent. This means that four to six-year-olds should eat no more than 40g of sugar a day; seven to ten-year-olds no more than 46g and 11 to 14-year-olds no more than 50g.
If you limit children's consumption of sweets, chocolate and biscuits, along with fizzy drinks and squashes, you will cut their sugar intake. But honey in flapjacks, fruit syrup added to “orange drinks”, glucose syrup in breakfast cereals and dextrose in fromage frais all also count towards sugar intake and also need to be watched.
A good rule of thumb is to look on the nutrition label. Foods and drinks with less than 2g per 100g of sugars (this figure will include all the various forms in which sugar comes) is low in sugar, while any with more than 10g is high.
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