Week of Sept 8: PRODUCT REVIEW

Beanfields Bean and Rice Chips: Nacho

Taste: Great tasting. You would never know these chips are made of beans. It totally tastes like legitimate Nacho flavor without any dairy, so for those dairy-intolerant or allergic, this is the real deal. I'm sold and have already purchase a number of the other flavors.

GRADE: 9.1/10


Nutrition:    Good: Non-GMO, gluten free, vegan, and corn-free , and yet with a respectable amount of fiber and complete protein. That's better than 95% of the chips out there, easy.
 Okay:  Many may recognize some of the ingredients, but many of them are unfamiliar. Replacing the safflower and sunflower oil with avocado oil or grapeseed oil would allow it to have a much better fat profile. 
 Bad:  A little too many ingredients for my liking. Plus, many of them are not familiar ones. Lactic acid? Like the stuff that builds up when you work out too much? (used as a flavor enhancer) Annato? (It's is the extract of the achiote tree, used for color and flavor- rarely some people have had allergies or intolerances). If you like this brand of chips and want the healthiest one, get the unsalted flavor. It has only 5 ingredients, all recognizable)

GRADE:7.6/10


Price: $3-3.50.at Whole foods or Bel Air for a 6 ounce bag. Yeah, it might be more expensive than other chips, but not significantly so. 

GRADE: 8.2/10 


All the other flavors:    http://www.beanfieldssnacks.com/OurSnacks.html 

PICTURE of the WEEK:  Week of Sept 1


Not so Fast!
To lose fat, eat less fat right? Wrong. What? The picture on the left from UCSF professor Dr. Lustig, shows how the percentage of calories from fat has decreased over time, and yet our obesity rate has not decreased, but gone steadily upward.  Granted, this graphic does not address total caloric intake increasing over time, but it begs the question " Could fat have been wrongly accused all this time?"

An NY Times article that just happened to come out yesterday touches on this subject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html

Week of August 25: HEALTH BITE 

TREATING FUNCTIONALLY:

This week, I want to introduce you an approach to medicine that I'm passionate about:  It's called functional medicine, and to describe it, I'm going to use the graphic on the left.

It is one of my favorite graphics in medicine.
The branches are a reflection of how we treat patients now, and how fragmented patient care has become. Do you have acne? Oh, go see a dermatologist. Digestive issues? See the gastroenterologist. Something going in your heart? Oh I'll pass you on to the cardiologist. The problem is, these specialties often see you in terms of that organ system in isolation. But we're not just hearts, skin, or intestines are we?  No, we're a combo of all these and more. What if the skin problem is due to your digestion? Or the heart issue from something with your teeth? We need practitioners that see the bigger picture. Now look at the root of the tree on the graphic. Most signs and symptoms one experiences are a dysfunction of at least one of the roots: sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress, relationships, trauma, microbes, and environmental toxins. When was the last time your provider asked you how your relationships were? Or what kind of toxins you may have been recently exposed to?
If you or a loved one want feel like there must be something deeper to your medical condition than what what you've been told, or you would like to spend more time exploring the root of your medical conditions, I encourage you to find someone that has the time and skills that can treat you with a functional approach. After all, the "pill for the ill" approach is "branch" medicine and functional medicine is "root" medicine.

RESOURCE to find a functional practitioner: Click HERE

NUTRITION BITE: WEEK of 8/19/14

 An Ode to Food
 After talking about vitamins so much the last few weeks, I thought I’d give a shout out to the best source of vitamins/minerals: food. Yes, our soils (and as a result, the food it's grown on) are depleted of nutrients. Yes, food is harvested way too early before it's even ripe. Yes, food is often sprayed with pesticides. And yes, it's practically impossible nowadays to get your optimum nutrition by food alone. So having said all that, why is food sources of nutrients better? Let’s put it this way: why are oranges healthy for you? Vitamin C? Great, but let me ask this: Is an orange strictly a ball of Vitamin C? Absolutely not! It has hundreds, even thousands of other phytochemicals (plant chemicals), that work synergistically with the Vitamin C and with each other. That's how God made it. How silly to think we think we can simply boil down foods in our minds the primary one or two "supernutrients" and by putting those nutrients in a capsule, essentially elevate it so being equivalent to eating the food itself? 
So, the summary is this: use supplements as needed, but remember: food first!  

WEEK of AUGUST 12: NUTRITION BITE

Vitamins/ minerals: part 4:

Definition of 100%-= ALL, COMPLETE, TOTAL.
So, when I eat that one serving of Total cereal that promises me 100% of multiple vitamins, I'm good for the day right? Or if I take a multivitamin like the one in the picture on the left, I'm ALL okay, right? Sorry, try again. 

You should know a few things about the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA). The levels were determined years ago for the amount needed to prevent deficiency, NOT optimal health. Did you get that? So the RDA of Vitamin D3 may be set at 400-800 IU per day, but the optimal amount may be 2000-5000 IU daily for some people. Not only this, the RDA is supposed to be the amount needed to capture the required needs of 97.5% of the population (that's 2 standard deviations for you nerds out there). What if you’re in that other 2.5%? You may be deficient. To be fair, you may be on the other end, where the RDA is more than enough, or even too much, but that would be extremely rare (like those with certain genetic conditions). Finally, remember the other things I have already mentioned in previous entries: Is it a good quality brand? Are you getting the vitamin in the best form?
What about other confounding factors? Considering these things, you very well may need higher amounts of certain nutrients, often a lot more.  Bottom line: Use the RDA as the absolute minimum you need of any vitamin/mineral (which sadly, many American’s don’t even meet the RDA of many vitamins/minerals), and talk to a qualified dietitian/nutritionist you trust on what you need more of based on your medical conditions.

Week of August 4: NUTRITION BITE

Vitamins/ minerals: part 3

 Before you panic at the picture on the left, I promise you there will be no chemistry lesson here! Breathe... Ok.
So there you are in the supermarket looking at two bottles of vitamins. Both have the same amount of B12, folate, or Vitamin D. Why is one so much more expensive than the other? One reason (among many) could be the form of the vitamin that you’re getting. Let's just look at a few examples.

   B12: methylcobalamin vs. cyanocobalamin. Cyano, as in cyanide, is one of the breakdown products when you take the cyanocobalamin form of B12. (although toxicity is unlikely). But it's so much cheaper to make the cyano form, which is what most B12s on the shelf will be.  But if possible, get the methylcobalamin form of B12. As a general rule, methyl-forms of vitamins are always better for the body.
   B9: L-methyl folate vs. folic acid. What did I just say about methylated vitamins? Up to 50% of the population have some difficulty converting folic acid to the active form that your body can use simply due to their genetics (If you’re interested: it’s called a SNP- single nucleotide polymorphism named MTHFR). Of course, this info on folate is of note if you're pregnant or know someone that is, since they're probably taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid. 
  Vitamin D : D3 over D2. Remember what I said when I featured Vitamin D?  Click HERE for a reminder.
  Vitamin K: K2 vs. K1 vs. K3. K2 has been the form shown to be helpful in bone health, and the form that prevents of calcification of arteries. K3 has been shown to be toxic at higher doses, so I wouldn't recommend that form. K1 is the form that you get from plants, which is fine, but is not the form you’re looking for if you’re wanting the bone-building benefits.

 I could go on, but I think my point is made: Vitamin ___ on two bottles may be entirely different entities. Truly, there’s more than meets the eye when comparing vitamins. 

PICTURE of the WEEK:  Week of July 29


As Hippocrates once famously said, "Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food".