Splenda

On Pinterest, I just ran across an article about the dangers of calorie-free sweeteners used in several different products like Splenda.

This particular woman, who is not a health professional of any sort, made the claim that artificial sweeteners cause retinopathy and neurophathy. Retinopathy is a disease of your eye that can cause blindness and neuropathy is a disease of your nerves that can cause either pain or loss of feeling. She said that these diseases are common among diabetics, so it's no coincidence that diabetics have these problems since they often use artificial sweeteners!

The problem with her statement is that she doesn't understand what causes these diseases in diabetics. Retinopathy, Neuropathy, and Nephropathy (kidney disease) are caused by the osmotic load uncontrolled diabetes places on your organs. God designed our bodies amazingly... they can be so flexible and undergo a LOT of wear and tear... and yet there's a point when the stresses on organs is just too much. When diabetics have uncontrolled sugar in their blood for long, extended periods of time (like >15 years), it wreaks havoc. It changes the makeup of body fluids and pulls water and proteins in and out of places it usually wouldn't. Although that's a really simplistic explanation, it is essentially what causes eye, nerve, and kidney disease in diabetics. There is TONS of supporting research that shows diabetics who keep a very tight range of blood glucose DON'T DEVELOP THESE PROBLEMS.

I'm certainly not saying all sugar-free products are the answer or that we have all the research we need on them to confirm they are safe in all amounts of consumption. But I will encourage you to be careful what you believe. Listen to your body, follow your convictions, but be wise and discerning who you accept food information from. (And if you're still worried, go ahead and switch to Agave or Stevia!)

self-assessment

In the spirit of creating healthy relationships with food, here is a short quiz I ran across for class that speaks to one type of eating behavior. Check it out!

http://www.casapalmera.com/assessments/eating-disorder-self-assessment.php

What's for supper tonight...

• INGREDIENTS 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided $
• 1 (10-ounce) bag baby spinach, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced $
• 3 vertically sliced shallots (or half a purple onion)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
• 3/4 teaspoon chopped thyme, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon salt $
• 1 (8-ounce) package cremini mushrooms, quartered
• 3/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped and divided
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar $
• 2 ounces shredded Gruyere cheese (or swiss)
• 8 cups water
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 4 large eggs $

Preparation

1. 1. Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon oil. Add spinach; sauté 2 minutes. Remove spinach from pan; drain, cool slightly, and squeeze out excess moisture. Add remaining oil to pan. Add garlic and shallots; sauté 3 minutes. Add sage, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, salt, and mushrooms; sauté 7 minutes. Stir in spinach, 1/2 cup walnuts, red wine vinegar, and cheese; cook 30 seconds.
2. 2. Combine 8 cups water and white vinegar in a large saucepan, and bring to a simmer. Break each egg gently into pan. Cook 3 minutes. Remove eggs using a slotted spoon. Spoon 2/3 cup mushroom mixture onto each of 4 plates. Top each serving with 1 egg. Sprinkle evenly with remaining thyme, pepper, and walnuts.

Adam Hickman, Cooking Light 
MARCH 2012

Nutritional Information

Amount per serving

• Calories: 350
• Fat: 24.3g
• Saturated fat: 5.5g
• Monounsaturated fat: 7.5g
• Polyunsaturated fat: 10.2g
• Protein: 17.4g
• Carbohydrate: 18.4g
• Fiber: 5.1g
• Cholesterol: 196mg
• Iron: 4.4mg
• Sodium: 383mg
• Calcium: 257mg

We need a DTR

I'm sorry I've fallen off the blog-o-sphere!
I will try to do better at updating this with applicable things everyone can use.

In college, we had a term called a "DTR".  When two people started hanging out a lot, but never actually talked about their relationship status, eventually one of them would initiate a "dtr" or "Define the Relationship."  Lately I've been thinking about how important our relationship with food is. Maybe it's time we all sat down and had a DTR with food.

I'm finding this field of nutrition to be very interesting for tons of reasons.
One of them is that everyone (okay, maybe not everyone) thinks they're an expert.
I believe this is because FOOD is something everyone is very familiar with.
We eat every day. Everyone eats pretty much every day. Most of us, many times every day.
Therefore, EVERYONE has this huge history of experiences with food.

This creates a very complex dynamic because it gives all of us so many opportunities to either have a good relationship with food, or a poor one. This relationship is influenced by culture, by media, by our parents' relationships with food, by our friends, by what other people tell us about food, and by our own relationship with our self.

Do you reward yourself with food?
Do you have a hard time eating with or around others?
Do you see restricting what you eat as self-punishment?
Do you separate enjoying food with its purpose? Meaning... can you enjoy food while at the same time understanding that we eat also to nourish our bodies?
Does food make you feel guilty?

This is a process I am learning more and more about and won't pretend to have all the answers.  But I believe how we view and think about food (our relationship with it) is just about as important and the things we put in our bodies.