You’ve got to quit drinking diet soda!

I’ll get off the food kick for now, but please take this last post on the matter to heart (literally, I’m afraid).

From Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism (see two previous posts):

Steer Clear of Artificial Sweeteners Aspartame (NutraSweet), neotame, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, sucralose, and dihydrochalcones … a significant component of our diets. …

Questions remain about their safety, including both short- and long-term health risks. One of the side effects we know these sweeteners have is stimulation of hunger through the cephalic, or brain-phase, insulin response. …

A number of studies have shown that aspartame ingestion may actually lead to increased food and calorie intake. This is likely because artificial sweeteners make your body produce insulin by making it think sugar is on the way. As a consequence, your body tells you to eat more sugar to balance your insulin level. Artificial sweeteners do nothing to help in this regard. They do not act as sugar and do not balance your insulin. As a result you end up with excess insulin in your body, so you end up eating more food to take care of this problem. … What’s worse, it can lead to insulin resistance, which has many serious health consequences. [Emphasis mine]

But the problems with artificial sweeteners, don’t stop there. Animal and human studies show that aspartame may disrupt brain chemistry and induce neurophysiological changes (altered brain chemistry …) that might increase seizure risk, depression, and headaches. …

… While 100 percent of the industry-funded studies conclude aspartame is safe, 92 percent of independently funded research identified aspartame as a potential cause of adverse effects.

Insulin resistance … has also been associated with every major disease related to aging, including cancer, dementia, heart disease, and, of course, diabetes. [Emphasis mine]

And, of course, you shouldn’t be drinking soda with high-fructose corn syrup either. Soft drinks should be a treat (like when the older among us were kids). They should not be a daily regimen. Please heed. The beverage industry is the tobacco industry of our time and the threat to your health is every bit as significant.

The last of the idle food thoughts for now (except one)

Ideas, recommendations and quotes from Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism. (See previous post also.)

The following are examples of real foods (which are the only kind you should eat):

• Whole fruit, not canned fruit or fruit juices
• Whole vegetables, not canned vegetables
• Wild fish, not farmed fish
• Whole grains, not processed wheat
• Grass-fed beef, not feedlot beef
• Nuts, seeds, and legumes or beans, not fried or salted

1. Eat more fiber
2. Avoid sugar
3. Stay away from supersugar, high-fructose corn syrup

Eat breakfast. A real breakfast.
Those who skip breakfast eat more, have higher cholesterol and are more insulin resistant.

Don’t eat just before bed.

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and supper like a pauper.”

Even more idle food thoughts

Having read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto Friday, today I began Mark Hyman, M.D.’s Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss.

Hyman says pretty much the same things Pollan does, though Hyman is more technical and prescriptive, fitting a physician (Pollan is a journalist).

“There is no evidence that fat is bad for you.”

There are however, good fats, bad fats and ugly fats. Good fats (like the best, omega-3) come from wild and natural foods. Bad fats come from processed vegetable oils and industrial meats. Ugly fats (the trans fats) are man-made and deadly.

“When you want to eat a certain food, ask yourself if it is a food your ancestors might have eaten. If so, take a bite; if not, put it back!”

“If it has a label, don’t eat it.”

Hyman tells about the Pima Indians (of southern Arizona) who 100 years ago were thin and fit, with a metabolism totally suited to their desert environment. Seventy to eighty percent of their diet was carbohydrates. Yet once the Western diet was introduced with its high glycemic carbs (like the ones we eat), the Pima became in one generation the least healthy and most obese people on earth (second only to Samoans). 80% of the Pima people have adult onset, or type-2 diabetes, by age 30. Their life expectancy is 46.

New Mexico skies

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iPhone photo taken on the evening of Independence Day from the patio of the Tamaya Resort on the Santa Ana Pueblo. Sandia Mountains in distance, Rio Grande bosque in foreground.

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iPhone photo taken during the at bat of the Iowa Cubs leadoff batter at last night’s game. The hitter, Sam Fuld, tripled and the Cubs went on to win 11-2. Even so, tenth row seat: $13. Beer (imported from Colorado): $7.75. Parking: Free. Another New Mexico evening outside: Priceless.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man

Henry Louis Gates, a name much in the news this past week, wrote an insightful and provocative piece for The New Yorker in the aftermath of the Simpson verdict in 1995.

I urge you to find a few minutes to read what he wrote.

Crosstown Traffic

Quit yer bitchin’ about your commute. Steve Coll writes about traffic in Lagos, Nigeria, where gridlock gets so bad vendors start selling food. Fascinating.

I was in Lagos in 1993, a city then of 12 million people with one traffic signal, and — honest this is the truth — that signal was not working.

July 26th is the birthday

… of Bob Lilly. He’s 70. My god the years do go by.

… of Mick Jagger. He’s still can’t get no satisfaction, even at 66. And time isn’t really on his side so much any more, is it?

… of Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, 64.

… of Dorothy Hamill, 53. Another that makes one wonder where the years have gone. Her gold medal was at the 1976 Winter Olympics.

… of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. He’s 50. Spacey won for best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects and leading actor for American Beauty.

… of Sandra Bullock. From Arlington, Virginia, she’s 45. Ms. Bullock has been an Academy Award presenter.

Two great comediennes were born on this date — Gracie Allen in 1895, 1897 or 1902 (her birth certificate was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake) and Vivian Vance in 1909.

Because George Burns lived to be 100 and managed to stay in show business nearly until then (playing God in one film, no less), Gracie, who died in 1964 has been largely forgotten. She was the true comedic talent of the two, however. On their radio and television programs George was the straight man, Gracie had the good lines.

At the end of their show, George Burns would say, “Say goodnight, Gracie.” Urban myth has it that she said, “Good night Gracie,” but, in fact, she always just said “Goodnight.”

“Were you the oldest one in the family?” “No, no, my mother and father were much older.” — Gracie Allen

“They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it.” — Gracie Allen

“When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.” — Gracie Allen

Vivian Vance was two years older than her long-time co-star Lucille Ball, though many thought Vance to be much older because her I Love Lucy character Ethel Mertz was married to Fred, played by actor William Frawley, who was 18 years older. Miss Vance died of cancer in 1979.

Actor Jason Robards was born on this date in 1922. Robards won two best supporting actor Oscars and was nominated a third time. NewMexiKen liked Robards in A Thousand Clowns, but Martin Balsam got the acting Oscar for that fine film.

Humorist Jean Shepherd was born on this date in 1925. As they so often do, The Writer’s Almanac had a nice, succinct essay (from 2004):

It’s the birthday of humorist Jean Shepherd, born in Chicago, Illinois (1925). He’s remembered for the autobiographical stories he told on the radio about a boy named Ralph Parker growing up in Hohman, Indiana. One of his stories was made into the movie A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated. It’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, even though every adult in his life says that he’ll shoot his eye out. The stories Shepherd told on-air were always improvised, but he later wrote them down and published them in collections like In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1967) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1972).

Shepherd said, “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856), Carl Jung (1875) and Aldous Huxley (1894) were born on July 26th.