27 February 2014
Last updated at 19:14 ET
Good fat, good fat, sugar
It's a big day for fat, which spent years as an enemy of health.
A growing body of research shows that fat can actually be good for you - and that when it comes to poor diets, another, more dangerous ingredient is hiding in plain sight.
Fat, carbohydrates and protein are macronutrients, the building blocks of all other foods.
Carbohydrates and protein have four calories per gram, and fat has nine calories per gram.
As obesity rates rose toward the end of the 20th Century, health professionals looked for ways to slow the growth.
"The idea in the late 1980s was if you cut down on fat, you'd be cutting down on calories," says Marian Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University
And so a new era of snacking began, with food companies promoting fat-free or low-fat items and consumers trying to cut down on fat in the name of healthful living.
"We need carbohydrates, we need protein, we need fat," he
says. "Fat as a category is not bad," even though certain types of fat,
such as trans fatty acids, can be harmful.
In fact, research shows that dietary fat serves an important purpose: many vitamins are fat-soluble, so vegetables and other nutrient-rich foods are best consumed with a bit of fat to help the body better absorb the nutrients.
And a new study from Sweden suggests that consuming high dietary fat is associated with lower rates of obesity. Researchers suspect that full-fat foods make one feel full - and therefore less inclined to overeat.
"Most nutrition experts are on the same page now that it's not fat that's the villain, it's calories," says Grotto.
And one of the biggest culprits in boosting the calorie contents of food, say nutrition experts, is sugar.
"If you were on a desert island, eating sugar would be preferable to drinking seawater," says Walter Willet, dean of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
But that's about all he can say in favour of the sweet stuff. A type of carbohydrate, sugar only packs four calories per gram. But many products use a lot of it to boost taste. Consumption offers other problems, too.
"We know that high intakes of added sugars are associated with a number of risk factors for coronary heart disease," says Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont. Eating calories from sugar means you're not getting other essential nutrients that you might from a less sugary snack.
There is also increased risk of dangerous blood fat levels, inflammation and, according to a recent paper, heart disease-related death.
Troublingly, that same paper showed that sugar consumption was at a dangerously high level in the US. In fact, more than 70% of Americans exceed the recommendation that only one-tenth of the day's calories come from sugar.
"Naturally occurring sugar comes along with vitamins, minerals, and fibre," says Nestle. "No one is worried about the amount of sugar in fruit or milk. It's the added sugars that dilute the vitamins, minerals, and fibre in food," and that contribute to high-calorie choices.
After all, says Grotto, it's total calories and quality of calories that make a meal choice good or bad - not necessarily what's in it.
"It's myopic to look at a single ingredient, but we always seem to love demonising something," says Grotto.
"Sugar has become the new fat."
Fat in, sugar out: Label creates new food hierarchy
Good fat, good fat, sugar
This
week first lady Michelle Obama proposed new rules for the nutrition
labels on packaged foods sold on US shelves. The new recommendations
draw attention away from dietary fat while casting light on an even less
nutritious ingredient - added sugar.
A growing body of research shows that fat can actually be good for you - and that when it comes to poor diets, another, more dangerous ingredient is hiding in plain sight.
Fat, carbohydrates and protein are macronutrients, the building blocks of all other foods.
Carbohydrates and protein have four calories per gram, and fat has nine calories per gram.
As obesity rates rose toward the end of the 20th Century, health professionals looked for ways to slow the growth.
"The idea in the late 1980s was if you cut down on fat, you'd be cutting down on calories," says Marian Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University
And so a new era of snacking began, with food companies promoting fat-free or low-fat items and consumers trying to cut down on fat in the name of healthful living.
Continue reading the main story
Highlights from the proposed updates to the US nutritional label
The new label
- Calorie content given in bigger font
- Serving size more realistic. A pint of ice cream goes from four servings to two
- Items that could be consumed in one sitting, such as a 20oz (0.56l) soft drink, must give nutrition for both suggested serving sizes and total package size
- Potassium and Vitamin D levels listed
Fat earned a slight reprieve at
the turn of this century, when carbohydrates became the focus of many
diets. But David Grotto, author of the Best Things You Can Eat, says the
current conventional wisdom is moving away from the philosophy that an
entire class of macronutrients can make or break your diet.
In fact, research shows that dietary fat serves an important purpose: many vitamins are fat-soluble, so vegetables and other nutrient-rich foods are best consumed with a bit of fat to help the body better absorb the nutrients.
And a new study from Sweden suggests that consuming high dietary fat is associated with lower rates of obesity. Researchers suspect that full-fat foods make one feel full - and therefore less inclined to overeat.
"Most nutrition experts are on the same page now that it's not fat that's the villain, it's calories," says Grotto.
And one of the biggest culprits in boosting the calorie contents of food, say nutrition experts, is sugar.
"If you were on a desert island, eating sugar would be preferable to drinking seawater," says Walter Willet, dean of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
But that's about all he can say in favour of the sweet stuff. A type of carbohydrate, sugar only packs four calories per gram. But many products use a lot of it to boost taste. Consumption offers other problems, too.
"We know that high intakes of added sugars are associated with a number of risk factors for coronary heart disease," says Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont. Eating calories from sugar means you're not getting other essential nutrients that you might from a less sugary snack.
There is also increased risk of dangerous blood fat levels, inflammation and, according to a recent paper, heart disease-related death.
Troublingly, that same paper showed that sugar consumption was at a dangerously high level in the US. In fact, more than 70% of Americans exceed the recommendation that only one-tenth of the day's calories come from sugar.
Continue reading the main story
Secret sugars
Even though ingredients used the most in a packaged food usually sit at the top of the ingredient label, "food companies have gotten clever at breaking up the added sugar," says Walter Willet. You may see some of these listed instead:- High fructose corn syrup
- Cane crystal/cane juice
- Isomalt
- Sucrose
- Maltose
- Sorbitol
- Dextrose
Why? While everyone was cutting
back on fat in the 1980s and 1990s, sugar was slowly taking hold of the
American diet. Those boxes of low-fat snack cakes? Nestle says that to
replace the flavour benefits of fat, food manufacturers just upped the
sugar, and therefore the calorie content.
The new nutritional labels announced by Mrs Obama aim to
change that by giving new, prominent real estate to sugar, especially
the added sugars which pose the biggest threats."Naturally occurring sugar comes along with vitamins, minerals, and fibre," says Nestle. "No one is worried about the amount of sugar in fruit or milk. It's the added sugars that dilute the vitamins, minerals, and fibre in food," and that contribute to high-calorie choices.
After all, says Grotto, it's total calories and quality of calories that make a meal choice good or bad - not necessarily what's in it.
"It's myopic to look at a single ingredient, but we always seem to love demonising something," says Grotto.
"Sugar has become the new fat."
In today's Magazine
-
Japan hopes to immortalise its World War Two kamikaze pilots by seeking Unesco World Heritage status for a collection of their letters.
Remembering Japan's kamikaze pilots
-
When Copenhagen Zoo put down a healthy male giraffe earlier this month, much of the world was outraged. But many Danes could not understand what the problem was.
How many healthy animals do zoos put down?
-
Seventy years ago, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin deported the entire Ingush and Chechen populations. About a third died before they were allowed back.
Deported by Stalin to Central Asia
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered