on healthy food

I recently read a report on a health food blog site which gave the ingredients of a McDonald's hamburger bun.  The blogger gasped at the concept that the bun had high fructose corn syrup along with a list of mysterious sounding chemicals and preservatives.  First off, I don't know why anyone would be shocked to learn McD's uses HFCS in their buns; I mean, it's everywhere!  Secondly, by looking at the list of chemicals and preservatives, nothing stood out to me as being so terrible.  Sure, the buns have a lot more preservatives than a home-baked loaf of bread, but most of the other chemicals would be present in your mom's recipe, just under less mysterious sounding names.

I remember a television show host once said, "if you can't pronounce an ingredient, it's probably bad for you".  Unfortunately many naturally occurring ingredients would be hard to pronounce if we used their actual chemical names.  For instance, we all know that baking soda is actually Sodium BiCarbonate, right?

Here's a quick exercise.  I'm going to list the ingredients of a food and you judge for yourself if it's something you'd ever want to put in your body, alright?

2.3 grams Fiber

95.3 grams Water

0.3 grams Protein

0.4 grams Lipids

0.6 grams Organic Acids

3mg Sodium

145mg Potassium

6mg Magnesium

7mg Calcium

65ug Manganese

480ug Iron

100ug Copper

120ug Zinc

12mg Phosporus

11.8 grams Carbohydrates which are:

           2210mg Glucose

           6030mg Fructose

           50mg Palmitic Acid

           10mg Stearic Acid

           510mg Sorbit

           600mg Starch

           2470mg Sucrose

           20mg Oleic Acid

           100mg Linolic Acid

           20mg Linoleic Acid

45mg Carotene

490ug Tocopherol

5ug Phytomenadione

35ug Thiamine Pyrophosphate

30ug Riboflavin

300ug Nicotinamide

100ug Pantothenic Acid

45ug Pyridoxil Phosphate

8ug Bitoin

7ug Folic Acid

12mg Citric Acid

2mg Chloride

7ug Fluoride

2ug Iodine

6ug Selenium

Flavonoids

Polyphenols 

16mg Leucines

15mg Lysine

12mg Valine

10mg Isoleucine

550mg Malic Acid

500ug Oxalic Acid

310ug Salicylic Acid

3mg Purines

So...would you eat it?  I should tell you that Tocopherol is commonly known as Vitamin E, Phytomenadione is Vitamin K, Thiamine Pyrophosphate is Vitamin B1, Riboflavin is Vitamin B2, Pyridoxil Phosphate isVitamin B6.  Yet I think most people would look at those chemicals and think "yecch".

The above exhaustive list is actually the ingredients of a naturally grown medium sized apple (without the seeds).

I am always suspicious of websites, advertisements, etc. that claim one or more ingredients in a food has been "linked" to some condition or disease.  I'm not saying the ingredient hasn't been linked, or isn't harmful, but I'm always suspicious.  For instance, take the above list of apple ingredients.  Salicylic acid is commonly found in facial scrubs, but always carries a warning about getting it in your eyes.  One could say Salicylic acid has been linked to eye damage.  Notice that the much maligned Fluoride is present in apples, as are Sucrose, Glucose and Fructose.  Apple skins contain polyphenols and flavonoids which have been linked to cancer; of course both of these have also been found to reduce cancer risk.  

However, if you or someone you know has an allergic reaction to a particular type of food or ingredient, or if by cutting out an ingredient or food helps you or they feel better, then by all means get rid of it.  A friend of mine cut soy out of her diet and has truly felt wonderful ever since.

The long and the short of it is, I guess we should all take everything we hear with a grain of salt, or 2mg of Sodium Chloride.