By: Nicole Senior, Accredited Practising Dietitian & Nutritionist
 1. Food Combining helps you lose weight
There are several fad diets that promote 'food combining'-or not eating certain foods together. They advocate this way of eating for wellness and weight loss. They promote avoiding the consumption of proteins and carbohydrate foods together (such as meat and pasta, or egg on toast), and eating only fruit until midday. They say that certain foods digest at different rates and can interfere with one another, and that fruit should never be eaten with other foods because proteins and fats take too long to digest, causing fruit to 'ferment' in the stomach. How this relates to weight I'll never know!
Some bad food combos to avoid
Don't sprinkle unprocessed bran on everything because bran contains phytates which bind to minerals such as iron and zinc and reduce their absorption.
Don't overdo caffeine because it can interfere with calcium balance and impair bone health. Enjoy caffeinate containing foods and drinks in moderation.
Go easy on the salt as more sodium in the diet increases the body's need for calcium. Skip added salt and buy salt-reduced products.
Don't drink tea with meals because the tannins reduce the absorption of iron from plant foods such as breads and cereal-enjoy your tea between meals.
If you follow this diet, you end up eating less (and thus lose weight) but it has nothing to do with food combining. It's more to do with the number of meals and dishes that are off limits because they break the rules. There is no scientific basis for such strict food combining. The body is designed to digest a variety of foods and nutrients in many different combinations. In fact when our gut is at its most immature during infancy, Mother Nature's perfect food-breast milk-is a nutritionally complete mixture of carbs, fats and protein. Legumes are some of the healthiest foods around and they are a combination of protein and slow-release carbohydrates. Food combining makes no sense and has not been practised by any traditional societies in human history.
True, there are some foods and drinks that are better off not eaten together, but these combinations bear no relation to the advice in fad diet books and have nothing to do with weight loss.
Key info: The body is absolutely capable of digesting all kinds of wild and wonderful food combinations.
Long story short Food-combining diets are unscientific.
Hungry for more? Don't bother.
2. Carob is healthier than chocolate
I'm not sure how this myth started but it was probably around the time 'alternative health' took off and 'health food stores' started appearing. There is no support for it. Carob 'chocolate' (a misnomer) is a sweet chocolate-like treat made from carob powder instead of cocoa. Carob powder is derived from the seed pod of Ceratonia siliqua, a legume tree native to the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions. The use of carob pods dates back to ancient Egypt. They are sweet and the flour and syrup made from them are still used to make traditional foods in countries such as Turkey. The carob bean inside the pod is also known as the locust bean and is used as a thickener in food processing and manufacturing. Although its health benefits have been researched much less than those of cocoa, carob is known to contain antioxidants. But any nutrient and phytochemical content is diluted by the process of making carob'chocolate'.
The nutritional composition of milk chocolate versus carob'chocolate' is shown in the table above. The kilojoule content is the same, and, if anything, the carob is worse for health because it is higher in artery-clogging saturated fats, probably from the hydrogenated vegetable oil or palm oil used in making it.
Key info Milk chocolate and carob 'chocolate' are made in a similar way, but carob 'chocolate' uses carob powder instead of cocoa solids.
Long story short Milk chocolate and carob 'chocolate' have the same kilojoule (calorie) content, but carob has double the saturated-fat content which makes it less healthy than milk chocolate.
Hungry for more? Don't bother.
Nutrient Milk chocolate (100g/3½oz)
| Carob 'chocolate'
(100g/3½oz)
| | Energy (kJ/cals): 2150kJ/514 cal | Energy (kJ/cals): 2154kJ/515cal | | Protein: 8.3 | Protein:11.2 | Total fat:27.4
| Total fat:33.1
| | Sat fat: 16.9 | Sat fat:31 | Carbohydrate-total: 62
| Carbohydrate-total:44.4 | | carbohydrate-sugars: 55.5 | carbohydrate-sugars: 42.8 |
Source: NUTTA B database available at www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumerinformation/nuttab2010
3. Chocolate is addictive
Cocoa solids used to make quality chocolate do contain feel-good chemicals such as methylxanthines, biogenic amines and cannabinoid-like fatty acids. Cocoa solids contain theobromine (like that in tea) and caffeine (like that in tea and coffee).
However, they are present in such small amounts they cannot cause addiction according to the strict definition.
Calling chocolate an addictive substance is off-base for a number of reasons (although this doesn't help those struggling with overeating the stuff). Firstly, the term 'addiction' refers to drugs (yes, that includes cigarettes and alcohol), not food, and is defined as strong physiological and psychological dependence.
Although so-called 'chocoholics' may say they are psychologically damaged by skipping their beloved brown stuff, it is a far cry from a true addiction to alcohol or drugs.
Addiction is technically known as 'substance dependence' and the American Psychiatric Association defines it as when a person uses a substance persistently in a compulsive and repetitive way despite problems related to its use, builds up a tolerance to it and gets withdrawal symptoms when stopped: for example, when a heroin addict goes 'cold turkey'. There are no physical withdrawal symptoms from eating chocolate (apart from a bit of weight loss perhaps). The feel-good chemicals in chocolate are present in very small amounts. Eaten in modest portions, the drug-like effects are negligible. The potentially mood-altering chemicals are found in even tinier amounts in milk chocolate, yet chocoholics tend not to be too fussy about which type of chocolate they crave. It's all about the taste and the mouth-feel and psychological aspects of enjoying a treat.
Some claim chocolate's cannibinoid-like fatty acids mimic cannibinoids found in cannabis (marijuana) by activating receptors or increasing anandamide levels. Anandamide is a lipid that binds to cannabinoid receptors and mimics the psychoactive effects of the drug. In an interesting legal case in Belgium, a guy who tested positive in a routine urine test for cannabis claimed he had not ingested or smoked cannabis but eaten a large amount of chocolate, and this explained the positive drug test. Unfortunately for him, a toxicology lab ran some tests to see if this was possible-it wasn't. The cannibinoid-like substances in chocolate are not the same as cannibinoids in cannabis. So while you can be addicted to cannabis, you can't be addicted to chocolate in a similar manner.
Some people say they 'crave chocolate', but this is due more to cultural conditioning and psychological effects than physical need. We all know you can feel like chocolate even when you're not at all hungry. Chocolate tastes wonderful and can be used as a delicious distraction to emotions such as boredom or sadness, and stressful situations. But chocolate doesn't really fix the underlying problems you want distracting from.
The other aspect to consider is that chocolate is considered a 'naughty' food. Within a dieting 'all-or-nothing' mind-set, it becomes even more desirable. For people stuck in the dieting rut of depriving themselves of everything they love to eat, chocolate can take on forbidden status. And what happens when something is forbidden? You guessed it: we want it even more! Saying you are addicted to chocolate is a socially advantageous way to say you really like chocolate in a society obsessed with slim body image and weight loss. I say thumb your nose at the 'skinny is beautiful' brigade, accept yourself the way you are and enjoy chocolate in reasonable amounts without guilt. It's funny how self-acceptance leads to better self-care-including eating well and exercising.
Key info Addiction or substance abuse relates to drugs rather than food and 'chocoholism' does not meet the criteria.
Long story short We eat chocolate because it tastes good, and for emotional and behavioural reasons rather than physical dependence.
Hungry for more? See www.allchocolate.com (chocolate company site) and www.ifnotdieting.com.au (a non-dieting approach to weight management).
This was an excerpt from Food Myths by Nicole Senior, RRP $16.95 (New Holland Publishers) www.newholland.com.au
Comments
|