Diet Soda - Friend or Foe?

It’s hard for me to believe that 10 years have passed since I started my career as a certified diabetes educator, and that I have been a registered dietitian for – cough, cough – 20 years!

I have seen many, many food trends come and go.  Remember the fat-free craze?  As long as foods were “fat-free,” they were considered by many to be healthy.  I remember my roommate Emme sitting on the couch, munching on boxes of Snackwell cookies, only to complain to me that she had gained 10 pounds.  Hmm, I wonder why that happened!?  In the kindest tone I could muster, I would tell her it was probably because the fat-free cookies were not calorie free!  Now, we know that not all fats are considered bad and that some are indeed very healthy for us.

Diet soda has been around for as long as I can remember – it started with Tab, which was sweetened with saccharin, and has continued to include every feasible type and flavor of soda and artificial sweetener.

Over the years, I would encourage my patients to drink diet soda in place of regular soda because it didn’t contain any calories and that would help them achieve their weight loss or blood sugar goals…or, so I assumed…

Fast forward to today.  Recent epidemiological studies have been conducted on thousands of diet soda drinkers.  These studies show a strong association between drinking diet soda and having an increased risk of disease.

So what does that mean?  Well, one study suggests that if you drink diet soda daily, you have a 67% greater relative risk of getting type 2 diabetes than non-diet soda drinkers.  You also may have a 36% greater relative risk of being diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, which can lead to other serious diseases.  While the studies do not prove that diet soda directly causes these conditions, it sure does make one pause when making drink selections.  Obviously, more research will need to be conducted.

The study of nutrition is always changing.  And, as a professional, I am constantly working to keep updated.  My approach is now one in which I encourage my patients to learn about the importance of eating whole foods and not chemically altered “Franken foods.”  If your great- grandmother wouldn’t recognize the food that you are eating or drinking, it is probably not something that should be consumed.  It seems nutrition, like all things in life, has come full-circle! 

-Posted by Amy Johnson, RD, CDE

Do We Really Know What We Are Eating Anymore?

An email from our Marketing Director Melanie with the quote below and an image of these new chips, got me thinking about what goes into a certain product and asking the question: "Do we really know what we are eating anymore?"

"I saw these last night and thought you would get a kick out of it.  How disgusting!  If there are 49 chemicals in Strawberry flavoring… I can only imagine how many are in this “Chicken and Waffle” flavored bag of chips!"

Well, here's the answer.  Ingredients in Lays Chicken & Waffles:

POTATOES, VEGETABLE OIL (SUNFLOWER, CORN, AND/OR CANOLA OIL), CHICKEN & WAFFLES SEASONING (BROWN SUGAR, SUGAR, SALT, MALTODEXTRIN (MADE FROM CORN), SOYBEAN OIL, YEAST EXTRACT, NATURAL FLAVOR (INCLUDING CHICKEN FLAVOR), GUM ACACIA, ONION POWDER, SKIM MILK, SPICES, CARAMEL COLOR, MIXED TRIGLYCERIDES, GARLIC POWDER, AND PAPRIKA). CONTAINS STATEMENT: MILK INGREDIENTS.

Most likely chicken flavor is from a chemical called methyl furanthiol, which is a food additive from yeast. Not the worst ingredients I've ever seen, but still I wouldn't eat this stuff!  

What is interesting to me is that I couldn't find any human safety studies in PubMed on the food flavor, methyl furanthiol.  Not one.  There was one study showing that it is secreted in breast milk.  I did find one in vitro study showing that there is some weak mutagenic potential (depletes glutathione, an important antioxidant) of this ingredient.  This study does mention another food additive not in this product, that has much greater cytotoxicity and mutagenicity (strongly depletes glutathione) at much lower doses.  That food additive is (E)-2-hexenal (HEX- this has a fruity flavor and is added to frozen dairy, baked goods, non-alcoholic beverages, gelatin puddings, candy, jellies, frozen vegetables, soups, reconstituted vegetables and is added also to perfumes...scary!)  

Additionally, there were several studies in food science journals on the ways to make methyl furanthiol flavor more appealing to the human palate.  It is interesting to me that conventional medicine and research often gets very uptight about the safety of herbal medicines that have been used for thousands of years when we have no idea about the effects of these chemicals that are being consumed by some on a daily basis... 

I am not anti-science by any means - I think research is important, and it can be useful to expand traditional knowledge with modern methods.  However, I also think that there should be more research dollars and emphasis placed on substances that are being consumed by the majority of the population and that we have very little understanding of as it relates to the effects on human health. 

Food chemistry and science is a rapidly expanding field and it is absolutely fascinating, I learned a lot by exploring the links listed below.  Our food is changing faster than we realize and we don't really know if these changes are safe.  

One thing is for sure: that flavors and aromas are very tantalizing to humans, we may not realize it, but we like them and the demand for them is increasing.  A "natural flavor" company had to ramp up its production of "natural chicken flavor" in 2010 to keep up with demand.  The memories for food is very much near to our pleasure centers in our brain.  Certain foods can lead to secretion of pleasure hormones more so than other foods.  Interestingly, in some people, this can occur even more so for foods that they are allergic or sensitive to (i.e. gluten).  We can become addicted to food and I do wonder if food additives are playing a role in this.  Is processed food becoming the new nicotine?

Do you ever feel like you just need more fast food fries, like you just really need to have them!?  MSG is a perfect example of an artificial flavor that was rampant in processed food, but eventually led to labeling laws because of its deleterious effects on human health. 

One of my teachers, Steven Sandberg Lewis, commonly says: “You are what you eat, digest, metabolize, eliminate, think and feel.” 

Do we really know what we are eating anymore?

-Posted by Sarah Giardenelli, ND, MSOM, LAc.

"Food for Thought" - Interesting Articles to Reference:

• http://nyti.ms/WKegOV
• http://bit.ly/Wgn8dT
• http://bit.ly/152aLBw
• http://1.usa.gov/152aVJj
  
• http://1.usa.gov/Zr8PB4
• http://bit.ly/Yuq3ev
  
• http://bit.ly/16v5q9A
• http://bit.ly/12TA11k
• http://bit.ly/YdOzBo
• http://bit.ly/WKe95T
• http://bit.ly/YdOFJf
• http://bit.ly/10Mw1uy 
• http://1.usa.gov/Z79AQA