Making the Right Nutritional Choices

For me, technology and innovation are somewhat bittersweet concepts. Don’t get me wrong though; I love the carbon fiber and aerodynamic technology just as much as anyone. I also send praise and thanks to sports nutrition scientists every time I have enough energy for a five-hour bike ride, but when it comes to food and diets I tend to think of technology as more of a band-aid to nutrient deficient food and improper eating than an asset to our health. Gone are the days prior to high fructose corn syrup, FD&C dyes, enriched flours, partially hydrogenated oils, and a host of other ingredients which I cannot pronounce or imagine being anywhere else than some chemical factory filled with workers wearing shower caps, masks and white coats. But, somehow all of these ‘ingredients’ have found their way into our food system, bodies and children. The scariest part about it all is that these ‘nutrients’ have been added to our food after they have been grown in nutrient depleted soil, and sprayed with fertilizers and chemicals that are better suited for a New York subway tunnel than the earth we live off of. It’s no wonder why vitamins and minerals are put back into our food after they’ve been grown and processed. For fine tuned athletes constantly pushing their bodies to increased lactate thresholds and high heart rates choosing healthy foods and making the right nutritional choices is necessary for success. What you put in your body will reflect what you get out of it.

The concept of organic and whole foods was not something talked about sixty years ago because the advent of food processing, fast-food, cellophane packaging, and global shipping had yet to rear its head into our everyday life. Today, the aisles in supermarkets are filled with foods that have been stripped of their inherent nutrients, wrapped in all sorts of packaging, sprayed with chemicals and shipped from all over the world. Our food supply has become so depleted of anything beneficial that in February of this year the Food and Drug Administration released a set of guidelines for manufacturers as to what a whole grain is and what foods can be called such. For now this is only a definition and not legally enforceable but it’s a sign that our food and its consumers have already begun to distinguish. In response to the degradation of our food supply a number of organizations have sprouted up to raise awareness and act as our watchdogs over the food industry. One of them is the Whole Grain Council which provides the public with information on whole grains, consumer education, sponsors research and serves as a liaison between science, industry and consumers.

The Whole Grain. Most grains fall under the classification known as cereal grains and these include wheat, barley, oats, corn (including popcorn), rice, quinoa, spelt, kamut, bulgur, buckwheat (kasha), millet and teff to name a few. The entire grain itself, not including stalk and leaves, is called the kernel which is composed of three different parts; the Bran, Endosperm and Germ. The bran portion is the outer most covering or shell of the grain and contains fiber, B vitamins and trace minerals. The next layer is the endosperm which provide carbohydrate, plant protein, and some B vitamins and the innermost portion of the grain, germ, has vitamin E, essential fatty acids, phytochemicals, trace minerals, and B vitamins. Whole grains contain many different phytochemicals and nutrients that include resistant starch, lignin, antioxidants, inulin and, saponins, phytoestrogens, and suberin. Without defining each of these they are beneficial to humans for their protective and disease preventive properties. Some of the more well-known phytochemicals are lycopene in tomatoes, isoflavones in soy and flavanoids in fruits. For athletes their importance comes in protecting from oxidative damage due to aerobic activity, providing bone strength, and helping to maintain overall health. In addition, given that an athlete’s diet should primarily be based in carbohydrates (55%-60%) the sources of these should come from whole grains consisting of as much nutrients as possible.

Today most of the grains we consume are stripped of the majority of these beneficial properties and nutrients during processing, some of which are then re-added and labeled as an enriched product, or sold as is like white rice, pasta, and breads. For the FDA to consider a food made of whole grains it has to consist of the principal components, bran, endosperm and germ, to be present in the same relative proportions as they exist in the intact grain. This does include rolled or quick oats but does not include products derived from soybeans, oilseeds or roots. Ultimately this draft guidance by the FDA stems from the high rate of obesity, increased incidence of disease, and overall decrease in health among Americans that has occurred over the past fifty years due to the general degradation of our food supply.

The Whole Food. Athletes cannot live on grains alone even though it is the majority of their food intake. Grains need to be supported by vegetables, fats and proteins. Any food that has undergone some form of processing and can be bought in can, jar, box or container is not considered a whole food. To be considered as such it must be in its original state or as close to as possible. Pick an apple off of a tree and eat it, that’s a whole food. Pick the same apple and process it into apple sauce, pie, or jam and it is no longer the same apple. Once a food begins to undergo a transformation from its natural form it subsequently starts to lose its nutrient value. Apples for instance help lower cholesterol, are a mild antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, is high in fiber, and can help to suppress an appetite. All of these properties become diminished and or lost when transformed into something beyond its original form. Maintaining the majority of your vegetables in their raw state for consumption is the best way to retain all of their nutritional properties. Beyond that, using light cooking techniques such as steaming, or par-boiling, will eliminate the vegetal taste of green vegetables and may be a bit more palatable for most. Eating fermented foods such as sauerkraut, or anything ‘pickled’ is a great way to add raw foods to your diet as well as all of the beneficial organisms and nutrients that are created from the fermenting process.

Staying with the seasons is an easy way to understand what foods are best to eat at what time. These foods will have their highest nutritional value and be at their peak flavor when they are in your local season. Shopping at farmers markets and talking with your local grocer about what is fresh is the best way to know what is available. Keep in mind that fresh does not always mean good for you. If you live in the Northeast in February and buy ‘fresh’ raspberries at the market you can be assured that they were not picked that day. Most likely they have come from somewhere outside of our countries borders, packaged, placed in a crate, shipped to an airport, flown to a regional distributor, packed on the back of a truck, driven to your market and then eventually after at least a week find themselves ready for sale to you. The longer it takes to get from the plant, earth or tree to you the more nutrients it has lost along the way.

People always ask me whether organic foods are really better for you and my answer is always an emphatic ‘YES.’ An industry with 30 billion dollars worth of sales every year and growing by 20% consistently for the past ten should say something more than it being just a fad. Americans and citizens around the globe are becoming more and more concerned about their food supply. Studies have shown that organic produce has over 50% more nutrient value, depending on the item, versus conventional produce. In addition, the chemicals used to both grow and ‘protect’ these foods are known carcinogens and are generally applied by workers wearing chemical suits and ventilators for protection. The one thing that pesticides and insecticides are not is selective. Ask yourself this, if they are used to kill animals how good can they be for me? Given the distance that most food travels these days before it gets to your plate a lot of produce is picked either just before being ripe or right at that point and then sprayed with chemicals to prevent them from continuing to ripen any further to spoilage. Produce that is shipped from other parts of the globe are often radiated to ensure that no foreign pests are contained within the crates. Imagine spraying an apple with Raid, a common insect killer, and then eating it or placing your bananas under a radiation machine, peeling it, adding it to your morning cereal and then heading out the door for your training run. Do you still feel like doing intervals?

Unfortunately our meat supply is no less subject to chemicals than conventional produce. In fact, most of it is worse. Animals in this country are grown in such a way that they are loaded up with antibiotics not to cure any illness but rather as a preventative measure in the event that they do. In addition, their feed, which is sprayed and treated, itself contains an abundance of heavy metals and additives as appetite promoters. The end goal for these companies is not to produce a healthy product but one that gets the most dollars for the least input. When was the last time you heard a news report of a meat recall for e-coli or some other pathogen that came from an organic farm?  As an athlete you put in all the quality time into your training trying to get your body prepared for the demands that you ask of it. Don’t you think it deserves the best fuel and food you can buy?

Too supplement or not too supplement. That is a good question. The vitamin industry is another multi-billion dollar business in this country and in part for the same reason that the organic industry is. We are not getting the nutrients out of our food supply that we used to so we have to buy the ones we are lacking. There are some beneficial supplements, provided they are manufactured properly, that can add to our diets. Essential fatty acids like the omegas in the form of flax seed, hemp, or fish oil can be a great asset to the athlete’s diet. These are not supplements in the sense that they replace a form of food but more of an asset to our health. Relying on a bottle of pills as your nutrient supply as a supplementation to whole foods is a hard road to travel. Most of these ‘vitamins and minerals’ come in a form that the body has a hard time actually assimilating due to their altered state and are ultimately a waste of your time, effort and money. Most triathletes that I know have every magazine, book, and video on the market that deals with their physical training. If you took 25% of that same energy and put it towards researching your food and nutrition think of the results you will see.

For anyone interested in optimal health, especially athletes, choosing whole grains should be an integral part of their diet. There are many products on the market these days from breads to pastas that use whole grains that one can choose. With the dizzying array of food that line the aisles of our supermarkets arming oneself with as much information as possible is crucial in being able to make the best choices.  But, having the information will get you only half of the way it’s the choices that you make from it that will get you where you want to go in the healthiest way possible. Making the right nutritional choices is not about joining a movement, club or organization. It’s about the health of you, your children and the success of your athletic endeavors.

For any questions or comments regarding this article please contact adam@organicperformance.com.  

 

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