Comments (10)

By jamie, March 1, 2010 8:52 am

Reading this chapter, of course, makes me want to buy all organic foods all the time. At the same time, Jillian acknowledges that not everyone has that kind of food budget. Her advice: Go to www.foodnews.org and find out what fruits and vegetables contain the most pesticides, and make an effort to buy them organic. If you can’t buy organic, she suggests removing the peel (for example, I just checked, and apples and carrots are on the list) and, for lettuces, to throw away the outer leaves and thoroughly wash the rest. Among other foods, she recommends legumes (lentils and beans), garlic and onions, colorful fruits and vegetables (not just green), and nuts and seeds. Also, especially if you do not get enough sun, consuming vitamin D-fortified dairy is particularly important, in order to help prevent a host of terrifying ailments, from MS to cancer.

As for meats and milk – she emphasizes that they are important components of a healthy diet (I was actually pretty surprised at how she doesn’t recommend vegetarianism AT ALL), and then she makes a very strong case for going organic. She DOES say that organic seafood is a waste of money (of course, seafood is usually more pricey than other proteins). So, how does a person on a budget, especially one with a large family, accomplish this? She basically says to try your best, and to buy organic whenever you can. She also says to look for generic organic products in all of the grocery stores you have access to, and that even “big box stores” are starting to carry organic choices – I actually do this, and buy organic, free range eggs and hormone free milk for less money than the name brand options that share shelf space with the store brand.

Oh, and she personally told me to give up eating Twizzlers (she actually mentioned my favorite candy by name, so obviously she was talking to me), because it’s mostly processed corn filler.

Scroll down for other posts about Master Your Metabolism:

Other posts about Master Your Metabolism:
Review
Part 1: So Long, Chocolate, Old Friend
Part 2: I KNEW It – My Hormones are Out of Whack!
Part 3: Nothing Funny About Chapter 3
Part 4: “There’s No Food in Your Food”
Part 5: Artificial Sweetener Can Mess Up Your Brain?
Part 6: “Okay, I’ll Admit it. Organics Can Be Pricey.”
Part 7: Ice Cream and Chocolate are Allowed!!!
Part 8: Really, Jillian, I Just Wanted a Cute Butt
Part 9: Protein! I Need You Protein
Part 10: Now, Off to the Market

Comments (1)

By jamie, February 27, 2010 10:01 am

I know that, in our society, we equate “diet” with our weight. This book even includes the promise of a “hot and healthy body” on the front cover. While reading Chapter 5, though, it was very hard to think about something so frivolous as “hotness.” No one wants to get cancer or Alzheimer’s – compared with these challenges, who really cares about being fat, or chunky, or whatever the case may be? I don’t want to poison myself, and I certainly do not want to poison my daughter. Yet is seems as though that is what we are doing when we feed her most processed foods. Now, I should point out that she usually eats better than we do – her snacks are usually organic, as was her baby food when she was an infant, because we made most of it ourselves. This is starting to be less true now as she gets older though – she is not yet two, yet knows what chips are, and at our Superbowl party she took her first taste of soda (she sampled from someone’s glass when they were not looking, and then announced, “I like it!” when she was discovered).

When I was a little kid, I remember being really scared after watching The Incredible Shrinking Woman (on DVD of course, as I am only 20 – ). It’s about a woman who starts to shrink after she ingests a very specific, yet not-yet-discovered, mix of chemicals. I remember that one of them was hairspray, and, if I’m not mistaken, the final ingredient was a free sample of cheese spread in the grocery store. (How fitting that the last straw would be processed food.) I remember being terrified for weeks afterward that I would somehow, inadvertently, consume the wrong mix of ingredients and that something bad would happen to me as a result, even though I knew the story was fiction, and that it was supposed to be a comedy at that. Oh, the nightmares. Thanks, Lily Tomlin!

So, it turns out that my nightmares were not the stuff of fantasy after all. According to Jillian (again, I have not fact checked), even when a food says it lacks a particular toxin (such as transfats), it is actually allowed to have trace amounts of that substance “per serving.” So, if you eat an entire bag of chips, for example, you may be consuming measurable amounts of a particular substance (such as MSG) that has been shown to be hazardous to your health. And if you eat or drink many different foods containing these trace ingredients (or especially if you eat the ones that actually list the substance in their ingredient lists), they all add up, you could be doing “permanent” damage to yourself. You may not start shrinking, but your brain chemistry can be effected, leading to a host of chronic diseases! That’s way more scary than falling down the bathtub drain (yeah, I was a very imaginative child).

Another scary thing that I have been thinking about since I finished reading this chapter is that it’s hard to know what is really true unless you spend the bulk of your reading time keeping up with medical and academic journal articles which, for many people, are – let’s face it – a bit dense. A Google search might lead you to information written by the PR firms of various food manufacturers – can we really expect them to tell us the truth if they have successfully lobbied to keep some ingredients off of their packaging? Some friends who know I am reading this book (including one who is in the medical field) have pointed me in the direction of a few books that help separate facts from fiction. When I read these books, I will compare what they say with this book, and share the information here.

Among the many chemicals described in this chapter, one of them stood out for me – sucralose (Splenda). Doctors have recommended this sugar substitute to people I know who are insulin resistant as a better alternative than other similar products – we expect our doctors to know what is safe for us to consume, so this is a prime example of not knowing who to believe. As for aspartame (NutraSweet), Jillian says it may cause “permanent damage to our brain’s appetite center.” The explanation goes something like this: our brains naturally perceive sweet tasting things as having a higher caloric value than some other things we eat, and helps us to both consume less and metabolize more calories immediately afterward to make up for the sweet treat. When we consume sugar substitutes, our brain gets confused, because our bodies to not receive the accompanying influx of calories along with the sweet taste. This may cause the body to crave extra calories. Also, over time, our brain stops expecting extra calories when it experiences a sweet taste, so when we consume actual sugar, our body ignores the extra calories instead of attempting to metabolize them quickly. My husband has been a strong opponent of sugar substitutes for as long as I have known him – again, I haven’t fact checked this yet, but it looks like you may be right, honey!

Scroll down for other posts about Master Your Metabolism:

Other posts about Master Your Metabolism:
Review
Part 1: So Long, Chocolate, Old Friend
Part 2: I KNEW It – My Hormones are Out of Whack!
Part 3: Nothing Funny About Chapter 3
Part 4: “There’s No Food in Your Food”
Part 5: Artificial Sweetener Can Mess Up Your Brain?
Part 6: “Okay, I’ll Admit it. Organics Can Be Pricey.”
Part 7: Ice Cream and Chocolate are Allowed!!!
Part 8: Really, Jillian, I Just Wanted a Cute Butt
Part 9: Protein! I Need You Protein
Part 10: Now, Off to the Market

Comments (8)

By jamie, February 26, 2010 10:23 pm

“There’s no food in your food!” Remember that line from Say Anything? Lloyd Dobler’s sister says it to him when he’s eating junk food (I think he’s eating pizza) and sharing it with her little boy. Jillian says practically the same thing in Chapter 4, but she does not throw any credit to this classic film. It’s odd, because Lloyd Dobler was a kick boxer, and should have known better. But, I digress. (Told you I would go off topic a lot!)

Anyway, I have to say that this book is starting to brainwash me. Let me explain: every time I attempt to eat processed food, it smells like there are chemicals in it (Jillian says that she will tell us in the next chapter what those chemicals are, and explain why we shouldn’t eat them). I ate a cereal bar and it tasted funny (yeah, I’m still eating it, but only to get rid of it), even though the same type of cereal bar was quite enjoyable just a few days ago. I also washed my face with a towel that had been washed in scented laundry detergent, and I gagged a little bit at the smell.

After we throw out all of our junk food, Jillian says we are not going to have to read labels very much, because it’s better to buy only whole, organic foods. I guess this is true, but, being a sociologist, I am a bit bothered by her insistence that everyone should make this investment, and that everyone can afford it by skipping frivolous purchases (she mentions tabloids as an example). Her exact words are “If you have a hundred dollars a week for groceries, you have the money.” What, is that per person? For a family of how many? I feed a family of three, but what about those with four or five? Teenagers? What about people on unemployment? It’s going to bother me if she doesn’t provide helpful hints for people who are struggling to feed large families on a tight budget and who want to keep themselves and their children healthy. It’s easy for celebrities to have all-or-nothing mentalities. We’ll see.

Scroll down for other posts about Master Your Metabolism:

Other posts about Master Your Metabolism:
Review
Part 1: So Long, Chocolate, Old Friend
Part 2: I KNEW It – My Hormones are Out of Whack!
Part 3: Nothing Funny About Chapter 3
Part 4: “There’s No Food in Your Food”
Part 5: Artificial Sweetener Can Mess Up Your Brain?
Part 6: “Okay, I’ll Admit it. Organics Can Be Pricey.”
Part 7: Ice Cream and Chocolate are Allowed!!!
Part 8: Really, Jillian, I Just Wanted a Cute Butt
Part 9: Protein! I Need You Protein
Part 10: Now, Off to the Market

Comments (6)

By jamie, February 25, 2010 1:42 pm

This chapter made me more sad than scared. Before I write about it, I have to say that the one thing that really bugs about this book is that Jillian (or her editor) chose not to properly cite sources. The “selected” bibliography might be extensive, but it’s often impossible to know whether the specific piece of information was taken from a newspaper article or from an actual study. The citations are divided by chapter – and Chapter 3 is heavy on academic journals – but there are no proper end notes. I suspect that this was done to make the book more readable and less “academic,” but it opens the door for doubt – a big problem for a book about health. I have read enough of the environmental literature to believe what she is saying in this chapter, but I can’t help but feel like it might be worth my time to fact check, just in case.

Chapter 3 makes some pretty serious claims, and, while many of them are backed by specific studies (she usually gives credit to the university without naming either article or study), it’s really impossible to tell whether they all are. It’s too bad, because the general public SHOULD know about the dangers of environmental toxins, especially the ones we voluntarily bring into our homes.

If you don’t intend to buy/borrow this book, you probably owe it to yourself to at least skim Chapter 3 in the bookstore (don’t tell them I sent you) and then check out some of the most interesting information at a university library, or even through Google Scholar, if that’s all you have access too.

Here are some highlights (NOT fact checked by me, so buyer beware):

• Many major municipal water supplies have been found to have detectable levels of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, sex hormones, and mood stabilizers. Guess how they got into to water supply – through our toilets.
• Those flame retardants sprayed on baby pajamas contain toxins, but so do the fragrances in fabric softeners (which are not to be used on baby pajamas, because they remove the flame retardant).
• Toxins known to have a negative effect on hormones added to perfumes and fragrances to make them last longer (and we spray them on ourselves).
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is very bad (regardless of what the corn industry tells us in their current PR campaign), but it’s not the only terrible food additive.

Okay. I have to stop now. I thought this book was just going to tell me how to eat so that my metabolism would start zooming like a teenager’s. There is more it then that, obviously (which I knew, but it’s much easier to have a fitness guru tell you how to eat, no?). I could start a discussion about Big Business and how regular people – but especially the poor – get screwed in the quest for the almighty dollar. It’s more sad than scary, especially because we end up supporting this behavior despite our best interests. And now I really do have to stop, go drink some (possibly toxin-laden) water, wash some laundry (maybe I’ll skip the fabric softener), and check my fridge for food additives.

Scroll down for other posts about Master Your Metabolism:

Other posts about Master Your Metabolism:
Review
Part 1: So Long, Chocolate, Old Friend
Part 2: I KNEW It – My Hormones are Out of Whack!
Part 3: Nothing Funny About Chapter 3
Part 4: “There’s No Food in Your Food”
Part 5: Artificial Sweetener Can Mess Up Your Brain?
Part 6: “Okay, I’ll Admit it. Organics Can Be Pricey.”
Part 7: Ice Cream and Chocolate are Allowed!!!
Part 8: Really, Jillian, I Just Wanted a Cute Butt
Part 9: Protein! I Need You Protein
Part 10: Now, Off to the Market

Comments (7)

By jamie, February 24, 2010 3:03 pm

Chapter 2 reads like a super-easy science text – Jillian (we are on a first-name basis now) does a good job of describing the major metabolism hormones, and provides lists of symptoms of hormone imbalances. If this book was ghostwritten rather than co-written (and I tend to think it was just heavily edited), the writer has done an excellent job of capturing Jillian’s “voice,” even while using technical/science terms.

Of course, being the former psych major who was convinced had not only a personality disorder, but was possibly even bipolar, after taking abnormal psych, I am now certain than my hormones are completely out of whack. I did say a quick prayer of thanks that I have not grown a beard (yet), but, of the many symptoms listed, I have at least five of them. Jillian’s advice – get thee to an endocrinologist and DO NOT take supplements without a doctor’s care, and also preferably a second opinion. Of course, she also recommends trying out her diet to see how much that can help – I think I’ll start there.

Stay tuned for Chapter 3 – Jillian warned me to “prepare to be scared” when I read it, so I’m going to make sure I’m not home alone just in case I feel compelled to throw out all of the food that was not damaged in the Great Pantry Bug Episode of 2010 (don’t ask).

Scroll down for other posts about Master Your Metabolism:

Other posts about Master Your Metabolism:
Review
Part 1: So Long, Chocolate, Old Friend
Part 2: I KNEW It – My Hormones are Out of Whack!
Part 3: Nothing Funny About Chapter 3
Part 4: “There’s No Food in Your Food”
Part 5: Artificial Sweetener Can Mess Up Your Brain?
Part 6: “Okay, I’ll Admit it. Organics Can Be Pricey.”
Part 7: Ice Cream and Chocolate are Allowed!!!
Part 8: Really, Jillian, I Just Wanted a Cute Butt
Part 9: Protein! I Need You Protein
Part 10: Now, Off to the Market