How I Found Fruit (And a Recipe!)

Confession: I grew up hating fruits. And no, I don’t mean “dislike.” I hated fruits. No two pieces ever tasted the same. I could eat one apple and it’d be crisp but another I bought at the same time would be mushy. Strawberry seeds were second only to popcorn for gum irritation. And none of the fruits tasted like their artificial flavor counterparts.

To this day, one of the biggest disappointments in my life was finding that not all grapes are purple, and they taste nothing like Jolly Rancher candies.

What are you? What are you!?

So I went 20 years avoiding fruits like they were made of yellowcake uranium. When I absolutely had to eat some, I tried to pick the ones that tasted most like candy – tart Granny Smith apples or sour white grapes.

And I would have kept this trend going were it not for my girlfriend, Jessie. 

When she found out that I didn’t eat fruits, she responded the same as every other friend, family member, and acquaintance had until that point, “Whaddya mean you don’t eat fruit!?” As a vegan, Jessie ate fruits daily. It boggled her mind how I lived without them.

Jessie's a lot cuter than this guy. But she had a similar expression.

So I bit the bullet and decided to give them a chance. To make it romantic, I invited her out to a local fruit market. “I want you to teach me about as many fruits as possible,” I said. “You have one lunch to convince me that they're everything you say they are.”

Fellas, take note. I’m not a smooth or suave kind of guy, but I’m proud of this move. It always makes for a fun date. Give your partner a chance to teach you about something new and I guarantee you’ll both have a blast. No matter how the date goes, you’ll create a memory worth having.

So, Jessie and I had our fruit lunch. In one sitting, I tried 15 different types of fruit: Pineapples, clementines, blood oranges, Valencia oranges, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, kiwis, kumquats, grapefruits, plums, peaches, pears, mangoes and nectarines. 

I wish I could say that I stuck to my guns like a typical guy. I wish I could tell you that after I burped the pulpiest burp of my life, I looked at Jessie, crossed my arms and said, “Well, you had your shot, kiddo. And I have to say… I’m wholly unimpressed.” And then I wished I had picked up a toothpick, chomped on it pensively and added, “But we’ll always have Randazzo’s…”

"Of all the produce departments, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

I wish I could tell you that. But the truth of the matter is that I’m now a fruit-loving fiend. My refrigerator is always stocked with pineapple chunks and halved strawberries.

(Dang it.)

So, in keeping with this week’s theme of healthier desserts, here’s a recipe for my favorite fruit pastry. It’s very cheap, quick to prepare and tastes fantastic! If you have little ones, it's a very hands-on dessert that can get pretty messy - A fun time as far as any kid is concerned!

Apple Pinwheels

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cups sugar, divided
• 2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent rolls
• 3 cups finely chopped peeled tart apples
• 1 teaspoon apple pie spice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a saucepan, combine water, butter and 1 cup sugar; cook over medium heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Set aside.
3. Unroll crescent dough into one long rectangle; seal seams and perforations.
4. Combine the apples, apple pie spice and remaining sugar; sprinkle over dough to within one inch of edges.
5. Roll up, jelly-roll style, starting with a long side. Cut into one-inch rolls; place in a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan.
6. Pour reserved syrup over rolls. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

How to Bake Without Cholesterol

We’re dedicating this week to tasty treats. Why? We had a nice three-day weekend and I’m not one to let a good thing end too soon. So we’re going to deliciously drag out Memorial Day all week. But, sticking to my rehab theme, we’re keeping it healthy.

Well…. Healthier…

You read the title correctly. How would you like to eat some chocolate chip cookies with zero cholesterol? Or some cake, for that matter?

And what if I could told you, you could eat the batter and not have to worry about food poisoning?

Well, I can show you how to do that and a lot more, but first we have to use the v-word.

Vegan

GASP!

That sound you’re hearing is the sound of viewers clicking the X button at the top of their browser because they think I’m about to start preaching. I’m not. What you eat is your business, same as your religion, sexuality and political views. But keeping an open mind leads to more fulfilling experiences than saying “no” over and over again with your eyes closed and your fingers jammed into your ears.

Yep. The vegetable-people have found ways to make cakes, cookies and pies without cholesterol. Their baked goods can also be fat-free and contain a serving a fruits as well! From personal experience, I can tell you that the taste does not suffer in the slightest.

So what’s the secret?

The cholesterol that comes in your baked goods typically has two sources: butter and eggs. That’s due to the fact that these are the ingredients that come from animals. Butter is cultured from milk, which has fat and cholesterol to feed a baby calf. And eggs have fat and cholesterol to nourish a growing chick. To get rid of this cholesterol, we have to get rid of the animal-based ingredients.

Fun fact: the term "mammal" comes from "mammary gland." All mammals produce milk for their young.

Replacing Eggs:

Eggs are the easiest to substitute. The next time you’re at Kroger or any other large-chain supermarket, grab a box of egg-replacer. Not egg-substitute, egg-replacer. Egg-substitute is a carton of goo meant to simulate scrambled eggs. Egg-replacer is a powder that has the same chemical properties as an egg, without the calories, fat or cholesterol! The two brands I’ve used so far are ENER-G and Red Mill.

Look at that majestic beard. This man clearly knows his stuff.

Replacing Butter:

Now, as for butter, switching to margarine is the easiest way to cut fat and cholesterol. Instead of milk-based butter, margarine has a vegetable oil base. Still, some margarine has whey and other dairy ingredients. So if you’re committed to cutting the calories, read the labels to check for those sneaky additives. Two brands I’ve found that are purely vegetable oil are BestLife and Earth Balance. BestLife is cheaper, but Earth Balance is easier to find.

If you’re even more interested in cutting fat (and don’t mind dabbling with odd food preparations,) you can substitute unsweetened applesauce for butter in most baking recipes. This adds a serving of fruit and completely removes the fat and cholesterol!

"But mommy! I don't want to be butter!"

Oh, and that bit I said earlier about eating the batter? Eggs can carry salmonella and that's why raw batter makes you sick. Using egg-replacer changes the game. No eggs, no salmonella.

Half of my cookies never make it to the oven.

Sunburns and Tanning Beds Cause Cancer - Oh My!

With today’s topic being sunburns, I can’t tell you how tempted I am to post a bunch of gross pictures of skin rashes. But I won’t. Simply put,

This is your skin…

This is your skin after sunburn.

Sunburns

As I said in Wednesday's post about suntans, sunburns are caused by ultraviolet radiation. These UV rays break down the DNA in our cells, causing them to die. But, if the cell does not die, it has the chance of mutating into a cell that will later produce a tumor. Or worse, it can be the seed of skin cancer.

If a lot of cells are damaged, we get the all-too-familiar rash. Sunburn is the mass-destruction of our body's cells.

I’m willing to bet that anyone reading this has been sunburned at least once in their lives. You know what the symptoms are: red skin that is hot to the touch, swelling, pain, blisters and the need for a nap. The outbursts of profanity are not a sign of acute Tourette Syndrome, rather, it just sucks finding out that you’re stuck with a burn for the next week.

And then it begins… The peeling…

Tanning Beds and Cancer

The sun is our planet's primary source of UV rays. This leads many people to think that tanning beds are a safe alternative to sunbathing because you’re getting tanned from a light bulb instead of a giant ball of thermonuclear gas.

But they’re wrong. Tanning beds are more cancerous than sunbathing, in most cases. The ultraviolet light produced by in a bed can be 10 to 15 times stronger than the noon day sun.

The WHO reports that people who started using tanning beds before the age of 30 were 75 percent more likely to develop melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. (And by the WHO, I mean the World Health Organization, not the British rock band.) What’s more, about a third of white women, ages 18 – 25, have used indoor tanning before.

This is why Michigan, among other states, has laws in place to prevent minors from using tanning salons without adult supervision. Not to mention that business with Tanning Mom…

So what can you do to prevent sunburn?

Prevention

The easiest way to avoid sunburn? Don’t go outside. Ever. But seeing as this is nearly impossible, instead of avoiding sunlight like an agoraphobic vampire, just take some simple steps to protect yourself if you know you’ll be in the sun for a while.

Everyone is different (obviously.) Some people can stay out in the sun for three hours and not burn. Others are lucky if they can stand in direct sunlight for 15 minutes before turning into a tomato. Sunscreen was developed to work as a second layer of protection to lengthen the amount of time we could spend outside. SPF, sun protection factor, is a ratio of the amount of light it takes to burn someone wearing sunscreen divided by the amount of light it takes to burn that same person without it.

Wait, what? What does that mean?

That means that the SPF multiplies the amount of time you can stay outside. For our tomato-y friend who can go only 15 minutes without protection, if he applied SPF 30 to his skin, he could enjoy the beach for seven and a half hours (15 * 30 = 450 minutes, or 7.5 hours.)

Covering yourself up is another way to avoid sunburn, but walking around in a turtleneck on an 85 degree day would be unfashionable. Also, you’d probably pass out from heat exhaustion. Instead of adding layers, find shade regularly, or make your own. Wide-brimmed hats are my preference for avoiding burns to the face and neck, but I think it’s high time we brought back parasols.

Oh, and don’t think that the clouds will protect you. It’s not the heat of the sun that burns you, it’s the UV rays, and 90% of them make it through clouds.

Suntans Destroy DNA and Ruin Skin

“No tan is a healthy tan.” That’s a phrase that always confused me. Sort of like, “no news is good news.” Does that mean that not having a tan is a healthy, or that tans are inherently unhealthy?

Answer: Yes.

We know that sunlight includes ultraviolet radiation. We also know these lovely UV rays cause tans.

Maybe it's me... But I think this sun looks smug

But what is a tan?

The tan is our body’s response to damage. Yes – bronze skin is on the same biological level as a scab. When ultraviolet radiation hits us, it has enough energy to pass through our skin. Nucleic acid, the stuff that makes up our DNA, is extremely sensitive to UV energy. So, in any cell that the UV rays hit, the DNA mutates, usually resulting in cell death. However, if that cell does not die, and it mutates in just the right way, this cell can create a tumor. Or worse, this damaged cell can become melanoma – skin cancer.

A skin tan is our body’s way of beefing up its defenses. If DNA is the quarterback, melanin, responsible for complexion, is a lineman. When our body gets blasted with sun rays, melanin takes a majority of the hit and reduces the amount of energy that makes it into our body. If our body senses too many cells dying, it creates more melanin, resulting in a darker complexion.

So, “no tan is a healthy tan.” A tan means cells in your body are dying to UV radiation, putting you at risk for cancer.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, prolonged damage to your skin can dry it out, giving it a leathery feel. There is no way to reverse this level of damage.

Personally, when I go out in the sun, I hope to look like this

Not like this

But maybe this will get my girlfriend off my back about “doing things” this summer. Sorry babe, we can’t go out to the beach. We might get cancer. Better to just let me stay inside and play video games all day instead.

It’s worth a shot, right?

Sunlight: Boosts Mood and Strengthens Bones

In honor of the beautiful weather in Michigan, I am dedicating this week to talking about the sun. No, I won’t be talking like an astronomer... What good would the diameter of the sun be to you? Instead, I’ll be looking at the effects of the sun on our bodies, starting with the positive effects of sunlight on mood and diet today, the dangers of tanning on Wednesday and how to beat sunburns on Friday.

(Oh, and it’s 860,000 miles in diameter, by the way – over 110 times the size of Earth.)

“SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDER MAKES ME HAPPY"
 

Most people love the summer. We associate it with happy memories like swimming, hiking, going to beaches, vacations and so on. Poets and writers throughout the ages have used spring and summer as metaphors for youth, life and happiness, like William Carlos Williams, “In summer, the song sings itself.” Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and even if you’re having a better day, you can’t deny how pretty a blue sky looks.

But is our happiness owed to the calendar date, or something else?

Well, I tipped my hand in my first paragraph, but studies have shown that sunlight improves our mood. When you’re exposed to full-spectrum sunlight, you body produces serotonin, a feel-good brain chemical. This is the same chemical that anti-depressants regulate in order to maintain mood. 

So, that’s nifty. But what are the implications of these studies?

“YOU KEEP ME HAPPY WHEN SKIES ARE GRAY"
 

Well, just as spring and summer are metaphors for life, fall and winter and synonymous with death and drudgery. Like George Herbert said, “Every mile is two in winter.” Just as sunlight helps to boost mood, lack of sunlight depresses it. Seasonal Affective Disorder, a psychological dysfunction, has been noted in people during the winter, when the days are shorter and they get less sunlight. SAD (a clever acronym) can worsen depression, forcing many doctors to increase dosages of anti-depressants until spring rolls around.

Some therapists have tried to use phototherapy (treating patients with sunlamps) as a way to treat depression . And it works. Although light therapy doesn’t cure depression or SAD, it eases the symptoms.

VITAMIN D (I don’t have a song for this, sorry)

So sunshine helps mood. But it does more than that: sunlight is also a major source of vitamin D.

When I heard this as a kid, I was confused. How can vitamins fall from the sky? More importantly, how are vitamins getting into my body from the sky? Is it vitamin D radiation? Should I be worried about possible side-effects, like turning into the Hulk?

Well, no. Ultraviolet radiation, that lovely light-wave that causes suntans and sunburns, triggers vitamin D synthesis in the skin. In turn, the vitamin acts like a supervisor for the calcium in your body – it makes sure that the calcium gets to where it needs to be (your bones.) The vitamin also maintains consistent levels of calcium in your bloodstream. Without vitamin D, calcium gets lazy, causing rickets in kids and osteoporosis in adults.

Bug-based Food Additives: Honey, Shellac and Carmine Red

This post marks the end of Bug Week. I know - I'm sad to see it end, too. My first post talked about the bugs that the FDA allows in food. This post is a little different. Instead of talking about the bugs that can accidentally make it into your breakfast cereal, this post is about the products made explicitly from insects.

Honey

Every child knows that bees collect nectar from flowers. By jumping from flower to flower, not only do bees gather their own food, but they help to pollinate the plants as well. We owe a lot to our yellow and black friends.

We know that bees use the nectar to make honey… but that’s usually where the teaching stops. So, how does the bee turn the nectar into honey?

He spits in it.
 

Yep, honey is bee spit. Well, technically, honey is part bee spit. Enzymes in the bee’s saliva help to bring out the sugars in the nectar, resulting in the sweet honey we all know and love. So the next time you’re munching on some Honeycomb cereal, it might haunt you to remember that you’re technically swapping spit with insects.

Interesting side note: a lot of people believe that honey and tea help to cure coughs. While there have been studies to show that honey helps with coughs, the honey used in these clinical trials is buckwheat honey. Buckwheat honey costs about $7.50 on Amazon and is a much darker liquid than clove honey, the kind that comes in a plastic bear at grocery stores. So if you want to go the herbal route the next time you’re hacking, get some of the good stuff.

Shellac

First of all, I have to admit, shellac is a funny word. Saying it slowly makes me giggle. You might know shellac for its industrial uses as a wood varnish, but shellac is often used on food. Apples and other fruits are coated with shellac so they’ll shine in the produce section, and a lot of candies (including sprinkles!) are covered in it. Shellac isn’t harmful – it’s a nutritionally empty resin.

But what is shellac?

Shellac comes from the secretions of the lac beetle (Coccus lacca) of southern Asia. These beetles get comfy on a tree and make shells out of this waxy substance. Shellac harvesters scrape these shells off the trees, boil it, and cool it into thin sheets. And presto! Shellac.

Oh, and ladies? Shellac is the main ingredient of most nail polish. That shine on your fingers? It came from a beetle’s butt.

You’re welcome!

Carmine Red

No doubt you’ve heard that Red 40 and other artificial dyes cause cancer and neurological disorders (if you follow the link, skip to the Summary section.) A product of petroleum, Red 40 is the most common red dye used in food. But carmine red, another food dye, has a more natural source – ground cochineal beetles.

Hailing from South and Central America, cochineal beetles live on cactus plants.Their red pigmentation comes from their diet – the red cactus berries. These little fellas are scooped off cacti, boiled, crushed and turned into dye. It takes approximates 150 cochineal beetles to produce one gram of carmine dye.

You’ll find carmine in eye shadow, candy, ice cream, lipstick and other food products. In fact, Starbucks recently fought some bad press for using carmine in their Strawberry Frappuccinnos™. I guess customers didn’t like spending over five bucks on a drink made partially from beetles.

I can’t imagine why…

Body Bugs - Dust Mites, Eyelash Worms and Gut Flora

Continuing Bug Week, this article will address some of the creepy-crawlies that help us out every day. These quiet heroes clean us up and, in some cases, are responsible for keeping us alive. All they ask in return is a little real estate. So, once again, if you’re squeamish, please wait until next week before reading my blog.

As kids, we’re all told to beware of bed bugs biting us in our sleep. Now, bed bugs are pests that feed on our blood. If you’ve been following the news, recently their numbers have skyrocketed and the United States is on the verge of a bed bug epidemic. But there’s another bug in your sheets that’s much nicer than the bed bug – the dust mite.

Look at this little guy. Isn’t he cute?

This adorable little bug eats your skin. No, not in the same way that the scabies bug eats your skin. The dust mite is kind enough to wait patiently for your dead skin to fall off before he chows down. So he sleeps in bed with you at night, with thousands and thousands of his friends, acting as a loofah to clean you off.

How thoughtful!

Dust mites don’t carry disease, nor do they injure their hosts (us). The only downside to living with dust mites is if you’re allergic to them. If you are, then you’ll need to take special precautions to avoid a lot of itching and sneezing.

Next, the eyelash worm.

Although his proper name is demodex folliculorum, “eyelash worm” is much easier to pronounce (and type.) This little fella lives on your face, especially if you wear a lot of make-up or have oily skin. He, and up to two of his buddies, burrow into your hair follicles and eat your excretions. In other words, they live off of the stuff that would otherwise make your face dirtier, including old make-up. What’s really neat about these charming little worms is that after they eat your skin waste, they keep it inside them. Eyelash worms produce no waste, carry no illnesses, and cause no harm to us. They used to get a bad rap for causing blackheads, but that medical myth has been debunked.

Still, if you’re paranoid about these tykes munching on your Maybelline, just scrub your face with soap and water – the less they have to eat, the fewer will come to hang out.

And now we talk about some of the most important bugs in your body – gut flora.

 Okay, I’ll admit, this ISN’T cute. But it is important for your survival.

Gut flora aren’t technically insects. They’re bacteria that live in the walls of your gastro-intestinal (GI) tract. In fact, there are ten times as many bacteria in your intestines than there are cells in your whole body!

These “bugs” help you digest your food. High concentrations of two particular gut flora, Bifidobacter and Acidophilus (both present in yogurt,) can help you digest fiber, produce B vitamins and vitamin K, and help you break down drugs. In biology, we call this a symbiotic relationship – we give gut flora a place to live and provide them with food, and they in turn provide us with vital nutrients.

But gut flora are delicate and an improper diet can cause them great harm. Excess alcohol, antibiotics, or even processed food can cause Bifidobacter and Acidophilus to die out. With them gone, new neighbors take refuge in your intestines. And these new neighbors aren’t the nice kind who salt your sidewalk or invite you over for barbeques. These are the bad neighbors that party into the wee hours of the morning, let their dogs loose in your yard, and cause diarrhea and malnutrition. In fact, new studies have shown that poor concentrations of these probiotics (pro = for, biotic = life) can lead to diabetes and obesity.

So, see? Not all bugs are bad. Some have only your best interests at heart!

Except mosquitoes. Those things suck.

Aside from an awesome haircut and accent, this pharmacist has some great information about intestinal health that you might find interesting.

FDA Allows Cockroaches in Chocolate and Maggots in Tomato Sauce

If you’re a squeamish person, I’d wait a week before checking my blog. I’m dedicating this week to writing about bugs and our relationship with them.

The game show Fear Factor routinely challenges contestants to eat live insects, or drink blended bug concoctions. But the critters on Fear Factor wouldn’t be as scary if everyone knew we eat bugs on an everyday basis. The truth is that commercial farming has to produce so much food that it’s impossible to remove all contaminants. Instead, the FDA imposes safe limits on the concentration of these contaminants allowed in our food.

Now, by “safe” they mean, “what you don’t know (in this case) won’t hurt you.” And by “contaminants,” they mean bug pieces, eggs and animal waste.

I told you we were getting gross this week.

I first learned about insect contaminants when I purchased a bag of pistachios from Manzella’s Fruit Market. I left the bag in my pantry for a week until I noticed moths in my kitchen. No matter how many I swatted, they kept coming. I opened my pantry to see my pistachios crawling with larvae.

That was ten years ago. I haven’t eaten pistachios since.

But from that ordeal, I learned that not only are pantry pests common (I talked to about a dozen people with similar stories,) they cannot be avoided. Some bugs in my pistachios likely died during the roasting process, but prior to bagging, the nuts were in the open air and vulnerable to re-contamination.

Cocoa is similar. Cocoa is grown and processed in Africa, close to the crop. This means that all the yummy little cockroaches that feast on the beans can make it into the finished product as well. The FDA allows for 75 insect fragments per 50 grams of sampled cocoa powder.

For tomato puree or tomato sauce, the FDA allows either 20 fly eggs per 100 grams of sauce OR 10 fly eggs and one maggot per 100 grams. Given the choice, I’d take the extra eggs, wouldn’t you?

So now that I have you thoroughly grossed out, I’ll admit that I have no problem eating bugs. The only reason I don’t eat pistachios is because I’ve developed a stronger affinity to cashews. Most people know that insects are a dietary staple around the world. If someone offered me a bowl of fried crickets I’d give them a taste, so long as they were spiced up a bit. My only gripe is that I wish the information about bugs in food was more accessible so it wouldn’t provide such a shock. 

Often, the relationship between these critters and our food is a vital one. For instance, figs cannot ripen without the help of the fig wasp. Without these bugs nestled at the center of every fig, pollinating the fruits, we wouldn’t have Fig Newtons!

Further benefits of eating bugs are being explored. With the world population now at seven billion and climbing, sustainable food is a pressing issue. Professor Arnold van Huis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands said, “Producing [2 pounds] of meat from a cow requires [29 pounds] of vegetable matter as feed. Yet [2 pounds] of meat from a cricket, locust or beetle needs just [4 pounds] of fodder, and produces a fraction of the CO2 emissions.

So, what do you think? Are bugs the “green” meat of the future? Or are you going to stick by your Raid cans?

If you’re daring or just curious, visit the FDA website to see the safety standards of many commercial foods.

Bottled Water: Bad for teeth, environment and your wallet -- Part II

This is the second half of a two part post about bottled water. Please be sure to visit the first post about the effects of bottled water on dental health.

Regulations looser for bottled water than tap water

Fun fact: the FDA has fewer regulations on bottled water than they do on tap water. This is not to say that tap water is automatically better than bottled water – bottled water companies could hold their product to a much higher standard than water treatment plants. However, the water coming out of your faucet has no choice but to meet these high standards, whereas bottled water could legally backslide. So if you’re looking for a safe bet in terms of quality, I’d go with tap water.

Bottled water: Bad for your wallet

Not to mention, drinking from the tap is exponentially cheaper than drinking bottled water. Treated tap water costs about a penny a gallon. Compare that to a $1 bottle of water, which costs 5 cents an ounce.

As a poor college kid, I know what I’ll be drinking.

Bottled water: Bad for the environment

Here are some quick statistics about the environmental impact of bottled water:

• It takes three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water, due to the nature of creating plastic
• In 2006, 17 million barrels of oil were required for the production of bottled water – this figure does not account for the oil it then took to transport the bottles for consumption.
• The United States alone consumes 500,000,000 bottles of water per week. Put end to end, these bottles could circle the planet five times.
•  Eighty percent of plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they will take thousands of years to break down.

We’re all taught that recycling is better than throwing things away, but recycling is only one part of a greater strategy for dealing with this mess. In grade school, I was taught the three R’s: Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle. Recycling plastic bottles is great, but it’s not enough on its own. To truly cause an impact, we need to reduce our consumption of bottled water, and whenever possible, refill a bottle throughout the day instead of grabbing a new one.

I found this video, the Story of Bottled Water, to be entertaining and informative. If you like it, check out some of the other videos on the website – they all take a closer look at so many consumer products we take for granted.

Bottled Water: Bad for teeth, environment and your wallet -- Part I

This is part one of a two part post on bottled water. Today I will talk about the effects that bottled water has on dental health. Tomorrow will be about how bottled water is regulated versus tap water and how bottled water affects the environment.

I want to start by saying that I’m not the kind of guy who holds a grudge. (Who am I kidding? I totally am.) But this article is not about some gripe I have against bottled water. I will be the first to admit, in many scenarios, drinking bottled water is preferable to drinking the local supply. For instance, when traveling to foreign countries, bottled water is a good way to avoid unfamiliar bacteria that would love to have you spend the rest of your vacation locked in the bathroom. Also, when in a secluded area that relies on well water, bottled water can keep hard minerals and other possible contaminants out of your system.

That said, I can now get to my main point: bottled water, when consumed in lieu of tap water, is terrible for your teeth, your wallet, and the environment.

Bottled water: Bad for your teeth

Check out the label on any toothpaste box and you’ll find that Fluoride, or some parent ingredient, is in every tube. The ADA reports that regular treatment of fluoride can prevent cavities. This is why water companies add trace amounts of fluoride to the water supply the same way most table salt companies add iodine to their product. The doses are incredibly low (in the case of fluoride, less than two parts fluoride ions per million parts of water, or 0.0002 percent of the water you drink) and prevent disease (cavities and goiter, respectively.)

A few years ago, I was regularly drinking bottled water because I believed it was healthier than tap water. After all, it’s purified water – how can tap water compare? Well, after sticking to my “pure water only” rule for about a year, I visited my dentist and had to have three cavities filled in. My enamel, he said, was dissolving – what had I been drinking? I told him I didn’t drink any type of soft drinks, coffee, or tea, and instead have been sticking to only water. When he asked if I was drinking tap water, I laughed and told him that I only drank “pure” water. And that’s when he told me bottled water was the reason why I’d have to sit in a chair for the next 30 minutes with a drill in my gums.

Now, there is a lot of controversy surrounding fluoridated water. Some people believe that fluoridated water is part of a government plot to chemically control the citizens of the United States. I could spend several posts analyzing these arguments for logical fallacies, scientific inaccuracies and the like, but I’ll save us both the time and effort with this following sentence – everyone is entitled to their opinion, but there are bigger things to be afraid of than federally regulated, scientifically tested, dentist recommended tap water.

Join me tomorrow for part two, where I will talk about how bottled water has looser regulations than tap water, and how bottled water affects the environment

Water: Healthy Hydration with Dinosaur Pee

Your body is 60 percent water. Chances are you’ve heard that before. So it stands to reason that water is important in keeping your body healthy.

But why did I mention dinosaur pee in the title?

Grade-school children across America are taught about the water cycle and how all of the water on Earth is constantly changing forms. The water on our planet is all the water we’ve ever had, and all the water we will ever get. Think about it – how could we get more? Martians would have to show up with cases of Alien Evian.

Since the water we currently have is all the water the world has ever had, then it goes to reason that dinosaurs drank the same water we do. And if dinosaurs drank it, they also eliminated it. So that means that when you showered this morning…

Ewww!

When I was a kid, I drank a lot of soda pop. In fact, most of the water I drank was filtered and chocked full of high fructose corn syrup. As a result, I suffered from debilitating migraines. My doctor put me on pills, ran blood tests, and told me that my head pains were genetic. But when I decided to cut the pounds and drop the sugar, I switched to drinking water. Now, instead of having migraines every month like in middle school, it’s rare that I have more than one a year.

More than 90 percent of the chemical reactions in your body occur in water, including the metabolic process of breaking food down into energy. No water, no energy. Also, because it is a natural solvent, your body dissolves nutrients and resources in water, and then passes that liquid through your blood stream. Water not only serves as transportation, but it cools you off through perspiration and it is the building block of every tissue in your body – including your bones!

Imagine your body is a car and water is oil. With fresh oil, the car is lubricated and the engine functions efficiently. The oil is drained regularly and it carries with it small metallic shards, which is why it isn’t clear like it was when it came in – oil carries off waste. But what if you forget to add more oil? The engine overheats, parts melt or break, and the car is ruined.

Now, a standard car uses five quarts of oil. Fortunately for us, the metaphor isn’t perfect. Humans, on average, need to drink at least two liters of water a day. There’s a common “8 by 8” rule that suggests drinking an eight-ounce glass of water eight times a day. This rule is easy enough to remember, but your need for water might be greater than mine. If you are physically active, pregnant, or regularly drink coffee, tea, energy drinks, or alcohol, your body is at a greater risk of dehydration. For a more accurate estimate of how much water you should be drinking each day, visit the hydration calculator.

Vitamin C: From curing scurvy to fighting the common cold

Ahoy mateys!

Aside from eye patches, peg legs, and Johnny Depp, what do you associate with pirates?

Scurvy!

Scurvy is a disease where fluid stores in the body. Sailors with scurvy would be paralyzed, their old wounds would re-open, their teeth would fall out, and they’d bleed from every opening in their body. It wasn’t pretty and the image reminds me of something you’d see on an episode of House.

Now imagine a man sitting in the hospital, literally rotting alive in the bed, and the doctor hands him a glass of Tropicana. Not an I.V., a syringe, or a pill – an ice-cold glass of orange juice. The man tells the loony doctor to walk the plank… But it works. After a couple of glasses the bleeding stops, the man can move, and he walks out of the hospital with the cheapest medical bill in history.

James Lind, a British doctor, did an experiment that studied the effects of citrus on scurvy in 1747. He isolated a component of the fruits, an acid, which directly cured scurvy in his patients. He couldn’t identify much else about the acid, so he called it “ascorbic acid,” as in “anti-scurvy acid.”

Today, we know ascorbic acid by its more popular name – vitamin C. Scurvy wasn’t a disease so much as it was a nutritional deficiency. It affected sailors because storing fresh fruits was difficult on long voyages. After Lind’s study became public, however, the British Navy ordered all ships to be stocked with limes. This was the origin of the British’s (often derogatory) nickname, “Limeys.”

So aside from being a cool story, what does this have to do with you? Well, as Captain Barbossa would say, “I’m getting to that, ye mangy dogs.”

Many foods are fortified with vitamins now, from tea to corn flakes, making it nearly impossible to come down with scurvy. But Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize-winner, claimed in his 1987 book, How to Live Longer and Feel Better, that vitamin C can prevent the common cold. Since then, people have flocked to the vitamin as a cure-all. Some drug companies have capitalized on its popularity and have released products like Emergen-C and Airborne for stopping the flu at its first symptoms.

But does vitamin C work as well as popular culture would have us believe? Well, dead men (and apparently doctors) tell no tales.

An article entitled "How to boost your immune system" from Harvard Medical School warns that most studies done on vitamin C have been poorly designed and therefore do not scientifically prove the acid’s positive effects. However, one article from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) reports that regimens of vitamin C and zinc reduce the severity and duration of respiratory infections like the common cold. The study went further to talk about the benefits of these two vitamins on pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria. And another study from the NCBI reported that vitamin C increases immunoglobin levels (IgA and IgM)and other factors of the immune system.

So the medical community may not be in consensus whether it’s an apple or an orange a day that will keep them out of a job. But as for me, I’m putting my dubloons on a cold glass of pulp-free OJ.

Yargh!

(For more information on any of the topics covered today, please click the darkened phrases)

Fiber: Good for digestive health, bad as food additive

I have a confession:

I giggle every time I see Jamie Lee Curtis on those Activia commercials. I didn’t grow up during the 80s, so I’m not used to her roles as “Scream Queen.” Instead, when I see her, I shout to my mom, “Hey look! It’s the poop-yogurt lady!”

It doesn’t matter how high-class your sense of humor might be, most people will laugh at jokes about Number Two. Whenever I’m not feeling particularly clever, I enjoy telling such a joke to my 11-year old cousin, Nick. If I can get him to laugh, then I know I’ve still got it.

Everybody poops. The children’s book had it right. And as most adults know, fiber plays a role in that process.

But what is fiber?

Its technical name is cellulose, and it’s a complex polysaccharide with glycosidic linkages at carbons one and four. But I expect few people to know what that means and ever fewer to care. I took organic chemistry courses and even I can’t read that sentence without hearing static.

Simply put, fiber is a carbohydrate – a sugar. But you won’t be sprinkling cellulose in your coffee because humans can’t digest it. It’s what keeps stems upright and it’s what makes bark tough. Termites can digest cellulose and that’s why they love munching on the wooden beams behind our walls.

The body is an amazing machine. If it gets something it knows it can use, it holds on to it and processes it. But if you take in fiber, your body recognizes that it can’t break it down and gets rid of it. Fiber acts like Drano – it pushes its way through your digestive tract and helps move stuck things in the process.

But cellulose has been used for other reasons lately.

Processed foods like microwave dinners or even white bread can be abundant in cellulose. The fiber content in these foods goes beyond that of its constituent plant-based ingredients. Why? Because many food companies use powdered cellulose as filler. It is tasteless, cheap, and with minimal effort can take just about any shape. So to save a few bucks, it’s easier to use cellulose in a pre-packaged dessert cake than flour, sugar, or other premium ingredients. And as a bonus, because of the cellulose content, the brand can advertise as “High Fiber” or “Reduced Fat.”

Hey, wait… Something stinks, here…

The truth is your body can only process a little bit of fiber at a time. An abundance of fiber in your system is detrimental to regularity and digestive health. And since fiber naturally comes from plant life, it’s easier (and tastier) to eat a couple servings of fruits or veggies than it is to shell out cash for Metamucil.

For a more complete list of foods that use cellulose as filler, check out the slideshow15 Food Companies That Sell You Wood