Getting the most out of the Nutrition Facts labels

I see people in the grocery stores struggle to make real sense out of the Nutrition Facts labelling on food products - particularly seniors.

Here’s a great pdf booklet, provided by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, that you can print out and give to the seniors in your circle.

Click on the image, to redirect to the FDA site.

Ask your cancer related diet and nutrition questions for answers from MD Anderson Cancer Center experts

NOTE: You must ask during this week to be included in this weeks forum.

Ask the Expert

A cancer diagnosis always comes with questions. How is it treated? What can I expect? Questions like these are best answered by physicians and other health care professionals who deal with cancer every day. Anderson Network’s Ask the Expert message board allows patients and caregivers to get accurate, credible answers from MD Anderson cancer experts for issues that may arise during or after treatment.

Ask the Expert will focus on different cancer-related topics. Questions submitted by you will be answered by MD Anderson faculty and staff members chosen to address topics in their fields of expertise.

Next Forum:

December 6-10, 2010

Diet Makes a Difference

Linda Pataki, L.D.

Supervisor

Clinical Nutrition

Please note that the message board will be active only during the posted dates for each topic. However, previous topics will be archived so that you may access the information. If you have questions regarding the board or topic, e-mail andersonnetwork@mdanderson.org. Please read the message board standards below, then click the “I Accept” button to submit your question.

Can Energy Balance Prevent Cancer?

The investigational literature has actually been trending in this direction for several years, but the evidence is becoming overwhelming - maintaining a healthy lifestyle of weight control and exercise, combined with lowered alcohol consumption can go a long way toward mitigating the risk of having certain cancers and avoiding a recurrence of cancer you’ve already beaten.

In these times of financial stress, it might seem easy to ask the question “can I afford the gym or healthier food options?” My question as an eight year survivor of Stage III breast cancer is “how can you not?” Had I known then what I know now, I certainly would have made a better effort to avoid cancer. But I have made huge changes since my cancer went into remission to avoid a recurrence, since I know a recurrence of my cancer (a ‘triple negative’ breast cancer) is essentially not survivable, there being no really effective treatments now or on the horizon.

Hey, that’s some kinda motivation? Right?

That said, I go to great lengths to maintain a healthy weight and BMI (Body Mass Index). I’m 5’3” and weigh between 136 and 138 pounds. BMI of 23.7. Actually, it’s lower than standard calculators, but I had mine done up at the UNR Center for Metabolic Research - where they do a couple very sophisticated body composition assessments. I’ve also gone up there and undergone nutritional and exercise analysis by their experts every couple years since my diagnosis.

I’m a nutritionists dream. At least that’s what they tell me. I think you can see from the Food page of this blog, that I’m not exactly living on celery and carrot sticks, but I’m still the food police. We’ve nixed the processed foods, fake food ingredients, saturated fats, refined white flours, sugars and - worst of all - sodium from out diets here. My husband - at 79 - has the clear arteries to prove it. We’re not vegetarian, but rather vegan trending ‘flexitarians’. We love our whole grains, veg and fruit.

And we exercise. A lot. During the warmer months I get in about 800 to 1,000 miles on my hybrid road bike depending on schedules. In the winter I ski, walk and run on the treadmill. We do Pilates and Yoga. I also meditate regularly. I hate gyms. I’m not a big joiner, and I don’t like being indoors to exercise unless forced to.

And we cut down the drinking. A lot.

The bottom line is that I’m now 8+ years out from diagnosis. Those who were diagnosed with same at the time I was are gone. Lifestyle choices are not the total answer. Chance, genes and medical choices also come into play big time. I just know that I’ve done all that I can. That’s all any of us can do.

-maven

The following feature article is from CURE magazine and is authored by Don Vaughn.

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The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

Available at the mavenandmeddler.com amazon.com store: http://astore.amazon.com/mavenandmeddl-20?node=8&page=12

From Publishers Weekly
Conditioned hypereating is a biological challenge, not a character flaw, says Kessler, former FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton). Here Kessler (A Question of Intent) describes how, since the 1980s, the food industry, in collusion with the advertising industry, and lifestyle changes have short-circuited the body’s self-regulating mechanisms, leaving many at the mercy of reward-driven eating.

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Foods don't 'burn' fat, even in magazines

Can we ever get over this fantasy that we can ‘burn fat’ by eating special foods? On this month’s issue of Health, with a slender Brooke Shields on the cover, the headlines are blazing away:

Eat Your Way Slim

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Controlling your weight at the juice and smoothie bar?

Maybe not. In fact, you’re probably adding a lot of calories that you’re simply not aware of and they aren’t doing anything to decrease your overall appetite.

As eating on the run became more popular, smoothies and freshly squeezed juices became a quick, easy way - or so people thought - to get nutrition on the go. Time to let this diet busting myth go.

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Nutrition helps keep cancer patients alive

This is a shocking statistic: nearly one in five cancer deaths have malnutrition and weight loss as a  contributing factor. Yet, as I’ve watched fellow cancer patients slog through their treatment, darn few get any serious counseling on diet and nutrition as it specifically applies to cancer, as I did during my treatment at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. During my time there I met with a nutritionist at least twice.

Unfortunately, cancer can really take a toll on appetite.

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5 diet tips that everybody can live with

I’ve lost - and kept off - more than 30 pounds for about 10 years now. It isn’t rocket science, but it is about acting like an adult, having some discipline and adhering to routines.

When I go out with friends, I hear them making up all sorts of reasons why they should have the high calorie thing - since they ‘don’t do it every day’, or this is ‘a special occasion’. This is simply justifying what you want. I have, perhaps, three occasions over the course of an entire year that I consider so special that I throw calories and caution to the wind.

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The Omnivore's Dilemma: Michael Pollan

The UC Davis Mondavi Center presents bestselling author and UC Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan. He explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the twenty-first century. Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

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Still taking Vitamin E? Time to reconsider.

Researchers at UC Berkeley discovered vitamin E in 1922, and since then countless studies have been done on this still mysterious substance. Because its chief function seems to be as an antioxidant, neutralizing potentially harmful free radicals in the body, E became a superstar as the antioxidant theory of disease gained wider and wider attention. Would high doses of vitamin E prove to be the key to good health—preventing cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s, as well as producing glowing skin, good eyesight, and other benefits? Studies have yielded contradictory findings, but so far the answer seems to be no.

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