EAT THE CARROT, AVOID THE CARROT CAKE: WHY AMERICANS ARE SO SICK
By Harrison J. Bahe
Once upon an early Monday morning, I had a follow up appointment with Dr. Rao Ivaturi (aka Dr. I), the Diabetes Health Educator at the Wassaja Memorial Health Center, about my diabetes. He shared with me some astounding articles about the food I eat, you eat, WE all eat and how it is actually making us sick. “The current climate of our eating is such that we pretend to eat natural foods but what we are really eating is ultra processed foods. The more processing the natural food goes through, the nutrients of the natural food begin to disappear.”
In a study done by Harvard University, Sue Pritzker, Associate Professor of Nutrition at the Chan School states, “Higher consumption and higher intake of ultra-processed foods overall was associated with higher risk of eventually developing Type 2 diabetes, and more emerging evidence coming with cardiovascular disease, especially for coronary heart disease.”
“So, what are we doing with these ultra processed foods? We’re damaging ourselves.” Dr. I warns. Ultra processed foods are one of the four categories of the NOVA classification system developed by the School of Public Health at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The NOVA classification system helps people group foods according to the extent and purpose of the processing they undergo. Food processing as identified by NOVA involves physical, biological and chemical processes that occur after foods are separated from nature, and before they are consumed or used in the preparation of dishes and meals. They are split into four categories; the first being the least processed and four being the most processed. Below are examples of each of the categories.
NOVA Food Classification System
Dr. I shared a helpful saying to better understand what the NOVA classification system is saying. “Eat the carrot. Avoid the carrot cake.” The carrots have fibers, vital chemicals, antioxidants and all these things that preserve the human body’s health. When manufacturers extract the juice from a carrot, you lose all these valuable nutrients. You’re left with a liquid which doesn’t have an attractive flavor. So what do they do? They add sugar to it. “Boom! You got a sugar solution with very minimal nutrients.” Dr. I concluded.
In another study done by Kevin Hall, senior investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institute of Health, they discovered that participants who were on a diet exclusively made of ultra processed foods gained weight and body fat. Other participants who were on a strict diet of less processed food spontaneously lost weight and body fat. In conclusion: eat the carrot, avoid the carrot juice. Eat the apple, avoid the apple juice. Eat the strawberries, avoid the strawberry cream pie. Obesity and negative health outcomes have risen alongside consumption of ultra-processed foods but we can deter that movement by diverging away from category 4 ultra-processed foods to the least processed foods of category 1. It all begins with you and the decisions you make with your diet. Let’s see where we can end up together.
Trying to make a grocery shopping list to buy the least processed foods? Look for milk, meat, eggs, fish, poultry, plain unsweetened yogurt, beans, fresh, frozen, or dried fruits and vegetables, oats, grits, pasta, rice. Try to also include vegetable oils, butter, vinegar, salt, sugar and molasses from cane or beet, honey extracted from combs and syrup from maple trees. Those should be consumed in moderation. Try to avoid canned vegetables, fruits, and beans; some salted or sugared nuts and seeds; salted, cured, or smoked meats; canned fish; fruits in syrup; cheese and freshly made bread. Completely avoid commercially produced breads (Jerold Mande, CEO of Nourish Science stated that shelf-stable breads found at the grocery store are often no more than “very sophisticated emulsified foams”), rolls, cakes, cookies, donuts, breakfast cereals, soy burgers, flavored yogurts, ready-to-heat meals, such as frozen pizzas, soft drinks, and candy.
When natural foods undergo processing, the finished product may lose some or all its vital nutrients. The resulting processed foods are added with a variety of chemicals such as emulsifiers, stabilizers, coloring agents, and flavor enhancers. So, we are trading naturally made foods that are bountiful in essential nutrients and are useful for our body, with processed and ultra processed foods that have more sugar, more fats, more salt, and a whole lot of empty calories. Not to mention the addictive chemicals that are added. Now you wonder why Americans are getting sicker?