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| 88 year old Mom who eats a Mediterranean diet |
Let's look at the Health Food Industry. There is a whole gamut - from supplements, to buying prepared meals to junk food. Are all aspects cut from the same cloth? What can you do to maximize health if you want to increase the good bacteria in your gut particularly if you do not have infinite time and/or money.
The food industry is regulated by the Food and Drug Industry (FDA). In 1990 Congress passed a law that required "significant scientific consensus" and "a preponderance of scientific evidence" for food companies to make scientific claims about their foods. With a lot of controversy, in 2003 the FDA loosened these regulations for the food industry claims about the health benefits of their products. Perhaps that explains why I see commercials on TV trying to convince me that cocoa cereals boost immunity, sugary cereals will help my child succeed in school and other breakfast cereals fight heart disease! In 2010 however, Dannon did settled a lawsuit for $45 million because they claimed that their yogurts were "scientifically" and "clinically" proven to boost immunity and regulate the digestive system and had not proven it. So what does their label say now? Just "Helps regulate your digestive system"! My mother still buys it because she believes that it does. Advertising works.
I decided to look at a number of yogurts on the market that all had "probiotic" on their label and all implied, although did not state, that their yogurt met the definition of a probiotic. I looked at their websites. They all were careful NOT to say that their yogurt was a probiotic food but all IMPLIED that it was and that it had all the health benefits that one finds with probiotics. Which one of these is the best? Beats me. Since the food companies are not going to go through the necessary testing to prove theirs have actual health benefits (ie double blind studies) I can't tell you which is the best. I can tell you what the standards are and how many colony counts are required for them to claim that their food is a probiotic. And the fact that they are careful not to make the claim assures me that theirs is not a true "probiotic". (If they make the claim the FDA, if it has the funding, will go after them like they did Dannon.) But they do want you to think that they will deliver on promises of health benefits.
I do believe that dairy products are an important part of a healthy diet. And I do believe, after all my reading, that there are very specific health benefits to a real probiotic. (Probiotics) I just don't know where to find one, except in a lab. And I don't think I'm going to get my yogurt from my local bio chem lab. So how do you pick? This is what I'm going to tell my daughter who has been asking me. (Actually, I'm just going to tell her to read this, which she does anyway.) I would go for ones that have live cultures and I would choose one that has the highest colony counts. (Good luck finding that out!) So pick ones that have a bigger variety of organisms. Then pick ones based on taste because then you are more likely to actually eat them. And finally I would go for the nonfat or the low fat yogurt. This is almost all I have to say on yogurt, except I just bought a yogurt maker. I'll let you know in a future blog if it's worth the effort.
Although at a future date there may be be other probiotic foods for purchase, right now there are none. The only other possible way to increase your probiotics is to buy supplements. However, again buyer beware. There is no data that the organisms actually get to your gut. (All of them have the same wording "Statements and claims on this site have not been reviewed or evaluated by the FDA")
Prebiotics are a little more confusing in how you get them in your diet. Clearly they are good for you. They are present in many fruits and vegetables. Depending on what you want the prebiotic to do for you and what kind it is, you need anywhere from 5-15 grams per day in your diet. (A 6 gram serving is about 1/4 lb of raw asparagus; 1 1/3 lbs of bananas, 1/4 lb of cooked onions or 2-3 raw onions) But do you need to take a supplement? How about snack foods?
Prebiotic supplements are fiber pills. Most of their products have inulin or fructo-olisaccharides in them. The many company advertisements state that that their claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. They, too, all use the same wording as above. Most of their products have inulin or fructo-olisaccharides in them. PepsiCo is working on "functional food snacks" (Snacks for a Fat Planet, The New Yorker, 5/16/2011) but they are still not available.
If a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, ( as now recommended by the new USDA nutritional guidelines Choose My Plate), would need a supplement to reach 5-15 grams of prebiotics a day depends on whether or not the choices you make also are ones that have a high percentage of the types of dietary fiber that are considered functional.
What do I get from all of this reading and analysis of functional foods? First of all, you can look at this from one of two ways - you can either say that functional foods have additional health benefits beyond their nutritional values OR you could say that the other foods have detrimental health benefits beyond their nutritional values! What I mean is that perhaps poor food choices can encourage the growth of toxin-producing bacteria that lead to ill health. If you stop eating foods that cause toxins, you improve your health. Hence, you have increased your health benefit. This is different than getting additional health benefits from the other foods - you are getting additional health benefits because you stopped doing something negative (like people who stopped smoking). But either way you look at it, it is a good thing.
You have to eat something. You can eat food that leads to bacteria that produce toxins. Or you can eat food that is good for you. Like Mom always said, EAT YOUR VEGETABLES! Do you need to pay extra to get it in pill form? Your choice.
My next blog will be back to food and will feature recipes for those of you who want "functional food" that tastes good!!!
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