Tag Archive for: nutrition

Making Burgers Leaner

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The series of Memos on meatless burgers generated many interesting comments. With the major holiday for grilling just two days away, I want to show you how to reduce calories in beef burgers.

First, use a leaner cut of meat for your burgers. Ground sirloin is often designated 90/10, ground round 85/15, ground chuck as 80/20, and hamburger meat as 70/30. The first number is the percentage of protein while the second is the percentage of fat by weight, but the grams of fat are vastly difference. A 4-ounce burger made of ground sirloin has eight grams of fat while the most commonly used cut for burgers at 80/20 has 21 grams of fat. That’s a difference of close to 120 calories, and those calories come from fat.

Second, you can consider the amount of fat lost while grilling. For 80/20 it can be up to seven grams of fat or about 60 calories while 90/10 only loses about one gram of fat or just 10 calories. However, the difference in shrinkage would be significant. The four ounces can drop to 2.6 ounces with the 80/20, but you lose just under one ounce in the 90/10. That means the ground sirloin will give you a bigger burger with a lot less fat.

How do you decide? It depends on whether burgers are a staple of your diet. If you have a burger or two only on outdoor-grilling holidays, who cares? If you grill burgers a couple times of week, the fat and calories begin to add up. Add lots of veggies——tomato, lettuce, onion, pickle—and use a whole wheat bun; check the calories in the buns because they can vary greatly.

You can have your burger, meatless or beef, and enjoy it, too. Of course, there are a whole lot more options for grilling, but to me there’s nothing like a good burger grilled outdoors.

Have a Happy 4th of July and enjoy your Independence Day celebration. I’ll be back next week with another health topic to discuss in detail. If you’re not in the U.S., I hope you’ll grill along with us.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

The Bottom Line on Meatless Burgers

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There are a couple more differences between the meatless burgers and beef burgers. To get the red color, the Impossible Burger uses soy leghemoglobin from the roots of soy plants, while the Beyond Burger uses beet juice. Both are vegan and give the burgers their red color. The Impossible Burger also adds some B vitamins and minerals. The Beyond Burger seems to add only some iron.

Are the meatless burgers healthy or not? From a strict look at fat content, no. Cholesterol level, yes. Sodium content, no, depending on how much salt you add to your beef burger; if you add more than one-sixth teaspoon of salt to your burger, you’ve lost that advantage. In effect, they’re very comparable to 80-20 burgers you would cook.

The real difference is that the meatless burgers are sourced from vegetable protein. Even that may strike up a debate because one uses soy protein while the other uses pea protein. Some people try to avoid soy, although there’s no real reason for it with the exception of being allergic to soy. (Check The Bottom Line on Soy Protein in the Store).

The other difference is that they both have carbohydrates and fiber because they’re sourced from plants. While there’s not a lot of fiber, that’s an advantage over beef.

The critical factor is how the burgers are prepared and presented. The final fat count will depend on how long the burgers are cooked: the longer any burger cooks, the more fat it loses to the grill. The presentation also matters. Buns, mayonnaise, cheese (for vegetarians who eat dairy), ketchup, and other condiments can take a 250 calorie burger and explode it to 700 calories or more.

There’s no information available about the environmental effects of meatless burgers, but usually vegan foods are environmentally friendlier than animal products even with the shipping and processing necessary for faux foods.

Beyond Patties

You can find Beyond Meat burger patties in some grocery stores in addition to their brand of plant-based bratwurst sausage, Italian sausage, and meat crumbles. Would your chili or meatloaf taste different with faux beef? We’ve tried cooking with other brands of vegan “beef” and noticed only a lack of fat, although if we use beef, we usually rinse it after browning it to remove most of the fat. The lower cholesterol in the meatless beef would be a big nutritional plus, but of course all this scientifically created food comes at a price: expect to pay two or three times as much as for plain old ground beef.

The Bottom Line

On paper, the meatless burgers could potentially be healthier than beef burgers. Whether they’re healthy or not is a different story. I haven’t seen research on how the meatless burgers respond to flames and whether they may produce undesirable chemicals. On top of that, the presentation mentioned earlier also matters.

Most likely whether they’re successful or not depends on the taste. I haven’t tasted either yet but I’ve planned a tasting barbecue soon, and I’ll let you know what I find out. Until then, it’s beef burgers for me. It would be exciting to have a plant-based burger that meets the taste test. Let me know how you feel if you try them.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Defining Healthier Burgers

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Other than being plant-based, how do these burgers compare for being healthy? In order to know that, we must define “healthy.” Beef is criticized, no matter how it’s raised and processed, for having too much unhealthy fat. How about the Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers?

A burger generally uses 80/20 beef, which means 80% protein to 20% fat by weight. That isn’t how it turns out in calories. A typical four-ounce beef patty has 280 calories with 20 grams of protein and 22 grams of fat. There’s also 80 mg of cholesterol.

Both faux burgers offer 20 grams of protein, but then the differences begin. The Impossible Burger has 14 grams of fat in a four-ounce burger with no cholesterol. The Beyond Burger has 18 grams of fat and no cholesterol. There’s a little less fat in the vegan burgers, but it’s fat that makes a burger a burger so they’re about tied.

One difference is in sodium levels. Beef does not have sodium added, so it starts with about 80 mg of sodium while the vegan burgers come in with close to 400 mg of sodium each—but you know you’re going to salt that burger before you eat it, so to be fair, you need to factor in whatever salt you add. What I don’t know is whether the sodium is critical to the vegan burgers or not. Because it’s a manufactured product, does the sodium have to be there as a preservative or something to that effect? Could they be manufactured with less sodium without sacrificing taste?

I’ll finish this up this weekend so you can get the menu set for the 4th of July.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Are You Ready for Meatless Burgers?

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Grilling season is here and that means all kinds of meat get char-broiled. I love a good burger, but that leaves a growing segment of the population out of luck: vegans and vegetarians. Grilled vegetables are great, from asparagus to zucchini, but some people love the sensation of chowing down on a burger. They miss out.

There are veggie burgers out there. I’ve had Boca Burgers and black bean burgers as well. They may be shaped like a burger, but the taste often leaves me feeling cheated. That may not be the case any more with two new additions: the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Meat Burger. Even before I could dig into the background of each, there have been a number of articles questioning whether these burgers are actually healthier than regular burgers. That’s what we’ll focus on this week: what’s in these burgers and whether they’re healthier than a regular burger.

In checking the labels, one difference is the protein source. The Impossible uses soy-based proteins while the Beyond uses pea protein. One thing to note is that they’re both proteins because they have all the necessary amino acids or can make them from the essential amino acids contained within. I’ll get into the rest of the ingredients on Thursday to check whether they’re healthier than beef burgers.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Looking for Single-Nutrient Solutions

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As you might expect, I get asked a lot of questions about health, especially diet and exercise. One of the similarities between questions is whether a specific nutrient is special or unique. When I do the research to learn about the nutrient, I’ve never found one that’s the be-all and end-all—not turmeric or echinacea or omega-3 fatty acids or anything else. Can they be beneficial? Absolutely. But they’re a finishing touch, not a foundation.

The foundation of health begins with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, quality protein, and the best oils. The foundation also includes basic supplementation such as a multivitamin-multimineral and probiotics, among others. If you don’t begin with the best diet, then specific nutritional gaps, whether due to food preferences or genetic issues, can’t be bridged effectively because the body isn’t built on a strong foundation. Once you build your foundation, some of the specific nutrients can fill in gaps and act as insurance for the days you can’t eat as well as you know you should.

Eat better. Eat less. Move more. Build a foundation and you might find miracle nutrients aren’t really necessary.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

P.S. Paula and I wish all of you a happy Memorial Day weekend! Travel and celebrate safely, and we’ll see you back here on Tuesday.

Food Is Better Than Supplements, But …

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Getting your nutrients from food by eating a healthy diet is the most desirable way of getting vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Period. If we could all do it, no question that’s the best way. But you and I don’t live in some fantasy world. We’re busy. We don’t always have enough time to shop and cook healthy meals. Dietary supplements have helped fill the nutrition gap.

What should we think about this latest research? Should we stop taking supplements, especially calcium? Before I give you my opinion, I want to tell you that I emailed the corresponding author of the paper, a brilliant woman and a talented researcher. I had two questions about the study. She answered me the same evening—Saturday night before Easter. That I got such quick reply was remarkable; I’m still waiting for answers from other researchers I contacted months ago.

The first question I asked was a basic one: what was the mortality rate of the subjects in the study compared with the national cancer mortality rate? The national mortality rate is 156 deaths per 100,000 people per year. That works out to 1.6 people per 1,000. The rate in the study was about 3 people per 1,000. She replied that the study results are not directly comparable for complicated reasons.

But here’s something that can be directly compared. A 62% increase in cancer mortality would be transferable to national statistics because that’s the idea: to generalize to the entire population. A 62% increase means that 2.5 people per 1,000 would die from cancer in a given year instead of 1.6. When applied to the entire population that could be a lot of people, but it applies only to those who took over 1,000 mg of calcium per day.

The other question I asked was whether they had data on how long the people were taking the supplements; NHANES asked about the 30 days prior and recorded the prior 24 hours. How long were they taking the supplements? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades? That might have made some difference. The data were collected in the questionnaires used for two of the cycles that I examined, but that data was not used in the analysis.


The Bottom Line

I think we should eat the best diet we can. I also think we should use quality dietary supplements to complement our diet. This study was an exercise in statistics more than nutrition. It can tell us the statistical outcomes of the people in the study, but it can’t really be used to tell us anything about what we should do as individuals.

Not every person who took a higher amount of calcium died from cancer. On top of that, if supplementation did have a significant negative impact on our health, it stands to reason there would have been more negative results than just for calcium. Because the research questions were fitted to the available data, there’s just too much we don’t know about factors that can influence the results.

Another good question the study didn’t ask is why people were taking calcium. For instance, a woman with osteoporosis may take calcium for better bone health. Did those women have fewer broken bones with supplementation? If so, that might be worth any higher risk that exists. As with any nutritional intervention, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons. If you’re concerned, talk to your healthcare professional about what you should do; they know you and your health status and can help you make the right choices.

Supplement confusion is a good reason to get a copy of my new CD Supplementing Your Diet. Check out why at drchet.com.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Ann Intern Med. doi:10.7326/M18-2478.

Food vs. Supplements

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Last week, the health headlines blared that nutrients from foods were better than nutrients from supplements—specifically that excess calcium from supplements was associated with an increased risk of dying from cancer. That will get your attention if you take supplemental calcium, especially if you’re taking calcium because your physician told you to take it because you have osteopenia or osteoporosis. Let’s take a closer look at this study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers examined data collected for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) on food intake and supplement use. NHANES data are now collected every two years, so they selected six consecutive cycles and tracked the all-cause mortality from subjects in those data. They found that in over 30,000 adults over 20 years of age tracked for six years, there were 3,613 deaths with 805 from cancer.

The researchers then examined the food intake and supplement use of the subjects from the prior 30 days of data collection with mortality data. That’s where they discovered that in the subjects who died from cancer, there was a 62% greater risk if they took more than 1,000 mg of supplemental calcium per day. The overall conclusion was that nutrients from foods are better than nutrients from supplements; in addition, some supplements may be hazardous.

Should you start chucking out your calcium supplements? We’ll take a closer look at this study the rest of this week.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Ann Intern Med. doi:10.7326/M18-2478.

Supplementing Your Diet

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Last week, a study was published that concluded that nutrients from food are better than nutrients from supplements. Does that mean you can throw out the supplements and just eat more? Short answer: no.

Did you ever notice that one week some vitamin is good for you and the next it’s supposed to be bad for you? Why is that? One reason is the way nutrition research is done.

One of the most popular audios I’ve ever made was Supplements Made Simple, so now I’ve updated all the tracks and included a section about the problems with nutrition research.

Introducing Supplementing Your Diet—Why, What, and Who. This CD examines the issues related to dietary supplements in the 21st century. The first question is simply why do we need them? Can’t we get enough nutrients from the food we eat? I’ll address that question from a variety of perspectives, including those based on your physiology and biochemistry.

What about the research that says supplements aren’t necessary and are a waste of money? As I said, I’ll tackle that issue head on with three specific reasons too much research on supplements is flawed and yields misleading conclusions.

If you do need to supplement your diet, where do you begin? I’ll explain the four supplements everyone should take and the reasons why.

Finally, how do you decide which company to buy supplements from? I’ll give you five characteristics that distinguish a high-quality manufacturer. That will help you choose the company whose supplements are best for you. This audio cuts through the forest of obstacles to help you see things clearly so you can make an informed decision on how to supplement your diet.

All this information is just $9.95 plus shipping and handling.

And if you’re in the supplement business, this audio will answer your potential clients’ questions about the basics. If you want to grow your supplement business, I’ve included special pricing on five copies of this CD so you can loan them to clients to help them make their decisions. You can point them to my online bio to show them why they can rely on my explanations.

Enjoy this holiday weekend, and I’ll be back Tuesday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

The Bottom Line on Preschoolers, Probiotics, and Gastroenteritis

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“These studies are likely to have significant impact towards eliminating use of medications that don't seem to work.”

That’s a quote from a physician interviewed by NPR who wrote a commentary accompanying the two research papers on probiotic use for gastroenteritis or GE (1). I think it perfectly illustrates the fallacy of the pharmaceutical model of research on nutrition and its impact on health:

Nutrients are not medications.

They may come in pill form, they can be administered like medications, but they’re nutrients nonetheless.
Questions About the Studies
The . . .

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Did Probiotics Help Preschoolers with Gastroenteritis?

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The use of probiotics to stop diarrhea and vomiting for preschoolers with gastroenteritis (GE) was studied in two major studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the U.S. study, 55 of the 468 subjects who got the probiotics had scores of nine or greater on the scale while 60 of 475 in the placebo group has scores of nine or greater for the two weeks after the study began. This was a 20-point scale and the higher the score, the worse the GE symptoms. No significant differences.

In the Canadian study, 108 of the 414 subjects in the probiotics group and 102 of the 413 subjects in the placebo group had scores of nine or greater for the two weeks after the study began. Again no significant differences were found.

This led both research groups to conclude that the probiotics used in the studies were ineffective in preventing negative GE outcomes compared to those who received the placebo.

The press releases and follow-up interviews were much harsher in their criticism of probiotics. One of the study leaders concluded that “These two probiotics did not work. They should not be used for GE.” I would emphasize “period!” was implied. But is that true? If you’re a regular Memo reader, I’ll bet you have an idea where this is going; I’ll explain on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

References:
1. N Engl J Med 2018; 379:2015-2026. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1802597.
2. N Engl J Med 2018; 379:2002-2014. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1802598.