"Food: Transforming the American Table"

Last weekend I was at the National Museum of American History where I toured the new exhibition  "FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000," which attempts to depict some of the major changes in food production, preparation, and consumption in the United States over the past half century.

The exhibit's website explains that "the public will be invited to take a seat at a large, communal table in the center of the exhibition to share their own thoughts and experiences about food and change in America." The irony, of course, is that the exhibit portrays all the reasons why a communal table isn't necessarily the best symbol for American meals anymore.

But as I strolled through the exhibit, two things really struck me. First, I was curious as to why the focus was only on 1950-2000. This was certainly a period of rapid change within the American food system and particularly with consumer preferences, but I couldn't help but get the sense that the exhibit was trying to convey this transformation as inevitable. Basically that "as a growing, industrialized country, the natural progression (i.e. transformation as the exhibit title says) is towards a system of abundance, convenience, and processed food."

The framing reminded me of a 2011 TED talk by Mehmood Khan, the chief executive officer of PepsiCo's Global Nutrition Group and it's chief scientific officer. His basic argument is that to feed a growing global population, we need food processing. I found it quite a coincidence that when I left the exhibit and took a look at the sign recognizing its primary sponsors, the Land o'Lakes Foundation was listed right there at the top.

I was recently in a media workshop where the facilitator made the important point to distinguish between the facts and the truth. I won't argue with the facts that were presented in the exhibit, but it's important to remember how they are presented.

Which leads me to my second point (and related to twisting the facts). The exhibit was full of fascinating food marketing and advertising.

Consider these two LIFE magazine covers from 1955 and 1962. What I find most interesting is the second of these two covers that prominently features fresh fruit and vegetables with the title "Bounty of Food." The irony of this, of course, is that though we'd certainly characterize the American food system as plentiful, there isn't necessarily a bounty of nutritious foods, like fruits and vegetables. Instead, and in part due to subsidies that incentive production of crops like corn, wheat, and soy, we see a bounty of processed food very different than what's depicted on the cover.

And here's an example of an advertisement for diet soda. It's fascinating to see how current advertising around diet and low calorie soda hasn't really changed all that much. Sure it may only have a few calories, but many diet sodas contain ingredients that really fly under the radar with consumers, including the artificial sweetener aspartame. Aspartame has been shown to cause migraines and a variety of other effects on health. This, of course, often goes unnoticed with a sole focus on calories.

This final picture I found fascinating and mostly because I'm currently in the middle of Waterlogged by Tim Noakes, which really debunks many of the common beliefs and assumptions of hydration. One of his main conclusions (which I won't talk about too much - the subject of a future blog post) is that dehydration isn't actually a bad thing if you're talking about endurance performance. Specifically, there have been countless studies showing a close relationship between change in body weight (i.e. level of dehydration through water loss) and performance. Those who had the highest percent change in body weight were those who performed best. Unfortunately, we've seen companies that produce sports drinks do a very good job of convincing us otherwise.

Overall, I was glad to see the museum take on the issue of food in the United States. Our food system has changed quite dramatically and over a relatively short period of time, and I thoroughly enjoyed how some of these changes were presented. There are some interesting pieces related to local food movements, in particular, that were certainly worth taking a look at. Oh, and if you're a fan of Julia Child, her kitchen that is on display is a big hit.

So, if you're around the National Mall anytime soon, I certainly recommend making a stop in to tour the exhibit.

The latest on GMO crops: how prevalent are they?

The issue of genetically modified crops (or technically genetically modified organisms - GMOs) was front and center last week when the Supreme Court ruled on a case involving an Indiana farmer and Monsanto, the maker and patent-holder of Roundup Ready genetically-modified soybean seeds (Bowman v. Monsanto). Though the court ruled narrowly on the issue and didn't speak much to the broader issue of patent protection for products that might be self-replicating, it was a reminder of how complicated and often contentious the issue of GMOs has become in the United States.

The ruling also coincidentally came just weeks before trade talks between the U.S. and the European Union are set to begin with. And you guessed it, GMOs and differing views on agricultural practices will be a part of the discussion.

But of course the issue of GMOs isn't just in trade talks. Grocery stories like Whole Foods are taking steps to rid their shelves of all GMO products. Earlier this year, they announced mandatory labeling of all GMO foods by 2018. Vermont is going so far as to mandate labeling of products with GMO ingredients.

According to polling conducted earlier this year, the majority of the country agrees. An overwhelming 82 percent of Americans across different demographics think GMO foods should be labeled.

So, should we be concerned about GMOs? A recent series of articles published in the prestigious journal Nature shed some light on the prevalence of GMO crops in the U.S. agricultural market.

Here are a few highlights:

Monthly Reading Roundup: April 2013

BOOKS

Rich Food Poor Food: the ultimate grocery purchasing system, by Mira Calton and Jayson Calton

NEWS AND REPORTS

"Tackling The Weight Of The World: What One African Woman Taught Us About Global Obesity" -Laura M. Blinkhorn & Mascha A. Davis, Health Affairs, April 2013

"The latest tool for tracking obesity? Facebook likes" -Alexandra Sifferlin, TIME, April 2013

"Consumer Reports investigation: Talking turkey, Our new tests show reasons for concern" -Consumer Reports, April 2013

"Analysis: Workplace wellbeing – what can the UK learn from around the world?" -Tessa Norman, Health Insurance & Protection, April 2013

"Consumption Junction: Childhood Obesity Determined Largely by Environmental Factors, Not Genes or Sloth" -Scientific American, April 2013

"Does Higher-Intensity Exercise Produce More Results?" -American College of Sports Medicine, March 2013

RESEARCH

"Expert and Stakeholder Consensus on Priorities for Obesity Prevention Research in Early Care and Education Settings" -Dianne S. Ward, Amber Vaughn, and Mary Story. Childhood Obesity. April 2013

"Prevalence of a Healthy Lifestyle Among Individuals With Cardiovascular Disease in High-, Middle- and Low-Income Countries" -Koon Teo, Scott Lear, Shofiqul Islam, et al. JAMA, April 2013

"Worldwide application of prevention science in adolescent health" -Richard F Catalano et. al. Lancet, April 2013

BONUS

Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work

Minimalist running shoes: Are they really what we want them to be?

Like many I began to think about so-called minimalist running after I read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, which tells the story of the seemingly superhuman Tarahumara Indians and their ability to naturally run for miles (and essentially barefoot). Similar to what the Paleo diet has done in nutrition circles to reinvigorate an ancestral perspective with nutrition (to essentially think of nutrition or diet composition as something that should be strongly informed by what our ancestors ate thousands of years ago), McDougall's book sheds like on running from the perspective of human evolution.

Around the same time the book came out in 2011, discussions about barefoot running really started to take off and contributed to the serge of minimalist running shoes that came onto the market. (Many of the major running shoe brands now have at least one minimalist option.) A 2012 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that about 75% of more than 6,000 runners surveyed said they were "at least somewhat interested in running barefoot or in minimalist shoes."

So what's all the hype about? Why are so many people interested in minimalist running shoes?

More and more research is pointing to several benefits from barefoot running, such as fewer injuries or better performance. This study found runners in minimalist shoes or barefoot were 2-3 percent more economical while running on a treadmill than running in standard running shoes, likely due to improved "elastic energy storage and release in the lower extremity during minimal-shoe running." Comparing injury rates between runners wearing minimalist shoes (or running barefoot) and those wearing traditional shoes, other researchers found an injury rate 3.4 times higher in those wearing traditional shoes.

The basic argument for increased injuries when wearing traditional running shoes has everything to do with the biomechanical differences in foot strike. As I've discussed previously, when heel striking the equal and opposite force that is generated sends a shock to the ankle, knee and hips. Conversely, during a forefoot strike (which is more common with barefoot and minimalist runners), there is a much smaller impact force that's generated. For those interested in exploring this more, I highly recommend the above link on biomechanical differences in foot strikes. Looking back at the 2012 study of 6,000 runners I just mentioned, injury prevention was the most common reason for choosing to run barefoot or in minimalist shoes. More than a third of those running barefoot or in minimalist shoes said it was prevent future injury.

But, for some of the benefits, there are certainly some risks, particularly for those making the transition to minimalist/barefoot running after years or decades of running and walking in traditional shoes. In Lore of Running, Dr. Tim Noakes writes "only those with perfect biomechanical function were able to survive training; those with less than perfect function were soon injured and dropped the sport. Today, many runners who have very bad biomechanics are able to run prodigious distances only because of the very real improvement in the design of running shoes. In the past, they would simply have had to stop running because of recurring injury."

In fact, there has been research to suggest that many of the benefits of barefoot running are in those who have consistently trained their feet and surrounding musculature to adapt. The main take-away - if you're interested in running barefoot or in minimalist shoes, it's going to take time. More on this later.

I'm personally about a year into the process of transitioning to more minimalist running (for all the reasons I've already discussed).

I went from running in these about 18 months ago...

To these about 6-12 months ago...

And began running in these about 4 months ago...

But one of the interesting questions - and one that isn't addressed often in the literature - is if minimalist running shoes actually does a good job of simulating barefoot running from a biomechanical perspective. There's plenty of evidence showing a clear difference with traditional running shoes, but studies often lump minimalist running shoes into the same category as barefoot running. The big question is....is this a good assumption?

Well, taking a look at a study from earlier this year published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests it might not be. Researchers looked at the 3-D kinematics at the hip (top panels), knee (middle panels) and ankle (bottoms panels) joints for the stance phase of the gait cycle (this is when the foot is in contact with the ground) of four different shoe types: barefoot, minimalist, racing flat, and traditional running shoes.

Here is a breakdown of what they found...

It's slightly difficult to interpret because the graph is a little small, but here are two main points.

First, you'll notice that much of the kinematic variation is at the ankle and knee, and much less so at the hip. Barefoot runners showed a reduction in peak power generation at the knee, but an increase at the ankle compared to all other running types. You basically have a shift in the joint being stressed when barefoot running from the knee to ankle. This is, in my opinion, one of the important reasons for a gradual transition if you're thinking about dumping those regular running shoes and hitting the pavement barefoot.

As I mentioned before, it takes time to build the necessary foot and ankle strength to accommodate barefoot running (or minimalist shoes in some cases). By making the transition too quickly you run risk of injury. This is even the case when transitioning from traditional running shoes to more minimalist shoes. Start by spending more time walking around the house barefoot, or introduce one workout a week in more minimalist shoes. Over time and with increased strength in the foot, ankle, and calf, you'll be able to slowly build volume.

Second, kinematic analysis showed that the joints examined tended to act more alike in minimalist, racing flats, and regular shoes, compared with barefoot running, which had it's own unique kinematic profile. So, what does that mean? Well, essentially, there isn't too much of a difference between regular running shoes and minimalist shoes from a kinematic perspective, despite all the marketing claims. (One word of caution: this study looked only at one particular type of minimalist shoes - the Nike Frees - and didn't necessary look at all commercially available minimalist shoes, such as those from New Balance, Saucony or Brooks.)

So, if the hope is to mimic barefoot running by buying a pair of minimalist shoes, you might just want to slowly ease into the real thing. As much as we'd like minimalist running shoes to give us the same experience as running barefoot; well, that simply might not be the case. And if you're hoping to improve your biomechanics, you might get a higher bang for your buck by focusing on running technique and drills instead of dropping a hundred bucks on a new pair of kicks. Recalling the mantra of running coach James Dunne - form before footwear!

Comparing obesity trends in the U.S. with other countries

Last week PBS Newshour published an interesting article reporting on obesity trends among some of the major developed countries around the world, including the United States. Using an interesting resource by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (an organization of 34 industrialized countries, including the U.S) called the Better Life Index, the tool below lets you explore and compare obesity trends across different OECD countries.