I love the Dr. Oz show on TV. The web site isn't that great--way too much information and tough to surf, in my opinion--but you can catch snippets of previous episodes and get lots of tips and tricks.
My wife and I DVR all of the TV episodes and watch them as often as possible.
I like Dr. Oz because he helps me stay on course with my diet (OK, I drop the ball periodically), and reminds me exactly why I'm interested in good diet in the first place. At 56 years old, I want to not just live longer, I want to make sure I live a good, healthy life, without sickness and disease. What's the good in living to be 100 if you contract cancer and Alzheimer's disease and other diseases?
Recently Dr. Oz aired an episode about pancreatic cancer. This disease is practically a guaranteed death sentence, partly because it's quite difficult to get to surgically, also because it's not a painful cancer until later on: one doesn't know they have it until they're dying from it. Dr. Oz said pancreatic cancer takes 20 years to come to fruition in the body and once you know you have it, it's usually too late: only about 15% of those diagnosed with it live much longer than a few months after the diagnosis.
What are the symptoms of pancreatic cancer? Oz said there were four: (1) Pain in the abdominal area, especially with waves into the area of the back; (2) Jaundice; (3) White (no color) poop; (4) Dark tea-colored urine.
Who is typically more prone to coming down with this disease? Well there are five categories of people who tend toward it more than others: (1) African-Americans; (2) People with diabetes; (3); People with a family history of pancreatic cancer; (4) Smokers, and surprisingly; (5) Soda drinkers.
People who are over 50 and who have a recent diagnosis of Type II diabetes should immediately get screened for pancreatic cancer.
The researchers on the Oz show were quite specific to mention soda as a key pancreatic cancer contributor. In fact, they said that no more than two cans a week could be dangerous.
Two cans? Some of these kids guzzle it two liters at a time; and many, many parents think nothing of letting their kids have a can or two at lunch and again at dinner. Some even let the kids drink it for breakfast! Sadly, I think some parents aren't aware how much soda their kids are imbibing. Even more sadly, school districts have agreements with Pepsi and Coca Cola and the machines are stocked full of the stuff. The kids haul around gigantic tankards of the stuff.
The researchers said part of the danger in soda is the insidious "sugar" that is put in it: high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This isn't actually sugar as we knew it when we were growing up; it's sugar that has been chemically engineered from corn. Many naturopathic practitioners insist your body doesn't have any way of recognizing this artificial sugar: it's a complete foreigner to the body and thus may be even more dangerous than the old cane- or beet-derived sugar. My personal opinion: Aspertame is even more dangerous, and yet many of us convince ourselves we're somehow "dieting" when we drink diet soda that uses Aspertame as its sweetener, even though we may be doing exactly the opposite.
But in addition to the personal health risks, here's the message for educators: Kids are taking in far more sugar than they need. I don't think it's a stretch to say most kids are absolutely addicted to sugar: especially soda pop.
The American Heart Association has recently come out with sugar intake guidelines that most adults will find startling. Current US consumer sugar intake is 22 teaspoons per day: about 7 1/2 pounds of the stuff a month. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 5 teaspoons (20 grams) per day. Tell you what: give it a try. See if you can stay under 20 grams a day eating conventional American foods you buy over the counter. Just read any bag, bottle or other container to see how many sugars are in a food item per serving. You won't have any room for cookies, brownies, soda, candy or other goodies: you'll get all the sugar you need just from ordinary foods. In fact, you'll have to struggle to stay under the 20 grams.
Now think about those kids who, you and I both know, often take in far more sugar than their adult counterparts. Why? Well, because we (parents and educators) want to give kids good things, and one of the really warm, comfortable, good things we grew up with is sugar. "Sugar and spice, and everything nice," remember?
But what we may really be doing (God forbid) is starting the development of cancers (including pancreatic) and diabetes in many of these little ones. They'll get along just fine eating the cakes, pies, ice cream, candy and other sugar-laden snacks and drinking copious amounts of soda until one day the silent pancreatic cancer killer has finally built its fortress and chokes off the pancreas. And then, what happens? Surgery? Chemotherapy? Radiation therapy?
If you watch the episodes in the Dr. Oz website link above, you'll catch the part about a researcher who has come up with a vaccine that could potentially stop the cancer in its tracks. The vaccine is in its infancy right now: trial stages in various parts of the country. But it has promise. So, if there's a vaccine in the making, does that make it OK for us to continue taking in all of the sugar? Hmmm.
Here's what I often wonder about: Back in the day when the Ma and Pa American Farmer brought in the goods, we had real milk, real sugar, eggs and butter. We ate lots of whole foods, lots less manufactured foods. Soda crackers were about as manufactured as we got back then, and maybe canned soup. Even "TV dinners" were a fad 25 years ago.
But food science has brought us so far and today there are few foods that actually hearken back to their native cousins without some sort of trifling. Moreover, sugar intake has exponentially increased compared to the good old days when a piece of candy was a weekend treat, and HFCS has replaced much of the actual white stuff.
I just wonder if one of the best things we can do for our students is help them think more carefully about food choices, and maybe get away from so much manufactured and sugar-laden foods, and back toward a more natural plate: half-vegetables, lean non-processed meats, real fruits: things like that.
If we work so hard educating these youngsters, knowing we've taught them great things, and then we watch them walk out into a world where in just 20 short years many of them will contract diabetes, and even worse, cancers: what good have we done?
Seems to me like schools are where good food education should start, not where kids can get away with eating anything they desire.
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