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Weight Loss Surgery: How To Predict Your Risk Of Death »
Lower Your Cholesterol With Pizza?
Sounds good, but how does it taste? And does it really work?
In another example of functional foods — which are foods that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition — The Heart Healthy Road Pizza may soon roll out to your grocer’s shelves or your local pizzeria.
If they agree to distribute this new product.
Road Pizza Company has applied for a patent for their new thin crust pizza which is supposed to lower LDL, the bad type of cholesterol.
The company has added plant sterols, called VitaSterols, to the cheese topping and the dough to help consumers to reduce their cholesterol.
I can’t comment on their cholesterol claims. And it’s too soon to say how the pizza will taste.
But I’m really concerned about all these enhanced functional and bioengineered foods. No one really knows what the long-term effects of tampering with our food will be.
Sure, we’re told it will benefit our health. But that’s what we were told when saturated fats were replaced by trans fats, too.
Now city after city across the U.S. is banning trans fats because the experts were wrong about their health claims.
But it took a decade before they realized their mistake. It turned out that trans fats increase LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and decrease HDL cholesterol (the good one).
So they actually increase your risk of heart disease.
Many people are unaware that interesterified fats — which are largely replacing trans fats — have been shown to significantly raise blood sugar and depress insulin. That’s a diabetes risk.
Worst of all, interesterified fats still reduce HDL (the good cholesterol). So there’s still a heart risk.
Want a non-food example? How about HRT, hormone replacement therapy?
That was touted for years as a way to not only stop hot flashes for older women, but also to protect their hearts. Years later, we find out it doesn’t protect your heart, but it may cause breast cancer.
So you see, this is why I’m skeptical of functional food claims. Again, I have no knowledge of whether The Heart Healthy Road Pizza will live up to the company’s claims or not.
And I certainly don’t want to single them out.
But I really wish we’d just go back to natural foods. Or at least, I’d like to see the results of long-term studies verifying health and safety claims before the public becomes guinea pigs in these modified food experiments.
What’s the big rush to market these functional and bioengineered foods? Is it really to benefit our health or is it just to increase company profits?
Technorati Tags: pizza, functional foods, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, bioengineered foods, trans fat, HRT, hormone replacement therapy
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under Nutrition, Controversial Posts, Foods And Medicine, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Weight Loss Surgery: How To Predict Your Risk Of Death »
Lower Your Cholesterol With Pizza?
Sounds good, but how does it taste? And does it really work?
In another example of functional foods — which are foods that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition — The Heart Healthy Road Pizza may soon roll out to your grocer’s shelves or your local pizzeria.
If they agree to distribute this new product.
Road Pizza Company has applied for a patent for their new thin crust pizza which is supposed to lower LDL, the bad type of cholesterol.
The company has added plant sterols, called VitaSterols, to the cheese topping and the dough to help consumers to reduce their cholesterol.
I can’t comment on their cholesterol claims. And it’s too soon to say how the pizza will taste.
But I’m really concerned about all these enhanced functional and bioengineered foods. No one really knows what the long-term effects of tampering with our food will be.
Sure, we’re told it will benefit our health. But that’s what we were told when saturated fats were replaced by trans fats, too.
Now city after city across the U.S. is banning trans fats because the experts were wrong about their health claims.
But it took a decade before they realized their mistake. It turned out that trans fats increase LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and decrease HDL cholesterol (the good one).
So they actually increase your risk of heart disease.
Many people are unaware that interesterified fats — which are largely replacing trans fats — have been shown to significantly raise blood sugar and depress insulin. That’s a diabetes risk.
Worst of all, interesterified fats still reduce HDL (the good cholesterol). So there’s still a heart risk.
Want a non-food example? How about HRT, hormone replacement therapy?
That was touted for years as a way to not only stop hot flashes for older women, but also to protect their hearts. Years later, we find out it doesn’t protect your heart, but it may cause breast cancer.
So you see, this is why I’m skeptical of functional food claims. Again, I have no knowledge of whether The Heart Healthy Road Pizza will live up to the company’s claims or not.
And I certainly don’t want to single them out.
But I really wish we’d just go back to natural foods. Or at least, I’d like to see the results of long-term studies verifying health and safety claims before the public becomes guinea pigs in these modified food experiments.
What’s the big rush to market these functional and bioengineered foods? Is it really to benefit our health or is it just to increase company profits?
Technorati Tags: pizza, functional foods, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, bioengineered foods, trans fat, HRT, hormone replacement therapy
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under Nutrition, Controversial Posts, Foods And Medicine, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
1 comment:
Hi, this is Debbie Fontana of http://www.ILoveToCheatDiet.com. I don't mind you using the trackback feature to comment on my articles... or putting a link to my article on your site. But you don't have permission to post my entire article on your site. It's a copyright violation. This article is not freely available for reprint without asking my permission. Please remove the article and just post the title with a link to my site. Thanks.
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