If you use your noggin, you'll eat for your brain as well as your heart

The On Health newsletter from Consumer Reports explores "8 Power Foods for Your Brain," concluding leafy greens, such as fresh spinach sauteed in olive oil, above, may improve brain health "because of their high levels of vitamin K, folate (a B vitamin), and the antioxidants beta carotene and lutein.

Editor's note: We buy a lot of high-quality produce, and canned and fresh fish  from Costco Wholesale so an April newsletter from Consumer Reports was welcome news.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Just when I thought a heart-healthy Mediterranean diet was the only one I needed, Consumer Reports said I can do more to reduce my risk of Alzheimer's disease. 

"The MIND diet is a hybrid of the heart-healthy Mediterranean and blood-pressure-lowering DASH diets," according to On Health, a newsletter from Consumer Reports.

(MIND stands for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay).

That's a mouthful, but in layman's terms, MIND limits red meat, butter and stick margarine, pastries and sweets, fried and fast food, and cheese.

A few foods play a starring role, according to "8 Power Foods for Your Brain" in the April 2016 edition of the newsletter.

They are vegetables/leafy greens, nuts, berries, beans, fish/poultry, olive oil, whole grains and wine (one glass a day).

Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix contains a lot of leafy greens, here dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. At Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, a 1-pound container of the organic salad mix was $4.29 on Friday, as it has been for a few weeks, but the new Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack charged me $4.79 for the same spring mix on Tuesday.

Consumer Reports says leafy greens improve brain health, but the article doesn't mention eggs or sweet potatoes.

The omega 3 fats in fish  "may improve learning and memory by increasing the brain's ability to send and receive messages," Consumer Reports says. Organic whole wheat shells from Whole Foods Market, above, are wonderful with sardines and anchovies from Costco Wholesale. Below, wild caught white bass ($2.99 a pound at H Mart in Little Ferry) with sweet peppers, tomatoes and fresh herbs baked in aluminum-foil packages.

Butter is still bad for your heart, health experts say

When I compared Smart Balance Spread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, above, to Original Smart Balance in June, I overlooked another reason to buy the former: Less saturated fat. Reducing saturated fat can be good for your heart, if you replace it with unsaturated fat, according to Consumer Reports On Health.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Headlines such as "Butter is Back" in The New York Times and "gleeful" news articles urging people to eat more bacon were premature, according to Consumer Reports On Health, a monthly newsletter.

Those reports were based on a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that "suggests ... saturated fat, long thought to be a major contributor to heart disease by raising LDL (bad) cholesterol, isn't a dietary demon after all," the July 2014 newsletter states.

"The study got a lot of us hoping we could chow down on buttery croissants and fried chicken without any risk to our hearts," Consumer Reports said.

Not me. I never use artery clogging butter or cream, especially not in my cooking, which relies exclusively on heart-healthy extra-virgin olive oil. 

And when I eat out, I ask the kitchen to use olive oil, not butter, to prepare my food. 

I looked at several brands of butter at ShopRite in Paramus the other day. Saturated fat in one tablespoon was 35% to 37% -- more than four times the saturated fat in Smart Balance Spread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Many missed the 'correction'

British researchers looked at 72 previous studies "on the role of fat in heart disease and concluded that the evidence didn't support the advice to cut back on saturated fat, which comes primarily from animal sources [meat, poultry and cheese], and to eat more saturated fat, which comes mainly from vegetables, nuts and fish," the editors said.

"Well, not so fast. That report got a lot of attention, but less noticed was the authors' correction a week later.

"Turns out that when it came to unsaturated fats -- the kind in olive oil and fish -- they had goofed. Their correction shows that consuming that kind of fat does help protect against heart disease." 

Grilled wild sockeye salmon with a reduction of extra-virgin olive oil, chopped fresh garlic, diced organic tomatoes, red wine, organic chicken stock and fresh herbs. The fish was $10.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale, and most of the other ingredients also came from the Hackensack warehouse store.

Extra-virgin oil also forms the basis of a pasta sauce for organic whole-wheat fusilli with sardines. After reheating leftovers, you can drizzle more olive oil on the pasta at the table.

Two organic brown eggs fried sunny side up in extra-virgin olive oil with smoked wild salmon and Aleppo pepper. I served them with garlic mashed sweet potatoes, also made with extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings.

Eat more unsaturated fat

Consumer Reports says the study by British researchers "had other shortcomings to muddy the message about dietary fat."

"For example," the newsletter states, "our experts say that it left out research showing that the benefits of cutting back on saturated fat depend on what you replace it with.

"If you stop eating butter and cheese but start eating a lot of sugar or processed foods, you're unlikely to do your heart or your health in general much good," says Maxine Siegel, R.D., who heads Consumer Reports research on food and nutrition.

Considerable research shows that if saturated fat is replaced with unsaturated fats, the risk of heart disease goes down, Consumer Reports says, adding:

"It still pays to watch your intake of saturated fat, Siegel says. "Aim for no more than 7% to 10% of total calories from the stuff (about 140 to 200 calories, if you consume 2,000 calories per day).

A tablespoon of ShopRite butter contains 100 calories, all from fat.

"But equally important is to replace saturated fat with heart-healthy alternatives, such as unsaturated fats, fruit, vegetables and whole grains -- not refined carbs such as those in white bread, sugar and many snacks."

Drugs and tests

Consumer Reports on Health also discussed other research on preventing heart disease:

"Aggressive new guidelines from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology mean that 13 million more Americans -- including almost all men ages 60 to 75 and more than half of women in that age range -- should now take a cholesterol-lowering drug, such as atorvastatin (Lipitor and generic) or rosuvastatin (Crestor).

"A number of leading medical groups have questioned the usefulness of several heart-disease screening tests, including EKGs and exercise stress tests, long part of an annual checkup for millions of Americans, as well as newer and often heavily advertised tests, such as CT scans of the heart."

Does a healthy diet translate into good health?

Organic Spring Mix from Earthbound Farm is bursting with flavor, above. Wild-caught Icelandic haddock fillets cooked in Mexican Green Salsa are served over sweet potatoes mashed with extra-virgin olive oil, below.

Consumer Reports on Health says a 14-year review of more than 44,000 adults found that fewer than 2 percent achieved all of the following healthy habits:

Not smoking; staying physically fit; keeping blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol numbers in check; maintaining a healthy weight; and eating a healthy diet.

But researchers at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did the study, say those few people experience "a 76 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a decrease in death from all cancers, when compared with those meeting only one of those health parameters."

Fresh Icelandic haddock fillets are $8.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. Bottled Mexican Green Salsa is available at Hackensack Market and at most ShopRite supermarkets.

"Fortunately, there's still time to experience the lifesaving effects of being healthy," according to the June 2013 edition of the Consumer Reports newsletter.

"Adopting a good-for-you-habit -- even past your seventh decade -- can add several quality years to your life," the newsletter says.

Hothouse-grown beefsteak tomatoes from Costco Wholesale.

More from Consumer Reports On Health

Consumer Reports On Health reported in December 2007 that organic tomatoes may be better for you, because they contain more of two flavonoids than conventional tomatoes, including higher levels of other healthful antioxidants.

The March 2008 issue cited reports of bagged vegetables being recalled due to contamination with E. coli, urging readers to thoroughly wash even "prewashed" or "triple-washed" bagged fruits or vegetables.

I have been buying Earthbound Farms organic spring mix at Coscto for a couple of years now and never wash it. It used to say it was triple-washed; now it just says it is prewashed. I have been grabbing a handful and stuffing it into pita bread for a sandwich or placing it into a bowl for my dinner salad and have suffered no adverse effects.

Finally, if you wonder why some people insist on grass-fed beef, the November 2007 issue said, in answer to a reader's letter, that beef from grass-fed animals contains about half the saturated fat of corn-fed beef, and higher levels of two potentially beneficial fats: omega-3 fatty acids, also found in fish, and conjugated linoleic acid, which some studies have suggested helps protect against obesity, clogged arteries and possibly diabetes.

In addition, Consumer Reports On Health said, grass-fed beef is usually raised without antibiotics, hormones or rendered animal byproducts, which may harbor mad-cow disease. So be a pain in the grass the next time you go to a steakhouse and insist on a grass-fed steak. The January 2008 issue informed readers that new rules from the U.S. Department of agriculture require that "grass-fed" cows get 100 percent of their daily calories from grass, compared with 80 percent under the old rules.

Whole Foods usually has a good selection of grass-fed beef, including some raised in New Jersey.

See two previous posts, "If you eat a lot of rice, read this" and "Clashing food coverage at Consumer Reports."

If you eat a lot of rice, read this

Rice Diversity. Part of the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Consumer Reports On Health newsletter changed my rice-buying habits a couple of years ago when I read that rice was being grown on former cotton fields in the South and was being contaminated by the arsenic once used to kill boll weevils.

Here is a link to another article that discusses this health issue:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-164807623.html

I had been buying Goya, Canilla and Carolina brand rice at ShopRite and after reading about the arsenic-laced fields, tried to find out where the rice was grown. But few of the labels specified the source.

I then switched to buying rice at Korean and Japanese supermarkets, where most of the rice is from California and a lot more expensive. 

I continue to buy that rice. I grew up eating rice, as did my wife and son, and we eat rice three or more times a week.

Update: I went on a diet last year, eliminated bread and pizza, and switched to organic whole-wheat pasta and brown rice, which my body seems to process better (June 3, 2012).


I still try to find rice grown in California, and can usually find it on sale at H Mart, a chain of Korean supermarkets.


Costco Wholesale began selling Della-brand organic brown rice, which is grown in the South.


I called the company to find out whether the rice is grown in old cotton fields, but never could reach anyone who knew.

However, it's unlikely the rice could get an organic designation from the USDA, if it is grown in fields with pesticide residue.