People frighten themselves when they hear conflicting scientific results because they don’t understand when research is taken out of context.
That’s the belief of Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society.
His job is to debunk food and other science myths, he told the Saskatchewan Fruit Growers Association at its annual conference Jan. 16 during Crop Production Week.
People reject tap water because the chlorine in it has carcinogens, yet bottled water contains chemicals that leach out of the plastic container.
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Enter Schwarcz. He said eating has become a laboratory experience because we examine what’s in our food and where it was grown. Yet he said a more legitimate threat is not washing our hands. More diseases are passed along that way than residues in what we drink or eat.
Schwarcz, who has written 10 books on nutrition, said people don’t know how to interpret residue numbers. And food manufacturers have picked up on that. Some Tropicana fruit juice has been fortified with omega 3 fats, which keep the heart healthy.
Yet one serving of this fortified juice contains only 50 milligrams of omega 3, when the human body needs 1,000 mg a day. Schwarcz said a person would have to drink 20 glasses a day to get the daily requirement.
In another example he noted Cheerios cereal trumpets the popularity of oats and its healthy beta glucan compound. The body needs three grams a day of beta glucan and would need to consume five servings of oat Cheerios to get the therapeutic value. A daily dose of beta glucans comes with 11/2 cups of hot cooked oatmeal.
Schwarcz said the two biggest causes of cancer in the world are eating an unbalanced diet and smoking.
He said North Americans eat too much and don’t eat enough of the right food. Nutritionists recommend people have seven to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, yet the average is two.
He also recommended people choose foods of different colours since that is the clue as to what healthful compounds they contain.
Blue-coloured fruit such as saskatoon berries is praised for its antioxidant value. That’s why Indians learned to put the berries in their dried pemmican to help fight mould and spoiling of the meat.
While pomegranate fruit is also praised for its antioxidant value, you get even more of that compound by eating two locally grown apples a day.
He also recommended North Americans stop drinking soft drinks and have fruit juice instead. While each is loaded with sugar, the fruit juice has other redeeming compounds. Even better would be to switch to tea or coffee, both of which have been shown to offer some health benefits, with fewer calories.
Artificial sweeteners won’t help those seeking an alternative to sugar. Schwarcz said while aspartame is not a harmful compound, it’s not doing its job, which is to reduce calorie intake. Instead, Schwarcz believes people reward themselves for their restraint in not putting sugar in their coffee by having a piece of cake.
He also had a warning about organic or natural food. Those who want organic end up eating fewer fruits and vegetables because of the cost.
“Whether it’s conventionally grown or organically grown, the important thing is to eat more apples.”
