Organic food is the fastest growing segment of the food market. I am both saddened and outraged that there are people who betray the consumer’s trust in this noble effort to bring farmers and consumers together in a synergistic and profitable way.

Both Frank and I are tested regularly and show elevated total and LDL cholesterol. Because our HDL-C levels are high and triglyceride levels are low, my guess is that the LDL-C is a harmless light and fluffy type. Not the small dense LDL-Cholesterol associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). On Kaiser’s own risk calculator, I have less than a 1% chance of CVD in the next 10 years.

Certainly, food and beverage companies have to step up and do what they can. I am encouraged by decreasing trans fat content in food, and current efforts to reduce sodium, sugar, and especially high fructose corn sweetener. But reformulating food is only one piece of the puzzle. Harder questions need to be answered regarding our food supply.

I cringed when I saw the headline. The American Council on Exercise has partnered with the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System. The relationship between the fitness industry and nutrition has been messy for decades. The track record is dismal between the selling of suspect sport nutritional products and the offering of nutrition advice by people who only think they know.

I can’t disagree more with the author. There is reason to be cautious, and I am not at all convinced that this food is safe in the fullest sense. While Dr. Miller is appalled “regulators chose the most risk-averse and burdensome approach”, there is reason to be cautious. FDA does not have such a good track record when it comes to approving novel food ingredients. Partially hydrogenated oils (trans fat), high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners are the first debacles that come to mind.

My son went to school with three servings of fruits and vegetables just for lunch. Why are so many people not eating their share? The authors suggest it is about access, availability and affordability. I would add two more: taste and quality.

Yesterday afternoon I scanned Chow Hound at the last minute for inspiration. I was frustrated that most of the recommendations were in West Hollywood, downtown or environs that weren’t going to work. My husband wanted to drive home from downtown and go together. I knew I was not going to get him in the car again for any significant distance. I opted for a restaurant we had been to a couple of years ago.

WHEN ONE FRAICHE IS NOT THE SAME AS THE OTHER FRAICHE

I did a double take passing by my local Whole Foods Market today. It is a convenient one block walk from my office and I am thrilled to have such fabulous food so conveniently located. Granted, I passed right by today, carting $80 worth of farm fresh produce from the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market. I like it all.

Now research from Sweden underscores an impact on body fat even two years after a 4 week “binge”. During the study 18 subjects consumed an average of 70% more calories than usual. (The experimental subjects were instructed to double their food intake, but were only able to increase it by 70%.) The researchers note that the calories came from two meals a day bought at fast food establishments, or from other sources of “high protein and saturated fat foods.”

He has lived in parallel universes for awhile now. Most of the food he sells is conventional, directed to the restaurant, hotel and institutional market. Price point is the paramount concern. Quality is a close second, but often price trumps quality. How food is raised and how the crops, animals and the workers are treated isn’t even on the table (pun intended).

I’m vacationing in Carpinteria this week, a second home for most of my life. My family started visiting Carpinteria when I was a baby and by my 16th birthday we were lucky enough to visit often, staying at one of the units my dad built just two blocks from the beach.

I am encouraged and reinforced. It is good to commune with those of like mind. There is much to gain from eating close to the earth, including meat and animal products raised by people who are committed to working with animals in the most humane and responsible way. We all benefit.

I have said for years that the scale is a very crude tool, and BMI is a simple ratio of weight and height. Many studies confirm that fitness trumps weight. Studies of active people and fit athletes bear this out. The heavier body mass from hypertrophied muscles increases both weight and one’s BMI, but doesn’t necessarily increase risk of disease or death. Most often a healthier active lifestyle actually decreases risk of morbidity and mortality because fitness is a huge factor decreasing health risks.

That is, except for the fact that many people–and scientists– want the issue of weight loss to be all about calories. We will be “treated” to these poorly investigated findings as long as there are scientists who insist that weight is primarily determined by the balance of calories in versus calories out.

When artificially sweetened products are consumed and what they are consumed with makes a difference. This study looks at sweetened products consumed before a meal. The emphasis of the study’s findings is to underscore fewer calories consumed. But the majority of criticism I read focuses on what happens to those calories, something scientists call nutrient partitioning.

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines are available for public comment and controversy has reached a new high. The USDA website has registered 1891 comments so far. Comments come from the usual commercial interest groups, nutrition and medical experts, journalists as well as the lay public. Most agree there are some noted and celebrated shifts in the report, and other recommendations just haven’t kept up with current research.

The LA Times Health section features two articles regarding milk in the diet and both of the articles explain my ongoing tolerate/hate relationship with this section. I like the idea of disseminating science via the daily newspaper. It is a resource many people look to for reliable information, whether reading it at the breakfast table or looking it up online. But the lack of journalistic rigor make these articles more saccharine than science.

So the political pundits are all over Elena Kagan’s response to a rhetorical question by Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Okla.) I probably would have taken the question quite literally, too. This discussion deserves far more attention. While health authorities bemoan the lack of “nutrient dense” whole foods in the American diet, government policy actually entices people to eat fewer fruits and vegetables.

So what happens when a target heart rate is set too high? The increased level of stress during an exercise test distorts the patient’s health status, and medical treatment is likely to be inappropriate as well. But there is more to this. Heart rate is an indicator of how the body is burning fuel.

The research postulates that adequate protein provides the necessary tryptophan–an amino acid that is the precursor of serotonin–that is necessary to produce adequate serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that enhances a state of calm and contentment. How interesting that it may be the serotonin receptors in the pancreas are key in the proliferation of beta cells that help the pregnant woman’s body produce the insulin needed during pregnancy. Without enough protein, the researchers suspect serotonin production is limited, which limits beta cell proliferation as well as insulin production. The result: increased incidence of gestational diabetes.

When you eat mostly whole, fresh foods prepared with skill, sodium is used to enhance all flavors, not just to get to “salty”. The trouble with the general public is that we have been fed a increasingly salt saturated diet as food manufacturers and less skills cooks use salt indiscriminately. More salt in foods leads to less salt sensitivity and we become accustomed to a saltier taste or don’t notice the excessive salt at all because it is hidden behind much more intense flavors.

A two week excursion to the Western Caribbean and the Florida Keys in April challenged every aspect of my grass fed lifestyle. The best I could do was mostly eat fish with plenty of fruits and vegetables, knowing most of my food was raised conventionally and it is very unlikely any source of animal product was grass fed.

Both my husband and I had dental appointments for routine cleaning in the last few weeks. Frank has always enjoyed better dental health. He boasts of his one lifetime cavity and comes home singing from his appointments, all aglow from lots of praise for taking such good care of his teeth. I have never enjoyed such a sunny experience. In our household my teeth are considered an investment, and if the price of gold keeps going up, I may have to start fearing for my life.

The USDA recently defined organic meat and milk as livestock that has spent at least 4 months of the year grazing on pasture with at least 30% of their feed from grazing. This is noted by organic farmers as a significant improvement over the old rules stating that animals must have “access to pasture.” We know what that means–a door that opens to grass the the animals may never touch.

Real life kicked in with a vengeance last week. I worked at a conference for four days, and then literally ran to a train for a three day cycling trip with my family. Most meals were consumed away from home. And despite my best efforts, I feel different, and not in a good way. I’m not as lean and visibly more puffy– and that is despite cycling over 75 miles during the last three days.

You can forget about finding grass fed milk lattes. I opted for tea most of the time, and succumbed to the call of Starbucks just once over the four days. San Francisco is not exactly an outpost, and in many ways Northern California trumps SoCal in terms of grass fed availability and consciousness. After all author, Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma teaches at UC Berkeley and Alice Waters has effectively spread the organic gospel across the bay.

Almost five months have passed since I switched to mostly grass fed animal products. I feel much the same as I did when I discovered that I benefited from a higher fat and protein diet–I can’t go back. I feel better, I am happier. I feel more resilient when the tough stuff happens. No one has erased my Italian heritage, but I don’t seem to engage the same. There is less of an obsessive, perseverating quality to my emotions. I feel them and they resonate, but they don’t overwhelm my thoughts.

Yes, my cholesterol went down, from 249 mg/dl to 229 mg/dl. But most of the decrease can be attributed to a drop in the “good” cholesterol, HDL-C, from 58 to 53.

I am grinding my own beef. If someone had suggested to me last year that I would be in this position, I would have laughed out loud.

Tonight we are going out to dinner for my birthday, a nice restaurant with close friends. I am familiar with the menu, and already know I will probably order the lamb. It is from New Zealand and grass fed. I am continually reminded how sharply my thinking and behavior has changed since I began the grass fed experiment almost five months ago.

I am running errands today and ran out of time before I got hungry and needed to eat. I just don’t eat away from home all that often, and certainly not on the fly. Eating mostly grass fed dairy and meat has impacted even the simplest food decisions. I stopped by a local market and picked up a piece of fruit and some chicken. What a mistake.

Bronchitis again. Every December it feels like I am destined to succumb. A simple sinus infection immediately invades my lungs and I am at the doctors for antibiotics. I don’t like this, but I haven’t quite figured out how to stop my life and not get exhausted.

We met on Wednesday. She said, “You look really different.”

In a moment of indecision, I opted for what was convenient and what would save me another trip to the market on a Saturday.  I am truly stunned at how how bad I feel.  I don’t want to eat this food.  I am already scheming on a plan to maintain my own clean, and unadulterated food supply, leaving the kids to scarf down the cheaper and more convenient fare.

Most flavored domestic yogurts add much more carbohydrate in the form of sugar or other caloric sweetener than their plain cousins.   Cheaper yogurts sweeten with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), others may granulated sugar and some stretch to use dehydrated cane juice (sucrose) for a healthier appeal.  There is still far too much sugar added.   It is too bad.

I am preparing a presentation regarding the metabolic and nutrition advantages of grass fed beef for Frank’s business: higher omega 3’s and CLA, lower total fat, lower calories.  I think I have a good handle on the benefits.  Then I read a reference regarding food safety.  I’m intrigued and look for more data.

I am dietitian and eat exceptionally well.  I am concerned that the knee jerk to statins is masking a more wholistic solution to our current concerns about heart disease in this country.  Despite exercising regularly and eating well, I knew there was at least one more thing I could change.