A recent news article caught my attention where some students in New Orleans now eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at school. This is apparently part of the Federal Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act, a program geared at eliminating hunger and improving nutrition in school children. Eliminating hunger—it’s hard to imagine that anyone would appose such a program, but I happen to be one of them. I certainly don’t support the idea that we should leave children starving in the streets, yet I see little evidence that hunger should be our major focus when it comes to nutrition and health in this country.
The True Meaning of Hunger
During our evolutionary history constant hunger usually suggested some degree of malnourishment, eventually leading to the dangerous metabolic condition of starvation. When people are truly in a state of starvation they often experience a relative lack of hunger. We virtually never see this type of metabolic starvation in developed countries. There are really no significant adverse metabolic affects from experiencing occasional hunger that isn’t immediately satisfied. Calorie restriction has been shown to lengthen life, not shorten it. Thus in a healthy person a little hunger now and then is a sign of normal metabolism and there is no pressing metabolic reason why this hunger needs to be immediately satisfied by eating. When the system is working as intended constant hunger must be addressed before one enters the dangerous metabolic zone of starvation. Now lets consider what happens when this delicate system to regulate food intake is no longer functioning properly.
This is Your Brain on Processed Food
When you eat a diet of highly processed food, hunger quickly becomes divorced from your bodies’ true nutritional needs. If you eat a typical American breakfast of pancakes, syrup, toast and orange juice, I guarantee that you will be ravenous within a few hours. There is mounting evidence that over time, eating this type of food can alter your brain function, triggering a form of food-induced brain dysfunction called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. This condition appears to be triggered by the consumption of three dietary elements:
- Excessive fructose mainly from sugar, HFCS and juices.
- High glycemic carbohydrates, especially from grains.
- Excessive omega 6 fatty acids from vegetable oils.
Of course this describes typical processed food. People with CARB syndrome can develop up to 22 brain dysfunction symptoms and the lead symptom is intense craving for sweet and starchy foods, pushing you to consume more of the very food that is frying your brain. Because it takes a healthy brain to auto-regulate fat stores, people with CARB syndrome start to store extra fat even when they don’t overeat, further contributing to our current obesity epidemic. Regardless their caloric intake, they continue to experience excessive hunger and strong cravings for sweet and starchy food clearly indicating that in this situation hunger can no longer be used as a reliable marker for a lack of wholesome food.
A True Paradox—Hungry but Obese
Now lets go back to the students and their three squares a day provided by the Federal government. The statistics for obesity and metabolic problems in school children from New Orleans are even more dismal than the national average. These kids clearly aren’t lacking an adequate amount of food, but rather they don’t have access to the type of healthy whole food that supports normal metabolism and brain function. What we really need to know is whether or not the Federal government is capable of providing a healthy whole foods diet, one that is supported by the latest research in nutritional science. I suggest that at the present time the answer is no.
Go to the government site that discusses healthy snacking options and you will see what I mean. They continue to promote the decades old concept that a whole grain, low fat diet is the healthiest way to eat. They want you to keep your saturated fat intake below 10%, but it’s ok to consume up to 35% of your calories from sugars! They are also heavily into “whole grains” and 100% fruit juice even though it has as much fructose as soda. Wait a minute—isn’t this the very diet that ushered in our current epidemic of insulin resistance, obesity and type II diabetes, especially among children? Even though these government guidelines have eliminated some of the worse dietary offenders like sugary sodas and candy, their recommendations are based on nutritional science that is at least 20 years out of date. Some of their acceptable snack foods include “light” (low fat) popcorn, a granola bar (with added sugars), a fruit cup made with 100% juice and low-fat tortilla chips.
An Epidemic of Hunger
Our government is proposing that we feed kids this type of food three times a day, 365 days a year. I can guarantee you that this won’t solve our “hunger” problem, but it will most certainly usher in a boatload of brain dysfunction and metabolic problems.
My baby boomer generation started this avalanche of highly processed food when we thought we could use science to deconstruct food and put it back together in a way that made it better than the original from Mother Nature. Instead of admitting our mistake and moving on, we will now pass on this legacy to generations to come. There isn’t enough processed food on the face of the earth to satisfy the hunger this scenario will unleash. Perhaps some day we will send our children to school to continuously eat all day, because it will be the only way to keep evil hunger at bay! If we are lucky, perhaps they will find the time to fit in a little learning as they munch away.
Because kids with CARB syndrome already have impaired brain function and a more difficult time learning, I find this “school as a cafeteria” model somewhat disconcerting. My recommendation is to once again have the schools focus on learning, leaving nutritional issues to those who have some understanding of the underlying science. Our government should play a role in the process, but first they need to get up to speed.
Government Has a Role—If They are Willing to Take it.
They need to stop subsidizing corn, soybeans, sugar and other crops that make up the core of cheap processed food. The government could also develop policies that make it possible for everyone to have access to reasonably priced whole foods. We should restrict food stamp purchases to healthy whole foods because nobody should be able to buy soda or chips with the help of our government. If you want to poison yourself and your children with your own money, in a free society you have the right to do so, but don’t ask the rest of us to participate in this farce.
As Robert Lustig and others have proposed, our government could decide to tax sugar and perhaps processed food in general, helping to pay for the adverse health effects of eating this type food and providing a financial incentive to consume less of it as we have done with other toxic substances like tobacco and alcohol. There are a lot of constructive things our government could be doing to solve these problems, but handing out starchy, low fat food to our children shouldn’t be one of them.
We Need Bottom Up Solutions
I don’t mind top-down solutions to our problems when they reflect the latest science, but when it comes to food our Government clearly has a long way to go to meet this minimal standard. In the meantime we should rely on those in the community who truly understand the importance of eating a healthy diet low in processed foods. Like every big city, New Orleans undoubtedly has some citizens who understand the importance of eating a healthy diet. They understand that children in these communities don’t lack calories, but rather they lack access to the right kinds of food. They need gardens, farmer’s markets and stores that sell whole foods rather than the highly processed food sold in many intercity convenience and grocery stores.
In my experience eating a Paleo style diet is one of the healthiest ways for both children and adults to eat, but you won’t find many Paleo offerings in your typical school cafeteria. There are many parents out there who have met this challenge by sending their kids to school with homemade Paleo fare. Paleo works because it eliminates the triggers of common metabolic problems and CARB syndrome. When your kids eat this type of diet their hunger levels will plummet and their brain function will shoot through the roof.
A Bottom Up Star
Haile Thomas from Tucson, Arizona is a good example of what one young person can do to when it comes to promoting a healthy lifestyle. Haile has been a pioneer in promoting growing, cooking and eating healthy whole food in intercity environments where healthy eating is often a distant memory. Haile also helped to found “The Happy Organization” to promote these principles. We don’t need to wait for a top down approach to solve these problems. Haile has shown us just how effective a bottom up approach can be. She is promoting growing food in any environment and showing us how to cook this food in a way that promotes health yet tastes good. She also promotes the importance of regular physical activity.
I find it refreshing but a little scary that a personable young lady like Haile can trump all the government experts when it comes to guiding us down the right pathway when it comes to promoting healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. All we need to do now is to have the wisdom to follow her lead.