when the consumer-oriented Harrowsmith magazine conducted a comparison analysis of three loaves of bread: a) a mass-market “enriched” white loaf of Weston’s bread, taken from the supermarket shelf; b) a white loaf made by a local, small-town bakery; c) a home-baked loaf that used the “Cornell bread” recipe developed by nutritionist Dr. Clive MacKay. The results of an independent laboratory analysis:
The Weston loaf proved highest in fat and chloride (calculated as salt) and lowest in protein and phosphorus, as well as in the B vitamins (niacin, thiamine, riboflavin and B12). The homemade loaf was highest in protein, iron, calcium, phosphorus and the B vitamins niacin, riboflavin and B12. It was lowest in chloride and, surprisingly, in fiber. The bake shop loaf was highest in fiber, in vitamin B6 and folic acid, and lowest in both fat and calcium.” 24
Even those who represent the manufacturers of the spongy white “tissue bread” sold in supermarkets admit its inferiority. The managing director of the Baking Council of Canada, the lobbying and public relations arm of the baking industry, told Harrowsmith’s reporters he “does not eat Weston or any other mass-produced bread himself... he shops instead at a small specialty bakery ... adding that large industrial bakers could not match its quality.”25
Then there is that traditional favorite, the hot dog, so closely identified with warm summer days and baseball, with Fourth of July and Canada Day picnics, as to be a virtual North American icon. No diehard fan’s day at the diamond could be complete, sitting out in the bleachers, without a cold beer and a couple of hot dogs for lunch.
Except that the dog, in terms of food value, is almost worthless— especially the prized all-beef frankfurter, for which people are ironically willing to pay a premium, thinking they’re getting something more for their money.
The average hot dog is actually 58 percent water, 20 percent fat, 3 percent ash and 6 percent sugar. Less than 13 percent of each sausage is made up of actual protein, and even this is of poor quality, consisting for the most part of scrapings from animals’ bones after the main cuts of meat have already been taken in the packing plants.26
An eight-year study by the non profit Protegez-vous (protect yourself ) magazine in Canada’s Quebec Province found that most hot dogs–including all-beef, as well as blended chicken and turkey, and blended beef and pork hot dogs–contained “the minimum required by law of protein, too much sodium and too much fat” and that they were of generally “bad quality.”27 Only vegetarian hot dogs contained a reasonable amount of food value.
As for “all-beef ” hot dogs, which many buyers seek on the mistaken assumption that they contain more protein and less “fatty” meats like pork, the magazine concluded: “The all-beef hot dogs were the worst of our study: Not only are they among the most costly, but their saturated fat and sodium content is much too high. Avoid them.”28 The study authors advised readers that veggie dogs have “almost double the protein, a third less fat and sodium, and hardly any saturated fats compared to meat hot dogs.”29
PILL POPPING TO THE RESCUE?
The above examples, taken chiefly from the produce, meat, and dairy sections, don’t even touch on the subject of the highly processed foods that make up most of the other products found in the cans, heat-sealed tinfoil or plastic envelopes, and cardboard boxes that line an increasing percentage of supermarket aisles (see the following chapter). But the drop in nutrients in these areas alone has been so drastic, and so constant, that many nutritionists are now saying that in order to be assured of a healthy “diet” all people must routinely take daily dietary supplements—in the form of multivitamin pills.
“Absolutely,” biochemical nutritionist Dr. Aileen Burford Mason told Globe and Mail reporter Picard. “When I hear people say, ‘you can get all the nutrients you need from food,’ I ask them: where is there a shred of evidence that is true? They are in denial.”30 Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Harvard University School of Public Health, agreed, calling a daily multivitamin “a good, cheap insurance policy.”31
Unfortunately, Dr. Willett’s cheap insurance policy may not be as good as he believes. Over-the-counter multivitamin and mineral tablets, of the kind we’ve all seen lining drugstore shelves in a bewildering variety of colorful and confusing packages, contain substances in pure, artificially concentrated form, as extracted via large-scale industrial processes. But the human body doesn’t seem to work in a large-scale, industrial way. Whitney and Rolfes elaborate:
In general, the body absorbs nutrients best from foods in which the nutrients are diluted and dispersed among other substances that may facilitate their absorption. Taken in pure, concentrated form, nutrients are likely to interfere with one another’s absorption or with the absorption of nutrients in foods eaten at the same time. Documentation of these effects is particularly extensive for minerals: Zinc hinders copper and calcium absorption, iron hinders zinc absorption, calcium hinders magnesium and iron absorption, and magnesium hinders the absorption of calcium and iron. Similarly, binding agents in supplements limit mineral absorption.
Although minerals provide the most familiar and best-documented examples, interference among vitamins is now being seen as supplement use increases. The vitamin A precursor beta carotene, long thought to be nontoxic, interferes with vitamin E metabolism when taken over the long term as a dietary supplement. Vitamin E, on the other hand, antagonizes vitamin K activity and so should not be used by people being treated for blood-clotting disorders. Consumers who want the benefits of optimal absorption of nutrients should use ordinary foods, selected for nutrient density and variety. 32
The British government, in May 2003, went quite a bit further than the textbook authors, bluntly warning consumers in the United Kingdom that some over-the-counter vitamin and mineral supplements can actually endanger health, especially if taken in high doses. The British food standards agency, following a four-year safety review by independent scientific advisors, concluded that “long-term use of six substances, vitamin B6, beta-carotene, nicotinic acid (niacin), zinc, manganese, and phosphorus, might also cause irreversible health damage.”33
Sir John Krebs, chairman of the food agency, said “While in most cases you can get all the nutrients you need from a balanced diet, many people choose to take supplements. But taking some high-dose supplements over a long period could be harmful.”34
A recent study published in the British medical journal The Lancet looked closely at the effects of regularly taking vitamin E and betacarotene pills as a supplement to prevent heart disease. “Vitamin E and beta-carotene pills are useless for warding off major heart problems, and beta-carotene, a source of vitamin A, may be harmful,” an Associated Press (AP) summary of the study reported.35
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation gleaned similar conclusions from analysis of the pooled results of 15 key studies involving nearly 220,000 people–far more than needed to be statistically sound. “The public health viewpoint would have to be that there’s really nothing to support widespread use of these vitamins,” said Dr. Ian Graham, of Trinity College, Ireland.36
According to the AP: “The researchers found that vitamin E did not reduce death from cardiovascular or any other cause and did not lower the incidence of strokes. Beta-carotene was linked with a 0.3 percent increase in the risk of cardiovascular death and a 0.4 percent increase in the risk of death from any cause.”
Because the pills didn’t help,
