DIET DECODER
Like song, like diet: Made To Be Broken by C& W star Lari White
DIET: Too Fat? Blame Hidden ’Chemical Calories’! ( Woman’s World magazine, Aug. 23, 2005, $2.25) CREATOR: Lari White CREDENTIALS: She is a Nashville singer who recently released an album Green Eyed Soul. CELEBRITY EDGE: See above. CLAIM: Pesticides, preservatives and growth hormones add chemical calories to foods, which the body can’t burn off like regular calories. These build up in the body, damaging the appetite switch and interfering with metabolism. This makes it harder to lose weight. Organic foods also taste richer so dieters will eat less to feel satisfied. Eat organic foods, add a little exercise, and the pounds will fly off — White lost 30 pounds in three months. PROGRAM: Cook as many organic foods as possible — meats, dairy, eggs, produce, grains. Follow White’s get-slim summer menu: it averages about 1,400 calories a day and centres around breakfast smoothies and salads for lunch or dinner. Dieters can choose from one of three prescribed breakfasts, one of two lunch choices, one of three options for dinner, and two of six choices for snacks each day. Dieter drinks 8 cups of water or herbal tea daily. SIDE NOTES: “Unlike refined white sugar, natural sugar in fruit, grains and more comes ‘packaged’ with nutrients that ensure a slimming effect on our bodies.” ALLOWED: Organic foods. PROHIBITED: Non-organic foods. EXPERT OPINION: The diet includes food from all four food groups, which means dieters don’t miss out on important nutrients, says registered dietitian Zannat Reza. However, she adds, the claim that nonorganic foods contain chemical calories from pesticides and growth hormones is likely false.
“It’s the hook to get people to try the diet,” she says. “There is no credible evidence or science to support this claim. I have not heard the term ‘ chemical calories’ and have not come across the claims made in the article anywhere else.” Some people can taste the difference between organic foods and non-organic foods, says Reza, but one doesn’t have a nutritional advantage over the other. While the menu does incorporate a variety of foods, Reza wonders whether the dieter can stick to the set meal plans in the long run.
“Everyone is an individual with individual likes and dislikes,” she says. “The menu plans may work for someone for a week or two, but can they follow the diet for the rest of their life?”
Breakfast choices, for example, are rather limited, says Reza.
“If you eat two hard-boiled eggs and a serving of fruit like the diet suggests, you have to add half a whole wheat bagel or yogurt to bring in another food group,” she says. The diet also perpetuates the myth that you have to drink eight cups of water per day, Reza says. According to new recommendations, women should drink nine cups and men 13 cups of fluids each day.
“It’s not just water,” she says. “It can be milk, juice, coffee, water or tea. Even soup or a smoothie or a latté counts as a fluid.” A dieter eats an average of 1,450 calories a day on the diet and this, says Reza, is the reason people will lose weight.
Organic foods aren’t necessarily safer than conventional foods, she says. Food safety largely depends on how foods are grown, handled and shipped to your grocery store.
“Regardless of whether you buy organic or conventional, you need to properly wash and prepare the foods,” she says. EXPERT VERDICT: “If you are gung ho about the diet, try it out. But ask yourself, can you eat like this for the rest of your life?” OUR VERDICT: Organic produce easy to find and easy on the pocketbook at local grocery. Unlikely to be such an easy — and cheap — shopping trip when growing season ends. Send your comments by email to health@thestar.ca.