"And there are no GMOs here!"
Technologist Olga Kosnikova about food chemistry
Previously, food was healthier and safer, manufacturers intentionally indicate the wrong composition and calorie content on labels, cow's milk is better replaced with soy, white sugar with brown, vegetable oil with coconut, chicken carcasses are large because of antibiotics, and parents should not buy mashed potatoes in jars for children under any circumstances. Which of these statements are the invention of marketers, and which ones have some truth in them? We are working together with a food technologist and the author of the book "Terrible Chemistry. Food with E-shkami: what our food is made of and why we should not be afraid of it" Olga Kosnikova.
"Ordinary milk is harmful, it is better to replace it with coconut or soy. In extreme cases — chocolate or oatmeal!"
Here's the story: on the one hand, it's cool and great that we have a whole category of products that can be called a plant alternative. We can buy "nemoloko", "nemyaso", "neryba", "neyaytsa". The market for alternatives is growing — and this is good at least for consumers who adhere to a plant-based diet for ethical or other reasons. This is also important for those people who really do not tolerate lactose, since they lack or produce the enzyme lactase in insufficient quantities. Actually, because of lactose, the whole fuss broke out.
On the other hand, this trend is quite sad. What do I mean by that? There is conscientious marketing when we praise the quality of a product — for example: "There is a lot of protein here, and it is good for bones!" Or: "There are a lot of vitamins here, look at what a healthy product!" But there is unfair marketing — this is when manufacturers tell us: "And there is no lactose here!", "And there are no GMOs here!" And it seems that lactose, GMO or sugar is something terribly harmful. As a food technologist, I do not welcome such stories. And I want to note that there is no reason for a healthy person without serious medical contraindications to refuse milk. A healthy person can eat and drink any dairy products — it is an excellent source of protein and fat. And if the products are enriched with vitamin D, then there is no point in giving them up at all. But there is fashion. Shall we talk about it?
It seems to me that every decade there is some new enemy that we demonize. We used to demonize fats, now we demonize sugar and milk. There are a huge number of myths about dairy products — for example, it is believed that because of milk, mucus is allegedly intensively produced. And in order not to get sick with various colds, you need to drink less milk. But, of course, there is no confirmation of this theory — it was seriously tested by scientists. And we found out that dairy products cannot affect the formation of mucus in the body in any way. There is also a myth that milk causes inflammation, heart attacks, cancer and diabetes. But science does not confirm these connections. On the contrary, WHO advises to include milk in your diet — of course, if you like this product. There's nothing terrible about milk — and the people who demonize it just don't read enough research and don't delve into biochemistry. Well, there's no way milk can suddenly cause mucus to appear in the nose! I just want to say: "Take a physiology textbook and read it!"
And the myths about milk are spread by unscrupulous marketers who say: "Milk is bad, but our "non—milk" is good!" Yes, my product is several times more expensive, but it is healthier and of higher quality! In fact, such statements are nothing more than manipulation.
"It's better to eat everything farmed: it's healthy and natural!"
Such a statement is my special pain. The fear of all industrial food products comes from the fact that consumers do not know how to make food in production. And they don't understand why it is like this, and not like 100-200 years ago. In the media and on television, industrial food is demonized for the same reasons.
In fact, farm food is most often a deception of the consumer. It seems to us that farmers carefully raise chickens and goats, water their fields kindly, fertilize them not with something terrible, but with the most natural manure… But in fact, the risks from consuming products bought from farmers and small producers are higher. Simply because they do not have a well-established quality system, microbiological flushes are not taken so often to see which microflora is sitting where. Hygiene and sanitation standards are not as carefully observed as in large-scale production. And there is just an illusion that supposedly such food is more natural, more natural and healthier — but this is nothing more than a delusion.
Moreover, I know companies that buy industrial products — cottage cheese, sour cream — from a large factory, repackage and mold labels "Farm", "Natural", "Stored for three days". And in general, from a domestic cow or farmers selling something with their hands, we have a much greater risk of poisoning, getting pathogenic microflora - and generally eating a low—quality product. Therefore, we must be reasonable and understand that all industrial food is not created in order to poison everyone and not from some toxic chemicals and terrible chemistry. It is necessary to understand exactly how food is made.
"Baby food in cans is poison. Why give babies canned food?"
I would like to ask: what is the point of manufacturers to make poison? Let's say the manufacturer made the poison, let's say the children feel bad after eating. Moms see it, pediatricians see it. Doctors, scientists see. Who will buy the product from you after that for the second and third time? Companies will quickly die with this kind of business!
In general, baby food is a very special branch of the food industry, and it is being studied separately, there are stricter regulations for it. Manufacturers strive to provide the baby with a balanced amount of different vitamins, nutrients, macro- and microelements — in order to introduce complementary foods more gently. And the kids who are raised on mixtures, manufacturers strive to provide everything they need.
Safety standards are much stricter for baby food. The permissible norm for the content of heavy metal residues and pathogens is much lower, and the list of prohibited ingredients for baby food is much longer. In particular, preservatives and dyes are not allowed in baby food — not because they are poisonous or dangerous, but we do not feel sorry for adults — they can eat them… Because no one will conduct experiments on children, we have precautions working here. It is better to be safe with small organisms — because they can give an inadequate reaction.
In a word, it is much healthier and safer to buy baby food in jars than to cook it yourself. In my practice, there was such a case: one girl rolled up and sterilized vegetables in cans for her six-month-old child herself… And then I found out that there is Clostridium botulinum — a bacterium that develops perfectly in anaerobic conditions, without air access, and leads to a deadly disease — botulism, which affects the central nervous system. And it is much safer to buy a jar of baby puree, which has been repeatedly tested in food production, than to do it yourself by artisanal methods.
"It's not safe to cook with vegetable oil and butter. Here on coconut is another matter!"
Unfortunately, this is a very rude and unhealthy misconception. Coconut oil is mostly made up of saturated fats. Modern science and WHO advise us to reduce the amount of saturated fats and increase the amount of unsaturated ones. That is, coconut oil can be consumed, but in small quantities. However, switching to it completely, replacing vegetable and butter with it is wrong and leads to a skew in nutrition.
In general, we do not have harmful and unhealthy products, there is a balanced and unbalanced diet. There is a healthy diet with vegetables, fruits, fiber, vitamins (preferably not from jars, but from food), unsaturated fats, fatty fish, all kinds of oils… And there is an unbalanced diet — this is when a person constantly eats instant noodles and fried potatoes, pours cola, and wakes up in the morning and drinks three liters of coffee with sugar and milk. This is an unhealthy diet.
To summarize: you should not refuse coconut oil, but you do not need to worship it either. It does not have any magical and healing properties, and its popularity is only marketing and competent promotion. By the way, an interesting fact: people are not afraid of tropical coconut oil, but they are afraid of its closest counterpart — palm oil. This, of course, is complete stupidity. Palm oil contains about 50% unsaturated fats, and in comparison with coconut oil, it is even a healthier product. But myths and horror stories make it difficult to see this and soberly look at the compositions. That's what I'm struggling with.
"The main thing is not to buy products containing GMOs!"
The situation with GMOs in Russia is as follows: we cannot grow GM products, including for research — this law terribly slows down the development of science! But we can import a certain amount of GM products into the country - soybeans, corn, etc.
Now on every product, including water (!!!), they write: "GMO-free". What's it? That's right — no more than empty words. As a rule, there are no GM organisms in Russian products at all. But in general, GMOs are not at all dangerous. And science has no two opinions about GMOs. There is no such thing that some scientists are "for" GMOs, and others are against. The world scientific community has researched this topic well enough and understands that GM foods are absolutely not dangerous, they do not affect our body more than the rest of the food. Plus, the benefits of their use and implementation are much higher than the possible harm. In addition, to talk about GMOs, you need to understand what it is. This is not something from the outside and foreign and not something that we add to products, and then it is introduced into us.
GMOs are organisms in which we have changed certain properties by editing their genome. And you need to understand that any food has a genetic code. That is, we can influence the product either by traditional selection, or just with the help of GMOs. And traditional breeding also changes the genome of plants, animals and everything we need. But breeding is not a nice technique, because in the course of breeding, specialists can apply quite harsh effects — for example, radiation, pesticides that have a mutagenic effect and, accordingly, change the genome of the product. In addition, we do not fully control the ongoing process — including those mutations that occur during selection. We may have a useful sign that is not very useful and simply unnecessary for us. Yes, breeding was acceptable and normal before, but in the XXI century we have more precise mechanisms — for example, CRISPR-Cas9 technology, thanks to which we clearly change the part of DNA that we need — or cut it out, turn it off. Or, on the contrary, we add something. We clearly understand what changes are waiting for us and what interventions in the genome will lead to what mutations and useful signs for us. And here the fear of GMOs comes from illiteracy, from a lack of understanding of the basics of biology and genetics. I would like to ask people to go back to the 10th grade, sit down at textbooks and read again what a gene is, how it works, what our DNA looks like, and so on.
There are under—scientists who have become famous by publishing unreliable works about the harm of GMOs - for example, Seralini. His works were criticized by a serious scientific community, they found the grossest mistakes… But people don't know this — they know the beginning of the story: that the scientist came on television, showed swollen rats that were fed GM soy - and that's it. They don't dig any further and don't look.
The fear of GMOs is a big problem of the scientific world and a big problem for our scientists who cannot grow GM organisms in the country. This all slows down progress. And while people in the mass do not know how GMOs are well studied and how many advantages they have, manufacturers will continue to attach the "Non-GMO" die, including water, salt and soda, where there are no genes at all.
"Gluten is dangerous for health!"
The story with gluten is like this. Gluten is a whole group of proteins that is found in wheat, cereals and various other crops. But we are not afraid of other proteins — and we don't even know their names. Why?
Gluten is essentially the same protein as any other. In our body, it is digested to various amino acids, which the body then "disassembles" for various needs. And only a small percentage of people gluten causes a digestive problem — celiac disease. This is a genetic intolerance to gluten, which may be congenital, or may manifest itself in adulthood. This is a serious disease that cannot be overlooked at home. He has very unpleasant symptoms, up to prolonged diarrhea, weight loss, decreased absorption of other nutrients… Nevertheless, people, having read horror stories about gluten, can, sitting at home and eating a bun, say: "Oh, I feel bad! Probably, it's all gluten's fault!" But, believe me, you wouldn't miss gluten intolerance at home.
And there are also people with a serious allergy to wheat proteins — but you can't miss it at home either. Such an allergy manifests itself in nasal congestion, difficulty breathing, etc. But all other people do not need to invent gluten intolerance for themselves. Note: celiac disease and allergies occur in about 1% of the inhabitants of the Earth.
Why, when we give up gluten, can we get better? We're just confusing cause and effect. The fact is that we are not giving up gluten in its purest form — we are giving up a large number of bakery products, three pieces of bread for each meal. And in general, we began to eat better and healthier, gave up excessive sugar consumption and as a result we feel light — including from the realization that "I'm better than others, I don't eat gluten." But in general, the rejection of this protein can easily lead to orthorexia , an eating disorder in which a person is obsessed with proper nutrition.
If we put a healthy person on a real gluten—free diet, then he will have less absorption of certain trace elements, because giving up gluten is not only giving up a sweet and crunchy croissant. This is the rejection of cereals, cereals and in general — a terrible impoverishment of the diet without objective reasons. Therefore, until your doctor — preferably an evidence—based doctor - has confirmed celiac disease or allergies, you do not need to treat yourself "by avatar". Just eat in a balanced way — that's the whole secret.
I will add that gluten has been studied literally along and across. It does not cause any terrible diseases, but it also does not alleviate them — therefore, in particular, you should not believe the statements that the refusal of bread and cereals supposedly facilitates autism.
"If the chicken on the counter looks suspiciously big, it means it is pumped up with antibiotics"
Here we encounter several cognitive errors and distortions. Let's now tell all tall and stout people that they are somehow wrong and have probably grown up on antibiotics and growth hormones! No. There is such a thing as genetics — and a more well-fed chicken can be born, it can eventually be fattened ... Broiler chickens are specially fed a lot and are not allowed to move a lot. If there was a magic pill like hormones, antibiotics or something else to make the animal immediately become big and beautiful, manufacturers would certainly use it. But there is no such magic pill — fortunately or unfortunately.
Of course, people have a very one-sided understanding of the history of antibiotics in chicken. Manufacturers can indeed use antibiotics at the enterprise — but this is done in case of animal disease or for prevention — so that all chickens do not get sick and do not die. And there are very clear rules that regulate how many days before slaughter you can not give antibiotics to animals — so that they are eliminated from the body. Besides, even if we gave an antibiotic to a chicken, it doesn't stay in it forever and doesn't float in its tissues! When we get sick, for example, with a sore throat and the doctor prescribes antibiotics to us — we don't think that antibiotics will remain in us a month after taking them! In six months, in a year. Antibiotics perform their function and are excreted from the body without being postponed anywhere. Of course, sometimes a trace amount of antibiotics is found in chicken meat — but what is a trace amount? These are very low proportions of antibiotics — one thousandth of a percent by weight, for example. The fact is that modern equipment is so sensitive that we can see traces of anything in the product. If the quantity does not exceed the permissible norms, then there is no threat to the health of consumers. In general, try to buy products from large manufacturers — everything is fine with their compliance with the norms.
In general, if you see a plump chicken on the counter — perhaps she was taken care of, she was well fed and in general just such a breed.
"Some special substances are added to fast food so that people become addicted to cheeseburgers and French fries. That's why so many people love McDonald's!"
Manufacturers do not need any special secret substances - they have salt, sugar and fat. People love everything sweet, salty, fatty, crunchy. That's why we tend to overeat! This is what fast food manufacturers use. It has a lot of calories and it combines several flavors. For example, in a hamburger there is a sweet bun, sour sauce, a cutlet with umami flavor — and this extravaganza of taste creates sensations in our mouth that we want to experience again and again.
In addition, we also have an emotional attachment to fast food — for example, if a person was taken to McDonald's on holidays as a child, then in adulthood he will remember that Big Mac is a pleasure and something forbidden that he can afford now.
And so in fast food, the same fats, proteins and carbohydrates are used as everywhere else — just everything is prepared with the expectation of making everything as tasty and "aggressive" as possible. Such food is easy to overeat. But there is no secret ingredient here. If there were, everyone would use it. No need to build conspiracy theories around an ordinary McDonald's.
"It's better to give up white sugar. We're all switching to brown sugar!"
Any radicalism in food and a sharp rejection of the product leads to disruptions and the fact that the subject of the ban becomes as desirable as possible. Especially when it comes to sugar! But really — in ordinary life we often overeat sugar. Cakes and buns are easier to overeat than celery or carrots. Therefore, you just need to control the amount of sugar in your life. You can eat sweets not three times a day, but one, for example. If you are addicted to sugar, you should contact certified psychologists and nutritionists. But healthy people should simply reduce the amount of sugar in the diet — consume less chocolate and more fruits and berries, which contain fiber, minerals and vitamins, for example.
But replacing white sugar with brown cane is pointless — just like "organic" with iHerb for a lot of money. It is unwise to replace sugar with syrup and honey. All this is 95-99% sucrose. Brown cane sugar due to molasses or molasses is a product of sugar undertreatment. In fact, it is sucrose with a small amount of impurity, which is simply removed in refined sugar. There are no magical properties in brown sugar — it is absorbed, just like normal.
If we want to replace sugar with something low-calorie, it's worth looking towards different sweeteners. They can be both synthetic and natural. As a chemist, I understand that the property of a substance does not depend on its origin — it depends only on the structure. All food additives and sweeteners are well studied, the scientific world has no fear of them.
There is a very revealing story with the artificial sweetener cyclamate. The substance was discovered by accident and patented. But not for food, but to mask the bitter taste of medicines. And then they figured out that they could make soda for diabetics. A product was created with the talking name No-Cal. Naturally, the giants of Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not tolerate this. And very soon they were already riveting low-calorie drinks themselves, rejoicing in cyclamate. Coca-Cola Zero, beloved by many, was born just like that.
"Canned food is harmful to the body. After all, they contain preservatives!"
People take two words of the same root — "canned food" and "preservatives" — and draw an analogy between them. But the meaning is the opposite: canned food manufacturers do not need any preservatives to keep the products for a long time. In fact, canned food is obtained by sterilization — heating products to high temperatures for from half an hour to several hours (the mode is selected individually for each product). During such processing, all microflora is killed — after all, the product does not deteriorate by itself, but because pathogenic microorganisms multiply in it. Fats are oxidized by the action of air, and the destruction of the product occurs. Conservation creates such conditions that these processes do not occur.
If such a method did not preserve the useful and nutritious substances of the product, then we would not use it. Scientists have well researched how much nutrients remain after processing: proteins, fats and carbohydrates lose their nutritional value slightly, but these losses are not so significant. And the product still remains nutritious.
Minerals are not destroyed either — there is no thermonuclear decay of potassium and sodium in a tin can. Vitamins here are some that are destroyed — for example, vitamin C does not tolerate heat treatment well — it is destroyed even in fresh vegetables and fruits during storage for a week. But the rest of the vitamins are more resistant, especially fat—soluble ones - vitamin A, for example. B vitamins are preserved from 40 to 60%.
In general, if canned food is not the only food source and is combined with fresh fruits and vegetables, for example, then this is normal. After all, canned food was invented primarily for the army and space - for conditions in which there is no access to normal food. If you are not sitting in a bunker, then eat not only them.
"The food used to be better, that's why people were healthier!"
I call supporters of such views residents of the country "Kakranshiya". They claim that everything was fine before, but now it's not so good. But in fact, people used to eat very sparsely, more often suffered from food poisoning and generally lived much less than we do. I lived to be thirty years old — in general, it's already good, I made it to 40 - oh, yes, you're a long—liver!
There has never been so much food and it has never been of such high quality as now. We live in the golden age of food and drink! And we live for a long time — this is the merit of not only high-quality products, but also vaccination, antibiotics. At the same time, we began to live longer to the diseases of old age — cardiovascular, oncological diseases…
"Manufacturers specifically underestimate the caloric content of products on the packaging"
How do we generally calculate KBZHU? Naturally, no one burns food to measure the burned heat in the calorimeter. We have several methods for this. The first is laboratory: we take our product to the laboratory, and there they measure the amount of KBZHU by special methods. There is also a calculation method — that is, we have a clear understanding of the average amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in which products. In Russian practice, we focus on the reference book of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences "Chemical composition of Russian food products". These figures are close to the truth, but may fluctuate depending on the raw materials. That is, good food producers calculate KBZHU, including according to calculation tables, but also confirm it in the laboratory so as not to make a mistake. But sometimes, of course, mistakes happen. Moreover, the grossest mistakes — for example, manufacturers confuse fats and carbohydrates in places. There was such a case in practice. The students of my course #chemists had to check the correctness of the KBZHU in the product. And in the course of the work, it turned out that one — not the smallest — manufacturer — had fats and carbohydrates mixed up in places. It means 7 g of fat and 5 g of protein, but it should be exactly the opposite. Alas, such mistakes happen. The human factor is to blame here.
Those who care about the energy value up to one calorie can independently double-check the data according to the formula. There is a human factor everywhere — for example, when translating from English to Russian, a translator may accidentally write 9 instead of 6 ... This happens. But this is the exception rather than the rule. KBZHU can be trusted. So don't be afraid — the product contains about as many calories as its packaging reports.
"But the composition of the products can definitely be misleading!"
There are two aspects here: firstly, we have the technical regulations of the Customs Union on the labeling of food products. There is a very clear and detailed description of everything that needs to be indicated on the label. There is also a huge set of requirements for the composition! And, according to the law, we cannot not specify any ingredient - because this is a violation. And then the human factor is already included: there are reasonable and serious food companies and productions that monitor the quality of the goods and literally every letter in the composition. And God forbid that something that is not in the composition will sneak onto the label, or vice versa — some component will not be indicated on the label. This will be a very serious mistake — the company may recall an entire batch, destroy the circulation of the packaging. And the circulations are very large — 20-30 thousand. Of course, companies are interested in preventing such mistakes!
This can happen for small companies and sharashkin's offices — but they are fined for it, they are caught on it and then they write about it everywhere. The existence of open checks such as Roskachestvo greatly complicates the life of small and unscrupulous manufacturers. And now it has become more difficult to falsify and hide than it was 5-10 years ago. Of course, not all manufacturers are honest and not all comply with the requirements of the law. But, fortunately, we are going to a civilized world where the label corresponds to the truth.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru