Tuesday's Q & A in Lafayette LA - 9/2/14

For this week's Q&A Tuesday, I have a question for all of you patients in Lafayette LA…

Q: Why don't Wal-mart brand, "Great Value" vanilla flavored ice cream sandwiches melt when brought to room temperature (and even in the sun)?

A: Perhaps you have heard on the news that earlier this summer, a woman in Cincinnati noticed that her son's Walmart-brand, "Great Value" ice cream sandwich didn't melt when he accidently left it outside for 12 hours, in 80-degree F weather. Surprised by the un-melt-able ice cream sandwich, she did an experiment. She decided to knowingly leave an ice cream sandwich out in 80 degree weather for 12 hours AGAIN alongside a scoop of Blue Bunny vanilla ice cream - the result? A melted pool of Blue Bunny ice cream next to a perfectly intact Great Value ice cream sandwich.

Although Labor Day marks the official end of summer, we'll still be enjoying 80 degree days here in Southern Louisiana, which means plenty of more nights to enjoy a summer-y favorite… ice cream! Hopefully, when you treat yourself and/or your family you are enjoying ice cream of the real kind? You know - ice cream that actually melts.

Why Won't Walmart's Ice Cream Sandwiches Melt?

A spokesperson for Walmart told Newsday that, "their ice-cream sandwiches' high cream content is responsible for the slower melting time and that ice cream with more cream, such as Walmart's Great Value ice cream sandwiches, will generally melt at a slower rate." It's unclear exactly how much cream these sandwiches contain in comparison to other brands, but it is suspicious that the spokesperson made no mention of the VERY LONG list of additives, like corn syrup, that might also contribute to its odd inability to melt. These non-food ingredients are mostly used as food stabilizers designed to help food keep its shape (and you won't find them in higher-quality ice cream brands such as Blue Bunny).

Let's look at the ingredients list below for Walmart's "Great Value Vanilla Flavored Ice Cream Sandwiches":

Ice Cream (Milk, Cream, Buttermilk, Sugar, Whey, Corn Syrup, Contains 1% Or Less of Mono-And Diglycerides, Vanilla Extract, Guar Gum, Calcium Sulfate, Carob Bean Gum, Cellulose Gum, Carrageenan, Artificial Flavor, Annatto For Color)

… Wafers (Wheat Flour, Sugar, Soybean Oil, Palm Oil, Cocoa, Dextrose, Caramel Color, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Flour, Food Starch-Modified, Salt Soy Lecithin, Baking Soda, Artificial Flavor.

Important to NOTE: Sean O'Keefe, a professor and food chemist at Virginia Tech, gave the opposite account of what happens if ice cream contains more cream; he said that ice cream with more cream will actually melt faster, which contradicts Walmart's spokesperson, "More water means the ice cream will have to absorb more energy before it can melt. Also, low-fat ice creams tend to have more air whipped into them, which allows them to keep their shape longer."

Many Processed Foods Seem to Last 'Forever'

There is something disturbing and quite unnatural about an ice cream sandwich that doesn't melt on a hot summer day. Equally unsettling is a hamburger that doesn't go bad when left on the counter… for over a DECADE!

Wellness educator and nutrition consultant Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald's hamburger since 1996. When the photo was taken in 2010, the more than 10-year-old burger still looked the same as the fresh one on the counter right next to it…

Part of the embalmed-like feature of the meat patty can be explained by the fact it contains excessive amounts of sodium (salt), which is a natural preservative that has been used throughout history. The patty, which is thin, will also lose moisture quickly, which means it may dry out rather than grow mold or bacteria.

But what about the bun? What kind of bread can lie out for years on end without developing so much as a trace of mold? The answer is that the bread is completely fake and bears no real resemblance to natural bread.

A McDonald's hamburger bun contains:

Enriched Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Yeast, Soybean Oil and/or Canola Oil, Contains 2% or Less: Salt, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Dough Conditioners

… (May Contain One or More of: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, DATEM, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Mono and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Monoglycerides, Monocalcium Phosphate, Enzymes, Guar Gum, Calcium Peroxide), Sorbic Acid (Preservative), Calcium Propionate and/or Sodium Propionate (Preservatives), Soy Lecithin.

Real bread should only have a handful of ingredients, such as yeast, flour, eggs, butter, and milk or water. Contrast that to McDonald's bread, which contains calcium sulfate - also known as Plaster of Paris - along with ammonium sulfate and ammonium chloride, which may cause gastrointestinal irritation with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

As with Walmart's "ice cream" - in order to be labeled as ice cream, it must contain at least 10% milk fat. Beyond that, it can contain any number of additives that many would argue are not actual "food." Real ice cream SHOULD contain just a few ingredients, like milk, sugar, cream and vanilla bean, bearing little resemblance to Walmart's ice cream sandwich mix.

Shopping for Healthy Food on a Budget

People have thrived on vegetables, meats, eggs, fruits, and other whole foods for centuries, while processed foods were only recently invented. If you're shopping at Walmart because you're on a tight budget, it's a common misconception that buying pre-packaged processed foods is less expensive than eating fresh and cooking from scratch. DON'T FALL FOR THIS GENIUS MARKETING! When you consider the nutrient value of fresh versus processed-to-death denatured foods and the subsequent health consequences of each choice, it's quite clear that you can eat well and improve your health and still not spend a fortune. Some of the healthiest foods are incredibly affordable, even under $1 a serving, such as:

• Raw nuts and seeds
• Two cage-free organic eggs
• Avocado, berries, and broccoli
• Frozen organic spinach, blueberries, raspberries, corn & peas

In order to protect your health, Dr. Joseph Mercola believes you should spend 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent on processed foods (and we can't agree more!) This requires some strategy, especially if you're working with a tight budget:

• Identify a person to prepare meals. Someone has to invest some time in the kitchen. It will be necessary for either you or your spouse, or perhaps someone in your family, to prepare the meals from locally grown healthy foods.
• Become resourceful: This is an area where your grandmother can be a wealth of information, as how to use up every morsel of food and stretch out a good meal was common knowledge to generations past. Seek to get back to the basics of cooking - using the bones from a roast chicken to make stock for a pot of soup, extending a Sunday roast to use for weekday dinners, learning how to make hearty stews from inexpensive cuts of meat, using up leftovers, and so on.
• Plan your meals: If you fail to plan you are planning to fail. This is essential, as you will need to be prepared for mealtimes in advance to be successful. Ideally, this will involve scouting out your local farmer's markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly, but you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales.
• You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, make sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you're short on time in the evenings. It is no mystery that you will be eating lunch around noon every day so rather than rely on fast food at work; before you go to bed make a plan as to what you are going to take to work the next day. This is a marvelous simple strategy that will let you eat healthier, especially if you take healthy food from home in to work.
• Avoid food waste: According to a recent study Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person, each and every day. The two steps above will help you to mitigate food waste in your home.
• Buy organic animal foods. The most important foods to buy organic are animal, not vegetable, products (meat, eggs, butter, etc.), because animal foods tend to concentrate pesticides in higher amounts. If you cannot afford to buy all of your food organic, opt for organic animal foods first.
• Keep costs down on grass-fed beef. Free-range/Grass-fed beef is far healthier than grain-fed beef (which I don't recommend consuming). To keep cost down, look for inexpensive roasts or ground meat. You may also save money by buying an entire side of beef (or splitting one with two or three other families), if you have enough freezer space to store it.
• Find a farmer's market! You may be surprised to find out that by going directly to the source you can get amazingly healthy, locally grown, organic food for less than you can find at your supermarket. This gives you the best of both worlds: food that is grown near to you, cutting down on its carbon footprint and giving you optimal freshness, as well as grown without chemicals, genetically modified seeds, and other potential toxins.

By Francesca Marino D.C.