SE5: The Physical and Mental Effects of Snacking

Autumn Lange

May 15, 2013

WRIT 1133: SE5

            After reading the food logs of myself and my classmates, one behavior in particular stood out as common throughout most of them- snacking. We’ve already established that as a country we are seeing a transition from a more structured three-meal-a-day plan to a more random pattern of snacking throughout the day, and this holds true for the majority of our class. But what exactly are the health implications of eating many small meals or snacks rather than three large meals? A study published in the journal Current Topics in Nutraceuticals Research set out to answer this question. They studied a group of participants who were a variety of ages and professions, analyzing their physical and mental health and comparing it to their snack consumption. Their findings are interesting and slightly unexpected. There was no correlation between snacking and physical health. The Cohen-Hobermann index of physical symptoms was used to measure the physical health of the participants; it is a validated and widely used assessment of physical health. While there was no significant difference between those who frequently snacked and those who didn’t in terms of physical health, there were very intriguing findings in the realm of mental health. Participants who snacked daily rated lower on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale than those who did not snack. This is somewhat surprising, and perhaps can be explained by the fact that many people snack as a form of emotional eating. This conclusion is strengthened by the finding that daily snackers were more likely to eat cakes, crisps, biscuits, and chocolate, which are foods more commonly associated with emotional eating. People who snacked on a daily basis were, accordingly, less likely to choose fruit, yogurt or cheese than those who didn’t snack, as well, pointing to a tendency to go for more processed foods when snacking. Reasonably, although there were not findings of a change in physical health, these foods are less healthy- and the people who consume them know it. People who snacked more frequently (and therefore ate less healthy foods) were more aware of the consequences. They rated higher in being more concerned about their health for the future as compared to those who snacked less frequently or not at all. Conversely, they rated lower in terms of caring about being healthy in the present. Foods like chips and soft drinks had a direct negative correlation with motivations to be healthy or motivations to avoid unhealthiness. These statistics numerically illustrate the problem with snacking. People know that it’s an unhealthy practice, but continue to do it anyway, despite being concerned about their health in the future. The fact that people who snack more frequently are less depressed points to a phenomenon of using food as comfort. This study’s results are not absolute, however. A much larger female group was studied as compared to males, which could have some bearing on the result. Furthermore, it is surprising that more frequent consumption of chocolates and cakes do not have negative physical health effects. Further research in this area might be recommended before we all start to stuff ourselves with sweets.

http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/919439043

In class research

I decided to search for articles about the effects of snacking on health. I found a study on the behavior of snacking and its effects on mental health and cognitive performance. I like this angle because more commonly, studies on snacking are more tied to physical health than mental health.

http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/919439042

Food log comments

After reading everyone's food logs, a few patterns are apparent. While some class members stick to a somewhat regular eating schedule, it seems that most of us don't eat at the same times daily. Especially because these journals were kept over a weekend, there was lots of late-night snacking and sleeping through breakfast. Most people also don't have the healthiest eating habits, either. Especially when eating in the dining hall, it seems that a lot of people had a deficiency in fresh foods, like fruit and vegetables.

P8: Food Diary

For all of these meals, unless I specify that I drank something else, I drank water. I don't drink soda and I always have my water bottle with me.

Friday:
1:30 PM: Chicken shawarma and falafel from Jerusalem
3:00 PM: Annie's bunny grahams
6:30 PM: Frozen yogurt from Menchie's
8:30 PM: Annie's mac n cheese and a piece of almond bark

Saturday:
10:30 AM: Chocolate chip waffles
12:30 PM: Annie's white cheddar mac n cheese (I normally wouldn't have so much mac n cheese in two days, but both times I ate it I was at work and it was what the parent wanted me to make for a meal)
8:00 PM: Leftover pita bread and hummus from Jerusalem

Sunday:
9:30 AM: Naked Mighty Mango smoothie
12:00 PM: Taco salad and vanilla ice cream with strawberries
4:00 PM: Movie theater pretzel
8:00 PM: Annie's bunny grahams

SE4: Production of Eggs and Egg Products

Today, like most of my days here at DU, my alarm went off too early, and I struggled to get out of bed, especially with the knowledge that I would soon be sitting in my 8 AM organic chemistry lecture. After my shower, though, I did what I do almost every day- made breakfast. Living in Towers, I have my own kitchen, and I don’t have to journey to the dining hall to get my morning nourishment. Although what I eat with them varies, the staple of my morning meal is consistent, and that’s egg whites. There’s no real reason for choosing these over whole eggs; it’s just what was always around my house growing up, and egg whites do have the clear advantage over eggs health-wise. Usually, I don’t think too much of it- I pour them out of the carton into the frying pan, season them with salt and pepper, and don’t taste any difference from what a real egg would taste like. But in light of this assignment, I was led to think more in depth about my meal. Egg whites clearly don’t come from the chicken that way, and there has to be some process of separation and processing. This led me to the decision to research egg whites, and industrial production of eggs in general, for this paper.

            In 2009, the United States consumed a whopping 76.2 billion eggs. Of these, 30 percent were in the form of ‘egg products’ (USDA). What exactly are egg products? The USDA defines an egg product as anything egg-based that has been subjected to “breaking, filtering, mixing, stabilizing, blending, pasteurizing, cooling, freezing or drying, or packaging.” In addition to products like egg whites, most eggs served anywhere mass production is required- restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals, or our own Centennial Halls- are some kind of egg product rather than whole eggs. Egg whites are one of the least processed kinds of egg products. The shell is broken and removed with machinery, and then the whites and yolks are separated. The whites are then pasteurized for safety and packaged in cartons (Eggland’s Best). Other egg products are much more processed and chemically changed to extend their freshness or cooking properties.

            While the process of making egg whites is fairly mundane, egg production itself deserves a look, too. The poultry industry tends to be one of those things to which we apply the mantra ‘ignorance is bliss.’ We know that conditions for poultry in industrial production environments is less than glamorous, but the life of an egg-laying hen is actually quite miserable. Eggland’s Best, a brand that produces liquid egg whites, states in their FAQ that their egg whites come from eggs laid by caged hens. In most plants, these cages are battery cages, which are so small that the hen cannot spread its wings. The hen lives the majority of its life in this cage, which has an angled floor that rolls the eggs onto a conveyor belt as they are laid (Meunier and Latour). In addition to having to live in a tiny cage, the diet of the hen is altered to support egg production. A high-protein diet is fed to the chicks when they are young, and as they grow older, calcium, phosphorus, methionine, and lysine levels are highly manipulated to support maximum egg production (Meunier and Latour). Photostimulation, or systematic, controlled exposure to light, is also used to force the hens into laying the highest number of eggs. Most producers use this, coupled with other techniques, to force hens to molt when their production starts dropping. Molting causes a spike in egg production, and some producers will force-molt their hens a second time when their production goes down again (Meunier and Latour). When hens can no longer produce a satisfactory number of eggs, they are sent to a ‘spent hen facility’- essentially a fancy term for a slaughterhouse.

            Knowing that my egg whites were somewhat processed doesn’t bother me, but the knowledge of conditions for the hens that produce them raises some ethical issues. It goes back to the issue of animal ethics that we have previously discussed in this class. Is it really right for a hen to live its entire life in a tiny cage, with its only function being to lay eggs, and to be killed when it cannot perform this function anymore? When buying whole eggs, a consumer can look for an indication that the chickens were cage-free, but with egg products like egg whites, it is much harder to find products where it’s guaranteed that the animal was treated humanely. To tell the truth, although my consciousness might be raised on these moral issues, I probably won’t change my eating habits. I guess I’m guilty of selfishly reasoning that the ends justify the means, which I think most of us do. However, if I ever find responsibly raised egg whites in the store, I’d be more than willing to make the switch.

Works Cited

"Egg Products and Food Safety." Egg Products and Food Safety. USDA, n.d. Web. 07 May 2013.

"Eggland's Best Eggs." Liquid Egg Whites. Eggland's Best, n.d. Web. 07 May 2013.

Meunier, Ryan A., and Mickey A. Latour. "Commercial Egg Production and Processing." Commercial Egg Production and Processing. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 07 May 2013.

P7: Food Production and History

Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place,” the introduction to Estabrook’s Tomatoland, and Cook’s “Fowl Trouble” all address the production of food in the United States. Pollan addresses the ongoing animal rights movement in our country, and examines the ethics of eating meat. He does this using various lenses- the consideration of the history of humankind’s consumption of meat, the moral standpoint of animal suffering, and a brief examination of farming practices. He comes to the conclusion that the only meat it is ethically right to eat, at least in his eyes, is that which is guaranteed to be humanely grown. What this means is meat and poultry that come from animals who were treated well during their lifespan, not trapped in tiny battery cages like industrial egg-laying chickens or forced to have their tails clipped like many pigs in these large-scale operations do. Estabrook and Cook take a somewhat different approach. Estabrook’s piece shifts to a different topic entirely- tomatoes. Although the reading was only the introduction of an entire novel dedicated to the topic, tomato growing practices and the premise of his argument are outlined well. Estabrook describes how Florida tomatoes are grown and harvested. This is relevant to any tomato-eating consumer, as a majority of the tomatoes shipped across the U.S. are from the Sunshine State. They are engineered to be perfectly round, red, and tough. But they aren’t even picked when they are ripe- instead, they are removed from the plant when still entirely green, and gassed with ethylene to force-ripen them. But what is perhaps more stomach-turning is Estabrook’s description of the people who work to harvest the tomatoes. Most of them are Hispanic immigrants who work for next to nothing in questionable conditions, living in shantytowns close to the fields. There are even people who are enslaved, held against their will and forced to work in the tomato fields, beaten if they misbehave. Cook takes an approach much like Estabrook’s, but he is addressing, like Pollan, the meat industry. Cook’s focus, though, is entirely on chicken processing plants. Similarly to the Tomatoland intro, Cook tells us about the conditions for workers in chicken plants. With a more statistical analysis, Cook illustrates the health conditions that many of these workers develops, and paints a frankly disgusting picture of what goes on in the production of one of our most popular meats. A particularly horrid detail is that heads and other inedible parts of the chicken are ground up, processed, and then fed to other chickens.

Pollan’s article comes to a mostly positive conclusion. Consuming meat is fine, as long as it was raised responsibly and humanely. The other two pieces have much more negative implications. From the descriptions of the workers in Florida’s tomato fields and the poor conditions and filth in chicken plants, a reader isn’t exactly eager to go buy tomatoes or chicken breasts. Either way, all of these readings leave me wanting to know more about the food I eat, and based off this small glimpse, I have a feeling that researching it would lead to less than pleasant findings.

SE4 Source

A product I thought would be interesting to research was eggs. Eggs are in many foods we eat on a daily basis and are one of the staples of most American households. When researching eggs, I came across a USDA fact sheet on "egg products," which is what they deem any product 'processed by taking the egg out of its shell, breaking eggs, filtering, mixing, stabilizing, blending, pasteurizing, cooling, freezing or drying, and packaging them.' I found it particularly interesting because it says that 30 percent of American egg consumption is in the form of egg products, and egg products are what's served in fast food restaurants, hospitals, and nursing homes, not real eggs.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Egg_Products_and_Food_Safety/index.asp