We’ve all been there: waking in the morning with little to no energy.  Sure, sometimes you stayed up too late, etc. but if this happens to you on a regular basis, it may be more than just a few late nights that are bringing you down.  Maybe you’ve been feeling a little shaky or jittery even before your morning shot of caffeine?  We say take a look at what’s been on your plate (literally) lately.  Are you eating foods that support a healthy body and lifestyle or eating on the run, grabbing and going without much thought to what’s going in your mouth?  Take a minute to read and contemplate your food choices.

1.  Eat more iron.  Iron deficiency can really sap a person’s energy and make you feel tired all day—even after a good night’s sleep.  So, think about tracking what you’ve been eating with an eye to iron.  Have you been getting enough?  If not, consider adding more red meats, fish and poultry to your diet, some of the best sources of iron (animal-based).  If you don’t eat anything without leaves, you can still get your iron on naturally; try adding more soybeans, lentils, spinach and fortified cereals to your diet.  Tip: Adding a little vitamin C to your diet will help with iron absorbtion.

2.  Hungry for an afternoon snack? Put the cookies down!  Refined sugars may be making you jittery because they cause a sudden rise in blood sugar (enter the antsy, jittery feeling) and large amounts of insulin to be secreted by the pancreas.  Eventually, that extra insulin will make your blood sugar plummet, making you feel tired and/or lightheaded and sweaty, but especially—really hungry.  So, what do you do?  Go grab something to eat quickly and usually without thinking.  The best way to stave off the highs and lows left by foods high in refined sugars is to skip them and instead focus on eating snacks that have a balance of lean proteins, healthy fats and unrefined carbohydrates.  Some examples include, fruits, veggies, beans, whole wheat pastas and breads, brown rice, quinoa, etc.

3.  Feeling a little puffy around the middle?  Bloating is common but do you know what it is in your diet that’s causing it?  A few suspects: carbonated drinks (including soda and seltzer), certain vegetables (beans, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage) or even a lack of sleep.  To fight this particular bulge, try replacing your favorite soda or seltzer water with flat water and see what happens.  Not only should you see your bloat begin to dissipate but you may see some relief from constipation as well.  If your favorite veggies are causing the problem, try cutting the amounts you eat in half for a week and replace them with other fruits and vegetables.  Another good idea: probiotics.

4.  If you’re feeling a little forgetful, you might be slipping into the low zone on your levels of vitamin B-12 and Omega 3 fatty acids.  To add them into your diet and boost your levels, consider adding some Omega-3s into your meal plan with foods like salmon, mackerel, trout, tuna and herring, as well as some B-boosters like liver, yogurt, cheese, eggs, fortified cereals, salmon and trout, etc.  A vitamin B-12 deficiency can cause fatigue, confusion, and numbness, so load your plate and free your mind.

5.  Hopefully, working out and/or exercising regularly is a part of your everyday life.  If it is, you may be familiar with muscle cramps.  To cut those cramps, you need to add some potassium and magnesium to your meals.  Try potassium-rich foods like bananas, baked potatoes, prunes and orange juice.  Get nutty to soak up more magnesium—almonds and other nuts make great snacks on the go, or add them to your morning breakfast shake for a quick shot of protein (and magnesium).  Other sources include unrefined grains, spinach and bran flakes.

A well-planned and thoughtful meal should give your body all it needs to thrive, so spend a little time and pay attention to what goes onto your plate and into your mouth.  Studies show that eating lots of refined sugars makes you actually crave more refined sugars, so keep them to a minimum and try to fill your belly with natural sweets like fruits, if possible.  Don’t have time during your hectic work week to think about healthy breakfasts and lunches?  Luckily for you, we do.  Come see us at Brown Bag for well-rounded meals, meals that are balanced and full of healthy food that will get you through your day.  We put of lot of time and consideration into each of our menu selections, and we think you’ll find our brand of cuisine on the fly fits your busy work-week lifestyle, as well as your nutritional needs.  See you soon!

Brown Bag understands that you want to know what’s in your food—from calories to ingredients to carb counts—and now, understanding that information is going to get a little easier.  The FDA is on a mission to make the nutrition facts panel (required on all packaged foods) more user-friendly.  This little panel that you and I turn to everyday in supermarkets hasn’t been changed since the early 1990’s, and the FDA (and lots of other people) thought it needed a little tweaking.

For instance, the first thing you go looking for on the panel is the calorie count, right?  How about making that number bigger and in bold to make it stand out more to label-reading consumers?  Or highlighting the serving size?  Too many people assume that the number of calories listed is the number of calories in the ENTIRE package, not just for the serving size the company has designated.  Many times, a package may contain 2, 3 or even 4 servings, which means that consumers are actually eating 2, 3 or 4 times the amount of calories, sodium, sugar, etc. than they thought they were.  That’s not good.

Other suggestions include listing how much of a daily-calorie quota (of say, a 2,000 calorie diet) is being used up by eating what is contained in the package, the amount of sugar (including corn syrup) that is added to a product (especially important to foods such as yogurts and cereals which contain both natural and processed sugars), and changing the way we list fats by removing the “calories from fat” category and just sticking with calories, as some industry experts think this is more in line with current public thinking.

We’ve talked a lot about labels in the past, from understanding ingredients lists to deciphering what the word “natural” really means these days, and we think the idea of revamping labels to help people get a better idea of what they are eating, as well as the impact of that food on their calorie count, sugar and sodium consumption, etc. is a great idea, but we find some other suggestions equally worthy of consideration.

Back in November, 2013, voters in Washington state voted down a proposal that would have required manufacturers to list on packages whether or not they contained GMOs (we’ve talked about that controversy before too), but what about giving foods a grade on things like how farm workers and farm animals were treated to make this product, how much land was deforested, how much water was used and where it came from, how much fertilizer was used and how the run-off was controlled?  What is the carbon footprint of this product? These are big questions, and they deserve some big answers.  Yes, there is an obesity crisis in the US and food labels are an important step toward fighting that, but faced with questions of climate change, pollution, human and animal rights, would you want to know more than just what is in your food?  Would you want to know where it came from and how it was produced?

Likely, you won’t see these questions neatly answered on the side of your cereal box, but we’re curious how many of you would like to see those questions answered.  You know by now that Brown Bag supports buying local products (fruits, veggies, meats, breads, etc.), recycling, using alternative sources of power, and people taking a more personal look at their individual impact on the earth, so we think these questions are worth some serious thought.  How about you?  How much do you want to know about your food?

There’s been a big to-do in the news recently about Subway and their bread.  Subway is known for their sandwiches, right?  That’s what they do, so their bread is pretty important to their total package.  Not long ago, a food blogger took to the blogosphere and called them out on an additive in their bread, Azodiacarbonamide (ADA), which is used as a dough conditioner.  Other uses for Azodiacarbonmide: to increase elasticity in yoga mats, shoe rubber and synthetic leather, among other things.  Vani Hari, the aforementioned blogger (foodbabe.com), started a petition asking Subway to remove the ingredient from their breads and over 67,000 people signed on to support her—and it worked!

Subway recently responded with this statement: “We are already in the process of removing Azodiacarbonamide as part of our bread improvement efforts despite the fact that it is an FDA approved ingredient.  The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon.”  They also stated, “This process began last year and is nearly completed — we have already developed an improved bread formula, conducted extensive performance and consumer testing on it, and pending final government approvals, we should complete the entire conversion process within the coming weeks.”

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Subway is correct about this chemical’s FDA approval, BUT they add that this chemical has been poorly tested.  Some of the breakdown products of Azodiacarbonamide are known carcinogens.  The maximum allowed amount of ADA by the FDA is 0.0045% by weight of the flour when the ADA is used as a dough conditioner.  While the danger of developing cancer is low when used in such small quantities, other nations and worldwide associations have banned the use of ADA in foods.  ADA has been banned in the European Union and Australia; and WHO (World Health Organization), in response to reports that ADA can induce asthma, says, “The level of risk is uncertain; hence, exposure levels should be reduced as much as possible.”

While pretty soon you may not find ADA in your Subway sandwiches, you’ll still find it in a lot of other places, like McDonalds, Arby’s, Starbucks and many other grocery store and restaurant breads.  Know where you won’t find it?  At Brown Bag.  We get all of our bread from a local bakery, Lyon Bakery.  Lyon Bakery is committed to serving all-natural, artisan breads with no artificial additives or preservatives.  Started by three friends who are committed to and skilled in the art of making gourmet bread, they’ve grown to a business that supplies breads for hotels, government organizations, leading restaurants, gourmet delis, culinary service groups and catering services (and Brown Bag!).  To read more about Lyon Bakery, checkout this blog or go to their website.

At Brown Bag, we care about what goes into the food that we serve our customers, so we strive to find the best local suppliers of quality foods that we can.  Lyon Bakery is one of our favorites.  When you come into a Brown Bag location for a sandwich, salad, soup or noodle bowl, you can trust that it’s got all of the nutrients and flavor you’re looking for naturally.  We do healthy, delicious cuisine that you can trust on the fly, so you can keep moving with your day and not worry about what kinds of chemicals you’ll be unwittingly ingesting.

At Brown Bag, we believe that you are what you eat, so you should be eating healthy (and delicious!) food.  For most of us, it’s not too hard to fuel our bodies with good food; we just try our best to make healthy decisions at snack and meal times.  But what if you’re an elite athlete?  What do they need to fuel their one big chance at the Olympics?  Most of us, including those of us here at Brown Bag, think athletes load up on carbs, right?  That’s the stereotype.  But what we’ve found out is that food as fuel is pretty specific to each sport because each sport (and each body, really) has its own requirements.

For instance, if you’re a cross-country skier, carb loading is a good idea.  You need as much fuel as possible to make that trek in good time (3 to 5 hours prior to race time is optimal), and still, sometimes that’s not good enough; glycogen in muscles becomes depleted and the athlete’s performance takes a nosedive.  In an article on NPR’s website, Nanna Meyer, senior sport dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Committee and a professor of sports nutrition at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, gives an interesting look into feeding Olympic athletes.

According to Meyer, feeding those cross-country skiers is tricky business (as you can imagine), but other sports are complex as well.  In some sports, athletes body sizes and shapes need to conform to certain standards; for instance, wrestlers have to maintain a specific weight to stay in their class, and ski jumpers don’t want to be weighed down (literally, lighter flies farther).  An athlete (and/or their dietician) needs to be aware of the demands of their sport, whether aesthetic or endurance related.

There’s a dark side to body weight/shape that affects not only the average Joe, but Olympic athletes as well.  According to Meyer, more and more elite winter athletes are trying to maintain lean, muscular physiques (and even low body weights), and this can lead to problems like eating disorders.  Training and performing taxes bodies enough, but add to that an eating disorder and you’ve got a recipe for eventual disaster.  So, as a sports dietician, you’ve got your work cut out for you, Meyers asserts that today (versus when she trained as a Swiss alpine skier 35 years ago), there are so many more choices to help athletes get what they need while maintaining healthy body weight and fueling to fit their sports.

Last week, we blogged about the many benefits of beets, and they’re just one of the things that trainers are utilizing as juices to quickly give athletes vitamins and minerals that they need while rehydrating them and switching up their normal meal and snack routines.  There are so many combinations of fruits and veggies to use in juices to change the taste and/or the nutritional qualities needed.  While years ago, athletes and their trainers and dieticians may have only had sports bars and drinks available as quick fuels to power up a performance, today athletes have all sorts of quick, processed foods, such as energy bars (with high carbohydrate or protein contents), gels with concentrated carbohydrates (some with caffeine), Shot Bloks (gummi cubes that replace carbohydrates and electrolytes; some also contain caffeine or extra sodium, AND they’re organic!), protein bars designed for recovery, and powders for during and after performance.  In between events, in those long months of training, maintenance relies on good decision making, planning and creativity (because who wants to eat the same thing every day?).

We may not be fueling Olympic athletes at Brown Bag everyday, but keeping our food fresh and healthy for you is a top priority.  We try to make your breakfast and lunch decisions easy by offering a menu full of nutritious, delicious choices that will keep you at your best all day.  You can order one of our original sandwiches, salads or noodle bowls from the menu or you can tailor your meal to your individual needs and tastes by creating your own—it’s up to you!  Feel free to eat like an Olympian, if you want, we love seeing what combinations our patrons come up with!