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Youmayhaveheardofclean eating, but maybe you're not sure exactly what it means. It may seem strange to use this word to describe food because one might reason that the alter- native to clean food is, well, dirty food, and that's just not very appetizing. But clean eat- ing is more about enjoying a variety of nutri- ent-dense, whole foods that are minimally processed, free of chemicals, preservatives and other additives. It wasn't long ago, maybe during the lifetimes of our par- ents and grandparents, when there was no other choice but to eat clean. If food was pro- cessed it was frozen, canned or cured, likely at home or by a friend or neighbor. There was not much of a market for con- venience foods and much of what people ate had simple in- gredients. Over the past few decades there has been an explosion in packaged and processed prod- ucts that have entered the food system. According to the Food Marketing Institute, there are on average more than 40,000 different items carried in a typ- ical supermarket. That's an overwhelming number of prod- ucts to navigate when doing your weekly grocery shopping. Clean eating is about tak- ing a step back from processed foods and adding a certain level of discretion when select- ing what you eat. It also in- volves preparing more meals at home and making foods from scratch. Most people who fol- low a clean eating lifestyle re- port that it truly is a long-term approach to healthy eating, not a diet. Clean eating doesn't re- move entire food groups or even require counting calo- ries; it relies on a raised level of awareness about how food is made and what is in it. Better food choices are born from this awareness. The guidelines for eating clean are a bit ambiguous and people define what counts as an unprocessed food in differ- ent ways. Many people who ad- here to this lifestyle may incor- porate some processed foods in their meal plan, but there is a strong emphasis on the bet- ter choices. Maybe you've heard the phrase, "If your grand- mother wouldn't have known what it is, then you shouldn't eat it." That's one definition. The "Kitchen Test" can help define unprocessed foods. Foods that could be made in a home kitchen by a person with reasonable culinary skills with whole food ingredients are un- processed. Obviously, foods with unusual and science-ex- periment sounding ingredi- ents don't fit that descrip- tion. I first heard the "Kitchen Test" definition from Andrew Wilder, a local healthy eating blog- ger. He hosts an October Unprocessed challenge that encourages his readers to try eating only unprocessed foods for one month. Andrew's blog, eatingrules.com, offers help- ful information and recipes to succeed at the challenge. LeeAnnWeintraub,a registered dietitian, can be reached at RD@halfacup. com. NUTRITION EATINGCLEAN Avoid processed foods, be mindful about what you consume LeeAnn Weintraub Columnist Ifyouthinkcleaneatingisright for you and would like to incor- porate more unprocessed foods, here are some strategies to try: Surveyyourinventory: Look through your pantry and refrigerator at the foods you eat regularly and take note of the unprocessed foods. Try increasing the amount of unprocessed foods in your kitchen compared to the pro- cessed ones. Think outside the box: Eating fewer packaged foods means less waste, which is better for your health and the environ- ment. Prepare more meals at home from scratch: Choose some simple recipes that are quick and easy to make with healthy whole food ingredients. Pledge to only eat unprocessed foods for a month: Sign up for the October Unprocessed Challenge at eatingrules.com. Sign up with a community supported agriculture: Receive a box of seasonal produce every week or so grown by local farmers. Wholesome snacking: Reach for whole food snacks like fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Read the food label and the ingredients list: Choose products with fewer and simpler ingredients. CLEANEATINGSTRATEGIES People have become sus- picious of the quality of generic drugs. Is there a way to ben- efit from the lower cost of these copycat medicines without sac- rificing effec- tiveness? Autho- rized gener- ics may be a solution. Many physicians and patients are unaware that this option exists. The brand-name manufacturer makes a deal with a spe- cific generic company to supply its drug or provides the generic maker with in- structions on how to dupli- cate the brand-name prod- uct. No one else has access to this information, as it is considered a trade secret. We recently heard from a reader about just such a situation: "You wrote about someone whose in- surance refused to pay for Celebrex and was switched to the generic celecoxib. The person had begun to experience swollen joints and the other symptoms Celebrex treats. "I had the same reac- tion when I got switched but had read in your col- umn about others with the same problem. I talked to my pharmacist, who said it was the most common complaint he heard, but that there was a solution. "He said to ask specifi- cally for celecoxib made by Greenstone. It is identical to Celebrex and is manu- factured by the same com- pany. Because it is a ge- neric, insurance will pay for it, and most pharma- cies will order it for you every month. (Allow a cou- ple of extra days to get it filled.) "Within a week I was able to use my hands again. They had gotten so bad I could not even grip my steering wheel. Now I call in my script a few days early so they can or- der the Greenstone ce- lecoxib, and I'm back to doing the things I en- joy. I hope this informa- tion helps other readers as much as your column has helped me." The generic manufac- turer Greenstone is a sub- sidiary of the drug gi- ant Pfizer. It is hardly any wonder that Pfizer, maker of Celebrex, would provide its own company the right to market an authorized generic. The Food and Drug Ad- ministration may have mixed feelings about au- thorized generics. That is because the agency asserts that all FDA-approved ge- neric drugs are identical to their brand-name coun- terparts. Despite such reassur- ances, the American pub- lic has reason to be con- cerned. According to Re- uters, the FDA has barred 44 Indian pharmaceuti- cal manufacturing facili- ties from exporting med- ications to the U.S. since 2011. Most of these prod- ucts were generic drugs. These companies are re- sponsible for a significant proportion of the generic drugs taken by Americans. Companies such as Au- robindo, Dr. Reddy's Lab- oratories, Polydrug, Ran- baxy, Sun Pharmaceutical and Wockhardt all have received FDA warnings about quality control. We have received thou- sands of complaints about generic drugs in the past decade. Readers of this column have reported troubles with anti-seizure drugs, antidepressants such as bupropion, heart medicines like metoprolol and medications for atten- tion deficit disorder. Anyone with a com- plaint about a generic drug should report the problem directly to the FDA with the name of the manufacturer. The FDA website is: www.FDA.gov/ MedWatch. Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist. Teresa Graedon holds a doctorate in medical anthropology and is a nutrition expert. Email them via their website: www. peoplespharmacy.com. PEOPLE'S PHARMACY Savesafelywithauthorizedgenerics Joe + Teresa Graedon By Ed Blonz Special to Digital First Media DEAR DR. BLONZ As- suming I will eat the same number of calories from the same types and amounts of foods, is it bet- ter for me to have those calories earlier in the day, or later? — A.C. DEAR A.C. There is a bit of evidence that a calorie may have varying effects when consumed at dif- ferent times of the day. A classic 1976 study by pro- fessor Franz Halberg had volunteers consume only one meal per day, either as their breakfast or dinner. The participants adapted to the new routine and re- ported hunger pangs prior to their scheduled meal. All things considered, those who had their meal at dinnertime were more likely to gain weight than those having their calories in the morning. The body, it seems, is more likely to use more calories when they're consumed earlier in the day. There is some logic here, given that the one meal represents the entire day's energy intake. The full-day calorie supply entering the body after a morning meal will need to be portioned out to the energy-requir- ing activities of the day, as well as toward storage. Contrast this with a full- day's calorie supply being absorbed after an evening meal, with the evening's tapering energy demands. This creates more of an uninterrupted flow toward calorie storage. The science that stud- ies such time-related is- sues was first named chro- nobiology (chrono mean- ing "time"), but was more recently dubbed chronom- ics. It began in the early 1700s when botanists dis- covered that plant behav- ior adhered to a daily cy- cle. Since then, scientists have identified rhyth- mic behaviors in animals, and research continues on rhythms in the human body. It has been learned, for example, that bodily events such as blood pres- sure, body temperature, heart rate and urine excre- tion all have distinct daily rhythms. Cycles that oc- cur on a 24-hour basis are called circadian rhythms, but there are also those that are weekly, monthly or yearly. It helps explain hunger pangs, jet lag or even a ritual daily visit to the bathroom. Optimizing meal tim- ing can have implications for numerous groups of people: the elderly who find it difficult to eat large meals; pregnant or lactating women with limited food resources; athletes in training, seek- ing to foster muscle growth; or dieters contin- ually baffled by their bod- ies' resistance to giving up excess weight. Science once tended to gloss over the time fac- tor, but an awareness of chronomics might provide tools to better understand the body's elusive rhythms. Kensington resident Ed Blonz has a Ph.D. in nutrition from UC Davis. Email him at cctimes@ blonz.com. DR. BLONZ Studying the timing of meals By Marilynn Marchione The Associated Press Now you see it, now you don't. A new type of heart stent that works like dis- solving stitches, slowly go- ing away after it has done its job, passed its first ma- jor test in a large study, doctors said Monday. Abbott Vascular's dis- solving Absorb stent per- formed as well as a con- ventional stent in the one-year study, but the fact it did not prove su- perior led some experts to be wary. Still, the results on this and other novel stents currently in test- ing are fueling hope for a new generation of these devices, used on about 850,000 heart disease patients each year in the United States alone. Stents are tiny mesh cages that keep blood vessels from reclogging after an artery-open- ing angioplasty proce- dure. The ones available now in the U.S. are per- manent implants made of metal, usually coated with a material that oozes medicine, but they some- times cause inflammation and other problems years down the road. The Absorb stent, al- ready sold in Europe, is made of a degradable material that's designed to stay intact and release medicine for a year, then break down over the next two years. "It holds the artery open long enough for the artery to heal," then completely goes away, said one study leader, Dr. Dean Kereiakes of Christ Heart and Vascular Cen- ter in Cincinnati. "It can return the artery to its normal, natural structure and function." The study involved about 2,000 patients with chest pain due to one or two clogged arteries, and was aimed at winning Food and Drug Admin- istration approval to sell Absorb in the U.S. In the study, those treated with the dissolv- ing stent fared as well as those given a conven- tional Abbott stent called Xience. The dissolving stent did not prove better, though, on several mea- sures, and the trends were leaning in the op- posite direction, noted Dr. Robert A. Byrne of the Technical University of Munich, who has been a paid speaker for some rival stent and heart de- vice makers. The idea of a dissolv- ing stent is attractive, but "promise alone is not enough to make us uncon- ditionally embrace this technology," Byrne wrote. 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