https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pizza-healthier-breakfast-cereal-nutritionists-172200910.html?fbclid=IwAR07tYs2JkQBLZUt-_tuywjZ1D_ZBeq1qz9JC03Es-5EMCFVgERBAISpAAc
This makes intuitive sense if you look at it from a macronutritional standpoint–breakfast cereal is purely carbohydrates in the form of wheat product and sugar. Any fat and/or protein comes from milk, so you might as well just drink a glass of milk for breakfast. Pizza has fat in the form of the cheese, and you might get protein too from the toppings, depending on what you put on them.
Of course, it's far easier to go overboard on calories with a pizza as opposed to breakfast cereal.
The Wall Street Journal, dateline 01/05/2004:
"Scientists at Mario Negri Institute for Pharmaceutical Research in Milan analyzed the eating habits of 3,300 people with cancer and 5,000 people without cancer. People who ate pizza once a week, on average, were less likely to develop cancer and the risk dropped as pizza intake increased."
This is one bullet point from an article headlined "Resolve to indulge in bad habits," which clearly was a tongue-in-cheek compilation for people "willing to take some of these studies entirely out of context." I'm one of them, and the article has been preserved inder the glass blotter on my desk all these years.
"Nutritionist" is a made up label without any defined criteria for becoming one, nor does the title have a regulating body to issue actual licenses. This is as opposed to "registered dietitian," which has both of those things.
In other words, and especially since this article came from Cosmopolitan magazine, this article is probably straight up garbage.
Quote from: wanderer2575 on April 23, 2019, 01:48:29 PM
The Wall Street Journal, dateline 01/05/2004:
"Scientists at Mario Negri Institute for Pharmaceutical Research in Milan analyzed the eating habits of 3,300 people with cancer and 5,000 people without cancer. People who ate pizza once a week, on average, were less likely to develop cancer and the risk dropped as pizza intake increased."
Probably as the result of developing and dying from heart disease instead of living long enough to develop cancer.
Quote from: MikieTimT on April 23, 2019, 03:50:02 PM
Quote from: wanderer2575 on April 23, 2019, 01:48:29 PM
The Wall Street Journal, dateline 01/05/2004:
"Scientists at Mario Negri Institute for Pharmaceutical Research in Milan analyzed the eating habits of 3,300 people with cancer and 5,000 people without cancer. People who ate pizza once a week, on average, were less likely to develop cancer and the risk dropped as pizza intake increased."
Probably as the result of developing and dying from heart disease instead of living long enough to develop cancer.
Right, because the researchers never thought to account for age in their study...
QuoteAmer credits the high sugar content in most cereals for its poor reputation, while The Daily Meal adds the lack of protein and healthy fats are contributing to its "nutritionally bleak" standing. "You may be surprised to find out that an average slice of pizza and a bowl of cereal with whole milk contain nearly the same amount of calories," Amer told the site. "However, pizza packs a much larger protein punch, which will keep you full and boost satiety throughout the morning."
While it still might be a little far-fetched to call your early morning pizza indulgence a healthy option, it's definitely healthier. That counts for something, right!? Amer does credit its protein content and admits, "a slice of pizza contains more fat and much less sugar than most cold cereals, so you will not experience a quick sugar crash."
...along with a nice dollop of saturated fat and nearly a third of one's daily recommended amount of sodium. This strikes me as a rather disingenuous comparison, considering most cereals are also sources of required vitamins that pizza generally lacks. I'm guessing that this is being used less as a serious recommendation and more of an clickbait-y attention-getter for the actual advice, which is to skip cereal and eat more protein-rich foods for breakfast (such as eggs or yogurt).
Rarely is there anything inherently wrong with pizza nutritionally or calorie wise per portion. The problem is people eat an over the top amount of pizza in a single sitting.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 23, 2019, 08:04:04 PM
Rarely is there anything inherently wrong with pizza nutritionally or calorie wise per portion. The problem is people eat an over the top amount of pizza in a single sitting.
You can say that about any food, though.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any food (minus ones that contain
trans fats. That's a whole different discussion, though.) It always comes down to portion control and frequency.
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on April 23, 2019, 08:05:02 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 23, 2019, 08:04:04 PM
Rarely is there anything inherently wrong with pizza nutritionally or calorie wise per portion. The problem is people eat an over the top amount of pizza in a single sitting.
You can say that about any food, though.
True, most people would never hold themselves to a single slice or well proportioned two slices. Pizza will almost always have more nutritional content in it over cereal even with the most basic cheese variations. You can get a pretty balanced meal out of pizza with some added protein.
But to your point about portion control that's the thing most people really struggle with understanding. Most people have no idea how much calories they consume in a day, burn off or what the content of their food is. Portion control simply is having an understanding of how many calories you consume versus what you expend.
I'm sure there are other factors that play into it that the study in question didn't consider. That's common. The best example was the breast cancer study in the mid-1990s that found that women who wear bras are substantially more likely (I forget the percentage they cited) to get breast cancer than women who don't wear them. Sounds great, right? One problem: It's an obvious result indicating false causation because probably more than 95% of women, at least in Western society, wear those things, such that the number of women who don't would likely be statistically irrelevant as a comparison.
Even from "nutritionalist" perspective... Most US milk is reinforced with vitamin D, and even cheapest cereal has iron shavings added. Both are essential nutrition components, especially with vitamin D levels being low in large fraction of population, thanks to wide use on sunscreens and lots of indoors activities.
I doubt lots of people in US are low on fat.
There's reasons why breakfast cereal is fortified with vitamins and minerals - namely that it is good marketing (which is 90% of the cereal industry - how to peddle the product).
Without the added healthy stuff, what you have is basically a load of starchy carbs making up about 70-75% of it, with sugar and fibre making up most of the rest (a little bit of fat and protein). It's not bad (unless you for a really sugary one) nutritionally, but it's not got any nutritional selling points either - it's neutral fill-you-up staple. Cereal was initially marketed (and various ranges still are) as a healthier alternative to other breakfasts.
UK Kelloggs' "benefit of cereal" page (https://www.kelloggs.co.uk/en_GB/nutrition/the-benefits-of-cereal.html) doesn't actually mention much benefit of the cereal itself - it's the added vitamins and minerals, the milk, and not particularly much about grain other than that they are a staple food spun like that's some highly desirable and unique thing.
Quote from: english si on April 24, 2019, 07:10:08 AM
There's reasons why breakfast cereal is fortified with vitamins and minerals - namely that it is good marketing (which is 90% of the cereal industry - how to peddle the product).
Without the added healthy stuff, what you have is basically a load of starchy carbs making up about 70-75% of it, with sugar and fibre making up most of the rest (a little bit of fat and protein). It's not bad (unless you for a really sugary one) nutritionally, but it's not got any nutritional selling points either - it's neutral fill-you-up staple. Cereal was initially marketed (and various ranges still are) as a healthier alternative to other breakfasts.
UK Kelloggs' "benefit of cereal" page (https://www.kelloggs.co.uk/en_GB/nutrition/the-benefits-of-cereal.html) doesn't actually mention much benefit of the cereal itself - it's the added vitamins and minerals, the milk, and not particularly much about grain other than that they are a staple food spun like that's some highly desirable and unique thing.
Big part of the issue is that modern processed food is often missing major nutrition elements. If you prefer natural things like unwashed fruit (vitamin B12 and intestinal parasites) and raw uncooked meat (iron and bunch of parasites again) with raw grain (resistant starch and magnesium) - your call, we will be missing you when you pass out.
Otherwise, care must be taken to reintroduce missing things. Or remember those long forgotten words like scurvy (I was impressed with how many cases US, of all places, gets!), rickets, beriberi..
I don't think many people in first world are missing on basic things - calories, fat or carbs. It is smaller things that matter
Quote from: 1995hoo on April 23, 2019, 09:57:00 PM
I'm sure there are other factors that play into it that the study in question didn't consider. That's common. The best example was the breast cancer study in the mid-1990s that found that women who wear bras are substantially more likely (I forget the percentage they cited) to get breast cancer than women who don't wear them. Sounds great, right? One problem: It's an obvious result indicating false causation because probably more than 95% of women, at least in Western society, wear those things, such that the number of women who don't would likely be statistically irrelevant as a comparison.
They actually broke that down further. Women who wear a bra to bed at night (that is, wear them basically 24 hours a day) were much more likely to develop breast cancer than those who wear a bra less than 12 hours a day.
Quote from: kalvado on April 24, 2019, 04:49:35 AM
Even from "nutritionalist" perspective... Most US milk is reinforced with vitamin D, and even cheapest cereal has iron shavings added. Both are essential nutrition components, especially with vitamin D levels being low in large fraction of population, thanks to wide use on sunscreens and lots of indoors activities.
I doubt lots of people in US are low on fat.
I use a smartphone app occasionally to track my diet, and I've found that if I don't pay attention to what I'm eating, up to 75% of the calories I consume can come from carbohydrates. I have to actively choose to add fat and protein to my meals or I won't get enough of either.
Fat is not really as much of a problem health-wise because it is more filling and takes longer to break down, meaning that it will keep you from getting hungry better than a carb-filled meal like cereal or potato chips.
Quote from: kalvado on April 24, 2019, 08:15:05 AMBig part of the issue is that modern processed food is often missing major nutrition elements.
But as cereal shows, they can be added (even if they don't belong in the first place - like cereal and a lot of the nutrients) - it's just that other stuff doesn't tend to add them as they aren't processed staples, but either nutritious or something not hoping to be the main event, but the flavouring (eg jelly) or a side event guilty pleasure (eg candy).
You are really grasping at straws if you say the choice is either:
1) eating fortified cereal
2) eating stuff that makes you ill as a vital part of your diet (however did we cope in the past if that's true? surely we'd have adapted that out - either by not getting ill, or by not needing the nutrients)
or
3) getting diseases that come from malnutrition
And if you think that B12 comes from fruit, have I got news for you! It's in much higher concentrations in animal products - the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-b/) doesn't even mention fruit as a source for it - meat, fish, cod, milk, cheese, eggs and 'some fortified breakfast cereals' (note the 'some'). Oddly they don't mention Marmite, which has been fortified with so much B12 that 8g serving gives 80% of your RDA, whereas a 30g bowl of Cornflakes, with milk, has just 25%. Vegans (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-vegan-diet/) have to rely on fortification for B12, but other than that, there are natural sources.
And if your ignorance wasn't showing enough, this study (https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2003/11/21/New-facts-about-iron-in-meat) into iron retention when cooking meat, suggests that if you do everything badly, the worst case is just 16% lost. OK, that's quite a bit, but there's so much iron in meat that losing that amount isn't too problematic. And when just 1oz of unsweetened baking chocolate has 5mg of Iron (a third of the amount recommended for menstruating women and over half that for men - and nearly twice that of a McDonalds cheeseburger), even unhealthy diets high in cocoa can get most of their recommended amount of iron without needing a fortified boost (obvious exceptions about pregnancy/people who've lost a lot of blood). Arguably the very high level in cereal (8.1 mg per cup of Cornflakes) increases the risk of overdose (over 20mg, according to the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/iron/))!
Yes, stuff with little nutritional content, but are processed staples, like flour and cereal gets fortified (also Marmite, which was done because in WW1 it was used to supply British troops with the high level of naturally occuring B vitamins in it, fortified to make it supply all their B vitamins, and a couple of other things too with great ease, and then the fortification never removed). Yes, we perhaps need quite a bit of that if we aren't eating varied and balanced diets, but if we are eating varied and balanced diets the stuff they put in cereals to give it some nutritious value above a bag of baked potato chips (cf this similar-to-unfortified-sugary-cereal (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/walkers/baked-ready-salted-crisps) nutritional make up) isn't particularly necessary as we get the vitamins and minerals elsewhere.
Quote from: english si on April 24, 2019, 02:45:01 PM
Quote from: kalvado on April 24, 2019, 08:15:05 AMBig part of the issue is that modern processed food is often missing major nutrition elements.
But as cereal shows, they can be added (even if they don't belong in the first place - like cereal and a lot of the nutrients) - it's just that other stuff doesn't tend to add them as they aren't processed staples, but either nutritious or something not hoping to be the main event, but the flavouring (eg jelly) or a side event guilty pleasure (eg candy).
You are really grasping at straws if you say the choice is either:
1) eating fortified cereal
2) eating stuff that makes you ill as a vital part of your diet (however did we cope in the past if that's true? surely we'd have adapted that out - either by not getting ill, or by not needing the nutrients)
or
3) getting diseases that come from malnutrition
And if you think that B12 comes from fruit, have I got news for you! It's in much higher concentrations in animal products - the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-b/) doesn't even mention fruit as a source for it - meat, fish, cod, milk, cheese, eggs and 'some fortified breakfast cereals' (note the 'some'). Oddly they don't mention Marmite, which has been fortified with so much B12 that 8g serving gives 80% of your RDA, whereas a 30g bowl of Cornflakes, with milk, has just 25%. Vegans (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-vegan-diet/) have to rely on fortification for B12, but other than that, there are natural sources.
And if your ignorance wasn't showing enough, this study (https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2003/11/21/New-facts-about-iron-in-meat) into iron retention when cooking meat, suggests that if you do everything badly, the worst case is just 16% lost. OK, that's quite a bit, but there's so much iron in meat that losing that amount isn't too problematic. And when just 1oz of unsweetened baking chocolate has 5mg of Iron (a third of the amount recommended for menstruating women and over half that for men - and nearly twice that of a McDonalds cheeseburger), even unhealthy diets high in cocoa can get most of their recommended amount of iron without needing a fortified boost (obvious exceptions about pregnancy/people who've lost a lot of blood). Arguably the very high level in cereal (8.1 mg per cup of Cornflakes) increases the risk of overdose (over 20mg, according to the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/iron/))!
Yes, stuff with little nutritional content, but are processed staples, like flour and cereal gets fortified (also Marmite, which was done because in WW1 it was used to supply British troops with the high level of naturally occuring B vitamins in it, fortified to make it supply all their B vitamins, and a couple of other things too with great ease, and then the fortification never removed). Yes, we perhaps need quite a bit of that if we aren't eating varied and balanced diets, but if we are eating varied and balanced diets the stuff they put in cereals to give it some nutritious value above a bag of baked potato chips (cf this similar-to-unfortified-sugary-cereal (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/walkers/baked-ready-salted-crisps) nutritional make up) isn't particularly necessary as we get the vitamins and minerals elsewhere.
Thank you for "ignorance". Maybe I should be equally nice.
FYI, despite all fortifications
4 million people in the UK may be living with iron deficiency anaemia - are you one of them?https://www.entia.co/single-post/2017/10/16/Why-should-we-care-about-Anaemia-in-England (https://www.entia.co/single-post/2017/10/16/Why-should-we-care-about-Anaemia-in-England)
Vitamin D deficiency warning: Three-quarters of UK adults lack enough vitamin D:
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1062825/vitamin-D-deficiency-low-UK-adults-lack-essential-vitamin (https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1062825/vitamin-D-deficiency-low-UK-adults-lack-essential-vitamin)
One in 10 people in UK believed to be vitamin B12 deficient
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20160404/One-in-10-people-in-UK-believed-to-be-vitamin-B12-deficient.aspx (https://www.news-medical.net/news/20160404/One-in-10-people-in-UK-believed-to-be-vitamin-B12-deficient.aspx)
That is why everything has to be fortified, and some asses kicked when their opposite side thinks life is great.
And if you care... There was an interesting case: what happens with those eating too much pizza: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-015-2660-x
If you care, BTW, B12 comes from unwashed food for cows - namely from bacteria on plants. Unwashed fruit could be another great source - as it is for cows.
So I am pretty skeptical about nutritional value of pizza - heat treated tomatos to carefully destroy ascorbic acid and well processed cheese... We're not talking real Italian stuff here, of course.
People in the UK should, it seems, eat a lot more processed foods. Processed foods are quite often fortified with vitamins and minerals.
The title is very misleading. I'm no nutritionist, but I don't think a bowl of cereal every day is worse than a slice of pizza every day. Once, maybe, depending on the cereal.
Quote from: kphoger on April 24, 2019, 04:43:47 PMPeople in the UK should, it seems, eat a lot more processed foods. Processed foods are quite often fortified with vitamins and minerals.
:) So the medical professionals that tell us to eat varied diets of fresh food are wrong?
I don't have a problem with fortified breakfast cereals - however it's a marketing gimmick to make them healthier than the simple fill-you-up that they would otherwise be. You might as well eat a slice of white bread (itself fortified) with a glass of milk as its cheaper.
---
The Vitamin D thing isn't that surprising - few places on the planet get less solar radiation than Britain (plus the article came out in December, where being outside all the time probably won't give you that much Vit D). And if you read the article, not the headline (which comes from a tabloid that loves to say everything gives us cancer and other such health stories), it's that half the population has the lower end of normal, and a quarter below that (so a third of what the headline says are actually deficient). And it's not the whole population, it's those who use this blood test service (https://www.forthwithlife.co.uk/) - ie people who think there might be something wrong with them. And it doesn't say "take supplements" or "eat breakfast cereal", to get more Vit D it's "go out in the sun", "eat oily fish, beef, liver, cheese and egg yolks".
The B12 article, again if you read it rather than just grab the headline, says "Pernicious Anaemia (PA) is the biggest cause of B12 deficiency in the developed world" - not dietary issues, but a condition that means you don't produce a protein that helps you absorb it from your food - and it's peddling a spray/injections on the grounds that digested supplements increasingly don't work. It does talk about how people with "more restricted diets" are not eating enough red meat and offal as a dietary problem, but it's solution is not to fortify other foods as that doesn't deal with the problem they are talking about!
Iron deficiency - 4 million people is about 6% of the UK population - and it's "may" rather than actual figures. I've found a actual level of 5% in teenage girls, who have the biggest problems with not getting enough iron in their diet. Unsurprisingly, just like the others, it's basically part of a promotion campaign for a product: this device (https://www.entia.co/single-post/2017/11/09/No-more-waiting-A-new-way-to-manage-anaemia) that tests iron levels.
Quote from: english si on April 25, 2019, 04:09:35 AM
Quote from: kphoger on April 24, 2019, 04:43:47 PMPeople in the UK should, it seems, eat a lot more processed foods. Processed foods are quite often fortified with vitamins and minerals.
:) So the medical professionals that tell us to eat varied diets of fresh food are wrong?
I don't have a problem with fortified breakfast cereals - however it's a marketing gimmick to make them healthier than the simple fill-you-up that they would otherwise be. You might as well eat a slice of white bread (itself fortified) with a glass of milk as its cheaper.
---
The Vitamin D thing isn't that surprising - few places on the planet get less solar radiation than Britain (plus the article came out in December, where being outside all the time probably won't give you that much Vit D). And if you read the article, not the headline (which comes from a tabloid that loves to say everything gives us cancer and other such health stories), it's that half the population has the lower end of normal, and a quarter below that (so a third of what the headline says are actually deficient). And it's not the whole population, it's those who use this blood test service (https://www.forthwithlife.co.uk/) - ie people who think there might be something wrong with them. And it doesn't say "take supplements" or "eat breakfast cereal", to get more Vit D it's "go out in the sun", "eat oily fish, beef, liver, cheese and egg yolks".
The B12 article, again if you read it rather than just grab the headline, says "Pernicious Anaemia (PA) is the biggest cause of B12 deficiency in the developed world" - not dietary issues, but a condition that means you don't produce a protein that helps you absorb it from your food - and it's peddling a spray/injections on the grounds that digested supplements increasingly don't work. It does talk about how people with "more restricted diets" are not eating enough red meat and offal as a dietary problem, but it's solution is not to fortify other foods as that doesn't deal with the problem they are talking about!
Iron deficiency - 4 million people is about 6% of the UK population - and it's "may" rather than actual figures. I've found a actual level of 5% in teenage girls, who have the biggest problems with not getting enough iron in their diet. Unsurprisingly, just like the others, it's basically part of a promotion campaign for a product: this device (https://www.entia.co/single-post/2017/11/09/No-more-waiting-A-new-way-to-manage-anaemia) that tests iron levels.
Vitamin D problem is not specific for UK, numbers are similar to US. I was trying to be a bit obnoxious by looking up UK numbers specifically; US statistics is widely similar (but often better published). BTW, I am one of those who are included in low vitamin D statistics in US. At some point, they just added that test into standard screening protocol, and it came back low in many people. No explicit problems.
And I just realized where I am missing on published opinion: they are looking at normal US cereal with plenty of sugar in it; my morning cereal is plain quick oats, no sugar added (also no iron, though). They do complain about sugar as a bad component.
On the subject of fortification and fresh food - it is interesting that even beautiful variable fresh diet can end up with some problems.
Iodine - which is probably not an issue on UK islands, but should be a problem further inland, e.g. within the central US. Iodized salt, that's it.
Iron, if we consider african apes as a baseline diet, I believe should come from blood in meat. We no longer eat it that way; so it is difficult to keep intake normal without fortification, especially for women.
My favorite story is about magnesium deficiency in well to do Israel families. Water quality is so-so in desert, those who can afford it often put RO filters. That removes the last source of Mg, going from low intake into accute problem. Higher flour quality for more expensive bread - meaning less Mg from grain shell - is another side of it.
So advising against fortified food may have unintended consequences after all...
Quote from: thspfc on April 24, 2019, 05:39:29 PM
The title is very misleading. I'm no nutritionist, but I don't think a bowl of cereal every day is worse than a slice of pizza every day. Once, maybe, depending on the cereal.
Like
Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, right?
Quote from: kalvado on April 25, 2019, 08:45:21 AMSo advising against fortified food may have unintended consequences after all...
Other than my advising against eating several bowls of it a day to avoid ODing on iron, I don't see anyone advising against fortified food. People's issues with cereals are the processed and sugar bit of it (I'd also suggest that carbs early in the morning might not be what the body wants due to the interplay between hormones, and something more protein-heavy might be preferable).
What I'm suggesting is
1) fortified cereal is not the only source of vitamins and minerals, and a varied diet should provide most of what you need.
2) that cereals are fortified as a marketing gimmick - selling them as nutritious (because the additives have elevated them above mere processed staple food stuffs).
Quote from: english si on April 25, 2019, 02:10:57 PM
Quote from: kalvado on April 25, 2019, 08:45:21 AMSo advising against fortified food may have unintended consequences after all...
Other than my advising against eating several bowls of it a day to avoid ODing on iron, I don't see anyone advising against fortified food. People's issues with cereals are the processed and sugar bit of it (I'd also suggest that carbs early in the morning might not be what the body wants due to the interplay between hormones, and something more protein-heavy might be preferable).
What I'm suggesting is
1) fortified cereal is not the only source of vitamins and minerals, and a varied diet should provide most of what you need.
2) that cereals are fortified as a marketing gimmick - selling them as nutritious (because the additives have elevated them above mere processed staple food stuffs).
I mostly agree with you. But we're talking not cereal vs something great, we're talking fortified cereal vs non-fortified pizza. Original statement: pizza is better than cereal as it has less sugar (true). What I am saying: sugar is not the only thing to consider, cereal may win on other aspects. Other things equal, one or the other trade-off may be preferred depending on individual metabolism and diet.
But whatever we eat, we will all die, sooner or later.
As for people over-indulging on pizza... Is that really a problem for people eating pizza for breakfast? I can't imagine wanting to eat more than one or two slices first thing in the morning. Five slices of pizza seems to me more like an evening thing.
Quote from: kphoger on April 25, 2019, 05:43:38 PM
Five slices of pizza seems to me more like an evening thing.
Except for me, when I wake up hungover. I'm usually incredibly hungry at that point too, so pizza is perfect for this situation.
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on April 25, 2019, 06:28:42 PM
when I wake up hungover.
...at which point I don't see much reason in discussing health habits. :-P