7/1/25: Are Lactation Cookies Worth it?; Why "Big Ag" isn't "Bad Ag"; Down with David Bars!; Blue Zones: Just B.S?; Summer Survey for Build Up
Because EVERYBODY Eats
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🛒Looking for some swag for your RD, RD2Be, NDTR or Nutrition Nerd friends? Check out what Donut Season has to offer - Build Up Dietitians followers get 15% off. Click HERE to activate the discount code.
🌊Blue Zones: Is this B.S?
Forget the longevity blue zones? - by Ryan McCormick, M.D.
“I think that while we chase healthy lifestyles, good outcomes, and long healthspans we have to remember that so much of this is simply chance. If we are all-in on making it to 100 by depriving ourselves of joys, pleasures, purposeful hard work, and the occasional longevity indiscretions, then what have we really been chasing?…”
✅Not the first time we’ve written about Blue Zones… check this out: 6/28/24 -What if "Blue Zones" Are a Myth?; Meet Group Moderator Danielle Houston; Build Up Dietitians AMAZON store; 4 Things You Don't Want to Miss
📝Summer Survey
Help us out with our survey? You'll be entered to win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate - it takes about 5 minutes https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YPP6SFD
🤔🍪Question of the Day/Poll: Lactation Cookies
A mom comes to you concerned about her milk supply for her new infant. She has been reading about buying/making "lactation cookies" with fenugreek. How do you advise her/what would you do?
What does the SCIENCE and RESEARCH say? Fenugreek - Drugs and Lactation Database (LactMed®) - NCBI Bookshelf
🚜Is Big Ag Bad Ag? Michelle Miller - Farm Babe
“…The narrative of “big ag equals bad ag” is primarily fueled by misinformation and emotional marketing. Fear-based headlines generate engagement, while simplistic villains make for better stories than nuanced realities. But food production isn’t a Hollywood script — it’s a complex, highly regulated industry driven by hardworking individuals who care deeply about producing safe, affordable, and sustainable food….So, next time you hear someone railing against big agriculture, ask yourself: Who profits from that narrative? Because behind every fear-based message, someone’s trying to sell you something. And odds are, it’s not a farmer.”
🚫🥩🍖🥓🥛🧀Warming Climate = More Ticks
= More Alpha-Gal Syndrome (AGS)=Mammalian Meat Allergy
With warmer temperatures, the habitat of Lone Star Tick has begun to increase, and this means more potential for ticks and humans to interact. This means more possibility of people getting bitten by ticks and developing Alpha-Gal Syndrome (AGS) or mammalian meat allergy.
“…As the climate heats up, due to the burning of fossil fuels, ticks are able to shift to areas that are becoming agreeably warm for them. Growing numbers of deer, which host certain ticks, and sprawling housing development into natural habitats is also causing more interactions with ticks…”.
Do you have AGS? Have you worked with a patient with Mammalian Meat allergy?
☑️Substack: The Grocery Edit
David protein bars are a diet in disguise
Build Up Dietitians friend Canadian RD Brittany Raftis with a review of the DAVID bar in her "Grocery Edit".
"This product is dripping with obnoxious claims about being superior and optimal, yet it’s built on the very ingredients that wellness culture claims to reject. In an era where “natural” is better, David protein bars have somehow found a way to present a low-calorie protein bar loaded with sweeteners and synthetic fat as the key to unlock optimal health. While at the same time, criticizing their “predecessors” in the protein industry for essentially selling the same products. Don’t be fooled, this bar is part of the $90 billion weight loss industry, repackaged in gold foil. It’s selling body ideals, it’s appealing to the pressure to reach your “optimal” smallest body size, no matter the cost.".
My thoughts exactly about David Bars. So elitist. Anyway, I live in Switzerland and Formetta Collagen is the newest thing to hit the market. Lots of glossy marketing. What’s your take? Clients are asking and I’m wondering if this is just another expensive collagen supplement being sold in aesthetic packaging.
Lactation cookies -- I'd want to know FIRST if the nursing mom's diet missing something. I don't get the need, and would they work? This study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36921902/) suggests no effect. There is no magic ingredient here and I'm concerned that such cookies be eaten instead, as some sort of "magic pill" instead of a lactating mother checking her diet and eating style first, to make sure it's giving her what she needs, or as a substitute for seeking professional evaluation.
The cookies may have ingredients that are "supportive", but we all know consumers can perceive that word differently than RDNs. Marketing these cookies seems more like a money grab and definitely not a substitute for checking the adequacy of one's overall diet and eating style. Most of them have ingredients like oats, flax, brewer's yeast, etc. They can get pricey, and the low-income moms I see shouldn't be guilted into thinking they're "missing out" if they don't buy them. As for moms making them on their own -- most of the moms I see just don't have that kind of time.
Re: the "DAVID" bar -- it does seem like food elitism, but I'm pretty sure that's the demo they're appealing to, at least at first. I just returned from the Fancy Food Show in NYC and they exhibited there. Enough said -- it's not the "economical food show." It's low in fat (2 gm, mostly from high-SFA tropical oils) 28 grams of protein, and a whopping 28 grams of protein. 150 calories might seem "snack-level", but the protein suggests a whole meal's worth. I can see someone using it as a high-protein meal replacement for 150 calories. Bad idea. No added nutrients, BTW, just the bar. It retails for about $3.50. The New Yorker magazine did a piece on the "inventor" a while back. He's a tech entrepreneur who sold his company for big bucks (really big), is mostly vegetarian, and he had this idea.....