THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502010162
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 139 lines
BABS CARLSON strolled down the aisle of the supermarket with expertise, stopping periodically to pick up a package, peer at a jar or poke at a slab of meat. Behind her followed a pack of note-taking students, straining to catch her every word.
``Hot dogs are an almost illegal source of sodium and fat,'' Carlson said, urging the class to pick up a package and read the label. ``The best way to read the nutrition label is to ignore the percentages. Focus on the gram weight. (The percentage) looks like the most important thing on the label, but it's not. It assumes you consume 2,000 calories a day.''
The class let out a hushed, collective gasp at the 16 grams of total fat and 6 grams of saturated fat per serving in their wiener packages.
``You're not just going to be looking for low fat,'' Carlson said. ``You need to know what `low fat' means.''
The Farm Fresh supermarket tour is one of many wellness nutrition lessons that Carlson, a dietitian for the Lifestyle Fitness Center of Chesapeake General Hospital, has taught since 1985. She also teaches classes in cooking, general nutrition, cardiac rehabilitation, pulmonary rehabilitation, diabetes and individual nutrition counseling.
Eating healthy doesn't have to taste bad, Carlson told her students. It's something she's said for years.
``I think a lot of Americans have a love-hate relationship with food. They love to hate it and hate to love it.''
In the nutrition and food labeling game, consumers need to read between the lines.
``A word about the low-fat peanut butter,'' she cautioned as she held up a jar. ``Low fat means high sugar. There are some people in North Carolina petitioning the FDA because low fat doesn't mean low fat here. It's also higher in sodium.''
Carlson, who has developed a local following of health-conscious students, gears her classes to their needs. She distributes surveys to those who register for her classes and encourages them to suggest topics they'd like to learn more about. From these suggestions, she has put together classes about wok cooking, cooking for heart patients and weight-management.
Tall and trim, Carlson spoke in an animated tone, scrunching up her face for emphasis now and then.
``I wish she'd come out with a cookbook,'' Mary Davenport whispered to a friend. As the class wove its way through the store, Carlson stayed busy giving out facts and figures:
Sales of salsa have actually surpassed that of ketchup.
Lamb is generally higher in fat than beef.
Veal is very low in fat.
Frozen vegetables are lower in sodium and higher in fiber than canned vegetables.
Davenport, who was listening intently, took her first class with Carlson two years ago after her husband underwent heart surgery.
``We looked at this American Heart Association cookbook and she showed us tricks to lower the fat content of recipes even more than they did,'' Davenport said. ``It's things like using prunes to increase the thickness in chocolate desserts.''
Once you learn different tricks of the trade and discipline yourself in tallying daily grams of nutrients, Davenport said, eating right is a piece of cake.
Carlson, who instructs teachers at a North Carolina elementary school on wellness management, hopes parents and adults will pass good eating habits on to children.
``Don't play games with kids,'' she said. ``Like, `Eat your peas and then you'll get some ice cream.' Well, it takes a mental midget to realize that that must mean there's something really wrong with those peas and something really good about the ice cream.''
Erin Glace and Rachael Turner nodded at the advice, crinkling their foreheads as they scrutinized the products they passed.
``Eight ounces of yogurt has more calcium than eight ounces of milk,'' Carlson said. ``Oat and wheat cereals have more fiber than rice and corn. Look for cereals that have fewer than six grams of sugar and three grams of fat.''
Glace, six months pregnant, gave the lesson special attention.
Breezing through the sauce aisle, Carlson touted the vinegars, pointing out newer ones such as ``raspberry vinaigrette.''
``They're a great source of flavor,'' she said. ``And remember, when you eat light, you have to compensate with flavor.''
Experiment with different spices, she urged. Investigate and invest in herbs and spices. For example, cinnamon enhances anything sweet and three tablespoons of cocoa, which is fat free, can replace one square of chocolate for baking.
The class of about 15 women couldn't help but chide each other as they turned down the cookie and soft drink aisle.
``Fat-free cookie products have higher sugar levels, so really it's no advantage,'' Carlson said as her eyes searched the shelves lined with multicolored packages.
``Eat the graham crackers, vanilla wafers and ginger snaps. They're great and they really satisfy a sweet tooth.''
Down the bread-and-butter aisle, Carlson had more words of caution. Two common bread myths, she said, are that bread is fattening and that it should not be eaten at the same meal with potatoes.
Also, manufacturers have been known to dye their breads to make them brown, since consumers often relate darker colored bread with ``healthier'' bread.
``It has been done,'' Carlson said. ``Make sure your bread says ``whole'' or ``whole grain'' and not just ``wheat.'' There are only three types of bread - rye, wheat and white.''
Beware of butter in blocks. ``If it's hard enough to be in a block, then it's highly hydrogenated. Stay away from those. That leaves us with things in a tub. And there are many things that can come in a tub,'' Carlson said.
She recommends margarine that actually says ``margarine'' on the tub. Most ``spreads'' are high in water.
Carlson urged the class to see through advertising gimmicks and pay more attention to translating nutrition labels. With these tips in mind, she said, you can do as her automobile license plate declares: ``EAT SMRT.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
SHOP SMART, EAT SMART
[Color Photo]
Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Dietician Babs Carlson, left, takes her class through the Farm Fresh
supermarket on North Battlefield Boulevard to teach them how to eat
smart.
Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
Babs Carlson demonstrates low-fat cooking during a class at
Chesapeake General's Lifestyle Fitness Center.
Erin Glace listens during the tour at Farm Fresh, where students
learned to pick healthy foods.
TIPS FROM BABS
Plan menus for a week in advance. Make a list of ingredients
needed for those meals and always shop with that list. Don't shop on
an empty stomach.
Start your day out strong by eating a breakfast that includes two
servings of whole grain foods.
Curb your appetite by drinking 12 glasses of water every day.
Drink a glass of water, tea or hot low-sodium bouillon before every
meal.
Stop counting calories. Count food groups instead. Have you had
your veggies today?
by CNB