Thursday, March 03, 2005

MSN Hotmail - Message

MSN Hotmail - Message: "
Here's some screwy logic: Encourage women of childbearing age (we'll call these millions of women WOCBA) to eat highly processed bread products because that's the only way many of them will get enough folic acid to avoid the risk of birth defects.

That advice comes from Anita Boles, executive director of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. Specifically, Ms. Boles is concerned that too many WOCBA may be caught up in the hype about low-carb diets. If they remove Wonder Bread from their diets (the reasoning goes), they won't be getting a sufficient amount of folic acid that refined grain products are fortified with.

Hmmm. Couldn't WOCBA just go to the store and purchase folic acid supplements?

Nope, not good enough, says Ms. Boles. Statistics show that 60 percent of the women in this group fail to take the recommended daily dose of 400 mcg of folic acid.

So let's see if I've got this straight. Since well over 50 percent of WOCBA don't take the simple step necessary to help prevent birth defects, the best solution is that they should be encouraged to eat plenty of crappy fortified carbs? Of course, those aren't Ms. Boles' words. She describes them as 'enriched grains.'

Well, call them what you want. A daily intake of highly processed grain products simply adds up to 'enriched' poor nutrition.

Happily, though, on the same day I came across the item with Ms. Boles' advice, I happened to find an article from a mainstream media outlet that actually offers some surprisingly clear thinking about carbohydrates.

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Measuring up
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