Interesting post on AGE's

[wodgina]

http://forum.lef.org/default.aspx?f=35&m=64393

[Alive]

Very interesting!
This suggests that a diet high in fresh vegetables with smaller amounts of fruit and meat is ideal, and that low temperature cooking without browning may be OK when viewed from this angle...
"Diet
An omnivore diet seems to be the best. High in vegetables, moderate in fruits. Berries are particularly beneficial due to lower in sugar content and high in antioxidants. Reduction in the consumption of high-heat cooked protein, carbohydrate and sugary foods where browning and charring is present. Roasting, charring, grilling, browning culinary treatments should be avoided. Avoid all packaged and processed foods and self-stable foods. Avoid sugary sodas and liquors."

[TylerDurden]

Dead wrong! The article, like so many others, does NOT show that eating fresh vegetables plus smaller amounts of fruit and meat is  "ideal". On the contrary, it shows that eating COOKED animal foods, which are full of AGEs, is deeply unhealthy and that cooked vegetables are "less worse" than cooked animal foods, in this one instance(though unhealthy in other respects). Healthy raw animal foods do not have such AGE-levels so are fine to eat.

[joej627]

Personally i believe that we are all biologically different.  Some people have genes tracing back to cold, northern cultures will do best with good quality meats especially when in cold weather.  People living in tropical islands usually do not indulge in tons of meat, instead they favor more "yin" fruits and vegetables.  Think bananas, coconut, avocado, kiwi, the sweet stuff.  I live in a moderate climate and have a somewhat mixed disposition.  Right now, in the summer, i am favoring more raw vegetables and fruits and mono-fats (olive oil, avocado) but also raw eggs,etc.  In the winter, i favor more fatty meats and if i am chilled, some lightly cooked vegetables or meat.  I believe that there are definitely more than one factor deciding on what foods should be eaten by what person in what form.  Constitution, genetics, climate, season, activity levels all play in.  I eat a lot more meat when doing bodybuilding type activities and less when im not.  Of course i think leaning towards raw on most things is the right way to go.  As far as cooking meat, some will go for it now and then, others wont.  All i know is the cooking process itself really matters to your body.  I will hardly ever eat a grilled chicken breast or fried steak.  Those things are ridiculous.  But slow cooked for 8 hours crockpot chicken that falls off the bone is completely different.  So my vote goes

-listen to your body
-raw as much as possible
-wide variety of foods
-eat with the seasons
-when cooking, cook as light and slow as possible
-and remember that diet is only 1 aspect of health

-Joe

[Projectile Vomit]

Very interesting article, glad you linked to it here. To a degree TD is correct in that the article focuses primarily on the impacts of eating cooked foods without explicitly saying so, although their generalizations are still useful. I think a diet consisting of mostly raw plant material and including modest amounts of raw animal foods probably is ideal though, as even raw animal foods have far more AGEs and AGE precursors than plant foods.

[TylerDurden]

Very interesting article, glad you linked to it here. To a degree TD is correct in that the article focuses primarily on the impacts of eating cooked foods without explicitly saying so, although their generalizations are still useful. I think a diet consisting of mostly raw plant material and including modest amounts of raw animal foods probably is ideal though, as even raw animal foods have far more AGEs and AGE precursors than plant foods.

Only really applies to raw animal foods from animals raised on very unhealthy diets. It is true that all animals, even ones raised on extremely healthy diets, have very tiny amounts of AGEs in them but these are naturally produced in all animal bodies on a daily basis and are easily dealt with by the body's defences.

[Joy2012]

Only really applies to raw animal foods from animals raised on very unhealthy diets. It is true that all animals, even ones raised on extremely healthy diets, have very tiny amounts of AGEs in them but these are naturally produced in all animal bodies on a daily basis and are easily dealt with by the body's defences.

http://marshfieldceliac.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/5/7/2557865/ada_ages_in_food_reduction1.pdf

According to the above link,  AGE contents in animal foods versus vegetarian foods (KU per 100 grams) are something like this:

Apple (AGE content is 13)
Banana (9)
Cantaloupe (20)
Carrots (10)
Celery (43)
Cucumber (31)
Onion (36)
Tomato (23)
Raw beef (707)
Raw shrimp (1003)

I understand that the raw beef /shrimp in this link is raised on "very unhealthy diet."  On the other hand, the apple, celery etc. here probably also refere to grocer-bought non-organic ones which are produced from very unhealthy soil. 

It keeps bothering me that raw animal products have so many more AGEs than raw fruit/vegetables. So my question is: how do we know that raw 100% grass-fed beef and wild-caught seafood do not have AGEs anywhere near the animal products raised on unhealthy diets? How do we know that animal products “raised on extremely healthy diets have very tiny amounts of AGEs in them”?

[Inger]

Personally i believe that we are all biologically different.  Some people have genes tracing back to cold, northern cultures will do best with good quality meats especially when in cold weather.  People living in tropical islands usually do not indulge in tons of meat, instead they favor more "yin" fruits and vegetables.  Think bananas, coconut, avocado, kiwi, the sweet stuff.  I live in a moderate climate and have a somewhat mixed disposition.  Right now, in the summer, i am favoring more raw vegetables and fruits and mono-fats (olive oil, avocado) but also raw eggs,etc.  In the winter, i favor more fatty meats and if i am chilled, some lightly cooked vegetables or meat.  I believe that there are definitely more than one factor deciding on what foods should be eaten by what person in what form.  Constitution, genetics, climate, season, activity levels all play in.  I eat a lot more meat when doing bodybuilding type activities and less when im not.  Of course i think leaning towards raw on most things is the right way to go.  As far as cooking meat, some will go for it now and then, others wont.  All i know is the cooking process itself really matters to your body.  I will hardly ever eat a grilled chicken breast or fried steak.  Those things are ridiculous.  But slow cooked for 8 hours crockpot chicken that falls off the bone is completely different.  So my vote goes

-listen to your body
-raw as much as possible
-wide variety of foods
-eat with the seasons
-when cooking, cook as light and slow as possible
-and remember that diet is only 1 aspect of health

-Joe

This post was spot on IMHO.
I am thinking, cold might make AGEs as in quality-food as fresh meat and such, not unhealthy for us at all.
Maybe the cold reverses the damage from AGEs?

Inger

[TylerDurden]

It keeps bothering me that raw animal products have so many more AGEs than raw fruit/vegetables. So my question is: how do we know that raw 100% grass-fed beef and wild-caught seafood do not have AGEs anywhere near the animal products raised on unhealthy diets? How do we know that animal products “raised on extremely healthy diets have very tiny amounts of AGEs in them”?

Simple. AGEs and all other heat-created toxins derived from cooking are heavily linked to inflammation. Cattle raised on grainfed diets are well-known for enduring a lot of inflammation in their bodies, so since cattle on natural, grassfed diets are far less prone to inflammation, logically, their AGE-content must be far lower.Oh, the inflammation is often ascribed to the excess, skewed omega-6:omega-3 ratio in unhealthy grainfed cattle.

[aLptHW4k4y]

Oh, the inflammation is often ascribed to the excess, skewed omega-6:omega-3 ratio in unhealthy grainfed cattle.

Grass-fed ground beef has an omega3:omega6 ratio of 0.21, grainfed has 0.11. That doesn't look like an extremely different ratio.

[TylerDurden]

Grass-fed ground beef has an omega3:omega6 ratio of 0.21, grainfed has 0.11. That doesn't look like an extremely different ratio.

Small variations can make a big difference.

[aLptHW4k4y]

I doubt it, considering it's tiny amounts of both omega3 and omega6 in beef fat.

[Joy2012]

Tyler, thank you for bringing up the issue of inflammation.

“Grass-fed beef has the recommended ratio of Omega 6 to Omega-3 fatty acids.  (It's 2:1 or better.) ”
http://texasgrassfedbeef.com/grass_fed_beef.htm

 “On the Ampelistra farm in Greece, purslane is plentiful and grows wild; the chickens make a feast of it, along with insects and lots of fresh green grass, supplemented with fresh and dried figs, barley flour, and small amounts of corn… The Greek egg had a Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio of 1.3 to one whereas the supermarket egg had a ratio of 19.4 to one...
      North Dakota State University conducted a study on the nutritional differences between nearly grass-fed and grain-fed bison.  The results of that study closely followed that of the egg studies.  The nearly grass-fed bison had Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios of 4.0 to one, and the grain-fed bison had ratios of 21 to one.
      In 1998 the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada published their study on the effects of forage versus grain feeding on the fatty acid composition of cattle.  Cattle fed grain for 120 days (40 fewer days than typical for feedlot cattle) had Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios of 11 to one.  Forage-fed (alfalfa hay) cattle had Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios of 3 to one.  Additional studies by others clearly show that the longer cattle are fed grain, the greater the fatty acid imbalance.  For instance, after 200 days in the feedlot grain-fed cattle have Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios that exceed 20 to one!  Many cattle are fed 200 days or more in the United States.  The typical stay in a feedlot is about 160 days.”

http://texasgrassfedbeef.com/omega_3_fatty_acids.htm

[Joy2012]

Will someone help me with one more question about AGEs: Why is the AGE content of cooked eggs (poached) so low while all other raw/cooked animal foods have so much more AGE?

Here is a sample of the AGE content (ku) of 100g of (cooked) animal foods:

Egg, omelet, pan, low heat, cooking spray, 11 minc  90
Egg, poached, below simmer, 5 minc 90
Chicken, boiled in water, 1 h 1,123
lamb, leg, boiled, 30 min 1,218
Salmon, fillet, poached 2,292
Salmon, raw 528
Trout, raw 783
Tuna, fresh, baked, 25 min 919
Beef, raw 707
Beef, stewed 2,657
http://marshfieldceliac.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/5/7/2557865/ada_ages_in_food_reduction1.pdf

[TylerDurden]

Poaching is always done below the boiling point of water(usually 74 degrees Celsius or below), and cooking in moisture also reduces the levels of AGEs that are created. Oh, and the above poaching-time of eggs was only 5 minutes, that's nothing.

And the raw beef was undoubtedly grainfed.

[Joy2012]

Thanks, Tyler.