Wheat Belly by William Davis throws us a curve when he says that our blood sugar is getting a spike from our increased use of whole wheat bread. Wait, it gets more frightening: Eating 2 slices of whole wheat bread is equivalent to drinking a can of sugar-sweetened soda. Wait. This was not the intended consequence.

Sugar was something we were trying to avoid as elevated blood sugar leads to a whole category of diseases such as diabetes. Davis goes on and details how wheat creates the visceral fat layer that is responsible for an increased risk of breast cancer. Were we not moving the family to whole wheat products, assuming they did not suffer from a gluten intolerance or even Celiac, for positive health results? Now all of a sudden we are out in left field having been advocates for a less than healthy path for our families.

The problem quite simply is that the wheat we eat today is not the wheat of earlier times.  In Davis’s words, the wheat has been “hybridized,” basically, overbred or, are we overbread? That process raises blood sugar and kicks up insulin levels. This resembles a sugar rush as one is often hungry within a few hours and the taste itself has an addictive quality, much as all sweets we savor.

Switching to whole wheat products created a conundrum: You thought you were doing something wonderful for your body but instead you were complicating matters and creating negative, rather than positive, results. One cannot help but ask if the number of people who now recognize that they are gluten intolerant are responding to this wheat intake.

The ultimate point is that wheat for whatever reason increases visceral fat (belly fat) which is associated with a range of negative health issues such as diabetes and heart disease. The cover of the book strikes the message with its stacked bagels which of course are fattening in and of themselves but Davis says, “Lose the wheat. Lose the weight.”

We know for a certainty that visceral fat has negative health consequences. Likewise diabetes numbers continue to spike. This may be the approach: Eliminating the wheat may be the simplest diet plan to follow.

The concept is quite simple: You take regular water, preferably chilled, and connect the bottles that come with the tidy, space-saving machine to the unit, give it a few puffs of a button and voilà, sparkling water. You can adjust the amount of bubbly and within seconds enjoy a cold, sparkling drink. No more discussions about flat seltzer; you just bring regular water to life!

This year they have added a full range of flavors, minus the high fructose corn syrup, to make your own specialty drinks including the obvious soda flavors such as cola, cherry cola, ginger ale, and root beer and the new natural line with lemon lime and pink grapefruit. One flavor container makes the equivalent of 33 cans!

Yes, the company talks about cost savings as one liter comes out to about 25 cents! The savings are appreciated, but now you can have the fun of running your own soda fountain. Numerous stores offer an exchange program for your empty cartridge. No waste. The starter pack includes two bottles and a carbonator.

No need to advocate for a company that has provided a simple solution to a basic household beverage, but I’d feel silly if I didn’t share one of my favorite purchases. The company calls it a “drinkmaker,” I call it a fun, interactive experience rather than a ho-hum drink purchase. Why not add a little fun to the home beverage market?

Put a little more sparkle into your drink portfolio. You’ll enjoy the fresh, flavor profile and at the same time help the environment and lower your per-bottle costs. Why not?

Check it out:

–A new study from the Netherlands found that coffee and tea drinking in moderation reduced the risk of heart disease. Too often we find studies with a particularly small sample size. Not this time. They followed almost 40,000 coffee and tea drinkers for 13 years. Impressive. Those that consumed 2-4 cups of coffee daily had a 20% lower risk of heart disease than those consuming less coffee. Tea drinkers: You’ll love this. Those who drank 3-6 cups of tea daily reduced their risk by 45%. Even those who drank more than 6 cups daily were able to reduce their risk by 36%. Wonder about the mixed drinkers: The coffee-tea-coffee-tea routine folks?

–More interested in the positive news re: wine? Got you covered. We’ve talked a lot about the health benefits from red wine and its major property, resveratrol, and now, not one, but two studies indicate the positive powers from the compound in red wine and grapes. Drink and be skinny one study finds (fat cell reduction protects against heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s). The other study reaffirms the overall heart-healthy benefits from red wine. Of course, the researchers point out additional research is needed, but these results are in the right column.

–Soft drink consumption down. Well, that’s not totally accurate but in a study at Harvard’s Brigham & Women’s University, researchers found that if they created a “soda tax” more people would forgo the sugary sweet drinks. They raised the price of the beverages by 35% for a 4-week period and watched sales drop while coffee and diet beverage increased by 20%. Not so sure about the diet drink approach but believe taxing sugary drinks may provide some of the positive health results (less diabetes, obesity) than relying completely on individual decision-making.

So it’s a hot week, this first official week of summer, cool yourself down with an iced coffee or iced tea. Enjoy dinner with a glass of red wine, and hydrate sufficiently with water. Your body will thank you.

Last weekend there was the ubiquitous alfalfa sprout recall. That’s a product you should consider growing yourself or finding a small farmer who specializes in the care and feeding of these sprouts. Their recall notices are almost legendary for their frequency. Maybe the best solution is to find a taste substitute or skip the sprout concept all together and spice up your taste buds with an alternative.

All that talk about soda taxes and helping local economies may be going down the drain. Major outreach  groups have formed, and it seems that the soda tax may be more wishful thinking than reality for a number of cities (Philly, another example). Anyway, the tax may not solve the problem which for many people borders on addiction or at least beverage dependency. Here’s another take on soft drinks:

–A new study blames the sugar in soft drinks, not the caffeine, for spiking blood pressure. Researchers found that eliminating a single soft drink daily produced a positive effect! That would seem a reasonable solution to help with blood pressure: Cut back by a single soft drink daily, and you’ll notice an improvement in blood pressure.

Wait: Let me see if I get this? We can do something to help our health! Yes, pay attention to the food safety recalls as that is our only line of defense at the moment. We can’t sit around and wait for FDA or any of its cousin agencies to solve these safety issues immediately. Secondly, we need to adjust our food intake accordingly and pay attention to the health news that impacts our lifestyle.

We can make these simple adjustments.

The Feds seem to be stepping out of the equation with all the other topics floating around, but some of the states seem ready to take up the cause as a way to boost their declining revenues. The formula is a tax fitted to the number of ounces of the drink. Imagine the situation at any of the fast food outlets and then multiply the chaos by the outrage.

Whether you’re talking a penny an ounce tax or the very high 18% figure that is being mentioned the concern is the same. We are a country in the out-of-control department about weight gain, obesity, and increases in diabetes. Those being the primary reasons behind the reemergence of the beverage tax. Some in support of the concept talk about overall economic savings.

The real issue that cannot be lost in the steam roll is who makes the decision about what to eat and drink. The economy is still in bad shape with job losses and high overall unemployment. Inexpensive food and drink options help many people stave off hunger. This is the reality of the times. Fix one issue at a time. One more tax is not the way to go.

Pennies count no matter the size of the beverage.

I have heard plenty about the “Mexican Coca-Cola,” the non, high fructose corn syrup beverage. In other words, the original Coke, the one that had a unique taste without having to be sweetened up with all types of add-ons. I knew the product was available in many West Coast stores, but now it has taken the cross-country trek into the aisles of East Coast Costco stores. I’m not talking 6-paks or single liter bottles, but a case of 24 glass beauties!

As an added taste plus, the advantage of glass over plastic cannot be stressed enough. Freshness wins; no residual coating taste, no after-taste. That’s the beauty of glass containers!

Then there is the freshness factor as it applies to a product that goes back to its roots. People literally got excited when they saw my case in the basket. Checkers started a myriad of conversations which spilled over to customers in several lines. “Yea, yea, this is the real McCoy” was the consensus! I should point out that this product is not one of those in the bargain aisle. True taste does not come without a cost.

Guess what, they’re right. So if you are a Coke brand aficionado, then this is the way to go. You decide: High fructose corn syrup or sugar.

Trust me. You’ll skip the others in favor of this more natural pleaser, if a soda can be called natural.

“Refresco” says it for me.

Artisan beers became a craze, and big brewers needed to step down into the craft market. Wait, for many that became a significant financial step upwards. Look at the popularity of Blue Moon and the significant number of brewers making Hefeweizens. Slice of lemon, please.

Remember expensive bottles of French wine? OK, they still exist as do the reserve wine lists, but as the recession took its toll on our dining out and dining-in budgets, we learned to embrace new regions of the world and become familiar with other wines and sparklings such as Malbec, Cava, and Prosecco. What was being poured in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa became of greater interest to us as we scoured those regions for our new vintages.

No longer were we limited to American wines from California, Oregon, Washington, and New York. We learned Thomas Jefferson was right: Virginia became an established wine region with award-winning wines from Barboursville, Chrysalis, and Jefferson Vineyards.

We even became fascinated by different wine glasses for different wines. What was once limited to high-end stores and fancy restaurants became more commonplace on the shelves at Target as Riedel moved into the consumer space with its 4 and 6-boxed items. A glass for red, one for white, and the emergence of the flute instead of the floating half circle for sparkling! Of course, those who follow every trend knew they needed a specific glass for a specific pour. Stop, not that one, that’s for Zinfandel only!

We even bought the whole wine lineup including the darling of the opening set, the Rabbit, and the multitude of decanting carafes. We became serious wine drinkers, and as we traveled wine regions, we became more knowledgeable, and less intimidated, by what we drank!

As we look forward, we’ve gone back to the old cocktail routine and elevated the bartender to a drink specialist who has studied the chemistry, or alchemy, of an ingredient-shaken beverage. Specialty cocktail menus re-emerged and the high priced, fun-sounding cocktail helped many restaurants survive.

We became caffeine freaks with an almost unstoppable fascination with coffee drinks, both hot and iced. It was clearly the Starbucks decade, a title the company hopes to regain in the upcoming year. Grocery stores proudly introduced coffee bars. We decided one double espresso was too limiting and added caffeine-based energy drinks to our daily consumption routines. All these steps hit soda sales as they plummeted, and the old brands started to lose the high fructose corn syrup and explore cane sugar drinks.

We were a thirsty group and little has quenched our thirst as we reach for the next tantalizing trend.

Do we really need 16 or 20 ounces? That is the question they have decided deserves a resounding NO, at least a sense of not all the time! Be happy with a smaller can and fewer calories is their new modus operandi. Wait there’s more.

The company seems to be making moves in the direction of pure cane sugar and away from high fructose corn syrup; after all, that is the basis of their already popular soft drink during the springtime Passover holiday when corn products are not allowed in the Jewish diet.

So the question is why can’t they make that sweet, non-fructose, product year round? Turns out they do in Mexico and lots of Mexican cafes and markets throughout the country have it for purchase. The New York Times piece started another whole soft drink buzz about the virtues of the more natural soda. Check it out; this naturally sweet product is not that hard to find–try Costco!

Stop the presses: Pepsi wants a cup of that action. They plan to bring back Pepsi Throwback starting at the end of December.

Natural sugar is gaining the attention it deserves. BTW, the natural lineup is not just limited to namesakes Pepsi and Coke but goes deeper into the product line.

We will be healthier from all these re-bottling efforts.

Not to be left in a cloud of complaints, the Coca-Cola Company has decided to take the lead and put detailed calorie information on the front of all product packages. This information may quickly make the need for a soda tax an obsolete concept.

When you see how fattening that Coke is, you may switch to one of the company’s other products: Dasani Water, for instance. Or you might concentrate on their other, healthier drinks, such as its full line of juices. Sure they have calories and sugar, but they have benefits not found in sodas. At least you can hope you are drinking something that might keep you healthy.

The company deserves credit for being willing to detail its calorie and nutritional information, but they want no part of the blame for the current state of the health debate. As the soda tax debate gets more heated, no company wants to be the whipping boy for the health of the nation.

We are the consumers. We can make the good decisions.

You’ve heard plenty about the billions of dollars necessary for  implementation of a health care bill, now there’s a proposal that has the inherent concept of taxing sweet beverages (pops/sodas, energy, and sports beverages, for starters) and stuffing almost $14 billion a year into the health care coffers. Not a bad strategy since so many health problems (obesity and diabetes, for example) are related to the sweet, sugary beverages. BTW, the tax would not be on diet beverages–that’ll be another whole health discussion when somebody figures out the harmful effect from those ingredients!

The scientific paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine had another interesting belief: As soda prices increase, more consumers decide against that purchase. So if a consumer is taxed a penny an ounce on a sugary drink, that cost would go into the price of the product–watch out Big Gulp. The parallel, of course, is in the tobacco industry, which passed the taxes on to the consumer and drove the price of a pack of cigarettes into the stratosphere–but there are still smokers.

Here’s a chance to see who holds the power rings in Washington: The soft drink industry, the sugar lobby, health care advocates, or those who conduct scientific research? Maybe the power force will be from a newly minted organization, (which may or may not be part of a larger beverage association with a significant amount at stake), that plans to fight food taxes.

We’ll have to wait on the sidelines and opt for reverse osmosis tap water.

Then there are the good/bad coffee studies which get broken down into sub-categories of caffeine or no-caffeine. I am a full throttle triple espresso gal who occasionally. to make people happy, makes a double decaf espresso. These studies indicate how too much coffee can be a problem and then follow it with a note how coffee staves off strokes. Same week.

Now, here’s a good one: coffee consumption surpasses sales of soft drinks. Maybe it’s the cold winter and hot java wrapper combination or just the soothing affect of warm coffee dripping into a cup. Maybe it’s the aromatic smell that wafts through the house with its cheerful wake-up. Maybe it’s none of those, and it’s just that a good cup of coffee tastes great.

So if young people are drinking more coffee, maybe it’s because there is so much variety; so many types of coffees available. Wait, we could be talking about the number of soft drink or vitamin-enchanced beverages. Think the answer is simple: young people know a good drink when they see one. They are just joining the national beverage club which trends towards more coffee.

Make mine a triple espresso, please.