Dire Consequences from Health Reporting: Portlandia-Style

I love when humor draws attention to much deeper issues, especially those I'm personally invested in like societal understanding of science. While catching up on past episodes of Portlandia, my stupor from automatic sequential episodes of Netflix'ing  was broken by this brilliant little diddy (by the way, who in the hell at Netflix decided this was a "good" feature. CURSE THEM. I hope Portlandia makes fun of binge watching soon. Oh wait. I think they already did):

Portlandia, Season 4, Episode 1 - Death By Confusion sketch

Working in Portland, Oregon as a biology instructor gives me ample anecdotal evidence that Portland is a health-crazed hotbed of all things "woo" and lifestyle choices based on partial scientific evidence. Then again, maybe this isn't just a "Portland" thing. Many of us in the global food allergy community are continually frustrated hearing the media reports of scientific findings that seemingly contradict each other. Seriously - Is Vitamin D "good" or "bad?" Should children consume or avoid nuts to prevent food allergies?

The deeper issue here is that the scientific process and how scientific findings typically get reported in the media are generally at odds with one another. What the Portlandia sketch highlights is that most people interact with scientific findings through a prettily packaged, media filter based on some personal emotion attached to the topic. "I read it in the New York Times..." or "I heard it on NPR..."  Science is fact-based, but the media is typically emotion-laced facts. Emotion-laced facts are not in and of itself "wrong," but it sets up an inherent bias in that we tend to consume the information that supports our preconceived notions (as if I need an excuse to eat more chocolate, right? More on chocolate science at the end of the post). Well-designed scientific studies aim to take bias out of the equation as much as possible.Where we get into trouble is when media reports on the same topic of research disagree. How many times have media reports presented conflicting science on whether red wine/chocolate/coffee/beer/eggs/etc is "good" or "bad" for you?

And this gets to another point where science and media reports of science differ. Science is a slow and steady process with a whole lot of nuance, whereas media reports of science, rapidly distill partial understanding of natural phenomena as if it were ultimate, irrefutable proof. Any one scientific study is not enough evidence to change behavior/medical advice/etc. Only when a topic has been researched through many different studies through several different approaches do scientists feel comfortable saying, "yes, this is how we believe x, y, or z is happening, and people should do a, b, or c as a result." This is scientific consensus. In the media, however, scientific findings often focus on one novel study at a time instead of the slow steady zigzagging path toward consensus. Nuance and consensus often get lost in translation, and they don't make "exciting" headlines. Consensus may have been a novel report ten years ago along with the three other competing ideas of the day that were subsequently shown to be false. I'm tired of the media making scientists look bad and unreliable.

The great irony of "death by confusion" is that overstating any individual scientific finding in the media as if it were ultimate truth backfires when the next overblown claim gets reported six months down the road. While the skit itself overblows the end result (I hope?) of this back and forth reporting, I do think that the real world effect on people is more stress and anxiety rather than less. I want real hope, not false hope.

Some basic strategies to be a good consumer of science in the media:
1. If you read articles from mainstream media channels, look for the primary source (most likely a scientific journal article). If the article fails to link to the primary source, be very skeptical.
Example media report: People Magazine
Primary source: New England Journal of Medicine

2. Read AT LEAST the abstract (research summary) if not the whole primary source if it is freely available. Do the results/conclusions seem in line with the media report?

3. Do any credible educational, research, and professional organizations with a medical board comment on the topic? In the food allergy world, this means FARE, AAFA and KFA, FAACT, AAAAI, and ACAAI. The magazine, Allergic Living, also provides great coverage of scientific findings!

Post script:
A must read published two days ago at io9 showing science reporting without due diligence:
I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How. By John Bohannon

Good coverage by NPR that also highlights the controversy of the "fake" chocolate study.

Love it or hate it, I have a feeling this will be a case-study for science journalism in the years to come.

Vegan pumpkin pie filling minus most of the gloopy starch (egg-free, milk-free, nut-free)

Introduction:

This may not be a cooking blog, but occasionally a little science can help solve a very real problem - a better vegan pumpkin pie filling! The starchy, gloopy, blobby pumpkin pie filling found in most vegan pumpkin pie recipes has much to be desired. In fact, I like to joke that I can chuck a scoop across the room and watch it slowly bleb down the wall. We deal with many allergies that won't allow using certain egg-replacing binders (e.g. flax seed gel, corn starch, tofu, etc.), so after coming up null with internet searches for workable recipes given our allergen set, necessity became the mother of invention! Welcome to my test kitchen!

Question: 

Could I use chia seed, some combination of chia seed and tapioca starch, or a combination of chia seed and course oat flour to improve the texture of the existing gloopy pumpkin pie filling (tapioca starch-based)?

Hypothesis: 

I predicted that either the combination of chia seed and oat flour or the combination of chia seeds and tapioca starch would significantly improve the texture of the gloopy pumpkin pie filling. I predicted that the chia seed alone would not provide enough binding to make an adequate filling.

Rationale: 

Chia is often touted as an egg substitute. Soaking 1 Tbsp of chia seeds in 3 Tbsp water for ~20 minutes makes a mucilaginous gel resembling the texture of raw egg in quantity. While the texture seems on par with raw egg, the real magic of egg binding in recipes doesn't happen until after it is cooked (think of a hard-boiled egg. The uncooked "white" is primarily protein, whose structure changes to the opaque, hard but slightly pliable white after cooking. Now imagine that same structure distributed throughout your pie filling!). Chia has a combination of polysaccharides (complex sugar chains - aka carbohydrates, some protein, and some fat). I reasoned that chia alone wouldn't have the same protein binding "magic" as an egg based on its protein content (1 large egg = 6.3 g of protein; 1 Tbsp chia seed = 3 g protein). Although it is possible that chia may compensate for a lack of protein a bit by providing more carbohydrates that can "gel" (1 large egg = 0.4 carbohydrates; 1 Tbsp chia seed = 5 g carbohydrates). Oats have a good deal of both protein and carbohydrates, though! So I figured grinding rolled oats into a coarse flour with a food processor may expose more of the protein/carbs contained within to serve a really good "binding" function (1/2 cup of rolled oats = 5 g protein, 27 g carbohydrates, 3 g fat).

Making chia seed gel. 1 egg substitute = 1 Tbsp chia seeds + 3 Tbsp water. Let sit ~20 minutes before using.

Materials and methods:

In order to waste as little food as possible, I mixed a large pumpkin pie base whose ingredients were common to all conditions and added 3/4 cup of the "base ingredients" to each of four tempered glass cups. 

Base ingredients common to all conditions

2 cups pureed pumpkin

1 cup light coconut milk

1/4 c. packed light brown sugar

1/4 c. maple syrup

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

I then scaled down the unique ingredients I wanted to add to each of the four separate conditions, fully mixed, and baked in the oven at 375 deg. F for 45 minutes. Note, I would have loved to test additional conditions, but I didn't have enough ingredients to test them all! In theory, I should have included a proper "negative control" that would have baked the "base ingredients" with no additions. I would have also included an "egg based" version for good measure, but hey, we deal with an egg allergy in our house - it just didn't seem right. After baking and cooling, my husband and I taste-tested each condition to obtain results based on our personal texture preferences.

Results:

Chia seed + oat flour was the clear winner for binding and texture. Both the tapioca starch alone and the chia seed + tapioca starch had the gloopy starch binding texture instead of the soft texture associated with traditional egg-based pumpkin pie filling. Chia seed alone was quite delicious, but did did not have enough binding for pie filling. It makes a fabulous pudding, however! (Yes, two recipes in one!!!).

Pumpkin pie recipe:

Use your favorite crust recipe and line a 9 in. pie pan with crust. Mine happens to be Claire's quick and easy pie crust using spectrum organic shortening. You could easily substitute a different recipe to make this gluten-free.

Pumpkin pie filling ingredients:

2 c. pureed pumpkin (I used a can of Trader Joe's)

1/2 c. of coarsely ground oat flour (I used a food processor to grind rolled oats)

1 c. coconut milk light (I used canned from Trader Joe's)

Chia seed gel (1 Tbsp chia seed + 3 Tbsp water, sit for ~20 minutes before use)

1/4 c. light brown sugar, firmly packed

1/4 c. maple syrup

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Pumpkin pie filling thoroughly mixed.

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 deg. F. 

2. Combine all pumpkin pie filling ingredients and thoroughly mix.

2. Pour filling into pie shell (I covered my crust edges with aluminum foil for the first 30 minutes of baking and removed foil for the remainder of the bake time).

3. Bake for ~60 minutes (ovens may vary, so please check your pie sooner!).

4. Cool on rack and enjoy!