Week 42 in the tea study and Adam Sharpe is dreaming of white pizza and beer.
For eight months nearly every morsel of food the 26-year-old landscaper has eaten has been prepared by cooks at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center.
On weekdays, Sharpe has eaten his breakfasts and dinners in a small, drab cafeteria on the research center’s campus. His lunches and weekend meals were precisely measured and packed for him to take home. And he has drunk tea, or a beverage that tastes like tea, five times a day, every day.
“I had to change my whole lifestyle,” Sharpe said.
Such are the sacrifices for science.
Here in Building 308, a three-story brick structure on a campuslike setting in Beltsville, U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists are toiling to find answers to today’s most pressing food and nutrition questions: How much are Americans really eating? Why are we getting so fat? Do compounds found in tea, watermelon, barley and other foods really fight disease? What is the effect of diet on cancer, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis?
The folks at the lab are the ones who warned you about the artery-clogging components of butter and vegetable shortening. They documented the benefits some women derived from alcohol and showed that watermelon is a good source of disease-fighting lycopene.
In the tea study, they are trying to find out whether components found in black tea can reduce the damage smoking causes to blood vessels.
Studies typically run for several weeks and involve 20 to 40 participants who are paid anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for their time and trouble. But some research involves hundreds of participants in studies that can go on for a year.
“There are not a lot of places in the country that can do the large studies, and that’s what we’re doing here,” said researcher David J. Baer.
About 200 full- and part-time employees work at the center. Research is funded by food giants such as Kraft and Unilever, nonprofit agencies and tax dollars, but Baer said scientists feel no pressure to skew their reports to benefit their sponsors. “The data are what the data are,” he said.
Sometimes the data point to surprising conclusions. Despite well-publicized reports about the health benefits of chemicals found in tea, red wine and blueberries, Baer said the research center so far has found very little proof to back up the claims.
Cooking by the rules
Building 308 holds a mishmash of laboratories, conference rooms and offices. There are two cafeterias with two cooks in charge of preparing meals for the research studies. One is Diana Shegogue, who doesn’t fancy herself a chef so much as a partner in research.
Her kitchen resembles that of a school cafeteria: stainless-steel tables, industrial gas stove and ovens. The food is similar too.
Although the quality of ingredients she uses in her meals is top-notch, Shegogue said the scientists strictly control the menu and portions, and the food she prepares is by necessity bland. No flourishing squiggles of sauces on these plates, although Shegogue said she tries to make the meals as appetizing as possible.
“We want them to eat the food and not cheat,” she explained.
Although some experiments require the kitchen staff to follow exacting recipes and precisely measure portions, two studies that started this summer will not require as much work from the kitchen crews.
One is designed to find out whether chips made from red potatoes are more healthful than those made from white potatoes. Participants eat a 2-ounce bag of chips with their lunch and another with dinner, and on one occasion with breakfast, for several days for a month. They eat their meals at home.
“People were very excited about eating potato chips,” said Anne Kurilich, one of the researchers who interviewed participants for the study.
The other study may be a bit less appetizing. Scientists will explore whether purple carrots are more healthful than orange ones. Participants will drink the juice from the purple carrots for several days over the course of two months. A few of their meals will be packed by the nutrition center’s kitchen staff.
Not all of the studies require feeding subjects, however.
Feel the burn
Researchers also are studying how people burn calories. One room at the center is equipped with a bed and a small boxlike device that measures the calories a person is using while resting.
In another room, there are two sealed chambers in which subjects spend up to 23 1/2 hours a day so that scientists can determine how many calories are expended during normal activities.
Other researchers are studying how accurately people recall what and how much they eat so that food surveys may be designed better. And still others are studying the composition of food and exploring how communities meet their nutritional needs.
A stomach for science
Much of this research would not be possible without people willing to give their time and stomachs to the cause of science.
Natasha Jewell, a “30-something” homemaker, was among a group of subjects picking up bags of potato chips as the chip study began.
“It sounded interesting,” Jewell said. “I do like chips, but I don’t eat them that often.” She glanced at a grocery sack filled with 2-ounce bags of chips. “The bag was much larger than I anticipated.”
The chip study is her second experience with nutrition science. She also took part in a study that measured the calories she used in comparison with the food she ate.
Despite the restrictive diets many of the participants endure, few cheat, said Joseph T. Judd, a chemist who has conducted 20 human studies at the research center in the past 31 years.
Many of the participants work at other laboratories in the Washington area and appreciate the need for accuracy, he said. He tells the story of one woman who called months after a study was complete to confess she had cheated during the study. Worried that months of research might have to be tossed out, Judd questioned the woman. How had she cheated?
She had eaten half a doughnut.
Over time, participants in the studies become friends with each other and with the scientists. “They hate to leave,” Judd said.
But why do they come in the first place?
Sharpe offered one reason: Money. He was between jobs, and the $5,700 the research center offered to participants in the tea study seemed like easy money. “I wanted to get a new car,” he said.
All he had to do was eat the foods the researchers prepared for him and give blood, fecal and urine samples over the course of the 42-week study. What he hadn’t figured on was how difficult the work would be.
“It turns out to be a 24-hour-a-day job,” Sharpe said.
Except during breaks around Christmas and Easter, Sharpe couldn’t take his girlfriend out to dinner or hang out with his buddies in a bar. When his family sat down to feast on the Thanksgiving dinner his mother had prepared, Sharpe opened up a plastic tray of reheated turkey.
Sharpe sat alone in the quiet cafeteria recounting his experiences. Other participants had already eaten their salad and roast beef and left. His main complaint about the food is its blandness. He wryly noted that the cafeteria has no trash cans so participants must eat everything they are given. “They don’t trust us,” he joked.
Despite the inconveniences, he signed up for the potato-chip study. He’ll be able to eat almost anything he wants, he’ll only have to have his blood drawn nine times and he’ll get $400 for eating potato chips for a month. Compared to the exhaustive tea study, the potato-chip study looks easy, he said.
Other participants said that while the money is nice, they chose to take part in the studies because they also were interested in the science.
“It’s been interesting being a part of an experiment,” said Kevin Donnelly, 46, as he neared the end of his role in the smokers’ tea study earlier. “I feel like I have a stake in it.”
Nevertheless, he is relieved he doesn’t have to eat in the nutrition center’s cafeteria anymore. “Overall, I can’t complain, but I’d rather have my mother’s home cooking.”
