For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Diets are dying, the faulty vaccine-autism paper was retracted and yet another study shows low-fat diets are bad for heart disease. Could this week get any better?

And in case you missed it, definitely check out the video of Michael Pollan’s talk at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

Links of the Week

• Eat, Drink & Be Healthy: Dieting vs. newer approaches to losing weight <<Is healthstyle catching on? Cross your fingers for the end of diets…. (The Washington Post)
• Vaccine-Autism Study Is Retracted <<BS of the week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy this paper has been retracted. What I’m calling out is that it ever got published in the first place. This is an example of bad science that endangered children’s lives. How was this ever okay? (New York Times)
• The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science, or Hype? <<I recommend taking vitamin D supplements, but that doesn’t stop me from being a skeptic. I still try to get enough from natural sources like sunlight and oily fish. (New York Times)
• Moderate-Fat Diet May Be Better at Reducing Heart Risks <<This is not news, but it is worth repeating. I love fat. Fatty, fat, fat. Here it goes down, down into my belly. (HealthDay)
• Corned beef for breakfast? Try it, you might lose weight <<The newest diet trend seems to be eating a big breakfast. This doesn’t involve deprivation, so I’m interested to see how it works for people. (Los Angeles Times)
• Eating Too Fast? <<Dr. Weil discusses a new study linking eating speed to hunger. This is just one more reason to learn to eat slowly and mindfully. You’ll enjoy your food more as well. (Dr. Weil’s Daily Blog)
• Reliable health information on the go <<One of my favorite resources for health information, Medline, now has a mobile version of their website. (Los Angeles Times)
• Sardines and Avocados <<I’m not the only skinny foodie out there. In fact, there are a bunch of us and we all pretty much do the same things to be healthy. We eat real food, we don’t shun fats, and we hit the gym. Allison Arevalo discusses food, body weight and Alton Brown (Local Lemons)
• Bound By Love and Honor. And Mayo. <<Love this broccoli crunch salad recipe (and philosophy) over at Matt Bites.
• Michael Pollan on Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual <<Michael Pollan recently spoke at my favorite farmers market about his new book, Food Rules. Here’s the video.

What inspired you this week?

Tags: B.S. of the week, Body Weight, Breakfast, diets, Dr. Weil, fat, Michael Pollan, mindful eating, recipe, vitamin D

Dr. Andrew Weil is the father of integrative medicine and has one of the most sane and straightforward healthy eating programs available. Here he sat down with Kevin Rose and answered an extensive range of geek health questions asked by Twitter users.

The question I was most curious about is the role of dairy in health. I have done countless hours of research on potential links between dairy and prostate cancer, type 1 diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma and other problems, and was happy to see Dr. Weil’s interpretation of the data is very similar to mine (very little is conclusive). He also adds an interesting aside on the importance of Mongolian cows that you shouldn’t miss.

Other topics covered include the potential dangers of soda and energy drinks, the risks and benefits of soy, which supplements are worthwhile, the best sources of antioxidants, how much vitamin D is necessary, the importance of fish oil, the deal with cellphone radiation, screen time and eye problems, tea, chocolate, low-carb diets, depression and those “fancy detox kits.”

It’s an incredibly informative video and definitely worth a half hour of your time.

And don’t forget to follow @drweil and @kevinrose on Twitter.

Enjoy!

Tags: dairy, Dr. Weil, integrative medicine, Kevin Rose, Twitter