I held office hours last week to discuss the USDA’s new replacement for the food pyramid, MyPlate. I also answer several reader’s questions about food and nutrition.
To learn more about participating in future broadcasts check out Summer Tomato Live.
The USDA release a new “Nutrition Plate,” cell phones might cause cancer (but probably don’t), the uselessness of genetically modified salmon and more. A great week for food and health reading.
Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.
MSG linked to weight gain <<BS of the week. Is MSG actually causing weight gain, or does fattening processed food tend to be full of MSG? Let’s not jump to conclusions. (Medline)
Connecting Dots: Fruit is Real Food; Eat It <<Love this post for many reasons. It always makes me cringe when people tell me they avoid fruit because of sugar. Fructose ≠ fruit. (Free The Animal)
Eating Fat, Staying Lean <<A little more evidence that dietary fat won’t kill you. (New York Times)
Ten ways to get kids to eat their veggies <<These tips for kids (foreign to me) are much more creative than I expected them to be. Thx to the reader who sent it my way. (CNN)
This week I learned that cheese is associated with lower cancer rates, and it wasn’t even an April Fools’ joke. I’m also cautiously optimistic about Kroger’s new food scoring system that actually calls out junk food for what it is. Oh oh oh! And I can’t wait to try the canned unicorn meat I’ve heard so much about.
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
End the War on Fat <<A fabulous review of America’s upside down nutrition advice of the past several decades, especially as it pertains to fat and heart disease. Hats off to Slate for this one.
Higher vitamin K intake tied to lower cancer risks <<Read this article carefully and you’ll see they found a correlation between cheese consumption and less cancer. Correlation is not causation, but at least the trend wasn’t in the other direction! (Reuters)
Giant Greenhouses Mean Flavorful Tomatoes All Year <<BS of the week. This quote says it all: “They don’t make a tomato that my grandmother would have liked. They make a tomato that my son would like or my daughter would like.” Why does our society tolerate the watering down of our quality of life? And at exorbitant prices, no less. (New York Times)
How Much Exercise Will Prevent Weight Gain? <<The amount of exercise needed for weight loss will be different for everyone, but it’s nice to see a little data for once. (New York Times)
Vinegar and Weight Loss: Didn’t Work For Me <<Why does this not surprise me? Steve Parker MD, one of my favorite self-experimenters, debunks another diet myth. (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet Blog)
Asparagus Pesto <<This week’s real recipe is seasonal and looks delicious, from one of my favorite local bloggers. (Local Lemons)
Before I list off my favorite food and health articles of the week, I have a few announcements to make.
First, I’m leaving today for Austin, TX for the South By Southwest conference. If you’re going to be out there feel free to email or tweet me, I’d love to meet you. While I’m gone we’ll have a farmers market update from a good friend of mine in Portland, OR. I hope you enjoy it!
Also, I’m thrilled to announce that Samovar Tea Lounge is offering a special 20% discount for Summer Tomato readers on all online purchases from now until March 31. If you are familiar with Samovar, you know how awesome this is. If you don’t know about Samovar but love tea or are looking to explore it further, this is a great opportunity to indulge a little. They also have some great gift sets if you’re looking to get your Mother’s Day shopping out of the way early.
Discount is applied at checkout with coupon code: summertea
Links of the week
Salty, sweet: study says fat is the sixth “taste” <<To a neuroscientist this is really exciting news. Taste really happens in the brain, ya know. This means our taste element tally now includes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami (protein) and fat. Maybe this explains why we all love bacon so much. (Reuters)
Obesity: Food kills, flab protects <<BS of the week. The reasoning in this article is very specious. Just because body fat may not be a direct cause of (it is certainly correlated with) heart disease doesn’t mean it might not play a direct role in other diseases (like breast cancer). I left a comment on this article expressing my frustration. (New Scientist)
My Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet and Low-Carb Eating: Six-Month Summary <<Dr. Steve Parker had been doing a low-carb, ketogenic experiment on himself and has now published his 6 month summary. If you haven’t followed along I highly recommend going back and reading through his experiences on his blog. Thanks for the shout-out Steve! (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet Blog)
For a long sex life, stay healthy <<If the promise of avoiding heart disease isn’t enough to get you to the farmers market every week, maybe this will help motivate you. (Los Angeles Times)
Aloo Gobi <<Cauliflower is exquisite right now, which means I will be making this Indian recipe for cauliflower and potato from [No Recipes] as soon as I get back from Austin.
Colbert Warns of Contaminated Pringles <<This is a must watch. The video is pretty short and Stephen Colbert makes a brilliant point about how many flavors of pressed potato dust sweepings you can make if you set your mind to it. (The Colbert Report)
Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish <<Now that I have your attention, please do yourself and the world a favor and watch Dan Barber’s TED talk. Personally I like it a lot more than Jamie Oliver’s talk (though I enjoyed his very much). This video makes it perfectly clear why farmers, foodies and environmentalists are (or at least should be) all on the same team.
Enjoy and have a lovely weekend.
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).
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).
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)
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)
Darya @ The Huffington Post
Loading ...
