For The Love of Food

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

Lots of fascinating food news this week. If 380 MILLION poison eggs doesn’t convince you to stop eating the industrial kind, I don’t know what will. There’s also some interesting new data on red meat and heart disease, as well as an inspiring story of doctors prescribing farmers market vegetables.

Another quick note: I tweeted yesterday about this cool farmers market backpack (yes I want one) and Betabrand wrote back saying my readers get $15 off anything on the site. Pretty awesome. Use the code: tomato

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 a complete reading list join me on the new Digg or StumbleUpon. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Choosing healthier protein-rich foods instead of red and processed meats may reduce heart disease risk in women <<Atkins defenders often argue that there is no evidence linking meat consumption to heart disease, saying that cholesterol levels aren’t a good measure. In this study the endpoint is heart attacks, not cholesterol. Worth thinking about. (American Heart Association)
• 20 Salads Worse Than a Whopper <<I still don’t think you should eat Whoppers (there are way better burgers), but don’t assume that salads are gonna help you lose weight. (Men’s Health)
• A ‘habitual offender’ unleashes nearly half a billion salmonella-tainted eggs <<BS of the week. You know those 380 million poison eggs that have already sickened 50,000 people? Well they guy who makes them has a history of not caring about you or your family. Be outraged. (Grist)
• Eat an Apple (Doctor’s Orders) <<How freaking cool is this?!?! (New York Times)
• Add diet soda to the list of things to avoid while pregnant <<Maybe Diet Coke isn’t as harmless as you think. (Los Angeles Times)
• Baking Ingredients and Substitutions <<I don’t bake often, but I do like to swap out sugar and occasionally other ingredients when I do. But sacrificing taste is completely unacceptable to me. This is an incredibly informative post from a world renowned pastry chef. (David Lebovitz)
• B Vitamins and the Aging Brain Examined <<I love the brain. I love nutrition. I found this interesting. (ScienceDaily)
• Tomatoes, Eggs and Sweet Habaneros <<Tomatoes for breakfast? Hell yes! (Local Lemons)
• Egg Cage Match! Local Cage Free Vs. Conventional Eggs <<Speaking of good eggs and bad eggs, here’s a fun video explaining the difference. (Big Wheel Provisions)

Tags: B.S. of the week, baking, eggs, heart disease, meat, neuroscience, soda

Photo by Mr. T in DC

“I’ve always wondered what the scientific perspective of alcohol consumption is. I have been doing some research but the actual effects of it on the body range from beneficial to cancerous.”

The clinical science on alcohol consumption is vast and diverse. It’s easy to find studies that demonstrate the benefits of alcohol, but it is equally common to find research showing its dangers. Sorting through the data is not trivial, and getting the right answer from news reports is virtually impossible.

Let’s start with the facts:

1. Alcohol is addictive

Alcohol addiction is one of the most well-understood and dangerous risks of drinking. A propensity for addiction can run in families, but can affect anyone who drinks in excess. None of the health benefits of alcohol can negate the destruction caused by addiction, and anyone who drinks should be careful to avoid this terrible condition.

2. Alcohol damages the liver

Alcohol metabolism occurs in the liver and can cause severe damage when consumed in large quantities. Liver damage can usually be reversed if alcohol consumption stops.

3. Alcohol is associated with breast cancer (sort of)

Drinking is weakly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. This is likely because alcohol increases aromatase activity in the human body, which increases estrogen production. Estrogen imbalance is a known cause of breast cancer. However, the association between drinking and breast cancer is negated by sufficient folate intake. Folate or folic acid is a B vitamin found in leafy green vegetables, fruits and legumes (and fortified foods). In other words, a healthy diet protects against alcohol induced breast cancer risk.

4. Alcohol protects against mortality from heart disease

Drinking alcohol reduces your risk of dying from a heart attack by preventing blood clotting. This effect is not limited to red wine, all spirits elicit substantial protection. The association appears to be dose-dependent, meaning that the more you drink the more protection you get. HOWEVER, you start raising your risk for the above mentioned problems with every additional drink per day. For men the ideal dosage is 2 drinks per day, for women it is 1 drink per day.

5. Alcohol raises good HDL cholesterol

Moderate drinking also reduces your risk of getting heart disease in the first place by raising beneficial HDL cholesterol without raising LDL cholesterol. Low HDL is a serious problem in America, and alcohol could be a significant benefit for some people. Here are other ways to raise your HDL cholesterol.

6. Red wine may slow aging

Aging research has been revolutionized by the discovery of a compound in red wine called resveratrol. Resveratrol has been shown to slow aging substantially in several model organisms. Though the effect in humans is still unknown, red wine is associated with many benefits that seem to go above and beyond the benefits of alcohol in general.

7. Red wine may protect against Alzheimer’s disease

Several studies have shown that red wine is associated with a decreased risk for Alzheimer’s Dementia, a devastating neurodegenerative disease that affects 1 in 4 people over the age of 90. The mechanism of action is unclear, but the benefits may be linked to the effect of red wine on fatty acids in the blood (raising the good stuff), or by slowing the aging process itself.

8. Alcohol causes accidents and behavioral problems

Even relatively safe levels of drinking can be deadly when combined with poor decision making. If you do choose to drink alcohol, always be sure that you’re in a safe environment and can get help if you need it. Being safe sometimes, or even usually, is simply not good enough.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid alcohol if you choose, and many of the benefits can be garnered by simply increasing the amount or intensity of your daily physical activity.

However, the evidence is pretty clear that moderate alcohol consumption (1-2 drinks per day) can improve health and may be an important component of a healthy lifestyle. This is even true for those who pick up the habit later in life.

And last but certainly not least, some of the best times of my life have been over a drink with friends. And I guarantee you most of us aren’t thinking about our heart health while enjoying a great bottle of wine. As long as you consider safety first, never forget that smiling is one of the healthiest things you will ever do.

Here’s a fun question: what’s your favorite drink??

Tags: alcohol, breast cancer, cholesterol, HDL, heart disease, wine

Photo by j.reed

I’ve been a student my entire life so have never had to worry about health insurance. (I’m 30. I know.) As you might expect, I consequently don’t know much about how the whole business works.

One thing I do know, however, is that when I finally have to join the real world and find my own coverage I hope to use it as little as possible. According to today’s guest post, it looks like I’m on the right track.

Yamileth Medina is an up-and-coming expert on health and health insurance plans. She lives in Miami, Florida. Follow her on Twitter @YamilethMedina.

How Healthy Eating Saves You Money On Health Insurance

by Yamileth Medina

We all know eating healthy helps us look and feel our best, but there is another great reason to upgrade your healthstyle: a healthy diet can save you a ton of money on health care costs.

Over the past decade, health insurance rates have skyrocketed. In 2009, monthly premiums in the United States were 131% higher than they were in 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is largely due to the high cost of treating diseases related to unhealthy diets.

According to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and RTI International, health conditions related to obesity (including type 2 diabetes and heart disease) cost the American health care system over $147 billion each year.

What is this money spent on?

• Open-heart bypass surgery: up to $20,000
• Prescription medication and supplies for diabetes: $115 to $177 monthly–for life
• CPAP machines (to treat sleep apnea): from $150 to $5,000

An obese person costs 42% more to treat than a person of normal weight, which is an additional $1,429. Health insurance plans must pass these costs onto you through higher premiums. In order to recoup these expenses, obese individuals often find it harder to find individual coverage, due to the increased risk of health problems obesity entails.

Much of this cost is passed onto other consumers, since the majority of Americans have employer-sponsored plans from their jobs. Insurers must recoup the increased costs in order to maintain their margins.

Although the Obama administration’s healthcare reform legislation will eventually forbid health insurance companies from denying you a policy due to your health status, that will not take effect until 2014. Still, unhealthy individuals will not be out of the woods: the law also promotes wellness incentives, which promote healthy lifestyle modifications–such as dietary changes. Under the legislation, insurers and employers will be allowed to refund up to 50 percent of the premiums for those who meet the specified goals. That is a significant amount of money that could end up in your pocket if you maintain a healthy weight.

From my personal experience, healthy eating is close to 80 percent of the equation when it comes to weight loss. I was a faithful exerciser for years, but it wasn’t until I changed my diet–to include more vegetables and whole grains–that I started seeing success.

Even if you are lucky enough to be blessed with an extremely fast metabolism, that doesn’t mean that you can eat nothing but junk all day and not suffer any consequences. The “skinny-fat” phenomenon consists of people who appear healthy, but have the cardiovascular profile of someone in poor health. Unhealthy eating habits promote visceral fat, which is invisible to the naked eye but is even more harmful to your well-being than the visible flabby stuff.

In fact, some studies indicate that even if an obese person does not reach a healthy body mass index (BMI), under a healthy eating plan they would nevertheless be healthier than a person of normal weight that had a relatively high percentage of body fat.

Can multivitamins make up for a poor diet? Don’t count on it. When it comes to health, nutrients are not the same as food. There seems to be something special about how all of the nutrients work together in the context of whole foods. In that respect, nature can’t be improved upon.

For several years, insurance companies will still be able to judge your health status and decide on your rates accordingly. Maintaining a healthy weight means you will be free of expensive co-payments for cholesterol and heart disease medication, and benefit from any financial incentives that may come about in the future.

Upgrading your healthstyle also assists you in sticking to a budget; cooking for yourself is far less expensive than eating out one or more times a day. In a nation slowly crawling out of a severe recession, this is especially important.

Above all, your immune system will become stronger–helping you stay healthy and reducing the chance of expensive hospitalizations in the future.

Fortunately the solution for better health is relatively simple. Visiting a farmers market once a week and buying a cookbook or two can save you a substantial amount of money on your health insurance plan in the long run.

Is your diet affecting your health insurance costs?

Tags: diabetes, health insurance, heart disease, Obesity

Enough people have asked me if the kind of cholesterol in egg yolks is good or bad (hint: it’s neither) that I think it is time for a brief tutorial on this misunderstood molecule.

Rather than put you to sleep with a watered down version of a Wikipedia article I decided to explain the interaction of diet and cholesterol in a short video. Hopefully this will help clear up what cholesterol is and how you should eat to minimize your risk of heart disease.

As always, feel free to drop me questions in the comments.

If you like this story follow me on the new Digg!

Further reading:

• How To Raise Your HDL Cholesterol
• Intact Grains vs Whole Grains
• How To Make Eggs Taste As Good As Bacon
• Book Review: Good Calories, Bad Calories

Tags: cholesterol, eggs, HDL, heart disease, LDL

For The Love of Food

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

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 to Dye Easter Eggs Naturally, Without a Store-Bought Kit <<Good info on how to use common foods to dye Easter eggs, if you’re into that sorta thing. (Serious Eats)
• Kroger’s New Food Scoring System Spells Trouble for Food Manufacturers <<This makes me incredibly happy. Let’s hope that honesty isn’t a liability in the food industry (but don’t hold your breath). (BNET)
• 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)
• Springing Back into Food-Forward Farmers’ Markets <<Farmers markets across the country are starting to open back up! EcoSalon lists some of the country’s best.
• Savory Unicorn & Heirloom Tomato Bruchetta Recipe <<The unicorn for this recipe are fattened on candy corn, that’s how you know it’s good. (ThinkGeek)
• 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)

What’s your good news?

Tags: B.S. of the week, cheese, Exercise, fat, food industry, heart disease, vinegar