For The Love of Food

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

I’m back! Sorry for being MIA the past few weeks. But you’ll be happy to hear my thesis committee meeting is over and I aced it. That means I will, finally, get my PhD in 2010. Woohoo!

Also thanks to all of you voted for me in the Wellsphere HealthBlogger Awards! I came in 8th! Not bad for just starting campaigning for votes last Friday. Thanks everyone!!!

Not all the links below are from this week since I had to include a few of the gems I’ve collected since Thanksgiving. I’ve also shared the latest info on BPA, which is getting worse.

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).

10 Best Links of the Week

• The ongoing Bisphenol A saga: more updates <<More bad news about BPA. My guess is this will be taken out of our food supply as soon as canned food companies start to see dips in their profits. So maybe we should stop buying cans for awhile… (Food Politics)
• Rudolph: The Other White Meat <<LOL!!! Hand it to my favorite grocery store to be the source of the most awesome holiday headline of 2009. Bravo Bi-Rite!! (NBC Bay Area)
• Too Much TV Reduces the Benefits of Physical Activity <<This is the best analysis I’ve seen of the much publicized study about TV time and exercise. Travis also wrote a fantastic guest post here on NEAT, a great alternative to structured exercise. (Obesity Panacea)
• Fat in diet won’t affect weight gain over time <<One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say something is low-fat as if that’s a good thing. Dietary fat is not bad for you and is essential to a healthy diet. (Medline)
• A cup (or more) of coffee or tea a day could keep Type 2 diabetes away <<I’m often asked about the impact of coffee on health. Most of the science says it is not bad for you and can in fact be beneficial for weight loss and metabolic health. (Booster Shots)
• Genie In A Bottle? Her Name Is Colatura <<I had never heard of colatura, but after this post I must find it. (MattBites)
• Statins For Everyone! <<As statin use goes up, Monica Reinagel at the NutritionData blog asks why more attention doesn’t go to the less expensive alternative: healthy lifestyle.
• Big Mac: Make Your Own, Have a Party <<I don’t think there’s ever a reason to eat at McDonald’s, so if nostalgia has you craving a BigMac try this one instead. (Local Lemons)
• Looking Younger Than Your Age May Mean Longer Life <<What’s really interesting about this study is that it was done on twins. Proof that aging is about more than just time. (Medline)
• Butternut Squash and Apple Casserole <<It was not easy finding a healthy, seasonal recipe to post this week since cookies seem to be the only thing on anyone’s menu. Luckily White On Rice Couple came through with this beauty.

Did you miss me?

For The Love of Food

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

If you only read one thing today make it Tom Venuto’s article about The Biggest Loser. The first time I saw the show I was inspired and loved it, but as the years progress it is clear it is not helping any of the “losers.” The Biggest Loser teaches people that weight loss is about torture and extremes, and they are destined to fail. I was going to write an article about it, but Tom does such a good job explaining my reasons I no longer feel the need to.

But, of course, there are 10 great articles down there worth checking out!

I still need votes for the People’s HealthBlogger Award by Wellsphere and would greatly appreciate your support. Wellsphere is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in healthy living. To vote for me you have to create an account with them, but you can delete it when you’re done (I have yet to get any spam). If you enjoy this blog, please take a minute to show your support. Much thanks to those who have already voted.

for Darya http://summertomato.com/

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).

For The Love of Food

• The Biggest Loser Pros And Cons: An In-Depth Review of Television’s Most Popular Reality Show <<Brilliant analysis of The Biggest Loser by Tom Venuto. I was going to write a similar article myself, but now I clearly don’t have to. (Burn The Fat)
• Moderate-Fat Diet May Be Better at Reducing Heart Risks <<People with metabolic syndrome should steer clear of low-fat meal plans, study says (HealthDay)
• Twitter-equipped bathroom scale tells the world how much you weigh <<B.S. of the week The most common response to this I got on Twitter was “nightmare.” Can you imagine anything more humiliating? (Los Angeles Times)
• Phys Ed: The Best Exercises for Healthy Bones <<To prevent osteoporosis, impact exercises are best, but not too much. Fascinating article by New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope. (Well Blog)
• High-fat, high-sugar diet alters bacteria in the gut, making it easier to gain weight <<The role of gut bacteria (we all have it) in body weight is just beginning to be appreciated. This study explains how it is impacted by diet. (Booster Shots)
• Chocolate milk redux: Nutrifluff vs. Policy <<Marion Nestle’s take on the chocolate milk controversy. As usual, I agree with everything she says. (Food Politics)
• Folic acid and cancer: New data might add to suspicion or, better, to discussion <<Folic acid supplements increased cancer rates in a new study, and this was in a population that does not eat as many fortified foods as we do in the US. But of course Summer Tomato readers don’t have to worry about stuff like this since we eat natural, whole foods from the farmers market. Right? (Booster Shots)
• Sarah Palin is History’s Greatest Monster <<It’s not what you think, but it made me laugh. (The Internet Food Association)
• Israeli Couscous with Butternut Squash & Preserved Lemons <<I’ve been eating winter squash like it’s going out of style, but I’m a little sick of just roasting it. This recipe is next on my list. (David Lebovitz)
• Say Hello To Nosh’s Mini-Me, The “Noshtopia iPhone Food Pics” Blog <<Stephanie Quilao over at Noshtopia started a cool new project photo documenting her daily noshing with iPhone pics right on her blog. What fun!

What are you reading?

For several years now data has been accumulating that the relative composition of different macronutrients (fat, carbs, protein) in your diet has little to no effect on long-term weight loss. What makes this study stand out from the pack is how well it was designed.

The Study

This was the largest, longest run study of this kind ever conducted, including nearly 650 over weight individuals of diverse racial, socioeconomic, geographic and education backgrounds. The participants were highly motivated to lose weight and were given detailed instructions on why their assigned diet was considered an effective weight loss strategy (this was to remove bias caused by the media about popular diets).

For you carbophobes out there, the importance of dietary carbohydrates was addressed directly. The amount of carbohydrates in the different diets varied from 35% (very low) to 65% (very high). All participants, including those on the high-carb diet, were instructed to choose foods that had lower glycemic index. Carbohydrate composition had no significant effect on long-term weight loss.

All subjects received substantial behavioral therapy to help them meet their goals, and detailed measurements of health and weight loss were collected from each individual throughout the study. The participants were told to keep food journals and use online support provided, as well as weekly dietary counseling.

Importantly, all the diets resulted in similar calorie deficiencies to promote weight loss. Not surprisingly, after 6 months all the participants had lost a substantial amount of weight, but after 1 year had gained about half of it back. During the final year the subjects had more difficulty sticking to their assigned diets, particularly those assigned the most extreme regimens (very low-fat or high-protein).

Conclusions

Regardless of diet, all participants experienced similar, modest (5% body weight reduction), but clinically relevant weight loss that is mainly attributed to a reduction in calories.

Interestingly, the measure that best correlated with weight loss success was attendance at the dietary counseling sessions.

Since the study is over can we now assume that many of these participants have gone back to their old eating habits? I would bet yes.

What can we take away from this study?

You can lose weight on any diet, but for most people it is very difficult and not sustained. This is because cutting calories is very tough for most people.

This study also suggests that losing weight with standard diets is very difficult and, in most cases, only moderately helpful. It seems future research should focus on how to increase adherence to a lower calorie diet. Gaming the system by manipulating macronutrient composition doesn’t seem to be working.

Why you should focus on whole foods, not nutrients

Another thing we can take from this study is that if weight loss is your goal, calories are what count. (Some of my friends responded to this finding brilliantly: “DUH.”) The nice thing about a diet based primarily on vegetables is that lowering caloric intake is relatively easy. As long as some effort is made to achieve a balanced diet (enough plant protein and fats), satisfaction after a meal can be attained with far fewer calories.

Vegetables are very bulky, highly nutritious and have very few calories. It’s not easy to gain weight when you eat kale, beans and brown rice for dinner.

Like I explained a few weeks ago, since I have focused on health (rather than weight) and a vegetable-based (rather than macronutrient-based) diet, I have lost weight effortlessly. I am also less stressed about food in general, and have completely lost my old cravings for sugar and fat.

Best of all, I do not feel like I have given up anything whatsoever. In fact I would argue I have gained the freedom to eat what I want, whenever I want it. And the food I eat is much more satisfying and delicious. I guarantee you this tagine tasted better than any Atkins bar, rice cake or BigMac.

My life now is much more delicious.

Are you ready to give up diets and focus on health?