For The Love of Food

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

Disheartening news this week from the Nutrition Diva about the accuracy of nutrition labels; and from the meat industry regarding their nasty anti-biotic resistant bacteria problem. Also, The New York Times has a fantastic series on exercise that is the perfect inspiration for your spring fitness plan.

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.

Links of the week

• Can You Trust the Nutrition Facts? <<Short answer: no. But if you’re counting on nutrition labels to keep you healthy, you probably aren’t having much success anyway. Concentrate on the ingredients, and stick to the real ones. (Nutrition Over Easy)
• Is Sitting a Lethal Activity? <<Attention computer geeks! Fascinating article on the problems with sedentary behavior, even in relatively active people. (New York Times)
• Multi-Drug Resistant Staph in 1 in 4 Meat Samples <<This is BS of the week not because it isn’t true, but because we tolerate it. (Wired)
• Dieters find ‘healthy’ food labels can be tricky <<Need another reason to stop dieting? Turns out dieters are more easily fooled by health claims on packages than non-dieters. (Los Angeles Times)
• Bacteria Divide People Into 3 Types, Scientists Say <<I predict the field of gut microflora will take off in the coming decades. Lots of interesting research around this subject. (New York Times)
• Pregnant women exposed to pesticides have children with slightly lower IQ, studies show <<Three new studies indicate that traces of pesticides in pregnant mothers correlated to decreased IQ scores in children 7 years later. Though the mechanism is unclear, even a hint that pesticides can impact cognitive development should concern expectant mothers. (Los Angeles Times)
• For an Exercise Afterburn, Intensity May Be the Key <<Hard workouts seem to be the most effective at burning extra calories after you stop sweating. (New York Times)
• Trying to stop food cravings? Not eating the foods you crave may help, a study finds <<I find this interesting because I’ve definitely noticed that people of all diet camps claim to have gotten in touch with their “true” bodily needs once they changed their diets. Well, it looks like this truth may be somewhat subjective. (Los Angeles Times)
• What’s the Single Best Exercise? <<There’s not one answer, but the top 12 answers are all probably pretty good. (New York Times)
• White bean tuna salad for a picnic in the park <<Such a lovely, simple spring recipe. (Jenn Cuisine)

What inspired you this week?

Tags: B.S. of the week, cravings, dieting, Exercise, Geek, high intensity interval training, nutrition information, pesticides, probiotics, recipe, sitting, workout

For The Love of Food

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

I’m thrilled and delighted to see that so many of you have signed up for the Summer Tomato newsletter I announced last week. Newsletters will contain content that is not on this blog (and some other awesome bonuses in the coming months), so definitely sign up so you don’t miss out. There’s a sign up form in the sidebar.

As usual I found lots of great tips and information around the web this week. I especially like Marion Nestle’s two cents on whether recipes should include nutrition info. While I do like people to check to see how much salt and sugar they are really eating, I think nutrition info tends to make us more confused about what is healthy (hint: it’s vegetables).

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).

I also invite you to submit your own best food and health articles for next week’s For The Love of Food, just drop me an email using the contact form. I am also accepting guest posts at Summer Tomato for any awesome healthstyle tips and recipes you’d like to share.

This post is an open thread. Share your thoughts, writing (links welcome!) and delicious healthy meals of the week in the comments below.

For The Love of Food

• Darya Pino: 10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food <<Did I mention my Huffington Post piece this week was picked up by NPR? Woohoo!
• Should recipes include nutrition info? <<I love this article because it points out how inaccurate nutrition info really is. In my opinion, nutrition labels serve only to cloud your common sense. Few things with labels should be eaten anyway. (Food Politics)
• “Anti-Atkins” Low Protein Diet Extends Lifespan in Flies <<I haven’t read the real study yet (printed it!), but this is intriguing because the life-extending properties of calorie restricted diets is usually attributed to insulin signaling (the lack of). We’ll see what becomes of this. (NewsWise)
• Green Soup with Ginger Recipe <<To know me is to know that I love soup. This recipe is in my future. If you haven’t yet, definitely go check out Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks, my personal favorite recipe site. Heidi’s recipes are always amazing and awesomely healthy. She also happens to be one of the coolest people I met at BlogHer Food last week.
• Is vitamin D your best protection from swine flu? <<Speaking of getting sick, I found this article fascinating for a bit of info toward the bottom that vitamin D supplements are not as good as real sunlight. I’m not surprised, but I haven’t heard this before. I bet vitamin D from fatty fish is better for you too. (Nutrition Data)
• How to Choose the Fastest Line at the Market <<This article about how to pick the fastest line at the grocery store actually uses real data. I didn’t know such research existed. (Lifehacker)
• Probiotics: Looking Underneath the Yogurt Label <<Fantastic article by Tara Parker-Pope about the health claims made by yogurts and foods containing probiotics. Personally I don’t like talking about parts of food you can’t see without running a biochemical assay, but I know many people have questions about probiotics and this article is a great place to start. (New York Times)
• Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburgers <<Is this not the grossest thing you’ve ever seen? Yarg. via @benhamill (ccaviness on Flickr)
• Dropbox for iPhone Makes a Great Kitchen Aid <<I love this iPhone app already (Dropbox is online document storage that syncs across all your computers), but had never thought to use it this way for recipes. Bye bye cookbooks and recipe binders. (Lifehacker)
• 9 Ways to Cook Lazily and Still Get Rave Reviews <<Simple and useful cooking tips from Dumb Little Man.

What are you reading?

Tags: calorie restriction, grocery store, iPhone apps, nutrition information, probiotics, recipe, vitamin D