For The Love of Food

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

This week’s top 10 require careful reading and a little extra thinking, but it’s worth it. Learn why daily activity is more important than formal exercise, how habits can affect your food intake, some encouraging news from the USDA and more.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links on 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

• Routine Chores Might Help Keep Dementia at Bay <<This title is misleading, because the most interesting part of this story is that daily activity is more effective than formal exercise for burning calories. Also, this preserves your mind. (Medline)
• People eat out of habit, a study finds, even when food is stale <<This is exactly why I’m always encouraging you to eat mindfully. Interestingly, in this study even eating with your non-dominant hand seemed to help. (Los Angeles Times)
• Nutrition: A Low-Calorie Meal Is Shown to Pay Off <<BS of the week. I’m all for eating less and I think you can be successful at it, but this is a poorly designed study using junk food as a meal and it only lasted 2 weeks. How that can be considered “effective” is beyond me. (New York Times)
• USDA seeks method to compensate farmers for GM contamination <<Remember in the movie Food Inc. when Monsanto sues an organic farmer because their seeds contaminated his crop? Hopefully this works out and puts and end to ridiculous things like that. (Food Politics)
• Why I never eat breakfast cereal. <<Breakfast cereal isn’t really food, and my friend Yoni who works with obesity patients for a living thinks it may also prevent weight loss. Worth considering. (Weighty Matters)
• Eating purple potato may lower blood pressure for the overweight <<This really isn’t necessarily restricted to purple potatoes. What it shows is that at least some potatoes aren’t as bad for you as bread. (Los Angeles Times)
• Helpful Gut Microbes May Differ Based on Diet <<I find this new area of research absolutely fascinating. This study shows heavy meat eaters have different microbial gut patterns than herbivores. At this point there’s no reason to prefer one to the other, but down the line it may help explain why dietary patterns are more important to your health than short-term changes. (Medline)
• Vitamin D levels tied to colon cancer risk <<Yet another reason to be sure your vitamin D levels are in a healthy range. Mine weren’t until I started taking supplements. (Medline)
• Hyperinsulinemia: Cause or Effect of Obesity? <<For geeks’ eyes only. Understanding this article requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of human metabolism and biochemistry, but if you have those things and are interested in exploring some of the fallacies of Gary Taubes’ carb argument, you’ll love this one. (Whole Health Source)
• roasted tomato and thyme soup <<A beautiful looking recipe, though I would personally leave out the sugar since tomatoes are so sweet right now. (the sophisticated gourmet)

What inspired you this week?

Tags: B.S. of the week, carbs, cereal, Exercise, Food Inc, Gary Taubes, gut microbes, insulin, mindful eating, Monsanto, NEAT, Obesity, potatoes, USDA, vitamin D

We had a fantastic office hours discussion last week about diet soda, the health advantages/disadvantages of potatoes, sushi, eating on airplanes/in airports and more. Thanks to those of you who participated.

The next live event is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 19 @ 6pm PST, and we will be discussing Soy: Good or Evil? To participate and learn more about the exclusive Tomato Slice newsletter check it out here.

Go here to see previous episodes.

Show notes:

How To Break A Diet Soda Addiction: Tips From A Former (Diet) Cokehead

Questions and comments welcome below.

Tags: diet soda, potatoes, travel

Photo by TheGiantVermin

We all know the story. Eating carbohydrates causes a spike in blood sugar, which results in a surge of insulin. Insulin shuttles all that extra sugar into your fat cells and you become obese. Over time, your poor helpless organs become resistant to insulin and you develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, thereby shortening your life by 7 years.

All of that is true.

The story is more complicated, however, because all carbs are not created equal.

I’m not here to tell you sugar and flour won’t make you fat, they will. But unrefined foods that just happen to be slightly higher in starch or sugar don’t, in reasonable quantities, elicit giant blood sugar spikes or abnormally high insulin levels.

Instead, unprocessed carbohydrates generate gentle, moderate rises in your blood glucose and insulin, giving you a small but long-lasting supply of energy your muscles can use for several hours. This is what is supposed to happen when you eat nourishing food, and normal healthy people have no reason to fear it.

(In my experience, eating intact grains can even curb sugar cravings and help you avoid those late night slip ups that undo all your progress and riddle you with guilt.)

So what are these magical carbs that don’t make you fat? Pretty much anything you can find in nature. If it comes in a box and has a prominent “whole grain” sticker on it, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a license to gorge yourself on grains or any food. Eat enough of something, or eat it quickly, and you’ll still end up with more sugar in your blood than your body knows what to do with. But in moderate quantities you can eat from the following list without risking your life or growing out of your favorite jeans.

10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat

1. Fruit

Popular diets like Slow-Carb recommend limiting fruit, mainly because it makes “rapid fat loss” a little less rapid. However you can continue to lose weight even while eating fruit, so long as you don’t pig out on it. Fructose, the sugar in fruit, is bad for you not because it raises your blood sugar, but because it is converted to fat in the liver. However the relatively small amounts of fructose present in whole fruit is nothing to worry about.

2. Beans

Though beans are relatively rich in carbs, a substantial portion of it is fiber and the overall glycemic load is pretty low. Beans are also an excellent source of iron, protein and folate, as well as essential minerals.

3. Oats

Oatmeal is tricky because Quaker and other companies have somehow convinced us that cooking real oats is too hard and time consuming for any civilized human being. This conveniently allows them to mark up the prices on their instant, pre-sweetened varieties that are closer to dessert than they are to a healthy breakfast. But in reality real rolled oats are low calorie, high fiber, and not fattening in the least. They also cook up in minutes.

4. Dairy

Have you ever checked the label of plain yogurt and wondered how all that sugar got in there? No you’re not crazy, it’s just that the FDA nutrition labels don’t distinguish between added sugar (sucrose or fructose) and naturally occurring sugars like lactose, the sugar in milk. In reasonable quantities and without added sugars (read labels carefully), unsweetened dairy products will not usually contribute to fat accumulation.

5. Lentils

Like beans, lentils are full of fiber and slowly digesting. If anything, adding lentils to your diet will likely help you lose weight, not make you gain it.

6. Farro

One of my favorite foods, farro is a dense and chewy grain with a thick husk and rich flavor. Although it is a grain, farro is very filling and a little goes a long way. No need to spike your blood sugar with this stuff.

7. Wine

Though people often cite wine and alcohol as having a lot of calories, your body digests alcohol calories different than sugar calories and they have virtually no impact on glycemic response. Though there are many reasons to keep your wine portions under control, sharing the occasional bottle won’t stop you from losing weight.

8. Quinoa

Technically a seed and not a grain, quinoa (keen-wah) is high in protein and fiber, and has a very low glycemic index. It’s also high in iron, has a complete amino acid profile (great for vegetarians) and cooks in almost no time.

9. Brown rice

A lot of people claim to dislike brown rice, but cooked properly it can be a beautiful addition to almost any meal. A small serving of brown rice can make your salads, stir fries and other vegetable dishes more satisfying, while not forcing that big blood sugar spike you’d get from eating bread.

10. Potatoes

This may surprise you, but moderate amounts of potatoes cooked in healthy oils (not processed vegetable oils) won’t make you fat. Potatoes are actually fairly high in iron, vitamin C, vitamin B6 and minerals, making them a healthy alternative to other starches so long as you don’t go nuts.

What are your favorite healthy carbs?

Tags: alcohol, beans, brown rice, carbs, dairy, farro, fruit, high-carb, intact grains, lentils, low-carb, oats, potatoes, quinoa, Slow-Carb, whole grains, wine

Black and Green Figs

It’s finally summertime in San Francisco. Woohoo! And what a beautiful day to return to my beloved farmers market.

Since I was sick and working on finishing my thesis I hadn’t been to the market in weeks, a lapse I haven’t made in years. It was terrible. But now that those things are behind me I was thrilled to return to the market today and stock up on delicious foods to get my healthstyle back on track. Life is good.

White Nectarines

Sungold Tomatoes

We are currently at the peak of summer: tomatoes are ripe, stone fruit is juicy and greens are plentiful. Now is your chance to get the best peaches, nectarines, figs, melons and pluots. I was so taken by the iridescent pink glow of these pluots I forgot to look at the name of the varietal (or maybe I’m out of practice).

Pluots

I was sure to grab enough lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes for salads this week. I also got some kale for dinner, and green beans for more pickling.

Sharlyn Melons

Green and Yellow Beans

I am also seeing the beginning of some of the fall fruits like grapes, pears and apples.

Comice Pears

Grapes

The apples looked amazing today. There are so many heirloom varieties I’ve never heard of, I grabbed a few different kinds just to get myself acquainted. I’m particularly excited about these pink pearl apples I found at the Apple Farm.

Jonathan Apples

Pink Pearl Apples

Nature never lets us forget that the next season is right around the corner. I spotted potatoes today and *gasp* winter squash. As delicious as they are, I don’t think I’m quite ready to make that leap yet, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my summer first.

Potatoes and Winter Squash

There were a couple other interesting finds today in San Francisco. Langier Ranches was offering a fruit called paw paws, which look like a mango but taste more creamy and less acidic. I was also ecstatic to see my favorite bean company Rancho Gordo has started offering heirloom corn tortillas. Yes, I bought some.

Heirloom Corn Tortillas

Paw Paws

Today’s purchases:

• Early girl tomatoes (Dirty Girl Produce)
• Red leaf lettuce (Dirty Girl Produce)
• Japanese cucumbers (Madison Growers)
• Red leaf kale (Green Gulch Farm)
• Tea bouquet (Green Gulch Farm)
• Haas avocados (Brokaw Nursery)
• Heirloom corn tortillas (Ranch Gordo)
• Vaquero beans (Ranch Gordo)
• Empire apple (Devoto Gardens)
• Red gala apple (Devoto Gardens)
• Pink pearl apple (Apple Farm)
• Parsley (Chue’s Farm)
• Green onions (Catalán Family Farm)
• Emerald beaut pluot (Frog Hollow Farm)
• Flavor king pluot (Frog Hollow Farm)
• Asian pear (Kashiwase Farm)
• Pluot (Kashiwase Farm)
• Blue lake beans (Iacopi Farms)
• Pioppini mushrooms (Far West Fungi)
• Trumpet mushrooms (Far West Fungi)
• Eggs (Soul Food Farm)

What did you find at the market this week?

Tags: apples, figs, grapes, green beans, melons, nectarines, pears, pluots, potatoes, tomatoes, winter squash

Bay Bridge

Saturday was a perfect day in San Francisco. It was warm, clear and beautiful. The farmers market was full of cherries, peaches and strawberries, and I tasted the best apricot ever at Frog Hollow Farm.

Basically it was too nice to stay inside writing about it. Photos will have to suffice today.

Bing Cherries

Green Garlic

Loquats

Peppers

Potatoes

Red Onions

Saturn Peaches

Shallots

White Peaches & Apricots

Tags: apricots, cherries, Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, green garlic, onions, peaches, peppers, potatoes, San Francisco, shallots