For The Love of Food

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

PLEASE NOTE: This is the last day to get a free Fitbit, Mercado bag, phone calls with me, an invite to the Foodist launch party, and other great prizes. Pre-order Foodist today!

This week we learn why we shouldn’t trust food labels, how economic woes can improve health, and the tastiest ways to travel without resorting to airplane food.

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• Jedi Mind Tricks: How to Get Loved Ones to Lose Weight <<This is the most personal story I’ve ever shared about my family’s health and weight loss journey. My dad was one of the lucky ones. I hope it inspires you. Thanks to Tim Ferriss for allowing me to share the extensive excerpt from Foodist with his audience.
  
• The 10 Biggest Food Label Lies <<Food labels are intended to confuse you. Here’s some tips on how to decipher them (including some from me). (Women’s Day)
• A Potential Way to Eat Eggs Without Dying <<BS of the week. Call me crazy, but it seems a bit irresponsible to publicly recommend an unproven supplement to fix a problem with a food that has never been shown to promote heart disease in free living humans. Grrrr. (The Atlantic)
• Betting on Behavior Change <<I’m a big fan of anything that helps build healthy habits. Here’s some great tips from the Nutrition Diva.
• How Cubans’ Health Improved When Their Economy Collapsed <<When the Soviet Union stopped supporting Cuba with cheap petroleum, they were forced to return to the fields, eat more natural foods and be more active. Their rates of disease plummeted, despite their poverty. Fascinating, huh? (The Atlantic)
• Contaminated ground turkey found in 21 states: report <<In case you hadn’t heard, you may want to skip the industrial turkey burgers for awhile. (Medline)
• Children on Track for a Heart Attack <<This makes me so sad. Being a kid is hard enough, now they’re having to deal with grown up problems like stiffening arteries as well. Parents, please take this to heart. (Wall Street Journal)
• Of course you’re stressed. Just look at you. <<Chronic stress makes you look older. Just one more reason to practice mindfulness and other activities that reduce stress. (LA Times)
• RECIPES AND TIPS FOR HEALTHY TRAVEL <<Frequent travel is one of the biggest barriers to good health for some people. Here’s some lovely recipes and tips to avoid the toxic (and gross) airplane food. (My New Roots)
• How to Cook Morels <<Few foods exemplify the beauty of seasonal cooking like morel mushrooms. They’re delightful and simple to prepare, and I’ve even known some self-proclaimed mushroom haters that have found them delicious. (Ruhlman)
• Triangulation 101: Darya Rose <<I made a visit to TWiT studios this week and chatted with Leo Laporte about Foodist. It’s the most info that’s ever been shared about the content of my new book. Give it a watch when you get a chance.

For The Love of Food

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

I did a couple fun interviews last week that I’ve embedded below. The first was an interview of me on BakeSpace about losing weight eating what you love. The second was interview with friend and filmmaker Graham Hancock, one of the first readers of Foodist who has already lost 35 pounds.

This week around the internets we learn how to break the takeout addiction, burn more calories while eating less, and five of my secret ingredients on Oprah.com.

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

•  5 Healthy and Cheap Ingredients to Put in Your Shopping Cart <<Tips from yours truly. I hope you’ll find these useful and unexpected (Oprah)
• I’ll have to exercise for HOW LONG to work that off? <<Instead of counting calories, ask yourself how long you’ll have to workout to make up for it. It’ll make you think again. (LA Times)
• How I Broke My Addiction to Takeout and Started Cooking at Home <<I love these tips and think they could work for anyone. (Lifehacker)
• How to Exercise, and Not Eat More <<Once again we see that exercise can make you eat more, while NEAT activities like walking do not. (Wall Street Journal)
• What’s bugging your meat? Shit and antibiotics, probably <<Need more motivation to skip the industrial meat? This should do it. (Grist)
• Why We Eat Whatever’s In Front of Us <<More tips fore eating less without noticing. (Lifehacker)
• The Power of Cocoa Polyphenols Against Neurodegenerative Diseases <<Couldn’t help but share this one. Hooray for chocolate! (ScienceDaily)
• Set a goal but didn’t follow through? Tips to resetting habits <<Excellent advice for improving habits, which is the only way to achieve your long-term health goals. (LA Times)
• Doctor’s Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day <<Meditation helps with much more than mindful eating, and people are starting to notice. (Wall Street Journal)
• Buttermilk Asparagus Salad Recipe <<A simple, seasonal and delicious looking dish from Heidi Swanson. (101 Cookbooks)

Photo by ashley rose,

Mindful eating has been the most difficult healthstyle habit for me to cultivate. By far.

Although I have developed several tactics to help me remember to slow down and pay attention to my food, it is usually the first thing to slip when stress and life get the better of me.

Humans, especially Americans, are notoriously susceptible to triggers in our surroundings that provoke overeating. Rather than paying attention to when we’re full or have eaten enough, we’re more likely to continue eating just because there is more food on the plate, the TV show we’re watching is still on, or because everyone else is still eating.

Dieters are even worse than most people in this department, since they have a long history of ignoring their internal satiety signals that tell them when they are and aren’t hungry.

When you eat mindlessly your environment wins and you’re more likely to overeat. You also appreciate your food less, since you aren’t focused on the sensory pleasures of eating. Cultivating mindful eating habits is therefore one of the most valuable tools in your foodist tool belt, because it helps you eat less while enjoying it more.

The benefits of practicing mindfulness are not limited to the realm of food. Cultivating mindful behaviors in your daily life has been shown to reduce stress, improve memory, and increase well-being overall.

When I noticed that wedding stress was taking a serious toll on me, I began relying heavily on what is known as 4-7-8 breathing to calm myself. I first learned about this practice in Dr. Andrew Weil’s book Spontaneous Happiness (a fabulous book, especially if you ever experience depression or other emotional disorders), and noticed that it had a tremendous positive effect on me, particularly when I was experiencing bouts of anxiety.

4-7-8 breathing is a short exercise that helps quiet the mind. To begin, lay down or sit in a chair with a straight back and close your eyes. Place the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, just above your front teeth. Exhale through your mouth while making a blowing noise. Close your mouth and inhale through the nose for a count of four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then exhale for eight seconds. Do this four times, then slowly open your eyes. Here’s a nice video demo if you want to check it out.

In the months leading up to the wedding I would use 4-7-8 breaths one to three times per day to reduce stress, and the experience became so pleasant and rewarding to me that I’ve continued it even after the actual wedding date. One of the benefits I’ve noticed is that if my 4-7-8 breaths come shortly before a meal (which is often, since it is usually the first time during the day when I sit in a chair that isn’t behind a screen), then remembering to chew thoroughly and eat mindfully is much, much easier.

Remembering to eat mindfully can be very difficult. If you’re being mindless, how are you supposed to remember to be more mindful? If you remember to be mindful, aren’t you being mindful already? It can be tricky, so 4-7-8 breathing is an incredibly valuable tool to help build the habit. I think it works because the reward for calming the mind with breaths is stronger than simply eating slowly, which feels difficult in practice. You also get the additional benefits of less stress and more focus. Everyone is a winner.

Have you found breathing exercises can help you eat more mindfully? 

For The Love of Food

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

This will be the last link roundup for a few weeks, since next Friday I’ll be traveling for my wedding (eeek!) and the following week I’ll be on my honeymoon (less scary, but still – eeek!). I’ll cue up some good stuff from the archives while I’m away, and of course share some pics. Wish me luck!

This week from around the internet Rob Rhinehart decides food is overrated, being healthy is easier when you enjoy it, and how your slicing method affects onion pungency.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• How I Stopped Eating Food <<A lot of people have asked what I think about the guy who gave up food for a nutrient-packed drink, so here it is. My first thought: Why the *bleep* would anyone want to give up food? Food is awesome! Second: Having all the nutrients you need to survive is not the same as having all the ones you need to thrive. I don’t think we even know all the nutrients that fight all the different kinds of cancers that exist, so how could they really all be in there? I’m skeptical. (Rob Rhinehart)
  
• Read This If You’re Trying to Cultivate a New Habit <<Habits are far more effective for getting healthy than trying to use willpower to restrain yourself. Here’s a novel idea: try finding activities you enjoy. (Weighty Matters)
• Cook Your Own Food. Eat What You Want.(Think for Yourself.) <<Just a friendly reminder that the quality of your life should be your top priority when choosing what to consume. (Ruhlman)
• Green Food Labels Make Nutrition-Poor Food Seem Healthy <<As in the color green. It’s a little frightening how easy it is to manipulate our perceptions of healthfulness. (ScienceDaily)
• Secret to ordering healthier food is seeing how far you have to walk to burn it off <<I sometimes like to think about my health as a bank account. Set yourself a budget that includes the occasional splurge, and you’ll be fine. It seems thinking of food in terms of how much it costs to work it off is an effective strategy. (Treehugger)
• Slice Onions a Specific Way to Affect Their Flavor and Intensity <<A cool trick I didn’t know about. (Lifehacker)
• Dietary supplements: A round-up of bad news <<Be careful with those supplements, kiddos! (Food Politics)
• Olive Oil Makes You Feel Full <<The headline is a little misleading here. What’s interesting about this study is that it is the volatile smell components of olive oil (compared to other fats) that make it more satiating. Smell is underrated in health. (ScienceDaily)
• High-Carb Intake in Infancy Has Lifelong Effects, Study Finds <<Be careful what you feed those little ones, especially if they are on formula. (ScienceDaily)
• Soy-Marinated Steak with Shiitake Mushrooms and Napa Cabbage <<An excellent example of why to not stop eating. Yum. (Not Eating Out In New York)

What inspired you this week?

Photo by Sushicam

Taste is the sensation we usually associate with food, but picky eaters can be just as fixated on texture as flavor. Ask someone who doesn’t like mushrooms or eggplant what turns them off and they are just as likely (if not more likely) to say the food is “slimy” or “mushy” as they are to complain about the taste.

Of course texture is important. It is the essential difference between fresh and stale popcorn, and the springy crunch of a fresh grilled shrimp versus the rubbery give of an over-boiled one. But for most picky eaters, the issue is rarely a matter of cooking preference.

In the human mind, texture is easily associated with other non-edible, and often gross looking, sounding or smelling substances. A picky eater who doesn’t like a specific texture will often describe the food as feeling like brains, snot, rubber or other things most of us would agree are unappetizing. Once this association is made, the idea can overpower any pleasurable that might come from the food.

One way to address this is to form a new association. One reader I spoke with says he was able to overcome the “dead tongue” feeling of raw fish in sushi when a friend suggested he think of it like lunch meat instead. Though sushi and lunch meat have little in common, this small shift in perception was enough for him to become an avid sushi lover.

To implement this on your own, try to think of a food you enjoy with a similar texture as one you don’t like. For instance, instead of associating a tomato with snot (I lost track of the number of people who have told me this), try pudding, egg yolk or a fruit smoothie. If your brain can only come up with gross things, try asking a friend for help.

Another useful technique is to try the offending food in a new setting. An important part of the sushi story is that the person was on vacation in Mexico when he decided to try the raw fish again. When many things are unfamiliar, the strangeness of a particular food texture is less noticeable than it would be if it were the only new thing you were confronting. In another example, a mother cured her child of picky eating by taking him on a trip around the world. The new cultures and environments were enough for her 9-year old to feel comfortable stepping out of his normal habits and be more adventurous.

Indeed, embracing a sense of adventure is very important. Whenever the jet-setting child was nervous about a new food, his mother said she could hear him repeat to himself, “I just have to try it.” And no one forced him to eat anything. Repeated brief exposures to something new is sometimes enough for a person to get over the unfamiliar component, which is often the main reason for the aversion in the first place. If you’re persistent enough, almost everyone can learn to like something new.

A related approach is to try a food cooked in a new way. I’ve helped several people overcome aversions to eggplant that they had attributed to texture by roasting it without much oil. Pan sautéing can often make eggplant oily and slimy, but roasting gives it a more chewy texture. Once these people realize they enjoy the flavor of the food in this new format, the slimy version is suddenly not so bad.

To some extent, aversions to specific food textures is embedded in Western cultures. In contrast, the Chinese culture embraces food texture as a unique element in food, completely distinct from taste. In Chinese cuisine (the real stuff, not Panda Express), ingredients are frequently added solely for texture, such as jellyfish and sea cucumber. They have little flavor on their own but add a springy crunch to a dish that is considered a delicacy. Westerners can learn from this approach and develop a more open mind when trying new foods. When you focus on the texture in food not as something you are being subjected to but as a unique and interesting experience to be appreciated, it can break those unpleasant associations and help you enjoy what a less adventurous palate would struggle with.

If none of these work for you, there is always the bootcamp method. One reader explained how his son overcame his strong aversions to tomatoes and mushrooms in Marine Corps basic. After a day of intense training, the recruits were taken into the mess hall, given a plate of food and five minutes to eat it—the drill sergeant would sometimes count down the final seconds. No other food was available to the recruits, so anything you skipped meant less calories and energy for tomorrow. “The recruits ate what was put in front of them or went hungry,” so his son tried not to think about it and forced himself to choke down everything. It wasn’t until after he left basic that he realized he was over his food aversions.

While real, clinical food aversions do exist that can cause people and even babies to gag and vomit in response to certain food textures, most of us can get over texture issues if we want. Persistence, an adventurous spirit and a few psychological tricks can go a long way.

How did you get over your food texture aversions?