For The Love of Food

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

There were more excellent stories than I could fit this week. Mindful eating hits the big leagues, Jack In The Box’s shake is made of fakin bacon and sugar is more helpful than low carb for weight loss? Won’t somebody please think of the children!

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

Links of the week

• Mindful Eating as Food for Thought <<Mindful eating in the New York Times?! I think someone is finally listening!
• Bread a culprit in Americans eating too much salt <<Have high blood pressure? It might be bread’s fault. (Medline)
• Bacon milkshake contains no actual bacon <<Haha, thanks Grist for calling BS of the week on Jack In The Box’s fake bacon shake.
• New Diet: Top Off Breakfast With — Chocolate Cake? <<Interesting study suggests having a little something sweet in the morning is more effective than a low carb diet for long term weight loss. As counter intuitive as that sounds it is not entirely out of line with my personal experiences. (ScienceDaily)
• Smaller Plate Won’t Help Your Diet, Research Shows <<Honestly I think this study is flawed. They specifically asked the test subjects to eat until full. In the original studies it was a more natural environment and smaller plates resulted in less eating unconsciously, and both the small and large plate groups reported the same amount of fullness at the end. (Medline)
• The Hidden Health Hazards of Lettuce <<Though I don’t agree entirely with the logic here, I do think he’s right. “Fat isn’t bad, stupid is bad.” (Ruhlman)
• The Consumer: In New Diet Math, Subtracting Is Hard <<I might be the only one who thinks it’s funny that when Weight Watchers started equating fruits and vegetables people stopped losing weight. (New York Times)
• What a World Without Ridiculous Front of Package Health Claims Would Look Like <<It might look like food. Love this one. (Weighty Matters)
• Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke and Celeriac Soup <<Two of my favorite under-appreciated winter vegetables, together at last. (Jenn Cuisine)
• Push-ups: Michelle Obama v Ellen DeGeneres <<No matter how you feel about politics, this is badass.

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

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

This week some interesting new data on the ideal amount of salt to eat, frightening news about BPA and canned soup, and a series of fascinating articles on how to maintain cognitive health.

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

Links of the week

• Study Calls Sodium Intake Guidelines Into Question <<I’ve always been skeptical of the super low sodium recommendations suggested by the USDA and other agencies. Processed food is always a major cofounder, and likely the real problem. (ScienceDaily)
• BPA Levels Spike After Eating Canned Soup: Study <<Wow, this is no small difference. I think it is time to majorly reconsider eating anything from a BPA-containing can. (Medline)
• Cigarettes may be useful for distance runners?!? (or, How to prove anything with a review article) <<This is an excellent piece about the dangers of over-interpreting correlations (e.g. all epidemiological data) in science. (Obesity Panacea)
• Low vitamin D linked to heart disease, death <<This is interesting because, for once, it shows a benefit of taking supplements to protect health. (Medline)
• Americans’ ‘ideal weight’ shifts upward <<I find this very disturbing, though not surprising. Look at photos or videos from 30 years ago and most of the people would be considered “too thin” by today’s standards. But they were much healthier. (Los Angeles Times)
• How Exercise Benefits the Brain <<Workouts are important for more than just looking great, they can also help you perform better at work or school. (New York Times)
• Non-Fried Fish Might Help Ward Off Alzheimer’s: Study <<Surprisingly low amounts of fish consumption were shown to be beneficial in preventing cognitive decline. (Medline)
• It Could Be Old Age, or It Could Be Low B12 <<Another interesting piece regarding the importance of nutrition in maintaining cognitive ability, this time vitamin B12. (New York Times)
• This is your mind on meditation: less wandering, more doing <<I’m a big advocate of mindful eating, but mindfulness can also be important in helping you focus in general. (Los Angeles Times)
• Barley Risotto <<Such a lovely, hearty winter dish. Looks delicious. (Mark Bittman)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

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

Before we get started I want to announce that I’ll be speaking on a panel at BlogHer11. Woohoo! The panel is on Saturday, August 6, and is titled Your Blog Can Make You A Local Hero. Let me know if you’re going to be there, I’d love to say hi.

This week the media is still missing the point about sodium, Campbell’s soup doesn’t care one way or the other, and why you should be eating more sea vegetables.

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

• Looking to the Dietary Gods: Eating Well According to the Ancients <<I love this philosophical post about the importance of eating well. (Four Hour Work Week)
• Study Investigates Association Between Intake of Sodium and Potassium and Deaths Among U.S. Adults <<As I said in my salt video last week, potassium is important, but this is only part of the story. Fructose is also a concern. (ScienceDaily)
• Campbell’s to add salt back into Select Harvest soups: Good health doesn’t sell <<BS of the week. As I’ve said a zillion times, I’m not worried about salt per se. But let it be known that food companies don’t care about you unless your wallet is open. (Los Angeles Times)
• No Really – Sitting Is Killing You <<I spoke with Travis about this before, but just to reiterate: even if you get plenty of exercise a desk job can be dangerous. (Obesity Panacea)
• Google’s impressive healthy food program <<Almost makes you want to work at Google, huh? (Food Politics)
• Drinking six to eight cups of water called ‘nonsense’ in editorial <<I find these water debates to be comical. There are so many factors involved in how much water you need. Try drinking it (instead of other stuff) when you’re thirsty. (Los Angeles Times)
• Omega-3 Reduces Anxiety and Inflammation in Healthy Students, Study Suggests <<I’m always interested in studies that show how nutrition impacts subtle, cognitive behavior like this. There’s more to healthy eating than just heart disease and diabetes. (ScienceDaily)
• Michelle Obama splurges on burgers, fries and shake, and that’s OK <<I totally agree with this. Burgers are some of my favorite foods, and there’s no reason a healthy person can’t enjoy them. When you eat healthy most of the time, you can eat what you want the rest of the time. (Los Angeles Times)
• 4 Reasons to Eat Your Ocean Veggies <<We just talked about the value of eating seaweed as a source of iodine. Here’s some more reasons these foods are healthy. (Oprah.com)
• Grilled Green Beans <<I’ve never tried grilling green beans, but it sounds amazing. Just in time for the season. (Michael Ruhlman)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

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

Wow, please don’t skip your reading this week. There are two excellent stories about the dangers of food imports, an exposé on the bogus “nitrate free” food labels and a fascinating tale of finding zen in the kitchen. All that and more on my top 10 food and health links this week.

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

• What’s Inside the Bun? <<Awesome piece about the bogus “nitrate free” claims on some processed meat products. (New York Times)
• China’s Bizarre Food ‘Safety’ Scene, and Our Own <<Another must-read about the horrific crimes going on in the Chinese food supply, and why we aren’t exactly doing much better in the US. (New York Times)
• Banned chemicals found in tons of imported fish <<BS of the week for the lack of adequate regulation, and proof that the above story was not scaremongering. Though I’m horrified by this, I’m not particularly surprised. The government is clearly not doing enough to protect you, so I’d recommend sticking to domestic wild seafood as best you can. (The Tennessean)
• Is Your Meat Habit Giving You Diabetes? <<The title is misleading, but this is actually a fascinating article about the dangers of industrially farmed animals. (Mother Jones)
• Media reports of new hypertension study should be taken with a grain of salt <<The latest salt news is very much in agreement with the discussion we had last week on Salt: How bad is it really? (Spoonful of Medicine)
• Natural, local, processed? What do these labels really mean? <<Nice, simple tutorial on some of the more confusing food labels. (Nutrition Over Easy)
• Eating at restaurants boosts risk of obesity, experts warn <<Umm, yep. Indulge with caution. (Los Angeles Times)
• Restaurant calories – a cautionary tale <<A partial explanation of why the above story about restaurants is true. (Weighty Matters)
• Need more Zen in your life? Learn how to chop <<A benefit of cooking you probably haven’t considered: mental calmness. (The Globe and Mail)
• Sichuan Eggplant <<Eggplant season is starting and this looks delicious. I’d probably leave out the sugar (or at least half it), but that’s just me. (Simply Recipes)

What inspired you this week?

We had a fantastic discussion last week about salt and the importance of dietary context (aka everything else you’re eating). Thanks to everyone who participated. As always, show notes are below.

The next live event is tomorrow July 6, at 3pm PST, right here on Summer Tomato. I’ll be holding office hours, so come by and ask questions.

June 28, 2011 | Tonight on Summer Tomato Live we’re discussing salt, which ended up being a much more complex topic than I anticipated. Join us at 6:00pm PST to learn about how salt affects your health and what to do about it.

Participation is only available to subscribers of the newsletter Tomato Slice. You can sign up at any time, even during the show, and the password for participation will be emailed to you immediately.

Click here to sign up and get the password

Read this for more information on the show and newsletter

To watch live and join the discussion click the red “Join event” button, login with Twitter or your Vokle account, and enter the password when prompted.

I encourage you to call in with video questions, particularly if your question is nuanced and may involve a back and forth discussion. Please use headphones to call in however, or the feedback from the show is unbearable.

Show notes:

Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease

The effect of dietary patterns on estimated coronary heart disease risk: results from the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trial.

Association between a DASH-like diet and mortality in adults with hypertension: findings from a population-based follow-up study.

Effect of modest salt reduction on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized trials. Implications for public health.

Advice to reduce dietary salt for prevention of cardiovascular disease. (Cochrane Database)

Reduced dietary salt for prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Kidney Disease

Altered dietary salt intake for preventing and treating diabetic kidney disease.

Pivotal role of the kidney in hypertension.

Gastric (stomach) cancer – association likely tied to H. pylori infection

Review of salt consumption and stomach cancer risk: Epidemiological and biological evidence

Genetics

Genetics of hypertension. Current status.

Majority of salt (75%) comes from processed food products, especially processed grains and meats.

Salt intakes around the world: implications for public health.

Sodium food sources in the Canadian diet.

How the body uses salt is dependent on dietary context

DASH Diet

A dietary approach to prevent hypertension: a review of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Study.

The effect of nutrition on blood pressure.

Diet, blood pressure and hypertension.

Fructose

Dietary fructose, salt absorption and hypertension in metabolic syndrome: towards a new paradigm.

Dietary fructose and hypertension.

Sugar-sweetened beverages and hypertension

Potassium/Calcium

Role of physical activity and diet in incidence of hypertension: a population-based study in Portuguese adults

The use of a commercial vegetable juice as a practical means to increase vegetable intake: a randomized controlled trial.

Iodine

Hypertension, dietary salt restriction, and iodine deficiency among adults.

Your questions

Iodine test:

You can do a skin test at home to test for severe deficiency, otherwise you must have your doctor do a test for you. Seaweed is a good natural source of iodine.

http://altmedangel.com/iodine.htm

Guide to culinary salts and recipe substitutions

Salt and osteoporosis:

Review of risk factors for osteoporosis with particular reference to a possible aetiological role of dietary salt

Bragg’s liquid aminos:

This product seems to be made with non-GMO soy beans and based on the ingredients appears harmless.

http://www.bragg.com/products/la.html

Natural beef bouillon?

I’m going to try this stuff called Better Than Bouillon. I think you can find it at Whole Foods.

How to Convince Family And Friends To Eat Healthy Food