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?

For The Love of Food

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

Why eating organic food doesn’t make you a jerk, how a pastry chef in Paris keeps his man-ish figure, and how NOT to get your husband to eat better.

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

• The FTC vs. POM Wonderful: the latest round <<Remember when POM Wonderful claimed their mass-marketed juice could cure cancer? Turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate. (Food Politics)
• When you eat may be as important as what you eat <<Timing is important, and so is rest. There is some really interesting new rodent data that overnight fasts help control weight even when the exact same number of calories are eaten. Will be interesting to see how this works in humans. (Obesity Panacea)
• Does organic food make you a jerk? <<Excellent debunking of some pseudo science that was making headlines this week. Thanks Grist for calling BS of the week.
• How I Eat <<Interesting discussion by pastry chef and awesome food blogger David Lebovitz on how he manages to stay thin while eating what he loves. I appreciate his emphases on everyone needing to find their own healthstyle.
• Food Fight or Romantic Dinner? Communication Between Couples Is Key to Improving Men’s Diets <<While I agree that communication in relationships is important, I think this study also brings to light how important it is for us to learn how to make healthy food taste good (or more accurately, what healthy food actually is–––I know plain ground turkey is never on my menu). (ScienceDaily)
• More Physical Education in Schools Leads to Better Grades, Study Suggests <<Nice to see such a carefully designed study. These were very young kids too. Start them young! (ScienceDaily)
• Lower Blood Pressure Naturally <<Hey guess what, it’s not that hard. And you have lots of options. (Whole Health Source)
• 4 Health Benefits of Turmeric <<Turmeric spice lowers the carcinogenicity of grilled meat, and other fun facts. (Dr. Weil)
• Calcium Supplements May Be Bad for Your Heart: Study <<I wasn’t sure if I should post this, but if you don’t know that calcium supplements increase heart risk (and prostate cancer risk) you definitely should. This is not a new finding. But I was annoyed by the commentary they used from an osteoporosis physician that he disagrees with the data for no apparent reason. Did no one tell him that calcium doesn’t protect against osteoporosis either? Don’t you wish doctors bothered to look at the data before giving their opinions? (Medline)
• COCONUT RICE SALAD WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND CORN <<Um, yum. (The Year In Food)

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 superweeds threaten the US food supply, McDonald’s says soda is a fruit and vitamins that cause cancer.

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

• GM crops in crisis: Roundup-resistant “superweeds” <<Just in case you were wondering if high-tech Monsanto farms work better than real farms, the answer is no. And we may all suffer for it. (Food Politics)
• Nuts and Phytic Acid: Should You Be Concerned? <<I’ve always thought the Paleo crowd takes their hating on phytic acid a little too far, but this is a fairly balanced article with lots of good info (read to the bottom). (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• McDonald’s Helping Kids Get Their “5 A Day” With Fruit Soda? <<This is almost too ridiculous to print. Thanks Yoni for calling BS of the week on McDonald’s for claiming fruit soda counts as a serving of fruit and vegetables. (Weighty Matters)
• Infographic: The later it gets, the more crap we eat <<This is interesting, and possibly gives us another reason to make sure we eat a healthy breakfast. (Grist)
• High Doses of Certain Dietary Supplements Increase Cancer Risk <<This isn’t really a study so much as a commentary, but it’s definitely food for thought (and another good reason to not take mega doses of vitamins or anything else). (ScienceDaily)
• Remedy for Sedentary Desk Jobs <<Sitting all day is one of the least healthy things you can do. Here’s a simple solution. (Dr. Weil)
• Cows cause as much smog in L.A. as cars do <<If you’ve ever driven down the 5 freeway with your windows down north of LA, this will  not surprise you. It also makes you never want to eat industrial meat again. (Grist)
• New Study: Sugar Sabotages Learning and Memory <<So sugar is bad for everything except your brain, right? Oh wait… (Treehugger)
• Fish tied to lower colon cancer risk: study <<More evidence of the benefits of eating fish. This time it’s fighting butt cancer. (Medline)
• Blanched Broccoli Rabe Greens with Soy-Dashi Sauce <<I love recipes that are this simple, healthy and awesome. Trying this next week. (Not Eating Out in NY)

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.

Why eating vegetables is cheaper than eating at McDonald’s, there are worse things than white rice and the best reason I’ve ever heard to go to the gym.

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

• Are Veggies Cheap? <<I told ya so. (Forbes)
• What Reading that White Rice and Diabetes Study Actually Told Me <<I’m sure you saw the headlines. Turns out this study was even more poorly designed than the red meat study from last week, and the headlines even more sensationalized. Harvard is on a roll. (Weighty Matters)
• New Antibiotic Could Make Food Safer and Cows Healthier <<BS of the week. Just what we need, more antibiotics in our livestock. Oh yeah, and ones that can legally be in the dairy products we consume. Woohoo! (ScienceDaily)
• Calories Are Everywhere, Yet Hard to Track <<Quick preview of Marion Nestle’s new book coming out next week that I can’t wait to get my hands on. (New York Times)
• Antioxidant Supplements Seem to Increase Mortality, Review Shows <<Unfortunately for those taking antioxidant supplements, this study was actually fairly well designed. The good news is it doesn’t increase mortality by much. Still, I avoid specialty vitamins. (ScienceDaily)
• Stronger smell linked to smaller bites, vanilla-custard study says <<I was so excited by this headline but the study itself is so disappointing. Custard from a tube? I’m sure this maps just perfectly to everyday life. My hopes are up for some better follow up research though. (Los Angeles Times)
• Exercise Can Lead to Female Orgasm, Sexual Pleasure <<Ladies, if this doesn’t get you to the gym I should just give up now. (ScienceDaily)
• Umami Dearest <<I had no idea so many things could be done with miso. Miso butter? Yes please. (New York Times)
• Beet, Egg & Potato Salad with Pickled Fennel and Capers <<This recipe is from another of the wonderful food writers I met at the Edible Institute in Santa Barbara, Kathy Erway. Just look at those perfectly boiled eggs! And I love the brownie points system. (Not Eating Out In New York)

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 my biggest fear about GMO has come true, why your kids might be eating Twinkies for breakfast and 101 reasons to walk more and take the stairs.

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

• Insects Find Crack In Biotech Corn’s Armor <<I’ve never been nearly as worried about the effects of GMO foods on human health as about food security and sustainable ecology. This is exactly the sort of thing we should be worried about, and it only took 15 years. (NPR)
• Certain plate colors may help you eat less <<I love psychological tricks like this. (ABC News)
• Some children’s cereals packed with sugar, study finds <<Duh of the week. Are you surprised that breakfast cereals have as much sugar as a Twinkie? I’m not. (Washington Post)
• A little reward might get kids to eat veggies <<I like this because it seems simple and effective. I don’t have kids, but if you try this let me know how it works out. (Medline)
• Not all fish oil supplements pass muster, Consumer Reports says <<Be careful with the supplements you take. Check Consumer Labs or Consumer Reports for the latest info. (Los Angeles Times)
• Environmental Claims For Farmed Fish Don’t Hold Up To Scrutiny <<Hopefully one day the standards for fish will be up to par, until then take eco-labels with a grain of salt. (NPR)
• Taking the stairs makes you more fit, saves you time, study says <<Though I imagine this isn’t always true and depends on several factors, I’ve always found taking the stairs to be more than worth it in most situations. (Los Angeles Times)
• Want to Cut Chocolate Cravings? Take a Walk <<Isn’t it cool how that works? (Medline)
• KALE, CRANBERRY & QUINOA SALAD <<What a beautiful idea for a healthy and seasonal dish. (Beyond the Plate)
• 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? <<I insist that you watch this. Insist.

What inspired you this week?