For The Love Of Food

by | Mar 26, 2010

For The Love of Food

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

I was so focused on finding new material to share with you that I nearly forgot that yesterday was the 1 year birthday of Summer Tomato! Thanks to all of you who have supported me and this blog over the past 12 months. I can’t tell you how much your kind and thoughtful emails and comments mean to me. I feel blessed everyday to have such an amazing community of people who love life, food and health as much as I do, and I look forward to much more to come. Cheers!

I also want to remind you that Summer Tomato readers can still get 20% off all online purchases at Samovar Tea Lounge until March 31. Samovar has amazing teas and tea accessories. I definitely recommend browsing their shop if you’re a tea fan.

Use the code: summertea at checkout to apply the discount.

There was some interesting news this week (and some BS called) on both saturated fat and high-fructose corn syrup, the foods Americans love to hate. The science is complicated, so be sure to read the stories carefully. Also don’t miss the video of Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss causing trouble down at my beloved San Francisco Ferry Building.

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).

Links of the week

What made your meals happy this week?

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14 Responses to “For The Love Of Food”

  1. You and I must read the same sources, because I recognized about half of these. 🙂

    I agree with your point that sugar and HFCS are both bad. But I still think it’s worth knowing if one is worse than the other. When I compare a Coke made with HFCS to one made with sugar, I prefer the taste of the sugar version. But regardless of which I prefer, if they taste different, they are different. Which means one might be better/worse than the other.

    But even more importantly, I agree with what you say about the Problogger article. People who get too militant about whatever their pet issue is really turn off people who might otherwise be willing to listen. If I care enough to ask a question, don’t answer it in a way that I don’t want to talk to you any more.

  2. I made that spinach and chickpea dish (with the bread, but it was GOOD bread) and served it with an egg on top — perfect and filling dinner.

  3. Fatima says:

    Hi Darya,
    Congratulations on 1 year of your brilliant blog. You have done a tremendous job, educating and informing people about the facts and myths about food and health. I know I can trust the information on your blog because it is supported with scientific facts and you are doing all this out of the goodness of your heart. Rather than giving vague ‘tips’ and then selling an e-magazine or something to get the full info.

    Keep up the great work and all the best for the future.

  4. Happy Birthday Summer Tomato! 😀 I love this blog!

    There’s a fellow at our game club who INSISTS that he is making a healthier choice by drinking Pepsi Throwback (with sugar) instead of standard HFCS Pepsi. One of the guys at our table loves the Mountain Dew Throwback, but just because he prefers the taste; the Pepsi Throwback guy is on a bit of high horse and makes a scene about it almost every week that he’s “doing right by his body”. I finally blurted out last week, “A can of Throwback has 14 teaspoons of sugar – spin it how you want, but that isn’t healthy!” But he either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. 😉 I’m neither anti-sugar (I just baked a cake!) nor anti-corn syrup (I like the occasional can of 7-UP myself!) but I think limiting sugar consumption as a whole is more important than fussing over sugar vs. HFCS. JMHO, please nobody jump on me. 😉

    • If you want to scare yourself away from Mountain Dew, read up on brominated vegetable oil: “A man who consumed two to four liters of a cola containing BVO on a daily basis experienced memory loss, tremors, fatigue, loss of muscle coordination, headache, ptosis of the right eyelid as well as elevated serum chloride.” Yumm, gimme some of that goodness.

      • LOL! It has always creeped me out that there was oil of any sort in Mountain Dew. I haven’t drank it in nearly 9 years. I have to limit my caffeine intake, so on the rare occasion I have a pop (I maybe have one a month) it’s 7-UP, Sprite, caffeine-free root beer or cream soda, etc. Never was a big pop drinker, period – even when I wasn’t thinking as much about my health, I still felt that if I was going to consume that many additional calories, I wanted FOOD, not a beverage!

  5. Brad says:

    I live in a co-op in Berkeley, and always get a kick out of the note on the community board to buy more sucanut while a full jar of white sugar sits on the shelf. As far as I’m concerned, sugar is sugar, and the less you eat, the better. I’d love to hear thoughts from others on this.

  6. lxmorj says:

    I think the distinction between HFCS and sugar is very important. From what I understand, your body can regulate sugar intake by breaking down sucrose into glucose and fructose at variable rates. HFCS is already broken down into fructose and glucose, and therefore spikes blood sugar much more drastically.

    • Darya Pino says:

      I agree the difference between them is important physiologically, however neither is good for you. Sucrose spikes blood sugar. Fructose, however, does not impact blood sugar. It goes straight to the liver, is processed there similar to how alcohol is metabolized, and converted directly to fat. That is why foods with fructose (e.g. agave nectar, HFCS) have a lower glyecemic index, but are not healthier.

      If you are interested in learning more about how fructose is metabolized, check out this video lecture by UCSF professor Dr. Lustig: http://summertomato.com/for-the-love-of-food-30/

      • Brad says:

        Darya,
        Thanks for linking to that video lecture… very informative. I no longer believe that sugar is sugar, and I’ll be on the watch for fructose. In my quest for the least unhealthy sugar, it appears that maple syrup and corn syrup have the lowest levels of fructose. Are there others? What kind of sugar do you use Darya? Thanks for spreading this important info!

      • Darya Pino says:

        Hi Brad,

        Though I do believe sugars are different, I just think they are bad in different ways. Personally I do not use sugar at all, but do enjoy dessert on occasion. At those times I do not worry about the sugar–I eat very healthy 95% of the time–and just enjoy myself. I’ll be writing more about this soon.

  7. Nick says:

    Whoa! Nice shout out from Kevin and Tim!

    You go girl. 🙂

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