For The Love of Food

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

This week I was introduced to the concept of food “ultra-processing”, learned how to best convince friends to eat more vegetables and was re-horrified at a fellow scientist’s ignorance of the relationship between dietary cholesterol to personal health.

On and unrelated note, I’ll be at the Foodbuzz Festival this weekend. If you’ll be around, come say hi 🙂

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 a complete reading list join me on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• The food movement’s new frontier: “ultra-processing” <<I know how the media hates subtle nuance, but this is a fascinating analysis of the differences between degrees of food processing. In my experience, this kind of critical thinking is necessary for finding the happy medium between health and pleasure in food. (Food Politics)
• No link seen between high-carb diet, colon cancer <<What I like about this study is that it is in Chinese women, and not American women. This likely pulls out a difference between carbs from regular foods (rice) and highly processed foods (anything American). This may also explain why Eastern strokes are different from Western strokes. (Medline)
• How to give (unsolicited) nutrition advice <<Great tips for those healthy foodies looking to make a positive impact on the eating habits of friends and loved ones. I agree 100% with this advice. (Nutrition Data)
• Learning to Love Veggies: Readers Weigh In <<On a similar note, I’m happy to say I was one of the 600 emails explaining the value as selling vegetables as delicious and wonderful, and not just healthy. This is a great read. (New York Times)
• Egg Yolks Versus Fast Food In Cholesterol Showdown <<BS of the week. Sadly, this is science at its worst. The study clearly finds that eggs are healthier than fast food despite higher dietary cholesterol, but argues that this doesn’t make sense so hand-waves the finding away. Why not just look at the facts about the relationship between dietary and blood serum cholesterol? Yoni Freedhoff also explains. (Slashfood)
• Adding monounsaturated fats to a diet low in saturated fat may improve cholesterol levels <<Speaking of cholesterol, here’s a great reason for vegetarians to make an effort to eat MORE fat. (Los Angeles Times)
• 11 Influential Eco-Chefs Who Are Changing the Way We Think About Food <<I follow food pretty closely, and I learned a lot from this article about sustainable chefs and their restaurants. (EcoSalon)
• 6 Meat-Based Beverages Sure to Make You Queasy <<I realize this sounds gimmicky, but it’s surprisingly interesting. And yes, those are real P2 mice. (TreeHugger)
• An Ode to Brining <<How to make pork even better, by Ruth Reichl.
• Cinnamon tea smoked duck with green mango slaw <<Amazingly, this recipe can be done on a stove top and does not require a smoker. (No Recipes)

What inspired you this week?