Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
For The Love Of Food
For The Love of Food
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
The internet was overflowing with nutrition BS this week. It’s so often the same issue, people mistaking one special case for general health and safety. But the body is complicated and there is always more to consider. I also found some great articles defending salt and olive oil, and a brilliant demonstration of why portions matter.
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 list of my favorite stories check out my links on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.
Links of the week
- No link between mercury in fish and heart disease found in study <<BS of the week. People have asked me if this means mercury is safe. Mercury is a neurotoxin and potentially dangerous for pregnant woman and developing children. It can be dangerous to the brains of healthy adults in large doses. This study is about heart disease, so pretty irrelevant. (Los Angeles Times)
- Hot dogs for better health? Actually, yes <<Actually no. This is BS of the week #2. Just because hot dogs have fewer HCAs than rotisserie chicken doesn’t mean loading up on nitrates is good for you and won’t cause cancer. There are dozens of studies indicating that processed meats are unhealthy. (MSNBC)
- Use of fibrates to lower cholesterol growing despite mounting evidence they don’t work <<BS of the week #3. How would you feel about your doctor prescribing you drugs that don’t work? Good, right? God forbid your doctor tell you to eat more fat and less sugar and flour to improve your blood numbers–that might put him right out of a job. (Los Angeles Times)
- Vitamins Slow Rate of Brain Shrinkage in Elderly <<A recent study came out that vitamins don’t prevent cancer or heart disease, but this shows they might still have other benefits. (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet)
- Is Salt Unfairly Demonized? <<I totally agree with Monica on this one. The evidence I’ve seen against salt just isn’t that convincing. (Nutrition Overeasy)
- Defending Olive Oil’s Reputation <<The casual nutrition reader might not be aware that there is some controversy about the value of olive oil (paleo folks still think animal fat is the best, and they have a good argument). But olive oil is still beneficial, and Mark Sisson does a great job of explaining why. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
- When is White Bread Preferable to Whole Wheat? <<I love the rigorous logic here. People are so quick to label foods as “good” or “bad” somehow portions get thrown by the wayside, and they shouldn’t be. (Nutrition Overeasy)
- Eskimo Study Suggests High Consumption of Omega-3s in Fish-Rich Diet Reduces Obesity-Related Disease Risk <<This is encouraging. It shows eating fish can be healthy and reduce cardiac risk factors even in the obese. (ScienceDaily)
- More Added Sugars, More Pounds? <<Yep. This is a really long study and shows how closely body weight follows sugar consumption patterns. (Medline)
- Sweet Potato Coconut Thai Curried Soup: Gluten Free and Vegan <<A tasty recipe to prepare for our discussion of vegetarian and vegan diets next week on Summer Tomato Live. (Jenn Cuisine)
What inspired you this week?
Darya — I’m in the process of creating a website about eating, health and weight loss — esp for those women over 50 who get chubby and want to get it off without eating celery for the rest of their lives. So I’m looking around at other food websites to see what’s out there and YOURS is particularly sane and helpful. Great job! I’ll be back. Meredith
I’m glad you included the olive oil article. I’d be really interested to hear what kind of fat you recommend for roasting veggies- say, that amazing curried cauliflower that i’m addicted to 🙂
I recommend olive oil 🙂 I also like tea oil and coconut oil for cooking veggies. I’ve also heard good things about macadamia nut oil.
good to be reassured that olive oil is safe for roasting! i’ve been wanting to try macadamia nut oil too, but it always seems to be out of stock around me. i blame a certain diet book for that 🙂
I think that like most things the amount of salt one uses has to be evaluated on an individual basis. I gave it up decades ago, felt better overall and stopped getting headaches, so I haven’t looked back. On the other hand I know people who consume substantial quantities with no ill effect-at least so they tell me
You’re right. A study also came out this week that you can tolerate more salt the more exercise you get. I also think a key factor is where the salt comes from. If you’re getting a lot because you eat a lot of processed foods (most people), that’s bad. But I’m not convinced it’s the salt itself that is the problem so much as the other stuff that goes into food processing.
I think that the important thing to note about salt is that most “table salt” is processed and completely striped of all of natural salt’s nutrients!
You gotta love Celtic and Himalayan salt 🙂
Hey there, Darya. Thanks for linking to my brain shrinkage/vitamin post.
Re: cutting back on salt. An article published this month in Diabetes Care found that type 2 diabetics with lower salt consumption have a HIGHER RISK of death over the course of a study lasting 10 years.
25 million U.S. adults have diabetes. Many of them also have high blood pressure and I’m sure their doctors are recommending salt restriction, not knowing about this latest research.
-Steve
-Referenc: Diabetes Care, March 2011, vol. 34, no. 3 703-709. 10.2337/dc10-1723
Whoa, crazy. I’ll look into that, thanks for the heads up!
If you read the actual press release about the Kansas State hotdog study (the one that allegedly found that hotdogs are “good for you”), you find the following sentence:
“Smith’s research was supported by the Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service with the USDA, the American Meat Institute Foundation and the National Pork Board Checkoff.”
http://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/mar11/meatscience32211.html
Great sleuthing 🙂