For The Love Of Food
by Darya Rose | Apr 8, 2011

For The Love of Food
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
Tough decisions were made this week to narrow it down to 10 stories. Love the calorie infographic, also the commentary by Dr. Ludwig on industrial food and the “small” 32 oz. soda at a SF movie theater.
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Links of the week
- Where Do Americans Get Their Calories? (Infographic) <<This is REALLY cool. Notice grain consumption increased nearly 50% (just like the AHA recommends), same with added fat (aka processed vegetable oils) and sugars. Veggie intake hasn’t changed, nor has dairy, and barely “meat, egg and nuts”. Fruit has gone up. Sounds like we’re obeying the food pyramid, yet eating 25% more calories and gaining weight and disease faster than ever. Lovely. (CivilEats)
- Food technology has been bad for human health since long before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup <<The wonderful Dr. Ludwig tells a more complete story about the nature of obesity. It’s not just the fructose. (Los Angeles Times)
- Food is cheap at market, but costs a lot elsewhere <<Food prices are going up, but are you confused why experts say calories are “cheap”? Learn the gory details from Marion Nestle. (SFGate)
- When did a “small” soft drink become 32 ounces? <<This saddening fact qualifies for BS of the week. Like seriously, this is disgusting. (SFGate)
- Sweet! Candy eaters surprisingly slimmer <<Interestingly, this study relied on a 24hr recall questionnaire, meaning that it didn’t actually test candy eating, but the awareness of candy eating. Mindful eating may be the key factor. (MSNBC)
- Vitamin D Can Decrease — Or Increase — Breast Cancer Development and Insulin Resistance, Study Finds <<Just in case you needed more convincing, relying on supplements is scary (especially if you over do it). (ScienceDaily)
- Food Day Campaign is Launched! <<Think real food is important? Me too! We now have a day to celebrate it! (CSPI)
- Routine Periodic Fasting Is Good for Your Health, and Your Heart, Study Suggests <<Fasting data is a lot more convincing than the “eat every 2-3 hrs” data. Just saying. (ScienceDaily)
- Substance in Tangerines Fights Obesity and Protects Against Heart Disease <<It would be nice if stuff like this ever panned out. We’ll see. (ScienceDaily)
- Not Your Mama’s Deviled Eggs <<I completely love deviled eggs, and these sound absolutely divine. Cheers to springtime 🙂 (The Novice Chef)
What inspired you this week?
The LA Times article on processed food interviews David Ludwig, not Bob Lustig (in which case it might have been more fructose-centric). It’s confusing that the two big names in that area are so similar – I’ve made the same mistake 🙂
Travis
Wow, I guess that’s what I get for late night blogging 🙂
Routine Periodic Fasting Is Good for Your Health, and Your Heart, Study Suggests <<Fasting data is a lot more convincing than the “eat every 2-3 hrs” data. Just saying. (ScienceDaily)
This links to the wrong site.
I guess I was really on a roll last night. All fixed, thx for the heads up 🙂
I so love deviled eggs. I could eat and eat and eat until sick.
Here’s my favorite way, with salmon roe & nori.
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/06/deviled-eggs-salmon-roe.html
Love your Friday wrap-up, Darya. I find fun/interesting new sites.
I’m glad you appreciate it! It takes me an ungodly amount of time each week.
I don’t disagree with you in principle re supplements, but if my fuzzy math is correct (and Science Daily is right re the 15-25K IU doses), they were giving these mice ~1000 IU of vitamin D per gram of body weight. That’s roughly equivalent to about 68 *million* IU for the average 150lb person. Yeah, I could imagine that could be problematic!
Good point. I have a lot of trouble trusting rodent nutrition studies in general. But I like to demonstrate whenever possible how *NOT* black and white nutrition is, so that none of us start pretending we know everything for everyone.
Thanks for the heads up on the fasting reference – I’m very interested in that idea.
Interesting who funded that sugar study… :). Not surprising, is it? I wouldn’t take much of anything from those results. The powers of retrospective data… I do like the mindfulness idea though. Or, it could be that people who are eating lots of candy don’t want to report it (self-presentation bias), and those who eat some do report it, so the people who are reporting eating candy are thinner than those who don’t report eating (but do eat) any at all!I probably would have put a “?” at the end of your title for that article.
I agree with Beth. That mouse study involved ridiculously large doses, and there is some nicely done, placebo controlled, double-blinded research that show benefits of taking vitamin D that are far lower than the dosages in that study (and much more likely to be helping with Vitamin D deficits). I hope that this kind of study (with this kind of publicity) doesn’t cause people who take vitamin D (because their levels are <30) to stop taking it.
Congrats on the PhD Darya!
Best,
Ashley
It appears that the benefits/risks of IF may be gender-specific.
http://www.paleoforwomen.com/category/fasting/
Interesting, thanks.