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.
In case you missed it, I just started a new mythbusting column over at the ZocDoc blog, where I’ll be publishing new articles every Tuesday. Check out my first piece Is Microwave Cooking Dangerous? Fact vs. Myth.
There were some very thought provoking articles this week, and I especially recommend Bittman’s piece on local food and elitism as well as the Treehugger piece on dietary fundamentalism. Great stuff.
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
- Local Food: No Elitist Plot <<I’ve been meaning to write something similar to this, but Mark Bittman does a fantastic job. A great read. (New York Times)
- How Low-Fat Foods Get Their Texture <<A brief explanation of some of the stranger ingredients in processed foods. (NPR)
- Is Eating More Often Really the Key to Staying Thin? <<Thanks Monica for calling BS of the week for me on the notion that eating more often helps with weight loss. (Nutrition Over Easy)
- Ending Factory Farming Requires Also Ending Dietary Fundamentalism <<I absolutely love this thoughtful piece about why being militant because of your personal food choices is counterproductive. (Treehugger)
- Resveratrol appears to make fat men fitter <<This is interesting, but I would definitely not recommend starting a high dose resveratrol supplementation regimen at this stage of the research. (Los Angeles Times)
- Fatty Foods Addictive as Cocaine in Growing Body of Science <<Though I really do not like the title (it’s the sugar, stupid), this is actually a really interesting article about how processed foods can hijack the brain like addictive drugs. (Businessweek)
- The psychology of food aversions <<Though this was clearly written by a scientist (not the best prose I’ve ever read), it’s an interesting exploration of the psychology behind food aversions and I like his tips at the end. (CNN Eatocracy)
- Does High Circulating Insulin Drive Body Fat Accumulation? Answers from Genetically Modified Mice <<Very sciencey, but fascinating stuff, if you’re into that sort of thing. (Whole Health Source)
- ROASTED SWEET POTATO AND BLACK BEAN SALAD <<Looks delicious, cumin and lime is a wonderful combination (though I would leave out the fructose-laden agave nectar). (Chez Us)
What inspired you this week?
The article about local food was depressing. Michelle Obama got a lot of publicity about her White House garden, and there is so much hype about growing our own vegetables and farmer’s markets, etc. but the reality is that things are getting worse in America, not better. It seems if you want to follow the obesity trail, just follow the corn trail.
The article on food aversions was interesting. I can think of a food I can no longer eat because someone else got sick while I was making it and even the smell of it now makes me sick.
Darya – thanks for the shout-out on our sweet potato salad. Question, what would you use in place of agave nectar? I normally would use unprocessed sugar; but, am playing with agave nectar. I have been playing with agave as I have heard it is a good substitute for people who are diabetic. L’s father is, and I have been playing with it, when I bake, so he can eat some of the treats. Any other suggestions for substitutes?
It’s tough because pretty much all sugar is bad. In recipes like your salad I would honestly just leave it out. If it’s in there for browning, I’d add butter, or just a tiny sprinkle of table sugar or honey instead. Even a dash of balsamic vinegar is often sweet enough. The extra fructose in agave isn’t ideal, it doesn’t raise blood sugar but still induces insulin resistance via liver toxicity.
you may be a little hasty in condemning the “eat more often” crowd. see dr sharma’a nov 1 post on keeping glucose levels up and the new book “will” cites studies that ones overall willpower and ability to resist temptation is reduced when glucose levels drop and they suggest eating every 4 hrs. however one must of couse eat less at each sitting.