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
by Darya Rose | Dec 2, 2011
For The Love of Food
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
This week some interesting new data on the ideal amount of salt to eat, frightening news about BPA and canned soup, and a series of fascinating articles on how to maintain cognitive health.
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
- Study Calls Sodium Intake Guidelines Into Question <<I’ve always been skeptical of the super low sodium recommendations suggested by the USDA and other agencies. Processed food is always a major cofounder, and likely the real problem. (ScienceDaily)
- BPA Levels Spike After Eating Canned Soup: Study <<Wow, this is no small difference. I think it is time to majorly reconsider eating anything from a BPA-containing can. (Medline)
- Cigarettes may be useful for distance runners?!? (or, How to prove anything with a review article) <<This is an excellent piece about the dangers of over-interpreting correlations (e.g. all epidemiological data) in science. (Obesity Panacea)
- Low vitamin D linked to heart disease, death <<This is interesting because, for once, it shows a benefit of taking supplements to protect health. (Medline)
- Americans’ ‘ideal weight’ shifts upward <<I find this very disturbing, though not surprising. Look at photos or videos from 30 years ago and most of the people would be considered “too thin” by today’s standards. But they were much healthier. (Los Angeles Times)
- How Exercise Benefits the Brain <<Workouts are important for more than just looking great, they can also help you perform better at work or school. (New York Times)
- Non-Fried Fish Might Help Ward Off Alzheimer’s: Study <<Surprisingly low amounts of fish consumption were shown to be beneficial in preventing cognitive decline. (Medline)
- It Could Be Old Age, or It Could Be Low B12 <<Another interesting piece regarding the importance of nutrition in maintaining cognitive ability, this time vitamin B12. (New York Times)
- This is your mind on meditation: less wandering, more doing <<I’m a big advocate of mindful eating, but mindfulness can also be important in helping you focus in general. (Los Angeles Times)
- Barley Risotto <<Such a lovely, hearty winter dish. Looks delicious. (Mark Bittman)
What inspired you this week?
Thanks for the links!
Has anyone read the study paper? I’m curious as to why frying fish does not lead to the same benefits.
I would venture to guess that “fried” fish is also breaded (not to mentioned fried in some questionable franken-oil)
Totally.
So is “fried” different from sauteeing? I frequently saute my fish.
I’m also surprised by the findings on the canned soup and BPA paper. I’m wondering why the study only used canned soup.
I enjoy eating canned sardines when I’m “too busy” to cook, and on average, I consume about one can per week. Rethinking about continuing to do that…
Since I plan to have children in next few years, I’ve cut out ALL canned foods except those made by Eden organics, which don’t contain BPA (except maybe a few of their items, like ones containing tomato). So if I ever buy canned beans, it’s Eden or nothing. The other canned item I know of that doesn’t contain BPA is Native Forest brand coconut milk. That is the one with the dark green label.
So whenever I make stews that call for canned tomato, I use either the jarred kind you can get at Italian speciality stores, or the boxed kind (Pomi brand), or, most often I use a neutral-ish flavored jarred pasta sauce (like tomato basil, but any work). It makes a great substitute, whether you are talking Italian, Indian, Mexican, etc etc….I use jarred pasta sauce in place of canned tomato for ALL types of cuisines and can’t tell a difference in the final meal vs using plain canned tomato! Shocking, I know. People can’t believe I do it, but you really can’t tell a difference. You just end up seasoning less while cooking (so taste, don’t follow a recipe!)
You really can’t substitute with fresh tomatoes in recipes…the flavor is just not the same as a the cooked ones that sit in their juices and break down.
I personally believe that BPA is a big deal, esp for developing babies. I’m not sure if it is one of the fat soluble toxins that store up in the body, and are thus a big problem once you end up breastfeeding (dumping years of toxins in your own milk, which is fatty of course)…..but I think I read that BPA is fat soluble, thus stored in the body’s fat. Ya’ll will have to research for yourself. Scary stuff.
The other big BPA culprit is receipts. If you put them in your pocket, then put your hands in your pockets, you are getting it on your hands. Think of it like a germ….don’t spread it around. Wash your hands before eating. People who work with receipts have higher levels of BPA in their bodies.