For The Love of Food

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

This week we learn that probiotics fight colds, raw food limits brain growth, and why longevity may require more than diet and exercise.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. 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. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• The Island Where People Forget to Die <<A healthy lifestyle means more than just diet and exercise. This is long, but a great read for anyone interested in longevity and traditional diets. (New York Times)
• Omega-3 Intake Heightens Working Memory in Healthy Young Adults <<Improving the cognitive performance of healthy, young adults was thought impossible, but it seems fish oil might make us smarter still. (ScienceDaily)
• The Roots Of The Anti-Genetic Engineering Movement? Follow The Money! <<BS of the week. Follow the money indeed. Shocking that organic producers support legislation that requires more transparency from food companies, right? But take a look at who is funding the anti-prop 37 campaign, and don’t forget to notice the amounts contributed. (Forbes)
• Probiotics Are Secret Weapon for Fighting Symptoms of the Common Cold in College Students <<This week I gave some suggestions on how to avoid the flu, but if you do come down with something it looks like probiotics could help ease symptoms. (ScienceDaily)
• Raw Food Not Enough to Feed Big Brains <<This is not the first evidence I’ve seen that cooking food is largely what made us human. In fact, I’ve read a whole book about it. (Science)
• When it comes to food, how does your lawmaker stack up? <<This is awesome. Finally we have a resource to see how our representatives vote on food issues. (Grist)
• American Academy of Pediatrics Weighs in for First Time On Organic Foods for Children <<This is interesting, but honestly I think it’s worth erring on the side of caution when it comes to children and their developing nervous systems. We know high doses are dangerous for young children, but the effects of lower doses of pesticide exposure at a young age could be more subtle. (ScienceDaily)
• Moderate Drinking Decreases Number of New Brain Cells <<College students, take note. (ScienceDaily)
• Nearly 80 Million Americans Won’t Need Vitamin D Supplements Under New Guidelines <<Based on these arguments I’d consider 20 ng/ml to be the bare minimum, and there’s no reason not to try for over 30 if you can. Keep in mind too that for most of us it’s impossible to tell how much vitamin D we should take without knowing our levels at various times throughout the year (our main source is sunshine). (ScienceDaily)
• Celery Stir Fry <<I was just thinking about how celery is underrated as a flavor and ingredient, then Elise goes and features it in a simple and delicious sounding recipe. How serendipitous! (Simply Recipes)

What inspired you this week?