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 | May 2, 2014
For The Love of Food
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
I was traveling last week so included 15 links today instead of the usual 10 in order to catch up.
This week vegetables don’t protect against cancer, how food tricks our brains, and the magic of Mondays.
Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). 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
- Processed foods: The problem probably isn’t what’s in them. It’s what’s not in them. <<The case for not freaking out about “yoga mat ingredients” in your food. (Washington Post)
- An Apple a Day, and Other Myths <<Seems the argument that vegetables and fruits prevent cancer (and meat causes it) is starting to crumble. (NY Times)
- The Ways Food Tricks Our Brains <<A fabulous summary of the ways our brains misinterpret different foods, which I’ve been talking about here for the past 5 years. (The Atlantic)
- You Are What You (Think You) Eat <<More brain trickery. A fascinating summary of how our expectations (aka the placebo effect) influence the effects food has on us. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
- Here are 3 Surprisingly Simple Things You Can Do Right Now to Build Better Habits <<Such good advice. Couldn’t have said it better myself. (James Clear)
- Everyone’s a Health Nut on Monday <<According to Google, you guys care more about your health on Monday than on Friday. My bet is this is a combination of having a refreshed brain (and therefore renewed willpower) and wanting to make penance for bad weekend behavior. Regardless, you can harness this knowledge for good by using Mondays to plan better behavior for later in the week. (The Atlantic)
- Take a trip down Memory Lane to the gym: Using memories to motivate <<Remembering positive exercise experiences can subtly motivate you to exercise more. Interestingly, even remembering negative exercise experiences had a small, positive effect. (ScienceDaily)
- Kick start your physical activity this spring with the “good enough” workout! <<And when thinking about what exercise to get started with, think small before thinking big. (Obesity Panacea)
- The Trouble With Rice <<Apparently rice is like a sponge for leeching toxins from the earth. Bummer, right? I will continue to eat rice, but not in large amounts (I only eat it a few times a month regardless). (NY Times)
- Study Linking Illness and Salt Leaves Researchers Doubtful <<If you’ve been trying to follow the scientific consensus on salt, you’re probably really confused. And you’re right to be. Here’s my take from awhile back. (NY Times)
- Mother’s diet affects the ‘silencing’ of her child’s genes <<New research shows that what mom eats before conception can have a lifelong impact on baby’s health. Even in humans. Whoa. (ScienceDaily)
- The 4th Myth of Modern Day Dieting: You Shouldn’t Eat Unless You’re Hungry <<Love this unconventional advice from Dr. Yoni Freedhoff. (Weighty Matters)
- No nutrition in medical education? An old story that might be changing. <<It comes as a surprise to most people to learn that medical doctors receive only a few hours of antiquated nutrition education during their training (i.e. they know almost nothing about it). That will hopefully be changing, but in the meantime be careful who you listen to. (Food Politics)
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver <<John Oliver (from the Daily Show) has his own gig! His take on the Coca-Cola vs POM supreme court case is brilliant. Starts at 15:30. (Sorry they wouldn’t let me embed, but pop over there and give it a watch).
- Recipe: 30-Minute Chicken Posole <<One of my favorite soups. Simple and delicious. (The Kitchn)
What inspired you this week?
I completely disagree with your assessment of the Apple a Day article in the NYT. I offer the following not in a mean spirit, but to open dialogue.
The author of the NYT article commented on the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, at which the prominent nutritional epidemiologist, Walter Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health, spoke on diet and cancer. Dr. Willett did not say that diet didn’t matter for cancer. He said that the research “has turned out to be more complex and challenging than any of us expected.” The author’s interpretation of Dr. Willett’s talk was that “there was little evidence that fruits and vegetables are protective,” which is a gross oversimplification of a complex field of study.
It is true that many observational studies have yielded disappointing results; but remember that these studies observe the lifestyle habits of Americans and Europeans, most of whom eat a diet primarily comprised of processed and commercial foods, animal products, and a small amounts of vegetables. The fact is a tiny amount of unrefined plant food offers only a tiny amount of benefit (as exemplified by results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, published in 2010). These studies do not suggest that the anti-cancer phytochemicals in whole plant foods are worthless or that meat is safe. They suggest that almost no one eats enough vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds for an observational study to detect dramatic benefit, especially when so much meat and so many commercially-processed foods are consumed.
Cancer initiates due to a wide variety of causes, some of which are outside of our control or already occurred during our childhood. However, the progression of cancer—whether the cancer cells proliferate and become dangerous—is affected by lifestyle factors, those that we can control.
I totally agree, and I didn’t mean to imply that diet isn’t important.