For the Love of Food

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

This week sugar falls while obesity climbs, “natural” may soon be defined, and a surprising benefit of strong legs.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

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Links of the week

• Carbohydrate, Sugar, and Obesity in America <<Remember this whenever you’re tempted to oversimplify health and nutrition down to macronutrients. We have plenty of evidence that excessive sugar is dangerous, but there’s also a lot more going on here. (Whole Health Source)
• The Limits of ‘Intuitive’ Eating <<Eating mindfully is a good start, but there’s more to healthy eating than listening to your body. (NY Times)
• FDA seeks comments on use of the term ‘natural’ on food labels <<This is a big deal. Please share your thoughts with the FDA. (Food Navigator USA)
• Taking Antibiotics Can Change the Gut Microbiome for Up to a Year <<Antibiotics can be a scary thing, so be careful. But I’ll admit it is refreshing to hear that our guts go back to “normal” at all. (The Atlantic)
• Brawn and Brains <<This surprised me. Apparently having strong leg muscles is correlated with better cognitive aging. Who knew? (NY Times)
• A Day’s Worth of Sugar in a Single Food <<What’s impressive here is how many of these insanely sugary foods are actually salads at common restaurants. Cook your own food and you’ll never have to worry about these. (The Atlantic)
• Study provides strongest evidence yet of a link between breakfast quality and educational outcomes <<While I’m still not entirely convinced that this effect is specific to breakfast, anyone who has ever shifted their diet away from processed foods toward real foods knows the massive improvement in energy and focus that comes with it. (ScienceDaily)
• What Happens to Childhood When You Start Counting Steps? <<Interesting food for thought on how technology and health may interact in our lives. (NY Times)
• Convert Picky Eaters Over Time With the “Three Rs” <<Don’t give up, science says you can win. (Lifehacker)
• Roasted Radishes with Sumac and Balsamic Vinegar <<I used to think of radishes as spicy, somewhat unpleasant salad garnishes before I realized that 1) you can cook them with amazing results, and 2) they taste sweeter and less spicy/bitter in cold seasons. Now they are a staple in my kitchen. (Cookbooks 365)

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