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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: Willpower is overrated, alcohol isn’t healthy, and the downside of posting calories
by Darya Rose | Apr 27, 2018
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
This week willpower is overrated, alcohol isn’t healthy, and the downside of posting calories.
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Links of the week
- Why willpower is overrated – This might be the best article on willpower I’ve ever read. My favorite line —>”And structuring your life is a skill.” (Vox)
- American Nostalgia on a Bun – Interesting look at the appeal of fast foods and, inevitably, diets as a product of American culture and values. (The Atlantic)
- It’s time to rethink how much booze may be too much – I’ve been avoiding posting about this study until I found a reasonable analysis of it. Thanks Vox for finally providing one.
- Will calorie counts on menu items do more harm than good? – OMG someone is actually thinking about psychology in public health. Be still my beating heart. (Washington Post)
- When Is It Safe to Eat Salad Again? – This is so depressing. Shopping at farmers markets is a great way to get around this sort of nonsense. (NY Times)
- To Slash Your Risk of Heart Disease, Keep Moving – Unfortunately this headline doesn’t even hint at what’s new and cool about this study: that exercise can vastly improve health outcomes even when you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease. (NY Times)
- Should You Eliminate Oil from Your Diet? – In the real world it often does more harm than good. (Scientific American)
- Study highlights need for strength training in older women to ward off effects of aging – Last I checked there were at least one or two women who read this site and care about aging well. (ScienceDaily)
- Are G.M.O. Foods Safe? – This question is one of my pet peeves. Safe for human consumption is not at all my concern about GMO foods. I’m more worried about soil depletion, ecology, pesticide use, and increasing the power of Big Ag. I hope one day we can have grownup conversations about this stuff, but I’m not holding my breath. (NY Times)
- Curried lentil, tomato and coconut soup – What a simple and wonderful way to use some basic pantry items. (Arthur Street Kitchen)
What inspired you this week?
These outbreaks are such a bummer. I’m in the Northeast, farmers markets aren’t open yet (so soon!), and I’m in my first trimester so I actually do have to be careful about this. Kale salads ftw??
“Shopping at farmers markets is a great way to get around this sort of nonsense.”
Uhh, you sure about that?
https://academic.oup.com/ajae/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/ajae/aay011/24531544/aay011.pdf
Not to pile on, but this recent story about E. Coli also somewhat dispels the claim of farmer market sanctity:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/well/eat/e-coli-food-poisoning-kidneys-hemolytic-uremic-syndrome.html
It would be interesting to do a meta-analysis, and see if farmer’s markets do indeed cause less instances of e. coli vs. their grocery store counterparts.
Wow, that’s a terrifying story. I didn’t mean to imply people could never get food poisoning from a farmers market. They aren’t regulated that strongly and there is too much variety to generalize the way I did, especially as the number of farmers jumping into the game increases. That said, we know enough about industrial food practices and outbreaks from that food chain are so regular and widespread it’s hard to argue that they are safer. Personally I do more than simply shop at a farmers market, I know my farmers. We go way back at this point 🙂 I wish I could recommend such a relationship for everyone, but I know it’s impractical for most.
I live in Japan and I eat only Romaine lettuce. Japanese Romaine is very expensive and rare so I buy mine at Costco.Sometimes, local supermarket distribute US Romaine lettuce too. Thanks to this link that I found out about the outbreak. I should switch to other types of lettuce now. Although I don’t eat salad everyday since I vary my vegetable consumption to different vegetables.
In the article regarding strength training for women age 60-90, one of the researchers stated that “older women should walk more, but 10,000 steps per day are excessive.” I am astounded that anyone would say that because I am in my 60’s and average well over 10,000 steps per day.
Thanks for sharing!
I’ve read the article about alcohol consumption and I couldn’t agree more. Even minor amounts can harm us, and it’s not just about physical health.
We’ve recently covered an interesting approach to wellness with some life-saving strategies like awareness in traffic. Alcohol is one of the major factors in car accidents, for example. That’s a very important issue to consider, too.
Thank you and have a nice one!
Posting calories on the menu, may or may not be effective. I personaly feel, they just need to post the menu’s calories online. That way people can enjoy eating their favorite foods with out conviction.Customers dealing with food disorders maybe affected by this the worse,because now they have to look for healthier food alternatives. May not be as easy as it seems for them. So I think the best solution is going to be posting food calories online.
For those who want to get ride of some calories visit link [link removed]
Thanks for posting the article “Why Willpower is Overrated.” It confirms what you said in your book “Foodist” about willpower being a finite resource. It’s so important to develop the habits you need to achieve your goals and to create the environment that will support your habits.
Couldn’t agree more about GMO’s. I think the way we use GMO’s in this country is the problem. They have great potential to feed millions through hard times, but man are we screwing up by our narrow-minded farming practices.
re: the Vox article on alcohol – Surprising to see that the healthy upper-limit is only one drink per day, but makes sense. I’m struggling to find a way to unwind after the day (and detach from work) that isn’t bad for me. I also notice that a few drinks causes me to not sleep as well, which is another negative side-effect. Can u suggest a natural alternative (drink or pill?) to help relax daily?
I hear you! For me it’s been easiest to replace or limit alcohol at night with sauna/bath and herbal teas (I spring for the good stuff at Kauai Farmacy). The sauna especially is rejuvenating and super duper healthy. I’ve been surprised to find a vibrant sauna culture in most major cities.
Ah, that sounds heavenly! Much better alternative than socking down a couple glasses of wine while trying to feed 3 kids! maybe i’ll walk the dog after work to clear my head, then my goal will be a bath w/ herbal tea at night. thanks!