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!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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For The Love of Food

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

This week video games reverse age-related cognitive decline, “natural” foods aren’t so natural, and fruit juice takes another hit.

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).

Read the rest of this story »

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 multivitamins might fight cancer, TV is killing us all, and less exercise may be better for weight loss.

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

• Multivitamin Use Linked to Lowered Cancer Risk <<I’ve always been a fan of the basic multivitamin, but this is the first significant finding confirming a benefit. In a placebo controlled, double blinded clinical trial, a multivitamin cut cancer risk by 8 percent in already very healthy men. That’s impressive. (New York Times)
• After counseling, people ate more fruit — not more vegetables <<This is incredibly common. When you tell people to eat more fruits and vegetables, they typically skip the vegetable part. This is unfortunate since veggies are the most important thing you can add to you diet. (LA Times)
• Get Up. Get Out. Don’t Sit. <<Seriously, TV is killing you. Even if you go to the gym. Please read this one. (New York Times)
• Eating Lots of Carbs, Sugar May Raise Risk of Cognitive Impairment <<Have a sweet tooth? It’s not good for your brain. (ScienceDaily)
• LESS EXERCISE BETTER FOR WEIGHT LOSS <<This is consistent with my own experiences, particularly cardio exercise, that more than 30 minutes just makes me extra hungry. Adding strength training to 30 min of cardio, however, is the ultimate for improved physique in my experience. (Dr. Weil)
• Antioxidants in Tea, Fruit, Veggies Might Fight Prostate Cancer: Study <<If you read that multivitamin study carefully you’d notice it didn’t apply to prostate cancer. Here’s your solution for that one. (Medline)
• British Eggs: MYSTERY SOLVED <<Ever notice that British people don’t refrigerate their eggs? Here’s the reason (hint: it’s not because they’re crazy). (London Syndrome)
• My quibbles with quinoa <<I’ll be honest, I’ve never really loved quinoa. Here’s a story from someone with similar issues, and how they were solved. (Washington Post)
• Healthy Lifestyle Boosts Survival Odds for Older Women With Cancer <<People tend to think that cancer strikes randomly, which is partially true. But as we’ve seen this week there’s a lot you can do to reduce risk, and improve outcome even after diagnosis. (Medline)
• Carrot and Squash Soup <<This looks like a delicious fall recipe, and super easy too. (Jenn Cuisine)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

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

Next week I’ll be celebrating my 31st birthday. If you appreciate the work I do for this site and would like to give back, I’m donating all cakes, presents and well wishes to Charity Water. Charity Water helps bring clean water to children and families in Africa who desperately need it. Follow the link to learn more.

http://mycharitywater.org/darya

How to make food taste better without cooking skills, the best geek food article of all time and why Twinkie’s won’t make your life better.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For a complete reading list join me on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the Week

• Hard Work Improves the Taste of Food, Study Shows <<Proof that shopping at the farmers market and going to the gym makes vegetables taste better. (Science Daily)
• When Video Games and Butchery Collide, You Get 8-Bit Nose to Tail <<The best story I’ve ever found on the internet. Ever. (Serious Eats)
• Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds <<BS of the week. Is anyone here surprised that you can lose weight and improve cholesterol when you barely eat anything (even if that “thing” is complete junk food)? You shouldn’t be. And this is a great example of why we have bigger fish to fry than weight and cholesterol. (CNN)
• Why I don’t cook at home <<This is cute and worth reading, but I hope Summer Tomato readers know better. (The Oatmeal)
• DHA Improves Memory and Cognitive Function in Older Adults, Study Suggests <<Fish is by far the best source of DHA omega-3 fatty acids. (Science Daily)
• Latest egg recall over salmonella affects 228,000 eggs <<Just when you thought it was safe to eat industrial eggs. (Los Angeles Times)
• While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales <<Great example of how special interests can influence government policy. Personally I wouldn’t trust my health to recommendations by the US government. (New York Times)
• Red meat: Not so bad after all? <<You might be surprised by the science behind meat consumption. (Nutrition Data)
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Sriracha and Mint <<I recently tried a similar recipe at a local restaurant and it was amazing. This will be appearing in my kitchen soon. (White On Rice)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

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

For some reason the New York Times was brimming with great food and health articles this week. I particularly like the expose of meaningless food labels and the article on the wonders of the pressure cooker. And if you feel like giggling, find out why Stephen Colbert thinks being skinny is un-American.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

For The Love of Food

• Buy a Virtual Slice of Dessert…and Help Haiti <<My friend Michelle Stern is running a fund raiser for Haiti with some help from some other food bloggers. Check out what they have going. (What’s Cooking)
• Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels <<You probably know by now that I don’t like foods with labels. Here’s a good review of why I feel that way. (New York Times)
• Calcium – The Wonder Mineral <<BS of the week. Another dose of unimaginably irresponsible and unscientific journalism from DIR. Clinical trials have shown that calcium and dairy do not protect against fractures or osteoporosis. Calcium is also linked to prostate cancer. It is definitely an important nutrient and you should be sure to get enough of it, but “wonder mineral”? I don’t think so. (Diets In Review)
• Low-carb diets may trump low-fat in lowering blood pressure <<We already know that low-fat diets are useless in weight loss and preventing heart disease. Looks like they lose the battle in lowering blood pressure too. (Los Angeles Times)
• Vitamin D May Lower Colon Cancer Risk << The case for vitamin D just keeps growing. It is the only supplement I take besides a multivitamin. (HealthDay)
• Exercise: In Women, Training for a Sharper Mind <<A new study suggest that strength training can help prevent cognitive decline in older women. Great news! (New York Times)
• Video Gaming Just Might Fight Aging <<Video games also seem to help keep brains sharp with age. (HealthDay)
• Pressure Cooking: Fast, Healthy Eating << My favorite piece of kitchen equipment finally made it into the New York Times! Read up!
• Ginger Edamame Soybean Soup (Bacon?) & How we took the photograph <<Doesn’t this recipe sound (and look) amazing? I’m so there. (White On Rice Couple)
• Colbert Report: The Word – Manifest Density <<Stephen Colbert thinks it’s un-American to be skinny, and it’s too funny to miss.

For The Love of Food

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or my Facebook fan page know I read a lot about food and health. Every week I post dozens of interesting articles and tips I find around the internet, most of which I do not have time to blog about. In the interest of awesomeness (and time) I have decided to start posting my favorite articles from the week  every Friday in a new segment, “For The Love of Food.”

For those of you with time constraints or an aversion to social media, this should help you find and prioritize the most worthwhile food and health stories and recipes. It will also free me up to do more in depth research for my Monday and Wednesday posts, something I think we can all appreciate.

I work like mad to keep up with the most interesting news on the web, but I would love your help in this! Please feel free to send me your favorite links and I might include them in Friday’s post (with a shout out, of course!). If you think it is appropriate, you are welcome to send me articles from your own website, but please please please only send me your best material. My time is extremely limited and I hope no one chooses to abuse it by spamming me with every single one of their blog posts. But I do want to see your best work, so send it along!

If you find anything awesome that I missed, go ahead and leave us a link in the comments.

Oh, and since I know you’re wondering, yes I carved that heart out of a red bell pepper myself 😉

For The Love of Food

• Freeze That Thought <<My favorite advice article this week about optimizing your freezer, by Mark Bittman at the New York Times.

• Food, Inc. movie trailer <<Must watch!!!!

• Obesity and the Fastness of Food <<Is how fast we eat making us fat, or are we just not paying enough attention? From Economix blog.

• Did Oprah’s KFC Giveaway Do Us Any Favors? <<In case you were wondering, “grilled” KFC is still junk food. Explained by one of my heroes, Marion Nestle.

• Drink Away Dementia? <<There isn’t enough info about the role of food in cognitive health. I hope all the news is this good! From Medline.

• Process of elimination <<Interesting look at the difficulty of removing processed foods from your diet.

• You Can Lick Your Plate, or in This Case, Your Slab <<Elitist food article of the week from the New York Times. Who knew you could fry an egg on a salt slab? You gotta love it!

• 3 Ways To Increase Traffic With Better Food Photos << For you food bloggers out there, this is great advice from Food Bloggers Unite.

• How Celebrity Chefs Saved Food <<Interesting look at how TV chefs are making real food trendy again, by Zachary Cohen at From Farm to Table

• Crock Pot Vietnamese Pho (Beef Noodle Soup) <<Drool inducing recipe of the week from Steamy Kitchen.

Let us know what you think!