For The Love of Food

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

In case you missed it, be sure to check out the first episode of Summer Tomato Live and vote on our next show topic. Voting closes tonight at midnight, PST.

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This week: why vegans have more heart risks, McDonald’s new “healthy-food” chain, what Donald Rumsfeld has to do with Diet Coke, and more bad news for people who think exercise will solve their weight problems.

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 list of my favorite stories check out my links on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• How to Master the Art of Seasoning: 5 Tips for Reinventing the Slow-Carb Diet <<Trying to make those beans and veggies more interesting? Here’s a great primer on seasoning. (Tim Ferriss)
• Vegans’ Elevated Heart Risk Requires Omega-3s and B12, Study Suggests <<I’ve mentioned before that I think a vegan diet can be healthy, it just requires more work than it does for an omnivore. Seems most vegans are getting it wrong. (ScienceDaily)
• Former McDonald’s Executives to Open a New Healthy-Food Chain <<Hahahahaha! McDonald’s execs are the first people I’d trust to offer a healthy diet. Nice one guys. BS of the week. (Time)
• Just how bad is aspartame? <<Great question. Sadly the politics around it are so twisted it’s hard to uncover the truth. (Grist)
• US group calls for FDA ban of soda ‘caramel’ <<Seems aspartame may not be the only thing in soda that can cause cancer. (Reuters)
• Think the gym’s gonna make you slim? Think again. <<This new study matches my experience very well. But Yoni explains why you should exercise anyway. (Weighty Matters)
• 10 Fresh, In-Season Vegetables the East Coast Should be Eating Now <<I frequently get complaints from East Coasters that my farmers market posts don’t reflect their reality. This one’s for you guys (and it’s not that different). (Treehugger)
• Obesity Alone Raises Risk of Fatal Heart Attack, Study Finds <<I’ve heard some people argue that obesity itself does not cause disease, it’s just a symptom of deeper metabolic problems or not a problem at all. This new study suggests otherwise. (Medline)
• Diet High in Fiber Might Lengthen Your Life <<Especially grains, they say. There are plenty of confounds in this study, but it’s not out of line with other research I’ve seen. (Medline)
• Rainbow Wheat Berry Salad <<And since we’re having a grain lovefest day, here’s a delicious looking recipe for a colorful wheat berry salad. Intact grains FTW! (Macheesmo)

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.

Lots of interesting health and nutrition stories this week. I particularly love the piece about how exercise impacts cognitive performance, and the bits about the health benefits of grains. I’m not in the mood to focus on any BS this week, but if I did it would have certainly been the Monsanto court decision.

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 the new Digg or StumbleUpon. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Cooking Is As Easy As Being a DungeonMaster <<The ultimate geek cooking lesson. If you’ve ever mastered anything, you can conquer your kitchen. (Geek’s Dream Girl)
• Phys Ed: Your Brain on Exercise <<Really cool new research explaining how exercise makes you smarter. My goal, of course, is to turn you all into a bunch of super geniuses (wahahahaha). (New York Times)
• Low acid diet may not prevent bone loss <<I’m always confused when I hear people mention the health benefits of “alkaline diets,” since there is almost no science backing those bogus claims. As usual, Marion Nestle does an awesome job explaining why. (SFGate)
• Who’s Behind Those Trader Joe’s Generics? You’d Be Surprised <<I must admit, I’ve always wondered how Trader Joe’s private label put out such awesome products. Turns out, they are awesome products I already knew about. (SFoodie)
• How do you know you’re on a “good” diet? <<I love Yoni’s answer to this: “Simple. You like it.” He really nails what it means to find your own healthstyle with this article. (Weighty Matters)
• Add onion and garlic to “unlock” the nutrients in grains <<Somehow I doubt Atkins or paleo dieters will pay any attention to this, but it’s interesting news for the rest of us. (Nutrition Data)
• Experts Believe Many Birth Defects Are Preventable <<I like the title of this article because it makes me sound like an expert. Turns out you should try to be healthy before you even start thinking about maybe getting pregnant. (Medline)
• Wine for Tomato Season: Grechetto <<Don’t know that I’ve ever tried Grechetto, but it has skyrocketed to the top of my summer to-do list. (Good Wine Under $20)
• High-fibre breakfast enhances fat burning during exercise <<Cereal burns fat? Only when you exercise, which of course you do regularly because you’re a super genius. This article also provides a good excuse to laugh at the way Canadians spell fiber. (kidding!) (Obesity Panacea)
• Strawberries. Balsamic. Cacao Nibs. <<Uber healthy seasonal dessert FTW!! (Vanilla Garlic)

What inspired you this week?