Photo by Denna Jones

We all know the story. Eating carbohydrates causes a spike in blood sugar, which results in a surge of insulin. Insulin shuttles all that extra sugar into your fat cells and you become obese. Over time, your poor helpless organs become resistant to insulin and you develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, thereby shortening your life by 7 years.

All of that is true.

The story is more complicated, however, because all carbs are not created equal.

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, artificial butter flavor linked to Alzheimer’s, the value of “cheat day,” and why to vote for GMO labels.

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

• Big Food puts its back into fighting GMO labeling in California <<Whether you believe GMOs are safe or not, labeling is a good idea. Yes on 37. (Grist)
• Dear Mark: Should I Increase Carb Intake for Weight Loss? <<Great article, particularly for those of you interested in “cheat day.” (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• Americans Gaining More Weight Than They Say <<Haha, science calls BS of the week on us! Turns out we’re lying to ourselves about how fat we are. Of course this problem is easy to solve with a FitBit Aria. (ScienceDaily)
• The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater <<Ever obsess over the healthfulness of your food? You’ll adore this parody. (Northwest Edible Life)
• The last days of the low-fat diet fad <<I must have missed this story when it originally came out, but it’s worth reading. (Grist)
• Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss <<Hint: You need both, but mostly diet. (NY Times)
• High-carb diet tied to breast cancer risk for some <<If you read the fine print, by “high-carb” they mean lots of processed food. (Medline)
• 20 TASTY APHRODISIACS TO PUT SIZZLE IN YOUR SEX LIFE <<Don’t take these too literally, but it’s a fun read. (Ecosalon)
• Artificial Butter Flavoring Ingredient Linked to Key Alzheimer’s Disease Process <<This doesn’t prove a direct cause, but it should give you pause about all the random chemicals in processed foods and the things we don’t know they are doing. (ScienceDaily)
• Clams in a light fennel and shallot broth <<Looks and sounds amazing. I’m in. (Cannelle et Vanille)

What inspired you this week?

In honor of the food issue this week at Synapse, I compiled a list of ten essential diet and nutrition facts you might not know:

1. “Vitamins” are not the same as whole foods. Instant ramen and a multivitamin is not a healthy meal. There is no substitute for a diet of whole foods rich in vegetables, beans, grains and fish.
2. A healthy diet can prevent or even reverse four out of the six leading causes of death in the US. Evidence indicates that diet is more important than genetics in the vast majority of heart disease, stroke, cancer and type 2 diabetes cases.
3. The thinnest, healthiest people in the world eat “high carb” diets. But they definitely do not eat the processed, refined carbohydrates that flood Western culture. If you want to lose weight and live longer without disease, eat more vegetables and whole grains.
4. You get plenty of calcium. Americans consume more calcium than most countries on earth, yet still sport some of the highest rates of osteoporosis. This debilitating disease is more likely caused by insufficient vitamin D, not enough exercise and/or too much protein. Also, excess calcium is linked to prostate cancer and milk to ovarian cancer. Calcium does not support weight loss either.
5. “Fiber” is not the same as vegetables and grains. Fiber supplements do not offer the same benefits as fiber-filled foods, and do not help with weight loss or protect against disease.
6. The best sources of protein are plants and fish. It is relatively easy to get complete protein (i.e., all the essential amino acids) from a diverse diet. Protein from red meat offers more risk than reward. (Yes, pork is red meat.)
7. Fruits and vegetables protect your vision. Both cataracts and macular degeneration are strongly tied to diet.
8. Fats from factories are dangerous. Processed oils and trans fats (not total dietary fat) are associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and obesity. Replacing them with natural oils could save your life.
9. Fats from plants and fish are essential. Mono- and polyunsaturated fats protect against heart disease, type 2 diabetes and memory loss. In moderation they can also aid in weight loss, since they increase the satiety you feel after a meal.
10. You can lose weight on any short-term diet, but you will probably gain back more than you ultimately lose. This is often true even if you stay on the diet. Focusing on long-term health is the best strategy for sustained weight loss, but it requires patience.

What are other common myths about diet and nutrition?

UPDATE: For more information on the health value of oils from fish, please read my answer in the comments section.
http://forms.aweber.com/form/30/split_210533730.htm