Entries tagged with 'health'
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Congress is considering a ten percent "fat tax" on junk food to help pay for the expansion of health care coverage. But as the Economist points out, defining junk food is tricky. While sugary drinks, fries, and burgers might be lumped under this umbrella of fatty foods, they vary on the junky spectrum. Should it be based strictly on fat, calorie, or sugar content? Others have suggested a more direct, though controversial, approach to the tax: charging people based on BMI or body fat content. One Economist reader had the following to say: The common denominator among smokers is cigarettes, so we tax cigarettes. The common denominator among alcohol-abusers is alcoholic beverages, so we tax alcoholic beverages. The common...
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"Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health."—Julia Child This famous quote from the late, great Julia Child has been the cornerstone of my serious diet. And that quote was on a sign for all to see, as the guests wandered into the ultra old-line, ultra New York Metropolitan Club for the post-premiere party of Julie & Julia, Nora Ephron's loveable movie that chronicles in parallel fashion the lives of cooking culture icon, cookbook author, and seminal food TV star Julia Child and writer-blogger Julie Powell. It was a good thing the sign was there, because the opportunities for excess were everywhere. New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent had put together...
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“I’ve basically become a corn-averse vegan." Last week, I wrote about my first seven days without corn. Trying to learn more about just how much of the stuff we consume, I swore off all corn-laced foods for a full week. But as I sipped on cow’s milk and scrambled eggs for my omelets, I started to realize that the corn on package labels was only part of the story. More than half the corn produced in the United States isn’t used for human food—it’s fed to our animals. Eating a steak, in a sense, entails far more corn than drinking a soda. If I really wanted to call myself corn-free, I had a long way to go. So this week,...
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Oddly enough, this was not from The Onion but from Daily Mail: Scientists have found special properties in the dye of blue M&Ms. "The compound, Brilliant Blue G, can block a chemical which makes injuries worse by causing inflammation and destroying cells."...
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As many of you know, I have gone cold turkey on 100 calorie snack packs. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean my cravings for the occasional sweet or chocolate have gone away. Let's face it, serious diet or no serious diet, sometimes you need the spiritual, emotional, and physical boost only a piece of something chocolate-covered or nutty can provide. I find that is true any time of the year, even now, when I have been eating locally grown strawberries, cherries, peaches, and blueberries with great pleasure. Stone fruit and berries are amazing gifts from nature, but once or twice a week I need something a little more decadent. Given my weight, my body type, and my ability to metabolize such treats,...
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Why would anyone give up corn for a week? And how hard could it possibly be to do so? Follow my seven-day challenge to eat no corn.
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Meat sticks with a side of...cancer? Los Angeles Times reports that a vegan advocacy group wants to put cancer-risk warning labels on hot dog packages sold in New Jersey. The Cancer Project is filing a lawsuit against five major food companies—Nathan’s Famous, Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer, Sara Lee, Con Agra Foods, and Marathon Enterprises—on behalf of three New Jersey residents who bought these companies hot dogs without knowing that the hot dogs are a cause of colorectal cancer. Neal Barnard, M.D., president of the Cancer Project, compares the health risk of eating hot dogs to the lung cancer risk posed when smoking cigarettes, and says that the same information should be made available to customers who eat hot dogs. Do...
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Photograph from WordRidden on Flickr Your first reaction to this headline might have been, "What do you mean, is blue cheese gluten-free? Isn't all cheese gluten-free?" Well, the short answer is yes. But blue cheese is a potential corner-case that needs some investigation. The reason is that there are steps in the production process of blue cheese where the potential for cross-contamination of gluten is definitely a possibility. Most people know that the blue in blue cheese is actually mold—penicillium mold to be exact, which during aging breaks down the fats and the proteins in the cheese to change its texture to a silky smooth, and to add depth and piquancy to its flavor. Originally the mold would have...
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The diet books often tell you to measure your progress by putting on the same article of clothing and seeing how it fits. The theory is week by week, month by month, it should get a little easier to get into the pants or the shirt or the belt. I have two belts, one green and one brown, and a handsome red shirt Alaina brought back from India, that I have been using to take the measure of the success or failure of my serious diet. When Alaina gave me the shirt when she came back from India six months ago I could barely button the buttons. Now it fits really well, and it is in my regular shirt rotation....
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I've read all the literature on how important drinking plain water is to any meaningful weight loss effort, but I must admit I am having trouble giving up flavored liquids cold turkey. I have managed to kick the Diet Coke habit. But I certainly haven't given up on diet sodas or soft drinks as a whole. Last night I posted about the joys of Fresca. I drink Snapple Diet Cranberry Raspberry Drink because it doesn't have any caffeine. When I'm up on Cape Cod, I drink Cape Cod Cranberry Dry. It's a local soda made with 5% cranberry juice concentrate. I know I shouldn't, but I drink a bottle a day of the stuff. At least I did last week....
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