If you see pale blue ribbons around today, they could be honoring INDD or International No Diet Day, celebrated every May 6. Recovering anorexic Mary Evans Young founded the holiday in 1992 as a response to a thin-obsessed, thigh-hating culture. About $40 billion is spent each year on weight loss tactics, but today we are supposed to love our bodies, no matter what size or shape.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 26, 2008 at 8:45 AM
The Good, the Bad, and the Obvious
Eat This Not That, the selling-like-hot-cakes, snack-sized book by hyper-ambitious and heat-seeking-attention-missile Men's Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko (with Matt Goulding), proclaims itself to be the "No-Diet Weight Loss Solution" (to eating at national chains). As someone who is on the eternal quest for the no-diet weight-loss solution, I can tell you quite emphatically that this book is not it.
In fact, it aggregates heaping portions of the obvious (did you know that a drive-thru combo meal of a Burger King Triple Whopper with cheese fries and a king-size Coke has 2,200 calories and is therefore not a smart healthy eating choice? I'm shocked) with a few small side orders of surprises (Chipotle's Mexican Grilled Chicken Burrito has 1,107 calories, 113 carbohydrate grams, and 2,656 mg of sodium) and some useful swaps when confronted with national chain menus.
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America's fat problem: "I say unto you: Fat is good! Fat is necessary. Ask any chef. Fat does not make you fat, eating too much makes you fat! We aren’t filling our bodies with sodium because of the box of kosher salt we use to season our food, we’re doing it with all the processed food that’s loaded with hidden salt. And American cooks and American diners need to understand the differences."
"The sounds of waves crashing onto a rocky shore mingle in Taiji with the screeching wails of dolphins being chopped and hacked to death by fishermen." Residents of Taiji, Japan have been eating dolphin for over a century, but social pressures and high levels of mercury challenge their culture of dolphin-eating.
Posted by Jamie Forrest, July 17, 2007 at 2:14 PM
The Health News Digest is running an informative piece this week on lactose intolerance. According to the article, an estimated 30-50 million Americans (or about 10 to 15 percent of the population) may experience the characteristic symptoms of lactose intolerance. The symptoms are caused by the lack of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose, or milk sugar, into the more digestible simple sugars glucose and galactose. On the flip side you have Jeffrey Steingarten, "the Man Who Ate Everything
," who claims that lactose intolerance is an overblown contrivance of a nation of deluded and finicky eaters. Perhaps the truth, as is the case with many things, lies somewhere in the middle?
In most aged cheeses, lactose is largely absent. Most of it is carried off in the whey that is separated out during the cheesemaking process. Following removal of the whey, whatever small amount of lactose is left in the cheese is then consumed over the course of aging by active bacterial cultures and converted to the more digestible lactic acid. Therefore cheeses that are young and have a high water content such as Cottage Cheese or Ricotta will consequently have more lactose than more firm, older cheeses like Gruyère or Parmigiano-Reggiano. Yogurt is also quite digestible, since it is produced with lactic-acid producing bacteria similar to those in cheese.
Of course, lactose intolerance falls on a spectrum for many people—some people are okay with one or two glasses of milk while others feel symptoms even with hard cheeses. Where do you fall on the spectrum of intolerance?
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.
Lactose molecule from sci-toys.com
Posted by Ed Levine, July 17, 2007 at 12:20 PM
Would calorie labels make me order differently in restaurants?
Absolutely. Wouldn't you?
There is no doubt in my mind that if I knew how many calories were in every dish I was thinking about ordering, it would affect my decision-making. That doesn't mean I'm going to opt for the lowest calorie option for every course. That would require me being denied the great pleasure I derive from food. What it might mean is that, if I order the lasagna, I might eat half of it and give the rest to my dining companions and then opt for the steamed fish with ginger and black beans.
Posted by Meg Hourihan, March 26, 2007 at 4:00 PM
In my quest to eat healthy, I've been stymied by the contradictory information I receive on what seems to be a weekly basis. Recently it was a report that canned tuna may not have lots of Omega-3s. My friend Rebecca recommended Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, by Harvard doctor Walter Willett. Based on evidence from large studies of diet and disease, he recommends a new way of eating. It looks like a great way to separate fact from fiction when it comes to making healthy eating decisions. Has anyone read this? Any thoughts?
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 20, 2007 at 4:36 PM
Steven Reinberg of the Washington Post reports that two new studies in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine say Americans are eating far less fruits and vegetables than they should. According to a John Hopkins study, 62 percent of participants didn't eat any fruit daily. 25 percent didn't eat any vegetables, and "only 11 percent of U.S. adults meet the guidelines for both fruits and vegetables." Perhaps more troubling, a second study from Queens College compared intakes of vegetables, potassium and calcium from 1971 to 1974 and 1999 to 2002, and found that the diets of blacks has not improved compared to those of whites, numbers "not explained by race differentials in income and education." As one of the researchers said, a serious public health concern because "a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is associated with a lower risk of obesity and certain chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers."
