As some serious eaters may have noticed, I have started writing a weekly restaurant review. I'm looking forward to my reviewing stint, but I am wondering about its effect on my diet and life. Two more restaurant meals a week, piled on top of all the other food I eat in the name of the work and life I love, will put even more pressure on my "all things in moderation" regimen.
So I decided that I have to increase the frequency of my exercise regimen. Other restaurant critics, like Frank Bruni of the New York Times and Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle, have told me that what I would describe as fanatical, maniacal, obsessive exercise regimens have helped keep them trim. The question, serious eaters, is whether doubling down on my exercise regimen will do the trick and enable me to eat more and weigh less.
In the Czech Republic, you're not limited to just drinking great beer; you can also bathe in it. Visit the spa at the Chodovar Family Brewery for the opportunity to wallow in beer and potentially benefit from increased circulation, decreased blood pressure, and purified skin. [via Coldmud]
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.
The magazine Health has named its healthiest top ten sit-down chain restaurants, top five fast food joints, and the best all-around indie restaurants in the nation. At No. 1 in sit-down chains? Uno Chicago Grill. Say wha? Yeah, it has a load of good-for-you options if you forgo the deep dish. Top fast foodery? Noodles & Company. Best independent? Blue Hill in New York City, run by Dan Barber.
Don't flush just yet! The project drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee taking place at Eyebeam in New York City from March 13 to April 19 aims to raise awareness about the role your body (or more specifically, its waste) plays in the water system. To illustrate the potential for using properly treated urine—a sterile liquid—as a fertilizer for plants, Urine to Fertilizer DIY Kits will be available at the installation. How does the kit work?
Users will test their urine before the reaction. Then, they will add an enzyme, wait for their urine to hydrolyze, and then add Magnesium Chloride. A sediment will build up at the bottom of the jar. Using a filter, they will pour off and flush the liquid, leaving the fertilizer in the jar. They can add water and the seeds included in the kit to grow their own watercress hydroponically in the glass container used for the reaction.
For more information about treating urine to extract its nutrients, read this press release from EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology). [via Cool Hunting]
"Without knowing you can be dying. High cholesterol injures your heart."
No, this is not an ad for workaholics to stop overworking themselves to death and instead spend more time with their families... but it might be the most disturbing way to scare that relative of yours who refuses to do anything about their high cholesterol. The Colombian Association of Arterial Hypertension has released a new set of ads to raise high cholesterol awareness featuring... zombies? [via Neatorama via Presurfer]
Instead of focusing on losing weight by watching your diet, maybe you need to watch your kitchen. The New York Times's Well Blog gives an overview of Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?, a new book by Peter Walsh that explains how to de-clutter your home for a healthier lifestyle. If you want to start "stripping away the excess 'fat' from your kitchen," get rid of those kitchen appliances you don't use anymore along with anything that's broken, stained, or chipped.
Saturday night I went out to dinner with two friends, one who does not have children and one whose daughter just celebrated her first birthday. The former suggested that I might want to order a certain salad, but the new mother said, “No, she can’t have feta! You can’t eat soft cheese when you’re pregnant.” Sheepishly I thought of the occasional salads with pasteurized feta I had been enjoying at home and asked, “Isn’t it okay if it’s pasteurized?” Granting that her doctor is very conservative, she said she had been told to avoid soft cheeses like feta altogether. The week before at a dinner party, another friend (who is a little farther along in her pregnancy than I am) had mentioned her doctor’s opinion that anything pasteurized was safe.
Understanding what is and is not likely to give me listeriosis has been vexing. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there because there aren’t "safe foods" and "unsafe foods"—just relative levels of risk. My two biggest questions have been, "Can I eat pasteurized soft cheeses? And can I eat raw milk cheeses if they are hard and aged, like Parmigiano Reggiano and Gruyère?" I think I’ve finally worked it out, at least well enough for myself.
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."
Kraft Foods is developing new food products that contain intestinal worm-killing chemicals. These products will not be sold in the United States but are aimed towards rural Asia, Africa and Latin America, where millions of children are afflicted with illnesses caused by worms.
Just how much bacteria is transferred when you "double dip," that is, dip a cracker twice in the same condiment? Maybe more than you think—a study at Clemson University found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip. Although double dipping is "unlikely to be a major public-health threat," you might want to be careful of who you double dip with.
Mark Bittman had a remarkable piece in the New York Times yesterday about the true costs associated with all the meat we consume. According to Bittman, growing more industrialized meat, growing the feed the associated animals eat, and eating the resulting animal flesh, are collectively having dire consequences on the environment and our health. Bittman's story even gave a passionate, enthusiastic carnivore like me pause, and that's saying something. Bittman makes a compelling case for eating less meat, which of course people like Michael Pollan have been advocating for some time now.
I've been eating less meat on my diet, and I must admit I feel better. I don't miss the meat "hangover" that I used to get after polishing off a steak. Last night I went out for my birthday and brought home half the portion of delicious pork I was served at my favorite neighborhood restaurant.
Here are a couple of eye-opening lines from the story:
As we pointed out yesterday, the story in yesterday's paper raised many more questions than answers. I think consumers are getting hip to the fact that virtually every food can be shown to be harmful if consumed in excess. Common sense will rule the day, I hope.
Apparently it did yesterday. I called the kitchen at Esca, which sells many different kinds of tuna in many forms, and I got this report:
Why don't Japanese people (in Japan) get fat?Maki gives a few reasons: peer pressure, more unplanned movement, and smaller portions. Also, as a Japanese expat living in Switzerland, she comments on the extra weight Japanese people gain when they leave Japan, known as the kaigai seikatsu, or "overseas living," 15.
Posted by Adam Kuban, January 19, 2008 at 12:30 PM
On weekdays, we try to bring you a short food video you can get through quickly during your busy day. But seeing how it's Saturday and you have more time, here's a longer, more weighty, but nevertheless interesting video in which Michael Pollan, Joan Dye Gussow, and Dan Barber talk about whether we can eat all the good stuff we love while still being green and healthy. Sit back and enjoy.
As most people know, we love fat in just about all its forms here at Serious Eats. We love bacon, barbecue, butter, lardo, guanciale, prime dry-aged beef, Wagyu beef, burgers, lard, prosciutto, cheese, and pastrami. But we try to advocate consuming these ultradelicious fatty foods in moderation.
According to a provocative, eye-opening, and artery-clogging story in the new, hip business culture magazine Portfolio, the folks at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's don't feel a similar need. If they had their way, we'd consume half-pound hamburgers topped with, among other things, a hot dog, early and often.
File under newsflash: University of Pennsylvania researchers have found that counties with a higher concentration of fast food joints also have higher obesity rates:
"We found that there was an association between the amount of full-service restaurants (with waiters) in the county one lives in and a lower risk of obesity,' said Neil Mehta of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Conversely, we found that the increase in the number and the amount of fast food restaurants was associated with an increase in obesity,' he added in an interview."
[O'Brien's] theory—that the food supply is being manipulated with additives, genetic modification, hormones, and herbicides, causing increases in allergies, autism, and other disorders in children—is not supported by leading researchers or the largest allergy advocacy groups.
On such an emotionally freighted issue it's hard to figure out who's right and who's wrong.
Ed's previous post on Michael Pollan's "food commandments" reminded me of the latest issue of Wired magazine, which I paged through recently. In Ed's entry, he quotes Pollan as saying "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle." Wired ran a handy little graphic that neatly illustrated this concept, pointing out that the center aisles of the market are loaded with the cheapest, most calorie-laden foods. Click the graphic above for a better view.
Here they are, Michael Pollan's Twelve Commandments for Serious Eaters, from his new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. As Jamie Forrest noted yesterday, a few food pundits are taking him to task for a number of them. I'm down with most of what brother Pollan is preaching. What about you? These commandments are made to order for serious fat-chewing.
1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." Hard to argue with that. I don't think my grandmother would have recognized porcini mushroom foam as food, though.
2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce." Hey, what about bouquet garni?
3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."
5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."
6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has posted an easy-to-understand visual on its site that shows which foods U.S. tax dollars go to support under the nation's farm bill. It's titled "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?" and depicts two pyramids—subsidized foods and the old recommended food pyramid. It's interesting to note that the two are almost inversely proportional to each other.
A Calorie Counter pores over the nutritional info of 21 chains, looking for trans-fat transgressions. The top 3: White Castle Onion Rings (30g trans fat), White Castle Fish Nibblers (16g), and KFC's Chicken Pot Pie (14g). Jack in the Box tops the list in frequency; 24 of its items appear on it.
Their books, which teach parents to disguise veggies in brownies, mac and cheese, and pudding, are wrong on so many levels, Mimi Sheraton writes. "First, children get the wrong message that sweets and starches are good for them." Second is "the invisibility of vegetables in their own recognizable forms. As a result, children are not afforded the opportunity to get used to the idea of trying and learning about them. Nor will they consider them necessary for good health."
Unless your food allergies exclude only six kinds of food, you don't have it that bad.
12-year-old Tyler Savage, also known as the boy who is allergic to almost every food, lives on a diet of chicken, grapes, tuna, carrots, apples and potatoes due to having eosinophilic enteropathy, a disorder that causes his intestines to make too many white blood cells attack most foods that pass through it. Eating anything outside of those six foods may result in violent illness involving vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, and passing out. In addition to eating the six foods, he must take liquid vitamins and minerals through a tube connected to his stomach.
Thankfully, he's doing much better now than he was about a year ago when he was first diagnosed with his nearly lifelong disease. As he learns what foods his body will accept his list of safe foods will hopefully extend into the two-digit range.
The results of a study conducted using 5,000 middle and high school students in Minneapolis in 1999 are not exactly counterintuitive. Children eat better when they're not alone. Girls eat more, which means they're less likely to develop eating disorders. Boys had fewer vegetables when they weren't eating with their parents,
If having the TV on succeeds in luring uncommunicative kids to the family table because the screen and the sound offer a distraction, the study says so be it.
Is super-sanitized food good for us in the long run or is it giving us weak digestive systems? Kent Sepkowitz of Slate magazine gives reasons "Why Americans should ingest more excrement."
No, you don't have to eat the stuff out of a bowl, but a pathogen or two won't kill you. Sepkowitz explains the current situation with our mostly squeaky clean food supply.
Our food is hosed and boiled and rinsed and detoxified and frozen and salted and preserved. Recently, we have begun to irradiate it, too—just in case. As a result, when our bodies encounter the occasional inevitable bug, they're unhappy. Our centuries-long program of winnowing out all the muck has turned us into sissies and withered the substantial part of the immune system mediated by our intestinal tract.
Instead of obsessing over killing all possibly harmful organisms in our food, Sepkowitz suggests that scientists should find out how much crap we can safely eat and how much we need to eat to stay healthy.
Thirty years ago, leafy spinach wasn't the green enemy and contaminated Odwalla juice hadn't killed a kid yet. These and other food policy issues were discussed at last week's 30th annual National Food Policy Conference in downtown D.C., where Serious Eats was on the scene with a room full of scientists, congressional members, strategists from Tyson and Kraft foods, and the conference BMOCs—the "ag" crowd (the USDA and FDA).
'In my day, we didn't die trying to eat PB and J.'
Experts discussed issues like contaminated Peter Pan peanut butter, healthier school lunches, and the farm bill. Snarkiest among panelists was molecular biologist and Kansas State University professor Douglas Powell, who said media wasn't doing enough. In his web forum, Barf Blog, he uses his potty mouth to describe oral-fecal outbreaks.
'The word poop just registers with people.'
He and other International Food Safety Network researchers post news clips, podcasts, and videos on how often the public eats poop unknowingly. To underscore his point, he quoted Jon Stewart: "If you think the 'Employees Must Wash Hands' sign will keep piss out of your burger, you're wrong," Powell believes burger-flippers, farmers picking fruit, and other food-handlers on the front lines should be watched closer.
Posted by Alaina Browne, September 27, 2007 at 6:15 PM
Michael Ruhlman and Anthony Bourdain announce the inaugural Golden Clog Awards, the best and worst of the year in food. The award categories run the gamut from the Rocco Award, for worst career move by a talented chef, to the Chef's Chef Award, for the least heralded yet most deserving working chef. [Ruhlman.com]
Economics drive surge in U.S. food imports: " 'There are economic factors that are pushing' this growth in food imports, David Acheson, FDA's food safety czar, said at a conference on food policy. 'The expectation is, I don't want to pay $5 for a head of lettuce. How are you going to deal with that? You import the food,' he said." [Reuters]
Coffee and Tylenol don't mix: A study published online yesterday in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology found that big doses of caffeine (found in Red Bull and regular coffee) combined with acetaminophen or Tylenol may well raise the risk of liver damage. [U.S. News & World Report]
Posted by Ed Levine, September 27, 2007 at 2:45 PM
My wife has been asking me to give up diet soda for years, but I've managed to keep her at bay by telling her that, at the very least, drinking diet soda reduces my sugar intake.
Well, the Gourmet magazine email newsletter I just received says the opposite may be true. It mentions a recent study from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City, in which researchers concluded that "drinking diet soda actually causes your body to absorb more sugar. Turns out that artificial sweeteners trigger the same taste receptors in the small intestine that glucose does, releasing hormones that absorb sugar into the bloodstream."
I'm afraid I'm going to have to come up with another rationale to justify my Fresca and Diet Coke regimen.
In results that surprised most diet experts, the grocery store chain Hannaford Brothers yesterday released the results of a study that supports a surprising notion, namely that nutrition sells. The chain had conducted a yearlong experiment steering consumers to healthier foods using a store-created rating system called Guiding Stars, which rated the nutritional value of foods on a one- to three-star scale, three representing the healthiest foods.
I have a feeling that even the leaner, center-cut bacon got a measly one-star. If a labeling system like this went nationwide, I wonder if it would have a profound effect on people's food-buying and eating habits.
With childhood obesity rates skyrocketing, the New York Times reports that "school districts across the country have been taking steps to make food in schools healthier because of new federal guidelines and awareness that a growing number of children are overweight."
A few school districts have actually banned cupcakes at school birthday celebrations, which has some parents up in arms, because, to many, "the cupcake holds strong as a symbol of childhood innocence and parental love."
Parents in Texas lobbied to get a "Safe Cupcake Amendment" added to the state's nutrition policy. The measure, which passed, ensures that parents may bring frosted treats to schools for celebrations.
"I said to him, 'This is a very weird question, but bear with me. But are you around a lot of popcorn?' " Dr. Rose asked. "His jaw dropped and he said, 'How could you possibly know that about me? I am Mr. Popcorn. I love popcorn.' "
The man told Dr. Rose that he had eaten microwave popcorn at least twice a day for more than 10 years.
"When he broke open the bags, after the steam came out, he would often inhale the fragrance because he liked it so much," Dr. Rose said. "That's heated diacetyl, which we know from the workers' studies is the highest risk."
Posted by Wan Yan Ling, August 30, 2007 at 1:40 PM
Editor's note: This is the last of Wan Yan Ling's Snapshots from Asia series, as she's now back in the States for another semester of graduate school. I've really come to look forward to these twice-weekly little windows on day-to-day life in Singapore and am sad that this is the last one on Ling's figurative roll of film. The good news is that Ling is going to continue to write for us on a periodic basis—one that we'll figure out once she gets settled in for the fall. So, without further ado, here you go. —Adam
A popular image conjured up for TCM dispensaries is of a wizened, gray-bearded old man with spidery fingers, carefully measuring out roots, seeds, and twigs on sheaves of paper. There would be floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelves of glass alchemist jars threatening to avalanche at the slightest inquisitive prod, and labels in illegible hieroglyphs that told you nothing at all.
"This is a slice of heaven,” said Ryan Howell, 31, as he cradled his Combo Plate, which, for the record, consists of one battered Snickers bar, two battered Oreos and a battered Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup — all deep-fried in oil that is trans-fat free, thank goodness."
And if Mr. Howell chooses he can wash his combo plate down with something just as deadly.
I made my way out to Coney Island this weekend, a hotbed of deep-fried, greasy fair food if there ever was one. How reassuring it was then, as I stood in line for a hot dog, to find out via a hand-scrawled note on a paper plate–cum-sign, that my cheese fries were "100 per cent 'trans fats' free."
Federal regulations allow food labels to say there's zero grams of trans fat as long as there's less than half a gram per serving. And many packages contain more than what's considered one serving.
"The problem is that often people eat a lot more than one serving," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard School of Public Health. "In fact, many people eat two to three servings at a time."
Or they eat two to three servings of trans-fat-free cheese fries at a time.
Having struggled with a weight problem my entire life, I paid particular attention to the news that being fat may be a function of a germ-like phenomena passed around my rotund circle of friends. I used to blame my parents, may they rest in peace, for passing on their fat genes to me. Now it turns out my weight struggles aren't all their fault. The fat germ, as I'm calling it, turns out to be spread among friends, according to a just-published study.
The New York Times says:
If the new research is correct, it may say that something in the environment seeded what some call an obesity epidemic, making a few people gain weight. Then social networks let the obesity spread rapidly.
It may also mean that the way to avoid becoming fat is to avoid having fat friends.
Read on to find out which of my friends made me fat.
"Celiac disease (is) an autoimmune disorder affecting about 1 in 100 Americans that can cause serious problems if even a bit of gluten is ingested."
One in a hundred!? Yikes! That means that, at any given moment, three million Americans are looking for a tasty gluten-free bite. So today's article on restaurants that have worked hard to make good-tasting gluten-free food offers hope to those people suffering with celiac disease.
And a mea culpa here: I am one of those ignorant food writers who have been known to ridicule gluten-free cakes, breads, and pastas when I taste them. Never again.
I also liked the concise definition of gluten offered in the piece: "...gluten, a protein in wheat, barley, and rye, gives baked goods elasticity. Without it, cakes, breads, and pastries can be leaden, dry and crumbly."
Those of us who have Chinese friends may have heard them speculate on the "heating" or "cooling" properties of food. The curious among us may even have pressed them to elaborate on this singular notion that foods have "temperatures"—and no, it doesn't refer to ice cream being cold or hot potatoes being hot.
Based on a Buddhist Taoism belief that food is medicine, the kind and amount of food one takes is intimately related to one's health, and the selection of the "right" food is dependent on one's bodily condition at that time. The need to maintain balance—the complementary forces of yin and yang—for optimal health informs the categorization of food into hot or cold, and less significantly, wet or dry groups. Nourishing food is considered bu, which literally means "to repair" but is generally associated with "strengthening the bodily systems."
Brody, using the March of Dimes as her Chief of the Pregnancy Nutrition and Safety Police Battering Ram, seems to be spouting just the kind of stuff Shaw and Meg decry. Her basic thesis: "The March of Dimes is making a new push to dispel nutritional misinformation and replace it with advice based on solid scientific evidence. Some of the advice may come as a distressing surprise to women, who may be fond of foods or drinks that could endanger their pregnancy."
Every pregnant woman needs to find her own balance, and it's not going to be the same for each. For me the anxiety of worrying about what I ate was worse than actually eating it. Early on, I was so worked up I wasn't gaining enough weight. And that's a much worse consequence for a developing fetus.
Why take any risk? Because life is risky. Are you going to stop driving because you're pregnant? Are you going to stop leaving the house? I found my balance between enjoying food and tolerating risk, and it included the occasional Wellfleet on the half-shell. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the recommendations and to live in fear of every bite of food you put into your mouth. But that makes for a very stressful, anxious, long nine (plus) months. And that certainly isn't good for the fetus.
Meg and her husband, blogger Jason Kottke, brought young Ollie over to Serious Eats world headquarters last week, and he's a cute little bugger. And, as my mother-in-law told me after seeing our son, Will, for the very first time (when he was all of one day old), "I think he's very bright."
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.
... eating carbohydrate-rich food with a high glycemic index — a measure of a food’s potential to raise blood glucose levels — is associated with the development of the disorder.
The study found that foods made with simple carbs—cheese pizza, cakes, cookies—had a high glycemic index while those with complex carbs—brown rice, barley, many veggies—had a lower one, breaking down more slowly within the body.
If you're like most folks, you probably know someone with a severe food allergy. It's a condition that seems to be cropping up more and more lately, as this Washington Post article details:
"For reasons that we don't understand, the prevalence of food allergies has doubled in the last 15 years," notes Wesley Burks, chief of allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center. In a recently released report, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) calls food allergies an emerging and "important public health problem."
Among the theories for the increase are changes in the way food is processed and the age when solid food is introduced to infants. Some experts also contend that our obsession with cleanliness overprotects the immune system, which then reacts too aggressively when confronted with perceived foreign invaders, such as peanuts, instead of just taking them in stride.
A group of obsesity, nutrition, and addiction experts is meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, to discuss the possibility that obesity may be due to food addiction.
Although there is no official definition of food addiction, [Mark Gold, chief of addiction medicine at the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida] defines it in much the same way as other substance dependence: "Eating too much despite consequences, even dire consequences to health; being preoccupied with food, food preparation and meals; trying and failing to cut back on food intake; feeling guilty about eating and overeating."
According to a new study, moderate alcohol intake may be good for your health. In the New York Times: "Researchers have long known that people who drink moderate amounts of alcohol appear to be less likely to develop heart disease. Much of the benefit has been attributed to the higher levels of HDL cholesterol, often referred to as the 'good cholesterol'—found in moderate drinkers. The lipoproteins in this kind of cholesterol are believed to help the body fight off heart disease."
The new study suggests that "moderate drinking may encourage the formation of larger lioprotein particles in both HDL and LDL, the 'bad' cholesterol associated with cardiovascular problems."
Great tips on food safety for packed lunches, for those of you who bring your own food to work or pack lunches for others. I work from home and usually pick lunch up while I'm out walking my dog, or have something delivered, but I totally have packed lunch envy. [via YumSugar]
Harold McGee looks at research on the five-second rule and formulates version 2.0: "If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it’s worth eating."
I employ the five-second rule at my apartment and other people's houses, and for food that's fallen into my lap; everywhere else is pretty much a no-eat zone.
Gordon Ramsay thinks he knows why: "Running a kitchen is like running a marathon," he says. "It demands stamina and the ability to pace yourself. Being on your feet for 18 hours a day requires a level of fitness and strength that doesn't work well with excess weight. Most chefs rarely sit down for a square meal: you don't want to start service weighed down by a heavy dinner." Fat or skinny, I don't really care—just make me something delicious to eat! (Oh, and please pass the lardo...) [via The Food Section]
I can't decide whether this news from the BBC is great or terrifying, so maybe it's both: Scottish researchers are developing a pill to boost women's libidos while simultaneously reducing their appetites. As a psychologist points out in the article, a lot of the time our problems with both food and sex are not biological but mental—taking a pill that makes you want to eat a third less might make you lose weight, but it doesn't help you address why you felt you needed to eat all that extra food. It might be an easy diet, but it'll still end up a yo-yo diet.
(Also, if it does turn out to work, I'm sure there are many women who'd legitimately stand to benefit from taking it, but at the same time I worry it's yet another way to turn into Stepford Wives. Where's the pill to make me like doing dishes?)
Fans of dark chocolate probably already know it's chock-full of flavinoids that help reduce the risk of blood clots and blocked arteries, but new studies are now saying that eating dark chocolate may be just about as effective at lowering your blood pressure as taking common hypertensive drugs like the beta-blockers Tenormin or Inderal. Are people going to like dark chocolate less when they're required to eat some every day? Is milk chocolate going to become a forbidden pleasure?
I've always been somewhat dehydrated, which probably has something to do with my not liking the taste of water and therefore not drinking very much of it. Anyway, it turns out my mom (and probably yours) has been wrong all this time—not only do we not need to drink those eight glasses of water a day, but many people can meet the bare-minimum needs without having anything to drink during the day.
Also news to me: people who drink caffeine regularly, like coffee and sodas, become accustomed to it and don't lose fluid; a glass of Coke can provide the same amount of hydrating fluid as the equivalent amount of water! I'm still going to try to drink more water than I've historically done, but it's good to know I've not been completely parching myself all this time.
Janet Fletcher of the SF Chronicle got seriously obsessed with coconuts after vacationing in South India, where almost every dish she ate contained fresh grated coconut or coconut milk. She says, "For years, I have passed fresh coconuts by, not sure even how to crack one open or what to do with it if I did. But with the help of some local experts, I'm making up for lost time."
High in saturated fat, nutritionists have been warning us off of coconuts for years—the University of California's even says it has "has no redeeming vitamin or mineral assets". But, she says, "Malaysians, Thais, Indians and Indonesians -- all major coconut eaters -- don't even come close to our rate of obesity, and Americans are far more likely to die of heart disease than Malaysians or Thais are. If coconut were really so deadly, [her friend David] King suggests, wouldn't these people be sicker than we are?" And anyway, coconuts are known to raise HDL, a.k.a. the good kind of cholesterol, more than other kinds of fats so it's worth another look. In the meantime, let's eat it! Fletcher includes four recipes at the end of her piece, including one for Green Curry Chicken, one of my very favorite things to eat in the summer. The curry has a lot of ingredients, but comes out very delicate but decidedly spicy; it's a great introduction for people who haven't had a lot of Indian or Southeast Asian food, or who are hesitant to eat coconut in a savoury dish.
Eggs are getting safer, says Goody Solomon of the Washington Post: "In 2002, the last year for which numbers are available, 10 percent of reported Salmonella enteritidis outbreaks in the United States were related to eggs, compared with a spike of 80 percent in 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These days, according to the CDC, salmonella outbreaks are more likely to be caused by other foods: juices, salsa, meat, sprouts, fruits, and salads."
Slate's Jacob Weisberg breaks down the growing ubiquity of green tea: "In China and Japan, green tea is a hot drink usually served in a small ceramic cup. But to American commercial culture, green tea is yoga in a bottle—or in a can, candy bar, candle, lotion, soap, perfume, pill, or extract. Described as soothing and gentle, it sits paradoxically at the red-hot intersection of New Age health mania and industrial chemistry."
As an example, Weisberg points out that if you're drinking the Tazo Green Tea Frappucino at Starbucks for any other reason other than taste like, say, your health, you're delusional—the venti size has a whopping 560 calories, and that's without whipped cream. [via Amy's Robot]
Andrew Adam Newman of the New York Times, on why sales of pet food cookbooks are suddenly on the rise: "A month ago, the thought of preparing home-cooked meals for a dog or cat might have seemed obsessive even for the most devoted pet lovers. But with tainted pet food being blamed for at least 16 pet deaths — and some veterinarians predicting hundreds more to follow — preparing lamb stew for the family pet suddenly sounds sensible to at least a few more people."
As pet health writer Christie Keith said in the San Francisco Chronicle a few weeks ago, "The human race and its assorted domesticated animals have managed to survive and reproduce for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years, without the assistance of the modern food-manufacturing plant. This isn't a license to feed dogs a poorly constructed diet -- but rather a little reality check on the idea that your dog requires such a precise, nutritionally specific diet that you need finely calibrated laboratory equipment and a degree in nutrition to make his dinner. Aside from the willingness to do it, you really just need a few balanced recipes and the same measuring spoons and cups you'd use to make a cake from a mix."
The Pet Food List is a frequently updated list of companies that "have made statements that their pet food is not affected by the Menu Foods recall." My dog is a big fan of both Solid Gold (dry and canned food) and Stella and Chewy's (frozen steaks), both of which appear on the list; they're small companies that take more care with their ingredients and sourcing, and Jarvis thinks their food is pretty tasty!
University of Maryland food chemists said on Monday they had found ways to enhance the antioxidant content of whole-grain wheat pizza dough by baking it longer at higher temperatures and giving the dough lots of time to rise.
It actually turns out that the "higher temperatures" cited were between 400 and 550°F, which isn't all that out of the ordinary for most pizza ovens. What's interesting here is whether this effect occurs in whole-wheat pies cooked in high-heat pizzeria ovens. [via Cyrus]
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?
Our own Megnut and my friend Andrew both sent me this article on the supposed unhealthiness of Chinese food written by Libby Quaid, based on a report released yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (which, by the way has serious detractors). All three of us were incredulous at how ignorant the piece is, the lede being a prime example: "The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found. A plate of General Tso's chicken, for example, is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day. " Are you kidding me? Did someone just seriously start a piece on Chinese cuisine by holding up a dish invented in New York for the American palate? It doesn't get any better the further you go.
The problem with Quaid's piece is that it so happily sounds alarm bells about Chinese food without ever once taking into account that a) what most people in the US encounter at stripmall hole-in-the-walls would be pretty unrecognizable to what Chinese eat in China, or even in a proper Chinatown, b) people eat family-style, taking only a few spoonfuls from any given dish among many on the table, and c) individual portions of any cuisine in the US are usually twice to thrice the size of what they would be in their country of origin. If Chinese cuisine was really so intrinsically and terribly fattening, you'd think that after millennia of, you know, eating it on a daily basis, the Chinese would be both terribly fat and short-lived, but the truth is the opposite. The Chinese approach to food is all about eating well, but that means eating a wide range of food and eating in moderation, things every healthy eater already knows and follows.
"A pet-food manufacturer recalled 60 million units over the weekend after at least nine cats and a dog died of kidney failure. No one has identified the source of the contamination, but the company said the recalled products included a suspect batch of wheat gluten. What else goes into pet food?" Slate's Michelle Tsai answers the question, and it may not be stuff you're comfortable with.
What we should all take away from the recent food recall is that if you love your pets, you should be careful about what they eat. Don't just buy the cheapest sack of kibble on the supermarket shelf or the can with the most appetizing sounding name, read the list of ingredients first. And be wary of long lists of things you can't pronounce, just like you would be with what you put into your own body. Pick the right food and then make sure you're giving them the appropriate amount for their weight, age and activity level—food poisoning isn't the biggest threat to pet health, obesity is.
Janet Helms of the Seattle Times wrote a seven item quiz on nutrition and diet myths, to point out that much of what we probably think is true is actually anything but. My favorite item:
2. Low-fat always means low calories.
Myth. If you see the word "low" on the label, that's your clue to look a little further, suggested dietitian Susan Moores, of Minneapolis. Check for serving size and the number of calories on the Nutrition Facts label. Low-fat foods often contain the same amount or even more calories than regular versions.
That's particularly true for fat-free foods. If fat is taken out, something else is put back in — and that's often sugar. Some studies suggest that snacks with low-fat labels simply entice you to indulge, so you end up eating more calories than if you selected the regular version.
Oily fish contain Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which lower blood pressure and raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, while reducing "bad" triglycerides in your blood. There's increasing evidence that these fatty acids also protect against heart attacks, since they make the blood less sticky and prone to forming clots. Put simply, eating lots of oily fish is good for your heart.
So which are the oily fish? Salmon, trout, mackerel, herrings, sardines, pilchards, kippers, eels, whitebait, anchovies and sprats all qualify, whether they're tinned or fresh. Tuna counts only if it's fresh, so no points for that tuna mayo sandwich, I'm afraid. (And since tuna is overfished and has worrying levels of mercury, it's best left off the menu anyway.)
Johnny from Popgadget discusses how beef with a pedigree could make us safer: "TraceBack is a new system for DNA testing cattle and swine, and then recording the movements of the butchered meat. A butcher would be able to take a small sample of beef and cross-reference the DNA against an IdentiGEN database to verify that the meat is from a healthy animal." Alternately, health departments can use TraceBack to identify the source of contamination during outbreaks, from the point of sale all the way back to the farm and to which particular animal was sick.
For some, being unable to eat fried catfish, macaroni and cheese, pastrami on rye or chicken barley soup borders on truly bad news. For millions of Americans, however, eating those foods is actually dangerous. They are living with celiac (pronounced "SEAL-ee-ack") disease, which means that anything with gluten - wheat, barley, rye or oats - wreaks havoc with the body. Ingesting gluten jump-starts a reaction that causes certain immune system cells to attack the intestine, leaving the gluten-intolerant unable to properly absorb nutrients.
Celiac disease affects about one in every 133 people and has been described as "the most common genetic disease" in the US, so even if you've never heard of it until today chances are pretty good you know someone who suffers from it. If you'd like to find out more about celiac disease, two of the most informative sites on eating for celiac disease sufferers are blogs, CeliacChicks and Gluten-Free Girl.
As some serious eaters may have noticed, I have started writing a weekly restaurant review. I'm looking forward to my reviewing stint, but I am wondering about its effect on my diet and life. Two more restaurant meals a week, piled on top of all the other food I eat in the name of the work and life I love, will put even more pressure on my "all things in moderation" regimen. 
Saturday night I went out to dinner with two friends, one who does not have children and one whose daughter just celebrated her first birthday. The former suggested that I might want to order a certain salad, but the new mother said, “No, she can’t have feta! You can’t eat soft cheese when you’re pregnant.” Sheepishly I thought of the occasional salads with pasteurized feta I had been enjoying at home and asked, “Isn’t it okay if it’s pasteurized?” Granting that her doctor is very conservative, she said she had been told to avoid soft cheeses like feta altogether. The week before at a dinner party, another friend (who is a little farther along in her pregnancy than I am) had mentioned her doctor’s opinion that anything pasteurized was safe.
According to the New York Times, 
As most people know, we love fat in just about all its forms here at Serious Eats. We love bacon, barbecue, butter, lardo, guanciale, prime dry-aged beef, Wagyu beef, burgers, lard, prosciutto, cheese, and pastrami. But we try to advocate consuming these ultradelicious fatty foods in moderation.
I've now read Kim Severson's 
Their books, which teach parents to disguise veggies in brownies, mac and cheese, and pudding, are wrong on so many levels, 
Is super-sanitized food good for us in the long run or is it giving us weak digestive systems? Kent Sepkowitz of Slate magazine gives reasons 
Remember "popcorn lung," 
I made my way out to Coney Island this weekend, a hotbed of deep-fried, greasy fair food if there ever was one. How reassuring it was then, as I stood in line for a hot dog, to find out via a hand-scrawled note on a paper plate–cum-sign, that my cheese fries were "100 per cent 'trans fats' free."
Slate's Jacob Weisberg breaks down 
It might be high in antioxidants, 
