A crack is appearing in eggs’ healthy image

Food science is inexact at best. I’m constantly reminded that as different nutritionists or diet proponents say they know what’s healthy and it may not be what the other person is pushing. The humble egg is a great example of that. Once it was considered bad, then good, but now bad again, according to a new study.

Time to switch to egg white omelets, according to a new study saying eggs aren’t all they were once cracked up to be.

For years, doctors and nutritionists told people worried about their cholesterol levels not to eat eggs, or at least not egg yolks which contain relatively high levels of cholesterol. But then eggs started making a healthy comeback, spurred I’m sure by studies paid for by the egg industry.

The last few nutritionists I’ve heard from actually touted eggs for their protein content and their ability to make you feel fuller after eating them. Continue reading “A crack is appearing in eggs’ healthy image” →

What the dates on food actually mean

If you’ve ever felt confused about the dates on food products, you’re not alone. Roughly 84% of consumers toss a product if the date on the package, whether called “Use by” or “Sell by” or “best if used by” is reached or passes, found a study of 1,029 consumers done back in 2016, reports the journal Waste Management.

The problem is those terms are not regulated, so food processors are free to sue whatever language they want. And they say the dates just indicate “peak flavor” or when a store should stop displaying a product. None of the terms relates to food safety, reports a story on the survey in Time.

So how do you know when food is spoiled? Follow the old expression “The Nose Knows,” the article suggests. If something smells bad, it is. If it taste bad or looks bad (IE visible mold), toss it.

It’s still consumer beware.

March 11, 2019 0

A quick spring salad — radicchio and asparagus give it variety

The trick to keep salads from getting boring for those of us who eat a lot of them is to mix up the variety of items to add to the basic lettuce. This salad, using bibb lettuce along with radicchio, and asparagus, popped up recently in a Cooking Light email I receive and I thought it sounded worth sharing.

Ingredients are simple and easy to prepare (leave out the salt as we usually advise):

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
~~1/4 teaspoon kosher salt~~ (who needs this)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups thinly sliced radicchio
1 cup diagonally sliced asparagus
1 head Bibb lettuce, leaves separated and torn (about 6 oz.)

Continue reading “A quick spring salad — radicchio and asparagus give it variety” →

March 8, 2019 0

Women may benefit more from low-salt diets than men

Women may benefit more from low-salt diets than will men when it comes to reducing their high blood pressure, a study published in the research journal Hypertension.

As all too often happens, past research has looked primarily at men and their reactions to salt, the study authors note.

The researchers worked with male and female rats and found It all has to do with levels of a hormone called aldosterone. If you want the scientific specifics, click here.

The point is women need to watch their salt intake, especially if they’re already dealing with high blood pressure. We have plenty of low-salt and salt-free recipes on our recipe page, start your efforts to dump the salt there.

March 5, 2019 0

Soda tax can cut consumption, new study finds

Soda makers for years have lived in fear of local soda taxes that would hurt their businesses. When one passed on Cook County, Ill. where I live, a massive lobbying effort was launched that successfully repealed it.

My Super Big Gulp days are over when it comes to diet soda, I given it up for water on the advice of nutritionists...who didn't mention arsenic in water could be a cause of my heart troubles. — Should sugar-sweetened beverages be taxed?

Advocates of such taxes have cast them as public health issues, but here it was cast simply as a way to raise needed tax dollars. The thinking was the health argument is a hard one to sell to consumers who don’t want to give up their soda.

When soda taxes are enacted, they do cut consumption. The latest study on the topic, looking at a soda tax enacted by Berkeley, California, in 2014 shows that once again.

Consumption there dropped by half in the three years following the law’s passage, found a study done by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Continue reading “Soda tax can cut consumption, new study finds” →

March 4, 2019 0

Ever hear of the 80/20 Diet? It wouldn’t work for me

So many diet plans come and go, it’s always amusing to me how people think a specific plan could be the answer to all their eating and health problems. This piece I saw recently talks about the 80/20 Diet, which I hadn’t heard about before.

MY half slice of Junior's chocolate mousse cheesecake, Mmmmmmm. — MY half slice of Junior’s chocolate mousse cheesecake, Mmmmmmm.

Basically, it says it you eat healthy 80% of the time, you can splurge on junk food the other 20%, presumably on weekends which we tend to think of as rest and party time.

If you can be that mathematical about your eating, more power to you. I’m an all-or-nothing type of person, which means I either have to eat healthy all the time, or I eat junk food every single day. Continue reading “Ever hear of the 80/20 Diet? It wouldn’t work for me” →

March 3, 2019 0

Ever eat at Corner Bakery? If you’re cutting your salt, don’t

Life can have unexpected consequences sometimes. Since the New Year began, I’ve been on a cleaning and organizing binge, likely because of Japanese-super-organizer Marie Kondo and her new Netflix series. My wife and I even organized our kitchen junk drawer, usually a no-mans-land of forgotten items.

And in that drawer I found I had an old Corner Bakery gift card. Corner Bakery was an early entrant in the fast casual category of restaurants — places that tried to be a cut above hamburger joints and positioned themselves as healthier with fresher ingredients than tradition fast food.

But as always with such claims, the devil is in the details. Or should I say the salt is the devil in the menu? The reason I never finished using my Corner Bakery gift card was because of the high salt content of most Corner Bakery offerings. So I’ve had this card for years with about $7 left on it to spend.

So I visited the Corner Bakery site today to see if by chance its menu has changed from the high-salt offerings I remembered. Sadly, it has not. It does have some very cool nutrition search functions, including one where you build a meal and another where you can rank all the menu items by salt content (or any nutrition content). Continue reading “Ever eat at Corner Bakery? If you’re cutting your salt, don’t” →

February 28, 2019 0

Getting the salt out — it’s everywhere, here are some examples

Salt has become one of the three evils for my body since my first stent in 2012, and the second in 2016. I’ve redone my eating, cooking and food shopping habits to get the salt out of my diet and seen my blood pressure fall as a result.

Salt can lead to stomach cancer, one more reason to get it out of your diet. — Too much salt will be in processed and restaurant foods for years to come.

Americans eat more than the recommended amounts of salt daily because salt is in almost every food we buy, especially at restaurants, If you don’t believe that, take a look at this WebMD slide show about where salt hides in our foods.

Some, like frozen dinners or processed meats, you might already know about. But what about cereals, juices and canned veggies? Yep, there too. Enjoy and learn from the show…and do pass [up on] the salt.

February 27, 2019 0

Smart shopping in the frozen food aisle

Winter can be a tough time to find fresh fruits and vegetables at a reasonable price, depending on where you live (I’m in the Chicago are and its below freezing as I write this, so nothing is growing here right now except ice patches).

Frozen fruits and vegetables can be an acceptable alternative,m providing you don’t buy offerings that have any added salt, fat and sugar. avoid frozen veggies in sauces, for example.

The Food Network has a handy slide show of 10 Frozen Foods Nutritionists Always Buy. Continue reading “Smart shopping in the frozen food aisle” →

February 26, 2019 0

The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal