Well, I took a few weeks off from updates … but the world and the news didn’t stop!  Here are some highlights about foods and eating. The Vegan Boom and My Month on an Animal-Free Diet The Vegan Boom and My Month on an Animal-Free Diet

No, thank you! You Don’t Want Fries With That was reported by Christopher Mele in the Health Section of The New York Times, 29 November 2018.

If French fries come from potatoes, and potatoes are a vegetable, and vegetables are good for you, then what’s the harm in eating French fries? Plenty, say experts and nutritionists, including Eric Rimm, a professor in the departments of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harva rd T. H. Chan School of Public Health, who called potatoes “starch bombs.”

Potatoes rank near the bottom of healthful vegetables and lack the compounds and nutrients found in green leafy vegetables, he said. If you take a potato, remove its skin (where at least some nutrients are found), cut it, deep fry the pieces in oil and top it all off with salt, cheese, chili or gravy, that starch bomb can be turned into a weapon of dietary destruction.

A study last year in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition noted that potatoes have a high glycemic index, which has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.The study found that, controlling for other risk factors, participants who ate fried potatoes two to three times a week were at a higher risk of mortality compared with those who ate unfried potatoes.

What about sweet potato fries?  NO! Sweet potato fries might offer more Vitamin A and fiber than white potato fries but they’re still no health food, experts say.

 
 
 

The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right is an amazingly comprehensive article by Mark Bittman and Dr. David L. Katz, published in New York Magazine.  If you make it through this article, PLEASE comment … and then eat something you like!  It’s basi

It’s beyond strange that so many humans are clueless about how they should feed themselves. Every wild species on the planet knows how to do it; presumably ours did, too, before our oversized brains found new ways to complicate things. Now, we’re the only species that can be baffled about the “right” way to eat.

 

Just tell me. Ethical concerns aside, which diet is the best: vegan, vegetarian, or omnivorous?  We don’t know, because the study to prove that any one diet is “best” for human health hasn’t been done, and probably can’t be. So, for our health, the “best” diet is a theme: an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, and plain water for thirst. That can be with or without seafood; with or without dairy; with or without eggs; with or without some meat; high or low in total fat.

Read more: The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right

 

Vitamin D And Fish Oil Supplements Mostly Disappoint In Long-Awaited Research Results was reported by Patti Neighmond on NPShots, Health News from NPR, 10 November 2018.  Really? 

A long-awaited government-funded research has produced some of the clearest evidence yet about the usefulness of taking the supplements. And the results — published in two papers — are mostly disappointing.

“Both trials were negative,” says Dr. Lawrence Fine, chief of the clinical application and prevention branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the studies.

“Overall, they showed that neither fish oil nor vitamin D actually lowered the incidence of heart disease or cancer,” Fine says. The results were presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago and released online Saturday by The New England Journal of Medicine. One paper focused on vitamin D supplementation, and the other focused on fish oil.

Read more: Vitamin D And Fish Oil Supplements Mostly Disappoint

 

The Vegan Boom and My Month on an Animal-Free Diet was published by Henry Mance on the Financial Times, 24 September 2018. 

Corey Harrower wants to make one thing clear: “I’m a vegan but not an asshole.” Vegans — people who don’t eat or even use any animal products — have a reputation for evangelising. Harrower, a 35-year-old former professional dancer originally from Vermont, wants to change that. He says that he has never directly tried to convert anybody. “I don’t think anyone likes people who tell them what to eat.”

But Harrower, who turned vegan about five years ago, may have found a more ingenious way to spread the ­message. ROLI, the London-based music technology company where he is chief people officer, offers all its employees a free lunch every day. At his instigation, the meal is always vegetarian — and generally vegan. Around 120 employees now eat meat-free lunches; some take leftovers home for dinner.

Want to read the article?  Send me a request at joanne@thesavvydiabetic.com … I’ll send you the pdf.

 

Red Meat Diet Bulks up Atherogenic Metabolite, but It Can Be Reversed was published by Nicole Lou on MedPageToday.com, 11 December 2018. Randomized diet study shows what 4 weeks of daily burgers can do … wow!

Red meat consumption tracks closely with levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a byproduct of red meat digestion linked to increased heart disease risk, a randomized trial affirmed.

One month on a heavy red-meat diet (equivalent to 8 oz steak a day) increased plasma and urine TMAO levels more than twofold compared with either a diet high in white meat or in non-meat proteins.

Conversely, swapping out red meat for white meat or non-meat protein reduced blood and urine TMAO back to baseline levels within 4 weeks, Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues reported online in European Heart Journal.

Read more: Red Meat Diet Bulks up Atherogenic Metabolite, but It Can Be Reversed

 

Share This
Skip to content