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Diets

The best diet is the one that works for you, that allows you to feel comfortable in your skin, literally and figuratively. All “diets” are restrictive, in calories, categories of food, or when and how you eat. Let’s consider a few.

See-food – This is by far and away the most common diet. We see something tasty, often something engineered to create that response in us, and we eat it. While we are “restricted” by what we can see and desire, it often meets our emotional rather than nutritional needs. 

Calorie-restricted – This is the classic based on the “calories in should equal calories out” model. It is more nuanced. Your body recognizes the dwindling calories and turns down your metabolism...

The headline is not exaggeration or hyperbole. Scientific American just ran an article claiming that vegetables are becoming like sugary snacks and are toxic. And that's not even the worst part.

The article was given the ridiculous headline "Broccoli Is Dying. Corn Is Toxic. Long Live Microbiomes!" It was co-authored by a marine biologist and a retired English teacher. As one might expect from the headline, the article makes one outrageous, unscientific claim after another. The lies, distortions, and laugh-out-loud whoppers start early and often. Let's dissect them:

As food writer Mark Bittman recently remarked,...

In their latest move to protect consumers from deadly chemicals that aren't deadly, the member states of the European Union have voted to set legal limits on the amount of acrylamide in foods. Acrylamide, of course, is the chemical naturally formed when foods containing large amounts of carbohydrates that also contain protein are cooked at high temperatures — think fried and baked potatoes and bread, and many many other foods (even coffee).

A couple of years ago the European Food Safety Authority said that acrylamide is a carcinogenic risk for all age groups. The folks behind a lot of this attention is a "sustainability pressure group" called Changing Markets. Like similar American groups, they made...

A large-scale study published this month in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy warns us about the dangers of a product sold in stores throughout the country. The U.S.-based trade association promoting the sale of this significant food allergen even has an entire section on their webpage promoting its health benefits.

Most frightening, they seem to be promoting their product to children!

So you would expect to see the "Food Police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest call for stores to stop selling the product, as they have done with the meat substitute Quorn (pronounced like corn) or have entire...

Passionate advocates of organic farming and foods resemble members of a religious cult, one founded on a back to Nature mentality. They are not so fundamentalist, however, that they do not make concessions to reality. For example, organic standards arbitrarily define which pesticides are acceptable, but allow deviations if based on need. Synthetic chemical pesticides are generally prohibited, although there is a lengthy list of exceptions in the Organic Foods Production Act, while most natural ones are permitted (and the application of pathogen-laden animal excreta as fertilizer is allowed). The decisions are made in a murky process...

We d like to draw your attention to two recent articles that have shed light on the drastic increase in propaganda and junk science surrounding genetically modified organisms, such as an embarrassing scientific study from a team of French researchers who purported to find that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop tumors and die prematurely.

The first, an article published in Slate, beautifully attacks not only GMO-phobia, but it exposes how campaigns and politics distort the science on genetically modified foods.

Here s an excerpt:

I ve found...

The results of a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report have corrected a long held misconception of the number of fatalities associated with foodborne illnesses. Most news media typically report that there are thousands of foodborne-related deaths annually, yet the latest statistics from 2008 put the number at just 22. This doesn t mean that foodborne illness shouldn t be taken seriously, however; these unpleasant contaminations still result in over 1,000 hospitalizations and over 23,000 illnesses each year. Beef, poultry, and finfish were the food culprits associated...

Peanut allergy can be life-threatening

Peanuts are legumes, and it is different from tree nuts. A person allergic to peanuts may not be allergic to almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, and pecans. 

In peanut allergy, the body thinks that the peanut is a harmful substance and tries to protect the body from it. When the immune system attempts to build antibodies against peanut protein, reactions start. Allergy can affect the skin, eyes, nose, intestinal tract, lungs, and blood vessels. The symptoms are itchiness around the mouth and throat, digestive problems like diarrhea and vomiting, runny nose, short breath, and skin rash. Some reactions can be mild, but others may be moderate or even severe. A severe reaction is called anaphylaxis and is a medical...

This past week, a story went viral that calls into question the media's ability to separate fact from fiction, even when handed a story that is obviously not true.

The story centered around a married couple, Akahi Ricardo and Camila Castello, who define themselves as "breatharian." They claim to not need food and water because they possess the ability to live solely off the energy of the universe with comments that this is "not possible when you don't have the state of mind. When your mind doesn't believe it's possible, it won't be possible."

What they failed to mention in the story is that they also eat. They must - there is simply no way around it. Not eating food leads to death - breatharian state of mind or not. It doesn't take a physician, scientist, nutritionist or...

I've written before about the problems with changing people's behavior when it comes to making food selections with respect to both choosing healthy options and reducing calories. A tactic that's been repeatedly suggested is to levy taxes on foods and/or beverages supposedly responsible for over-consumption and poor nutrition, especially with respect to sugary beverages. But are these really necessary to change behavior? Probably not, if what happened in a Maryland County is any indication.

Four years ago, people in Howard County, Maryland decided to try to decrease the consumption of sugar-sweetened soft drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, fruit drinks and...