The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Marion Nestle investigates food industry sponsored research in her latest book

Every time I hear about how research shows a food, such as coffee, is good for you, I wonder who paid for the research.

Marion Nestle, consumer activist, nutritionist, and professor, looks at research paid for by food companies in a new book.

In “Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat,” Nestle reveals how millions of dollars flow from corporations and trade groups to research laboratories at colleges and universities, distorting how consumers think about food and health. The ultimate goal of this research is to promote sales of their products.

7 cancer-causing food additives widely used in foods banned by the FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned seven chemicals used in artificial flavors that have been linked to cancer in animals.

“Chemicals that could cause cancer should never have been allowed in our food in the first place, especially not hiding behind the confusing label of ‘artificial flavors,’” said Melanie Benesh, the Environmental Wording Group’s legislative attorney. “The FDA finally did the right thing by taking this important step to better protect consumers.”

The EWG and other environmental and public health groups petitioned the FDA for the ban.

No amount of alcohol is safe, global study shows

A new study finds there’s no safe level of drinking alcohol.

The study shows that in 2016, nearly 3 million deaths globally were due to alcohol use, including 12 percent of deaths in males between the ages of 15 and 49. The report was published Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet.

“The health risks associated with alcohol are massive,” said Emmanuela Gakidou, Ph.D., professor of global health at the University of Washington School of Public Health and the senior author of the study. “Our findings are consistent with other recent research, which found clear and convincing correlations between drinking and premature death, cancer, and cardiovascular problems. Zero alcohol consumption minimizes the overall risk of health loss.”

The worst chain restaurant meals for 2018

 

The Cheesecake Factory Breakfast Burrito

The Cheesecake Factory’s Breakfast Burrito is the “winner” of the 2018 Xtreme Eating Award for the Worst Way to Start the Day. It’s the nutritional equivalent of seven Sausage McMuffins from McDonald’s. The burrito is one of two Cheesecake Factory items among the awards issued for 2018 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.

The Breakfast Burrito is a “warm tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, chicken chorizo, cheese, crispy potatoes, avocado, peppers and onions, over spicy ranchero sauce” that is served with sour cream, salsa, and black beans, according to The Cheesecake Factory. The meal has more than a day’s worth of calories, 2,730; two days’ worth of sodium, 4,630 milligrams; and more than three days’ worth of saturated fat, 73 grams.

“Long gone are the days when a big restaurant meal was an occasional splurge,” said Lindsay Moyer, senior nutritionist for the center. “Americans are eating out more than ever before. So when restaurant chains are serving up 2,000 calories or more on a single plate, it’s easy to see why people continue to struggle with overweight, obesity, and diet-related diseases.”

20 books to read about food this spring

The Food Tank is recommending 20 new books on food and agriculture to celebrate spring. Topics include the paradox of obesity and malnutrition, building strong communities through socially-conscious food systems, and the essential link between food and healt

Books are from Italy, Puerto Rico, Australia and many other countries.

The reading list includes:

1. “Bread is Gold,” Massimo Bottura

2. “Eat a Little Better: Great Flavor, Good Health, Better World,” Sam Kass

3. “The Faces of Local Food: Celebrating the People Who Feed Us,” Charlotte Caldwell

4. “Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities,” Gary Paul

5. “Food Is the Solution: What to Eat to Save the World,” Matthew Prescott

How to reduce the amount of harmful pesticides you and your children eat

All adults and children should eat more fruits and vegetables, whether they’re organic or conventionally grown, most diet plans and health care professionals recommend. The EWG’s 2018 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce can help you choose healthy produce while cutting down on unwanted doses of toxic pesticides.

Pesticide residues are common on conventionally grown produce, even after it’s washed or peeled. The EWG's analysis of the most recent tests by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that nearly 70 percent of samples of conventionally grown produce were contaminated with pesticide residues.

The USDA tests found 230 different pesticides and pesticide breakdown products on the thousands of produce samples analyzed. The EWG's review of the tests shows that there are big differences among various types of produce. The Shopper's Guide lists the Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residues, and the Clean 15, for which few, if any, residues were detected.

9 reasons planting an awesome vegetable garden can improve your life

By Kevin Rodrigues, a developer-turned-blogger, blogging at Gardening Mentor

It’s your dream. You want to grow an awesome vegetable garden and reap the benefits. But, growing a vegetable garden is much more than just getting vegetables.

Sure you’ll be enjoying a harvest of wonderful food on your plate. But, planting a vegetable garden can improve your life as well. Your health and well-being will be transformed for the better. And, you’ll save some money in the process.

So, I hope you’re ready for the wonderful benefits of growing a vegetable garden.

1. You’ll start hating vegetables

Yeah, really. But only the ones that you buy from grocery stores. Once you grow your own vegetables, you’ll wonder how you could have eaten the store-bought ones. The problem with them is they’re grown for a profit. And growing for profit tends to compromise on the quality and flavor of the vegetables.

That’s because these vegetables are harvested days before they ripen, then transported across the country to a grocery store near you. And, the more time a vegetable spends on the shelf, the more it loses flavor and nutrients.

When you grow your own vegetables, you’ll harvest them when they are ready and not before. So you get to eat the vegetables when they’re the most nutritious and flavorful.

And, once you experience the awesome taste of fresh vegetables, there’s no going back to the store-bought ones.

What’s your plan for avoiding sugar during the holiday season?

When listening to a new person, a dietitian, on public television describing her recommended diet plan, she started with reducing sugar from your diet. Sigh. Yet another diet plan with that requirement.

For a person such as me with a sugar addiction, the holidays are difficult. However, one holiday season when my A1C score, which measures the amount of hemoglobin in the blood over a three-month period and is used to diagnose diabetes, went up to 6, I did really well. I reduced it to 5.3.

I recently heard a doctor on television say that no matter what diet plan you select – high carb, low carb, Weight Watchers, Paleo, South Beach, Mediterranean, or vegetarian – what you need to do is eat more vegetables and less sugar.

Here are my tips for reducing sugar during the holidays:

How to make chocolate raspberry pie

When I was at the co-op the other day, I saw some premade pie crust. One was graham cracker and the other was chocolate.

In the early 1990s, I stopped baking cookies, pies, and other desserts as part of a plan to improve my health. I still make pie, usually raspberry pies using raspberries from my garden, with an olive oil crust. You mix it up like regular pie crust, then pat it in a pie plate, reserving some of the dough to dot on the top. I don't add sugar to the raspberries.

Since I don't eat sugar, I normally wouldn't have purchased the premade pie crust, which contained sugar, but I was curious about what the chocolate pie crust would taste like.

Facts and figures for Halloween 2017

Source: WalletHub

 

Copyright 2017, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist