If you want to lose weight, dropping that meat may help

Cutting down on meat? Be careful what you replace it with.

If you are trying to eat less meat, you have plenty of company. Our cultural tide is flowing steadily in that direction. Just look around — there are multiple best-selling books touting the benefits of plant-based eating; the Meatless Monday campaign has gone mainstream, with awareness and participation climbing rapidly over the past decade; and the word “flexitarian” is now in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (meaning “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish”). Americans still eat about triple the global average of meat, but consumption trends show we are starting to back off. And people no longer consider beef-, pork- and poultry-free meals a fringe idea: 47 percent of those polled by the Vegetarian Resource Group said they eat at least one vegetarian meal each week, and the group reports one in four people says he or she is a “meat reducer,” actively trying to eat less of it. It’s a trend supported by our country’s top nutrition advisory committee which, in its recent report for the Dietary Guidelines update, recommended we cut back on meat for the sake of our health and the environment. But simply eating less meat is not a solid plan in and of itself. What you decide to pile on your plate instead of that steak, chop or cutlet is equally, if not more, important. If less meat translates to more stuffed-crust pizza or boxed mac and cheese for dinner, you could be doing yourself more harm than good. Even those committed to healthful vegetarian options often don’t strike the right balance. Many turn to dairy, particularly cheese, as their default protein, which can certainly make for nutrient-packed and delicious meals. But if you are eating meatlessly a lot, and dairy is your only go-to, you could be missing out on some important nutrients and getting more unhealthful fat than you realize. Meat is more than just protein — it is incredibly rich in several essential minerals and vitamins, particularly B vitamins, zinc, iron and selenium. While dairy packs many B vitamins, selenium, and other nutrients in spades, it doesn’t have zinc, iron, or much B6. And while options such as low-fat yogurt and milk are lean, a piece of cheddar cheese the size of your thumb has about double the saturated fat of three ounces of lean beef. To eat healthfully with less meat, it’s important to include more plant protein: nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, peas and whole grains. While these are incomplete proteins, lacking the full spectrum of essential amino acids in sufficient amounts on their own, the amino acids in grains complement those in the nuts and legumes, so together they are complete. You don’t have to eat them at the same time, as was once thought. Just getting a variety throughout the day will help cover you, not only for the protein you’d otherwise be getting from meat, but for iron, zinc, and B6 as well. Plus, they contain healthful fats, fiber and a spectrum of protective antioxidants. Enjoying them is as easy as opening a can of chickpeas to sprinkle on your salad, tossing some frozen shelled edamame and/or almonds into a vegetable stir-fry to serve over brown rice, slapping together a peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread, making some lentil soup or buying a container of hummus. Thanks to the meatless trend’s popularity, there are more plant protein options than ever in restaurants and fast-casual spots, from bean burritos to salads with topping options like quinoa and sunflower seeds. It would also be a step in the right direction if eating less meat got you hooked on more seafood. The average American gets less than half the recommended 8 ounces a week, an amount that studies show can reduce your risk of dying of a heart attack by about a third. That benefit is mostly due to protective omega-3 fats, but seafood is a total package with high-quality protein, many of the minerals and vitamins that meat has, and other nutrients.So toss some shrimp or a salmon fillet on the grill, flake some tuna on your salad, or toss some chopped sardines into your pasta. Eggs can also be a stellar way to get some of the protein and nutrients meat would provide. For just 140 calories, two large eggs give you 8 percent of the daily value for zinc, iron and B6, plus choline, vitamin D and many other nutrients. It is worth keeping in mind, though, that those two eggs have about the same amount of saturated fat as a three-ounce serving of T-bone steak. Nonetheless, eggs are so easy and economical it’s not surprising they are the latest darling of the culinary world. Add an egg to just about anything from a salad to a rice pilaf and it becomes a main course. If you need inspiration, search #PutanEggonIt on Instagram and you will find 21,000 entries. Whatever protein you choose, the bottom line is don’t blindly take the meat off your plate: Think, instead, about the quality and variety of what to fill it with. Krieger is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and author. She blogs and offers a biweekly newsletter at www.elliekrieger.com. She also writes weekly Nourish recipes in The Washington Post’s Food section. **** **Chat June 4 at 1 p.m. **Join Krieger for a live Q&A; about healthful eating.

Like meat too much to give it up? Semi-vegetarian is good for your health

When you consider Bill Clinton’s svelte physique after heart surgery and Paul McCartney’s onstage energy, it may seem that vegetarianism is a fountain of youth. And a strong body of research supports the idea that a plantcentric diet can boost your health, decreasing the risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers, and helping you stay at a healthful weight. It can even lengthen your life, according to a recent study in JAMA Internal Medicine that tracked more than 70,000 people. But for many, life without steak, barbecued chicken or pork tacos doesn’t sound so appealing. Fortunately, you don’t have to make an either/or choice. “Just making a shift to a more plant-based diet can offer significant health benefits,” says Reed Mangels, an adjunct associate professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Research shows that flexitarians — those who make plant foods the star of their diet, with meat, fish, dairy and eggs playing a supporting role — are healthier than frequent meat eaters in categories such as colon cancer and heart-disease risk and overall mortality. The main advantages of a vegetarian-leaning diet seem to be more related to the foods you’re eating lots of (vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts) rather than those you’re eating less of (meat). “When you base your meals on plant foods, you’re packing your diet with the fiber, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats that most Americans don’t get enough of,” says Sharon Palmer, editor of Environmental Nutrition. Plant-based diets are also full of phytochemicals, compounds that help keep many of your body’s systems running smoothly. For instance, the anthocyanins in berries help protect vision; carotenoids in carrots and cantaloupe, and the isothiocyanates in Brussels sprouts neutralize the free radicals that cause cell damage; and flavonoids in apples help control inflammation. How much meat can you eat and still get the benefits of a veggie diet? There’s not enough research to give a precise amount. “Diet is a continuum,” says Robert Ostfeld, director of preventive cardiology and founder and director of the Cardiac Wellness Program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “But patients who more fully embrace a whole-foods, plant-based diet have the best outcomes.” Still, research shows that eschewing meat all of the time isn’t necessary. In one recent preliminary study of more than 450,000 adults, those who followed a diet that was 70 percent plants had a 20 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke than those whose diets centered on meat and dairy. A Harvard study that tracked more than 120,000 people for 30 years found that those who ate the most red meat tended to die younger during the study period but that swapping just one daily serving of beef for nuts might cut the risk of dying early by as much as 19 percent. But can changing your diet after age 50 make a difference? Absolutely, according to experts. “It’s never too early or too late to embrace a healthier lifestyle,” Ostfeld says. “The benefits come quickly and continue to accrue with time.” In one study, women in that age group who ate a mostly plant diet were 34 percent more likely to be free of chronic diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, 15 years later than women whose diets included more meat. Any step you take will help, but the more plant foods and the fewer animal foods you eat, the better. Try these easy tips: ● **Up your vegetable and fruit intake.** Even if you don’t actively cut back on meat at first, adding more produce will help you develop a taste for plant foods and transition to a higher-fiber diet. “I recommend including vegetables at just about every meal and snack, even breakfast,” Palmer says. ● **Redesign your plate.** Fill at least half of your plate with produce, grains or beans, and downsize your meat serving. Think of a stir-fry heavy on the veggies and grains with thinly sliced strips of beef rather than a big steak with a spear of broccoli. ● **Pick the most-healthful meats.** You might want to focus first on decreasing the amount of processed meat you eat — bacon, deli meats, hot dogs and sausage. A Harvard study linked a daily serving equal to one hot dog or two slices of bacon to an increased risk of early death from heart disease and cancer. Red meat also has been associated with heart disease and cancer risk, but the evidence is less clear. When you do eat red meat, it’s best to stick to small amounts and choose lean cuts, such as pork tenderloin and top sirloin steak. And try to eat fatty fish such as salmon, which is high in inflammation-busting omega-3 fatty acids. ● **Find your semi-veg style.** Plant-based meals once every seven days in the style of Meatless Monday — a campaign that encourages people to start each week with a day of vegetarian eating — are a great way to begin. You can try replacing your meat ounce-for-ounce with a faux meat such as tempeh or tofu, Palmer says. More restrictive but also forgiving is the VB6 approach, where you eat vegan — no meat, fish, dairy or eggs — before 6 p.m. You’re free to have meat, fish, eggs or dairy at dinner. Copyright 2016. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

Red meat has many benefits for athletes, magazine says

In a time when health-conscious individuals often stick to the monotony of chicken breasts and fish for their protein, Runner’s World makes a pitch for chowing down on red meat. “Meat provides nutrients runners need like iron to help maintain energy levels. It also supplies protein and amino acids that repair small muscle tears that occur during training,” according to a sports dietitian quoted by the magazine. A lean cut of beef such as sirloin or tenderloin can be a great source of zinc and iron. And B vitamins, which “help convert carbohydrates into the fuel needed to make it through a training run, are particularly plentiful in beef,” according to the article’s author, Jessica Girdwain. She suggests several alternatives to chicken breast, pointing out that 3.5 ounces of dark-meat chicken, lamb, pork, turkey pastrami or beef contains the health benefits without overdoing the fat and calories. Dark-meat chicken has plenty of iron and zinc. Lamb is a great source of omega-3s, which are great for heart health. For white-meat devotees, pork is lower in fat than chicken and provides Vitamin B6, which Girdwain says can increase your metabolism. Turkey pastrami is a great source of electrolytes. That may not seem like a healthful choice, because deli meats can be sodium-heavy, but Girdwain quotes another sports dietitian as saying that athletes typically lose enough salt through sweat that the sodium content would not be a concern. Girdwain’s final recommendation to runners and other athletes: “Spread your protein intake throughout the day, eating some at each meal. Doing so is better for bone health, muscle mass, and satiety.” Fred DeVito and Elisabeth Halfpapp are dance, Pilates and yoga teachers who combine these activities with cardio and strength training to bring you a diverse fitness regime in this DVD, the most recent in a series. They’ll put you through your paces six days a week for five weeks if you follow this program, but fortunately each session is only 20 minutes. As with many exercise DVDs, the workouts provide variations to make them suitable for any fitness level; you’ll probably want dumbbells and a medicine ball for this program, though there are ways to work without them. A mat will make the floor exercises more comfortable. Weeks 1 and 3 are focused on strength. (Day 1 sets the pace with a fairly grueling series of push-ups and planks.) Weeks 2 and 4 are about cardio. Rapid squats and quick jumps in and out of the plank position are among these trainers’ favorite exercises, so if you don’t like them you’ll be unhappy. Week 5 combines strength and cardio. Yoga is interlaced through each workout to help your body stretch and recover. **— Whitney Fetterhoff  **

How to lose weight: Eat like a man; don’t diet; eat steak and not just salad.

It’s a cliche that it’s easier for men to lose weight than it is for women. And while testosterone has a lot to do with that, registered dietitian Jim White says another big reason is how men approach food. In an article on Fitness magazine’s Web site, he suggests seven “dude-style habits” that might help women shed a few pounds, including: ●Don’t always order the salad instead of the steak. Some nutrients that come along with protein, such as vitamin B12, are helpful for weight loss. ●Forget the “beer belly” stigma. If you’re going to drink alcohol, consider that mixed drinks often have more calories than beer. In addition, beer is more filling, which might help you resist the bar snacks. ●Don’t diet. Depriving yourself just sets up your need for a high-calorie reward. “Because they [men] make lifestyle changes rather than go on diets, their eating strategies have no real end date. They just keep going and going . . . and losing and losing.” ●Boycott low-cal foods. They tend to be completely unsatisfying and can make you eat more in the long run. Go for the full-fat cheese. ●Eat constantly. “Guys are a bit like constantly running garbage disposals. They eat and eat and eat, but where does all that food go? Not on their waistlines. Why? Because they are keeping their metabolisms stoked and burning calories like crazy.” Women on a diet tend to try to go without food for hours at a time, White says, which actually slows their metabolism and makes it harder to lose weight. Will these ideas really work? Can’t tell — but they sound like more fun than a lot of diet tips.

Meat is horrible

It may be delicious, but the evidence is accumulating that meat, particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment — and not so great for human beings, either.  The environmental impact is the driving reason why members of a United Nations panel last month urged its environmental assembly to consider recommending a tax on meat producers and sellers. Raising the cost of buying meat, the argument goes, would reduce demand, and ultimately, production of it.       By no means is meat the only element of agriculture that contributes greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation of land for agricultural purposes -- to grow crops or grasses for cattle to graze -- also adds to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, partly because trees absorb CO2. Rice fields are a also huge source of methane emissions. And applying fertilizer also produces substantial amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, in the form of nitrous oxide. But in multiple ways, meat is one of the worst offenders. For example, agriculture consumes 80 percent of water in the United States. These two charts show that meat is particularly thirsty. For a kilogram of red meat, you need considerably more water than for plant products.    This graph shows that phasing out meat and simply eating less would knock down greenhouse gas emissions considerably — particularly in developed, meat-loving countries.   Overall, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions have hardly decreased since 1990, despite growing awareness of the threat they pose to the planet. Food and meat production is typically not targeted by civilians and governments as a way to whittle global warming.   The methane produced by cattle digestion alone is what leads many researchers to call for focusing on the impact of red meat, rather than poultry or pigs. Pigs and poultry contribute only 10 percent of total livestock emissions.  China is a "grave concern" to experts, Hajer said.  This chart shows the considerable health benefits that could be reaped from reducing meat consumption as part of a more nutritious diet. The United States could slash its health-care spending the most by phasing out meat for vegetables.  “Government is wary of introducing taxes on food products,” Wellesley said. “Civil society and industry may say the tax would would harm or limit the poorer members of society. Those concerns were raised in the focus group.”

Meat is horrible

Eat less meat, a government panel says. Is science on their side?

A modest suggestion that American diets should be lower in meat has galvanized the debate about carnivorousness. In February, the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee issued its recommendations on improving the government’s official nutritional advice. Although the report is 571 pages, the executive summary distills it to one pithy sentence: A “healthy dietary pattern is higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in alcohol (among adults); lower in red and processed meat, and low in sugar-sweetened foods and drinks and refined grains.” A footnote about meat says, “Lean meats can be part of a healthy dietary pattern.” It wasn’t a hard line against meat, but it was enough to make the industry come out swinging. The North American Meat Institute launched a Change.org petition, Hands Off My Hot Dog, that called the recommendations “extreme and ill-considered” and rallied supporters to stand with the industry in asking the Department of Agriculture to reject them. At last count, the petition had 2,472 signers. (In other parts of the report, the committee discussed the important issue of meat’s environmental impact, but the “less meat” recommendation was based solely on nutrition considerations, and that’s what I’ll tackle here.) Beyond the idea that a dietary recommendation to eat less meat is an assault on liberty is the position, expressed to me by Meat Institute chief executive Barry Carpenter both on Twitter and in a Washington Post Live forum I moderated , that a pro-meat stand is evidence-based: Meat is a nutrient-dense, healthful food, and we reduce intake at our peril. The institute has science on its side. But wait! The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, advocate of a plant-based diet, recommends reducing our meat intake all the way to none. “Multitudes of studies have demonstrated the remarkable health benefits of a vegetarian diet,” the committee says. Science “is on the side of vegetarianism.” Science, she’s a fickle mistress. You don’t have to spend much time on PubMed, the repository of journal articles, to figure out that, when it comes to the question of meat-eating and health, there’s something for everyone. If you’re looking for evidence that meat eaters die earlier, you can find that. If you’re looking for evidence that they don’t, you can find that, too. Just to make it harder, the debate on meat incorporates two other nutrition debates: those surrounding sodium (high in processed meats) and saturated fat (high in fatty meats). So, is meat good or bad? Nutrient-rich essential or dietary enemy? It’s neither, and that’s why the “less meat” recommendation makes sense. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, points out that, although different studies of meat show different results, the range of those results is actually quite narrow. “If you look at every possible study with every population around the world, you see that meat-eating is neutral or is associated with slight harm,” he says. “I’ve never seen a benefit.” Mozaffarian says that two of the main arguments — one for, one against — are flawed because we shouldn’t be talking about individual nutrients, whether they’re theorized to be healthful (like the minerals in meat) or dangerous (like the saturated fat). We should be talking about food. “What the meat industry is doing is a major mistake,” he says. Basing dietary guidelines on nutrients is completely invalid, and we’ve learned that again and again.” As for saturated fats, “the sources of saturated fat are so diverse, and the health effects are so diverse, that it doesn’t make sense to combine them. Butter, cheese, milk, meat, nuts — they all have different health effects.” Mozaffarian says he supports the dietary guidelines because they talk about food rather than nutrients, but he would have preferred the committee to have tackled meat differently. The meat to reduce, he says, is processed meat: bacon, sausage, deli meats. A review of the evidence that Mozaffarian co- authored in 2012 links processed meat to higher risk of heart disease and diabetes (the primary — although not the only — culprit appears to be sodium), and other  studies have also found a stronger link between mortality and processed meats than between mortality and unprocessed ones. Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, isn’t ready to exonerate saturated fat and says that one serving of red meat a week is low- risk, but none or almost none is even lower. He also makes the case that what’s important is what you replace the meat with. Replace it with sugar or refined grains, and it’s a health loser. Replace it with polyunsaturated fat, and it’s a win. Which goes back to the idea that it’s your diet in total that matters, and parsing it food by food isn’t terribly helpful. Alice H. Lichtenstein, vice chairwoman of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and professor of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, says she is frustrated by the debate over the meat recommendation. “People are making more of this than they should,” she says. “When we talk about individual foods within a dietary pattern, we frequently cause problems. We forget what else happens to the diet. If you increase or decrease meat intake, something else is going to change.” There’s no magic number of optimal servings. And looking for very specific recommendations on diet is likely to be the wrong approach, because there’s a great deal about nutrition that we don’t know, and there are limits on how effectively we can find it out. Trying to tease out links between diet and disease from population data is tough, because people who eat meat (or almost anything else) are likely to be different from people who don’t in all kinds of ways. And controlled trials, where we feed some people Diet X and some other people Diet Y, can go on for only so long. We can’t hold subjects hostage until they begin to die (or not) of heart disease. Nor can we kill them and autopsy their livers. Which means that all the research on meat, or on just about any other aspect of human nutrition, is necessarily limited. What are public health professionals supposed to do in the face of imperfect information? “The best we can,” says Lichtenstein. “You have an entire panel of scientists with no vested interest trying to look at all the evidence.” And so the answer to the question “how much meat should I eat?” is maddeningly elusive. Mozaffarian says two servings a week. Willett says one, or maybe none. The dietary guidelines committee recommends an overall pattern that includes 3.3 ounces per day of meat and poultry. But there is no optimal level. “And it’s not just meat,” says Lichtenstein. “We can’t know optimal levels of anything.” We need to reconcile ourselves to the idea that we simply can’t expect dietary recommendations that are both science-based and very specific. Although the committee looked at all the evidence and concluded that we would be better off if we ate less meat, Lichtenstein emphasizes that that isn’t the top dietary priority (as does Mozaffarian). Two things we do know, from decades of research all pointing in the same direction, is that if you really want to improve your diet, keep your calories in balance and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Beyond that, cut your sugar intake. Substitute whole grains for refined. Get some exercise. The evidence on meat isn’t iron-clad, but “less meat” seems reasonable given that people need to eat more vegetables and fruits, and less overall. The calories need to come from somewhere, and we’re pretty sure meat — especially processed and fatty meat — isn’t doing us any good, so it makes sense to cut back. That’s the upshot. The reason the dietary guideline committee’s “less meat” recommendation makes sense is not that meat’s so very bad for you. It probably isn’t. But you need to make room in your diet for the things that are actively good for you, and something’s gotta give. **More fromFood:** Is grass-fed beef really better for you, the animal and the planet? Can a soda tax help solve America’s obesity problem? The problem with processed foods isn’t what’s in them.

The environmental benefits of vegetarianism

The Post’s March 12 Food article “Which is worst for the environment?” presented a lot of food for thought. But the point that to provide the same calorie content, farmers would need to replace production of one kilogram of beef with 6.7 kilograms of broccoli, thus eliminating much of the environmental benefit of farming vegetables over livestock, is problematic. One doesn’t need to be a vegetarian to recognize that this is an unfair comparison. People who choose to remove meat from their diets don’t typically replace those calories with broccoli. They replace them with other protein sources, such as tofu, beans, nuts and lentils. According to the data offered in the chart presented with the article, these items result in significantly less greenhouse gases emitted compared with beef production. It seems pretty clear that, at least with regard to greenhouse gas emissions, a non-meat diet is more environmentally friendly. ****Abby Goldbloom-Helzner** , Bethesda**

To improve your health, eat right and toss out those stilettos, magazine advises

Some are obvious and others will surprise you, but many habits, or behaviors, can harm your health, according to Reader’s Digest. The magazine focuses on five, from the book “The End of the Illness” by David B. Agus. Avoiding flu shots because you’re afraid of needles increases your chance of catching the flu, obviously. But the inflammation that comes along with the flu can damage blood vessels and might increase your risk of heart disease. Irregular patterns of sleeping and eating can raise your levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Fruits and vegetables can lose many of their disease-fighting compounds during lengthy transport. So while it’s great to eat such foods every day, go for frozen versions if you can’t buy local or in season; they will deliver better nutrition. Hitting the gym daily is great, but remaining sedentary the rest of the day can raise your blood sugar, blood pressure and even cholesterol. Finally, those cute little stilettos you wear? They can cause inflammation and even chronic pain. But you knew that, didn’t you? If you’re looking for a mellow wellness vacation but are stuck in your own living room, give this DVD a try. Instructors from the famous fitness getaway spa focus on healthful-living suggestions rather than simply losing weight or building muscle. So there’s lots here about eating well and living stress-free while you’re getting exercise. Choose from three 25-minute workouts: core, strength training and yoga. The core and strength training routines are similar: You’ll do a lot of squats and lunges with a medicine ball or dumbbells. The yoga practice is subdued and relaxing: There is something very calming about watching the instructors lead you through mountain pose, or tadasana, against a mountainous desert backdrop. This DVD is good if you are looking for a restorative workout, but if you’re a fitness junkie, you’ll probably get bored. And unfortunately, you’re still in your own living room. **— Whitney Fetterhoff  **

Consumer Reports: Myths about exercise can hamper efforts to shape up

Misconceptions about exercise can sabotage your efforts to get in shape. Here are some common myths — and the facts. **MYTH: Your routine isn’t working if you’re not losing weight.  ** ** ** Do yourself a favor and pay less attention to the scale. Exercise has a small impact on weight loss over the short term. While wanting to look good is a reasonable goal, exercise also provides numerous health benefits, including a lower risk of heart disease and stroke. If you want to shed pounds in addition to getting in shape, try cutting calories while you step up your workouts. **MYTH: A pedometer is all you need to track your exercise. ** **** **** Pedometers are an excellent way to monitor overall daily activity and help keep you motivated. But counting steps isn’t a reliable way to measure exercise intensity or quality. It’s better to use a heart-rate monitor to track intensity, and aim for a target heart rate for a set number of minutes rather than a certain number of steps. **MYTH: You don’t have to lift weights.  ** ** ** Actually, strength training is critical for older adults to help prevent age-related bone and muscle loss, both of which can lead to falls and other serious injuries. Strengthening your muscles also decreases your body-fat percentage and increases the rate at which your body burns calories, which can help with weight management. Women in particular shouldn’t worry that they’ll pack on too much muscle mass by lifting weights because they have relatively low levels of the male hormone testosterone, which affects muscle growth. **MYTH: As long as you get regular exercise, it’s fine to be a couch potato at other times. ** ** ** Research has found that sitting for long periods actually causes a slight increase in the risk of several diseases, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and possibly cancer — even among people who meet recommended levels of daily exercise. Find ways to spend less time sitting. A useful goal is to replace six to seven hours a week of sitting time with something you do on your feet, whether it’s walking, playing a sport or just puttering around your home or office. And try to cut your evening screen time. **MYTH: You can lose fat from specific parts of your body. **  There’s no such thing as “spot reduction.” The calories you expend during exercise help burn fat from your entire body, including whichever areas you’re targeting. What’s more, concentrating your exercise on a specific body part can actually limit the benefits of training, since other muscle groups might be neglected. **MYTH: You should stretch before a workout to avoid injuries. ** Researchers have discovered that’s not the case. In terms of increasing flexibility, your muscles will benefit more from stretching when they’re warm, after your workout. Stretching cold muscles could actually injure them. **MYTH: It’s better to have a sports drink than plain water during exercise. ** **** ****A sports drink is necessary only when you’ve lost a substantial amount of sodium and other electrolytes through sweating or if you need extra carbohydrates to burn for energy. Aim to drink 17 to 20 ounces of water during the two to three hours before a demanding workout and another seven to 10 ounces every 15 minutes while exercising. Continue to rehydrate with plain water afterward. **MYTH: Exercising before bedtime will help you sleep better. ** ** ** Sleep experts don’t recommend working out close to bedtime, even up to three hours before, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Exercise has a stimulating effect and elevates body temperature, both of which can make it difficult to sleep. But the corresponding fall in temperature five to six hours after exercise actually makes it easier. So aim for a workout earlier in the day if you have trouble sleeping. **MYTH: Calorie counters on exercise machines are accurate. ** ** ** **** Don’t count on it, especially if the machine doesn’t ask for your weight, height and sex. According to the American Council on Exercise, manufacturers use formulas to account for intensity and duration. If you want to make sure you’re using the most up-to-date formula, call the manufacturer to see if someone can walk you through an upgrade over the phone. Experts suggest trying to burn at least 1,000 calories a week through exercise, though less than that can still have benefits. Any exercise is better than none. 2012\. Consumers Union of United States Inc.

Diets don’t work, but these two strategies do

Earlier this week, long time eating researcher Traci Mann and I discussed the unbecoming truth about diets. The takeaway is that they don't actually work. Over the course of her more than 20 years studying how people eat, Traci has found that willpower doesn't work quite like we imagine it will, and our bodies are predisposed to maintain a weight that often doesn't fit the ideal mold we aspire to achieve.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico That being said, there is more than mere gloom for those hoping to shed a few pounds, or even just eat a bit more healthfully. Diets might not work the way we want them to, but there are at least two strategies for eating less unhealthy food and more healthy food that have been shown to work pretty well. "The whole second half of my book actually talks about strategies for eating and losing weight that don't require will power," Mann said. "There are strategies that are easier to do without going on a diet that is ultimately going to fail. In our conversation, she reveals those strategies and explains why they are so effective. **First, she says, focus on creating obstacles to eating bad food.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Second, she says, make it easier to eat healthy food.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Getting exercise with a good walk; eating vegetables to stay healthy

Leslie Sansone holds to the philosophy that exercise doesn’t have to be high-impact. If you like to walk but the treadmill is boring or you need some inspirational words, this DVD may help shake things up without requiring you to leave your living room. The energetic Sansone has planned out five days of exercise, with increasingly long walks that are accompanied by sessions for working various muscle groups. You don’t need to use weights, but Sansone recommends three- to five-pound dumbbells. Because there is no jumping or pounding on the joints, this DVD is well suited to anyone experiencing or recovering from an injury or those at a lower fitness level. If you love to walk outdoors, this program is a great way to continue your fitness training in inclement weather. If your fitness level is pretty high, this might not be the program for you, though. Not everyone is convinced that eating or avoiding certain foods can help remove toxins from your body, but Christina Pirello of VegNews is a true believer. She argues that a “cleanse” can help your liver and kidneys speed up toxin removal. You’ve heard of fads like the vegetable-only or juice cleanse; Pirello’s version isn’t so limiting. There are 10 foods — she calls them the “superheroes of clean” — that she suggests adding to a normal diet. Garlic, cabbage, green tea, leafy greens and broccoli sprouts all have the power, Pirello says, to speed up the cleansing enzymes in your liver. Fresh fruit and daikon, or icicle radish, are both high in Vitamin C, which is thought to stimulate weight loss. Whole grains are rich in soluble fiber, which helps keep things moving. Lemon helps convert toxins into a form that the body can easily flush out. The most crucial element of a cleanse, she says, is water. If you don’t stay hydrated, your body won’t function properly and your detox efforts won’t be effective. Because there isn’t much scientific information to support these cleanses, it is difficult to measure results, but Pirello maintains that cleansing once yearly will keep your body in tiptop shape, and if it helps you embrace healthful eating, that’s a good thing. **— Whitney Fetterhoff  **

Baby boomers embrace vegetarianism, but such diets have risks as well as benefits

For many baby boomers, former president Bill Clinton among them, vegetarian diets — including vegan ones, which eschew all animal products — have become a way of life. Much of the reason for that, doctors say, is that this demographic group is heading into prime time for health issues and sees vegetarianism as a way to protect their bodies. Yet for boomers these diets can carry some risks that don’t concern those in their 30s or 40s. As we age, our nutritional needs change and are harder to meet. About 2.5 million Americans over the age of 55 are vegetarian according to a 2012 Harris poll conducted for the Vegetarian Resource Group, and doctors and researchers say interest in such diets is growing. The prominence of some aging vegetarians stokes this trend: In addition to Clinton (age 65), there is Paul McCartney (70), retired tennis player Martina Navratilova (55) and actor Ian McKellen (73). Less famous but nevertheless impressive vegetarians include Fauja Singh, an India-born Briton who at 101 years old runs marathons. It’s clear from research that forgoing meat can improve health. “Vegetarianism can be used as a way to combat many conditions that plague boomers: heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity. We now know, for example, that such a diet can lower your blood pressure,” says Boston University registered dietitian Joan Salge Blake, citing numerous recent studies. In an article published in 2005, Susan Berkow, a certified nutrition specialist, and physician Neal Barnard analyzed 11 observational studies and found that vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure than meat-eaters. The reasons behind this are not well understood. According to the authors (both of whom are affiliated with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes a vegetarian diet), probably one of the most important is the generally lower body weight of vegetarians due to the abundance of fiber in their diets, which causes them to feel full faster and helps with insulin control. Since the risk of death from a stroke in middle age rises significantly as blood pressure rises, it is no surprise that vegetarians tend to face fewer cardiovascular issues than the rest of us. In an article published in April in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Harvard researchers found that the more red meat you usually consume, the more likely you are to succumb to heart disease. Adding three ounces of meat to your daily diet (above what you normally eat) elevates the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 16 percent. For processed meat (think sausages and bacon), the numbers are even more striking: Increasing consumption by one serving a day — that would be just one more hot dog — elevates the long-term risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 21 percent. Beyond damaging your heart, researchers tend to agree, eating red meat increases the risk of colorectal and other cancers. Similarly, a 2004 investigation by researchers from the Harvard Medical School found that middle-aged and older women who ate red meat more than five times a week had a 29 percent higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than those who indulged in it less than once per week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated that in 2010 almost 27 percent of Americans over the age of 65 had diabetes. Researchers studying 41,000 Seventh-Day Adventists found that eating meat increased their risk of diabetes. The scientists pointed to hamburgers, bacon and hot dogs as the worst offenders. A review of 27 studies published in 2009 in the American Journal of Cardiology, meanwhile, showed that forgoing meat of all kinds can decrease blood cholesterol levels by at least 10 to 15 percent. It’s not just that these diets are low in saturated fats, authors say: What also helps are plant sterols and soluble fiber, which increase cholesterol removal. Before you rush to give the steak you were planning to eat tonight to the first dog you see, consider that being a vegetarian, and especially following a vegan diet, can pose challenges specific to boomers. In particular, such regimes, if poorly planned, may be relatively low in protein, calcium, Vitamin B12 and zinc. “These nutrients are especially important in aging to support wound-healing and to keep a healthy immune system,” says Sylvia Escott-Stump, president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association). As we get older, many of our mineral and vitamin requirements increase, and we need fewer calories to maintain our weight. For this reason, it might be harder to go vegetarian at the age of 50 than it was earlier. “You have to make sure the calories you eat are very nutrient-rich per bite; otherwise your health might suffer more, and faster, than that of a younger person,” advises Boston University’s Salge Blake. “For example, an eight-ounce glass of skim milk is not only lower in calories than a soft drink but also contains calcium, Vitamin D and potassium, which are nutrients many older adults are falling short of in their diets.” This, though, can be true for meat-eaters as well as vegetarians. One of the most common deficiencies in people over the age of 50 is that of Vitamin B12, the main sources of which are meat, fish, milk and eggs. “At this stage of life, 10 to 30 percent of individuals malabsorb this vitamin because they have less acidic juices in the stomach,” explains Salge Blake. Research suggests that if your diet is poor in this nutrient, you may be at increased risk of anemia, hearing loss, dementia or Alz-   heimer’s disease. A study published in 2000 in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism showed that about 50 percent of vegans have below-normal levels of B12. Some vegans suggest that it is possible to get B12 from seaweed or spirulina, but that type of algae contains only ineffective analogs, according to studies of the vitamin, which may even block its metabolism. The only solution is supplementation (which is recommended by many nutritionists to all people older than 50). Also, anemia is much more common after age 50. Boomers should therefore be careful to ensure they are getting enough iron, which can be hard with a plant-only diet. “Animal foods provide ‘heme’ sources of iron [a form of dietary iron from animals], which are more readily digested than ‘non-heme’ plant sources” says Escott-Stump. “People eating only plant foods may need to increase their total intake of iron-rich products along with a source of Vitamin C to use the iron better.” You can find iron in dark green leafy vegetables, prune juice, dried beans and bulgur. Interestingly, studies indicate that iron deficiency appears to be no more common in vegetarians than in meat-eaters, possibly because vegetarians know they are at risk and eat to deal with that. “In our lab we have noticed that when people become vegetarian, the amount of iron in their diet actually goes up. By eating legumes and green leafy vegetables, they tend to consume larger amounts of the nutrient, making up for the worse absorption of ‘non-heme’ iron,” says Barnard. Another source of concern for some boomers who go vegetarian is calcium. “Post-menopausal women are prone to osteoporosis, which has mistakenly prompted some doctors to recommend dairy products,” says Barnard. “However, the Nurses’ Health Study conducted at Harvard University showed that women who drank milk had as many fractures as those who avoided it.” Unless vegans consume a lot of fortified tofu and soy milk, as well as green leafy vegetables and beans, their intake of calcium may be inadequate. A review of nine studies published in 2009 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that the risk of fracture in vegans is about 10 percent higher than in omnivores. The good news is that lacto-ovo vegetarians (those who eat diary products and eggs) are not any more likely to break their hips or wrists than people who eat meat. If you are a boomer considering cutting your meat intake, you should make sure you will be getting enough zinc, which is important for proper functioning of the immune system. Without it, bodies are less resistant to pathogens, and wounds take longer to heal. Yet older people commonly don’t meet their needs for this nutrient. According to the authors of a 2010 article in Nutrition Reviews, insufficient zinc in diet as people age can lead to more frequent bouts of pneumonia, and more complications. Pneumonia is one of the five leading causes of death for older Americans. But if your diet is well planned (consider talking to a dietitian) — and, once you get older, supplemented — that should not be a problem. So how old is too old to go vegetarian? “A hundred twenty-three,” Barnard laughs. “And I’m only saying this because the longest-lived person was 122. On balance, cutting out meat from your diet, even if only a little, is a step in a good direction.” Just make sure you get the proper vitamins and minerals.

Broccoli vs. burgers should be a no-brainer

Regarding the Nov. 27 Health and Science article “Humans aren’t naturally inclined to be vegetarians”: It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s time to give up meat if the human race wants to keep evolving. Meaty diets are detrimental to the health of the modern human brain. Red and processed meats increase the risk of stroke, according to the American Heart Association. And researchers from the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study found that fatty foods eaten during midlife may accelerate cognitive decline. Other studies have shown that the risk for Alzheimer’s disease is greater in people who have diets high in cholesterol and saturated fats. The smart choice: Put down the Big Macs and pick up plant-based brain foods. ****Ulka Agarwal,** Washington** The writer is chief medical officer and director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Why some diets help you lose weight without making you feel hungry

If there is a holy grail of dieting, it might be in the promise of losing weight without feeling hungry and deprived. But is that really possible? Reducing caloric intake and exercising more is still the best way to lose weight and then keep it off. But it turns out that there are some diets that can make it a little easier to cope with giving up that piece of chocolate cake. A new study published in the journal Obesity Reviews looked at whether there's evidence to support claims that low-carbohydrate diets can also suppress your appetite, even when they severely restrict your caloric intake.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico If you've given your Atkins-loving aunt the side eye, you might want to listen up. The review of more than a dozen studies of these kinds of diets found that in most cases, participants reported feeling fuller and less hungry even while losing fat. “We had an increase in satiety and a reduction in hunger. Both point to a reduction in appetite,” said Alice Gibson, lead author of the study and a dietitian and PhD candidate at the University of Sydney Medical School. Researchers looked at two types of diets, both of which included low carbohydrate intake. One type, which is similar to the popular Atkins diet, restricts carbs to fewer than 20 grams a day in certain stages – which is extremely low – but it doesn't really restrict anything else. That kind of diet is high in protein and often high in fat, but it also generally eliminates some food groups that nutritionists would recommend as part of a healthy diet, like whole grains, fruits and some vegetables. Another type of low-carb diet – "very-low-energy diets" – similarly restricts carbohydrates. But that diet also severely restricts calorie consumption to about 800 kcals a day, far below what nutritionists would recommend as the minimum amount of energy from food that adults should consume. "It's essentially a semi-starvation diet," Gibson said. Those "very-low-energy diets" should really only be done under the supervision of a doctor. They also may involve carefully crafted, prepackaged meals that are designed to meet specific nutrition needs to prevent nutritional deficits caused by severely restricted calorie consumption. After analyzing over a dozen studies, researchers saw a surprisingly consistent finding: Both types of low-carb dieters reported feeling less hungry and more full. "All of our studies basically showed either a very small reduction in appetite or no change," said Gibson. "People can be consuming very few calories but not have an increase in their appetite." Usually, when your body is deprived of energy in the form of food (specifically carbohydrates, which is the most efficient form of fuel), it responds by doing just what you might expect: It gives you the urge to eat by making you feel hungry. But consuming less food and expending more energy are exactly what you're trying to do in order to lose fat. The result is often the uncomfortable, demoralizing feeling of persistent hunger. Or "hanger," when your hunger gets mixed with a little anger. Cravings and hunger -- not to mention your bad mood -- can quickly sabotage a diet. On low-carbohydrate eating plans, weight loss usually occurs fairly rapidly at the beginning because instead of using calories from food as fuel, the body uses fat instead. After a few days of low carbohydrate intake, the body starts to release more ketones. Often, people on ketogenic diets also report feeling less hungry, as well. "Most people would assume that it’s their high protein intake that is causing this appetite suppression," said Gibson. "That may be contributing, but it doesn't provide an explanation for the low-energy diets, which are actually very low in protein." Ketosis might provide a better explanation, Gibson hypothesizes. It is still unknown exactly how ketones might work to suppress appetite. But according to Gibson's research, the association between ketogenic diets and reduced or stable appetite was remarkably consistent among the studies that measured appetite before and during the diet. The studies also suggested that even moderately restricting carbohydrates can produce a similar effect. Some low-carb diets call for severe restrictions of fewer than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, which generally requires cutting out healthful foods that are usually recommended as part of a balanced diet. But elevated ketone levels were still observed in study participants who consumed about 50 grams of carbs a day, which is a low, but not extreme, level of restriction. “What I believe is that there is a threshold affect for the appetite suppression effects of ketosis,” Gibson said. “You don’t need to restrict carbohydrates to less than 20 grams.” But appetite, at least how it is measured in most studies, is a subjective thing. And ketosis might not fully explain why some people who used low-carbohydrate diets also reported that they felt like they wanted to eat less food in general whether they were hungry or not. "It's not clear whether it’s the ketosis or the fact that people are losing weight quickly, which is very motivating. That could also contribute the lessened desire to eat," Gibson said. Further research is needed to investigate what happens to ketone levels at different levels of carbohydrate consumption, and also whether the appetite suppression effect effect is long-lasting. Another study this year found that a low-carb diet resulted in more weight loss compared to a low-fat diet; but in the long run, people who followed both diets had a hard time sticking with it.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico After all, you may not be quite as hungry, but giving up your favorite sandwich or pasta is no easy task, either.

Exercise does so much for you. Why won’t it make you lose weight?

Exercise by itself won’t help you lose weight. This is not to say that exercise isn’t good for you; it is, in fact, great for you. It conveys an astonishing array of health benefits. But — and we all hate hearing this — many experts, while extolling the benefits of exercise, say the primary villain when it comes to excess weight is what’s on our menu. To lose weight, we have to cut calories. Exercise helps keep lost pounds off, but exercise alone can’t do the initial job of losing it. “I think the role of exercise in weight loss is highly overrated,” says Marc Reitman, chief of the diabetes, endocrinology and obesity branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, or NIDDK. “I think it’s really great for being healthy, but I’m a strong believer that overeating is what causes obesity. To exercise your way out of overeating is impossible.” Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic researcher who studies how people respond to the stress of exercise, agrees. “The key for weight loss is to generate and maintain a calorie deficit,” he says. “It’s pretty easy to get people to eat 1,000 calories less per day, but to get them to do 1,000 calories per day of exercise — walking 10 miles — is daunting at many levels, including time and motivation,” he says. To be sure, some people can work weight off, experts say. These include those who exercise vigorously for long periods, and professional athletes, who typically engage in high-intensity workouts. But they are the exceptions. Those high-level workouts are “not something most people do,” says Philip F. Smith, co-director of NIDDK’s office of obesity research. “Walking for an hour won’t do it.” Joyner agrees. “Theoretically, people can exercise enough to lose without changing what they eat, but they have to exercise a whole lot,” he says. Moreover, moderate exercise doesn’t really burn all that many calories, especially when you think about a single piece of chocolate cake, which has between 200 and 500 calories. Most people burn only about 100 calories for every mile of running or walking, although this can vary depending on the person, according to Joyner. Put another way, to lose one pound, you must run a deficit of about 3,500 calories — meaning that if you burn an excess 500 calories a day, it would take a week to drop that pound. Kevin D. Hall, an NIDDK scientist who studies how metabolism and the brain adapt to diet and exercise, agrees that a modest degree of weight loss would require large amounts of exercise. However, “high levels of physical activity seem to be very important for maintenance of lost weight,” he adds, defining “high” as more than an hour of exercise daily. In a recent study, Hall concluded that exercise “typically result[s] in less average weight loss than expected, based on the exercise calories expended,” and that individual weight changes “are highly variable” even when people stick to exercise regimens. The likely reason is that people tend to compensate for changes in food intake and non-exercise physical activities, Hall wrote. Or, as Joyner puts it: “If people replace non-exercise — but otherwise active — time with sedentary time, sometimes things cancel out.” Strength training or resistance training — lifting weights, for example — also is important for overall health, but, as with other forms of exercise, it doesn’t prompt weight loss. (In fact, it may cause the reading on the scale to inch up a bit, because muscle is denser than fat.) Nevertheless, “strength training is good to maintain lean tissue,” Joyner says. And you can’t count on exercise to increase your metabolism for several hours afterward. “Exercise, if hard enough and long enough, certainly can do this,” Joyner says. “But again, it depends on how much, what type and how hard. A two-mile stroll, while a good thing, will not do too much to resting metabolism.” But now the good news: Exercise remains one of the best things you can do for yourself. It enhances health in numerous ways. It strengthens the heart and lungs. It reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms that include hypertension, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels. Weight-bearing activities, such as running, strengthen bones and muscles. Having strong bones prevents osteoporosis, helping to avert bone-breaking falls in the elderly. “For older people, exercise facilitates the capacity for them to stay engaged in life,” Joyner says. Exercise also reduces the risk of certain cancers, including breast and colon cancer. It elevates mood, and it keeps thinking and judgment skills sharp. Overall, it helps you live longer. People who work out for about seven hours a week have a 40 percent lower risk of dying early compared with those who exercise less than 30 minutes a week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Exercise in almost any dose does so many good things for people,” Joyner says. Is one exercise more effective than another? “I love to play soccer,” Smith says. “I would do anything to play soccer, and try to play three times a week until my body can’t take it. But people should exercise as much as they can tolerate and enjoy. That’s what they should shoot for.” Reitman agrees. “The best exercise is the one you keep doing,” he says.

Diet tip: Keep bacteria balanced in your digestive tract.

Nutritional consultant Brenda Watson bases her new book on what she calls “your inner weight-loss secret”: When the bacteria in your digestive tract are out of balance, you gain weight; when they are in balance, you “lose weight, reduce cravings, ditch digestive upsets, boost immunity, reduce inflammation and feel great.” That’s a pretty broad claim. But “The Skinny Gut Diet: Balance Your Digestive System for Permanent Weight Loss,” written with physician Leonard Smith, doesn’t recommend particularly extreme measures. Mixed in with scientific explanations featuring many multisyllabic words — bacteroidetes, firmicutes, lactobacillus, medium-chain triglycerides, etc. — are some ideas that sound like common sense. Besides recommending that people consume probiotic foods to achieve a well-balanced array of bacteria, she suggests eating healthful fats (like most nutritionists, she likes olive oil, but she also makes a point of suggesting coconut oil) and minimizing bad fats. (You know what they are.) Limit sugar intake. To reduce cravings, eat some protein at every meal and snack a lot on healthful options. Cut out grains, even whole grains. (Okay, here she does sound a little extreme: “It’s time to end this energy-sucking, health-depleting relationship — your love affair with grains — before it becomes disastrous.”) There’s meal-planning and shopping advice, followed by a lot of recipes that make the diet sound pretty tasty: grilled wild salmon with mango relish; Ligurian chicken with kale, mint, tomato and garlic; kefir ice cream. Related: What do fit women want? Strong or skinny?

Short on willpower? Don’t worry, you still can improve your eating habits.

You might attribute your failure to choose fruit over a doughnut — or tofu over a burger — to poor willpower. But relying on self-control is tough when unhealthful foods are heavily promoted and available everywhere. Fortunately, researchers have learned how simple changes in our environment and habits can help us to eat smarter without a great deal of extra effort. **The benefit:** It can help you control portion sizes. One trick to eating less is using smaller dishes. But if your goal is to eat more healthful food, go big. Research led by Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, found that people eat more when food is served on bigger dishes — because portions appear smaller. So if you eat salad or veggies from a large plate, you’re likely to serve yourself more and eat more. Use small plates for foods such as refined grains (white rice, pasta), red and processed meats, and, of course, dessert. **The benefit:** It’s a way to improve nutrition and tempt your palate. Eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables ensures that you get a good mix of healthful nutrients, and it also helps to bring your plate to life. For example, you can perk up your grilled fish or chicken by adding tomatoes and green Swiss chard. **The benefit:** You may eat more good-for-you foods. “You’re likely to reach for whatever you see first when you open the refrigerator or your cabinets,” says Maxine Siegel, manager of food testing at Consumer Reports. One study found that people increased their fruit and vegetable consumption almost threefold by moving produce from the fridge’s crisper drawer to the top shelf. Storing less-healthful items in opaque containers helps, too. **The benefit:** Healthful foods with visual appeal taste better. A study conducted at the Culinary Institute of America found that diners who were served the same chicken dish two nights in a row liked it more when it was artfully arranged. And you don’t need the skills of a “Top Chef” contestant. A simple stack of vegetables or whole grains on the bottom, a chicken breast in the middle and a colorful garnish on top gives a meal height and dimension. Play around with shapes, too, recommends chef and food stylist Khalil Hymore of New York. “In a salad, I might shred the kale, julienne an apple and halve the cherry tomatoes,” he says. “If everything were the same size, it wouldn’t be as interesting.” **The benefit:** You’ll eat less and feel satisfied. According to one study, eating as a family at the dining room or kitchen table is linked with having a lower body mass index — possibly, researchers suggest, because it’s easier to focus on the meal in that environment. Eating with the TV on, however, is linked with a higher BMI, probably because it’s distracting. A separate review of research found that when people are distracted, they consume about 10 percent more calories — and they also eat more at subsequent meals. Copyright 2015. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

From overweight and unhappy to awesome Internet guru

In 2005, Leo Babauta was 70 pounds overweight. He smoked cigarettes and ate junk food. He was disorganized and deeply in debt. Now, the father of six is trim, and runs triathlons and even ran a 50-mile ultra-marathon. He eats a vegan diet, cleared out clutter and his inbox, eliminated debt, saved up an emergency fund and wrote a bestselling book, The Power of Less, and a novel. All the while blogging about it on Zen Habits, named by Time as one of the top 50 websites, with more than one million monthly readers. He shares his Zen approach to change.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Q: Humans are creatures of habit, and often keep doing things we don’t really even want to do, or know aren’t good for us. How do you change that?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Babauta** : Sometimes we stick with habits, even habits we don’t like, like smoking or eating junk food, because it’s much more comfortable to stick with what you’re used to, than go through the discomfort of change.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A lot of what helps are small, micro changes. Instead of trying to change your entire diet at once, which is very uncomfortable, try making a little change, push your comfort zone just a little. Add a couple vegetables to your dishes. Get used to that, then that becomes your new comfort zone. I did that. And changed my life completely. But slowly and gradually **Q: What was the first micro change that you made?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Babauta:** I was living in Guam at the time, with my wife and our six kids – though we only had five at the time, and now we live in San Francisco. I was just unhappy with my habits. I was working way too much. I didn’t have time for my kids. We were living paycheck to paycheck, really struggling to make ends meet. I was really unhappy with myself, and unhappy with my ability to stick to anything.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico I was motivated to make changes not only for myself, but also to show my kids what a better life would be. That’s always been a big motivator for me. I knew if I continued to smoke and eat junk food, they would grow up and do the same thing. I wanted to change for them. I started by giving up smoking. Every time I hard the urge to smoke, I’d just sit there. What I didn’t realize, is that was a form of meditation. And then, when I found myself stressed, instead of smoking, I’d go out for a run. That was my stress release. Running became another form of meditation. I would watch these thoughts arise, ‘You should stop running, because it’s too hard.’ Then, I would turn to the present moment , and think instead, “It’s amazing that I’m outside. I’m usually in front of my computer. I’m moving my body, and it feels great.’ Though it was uncomfortable, I started appreciating great things about it. Now, quitting smoking is a huge undertaking, because there are a lot of triggers for smoking and other bad habits like that, like stress eating, and being around other smokers. So I don’t recommend taking that on as the first micro change! **Q: So your first micro change was to quit smoking – which is not so micro a change! Then you started to run. What came next?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Babauta** : I found that every little success changed my self image. That was a big thing too. Really being unhappy with yourself drives these downward spirals – you feel really bad, which drives you to a habit you don’t like, like smoking or shopping or eating, that makes you feel even worse.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So when I made a small change and succeeded, I created this positive spiral. The more I succeeded at something, the more I began to trust myself. And then the more I succeeded. I was motivated to succeed, that was huge for me, too. I wanted to trust myself and feel better about myself. I also found accountability was huge for me. When I was quitting smoking, I had some online forums. When I started running, I wrote a column about my training for my first marathon in the largest newspaper in Guam. I didn’t want to give up, because I didn’t want to let people down. That’s why I started Zen Habits. To continue having accountability for my own changes. I encourage people to start a blog, or use Twitter, or Facebook. It can really motivate you and stick to things if you tell other people, and commit to being trustworthy to yourself. **Q: You write about failure a lot. Once you started, was it all smooth sailing?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Babauta:** I fail all the time. I tried to quit smoking seven times and failed seven times before I finally made it stick. When I first failed, it was a hit to my self image. But then I started to observe and learn from failure, rather than think I failed because something is wrong with me.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico I’m constantly making mistakes. And now, rather than think I failed, I think it’s part of the continual process of learning how habits work, the way we work, the way our minds work. **Q: What’s your best advice for making micro changes?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Babauta:** I tell people to start by picking and committing to a small daily practice. I like something you can do in the morning before the day gets crazy. Something you can do in two to five minutes. Wake. Do a few push ups. Go for a walk. Meditate. Five yoga poses. Drink a cup of tea. Or journal. A gratitude journal is amazing    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Whatever you pick, be fully committed to doing it. Don’t miss a day. But if do, don’t miss two days in a row. And while you’re doing it, the important thing is not to just try to get it over with, but be there, present with that task. So if you’re drinking a cup of tea, don’t just down it and get to your email. Actually stop and be there with the tea and fully experience it. Appreciate it. You’ll notice your mind start to wander, but the practice is to come back repeatedly to what you’re doing. Once you’ve practiced one micro change for one month, you can apply bits of it to other parts of your life. The thing about change, people will want to start out very ambitious. I say start small and leave yourself wanting more. That’s more sustainable if you want a lasting change.  If you liked this interview on Inspired Life, you may also enjoy these:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Treat your spouse like a stranger and other surprising research on how to be happy    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Your sweet spot: How to become more productive while actually working less    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico You’re missing out on your experiences. A meditation expert explains how to live in the moment    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Sign up for the Inspired Life Saturday Newsletter here    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Why the most popular rule of weight loss is completely wrong

There's a popular rule you've probably heard before about losing weight: for every 3,500 calories you shed from your diet, you'll lose a pound. But just because everyone, including nutritionists with graduate degrees, keep repeating this doesn't make it true. In fact, it's a total myth. "I see dietitians using it all the time, making recommendations based off of it," said Kevin Hall, who is a researcher at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. "Unfortunately it's completely wrong." The adage dates back to the 1950s, when medical researcher Max Wishnofsky measured how much energy a pound of fat tissue represents, and found that it was 3,500 kilocalories, otherwise known as calories. Theoretically, he had calculated how many calories a person had to burn—or forego—in order to lose a pound of fat. But Wishnofsky made a couple spurious assumptions. First, he assumed that when you lose weight you only lose fat tissue. "That isn't true," said Hall. "It's a relatively minor error, because a lot of it is fat tissue, but it still isn't true."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The much bigger mistake Wishnofsky made was misunderstanding how our bodies react to weight loss. As soon as we start cutting calories from our diet, the number of calories our body expends begins to fall. "It literally starts happening on the first day," said Hall. "And it continues to mount as you lose weight." The reason Wishnofsky, and so many others since, have botched this biological fact is that it's fairly counterintuitive. The tendency is to assume that as you lose weight, the same calorie cut back should prove even more effective once you are lighter, and, presumably, in need of less food. At the very least, it should continue to produce the same results as it was when you were heavier. So cut 500 calories per day, and drag it out for a week, and you'll be roughly one pound lighter; double the decrease, and you'll drop two pounds; triple it, and do away with three. But the reality is much harder for people trying to lose weight. In fact, the further progress you make, the tougher it gets. "Over time, the more weight you lose, the more your metabolic rate drops," explained John Peters, a leading researcher at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado. "In order to keep losing weight at the rate you started losing weight, you’re going to have to eat even fewer calories. A month in, you might have to eat another hundred fewer; a month after that you might have to drop it another hundred." Hall has, in many ways, spearheaded the movement to shed the nutrition world of the 3,500 calorie rule. In 2011, he created a model, called the Body Weight Planner, that directly challenged the adage. Drawing from a vast pool of data, the tool approximated metabolic changes in people trying to lose weight, and showed how greatly the 3,500 calorie rule overestimates weight loss.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "What we found when we made the comparison between the 3,500 calorie rule and our revised prediction is that it over predicts how much people will lose by a sizable margin," said Hall. "If you’re just looking at diet changes alone it’s about two fold greater a year." The disappointing reality dieters face is that our bodies work tirelessly to defend our weight, even when that weight isn't ideal. The metabolic changes are actually only one of three biological adjustments that follow severe cuts in calories—there are neurological and hormonal changes that happen too, both of which make losing weight _and_ keeping it off a significant challenge. In fact, it can be nearly impossible. For these reasons some researchers say diets don't actually work.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Hall prefers to say that losing weight is difficult. Most people who try to lose weight, he says, end up back to where they started in less than a year. But he blames popular but misleading rules for the long-term failure of so many diets. "People don’t have the time or energy or know-how to sift through myths like the 3,500 calorie rule," said Hall. "So they believe them, and tailor their behavior to them." It's hard enough to tell tell fact from fiction in the nutrition world, where popular fads often speak louder than science. But it's nearly impossible when the same lie is printed in practically every nutrition textbook.

Hunter Willis

_Nearly one in three American children are overweight or obese. But after decades of rising rates, we may be turning a corner on the health crisis. Experts across fields gathered atWashington Post Live’s 2013 Childhood Obesity Summit to discuss strategies resulting in healthier children. _ **Hunter Willis, 17, hit 275 pounds in April 2012 — and managed to shed more than 100 pounds. He was asked what advice he would give to other overweight teenagers.** With weight loss, it’s just burn more than you’re eating. It’s that simple. Don’t try to complicate it. It will make it a lot harder. Personally, what I learned was that if you just focus on what types of food you’re eating — carbs do this; proteins, vegetables, fruits, they do this — you can figure it out for the most part. If you get a handle on what you’re doing on a daily basis and get a routine down, you won’t feel stressed and just dwell on it. You either think of food as your best friend or you hate food, but you have a relationship with it regardless. When you forget about it as a friend or foe and you think about it as one of the three things you need for sustainability — food, shelter, water — it doesn’t become a problem. It’s manageable. I taught myself to cook. I learned what I cook doesn’t have to be unhealthy to be delicious. I could make grilled chicken or brown rice or quinoa or whatever and it’d be delicious and be better than going out to get a burger or a slice of pizza. Also I take more pride that I’m eating what I cook. It’s the process: cooking, getting ready, setting the table, and then enjoying it together and letting the meal be more about the people than the food. Again, lessen your relationship with it and just eat it. Keep it simple.

Intermittent fasting: Does part-time dieting drop pounds?

From ancient Greece to some of the world’s main religions, fasting has long been promoted as a path to spiritual enlightenment. In the early 1900s, fasting took on an important role in medicine; it was used by physicians to treat everything from diabetes to epilepsy. The practice has experienced a recent resurgence in the weight-loss world, thanks to the popularity of diets such as Lean Gains, the 5:2 Diet and Eat Stop Eat. These diets each recommend different types of fasting that can range from not eating anything for a full 24 hours to dramatically limiting calories a couple of days a week. The promise? Proponents of intermittent fasting say it will help you shed fat, build muscle, lower your risk of cancer and heart disease and even make you live longer. But do these diets really work better than typical weight-loss plans? We can all agree: Dieting isn’t fun. Sticking to a plan day after day makes dieters feel like there’s no end in sight, and it’s only a matter of time until they cave and go off the rails. With intermittent fasting, it’s almost as though you get to be on a part-time diet. Sure, there will be days of restriction, but they’re always interspersed among higher-calorie days where you can eat what you crave (within reason). This seems to be the appeal for many dieters. Here’s what the science reveals so far for the three major types of intermittent fasting diets. **Alternate-day fasting:** Don’t eat for 24 hours and then eat “normally” the next 24 hours (example: Eat Stop Eat). There isn’t any evidence to show that alternate-day fasting has a benefit over other types of diets. Only three small studies have been done on this type of diet, and none of them had a comparison or control group for benchmarking. Although one study demonstrated an average weight loss of 2.5 percent over 22 days, the participants reported being very hungry on fasting days, and this didn’t get better over time. **Modified fasting:** Eat a quarter of the calories you need in a day (about 500) on two nonconsecutive days of the week and eat a normal diet the rest of the week (example: 5:2 Diet). There are three studies on modified fasting in overweight and obese individuals that have a comparison group (either 1,200-1,500 calories per day or three-quarters of calorie needs). Only one of the studies found that the fasting group lost 4.1 percent more weight than the comparison group. Blood sugar levels weren’t significantly different between the fasting and comparison groups in any of the studies, but insulin levels were lower in the fasting group in two of the studies. (High insulin levels encourage your body to store more fat, especially around your waistline.) **Time-restricted feeding:** This diet pattern extends your nighttime fast from 12 to 20 hours so you have less time to eat and eat fewer meals during the day (example: Lean Gains). There have been two small studies on time-restricted feeding in people. In one study, 29 men with normal body mass index followed a nighttime fast of 11 hours or more for two weeks and also spent two weeks following a regular eating schedule. During the fasting period, the men lost 1.3 percent more than in the control period. Another study looked at the impact of having only one meal a day in the afternoon for eight weeks in 15 adults with a healthy body mass index and found they lost 2.1 kg of fat compared to losing no weight or fat when they ate the same amount of calories divided over three meals a day. Not surprisingly, when the participants were eating one meal a day, they reported feeling much hungrier in the morning. Overall, intermittent fasting diets don’t seem to be any better than daily calorie reduction for promoting weight loss or health. A review of all of the research studies that have compared intermittent fasting to daily calorie reduction found that in the intermittent fasting groups, people lost 3 to 8 percent of their weight over three to 24 weeks while daily calorie reduction led to weight loss of 4 to 14 percent over six to 24 weeks. Fat loss, insulin and blood sugar levels also weren’t any better in the intermittent fasting groups compared to daily calorie reduction. No harmful effects of intermittent fasting have been reported in studies in healthy adults. Still, these studies are of small groups of people and are short-term. The research has also ignored the impact of intermittent fasting on exercise habits, sleep quality and diet quality. I can guarantee that meeting all of your nutrient needs in one meal a day is impossible, making the longevity of such a diet questionable and even risky. If you have a medical condition, are taking medications, have diabetes or problems with blood sugar control, are underweight or have a history of disordered eating, speak to your physician and dietitian before trying a fasting diet. If you’re pregnant or breast-feeding, intermittent fasting isn’t a good diet for you. As promised, intermittent fasting appears to promote weight loss and improve metabolic parameters, but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as the tried and true method of moderate calorie reduction on a day-to-day basis. Limiting the amount of time you spend eating via intermittent fasting may help you eat fewer calories and result in weight loss over time. It all depends on what type of routine works best for you. Some people find they get hungry frequently or struggle with drops in blood sugar levels during the day which makes smaller, frequent meals a better option for them. The common concern with fasting is that people may be prone to overeating on non-fasting days. Surprisingly, the research doesn’t suggest that this happens. Whether this type of diet works for you probably depends on your personality, lifestyle and eating preferences. Christy Brissette is a dietitian, foodie and president of 80TwentyNutrition.com. Follow her on Twitter @80twentyrule. **More fromLifestyle:** Don’t believe those who say smaller, more frequent meals will control appetite How to eat bread the right way What’s real and what’s myth when it comes to caffeine? Why increasing exercise and cutting carbs is a recipe for disaster

Want to eat less? Change the color of your plate

When it comes to food, you know that portion and plate size matters. But color? Indeed, the color of your plate can make you eat more – or less. If you're trying to get rid of a few extra pounds, you might try serving your meals on a plate that contrasts sharply with your food.   The researchers found that color contrast helps mitigate the Delboeuf illusion -- the perception that there is less food on a plate if there is more room between the edge of the food and the edge of the plate. Other research has suggested that the illusion causes people to over-serve food on larger dinner plates, and under-serve on smaller ones. At 22 percent, imagine how much of a difference switching out dinner plates could mean for the waistline over time.  On the other hand, imagine if you had green plates. You might end up cutting down on white foods, such as pasta. And that choice could nudge you toward other healthy choices, such as eating greens. It’s worth a try.

The meat industry’s worst nightmare could soon become a reality

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to release the latest version of the government's influential dietary guidelines this year, and there could be a major change that accelerates the trend of Americans eating less meat. The guidelines, which are updated every five years, have traditionally advised Americans about healthy eating choices, eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the government views as a diet that is healthy for humans. But the panel that advises the government is pushing for the recommendations to reflect what is healthy for the environment, too. Given the huge carbon footprint of meat production, making this change would almost certainly entail lowering the official, government-recommended intake of meat. Americans, though they are eating less meat than they have in the past, are still fond of steaks, hamburgers, and chicken wings. And the environmental impact of that diet is significant. Carnivores contribute far more to environmental decay than do vegetarians. The livestock industry is responsible for an estimated 15 percent of total global carbon emissions, roughly two- thirds of which is the result of beef production. On a per kilogram basis, the carbon footprint of lamb and beef production is unparalleled.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Meat industry advocates have been battling the prospect of lowered meat intake recommendations for decades. But those battles have largely been waged on the nutritional health front, and the evidence is mixed on whether meat is actually harmful to your health. As a result, the government now recommends that people opt for leaner meat, instead of less meat. Defending meat on environmental grounds, however, could be much tougher for the industry. Several international and government agencies, including the United Nations, have spelled out the meat industry's massive footprint. And now the USDA could be next with new, government-backed dietary guidelines.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For that reason, several industry players have responded critically to the consideration, both attacking the notion that meat production is environmentally unfriendly and discrediting the idea that environmental concerns should influence the dietary guidelines issued by the government. The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) and National Cattlemen's Beef Association have each issued statements insisting that lean meat should be part of healthy diets and denouncing any suggestion that environmental impact should dictate the recommendations. "The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s focus on sustainability is objectionable because it is not within the committee’s expertise," NAMI said in a statement. A draft of the government panel's advice, which was released last month, calls for the consumption of more plant-based foods and less animal-based ones, because it's "associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet." Specifically, the draft advises less "red meats" and "processed meats." Just because the USDA's advisory committee is discussing such recommendations doesn't mean it will ultimately include them in its official findings, which are expected to be delivered to the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments later this month. Nor does a recommendation by the panel mean the departments will ultimately heed the advice in determining the final guidelines, which are expected to be released later this year. But the they might. And if they do, the impact would be significant. "Americans don't necessarily heed dietary recommendations," said Janet Riley, the senior vice president of public affairs for the North American Meat Institute. "But where this could have a huge impact is on purchasing programs. The federal feeding programs are significantly impacted by the federal dietary guidelines." Indeed, the immediate impacts would be substantial. Reducing the recommended amount of meat consumption would reduce, among other things, the amount of meat the industry provides as part of the school lunch program. And overnight, the diets of millions of Americans would have less meat.

Stop eating so much meat, top U.S. nutritional panel says

The country's foremost nutrition advisory panel is taking a stand against meat: Americans should eat less of it, top experts say, in order to protect the environment. The recommendation could have a significant impact on the amount of meat people eat --- as well as the environmental impact of a carnivorous nation. "We're not saying that people need to become vegans," said Miriam Nelson, a professor at Tufts University and one of the committee's members. "But we are saying that people need to eat _less_ meat."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The panel's findings, which were released to the public in the form of a 571 page report this afternoon, specifically recommend that Americans be kinder to the environment by eating more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods. The panel is confident that the country can align both health goals and environmental aims, but warns that the U.S. diet, as currently constructed, could improve. "Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet," the report says. Americans, though they are eating less meat than they have in the past, are still eating too much. The problem, which the committee's findings reflect, is that all that meat eating is still having too much of an impact on the environment.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Meat eaters have been linked to considerably larger carbon footprint than vegetarians. And the livestock industry has been associated with a considerably larger carbon footprint than any other food industry. The combination of those two realities, along with the committee's understanding that diets lower in meat consumption, especially red and processed meat consumption, tend to be more healthful, has forced the committee's hand.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The group, which has been mulling a number of changes to the dietary guidelines, has traditionally advised the government about healthy eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the group views as a diet that is healthy for humans. The new recommendations  mark a major break from the past, and offer a glimpse into what the guidelines might look like in the decades to come. "If we're thinking about the foods that are culturally appropriate, we need to start thinking about what's sustainable," said Nelson,. "Other countries have already started doing this—including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it too." The meat industry, for its part, vehemently objects to the notion that Americans should be eating less meat. The North American Meat Institute has repeatedly questioned whether the nutrition panel should be allowed to include sustainability concerns in its recommendations, and challenged the notion that meat negatively impacts the environment. "If our government believes Americans should factor sustainability into their choices, guidance should come from a panel of sustainability experts that understands the complexity of the issue," Barry Carpenter, the chief executive of The North American Meat Institute, said in a statement. The official dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years, won't be released until later this year, after the department of Health and Human Services mulls over the advisory committee's recommendations. The panel's suggestions are, ultimately, suggestions, which the government doesn't have to act upon. But historically, the government has incorporated the panel's suggestions, especially those that recommend changes and updates, into its guidance. If the government acts upon the panel's recommendations to suggest lower meat intake, the impact on the meat industry will be significant. While Americans don't necessarily heed the dietary guidelines ahead of each meal, the guidelines do influence prevalent health narratives. They also help dictate what is on the menu of federal feeding programs, like the school lunch program.

How much your meat addiction is hurting the planet

The environment doesn't appreciate our meat obsession. The average meat-eater in the U.S. is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as the average vegetarian, and close to three times that of the average vegan, according to a study (pdf) published this month in the journal Climatic Change.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The study, which was carried out at Oxford University, surveyed the diets of some 60,000 individuals (more than 2,000 vegans, 15,000 vegetarians, 8,000 fish-eaters, and nearly 30,000 meat-eaters). Heavy meat-eaters were defined as those who consume more than 3.5 ounces of meat per day—making the average American meat-eater (who consumes roughly four ounces per day) a heavy meat- eater. Low meat-eaters were those who eat fewer than 1.76 ounces. And medium meat-eaters were those whose consumption fell somewhere in between.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The difference found in diet-driven carbon footprints was significant. Halve your meat intake, and you could cut your carbon footprint by more than 35 percent; stick to fish, and you could cut it by nearer to 50 percent; go vegan, and the difference could be 60%. The variations were so drastic that the study's authors suggested that countries should consider revising their definition of a sustainable diet. "National governments that are considering an update of dietary recommendations in order to define a ‘healthy, sustainable diet’ must incorporate the recommendation to lower the consumption of animal-based products," the study says. The livestock industry is responsible for roughly 15 percent of global carbon emissions. And the resources necessary to produce even the smallest amounts of market ready meat—like, say, a quarter pound hamburger—are staggering.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The good news is that while Americans might still eat more meat than mother nature would prefer, they are scaling back, and especially so with the most environmentally unfriendly kind—per capita beef consumption has fallen by 36 percent since its peak in 1976, according to data from the USDA. The bad news is that the rest of the world appears to be headed in the opposite direction. Global demand for meat is expected to grow by more than 70 percent by 2050, largely driven by burgeoning middle classes in the developing world. Couple that with the potential for changing health narratives in the U.S.—some of which now tout red meat (and fats, in general) as healthier than once thought—and even Americans could find themselves putting more meat on their plates in the future.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

Eating plenty of fruit and veggies may not lessen risks tied to meat-heavy diets

A shorter life expectancy is among many health risks linked to high consumption of red meat. Might including a lot of fruit and vegetables — which are known for their positive health effects — counteract the risk of premature death caused by a meat-heavy diet? The researchers analyzed data on 74,645 adults, most in their late 50s or early 60s when the study began. None had a history of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Over a 16-year period, 17,909 of the participants died. The more processed and unprocessed red meat people ate regularly, the more likely they were to have died — 21 percent more likely than those who ate the least meat overall. Early death from a cardiovascular cause was 29 percent more likely among those whose regular diets included the most red meat compared with those who ate the least. Those risks did not change, regardless of whether people regularly ate a low, medium or high amount of fruits and vegetables. The researchers reported finding “no interaction” between red meat and fruit and vegetable consumption. People who eat red meat. Research has shown that eating red meat, especially but not limited to processed meat (such as hot dogs and salami), increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some types of cancer as well as early death. On the other hand, eating fruit and vegetables as part of an overall healthy diet may help lower risk for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and a shortened life span. Data on food consumption came from the participants’ responses on questionnaires. October issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (ajcn.nutrition.org) Information on healthy eating is available at choosemyplate.gov and eatright.org The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence about a treatment's effectiveness is rarely found in a single study. Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician.

In your 20s and not worried about aging issues? Think again.

To age well, start now, no matter how old — or young — you are. That’s the firm advice from a group of experts in medicine, nutrition and wellness. Whether you’re 20, 40 or 60-plus years old, healthier aging begins with choices people make every day about exercise, eating and taking care of health issues that crop up. You can make up for mistakes you have made in your youth, when people are sometimes too busy or feeling too immortal to think about such things, but as nutritionist Joy Bauer put it: “In your 20s and 30s, you can really lay the foundation for a long, healthy and fulfilling life.” Here are a few simple tips for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s — when life can be the busiest. **Joy Bauer,** a nutritionist and the author of “From Junk Food to Joy Food”: What you put on your plate when you’re in your 20s and 30s can help set the stage for what happens tomorrow in a big way. For instance, here’s one minor tweak that will have significant payoff: Go meatless one to two days each week. Not only is it one way to help protect our environment by reducing our carbon footprint, eating less beef, pork and poultry (and in its place, more plant-based foods) often means better health, in the way of a lower body mass index, improved cholesterol, lower blood pressure and a decreased disease risk. **Andrew Weil** , a physician and the director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, and author of “Mind Over Meds”: We naturally lose bone density and muscle mass as we age, which increases the risk of fractures, weakness, aches and pains, and limitation of mobility. How can you slow it down? Strength training with weights and weight-bearing exercise like running, walking and cycling develop the muscles and bones you need in later life. Also, take 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily, and be sure your diet includes calcium-rich foods like dairy products, leafy greens and sesame. **Kenneth Lin** , a family medicine physician and an associate professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine: Many sexually transmitted diseases do not cause symptoms, but infections can damage fertility and be passed on to sexual partners. One common denominator for healthy young men is that they are having sex, so testing for HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis would be my highest priority for them. Testing is especially important for women younger than 25 (who have the highest rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia), but my top priority for young women would be screening for cervical cancer (typically, a Pap smear) every three years starting at 21. You may want to add HPV screening at 30. **Richard A. Friedman** , a professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York: The early adult years are the peak age for the onset of many psychiatric problems, including anxiety and depression, so catching problems early not only will ensure a faster recovery, it also could change the entire trajectory of one’s life. Young people also feel invincible, making them more likely to engage in risky behavior — unprotected sex, excessive recreational drug use, biking wihout a helmet — that could jeopardize the quality and length of their lives. Be aware of these impulses and try to moderate them. **Gunnar Peterson** , a Los Angeles-based personal trainer: Make a fitness plan, and stick to it: Lock in a routine that incorporates strength and cardio. The important thing is having a plan, and the more precise it is, the easier it is to follow. Schedule it the way you would a job interview or a business trip. Be open to spur-of-the-moment opportunities — they put the life in living — but then get back to your plan.

Can what you eat affect your mental health? New research links diet and the mind.

Jodi Corbitt had been battling depression for decades and by 2010 had resigned herself to taking antidepressant medication for the rest of her life. Then she decided to start a dietary experiment. To lose weight, the 47-year-old Catonsville, Md., mother stopped eating gluten, a protein found in wheat and related grains. Within a month she had shed several pounds — and her lifelong depression. “It was like a veil lifted and I could see life more clearly,” she recalled. “It changed everything.” Corbitt had stumbled into an area that scientists have recently begun to investigate: whether food can have as powerful an impact on the mind as it does on the body. Research exploring the link between diet and mental health “is a very new field; the first papers only came out a few years ago,” said Michael Berk, a professor of psychiatry at the Deakin University School of Medicine in Australia. “But the results are unusually consistent, and they show a link between diet quality and mental health.” “Diet quality” refers to the kinds of foods that people eat, how often they eat them and how much of them they eat. In several studies, including a 2011 analysis of more than 5,000 Norwegians, Berk and his collaborators have found lower rates of depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder among those who consumed a traditional diet of meat and vegetables than among people who followed a modern Western diet heavy with processed and fast foods or even a health-food diet of tofu and salads. “Traditional diets — the kinds of foods your grandmother would have recognized — have been associated with a lower risk of mental health issues,” Berk said. Interestingly, that traditional diet may vary widely across cultures, including wheat for some people but not for others; the common element seems to be whole, unprocessed, nutrient-dense foods. “There’s lots of hype about the Mediterranean diet [fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, nuts, fish] but the traditional Norwegian diet [fish, shellfish, game, root vegetables, dairy products, whole-wheat bread] and the traditional Japanese diet [fish, tofu, rice] appear to be just as protective” of mental health, he said. The association between diet and mental well-being may start even before birth. A 2013 study of more than 23,000 mothers and their children, led by Berk’s frequent collaborator and Deakin colleague Felice Jacka, suggests a link between a mother’s consumption of sweets and processed foods during pregnancy and behavioral and mental health issues in her child at age 5. It’s unclear how diet relates to mental health, said Rif El-Mallakh, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. “There seems to be a clear link, but it’s an association — it doesn’t tell you cause and effect,” he said. “We don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg.” It could be, he said, that mood disorders change how and what people choose to eat. But an alternate theory is that the relationship works the other way: Certain foods, or their absence, may contribute to poor mental health. For example, studies in people and rats have linked zinc deficiency to depression. Also, illnesses that cause deficiencies — including celiac disease, an autoimmune disease in which the body reacts to gluten — have shown associations with mood disorders. “There’s a two-way street between what’s going on in the gut and what’s going on in the brain,” said Linda A. Lee, director of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center — and recent research points to bacteria as possible middlemen in this back-and-forth. Gut bacteria are known to make most of the body’s serotonin, one of several chemicals that regulate mood, and the bugs may even have a hand in shaping behavior. A 2011 study in mice for example, showed that swapping the gut bacteria of two strains of mice — one known for its daring behavior, the other for its fearfulness and shyness — could make the timid mice more willing to explore and the bold mice more anxious and hesitant. Of course, mice are not men, but changing diet has been shown to change human gut bacteria, and fairly quickly. That suggests it’s possible that dietary choices can alter well-being and behavior, Lee said, but researchers aren’t yet sure if this complex interplay means that swapping food in or out of one’s diet can ease or cure a mental illness. “We’re not at the point where we can use diet as therapy, especially when we’re dealing with someone whose mental health issues render them very disabled, because we just don’t know enough,” Lee said. “I think we’re just on the new frontier, and five or 10 years from now we’ll know more.” Jacka, president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research, echoes these reservations. She notes that nearly all research on the connection between diet and mental health has been limited to animal studies and observational studies in humans. “We can’t say [that] if we improve your diet, you’ll feel better,” she said. “We have circumstantial evidence that suggests this could be true, but we can’t say for sure.” The lack of strong evidence and well-designed studies has led to some resistance to Berk’s and Jacka’s work. Until recently, “the idea that what you put in your mouth could affect your mental health was met with great skepticism,” said Jacka, who recalled colleagues’ dismissing the idea as “rubbish.” With more studies, though, the research community is beginning to come around, she said. Even as scientists struggle to understand the link between food and mood, some patients, such as Corbitt, seem to tap into it without intending to. “I changed my diet because I had gastrointestinal issues,” said a 32-year-old woman with bipolar disorder who lives in San Francisco and asked not to be named because she worries about being stigmatized. Three years ago, at her gastroenterologist’s urging, she tried the Atkins diet and found relief — not just from her digestive issues but also from her mental illness, which had at one point nearly derailed her life. “I noticed within a day or two the marked difference in my head,” she recalled. “It felt clear for the first time in years and years.” That may seem like a surprisingly quick turnaround, but Jacka said it is not out of the question. “We know from animal studies and a human study that a poor diet can impair memory and attention within a week,” she said. The woman no longer takes the medication prescribed to treat her bipolar disorder, and she said she has remained stable for the past three years. She said she has sought out psychiatric and neurological researchers across the country, hoping to share her experience and to learn what they know, but has found little interest and few studies. “It surprised me how little information was out there, because for me it was life-changing,” she said. “I wanted to validate the experience I was having, and to make sure that everything I was doing was safe. That’s how I found Dr. El-Mallakh.” El-Mallakh had hypothesized in 2001 that a ketogenic diet — a high-fat, moderate-protein and low-carbohydrate diet often used to control epileptic seizures and nearly identical to the diet adopted by the 32-year-old woman — could be helpful for bipolar disorder, because many of the medications that work for bipolar disorder have anti-   seizure properties. After being contacted by the woman, El-Mallakh found several other people with bipolar disorder who said they were benefiting from a ketogenic diet. Last year,he published two case studies of its apparent effectiveness. His report drew interest from people with the mental illness, but efforts at Stanford University to test the diet with a controlled trial failed to recruit enough participants. Without such studies, El-Mallakh acknowledged that no one can say how the diet might quell the symptoms of bipolar disorder. With his own patients, herecommends it only alongside mood-stabilizing medications. Despite his own willingness to supplement mental health treatment with dietary changes, El-Mallakh remains skeptical that diet alone can heal the mind. “There are a lot of people out there who call themselves depressed who aren’t actually depressed,” he said. “I think people confuse low energy with depression, or sugar crashes with mood swings, but they probably don’t have a mental illness. And those people may do better with dietary interventions alone.” And even if diet can do the trick, providers don’t yet know how to use it effectively or safely. The problem, El-Mallakh said, is that mental illness is still poorly understood. Eventually, he hopes, the connection between food and mental health could benefit researchers who study mental illness as well as those who live with it. Berk and Jacka areconducting the most comprehensive **** controlled study yet, involving 176 people, of whether dietary intervention can help ease depression, but they don’t yet have results. For now, Berk advocates an integrative approach to treating mental illness that includes experimenting with changes in diet and exercise along with more traditional treatments. “For a mood disorder like depression, there are hundreds if not thousands of risk pathways that all contribute to the disorder,” Berk said. “Targeting one factor doesn’t target all the factors that cause someone to develop depression. That’s why you need to develop an integrated package of care as the norm.” That time can’t come soon enough for Corbitt. “This was such a simple solution,” she said. “I could have saved myself a lot of money and a lot of misery if someone had asked about my diet 15 years ago. My life could have been different.” Telis is a freelance science and health writer.

Extra weight can sneak up on you, but there are ways to avoid putting on pounds

Putting on pounds can greatly affect your physical and psychological health. Here are several ways that extra weight can sneak up on you and how you can make some adjustments to win your battle of the bulge. ● **Falling for “diet” food.** Low-fat products entice people to eat more than they should. That’s because people assume that low-fat food has fewer calories, which isn’t always true. According to a 2006 study in the Journal of Marketing Research, participants underestimated the calorie content of “low- fat” chocolates by about 50 percent, on average. So it’s important to read the Nutrition Facts label on products. ● **Sleeping for fewer than six hours a night.** A lack of shut-eye can cause an increase in the hormone ghrelin, which tells your brain that you’re hungry. It also causes a drop in leptin, the hormone responsible for signaling when you’re full. That dual reaction might be stronger in people who are dieting, which can sabotage weight-loss efforts, according to a review of studies in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Bottom line: Make an earlier bedtime a priority. ● **Letting your cabinets overflow.** Does your pantry look as though it could serve 15? Then trim your shopping list. Another study in the Journal of Marketing Research concluded that stockpiling groceries often means that more food is left outside cabinets, causing people to see and consume it more quickly. ● **Racking up screen time.** Research has found that the more you sit, the more you’re likely to gain weight. That seems to be true even for people who get the prescribed 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Office jobs often require lots of desk time, so take “walking” breaks and cut down on after-work and weekend use of your television and computer. ● **Distorting portions.** Larger bowls, packages and servings can lead you to eat more than what’s appropriate, according to a 2011 study in the Journal of Consumer Research. To eat and drink less, try using smaller plates, bowls and glasses, along with smaller serving dishes and utensils. Take one serving at a time from large packages, then remove the packages from sight. When dining out, share dishes with your companions. Most important, though, downsize snacks and fast food. A study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior had moviegoers eat from either a medium or large tub of popcorn. Those with the larger tubs ate 45 percent more. Copyright 2013. Consumers Union of United States Inc.

Trying to lose weight? The colder months might be the perfect time.

Freezing temps are no excuse to give up on fitness. As it turns out, you might stand a better chance of losing weight when it’s cold. A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that people actively trying to shed pounds had the best results when the temperature dropped. The more inhospitable the weather, the more conscientious people became about keeping track of their meals and calories. “Climate-related factors can directly change a person’s behavior, and these factors can have a certain impact on intentional efforts to lose weight,” said Sang Youl Rhee, who led the research team at Kyung Hee University Medical Center in Seoul. “In addition, various climatic factors can lead to a significant change in the level of energy expenditure in the body.” Researchers tracked the weight loss of 3,274 people under 42 throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia with Noom Coach, a fitness app that can pinpoint the location of users. They then used a meteorology service, called Weather Underground API, to monitor conditions, and discovered that colder temperatures and lower dew points as well as higher wind speed and precipitation were all linked to the app users’ weight loss. On average, people logged into Noom 110 days during the year-long study, or roughly every three days. Men tended to use the app more frequently than women and were more likely to lose weight. People who logged their meals regularly, especially dinner, lost the most weight. “During the weight-loss journey, it’s important to focus on changing the underlying behaviors that lead to obesity,” said Rhee, an endocrinologist. “Those who continue logging food and have an awareness around what they are eating will be most successful in losing weight.” Other studies have explored the relationship between cooler temperatures and burning fat, including one in the journal of Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism that said spending time in the cold can boost calorie burn by up to 30 percent. Yet those studies primarily examined the molecular breakdown of fat, not the behavioral connection between temperature and weight loss. Chronicling meals, physical activity and weight have been proven in previous studies to be effective ways to lose weight. A Kaiser Permanente study of 1,700 people found that those who kept a daily account of what they ate lost twice as much weight as those who kept no record. Noom, which launched in 2012, lets users choose from a variety of courses, ranging from 16 to 22 weeks, designed to prevent or manage chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes. Courses are created by physicians and come with a coach to guide users through the process. One week might be dedicated to understanding triggers to unhealthy foods you’re eating while another focuses on getting you to try a variety of veggies. “It’s a cognitive behavior-based program, meaning you’re trying to understand what makes you have certain habits and behaviors and change your thinking around those behaviors and habits,” said Artem Petakov, president and co-founder of Noom. “There are different exercises to make you more mindful and more likely to problem-solve around those areas.” Petakov said Noom has worked with other researchers, including a team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, on wellness studies. In this case, the team at Kyung Hee approached the company, which has 45 million users worldwide, to get a diverse collection of anonymous data. The study did not take exercise into account, but Petakov said that’s not necessarily a shortcoming. “The popular notion is that physical activity is the key to achieving weight loss, but the truth is it’s more about nutrition,” Petakov said. “When it’s colder, you have more time to focus on the nutrition aspects, cooking more for example, and just have more time to dedicate to it without as many distractions as far as going outside.” **@DaniDougPost on Twitter ** **More fromLifestyle:** How athletes can avoid — or at least minimize — cramps A machine that used to be considered punishment is now a $1.4 billion fitness industry Large study supports ‘weekend warrior’ approach to lifetime fitness

How to lighten up three favorite indulgences

Columnist Ellie Krieger is a nutritionist, registered dietitian and author. She shares her nutrition knowledge in biweekly live chats. In a recent Q&A;, she gave advice on a common healthful-eating challenge: indulgences. Here’s an edited excerpt. I like to have a glass of wine with dinner, and it is certainly something that can be integral to a healthy lifestyle. There is nothing beyond the calories in wine (120 calories in five ounces) that would make you put weight on, but it’s easy to drink way more than a five-ounce glass, especially with the goblets that pass as wine glasses these days. Next time, measure and see how much your glass really holds. And if you get a little too tipsy from wine, it could lead you to be more impulsive in your eating. I suggest keeping it to one five-ounce glass a night if you are trying to lose weight. I like to have small squares of individually wrapped dark chocolate as a treat. Sometimes, just that little bite to savor does the trick perfectly. Chocolate that is about 70 percent cocoa solids has the perfect balance of taste and health benefits. Also, you cannot go wrong melting a little dark chocolate and using it as a dip for fresh fruit (strawberries/orange slices/banana). There are many brands of pasta and pizza sauce that have no added sugar, but they can be more expensive. Regardless, here is an easy no-cook pizza sauce: In a food processor, puree one 14-ounce can of whole tomatoes with one clove of garlic, one teaspoon of oregano and two teaspoons of extra-virgin olive oil. Simple as that. More from Wellness: Some popular diets are based on this carb-rating scale. Here’s why it could be misleading. How to actually get a good lunchtime workout, even if you can’t leave the office High body fat can be dangerous, even with normal BMI, new study says

Lots of food tastes good. Why do we crave meat?

Brazil exports more beef than any country. What country is second? India. True, most of the beef doesn’t come from India’s famously sacred cows; it comes from the closely related water buffalo. But it’s beef, it’s lean, and it’s quite competitive on the international market. (India also has an underground cow-slaughtering industry that labels cow meat “buffalo” until it leaves the country.) Marta Zaraska recounts this in a chapter on the skyrocketing popularity of meat in traditionally vegetarian parts of Asia — one of many well-reported and engagingly described subjects in her new book, “Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession With Meat.” Zaraska, a veteran science writer, calls herself a “sloppy vegetarian.” She eats fish, and, because she lives in France — “country of foie gras and horse steaks” — often finds it too difficult to stick to a plant-based diet. A few years ago, she began pondering why there was a market for “fake meat,” made from soybeans or whatever; after all, people with nut allergies don’t go looking for “fake peanuts.” What is it about meat, she wondered, that makes even committed vegetarians crave something that mimics it? The book is the result of her research.The early chapters present a history of human food consumption and challenge the notion that humans evolved to crave the Paleo diet any more than any of the other diets they’ve subsisted on in the past. Later she visits an “in vitro meat lab” where researchers tend Petri dishes filled with reddish, gooey nutrients, growing beef cells into edible muscle tissue. She investigates who likes to eat dog meat, horse meat and so on. She tastes insects. She looks at studies and makes a convincing case that, trendiness notwithstanding, the percentage of vegetarians in the United States hasn’t gone up significantly in 70 years. Zaraska says she’s not trying to persuade you not to eat meat, but of course she is. She describes the ethical issue of killing animals, the clogged arteries from cholesterol, the damage to the planet (raising livestock is a mammoth contributor to greenhouse gases). Luckily she has done enough research, and is a lively enough writer, that her arguments are original and entertaining, packed with tweetable facts and, often, pretty funny.

Why all the fuss about coconut?

The coconut has attained Superfood status. Lured by endorsements from celebrities, supermodels and even Kourtney Kardashian, consumers are clamoring for coconut oil, water, milk, and coconut- infused cocktails. They're pouring it in coffee, spreading it on toast, swishing it like mouthwash and gulping it down after hot-yoga classes, enticed by the promise that coconut can banish belly fat, boost heart health and even stave off the effects of Alzheimer's Disease.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday But do coconuts offer any real health benefits? Or is it just hype?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Researchers, dietitians, and doctors say that coconut's properties are promising, but the data just isn't sufficient to start recommending daily doses. "The science we have is interesting, but it's too early to deem this as the next Superfood and start pouring it on everything," says Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian and manager of wellness nutrition services for the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute. "We just don't have enough evidence." Most of the excitement revolves around coconut's reputation as a weight-loss tool. Coconut oil contains large amounts of medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are used for fuel more quickly than long-chain triglycerides (LCTs) found in most animal-based products, like meats and dairy. LCTs linger longer in the bloodstream and are more readily stored as fat.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday "Because fats high in MCTs are metabolized faster by the liver, coconut oil may have a slight edge over other fats in terms of weight loss. But the research is limited," says Kirkpatrick. "There is a perception that because it's plant based, it's healthier than animal fats. But like animal [fat], it has calories, lots of them, and that makes a big difference in weight loss." Much of the hype has been spurred by studies that have shown modest weight loss in small groups over short periods of time, she adds, including a 2011 study of women who, over a 12-week period, lost just 0.005 percent more belly fat consuming coconut oil supplements than those who took soybean oil supplements. But studies like that one are too small to justify bold health claims, cautions Ashley Simmons, a cardiologist and medical director of the University of Kansas Hospital's women's heart program. "I think we need to look at all these studies very cautiously," she says. To be sure, coconut oil does have some proven benefits. It contains lauric acid, which reduces inflammation associated with acne, and has been shown to have antimicrobial properties. There is some evidence that virgin coconut oil contains antioxidants that may play a role in reducing inflammation associated with arthritic conditions. And it is a smart substitute for other saturated fats, such as butter or shortening, Simmons says. Those animal-based fats raise LDL ("bad") cholesterol. Coconut oil raises both HDL ("good") cholesterol, as well as LDL, so it doesn't carry the same cardiovascular risk. "As a saturated fat, it's probably better than others," she says. "But it's still a high-calorie, highly-saturated fat." Indeed, coconut's high proportion of saturated fat -- which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease --  gives health experts pause. Coconut oil has a higher proportion of saturated fat than other plant-based oils. A tablespoon of coconut oil has calorie and fat counts similar to olive oil's, but 88 percent of the fat in coconut oil is saturated, compared to just 15 percent in olive oil. "For olive oil, we have very strong studies showing that it's reduced the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer," says Kirkpatrick. The oil also has been hailed for its potential to delay the effects of Alzheimer's Disease. "I get asked about coconut oil on a daily basis," says Amanda Smith, medical director at the University of South Florida's Byrd Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa. She says she has heard mixed reviews from patients who've tried it and is conducting a study to determine whether cognitive benefits exist. "Some say that it helps, and others have perceived no benefit. But we don't have the data to make specific recommendations." The coconut craze reaches beyond the kitchen. Some recommend it for oil pulling, an Ayurvedic method that has been said to banish migraines, whiten teeth and detox the body. Oil pulling involves swishing oil in the mouth for five to 20 minutes, then spitting it out. The American Dental Association recently warned that oil pulling shouldn't be substituted for teeth brushing, fluoride or other conventional oral hygiene measures. Traditionally, sesame oil was used for oil pulling, says Larissa Hall Carlson, dean of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda in Stockbridge, Mass. But these days some people are using coconut oil because it's lighter and more palatable. Ayurvedic practitioners don't commonly recommend oil pulling on a daily basis, or as a substitute for brushing and flossing, Carlson says. And they don't promise any other sweeping health benefits. Other coconut products have also become wildly popular. Cartons of coconut milk have become permanent fixtures in dairy departments of groceries, alongside soy, almond and hemp milks, for those searching for cow's milk alternatives. Coconut milk has calorie and fat profiles similar to other plant-based milk. Coconut water is becoming a popular thirst-quencher for those looking for a natural way to replenish electrolytes after hard workouts. Unsweetened varieties don't have the sugar, artificial sweeteners or dyes contained in many conventional sports drinks. And coconut water is high in potassium and magnesium, two nutrients the body needs. That said, Dayton, Ohio-based sports dietitian Pamela Nisevich Bede points out that coconut water is lower in sodium, the main electrolyte lost through sweat, and carbohydrates than conventional sports drinks. While it's a better choice than soda or a sugar-packed juice, "I wouldn't recommend it over a traditional sports drink to rehydrate after vigorous activity," she says. Related: Former restaurant chef: Coconut is a miracle superfood    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

This bug’s bite could turn you into a vegetarian

A bug can make you allergic to meat. No — really. It’s called the “Lone Star tick.” But unlike the Lone Star State — Texas — it will not whet your appetite for barbecue. Thanks to the tiny creature, a tide of involuntary vegetarianism is rolling up the Eastern seaboard, where it is the likely cause of thousands of cases of severe red meat allergies. According to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the allergy can cause hives, breathing problems, a drop in blood pressure or even anaphylactic shock after eating red meat or dairy.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The problem has to do with a friendly-sounding sugar called “alpha-gal,” which ticks have but humans don’t. This same sugar is found in red meat, pork and some dairy products, and doesn’t usually bother people when they digest it. But when a tick bite injects it into the bloodstream, the human immune system creates antibodies activated next time the person eats red meat, causing the allergic reaction. Like other allergic reactions, the condition can be treated with antihistamines and epinephrine. “This allergy is so weird,” Chris Richey of Millersburg, Mo., told Al Jazeera. “It’s turned my life upside down.” A pot roast landed her in the hospital after she broke out in hives so bad she scratched the skin off her arms.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday It’s not just meat victims have to be wary of. Al Jazeera: Explaining a sudden aversion to meat can be complicated. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to feel less Southern,” wrote Jonathan Kime in a 2012 Oxford American essay. Kime struggled to explain he couldn’t eat pork to fellow Southerners after he was bitten by the Lone Star tick. “In a way it’s like saying that if it’s not my own fault, if I didn’t choose to stop eating pork, then fate must be at work, or that God must have done this to me. If you want a North Carolinian to question his faith, tell him God won’t let him eat pork chops.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The problem was discovered a few years ago, but many still aren’t aware of it, even doctors. “Why would someone think they’re allergic to meat when they’ve been eating it their whole life?” an allergist who saw 200 cases on New York’s Long Island told the Associated Press.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The reaction can take four to six hours to kick in, which is one reason it was so hard to connect the allergy to its cause. Thomas Platts-Mills of the University of Virginia, an allergy researcher, stumbled on the cause while studying a mysterious sensitivity to a cancer drug in some patients. The drug also contains alpha-gal. He noticed most of the allergic patients came from rural areas in the southeastern United States and also had a meat allergy. The clincher was when Platts-Mills himself was bitten by the tick in 2007 while hiking and wound up with the allergy. It’s unclear whether people who are bitten will have the allergy for life. “We don’t really know yet how durable this will be” or whether it’s lifelong, like a shellfish allergy, Robert Valet of Vanderbilt University told the Associated Press. The meat allergy “does not seem to be lifelong, but the caveat is, additional tick bites bring it back,” said Scott Commins of the University of Virginia. Ticks thrive in humid, woodsy areas where deer, their choice host, live. Lone Star ticks have spread beyond the South in recent decades, as far north as Wisconsin and as far east as Maine as white-tail deer populations have moved and expanded. **Related:** If you’re allergic to meat, antibiotics and other additives may not be the reason    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

What to know before trying to improve what you eat

What’s more important, the foods you do eat or the foods you don’t? Your health benefits when you eat more vegetables. It also benefits when you eat less added sugar. However, when you add or subtract something from your diet, it’s important to consider the other side of the equation in order to remain nutritionally balanced. One of the lessons learned from the low-fat era was that advice to limit saturated fat wasn’t helpful without recommendations about what to eat instead. As it turns out, replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates isn’t good for cardiovascular and metabolic health, while swapping it for polyunsaturated fat does improve health. Public attention has swung from fat to sugar, and while identifying sources of added sugar is one step toward a more healthful diet, it’s also important to focus on things like getting enough vegetables and protein. It’s generally a good idea to focus on including more of the foods we benefit from, rather than simply on the foods we “shouldn’t eat,” because it helps ensure that we get the full spectrum of nutrients needed for good health. Plus, there’s a healthy mental aspect to being inclusive instead of exclusive. However, when you add a new food without subtracting something else, you could increase your overall calorie intake beyond what your body needs. Although it’s hard to do this by adding broccoli, it’s easier to go over the top with a higher-calorie option such as nuts. One benefit of correcting the low-fat dogma is that healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are back on the table. Nuts, seeds and avocados are full of heart-healthy fats, fiber, and a host of nutrients, but they also have a lot of calories (although recent research has found that almonds, walnuts and pistachios have fewer calories than previously thought). Interestingly, research shows that regular nut consumption is not associated with weight gain. This may be because nuts are satiating, leading nut-eaters to unconsciously reduce calories in other areas, or they may be consciously choosing to eat nuts instead of something else. For example, they might be having a handful of walnuts instead of a bag of chips, pumpkin seeds on a salad instead of cheese, or avocado instead of butter on toast. Let’s consider two popular diets: paleo and vegan. The paleo diet, as generally practiced, excludes grains, pulses (beans and lentils), dairy and refined sugar. A vegan diet excludes meat, dairy products, eggs and other animal products. But focusing too narrowly on those exclusions can turn them into something unbalanced and unhealthful. A paleo diet replete with bacon, sausage and coconut milk ice cream isn’t terribly good for you. Neither is a vegan diet that is full of white flour pasta, potato chips and soy ice cream. A paleo diet should be about more than subtracting foods that were introduced to the human diet with the advent of agriculture (grains and pulses). It also should be about more than just adding meat. Simultaneously adding vegetables will bring in healthful carbohydrates and fiber to balance the protein and fat. Similarly, shunning refined sugar but doubling down on honey, agave or coconut sugar doesn’t benefit nutrition or health. Adding whole fruit is a better way to get the sweet taste we enjoy. When someone goes vegan, they are often on the receiving end of the question, “Where are you going to get your protein?” This diet can certainly go too far in the carb direction, but including plant sources of protein with each meal (pulses, soy, nuts and seeds), along with vegetables and whole grains, can restore balance. A diet made up of a variety of whole and minimally processed foods provides the spectrum of nutrients we need for good health. Avoiding certain foods or food groups isn’t always a choice — sometimes it’s a necessity. Food allergies and celiac disease are hallmark examples. Either way, when you avoid entire food groups, it’s crucial to know how you will replace essential nutrients you would otherwise get from those foods. An apple is naturally gluten-free and healthier than a gluten-free cookie. When you have a milk allergy—or severe lactose intolerance—you still need calcium and protein. Most plant-based milks are fortified with calcium, but almond milk does not provide you with the same amount of protein as dairy milk; soy milk does. In today’s food culture, it’s easy to tag the inclusion, or exclusion, of a specific food as the answer to whatever nutritional concern you are facing. The truth is that it is the sum total of your diet that matters more than any single food. Always keep your eye on the larger nutritional picture. Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie. **More fromLifestyle:** How to feed a happy, healthy gut 5 reasons we regain weight How to beat the bloat (a.k.a. food baby) The macros diet takes calorie counting to the next level: Does it really work?

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology caused a ruckus late last year when they issued new guidelines that, by some measures, would double the number of people who should be taking a cholesterol-lowering drug. Lost in the ensuing uproar was a less controversial but in some ways more far-reaching recommendation from the same organizations: a renewed emphasis on the power of lifestyle changes in preventing and treating heart disease. Another advantage of focusing on lifestyle: The heart-protective effects go beyond cholesterol reduction. You can lower your blood pressure, lose weight and perhaps reduce inflammation in the arteries, a risk factor increasingly linked to heart attacks and strokes. In fact, Consumer Reports’ medical experts say, making lifestyle changes can eliminate the need for drugs. The five steps highlighted here yield important health benefits — and show that it’s never too late to make changes. **How it helps:** People who exercise regularly have a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of heart disease than those who don’t, the research suggests. Exercise strengthens your heart muscle at the same time that it controls inflammation and helps keep weight, cholesterol and blood pressure at healthy levels. Strength training improves heart health, too, because more muscle equals a faster metabolism, which makes it easier to keep weight off. **What to do:** It doesn’t take a lot. Aim for 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week (such as two Zumba classes or jogging at a 7-mph pace) or 21 / 2 hours of moderately intense activity (equal to walking at 4 mph), which comes out to 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Even just standing up can help: Recent research suggests that prolonged sitting lowers levels of HDL (good) cholesterol, raises artery-clogging triglycerides and decreases the insulin sensitivity that boosts the risk of Type 2 diabetes. **How it helps:** Vegetables and fruit, whole grains, nuts and beans have each been linked to a healthier heart. Those foods are high in protective nutrients such as potassium and fiber, and free of or very low in saturated fat. And those are the same nutrients that are plentiful in the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, which was highlighted in the new guidelines and can lower heart-disease risk by 18 percent, research shows. **What to do:** Make plant foods and fish the centerpiece of your meals. When you do eat meat or poultry, stick to three-to-four-ounce portions and choose lean cuts. Include a variety of fruit and vegetables with a host of colors. That ensures that you’ll get the complete array of nutrients that have been linked to good health. In addition, replace foods rich in saturated fat, such as butter, with canola, olive oil and other unsaturated oils. **How it helps:** Some research suggests that emotional stress can be almost as bad for your heart as more-familiar risk factors such as high blood pressure. Negative emotions trigger the release of hormones that can threaten your heart. People in rocky relationships, for example, are more prone to heart disease. **What to do:** Develop your own portfolio of coping strategies. Exercise helps, in part because it appears to reduce levels of stress hormones and can keep your blood pressure down when you’re under duress. Yoga and tai chi are particularly good options because they lower blood pressure and heart rate. And be sure to schedule some time each day to unwind, whether it’s with meditation, massage or music. **How it helps:** Moderate drinking can raise a low HDL (good) cholesterol level, and it reduces the risk of death from heart disease by about 25 percent. It may also help prevent Type 2 diabetes and ischemic strokes, the kind caused by blood clots. **What to do:** It doesn’t seem to matter much what kind of alcohol you consume, as long as you keep it to two drinks a day for men or one a day for women. The benefits appear to be highest among people at increased risk of heart disease, notably men older than 40 and women older than 50. If you don’t drink, though, don’t start. **How it helps:** Smokers are two to four times as likely to develop heart disease as nonsmokers. But once you quit, you can eventually lower your risk to that of someone who has never smoked. **What to do:** The most successful strategies for most people include counseling, nicotine-replacement products or both. Those products are most helpful for the first two to three months of quitting, when the risk of a relapse is greatest. Using them for longer than that should occur only under the supervision of your doctor, because there is a risk of becoming addicted to the replacements themselves. Copyright 2014. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

Popular diets may carry risks that are unexpected and not worth taking

Are you one of the millions who have tried the high-protein, low-carb Atkins plan to lose weight or gone paleo for more energy? Do you stick with foods labeled fat-free to lower cholesterol or buy only gluten-free products because your stomach is sensitive? Those widely publicized regimens seem so promising. But does science support the claims? Consumer Reports spoke with doctors and dietitians, and read the research. Here’s what you need to know before going high-protein, low-fat or gluten-free: **The promise:** Remember the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman diet? Those high-protein/low-carbohydrate plans may have gone out of fashion, but Atkins, first published in 1972, is still hot. Protein-packed products are flooding stores, and the list of popular protein-rich diets — paleo, Zone and more — continues to grow. All claim that you’ll lose pounds, feel peppier and reduce your risk of heart disease. **The truth:** People lose weight on high-protein plans because they take in fewer calories, not because they focus on protein. “Diets only work by lowering calories,” says David Seres, director of medical nutrition at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York and a member of Consumer Reports’ medical advisory board. “Where the calories come from doesn’t matter.” In addition to pushing protein, many of these plans recommend cutting back on — or completely eliminating — carbohydrates. If you get less than 50 grams of carbs per day (the amount in two apples) for three to four days in a row, your body will start tapping its own fat and muscle for fuel instead of its usual source: glucose derived from carbohydrates. “You’re altering your metabolism away from what’s normal and into a starved state,” Seres says, adding, “People in starved states experience problems with brain function.” A high-protein diet also overworks the kidneys. That’s especially worrisome for people with kidney disease and can predispose those with healthy kidneys to kidney stones. Over an extended time, excessive protein intake leaches calcium from your bones, which can lead to osteoporosis. As for heart disease, the saturated-fat-laden red meat that’s part of many high-protein diets may actually boost your risk. According to a Harvard study of more than 120,000 people followed for more than 20 years, a meat-based low-carb diet increased the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 14 percent. **The bottom line:** It’s probably best to steer clear of high-protein diets, according to Consumer Reports’ experts. **The promise:** Proponents say these plans can prevent or ease heart disease, lower cholesterol levels, control blood pressure, and help you lose weight and keep it off. **The truth:** Without some dietary fat, you can become deficient in essential fatty acids and have trouble absorbing vitamins that are fat- soluble. And certain kinds of fat — unsaturated ones — help protect your heart, reduce Type 2 diabetes risks and have other benefits. For example, a 2012 review of studies by the independent Cochrane Collaboration found that replacing saturated fat (found in animal products such as butter and ground beef) with unsaturated fat (from plant oils, fatty fish, avocados and nuts) lowered the risk of heart attacks and strokes. And if weight loss is your goal, be aware that low- and no-fat foods aren’t always lower in calories. **The bottom line:** Stay away from no- or very low-fat diets; they can ultimately be harmful. **The promise:** Those who espouse this way of eating say that it improves gut health, cures stomach problems, aids weight loss and is energizing. **The truth:** For most people, there’s nothing unhealthful about gluten, proteins that are found in barley, rye and wheat. The only people who need to give up gluten are the estimated 1 percent of Americans who have celiac disease and the up to 6 percent with non-celiac gluten sensitivity. In fact, some evidence suggests that gluten may help fight heart disease by lowering levels of triglycerides (fats that circulate in your blood with cholesterol). It may also help reduce high blood pressure. As for weight loss, a gluten-free diet may backfire, according to a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food. Many foods without gluten are higher in calories, fat and sugar than the wheat-based versions. For example, a regular three-ounce Thomas’ plain bagel has 270 calories, two grams of fat and seven grams of sugar. A four-ounce Glutino Original New York Style bagel has 340 calories, seven grams of fat and 14 grams of sugar. And some gluten-free products contain small quantities of arsenic, a carcinogen often found in the rice frequently used to replace flours that contain gluten. In 2012, Consumer Reports tested more than 60 samples of rice and rice-containing packaged foods, including rice pasta, rice crackers and cookies. Almost all contained measurable levels of arsenic. **The bottom line:** Don’t opt to go gluten-free unless you have been diagnosed with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity. Copyright 2015. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

‘Healthy’ sweeteners, protein-powerhouse quinoa and other nutrition myths, debunked

Is agave really better than white sugar? Will cleansing help my body detoxify? We all hunger for nutrition advice, but not all the advice you hear is worth believing. Here are the truths behind five common nutrition myths: Remember last year’s scary headline? “World Health Organization Says Processed Meat Causes Cancer.” Turns out, the science was not as dire as the headline made it sound. The WHO report said that eating 50 grams of processed meat every day (about one hot dog) increased the relative risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent. That’s not the same as “causing cancer.” To put it into perspective: The average person has a 5 percent risk of developing colon cancer; those who eat a lot of processed meat increase their risk to 6 percent. Meats that are not processed — such as steak, veal and fresh pork (like pork chops or loin, not bacon or ham) are less strongly linked to colorectal cancer than processed meats. So what does this mean for your dinner plate? The American Institute for Cancer Research suggests avoiding processed meat and limiting red meat to no more than 18 ounces (about three six-ounce servings) per week. Steaks and pork chops are better choices than sausages, deli meats or bacon. Let’s face it: If you bake cookies using a cup of sugar, it really doesn’t matter what type you use if you eat all of the cookies, right? Whether it’s date sugar, agave or evaporated cane juice, when it comes to sugars, the quantity you consume matters more than the type. Guidelines recommend no more than six (for women) to nine (for men) teaspoons of any type of added sugar daily. Higher consumption is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Maybe you prefer coconut sugar because it’s less refined or may cause less of an insulin spike than white sugar. That’s fine, but you still need to watch portion size. Despite the different colors, textures and flavors, all sugars contain a similar number of calories (10-20 per teaspoon) but scant amounts of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Enjoy a spoonful in your coffee or in that bite of dessert, but don’t believe any sugar is a health food. Much like natural sugars, the health halo over sea salt is also undeserved. Although it’s often marketed for its content of trace minerals, like copper and manganese, they’re in such tiny quantities that they contribute very little to the body. Plus, we get enough of these nutrients from the foods we eat daily. The truth is that sea salt and table salt contain the same amount of sodium by weight, and that’s the nutrient of most concern. Consumed in excess (more than 2,300 mg per day), sodium may put you at higher risk of stroke, kidney disease and high blood pressure. From a culinary point of view, however, the type of salt matters. Different varieties will change the flavor profile and texture of a dish. For example, flaky Maldon adds a terrific crunch, while Hawaiian sea salt imparts an earthy flavor. So choose a pinch of a particular salt for its culinary characteristics, not because you’re sprinkling health onto your meals. Quinoa is often listed alongside poultry and meat as a stellar source of protein, so it’s time to set the record straight. Quinoa has eight grams of protein per cup, but a three-ounce serving of meat or poultry has about 25 grams of protein — hardly comparable. The confusion lies in the terminology. Quick science lesson: Protein is made up of smaller units called amino acids. A “complete” protein contains all nine essential amino acids — and quinoa is one of relatively few plant-based foods in this category. But being a complete protein isn’t the same as being high in protein. Quinoa is delicious and does add some protein to your meals, but with 40 grams of carbohydrates per cup, its culinary use is as a grain, not a protein. When compared with other grains, quinoa has a moderate amount of protein — not as much as wheat, but more than brown rice or oats. Cleansing involves using laxatives, juices or herbal remedies to remove “toxins” from the body to accelerate weight loss or boost energy. But there is little scientific research on the effectiveness of cleansing, simply because most “detox diets” don’t identify the specific toxins they aim to remove. Some people report feeling “energetic” after cleansing, but that may be because most detox diets involve eliminating processed foods. The downside to detoxing? Expensive supplements, possible nutritional deficiencies and false hope from unsubstantiated claims. You can skip the extravagant juice concoctions and costly supplements, because your body self-cleanses daily. We all have built-in detox systems: The skin, intestines, liver and kidneys effectively remove waste from your body through sweat, urine and feces. So, a good workout (to sweat), some water (to pee) and a high-fiber diet (to poop) will cleanse you naturally. And of course, you’ll have less to “cleanse” if you don’t drink too much alcohol, smoke or rely on a diet filled with processed foods. Registered dietitian Cara Rosenbloom is president of Words to Eat By, a nutrition communications company specializing in writing, nutrition education and recipe development. She is the co-author of “Nourish: Whole Food Recipes featuring Seeds, Nuts and Beans.” **More fromLifestyle:** Nine ways to tighten your family’s food budget without skimping on nutrition Coffee make you too jittery? There’s a green alternative. How to fight sweet cravings when sugar is everywhere Don’t believe the protein pushers — you’re probably eating enough

Should you buy lean or regular ground meat?

Ground meat and poultry sold in grocery stores vary in fat content. Dietitian and healthful eating columnist Ellie Krieger discussed the differences in her latest chat. Here is some information for the next time you’re at the grocery store: **● Regular ground beef** is 70 to 85 percent lean. There are 230 calories and 13 grams of fat in three ounces of 70 percent lean ground beef. ● **Lean** **ground beef** is 90 to 95 percent lean. There are 196 calories and 10 grams of fat in three ounces of 90 percent lean ground beef. ● **Draining meat** can lower the fat content, but you’re better off buying lean meat from the start, Krieger says. “Once you drain it, you can remove much of the fat from the fattier ground beef, but you can’t remove it all, and since you are paying by the pound, you are essentially throwing away more money.” ● To add **vegetable nutrition** to meaty dishes, mix finely chopped, sauteed mushrooms with ground meat, one of Krieger’s favorite techniques. You can do this with The Washington Post Food section’s recipes for Shepherd’s Pie (developed by Krieger) or Mushroom-Blended Graffiti Burgers. **● Ground turkey** can be found with nearly zero fat, but the leanest varieties “can be a bit dry to cook with.” Instead, try mixing light and dark meat, aiming for 92 percent lean — which is still leaner than most ground beef. **Read more fromWellness:** Ask Ellie your questions April 9 Know your egg terminology before heading to the store A healthful one-pot meal that will keep you from unraveling at rush hour The blueprint for light seasonal soups starts here

Here’s how much giving up beef helps — or doesn’t help — the planet

I think it’s safe to say we all want to save the planet, and a good chunk of what’s written about food systems is about how to do it. Estimates vary, but something in the neighborhood of 30 percent of total greenhouse-gas emissions are pegged to food. If you’re a farmer and you’re trying to do your part to reduce that, you have a lot of choices: planting cover crops, reducing tillage, using state-of-the-art tools to apply fertilizer only where you need it. If you’re an eater, it’s harder to make a dent. If you’re looking for advice on how to make climate-friendly food choices, you’ll find there’s plenty of it. Unfortunately, most of it is either wrong or self-evident. (Though you will occasionally stumble on a thoroughly researched, tightly reasoned piece of advice about, for example, why you ought to eat more oats.) In the “wrong” category is the advice to buy local or organic. Sometimes those are better climate choices and sometimes they’re not, and it’s all but impossible to know which is which. In the “self-evident” category is waste, and how you should try to generate less of it, both in food and packaging. What’s left is one piece of advice that is about as true as food advice gets: Eat less meat. Beef, particularly, is a carbon Sasquatch, mostly because the digestive systems of cattle (and all ruminant animals) release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Unless you’ve just crawled out from under a Hummer, you’ve heard the eat-less- meat advice and you’ve probably even heard that beef is the biggest offender. There’s plenty of evidence bolstering that position, and the latest came in the form of a detailed analysis of the impact of various foods and production systems from the University of Minnesota. The lead author, PhD student Michael Clark, looked at categories of foods, organic vs. conventional production, and several measures of environmental impact. Once I got over feeling like an underachiever — because, really, what had I accomplished at his age? — I dug into his data. He helped. In fact, he worked with me to do a detailed analysis of the greenhouse-gas implications of a weekly five-ounce steak. We’re not taking any radical step like going vegan here, just eliminating one weekly beef meal. We looked just at greenhouse gases, even though there are many other factors at play (several of which are included in Clark’s paper). There’s water use, land use and pollution, all of which affect the environmental impact of what we eat. There’s also animal welfare, impact on rural communities and worker conditions, all of which matter in other ways. We’re looking at one thing: the greenhouse gases you’re responsible for every time you decide what’s for dinner. Here’s the upshot: If you trade in steak for beans once a week for a year, you will keep the equivalent of 331 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere. How much is 331 kg of CO2? It doesn’t help much to know that it’s 730 pounds, because then you just visualize things that weigh 730 pounds — three football players, a smallish camel — populating the atmosphere. It’s much more useful to compare it to the CO2 savings from other common climate-saving measures. Giving up beef once a week in favor of beans, over the course of a year, is the equivalent of not burning 38 gallons of gas, or of trading in 12 incandescent bulbs for LED. That 331 kg is equal to about 5 percent of the average household’s electricity use. If you plant a tree (which I strongly suggest you do), it will remove that 331 kg in, oh, 83 years. Let’s face it, though. Beans might be a tough sell. What if you trade in your steak for chicken or pork? That’s a win, too, although not as big a win. The impact of beef (334 kg for that weekly steak) dwarfs that of beans (3 kg for a weekly serving), but it’s also larger than that of chicken (64 kg) and pork (68 kg). But, whatever you do, don’t trade your beef for lamb; your impact will more than double. Realistically, if you cut back on beef, you’ll probably replace it with a combination of foods — pork and beans, perhaps — and the heavier you go on the legumes and grains, the better you do. But this isn’t the end of the story. Clark’s analysis didn’t include the potential that grazing cattle have to rebuild soils and actually lock carbon away (called sequestration) in the process. I checked in with Jason Rowntree, an associate professor at Michigan State University who’s researching just that. Last time I spoke with him, a couple of years back, he was in the midst of a grazing experiment. Now he has preliminary results showing more than 3 metric tons of carbon sequestered annually per hectare, which would, he wrote me by email, “at minimum [produce] carbon-neutral beef but most likely a beef product that has a negative carbon-footprint.” (He also cautioned that these numbers haven’t yet been peer-reviewed.) A grass-fed steer with a carbon-negative footprint that turns food humans can’t eat into something barbecue-ready is, climatically speaking, a free lunch. But that lunch may be hard to find at your local grocery store, because you have no way to determine whether any particular steak, even if it’s labeled “grass-fed,” came from a rancher who’s managing for carbon sequestration. I asked Carrie Balkcom, executive director of the American Grassfed Association, whether carbon footprints were on most ranchers’ radar. “We try not to be invasive into people’s production methods,” she said, but they do survey their membership and know that 93 percent say they’re doing some kind of managed grazing. Some are even measuring soil carbon. Me, I’d love to see a certified “carbon-negative” label, but that probably won’t be showing up in the meat case any time soon. While carbon-negative beef is possible, it might not be common. And its benefits may run out after a while. Most soil scientists I’ve spoken with say they believe the soil’s ability to lock carbon away is finite. Once you hit that ceiling, you’re stuck grazing cattle to keep it locked away, but with no additional carbon sequestered to compensate for the methane the cattle produce. Rowntree cautions against trying to figure out just how long that would take. “Nature is complex,” he wrote me in an email. “We try to linearize nature’s responses and that leads to placing ceilings on what can happen with management.” But he adds, “It is naive to believe that with changing landscapes, the carbon sequestered is permanent. It is stored in soil as energy and it will be cashed out as well.” Grass feeding does more than sequester carbon, Rowntree points out. It can restore degraded land, something that can have benefits for future uses and generations. It also does what has made cattle a mainstay of human civilization. It converts grass to milk and beef by letting cattle do what cattle do best: graze. Should you eat less meat? Yeah. And waste less food. Use less packaging. Eat oats! But, of course, it’s never quite that simple, and we’ll all do better if the people who raise our food have a reliable way to tell us about it, and the people who buy it to pay attention. Also, change your lightbulbs already. **More fromFood:** Why your humble bowl of oatmeal could help feed a growing planet There’s an environmental superhero growing near you Is grass-fed beef really better for you, the animal and the planet? Unearthed column archive

Healthful substitutions and protein-rich foods are steps toward a balanced diet

Dietitian and healthful-eating columnist Ellie Krieger answered nutrition questions from readers in a recent online chat. She shared her knowledge on some popular topics: protein, coconut oil and alternative ingredients for baking. Here is an edited excerpt of her advice. **Coconut oil and butter:** Butter and coconut oil are high in saturated fat, which raises cholesterol, so they should be eaten sparingly. The kind of saturated fat in coconut oil may not be bad for us as once thought, and virgin coconut oil has antioxidants. But there is not enough good research to justify many of the claims about it. On the other hand, there are piles of research showing the health benefits of olive oil, so continue using it as your primary oil. Use butter and coconut oil for flavor and variety once in a while if you’d like. **A more healthful cookie recipe:** Substituting homemade, no-sugar-added applesauce in place of water and some sugar is a good idea. You can swap half the butter with canola oil for a healthier fat profile (you’d have to take the liquid/water down a tablespoon or so as well). Try reducing white sugar to 1/4 cup — you might be able to get rid of it entirely. Also, try using whole-grain pastry flour instead of all-purpose. **Weighing protein powders:** My preference is to eat less-processed protein- rich foods. Why use a whey powder when you can put naturally nutrient-and- protein-rich milk in your smoothie? Add a scoop of nut butter, which is balanced with fat and antioxidants as well as plant protein. You do not need to rely on powders, which are often laden with additives and sweeteners. **Protein-packed lunch suggestions:** Some easily packable proteins include individual Greek yogurts; a small container of hummus or other bean dip that can be scooped with vegetables or whole grain crackers; small bags of nuts mixed with dried fruit; hard-boiled eggs; lentil and other bean salads; sliced steak or chicken from the previous night’s dinner that can be put into wraps and sandwiches. I always make extra dinner for lunch the next day. **Is it better to stay away from beef?** It really depends on your overall eating pattern, your specific needs and the types of meat you choose, but as a rule, most Americans would be better off if they ate less meat overall and got more protein from seafood, nuts and beans. It doesn’t have to be an all-or- nothing proposition, though. Enjoy meat in your repertoire, just keep it lean and in sensible portions. **More fromWellness:** 5 must-try grains you might not know about yet 10 reasons to skip soda 5 ways to pack a better work lunch

That backache may start somewhere else

You don’t have to be old enough to qualify for AARP membership (50) to have back pain. About 85 percent of adults younger than 50  have experienced i t at least once, and the onset of chronic back pain most frequently occurs between the ages of 30 and 50. So information in the March issue of AARP’s magazine — “Five Surprising Reasons Your Back Is Killing You” — may be of interest to a younger cohort. To wit: **Depression:** Researchers from the University of Sydney found that people with symptoms of deep depression had a 60 percent greater incidence of back pain than people without such symptoms — possibly because depressed people sleep poorly and don’t get enough exercise, both of which are linked to back pain. The suggestion? See a therapist. **Tight hips:** Anyone who spends a lot of time sitting develops thickening of the fibrous tissue encasing the hip joint. This puts extra strain on your lower back. One way to address this is practicing yoga’s frog pose: Drop to your hands and knees, knees wide apart, and slide forward to lower your elbows and forearms to the floor; hold. (You can find lots of demonstrations online.) **Foot issues:** Something as seemingly unrelated as plantar fasciitis — inflammation of the tissue across the bottom of your foot — can produce back pain by throwing off your gait. So get foot and ankle pains treated, not just to make walking easy again but also to prevent further problems. **Forward body weight:** All excess weight contributes to back pain, and carrying those extra pounds around your gut can make it worse. Losing weight would be the goal, but meanwhile do exercises such as lunges to strengthen both large and small muscles that support your spine. **Smartphone addiction:** Bending your neck too often or for too long can put up to 60 extra pounds of force on your spine. If you’re too FOMO-inclined to cut back, keep your head up and just look down with your eyes.

Does weight gain from quitting smoking negate heart benefits? Study says no.

**THE QUESTION** When people quit smoking, their heart health improves. But most of the time, they also gain weight. Might the added pounds, which can increase the likelihood of heart problems, negate the benefits of quitting? **THIS STUDY** analyzed data on 3,251 adults, who averaged 48 years old and had no signs of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. Periodic physical examinations revealed 631 cases of cardiovascular disease developing in a 25-year span; in that time, the percentage of participants who smoked dropped from 31 to 13 percent. Those who had quit smoking most recently had gained the most weight — an average of six pounds in the four years after quitting, compared with an average three-pound gain in the same four years for nonsmokers. However, compared with people who continued to smoke, those who quit cut their risk for cardiovascular disease in half, regardless of how much weight they gained. **WHO MAY BE AFFECTED?** Adults who quit smoking. Studies have shown that about 80 percent of people who quit gain weight, but it’s not automatic: Increasing physical activity, limiting snacks and using nicotine-replacement products such as a patch, gum or lozenges can help keep weight gain in check. Besides improving heart health, quitting smoking improves breathing and lung health and reduces risk for cancer, stroke, osteoporosis and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. **CAVEATS** Data on smoking status came from information the participants provided during medical exams. Most participants were white; whether the findings apply to other races remains unclear. **FIND THIS STUDY** March 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. **LEARN MORE ABOUT** weight control and smoking cessation at www.niddk.nih.gov (search in Publications for “quit smoking”). Learn about the health benefits of quitting at www.   cancer.gov (search for “harms of smoking”). The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence about a treatment's effectiveness is rarely found in a single study. Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician.

How to trick yourself into eating less

Science has a simple and incredible trick that will help you lose weight. The idea, it seems, is to make portions _appear bigger_ because this leads people to serve and eat less.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Although many such fat-fighting claims are fake, this idea is that a fiction can have a real effect. We know that bigger portions lead us to eat more (bite-sized  version here), but portions that appear bigger have the reverse effect.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Visual illusions have long fascinated humans but mostly they are viewed as problems to be explained. Philosophers study them for the challenges they offer to the nature of being (ontology) and of knowledge (epistemology).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Psychologists study them for the light they throw on our understanding of how the human brain works and its limitations.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Consumer scientists such as Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum have been exploring how optical illusions can be used to help reduce consumption and tackle the growing prevalence of obesity.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Using smaller plates is a fairly obvious solution to limit portion sizes. But there’s more to it than simply providing less space. Research shows that a portion served on a small plate will look bigger than it is, so people tend to under-serve on small plates and consume less.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The use of bigger plates leads to the reverse effect – the portion looks smaller than it is. This may underlie the common criticisms of _nouvelle cuisine_ as providing “tiny portions” that are more artform than food.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The illusory effect of plate size on portion size is explained by the Delboeuf illusion and the related Ebbinghaus illusion.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The Delboeuf and Ebbinghaus illusions are thought to critically depend on the contrast in size between the target (the circle in the center) and the surrounding context. A portion of food appears smaller when served on a bigger plate, encouraging us to over-serve. But the size contrast is complicated by the issue of color contrast. The tendency to over-serve on big plates is amplified when there’s not much of a contrast in the color of the food and the plate, such as pasta with a creamy sauce served on a white plate. Over-serving on bigger plates is also more likely if there’s a high contrast between the plate color and the tablecloth color.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So, if you are using large plates, choose plates of a color different from the food and similar to the tablecloth. You also can use these illusions with beverages. If you want to reduce your intake of sweetened drinks or alcohol, for instance, use tall, thin glasses in place of short, wide ones. People drink less from a tall, thin glass than a short, wide glass with the same volume. This effect is displayed by adults and is even stronger among children. It also holds for pouring drinks – even after training, and even among experienced bartenders.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Indeed, this illusion is so persuasive that many people are surprised to find the volume of large sizes is often little different from the next size down. Sports fans recently revealed how a Seattle stadium and an Idaho stadium have sold small and large cups of beer holding about the same volume, even though the larger one costs more.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Similar claims have been made about more mainstream food retailers such as McDonald’s and the Canadian coffee shop chain Tim Hortons. Hortons has responded with its own clip showing there is a difference.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The reason that the illusion works is not clear, although it may be related to orientation anisotropy, the well-known tendency to perceive a vertical line as longer than an equivalent horizontal line.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What all this shows is that to encourage yourself and others to serve less, and to eat less, you should: To use the over-serve bias to encourage more consumption of healthy foods, use big green plates for vegetables and short, wide glasses for water. Many claims about reducing consumption and losing weight hold little truth, but the illusions described here might actually help.

#freebacon: Meat lovers unite to defend beloved foods as #smugvegetarians get behind WHO cancer warning

If you've been feeling guilty for sneaking bites of bacon at breakfast or letting your kids grab hot dogs after soccer practice this week even after reading the World Health Organization's warning about cancer risks, you can take comfort in the fact that you're not alone. _[Hot dogs, bacon and other processed meats cause cancer, World Health Organization declares]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Since the WHO's research arm declared processed meats a carcinogen on Monday (and said red meat is probably one, too), all manner of individuals and groups — from ordinary citizens to celebrities and government officials — have come out in defense of hamburgers, salami, prosciutto, cold cuts and other beloved meats. Some are even nutritionists. Marion Nestle, the renowned New York University professor and author of "Food Politics," said in an interview that she'll still continue to enjoy the occasional BLT as well as the hamburger sliders she sometimes samples at cocktail parties. Nestle explained that those who eat a lot of meat should cut down but those who don't needn't panic that a single bite of meat will give them cancer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The bottom line as she wrote on her blog: "Don't eat meat everyday, save processed meats for rare treats and be sure to eat plenty of vegetables." Likewise Germany's agriculture minister tried to calm the panic by telling his countrymen that they could still enjoy their national foods. "No one should be afraid if they eat a bratwurst every now and then," Christian Schmidt told Reuters. "People are being wrongly unsettled when eating meat is put on the same level as asbestos or tobacco."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "The Meatocalypse has arrived!" Stephen Colbert, "The Late Show" host, declared. "This is sad, so sad," Colbert said. "I live for meat. This is true: I have a two-pound slab of bacon in my fridge at all times. I've got to. I'm the father of two teenage boys. The only way I can get them out of bed in the morning is to fry up some bacon... That smell — you get that stuff sizzling on the pan it makes them float down to the kitchen... You think they're going to come running down the stairs to the scent of me washing kale? " On Twitter, the debate about the WHO announcement was intense as the #smugvegetarian exchanged sometimes playful, sometimes hostile barbs with those who stand for #JeSuisBacon, #Bacongeddon and #freebacon. **Read more:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Cutting sugar from kids’ diets appears to have a beneficial effect in just 10 days    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Sleep study on modern-day hunter-gatherers dispels notion that we're wired to need 8 hours    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico WHO says hot dogs, bacon cause cancer. Does this mean we should all be vegetarians?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There are roughly 480 other things the WHO says might cause cancer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico SPECIAL REPORT: Billionaire Paul Allen's quest to build an artificial brain    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter_ _here_ _._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Can insects get fat? Mosquitoes and dragonflies can, but no fruit flies.

Consider all the advantages you have over the fruit fly: You’re able to use tools, make jokes, binge-watch “Game of Thrones.” But you know what? You can get too fat for your waistband. The fruit fly, that ubiquitous subject of scientific experimentation, cannot. “Can insects get fat?” was the question posed to the Ask Anything column at Popular Science magazine in its May issue. Dan Engberg responds with an entertaining disquisition on obese mosquitoes (a Florida entomologist hand-fed them with a tiny dropper instead of making them sting for their supper, thereby turning half their bodies into fat) and obese dragonflies (a Penn State biologist found fatter dragonflies were less successful at mating). But as is true in many scientific inquiries, the most extensive work on fat bugs has been done on fruit flies. Fed high-calorie diets, they develop something like diabetes and die sooner than their average 30-day life span. Interestingly, once they reach adulthood, which takes about seven days, their exoskeleton hardens and stops growing. So even when they develop fat cells, their bellies can’t expand; they just pack more cells into the same space. As the column notes, those lucky flies “never lose that slender figure.” Related: Edible insects pack in the protein Invasive bugs are primed for a comeback

Lean meats (even red meats in moderation) are okay, say new US dietary guidelines

**Old guideline:** Consume proteins such as lean meat, poultry and seafood as part of a balanced diet but replace foods high in solid fats with those that are lower in solid fats and calories and/or are a source of oils.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **2015 guideline:** Eat a variety of protein foods, including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes (beans and peas), soy products, and nuts and seeds. Get less than 10 percent of daily calories from saturated fats and meats that are high in saturated fat. Teen-aged boys and men should "reduce their overall intake of protein foods" such as meat.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In October, the research division of the World Health Organization caused a stir when it announced that bacon, sausage and other processed meats cause cancer and that red meat is "probably carcinogenic." The U.S. beef industry, as well as some scientists unaffiliated with that industry, argue that the body of research does not support this strong of a conclusion. Scientists have looked at a possible link between red meat and colorectal cancer for decades, and several studies have found associations between the two, but since the studies were mostly observational, there was no way to definitively say that red meat causes cancer. _[Hot dogs, bacon and other processed meats cause cancer, World Health Organization declares]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico WHO defines red meat as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton and goat, while processed meat includes hot dogs, ham, sausages, corned beef and beef jerky, plus other meats that have been cured, smoked or salted. The federal government's influential Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which were released Thursday, are updated every five years, and the debate over saturated fats, red meat, caffeine and salt was especially intense this time around. The guidelines are the basis of everything from school lunch programs to the diets promoted in bestselling books, but in recent years some scientists have begun to question the one-size-fits-all approach. A growing body of research supports the theory that a person's genetic makeup or microbiome (the organisms that live on or inside of you and help to make you who you are) plays a key role in how food affects the body -- and that the impact can be different from one individual to another. That work supports a more personalized approach to diet, which some researchers argue have argued is the future of nutrition science. _[BBQ, pan-fried meat and kidney cancer: 5 key takeaways from a new study]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here's a look at the average intake of proteins compared to ranges of recommended intake, according to the new guidelines: **Read more:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Do we all need to become vegetarians?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The science against meat: A look at 5 key studies about cancer risk    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Fish-rich diet may help curb depression, new research finds    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Is bacon actually bad for you? It may depend on your DNA.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter_ _here_ _._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

If you’re feeling the winter blues, eat fish

If your typical February night involves searching the kitchen for a snack to lift your spirits, you are not alone. This is prime winter-blues season, the time of year when many of us are plagued with that lethargic feeling that’s like a dark curtain over our mood. An estimated 14 percent of Americans are affected by it — and about another 6 percent have the more severe condition called seasonal affective disorder (SAD). But while the typical comfort-food grab that lands you on the sofa with a bag of cookies may provide temporary relief with a rush of sugar into your bloodstream, the following crash only drags you down further. And the inevitable weight gain from eating that way over time makes you burrow deeper into the doldrums. As a rule, it is best not to turn to food as a way to cope with your emotions — it usually doesn’t help, it just distracts you from dealing with them. But in the case of the winter blues, there is a bona fide food-mood connection, and eating certain foods could maximize your chance of feeling better as you wait for the spring thaw. [ _Ask Ellie Krieger your healthful eating questions on Feb. 26 at 1 p.m. _] One clue for beating the blahs this time of year can be found in Iceland. It has an extremely dark winter, yet the people there have virtually no seasonal affective disorder. When scientists looked into why, they pinned it on the fact that Icelanders have one of the highest per-capita fish consumptions of any population, more than quadruple that of Americans. That means they are getting a lot of omega-3 fats, which have a critical role in brain health and documented mood-stabilizing and anti-depression effects. Take-home message: Herring makes you happy. Actually, herring and other fatty fish such as salmon, trout and sardines are all top sources of omega-3s. A mere three-ounce portion of salmon provides a day’s worth of the essential fat, for example. Other types of seafood, such as tuna, flounder and shrimp, have these good fats as well, so whatever kind you enjoy, aim to get at least two seafood meals a week. You can also get omega-3 fats from flaxseed, walnuts and green leafy vegetables, but the type they contain (called ALA) is not as potent as that in fish (DHA and EPA). Fish is also the No. 1 food source of vitamin D, called the sunshine vitamin because our bodies are able to make it when exposed to the sun’s rays. Low levels of this essential nutrient are linked to depression and connected to seasonal affective disorder. In the winter, not only is there less sun, we also tend to hunker down inside, giving our bodies little chance to make the vitamin. After several weeks, especially if we are not eating well, our stores can become depleted, and that may affect our mood. Getting outside, even for a little while and even if it’s cloudy, could make a difference in your body’s ability to generate vitamin D. Not to mention, there is plenty of evidence that walking outdoors and being active in winter improves one’s sense of well-being. But it’s also important to focus on eating more vitamin-D-rich foods. That three-ounce piece of salmon so chock-full of feel-good fat also provides the full daily value for vitamin D, and other fish does the same. Milk, which is fortified with the nutrient, is another excellent source, and egg yolk has a good amount, too. [ _Recipe: Baked Salmon and Kale in Moroccan Spiced Tomato Sauce _] One main symptom of SAD is craving carbohydrates, because they trigger the release of serotonin in the brain and bring on a feeling of calm contentment. But rather than fall into the snack-attack trap, you can take advantage of this effect in a healthy way by focusing on good-for-you carbohydrates in smart portions, especially in the evening when the bluesy symptoms tend to be the strongest. Rather than just going on an open-container carb bender, plan and portion out an evening snack of, say, a sliced pear sprinkled with cinnamon, a small bowl of popcorn or some whole-grain crackers with jam to give you the lift you need, in a healthy way. **More fromWellness:** Chat with Ellie on Feb. 26 at 1 p.m. Three D.C.-area routes that make wintertime running a beautiful thing Why the ‘I ate junk food and turned out fine’ argument doesn’t work

Swimsuit-ready by Memorial Day

We just bid a long, cold winter a welcome farewell. But while you’re peeling off the layers, remember that swimsuit season is just around the corner. Are you ready? If not, we have a few ideas on how to lose weight and tone muscle by Memorial Day Weekend. Not enough time to make a difference? “It’s actually a lot of time,” says Danielle Omar, a registered dietitian in Fairfax. “You could lose up to 15 to 16 pounds in that time, depending on the changes you make.” She suggests starting by looking at everyday eating and exercise habits. “Just bring your lunch to work and stop those daily Starbucks runs and you could lose more than a pound a week with just that,” she says. Heather Calcote, a D.C. dietitian and endurance athlete, agrees and says before setting up a plan and specific weight-loss goal, you have to figure out your current state of fitness and nutrition. “If you are just starting out, it’s really important to set realistic goals or you will risk injury and mental burnout,” she says. In other words, don’t have an all-or-nothing approach to fitness and then feel defeated if you don’t go to the gym two hours a day, six times a week and cut everything you love from your daily diet. “Set yourself up for success, not failure,” Calcote says. That means incremental changes. Maybe you start by making one daily exercise change and two daily nutrition changes, Calcote suggests. For example: Add up to 30 minutes of walking at least three times a week for your exercise change and — as Omar suggested — start bringing your lunch to work and eliminate the high-caloric coffee drinks for your two nutrition changes. Every few weeks you might add a few other changes. Those can include, Omar suggests, using the plate method (½ of the plate is veggies, ¼ starchy vegetable or whole grain, ¼ lean protein), replacing soda with water, cutting (or at least cutting down on) wine (which can contain about 125 calories per glass) and, finally, saying no to free office food. “The free office food is usually poor-quality, high-carb, high-fat food,” Omar says. “There is little protein or other nutritional value there. Just say no.” Although you might achieve your weight goal with just nutrition changes, Omar encourages exercise for several reasons. “I find that exercise keeps your head in the game,” Omar says. “You also get stress relief, alone time and that endorphin rush. And on top of that you burn calories.” Ingrid Nelson, a personal trainer in the District, suggests adding strength training to the mix — even if you are a beginner. “You are going to see big changes in the body if you incorporate some strength training,” she says. “And if you are looking for weight loss, weight training supports that really well.” The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn. Plus, “once the fat melts off, then what are you going to see?” Toned muscle is the goal. Nelson, who trains a lot of brides, says there are a few “tricks of the trade” to get that swimsuit/wedding dress look (you know: the thin waist and cut shoulders). If you do shoulder and back work — in other words, add a little bulk and tone to your top — your waist will look smaller. “Another big one is just standing up tall,” Nelson says. “Good posture makes you look leaner and taller.” Standing or sitting up straight comes from body awareness and strength training, primarily of the back, Nelson says. The strength training can be done with free weights or machines, but Nelson says she is a big fan of TRX suspension training and yoga for strength and posture. If you are already active, Nelson says, consider switching up your routine. If you are running long distance three to four times a week, add some track work or interval training and strength training to the mix and see where it takes you in the next few weeks. “Try something new and see how the body responds,” Nelson says. Although the Memorial Day beacon is a short-term goal, she suggests it can be a catalyst for self-discovery and long-term change. “This is the only body you will ever have,” Nelson says. “Maybe take some time to get to know it better.” You could start identifying how to best prepare your body for exercise, including hydration, sleep and nutrition — going as far as figuring out how and when to eat. “Try to front-load the day nutrition-wise to better prepare the body,” Nelson says. “Eat for energy.” Sound overwhelming? If so, look at the sidebar and pick two daily nutrition changes and one daily exercise change. Other practical solutions include getting a pedometer to see how much activity you are getting daily — especially if you don’t have time for big blocks of exercise, Omar says. “It makes you aware of how much you actually move. Sometimes our perceptions are way off.” The same thing goes for a food log, Omar says. It shows you exactly how many calories you are taking in daily and how that relates to your resting metabolic rate, or your daily caloric need at rest. “It can be an eye-opener to see how few calories you actually need in a day,” Omar says. “It’s a reality check.” **Beginner (eight-week goal: Lose 10 pounds, tone up for summer)** : This is your program if you feel ready and excited to take on an eight-week challenge, and really just want quick results by starting a new workout and diet. You’re starting at little-to-no physical activity throughout the week, and with little-to-no awareness of how your eating habits stack up. **Weeks 1-3 goals:** ■ Practice the plate method with lunch and dinner. Half of the plate should be vegetables, one quarter lean protein, one quarter starchy vegetables or whole grains (brown rice, whole-wheat bread, etc.) ■ Exercise at least 30 minutes three times a week. Try two cardio days at medium intensity (walk, walk/jog, spin, bike, hike, elliptical, etc.) and one “strength” day of free weights, group fitness class, Pilates, yoga or at-home exercises. ■ Reduce added sugars by at least one serving per day. Think about where there are “extra” sugars in your day (both substitutes and the real stuff). Flavored yogurt? Soda? Sweetened coffee? Afternoon treats? Dessert after dinner? Alcohol? Eliminate at least one of these. **Weeks 4-7 goals:** ■ Eat at least five servings of fruits or vegetables each day. Continue the plate method and use this to help you keep your fruit and vegetable intake high. ■ Increase exercise by one day per week. Add in a cardio-strength mixed workout — this would be something like a group fitness class, Pilates or doing 15-20 minutes of cardio and then adding   10-15 minutes of strength exercises (about 30-45 minutes of total exercise). Be consistent. ■ Increase water intake. Drink at least 10 cups of water each day, and substitute water for sweetened drinks, alcohol and/or coffee. **Week 8 goal:** Keep everything consistent! These new behaviors should feel more habitual by this point. **Moderate (eight-week goal: Lose five pounds, get a toned look):** If you already exercise somewhat regularly (90-120 minutes per week) and have some awareness of healthful eating, this program is for you. You may feel your eating habits are “pretty healthy” but you have a few weaknesses (think: sweets, a glass of wine at night, etc.). **Weeks 1-3 goals:** ■ Reduce added sugars/alcohol by two servings per day. If your alcohol intake isn’t regular, then aim for only two to three drinks per week total. ■ Add in one extra day of physical activity per week to focus on strength training and toning muscles. Try a new group fitness class, an at-home video, the seven-minute workout, etc. If you’re already working out five or six days per week, then add 10-15 minutes of strength training to your current routine at least once a week. ■ Reduce carbohydrate intake at night; aim for high vegetable/protein meals at dinner. If there is a carb in the meal, aim for starchy vegetables rather than processed carbs such as bread or pasta. **Weeks 4-7 goals:** ■ Add in healthful fats to one meal/snack per day. Aim for unsaturated fats such as fish, oils, nuts, seeds or avocado. If you already eat these, try a different source, something new. ■ Devote at least one day per week to high-intensity cardio exercise (Effort 8 on a scale of 10) for at least 25-30 minutes. **Week 8 goal:** Keep everything consistent! These new behaviors should feel more habitual by this point. Boston is a fitness trainer and freelance writer. She can be found at www.gabriellaboston.com.

What’s for dinner

I wholeheartedly agree with the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee that we should eat less meat, for both health and sustainability reasons [“Think of Earth, not just your stomach, advises nutrition panel,” front page, Feb. 20]. I also agree with the meat industry (though not for the same reasons) that this panel of nutrition experts should have stuck to its nutritional knitting. There are strong arguments for reduced meat consumption based on nutrition and environmental effects. The nutritional case has the benefit of being less political than the environmental, and the nutritional case this panel made carries a great deal of weight on its own. Alas, it seems the panel could not resist the sustainability bandwagon, and its case is thus laid open to insinuations by the meat industry and other naysayers that the data is skewed by environmentalists pushing social agendas. The panel could have acknowledged the sustainability factor, citing the huge body of research on environmental effects of our meat-centric cuisine, without dedicating an entire chapter of its report to it and making it a criterion for its recommendations. It is entirely appropriate and beneficial for the Department of Agriculture and policymakers to consider sustainability in all they do, but panels of experts should stick to their expertise. Keep it simple (and strategic). ****Nicholas Kingsland,** Washington** ● Charles Lane’s Feb. 19 op-ed column “Where science falls short,” about the revised thinking on cholesterol, reminded me of my first cholesterol test in the early 1970s. The total cholesterol of 350 caused my alarmed internist to demand that I give up my daily breakfast of two eggs with ham or bacon and cut down on other cholesterol- and fat-laden foods. I did that for a year and was retested. Still 350. My internist surmised that my level was genetic and that the cholesterol I didn’t get from my diet was being replaced by my body. I decided I would eat whatever I pleased. When cholesterol-lowering drugs became available, I took them and got my level down to the safe range, but the damage had been done. I had a triple bypass at age 70. I am happy that I ignored the conventional wisdom of the time and avoided a boring diet for more than 40 years. ****John Morton** , Jessup**

Feeling down a lot? Try eating more fish.

Regular consumption of fish has been shown to be good for the heart, with protective effects against heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. Might the benefits of eating fish extend to preventing depression? **THIS STUDY** analyzed data from 26 studies, involving 150,278 people from around the world, nearly all adults. All studies assessed fish consumption and occurrence of depression, excluding depression during pregnancy or postpartum. The more fish people ate, the less likely they were to have depression. Those who consumed the most fish regularly were 17 percent less likely to have depression than were those who ate little or no fish. The effect was somewhat greater among men than women (20 percent lower risk for depression vs. 16 percent). **WHO MAY BE AFFECTED?** Adults. In the United States, about 7 percent of adults — roughly 16 million people — have at least one depressive episode in an average year. There’s no surefire way to prevent depression, but mental health experts generally agree that certain lifestyle habits — getting regular exercise, managing stress, staying connected to family and friends and eating healthfully — may help. Fish contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are believed to reduce inflammation in the body. Fatty fish such as salmon, sardines and tuna contain the most omega-3s. **CAVEATS** The study did not indicate how much fish participants consumed. It is possible that those who ate the most fish ate a more healthful diet overall, which may have contributed to lowering the risk for depression. Study data did not differentiate between types of fish or preparation methods. Some data on fish consumption came from participants’ responses on questionnaires. **FIND THIS STUDY** Sept. 11 online issue of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (jech.bmj.com; click “Online First”). **LEARN MORE ABOUT** depression at nimh.nih.gov/health and www.mayoclinic.org. The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence about a treatment's effectiveness is rarely found in a single study. Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician.

The unsurprising diet secrets of zoo animals

A year ago at this time, Illinois resident TR was flabby and fatigued. The black bear has since lost one-fifth of his body weight and has a new spring in his step. Benny, his bobcat neighbor, lost a good quarter of his weight. Their secret? Not diet pills or bariatric surgery, but rather those boring things your doctor probably orders: Fewer sweets, more veggies and more movement. Evidently what works for people also works for zoo animals.  Unsurprisingly, this happens to captive animals with some frequency. Their conditions — human-provided menus and unnatural environments — are probably to blame.  The Illinois animals were put on diets and exercise regimens, and they seem to have taken to them with more gusto than Lucy. That may be because they had no choice. According to the Journal Star, TR and a female bear named Molly were given smaller meals that were hidden around their enclosures “to encourage foraging.” Bobcat and raccoon fare was hidden, sometimes inside boxes. At a recent weigh-ins during exams performed by University of Illinois veterinary students — which, as these photos show, are not as simple as asking the animals to step onto a scale — they’d all lightened up. TR was the biggest loser, having slimmed down to just 600 pounds. Molly dropped from 442 to 392, and Benny, formerly 41 pounds, weighed 30. “We’ve had a major increase in the last year of guests saying that this is the most active they’ve ever seen these animals and it probably is the most active some of these guys have been in the last few years,” animal curator Adrienne Bauer told the Journal Star. As all human dieters know, keeping weight off is even harder than losing it. But unless they get access to the park’s vending machines, TR and his peers will have little excuse.

A weight-loss expert changes his tune: Focus on enjoyment, not perfection

In years past, many nutrition and weight-loss experts gave their patients rigid guidelines to follow. They often counseled eating less, switching to low-fat foods, carrying sliced celery in a plastic bag for snack time, and eating high-volume, modest-calorie foods like salads. This approach proved spectacularly unsuccessful, at least if you judge it by rampant obesity rates. Now, many of these same nutrition experts are taking a simpler, gentler approach. Physician Yoni Freedhoffhas made the switch. Freedhoff also argues that the new way is a better way. An assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, Freedhoff is founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, which provides nonsurgical weight management. When he began his work in 2004, he told patients they should stick close to the practices of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). This large group of self-selected weight-loss stars has dropped more than 30 pounds and retained the loss for more than five years. Many registry members follow a low-fat diet, and walk an hour or more per day. They also tend to eat breakfast, weigh themselves weekly, and monitor television time. A few years later, Freedhoff began loosening up. “I’m not nearly as rigid now as I was then,” he says. “Our patients had some initial weight loss on the NWCR program, but the recidivism rate was high. We changed because we realized we were treating people by numbers, not as individuals. It’s arrogant to think that there’s one right way for everybody.” Because the most successful weight-loss strategies are those people can maintain, Freedhoff restructured his program to keep patients engaged. He moved away from numbers like body mass index (BMI) and body-fat percentage. He preached that perfection was not the aim, and that few would lose every possible pound. Better to focus on more realistic goals. “We started to use a term I coined, ‘Best Weight,’” he says. “That’s whatever weight you reach when you are living the healthiest life that you honestly enjoy. When you let go of the numbers, people tend to take more pride in their efforts, and that helps them stick with the efforts.” Last August, Freedhoff and National Institutes of Health mathematician and obesity researcher Kevin Hall published a paper in the British medical journal, The Lancet, outlining the “trajectory” of most weight-loss efforts. They explained that, yes, it is possible for motivated dieters to lose a pound to 1.5 pounds per week for the first month or so. But that rate of weight-loss soon slows. Then it bottoms out at about six months. After that, the pounds begin creeping back. They further explained that, in this case, the initial weight-loss comes from a calorie cutback of 700 to 800 calories per day. Few people can maintain this restrictive eating pattern for long, however. At six months, the average calorie deficit has declined to about 150 calories per day, and the weight soon climbs. After two years, weight has returned to about where it was at the one-month mark of the diet. “Our findings strongly suggest that weight-loss programs should not be short-term efforts,” says Hall. “Rather, they take persistent lifestyle changes. The primary determinant of success is sustained adherence to healthy changes in diet and physical activity.” Hall is a bit of an ivory-tower academic type, but Freedhoff works “in the trenches,” as he puts it. Since what he observed on a daily basis closely matched what he read in various research reports, Freedhoff figured it was time to try something different. Besides, anyone could see that the usual dietary advice of a decade ago wasn’t working. Of course, Freedhoff doesn’t tell patients they can eat as much as they want. Calories still count. But no one has to actually tally us his or her daily calorie total, and Freedhoff doesn’t insist on restriction. He also contends that it’s a myth that dieting should be difficult. A diet has to include foods you enjoy. “Eating food is one of the most basic human pleasures,” he notes. “If a diet causes suffering, you’re not going to stick with it. Desiring certain foods doesn’t mean you lack willpower. It’s just a sign of the human condition.” Freedhoff and Hall are agnostic when it comes to picking a best diet for weight loss. They believe weight-loss can only succeed when it’s part of a long-term plan. They note that exercise improves many health measures even if it doesn’t add substantially to weight loss. The American Heart Association and other medical groups have determined that a modest weight-loss, as little as three to five percent, can lead to “clinically meaningful” improvements in glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure. Hall and his NIH colleagues have posted a Body Weight Planner online tool at supertracker.usda.gov.bwp. It can be used to plan and monitor a slow-but- steady weight-loss program. Freedhoff admits he has compiled no rigorous data to show his new approach works better than the old. But he’s convinced of its merit. “I believe we’re seeing less recidivism than we used to,” he says. “And for sure, happiness has increased. The staff is happier, and our patients are happier.” **More fromLifestyle:** 5 Diets, Week 1: How we did on Whole 30, Weight Watchers After gastric bypass surgery, many experience eating difficulties Nearly half of America’s overweight people don’t realize they’re overweight Does eating fat make you fat? This doctor says no. Fitness trackers may not, in fact, help you lose weight

Evidence grows linking grilled meat and cancer, but you can lower the risk

The warm evenings of summer are prime time for grilling. But this all-American ritual may also raise health risks — particularly if the grill is loaded up with hamburgers and hot dogs. When cooked at high temperatures or over open flames, according to accumulating evidence, compounds in red and processed meats undergo biochemical reactions that produce carcinogenic compounds capable of altering the eater’s DNA. Most of the research has been conducted in lab dishes and in animals. But some emerging evidence is starting to connect the dots to human risks of cancer, too. Lest you feel that science threatens everything you enjoy in life, experts say it’s not necessary to give up meat — or grilling — altogether. Grilled vegetables don’t harbor the same risks. There are also ways to cook meat that produce fewer carcinogens. And while there’s not enough evidence to say how much is too much, eating grilled meat in moderation is probably fine. In other words, don’t get too freaked out by what you might find on the Internet. “You can just Google and see all of these sensationalistic headlines that say eating bacon is like smoking a pack of cigarettes,” but it’s not the same, says Robert Turesky, a biochemical toxicologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. “I still do enjoy barbecue. I just don’t eat it as often.” The case for meat as a cancer risk has been building for decades, with plenty of studies showing that people who report eating diets heavy in red and processed meats have higher risks of certain types of cancer, as well as heart disease and other chronic illnesses. Enough of those studies — together with lab work — have built up to make a convincing case that meat carries risks, according to a 2015 analysis by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which considered more than 800 studies conducted around the world. Overall, the IARC review found that the strongest evidence linked processed meats (such as hot dogs, beef jerky, bacon and ham) to colorectal cancer — with each hot-dog-size serving of processed meat eaten daily raising the risk by 18 percent over a lifetime. More than 34,000 cancer deaths are caused around the world each year by diets high in processed meat, according to data referenced in the IARC report. By comparison, tobacco causes about a million cancer deaths annually. Alcohol consumption causes 600,000. And air pollution is responsible for 200,000. The IARC review also found evidence for an association between unprocessed red meat (such as beef or pork) and colorectal cancer, along with some evidence that red meat might contribute to pancreatic and prostate cancers, too. Studies show several ways that meat might cause cancer, says Loic Le Marchand, an epidemiologist at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, who collaborated with more than 20 international scientists on the IARC report. One line of evidence points to compounds called nitrates and nitrites, which are used during processing and also form in the colon when people digest meat and meat products, even those labeled “nitrate-free.” Cooking methods make a difference, according to studies that have zeroed in on two groups of chemicals that appear in particularly large quantities when meat, fish or poultry is cooked under high heat by grilling, barbecuing, broiling or even pan-frying. One group, called HAAs (heterocyclic aromatic amines), form during high-temperature reactions between substances in muscle tissue. PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), which form when meat is smoked, charred or cooked over an open flame, are also found in tobacco smoke. In general, Turesky says, higher temperatures and longer cooking times lead to higher levels of HAAs and PAHs. Enzymes in our bodies then change these chemicals into compounds that can damage DNA. Numerous studies have illustrated that kind of damaging potential in cell cultures and animals, including rodents and primates. But does meat actually cause cancer in people? Turesky is beginning to turn up evidence that it might. In a study published last year, he and colleagues studied biopsies of prostate tumors and found that DNA in the cancer cells had been damaged by HAAs. “This is the first unequivocal proof that, once you eat the cooked meat mutagens, some of them find their way to the prostate and damage the prostate,” Turesky says. The study doesn’t prove that meat caused the cancer, he adds. “It could just be an association. Now we have to show that the mutations are attributed to the chemicals in cooked meat.” It would be illuminating to find the same types of meat-linked mutations in colorectal cancer cells, Le Marchand adds. “That would be the nail in the coffin,” he says. In the meantime, research suggests several ways to lower levels of carcinogens in your meat. Marinating before cooking helps keep the surface of the meat from getting so hot, Turesky says. Microwaving before barbecuing can also help. So can flipping burgers frequently and taking care not to char or burn meat (while also cooking it enough to avoid the health risks of undercooking). Meat may also be more damaging to some people than to others, says Le Marchand, whose interest in meat began with observations that Japanese immigrants to Hawaii had higher rates of colorectal cancer compared with the state’s white residents and compared with people in Japan. Some of his research suggests that genetics puts some people more at risk from the potentially harmful effects of meat. Eating meat once or once in a while won’t cause cancer, Le Marchand adds. It’s regular and repeated exposure for decades that adds up to make a difference in risk. “I think once a week or twice a month is fine,” Le Marchand says. As with other nutrition concerns, he adds, “it’s always the same: Moderation is key.”

Tapping the power of protein

Protein, an essential nutrient, frequently has been touted as a cure-all: Use it to boost your energy, build strength, lose weight or enhance your athletic performance, the ads say. But most adults in the United States already get more than enough protein, and the benefits of eating even more aren’t especially clear. The jury is out on how worried we all should be about our protein intake, and more than 400 clinical trials are underway studying the effects of dietary protein. While researchers continue their work, Consumer Reports combed through the previous studies to help you learn whether you’re getting enough and suggest the easiest way to get your daily dose. Protein is the main building block of most of our cells. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and nutritional agencies recommend that 10 percent to 35 percent of your calories come from protein, that message offers more confusion than clarity. Here’s a good basic target for adults up to age 65: A 120-pound person should aim for at least 48 grams of protein daily; a 180-pound person should aim for at least 72 grams of protein daily. **** Protein intake for adults older than 65 is slightly higher. Also important for seniors is to eat protein throughout the day to reduce the loss of muscle mass. Protein is found in everything from meat to seeds, but what’s noteworthy is how many essential amino acids each source provides. There are amino acids that must be obtained through our diet because our bodies can’t make them. That’s important because those nutrients play a pivotal role in metabolism, bolstering your health and creating critical new protein molecules. Complete proteins are animal-based (meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs and cheese) and provide all essential amino acids. But don’t use that as a reason to binge at the butcher shop. Several studies have reported that red meat can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as certain cancers and Type 2 diabetes. Incomplete proteins are plant-based (legumes, grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables), and each is low in one or more of the essential acids, so vegetarians need to vary their sources. For example, eating rice and beans together should provide a complete mix of the amino acids. Studies show that these pairings don’t need to occur within meals but rather over a 24-hour span. Any combination of corn-, rice-, wheat- or soy-based proteins will provide the acids you need. Of this group, soy comes closest to being a complete protein. A high-protein diet can worsen kidney function in people with kidney disease. Think that warning doesn’t apply to you? The vast majority of people with kidney disease don’t know they have it because the damage occurs so slowly. Cleveland Clinic researchers speculate that one in five overweight adults has at least a mild form of kidney disease. And when they analyzed the habits of more than 10,000 overweight adults in a 2012 study, they found that many had tried high-protein diets in an attempt to lose weight, putting their kidneys at risk. Excessive protein intake over the long term might also cause calcium to be excreted from bones, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures. There are also inherent dangers in taking protein supplements, which have soared in use. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t test these supplements for safety before they reach the market, which means they are a potential source of such dangerous substances as amphetamines and steroids. And a 2010 Consumer Reports investigation found that some protein shakes, if consumed frequently, could expose people to potentially toxic levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead. If you’re a senior, take note: It’s especially important that you focus on getting your daily protein fix. An international group of researchers recently concluded that keeping your protein consumption high will help you recover more quickly from illness. Specifically, it could help offset aches and pains associated with age-related inflammatory conditions, according to their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. What’s more, a lack of protein in anyone’s diet could increase the chances of gaining weight. When protein consumption is low, people tend to instinctively turn to unhealthful foods to raise their protein level. “People will overeat calories to get adequate protein,” says George Bray, chief of the division of clinical obesity and metabolism at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University. “And to make matters worse, when people don’t get enough protein, research suggests that they store more fat.” Copyright 2013. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

Nutrition Q&A: Choosing a better breakfast

Q: I’ve made up my mind: I’m going to lose 20 pounds this year by eating fewer calories and exercising more. Cutting down my breakfast calories is one challenge. My typical breakfast is 400 calories: three tablespoons of almond butter, two slices of low-calorie bread and one cup of fresh fruit. I could cut my calories to 200 by opting for a frozen low-calorie breakfast sandwich. Is this nutritional compromise worth the 200-calorie savings? A: It’s January and the height of New Year’s resolutions season, so let me applaud you for tackling shedding those unwanted 20 pounds for good. It sounds like you realize your effort will take time, persistence and close examination of your current food choices. So true! Breakfast is an important meal. “Nutritionally, breakfast presents an opportunity to chalk up a serving or two of those hard-to-fit-in foods that most Americans don’t eat enough of — fiber-filled whole grains, fruit, nuts and/or seeds, which are less available once you depart from your doorstep,” says Judy Caplan, a registered dietitian nutritionist  in  Vienna and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Another plus: Kick-starting your day with a smart breakfast can reinforce your resolve to eat healthfully the rest of the day. Data from the National Weight Control Registry suggest that most successful weight losers eat breakfast, says Suzanne Phelan, a co-investigator with NWCR and associate professor at California Polytechnic State University. So let’s dissect your breakfast. To shed pounds, you say you want to allot 200 calories for breakfast. That’s quite low and might leave you hungry and on a food hunt by midmorning. Although adults vary in their starting weight, height, physical activity and more, most women can lose weight on about 1,500 calories a day (about 2,000 calories for men). Even if you eat a bit fewer than a third of your calories per meal at breakfast, 300 to 400 is a more reasonable target. You estimate your breakfast at 400 calories. It’s actually closer to 500 calories with two-thirds of the calories coming from the almond butter. Although they’re a healthful source of fat, all nut butters, including almond, peanut, cashew and others, are calorie-dense. To hit the 200-calorie mark you contemplated opting for a frozen low-calorie breakfast sandwich. Upon inspection, these options ring in at about 250 to 350 calories. They typically contain eggs or egg whites, cheese and/or breakfast meat tucked into an English muffin, biscuit, bagel or tortilla. About one-third of their calories are from fat, including some saturated fat and cholesterol. A big downfall is their sodium count – on average 600 milligrams. Don’t give this substitution a second thought! It’s definitely a nutritional compromise for you. Instead rejigger your current breakfast. An easy way to shave a hundred calories is to use two instead of three tablespoons of almond butter. Or use even less and add a layer of all-fruit jam. To shave another 50 calories, eat a half-cup vs. one cup of fruit. Do check that your servings are accurate. It’s a wise idea to use measuring cups and spoons at least initially. To lose weight and keep it off, tweak your current habits rather than making wholesale changes that don’t please your palate or meet your nutritional goals. Research suggests that the fewer decisions you need to make about what and how much to eat, the more success you’ll experience controlling your weight. To put breakfast on autopilot, generate just two or three palate-pleasing options. Try these smarter, quick-to-fix breakfasts: ● “Prepare a large batch of oatmeal or oat bran to last the week,” Caplan suggests. Add chopped apples, raisins or other dried fruit, nuts or seeds. Ditto with quinoa. ● Bake a dozen whole-grain muffins. Stash them in the freezer. Warm as needed. Pair this with fruit and yogurt or fruit and a hard-boiled egg. (Make these in advance.) ●  Pour a bowl of dry cereal. Keep a few kinds on hand and combine them. Make at least a couple of them whole-grain and high in fiber. Top with fat-free milk and fruit. ● Create a yogurt parfait with fat-free plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Layer in fresh or frozen fruit and chopped nuts. ● Create a healthful breakfast sandwich. Use a whole-grain bagel thin, English muffin or tortilla. Top it with an egg and a slice of reduced-fat (2 percent) cheese. Add slices of tomato or avocado. ● “Blend up a smoothie with fat-free milk or plain or Greek yogurt,” Caplan says. “Add your fresh or frozen fruit of choice.” Banana and berries work well. ● Top whole-grain bread or a tortilla with nut butter (limit to two tablespoons) and sliced bananas. ● Bag up a mix of whole-grain dry cereals, nuts and dried fruit. Warshaw, a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified diabetes educator, is the author of numerous books published by the American Diabetes Association and of the blog EatHealthyLiveWell, found on her Web site, www.hopewarshaw.com. Have a nutrition question? Send an e-mail to localliving@washpost.com. Put “Nutrition Q&A;” in the subject line and tell us where you live.

Cold air may help you lose weight by making your body burn calories to keep warm

“Temperature training” may be what is missing from your weight-loss plan. New evidence suggests that regular exposure to mildly cold air may help people lose weight by increasing the amount of energy their bodies have to expend to keep their core temperature up, researchers say. In other words, warm, cozy offices and homes may not be ideal places for those who want to lose weight. In fact, being able to control the ambient temperature might be partly responsible for the rise in obesity rates in industrial societies, said researchers from the Netherlands in a study published last week in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism. “Since most of us are exposed to indoor conditions 90 percent of the time, it is worth exploring health aspects of ambient temperatures,” said study researcher Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University Medical Center. “What would it mean if we let our bodies work again to control body temperature?” The human body withstands the cold by shivering, which produces heat; this provides one explanation for why cold temperatures may promote weight loss. Studies have shown that people expend five times more energy when shivering than when they are resting. [11 Surprising Things That Can Make Us Gain Weight] The body uses more energy when the mercury drops for other reasons as well. For example, a type of fat called brown fat, which burns calories rather than storing them, is activated in response to cold. In young and middle-aged people, heat production through brown fat can account for up to 30 percent of the body’s energy budget, the researchers said. A previous study from researchers in Japan found a decrease in people’s body fat after they spent two hours per day for six weeks in a room with a temperature of 62.6 degrees. The new study also found that people get used to the cold over time. After spending six hours a day at 59 degrees for 10 days, people in the study not only had more brown fat, the participants also said they felt more comfortable and shivered less when exposed to lower temperatures. Although a 59-degree room would probably be too cold for most people, it’s possible that room temperatures in the mid-60s would also activate brown fat, the researchers said. The long-term effects of regular exposure to cold are still unclear and require further investigation, but evidence suggests that training the body to tolerate cooler air may indeed help burn calories, the researchers said. “Similarly to exercise training, we advocate temperature training,” the researchers said. “More-frequent cold exposure alone will not save the world, but is a serious factor to consider in creating a sustainable environment together with a healthy lifestyle.” **** **— Live Science ** Dieters, Beware: 9 Myths That Can Make You Fat 13 Kitchen Changes that Can Help You Lose Weight 7 Perfect Survival Foods

Too much protein could lead to early death, study says

Could too much protein put you on the path toward an early grave? For middle-aged people who consume lots of meat, milk and cheese, the answer could be yes, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Cell Metabolism. U.S. and Italian researchers tracked thousands of adults during nearly two decades and found that those who ate a diet high in animal proteins during middle age were four times more likely to die of cancer than contemporaries with low-protein diets — a risk factor, if accurate, comparable to smoking. They also were several times more likely to die of diabetes, researchers said. “The great majority of Americans could reduce their protein intake,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Valter Longo, a University of Southern California gerontology professor and director of the school’s Longevity Institute. “The best change would be to lower the daily intake of all proteins, but especially animal-derived proteins.” That advice comes with a caveat. Even as researchers warned of the health risks of high-protein diets in middle age, they said eating more protein actually could be a smart move for people older than 65. “At older ages, it may be important to avoid a low-protein diet to allow the maintenance of healthy weight and protection from frailty,” another co-author, USC gerontology professor Eileen Crimmins, said in a release detailing the findings. Exactly how much protein belongs in the average diet has been a topic of perpetual debate, one complicated by popular diets such as Atkins and Paleo, which rely heavily on animal-based proteins to help people shed weight. While such diets might well succeed in that short-term goal, Longo said they could be leading to worse health down the road. Part of the confusion, he argues, is that researchers too often have treated adulthood as a single period of life, rather than closely examining the many ways in which our bodies change as we grow older. In studying data about protein intake during many years, he says the picture becomes clearer: What’s good for you at one age might be harmful at another. Marion Nestle, a nutrition expert and public-health professor at New York University, said the findings raise as many questions as they answer. She said they don’t amount to a convincing argument that too much protein consumption in middle age is directly linked to health problems later in life, while more protein in old age is protective. In short, she said, lifestyle choices beyond protein consumption could have played a role in the longevity of the people surveyed for the study and helped to determine whether they ended with cancer, diabetes or other afflictions. “I’m also puzzled by the idea that there is a significant difference between the effects of protein from animal and vegetable sources,” Nestle said. “Protein is not, and never has been, an issue in American diets, and the data presented in this study do not convince me to think otherwise.” In the study, researchers defined a “high-protein” diet as one in which at least 20 percent of calories came from protein; a “low-protein” diet was defined as less than 10 percent. They found that even moderate amounts of protein consumption among middle-aged people had detrimental effects over time, a result that held true across ethnic, educational and health backgrounds. The authors also tested the relationship between protein intake and cancer progression in mice, saying that during a two-month experiment there was lower cancer incidence and significantly smaller average tumor size among mice on a low-protein diet. Longo said many middle-aged Americans, along with an increasing number of people around the world, are eating twice and sometimes three times as much protein as they need, with too much of that coming from animals rather than plant-based foods such as nuts, seeds and legumes. He said adults in middle age would be better off adhering to the recommendation of several top health agencies to consume about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight each day. Translation: For a 150-pound person, that means about the equivalent of the protein in an 8- or 9-ounce piece of meat or several cups of dry beans. As an example of an ideal approach to protein consumption, Longo pointed to the inhabitants of the small, southern Italian town of Molochio, home to one of the highest rates of centenarians in the world. Their secret: For much of their lives, many villagers maintained a low-protein, plant-based diet. In their older years, many ended up moving in with their children and eating higher-protein diets more common today. “There is no harm,” Longo said, “in eating the way our grandparents used to eat.” More from The Washington Post: Tapping the power of protein Best diets: U.S. News and World Report 11 common-sense tips to eat, live healthier Fat and cholesterol aren’t the only dangers of red meat The truth about gluten-free, paleo and other diet books

Fasting may protect against disease; some say it may even be good for the brain

In 1908, Linda Hazzard, an American with some training as a nurse, published “Fasting for the Cure of Disease,” which claimed that minimal food was the route to recovery from a variety of illnesses, including cancer. Hazzard was jailed after one of her patients died of starvation. But what if she was, at least partly, right? A new surge of interest in fasting suggests that it might indeed help people with cancer. It might also reduce the risk of developing cancer, guard against diabetes and heart disease, help control asthma and even stave off Parkinson’s disease and dementia. “We know from animal models,” says Mark Mattson at the National Institute on Aging, “that if we start an intermittent fasting diet at what would be the equivalent of middle age in people, we can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.” Until recently, most studies linking diet with health and longevity focused on calorie restriction. They have had some impressive results, with the life span of various lab animals lengthened by up to 50 percent after their caloric intake was cut in half. But these effects do not seem to extend to primates. A 23-year study of macaques found that although calorie restriction delayed the onset of age-related diseases, it had no impact on life span. So other factors, such as genetics, may be more important for human longevity. That’s bad news for anyone who has gone hungry for decades in the hope of living longer, but the finding has not deterred researchers who study fasting. They point out that although fasting obviously involves cutting calories — at least on specific days — it brings about biochemical and physiological changes that daily dieting does not. Besides, calorie restriction may leave people susceptible to infections and biological stress, whereas fasting, done properly, should not. Some even argue that we are evolutionarily adapted to going without food intermittently. “The evidence is pretty strong that our ancestors did not eat three meals a day plus snacks,” Mattson says. “Our genes are geared to being able to cope with periods of no food.” Fasting will leave you feeling crummy in the short term because it takes time for your body to break psychological and biological habits, researchers say. There isn’t really agreement, though, on what fasting entails. To research this article, I am trying out the “5:2” diet, which allows me 600 calories in a single meal on each of two weekly “fast” days. (The normal recommended daily intake is about 2,000 calories for a woman and 2,500 for a man.) Proving that fasting is not necessarily about losing weight, I am allowed to eat whatever I want on the five non-fast days. A more draconian regimen than the 5:2 plan has restricted-calorie fasts every other day. Then there’s total fasting, in which participants go without food for one to five days. (Fasting for more than about a week is considered dangerous.) This might be a one-off experience, or repeated weekly or monthly. Different regimens have different effects on the body. A fast is considered to start about 10 to 12 hours after a meal, when you have used up all the available glucose in your blood and start converting glycogen stored in liver and muscle cells into glucose to use for energy. If the fast continues, there is a gradual move toward breaking down stored body fat, and the liver produces “ketone bodies,” short molecules that are byproducts of the breakdown of fatty acids. These can be used by the brain as fuel. This process is in full swing three to four days into a fast. Various hormones are also affected. For example, production of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) drops early and reaches very low levels by Day 3 or 4. It is similar in structure to insulin, which also becomes scarcer with fasting, and high levels of both have been linked to cancer. As for treating cancer, Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, thinks that short-term complete fasts maximize the benefits. He has found that a 48-hour total fast slowed the growth of five of eight types of cancer in mice, the effect tending to be more pronounced the more fasts the animals undertook. Fasting is harder on cancer cells than on normal cells, he says. That’s because the mutations that cause cancer lead to rapid growth under the physiological conditions in which they arose, but they can be at a disadvantage when conditions changes. This could also explain why fasting combined with conventional cancer treatment provides a double whammy. Mice with gliomas — very aggressive forms of cancer and the most commonly diagnosed brain tumor in people — were more than twice as likely to survive a 28-day study if they underwent a 48-hour fast accompanied by radiation therapy as were those that did not fast. Could fasting prevent cancers from developing in the first place? Evidence is scant. Longo says there are “very good reasons” why it should. He points out that high levels of IGF-1 and glucose in the blood and being overweight are risk factors for cancer, and they can all be improved by fasting. Another risk factor is insulin, says Michelle Harvie at Britain’s University of Manchester. Studying a group of women whose family history put them at high risk of developing breast cancer, she put half of them on a diet that cut calories by about 25 percent and half on a 5:2 fast. After six months, both groups showed a reduction in blood insulin levels, but the reduction was greater in the fasting group. Harvie’s team is now analyzing breast biopsies to see whether this translates to fewer of the genetic changes associated with increased cancer risk. High insulin is also associated with Type 2 diabetes, so perhaps it is no surprise that fasting shows promise there, too. At the Intermountain Heart Institute in Murray, Utah, Benjamin Horne has found that a 24-hour water-only fast, performed monthly, raises levels of human growth hormone. That hormone triggers the breakdown of fat for energy use, reducing insulin levels and other metabolic markers of glucose metabolism. As a result, people lost weight, and their risk of getting diabetes and coronary heart disease was reduced. Alternate-day fasting (with a 500-calorie lunch for women and a 600-calorie meal for men on fast days) has similar benefits, says Krista Varady of the University of Illinois. She has seen improvements in people’s levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or “bad cholesterol,” and blood pressure in volunteers eating either a low-fat or high-fat diet on “feeding” days. For people who are overweight, any kind of intermittent fasting diet will probably help reduce the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular problems, Mattson says. In 2007, he found another benefit, too. He put 10 overweight people with asthma on an alternate-day incomplete fast and found that their asthma symptoms improved after just a few weeks. Blood markers of inflammation, including C-reactive protein, also decreased, suggesting that the fast was helping to moderate their overactive immune system. Whether fasting would benefit normal-weight people with asthma or other conditions associated with an overactive immune response remains to be seen. There is some evidence that alternate-day fasting can lower their levels of blood fat. However, Mattson suspects that with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, fasting may not be as beneficial for people of normal weight as it is for people who are overweight, simply because they are already likely to be in pretty good shape, metabolically speaking. Mattson has, however, identified another effect of fasting that he believes can benefit everyone: It is good for the brain. “If you look at an animal that’s gone without food for an entire day, it becomes more active,” he says. “Fasting is a mild stressor that motivates the animal to increase activity in the brain.” From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense, because if you are deprived of food, your brain needs to work harder to help you find something to eat. His studies suggest that alternate-day fasting, with a single meal of about 600 calories on the fast day, can boost the production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor by 50 to 400 percent, depending on the brain region. This protein is involved in the generation of new brain cells and plays a role in learning and memory. It can also protect brain cells from the changes associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, alternate-day fasting begun in middle age delayed the onset of memory problems by about six months. “This is a large effect,” Mattson says, perhaps equivalent to 20 years in humans. So, what about the common advice to start the day with a good breakfast? Mattson believes it is flawed, pointing out that the studies supporting this idea were based on schoolchildren who usually ate breakfast; a decline in their academic performance might simply be due to the ill effects that occur when people begin fasting. Mattson skips breakfast and lunch five days a week, then has dinner and normal weekend meals with his family. Varady has tried alternate-day fasting, but she likes to eat dinner with her 18-month-old child and husband, so she does all her eating within an eight-hour period each day. Harvie sounds a cautious note for anyone thinking of giving fasting a go. “We still don’t know exactly who should be fasting, how often or how many days a week,” she says. Also, it may not be without risks. One study in rats, for example, found that an alternate-day fast for six months reduced the heart’s ability to pump blood. There is also the fact that fasting is difficult. Varady finds that 10 to 20 percent of people who enroll in her studies drop out, unable to stick to the regime. This may be less of a problem in the future, though. Some researchers are investigating the possibility that you can get some of the health benefits of fasting simply by reducing protein intake. As I count down the minutes to the end of my fast, I can’t help but wish them success. This story was produced by New Scientist magazine and can be read in full at www.newscientist.com.

Weight loss, especially with surgery, tied to lower risk of heart failure

Obese people who get surgery to lose weight have half the risk of developing heart failure as do patients who make lifestyle changes to shed excess pounds, a recent study suggests. “We were surprised by the large difference in heart failure incidence between the two groups,” said lead study author Johan Sundstrom of Uppsala University in Sweden. It’s possible that gastric bypass patients had a lower risk of heart failure because they lost more weight than the group trying to do so without surgery. Researchers also found that losing 22 pounds by any means was tied to a 23 percent drop in heart failure risk. The study team examined data on 25,805 obese people who had gastric bypass surgery, which reduces the stomach to a small pouch, and 13,701 patients who were put on low-calorie diets. After following half of the patients for at least four years, people who had gastric bypass were found to be 46 percent less likely to have developed heart failure. After one year, surgery patients had an average weight loss 41.4 pounds greater than that of those who relied on diet and exercise, the study found. After two years, surgery was associated with an average weight loss that was 49.8 pounds more than those who undertook lifestyle changes. Some previous research has linked obesity to heart failure, and a growing body of evidence suggests that obesity might directly cause the heart condition, Sundstrom said. While the new study wasn’t designed to prove a causal relationship, it adds more evidence in support of this possibility. “Obesity may increase the risk for heart failure through the smorgasbord of conditions that accompany obesity, such as high blood pressure, high blood lipids, diabetes” and rapid irregular heartbeat,” Sundstrom said by email. “Bariatric surgery has been associated with lower incidence of all of these risk factors.” “There is also some evidence that obesity per se may cause heart failure, a condition sometimes called obesity cardiomyopathy,” Sundstrom said. “From that perspective, weight loss may preserve cardiac function by reducing the heart’s pump demand and stress.” It’s possible that factors not included in the data influenced how much weight people lost or whether they developed heart failure, the authors note. Heart failure tends to afflict the old, and the study of younger adults may not have followed patients long enough to fully understand the impact of surgery on the heart, said Sheldon Litwin of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. “Most patients undergoing bariatric surgery are relatively young; they are at pretty low risk of developing heart failure even if they are obese,” Litwin, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. Even so, the study covers new ground and helps establish a connection between weight loss and a reduced risk of heart failure, said Mary Norine Walsh, a researcher at St. Vincent Heart Center in Indianapolis and president-elect of the American College of Cardiology.

Grilled chicken: How to get it perfect

In barbecue circles, chicken might as well be a vegetable. Oh, people like it just fine, but it’s not taken seriously. Not like beef brisket, pulled pork, whole hog or ribs. Chicken is the meat world’s tofu: a blank canvas for flavors, without much of its own. I grill chicken every two or three weeks, sometimes whole, sometimes in parts. I’m crazy about its mild taste and ability to play well with other flavors. Like a genial friend, chicken should be prized, not derided, for its adaptability. The problem is that for most people, putting chicken over the fire turns dinnertime into a display of confounding results. The white meat may be perfectly moist, but the dark meat is as underdone as a novel’s first draft. And don’t get me started on the skin, which too often comes out rubbery or burned or every which way but enjoyable. The key to appreciating grilled chicken as much as I do is in understanding how to treat it. If the heat is too high, the skin will burn before the meat can cook. If too low, the skin ends up flabby. The challenge — which is really no different from that of chicken roasted in the oven — is to not dry out the white meat while waiting for the dark meat to cook through, or, conversely, to not undercook the dark meat when the white meat is done. The best way to avoid the problem is to butterfly, or spatchcock, the bird (something that works well for Thanksgiving turkey, too). By more or less flattening it, you get the chicken to cook more evenly. You also assure crisped skin. In his book “Where There’s Smoke” (Sterling Epicure, 2013), chef Barton Seaver says size matters. “Smaller birds are easier to manage on the grill in terms of ensuring doneness,” he writes. A typical fryer weighs about three pounds, which is easy to cook uniformly. But I like a roaster that weighs right around four pounds. It is hefty enough to provide a lot of meat in each part, but small enough to yield uniform results. Anything above five pounds is dicey. I grill chicken directly over medium heat for a few minutes on an indirect fire to crisp the skin, then move it to the cool side of the grate to gently cook the meat through and let it take on the flavors of the coals. When it’s almost done, I use long-handled tongs to transport the chicken to the hot side for a few more minutes. That finishes crisping the skin and gives it a nice char. I’ve cooked chicken that way so many times that I can tell when it’s done simply by looking at it. Its glistening skin is blackened and bronzed, and the meat’s juices run clear. When I pick it up with the tongs, the bird surrenders a little, sagging on both sides. I don’t generally use an instant-read thermometer, but until you get it down, I strongly recommend that you do; it should read 165 degrees at the thickest part of the thigh. Sometimes, to be even more certain that the chicken will come out evenly cooked, I set two foiled-wrapped bricks on its splayed body. The method is typically called, plainly, chicken-under-a-brick. (In Italian, which always sounds better, it’s pollo al mattone, a classic Tuscan recipe.) The bricks flatten the bird, resulting in magnificently brittle skin and succulent meat. Plus, it’s cool to tell your guests, “Tonight we’re having chicken under brick.” Sounds rustic and sophisticated at the same time. The most foolproof way to grill chicken, of course, is in individual pieces. That way, the breast and thigh get the special attention they deserve. The flavor of skin-on, bone-in chicken breast halves, marinated in lemon and olive oil, is somehow timeless. I often stand at the grill and anxiously anticipate eating the white meat as its blackening skin puffs ever so slightly and rivulets of juice run down its sides. The most traditional method of grilling chicken is the one that, for the longest time, I used the least: the sauce-slathered style known commonly as barbecue chicken. The more I cooked chicken, the more I appreciated its flavor and wanted only to add some herbs or bathe it in citrus. But over the summer, I placed chicken legs, thighs and breasts over the fire and brushed them with a tangy barbecue sauce. With parts, you can cook to order: Take the white meat off sooner than the dark to assure perfect doneness. When I took my first bite of them, I was immediately transported back to countless childhood cookouts. There was something so simple and beautifully sloppy about the treatment. It was fun, and I had forgotten how much I loved it. I’ve been adding barbecue chicken to my routine ever since. The key is to wait until the final few minutes to brush on the sauce. Otherwise, it burns. It is that kind of detail that matters. It reminds you that a yard bird, when cooked properly, takes on the beguiling aromas of fire and smoke like few other foods — including vegetables. **Recipes:** Grilled Lemon Chicken Breasts Chicken Grilled Under a Brick Classic Barbecue Chicken **More fromFood:** Smoke Signals archive

You’re more likely to work out, quit smoking and lose weight if your partner does the same

Changing bad habits into good ones can be very difficult work. It's easier, though, if you're coupled up with someone trying to do the same. That's the conclusion of a study from researchers at the University College London and published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico They found that smokers were more likely to quit if they had partners who also quit; both men and women worked out more if their partners joined them; and people shed more pounds when they had partners who did the same. Researchers turned to the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and examined the physical activity and smoking habits, as well as weight-loss patterns, of 3,722 married and cohabiting English couples who are at least 50 years old.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Across those measures, being with somebody who worked to reduce their unhealthy habits gave adults better odds of improving their own health. Among smokers, just 8 percent of those partnered up with smokers quit the habit. But that number jumped to nearly 50 percent when smokers' partners also quit. A similar pattern emerged regarding exercising; physical activity increased for about 70 percent of both men and women when their partners did the same. But just about a quarter of men and women with non-active partners increased their physical activity. As for losing weight, the researchers looked specifically at whether people lost 5 percent of their body weight. A quarter of men with partners who lost weight also dropped pounds, while 10 percent lost weight when their partners didn't. For women, 36 percent lost weight when with someone who did the same, while just 15 percent of women lost weight when their partners didn't. While the researchers didn't zero in on why this pattern emerged, senior author Jane Wardle of University College London told Reuters it may have to do with mutual support and even competition.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But they did find that changes weren't as dramatic for those coupled up with already healthy people, rather than with people who also worked to change habits. Still, the researchers did find that merely being with a physically active person or a non-smoker did influence partner behavior. "Men and women are more likely to make a positive health behavior change if their partner does too, and with a stronger effect than if the partner had been consistently healthy in that domain," the authors write. "Involving partners in behavior change interventions may therefore help improve outcomes." Weight-loss was a bit different; the chances that overweight adults would lose weight didn't increase if their partners were already a healthy weight. "The partner merely being slim didn’t seem to promote change," Wardle told Reuters. "Perhaps couples can more easily ignore (or accept) differences in weight without feeling any pressure to change; perhaps weight differences aren’t as readily expressed as visible differences in food intake."

No, going on a diet doesn’t make people ‘hangry’

If you think of dieting as a long, painful process, new research may change your mind: In one study, researchers found that people who cut calories slept better, were in a better mood and had better sex lives. For people who were a normal weight or overweight (but not obese), reducing daily calorie intake by 25 percent led to an improved quality of life, found the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine. And yes, it also led to weight loss. “We found that normal-weight and mildly overweight people who wish to lose weight need not worry about decreased quality of life,” said Corby Martin, the director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana and the lead author on the study. Rather, “they can actually expect to feel better,” he said. In the study, the researchers wanted to see if dieting really deserved the bad rap it often gets for making people grumpy and “hangry.” Researchers have hypothesized that calorie restriction “might negatively affect mood, stamina and libido, and increase irritability, particularly among normal-weight people,” Martin said, adding that few studies have tested this hypothesis. The researchers looked at 220 people with body mass index scores ranging from 22 (which is considered normal) to 28 (which is considered overweight). The participants were divided in two, with 145 in a calorie-restricted group and 75 in a control group. Individuals assigned to the calorie-restricted group met with a health coach who helped them follow a lower-calorie diet. (The individuals were each advised to cut their daily calorie intake by about 25 percent.) They were also provided with food for the first few weeks so they could learn how to follow the diet, control their portion sizes and eat foods that were nutritious and filling. The control group received no dietary advice. Throughout the two-year study period, the participants were asked to fill out questionnaires about their mood, quality of life, sexual function and sleep, Martin said. The researchers found that the individuals in the calorie-restricted group reported improved mood and sexual drive, reduced tension and improved general health over the course of the study. In addition, the calorie-restricted group lost an average of about 17 pounds by the end of the study period, compared with almost no weight change in the control group. The researchers also found that cutting calories did not have a negative impact on sleep; rather, people in the control group reported that their sleep quality decreased over the course of the study. The benefits of calorie restriction were similar throughout the study, Martin said. While it is true that people feel hungry when they start eating fewer calories, “other studies have shown that dieting can improve quality of life fairly quickly,” he said. **Read more:** Diet secrets of zoos that can help to humans, too. The science of Hunger: how to control it and fight cravings 7 little-known ways to shave pounds

Canola and olive oil now share space with other oils and cooking fats

Alongside canola and olive oil on food-market shelves, you may spot an array of newer oils and cooking fats. Sales of flavored and specialty oils, from foods such as avocados, coconuts and walnuts, jumped at natural-food stores by more than 64 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the market research firm Mintel. And once-unusual fats — ghee, for example — are now common at stores such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Some are said to have special health benefits. But do they? Proponents claim that coconut oil can spark weight loss, prevent or cure Alzheimer’s disease and lower cholesterol. It’s a widely used topping for salads, vegetables and popcorn, and it’s promoted as a healthful substitute for butter in baked goods. **The lowdown.** More than 90 percent of its fat is saturated. (Butter is just more than 60 percent saturated fat.) “Saturated fat can raise blood cholesterol levels, which has been linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease,” Maxine Siegel, Consumer Reports’ food-testing manager says. Small studies suggest that coconut oil’s fats may be less unhealthful than other saturated fats, but that’s uncertain. Using it instead of butter, canola or olive oil won’t benefit your health. But a small amount on sauteed vegetables probably won’t hurt. Avocados are high in fat, but most of that fat is unsaturated, which has been shown to benefit the heart and possibly aid in weight loss when consumed in moderation. They also contain antioxidants, and some believe avocado oil can help to protect against cancer. **The lowdown.** Avocado oil, which has a nutritional profile similar to olive oil’s, can be a heart-healthy choice in salad dressings and for grilling, sauteing and searing. “If somebody wants to drizzle a bit of that on their fresh tomatoes and peppers, that would be fine,” advises Alice H. Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University in Boston. But don’t expect huge health advantages. Yes, avocados contain antioxidants, but, Lichtenstein says, a balanced diet already provides sufficient antioxidants. One drawback to avocado oil is its cost: around $20 for a 16.9-ounce bottle. Unrefined walnut oil has become widely used as a replacement for olive oil in salad dressings because of its nutty flavor. It’s rated low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat, and because walnuts are rich in the omega-3 fatty acid ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), some researchers say the oil has heart-health benefits. **The lowdown.** If you like walnut oil, swap it for olive oil in dressings or in place of vegetable oil in breads and muffins. But “there’s no unique fatty-acid composition that would make it better than some of the more common vegetable oils,” Lichtenstein says. Ghee, which is often used in Indian cuisine, is made by simmering butter, then skimming off the milk solids. What’s left is the butterfat, which has a rich, nutty flavor. Because the milk solids have been removed, ghee is often promoted for lactose-intolerant people. **The lowdown.** People who are lactose-intolerant can usually digest ghee easily. But ghee, a form of butter, is high in saturated fat. “In small quantities I could see using it, but is there a health advantage?” Lichtenstein asks. “To my knowledge, no.” So spread a bit on toast or melt a teaspoon on vegetables, but don’t go overboard. A healthful diet must include fat to help with vitamin absorption and brain function. “Where people can get into trouble health-wise is by eating too much fat, especially too much of the wrong kinds,” Consumer Reports’ Siegel says. U.S. dietary guidelines for adults say fat should account for 20 to 35 percent of total daily calories. (Just 10 percent should come from saturated fat.) For a person on a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s about 22 grams daily, the amount in about two tablespoons of coconut oil or a little more than 2.5 tablespoons of ghee. Copyright 2015. Consumers Union of United States Inc. For further guidance, go to www.ConsumerReports.org/Health, where more detailed information, including CR’s ratings of prescription drugs, treatments, hospitals and healthy-living products, is available to subscribers.

Should I binge on eggs for breakfast? Here’s what you need to know

The nation’s top diet panel has decided to downgrade the alarm about cholesterol in food, and its recommendation will shape the next version of the federal government’s influential “Dietary Guidelines.” Here are some questions about what this might mean for you. **Q: What did the panel actually decide?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The panel, which shapes the Dietary Guidelines, decided that consuming cholesterol-laden foods does not rise to the level of a public health concern. It's important to recognize that this panel is dealing with diet and consuming cholesterol. It is not downgrading the dangers of high levels of cholesterol in the blood. **Q: Does this mean I should eat as many eggs as I’d like?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In general, for healthy adults, nutritionists increasingly say that an egg a day is fine. These scientists say that eating cholesterol-laden foods doesn't necessarily lead to higher levels of cholesterol in the blood. In fact, most of the cholesterol in your blood comes not from what you eat but from what your liver produces. A group from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology who looked at the issue in 2013 said there is simply not enough evidence of danger to call for limiting cholesterol in diets. But some scientists continue to be cautious. One of the leaders of that group, Robert Eckel, said he still uses egg whites only for his omelettes, in order to steer clear of the cholesterol-rich yolks. And indeed, experts warn that people with other health problems such as diabetes ought to be more cautious, too. **Q: Where does most of the cholesterol in American diets come from?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Eggs, liver, shrimp and lobster are among the foods with the highest cholesterol content. But federal figures show that Americans actually get a lot of their cholesterol intake from foods such as beef, burgers and cheese simply because they eat a lot more of those items. **Q: The experts have been warning about high-cholesterol diets for such a long time. What happened to the consensus?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Rather than cholesterol, many scientists now see the danger in foods that are laden with saturated fats, such as cheese, pizza and burgers, as well as trans fats. In this view, those fats are the substances that lead to high levels of “bad” cholesterol in the blood, and those high levels of cholesterol in the blood have been linked to heart disease. The American Heart Association has more information.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

New U.S. dietary guidelines: Everything you need to know about what to eat/what not to eat

Go ahead and have those eggs. That's just one piece of good news from the U.S. dietary guidelines released on Thursday. Updated every five years, the government recommendations have been credited -- or blamed (depending on whom you ask) -- for shaping the eating habits of generations of Americans. The 2015 revision contains a few radical changes, such as removing recommendations to limit intake of cholesterol-rich foods and adding a reference to coffee as potentially being part of a healthy diet. But the real difference, nutritionists say, is that eating well no longer just means cutting back on fat or calories -- a simple idea that has been promoted for decades but has left us fatter and sicker than ever. It's now about having a healthy _pattern_ of eating.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack emphasized that the new guidelines show there are a variety of ways to have a nutritious diet. “We are suggesting to American families they don’t need to make huge fundamental changes, that in fact small changes can add up to big differences," he said. Here's what you need to know about the new guidelines: **Give me the highlights.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Hold on -- so it's okay to eat red meat? I thought the World Health Organization just said that processed meat causes cancer and that red meat probably does, too.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Yes, as long as you don't overdo it and otherwise have a healthy diet. While the document explaining the new guidelines does not explicitly tell Americans to cut back on processed or red meat, it does contain a chart with examples of foods high in saturated fat that should be limited, which includes a lot of meat products like hamburgers. That said, the U.S. panel behind the guidelines had access to the same science as the WHO but appears to have come to different conclusions about the risks of processed and red meat given the absence of any strong wording against those foods. **There's a lot of math in the recommendations. How can I make sure I'm getting the right mix of foods?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Eat more of: Eat less of: **Read more:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Scientists (sort of) settle debate on low-carb vs. low-fat diets    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Coffee — You can now have up to 5 cups a day    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Salt — Guidelines call for a teaspoon a day    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Sugar — There's a limit    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Meat — You can eat red meat    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Cholesterol — Eggs are okay again    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Fat — New guidelines suggest skim or low-fat milk    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This diet study upends everything we thought we knew about ‘healthy’ food    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter_ _here_ _._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

5 reasons we regain weight

No one ever says, “I want to lose 30 pounds, keep it off briefly, then gain it all back, with some extra pounds for good measure.” But that’s exactly what happens to most people who lose weight. How do good intentions — and the investment of time and effort needed to lose weight in the first place — unravel? One of the biggest stumbling blocks is quite simply dieting. Most traditional weight-loss plans call for adopting new food and exercise behaviors that you aren’t able to — or won’t want to — maintain for life. It’s about doing whatever it takes to lose weight, with weight maintenance taking on a nebulous “I’ll worry about that later” quality. One could argue that contestants on “The Biggest Loser” work harder at weight loss than anyone, and most of them have regained the weight. Unfortunately, we humans are wired to seek instant gratification. I see this in patients all the time. Even though they’ve already tried a dozen diets, none resulting in lasting weight loss, they are still willing to severely restrict calories and cut out entire food groups if it will help them lose weight. I remind them that if they make changes they can’t sustain, they may lose weight initially, but it will come right back. It’s better to take the time to improve food quality and learn to adjust to hunger and fullness cues. Anyone beginning to shape their behaviors with weight loss in mind would be wise to ask themselves, “Will I be happy eating this way or exercising this much for the rest of my life?” ****Even among those who choose to make satisfying, sustainable changes to their nutrition and exercise habits, long-term adherence doesn’t always happen. Why? One danger is treating your weight goal as a finish line. Once you’ve crossed the line, the “diet” is over, a mindset that sets the stage for regain. This is amplified by the fact that the body adjusts its metabolism as weight drops — particularly in people who lose a lot of weight. The truth is that the effort required to maintain new habits never ends. A better approach is to set goals around things that you actually have control over, such as consistently exercising five times a week or eating four cups of vegetables each day, and let weight loss be the outcome. Identify your triggers to overeat — stress, fatigue, being overly hungry — and build strategies to deal with them rather than relying on willpower. For example, plan a nutritious afternoon snack, keep tempting foods out of sight and so on. If you have a tendency to eat for emotional reasons, it’s critical to develop non-food ways to comfort yourself. Another challenge is that the initial motivators for weight loss — health concerns, an upcoming class reunion, a tropical vacation — often fade. Compliments on your changing appearance and the need to buy smaller pants can keep the motivational fires burning, but what happens when the number on the scale stops moving? Waiting for fresh motivation to strike can cause you to slip back into old habits, but being open to new ways to eat well and stay active can help keep you action-oriented. That’s important, because action is often what primes the pump of motivation, not the other way around. ****How well our expectations match reality can also affect motivation — and the odds of successful weight maintenance. People who are disappointed by how much weight they lost are more likely to regain. So are people who expect that losing weight will make them happier. The truth is that people of all shapes and sizes struggle with body image, relationships and job satisfaction. It’s also important to expect — and prepare for — life’s inevitable curveballs. People who think in all-or-nothing terms tend to be less adaptable to change and more likely to revert to old habits. This leads to deciding “anything goes” on vacation, skipping exercise if weather or other circumstances preempt your normal routine and abandoning healthy eating when life becomes “too busy.” Part of treating health and wellness as a journey includes always having a plan B and being ready to course-correct immediately when life briefly knocks you off track. Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie. **More fromLifestyle:** Greek? Nonfat? Fruit-flavored? A dietitian dishes on yogurt. Goodbye, ketchup: 5 healthy condiments you’ve probably never tried Yes, healthy habits can include alcohol Is apple cider vinegar really good for you?

10 bits of real talk about fat

Our understanding of fats – including which ones are actually good for us – is evolving. We know for example that red meat and meat products, cakes and biscuits, which are rich sources of saturated fatty acids, are associated with an increased number of cardiovascular deaths. Conversely, nuts, oily fish and milk products, which are high in saturated fats, are associated with lower risk.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday There are four main types of fats in our foods: polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, saturated and transfats. Each has different chemical and physical properties. Vegetable spreads and cooking oils – mainly rapeseed, sunflower, soybean and olive – usually contain the first two but relatively small amounts of saturated fat. But palm oil, which has a higher melting point and is now used in many products, is highly saturated.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Dietary advice, then, has moved away from the simplistic mantra that we should just eat less saturated fat, salt and sugar, and toward a more discerning pattern that emphasizes fruit, vegetables and low-fat dairy food. This diet includes whole grains, poultry, fish and nuts, and less red meat, sweets and sugar-containing beverages. But where do fats fit in? Here are 10 things you may not know. **1\. Fat is an energy food**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Most of the energy in our diet comes from carbohydrates. But fat supplies between a quarter and two-fifths of an adult’s energy intake and half for a newborn. In babies, high fat intake promotes fat deposits that insulate against heat loss. Adding fat to food can double its energy content. Removing fat, from products like meat and milk, can substantially reduce it. Fat provides 9kcal/g (kilocalories/gram) in energy compared with 3.75kcal/g, 4kcal/g and 7kcal/g for carbohydrates, protein and alcohol. **2\. Less energy intake, bigger weight loss**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Reducing energy intake rather than increasing physical activity is the most effective means of reducing body fat. This can be achieved by using lower fat versions of existing foods, trimming fat from meat and using oils sparingly. There is not much difference in fat content between grilled and fried meat. Restriction of energy intake also requires limiting the intake of carbohydrates and alcohol. **3\. Where it is in the body matters**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Excess accumulation of body fat is most harmful if it is in the abdominal cavity or liver and is causally linked to developing Type 2 diabetes. The use of a waist measurement (more than 32.5 inches for women, 37 inches for men) indicates central obesity and is useful for predicting risk of Type 2 diabetes. Women have more subcutaneous fat stores than men, so men store this visceral fat around the mesenteric blood vessel in the abdomen. When energy stored in fat cells is released, the fat mobilization process leads to fatty acids entering the bloodstream. Visceral fat is more rapidly mobilized than subcutaneous fat and can accumulate in the liver. Fat also accumulates in the liver if the intake of alcohol or sugar is high.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday **4\. Body uses carbohydrate for fuel, not fat**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Obesity results from the excess accumulation of dietary fat in the body. Very little fat is made in the body from carbohydrates, including sugar, or alcohol because they are used as fuel in preference to fat. But if you have excess fuel on board, you deposit it as fat because we have a limited capacity to store carbohydrates. **5\. Women need fat for fertility**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Body fat plays an important role in female fertility. Between 20 and 30 percent of a healthy mature woman’s body weight is fat – twice as much as men. If the level drops below about 18 percent, ovulation stops, but if it raises to very high levels – typically about 50 percent of her weight – it also results in infertility. A hormone called leptin is secreted by adipose (fat) tissue into the blood in proportion to the amount of fat it stores. The brain detects the blood leptin signal, and this promotes ovulation when the level is high enough.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday **6\. Some fatty acids are essential**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday We need certain polyunsaturated fatty acids, aptly named essential fatty acids (linoleic and linolenic acids), in our diet for healthy skin. These also contribute to maintaining cardiovascular health as well as brain and visual function. We mainly get these from vegetable oils, nuts and oily fish.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday **7\. We need fat to absorb some vitamins**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday About 30 grams of fat are required every day to promote the absorption of fat- soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, which we also get from fatty foods. Vegetable oils are an important source of vitamin E, and oily fish is the best dietary source of vitamin D. Provitamins are substances that can be converted within the body into vitamins. And adding a little oil to green vegetables and carrots actually improves the absorption of carotene (pro-vitamin A).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday **8\. Big scale effect on blood cholesterol**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday A population’s average blood cholesterol level is a major determinant of coronary heart disease risk. Trials show the replacement of saturated fatty acids with polyunsaturated fatty acids lowers blood cholesterol and reduces the incidence of disease but not mortality. These days high cholesterol levels are more effectively treated with statins, but the public health goal is to reduce average cholesterol levels.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday **9\. Not all saturated fat is bad**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Not all saturated fats increase blood cholesterol. The cholesterol raising effects are confined to lauric, myristic and palmitic acids (the latter is found in palm oil). These raise low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in decreasing order of potency compared to carbohydrates (including all types of starches and sugars) or unsaturated fatty acids. It is generally more effective to lower cholesterol by replacing saturated fatty acids with oils rich in monounsaturated (olive, rapeseed) or polyunsaturated fatty acids (soybean, sunflower oil) than lowering carbohydrates. For example, replacing butter or lard with olive oil as your main source of fat can lower LDL-C by about 10 percent. **10\. Saturated fat intake is stable**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday Food and nutrition policies have changed the food supply. In Britain, energy intakes of fat and saturated fatty acids respectively fell from 42 percent and 20 percent in the early 1970s to 35 percent and 12 percent by 2000, where they have remained since. Between 1987 and 2000, average blood cholesterol levels fell from 5.7mmol/L to 5.2mmol/L. Despite the continuing rise in obesity and diabetes, death from cardiovascular disease fell from 141 to 63/100,000 of the population between 1994-97 and 2009-11, owing mainly to better treatment and improvements in control of risk factors such as blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

The world’s formerly fattest man to get a second pro-bono surgery

A team of doctors is scheduled to operate Wednesday on Paul Mason, who was once the world's fattest man. At Mason’s heaviest, he weighed 981 pounds. After gastric bypass surgery in 2010, he began to lose weight. He has since lost 658 pounds. His saga attracted a lot of media interest. TLC aired a documentary about him. British newspapers wrote many stories about his weight loss and love life. He appeared on daytime television shows, such as "The View," to discuss his new life as a slimmer man. Yet he still feels trapped in his own skin. The surgery at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital this week will be the second pro-bono operation on Mason to remove excess skin that hangs off his smaller body. Jennifer Capla, one of the lead surgeons on the operation, and her colleague Joseph Michaels, who are donating their time, call it the most extreme case of body contouring they've ever performed. During his first skin-removal surgery at Lenox Hill, in April 2015, nearly $250,000 in services were provided to remove almost 60 pounds and eight feet of spare flesh from Mason’s abdomen and legs. In addition to the doctors’ time, donations included Lenox Hill’s anesthesia, surgical services and volunteers to help Mason recover after the surgery. Mason, 55, is a retired postal worker from Ipswich, U.K., who lives on a pension. Capla connected with Mason in 2013 after her mother read an article about him in the New York Times when his extra skin required him to use a wheelchair. The U.K.'s National Health Service paid for his gastric bypass surgery, but it wouldn't cover removal of Mason’s excess skin. Edward Abramson, a clinical psychologist and author of "Emotional Eating," said that while most excess skin doesn’t disrupt daily life activities, its unsightly appearance can be disheartening. “I’m over the moon really because the more I can get rid of this excess skin, the more I can move on,” Mason said of the new surgery. Carrying around the excess skin was a painful ordeal. It became infected easily, and the weight of it caused tears in the skin. Michaels said he anticipates removing several feet of skin from Mason’s arm, a process that will likely take three hours per arm. “There are critical structures in the arm that control sensation and movement of the hand that need to be carefully preserved,” Michaels said. “Given his anatomy and that it’s been stretched out so much, some of these structures might not be where they’d think they would be.” Excessive bleeding and hypothermia are the main concerns surgeons have for Mason. His blood vessels are much larger than normal because they grew to accommodate his bigger size. That irreversible growth of the vessels caused him to be placed on blood thinners after his first surgery, and it affects how doctors maneuver around and tie them off. “The massive-weight-loss patients are a combination of reconstructive and cosmetic surgery,” said Capla. “These patients go on a journey that is not complete until this body is done.”

Dieting as a couple? Here’s how to keep it from ruining your relationship.

What happens when a couple tries to lose weight together? It can be a recipe for success — or a total disaster. Losing weight is difficult, and if someone feels alone during the process, lasting change may seem impossible. If a couple goes through the journey together, though, they can create healthier habits and strengthen their relationship. Supporting each other, having fun and being honest are the keys to making it work. Comparing body weight and/or pounds lost isn’t the best way to go. This is especially important for women to remember, because men are likely to lose weight more quickly. If you want to compare, consider using behaviors and habits to gauge how you’re doing. Notice what your partner is doing well and use that to learn how you can improve. • “My partner brought lunch to work every day this week, so I’ll try to do the same. We can pack our lunches at the same time.” • “I feel good about not having had a soda all week, but my partner exercised five times this week. I’m going to focus on exercising three times next week.” • “I filled half my plate with veggies at lunch and dinner. I’m going to work with my partner so we both increase our vegetable intake.” Competition can be an effective motivator, but a couple needs to remember they’re on the same team. If every event turns into a competition, weight loss may be achieved, but the relationship might suffer. Instead, use competition to stay accountable and focused. • “My partner woke up at 5 a.m. and got an early-morning workout in. I’m going to make sure I get my evening workout!” • “My partner had only one glass of wine at the party last night. At our next event, I’m going to follow that lead to help manage my alcohol intake.” Treats and sweets are key to success, but moderation is essential. It’s important to realize that your splurges may be different from your partner’s. One person may want a glass of wine while the other wants a doughnut. One may want to sleep in and watch TV, while the other wants to take a walk and eat french fries. Everyone can enjoy a treat when they want it, but that doesn’t mean both partners must participate. One may not want a treat that day. One may be craving something different. If one side of the couple feels obliged to splurge out of guilt, that can lead to resentment and arguments. Although many excel at nagging, the recipient rarely enjoys being on the other side of that conversation. Having a partner who’s working for the food police can take the fun out of a romantic dinner. While a partner may be sincerely trying to help, too much scrutinizing may cause the other half of the relationship to sabotage everything. Both sides of the couple are trying to succeed and to be their best selves. Consider a calm, honest conversation, or even an email or note to express thoughts and concerns. A relationship can get stronger through this journey. There’s one indisputable truth about weight loss: One diet does not fit all. While a couple can be in this experience together, it doesn’t mean they have to follow the same plan. What you eat, how you exercise, your schedule and your goals can all be different. Respect that. For weight loss to be successful, it has to make sense to the individual. Do what feels right to you even if your partner doesn’t agree or want to participate. This is the most important part. Losing weight is tough stuff! If a couple jumps into deprivation mode and creates a rigid and strict plan, it will probably not stick. There are ways to make this process enjoyable. Take a silly dance class together or go for a gorgeous walk or hike. Take a fun cooking class or start a cooking night with friends to create a social aspect to changing eating plans. Plan a date night that has nothing to do with eating healthy or splurging. Go see a movie or a show. Join a group or take a class. Laugh a lot! There are going to be moments of frustration, anger and struggle. Taking a moment to find some humor will help with the bumps in the road. Strategize together. Discuss routines, schedules and ideas so both people are on the same page. • Do something fun together to build support. • Be nice to each other. A simple “Looking good!” or “Nice work!” goes a long way. Take a moment for a compliment. • Prepare quick and easy recipes. Cook foods enjoyed by all, make simple recipes, and add flavor and condiments individually to suit specific needs. • Have each other’s back, because there will be plenty of difficult moments. The most powerful tool is that you are in this together. **More fromLifestyle:** Step away from the scale: It’s not all about how much weight you lose Not all processed foods are bad for you. How they’re made matters. Trying to lose weight? The colder months might be the perfect time.

For healthful meals, hold the salt, avoid most fat and mix up your menu

To eat healthfully, the way you prepare food can be just as important as what you buy, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, a nutrition expert and the author of “Read It Before You Eat It.” For example, cooking some foods makes their nutrients more available, such as lycopene in tomatoes and carotene in carrots. But some common cooking habits can be unhealthful, according to Taub-Dix and other experts. Salting water to make it boil faster when preparing pasta not only doesn’t work, it also adds unnecessary sodium. And rinsing chicken before roasting it can spread pathogenic bacteria in your kitchen sink. Following are 10 cooking mistakes to avoid, and some smart steps to take instead. ● **Mistreating your vegetables.** Boiling and overcooking certain vegetables robs them of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Instead, try steaming them. Studies show that this preserves more nutrients in vegetables than boiling, stir-frying or even blanching them. ● **Salting food before tasting.** Just one teaspoon of table salt has about 2,300 milligrams of sodium, the generally recommended daily limit. For people who are 51 or older, for African Americans and for those who have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, the recommended maximum is 1,500 milligrams a day. To cut down on sodium, remove the salt shaker from your table and try to train yourself to be satisfied with less. Cut back on ready- to-eat processed foods and high-   sodium condiments such as barbecue sauce, ketchup and soy sauce. ● **Not rinsing canned vegetables.** You can cut down on sodium in canned vegetables and legumes such as black beans and chickpeas by rinsing them in water. That helps lower their sodium content by about 10 percent or more, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ● **Failing to remove fat from ground beef.** If you pan-fry burgers instead of broiling or grilling them, be sure to pour off the fat. Or try making burger patties in a broiling pan, which has slits or holes to let the excess fat drain away from the meat. ● **Pan-frying instead of oven-frying.** Food soaks up oil as it fries. How much depends on the food, the temperature of the oil and whether the food is coated. Research shows that vegetables such as potatoes suck up more fat during frying than meat does. Try switching to “oven frying,” which uses little oil but still delivers a “fried” crunch. First, coat the food in something crispy that also adds nutrients and contains fewer calories, such as whole-wheat panko crumbs. Then spritz the food with cooking spray or a drizzle of oil, and bake. ● **Baking with white flour only.** The milling process that produces white flour not only removes fiber but also saps the flour of iron and several B vitamins. When baking, try replacing some white flour with fiber-rich whole- grain flour. ● **Preparing fat-free veggie salads.** Using fat-free dressing or a squeeze of lemon on a salad saves some calories but also may prevent your body from absorbing all of the nutrients in the vegetables. That’s because some nutrients are fat-soluble, which means our bodies don’t absorb them as well without a bit of fat in the meal. For example, the carotenoids in carrots, which the body converts to Vitamin A, go mostly unabsorbed and unused without any accompanying fat. Researchers at Purdue University found that adding 11 / 2 tablespoons of canola oil to a salad can boost the body’s absorption of carotenoids. ● **Mishandling olive oil.** Of all the types of olive oil, extra-virgin should contain the most phenols, which are natural, health-promoting plant chemicals with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticlotting properties. Heat, air and light can affect olive oil’s flavor and possibly its nutrients, so be sure to buy extra-virgin olive oil in a small, dark-colored bottle, and keep it tightly capped and stored in a kitchen cabinet away from the stove and sunny countertops. ● **Overcooking fresh garlic.** Garlic has been linked to a reduced risk of certain cancers and heart disease. But if you cook it too long, you might miss out on some of its benefits. So keep cooking times as brief as possible, and crush or chop garlic rather than using whole cloves, which tend to lose their health benefits faster in cooking. ● **Sticking to the same menu.** Preparing the same type of meal over and over, or otherwise limiting the food you eat, restricts your nutrient intake. Research has linked a varied diet to better overall health and a reduced risk of cancer and heart disease. You can find ideas at ChooseMyPlate.gov, a Web site run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Copyright 2013. Consumers Union of United States Inc.

Americans eat the most meat

As Brad has written previously, Americans are eating less and less meat: Consumption is projected to drop 12.1 percent just between 2007 and 2012. That being said, we still eat a lot of meat, about three times more than your average Ukrainian and 12 times more than a Bangladesh resident. In fact, the United States holds the title for highest per capita meat consumption, just barely edging out Australia. Here's what that looks like in map form, via NPR:  How did we get here? NPR's Dan Charles probes the history of our meat-eating ways. A lot of it has to do with being able to afford meat: There's a really robust relationship between incomes going up alongside meat consumption. But as Roger Horowitz -- a meat historian of sorts, based in Delaware -- explains, there's even more than that: Read the rest here.

Work Advice: She’s boxed in by her office’s lunch habits

**Reader:** Our department often holds catered lunches for meetings and training. Although I’ve been with the company seven years, and everyone knows I’m a vegetarian, our lunches include absolutely no vegetarian options. Often, for these lunches, I go grab my snacks or the salad I have in the fridge. Sometimes I just skip the meetings. I have asked the manager and the person ordering the meals that they also order vegetarian and healthy options — not on a specific day, but in general. I don’t want to be the office complainer. Can you recommend a graceful way to deal with this? **Karla:** Before you snap and start pelting everyone with quinoa, it’s time to get specific about how these flesh-fests affect you. Schedule a private sit-down with your manager: “I really want to join these meetings, but I often have to opt out because I can’t eat anything with meat in it. I’m missing out on team-building and development opportunities, and I can’t help feeling excluded.” Then request again that a meatless option be made available — or that you be allowed to buy and expense your own takeout meal. If your faith or a medical condition prevents you from eating meat, you could cite anti-discrimination laws as leverage. But let’s start by assuming your co-workers simply don’t realize that for you, meat-free eating isn’t just an optional health fad — and it doesn’t mean forcing everyone to eat Tofurky sandwiches with Nayonaise. _**MyMay 31 column included advice from lawyer Tom Spiggle for a reader who was expecting a baby and a layoff at the same time. Here’s an update:** _ I can’t thank you and Tom enough for the advice and resources. It’s been a roller coaster, but I think I can land on my feet after this awful situation. My husband and I cut back on all non-essential spending. We also looked into ACA [the Affordable Care Act] to get health insurance quotes, which helped put my mind at ease. I activated my network, asking everyone to keep my search confidential. Clients and former colleagues provided solid leads and offered freelance work. After several interviews, I’ve been offered and plan to accept a strategy position at a major company with great benefits. My son was born a month before his due date and spent four days in the NICU. Now he is at home, doing well and growing tremendously. My current employer has laid off a few folks, but I have not received an official notice yet. I’ve considered trying to get severance, but I just want to be done with the situation and walk away on my own terms. My big takeaway is that I don’t want to work for an organization that purports to be family-friendly but would be willing to do this to an expectant parent who has dedicated so much time and energy. Also, it really pays to maintain good relationships. For stories, features such as Date Lab, Gene Weingarten and more, visit The Washington Post Magazine. Follow the Magazine on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. E-mail us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.

The added cost of eating red meat — a quicker death, scientists say

Chew on this: New research offers more evidence that vegetarians not only live better, but also longer. A group of scientists led by Mingyang Song at the Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed data from two major studies involving more than 150,000 participants to determine whether people who consumed protein from red and processed meats had a significantly higher mortality rate than those who got their protein from plants. The analysis of the 32-year Nurses' Health Study, followed by the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study at Harvard University, didn't just look at the diets of the participants over a year. It reviewed them repeatedly — "specifically how often they consumed portions of particular types of food during the preceding year — every four years," a statement said. Song's team found that a 10 percent increase in proteins from animals resulted in a 2 percent increase in mortality overall, and an 8 percent rise in death risk from heart disease. But a 3 percent increase in protein from plants led to a 10 percent decrease in mortality and a 12 percent drop in risk of death from cardiovascular-related mortality. The findings are clear, said Song, a research fellow at the hospital's Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit: Plant-based proteins from sources such as beans, nuts, quinoa and seeds are a healthier choice than steaks or beef products such as hot dogs. That said, "I wouldn't suggest that everyone switch to vegan," Song added. That's because certain meats — chicken and fish, for example — also carried a much lower mortality risk overall and from heart disease. But the traditional American diet, rife with animal products such as burgers, meatballs, meatloaf, steaks, eggs and dairy, "is associated with a variety of bad outcomes," Song said. The research of the two studies started in the 1980s and totaled what the study called "3.5 million person-years." In that time, there were 36,000 deaths among the participants — 13,000 from cancer, 9,000 from cardiovascular disease and 14,000 from a mix of causes. "After adjustment for lifestyle and other dietary risk factors, a high consumption of protein from animal sources ... was weakly associated with an increased risk of death, while high consumption of protein from plant sources — breads, cereals, pasta, beans, nuts and legumes — was associated with a lower mortality rate," the statement said.

Good news for chocolate lovers: The more you eat, the lower your risk of heart disease, study suggests

Ahh, chocolate. There probably isn't a more magical ingredient on earth than the sweet, dark brown flavoring used for more than 3,000 years. Today most chocolate is consumed in the form of candy -- a development that has sparked heated debate among scientists about what that's doing to our health. Common sense tells us that too much of something so fatty and full of calories is a bad thing. But a surprising number of studies have found that dark chocolate can reduce the risk of death from a heart attack, decrease blood pressure and help those with chronic fatigue syndrome. Consumers have been so eager to justify indulging in their chocolate cravings that earlier this year many were duped by a fake study that purported to show that chocolate helps in weight loss. (The study, which was not peer-reviewed, was an attempt by a science journalist, with a Ph.D. degree, to shame media outlets who he said have a history of misreporting or misinterpreting research.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[How, and why, a journalist tricked news outlets into thinking chocolate makes you thin]_      *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The question for many chocolate lovers has been at what point are you having too much of a good thing. That is, is there an optimal "dose" for chocolate eating? A new study published in the journal Heart on Monday looked at the effect of diet on long-term health. It involved 25,000 volunteers and found that the answer to how much chocolate can be good for you is -- a lot. Study participants in the high consumption group -- those who ate 15 to 100 grams of chocolate a day in the form of everything from Mars bars to hot cocoa -- had lower heart disease and stroke risk than those who did not consume the confection.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico ** __** ** __**A hundred grams is equivalent to about two classic Hershey's bars or -- if you're going fancy -- five Godiva truffles. In terms of calories you're looking at 500-535. To put that into perspective, the Department of Agriculture recommends men consume 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day depending on their height, body composition and whether they are sedentary or active.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This association in the study was valid even after researchers adjusted for a wide range of risk factors, such as age, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity and other dietary variables. "The main message is that you don't need to worry too much if you are only moderately eating chocolate," **__**Phyo Myint, a professor at the School of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen and one of the study's lead authors, said in an interview.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Higher levels of consumption were associated with a large number of other positives in the study: lower BMI, waist:hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, inflammatory proteins. As compared with those who ate no chocolate, those who ate high amounts saw a 11 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease and 25 percent lower risk of associated death. The study also noted that more of the participants in the study ate milk chocolate vs. dark chocolate which has long been considered healthier. This might suggest that beneficial health effects may apply to both, the researchers said. "Our results are somewhat surprising since the expectation was that benefits of chocolate consumption would be mainly associated with dark chocolate rather than the commercially available products generally used in a British population which are high in sugar content and fat," the study's author wrote. _[The truth about dark chocolate]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So what's the theory behind how this works? Myint explained that chocolate is full of flavonoid antioxidants and that previous studies have shown that intake of chocolate results in improved function of the endothelium, or inner lining of the blood vessels. Chocolate has also been shown to increase HDL or "good" cholesterol and decrease LDL or "bad" cholesterol. He also said many chocolate bars that were probably consumed by study participants contained nuts which are known to be good for heart health. While Myint said it seemed clear that there wasn't a big risk to chocolate eating for the study participants, he said that the results of the study should be read with a few caveats. First, it looked at people ages 39 to 70 and nearly all the study participants were white. He also emphasized that in a sample size this large, there were also a number of participants who ate a lot of chocolate but did not see the same benefits as others. "Indeed some people had worse outcomes when eating that amount of chocolate so the findings need to be taken with extreme caution," he said. While the study provides evidence that there's no need to avoid chocolate in your diet to protect your cardiovascular health, it probably is too soon to run out and gorge on a pile of chocolate bars. Charles Mueller, clinical assistant professor of nutrition at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, points out that there's no definitive conclusion about cause and effect and that it's possible that chocolate eaters engage in other behaviors or eat other foods that are good for the heart. "Cocoa beans are not unlike red peppers, green peppers and broccoli and stuff like that. They are full of phytochemicals that are good for you. But if you are overweight, and you are thinking of protecting yourself by eating chocolate you are being kind of silly. Chocolate is just one small element in a full range of a good diet," Mueller said. **READ MORE:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The world's biggest chocolate maker says we're running out of chocolate    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The truth about dark chocolate    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico How, and why, a journalist tricked news outlets into reporting chocolate makes you thin    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Clear away the diet fads: Here are 4 food resolutions really worth making

It is resolution time again — something you will be reminded of incessantly in the coming weeks as the media turns its face toward the “New Year, New You” sun. You have, no doubt, already noticed the flood of health-oriented stories in print and on TV, promotions for new self-help books and ads galore for fitness clubs and diet programs. Even if you are not one to buy into the hype, it is hard not to reflect on the passing year and plan to improve in the one ahead. Marist Poll data show 44 percent of Americans intend to make a New Year’s resolution. Not surprisingly, the vow to lose weight tops the charts, with exercising more and getting healthy making the top five. But the messages and products designed to help with (and capitalize on) our desire to eat better and be healthier can be mind-numbingly contradictory and confusing. Search the most popular diet books online and you’ll find meat- heavy paleo plans competing with guides for becoming vegan, old-world Mediterranean diets facing off with modern juice cleanses and plans promoting fasting against those advocating drinking butter. To the layman, each may seem to make sense in its own way, yet each essentially opposes the other. The same can be said of the reported health and nutrition research. Every other week you read about a study that flies in the face of one the week before. All this back-and-forth can be downright paralyzing, stopping a well-intended resolution in its tracks. But if you take a step back and survey the landscape with a broader lens, you’ll see that despite the vast differences in dietary advice, there are certain common denominators, principles that virtually everyone agrees on, that go beyond fads and frenzies and have held up for decades. By shifting your attention from the next big thing to these core truths, you can escape the noise and focus on making changes that stand the test of time. The benefits of eating vegetables, particularly the non-starchy variety, are uncontested. Thanks to their bounty of protective and healing nutrients, you can essentially name the disease or malady, and studies show eating vegetables reduces your chances of getting it. Plus, because they are high in water and fiber, vegetables can also promote weight loss by filling you up on fewer calories. Despite all this, most of us fall woefully short of getting enough. We should be filling half our plates with produce at each meal, but a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says American adults eat vegetables just 1.6 times a day on average and nearly a quarter of us eat less than a serving a day. If you are going to pick one health-related resolution, make it to eat more vegetables. And don’t just make the promise; commit to a specific strategy for getting more. Try including a vegetable at every meal or snack: Toss chopped tomato into your scrambled eggs at breakfast, stuff your sandwich at lunch with extra sliced cucumbers and radishes, snack on crudites in the afternoon and start every dinner with a salad or vegetable soup. Fat is a hot topic nowadays — and one that’s rife with different opinions. But one thing everyone seems to agree that we should be eating more omega-3s, the type of fat found in fish, walnuts, flax and chia seeds and leafy greens (There go those vegetables again.) Besides being essential fats (we must obtain them from the foods we eat to prevent deficiency) omega-3 fats have an antioxidant-like effect, reducing inflammation in the body, which is thought to be at the root of all sorts of problems, including rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease and skin flare-ups. The best way to get omega-3 is from fish, so plan to work at least two servings a week into your meal rotation. Tossing some walnuts, flax or chia into your morning cereal or yogurt is also a clear win. Whether or not you buy into the latest sugar-is-the-devil zeitgeist, it is clear that sugar is worse for us than we once thought, not only adding empty calories but also increasing our risk of heart disease. There is an across- the-board consensus that the less we have the better. (To be clear, I am talking about _added_ sugars here — the stuff put into food for added sweetness — not the sugars inherent in foods such as fruit and dairy. You’d be missing the mark if you avoided those healthful foods because of the sugars they naturally contain.) So take determined steps to cut back on added sugar this year. The biggest culprit is sugary drinks, so switch to water, flavored with a splash of juice or citrus slices if plain doesn’t cut it for you. Also get plain varieties of yogurt and add fresh fruit and a touch of honey instead of getting the heavily sweetened flavored kind. And gradually step down the amount of sugar you use in coffee and tea so your taste buds have a chance to readjust. In general, the more manufacturing steps a food goes through to get from the farm to you, the more nutrients it loses and the more highly concentrated its calories become along the way. Focusing on foods closer to their original state — whole grains instead of refined, chicken breast instead of breaded chicken nuggets, whole fruit instead of fruit juice — can put you on the path to losing weight and getting healthier. So this year, resolve to prepare more food at home using minimally processed ingredients. You can’t go wrong. Chat with Ellie at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7. **More from The Washington Post** Read more stories from Krieger here 7 tips for winter workouts Health food trends to watch for in 2015

Can a high-protein, low-carb diet increase fertility in women?

Jenna Birch, reporting on Shape magazine’s Web site, describes an intriguing new study raising hopes that someday women might be able to increase their chances of getting pregnant by changing their diets. For the study, Australian researchers put 858 mice on one of 25 diets involving various levels of proteins, carbohydrates, fat and calories. After 15 months, it was clear that the mice on high-protein, low-carb diets had more babies than the others. And that, the researchers said, had implications for older women who are having trouble conceiving. “Instead of women with subfertility resorting immediately to invasive [in vitro fertilization] techniques,” study author Samantha Solon-Biet told Shape, “an alternative strategy may be developed to change the ratio of dietary macronutrients to improve female fertility. This would avoid the need for medical intervention, except in the most severe cases.” Birch tried to put the recommendations in context by talking to nutrition experts. “I would caution women to not start eating 20-ounce steaks three times a day,” said dietitian Liz Weinandy. “If a woman wanted to go a little higher in protein intake, that would be fine — but focus on eating lean sources that are not highly processed.” (In other words, don’t wolf down more lunch meats and hot dogs.) Weinandy also said some experts believe that compounds found in full-fat dairy products are “beneficial for conception.” Along with another dietitian, Jessica Marcus, Weinandy pointed out that older women trying to conceive need to maximize their health every way they can, including but not limited to diet. “The more we can do to maintain a healthy body,” Marcus said, “the better our chances.”

Skinny Colin Kaepernick plans to bulk up by eating food. ‘And a lot of it.’

Colin Kaepernick, whose loss of weight and muscle tone was eye-popping this spring, has a solid plan for rebuilding his body. “Eat food,” Kaepernick said, “and a lot of it.” Kaepernick might be more seriously threatening to replace Blaine Gabbert as the starting quarterback for the 1-2 San Francisco 49ers if he looked a little more like the guy who led the team to the Super Bowl. Instead, three offseason surgeries took a toll, keeping him from the weight room and significantly diminishing his previous 225-pound playing weight. “To get the full Kap for what you need — the potential that he has — he needs to continue to just work on the physical aspect of things,” 49ers Coach Chip Kelly said. Kaepernick’s physicial condition was a shock at first, and there were questions whether the vegetarian diet he adopted nine months ago was partly to blame. It isn’t easy to maintain the kind of heft needed to play in the NFL without meat and dairy.  So … when Kaepernick says he’s eating “a lot of it,” he means it.

Colin Kaepernick, whose loss of weight and muscle tone was eye-popping this spring, has a solid plan for rebuilding his body. “Eat food,” Kaepernick said, “and a lot of it.” Kaepernick might be more seriously threatening to replace Blaine Gabbert as the starting quarterback for the 1-2 San Francisco 49ers if he looked a little more like the guy who led the team to the Super Bowl. Instead, three offseason surgeries took a toll, keeping him from the weight room and significantly diminishing his previous 225-pound playing weight. “To get the full Kap for what you need — the potential that he has — he needs to continue to just work on the physical aspect of things,” 49ers Coach Chip Kelly said. Kaepernick’s physicial condition was a shock at first, and there were questions whether the vegetarian diet he adopted nine months ago was partly to blame. It isn’t easy to maintain the kind of heft needed to play in the NFL without meat and dairy.  So…when Kaepernick says he’s eating “a lot of it,” he means it.

Three squares vs. a day of smaller meals: Which is better for healthy weight loss?

Three square meals a day: For years we’ve been told they are essential to health. But popular dieting advice suggests that eating more meals — albeit smaller ones — may be a better approach, especially for those looking to shed extra pounds. Some new diets advocate going the other way: consuming only one small meal a couple of days a week followed by days of unrestricted eating. These diets claim to help people manage the tricky business of taking in fewer calories. What does science say about their effectiveness? Let’s start with the idea that lots of little meals is better than three squares. While numerous studies have indicated a link between a snacking diet (four to six small meals or adding healthful snacks to the three squares) and maintaining a healthy weight, the research remains inconclusive. A classic study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989 compared “nibbling” — 17 snacks a day — to a traditional three meals that were equivalent in calories. Seven men ate each way for two weeks, and researchers found lower cholesterol and insulin levels with the nibbling diet — factors that lower risk for heart disease and metabolic diseases such as diabetes. And in large surveys of how people eat, researchers have found lower body weights in people who report eating more often than three times a day. While this might suggest that nibbling (within reason) is good, surveys can find only associations, not cause and effect. In addition, though a recent review of clinical studies found that frequent meals make people feel less hungry, this eating pattern does not necessarily correlate with weight loss. That may seem confusing, but it’s the current thinking, according to Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri in Columbia who co-authored the review. At the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center in Baltimore, overweight people seeking to shed pounds are generally advised to spread out small meals over the course of a day while keeping an eye on calories. The act of eating and digesting increases the resting metabolic rate — the calories your body burns to keep up physiologic functions without any physical exercise — so eating more frequently should favor weight loss, according to the center’s director, Lawrence Cheskin. Also, he says, “it keeps people satisfied — they’re less likely to do a big overeat.” Unless — and this is a big unless — eating more frequently leads people to consume more calories. You can guess what happens then. How about skipping breakfast? We’ve long been told to eat breakfast for health and attentiveness. For dieters, breakfast is thought to keep hunger at bay and prevent overeating the rest of the day. A small study published last month pokes holes in this conventional wisdom. Researchers at Cornell University either fed breakfast to or withheld breakfast from 18 student volunteers. Those who skipped breakfast reported being hungrier than those who ate breakfast; they also ate more at lunch. Still, they did not eat enough to fully compensate for the missed meal. In fact, those who had skipped breakfast took in 408 fewer calories over the course of the day than those who ate breakfast. Study author David Levitsky, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell, says his work adds to a growing body of evidence that overturns a long-held belief: that people will compensate for missed calories. Rather, skipping a meal is “one small weapon” people can use to fight the battle of weight, he says. “If you skip two to three meals per week, you can decrease” your caloric intake, he says. A more extreme version of this is the alternate-day fasting diet, a technique popularized by such books as “The Fast Diet” and “5:2.” Such diets advocate drastically limiting calories on certain days; on other days, a person can eat as he or she pleases. The approach is thought to address diet fatigue — the constant strain of counting calories and skipping dessert that can occur with dieting — by limiting willpower work to a few days per week. Studies have shown mixed results with alternate-day fasting. A 2010 study showed the technique effective among a group of obese patients. The 16 participants ate only one meal — lunch — every other day. Caloric intake on these fasting days was limited to about 500 calories, or roughly 25 percent of their own usual daily intake. On the intervening days, they could eat whatever they wanted. Over eight weeks, the participants lost 12.3 pounds, on average. Krista Varady, an assistant professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who co-authored the study, said she was surprised by the results. She thought the participants might eat so much on their eating days that they’d make up for those calories lost on the fasting days, but that wasn’t the case. They only ate about 10 to 15 percent more on feeding days than their daily intake before the diet, Varady says, which, combined with the fasting-day savings, resulted in a whole lot of calories cut. On fasting days, dieters would look forward to the next day. Still, though they’d make a big breakfast, they couldn’t finish it. (Varady is in the midst of a study following obese people for a year, comparing the alternate-day fasting plan to a more typical calorie-reduction plan. One important aspect will be whether participants can stick to such a diet.) Not everyone is convinced by the fasting fads. “Skipping meals, particularly the breakfast meal, leads to greater hunger throughout the day and reduced fullness,” says Leidy. “Our data show this pattern leads to overeating in the evening, particularly on high-fat and/or high-sugar snacks.” Given the inconclusiveness of the research, figuring out which approach is right for you might depend on which is more important to you: managing hunger or managing willpower. Cheskin says it’s important to understand how and why people eat. “We hardly ever eat because of physiological hunger,” he says. “People eat because it’s noon or because I’m tired or because my husband is eating.” If a patient tells him she doesn’t like eating breakfast, that’s fine, Cheskin says. Another patient may say skipping breakfast leaves him famished. To which he’ll advise: Eat breakfast and spread those calories out. “There’s so much individual variability,” Cheskin says. But there’s only one bottom line: “You have to cut calories.”

Best way to keep the weight off as you age? Here’s what one study says.

People tend to gain weight as they age. To prevent this, might it help to incorporate certain foods into your diet? **THIS STUDY** analyzed data from three studies, involving 124,086 adults who had no chronic diseases and who averaged 36 to 46 years old when the studies began. For 24 years, information on the participants’ weight and diet was collected. On average, men gained about two pounds every four years, and women gained three to four pounds. Those whose diets included the most foods high in flavonoids — plant-based compounds found in many fruits and vegetables — gained the least. High-flavonoid foods associated with the smallest weight gain included apples, pears, blueberries, strawberries and peppers. **WHO MAY BE AFFECTED?** Adults, who on average in the U.S. gain about a pound a year. Factors that might contribute to this include a slowing of metabolism, hormone changes, not getting sufficient exercise, taking certain medications, some medical conditions, eating too much and eating the wrong foods. The latest dietary guidelines emphasize the importance of a balanced diet that regularly includes a variety of vegetables, whole fruits, whole grains, low- or no-fat dairy, foods high in protein and healthy oils. The guidelines suggest limiting saturated and trans fats, added sugars and sodium. **CAVEATS** Data on weight and diet came from the participants’ responses on questionnaires. All participants were health-care professionals. **FIND THIS STUDY** Jan. 28 online issue of the BMJ (thebmj.com; click “Research,” then “Research papers”). **LEARN MORE ABOUT** weight management at cdc.gov (search for “healthy weight”) and move.va.gov (search for “basics of weight control”). The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. **Read more:** The awful effects of ‘late night’ eating Why soy seems to be on every ‘superfood’ list Vegetarian diets are healthy. But here’s why they don’t help you live longer

Is bacon actually bad for you? It may depend on your DNA.

After the World Health Organization concluded last week that processed meats cause cancer, millions presumably reconsidered their appetite for bacon and hot dogs.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But for many, the warning may be completely irrelevant. In a study published last year with little fanfare, researchers found that genetics - a simple difference in your DNA - may determine how dangerous processed meats are for you. For people with one genetic variant, eating more processed meat was associated with more colorectal cancer, according to the research, just as the WHO scientists have asserted. But for people with the other genetic variant, eating more processed meat did not appear to raise the risk of getting colorectal  cancer. “What this suggests is that there are some people who should be more careful with processed meat, and that there are some that did not increase their risks by eating processed meat,” Jane C. Figueiredo, a co-author of the study published last year in Plos Genetics and an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California said an interview. The researchers cautioned that the finding has yet to be replicated and that just because one group appeared to be immune from the risks of processed meat does not exclude the possibility that some other undiscovered genetic combination may raise the cancer risk for some in that group. Processed meats might raise the risks of other chronic diseases, too, they said. But by highlighting an interaction between diet and genes, the research foreshadows a day when broad dietary guidelines - that is, rules that apply to everyone - may be combined with information tailored to a person's genetic background. “We are just at the tip of the iceberg in this research,” Ulrike Peters of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and **** senior author of the study said in an interview. “I believe **** that the public health messages for smoking, physical activity, alcohol and dietary factors will remain the same. But we will also be able to identify some groups who are at a higher risk.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Exactly how much processed meat people ought to eat continues to be a matter of debate, even in the wake of the announcement. The WHO scientists cited figures suggesting that eating a few strips of bacon per day raises the risk of colorectal cancer from roughly five percent to about six percent, and some researchers have questioned whether the evidence is strong enough to prove that processed meat causes cancer. In coming to their conclusion, the WHO scientists cited 18 cohort studies and found the connection in 12. In the other six, presumably, no such connection was found. If the genetic findings are replicated, they could help explain why the results connecting processed meat to colorectal cancer have been inconsistent. The discovery of the genetic variants arose from a massive effort seeking to find genetic reasons for colorectal cancer. Scientists reviewed records of nearly 20,000 people in several countries -  the U.S, Canada, Australia and Germany.  About half of them had gotten the disease, and about half of them had not. The researchers then tried to find genetic differences between the groups, and combined that with how much processed meat they had been eating. Their search, which reviewed some 2.7 million genetic variants, turned up one location on 10th chromosome out of the 23 pairs in humans that seemed particularly interesting.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For people with one type of genetic building block (known as a nucleotide) at that location, eating more processed meat seemed not to matter. For people a different type at that location, eating more processed meat was associated with a greater likelihood of having had colorectal cancer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of people have no idea which genetic group they fall in. The odds are somewhat favorable: About 43 percent of people fell into the group for which more processed meat raised the risk of cancer; the remaining 57 percent fell into the other group for which more processed meat did not appear to raise the risk. But the researchers cautioned that the odds may be different in other populations.

If you peel your fruits and vegetables, you’re losing a lot of nutrition

Beauty may not be skin deep, but when it comes to fruits and vegetables, skin is good. There lies a medicine chest of antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, phytonutrients and minerals. An apple’s bright exterior may attract the eye and protect the flesh inside, but it’s more than just packaging. It contains quercetin, a fabulous flavonoid that’s great for the heart and hard on allergies and that douses the fire of inflammation. Okay, the health rhetoric is a bit overheated these days, and it’s hard to know what’s hype and what’s not. But from all I’ve heard, it’s foolish to peel and discard the skin of produce unless there’s a reason. Pesticide residue would be one, unless you buy organic or grow your own. I admit that I peel apples when making a pie, for a nicer texture, but with baked apples, I owe it to my body to eat them skin and all. Fruit skins vary in their appeal. Plum skin can be bitter, but the ripe flesh makes up for that. Kumquats are tart inside, but their thin, tender skin is sugar-sweet. Citrus peels are cooked and made into a sweetened marmalade, or turned into thin strips with a zester to season a variety of dishes: lemon zest in a creamy pasta sauce, for example, or orange zest in a daube (a beefy French stew). After eating an orange for dessert, I often nibble the rind, dipped in turbinado sugar. Supposedly, the peel of a black, overripe banana is edible and nutritious, and I’d eat one if forced. Apparently, it contains an antidepressant, so maybe that would cheer me up. Most vegetable skin is fine if scrubbed clean with a stiff brush. There’s no reason to discard potato skins except that they won’t go through the holes in a ricer, and even then you can add them back in. Why throw out a food item that is sold by itself as a side dish, topped with bacon, sour cream and cheese? Parsnips and carrots need peeling only if unusually grimy or scarred. Turnips and rutabagas need no peeling if they’re young. Beets I do peel if used raw. But cooking softens the skin, so it can usually be left on, though it tends to slip off of its own accord. We take for granted that snap beans and edible-pod peas are eaten skin and all, though the pods of both are discarded after the seeds fully mature. Beans at the in-between stage, when the seeds are formed but not yet hard, vary as to type. Italian Romano beans have pods that often can be cooked to a wonderful tenderness. An heirloom variety named Garden of Eden can be eaten whole even when a foot long. Many cucumber varieties can be eaten unpeeled, too. The skin of ancho peppers is sometimes bitter, which may be why they’re often roasted over coals and placed in a paper bag to steam, for easy skin removal. People sometimes slit corn kernels and press out the creamy pulp to avoid eating the presumably indigestible skin. But I’m for fiber, and the skin is often where the best fiber lies. Eggplant? It has delicious skin, and I would relish its chewiness even if it weren’t a source of the antioxidant nasunin. And until I go for a PhD in vegetable chemistry, that’s reason enough for me. More from Home and Garden: Pick your picnic style for a relaxing, Instagram-worthy summer afternoon How we control a pest in our garden without the use of pesticides Peony passion: A garden icon blooms anew in the age of social media

How to lose weight, in 3 deceptively simple steps

It’s January, the season of resolutions! How fun. One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight and get healthy. What an admirable goal. We all want to be our best selves, don’t we? Losing weight can seem like a daunting task, but it’s easier than it looks. There is even an entire industry built around helping us lose weight. There are fad diets (Atkins, Paleo, juice fasts, I did a cabbage soup diet in high school, oof) and trendy workouts (Zumba, ballet barre, Prancercise). But losing weight is much simpler than it seems.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What follows is a foolproof way to lose weight. No measuring, no agonizing, no books to buy — no money to spend at all, in fact. I guarantee that if you follow these three easy steps you will lose weight. **STEP 1: Be Hungry.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The first step is to be hungry. If you are not hungry, do not eat. When enough time has passed that you feel hungry, eat food. It’s as simple as that. Now, don’t eat too much food. Like, don’t eat enough food that you no longer feel hungry. And by food, of course I mean seven almonds. (Limit one serving of seven almonds per day.) Make sure they are raw almonds and don’t have any added sugar or salt or flavor. Does it matter what you eat? I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. What I do know is if you’re not hungry, you’re not doing it right. You know it’s working when you’re consistently hungry enough to be very, very grumpy. Let yourself get so grumpy that you are rude to your co-workers and it puts your personal relationships in jeopardy. That’s how you know Step 1 is working. **STEP 2: Exercise Way More Than You Think Is Reasonable.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This step is easy! Put on a sports bra or boxer briefs, lace up your sneakers, and get outside! Once you are outside, move your body around wildly, until you feel very tired. When you feel tired, keep going. Keep going for, like, 45 more minutes after you think you can’t keep going. Do this every day. Walking is fine if you’re interested in getting healthier in your heart or lungs or to avoid diabetes or whatever, but if you are interested in losing weight for the purpose of vanity, you’ll have to do more than walk. You should run as fast as you can, sprint up stairs, throw your body to the ground and then quickly jump back up, over and over and over again, until you are afraid for your life. Be G.I. Jane. If you’re not sweating and gasping for breath, you probably aren’t doing it right. Oh is it January? Is it cold out? Too bad. Go outside and move your body. Move it fast. Or pick up heavy things, that’s supposed to work too. Sure. Whatever thing you feel like you want to do that will make you sweaty and tired and filled with hate. This can be free or this can cost money. If you are rich, do CrossFit. If you are poor, just run outside and up and down stairs at the library or other places homeless people hang out. “But you said I have to be hungry. How can I exercise when I am hungry?” Good question. Very good question. Here’s the answer: shut up and do it. Every day. **Step 3: Tie Your Self-Worth To The Number On The Scale.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This step is the most psychological of the three, and arguably the easiest of all of them. This step doesn’t even require you to do anything at all, except give in to your already powerful self-doubt. Have you never felt good enough? Use it. Did Amanda Cooper make fun of you for being fat in fifth grade? Amanda was right. You were fat in fifth grade. Use it. You’ll show Amanda. This step is easiest if you are a woman, as society makes women feel bad about themselves every day. Making women feel bad about how they look is a great way for companies to make money. But don’t worry, everyone can tie their self-worth to the number on the scale. Gay men know about this as they have been pressured to be thin since time immemorial. Now straight men can get in on the action, too. Remember how much everyone freaked out about Chris Pratt? Chris Pratt’s probably sitting in his mansion in the Hollywood Hills right now being like, “nobody called me fat before I lost a bunch of weight, but have they all been thinking it? This is terrible, now I have to keep up with this whole diet and exercise thing forever. This must be what it feels like to be a woman.” Very astute, Chris Pratt. That guy gets it. So, follow my easy, three step plan and the pounds will melt away. All you have to do is be hungry, exercise until you want to die, and give in to societal pressures to be thin. But seriously, how does one do this? I still have 30 some odd pounds of baby weight to lose. When I was gaining too much weight when I was pregnant, I asked my obstetrician what I should do and she said, “Avoid certain foods, like some fruits and stuff. Avoid carbs.” I said, “Wait, what fruits should I avoid?” And she said, “I guess like all fruits? I can refer you to a nutritionist.” So basically even doctors don’t know. Good luck! Probably the best thing to do is develop healthy hobbies, like running or biking. Get a diet buddy who you can hang out with and complain deeply about how hungry and grumpy you both are. Believe in yourself, that sort of thing. It might not actually be easy, but it can be done. Just ask Chris Pratt.

Why Thanksgiving turkeys keep getting fatter and fatter

Thanksgiving's almost upon us. And, seeing as how millions of turkeys are about to get plopped on dinner tables across the country this Thursday, the _least_ we can do is give them their own wonky chart. So here's a graph from a surprisingly fascinating 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture overview (pdf) on the turkey industry. It shows that turkeys in the United States have been getting steadily fatter in the past two decades, even as the overall number of turkeys raised and slaughtered has been declining:  In 1986, the average turkey weighed 20 pounds. By 2006, that had risen to 28.2 pounds per bird. Why's that? Because turkey farming has become a complex industrial operation that has seen big productivity gains. Here's the USDA report: "Turkeys have been carefully bred to become the efficient meat producers they are today," the report concludes. "The increase in bird weight reflects an efficiency gain for growers of about 41 percent." It also means that fewer turkeys get slaughtered for more and more meat. Of course, there are also a few not-so-savory downsides to hyper-efficient industrial turkey farming. As Lynne Peeples reported last year, tens of millions of turkeys in dense factory farms are fed a diet that includes low doses of antibiotics, which help animals grow faster for still-mysterious reasons. Public-health experts worry that these crowded farms could, in turn, help spread new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In any case, for more on the economics of the turkey industry, see Tim Taylor's post. And Matt Yglesias explains why turkeys counterintuitively get cheaper during Thanksgiving. If we missed any good bits of turkey wonkery, let us know. _Update:_ Commenters point out that being fattened so unnaturally can be a pretty miserable experience for the turkeys themselves. There's a not-so- appetizing description in this report (pdf) from the Humane Society.

Eating carbs may have given human ancestors a big brain boost

It's widely accepted these days that cooking helped make us human. It's easier to use energy from cooked food than raw, so pre-modern humans who dabbled in roasting had the energy surplus they needed to develop better brains, not to mention the time they needed to sit around and think deep thoughts with them.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico According to a new study published in the Quarterly Review of Biology, cooked meat and veggies shouldn't get all the credit. Without carbohydrates, it argues, the switch to cooked food wouldn't have packed nearly as big of a punch.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For starters, sorry, vegans (and double sorry to raw vegans), but scientists generally believe that meat and cooking were _totally_ integral to human evolution. To survive on a plant-based diet, especially a raw one, without the aid of modern conveniences like grocery stores and refrigeration, a human would have to spend pretty much all his or her time finding food.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _What was in the real Paleo diet way back when? It wasn’t just meat_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico And eating raw just isn't healthy. It isn't! It really isn't. You get fewer nutrients, women tend to stop menstruating and you'll drop a ton of weight because your body is literally going, "lol erm thanks a lot for all the food, not."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So it's not news that cooking is very, very important, in an evolutionary sense. But based on the analysis offered in this new study, those set on eating a "paleo" diet might want to make sure they're not cutting out too many carbs.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The researchers, led by Karen Hardy of the University of York and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, basically argue that the human brain relies heavily on glucose and that a lack of carbs makes it hard to keep your brain satisfied. That's true: When your body's glucose stores are low, either because you're not eating or because you've cut out carbs, your brain starts to look for energy from other sources. The results are less than ideal:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The researchers also point out that humans have around three times as many copies of the gene used to make the enzyme that turns carbs into simple sugars — salivary amylase — as other primates do. Based on genetic analysis, they say, this adaptation cropped up around 1 million years ago. The spread of cooking — and the beginning of its visible benefits to pre-human physiology — is thought to have started around 2 million years ago, or perhaps a bit later. It would make sense, the researchers argue, if the genetic adaptation that made us efficient carb eaters cropped up after a few generations of cooking: Raw tubers are really hard for mammals to digest into usable glucose, but once we had access to cooked crops, those plants may have become quite important in our evolution — important enough that only humans with extra copies of the salivary amylase gene survived.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _Forget Paleo. Here’s the religious case for eating a slice of that wedding cake._ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Infants whose mothers had more access to glucose from cooked carbs would have had higher survival rates, and carbs may have played a part in the boost in brain size seen about 800,000 years ago.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The hypothesis doesn't sound too wild, though researchers will certainly have to do more work putting together the archaeological and genetic evidence. But it's worth considering as you decide what "unnatural" foods to cut from your diet —-- if that's what you're into. All that being said, it's important to remember that a roasted potato is very different from, say, a giant bowl of pasta. One may have led us to bigger brains, but the other is probably leading us to bigger bellies.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Read More:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Hold up, new moms: Before eating your placenta, consider this new study    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Pandas literally evolved to be lazy    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Don’t be a dummy: ‘Detoxes’ are a waste of time    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Twitter can tell which states love jogging and which are eating hot dogs    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico No, MSG isn’t bad for you    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Grain-free pet foods are no healthier, vets say. Focus on this nutrition issue instead.

Losing weight is tough. It would be easier if a benevolent someone concerned about your health controlled exactly how much you ate and how often you exercised, right? That’s the situation for most dogs and cats in the United States, and yet the majority are overweight or obese. As with our own dieting woes, the unpleasant prospect of the simple solution — feeding our furry friends less — makes us reach for alternative, quick-fix strategies. Many pet parents have turned to radically new menus. These grain-free, all-meat and raw-food diets are inspired by the meals eaten by wild relatives of our fidos and felixes. But are these diets really better for our pets? Veterinarians and pet nutrition researchers say probably not.  Why have these pet diets become so popular? “It’s a marketing trend,” Lock said. “Grain-free is marketing. It’s only marketing,” said Cailin Heinze, a small-animal nutritionist at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. “A lot of foods market themselves by what they’re not including,” and the implication is that the excluded ingredient must be bad. “Grain-free is definitely a marketing technique that has been very successful,” said Jennifer Larsen, a clinical nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis. (Disclosure: I went to graduate school at the University of California at Davis, but studied plants, not pets.) People think that if they pay a lot for food and there are a lot of exclusions on the bag, that the food is healthier, but “they’re buying an idea,” she said, “not necessarily a superior product.” There is absolutely no data to support the idea that grain-free diets are better for pets, Heinze and Larsen noted. Some pet owners have a false impression that grains are more likely to cause an allergic reaction, but “it’s much more common for dogs to have allergies to meat than to grain,” Heinze said. Chicken, beef, eggs, dairy and wheat are the most common allergies in dogs. And it’s not that there’s anything particularly allergenic about these foods, she said, they’re just the most frequently used ingredients. Marketing campaigns for products such as “Taste of the Wild” or Blue Buffalo’s “Wilderness” claim that their grain-free, meat-forward formulations better reflect the ancestral diets of our dogs’ and cats’ evolutionary predecessors, but the veterinarians I spoke with also questioned this logic. For one, our pets’ wild cousins aren’t all that healthy. “People believe that nature is best,” Larsen said, but “animals in the wild don’t live that long and they don’t lead very healthy lives.”  For cats, this argument makes a little more sense. Cats are carnivores rather than omnivores, so they have higher protein requirements than dogs, but “cats can digest and utilize carbohydrates quite well,” said Andrea Fascetti, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis. Many grain-free pet foods are made with starch from potatoes or lentils and they may be higher in fat. If you cut grains but increase calories, your pet is going to gain weight, Heinze said. Dogs and cats also have a drastically different lifestyle from wolves or tigers. Pets are almost always spayed and neutered which is in itself a risk factor for obesity. And most live inside or in pens, so their energy needs are reduced dramatically.  Experts especially caution against feeding pets raw meat. “It’s not uncommon to find things like salmonella and E. coli and listeria in raw meat,” Larsen said. There are a lot of microbes present in our farming systems, and unlike when an animal is hunting in the wild, there are many opportunities for bacteria to contaminate meat between the time an animal is slaughtered and when it reaches our kitchens.  But what about all those benefits you hear about from feeding a raw diet, like shiny coats and less frequent stools? “I can’t tell you how many clients send me pictures of poop,” Larsen said. But changes to a pet’s bathroom habits don’t have anything to do with their food being raw. Raw diets tend to be lower in fiber, and high fiber probably results in larger stools. But we don’t have a sense of whether stool quality and quantity correlate with health,  Fascetti said. And that shiny coat probably is because of high fat, Heinze said. If pet owners wish to formulate their own diets, they should work with their veterinarian and a board-certified nutritionist. If you’re feeding your pet a balanced diet such as in a commercial chow, obesity is the biggest nutrition issue pet owners should worry about, Heinze said. We want our pets to enjoy what they’re eating, so many foods and especially treats are formulated to be high in fat, Larsen said. Most people don’t realize that a milk bone has about as many calories as a candy bar, Lock said. I know the struggle. My own hefty husky mix stares at me with her big brown eyes and licks the window whenever she wants food. I’ve taken to calling the dental chews I buy her “guilt-a-bones,” because I can’t help but give her one every time I leave.  There’s no one magic diet for every animal. These experts strongly recommend working with your veterinarian to find a diet that works for you and your pet. When it comes to navigating marketing claims in the pet food aisle, Lock suggests finding a company that employs a veterinary nutritionist and does feeding trials. Try not to get too hung up on “the no list,” Heinze said. “Claims like no gluten, no grains, and no soy generally mean no science.”

Get your kids on board with going meatless once a week

I am not a huge meat eater. I haven’t officially broken this to my boys because I don’t want them to get the idea that they can boycott large categories of food. Also, my older son loves meat. Given a choice, he will choose meat every time. He is growing faster than I can buy shoes, so clearly his meat cravings are his body’s way of demanding the protein, iron and vitamins that it needs. I don’t want to discourage that. He should listen to his body. But he, as with all growing children, can obtain some protein, iron, essential vitamins and good fats through sources other than meat. Regularly eating a meatless meal is a positive thing. The average American could lessen the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes by reducing consumption of animal protein. Our family eats a vegetarian dinner a few times a week, but if you are a family accustomed to meat on your plate, start slowly. Start with meatless Mondays. The concept of “Meatless Mondays” became all the rage a few years ago when the city of San Francisco and the Baltimore Public Schools jumped on board, along with companies such as Toyota, as well as restaurants, celebrities and families across the country. Adopting the Meatless Monday routine is a relaxed and fun way to introduce vegetarian meals to your family. Share these facts from www.   meatlessmonday.com with your kids to help them understand the benefits: ■ You can reduce your carbon footprint by cutting back on meat just once a week. According to the United Nations, the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide. ■ Approximately 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into producing a single pound of beef. That far surpasses the amount of water needed for vegetables and grains. ■21 nations across the globe have their own Meatless Monday movements, including Britain, Australia and Brazil. ■ When you fill your plate with vegetables, you fill yourself with fiber, which can make you feel full longer. (Your kids might then have less room for dessert, but perhaps don’t mention that!) ■Eating vegetarian can save money. (My boys beg me to give them the money we are saving by not eating meat every night. Not going to happen, guys. Sorry!) Going meatless doesn’t mean having plain pasta or cereal for dinner, and it doesn’t mean a lot of extra work. Be sure your meal offers enough protein, calcium, iron and good fats to nourish the body. Beans, peas, lentils, quinoa, nuts and seeds are healthful alternatives. Also think ethnic foods, as many wonderful Indian and Asian dishes are naturally meatless. An easy start is a simple meal of beans and rice. My kids like to add their own toppings such as chopped tomatoes, peppers, avocado, scallions, grated cheese and sliced mangoes. Set the table with toppings and watch your kids create their own meals. Why not start this week? Go meatless on Monday, and let me know how it goes. Seidenberg is the co-founder of Nourish Schools, a D.C.-based nutrition education company.

Vegetarian diets are healthy, but they don’t help you live longer

**THE QUESTION** It’s no secret that a diet focused on plant-based foods can be good for your health. Might a vegetarian diet also help you live longer? **THIS STUDY** analyzed data from two studies that involved 60,310 people, most in their mid-40s at the start of their study. It compared mortality rates among vegetarians and three types of non-vegetarians: those who ate meat five or more times a week, those who ate meat less often, and those who ate fish but no meat at all. Of the participants who ate meat, 59 percent did so five or more times a week. About a third of the study participants were vegetarians, who ate no meat, fish or poultry. That group included both those who ate dairy products and eggs and those who did not. In a span that averaged 17 years, 5,294 people died before age 90. Overall, essentially no difference was found in the mortality rates of the various diet groups. Differences were found in some specific causes of death. Compared with people who ate the most meat, those who ate meat less often were 30 to 45 percent less likely to have died from respiratory disease and pancreatic cancer; people who ate fish but not meat had a 20 percent lower mortality rate from malignant cancers and a 20 percent higher mortality rate from circulatory disease. Vegetarians were 50 percent less likely than meat-eaters to have died from pancreatic or lymphatic cancer. **WHO MAY BE AFFECTED?** Adults. Whether following a vegetarian or non- vegetarian eating plan, people need to consume foods that provide the energy and nutrients they need. Nutritional requirements vary some from person to person. Also, research over the years has revealed pros and cons to most diets. **CAVEATS** About three-fourths of the participants were women. The authors described some of the differences in mortality rates for specific causes of death as hard to explain, adding that further research was needed. **FIND THIS STUDY** January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (ajcn.nutrition.org). **LEARN MORE ABOUT** vegetarian eating at newsinhealth.nih.gov (search for “vegetarian diet”) and mayoclinic.org (search for “vegetarian diet”). The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence about a treatment's effectiveness is rarely found in a single study. Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician.

It’s smart to limit calories that come from fat, especially saturated fat

You probably know that eating lots of high-fat food comes at a price: a thicker waistline and, if you load up on saturated or trans fats, an increased risk of heart disease and other problems. But what if you literally had to pay to eat fat? That’s happening in Denmark, where, in an attempt to improve public health, the government recently enacted a “fat tax” of about $1.50 per pound on food — such as bacon, butter, fast food and pastries — that contains more than 2.3 percent saturated fat. There’s no such plan in the works in the United States, but there are plenty of other reasons to limit the calories in your diet that come from fats and certainly those from saturated fat. The simplest one is that all types of fat, even the healthful ones, contribute a lot of calories: nine per gram vs. four in a gram of carbohydrates or protein. That’s significant if you’re trying to lose or maintain weight. At the same time, foods with both fat and protein can actually help prevent you from overeating, since they keep you feeling full longer. And some fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids in fish, can lower blood pressure and provide other health benefits. Here’s a rundown of some of the latest research on how different fats affect your health. A fatty diet was once considered a first-class ticket to heart disease. But later research revealed that the situation was far more nuanced. There’s strong evidence that eating monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, found in foods such as wild salmon and trout, nuts, avocados and most vegetable oils, actually cuts the risk of heart disease and other problems. For example, a 2011 review of 50 studies found that the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in healthful fats, was linked to a more healthful waist circumference, better blood pressure, improved HDL (good) cholesterol and lower triglyceride levels compared with various other diets. Other research has suggested that people who regularly cook with olive oil and use it as dressing are less likely to have a stroke than do those who never use it. Saturated fat, on the other hand, is problematic because it kicks your body’s production of cholesterol into overdrive. That’s why limiting this fat, which is found mostly in animal foods and plant sources such as coconuts and palm oil, is a key lifestyle measure for people with heart disease. And a June 2011 study suggested that a diet low in saturated fat and refined carbohydrates could reduce a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, recent research suggests that cutting back on saturated fat shouldn’t be your only strategy. It’s also smart to increase your intake of food that has cholesterol-lowering properties. In one six-month study, for example, people who reduced their saturated-fat intake while also consuming a diet heavy in plant sterols, soy protein, fiber and nuts reduced their LDL (bad) cholesterol levels more than those who focused only on cutting saturated fat. And a recent review of 48 studies concluded that replacing some saturated fats with more-healthful ones reduced the risk of cardiovascular events by 14 percent. There’s no controversy when it comes to trans fat. Found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, it both increases LDL cholesterol and decreases HDL cholesterol. High intake has been consistently linked to an increased risk of heart disease. It also may raise the risk of depression, according to a 2011 study of 12,059 adults. Trans-fat consumption has declined since 2006, when it became mandatory to list it on labels. But you can still find it in some margarines and baked goods. And food labels that show zero grams of trans fat can still contain up to 0.5 grams per serving. So check the list of ingredients for partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Copyright 2012.  Consumers Union of United States Inc.

Red meat linked not just to disease but also to an increased mortality risk

**THE QUESTION** Eating red meat is associated with a greater risk of developing such chronic diseases as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer. But is it also associated with a higher mortality rate? **THIS STUDY** analyzed data on 121,342 adults, most in their late 40s to early 50s, who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at the start of the study. During a span of more than two decades, 23,926 of them died, including 5,910 from cardiovascular disease and 9,464 from cancer. Chances of dying during this time were greater for those who ate the most unprocessed red meat (such as beef, pork and lamb) and processed red meat (bacon, hot dogs, sausage, bologna). For each additional three-ounce serving daily of unprocessed red meat, overall chances of dying increased by 13 percent, and risk for death from cardiovascular disease rose by 18 percent and from cancer by 10 percent. Comparable increases in consumption of processed red meat raised the overall chance of dying by 20 percent, with 21 and 16 percent increases for cardiovascular disease and cancer, respectively. Substituting one serving of red meat a day for a serving of fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy products or whole grains lowered risk by 7 to 19 percent. **WHO MAY BE AFFECTED?** Adults who eat red meat. Though a good source of protein, red meat also can be high in fat, especially unhealthful saturated fat. **CAVEATS** Data on meat consumption came from people’s responses on questionnaires. The study did not differentiate between consumption of lean and fatty red meat. Participants were mostly white, and all were health-care professionals; whether the findings apply to other groups is unclear. **FIND THIS STUDY** April 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine (www.archinternmed.com). **LEARN MORE ABOUT** healthy eating at www.cdc.gov/nutrition and www.mayoclinic.com (search for “nutrition”). **— Linda Searing  ** The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, conclusive evidence about a treatment's effectiveness is rarely found in a single study. Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician.

China is encouraging its citizens to eat less meat — and that could be a big win for the climate

Don’t believe those who say smaller, more frequent meals will control appetite

The advice is given so often by nutritionists, personal trainers and diet-book authors that it’s hard not to believe it: If you want to control your appetite, eat small, frequent meals. The idea is that if you allow too many hours to elapse between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner, you will become so ravenously hungry that you will be at best uncomfortable and at worst rendered unable to make food choices that are in your best interest. But do you really need to eat five to eight times per day? Research that’s designed to actually answer that question suggests that you don’t. For decades, observational studies have noticed that increased meal frequency is associated with a lower likelihood of being overweight, but association doesn’t prove cause and effect. In fact, several randomized, controlled-feeding studies —some of which specifically measured appetite — conducted at institutions in the United States and other countries in the past decade tell a different story. In a few of these studies, smaller, more frequent meals helped curb appetite. But mostly, the opposite was true. For example, a study aimed at assessing how eating patterns affect chronic inflammation, published in January in the Journal of Nutrition, included a secondary element in which 12 participants ate breakfast either as one large meal or as two smaller meals spaced about 90 minutes apart. They were asked to rate their hunger, desire to eat and fullness every 30 minutes, starting before the first meal at 8 a.m. and continuing until noon. The group that ate one large breakfast had a sharper drop in hunger, then a steady rise in hunger until noon. The group that ate two meals reported less suppression of hunger after the first small meal, then a more dramatic rise in hunger until the second small meal at 10:30 a.m. After that meal, hunger levels dropped again. Overall, average hunger and desire to eat were highest in those who ate the two smaller breakfasts compared with those who ate one larger meal. The researchers’ firm conclusion: “Higher eating frequency does not decrease appetite in healthy adults.” A 2007 study in the journal Appetite involving 16 participants found no “significant effects” on appetite from frequent feedings. A 2010 study in the British Journal of Nutrition found no significant differences in appetite ratings or secretion of ghrelin, the “hunger hormone,” among 16 participants who were randomly assigned to eat three meals per day or three meals plus three snacks. A study published in 2011 in the journal Obesity found that among 27 obese men, higher protein intake helped control appetite, but increased meal frequency (three vs. six meals per day) did not. (The small number of participants in this research is typical of controlled-feeding studies, because they’re so expensive. Participants not only have to be fed but often also sequestered or otherwise monitored, to be sure they’re not eating on their own.) Managing appetite — defined as the desire or urge to eat, which includes your perceived level of hunger — depends on more than just meal spacing. Meal size and composition are critical factors. In other words, what you eat probably makes more of a difference than how often you eat. If you are making healthful food choices and eating to meet your body’s energy needs, and your hunger rarely flares out of control, then worrying about how often you eat is splitting hairs. Food cravings are a somewhat different matter. Cravings are related to appetite in that they involve a desire to eat, but cravings can happen even when you’re not hungry. Stress, boredom or strong emotions can produce an urge to eat; for some people, the mere presence of food, especially tasty food, can trigger eating urges. Because cravings can feel more powerful when you are also hungry, managing hunger and appetite may help reduce cravings, but it often doesn’t eliminate them. Other strategies are generally needed. Overall, research has found that increasing meal frequency beyond three meals per day has little to no effect on appetite, despite the argument that decreased hunger may explain observed associations between frequent meals and lower body weight. On the other hand, eating fewer than three meals per day tends to increase appetite. What does this mean for you? Rather than looking outside for answers to how often you should eat, look inward. Your ideal meal frequency will give you steady energy throughout the day and let you get hungry enough that you feel ready to eat a nourishing meal, but not so hungry that you lunge for whatever food you can get your hands on. Ask yourself these questions: • Do I feel satisfied at the end of a meal? • How soon do I get hungry again after a meal? • How strong is my hunger between meals? • Is the sensation I call hunger actually physical hunger, or is my urge to eat due to cravings, boredom or habit? If you feel ravenous between meals, that could be a sign that you need to eat more at your meals (possibly just more protein), or you could need to eat more often. If you feel the need to eat oddly soon after a meal, but don’t really feel hungry, it may be that you aren’t eating the combination of foods that best suits your body, so try experimenting. If you tend to be distracted while you eat, practice eating mindfully so you get the mental satisfaction of fully tasting your food. Appetite is in the mind as well as the body. If you realize that you rarely experience true hunger, or feel overly full after you eat, you may need to eat less at meals, if you are eating three meals a day, or eat less often, if you are eating several meals. Small, frequent meals — especially if they morph into a grazing pattern — can cause you to miss out on the hunger and fullness cues that can serve as an internal barometer of how much and when to eat. Plus, when you’re eating all the time, it’s easy to eat mindlessly, without any idea of what or how much you are eating in the course of the day. Finally, if you never allow yourself to get hungry, you may forget what hunger feels like. Hunger is a normal physiological signal that tells us it’s time to refuel, and moderate hunger is nothing to fear. In fact, it enhances our enjoyment of the meal to come! Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie. **More fromLifestyle:** What’s real and what’s myth when it comes to caffeine? 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Yo-yo dieting isn’t just counterproductive — it could put you at risk

Diet, lose weight, regain weight, repeat, repeat, repeat. Yo-yo dieting is an all-too-common phenomenon. More and more people are dieting — whether for weight loss or for “health” — even though most do not maintain their weight losses. This is unfortunate, because not only can yo-yo dieting lead to greater weight gain over time, but it may also put us in the path of heart disease and diabetes. Even among people who lose a significant amount of weight — 10 percent or more — roughly 8 in 10 will regain that weight within a year. But dieting and yo-yo dieting are not limited to people at higher weights. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data shows that the percentage of dieters who weight in the normal range on the body mass index (BMI) chart is on the rise, currently almost 50 percent of women and 20 percent of men, while more than 10 percent of women with an underweight BMI report wanting to lose weight. Many adults, adolescents and children with normal or underweight BMIs diet because they feel pressure to be thinner. Some of that external pressure may come from public health messages. “Terms like ‘war on obesity’ and obsession about slimness can backfire over the long-term,” said Abdul Dulloo, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine/Psychology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. “The emphasis should not be about ‘body weight’ or ‘body fat’ per se, but about motivation for a healthy lifestyle in relation to food and physical activity.” The very act of weight loss — especially the loss of muscle that accompanies all weight loss — triggers the body to fight back by increasing hunger, slowing metabolism and encouraging fat storage. This metabolic adaptation served our ancestors well during feast and famine, but not so much in today’s food environment, which encourages weight gain in people who are genetically predisposed to it. Repeated dieting attempts do nothing to reduce this vulnerability. Restricting food increases its appeal, which can leads to overeating, or even bingeing, and then weight regain. Instead, what happens is fat overshooting — regaining more fat than was originally lost. The body wants to regain lost muscle, but regains fat first, so the drive to eat and slowed metabolism continue until muscle regain is complete. Overshooting after each cycle of weight loss and regain can contribute to an overall increase in weight over time. In fact, a recently published study in the journal Evolution, Medicine and Public Health proposes that the body’s uncertainty about food supply — and the body can’t tell the difference between intentional dieting and unintentional famine because of food shortages — may cause it to store more fat each time food restrictions are lifted than it would if food intake remained steady. Other research supports this idea. A 2015 article in the journal Obesity Reviews co-authored by Dulloo suggests that lean dieters are at greater risk for fat overshooting than those who are classified as overweight or obese. The lower a dieter’s initial body fat percentage, the higher the proportion of muscle they lose and the higher the proportion of fat they gain. Over time, with continued yo-yo dieting, this may add up to a substantial increase in body fat. Two studies, in 2012 and 2013, of female twins found that the more frequent the cycles of yo-yo dieting, the greater the increase in body weight over time, especially among adolescents who start dieting at a lower BMI. What’s more, yo-yo dieting in people who have BMIs at or below the normal range appears to increase risk of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. What about people who start dieting at a higher body weight? Research is inconclusive, in part because of varying definitions of yo-yo dieting used in studies. Some dieters may have one large loss and regain, while others may experience several smaller loss-regain cycles. “Weight for all bodies, fat thin, normal/high BMI is not a thing that can be ‘controlled’ — it just can’t,” said Washington-area dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield, author of the book “Body Kindness.” “The only thing that can be controlled is choices, and you have to make choices that fit you best, work on meaningful habits that you can change.” She suggests making a list of actions — or inactions — that are disappointing you and framing your goals around new actions that are in line with the person you want to be. Not sleeping enough? Skipping workouts? You can change that. Frustrated with how much alcohol you drink or how much you eat out? You can change that, too. “Even if these things don’t lead to weight loss, if they make you happier they’re worth it,” she said. “You don’t want the only reason you’re taking on new health habits to be about weight loss. They’ll never stick. Habits should be about joy, energy and other things that help you every day.” Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie. **More fromLifestyle:** Despite the anti-carb diet fads, whole grains are still good for you Step away from the scale: It’s not all about how much weight you lose I know what it takes to lose weight. I do it every year. How a nude Facebook photo showed women how to love their bodies Weight loss, especially with surgery, tied to lower risk of heart failure

Why increasing exercise and cutting carbs is a recipe for disaster

It’s a common tale. You want to lose weight and get fit, so you decide to work out more and cut calories, in particular all those starches — breads, rice, pasta and cereal — that we keep hearing are making us fat. Except it doesn’t work. What gives? Weight loss doesn’t always come down to calories in vs. calories out, especially when you are trying to find the balance between aerobic exercise and eating carbohydrates. It is essential to find the right mix for you. There is so much negative information around sugar that often carbohydrates get mixed in, because technically sugar is a carbohydrate. It is essential to understand the difference. We do not need processed sugar, but the body absolutely needs carbohydrates for survival and a healthy metabolism. Especially if you are exercising, carbohydrates are needed — they are the fuel to assist our metabolism, feed our brain and manage our stress hormones. So where do we find carbohydrates? ●Non-starchy vegetables. ●Fruit. ● Starches. This category includes bread, pasta, rice, corn, potatoes, peas, cereals, crackers and quinoa. Starches can be categorized as unprocessed, meaning they are whole and intact grains, or processed/refined, meaning they have a higher sugar content and less fiber, protein and fat after being stripped of nutrients during processing. ● Sweets, candy, refined sugar: Much of our carbohydrates are found in sweets and hidden sugars. Sugar is in a lot of condiments, packaged foods and beverages. It is very common to increase your exercise and decrease your calories and not see results. Why is this? It comes down to stress. When you create such a caloric deficit by eating less and exercising more, you may be putting your body into a stressed state. If the body thinks it is in trouble, it will lower its metabolic rate and hold on to weight. While it seems logical to eat less and exercise more to achieve results, often one has to eat more to fuel workouts. _**Tip:** Try slowly adding a serving of starch, balanced with protein and fat, within an hour after aerobic exercise. (Some options: a half-cup of oatmeal with cinnamon, a one-ounce slice of toast with 1 to 2 tablespoons of nut butter, or a half-cup of rice with 1 to 2 cups of vegetables and 3 to 5 ounces of protein.) Add a serving a day and monitor your hunger, energy and weight for a week to see whether another serving is needed. Take it slowly to prevent overeating and see how the body reacts. Everyone has his or her own ideal ratio of carbohydrates to exercise. Find the ratio specific for you. _ You might follow your new restrictive plan diligently, but as the day goes on, hunger and cravings take over and you overeat. This also goes back to stress. The body thinks it’s in trouble, so when food is finally served at dinner, it says, “This may be the last time I eat, so I’m going to take in all I can!” Not only that, it stores most of it as fat. You are holding on to your weight because dinners and late-night snacks are so large that your total calorie intake probably did not decrease, despite your efforts earlier in the day. _**Tip:** Spread calories out throughout the day and consider adding one to two servings of starch or fruit to your daily diet and notice how that affects evening hunger and weight._ Another common pitfall when decreasing starch intake is eating a lot of fruit throughout the day as a replacement. Because fruit is healthy and full of nutrients and fiber, we often think it is can be eaten in unlimited quantities, like vegetables. Fruit does contain a good amount of calories, and that needs to be taken into account. _**Tip:** One to two servings of unprocessed starch (for instance, oatmeal at breakfast or quinoa at lunch) may provide satiation instead of three to five pieces of fruit. Monitor servings of fruit and eat some starch and see how the body reacts._ Take a day or two to understand how your carbohydrate intake and workouts are fitting in with your goals. Keep a food log so you can get an idea of how many servings of carbohydrates you eat a day and how they are timed in your day. And notice whether a tweak in timing, portions or carbohydrate choice could support you in reaching your goals. **More fromLifestyle:** The celebrity diet trend that actually has some science behind it Grading the costs and benefits of acai, chia and other ‘superfoods’ Five red flags that your ‘clean’ diet is going too far 5 reasons we regain weight Berman is a registered dietitian, a personal trainer and owner of Jae Berman Nutrition.

Missouri Republicans are trying to ban food stamp recipients from buying steak and seafood

In 2013, Fox News proudly broadcast an interview with a young food stamp recipient who claimed to be using the government benefit to purchase lobster and sushi.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "This is the way I want to live and I don’t really see anything changing," Jason Greenslate explained to Fox. “It’s free food; it’s awesome." That story fit a longtime conservative suspicion that poor people use food stamps to purchase luxury items. Now, a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri is pushing for legislation that would stop people like Greenslate and severely limit what food stamp recipients can buy. The bill being proposed would ban the purchase with food stamps of "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "The intention of the bill is to get the food stamp program back to its original intent, which is nutrition assistance," said Rick Brattin, the representative who is sponsoring the proposed legislation. _[The double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Curbing food stamp purchases of cookies, chips, energy drinks, and soft drinks at least falls in line with the food stamp program's mission to provide nutrition. Nutrition experts are already discussing whether to remove unhealthy items from the list of foods participants can buy.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But seafood and steak? Seafood has been shown, time and again, to be a healthy part of any diet. And steak is such a broad category that it's essentially banning people from buying any flat cuts of beef, from porterhouse to flank. "It just seems really repressive," said Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University and author of the book Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America. "I don't see how it makes any sense to ban some of these foods. Fish is something that should really be in your diet. And steak, what does that mean in this context?" Brattin admits that the language might need some tweaking. "My intention wasn't to get rid of canned tuna and fish sticks," he said. But he also insists that people _are_ abusing the system by purchasing luxury foods, and believes that that must be stopped, even if it ends up requiring the inclusion of other less luxurious items.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT cards," he said. "When I can't afford it on my pay, I don't want people on the taxpayer's dime to afford those kinds of foods either." _[Kansas wants to ban welfare recipients from seeing movies, going swimming on government’s dime]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Currently, a household of one can qualify for up to $194 dollars a month, or fewer than $7 dollars day, as part of SNAP, according to the Department of Agriculture. For a household of two, it's roughly twice that. For a household of three, it's about three times the amount.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It doesn't take too much math to figure out that foods like lobster aren't exactly within a recipient's budget. And it's also hard to draw conclusions based on a single purchase. What if that family that was purchasing a more expensive cut of meat had subsisted on cheaper canned goods for the past month in order to afford it? Brattin's proposal is part of what Rank laments is a long history of stigmatizing food stamps and welfare programs in America. Ronald Reagan famously told the story of one "welfare queen" as though she were representative of the system at large. Rank says that today, the myth is perpetuated using similar anecdotes, like the Fox example, which he argued should be viewed as distortions of reality.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "There are some isolated cases of abuse, sure," said Rank. "But they are hardly representative of what the people struggling to get by on SNAP are actually buying... These people are spending their money extremely frugally." Brattin says his bill is about making the food stamp program revolve around nutrition, but it also touches on more than that: whether poor people should be allowed to purchase foods that are deemed fancy. And Rank argues that this crosses a line. "More than anything else, I think this is about controlling people," said Rank. "We should be treating people who are in poverty the same way we treat everyone else."

My best trick for staying fit? Telling everyone I used to be fat.

On my first day at my current job, one of my colleagues brought in a dozen doughnuts to welcome me to the team. I love doughnuts. And pie. And cake and ice cream and french fries and pancakes. But I almost never eat those things anymore. Instead of simply saying no, I declined in the most awkward way possible: I told these friendly people, many of whom I had met only minutes earlier, that I used to be 90 pounds heavier, really didn’t like weighing that much, and now eat garbage only on very special occasions.  And I’d rather be rude and healthy than compliant and obese. I worked hard to get my weight under control. I did it because I am vain and because I was scared of dying young. After doing some research, I settled on the following strategy: I maintained a mild weekly calorie deficit by keeping a food journal ; lifted weights several days a week to increase my lean body mass and insulin sensitivity; cut alcohol consumption to a few occasions per month (and no more than three drinks per occasion); and switched from cigarettes to nicotine gum. Introducing those things one by one over several years took me from north of 280 pounds to 195, and lowered my blood pressure from 146/90 to 106/60. Was it easy? It was not. But putting a structure in place — filling out my food diary every day, keeping my gym appointments come hell or high water — made it simple. But as any formerly or currently obese person will tell you, keeping the weight off is exactly the opposite. You can’t rigorously diet forever, but you also can’t eat whenever you feel like it, because you feel like eating all the time and you feel like eating garbage. My way is a good compromise: I don’t weigh my food anymore, but I also don’t eat just because someone puts something in front of my face. Since that first day, no one at work has offered me doughnuts or candy or any other junk food. Which means for the price of 30 awkward seconds, I have permanently reduced the amount of temptation I will encounter at a place where I spend a significant number of my waking hours. That kind of reprieve is an absolute steal for a recently reformed overeater. Even now I feel like I have gotten away with something.   I deploy this awkward honesty for my other vices. When people suggest drinks after work, I tell them I used to have a problem with alcohol, didn’t enjoy how it made me feel and so now don’t drink during the work week. When department store cashiers try to sign me up for credit cards, I tell them it took me years to pay off a credit card I misused when I was younger, and don’t want or need another one. The more I do it, the less embarrassed I feel. It’s not lost on me that this is strange behavior. I wasn’t raised to act like this. In fact, I was raised to say yes to basically everything. Saying no makes me squirm. I’m also a terrible negotiator. By saying, “no, and here’s why” all in one breath, I don’t have to deal with a follow-up offer. The other person is simply too embarrassed (on my behalf) to make one. It also feels really good to politely dissent against cultural norms that were going to kill me. Many of us pay a terrible price for going with the flow when it comes to food and alcohol. Heart disease kills half a million Americans a year, while 86 million people in this country are pre-diabetic and 1 in 6 of us drink eight or more drinks in a sitting four times a month. In essence, many of us are drowning in “yes.” I didn’t want to die of it. There’s a cruel irony in living this way. Being blunt about my limitations has kept obesity and alcoholism at bay. It also makes me look like someone who can eat doughnuts for breakfast now and again, or attend the occasional happy hour. And I probably can do those things without falling completely off the wagon. But why risk it? After all, the environmental and genetic factors that made me obese are not necessarily gone. I’m still the same person who was diagnosed with high blood pressure at age 13; still the son of a man who needed open heart surgery at age 51; still the adult who said “yes” until he could barely stand to look at himself in a mirror. So now I say no, and I say why, and I plan to keep doing so until the world stops offering me things that I desperately want but definitely shouldn’t have.