Eating For Health

Who doesn’t have a craving for snacks between meals?   America is a culture that loves to snack.   In Europe years ago, I was amazed that no one snacked.   Meals were enjoyed tremendously but rarely did people have chips, soda, and the American type of snacks.   So if we want to enjoy our snacks, are there healthier options? The latest Health and Nutrition Letter from Tufts University has a great article on healthy snacking (Feb. 2013).    They note for most Americans, snacking is our fourth meal of the day.   Snacking can have healthy advantages.   We can keep up our blood sugar from meal to meal; children need snacks because they have small stomachs and eat small amounts at a time.   If we choose healthy options, snacks can help us meet our daily nutrition needs, help us get in our 5 fruits and veggies each day.   So what healthier snacks should we focus on: Healthy Snack Choices focus on foods from Choose My Plate and foods that are nutrient dense.   This means sugar a

Who doesn’t love chocolate, especially dark chocolate?   Valentine’s Day just passed and many women got a box of chocolates from their special someone.   I was more than pleasantly pleased to see a box of chocolates waiting for me on Valentine’s Day morning.   So what do nutritionists say about chocolate?   Should you feel guilty with every piece from your assorted chocolate box?   Or can you say to yourself, why feel guilty, chocolate has some health benefits?   Can chocolate really be good for your health?  Jennifer Motl recently wrote about chocolate and had many encouraging things to say.  Heart Disease and Chocolate :    Yes, chocolate does have some health benefits.   Dark chocolate has been shown to lower one’s risk of heart disease and stroke. What is in dark chocolate that has healthy benefits?     One is flavanols and a second are antioxidants.   Chocolate is rich in both and both help protect not only our hearts but also our blood vessels.    Moreover, chocolate is

Manufacturers are adding high fructose corn syrup to many foods.   One reads the ingredients and there is high fructose corn syrup when it used to read sugar or sucrose.   So what difference does it make to our health?   After all the commercials for high fructose corn syrup say “sugar is sugar”.   Why do manufacturers use high fructose corn syrup?   One it is cheaper than sugar and   second it is easier to transport than sugar.   But many nutritionists and researchers are skeptical of high fructose corn syrup.   Some say it can lead to high blood pressure, kidney disease and diabetes. A research study looked at the health differences on our bodies of real sugar (white table sugar or sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup.   They gave 40 adults 24 ounce of a beverage sweetened with either high fructose corn syrup or table sugar.   The result?   High fructose corn syrup consumption lead to higher levels of fructose in the blood and higher blood pressure levels.   (Metabolism, De

Most people know that yogurt is a healthy food to eat.   Not only is it a dairy food supplying calcium and usually vitamin D , it also provides probiotics – or beneficial bacteria.    Now research links eating yogurt to lower blood pressure.   Researchers at Tufts’ Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging   has found that eating yogurt, even if you eat it only a couple of times a week, can help lower your risk of developing high blood pressure.   Dr. Wang and colleagues studied 2,197 adults as part of the Framingham Heart Study’s cohort.   All of these adults were free from hypertension at the start of the study.   They were followed for 14 years, during which 913 of the study participants developed high blood pressure.   Who was less likely to develop high blood pressure?   Participants who ate yogurt, at least a serving every three days.   What yogurt is best?   Low fat, low sugar yogurts are the healthier choices.     When teaching nutrition classes, I always recomme