9 Nasty Truths About Your Favorite Foods
Famous Death Row Last Meals
You remember it well, since it happened every night. You sat at the dinner table with your family, staring at a pile of steamed spinach with a frown, listening to your mother tell you that "spinach is not only good for you, but it will make you strong, like Popeye!" Blah blah blah. You didn't listen. And it really didn't matter if it were spinach, broccoli, peas, or carrots.
But now, as an educated, intelligent, mature adult, you know that Mom was right. In fact, Mom was right about a lot of things. She may have had some twisted reasoning, but in the end, she was right. Here are eight things related to food that Mom was right about:
1. Don't eat too fast - Eating slowly allows your brain to catch up to your stomach. Besides, don't you want to enjoy the company of your date?
2. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" - An apple is so boring, especially now since that's probably the most common fruit you ate when you were in school. However, as mundane as an apple may be, what with accessibility to exotic fruits from all over the world, there's a reason apples are on Mayo Clinic's list of Ten Great Health Foods. In addition to pectin, a fiber that lowers cholesterol and glucose levels and vitamin C, an antioxidant that helps the body absorb iron and folate, apples contain quercetin, a flavonoid that serves as a building block for other flavonoids.
3. Wash your hands - Do I even have to explain this one? I'll let someone else do it.
4. Spinach will make you strong - Sing it with me now. "Popeye the sailor man..." It may not make you strong enough to be able to pop open a tin can with your bare hands like our favorite cartoon sailor, but WebMD does call it the "powerhouse of the vegetable kingdom" for phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals (especially folate and iron) that fight disease, protect against heart disease, and preserve your eyesight.
5. Always start your day with a hearty breakfast - I don't think I could count how many times I've heard dietitians and weight-loss experts advise us about how breakfast will help stave off binge-eating later in the day. Weight loss aside, a lot of breakfast foods are good for you: oatmeal, fruit, and yogurt.
6. If you're sick, eat chicken soup - It sure makes you feel good when someone is babying you by bringing a bowl of soup to you in bed, and that steam rising up from the bowl might temporarily clear the sinuses, but there might be some science behind it all. According to the Mayo Clinic, something about the broth "acts as an anti-inflammatory by inhibiting the movement of immune system cells that participate in the body's inflammatory response." And don't worry, if you're too sick to make it from scratch, most canned chicken soups were shown to have the same effects.
7. Don't go swimming right after eating - It's a myth. It's a fact. It's a myth. It's a fact. The arguments are pretty good for and against Mom, depending on what you want to believe. According to the American Red Cross, swimming right after eating is not "life-threatening." However, they do advise that going into the water before your body has properly digested a meal makes you susceptible to cramping or exhaustion. Just use your head. Now eating after swimming is a different story...
8. Eat all your vegetables - We've singled out spinach, but it really goes without saying that you should eat all your vegetables for there isn't a single one that doesn't have some sort of benefit, and better yet eat all kinds of vegetables.
What did I miss? What did your mother tell you when you were a kid for which you must give her credit now?
VIDEO: Cop Kills Naked Man Allegedly Eating Another Man's Face
The Richest Woman in the World: How Gina Rinehart Earns her Billions
The Craziest Hidden Messages On $1, $20 Dollar Bills (PHOTOS)
First Woman To Command A Warship In Royal Navy History
'American Idol' Changes Record Contract Policy: Runner-Up No Longer Guaranteed Major Bucks
Missing Canada Children Found In Mexico Four Years Later
America's 10 Highest-Paid CEOs of 2011 (and How They Earned It)
What Happened When Alex Kenjeev Paid His Student Loan in Cash
PHOTOS: Kristen Stewart Almost Bares Sideboob
Samsung Galaxy S III review
Country Star Yearbook Pics
SEEING IS BELIEVING: This Boston Terrier Has The World's Largest Dog Eyes
Hawkeye and the Blue Ear Help a Mother and Her Hearing Impaired Son
Safeway Worker Stops Man From Beating Pregnant Woman, Gets Suspended
Celebs Who Are Secretly Geniuses
Leap Motion gesture control technology hands-on
SLIDESHOW: And You Thought Your Navel Piercing Hurt
Etan Patz Murder Suspect Knew 'Intimate Details,' Sources Say
WATCH: Stunning Quebec Protest Video Going Viral
Bristol Palin: I Made A Mistake
Pope's Butler Arrested In Embarrassing Scandal
A Night To Remember: HuffPost Gay Voices Salutes Same-Sex Prom Couples
50 Years On, Fire Still Burns Underneath PA Town
The Best And Worst Picnic Foods
Conservative Pundit Slams Donald Trump
PHOTOS: 75 Years Of The 'Most Beautiful Manmade Structure On Earth'
Ancient Trove Unearthed Near Armageddon Site
Dario Franchitti Wins Indy 500
Beryl Threatens Southeast Coastline
After Suspicious Behavior, Judge Gives Order To Edwards Jurors
Rodger Streitmatter: PHOTOS: 8 Legendary Same-Sex Couples
These Are The Richest Women In The World
8-29-2006 @8:55PM becky said... My parents' strategy for things like green beans or carrots (both of which I love now) was to have us eat as many as we were years old. So every year, we had another -- and of course got used to them in the process.
Reply
8-29-2006 @6:58PM Jayme said... Eating everything on your plate may cause a child to grow up into an obese adult, but my mother had the presence of mind to know what a proper serving was, not the gigantic ones we know today.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:01PM Joanne said... Don't give your onions to the dog, it will kill him.
She didn't have to tell me chocolate will kill the dog too because I always ate it without being told to.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:12PM Trish said... Except for the fact I had a HUGE crush on Popeye when I was a little kid (which helped my mother get me to eat spinach), she had no other nutritional offerings or myths. You see, she led us to believe she'd been slaving over a hot stove all day, when in fact her new best friend was "Hamburger Helper".
Also, when I was a young newlywed (over 30 years ago)I could never figure out how to make beef gravy just the way she did. When I finally broke down and asked her, the answer was "Go to the store and walk down the gravy aisle. Get the Heinz gravy in the jar, NOT in the can, but the jar..."
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:11PM Lynn said... My mother always said that eating burnt toast would give you a beautiful singing voice.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:11PM Julia said... Thank-You !!!!!!
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:13PM L Walker said... Incredible tips - all of them subject to exercise...without which none of it works! My mom said "keep moving", eat, sleep, get up and "keep moving". It keeps you thin, warm and always involved in something!
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:25PM Nancy said... BE A MEMBER OF "CLEAN YOUR PLATE CLUB" YEA MOM. I BET JENNEY CRAIG'S MOM WAS THE FOUNDER. HER DAUGHTER HAS MADE ALOT OF MONEY OFF YOUR DAUGHTERS....
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:29PM Debbie said... My mom always told us to leave a little something on our plate for "Mr. Manners" - that way we didn't absolutely clean our plates, looking more respectable I guess - ie., not picking it up and licking it! She said it was a sign of good manners.
As a mom to 4 kids, we always had the "Green Eggs & Ham" rule - you couldn't say you didn't like something if you hadn't tried it. Then, and only then, if you didn't like it, you didn't have to eat it. There was always a pb&j sandwich they could make for themselves.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:26PM Amy said... I cant believe no one has said this one yet:
Milk..it does a body good!!
and of course...Where's the beef
Reply
8-29-2006 @8:43PM Mark said... My Mom always told me to eat a little of everything.
I still think that is correct.
Too much of anything is bad.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:46PM James said... Actually, you should stay away from oranges and bananas if you are overweight and lazy. Oranges and bananas are quickly converted into energy by your body. If this energy is not used rapidly it will be converted into fat. (My mom did not say this)
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:52PM Tim said... An apple a day keeps the doctor away if you have good aim.
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:53PM Ryan said... Our veggies didn't have nutritional value by the time they were done being boiled to death. I learned about nutrition after leaving home. My mom told us the bread's crust was where all the vitamins were. But I don't think she really believed that nonsense -- she grew up during the depression and WWII and hated to waste anything. Dessert was the "carrot" used to make us clean our plates (along with the "stick" of having to stay at the table until we did, which often took me hours), even if it made our stomachs hurt to do so. It would have been easier if I'd been allowed to choose my portion size at least. I hated bread and pasta but was forced to eat it (coz it was cheap). I'm still paying, healthwise, for following those last 2 health gems. Now I am addicted to refined carbs, even though I still don't like them. :(
Reply
8-29-2006 @7:57PM Kate said... I heard a nutritionist on NPR who said that cooked spinach leaches iron from your body, but raw spinach adds iron.
Reply
8-29-2006 @8:06PM Bevely said... My mother required me to drink plenty of water in order to have beautiful skin and a healthy glow. Thanks Mom!!!!
Reply
8-29-2006 @8:12PM Sally said... Doesn't Keith (above) know that spinach IS a green. Note his reference to mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens. All vegetables are good for you - it doesn't make any sense to categorize them into groups.
Reply
8-29-2006 @8:44PM Wendy said... My Mom always said "You can't yuck what you have never tried" If we tried it and didn't like it we didn't ever have to eat it again.
Reply
8-30-2006 @3:10AM Cathy J said... Remember, kids aren't born with eating problems, parents create them. I never made my daughter eat if she didn't want to, I didn't want her to have a weight problem. I treated candy just like any other food and now she has to hide it from me. I am the one that wants it, not her.
Reply