"Yale University" news and stories

When I was growing up, we were a granola and Cheerios kind of family. Kix cereal was an occasional treat and we were allowed to pick out one sugar cereal a year (on our birthday). This didn't mean that we didn't beg for the other, less healthy cereals that we saw advertised to us during Saturday morning cartoons, but my mom was passionate about keeping brightly colored and sugared flakes, charms and balls out of our cereal bowls.

It seems like she was on to something, as according to a recent report, printed in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the more heavily marketed a cereal is to children, the less healthy it is. Additionally, this same team of researchers at Yale University have found that the health claims made about childrens' cereals are often misleading and false.

According to the study's lead researcher, Dr. Marlene B. Schwartz, parents should seek out cereals that contains 4 grams of sugar per serving (about one teaspoon) or less and that they should aim for 4 grams of fiber per bowl of cereal.

[via Reuters]

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Have you even wanted to pick just one food and eat it all day long? That, in very basic terms, is the gimmick of the Flavor Point Diet, a new weight loss strategy by researcher Dr. David Katz of Yale University.

The diet is based on the theory that we are overloading our palates with different flavors and are consequently so interested in them that we are never satisfied. According to the analogy given in the book, if we tempt ourselves with a taste of something, we will never be satisfied until we have a lot of it. The more flavors we allow ourselves, the more flavors we will want to eat. Dr. Katz says that by focusing on one "flavor intense" food each day, cravings can be overcome.

The diet calls for having a different flavor each day - pineapple on Monday, apple day on Tuesday, thyme on Wednesday, and so on. The sample menu for Apple Day calls for such meals as a smoothie for breakfast and an apple fennel barley salad for lunch. The total calorie count of the day is under 1500 and though the diet specifically claims that it involves "No Measuring Portions" and no restrictions on what you can eat, it still calls for 1/2 cup of applesauce for the snack. Another menu calls for a "snack" of 5 crackers, with no lunch on that day. The 6 bran pretzel sticks and 1/4 cup cottage cheese that serves as a snack on thyme day is another that sounds as though it involves both counting and measuring, even if its not specifically calories.

This diet is nothing new. It's simply the common sense of not eating too much disguised with a weak attempt at flavoring.