Delighting in chard with history, love and recipes.
Texas State prof James E. McWilliams discusses the flaws of locavore living in his new book, "Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly."
New York chef Tom Valenti, diabetes and his new book, "You Don't Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook."
One more tome to ponder: Martha Stewart's new book, "Cupcakes."
Food Matters in Austin: the Hot Sauce Festival, new restaurants on the horizon, Hudson's Sausage Co., outdoor movies, wine and food fests, free kids' meals at IHOP, 24-7 food at Twenty Four, June-Ann Rodil's title as Texas's Top Sommelier and Chisholm Trail Longhorn Beef co-op.
It makes sense that NYC would follow LA's desire to ban fast-food. Just this past March, a report from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed that in just two years obesity and diagnosed diabetes increased by 17 percent while the rest of the nation experienced just a six percent increase. An article from New York magazine reports that, according to the Sun, NYC Councilman Eric Gioia wants to impose a one-year ban on new fast-food restaurants. Considering the gravity of this health crisis, this desired measure hardly seems as puritanical as New York magazine describes.
The BBC explains that local policians in LA want to implement laws that would ban fast-food businesses from opening up in South LA where 32 percent of adults are overweight. In cities with high rates of obesity, these measures seem crucial. Personally, I think these bans would encourage businesses to offer affordable healthy food. At the same time, it would bring back the traditional ways of enjoying and cooking food.
A study that was recently released by Tulane University has found a link between the consumption of fruit juices and the development of type 2 diabetes. Ironically, the study also showed that one of the best ways to prevent the development of the disease is to consume a diet that is rich in whole fruits and vegetables!
Over the past eighteen years, the Nurse's Health Study has been carefully tracking the diets of over 71,346 women. Of those participants, 4,529 developed type 2 diabetes during the course of the study. In their analysis of the factors leading to diabetes, researchers at Tulane University discovered that fruits and vegetables were among the most effective ways to prevent development of the disease.
According to the study, eating an additional three servings of fruit per day can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by up to 18%. Similarly, a single serving of green, leafy vegetables can reduce the risk by 9%. However, just one daily serving of fruit juice can increase the risk of developing diabetes by 18%. This is highly significant; as the study's analysts note, earlier suggestions that women can drink juice instead of eating fresh fruit may be dangerously incorrect. Similarly, substituting fruit juice for other beverages in an attempt to become more healthy may also seriously backfire.
While the study will need to be replicated, and research hasn't been done to see if the findings are applicable to men, I will definitely be reconsidering my orange juice consumption!
For years, people have thought that diet soda was the way to go if you wanted to cut down on the sugar and calories that come with regular soda. Apparently, they are now finding that it might not be such a safe choice after all. Researchers have now determined that drinking one soda a day, whether it's diet or regular, is associated with a much higher rates of heart disease and diabetes.
They've associated regular, sugar-sweetened soda, with those health concerns for years, but this is the first study that finds that diet soda is also an indicator of future health issues. They don't think that it is the ingredients in the diet soda that lead to health problems, but that drinking soda (of any variety) is an indicator of other questionable eating patterns. Which just confirms what we've all known for years. You can not redeem a quarter pounder with cheese and large fries with the addition of a diet soda.
A team of Mexican bakers made a massive, sweet gesture toward madres and abuelitas across that country last Thursday. But the only thing sweet about the 2.2 metric ton celebration of Mother's Day is the fact that it was a cake. The gigantic dessert was made entirely with zero-calorie sweetener rather than sugar.
The heart-shaped cake was 16-feet wide and fed about 150 mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. And just how much artificial sweetener does it take to make an enormous blue-and-yellow cake? A tad over 200 pounds. Of course you'll also need 23 bakers, 881 pounds of eggs, 639 pounds of whipping cream and a really big oven, among other things. The folks behind the supersized sugar-free cake want to promote artificial sweeteners in Mexico, where obesity is increasingly widespread and some 7 million people suffer from diabetes.
Have you ever heard of soy yogurt? Until I ran across this article I hadn't. I like yogurt a lot, especially when it's a premium product like goat, sheep, or water buffalo yogurt. I even make it myself at home quite often in my yogurt maker. But soy yogurt? I will have to look for it at the market and see if I can find it. Well, soy yogurt may help control type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. It seems that enzymes in the yogurt help regulate blood sugar levels. This could be good news to the 15 million Americans and 150 million people around the world with type 2 diabetes. This discovery was accidental, like many in research. The research team bought a whole bunch of different types of yogurt with various fruit, because they were actually testing which fruit had the best levels of these enzymes. one type they bought was soy yogurt and they found out it had even higher levels of the enzyme than the regular fruit yogurts. Have any of you tried soy yogurt? Is it any good? How does it compare with other types of yogurt?
Operating purely from a health perspective, Epicurious set out to taste some sugar-free chocolates to see if there was one on the market that didn't "taste like chalk." In this case, they were taste testing the treats with a Halloween loving but candy-deprived diabetic, so the test was not conducted from a weight-loss or low-carb mindset . This is a solid indication that the tasters really were putting taste first, and not the nutrition label. The chocolates were grouped by brand:
Hershey's - Winner: Sugar Free York Peppermint Patties, Loser: No Sugar Hershey bars ("truly awful")
Guylian - Winner: Dark chocolate bar, Loser: Hazelnut bar (unless you're a big hazelnut fan)
Godiva - Winner: Milk and dark assortment, dark chocolate candy bars, Loser: None.
In general, the tasters felt that you got what you paid for when it came to sugar-free chocolates. The Godiva chocolates were the best of the bunch and were remarkably similar to "real" chcolates. Darker chocolates, which have less sugar even in regular bars, will transition more smoothly than milk chocolates. Combining the chocolates with other strong flavors, like hazelnut, coconut or mint, can cover up any minor flaws in the chocolate and will make even a poor-quality no-sugar chocolate acceptable most of the time.
A Finnish study that was conducted several years ago linked a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes with increased coffee consumption. It showed that people who drank 3-4 cups of cups a day had a 30% lower risk, while those women who drank 10 cups had a 79% reduction in risk. This study was reported in 2004, and the results of the study were similar to the conclusions of a recently-published study from researchers at UC San Diego that has been going on for the past 8 years.
The UCSD study said that their testing showed that current or past drinkers of caffeinated coffee had a 60% diabetes risk reduction, while those who never drank coffee did not. Apparently, not enough of the participants were decaf-only drinkers, so no conclusions could be made about them. The scientists do not think it is the caffeine that plays the crucial role in the risk-lowering, but that it is due to other compounds in the coffee.
The important thing to note from this study, according to the researchers, is that "people with diabetes and those at risk for developing diabetes have enough to worry about" and that coffee isn't one of those things.
The findings showed that pomegranate juice had no effect on blood sugar levels (i.e. did not increase it). However, it did reduce levels of other compounds that affect cardiovascular health. Consistently high glucose levels intensify the hardening of blood vessels. This is called atherosclerosis, and leads to cardiovascular disease and stroke. According to lead researcher Professor Michael Aviram, "In most juices, sugars are present in free – and harmful – forms. In pomegranate juice, however, the sugars are attached to unique antioxidants, which actually make these sugars protective against atherosclerosis."
A study organized by researchers at George Washington University, the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina, in conjunction with the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, has concluded that following a low-fat, vegan diet may actually reverse the symptoms of diabetes.
The study had participants with type II diabetes and assigned them to either a vegan diet or the standard American Diabetes Association diet. Vegans cut out all animal products, including dairy and meat, and had less refined sugar. The ADA diet varies based on factors such as body weight, cholesterol, so it is much more specific in what dieters can eat. The vegan diet was easier to follow because the people in that group did not have to count calories or measure portion sizes, unlike the ADA diet, and this was evidenced by the fact that fewer people in the vegan group dropped out of the study than in the other group.
According to research, it you are going to pig out it should be on regular food, not fast food. In a study where monkeys were fed a diet consisting mostly of trans-fats, the types of fats most commonly found in fast foods, the primates gained more weight than those fed the same number of calories containing unsaturated fats.
Trans-fats, or partially hydrogenated oils, are bad news. They are found in many fast foods, baked goods and processed snacks. They have been shown to significantly increase the risk of heart disease, even more than saturated fats found in animal products.
After maintaining the monkeys on the fat laden diet for six years, the trans-fat-fed monkeys had gained 7.2% of their body weight, compared to just 1.8% in the group who ate unsaturated fat. CT scans showed that the trans-fat monkeys carried 30% more abdominal fat, which is a risk factor for diabetes and heart disease. Although the data might prove informative to some fast food eaters, I can't help but feel bad for those poor monkeys.
One source is the website for the Jewish Diabetes Organization, www.jewishdiabetes.org. The site offers a guide in PDF format with recipes.
Cinnamon Hearts, at www.cinnamonhearts.com, is a recipe goldmine for Jewish
diabetics, with not only Passover recipes and a menu for a Seder dinner, but many foods for diabetics in general.
Tonight TLC will begin airing a new series entitled, Honey, We're Killing the Kids!. The
show will focus on 13 families from across the nation who's children's eating habits have become seriously unhealthy. A
constant intake consisting of over sized portions of sugary, fat laden, low fiber foods has left these children
inactive and at high risks for diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Lisa Hark, who hosts the series, focuses on
the cause of this epidemic in our country. She helps educate the families about how to make healthier food and activity
choices that will benefit their lives for the longterm. She also uses a computer imaging program that takes a current
picture of their child and fast forwards it into young adulthood to give the parents a frightening look at how obesity
will shape their children.
According to a study conducted at Black Entertainment
Television during the summer of 2005, there were far more more commercials for fast food and snacks on black-oriented
TV than on channels aimed at the more general population. The results of this study, which will likely prove to be
provocative, indicated a cause for the rising trend in obesity among African-American children. The study monitored
commercials during the afternoon hours, the time slot most attractive to children who watch cartoons and 'tween shows;
the the WB network and Disney Channel were also involved in the study. During the time slot, over 1,000 ads were shown
on all three channels. On BET 66 percent of the ads were for fast food commercials, as opposed to 34 percent on the WB
and none on the Disney channel. BET scored an 82 percent for soda ads, with WB at 11 percent and the Disney channel was
again last at 6 percent. As for high calorie, low fiber snacks, the BET commercial time came in at 60 percent, nothing
for the WB and the Disney channel scored 60 percent.
Fiber is often
cited as being a crucial part of a healthy diet. "Fiber" refers to carbohydrates that cannot be digested
and comes primarily from plant sources. A high fiber diet can help lower cholesterol, prevent heart disease and
manage weight. Fiber reduces the risk of developing many digestive disorders and diabetes. Fiber is found in foods
such as oatmeal, nuts, legumes, apples, blueberries, whole grains, brown rice, barley, zucchini celery and tomatoes.
It seems that many people, though they know that fiber is important, do not know precisely why. In a study last month done by the National Fiber
Council (NFC), half of respondents could identify that fiber could help lower cholesterol, but 19%believed that it
contributed to strong bones and 10% thought that fiber could improve vision. Neither of the latter is true, but this
shows that fiber is a misunderstood part of the diet. Most study participants did not know how much fiber they should
be consuming daily (32 grams or more, according to the NFC), nor did they know what types of food fiber could be found
in. Foods like berries, nuts and whole grain breads were frequently listed as not being a significant source of dietary
fiber, while more than half of all the respondents in the study said that steak was a good source of fiber. In reality,
meat is very low in fiber.
On a less serious note, the participants were also asked what celebrities looked as though they consumed a high
fiber diet. 34% of people said that Oprah looks most like she has a high fiber diet, followed by Brad Pitt at 21%.
A 
A team of Mexican bakers made a massive, sweet gesture toward madres and abuelitas across that country last Thursday. But the only thing sweet about the 2.2 metric ton celebration of Mother's Day is the fact that it was a cake. The gigantic dessert was made entirely with zero-calorie sweetener rather than sugar.
Have you ever heard of soy yogurt? Until I ran across this 
Operating purely from a health perspective, Epicurious set out to taste some 
A Finnish study that was conducted several years ago linked a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes with increased coffee consumption. It showed that people who drank 3-4 cups of cups a day had a 30% lower risk, while those women who drank 10 cups had a 79% reduction in risk. This study was reported in 2004, and the results of the study were similar to the conclusions of 
We already know that 
A study organized by researchers at George Washington University, the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina, in conjunction with the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, has concluded that following a low-fat, vegan diet may actually 
According to research, it you are going to pig out it should be on regular food, not fast food. In a study where monkeys were fed a diet consisting mostly of trans-fats, the types of fats most commonly found in fast foods, the primates gained more weight than those fed the same number of calories containing unsaturated fats. 
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Tonight TLC will begin airing a new series entitled,-(2).jpg)
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What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
