"low fat" news and stories

We've all heard the that beef is bad for you. It raises cholesterol and increases risk of heart attack. You'd think, knowing those facts, that the safest thing to do would be to try to remove beef from your diet. However, it appears that not all beef is created equal (and so you may not have to give up hamburgers altogether). Switching to grass-fed beef (from the conventional grain-fed beef which is what it typically available in your grocery store) may be the only step you need to make.

According to Eat Wild, grass-fed beef can be lower in fat than commercially raised chicken and has far more omega-3 fatty acids than conventional beef, which is a powerful cancer fighter and aids in brain development. It is also much higher in vitamin E, which is an immune booster.

So don't feel bad about eating that burger, just know what kind of beef you're eating and enjoy.

[via Epi-Log]

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I tend to buy bananas in larger quantities than I am able to eat before they get horribly brown. You'd think I would have learned by now, but no matter how fast I eat them, there's always one or two that get too black to consume. I've taken to throwing them into the freezer, peel and all, when they reach that stage, to save them for some future baked good or as an addition to a smoothie.

My go-to banana bread recipe used to be the quick one from the 1971 edition of the Joy of Cooking (the one bound in turquoise fabric), but very recently that recipe was ousted from it's favored position by one that Molly of Orangette fame posted recently (which she got from Kickpleat at Everyone Likes Sandwiches). For me, the beauty of this recipe (in addition to the fact that it takes almost no time to throw it together) is the fact that it uses no oil or shortening. It relies on the eggs and bananas to keep things moist, and they do their job well.

I've made this bread twice now, once I did a single batch in a loaf pan and the next time I did a double batch in a large cake pan and both turned out perfectly. I took the end of the first batch over to a friend's house as a dessert offering after a weekend lunch and the room was silent save for the sounds of chewing and enjoying as we finished it off. The second batch went with me on a writing retreat a couple of weekends ago and I got no complaints as the bread quickly disappeared.

The picture is Molly's, from her original post about the recipe. I didn't get a chance to take a picture when I made mine, it disappeared too quickly.

Nutritionists and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston set out to try and discover whether dairy foods in general had any effect of fertility on humans, as there was "pretty strong evidence" that an excess of lactose in animals could have a negative effect on the ability of females to conceive. Everyone was surprised to find that the same result was not found in humans. The records, taken from 1991-1999, of nearly 19,000 women from the ages of 24-42 were examined.

It turned out that they found that women who ate two or more servings of low-fat/non-fat dairy foods and no whole fat dairy had an 85% higher risk of becoming infertile. Eating one serving of whole fat dairy per day significantly reduced the odds of developing infertility. The type of infertility most commonly found in this study was anovulatory, a failure to produce eggs. One possible reason for this result is that low fat dairy foods tend to have more lactose in them than full fat products, but scientists say that more research is needed before anything can firmly be concluded. And they do "not recommend that women trying to conceive use this as an excuse to eat "buckets and buckets of ice cream."

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Potato chips are, as a general rule, fried, greasy and unfortunately addictive, as illustrated by the longtime Lay's slogan "bet you can't eat just one. All these traits make them the bane of many health food activists' existences, but those same activists might go a little easier on the popular snack food if they knew you can easily make a non-fried, fat free version that is just as crispy as the "real" thing at home All you need is a microwave.

This Japanese potato chip maker allows you to make chips in the microwave. All you need to do is slice up a potato into fine rounds and place in the stand, then microwave until crisp.

It sounds implausible, but microwaving chips really does work. I've done it myself with great success thanks to the recipe for Uncle Bill's Microwave Potato Chips, which doesn't require a potato chip stand to work. The chips actually do crisp up well, especially if you take care to slice them thinly and evenly. In the photo above, the chips that I made are on the left, while the chips made with the chip-maker (not made by me) are on the right. I cut my potatoes freehand with a sharp knife, but using a mandoline will produce results even faster and guarantee consistency. Make sure to season your chips with salt and pepper or seasoning salt before microwaving them, as it is difficult to get the salt to adhere to already crisp chips.

A light panna cotta is a great way to end a romantic evening, like Valentine's Day. It is easy to prepare and can be set up in advance, which leaves you free to worry about other aspects of your night. When discussing panna cotta, "light" usually refers to the delicate texture and melt-in-your mouth appeal of the lightly gelled dessert, not necessarily to the fat or calorie content of the treat. There is nothing wrong with a little indulgence, but it's nice when a dessert that is light in texture is also light in the stomach, so I have made this panna cotta a little more figure-friendly by using yogurt and light cream (half and half) in place of the all-cream standard. I added some berries for color and a little bit of sugar for sweetness. The result is a dessert with the appealing texture of panna cotta, far less fat and the slight tang of yogurt.