There's a new study out that has some bad news for Splenda users. According to the research, the sugar substitute may "suppress beneficial bacteria in the gut, and cause weight gain." It may also block absorbtion of nutrients.

The study was performed on rats and conducted at Duke University in North Carolina. However, it was co-sponsored by the Sugar Association, and the makers of Splenda were quick to respond. This could be a new, real health concern, or it could be a new battle in the sugar/Splenda war, or both.

While I'm not personally a fan of Splenda (just don't like artificial sweeteners), but I know that lots of people depend on it for sweets. I think this may be a wait and see situation, but may also be something to keep in mind next time you open a packet.

Every time we turn around it seems that there is some expert or some study telling us that another food is "bad" for us. And given a little more time, there will be another person saying that the food is, in fact, "good." Red meat -- a category that includes beef, pork and lamb -- has been subject to this time and again and it is getting difficult to keep track of all the things that it can -- and cannot -- do. Fortunately, an Independent columnist neatly summarized the benefits and risks of eating red meat.

Benefits

• High in zinc, which is important for a healthy immune system.
• Contains more iron than most foods, and it is more easily used by the body than iron from other sources
• Also a good source of other vitamins and minerals, including phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, selenium and b vitamins.
• Excellent source of complete proteins
• A high-protein diet based on lean red meat has been shown to help weight loss

Risks

• An increased risk of bowel cancer was found for people who ate more than two servings of red meat per week.
• The Mediterranean diet, which is low in red meat, has been shown to decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease
• Excessive amounts of red meat can lead to a higher risk of osteoporosis due to an acid byproduct from digesting very large amounts of protein.
• Eating red meat every day can double the risk of Arthritis
• Red meat is high in saturated fat and cholesterol
• A recent study found that rating more than one serving of red meat per day can double the risk of breast cancer, especially in young women.

"Functional" foods have no official definition or regulation at the moment, but the FDA is hoping to change that soon, giving both manufactuerers and consumers some guidelines to go by. Functional foods are those that have something extra added to them that promises "a special [nutritional] punch," one which may or may not be backed up with solid science. For example, some products with herbs like ginseng and kava kava promise, respectively, to "energize" and "enlighten" - and because these things are directly attributed to the two herbs, that makes them "functional" foods. The functional label doesn't just apply to herbs, however. It applies to cereals that are fortified with extra nutrients, or juices that have calcium added to them.

Right now, adding extraneous nutrients to foods is a huge trend in the food processing industry. Consumers are looking for quick fixes to getting all the nutrition that they need, so when they're offered a soda with calcium added, they're going to opt for that over the regular product.

Calcium, of course, is not really the biggest problem. The FDA is more concerned with the companies that hint at claims of increased intelligence, stamina or energy, things that are difficult to prove and can be confusing for consumers. The companies themselves say that as long as their foods meet the existing food safety standards and the ingredients themselves are considered safe, they should be able to continue on as they are doing.

We'll have to wait to see what restrictions, if any, are implemented, but it seems likely that there will at least be some. After all, we live in a world where toy superman costumes come with warnings that "cape does not enable user to fly," so it is reasonable to assume that we will also see some sort of warnings associated with "functional" foods.

The UCLA School of Public Health recently finished a study that found that men and women who ate a cup of salad each day had higher concentrations of folic acid, vitamins C and E, lycopene and alpha and beta carotene in the bloodstream than men and women who did not. Because many people do not get enough nutrients even when taking nutritional supplements, this is good news to anyone who can make room in their diet for an additional 90grams (1 cup) of salad on a daily basis.

Salad, as it was counted in the study, is considered to be raw vegetables, salad greens (lettuce, etc) and dressing. Scientists say that the results of this study should help to dispell the concerns that they body may have difficulty absorbing nutritents from raw vegetables, though a little bit of low fat dressing couldn't hurt - not to mention that salads are just a little bit more interesting with an added layer of flavor.

Bioavailability is a term that describes how much of a nutrient within a food can be absorbed by the body and while the specific amounts will vary from person to person, applying some of the concepts of bioavailability to daily diets can help us get the most out of the foods we eat. For example, the vitamin C in orange juice can dramatically increase the amount of iron that can be absorbed by the body from spinach. And, as we have noted before, some of the nutrients in raw vegetables are more easily absorbed with fats.

Does this mean that every time we eat a spinach salad it must be washed down with a glass of orange juice, or doused with a fatty dressing? No, but it does mean that making a few simple changes in diet can help us to make up for any nutritional deficiencies that we may have. A balanced diet doesn't have to be one that is totally functional in every respect (after all, a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream serves little purpose other than making you feel good), but knowing how to keep your body functioning is never a bad thing.

It's ok to put a little butter on your corn on the cob and add a bit more dressing to that salad. The nutrients in some vegetables are fat soluble and are absorbed much better by the body when accompanied by a little fat. A study conducted at Ohio State University, found that the absorption of nutrients was not only higher when accompanied by fats, but that it was actually minimized when the fat-free foods were eaten alone.

Previous studies have shown the same results in rats, but this study followed the nutrient absorption of human diets. It was a follow-up to a 2004 study that tracked nutrient absorption when comparing low fat salad dressings to fat-free ones. In this one, salsas and salads were served to participants with and without avocado. Absorption of beta carotene jumped by up to 18 times the amount, and lycopene jumped as much as 7 when the avocado was included, even controlling for the nutrients added by the avocado itself.

Researchers at UC-Davis have found that cut fruit left in the refrigerator doesn't lose nearly as much of its nutritional value as they thought, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Over a nine-day period, six different types of cut, refrigerated fruit were compared to uncut, refrigerated samples and tested for amounts of vitamin C, carotenoids and phenolics. Sliced watermelon only lost 5 percent less C than whole watermelon and it retained the same amount of lycopene, the CS-T reported. One conclusion reached was that visual appeal and taste fade well before nutritional value does.

With news agencies now saying that a major source of salt in daily diets is bread, carb-laden loaves could once again come under fire from nutrition-fanatics. Even though the headlines blame bread, more than 75 percent of all the salt in people’s diets come from processed foods, only a small portion of which are breads. Salt is necessary in bread making, not only for flavor, but because it interacts with the yeast, retarding its growth and producing a better-textured, tastier loaf. One teaspoon of salt weighs just over 2 grams, and organizations like the British government recommend a maximum of 6 grams of salt a day. If a loaf of homemade or non-preprocessed bread has one to three tablespoons of salt in it, there is nothing to worry about unless you are eating multiple loaves of bread on a daily basis.

Some salt is necessary in the diet, serving functions like regulating fluid levels in the body. Do yourself a favor and cut back on the deli meats, don’t just cut back on bread.

In today's Washington Post, a column by Robert L. Wolke, author of What Einstein Told His Cook, aims to debunk claims that microwave cooking saps vegetables of many of their nutrients. According to Wolke, much of the clamor stems from media interpretations of a Spanish study on how different cooking methods affect nutrients in vegetables. The culprit, he says, was not microwaving, but cooking vegetables in water. Much of the focus was on the reported loss of flavonoids, which are water soluble. Since the broccoli was microwaved in water and then compared to broccoli that had been steamed above boiling water, the loss of flavonoids was obviously greater. Wolke contends that microwaving veggies with no water is one of the best ways to cook them and still retain their nutrients.

Seven new "superfoods" have been added to the original list of 14 by Dr. Steven Pratt, the founder of the superfoods movement. Superfoods are generally defined as foods that are incredibly nutrient dense, more so than any other foods. In his new book, Pratt describes the nutritional properties of these foods in detail, as well as naming similar foods, or "sidekicks", which have similar properties. Pratt's seven new superfoods are:

• Pomegranates
• Apples
• Kiwi
• Honey
• Cinnamon 
• Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Dark Chocolate

I wonder if there are any recipes that involve all the superfoods. These new ones seem as though they might be combined into some sort of dessert, but once you have added beans, blueberries, salmon and soy from the original 14, your dish will start to look very unusual, not to mention fairly unappetizing.