Diet Detectives

Food of the Week: Watermelon Watermelon is pretty much the unofficial fruit of summer. But are you familiar with other types of melon, such as musk melon (i.e. cantaloupe), yellow melon (grown here in Wisconsin!) or honeydew?...

Very interesting TEDx talk by Stephan Guyenet on the history of the american diet!

TEDxHarvardLaw - Stephan Guyenet - The American Diet The United States has experienced a major health transition in the last 150 years, which has included an increase in the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and ...

It's kind of crazy that the effect of food on health is being scientifically "proven" and "accepted" only now... (well maybe not surprising, considering that the drug companies don't benefit from dietary interventions!)

"For the first time, researchers have shown that a diet can have an effect as powerful as drugs in preventing what really matters to patients — heart attacks, and strokes and deaths from cardiovascular disease."

Experts Want More Studies of Diet’s Role for the Heart A study has infused the field of cardiovascular medicine with optimism, as scientists are calling for similarly rigorous studies of other popular diets.

One of the most delicious of all nuts, the exotic (and expensive, and occasionally chocolate-covered) macadamia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadamia

Macadamia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Food of the Week: Grapefruit If you have the winter food blues and don't want to see another potato, leafy green or beet ever again, don't worry--it's citrus season too, so this week we will be featuring grapefruit for the first...

How many times a day do you eat?

Conventional wisdom went from "eat three square meals a day" to "space your meals apart 5-6 times a day to rev up your metabolism" to "Research results vary. Just don't eat too much."

Should you take a multi-vitamin? Findings from a recent meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggest that taking a multi-vitamin won't increase--but also won't decrease mortality risk (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/97/2/437.abstract). A better bet? Try to get your vitamins and minerals from food and supplement only what is missing. So what's missing? Thought you'd never ask...

Kamal answers some questions about bread and gluten on his blog:

Ask Kamal: "When is Bread good and when are MRIs bad?" - PainDatabase Paleos think bread will kill you. Well, it might. But so could surfing the web all day, going rafting, or living on a fault line. Let's get practical.

For most, a vegan diet is based on ethics and compassion for animals. But trying a vegan diet can also open up a world of foods that you might not have tried otherwise, like different types of fruits, vegetables and new cuisines. Here are some tips for going vegan from the NY Times Well Blog:

How to Go Vegan Vegan chefs, who agree that changing eating habits overnight can be challenging, offered advice for stocking a vegan pantry and finding replacements for dairy products.

Is breakfast really "the most important meal of the day"? Proponents of intermittent fasting say that the following the natural circadian rhythm of our bodies means eating only once a day! Its always interesting to compare "conventional wisdom" (which really, has only been conventional for 50 years or so!) to what humans have been doing for centuries and millenia.

The Intermittent Fasting Dilemma Intermittent fasting benefits include increased capacity to resist stress, increased mitochondrial energy efficiency, and increased insulin sensitivity.

Interesting history of sugar and health policies surrounding it--nutrition science is never straightforward when business and politics get involved!

http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign

Big Sugar's Sweet Little Lies How the industry kept scientists from asking: Does sugar kill?

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have created an augmented reality system that can make the food your eating look bigger or smaller, resulting in larger or smaller amounts consumed, respectively.

But there is a much easier way to trick yourself into eating less calories that doesn't involve fancy technology. I'll give you a hint--caloric density!

http://www.diginfo.tv/v/12-0201-r-en.php

Change the size of food and your appetite with AR system from Tokyo U. At the University of Tokyo, the Hirose Tanikawa Group has developed an AR system that can manipulate the user's feeling of having eaten enough, by changing how big the food appears. This system features a head-mount display with a camera, and uses image processing to make food look bigger than ...