Practical tips for improving your nutrition
Q. Is there an optimal ratio of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and saturated fats that you’d recommend for optimal health?
A. Interesting question, and any answer I give will be controversial, but I certainly don’t mind getting the conversation started!
Here’s how the typical American diet (which, one could argue, is clearly not optimal) breaks down, with fat taking up 34% of total calories. Continue reading “Is There an Optimal Ratio of PUFAs, MUFAs, and Saturated Fats?”
Oh dear. I’m afraid I tipped another sacred cow in this week’s Nutrition Diva newsletter. In response to readers who find water “boring” and want to know what they can drink instead, I suggested that we stop viewing beverages as sources of entertainment. One dietitian wrote to say that she found my advice “deplorable,” citing the conventional wisdom that people who only drink when they are thirsty are likely to be clinically dehydrated. (I’ve never seen any evidence to support this assertion.) Judging from the comments, however, most readers seemed to understand the point I was trying to make. Staying with the water-y theme, I have tips on seasonal vegetables that help fight water retention over on the What’s Cooking Blog.
In recognition of National Celiac Awareness Month, we reissued a Nutrition Diva episode on gluten free diets this week. And, as long as we were on the topic of grains, I tried to clear up a listener’s confusion over the pros and cons of brown rice on the Quick and Dirty Blog.
Thanks for all of your great questions and comments. Your curiosity and enthusiasm (and even the objections and complaints) keep my job interesting!
A public service campaign on one of the networks has as its tagline, The More You Know. And information is, in general, a good thing. But sometimes it seems to me as if the constant stream of nutrition information and advice coming at you from all directions serves only to ratchet up needless anxiety. Take, for example, the alarmist rhetoric about fructose that circulates around the internet these days. I regularly hear from people who are now afraid to eat fruit. In this week’s Nutrition Diva podcast, I explain the two crucial details that the fructose fear-mongers forget to tell you.
In this week’s Nutrition Diva newsletter, I address internet rumors that eating apricot pits can help prevent cancer. And on the Quick and Dirty Blog, I calm one reader’s fear that eating too many vegetables could lead to vitamin toxicity and perhaps even cause her hair to fall out.
On a lighter note, as we Northern Hemispher-ites get ready to kick off the summer barbecue season, I have some reminders on how to keep those cook-outs healthy as well as delicious over on the What’s Cooking Blog. (Don’t you love it when the thing that tastes better is also better for you?)
Back when Hippocrates counseled his followers to let food be their medicine, he wasn’t really advising an alternative course; he was stating the obvious. Back then, dietary cures were about all that doctors had to offer. In today’s there’s-a-pill-for-that medical culture, of course, Hippocrates’ advice takes on a different tone. And although it’s not really how he originally meant it, it’s still pretty good advice–especially when most of today’s chronic illnesses are caused by dietary excesses and indiscretions.
Regular readers know that I always advise getting your nutrition from foods, not supplements. Case in point: a recent study finding that, while vitamin E-rich foods offer lots of benefits, vitamin E supplements are largely useless. On the What’s Cooking blog this week, I’ve got the top foods for vitamin E, along with some delicious ways to enjoy them. Meanwhile, following last week’s good news about nitrate-rich vegetables ability to lower your blood pressure, I included some additional information about how to put this research to work in this week’s Nutrition Diva newsletter.
For those taking blood-thinning medications, this week’s Nutrition Diva podcast explains why people taking these drugs are sometimes instructed to avoid broccoli, spinach, and other super-nutritious vegetables. I’ve also got tips on how to enjoy the benefits of these great foods without interfering with your anticoagulant therapy.
Of course, it’s also possible to over-estimate what foods can do for us. On the Quick and Dirty Blog, I respond to a reader who wonders whether she should be eating more brown rice in order to get the benefits. Can you guess what my answer is?
There’s an old song from the 1940s that says that if you want to be happy, “you got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive!” I think that this is also really good advice for those of us who are trying to improve our diet and eating habits.
This article is available as a podcast:
A lot of the dietary advice we get focuses on “bad” foods that need to be eliminated; things like snacks and desserts, French fries and soda pop—you know, all the better things in life. But as anyone who has ever spent any time with a 2-year-old knows, the best way to focus that toddler’s attention and will on a particular object or action is to forbid it.
I think our appetites are pretty much like toddlers. When we’re told—or even when we tell ourselves—that we have to cut back or give up a favorite treat, it’s hard not to feel deprived. It can be hard to stop thinking about that thing we can’t have. And all that thinking about whatever-it-is we’re trying to go without can make avoiding or resisting it feel even harder.
This reminds me of a dietary study that came out a couple of years ago. They took a few hundred overweight adults who had just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and divided them into two groups. Both groups were told that they would need to make changes to their diet in order to lose weight and manage their disease. They were told to limit their total caloric intake and instructed on things like portion sizes. Beyond that, however, the two groups got different instructions.
Group #1 was taught how to limit their intake of fat to no more than 30% of calories and to keep their saturated fat under 10%. They were also told to avoid sweets and refined grains. This is the standard prescription for a “reduced-fat, low-calorie” diet.
Lucky Group #2, however, got a different prescription. They were told to increase their intake of vegetables, fish, and poultry, to choose whole grains, and to use olive oil as their primary source of fat. This is the standard Mediterranean diet prescription.
Four years later, Group #2 had lost more weight and was also only half as likely to need medication to control their blood sugar. In the paper, the researchers talk a lot about the nutritional differences between the two diets—which, quite honestly, weren’t all that dramatic—and how they may have contributed to the different outcomes.
But I was struck by something else: Group 1 was told what not to eat and Group 2 was told what to eat more of. And look who fared better. I suspect that focusing on the positives rather than the negatives might be a much better strategy for handling that inner toddler—a strategy that we could use to make our efforts to eat healthier just that much easier.
As many of you know, I have a bit of a sweet tooth and I’ve never been able to completely shake the habit of wanting to finish every meal with something sweet. At the same time, I’m fully aware of the dangers of excessive sugar consumption. If I were to focus on going without dessert for an entire week, my inner toddler would probably stamp her foot and threaten to hold her breath until someone forked over some of those little red Swedish fish that I—I mean, she—loves so much.
Instead, I take my inner toddler to the market and let her pick out 7 different kinds of luscious fruit—a different one for every night of the week!
The more exotic or unusual, the better. Having an apple every night after diner wouldn’t be that exciting. But ripe berries on Monday. fresh pineapple on Tuesday, a juicy peach on Wednesday, decadent figs on Thursday….that’s something I can authentically look forward to.
Likewise, I’ve found that serving up two or even three different kinds of vegetables at dinner—each prepared in favorite, yummy way—completely takes the sting out of eliminating the bread, rolls and other minimally nutritious starches.
And instead of going out for Italian food and exhausting my willpower on not eating all the pasta—or heading to a burger bar and drooling over my neighbor’s fries (and once I’ve drooled on it, it’s mine, right?)—I try to find enticing restaurants that are more in line with my dietary strategy, such as a tapas place or that bistro with the to-die-for salads.
Got the idea? My challenge for you this week is to accentuate the positives in your healthy diet. Rather than focus on things that you’re trying not to eat, find ways to get more excited about the stuff you know you should be eating more of. Feel free to try this on any actual toddlers you may have in your life—or, for that matter, partners or teenagers who act like toddlers when you try to encourage them to eat better.
And then, report back here. What strategies did you come up with? How did it work for you? Is there anything to the idea that focusing on what you’re going to add to your menus is a more effective way to motivate positive change than focusing on what you’re giving up or cutting back on?
The McDonald’s fast food emporium supplied lots of food for thought this week. In my weekly Nutrition Diva podcast, I answer a listener’s question about whether the benefits of eating fish are cancelled out if it’s a Fishwich. (Don’t miss the debate on the evils of moderation in the comment section!) On the Quick and Dirty Blog, I consider whether the “healthy” treats at the high-end organic food stores are really any better for you than McDonald’s new line of pastries. From my weekly newsletter: Guess which cereal is more nutrient dense: Oatbran or oatmeal? Finally, in view of last week’s findings on the health benefits of beets and beet greens, here more delicious ways to prepare both!
This week’s off-site posts addressed a range of potential perils in common foods but also included good news on a food that’s often unfairly maligned. In my Nutrition Diva podcast, I explain what you need to know about arsenic levels in apple juice, brown rice, and baby formula. On the Quick and Dirty blog, I explain why it’s really not a good idea to eat raw cookie dough–even if it doesn’t include raw eggs. My weekly newsletter included a Q&A on the possible appetite suppressing effects of licorice tea–as well as the possible dangers of consuming it every day.
Happy reading!
This week’s off-site posts didn’t have a theme (that I could see) but offered a little something for everyone.The Nutrition Diva podcast reveals how most “healthy” breakfasts fall short. On the Quick and Dirty Blog, I tackle the urban legend that fruit should always be eaten by itself , explain what can happen if your diet is too LOW in salt, and also reveal why so many diet drinks contain phenyalanine. On the What’s Cooking blog on Recipe.com, I offered some tips on how to cut your grocery bill by reducing food waste. And finally, I did a fun myth-busting segment on Fox NEWS.