• Archives

  • May25

    3 Days of Fresh Foods Lowers Your BPA Level Up to 66%

    Posted in: Drug Food Safety, Environmental Health, Wellness and Health, Wine and Tea

    Food with packaging…so convenient, so easy, so iffy.

    Bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates (especially DEHP) are endocrine disruptors, especially of male hormone levels.  BPA and phtalates are found in plastics that touch your food and beverages.

    The FDA is trying to reduce consumer exposure to BPA. Canada has declared BPA toxic and outlawed its use in baby bottles; so have China and several European countries.

    30 U.S. states have legislation pending or have banned BPA use in kids foods.

    In Celiac disease, gluten is the culprit and gluten-free food.

    In BPA toxicity, canned food (linings), plastic water bottles and wrap, microwaved plastics and plastic utensils are the culprits.

    I taped a video news release about BPA, because I think it’s an important issue.

    Fresh foods, stainless steel water bottles, certain nonleaching plastics (#s 2, 4 and 5) glass containers and stainless steel, ceramic and cast iron cookware are the cure–together with home cooking.

    In a small BPA study of food packaging of 5 families, just 3 days of home cooking without plastics dropped BPA levels by 66%. Those levels bounced back up once the families went back to their ordinary eating.

    Less food packaging, less soda and fewer frozen dinners, more glass, ceramic and stainless steel, the better chance you have of maintaining a normal hormone levels, protecting your family and avoiding BPA.

     

  • Feb8

    Your Weight, and “The Burger and Fries Recovery”

    Posted in: Aging and Costs of Aging, Child Obesity, Obesity and Weight Loss, Wellness and Health

    If it were true that “Americans are still better off spending an extra hour at work and letting someone else do the cooking,” then America’s obesity rate would be going down. But it’s not.Hamburger And Fries Recovery

    Home cooking is one of the few natural defenses Americans have against obesity.

    The usual complaints, including those in the Zagats’ “The Burger and Fries Recovery” (WSJ, 1. 24.11), are that it’s too expensive and takes too long.  But it’s not and it doesn’t.

    An average fast food meal has about 1000 calories, and according to a Tufts 2010 study, the menu underestimates those calories by 18%.

    Most take-out and quick restaurant meals are highly processed. Many contain starches and chemicals you’d never add at home, including “natural flavors”.  Calories are hidden.

    Home cooked meals, on the other hand, have fewer calories. They also pack the quality of life and kitchen-table wisdom that take-out and bargain restaurants just can’t match.

    From the University of Minnesota: five home cooked meals weekly cut the risk for anorexic and bulimic behaviors in teen girls by 75%.
    From the USDA: 35% of Americans who are not overweight or obese spend an average of just 6.8 minutes more shopping and cooking than the overweight and obese.

    It’s true that an average home cooked meal isn’t cheaper per calorie than a typical restaurant meal.

    But cheaper per calorie is not the proper standard. If it were, a 99-cent 2 liter soda (at over 800 calories) might be the standard bearer.

    Home-cooked meals are first in a series of small steps in the right weight loss direction: away from highly processed, fattening food, and towards healthier and better-tasting home-cooked food.

    What if restaurants were rated for a separate Zagat category? H, for Health. Your Health.

     

  • Jan4

    The brain in your gut | TED Video

    Posted in: Wellness and Health

    In this TED video, a food scientist makes the case for cooking as an evolutionary tool.

    He believes (and the data show) there are functioning neurons (we think of them as brain cells) in your intestines — about a hundred million of them.

    Heribert Watzke tells us about the “hidden brain” in our gut and the surprising things it makes us feel.

    Because so many of the questions nutrition clients ask me are about food and the GI tract, it’s helpful to know that it’s more than a tube.  It holds immune cells, a neurologic system, and creates hormones.

    Maybe it’s true–the key to a person’s heart is through his or her stomach…and intestine.

     

  • Feb1

    Kids on a Diet, and How Parents Can Help

    Posted in: Wellness and Health

    Putting kids on a diet is verboten in medical circles.

    Expert psychologists and physicians explain that kids can’t handle the destruction of self-esteem that being on a diet carries with it.

    Being overweight or obese is hard enough for the 6-11 year old, the argument goes. And as an adolescent…well, forget it. The teasing and ostracizing are unbearable.

    But pediatric obesity is an epidemic. 19 percent of children 6 to 11 years old in America are obese.

    And most parents don’t see it, even in their own family. One study showed that only 27 percent of overweight kids were identified as such by their parents.

    Parents are caught. They never hear the word “Diet” from their pediatrician or family physician, but they do hear it everywhere else. They know diets work for a short while, and lifestyle skills work long term.

    Supposedly, parents provide (the food), kids decide (how much and when to eat). That division can work with younger kids, with real structure, strong parents, and clear meal plans. But without those tools, parents are lost.

    My idea is that Chef Clinic–cooking, healthy eating and fitness lessons–for the parents of overweight and obese kids could help. For the tools. And for changing kids’ food environment at home. And for being clear that the family is on a diet. Irrespective of whether the parent needs it.

    What do you think? Should overweight kids be put on a diet? Would giving their parents new skills help?

     

  • Dec16

    Give Me the Recalled Flu Shots and I'll Give You Flu Fighting Foods

    Posted in: Wellness and Health

    By now, most people know that nearly 20% of kids’ Swine Flu Shots are less potent than when they left the lab.

    And that 800,000 doses are being recalled, even though most of them have already been given!

    The CDC says not to worry, and not to re-administer. Kids up to 9 years old should get two doses about a month apart.

    But if you’ve been following along, you know there are powerful weapons in your kitchen medicine cabinet that can help you fight the flu.

    Flu fighting foods. Imagine if your kid got a bowl twice monthly of my Simple Sopa Azteca (an easy chicken soup rich with chicken flavor and vegetables, and btw, antioxidants and anti-inflammatories). A meal and just maybe, a medicine too.

    And yes, there’s real research and tastier recipes to boot: check out Epicurious’ feature on flu fighting foods as well.

    Are you using foods to stay well in Winter?

     
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