Reviewed By Melissa Danielle

In New York City, if you’re an aspiring something-or-other, it’s important to see and be seen. Eating out is more than just about food: for some, where you’re dining counts just as much as what you’re wearing while, who you’re eating with and what they’re wearing; and for others, it's about who sees you. So to not eat out at least once a week means you’re out of the social loop, and then, well, what’s the point of living in NYC?

Many months ago, my partner and I found ourselves weighing over our dinner plans. Did we feel like going out to a restaurant, and if yes, what were we in the mood for? If we stayed in, what did we feel like cooking? Unable to agree on a restaurant and bored with what we had on hand, we headed to the local supermarket in hopes of inspiration.  When the groceries rang up to about $50, we looked at each other and observed, “For 50 bucks, we could have gone out to eat….  And we still have to go home and prepare it.” 

“And wash the dishes,” I added glumly.

I don’t recall what we purchased, but it wasn’t anything special and it certainly wasn’t a lot of food. And for someone who prepares most of our meals (most of my meals, anyway), I didn’t expect to pay that much for a few groceries at a run-of-the-mill supermarket. It wasn’t Whole Paycheck or anything remotely close, mind you.  So when I heard that Cathy Erway of Not Eating Out in New York was about to release a memoir on the subject, I was immediately brought back to that moment.

Thankfully, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned To Stop Spending And Love The Stove (Gotham/Feb 2010) is not a few things. First, it’s not her blog, so if you’ve been following her adventures over the past few years, you don’t have to worry that you paid to read something you've already read. Second, it’s not a make-you-feel-guilty-for-being-so-lazy-you-can’t-even-fry-your-own-eggs-or-make-a-bowl-of-soup-and-while-you’re-at-it-shop-organic-ALWAYS-and-cruelty-free-and-save-the-world-book. Cathy shows us that she’s a real person, trying to live within her means and have a little fun while she’s at it. Lastly, she confesses that she’s not a gourmand, so if you can’t boil water, there’s no excuse why even you can’t try one of the recipes that ends each chapter. And plenty are worth checking out. I’m looking forward to trying out the Moroccan dishes inspired by her trip.

So how does a twenty-something manage to spend two years in NYC eating in without committing social suicide?  By discovering some of NYC’s underground supper clubs, dumpster diving and urban foraging, amateur cook-offs, and the best no-knead bread, that’s how.

I eat out about once or twice a week, on purpose. And yes, I managed to do this living in NYC. (I don’t anymore). When I talk to people about their eating habits, the three things that come up the most are cost, convenience, and cleanup. When I mention that I generally don’t spend tons of money on food or a lot of time cooking, I’m met with the slanty eye or the screwface. I imagine that the idea of cooking at home, for most people, conjures up visions of expensive ingredients and huge productions that leave you too exhausted to enjoy the meal. So I was relieved to read that Erway herself wasn’t sweating it out in the kitchen every night turning out 4 course meals from scratch. Dishes are a whole other thing for me and something I haven’t quite been able to figure out. Not using 10 dishes to cook one thing, that is.

Cooking doesn’t have to be a chore, nor does it have to take up most of our time. Even the most passionate home cooks streamline their weekly cooking schedules with meals that take less than a half hour to throw together. I’ve got a dozen or so recipes that I work from the most, adding to some, taking away from others, improvising with what I have on hand.

Cathy Erway writes the tremendously popular blog Not Eating Out in New York, featuring recipes, ruminations, and rants about all things home-cooked. You'll find the author online at http://noteatingoutinny.com/

Prevent Alzheimer's With 4 Key Lifestyle Changes (Gotham Books)

Book Review: Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Most Food & Entertainment Companies Get Failing Grade for Policies on Marketing Food to Children

Few Have Any Policies in Place at All, According to CSPI Report Card

March 9, 2010

WASHINGTON—Most food and entertainment companies have received Fs from the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, which today issued a report card that rates 128 companies’ policies with regard to food marketing aimed at children. Three-quarters of companies are getting an F, either for having weak policies or for failing to have any policies whatsoever.

CSPI's highest grade, a B+, went to Mars, Inc., though the group emphasized that the grade is not for the foods Mars sells, but rather for its policy on marketing to children. Mars' policy excludes marketing to children under 12 and covers most of the key marketing tactics used to reach children. The entertainment company given CSPI’s highest grade, a B, is Qubo, a family-friendly children's television channel delivered nationwide over ION Media Networks 59 local digital television stations. Qubo’s policy is comprehensive, applying reasonably good nutrition standards to its full range of programming, according to CSPI.

One food company (Procter & Gamble, which makes Pringles) received a B, six got a B-, 17 got a C, and 7 a D. Ninety-five companies received an F.

The Most Disappointing Toy Ever? At first glance it resembles the classic Easy Bake, but the Chuck E. Cheese's® EZ-2 Make!™ Pizza Maker doesnt even have a heating element; it’s just a cheap plastic shell.

"Despite the industry's self-regulatory system, the vast majority of food and entertainment companies have no protections in place for children," said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. "If companies were marketing bananas and broccoli, we wouldn’t be concerned. But instead, most of the marketing is for sugary cereals, fast food, snack foods, and candy. And this junk food marketing is a major contributor to childhood obesity."

According to the Institute of Medicine, TV commercials affect children's food choices, food purchase requests, diets, and health. And the mere act of watching commercial television is linked to obesity

CSPI gave restaurant chain Denny's an F for marketing to children through its children's menu, which includes many nutritionally poor items; games on its Web site; and a kid's birthday club. Lucasfilms received an F for not having a policy. Presently, Lucasfilms is licensing Star Wars toys as a premium to go with McDonald's Happy Meals, many of which are nutritionally poor. Candy company Topps also got an F. That company makes, among other things, Baby Bottle Pop, a powdered candy sold in a miniature baby bottle, eaten by dipping a candy nipple in a sugary powder and licking it off. Over the years Topps has retained the services of the Jonas Brothers and Clique Girlz singing groups to convince children to purchase that infantilizing product, whose 140 calories all come from sugar.

Companies spend about $2 billion each year marketing foods and beverages to children. Food manufacturers and restaurants more often had policies for television, radio, print, Internet, and product placement than for digital marketing, like cell phones, iPods, and social networks, characters, games, and contests on food packages, toy give-aways with children's meals at fast-food restaurants, or branded marketing programs for schools. Half of the entertainment companies with policies, like the Cartoon Network, apply nutrition standards to the licensing of their characters, but few have policies for their television advertising or Web site, which are the primary ways they market to children.

In 2006, the Council of Better Business Bureaus announced a self-regulatory program called the Childrens Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. Sixteen major food and restaurant companies, representing about 80 percent of television food advertising expenditures, have joined the program and announced that they will not market foods to children under 12 that don’t meet companies’ individual nutritional standards. But those standards often are carefully tailored and still allow a considerable volume of junk-food advertising to reach young kids, according to CSPI. The group's analysis of advertising on Nickelodeon, conducted in November, found that 80 percent of food ads on the popular children's network were for junk food.

While 64 percent of food manufacturers that advertise to children have marketing policies, only 24 percent of restaurants and 22 percent of entertainment companies do. For Qubo’s part, the company says its nutrition policy reinforces an overall message about healthy living and providing children with the foundations for self-esteem that the company promotes in popular kids’ programs such as Turbo Dogs, Willa's Wild Life and Babar.

"Shortly after the launch of the Qubo kids' channel in 2007, we established very stringent nutritional guidelines for advertising only healthy foods to children," said Brandon Burgess, chairman and CEO of ION Media Networks, the parent company of the Qubo Channel. "We were responding to the alarming increase in childhood obesity and the seminal work established by the FCC's Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity. Then and now, we were happy to work with policymakers, CSPI, and our industry colleagues to fight childhood obesity and provide children with important educational building blocks in making healthy lifestyle choices."

In the next few weeks, the Federal Trade Commission together with other federal agencies is expected to propose a set of nutrition criteria and other standards for foods marketed to children that, when finalized in July, the agency hopes companies will adopt on a voluntary basis.

"If food, toy, and media companies fail to adopt those voluntary standards, they will be clanging the death knell for their self-regulatory initiative and inviting strong government involvement in food marketing aimed at kids," Wootan said.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that focuses on nutrition, food safety, and pro-health alcohol policies.  CSPI is supported by the 900,000 U.S. and Canadian subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter and by foundation grants.  

© 2010 Center for Science in the Public Interest

CSPI: Food Label Makeovers For Next 15 Years

Desiree Jones, Ph.D.--

On March 4, the US Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of a commonly used flavor enhancer known as Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein or HVP – after samples of the product were found to contain a bacterium identified as Salmonella Tennessee.  The bacteria were found in HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

HVP is a flavor enhancer used in thousands of processed food products such as soups, sauces, dips, dressings, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, and numerous other products.  Fortunately, many products that contain HVP involve cooking prior to eating, which would kill any bacteria present.  However, items that contain HVP but do not require cooking prior to ingestion are currently in the process of being recalled.  Here is the link to the list of products that have been recalled, or are currently in the process of being recalled:  Searchable Database of Recalled HVP-Containing Products.

Concerns over our nation’s food safety have been brought to the forefront in the past year owing to recalls associated with contaminated meat, cookie dough, peanut butter, and contaminated spinach/packed salads.  Now, this latest recall of an item that is present in literally thousands of foods has numerous food safety advocacy groups deeply concerned.  There is no doubt that preventive measures that would eliminate the possibility of mass contamination of foods are essential and pressing.  The multiple food recalls of the last year have significantly undermined public confidence in the overall safety of our nation’s food supply chain.

Notwithstanding the above, here is a thought I would like to leave you with:  HVP and similar other “flavor enhancers” are industrial products that are used on a mass scale in processed foods.  Is it really that radical a thought to consider that we CAN make foods delicious without such industrial agents?   As a research scientist who happens to have a professional culinary background, I have studied both traditional and contemporary food preparation methods utilized in  cultures around the world.  Of note is the fact that for centuries, food has been prepared across the globe and in disparate cultures – with only the purest, most natural flavoring agents  (such as locally grown herbs, spices, etc.) – a technique which, incidentally, has been historically demonstrated to have a “built-in” safety factor.   However, it seems to me that only now, in our present times in which the reliance on artificial, chemical, and largely “industrial” flavoring agents has skyrocketed, our worries about food safety have skyrocketed also.

I believe that the solutions to what often seem like mass, insoluble problems are actually quite simple, and inevitably lie in falling back on the fundamentals.  We can live without processed foods, or at the very least, we can minimize their use.   The evidence of history shows that those who do are the better for  it.

Desiree Jones, PhD is a Doctor of Epidemiology, who speaks and writes on cutting-edge issues pertaining to chronic disease prevention in the Western and the newly Westernizing nations. She has worked collaboratively with researchers at The University of Texas, Baylor College of Medicine, and Harvard University. Her first book is expected to arrive on the market this year, and is entitled, HALTING THE DEATH MARCH - Why America and The Westernized World are Dying from Heart Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, and Other Chronic Diseases, And How to Stop It.  Dr. Jones’ work has been featured numerous times - and continues to appear - in major news media such as Basil & Spice, The New York Daily News, Business Week, Google News Top Stories of the Day, USA Today, The Chicago Sun Times and numerous other nationally syndicated health and news sites. Dr. Jones writes on the underlying root causes responsible for high rates of chronic disease in the U.S. and the Western nations.  She is the Founder of The Prevention Revolution, a site that brings medical/nutritional research and informed opinion on critical health-care issues to individuals and physicians, as well as to corporations facing skyrocketing health-care costs. Dr. Jones focuses on translating evidence-based research into real-life choices that can help prevent deadly chronic diseases and create lasting health.

2034: Diabetes To Double To 44.1 Million, Costs U.S. $336 Billion

BPA: Avoid All Food/Bev Containers Numbered 3 Or 7

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Joanna Dolgoff, MD--

Recently, America’s school lunch menus have been under fire and parents are becoming increasingly concerned about the state of their children’s health and well-being.  Federal law, under the School Lunch Act, provides nutritional guidelines and criteria to which schools must adhere.  These guidelines include the amount and type of foods the cafeteria must offer, in addition to placing limits on nutrients like saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium.  Specifically, school lunches must provide 1/3 of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for protein, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, and 1/3 of the Recommended Energy Intake (REI) for calories.  In addition, the cafeteria must offer 5 components as part of a school lunch, of which three of the five must make their way onto the child’s lunch tray.  These include a starch, meat (or meat substitute), fruit, vegetable and milk.  There are similar guidelines for schools that serve breakfast as well.  These guidelines are especially important because many children eat the majority of their meals at school.

Milk contributes a good portion of nutrients to school lunches.  It is a valuable, nutrient-dense source of protein, calcium and vitamin D, all of which are important for achieving adequate nutrition and optimal growth in school-age children.  However, whole milk can significantly contribute to the saturated fat and cholesterol content of a meal.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) whole milk and other full-fat dairy products are only appropriate for children under the age of 1-2 years old. Children under two, who are in a stage of rapid growth and brain development,  have high energy and dietary fat requirements.  They need the extra fat that whole milk contains.

Everybody else, however, should choosing low fat dairy products, including skim milk.  In fact, the AAP states that no child over the age of two should be drinking whole milk.  Skim milk is identical to whole milk in terms of nutritional value, but is markedly lower in saturated fat, cholesterol and calories.  Diets high in saturated fat are associated with increased risk for obesity, heart disease and certain cancers.  Saturated fat intake causes harmful buildup in the arteries and blood vessels of healthy individuals, starting in young children.  It is important to begin healthy eating habits as a child and to continue making healthy choices throughout life.

A good portion of a child’s learning happens through modeling.  That is, by watching their parents or other caregivers’ actions, they learn how to be an adult.  This is especially important when it comes to eating:  your food preferences as an adult are closely related to the foods you saw your parents eating.  But what happens when your child is eating 2 out of 3 meals a day at school, plus a snack?  Because they are eating so many meals outside the home or the care of their parents, kids are increasingly reliant on teachers, caregivers and cafeteria staff to guide them to make healthy choices and model healthy eating behaviors.

The fact is, the people who are responsible for serving food to or eating with your children usually receive no formal nutrition education.  In most cases, a position as a preschool classroom aide or a kitchen worker requires a high school level education.  Regardless, whatever their educational background, it is a common misconception for people to think that whole milk has a nutritional advantage over skim milk.  It is also very common that parents encounter teachers or caregivers who have different beliefs than their own when it comes to feeding their child.  Especially when you’re talking about the welfare of a child’s health, when a parent feels one way but their caregiver feels another way, this can create some tension.  A well-meaning day care worker just may not be aware of or understand the reasons why full-fat milk can be dangerous, even for young children.  Parents often have a difficult time getting this message across but should continue to be an advocate for their child’s health.

In situations like this, as a parent you have the right to decide what your child does and does not eat.  You can stress this issue to the teacher in a polite way while still standing firm.  If needed, refer them to an appropriate resource, such as www.MyPyramid.gov, the American Academy of Pediatrics, your pediatrician, or even a local dietitian for further advice on this matter.  Your child’s health comes first!

Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a pediatrician whose practice solely deals with child and adolescent weight management. A graduate of Princeton University, she completed her education at NYU School of Medicine and finished her Pediatric Residency training at Columbia Presbyterian's Children's Hospital of New York. She has previously worked as a private practice pediatrician, helping children reach their weight loss goals. A Board Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Dolgoff is also the proud mother of two children. She is the author of Red Light, Green Light, Eat Right (Rodale/ 2010). Click here to learn more about Dr. Dolgoff's Weigh Child and Adolescent Weight Management Program.

School Lunches Usually Not Healthy--Alternatives

Top 10 Food Myths

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Robyn O'Brien--

Just got a call and “Something very big is going down with ice cream…”

And it is.  More and more people are finding out that an artificial growth hormone called rBGH (also known as rBST) that is used in our dairy products causes harm, leads to increased antibiotic resistance in humans and may increase cancer rates. The use of this growth hormone has been banned by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all 27 nations of the European Union. 

According to the FDA, this synthetic growth hormone is “substantially equivalent” to naturally occurring growth hormones.  But the problem is that no tests have ever been run.  So we don’t know if our children with milk allergies are allergic to the milk that we grew up drinking or to these engineered milk proteins in rBGH which was  introduced into our milk in 1994.

Thankfully, despite the FDA language, eaters like you are insisting on the same standards seen by eaters in Europe, Australia, Japan and in other developed countries, which has led dozens of retailers and dairy processors and to stop using rBGH completely, including Starbucks, Chipotle Restaurants, Darigold, Tillamook and many more. Walmart, Kroger, Kraft and others have started offering rBGH-free product lines and last year, Yoplait and Dannon yogurts both went completely rBGH-free in response to consumer demand.

But two of our nation’s largest ice cream makers, Breyers and Dreyers, are still using this growth hormone in their products – growth hormones that are engineered in a lab and linked to diseases and antibiotic resistance in humans.  Let Breyers and Dreyers hear from you!  Kids matter, food matters and synthetic growth hormones in our ice cream matter!

To e-mail U.S. Ice Cream, which includes Breyers,  go to http://www.icecreamusa.com/contact_us/comment.cfm or call (800) 931.2826 

To e-mail Dreyer’s, go to http://www.dreyersinc.com/contact.asp  or call (877) 437.3937

Together, we can get synthetic growth hormones out of our dairy, one scoop of ice cream at a time!

According to the New York Times, Robyn O’Brien is “Food’s Erin Brockovich.” Robyn is the founder of AllergyKids, an organization designed to protect the 1 in 3 American children with autism, allergies, ADHD and asthma. Robyn has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and CNN highlighting the role that chemicals in our food supply are having on our health. O'Brien is the author of The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It (Random House/ May 2009) and it exposes the role that money plays in our federal food policy.  Born and raised in Texas, Robyn earned a Fulbright Fellowship, an MBA and served as an equity analyst on a multibillion dollar fund prior to moving to Boulder, Colorado with her husband and four children. Additional resources, articles and information are available at www.robynobrien.com and www.allergykids.com

265% Increase In Hospitalizations Related To Food Allergic Reactions

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Statement of CSPI Legal Affairs Director Bruce Silverglade

The FDA’s coordinated enforcement actions today against 16 food manufacturers, including Gerber, Beech-Nut, Gorton’s, Sunsweet, Nestlé, Pom, and Diamond, should send a loud and clear signal to industry that time is running out on misleading health-related claims on labels.  For far too long, manufacturers have exaggerated the healthfulness of their products, or even implied that their products contain special “functional” ingredients that provide drug-like protection against various diseases.  The previous administration tolerated such shenanigans, but I hope that the party is now over.

While today’s action is the largest crackdown on deceptive food labeling in more than a decade, the FDA must now turn its individual enforcement actions into binding regulations.    

Some companies highlighted in CSPI’s recent report found themselves targets of FDA action today, while others apparently escaped scrutiny.  The FDA dodged some issues, like not cracking down on false claims that Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and other foods help strengthen your immune system.  And the agency should have banned misleading “0 grams trans fat” claims for foods high in saturated fat, instead of just instructing companies to add a disclosure like “see nutrition panel for saturated fat information.”  FDA also needs to set standards for claims such as “made with whole wheat” by specifying that the percentage of whole grains appear on the label in conjunction with the claim.

In addition to issuing industry-wide regulations to halt misleading claims, the FDA should update the 20-year-old Nutrition Facts label and improve the readability of ingredient lists.  The FDA currently is studying various schemes for providing key pieces of nutrition information prominently on front labels.

The warning letters sent by FDA today are a welcome step.  But unless the FDA uses its authority to issue new, industry-wide regulations to prevent such abuses, the agency will forever be playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with companies that use deceptive labeling.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that focuses on nutrition, food safety, and pro-health alcohol policies.  CSPI is supported by the 900,000 U.S. and Canadian subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter and by foundation grants.  

CSPI: Food Label Makeovers For Next 15 Years

Review By Susan Schenck

Amazon.com recommended the university textbook Food And Western Disease (Wiley-Blackwell/2010) to me, based on my purchase of hundreds of nutrition books. Well, I hadn’t spent so much money on a book since I was in college! But one look at the table of contents was enough to convince me that my nutritional knowledge would never be complete without this information. Then the snow storms delayed the book’s arrival by a week. I eagerly anticipated the book’s arrival and daily tracked its whereabouts on Amazon.com.

I was not disappointed. I read the book from cover to cover in less than a week. It is jam-packed withinformation. Nearly every sentence is backed with a footnote citing a study as evidence. There are a few things that I disagree with, for example that a high fat diet may be dangerous, but even the author admits those studies often include grains in the diet (which are, as the author  would agree, detrimental to our health). I also wish the author had delved more into the relevance of cooked vs. raw since the Paleolithic diet (advocated in the book) undoubtedly contained mostly raw, enzyme-rich foods.

Why study our evolutionary diet? Author Staffan Lindeberg, MD, PhD, explains that (from the perspective of evolutionary biology) there are four causes of disease or symptoms: attack (as with bacteria and viruses); defense (as with a fever, in which your body is heating itself up to limit the cell division of the bacteria and virus); design error (as with choking on food—airway and gastrointestinal system are crossed); and lack of adaptability to new environment (as with insulin resistance, since we are eating more high glycemic carbs than our ancestors did).

The drug companies would have you believe that every disease is a design error and needs to be fixed by a new chemical concoction. In reality, modern diseases began with agriculture. We have clearly not adapted to a diet rich in carbs and especially grains and legumes filled with anti-nutrients such as lectins and phytates.

Lindeberg points out the limitations and contradictions found in scientific nutritional studies. Epidemiological research (which involves observing factors affecting the health and illness of populations) is unreliable because we cannot control all factors. Molecular biology is hard because lab animals are not biologically the same as humans. Furthermore, there are many as yet undiscovered nutrients and molecules that can impact the studies. An intervention study with a controlled trial has the flaw that people often simultaneously improve their lifestyle in other respects, such as giving up smoking or exercising more. Then there is publication bias, as studies with a positive outcome get published more often. There is funding bias, since scientists want to please those who finance their studies so they can get more work. Citation bias also occurs: drug studies get quoted much more than nutritional ones do. Then there is the influence of preconceived ideas: of course, every researcher hopes that his or her hypothesis will be confirmed.

Evolutionary medicine provides an important complement to traditional scientific methods. The new study of nutigenomics looks at the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression. It considers the diet that people evolved eating. Traditional people on their traditional diets have been observed to be free of modern day illnesses. Those that were best suited to the food that was available were the ones that had the greatest chance of surviving. Adaptation is very slow, often taking about 40,000 years. Tale the last 365 million years and convert them to a calendar year, making each million years one day. On January 1, we have our amphibian ancestor. Early mammal is born on June 10. Our first primate ancestor arrives on October 28. Homo Sapiens is born December 31 at 7:30 PM. Agriculture develops at 11:45 PM. At 11:59:50, just 15 minutes after agriculture and 10 seconds before the end of the year, cardiovascular disease begins.

This book not only discusses our ancestral diet, but also includes a chapter with a section on every disease of civilization: heart and cardiovascular issues, diabetes, cancer, dementia, autoimmune diseases, obesity and more.

The bottom line from all the studies is: eat a diet based on fish, lean meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. (Eat seeds sparingly as they are too high in omega-6 fats.) Grains and dairy are not our original foods, although some people can eat them when they are prepared properly. (For example, dairy should be fermented.)

Staffan Lindeberg is Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Lund University, Sweden and a practicing GP at St Lars Primary Health Care Centre, Lund, Sweden.  You'll find the author online at www.staffanlindeberg.com/

Susan Schenck is author of The Live Food Factor

5* Product Review: NuNaturals--NuStevia (Feb 2010)

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Review By Marta Hoelscher

You want to get healthier.  You know that getting fit is the answer. Well, this handy little tome could be your first step choice! 

One of the first things we all have to do is take responsibility for our own health, and that starts with what we put in our bodies.  Eating right is the first step for a healthier, more fit body.  We all know how difficult it can be to make good food choices.  Career and family commitments can be major hazards on the road to good food choices. The Top 100 Fitness Foods is packed with lots of information and advice to choosing nutritionally balanced foods that will maximize your energy and get you on the road to a healthier, more fit body.

This is a handy-sized (6.8 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches) little book that you’ll find yourself referring to over and over.  It’s the perfect size to keep in your purse, gym bag or briefcase.

For those of you who want to kick up your exercise routine through optimized nutrition this is perfect.  But for those of you like me who are just really getting started and want a something that will help you just choose foods that are better choices…this book is wonderful.

Since we can’t just quit eating food, we need to choose foods that work better for us and we can’t do that unless we have a better idea how foods work.  Eating the right foods can have a huge impact on your stamina and performance, but choosing the correct foods can be mentally exhausting and challenging.

This little book is packed with profiles of ingredients so that you can make your best choices.  The book is color-coded to make finding the foods you need easier.  Each section has information like lists of nutrients, at-a-glance symbols, and it gives you tips to incorporate these foods into your diet.  There is even a simple recipe included with each ingredient.

The at-a-glance symbols make finding the foods you need to add to your diet much easier.  They include:

• energy -boosting
• rehydrating
• joint-friendly
• bone-strengthening
• muscle-building
• stamina-improving
• blood sugar-balancing
• cramp-preventing

Barley Risotto: A Biggest Loser 2010 Recipe

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Cheryl Forberg R.D.--

Whole grains have sustained families and civilizations, as a familiar and comforting common thread. But in recent history, they've fallen from favor. It's no wonder, since we're deluged with choices that are tasty, fast, and economical. But "fast" is usually a dead giveaway for a grain that is refined. And though refining pares back preparation time, it also peels away the most valuable parts of a whole grain.

Grains do lack the vibrant colors that proclaim the phytochemical bounty of many fruits and vegetables. Berries, citrus, and grapes are the pipeline to polyphenols. Yellow- and red-hued fruits and vegetables are the gateway to carotenoids. And phytosterols, the cholesterol-clones, are found in avocados, soy, nuts, and seeds. But the truth about whole grains is this -- they have all three. This translates to a versatile array of choices that are not only rich in protein, complex carbohydrates and fiber. Their antioxidant activity is on par with many fruits, and exceeds most vegetables.

It's true that some whole grains take longer to cook than their refined, less nutritious counterparts.  But here are a few quick ways to spike your whole grain intake while enjoying a lingering fullness. The extra cooking time will be well worth the wait.

Toast your oats! Substituting toasted oats in your favorite oat recipes imparts a nutty richness. Spread oats on a baking sheet for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring halfway.

Toss a handful of dry bulgur into your next pot of soup. It delivers a subtle thickening quality   while adding chewy texture to every bite

Whole-wheat couscous is now widely available as a sweet or savory starch choice. It takes the same amount of time (5 minutes) to cook as refined couscous, with more than triple the fiber.

Here is one of my favorite whole grain recipes, Barley Risotto with Wilted Greens from Positively Ageless:

Barley Risotto with Wilted Greens
I used to make barley risotto everyday, when I worked at Postrio, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in San Francisco. This is a lighter version, though you can turn it into a main course by stirring in roasted chicken or turkey at the end. Do not use pearl barley, which is more refined and cooks very quickly.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1⁄2 cup finely chopped carrot
1⁄4 cup finely chopped celery
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1⁄4 cup white wine
1 cup hulled barley
3  1⁄2 cups fat-free chicken or vegetable broth
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
4 cups baby spinach leaves or torn leafy greens, such as Swiss chard
2 tablespoons freshly grated Romano cheese (optional)
Salt and ground black pepper

Instructions:

• Heat the oil in a shallow 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat.
• Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.
• Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.
• Pour in the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until the liquid is completely absorbed.
• Add the barley and stir well.
• Carefully pour in 2 cups of the broth and bring to a boil.
• Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, stirring frequently.
• This will take about 10 minutes.
• Add the thyme and the remaining 11⁄2 cups broth.
• Turn up heat until the broth comes to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.
• Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the barley is tender but still al dente.
• Stir in the greens.
  
  • Remove from the heat and let sit for a minute or two until the greens wilt.
  • For a brothier risotto, add extra broth or hot water.
  • Add the cheese, if desired. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  • Serve immediately.

BARLEY FACTOID: Hulled barley, also known as barley groats, is the least processed form of the grain. Only the outermost hull is removed, unlike pearl barley, which is stripped of both the hull and the nutritious bran layer. Hulled barley takes slightly longer to cook but has more texture, fiber, and antioxidants.

NUTRIENT ANALYSIS PER SERVING
179 calories, 32 g protein, 6 g carbohydrates, 3 g total fat, 0 g saturated fat, 2 g monounsaturated fat,
70 mg omega-3s, 7 g fiber, 4 g sugar, 356 mg sodium

A registered dietitian and professional chef, Cheryl Forberg is the nutritionist for the NBC reality series The Biggest Loser and an advisor for Prevention magazine. She has written or contributed to several books, including Simple Swaps (Stop the Clock! Cooking, The New Mayo Clinic Cookbook, and The Biggest Loser: The Weight Loss Program, and the recently published Positively Ageless. She is also a recipient of the prestigious James Beard award for healthy recipe development. To learn more about Cheryl and her work, visit her Web site at www.cherylforberg.com.

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Government Health Agency Urged to Drop Coca-Cola as Heart-Health Partner

Like Allowing Philip Morris to Sponsor Anti-Smoking Campaign, Says CSPI

WASHINGTON—The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute should not partner with Coca-Cola to raise awareness of heart disease among women, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  In a letter to the NHLBI, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest says overweight and obesity are prime risk factors for heart disease, and the agency shouldn’t be bolstering the dismal reputation of the Coca-Cola Company, the world’s biggest manufacturer of obesigenic soft drinks.  

“It is as inappropriate as it would be to allow Philip Morris to sponsor NHLBI’s anti-smoking efforts,” CSPI’s Executive Director Michael F. Jacobsonwrote CSPI’s executive director Michael F. Jacobson and nutrition policy advocate George A. Hacker, in a letter to NHLBI director Susan B. Shurin.

On the NHLBI web site, Diet Coke is listed first and most prominently among several pages of corporate sponsors for The Heart Truth campaign.  Supermodel Heidi Klum is described on the government web site as the “Diet Coke heart health ambassador.”  

“Though Diet Coke is the ostensible sponsor, it is the entire Coca-Cola product line that is basking in the credibility conferred by a government heart-health agency and a slender supermodel, when in fact Coca-Cola promotes heart disease by marketing drinks that contribute to obesity,” Jacobson said.  “Coke has long sought to affiliate with or co-opt health groups, and associate its brand with athletes and models.  I fervently hope that NHLBI officials understand that letting Coke bask in their agency’s good reputation does American hearts far more harm than good.”

Last week, President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing a number of cabinet agencies, including NHLBI’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, to develop a coordinated strategy to solve the childhood obesity problem within one generation.  The order pointedly notes that heart disease is one of several obesity-related health problems.

In addition to Coke, the NHLBI Heart Truth Web site publicizes two other corporate sponsors:  Snyder’s of Hanover, which CSPI describes in its letter as “a major producer of snack foods made largely of white flour and salt,” and Sara Lee, which “is famous for its artery-clogging cheesecakes, salty Ball Park hot dogs, and Jimmy Dean sausages.”

Those foods, like Coke and other sugary soft drinks, are exactly the kinds of foods that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans advises people to eat less of, according to CSPI.

“Promoting the corporate image of Coca-Cola Co. and other junk-food makers undermines the advice in the government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and is contrary to the spirit of the executive order signed by the President just last week,” Jacobson said.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that focuses on nutrition, food safety, and pro-health alcohol policies.  CSPI is supported by the 900,000 U.S. and Canadian subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter and by foundation grants. 

CSPI: Regal Theater Popcorn Has 1,200 Calories, 60g Saturated Fat!