Diet and Nutrition

Jenny McCarthy Credits her Playboy Body to a Clean Diet, Yoga and Lots of Great Sex

At the age of 39, actress and former comedian Jenny McCarthy has done it again: she’s gracing the cover of Playboy Magazine just months before her 40th birthday.

While some will never be fans of this style of modeling, we must admit McCarthy has managed to keep her body in amazing shape for decades, even after having a son, Evan, who is now 10 years old. This will be the star’s seventh time posing nude for the popular magazine, and she’s glad she did it.

“I’m really proud of it,” McCarthy told People Magazine. “The pictures are really gorgeous and classy. They could be out of W magazine…It’s probably a lot more sophisticated than lot of the stuff you’d see of people with their clothes on.”

One of the things McCarthy loves most about Playboy Magazine is that they don’t promote that “anorexic look” so many of the models have today. “The women are voluptuous,” she said. “So I really didn’t want to diet [for the cover]. I Just wanted to tone up.” (more…)

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Dana

Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie Recipe and Other Healthy Summer Snacks

By Stephanie Mansour

Whether you’re hitting the beach or trying to stay cool inside this summer, there are many healthy, easy foods and snacks to prepare in advance or even on the fly. In the warm summer months, ice cream sounds more appealing than usual. But instead of indulging, try this five-ingredient smoothie that tastes just like strawberry shortcake. This delicious smoothie is quick to make, travels well, and is far more healthy and nutritious than ice cream.

  • Place a whole banana and a cup of frozen strawberries into a blender.
  • Then add two tablespoons of ground flaxseed.
  • Add a serving of protein powder for extra energy.
  • Next, add a cup of coconut milk. Blend for 60 seconds, and you’ll have a strawberry shortcake treat!
  • If you’d like to make it taste like chocolate, add some chocolate flavored protein powder. (more…)
Posted on June 26, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Throw a Stone at Obesity: How Stone Fruits Support Weight Management

By Kati Mora, MS, RD

Summer is the perfect time to explore fresh produce. Whether you are purchasing it at a local farmers market, your favorite grocery store, or receiving it as part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), you don’t want to miss all of the fabulous flavors, aromas, and textures that summer brings through its in-season produce.

Yet some fruits may garnish more of your attention than others, and it can be easy to forget just how many fruits there are to choose from. Nevertheless, it is important to keep an open mind and an open eye out for a variety of fruits to adorn your table with. Why? Because each type of fruit has its own unique nutritional benefits to offer.

For example, let’s talk about stone fruits – or drupes as they are sometimes called. Not sure what a stone fruit is? The best way to remember or identify a stone fruit is to recall if it has a pit or not. Apricots, prunes, cherries, nectarines and peaches would all belong in this category because each of them have a pit or a stone surrounded by a fleshy outside. (more…)

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Around The Plate

How to Cook with Coffee

Every time summer rolls around, I start craving coffee. And not just any kind of coffee: iced coffee, coffee ice cream, coffee shakes; anything that’s cold, sweet and caffeine-jolted does the trick. Because when the heat rises, I rely on my cup of joe not just for a perk, but also to cool me down. 

Still riding the wake of the first day of summer, we found no other time more appropriate than now to dive into this American favorite and find out just how healthy it really is for us, as well as how we can utilize it more adventurously in the kitchen.

What is coffee? For starters, coffee comes from an evergreen-like bush or tree that produces a coffee cherry, which typically holds two halves or ‘beans’ as we refer to them. However, sometimes a cherry only produces one bean, and when this happens the bean is known as a ‘peaberry.’ Peaberries are very rare and take on a unique flavor. (more…)

Posted on June 24, 2024 by Dana

“Vibrant Moms Healthy Kids” Offers Family-Focused Nutrition Training Online

“How do I get my kid to eat healthy food?”

This is the number one question Abra Pappa has received over the last ten years as a Certified Health Coach and a Holistic Nutritionist. She’s decided to take a brand new approach to answer that question and is introducing a program called Vibrant Moms Healthy Kids.

Vibrant Moms Healthy Kids is a four week online course for parents hosted by Nutritious America. The course focuses on nutrition, holistic wellness therapies, and small steps to make big differences in the health of mothers and their families. Pappa and alternative medicine expert Autumn Bear will be conducting the online course, which begins enrollment Monday, June 25. (more…)

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Lacy

Healthy Surprise Delivers a Bounty of Vegan Snacks Each Month

Healthy Surprise is a company that ships out gluten-free, vegan, and raw snacks to the door steps of their subscribers. Founder Joe Winke stumbled upon the idea of sending healthy snacks to people after a friend sent him healthy food in the mail for his birthday. Who knew that making an assortment of healthy snacks and putting them in boxes would be a hit?

The snacks range from nuts to granola bars and cookies. You can find them in larger grocery stores or at your local health food store, and certainly online.

Joe and other “snackologists” try all of the snack items before they are placed in the boxes. Since people are particularly fond of kale, Healthy Surprise tries to send kale snacks every month in the boxes, but the rotation of different snack items changes monthly because they want subscribers to receive a healthy surprise each month! (more…)

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Samantha

American Pizza Chains Band Together to Hide Their Calorie Contents

This seems like a case of, “deal with it, you big rich babies.” The nation’s pizza giants are banning together to fight the proposed law requiring all chain restaurants to provide calorie contents on the menu. And the reason they’re stating as to why they won’t make the change? It will just be too difficult for them.

Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s, Little Caesars, and other large pizza chains have joined together to form The American Pizza Community. Together they are arguing that pizzas are so varied from order-to-order that providing calorie content on their menus would be too taxing, and that their calorie content boards would be much larger than their actual menu board.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has heard similar complaints from other customizable restaurants. Their response was to provide the consumer with a calorie range. The American Pizza Community has an answer to that, too. They are stating that there can be a calorie swing of more than 1,000 calories based on people’s individual orders of extra cheese or meats. Again, it’s apparently just too much to ask out of these pizza players. (more…)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Lacy

Liz Vaccariello Identifies Fat-Burning Super Foods in The Digest Diet

Burning fat is a pretty standard way to lose weight. Most of us think that the quickest way to fat loss is burning up the miles on a treadmill or sweating it out in a solid cardio class. However, Liz Vaccariello, editor-in-chief for Reader’s Digest, is promoting the fat-burning capability of the foods we eat. Yes, putting more food in your mouth to meet your weight loss goal is a thing. However, as she explains in her newest book The Digest Diet, it’s about putting the right foods in your mouth to lose fat.

“It’s a breakthrough food plan that shows you how to release fat from your body,” Liz told us in an interview. “[The Digest Diet] is the perfect nexus of healthy weight loss and fast weight loss.”

Fast and healthy? Surely that gets everyone’s attention.

Liz is also the author of two other wildly popular weight loss books, which she wrote in her previous position as editor-in-chief at Prevention Magazine. The Flat Belly Diet and 400-Calorie Fix both promote healthful eating for weight loss, but Liz says her new book has grown out of the newest research.

“This science on fat releasers didn’t exist five years ago,” she told us. “[The Digest Diet] is a more holistic approach that focuses on a broader range of food with more flexibility.” (more…)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Natalie K

Moderate Drinking During Pregnancy May be OK, Study Suggests

I recently wrote a story about caffeine consumption during breastfeeding being practically harmless to children. And of that news, I was in near celebration. Within that article I also mentioned one of the other difficulties I anticipate during pregnancy being forgoing alcohol, as I’m a lover of wine and an occasional cocktail. But according to new research, that may not be as big of a concern.

A collection of Danish studies is suggesting that moderate amounts of alcohol during pregnancy does not appear to affect the child’s mental abilities.

To conduct these studies, researchers examined children up to the age of five whose mothers drank moderate amounts of alcohol while pregnant. The more than 1,600 Danish mothers involved in the study were an average age of 30 and each drank a varied number of alcoholic beverages during pregnancy.

While this type of study is rightfully viewed as dangerous, women in Denmark don’t generally consider slight drinking during pregnancy to be a health concern. A very small percentage of the women involved in the study were actually consuming large amounts of alcohol: almost half were abstaining completely; a small portion was consuming one to four drinks a week; around 175 were having five to eight drinks; and only 20 were consuming nine or more beverages a week. (more…)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Dana

Portland is the Best City for Your Skin; Las Vegas is the Worst

Our skin is the largest organ in our body, and yet, it’s one that we tend to neglect more than any other. Some more so than others. Today, Daily Glow announced its 55 Best and Worst Cities for Your Skin, and you may be surprised to see who makes which end of the list.

Your ZIP code can play as much a role in the health of your skin as your genes and sun exposure this summer. This is good news for people in Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA, and Seattle, WA, the top three best cities for your skin. Daily Glow points out that skin health is determined by a variety of factors including the environment, genetics, and lifestyle. In those locations there is low pollution, low ozone rates, and minimal sun shine. In San Francisco, they have the least tanning beds per capita.

“One of the most surprising things we found was that cities in areas that are sunny actually have conditions that are good for your skin,” Dr. Jessica Wu told us. Dr. Wu is a dermatologist to the stars and works as Daily Glow’s Skin and Beauty advisor. She pointed out that Honolulu, Hawaii, which is number six on the list, is a great place for skin because of the low incidence of pollution and high levels of humidity.

There are 10 cities on the list deemed the Worst Cities for Your Skin, and it’s there where the environment and lifestyle are taking a toll on the residents’ skin. Las Vegas, Nev. was named the worst city, as it has the highest number of smokers in the entire country. Forth Worth, TX landed on the list for having the highest number of tanning beds per capita. And Tulsa, OK is the 10th worst because it has the highest number of skin cancer-related deaths.

Dr. Wu’s findings show that we could actually be doing a lot to improve the health of our skin. For starters, stop going to the tanning bed! Dr. Wu called the practice “shocking and disturbing,” and pointed out that any tanning salon that’s advertising their safety is clearly not safe. (more…)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Natalie K

Fiber One 90 Calorie Brownies Taste Like a Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie

We’re always looking for new, healthy treats to satisfy our sweet tooth, and Fiber One has delivered once again with their 90 calorie brownie bars. The health-minded company sent us a sample of their newest 90 calorie bar flavor – chocolate chip cookie – and we gave it a thorough investigation to see if it was up to our healthy standards.

For the most part these bars really are pretty good for you. Upon reading the nutrition label, we noticed that each bar contained just 90 calories, 3 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein. Considering that this is a pre-packaged cookie, the statistics aren’t bad. (more…)

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Dana