Diet and Nutrition

Timberwolves Forward Kevin Love Uses the NBA Lockout to Drop 25 Pounds

Many were wondering if there would even be an NBA season this year. The player’s lockout lasted longer than expected, but the now shortened season is underway and fans couldn’t be happier. While the lockout was frustrating, it looks like one player took advantage of his extra off time to drop weight and get in the best shape of his life. Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love returned to the court nearly 25 pounds lighter this season.

Love played for UCLA in college and was drafted in 2024 to the NBA. Coming in a 6’ 10”, Love has always been one of the biggest players on the court. This summer Love decided to make some changes to his size for his performance’s sake. He admits he never felt he needed to lose weight, he just wanted to be a better conditioned athlete.

Part of that conditioning included changing his diet. Love relied on ZEN Foods to provide him with the calories and nutrients he needed during his intense conditioning. ZEN Foods is a meal delivery service. They provide tailored and calorie controlled meals for each individual. Love had each day’s food delivered at night so he could wake with a nutritious breakfast. Love explained how this took the guess work out of nutrition and he was able to fuel his workouts with high quality and nutritious foods.
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Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lacy

Is BPA the Real Culprit of the Obesity Epidemic?

Modern studies are now linking the obesity and diabetes epidemic to modern chemicals, not necessarily our diet and exercise habits.

Scientists are arguing that synthesized substances that are found in things like pesticides and water bottles are actually scrambling hormone signals. These disturbances are being blamed for tricking fat cells into taking in more fat. Another proposed result of hormone disruption is that the pancreas is being mislead into secreting excess insulin, causing interference in the regulation of carbohydrate and fat breakdown. The main culprit being blamed is bisphenol A, known as BPA. This chemical is found in plastics and food-can linings.

The so-called endocrine disruptor has been the center of a recent Spanish study. “When you eat something with BPA, it’s like telling your organs that you are eating more than you are really eating,” says Angel Nadal, a BPA expert at the Miguel Hernandez University in Spain.

Nadal’s research also finds that BPA triggers the release of almost double the insulin needed to break down food. High insulin levels can desensitize the body to the hormone, which in some people may lead to weight gain and type 2 diabetes. These are arguable findings. The fact that a chemical, not our super-size fast food and sedentary lifestyles, is to blame for the insurmountable numbers of obesity and diabetes cases seems ridiculous, but is there truly merit?

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Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lacy

Review

There’s a new candy popping up next to grocery check-out stands and it comes from Skinny Cow. Just because a brand markets itself as “healthier” doesn’t always mean that it is. So before you shrug off a Twix fix for a seemingly “better” candy bar, we wanted to look below the wrapper and get the real skinny.

A one-ounce portion of traditional Turtle candies sold at the check-out weighs in with 510 calories! Yikes! That’s more than we’d recommend for an entire meal. The Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters have far less with 120 calories for that same portion.

Our dietitian, Mary Hartley, RD, took a look at the Skinny Cow Dreamy Clusters and was glad to see a noticeable difference in the two candies. “It’s like the regular version is four or five times worse. But, Skinny Cow managed to keep the fiber. Go figure.” Both candies have three grams of fiber, not something you’d usually find on junk food ingredient labels. (Compare that to a similar candy, Snickers, which has only .5 grams of fiber for a one-ounce serving.) (more…)

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Natalie K

King Cake Gets a Calorie-Cutting Makeover this Mardi Gras

For some, indulging in King Cake on Mardi Gras is well-worth the calories, particularly if sweets are something one is giving up for Lent. However, there are some creative ways to save on calories that are in keeping with the festive spirit of the holiday. Below are some ideas and lower-cal recipes to consider before you bake a cake with 250 to 500 calories per serving.

Calorie Saving Swaps

Former Biggest Loser contestant Heba Salama suggests having a healthier Fat Tuesday by making your King Cake with an angel food cake and frozen low-calorie whipped topping. “To make it a layered cake simply slice the cake in half, spread whipped topping down the middle, re-stack and keep cool until ready to serve,” she recommends. You can use food coloring to add the right colors without adding more sugar.

If King Cake just isn’t right to you without puff pastry and cream cheese, use these healthy swaps in any King Cake recipe. “You could replace nonfat Greek Yogurt for the sour cream and use four egg whites instead of the two eggs and use skim milk in the icing,” says Alison Lewis, cookbook author and president of Ingredients, Inc. “If a recipe calls for cream cheese, the light one-third less fat cream cheese is a great substitute.”

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Posted on February 20, 2024 by Margaret

Starbucks Trades in Java for Juice in 2024

Starbucks has closed a $30 million dollar deal with Evolution Fresh to launch a chain of juice bars this year. Starbucks Corp purchased the California-based juice maker with plans to move into the health and wellness market by offering fresh, healthy juices and snacks completely seperate from the coffee shops we are used to on every street corner.

Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz hopes that buying Evolution Fresh, sold in a few health retailers including Whole Foods, will lend credibility to the bars for their health-conscious consumers. Evolution Fresh, which was started by the founder of Naked Juice, uses a heat-free, high-pressure pasteurization process they claim retains more nutrients compared with using conventional heat pasteurization.

Starbucks has been quiet about how many bars they plan to open and the name of the chain, but do say they hope to open the first around the middle of this year. It is also unknown is they will keep their famous mermaid logo, which recently dropped the word “coffee” from its design.

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Posted on February 20, 2024 by Kelly

Ben & Jerry’s Greek FroYo Gets Their Scoop of the Greek Yogurt Market

By Arleigh Aldrich

Ben and Jerry’s has been a favorite of the frozen treat aisle for years now, and they’re an environmentally, socially and economically aware company to boot. Just when you didn’t think you could love them any more the ice cream company becomes more aware of our waist lines. Next week they roll out their new line of Greek Frozen Yogurts.

Now you can enjoy your favorite comfort food with a clear conscience in Banana Peanut Butter, Raspberry Fudge Chunk, Strawberry Shortcake, Blackberry Vanilla Graham Cracker, Vanilla and Strawberry Shortcake. This is no doubt a delicious frozen spin on the Greek yogurt phenomena.

Greek yogurt has started gaining popularity (not pounds!) in the USA as a low-fat, lower calorie alternative to traditional yogurt. With traditional yogurt, the fat content might be low while the sugar content is high, particularly in fruitier flavors. Greek yogurt can get you twice as much protein on top of all the benefits regular yogurt has, without all the sugar. (more…)

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Health Buzz

Should Sugar be Regulated Just Like Tobacco and Alcohol?

35 million people die each year due to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. The major risk factors causing these diseases are tobacco use, alcohol use, and poor diet. Two of these factors are regulated by the government: tobacco and alcohol. Professionals are now arguing that sugar is the other main culprit of these diseases and should also be put through the same regulations as alcohol and tobacco.

In the past 50 years the worldwide sugar consumption has tripled. This has contributed to an obesity epidemic. As a result, there are now 30 percent more obese people in the world than malnourished people.

Just in America alone, people are consuming nearly 500 calories a day in added sugar. That’s not naturally occuring sugars like the ones found in fruit, but food and drink with sugar specifically added in. Soda is a major source of this added sugar as the average American is is consuming 57 gallons of soda a year, over half on which is not diet or sugar free soda.

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Posted on February 18, 2024 by Lacy

Junk Food Should be Labeled Similar to E. Coli, Say Canadian Doctors

By Arleigh Aldrich

The debate over obesity in today’s society roars on. Three Canadian medical doctors, two public-health professors, and a cardiologist suggest in an article published in The Canadian Journal of Cardiology that “junk food” may be too soft a term. They suggest labeling food that has too much sugar, salt or saturated fats should be labeled as “pathogens,” a term normally reserved for strands of E. coli or Listeria. Their argument? Junk food is far more pervasive in our diet and should be considered just as deadly if not more than pathogens that occur in more concentrated, special cases like E. coli.

The discussion about regulating the amount of these “pathogens” is nothing new. The counter argument is to let the public make their own decisions. Dr. Norm Campbell, a cardiologist from the University of Calgary in Canada and co-author of the study, is all for regulating such foods. He justifies it this way:

“Why regulate crime? ‘Oh, it’s a murder, they shouldn’t be allowed a second chance.’ Well, the food industry kills many thousands more than that murderer ever had a hope of doing.” (more…)

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Health Buzz

Joy Bauer Addresses Gluten Confusion on Today

Gluten-free diets have caught mainstream attention in a big way, but it’s also a subject that’s widely misunderstood. Gluten is a protein that’s found in wheat, barley and rye, which means that gluten is also in any product that contains these grains as an ingredient.

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Posted on February 17, 2024 by Margaret

The Nutrition Society Launches Open Access Journal

The Cambridge University Press and The Nutrition Society have partnered to launch an open access online journal, called Journal of Nutritional Science. The goal of the journal is to publish peer-reviewed research articles on a number of nutrition related subjects, including public health, epidemiology, metabolic studies, body composition, microbiology, nutritional requirements, obesity, appetite and aging.

The journal’s open access platform means that both readers and authors will be better served. “The value of open access journals is that they make their content immediately available on the Internet for free,” comments DietsInReview’s resident dietitian Mary Hartley. “Copyright is retained by the author, and the articles can be distributed and cited so long as the original authorship is properly attributed.”

Founded in 1941, The Nutrition Society is well-respected in the scientific community and is the largest society for nutrition in Europe. “Because The Nutrition Society is behind it, we should expect the new journal to retain the high standards and high quality they bring to their other scholarly publications,” says Hartley. The Nutrition Society also published on behalf of the society: British Journal of Nutrition, Public Health Nutrition, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society and Nutrition Research Reviews. Professor Philip Calder, the Editor-in-Chief of British Journal of Nutrition will also take on that role at the new publication.

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Posted on February 17, 2024 by Margaret

8 Reasons For Eating Local

Sometimes as bloggers, we write things that we want other people to read, and sometimes we write things that we need to remember ourselves. Sometimes when you are making a change, it helps to say it out loud to someone else to make it more real for yourself. Today, I need to say out loud that I am re-committing to eating local food (Everyone falls off the wagon at some point.) These are eight reasons why you might always want to eat local.

1. Allergies Eating locally made honey is supposed to be good for your allergies because the bees are using the local pollen, what is likely causing your allergic reactions. It is the same theory as a vaccine – if you are given a little, your body learns how to fight it, so you develop an immunity. Plus, you’re much more likely to get actual honey than at a store.

2. The real scoop Often when shopping at farmers markets, you get to talk to the actual farmers to get the real scoop on the types of chemicals were used, where animals reside, and what they are fed. Just because something is labeled organic does not mean that chemicals have not been used.

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Posted on February 16, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

Diet and Nutrition

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