Diet and Nutrition

Healthy Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes That will Satisfy Everyone at Your Table

While Thanksgiving can be a challenging day of the year for all dieters, it’s especially difficult for vegetarians and vegans who abstain from eating turkey. There is no shortage of vegetable dishes at most Thanksgiving tables, but the meal often revolves around turkey as a main course.

While the vegetarian diet is diverse and exciting, there are certain parts of the Thanksgiving meal that can be challenging to navigate on a meat-free diet.

Meat-Free Main Dishes
This year, whether you are eating a vegetarian diet, vegan diet or simply want to cut down your consumption of animal products, you can easily swap the turkey out of your Thanksgiving dinner without sacrificing tradition. While offering meat substitute like “Tofurkey” is one option, many home cooks prefer to take advantage of fresh seasonal produce and hearty grain salads.

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Posted on November 11, 2023 by Maris

Eat More Seaweed! We’ve Got 5 Good Reasons

Seaweed is the ocean’s mineral and vitamin bank surpassing any and every food on the planet for diversity of nutrients. So guess what? That thin dark sheet that holds together your sushi roll has more nutrients than any item inside the roll. If you eat sushi you are consuming some seaweed, but what if seaweed was as much a staple in your diet as salad? (I am assuming of course that salad is a staple in EVERYONE’S diet!) In Japan, seaweed is an everyday food and there is research that suggests that the frequent occurrence of seaweed in the Japanese diet is linked to the low occurrence of cancer and other illness. Let’s break it down:

Nutritious America’s top 5 reasons to make seaweed a staple in your diet are:

1. Seaweed has wonderful natural detoxifying properties. It contains aljinic acid, which binds out toxins in our body and allows for their natural elimination. We are regularly exposed to so many toxins, both environmental and biological, that it is becoming more and more important to increase the body’s natural ability to detoxify. Seaweed is a fantastic detox tool. (more…)

Posted on November 10, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Soda vs Marijuana – Which Do You Think is Worse?

There’s a chart that has been floating around the Internet for a while comparing various health effects of soda and marijuana. The agenda doesn’t appear to be pro-pot as much as it is pointing out societal hypocrisy and the serious dangers associated with foods most of us have no moral issue with.

I would be the first to get in line with people who think the demonizing of marijuana in Western culture has always been taken to an extreme level. However, if you think it somehow comes without any serious health risks, you need to consider putting the bong down for a moment and read on. Let’s take a look at how soda and marijuana really compare:

Carcinogens – Let’s start with the biggest hole in the chart’s argument: that there are no carcinogens in marijuana. According to Donald Tashkin, MD, a researcher at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, there are as many or more carcinogens and co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke as in cigarettes. Inhaling carcinogens for a long period of time can’t be harmless, can it? (more…)

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Jason

Source a Sustainably Raised Turkey for Thanksgiving

More than 250 million turkeys are slaughtered in the industrial system each year in the United States, and about 46 million of those are for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful, warm holiday, full of family time, great traditions and good food. Unfortunately, there are many not-so-good things about the Thanksgiving turkeys most grocery stores offer to their customers.

The status quo for raising turkeys and other meat birds is the industrial, factory farming system. The conditions in which factory farmed turkeys are raised is horrendous. It’s cramped, with each bird given about 3 feet of space to live its life. So that these cramped and stressed turkeys won’t turn to pecking at each other, prior to confinement their beaks and the tips of their toes are cut off (processes some liken to having the tips of a child’s fingers and toes chopped off). These turkeys, raised in gigantic warehouses, are denied their natural instincts and can’t eat their natural diet of seeds, vegetation and insects. They’re also bred to grow so rapidly that it puts an incredible strain on their bodies. Some researchers estimate that factory farmed turkeys spend at least a third of their lives in chronic pain.

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Posted on November 10, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Majority of Honey on Grocery Store Shelves is Not Actually Honey

According to a test run by Food Safety News, a vast majority of the honey lining grocery store shelves may not actually be honey.

Results of the study showed that the pollen typically found in honey is often filtered out through a high-tech procedure called ultra-filtering. Without this pollen, it’s difficult to identify where the honey in question originated from and whether it is in its purest form. From plastic bears to jugs and jars, it can be a real challenge to identify which products are your best bet. To help you out, here are a few guidelines to help you select real honey every time:

What you need to know

With a vast majority of our honey being ultra-filtered, it’s important to know what that means. In some instances, it may mean that there is indeed very minimal amounts of real honey present within the product; however, in most cases it most likely means that the purity of the honey isn’t as clear cut as you thought it might be. According to the study done by Food Safety News, most of the honey lining our grocery store shelves have had their pollen removed. In fact, 76-100% of the samples retrieved from some of America’s biggest grocery store chains tested negative for pollen.

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Posted on November 9, 2023 by Kati

The New African Heritage Diet Pyramid Combines Health and Food Traditions

Although the newly released MyPlate icon is a great tool for many, it’s not specific for any single population. For individuals who are looking for more in depth and culturally specific food recommendations, useful tools similar to the MyPlate icon are becoming available.

The most recent addition is the New African Heritage Diet Pyramid. The pyramid better resembles the traditional food pyramid that has recently been replaced by the plate, but no matter its appearance, it’s a helpful tool to better plan a well-balanced diet.

Individuals of African American decent may find this pyramid particularly useful. As diabetes, obesity, and heart disease are not true components of African American heritage, Oldways and a team of experts have developed this new pyramid to appropriately identify ways to incorporate foods from traditional diets of the African Dispora in a way that promotes nutritious eating and healthy living.

 

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Posted on November 9, 2023 by Kati

Cheryl Forberg Announces Her Departure as Biggest Loser’s Nutritionist

I was shocked to open Facebook this morning and see a note from Cheryl Forberg, RD announcing that she she would depart from Biggest Loser at the end of the year.

She’s been with Biggest Loser for 12 seasons, in other words the very beginning. She co-wrote the now famous, and often imitated, nutrition program that the more than 250 Biggest Loser contestants follow on their weight loss journeys. Her work behind the cameras on the long-running reality program has touched innumerable lives, whether it be first-hand with the contestants, viewers who mimic the program, or those who follow her guidance in one of the show’s bestselling books, like Biggest Loser’s 6 Weeks to a Healthier You.

“Looking back, this is the longest working relationship I’ve had – seven + years – so it’s really taken up a full, exciting and very complete chapter in my life,” Forberg told us after breaking the news. “My experience and relationships with our cast (250+) has been incredibly enriching. Though I hope I’ve made a lasting impact on their lives with the nutrition and culinary tips I’ve shared, I’ve learned so much myself from our contestants (and viewers I’ve met through Facebook and Twitter). They each have a unique journey and I feel so blessed to go along for the ride with all of them.” (more…)

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Natalie K

Lollihop Snack Boxes are the Perfect Gift That Keeps Giving

Who doesn’t like to get something in the mail that isn’t a bill or another credit card offer? And while our birthdays give us one day a year to impatiently wait the mail’s arrival, with a subscription to Lollihop you can actually look forward to mail delivery once a month, all year long.

Lollihop is an exciting new company based in Palo Alto, Calif. that’s doing its part to make the mail, snacking, and healthy eating fun again. Whether you treat yourself to a Lollihop subscription, or gift it to a friend or loved one, it truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Founded just this year by Suzanne Xie and Tamara Rajaram, MD, Lollihop sends its subscribers a gift box once each month full of some of the best healthy snacks around. They work with a team of nutritionists to carefully curate each snack and make sure that each ingredient is something that fulfills their desire to make “eating healthy, simple, and a lot more interesting than raw cauliflower,” according to Xie’s bio.

According to Xie, the idea for Lollihop came about when Suzanne and Tamara first became friends and shared a passion to help people eat healthier in ways that are fun and accessible. During the first couple of months of working on their idea, they both developed a habit of late night snacking during their long work sessions. After that, it became clear where Lollihop should start. (more…)

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Natalie K

First Lady Michelle Obama’s American Grown Hits Shelves April 2024

First Lady Michelle Obama will be releasing a new book in April 2024 titled American Grown: How the White House Garden Inspires Families, Schools, and Communities.

Mrs. Obama has worked diligently with her Let’s Move campaign, the nationwide campaign to reduce childhood obesity in the United States. The campaign launched in February 2024 and since then has provided children with healthier foods in school and made certain opportunities for physical exercise more available. Let’s Move has also strived to provide better information to families about nutrition and has improved community access to healthy and cost-effective food. The First Lady has not only become an advocate for healthier eating and exercise for others, but she has also planted a bountiful vegetable garden on the White House grounds.

All of these actions have lead to the publishing of her book. The book will evaluate how making healthy food more accessible and more affordable will influence eating habits, concluding that habits will improve and public health as a whole will improve as well.

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Posted on November 8, 2023 by Lacy

Healthy Sandwich Making 101

Sandwiches are a fast, filling and portable meal and, if you build it right, a great addition to your healthy eating plan.

To build a healthy sandwich, you need to make sure you are incorporating a few important basics. When these items are in place, you can’t go wrong.

Bread

For a really good sandwich, you need really good bread. Choose a whole grain variety to get an added fiber and vitamin B boost and control your blood sugar to avoid cravings later. Cracked wheat, oat bran, 7 grain, whole wheat pita, pumpernickel, American rye, and wheat berry all make wonderful options for the base of your sandwich.

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Posted on November 7, 2023 by Kati

Dr. Oz Shows How to Lose 40 Pounds By Spring

Tune in to Dr. Oz today to learn how to drop 40 pounds by spring. As part of Dr. Oz’s “Transformation Nation” series, he’ll be teaching viewers four secrets to lose weight forever. The advice will be targeted at people over the age of 40 with metabolisms that have slowed and the pounds have piled up.

You can’t miss this episode as Dr. Oz reveals wonderful diet tips that require no special foods and no gym memberships, but will get you a new body by spring!

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Lacy