Diet and Nutrition

Iowa Man Follows All-Beer Diet for Lent

Under the guidance of a Presbyterian pastor and a local doctor, J. Wilson of Corning, Iowa will be subsisting on a diet of only beer and water this Lent. Wilson is re-creating the traditional observances of Franciscan monks in the seventeenth century, who would follow a liquid fast. “I could drink bacon grease if I wanted to–it’s a liquid after all–but I’m just simplifying this whole landscape to beer and water,” he wrote on his blog.

“It’s not something I’m taking lightly. My health is important to me. I’ve got a wife and two kids that are very, very important to me. So, it’s not like a joke,” Wilson told KCCI. Each day, he plans to drink four pints of his own Doppelbock home brew, unless his doctor begins to see any complications. Wilson, who is a newspaper editor, is consuming 1,200 calories per day, and intends to avoid inebriation. Technically,

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Posted on March 11, 2024 by Margaret

Fun Green Drinks For St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching, and the holiday brings to mind all things green. One of the best ways to get into the spirit is with green food and drink. Rather than adding food coloring to your milk – tried and true, been there, done that and need to move to something more fun – why not try some of these great green drink options? Beware that some are better for you than others, but all are green!

Green Tea – Packed full of flavonoids, green tea is known to have fat burning properties and has been enjoyed in China and Japan for years.

McDonald’s Shamrock Shake – This cult favorite has an enormous following, as is evidenced by a website devoted to “Shamrock Shake sightings”. The shake may be tasty, but it is nutritionally a disaster, with 550 calories in one 16 ounce serving. 13 grams of fat and 96 grams of carbs means you’ve blown your diet in just one drink.

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Posted on March 11, 2024 by Carmen

Living Like a Caveman in New York City

Professional caveman John Durant makes a pretty convincing argument for eating like hunter-gathers. “Anybody with a lot of inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies, they would do very well on the paleo diet. Anybody overweight, I mean, name your medical problem–I feel like a snake oil salesman.” Cure-all or not, it doesn’t hurt that Durant himself is outgoing, energetic and fit, a kind of walking advertisement for his lifestyle. He is the author of the blog Hunter-Gatherer.com, and is writing a book with the working title Live Wild: A Survival Guide to the Modern World.

The basic idea behind the paleolithic diet, also known as the caveman diet, is that humans are best adapted to eat and live like hunter-gatherers before the time of the agricultural revolution. “If you look at these hunter-gatherer cultures, in reports that date back to the 19th century and early 20th century, they’re actually remarkably healthy,” says Durant. Followers of the paleo lifestyle argue that the agricultural revolution led to a marked decline in health, in part due to less diverse sources of nutrients. “Our diet became very narrow, very quickly. We went from eating a wide variety of animal foods and plant foods driven by seasonal eating, to a very narrow set of foods.”

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Posted on March 11, 2024 by Margaret

What are Alkaline Foods vs. Acid Foods?

This guest blog comes courtesy of YummyPlants.com, an online community that helps people explore a plant-based lifestyle. They help support their community by sharing delicious recipes, favorite restaurants, and lifestyle tips.

According to Dr. Ragnar Berg, a Swedish nutritionist and Nobel Prize winner, we should be eating about 80 percent alkaline forming foods and 20 percent acid forming foods at each meal. Why does it matter? Dr. Berg’s research suggested that disease cannot live in an alkaline environment. He was the first scientist to discover the importance of the acid-base balance.

Of course, our body’s system is always regulating, and will adjust to keep our blood plasma at a pH between 7.35 and 7.45, but we can give our bodies some help by choosing alkaline forming foods. (more…)

Posted on March 11, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Eat Right With White Foods Packed With Nutrition

Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, is the director of nutrition for Calorie Count, providing domain expertise on issues related to nutrition, weight loss and health. She creates original content for weekly blogs and newsletters, for the Calorie Count library, and for her popular daily Question-and-Answer section, Ask Mary. Ms. Hartley also furnishes direction for the site features and for product development.

White food has gotten a bum rap because white sugar and white flour may be harmful in excess. But it’s unwise to discriminate against “white” when it’s the color of some mighty healthy foods. Milk, cottage cheese, cauliflower, mushrooms, garlic, onions, tofu, potatoes, white beans, and white whole wheat flour are all over-the-top nutritious. But unlike other foods with nutrient properties based on color, white foods actually have nothing nutritionally in common.

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Posted on March 11, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Healthiest Menu Choices at Panera

UPDATE 6/23/2024: While specific information isn’t available yet, Panera has reformulated a few of its soups, created a lower-calorie salad and reduced the amount of sauce on its sandwiches after consumers’ reactions to calorie counts were posted directly on menus in New York City and California. By the end of the year, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce new regulations that require any U.S. chain restaurant with 20 or more locations to post calorie counts for every item on its menu.

I am a huge Panera fan. I love their soups and salads and lattes and the like. Over the course of the last five years or so I’ve had my healthy Panera standbys that I knew tasted good and weren’t too high in calories or fat. However, once the new daily sodium recommendations were released, I knew it was time to go back to the Panera nutritionals and see how they stacked up. Below are the results of my research according to the guidance and expertise of registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield, who recommends that all meals should contain less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium.

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Posted on March 10, 2024 by Jennipher

Dr. Oz to Reveal One Day Diet in Good Housekeeping Magazine

In the upcoming April issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, Dr. Mehmet Oz will unveil his newest weight loss wisdom to help readers lose weight forever. His One Day Diet claims that he can help readers lose up to two inches and 10 pounds in four weeks — and stay slim forever.

The Mediterranean style diet allows for a total of 1,450 calories (300 calories for breakfast, 400 for lunch, 500 for dinner, and 125 for each snack). In the magazine, Dr. Oz provides a 7 day sample diet plan, which allows for meal swaps and includes recipes. In addition to the meal plan, Dr. Oz has 5 simple rules to help you lose 10 pounds in a month. These rules include:

Rule 1: Renew Your Vows Daily
Rule 2: Do Something Completely Different Every Day
Rule 3: Set Your Kitchen on Automatic. Arrange your pantry, fridge, and life so your only choices are good ones.
Rule 4: Keep Your Belly Full
Rule 5: Extend the Burn

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Posted on March 10, 2024 by Carmen

Healthy Green Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations

Both St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of spring are right around the corner, making this the perfect time to celebrate with a bit of green! Whether you’re Irish or not, March 17th is as good a time as any to honor the Irish heritage and help usher spring in on the 20th. What are you’re favorite ways to celebrate? Shamrocks, leprechauns and rainbows are just the beginning of all the fun things you can bring out for your St. Patrick’s Day party.

Green beer is fun but let’s be honest, it’s incredibly overdone. There’s nothing wrong with including some but to really rev up the fun, expand your St. Patrick’s Day festivities to the food.

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Posted on March 10, 2024 by Theresa

MTV Searching for the Next Cast of “I Used to Be Fat”

Here at DietsInReview, we get many, many inquires about how to get on MTV’s reality weight-loss show, I Used to Be Fat. Today we have some good news for anyone interesting in applying for the second season of the show. MTV just announced that they are looking for high school seniors who want to lose 40 to 100 pounds before starting college. MTV casting directors will be traveling to Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas. According to our contact at 3 Ball Productions, the show’s production company, the ideal cast members will live no more than 50 miles outside of these locations.

Interested candidates should send recent photos and a paragraph explaining why you should be on the show to [email protected], along with your name, age, weight and contact information.

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Posted on March 9, 2024 by Margaret

Fun Green and Healthy St. Patrick’s Day Treats for Kids

Move over Red Velvet Cupcake…it’s time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. During the month of March, stores are filled with Irish-inspired items, most of which fall under the not-so-good-for-you category.

Whether you’re the parent in charge of bringing slimmer shamrock-style snacks to your child’s class party or you’re looking to lend a little luck of the Irish to your own family, think beyond Lucky Charms this year.

Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread: Instead of traditional white flour, this year you can opt for a whole wheat version of this favorite Irish treat. Think soda bread at its finest – unadulterated without bells and whistles – and without a lot of added fat or calories.

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Posted on March 9, 2024 by Maris

5 Ways to Use Lent to Clean Up Your Diet

Starting with Halloween, it’s a slippery slope through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day, a fast run full of overindulging and dietary no-no’s. Mardi Gras is often the crowning glory in a literal Fat Cake of Food. After so much indulgence, it’s almost with relief that we observe the calendar shifting to the more penitential observance of Lent. A solemn time of fasting and sacrifice, Lent is most commonly observed by Catholics and many of the Orthodox and Protestant religions.

Lent is observed as a 40 day period of time that begins on Ash Wednesday and culminates on Easter Sunday, although many religions differ in how to count the days. Traditionally, Lent is a time of spiritual discipline, in which you give up a favored food, be it dessert, coffee or chocolate. In the Middle Ages, a more strict observance of Lent required a total abstinence from any meat, eggs and dairy products of all kinds, feeling that a more sparse menu would lead to a greater religious experience. Modern rules have changed in most religions, but almost all observers of Lent use the time period to improve themselves.

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Posted on March 9, 2024 by Carmen

Diet and Nutrition

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