Diet and Nutrition

Raw McRib Meat Doesn’t Look Anything Like Ribs or Meat

The poor McRib. For such a fanatic following (that is completely lost on me), it sure gets beat up a lot.

One of the biggest abominations of the fast food industry, this sandwich horrifies us. Seeing this thing in the flesh, if that’s what you can call it, doesn’t make it any more appetizing.

A McDonald’s employee sent this stealth shot to a friend who shared it on imgur, and now we all get to feast our eyes on the pre-sauced McRib.

Under that frozen, pre-formed, meat-like brick is a laundry list of unappetizing ingredients. The McRib sandwich has more in common with a yoga mat than it probably does the pig from which it is supposedly derived. Azodicarbonamide, one of the sandwich’s SEVENTY ingredients, is a chemical also used to produce yoga mats, shoes, foam plastic, and gym flooring. You know – food-like stuff. (more…)

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Natalie K

31 Brands Selling Trans Fat-Laden Foods That Will Soon be Banned

As you know by now, trans fat is finally getting kicked to the curb. Trans fat, a packaged food additive also known as partially hydrogenated oil, is added to food for its preservative quality and contributes to artery clogging and cardiovascular disease. The FDA’s proposed ban hopes to prevent 7,000 deaths from heart disease and 20,000 deaths from heart attack per year.

Over the next 50 or so days, the FDA will be pouring over scientific data to determine if trans fat needs to be removed from the GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe,” list of foods. If trans fat are indeed determined to not be GRAS, any food product with trans fat will be deemed illegal for sale in the U.S. Under current guidelines, if a food product contains less than 0.5 grams trans fat, shown as partially hydrogenated oils on the ingredients list, the nutrition label can claim it has 0 percent. Sketchy stuff.

Trans fat won’t disappear completely, as it naturally occurs in some dairy and meat products. But the artificial stuff—created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil—is lurking in many of the popular food items on grocery store shelves. Peanut butter, popcorn, and frozen foods are the more well known products that contain trans fat, but those are just the tip of this fatty iceberg. Soon, trans fat will be banished from the supermarket, but until then, we’ve compiled a list of the trans fattiest foods at your local grocer.

Betty Crocker Bisquick and Canned Frosting

Breakfast Cereals

Kellogg’s: Corn Pops, Eggo Cereal, Honey Smacks, Smorz, Mini Swirlz Cinammon Bun, Rice Crispies Cereal
General Mills: Basic 4
Post: Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles, Oreo Os, Waffle Crisp

Coffee Mate Coffee Creamer (Multiple Flavors)

Crisco

Duncan Hines Cake and Cupcake Mixes

Nabisco Fig Newtons (more…)

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Patrick

Hungry or Bored: Is Your Eating Emotional or Essential?

Hunger:

1. a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.
2. a severe lack of food
3. a strong desire or craving

Those are the dictionary definitions of hunger. But what does hunger really mean? If you break hunger down to the most basic definition, what is it?

A medical definition states that hunger is “an uneasy sensation occasioned normally by the lack of food and resulting directly from stimulation of the sensory nerves of the stomach by the contraction and churning movement of the empty stomach.”

We’ve determined hunger is the contraction and churning of an empty stomach. Now when was the last time your stomach was truly empty? Claims vary on just how long a healthy, well-nourished person can survive without food; usually it’s somewhere in the area of three to ten weeks. However, the feeling of hunger usually happens after just a few hours of not eating.

Our resident nutrition expert, Mary Hartley, R.D., recommends using the Hunger-Fullness scale to determine how hungry you are. The scale goes from one to ten, with one being extremely hungry and ten being extremely full. “It’s best to train yourself to eat at 2.5-3.0 and stop at 7.5-8.0, and then get hungry again in 4-5 hours.” (more…)

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Elizabeth

Exclusive Sneak Preview: Biggest Loser Kids Return to the Ranch with Let’s Move’s Sam Kass

The youngest members of The Biggest Loser family return to the ranch tomorrow night to catch us up on their progress, but to help teach the season 15 contestants how to cook healthy food that kids want to eat!

Watch this exclusive sneak peek only here at DietsInReview.com!

Sunny, Biingo, and Lindsay are such great examples of how a health-conscious life can benefit the individual and the family as a whole. In fact, since appearing on Biggest Loser last season, Biingo’s family has collectively lost more than 200 pounds! These teens look better than ever, and it’s clear they feel good, too! (more…)

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Natalie K

Miranda Lambert Debuts Her Sexy Slim-Down at CMA Awards

It’s been less than a week since musician, Miranda Lambert, won the coveted Female Vocalist of the Year title for the fourth straight time, and people are still talking about her new slimmed-down appearance at the 47th Annual Country Music Awards.

Even before she donned a figure-hugging black skirt and leather vest for her rocking live duet of “We Were Us” with Keith Urban, Miranda rocked the red carpet in a sleek cobalt blue gown with cinched waist and tasteful decolletage.

When backstage reporters asked about her weight loss, the feisty singer said the catalyst was simply the desire to age gracefully, and take better care of herself.

“I just feel like I needed to get ahead of the game,” she explained. “I’m going to be 30 on Sunday and people say, are you OK about turning 30 and I guess I am, but I guess I’m not because I feel like everybody always says ‘It goes downhill from there.’ So I just thought, maybe if I get ahead of it a little I won’t have to work so hard later in life.”

(more…)

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Dani Stone

Join ABC’s Tweet-a-thon for Feeding America and Fight Hunger this Holiday Season

On Tuesday, November 19, use your tweets for more than just a way to share your daily witticisms. On that day from 1-2 p.m., ET, ABC is holding a Tweet-a-thon to benefit Feeding America. Dr. Richard Besser, ABC’s chief medical editor, hosts the event where the network will donate $1.00 to Feeding America, up to $10,000, for every tweet that goes out during the hour-long ABC Health Tweet chat. By simply joining the conversation and using the hashtag #abcDRBchat, you can help fight hunger in America.

Feeding America is an organization committed to hunger relief in our country. According to their website, the national food insecurity rate is 19.5 percent. That means almost 20 percent of people don’t have consistent access to adequate food. For children the statistic is even worse. Nearly 30 percent of kids are hungry or are facing the risk of hunger.

A network of food banks is Feeding America’s primary tool in the fight to end hunger. Every state, in addition to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, has at least one food bank that is a part of that network. In addition to food banks, Feeding America coordinates volunteers, enables activists against hunger, and directs those who are hungry to the resources they need including the food banks and assistance programs. (more…)

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Elizabeth

Food Blogger Spotlight: Liesl from Lieslicious

At Diets In Review, one of my responsibilities is to seek out food bloggers who are interesting, have a great voice and create healthy recipes. This week, Liesl Maggiore from Lieslicious, made my job easy.

Lieslicious is not cluttered or fussy. The header is a close-up picture of a paper towel, for heaven’s sake, but once you dig in, you realize that Liesl approached her website creation the same way she approaches food – clean, simplistic and lovely.

We asked this wife, mama, animal-enthusiast and self-described, “booty-shaker,” a few questions about her blog, and she was kind enough to share.

Why did you start your food blog? Working as a food stylist, I have been exposed to amazing recipes and surrounded by inspiring, creative people for years. I guess they rubbed off on me and I realized I have my own stories to tell through food. I wanted to share the foods I was making every night in my own home, and hopefully inspire other families to get cooking!

(more…)

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Dani Stone

David Diaz Shed 100 Pounds in 6 Months by Being Accountable

When David Diaz was a child, a debilitating asthma attack sidelined him from strenuous activity for a brief period. Once the asthma was controlled, he was reluctant to resume his normal level of play, fearing another attack. This downward spiral of fitness, combined with a reliance on sugary soft drinks and fast food, only compounded his weight gain. Though it’s taken David many years to learn how to eat well and take care of himself, now he’s committed, accountable and has 100 fewer pounds on his frame to show for it.

After a modicum of weight loss success in college, David soon fell back into old patterns. “It wasn’t long before I treated food the way some people treat cigarettes or alcohol, namely as a way to feel better,” he admitted. “From there I just got worse and ballooned to my maximum weight of 280.”

During this time, David felt so uncomfortable in his own skin that he rarely allowed himself to be photographed. When he saw a photo that had been taken without his knowledge, he was dumbfounded. ” To them it was just a photo of me, but to actually see myself in that way, my gut as wide as it was, my face all puffy; I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to get that fat.” That was the turning point.

(more…)

Posted on November 9, 2024 by Dani Stone

Dietitians Speak Out in Support of the Trans Fat Ban Proposed by the FDA

The FDA is finally stepping up to remove trans fat from a list of chemicals known as GRAS – or generally recognized as safe. This morning, the Food and Drug Administration opened up a 60-day public call for comments, scientific data, and other information they can use to help guide their decision to issue an all-out ban on trans fat, also known as partially hydrogenated oil.

“Based on new scientific evidence and the findings of expert scientific panels, the [FDA] has tentatively determined that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), which are the primary dietary source of industrially-produced trans fatty acids, or trans fat, are not generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for any use in food based on current scientific evidence establishing the health risks associated with the consumption of trans fat, and therefore that PHOs are food additives,” says the formal announcement made by the agency.

If this is finalized, the FDA says “food manufacturers would no longer be permitted to sell PHOs.”

That’s news that has the dietetic community happy as heart-healthy clams. We reached out to several thought leaders from the dietetic community to hear their reactions to the trans fat ban news first.

Those foods are suspect, not only because of the link between trans fats and cardiovascular disease, but because of wide-reaching inflammation from a host of artificial products. This could give people a reminder to eat real food. — Mary Hartley, RD, our resident nutrition expert and a NYC-based dietitian (more…)

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Natalie K

Ruben Studdard – 104 Pounds Lighter Since Biggest Loser Elimination

Ruben Studdard, the first celebrity to join The Biggest Loser cast, is now the newest eliminated member, and first person to leave Dolvett’s red team. As one of the heaviest men on the show this season, fans were shocked to see his dismal 5-pound weight loss this week, which quickly sent him under the dreaded yellow line.

Today, we interviewed the laid-back American Idol winner, who announced that he’s now 104 pounds lighter.

The Biggest Loser fan favorite may have only been on the ranch for four short weeks but he’s completely comfortable with the progress he made while he was there. “Look, even though I only lost 5 pounds that week, I worked with my team doing everything we were supposed to do,” he explained. “Before coming on the show I had watched a few seasons and I know certain bodies just respond differently.”

(more…)

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Dani Stone

Trans Fat Gets Fried: FDA Moves for Total Ban on Trans Fat

Fried

The FDA has announced that partially hydrogenated oil—aka trans fat—has been deemed unsafe for use in our food, and proposes it be banned completely.

Our resident nutrition expert, Mary Hartley, RD said “Good riddance to those greasy foods! Canned frosting? Stick margarine? Fake frozen treats? Gross. Those foods are suspect, not only because of the link between trans fats and cardiovascular disease, but because of wide-reaching inflammation from a host of artificial products. This could give people a reminder to eat real food.”

Artificial trans fat—an artery clogging substance responsible for the rise of heart disease in America—is created when big food manufacturers create solid fats from liquid oils.

For the next 60 days, the general public is encouraged to comment on the proposal, and food manufacturers will have the tough task of finding scientific evidence proving trans fat is safe for use in our food. (more…)

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Patrick

Diet and Nutrition

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