Tag Archives: 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans

10 of the Worst Restaurant Foods in the U.S.

By Melissa Breyer for Care2.com

What the fudge is wrong with us? As obesity, diabetes and heart disease are plaguing the country in lethal proportions, restaurants are chirpily churning out caloric combinations of sodium and saturated fat that would make Henry VIII blush. Things are getting so raucous around here that a new study found that gout, yes gout, has increased by 44 percent in the last two decades, courtesy of the obesity epidemic and related health problems (diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol).

Restaurants create and tempt the masses with flashy dishes caloric enough to feed a small family, while the USDA, earnest as a shy sister, issues dietary guidelines which pretty much fall on deaf ears. Although recommended calorie intake varies by person, the range is from 1,600 to 2,400 calories per day for adult women and 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day for adult men, depending on age and physical activity level.

As for sodium intake, another daunting piece of the puzzle, the 2024 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 mg a day—or 1,500 mg if you’re age 51 or older, or if you are black, or if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.

So with those nuggets in mind, how do these ten contenders for worst foods in America stack up against what is recommended for maintaining nutritional health? Let’s see…. (more…)

Posted on August 8, 2024 by GuestBlogger

Huge Meta-Analysis Shows No Link Between Saturated Fat and Cardiovascular Disease

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.

Saturated fat was recently in the news at the Institute of Food Technologists expo when experts revealed, again, that the link between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease is inconclusive. Both the public and professionals are now confused, since diets low in fat, particularly saturated fat, have been the mainstay of scientific consensus for more than 30 years. Saturated fat, a solid fat mainly found in animal foods, includes cheese, whole milk, butter, and fatty cuts of meat. It, together with liquid poly- and mono-unsaturated fats from nuts, seeds, grains and fish, make up all naturally-occurring dietary fat.

Back in the 1970s, the American Heart Association and other authorities said to reduce all fat to 30 percent of total calories and saturated fat to 10 percent or less. The recommendation was drawn from epidemiologic studies that compared the diets among different countries, in particular, the Seven Countries Study. Those studies showed a correlation between total fat intake and rates of heart disease. That, along with the National Diet-Heart Study of the 1960s, form the basis of the message that reduction in saturated fat lowers blood cholesterol and risk of heart disease.

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Posted on July 16, 2024 by GuestBlogger

5 Balanced Dinner Menus to Fill Your MyPlate Icon

With the recent announcement that the food pyramid will be replaced by the new MyPlate icon, Americans are more aware than ever that it’s time to start eating their vegetables.

While the plate icon offers a visual, user-friendly guide to help people make better food choices, some of the 2024 Dietary Guidelines, like eating more fish, beans and whole grains, are not addressed.

Before you start cooking dinners based on MyPlate, keep the size of your plate in mind and check your portion sizes. According to the Mayo Clinic, reasonable portion sizes include:

  • One serving of protein should be three to six ounces (three for women, six for men) and about the size of a deck of playing cards.
  • One serving of whole grains should be the equivalent of one slice of bread, 1/3 cup brown rice or 1/2 cup whole-wheat pasta.
  • One serving of dairy is equivalent to an 8 ounce glass of milk or 1 ounce cheese (about the size of four dice).
  • One serving of fruit and vegetables should be approximately 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw.

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Posted on June 14, 2024 by Maris

Healthiest Menu Choices at Papa Murphy’s

I’m not a fast-food connoisseur by any means, but I love to indulge in the occasional slice of pizza. When I don’t have time to make my own pizza at home, one of my favorite things to do is call in an order to Papa Murphy’s and, as their slogan goes, “take and bake!” For me, the ingredients just seem fresher, and they have more topping options for a veggie-lover like me than other pizza chains do. Plus, it’s fun to cook it at home.

But, really, how healthy is the food at Papa Murphy’s? Do the meals meet our registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield’s healthy guidelines of having less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium, according to the the new daily sodium recommendations? We looked at the menu, and found the healthiest options based on that criteria. Below are the results!

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Posted on April 8, 2024 by Jennipher

Healthiest Menu Choices at Quiznos

With a variety of subs, soups and salads, Quiznos seems like a pretty healthy place to eat at for lunch or dinner, but because sometimes things that look healthy aren’t really that good for our waistlines, we decided to take a deeper look at the menu.

Below are meals that met our registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield’s healthy guidelines of having less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium, according to the the new daily sodium recommendations. Thankfully, there are quite a few options!

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Posted on April 1, 2024 by Jennipher

Healthiest Menu Choices at Carl’s Jr.

Carl’s Jr. isn’t exactly known for their healthy options. In fact, they may be best known for their unhealthy burger creations. However, because life gives you no other option than eating in unhealthy establishments from time to time (think driving cross-country or it being your boss’s favorite burger joint), we wanted to see if we could find at least a few options that could be considered healthy.

The below meal options all meet the requirements of our registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield who says that meals should have less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium, according to the the new daily sodium recommendations. As you can see, it’s slim pickings.

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Posted on March 31, 2024 by Jennipher

5 Surprisingly High Sodium Foods

When you hear high sodium food, you usually think salty snacks: pretzels, chips, crackers and the like. You may be surprised, however, that some of the highest sodium foods aren’t salty tasting at all.

We all should be cutting down on our sodium intake, as recommended by the 2024 American Dietary Guidelines, so head to your pantry and see if any of these sneaky sodium-packed foods have found there way into your kitchen.

Breakfast cereals are notorious for not only being packed full of sugar, but sodium as well. Cereals “are more concentrated in salt than 50 to 60 percent of the items in the salty snack aisle,” says Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale’s Prevention Research Center.

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Posted on March 31, 2024 by Kelly

The More Active You Are, the Less Salt Affects Your Body

With many of us trying to keep our salt intake down (especially after these new, more restrictive, sodium guidelines were released), it’s always nice to hear that there are delicious ways to season our food without adding sodium. Now, new research shows there’s something you can do outside of the kitchen to keep sodium low: Exercise!

Scientists at the recent American Heart Association’s Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2024 Scientific Sessions found that the more physically active you are, the less your blood pressure rises in response to a high-salt diet. Talk about good news for those who work out, and fantastic motivation for those just thinking of starting a workout plan, right?

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Posted on March 27, 2024 by Jennipher

Healthiest Menu Choices at Starbucks

We’ve already showcased some of the worst drinks at Starbucks, so today we thought that we’d take a look at the rest of the Starbucks’ menu — the food. About a year and a half ago, this popular coffee-shop chain added more waist-friendly and nutritious options than just scones and muffins to go along with those lattes.

While the food item offerings are healthier in that they don’t include high fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients, we wondered how they would stack up to the recommendations of our registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield who says that meals should have less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium, according to the the new daily sodium recommendations. So, we took a look!

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Posted on March 21, 2024 by Jennipher

Healthiest Menu Choices at Arby’s

We’ve been doing these fast-food healthiest meal listings based on our registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield’s healthy guidelines of having less than 500 calories and less than 500 milligrams of sodium per meal, according to the the new daily sodium recommendations. And, generally, we’ve been able to find a few options at all of the fast-food chains thus far. Today is a challenge though. We’re looking at Arby’s, and while there are a number of options that fit the calorie requirement, the sodium is just ridiculous. Having just a sandwich or a salad will put you at more than half of what you’re supposed to get in a day. For real. So with some creativity (because we really can’t tell you to eat a Jr. Shake for lunch just because it’s low in salt), we’ve come up with the following healthiest items.

Healthiest Meals at Arby’s

1. Half of a Roast Chicken Sandwich with Half of a Chopped Side Salad. This protein-filled pairing has 270 calories and 485 milligrams of sodium. Told you we had to get creative!

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Posted on March 18, 2024 by Jennipher

Sargento Joins Forces with Culinary Expert to Help Americans Make More Nutritious Choices

Packaged foods often get a bad rap for contributing to problems in America like obesity and heart disease. While this is sometimes true, other brands are working to improve nutrition in the country. Sargento Foods, Inc., in partnership with culinary expert and registered dietitian, Michelle Dudash, is making it easier for Americans to incorporate healthier – yet tasty – options in their diets.

With the recent release of the 2024 Dietary Guidelines for Americans by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, there is a greater call for people to choose nutrient-dense foods that are lower in sodium and saturated fat. And Sargento Reduced Sodium and Reduced Fat natural cheeses are just that.

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Posted on March 14, 2024 by Maris