Tag Archives: healthy foods

Soylent: The Anti-Food of the Future. Or Is It?

How would you feel about giving up food? Not for a fast, not for a cleanse, but giving up food completely and instead consuming pure nutrients in a daily “smoothie.”

eating together

That’s the idea Rob Rhinehart and his team stumbled upon when they were working on a technology startup at the end of 2024. Funds had run low, and they realized food costs were draining what little funds they had left.

He added he tried cheap food options, but they weren’t what he needed. So he decided to approach food like he would any other engineering problem.

“You need amino acids and lipids, not milk itself,” he said in an interview with the New Yorker. “You need carbohydrates, not bread. Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, but they’re mostly water.”

“It just seemed like a system that’s too complex and too expensive and too fragile.”

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10 Food Trends Proving Health is a Major Factor in 2024

Food in 2024 is taking a turn for the healthy; and we think it’s about time. Though the shift started in 2024 when 58 percent of surveyed consumers said they thought a lot about the healthfulness of their foods and beverages, it’s predicted consumers will become even more focused on health throughout this year.

healthy food shopping

We try our best to predict the food trends for the upcoming year, and we successfully predicted health being a major factor in food for 2024. Now that we’re a quarter of the way into the year, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and Dr. Elizabeth Sloan—a food trend guru—have decided it’s time for some of those predictions to turn into actual trends. Here, a list of what to expect (and most likely, what you’re already experiencing):

Getting Real Food
The majority of consumers check the ingredient list for ingredients they recognize. They also specifically look for foods made with simple, real, and natural ingredients.

Specialties Aren’t So Special
Specialized diets are becoming mainstream, and consumers who once relied on nutritional supplements are now turning to fortified foods instead. According to IFT research, most adults are making a strong effort to take in more nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

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Something to Chew On: Food Texture Can Make You Overeat

Just like people prefer certain tastes over others, we all tend to have texture preferences when it comes to food. Take for example the chocolate chip cookie. Some will insist the best cookies are thin and crisp, while others will argue soft and chewy is the way to go.

food texture

Texture can influence a lot more than food preference. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research revealed texture can also affect how people perceive the number of calories in food.

Study authors Dipayan Biswas, Courtney Szocs (both of University of South Florida), Aradhna Krishmna (University of Michigan), and Donald R. Lehmann (Columbia University) wrote, “We studied the link between how a food feels in your mouth and the amount we eat, the types of food we choose, and how many calories we think we are consuming.”

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5 Foods Guaranteed to Give You an Energy Boost and Help You Through the Time Change

I’ve definitely got a bone to pick with whoever decided to trade off more daylight hours for one less hour of sleep. Though spring and summer are my favorite seasons, and that lost hour means they’re on the way, I still find myself dragging when Daylight Saving Time rolls around.

daylight saving time

The annual spring forward officially happens at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, which means most of us will be changing our clocks Saturday night before we go to bed, knowing we’ll be getting one less hour of sleep.

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The Daily Table Wants to Sell You Old and Ugly Food

Would you buy expired or ugly food? That’s the question being posed by the former president of Trader Joe’s, Doug Rauch.

imperfect vegetables

The food in his new store wouldn’t actually be expired, but instead would be food that is past its “sell-by” date, making it unusable for sale in traditional grocery stores.

His store, The Daily Table, is set to open in Dorchester, Massachusetts in May and will be part grocery store and part cafe. It will specialize in making healthy, inexpensive food available to those who might not otherwise have access.

“When I run down to meetings in the city in Boston,” Rauch told Salon. “I’d say most families know that their kids need to eat better. Most families know that they’re not giving their kids the nutrition they need. But they just can’t afford it, they don’t have an option.”

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Why Do (or Don’t) We Eat Healthy Food?

The minds behind Sullivan Higdon & Sink’s (SHS) FoodThink are at it again, and this time they’re taking a good look at the how and why of eating healthy. Their new white paper, “Our Appetite for Healthy Eating,” covers everything from attitudes about healthy foods to our attempts to eat right.

healthy choices

According to research conducted by SHS, 61 percent of Americans make the commitment to eat healthy. Of course, there’s a lot of variation in that claim.

From “Our Appetite for Healthy Eating”: Organic shoppers, for instance, are 31-percent more likely to say they’re committed to healthy eating. On the other hand, those who believe their cooking skills to be sub-par are 13-percent less likely to say they’re committed to healthy eating.

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Where Should You Go for the Best Diet? Not the United States

If you wanted to find the most nutritious, most diverse diet, where should you go? According to a new ranking from advocacy group Oxfam, you should be traveling to the Netherlands.

fresh produce

Oxfam ranked 125 countries of the world on their citizens’ access to fresh produce, nutritious proteins, and clean water. The anti-poverty nonprofit also looked at whether or not those options were affordable when compared to less healthy options.

“Basically, if you arrive from Mars and design a food system, you couldn’t design a worse one than what we have today on Earth,” Max Lawson of Oxfam told The Salt in an interview. “There is enough food overall in the world to feed everyone. But 900 million people still don’t have enough to eat, and 1 billion people are obese. It’s a crazy situation.”

When compiling the rankings, Lawson and his team found that rich countries have the advantage, since a country’s score depends on food availability. For example, all of the top eight countries is European except for one – France, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg, and Australia.

The countries that rank the worst are places that are often noted for poverty and hunger – Yemen, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Angola, and Chad.

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Supersize Your Salad: How Better Value May Lead to Better Health

Supersizing—though the official term, created by McDonald’s in the 1990s, has disappeared from fast food places, the concept never really left. Consumers will still purchase, and generally eat more food if they feel like they are getting a better deal.

grocery shopping

“We know the health implications of a giant latte or supersized fries, so a little justification through feeling financially savvy and saving money makes us feel better about our decision and increases consumption,” said Kelly L. Haws, a marketing researcher Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt University.

Haws is part of a research team that recently found consumers aren’t just looking for deals on unhealthy fast food meals. In fact, Haws and co-author Karen Winterich found that the supersizing effect works just as well on healthier food choices.

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ThinkFood Provides Recipes for Brain Health

Most fitness efforts are focused on what happens below the head. However, as important as it is to keep your body healthy and fit, your brain deserves some attention, too. The brain plays some role in every function of your day-to-day life, from sleeping to exercising to thinking and feeling. Like other body parts, it too loses agility as you age. To help slow this agility loss and keep the brain healthier, the AARP has released a new cookbook, ThinkFood: Recipes for Brain Fitness.

mixed nuts

The cookbook features a variety of recipes enhanced with ingredients science and research suggest help keep the brain healthy. “Too often, when we think about staying fit, we generally think from the neck down,” said Jodi Lipson, director of AARP’s Book Division in a release. “ThinkFood recognizes the importance of our brain and its need for care and maintenance. This book provides readers of all ages with fun and tasty ways to lead healthier lifestyles.” Recipes in the book are the creations of a partnership between 50 popular food bloggers and Posit Science. Posit Science is a leader in providing brain fitness exercises and education.

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New Rules Will Remove Junk Foods from Schools by July 2024

The days of going through the lunch line at school and picking every greasy, cheesy, fatty option are soon coming to an end. The Department of Agriculture has outlined new regulations for the kinds of foods that can be sold to kids at school. For the first time, the government is tackling the content of “a la carte” lines, vending machines, snack bars and other sources of food regularly available on school campuses. According to Registered Dietitian Mary Hartley, “the policy would increase student exposure to healthier foods and decrease exposure to less healthy foods.”

kids eating lunch

Previously unregulated, the “a la carte” lines and similar non- standard lunch line options provided kids access to foods like nachos, pizza, chocolate sandwich cookies, and other unhealthy treats. Now under the new guidelines those foods will be replaced with more healthful options like granola bars and yogurt. The new regulations also outline a difference in the beverages that can be sold in schools. Elementary and middle schools will only sell water, carbonated water, low fat and fat-free milk and 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices. Sodas and sports drinks that contain 60 calories or less will be made available in high schools. Though the changes don’t have to be in effect until July 1, 2024, several schools will start implementing them in the upcoming school year. It has been found that schools with this type of reform already in place have seen little to loss of revenue from food sales.

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Cost of Eating Healthy Should not Cost You Your Health

As the economic times seem to get leaner, it’s getting more difficult to afford the groceries we need to keep up with the nutritional guidelines. Whether the cost of food has gone up or the income of the average American has dropped, shopping for optimal health isn’t as simple as it once was. There are options and ways to avoid throwing in the towel in the battle for better health.

The numbers were crunched and the cost of meeting the recommended daily requirements of “My Plate,” the new U.S. nutritional guideline, will cost an extra $7.28 a week. This dollar amount is factoring in that “My Plate” calls for more consumption of potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D, and calcium rich foods.

Most of these nutrients can be obtained from healthy foods that tend to cost more at the grocery store. Let us help with some easy cost-cutting suggestions that do not cut the quality of your food.

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