General Nutrition

You already know that fruits and vegetables are good for you - but did you know they might also be good for avoiding extra weight as you age? A new study analyzing data on 133,468 men and women over up to 24 years reports that eating more fruits and non-starchy vegetables is associated with modest weight loss.

A new USDA report concludes that following the dietary guidelines need not cost consumers more, but many Americans would need to re-allocate their food budgets. The analysis identified six changes that could improve consumers diet quality - none costing more and most actually saving money.

Honey enjoys what marketers call a "health halo" - consumers tend to view products containing honey as healthier than those sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Thats why Kellogg's renamed its Sugar Smacks cereal as "Honey Smacks" and so many other products have "honey" in the name or featured prominently on the package.

If you're planning to join the holiday travel crush - or already looking ahead to 2016 vacations - there's good news about your eating options en route. "I actually think that airport choices are beginning to improve a bit, both in terms of take-out and sit-down options," says Jeanne Goldberg, PhD, professor at Tufts' Friedman School and director of the Nutrition Communication Program. "The onus is to choose among the better options."

Following concerns about antibiotics in meat and poultry, the next target in efforts to avoid drugs at the meat counter may be "beta-agonists." The drugs are used to add muscle weight to animals in the weeks before slaughter.

Two of the nations leading nutrition experts have some advice for the federal government: Stop worrying about total fat. Nutrition research has shown that the emphasis on restricting total fat intake is outdated, yet these limits affect everything from Nutrition Facts labels to school lunches to supermarket products. In recent opinion pieces in JAMA and the New York Times, Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, and David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, argue, Its long past time for us to exonerate dietary fat.

Most of the soaring popularity of protein in US supermarkets can be dismissed as marketing hype. Although a new report from Packaged Facts says protein is currently the hottest functional food ingredient trend in the US, the truth is that most Americans get plenty of protein without any special dietary boosts.

What exactly is protein? Some experts say its best to think of protein as a combination of up to 20 individual nutrients called amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins and play various key roles in human metabolism.

A 2014 USDA report found that 31%-133 billion pounds-of the nations available food supply went uneaten, with two-thirds of food waste at the consumer level. If the holidays make you think that a big portion of that uneaten food is lurking among the containers of leftovers in your refrigerator, maybe its time to make some changes to benefit the planet and your grocery budget.

Americans are spending $10.5 billion a year on products labeled gluten-free, but only about one-third of consumers can correctly identify what gluten is. A telephone survey of 1,012 US adults conducted for NSF International found plenty of confusion about gluten, a protein found in grains including wheat, barley and rye that patients with celiac disease must avoid. Just over a quarter (26%) mistakenly said they think products that are wheat-free are necessarily also gluten-free; 15% defined gluten as simply wheat. On the other hand, 47% erroneously said rice contains gluten and 34% said potatoes do. Asked reasons for avoiding gluten, 19% said they suffer from gluten allergy or sensitivity, 12% said going gluten-free makes them feel healthier, and 9% self-identified as having celiac disease (an autoimmune disorder that scientists say affects only about 0.75% of the population).