Healthy Eating

Q. Are dried fruits as nutritious as fresh, canned or frozen?

Celery, and several other common vegetables (for example, beets, arugula lettuce) naturally contain high levels of sodium nitrate. Processed meats usually have sodium nitrate added to them to help cure the meat, and there is a theory going back some decades that it is the sodium nitrate in processed meats that conveys an increased risk of cancer (this concept remains a theory, and has never been proven).

Ah summer…time to relax on the porch with a cool beverage. But after reading the Special Report in this newsletter, you are certainly aware that sodas and prepared ice tea drinks are loaded with sugar and calories. To help you to kick the soda and sugar habit, here are some refreshing low-calorie drink recipes. They have all been designed to taste good with very little or no added sweetener. Cheers!

Somewhere, Julia Child is smiling. A new review published in Annals of Internal Medicine has given ammunition to those, like the famous French chef, fond of cooking with butter and other sources of saturated fat. The meta-analysis looked at 27 prior clinical trials and 49 observational studies, totaling more than 600,000 participants. It concluded that current evidence does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.

Among the many pleasures of summer is the return of fresh, wild-caught salmon to local supermarkets. In general, wild salmon are in season from May through September, depending on species. Richly flavored and easy to prepare in a variety of ways (see recipe on the next page), its no wonder salmon is Americas third most-consumed seafood, behind only shrimp and tuna, at about two pounds per person annually.

Participants in a recently announced nationwide study wont get to eat chocolate candy in the name of science, but they will be testing the cocoa flavanols thought to give dark chocolate heart-healthy properties. The four-year study will give participants either a placebo or flavorless capsules containing doses of cocoa flavanols higher than could be easily obtained by eating chocolate. It will be by far the largest trial of the chocolate compounds, which previous findings have…

Q. I keep seeing advertisements for multivitamins that say I need antioxidants to promote cell health. What does this mean?

When the US Food and Drug Administration began requiring trans fat amounts to be listed on Nutrition Facts labels in 2006, it left what some regard as a loophole: Products containing trans fat with less than 0.5 grams per serving could nonetheless be labeled 0 g trans fat. Crunching the numbers on a database of 130,000 branded and private-label food products, however, revealed that concerns about heart-unhealthy trans fat lurking under that 0 grams label…

A slew of lawsuits-58 in 2013 alone-hasnt persuaded the food industry to jump off the natural-labeling bandwagon. Some experts had predicted that fear of legal action over the vague definition of natural might deter companies from using the term, which has been challenged in products using genetically modified (GMO) ingredients or high-fructose corn syrup, for example. But Mintel, which tracks global product launches, reports that 14% of new food products introduced in the US last…

If youre taking extra vitamin D or calcium to protect your bones, theres good news about these bone-building nutrients and your cholesterol levels. According to a new analysis of data from the Womens Health Initiative (WHI), supplements of vitamin D and calcium might modestly improve your cholesterol numbers. Previous studies of calcium and cholesterol had produced inconsistent results, while little was known about vitamin Ds effects.