Healthy Eating

By their own report, Americans ate less healthfully last year than any time since 2008. A daily poll by Gallup and Healthways, totaling more than 150,000 adults over a years polling, asks whether respondents ate healthfully the previous day.

Heres a new reason for watching your waistline and keeping active thats worth listening to: Extra weight and greater waist circumference are linked to a higher risk of hearing loss with aging, while moderate physical activity is associated with reduced risk.

Frozen produce is just as nutritious as fresh-and superior in vitamin and mineral content to fresh produce stored in the refrigerator for a few days.

After one of the most comprehensive risk assessments of aspartame ever undertaken, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded the artificial sweetener is safe at recommended levels of consumption.

Dating back millennia, fermented foods are among humanity's oldest attempts to preserve food. But today these foods are newly popular for their purported health benefits. Fermented foods, ranging from sauerkraut to yogurt, are increasingly being seen as a boon to the gut - and in turn to benefits not only for digestive health but possibly also for allergies and even weight loss.

A. Sugar is sugar is sugar, cautions Diane L. McKay, PhD, an assistant professor at Tufts Friedman School about making such a switch. Per tablespoon, granulated (table) sugar has no vitamins or minerals, and honey has slightly higher, but still negligible amounts, while the same amount of maple syrup actually has about 15% of the Daily Value (DV) for riboflavin and 30% of the DV for manganese. Honey and maple syrup also contain several different…

A. Alice H. Lichtenstein, director of Tufts HNRCA Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, answers: To my knowledge Italians have been using olive oil for centuries in cooking. There is no reason why it could not be used for cooking. Theoretically, olive oil would be more stable than a more unsaturated oil.…

Q. We have been hearing about the benefits of lycopene. Is it true that red and yellow tomatoes have different types of lycopene, and that the type in yellow tomatoes is more easily absorbed by the human body?…

Spring sunshine invites you to linger over a weekend breakfast. Here is a nutritious and delicious update on a pancake recipe, which doubles as a waffle recipe. It can even be made gluten-free (see Tip). Sweet potatoes contribute sweetness and a rich flavor, as well as valuable nutrients and fiber, to a basic pancake batter. Any time you turn on the oven to bake sweet potatoes, bake a few extra to spruce up your breakfast pancakes

Cooking fish and vegetables together in a foil packet on the grill is an excellent technique for healthy outdoor cooking. Because the food is cooked by the steam, which develops in the packet, you dont have to be concerned about potentially harmful carcinogens and Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs; see March, 2010 issue of the Newsletter) that form when food is charred on a grill. Whats more, this cooking method delivers lots of flavor with a minimum of fat, and cleanup is a breeze. It is also a great way to incorporate colorful vegetables into your entre. In this months recipe, a savory Asian glaze enhances richly-flavored salmon. Round out this simple meal with brown rice or quinoa.