With the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) slowly but surely clamping down on herbal medicine, before long our access to these traditional remedies — which have been used successfully to prevent and treat a wide range of ailments for centuries — will be completely blocked.

In April 2011, when the EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) is fully implemented by the EFSA, thousands of products distributed by specialist herbal suppliers will become increasingly difficult, if not illegal, to sell.
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Our daughter just finished the first week of her sophomore year in college. She tries to eat a relatively low-carb diet, but finds that it’s pretty challenging, as everywhere she looks there are bagels, muffins, pizza, and sweets. To make matters worse, her college, in its efforts to provide “healthy” fare, have a lot of low-fat and fat-free offerings in the cafeteria, and as we all know, low-fat pretty much equals high-carb. There’s sugar in the salad dressing instead of oil, more starch and less fat in the cafeteria line, and less satisfying meals so that students are reaching for that bag of chips a couple of hours later.

One way to avoid the “Freshman 15″ (which is not limited to freshman!) is to learn some strategies for avoiding the College Carb Trap. Check out my Low Carb College Guide for lots of tips.

Photo of College Salad Bar: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Related Resources:

About.com Low Carb Diets

It’s time to raise the bar and lower the GI cut-offs for fast foods and convenience meals

The GI was introduced back in 1981 to rate the glycemic character of the carbohydrate in individual foods like bread, breakfast cereal, rice, pasta, apples etc. The purpose was to exchange one carbohydrate source with another for snacks and in your meals (e.g. replacing a high GI breakfast cereal like corn flakes with a low one like natural muesli). The decision behind the cut-offs for high GI (70 or higher) and low GI (55 or lower) foods at that time was based on the scatter of GI values among single foods that had been GI tested.

We are often asked about mixed meals including fast foods and convenience meals and the effect of extra protein and fat in the food on GI and blood glucose response. Eaten alone, protein and fat have little effect on blood glucose levels, but that’s not to say they don’t affect your blood glucose response when they are combined with a carb-rich food. Protein will stimulate additional insulin secretion, resulting in lower blood glucose levels. Protein and fat both tend to delay stomach emptying, thereby slowing the rate at which carbohydrate can be digested and absorbed. So a high fat meal will have a lower glycemic effect than a low fat meal even if they both contain the same amount and type of carbohydrate.

Because SUGiRS (Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service) is being asked to test an increasing number of fast foods and convenience meals, we think is that it’s high time to review the cut-offs for mixed meals. When it comes to defining a low GI meal such as a pizza (crust + toppings) or hamburger (bun + pattie + mayo + ketchup + salad + pickle), we should be looking at a figure of around 45 or less so that the GI value reflects the effect of the fat and protein in the meal.

We suggest the 45 or lower would be the appropriate new cut-off for a low GI fast food or convenience meal. Why 45? Well, we now know from numerous observational cohort studies around the world that the daily average GI of the diet of people in the lowest quintile (20% of the population) is about 40–50. Similarly, in a meta-analysis published in Diabetes Care of 15 experimental studies investigating the role of low GI diets in managing diabetes, the daily average GI was 45. Since this average GI has been proven to have significant health benefits in people with existing diabetes and in reducing the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, and importantly, people can and do achieve it in real life, we believe a GI of 45 or less is what we all need to be aiming for in mixed meals like burgers or pizzas or toasted sandwiches or filled subway-style rolls and in our overall diet.

Here are the new cut-offs we are suggesting for fast foods and convenience meals:

• Low GI 45 and under
• Medium GI 46–59
• High GI 60 and over

Based on some of the fast foods we have already tested, here’s how it looks:

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Diabetic Foods to Avoid If You Are a Diabetic

Diabetes is a disease spreading invariably in all countries and it is identified as one of the most prevalent and dreadful diseases. It is an epidemic which is dangerous and indeed life threatening. The number of sufferers is shooting up because of having no proper knowledge about the ways and means to control blood sugar. What you are eating and the intake quantity are more important than any other factors. Primarily, the diabetics feel to raise a question kindled by anxiety. What is the safest list of foods to avoid for diabetes? This is a reasonable question because by knowing the foods that one should keep off from eating is contributing to health by fighting diabetes. Here is the need for consulting the physician to get prescription for medication and the list of diabetic foods to avoid.

It is not wise that the diabetic himself or with the friendly advice of the neighbors, the bad diabetic foods are listed without proper knowledge about the body type of the patient and other risk factors of diabetes. Though the onset of diabetes can show some symptoms, There are many factors to answer the question of how such a disorder occurred. A registered physician, before fixing the bad foods for diabetics to avoid, diagnoses the actual condition and the type of diabetes that has occurred with the patient. Also, he supplements the list with right foods a diabetic can eat in a measured quantity to reduce blood sugar successfully. A well experienced medical practitioner formulates an effective low carb diet plan for diabetics.

Availing the service of a good dietician can help the patients to know the right choice of diabetic foods to eat and diabetic diet foods to avoid with reference to their individual body type. A right formulation of diabetic diet chart will help the individual to control blood glucose levels and recover to normal health. There are a host of food items that the diabetics should avoid so as to keep a check on their ailment. The diabetic patients should keep off the food items containing high carbohydrates and cellulose components which are found rich in potatoes and white rice. Consuming food items containing high volume of sugar and excessive alcohol shoots up the diabetes blood glucose levels giving serious results to diabetic patients. The food items which are rich in fat contents like fast food, salad dressings, packed food and non-skimmed milk products should be completely avoided by diabetics from consuming.

Along with the dietary changes which a diabetic should keep on with diabetic condition, it’s also insisted that aerobic exercise routine should compliment the diet plan. It will be helping the diabetic patients to get rid of the accumulated deposits which are harmful and hardening the situation. The accumulation of excess sugar can be controlled with medication and expert advice of a physician or a medical practitioner capable of suggesting exactly the diabetic foods to avoid in controlling diabetes. This is one proper workable solution for controlling diabetes naturally.

Diabetic Food from Diabetes Care Club. We offer information about Diabetic Food including Diabetes testing supplies take a step forward to Diabetes Self Management. Visit www.DiabetesCareClub.com today or call 800-840-7711 for more information about Diabetic Food. diabetes diet food nutrition…

Related Diabetes Food Articles

• Wanted! Low GI fast food choices
• Why it’s time to raise the bar and lower the GI cut-offs for fast foods
• Low carb or low fat for weight loss? The choice is yours if you can stick to it
• Masterchef. The other ‘big M’ and healthy home-cooked meals
• How nutrition health halos trick us into treating
• Will you have a statin with that?

‘If starting tomorrow at noon, we all went into Taco Bell and Burger King and ordered only salads, their menus would change faster than you can say Lite Italian’ writes Prof Brian Wansink in Mindless Eating. ‘Within a year, people would be able to eat a Taco Salad Bell any time they wanted to make a run for the border. Within another year there would be another Broccoli King … No food company is in the business to make us fat. They’re in the business to sell us food. If we want fattening food to mindlessly eat, companies will fix it. But they will also fix us healthy food we can mindfully eat if they can profitably do so.’

Vote with your feet. It’s up to us, not governments and self-appointed nutrition nannies. If we all demand healthy low GI fast food options, you can be sure the food companies will supply them. Our job is to make it profitable for them to do so. That means we have to order them and not the tempting high calorie, high fat, high GI alternatives. So here’s to great tasting baked ‘fries’ or wedges made with lower GI potatoes, lean meat burgers on really grainy low GI buns and curries and stir fries served with lower GI rices.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

Editor: Philippa Sandall

Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD

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Many people fail to rev up their exercise regimen before they leave for a ski vacation — and the sudden burst of activity on the slopes puts them at risk for heart attack, researchers say.

WebMD Health

I spent the weekend at a cabin in Mendocino County, California with a few friends. Some of you will remember Lori and Lisa’s cabin, I’ve written about it in the past. Hopefully I’ll have a few new pictures to share later in the week. I’m sure it’s no surprise, at the cabin we never go hungry (or thirsty, for that matter). Lori feeds us well, and the rest of us do our best to supplement her cooking by bringing a little something for lunch or snacks. This time around I made a late summer version of this buttermilk farro salad to share as part of lunch one day. I used corn, slow-roasted cherry tomatoes, and zucchini in place of the shaved fennel and radishes, but everything else was the same. And I baked a batch of bite-sized limoncello cookies to snack on during card games. I need a couple days to get my film processed and write up the cookie recipe for you, so I thought I’d post a favorites list here in the meantime. It has been a while.

So, in no particular order, here are a few things that have caught my attention or inspired me lately. As usual, it’s a bit of a mish-mash, but hopefully you’ll find something within the list that you find inspiring as well.

- Can’t wait to get my hands on this book. Tartine is walking distance from my house. And when I occasionally think about what life would be like living in another city, the lack of access to Tartine’s sesame bread comes to mind as a major deterrent.

- Love the detailing and color on these.

- Fantastic, inspiring Kickstarter / publishing case study.

- I’ve been going through some of my old film, cleaning up my office a bit, and found this photo of my mom and dad. This one’s pretty cool too. Both shot by my dad.

- Working people and their bentos, a book / photo series

- Cy Twombly, The Four Seasons

- Sophie Cuvelier’s Bobine Carree garland.

- A classic from 2008. Love this guy. But seriously, if you’re allergic to f-bombs, or if you could care less about design…give it a pass.

- Illinois Landscape, 1979-2006, Rhondal McKinney

- It has been well over a month, and I’m still thinking about this. Although, I was temporarily distracted this afternoon by this – bitter chocolate bread and black rum.

- The making of a shop: Prairie Collective. And it’s just up the street from me.

- A lovely leap of faith story.

- What Kate Ate

- This video podcast series: Etsy Handmade Portraits. I subscribe to it on Apple TV.

- Love the poster/promo for the Paul Ferney / Jordan Ferney Let Them Eat Cake show.

- A few of you have emailed me about favorite summer recipes. Here are a bunch of zucchini recipes. And a few past tomato recipes. More specifically, I still love this quinoa salad, this coleslaw, this sandwich, this summer squash gratin, this zucchini bread, this bean salad, and these green beans.

And there’s one last thing I wanted to mention today. Our 101 Cookbooks / Kiva Lending Team is within striking distance of $ 100,000. We’ve made $ 98,000 in micro loans over the past two years, 3425 loans(!) total. I have some ideas about how we might work on a larger scale with Kiva, in a more focused fashion, and I’m hoping to figure out how to pursue that in the future. But for now, for those of you who have been participating, thank you. Also, please have a quick glance at your account to see if you have repaid funds to re-allocate. I just looked, and realized I have $ 600+. For those of you new to this site, here is the original post I made when Kiva first enabled lending teams. That post is quite out of date at this point, but it will give you a bit of back history if you’re interested.

I’ll try to get that cookie recipe posted by Wednesday or Thursday. I don’t want to say too much about them yet, but I suspect they might even trump the chocolate puddle cookies for some of you.

Continue reading Favorites List (Summer 2010)…

101 Cookbooks

How To Delay Or Avoid Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease caused by the inability of the body to properly produce insulin, a hormone that helps the body convert food to energy. In type 1 diabetes the body does not produce insulin at all. This type of diabetes is usually diagnosed during childhood. In type 2 diabetes the body does not produce enough insulin or it produces insulin which is ineffective in regulating the body’s blood sugar levels. This type of diabetes is usually diagnosed later in life and is commonly called adult onset diabetes.

Diabetes is an important health concern because incidence of the disease worldwide is increasing. It is also associated with other health risks and is expensive to treat and control. Also, diabetes is a major cause of death worldwide.

The number of cases of diabetes is increasing around the world. The incidence of diabetes in 1995 numbered about 135 million worldwide, about 4.0% of the population. Diabetes affected 170 million people in 2000 and is projected to affect about 300 million people by 2025, about 5.4% of the population. India, China, and the United States have the largest number of cases.

In a recent year direct medical expenses in the United States for diabetes totaled billion, up from billion five years earlier, according to the American Diabetes Association. Another billion was spent on permanent disability expenses. Care for diabetes represents about 11% of the total health care expenditures in the United States. In 1997 annual health care costs for a person with diabetes averaged ,071 and increased to ,243 by 2002. That annual rate is more than 5 times greater than the average annual health care costs for a person without diabetes. Also diabetes accounted for an annual loss of about 88 million disability days.

The mortality rate for people with diabetes runs about 5.2% of all deaths according to the World Health Organization. In 2000 about 2.9 million deaths worldwide were caused by diabetes. In another 4.5 million deaths diabetes was a contributing factor.

The good news is that type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented from ever developing. Before people develop type 2 diabetes, they nearly always develop the condition known as “pre-diabetes.” This condition occurs when blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Studies have shown that people with a pre-diabetic condition can control the condition with lifestyle changes or with medicine. With reasonable treatment they can greatly increase their chances that they will never develop diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association created a publication called, “The Prevention or Delay of Type 2 Diabetes.” The following are some of the findings and recommendations from the ADA.

About 41 million Americans have the pre-diabetic condition. There are two tests commonly used by physicians to determine whether a person has pre-diabetes. One test is called the fasting plasma glucose test, or FPG, and the other is called the oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT. Both tests have a normal range and a diabetic range. The range in between indicates the pre-diabetic condition.

The FPG test is more convenient to patients, less expensive, and easier to administer than the OGTT test. On the other hand the OGTT will detect more cases of glucose intolerance and undiagnosed diabetes than the FTP test. Either test should be repeated in 3 year intervals.

Once a diabetic or pre-diabetic condition has been diagnosed, a person has two choices of treatment. One strategy is to use lifestyle modifications such as a change in diet and an increase in physical activity, and the other strategy is to use glucose-lowering drugs that have been approved for treating diabetes. Studies indicate that the drug therapy is about half as effective as the diet and exercise therapy in delaying the onset of diabetes. Lifestyle changes have been proven effective as a way to prevent type 2 diabetes from developing from the pre-diabetic condition. Diet and exercise, in many cases, are able to return the blood glucose levels to the normal range.

Lifestyle changes include a combination of losing 5% to 10% of body weight, reducing total fat calorie intake, reducing saturated fat calorie intake, increasing fiber intake, and exercising at least 150 minutes per week. One study, called the Diabetes Prevention Program study, showed that a treatment using the combination of 30 minutes per day of moderate physical activity and a 5% to 10% reduction in body weight resulted in a 58% reduction in the incidence of diabetes.

The type of physical activity recommended by the ADA includes aerobic exercise, strength training, and flexibility exercises. The goal of the aerobic exercise is to increase heart rate, raise the breathing rate, and exercise the muscles. The goal is to exercise for 30 minutes a day, 5 days per week. The 30 minutes can be split into 10 minute intervals. This type of activity includes brisk walking or running, dancing, swimming or water aerobics, skating, tennis, bike riding, gardening, and house cleaning. Strength training, performed several times a week, helps to build more muscle, making everyday chores easier, and helps to burn more calories, even at rest. Flexibility exercise, simple stretching, helps to keep joints flexible and helps to reduce chances for injury during other activities.

Dietary changes are an important part of a pre-diabetes treatment. A body mass index test (BMI) can be administered and calculated easily. A BMI test result that is greater than 25 means that a person is above their ideal weight and a person with a BMI result greater than 30 is considered obese. The goal in the first instance is to decrease body weight by 5% and in the second instance by up to 10%. It is recommended that a person consult a physician who can help to develop a dietary plan that will achieve the desired weight loss.

The effects of type 2 diabetes are expensive and dangerous to one’s health. Fortunately, diabetes can be delayed or prevented by adopting a reasonable program of diet, weight control, and exercise.

More Type 2 Diabetes Articles

According to researchers at Imperial College London, if fast food outlets offered cholesterol-lowering statins, then these drugs would offset the unhealthy effects of knocking back a cheeseburger and milkshake…

The suggestion, to make ‘risk-reducing supplements’ (i.e. side-effect ridden statins) available just as easily as unhealthy fast food, is made in a paper by Dr Darrel Francis, a cardiologist at Imperial’s National Heart and Lung Institute…
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According to researchers at Imperial College London, if fast food outlets offered cholesterol-lowering statins, then these drugs would offset the unhealthy effects of knocking back a cheeseburger and milkshake…

The suggestion, to make ‘risk-reducing supplements’ (i.e. side-effect ridden statins) available just as easily as unhealthy fast food, is made in a paper by Dr Darrel Francis, a cardiologist at Imperial’s National Heart and Lung Institute…
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