The Diet Dish

Planning Thanksgiving Menu

2009-11-20T11:46:00.000-08:00

Many of you will be sitting down and planning your Thanksgiving menu and shopping for those yummy treats. Here are some ideas to make things a bit healthier! Turkey: There are so many options out there. If you aren't into cooking the entire bird, simply get one of the turkey breasts and stick it in the crock pot. I made a breast this week for a TV segment I was doing and it turned out really...

Alcohol Reduce Heart Disease Risk?

2009-11-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

I get this question a lot: Isn't drinking some alcohol good for me? What about the antioxidants in red wine? A new study out of Spain published in the medical journal Heart found that indeed alcohol in almost any quantity is associated with nearly a one-third reduction in incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD)....in men. They did not find a statistically significant difference in...

Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk

2009-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Some schools have recently eliminated chocolate milk from their school cafeterias. They claim that it is too high in sugar. I understand the concern with the childhood obesity epidemic, but when you look at the research it is obvious that flavored milk is not the problem. New research found that when chocolate milk was eliminated from schools, the milk consumption dropped by as much as 67% at...

Cereal: It's What's for Breakfast!

2009-11-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

I am a big cereal eater. My husband eats cereal EVERY morning for breakfast. We love it! My two year old started his cereal eating career with Cheerios. I remember cutting them in half when he was first starting out and now he shoves a fistful in his mouth at a time! They do grow up fast, don't they??? My husband and now my 2 year old love Lucky Charms. You may think that it is quite odd...

Does Low Carb Make You Angry?

2009-11-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

As if we haven't seen enough bad press for low carb diets, check this out: a study just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that dieters who followed a low carb diet for a year were more depressed, angry, and confused than people following a higher carb diet. The researchers studied two groups of people for one year. Both were on a reduced calorie diet and both lost an average...

What Can You Get For 100 Calories???

2009-11-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

Those 100 calorie snack packs are everywhere! The perception is that "it is only 100 calories." The danger is that even 100 calories extra each day can cause weight gain of 10 pounds in a year!!! Just because it is "only 100 calories" doesn't mean it is calorie free and that it doesn't "count" at all. It counts! My biggest problem with most 100 calorie packs is that they are very high...

Powered By Red

2009-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

The only negative side effect of exercise is that you produce a lot of free radicals and inflammation, especially with intense exercise. The good news is that there are foods that help your body recover from intense exercise. Cherries are one of these foods that are emerging as a fruit that can help reduce inflammation and provide great antioxidant health benefits. Cherries are almost as high...

Nutrition at Your Fingertips

2009-11-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

I love, love, love this new book! I always love when Registered Dietitians write books, and I especially love when they are brilliantly written and super informative! Elisa Zied, MS, RD, wrote Nutrition at Your Fingertips (part of the At Your Fingertips series). It gives nutrition information in such an easy to understand way. It goes beyond just the basics and gives really concrete ways that...

Boost Your Immunity

2009-10-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Cold and Flu season is in high gear! Are you doing everything you can do prevent getting sick? Wash your hands regularly. I can't stress this enough. We touch our eyes and noses all day long and any germs on our hands go directly into our body. Wash your hands frequently and also use hand sanitizer when soap and water is not readily available. Get plenty of rest. Don't let your body get...

Obesity and Health Care Costs

2009-10-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

With all of the talk of controlling health care costs, studies find that obesity is one of the biggest contributors to obesity. A study by RTI International found that people who are 30 pounds or more overweight cost $147 Billion in medical bills that are weight related in 2008 in America. Since 1994, the number of obese in America has gone up from 23% to 34% of adults. In fact, in the past 10...

Halloween and Food Allergies

2009-10-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

For kids with food allergies, ghosts and goblins aren't the scariest part of trick or treating--the treats are. What does a child with a nut allergy do on Halloween? One of the most common allergies is a peanut allergy. There is a warning on over 50% of chocolate candy wrappers that the candy either contains nuts or was processed in a facility with nuts. Even small amounts of nuts or nut...

Satisfying Breakfast

2009-10-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

I know you have heard it before...breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You hear this all the time because it is true! I think all meals are important, but breakfast is extra important to kick start that metabolism from overnight. Eating breakfast helps to replenish your glycogen stores that were depleted overnight. I like to have a nice mix of carbs and protein for breakfast and...

Snack Sized Calories Add Up

2009-10-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

With Halloween right around the corner, those little snack sized candies are everywhere. How easy is it to grab one and eat it without even thinking? But they are so small....they don't have many calories, right? You may be surprised! Fast Break, snack size: 90 caloriesHeath Toffee Bar, snack size: 80 caloriesTwizzlers Licorice Twists, minibar: 50 caloriesHershey's Milk Chocolate, snack...

Trace Food Back to Field

2009-10-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

How cool would it be if we were able to scan a tomato at our local supermarket and see where it was grown and when it was picked? This technology may not be far away. A few years ago food producers in the US and Canada joined together to create the Produce Traceability Initiative. The system uses a bar code to track fruits and veggies from field to fork. Right now it is voluntary to...

School Goes Meatless Monday

2009-10-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to go "meatless" for one day? How about one day every week? The 80,000 students in the Baltimore Public Schools will have a chance to go meatless every Monday. Baltimore is the first (and hopefully not last) school district to implement this meatless plan. I hope the kids decide to make the entire day meatless, not just lunch. The school system is also working with...

5 Ways to Lower Risk of Breast Cancer

2009-10-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Do you know 8 women? The most recent stats show that one in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 182,000 women get diagnosed and 40,000 die each year from breast cancer. The causes of cancer are still a mystery to the medical community, but we do know about some links in our lifestyle. We can just do...

Hunger Relief

2009-10-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

If you are reader of my blog regularly, you know that I like to talk about food. The best kind of food is free food, right? Well, at least in college I thought so. But the other thing I like to talk about is companies who do the right thing to either provide healthy food to us and/or help to support the community or environment through their corporations. So here is a story about a company...

Pouring on the Pounds?

2009-10-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

The city of New York is at it again...they were the first to ban trans fat and lead the fight for restaurant labeling of calories on menus. Now they have an ad campaign that is grossing some people out. The picture above is of a glass of soda being poured into a glass filled with thick, yellow human fat marbled with blood vessels. Cathy Nonas, director of the New York City Health Department's...

Top 10 Riskiest Foods

2009-10-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

The Centers for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released a report listed the top 10 "riskiest" foods that are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). CSPI claims that these 10 foods accounted for nearly 1000 disease outbreaks since 1990 in the United States. These 10 foods are also responsible, according to CSPI, for over 40% of all food-borne outbreaks among FDA-regulated...

Healthier WIC Offerings

2009-10-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 35 years, the US government program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is getting new nutrition guidelines. BRAVO! New foods being offered include: whole wheat and whole grain breadsbrown ricetofucanned beansmore fresh fruits and vegetablesreduced fat milk Previously, juice and whole milk were staples in the WIC program. Now the amount of juice is limited and fresh...

Best Sweetener

2009-09-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

You have probably seen all of the new stevia-based sweeteners on the market lately. What is the difference between all of them? How do they taste? You will have to try them for yourself, but I can tell you from my experience which one I like the best. But first, a little history. Stevia is a plant that is naturally sweet and has been used for hundreds of years on South America and more...

Family Dinner Night

2009-09-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

Remember the days when we used to sit down together every night for dinner together as a family? I grew up this way. Not eating together wasn't an option or even a thought. Mom made dinner and called us when it was ready. It was as simple as that. My, how times have changed. Less than one-third of American families eat dinner together most nights. When we do sit down together, more than half of...

Benefits of Pasta

2009-09-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a restaurant the other day eavesdropping on the woman at the table next to me. She was deciding what to order and talking to her friend. She said, "I had a PBJ sandwich for breakfast and pasta for lunch so there is no way I can eat any more bread or pasta today otherwise I will be so bloated with carbs!" As a dietitian I have to laugh sometimes at the misconceptions some...

Satisfying Snacks

2009-09-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

I am always in the quest for snacks that will satisfy in many ways: mouth (taste), brain (cravings), and stomach (satiety). When I saw a recent study comparing 4 different snacks and the effects on physical and psychological hunger, I was intrigued. The study measured how different foods impacted the participant's desire to eat again, how much they thought about food, their mood and energy...

Taxing Soft Drinks?

2009-09-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

This week's New England Journal of Medicine contained a very, very interesting proposal put forth by a few prominent physicians and researchers working on the obesity crisis in America. They propose that beverages loaded with sugar should be considered a public health hazard (much like cigarettes) and should be taxes. The proposal calls for an excise tax of "a penny an ounce" for beverages like...