Nutrition information is abundant but often confusing. Food, Facts and Fads helps you to separate the sense from the nonsense
Americans need all the help they can get in eating more vegetables (nutrient dense, low in calories, loaded with fiber). If you have children, It’s even more important My personal advice?
Roast them – they caramelize and take on a whole new flavor and texture. Add a little honey and/or butter for more appeal. And it’s so easy on a foil-lined baking pan. Easy clean-up, too. – yes it can be done.
Enjoy the advice and bon appetit.
We are becoming a nation of microwave cooks. Just pop a fully cooked meal into the microwave and we can have dinner in just 5 minutes. But wait – the finished product often does not resemble the picture on the box and/or the taste resembles the dinner you had last night – only the pasta shape has changed. Sometimes I think they use the same sauce of some kind and just alter the name of the dish slightly.
Now days it is a well known fact that the family is busier with jobs and activities outside the house and the term “housewife” has actually disappeared into oblivion. Home economics is not taught in schools as it was a few decades ago, and convenience reigns as the most important marketing ploy when it comes to food preparation. Our kids have no idea where the food comes from unless it comes in a box or wrapped in plastic. We know the Nutrition Facts (calories, etc) but the list of ingredients takes up more room than it should and reads like a foreign language.
The following article presents some easy creative ideas that may help make a cooking experience easier and more appealing and even flavorful. Try them – you may become your own gourmet chef without much effort. Just in time for Christmas Dinner?
Is Our Intake of Vegetable Oils Inflammatory? Some research suggests so.
Chronic inflammation is associated with the onset of many chronic diseases including heart disease and cancer. From eating different types of polyunsaturated fats, we can influence the presence of inflammation by the fact that certain hormone-like compounds called eisosanoids within the body are produced from polyunsaturated fats that affect blood clotting, blood pressure, immune function, and the inflammatory response. These fats are called omega-6 (inflammatory) or omega-3 (anti-inflammatory) fatty acids.
The problem is that the American Diet contains too many omega-6 and too little omega-3 fats. We ideally evolved on a ratio of these fatty acids as 1:1. Currently our diet has an unbalanced ratio of 1:20 of 6’s and 3’s respectively. The following article addresses the research that suggests that this issue may be partly responsible for our higher cancer rates than found in other countries with a more favorable ratio (closer to 1:1 of these fats. The last part gives us some sound advice on what to do with your diet to alleviate this problem.
FOOD, FACTS and FADS 