This Week in Food, Health, and Fitness

This week, read about nutrition for travel and jet lag, health benefits of nuts, clarifying nutrition claims about milk, nutrition headlines and click bait, flavonoids in foods, reducing household food waste, parallels of dietary fads and religion, and more.

Nuts, peanuts linked to reduced risk of death from cancer, other diseases. Another study adds the the mounting evidence of the health benefits of nuts and peanuts (peanuts are technically “legumes”). This study found that eating about 15 grams of nuts a day (1/2 handful or about 2 tbsp. chopped nuts) reduced the risk of early death and numerous diseases, including cancer, diabetes, respiratory disease, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease. Eating more than 15 grams of nuts/day didn’t lead to further reductions in risk.

Plain peanut butter (no added salt, sugars, or fats) is best for health

Peanut butter consumption didn’t influence mortality or disease risk. Researchers speculate that this could be because most popular peanut butters contains salt, vegetable oil, and trans fatty acids, which may counteract the healthy benefits of peanuts (a good argument for choosing “natural” peanut butter!). (International Journal of Epidemiology, June 2015)

Nutrition for travel and jet-lag. If you’re traveling across time zones this summer, set yourself up for feeling good at your destination with these tips. (Jill Parnell, No Baloney).

Real nutritional science supports lowering saturated fats. Nutrition expert Mike Gibney interprets recent studies & media confusion about saturated fats. (Gibneyonfood.com)

Got Milked: evidence-based or underlying bias? The book “Got Milked” received a lot of press, and might leave you wondering about the health impact of consuming milk. Although milk is not a necessary dietary staple or essential for a healthy diet, consuming milk is not harmful for most people. PEN (Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition) experts look at the science behind the claims in the book. (PEN Nutrition).

Nutrition expert talks about his first foray into well-intentioned ‘click bait.’ Last week, Australian nutrition expert Tim Crowe wrote blog post titled Broccoli is bad for you, like, really toxic bad. It was extremely popular, and sheds light on how people learn about nutrition and health information online.

He wrote the satirical piece to show how someone building a case why a certain food is harmful for you can align nutrition research to suit their agenda by cherry picking studies that are in line with their thinking. He discovered that many people didn’t make it past the headline. (Tim Crowe, Thinking Nutrition).

Milk proteins may protect against cardiovascular disease. A new study (in mice) shows that compounds formed in fermented milk-based products lowered serum total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels and triglycerides in mice. (Journal of Dairy Science, June 2015).

high carbohydrate foods fuel endurance athletes — High carbohydrate foods fuel fast performances

For endurance athletes, high-carb diets beat low-carb diets every time. Sports dietitian Nancy Clark reports on research on carbohydrates and activity from the American College of Sports Medicine conference. The amount of carbohydrate needed varies depending on the length and intensity of activity. Although some endurance athletes are experimenting with low carbohydrate diets, the research clearly shows that carbohydrates are important for quality performances in high performance athletes. (Halhigdon.com)

How ‘Diet Gurus’ Hook Us With Religion Veiled In Science. Alan Levinovitz, an assistant professor of religion, explores the parallels of dietary fads and religion. In the article, he writes

“From Paleo to vegan to raw, nutrition gurus package their advice as sound, settled science. It doesn’t matter whether meat is blamed for colon cancer or grains are called out as fattening poison — there’s no shortage of citations and technical terms (tertiary amines, gliadin, ketogenesis) to back up the claims.

But as a scholar of religion, it’s become increasingly clear to me that when it comes to fad diets, science is often just a veneer. Peel it away and you find timeless myths and superstitions, used to reinforce narratives of good and evil that give meaning to people’s lives and the illusion of control over their well-being.”

This is a fascinating article, and certainly sheds light on why diet fads are so popular. (NPR Health).

Inflammatory claims about inflammation. Inflammation is a popular buzzword in health and nutrition these days. Many claim that inflammation causes a long list of maladies, and might be eliminated through diet and behavior changes. Inflammation is not the cause of diseases, but a complex phenomenon in disease progression. This article does a nice job clarifying the role inflammation in disease, explaining that unhealthy habits set the stage for disease and inflammatory processes. As Jeff Schweitzer explains: “We need to get our priorities straight. Forget inflammation and pay attention to what matters: eat healthy, eat little and exercise if you want to reduce the chance of suffering from the many diseases associated with bad diet.” (Jeff Schweitzer, Huffington Post)

Fears, not facts, support G.M.O.-free food. If you are confused about the safety of GMO foods, this is a good column to read. Although this is a complex issue, science literacy is important to consider. New York Times health columnist Jane Brody writes “a review of the pros and cons of G.M.O.s strongly suggests that the issue reflects a poor public understanding of the science behind them.” (Jane Brody, New York Times)

Flavonoids in your foods, Here’s where to get them. Flavonoids are plentiful in many plant foods. These compounds are being studied for their cancer-preventive and disease-fighting properties. A new study in Australian women found that a high flavonoid intake reduced mortality risk over the 5-year study, and also lowered cancer and heart disease risk compared to a low flavonoid intake. Although women in the study consumed most of their flavonoids from black tea, the AICR speculates that eating more and a variety of other types of flavonoid-containing foods (blueberries, cherries, and red cabbage, parsley or oregano) would also be protective. (AICR, reporting on Am J Clin Nutr April 2015)

The gluten-free craze is out of hand. Here are 8 facts to counter the madness. Excellent evidence-based information dispelling the gluten-free fad. (Julia Beluz, Vox.com)

Household Food Waste and What to Do About It. A new study from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab shows that improving your buying, preparing, and food storing behaviors can limit food waste. The study found that the top causes of food waste are buying too much, preparing in abundance, unwillingness to consume leftovers, and improper food storage.