As the temperatures dip and the days get shorter, comfort foods may seem like just the thing. If you find yourself craving carbohydrates at this time of year, it may be due to a seasonal dip in serotonin levels. Eating carbohydrates tends to increase serotonin production, which can elevate your mood--but only temporarily. In a few hours, you need another fix. By the time winter is over, you may have packed on a lot of carbohydrate-fueled pounds.
A better way to stimulate serotonin is with regular exercise. Exercise
stimulates serotonin production with no carbohydrate hang-over. Instead
of gaining winter weight, you might even trim down. Overcoming your Fall fatigue and getting yourself moving may take some
self-discipline at first. But the rewards, in the form of more energy
and a brighter mood, come quickly.
Try this: Design your own customized workout video!
Fitness, happiness, stressreduction, Weight Loss
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Carbohydrate, Comfort Foods, Exercise, Fatigue, Gaining Weight, Rewards, Self Discipline, Serotonin Levels, Shorter Days, Temperatures, Time Of Year, Workout
Like so many other city-dwellers around the country, I've caught the gardening bug. My little vegetable patch has grown to the extent that it now supplies the majority of our produce from June to September. So I was aghast to see my city singled out by name in this recent article on the possible risk of lead poisoning from food grown in urban gardens.
According to Gabriel Filippelli, the soil in urban areas may be high in lead and other heavy metals, either from automobile exhaust, industrial activity, or paint from older structures.( Even though the buildings may be repainted or long gone, the paint may linger in the soil.) YIKES!
Filippelli recommends that home gardeners have an inexpensive soil test to determine whether their soil contains any harmful metals. Good advice--especially if you're feeding young children with the fruits of your green thumb. The test will also tell you whether your soil is in need of any
nutrients or other amendments, which can help make your garden more
productive.
Bonus: Seasonal Recipes Fresh from the Farm
If it turns out that your soil contains contaminants, it doesn't mean your gardening days are over. Building raised beds or growing in large containers can minimize the risk.
Contact your state extension service for information on soil testing.
blogs, Food and Drink, green, healthyeating, Kids and Family, medicalissues
| Amendments, Automobile Exhaust, Building Raised Beds, City Dwellers, Containers, Good Advice, Green Thumb, Harmful Metals, Heavy Metals, Home Gardeners, Lead Poisoning, Nutrients, Recent Article, Seasonal Recipes, Soil Test, Soil Testing, Urban Areas, Urban Gardeners, Urban Gardens, Vegetable Patch
Every five years, the U.S. Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee (the folks who brought you the Food Pyramid) release updated guidelines for how we're supposed to be eating. Although the quinquennial reports are always brought out with a lot of
fanfare, the rules really haven't changed all that much since they were first
proposed in 1977:
- Grains are still promoted as the foundation of a healthy diet
- Saturated fat and cholesterol are to be avoided
- Low-fat diets are recommended for disease prevention and weight control.
Although Americans have dutifully and steadily reduced their intake of fat and cholesterol and increased their consumption of grains, obesity and other diet-related diseases have steadily increased.
What if the dietary guidelines are wrong?
In this month's Nutrition Journal,
a consortium of scientists and nutrition researchers make the case for
abandoning both the guidelines and the process by which they are
generated. Instead of hide-bound conventional wisdom, they say, it's time to starting basing these recommendations on the evidence.
The stakes are high
These guidelines have enormous influence on health and nutrition
policies. They inform what we feed our kids in school lunch programs to
what we teach them in health class. They shape health care policy and
standards of care. They affect what gets reported in the media and
what gets researched in universities. They appear to be failing us.
Rather than gather the same group of agency insiders to polish the
chrome on this Edsel every five years, the authors suggest "an
impartial panel of...biochemists, anthropologists, geneticists,
physicists,
etc., who are not directly tied to nutritional
policy....Recommendations issued by this group would be more likely to
be...[based] on a complete and accurate
assessment of available science rather than a narrow perspective of
accepted nutritional practice."
I suspect that many readers of the Nutrition Data Blog abandoned the
Dietary Guidelines long ago. But I agree with my colleagues: It's time
to bring our national nutrition policy into the 21st century.
Your thoughts?
blogs, dietadvice, healthyeating, Policy and Regulation
| Accurate Assessment, Conventional Wisdom, Diet Related Diseases, Dietary Guideline, Disease Prevention, Edsel, Enormous Influence, Health And Nutrition, Health Care Policy, Health Class, Healthy Diet, Impartial Panel, Low Fat Diets, Narrow Perspective, Nutrition Data, Nutrition Journal, Nutrition Policies, Nutrition Researchers, Policy Recommendations, School Lunch Programs
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