Jeri Evans Nutrition Blog

Woman Lives Gluten-Free, but is Well-Fed!

2011-02-11T08:10:00.000-08:00

This is an article by Jennie Bragg, an Editorial Producer in CNN’s Money Unit

My very first word was cookie - raisin cookie to be exact. Family legend goes, it came out something like, "raymee cook cook." The details are trivial. The moral of this story is that shortly after I left the womb, I discovered my first true love: carbs.

As I grew older, my meal of choice became quite obvious: the basket of bread. Who needs to order at all when the best part of a meal comes at the very beginning, for free?

And so it was, for 24 years, that I lived the life of a glutinous gluten monster - until that fateful day. After about two years of terrible stomach issues and running from doctor to doctor, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. That's the no-carbs-for-the-rest-of-your-life disease (or at least not the good carbs).

What is this "gluten" of which you speak?

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Nutrition: Low-fat Christmas Leftovers

2010-12-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

By Cycling Plus

It’s Christmas time, and once again we face the battle of excesses – especially Christmas dinner. But don’t despair: despite many of the ‘naughty’ full-fat, high-sugar add-ons, the biggest meal of the year actually contains many superfoods that will make highly nutritious, low-fat meals well into January.

Take turkey for example, the main ingredient. “Turkey is one of the lowest fat mainstream meats around,” says Emma Turner from www.britishturkey.co.uk. “There’s just 155kcal, 1.7g fat and 22.6g protein in 100g of skinless grilled turkey breast meat. It's also a good source of zinc, which is needed for a healthy immune system.”

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8 Things Your Hair Says About Your Health

2010-12-15T21:10:00.000-08:00

When it comes to our hair, most of us worry most about what to do with it: how short to cut it, how to style it, whether to color it once it begins to go gray. But experts say that our hair says a lot more about us than how closely we follow the latest styles. In fact, the health of our hair and scalp can be a major tip-off to a wide variety of health conditions.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-28T21:24:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone a wonderful holiday!

And I'm sure your Thanksgiving dinner was tasty . . . AND nutritious!

Processed Meat Raises Risk of Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer

2010-11-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

A new study published in the journal Circulation reveals that eating processed meat products significantly raises the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Previous research has linked processed meats to cancer as well.

The new paper involved a meta-analysis of 20 different studies covering more than one million people from 10 different countries. The study found that eating just 2 ounces of processed meat each day resulted in the following:

• A 42 percent increase in the risk of heart disease.

• A 19 percent increase in the risk of diabetes.

Interestingly, the analysis simultaneously found that eating non-processed meats was not linked to these increases in disease risk. The study authors concluded that it was the processed salt and chemical additives in the processed meat that caused increase risk of disease.

Why sodium nitrite is poison

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A Video Discussing Dieting & Celiac Disease

2010-09-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

Dr. Mike Cirigliano, Univ. of Pennsylvania, aired a fantastic story this week on celiac disease, the gluten-free diet and the misconception about losing weight while avoiding gluten.

Dr. Mike also discussed current research looking at the link between other diseases and gluten including autism and schizophrenia.

Check out the video now!

7 Best Stress-Fighting Foods

2010-08-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

By David Zinczenko

I send out a lot of info on my Twitter feed, from nutrition news to management tips. I get the most passionate reaction—and the most retweets—when I talk about stress. In fact, a friend of mine recently told me that stress was her biggest dietary villain. “I eat when I’m stressed,” she said.

To which I reacted, “Good!” You should eat when you’re stressed

—it’s our bodies’ natural reaction to want to store calories to face

whatever challenge is causing the stress in the first place. The key, however, is to eat what your body wants—the foods that actually counteract the effects of stress, and make you stronger (and leaner) when the tough times pass. So next time anxiety runs high, be sure to grab one of these seven stress-fighting foods.

Fructose Sweeteners May Hike Blood Pressure

2010-07-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

The more fructose American adults add to their diets, the higher their blood pressure tends to be. The new finding adds fuel to a simmering controversy about whether this simple sugar — found in fruits, table sugar, soft drinks and many baked goods — poses a health hazard that goes beyond simply consuming too many empty calories.

If the new data are confirmed, they might go a long way toward explaining a more than tripling in hypertension rates over the past century — a period when “fructose consumption has increased dramatically in industrialized nations including the United States,’ the authors say.

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A Sweet Problem: High-Fructose Corn Syrup & Weight Gain

2010-05-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain.

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

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Germ-free Kids May Risk More Adult Illnesses: Study

2009-12-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

Parents who let their kids romp in the mud and eat food that has fallen on the floor could be helping to protect them against maladies like heart disease later in life, a US study showed Wednesday.

"Our research suggests that ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic environments early in life may contribute to higher levels of inflammation as an adult, which in turn increases risks for a wide range of diseases," including cardiovascular disease, Thomas McDade, lead author of the study, said.

Researchers at Illinios' Northwestern University looked at data from a study in the Philippines, which followed participants from birth to 22 years of age, to better understand how childhood environments affect production of a protein that increases when there is inflammation -- a sign the body forced to fight infection or injury.

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Another Cause of Obesity: The Bacteria in Your Gut?

2009-11-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

If you have ever fought the battle of the bulge, then you are all too familiar with its key players: diet, exercise and your genes. The less you move (calories out) and the more you eat (calories in), the more fat you gain - an equation that may be heavily influenced by your particular genes. But scientists have long known that these three factors do not adequately explain every case of obesity, and now researchers are discovering increasingly convincing evidence of another important contributor to body weight, one that until recently has been almost completely ignored: the bacteria that live in your gut.

Technically, they're known as the gut microbiota, the universe of tens of trillions of microbes, most of which survive without oxygen, and which live and thrive in the human intestinal tract and colon. These microbes perform a vast range of vital functions, including helping to regulate the calories the body obtains from food and stores as fat - in other words, they may help regulate weight. And a new study published today in Science Translational Medicine suggests that the particular type and balance of bugs you harbor in your gut may help push your body toward either obesity or leanness, and that these microbe populations might even be manipulated to potentially change your weight.

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5 Habits to Break Before It's Too Late

2009-11-01T03:20:00.000-08:00

Every day that you don't reverse these behaviors puts you further away from a healthy life.

Someday," you say, "I'm going to get my health back on track, after this next project," or "when I get back from my cruise," or "when the kids get a little older" ... C'mon, you know your list of reasons -- or what I call EXCUSES -- better than I.

Look, if you're waiting for some magical day to appear, you just may be waiting forever. These days do not "show up"; you show up for THEM. I have identified five critical areas, bad habits that many people mindlessly follow. Do you realize that each and every day of your life that you do not reverse these dangerous trends, you get farther and farther from your ultimate goal of living a fulfilling life?

Take a look at each area, determine how you stack up, and then make the fix today:

Read "5 Habits To Break Now" >

Scientists Say Curry Compound Kills Cancer Cells

2009-10-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

A molecule found in a curry ingredient can kill esophageal cancer cells in the laboratory, suggesting it might be developed as an anti-cancer treatment, scientists said on Wednesday.
Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin -- a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow color -- and found it started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

The cells also began to digest themselves, they said in a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Previous scientific studies have suggested curcumin can suppress tumors and that people who eat lots of curry may be less prone to the disease, although curcumin loses its anti-cancer attributes quickly when ingested.

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Veggies Lose Antioxidants in the Microwave

2009-10-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Blanching and Freezing also Robs Them, Study Finds

Getting the necessary nutrients from vegetables may be even harder than you thought.

New research shows that different ways of preparing, storing and processing vegetables can affect how good they are for you.

Broccoli, for instance, can lose as much as 97 percent of some antioxidants, or cancer-fighting compounds, when it is zapped in the microwave.

Vegetables that are blanched before freezing (a common processing technique) can lose up to one third of their antioxidants. Frozen storage can also cause losses, albeit much smaller ones.

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Study Shows Mediterranean Diet Cuts Depression Risk

2009-10-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

People who follow a Mediterranean-style diet rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains and fish are less likely to become depressed, scientists said on Monday, but the reasons are unclear.

Spanish researchers studied 11,000 people and found that those who followed the Mediterranean diet most closely had a more than 30 percent reduction in the risk of depression than those whose diet had few of the crucial Mediterranean elements.

"The specific mechanisms by which a better adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern could help to prevent the occurrence of depression are not well known," said Almudena Sanchez-Villegas and colleagues at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Navarra, Spain.

But the researchers suggested that elements of the diet may improve blood vessel function, fight inflammation and repair oxygen-related cell damage -- all of which could reduce the chances of developing depression.

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The Surprising Ingredient Causing Weight Gain

2009-10-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

Say it isn't so! A recent study out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cites what animal studies have hinted at for years: MSG (aka monosodium glutamate) could be a factor in weight gain.

The study focused on 750 Chinese men and women, ages 40-59, living in 3 rural villages in north and south China. Most of the study subjects prepared their meals at home without commercially processed foods and roughly 82 percent used MSG. Those participants who used the highest amounts of MSG had nearly 3 times the incidence of overweight as those who did not use MSG, even when physical activity, total caloric intake, and other possible explanations for body mass differences were accounted for. The positive correlation between MSG and higher weight confirmed what animal studies have been suggesting for years.

Maybe you're wondering what monosodium glutamate is exactly, and what you can do to avoid it in your diet. MSG is a flavor enhancer in foods—some believe it may even provide a fifth basic taste sensation (in addition to sweet, sour, salt, and bitter), what the Japanese call "umami" (roughly translated as "tastiness"). MSG is considered an "excitotoxin," since its action in the body is to excite neurotransmitters (important brain chemicals), causing nerve cells to discharge and also exciting nerves related to taste. Perhaps this ability to excite these nerves is a factor in an association between increased MSG usage and weight gain.

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Binge-proof your Diet: 6 Foods that Keep you Full and Satisfied

2009-10-02T07:50:00.000-07:00

The big, fat (pun intended) irony about trying to drop pounds is that cutting calories has a pesky habit of making you eat more, and more of the wrong types of foods. Think about the last time you nibbled a plain green salad for lunch. How did you feel by 6 pm? Ready to eat an entire anything and then have seconds? Hunger is a real, physical need you can’t overcome with willpower alone. So eat already—and stock up on these foods, which will keep you satiated for hours:

Fill up with fiber!

Eggs: They’re a great source of hunger-quelling protein (about 6 g per egg), plus a recent study found that women following a low-fat diet who ate 2 eggs for breakfast at least 5 days a week lost 65% more weight and averaged an 83% greater reduction in waist circumference. Not a fan? Low-fat yogurt is a great source of (breakfast-happy) protein.

Almonds: These tasty nuts contain the healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, good-for-you fats that keep your appetite sated for hours. Studies back this up—one found that after 6 months, dieters whose eating plan included almonds lost 63% more weight, lost 50% more body fat, and shrunk their waistlines 55% more than those on a high-carb diet. They’re not exactly calorie free, so watch portions (1 ounce—or 28 nuts—is about 170 calories).

Avocados: How do I love these? In many many ways, but a few slices with a little lime juice is rich, satisfying, and loaded with so many important nutrients, including those healthy monounsaturated fats, plus vitamins and minerals like potassium and folate. No, they’re not calorie free, but a few slices have between 50 and 75 calories and will make any salad or sandwich SO much more satisfying (you can even throw avocado in a smoothie, which is common in Thai food).

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Seven Surprising Facts and Myths About Microwave Ovens

2009-10-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

A fixture in homes, office break rooms, and convenience stores for decades, the microwave oven heats our frozen foods, leftovers, and even more elaborate meals in the blink of an eye. A microwave is typically more energy efficient than conventional ovens and ranges, making it a greener cooking choice at times.

Yet search the Internet for "are microwave ovens safe," and you'll get a barrage of hits from concerned parents and others who are worried that the handy device might have a dark, even dangerous side.

Of course, the prevailing consensus among scientists, public health experts, government agencies, and the general populace is that microwave ovens are overwhelmingly safe when used as directed. However, it's also true that there may be some legitimate questions about the safety of certain aspects of the technology.

Let's take a closer look at some myths, facts, and misconceptions about microwave ovens, which are estimated to be used in at least 90% of American homes.

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