November 11, 2013

Is Farm-Raised Fish Safe?

Q. I have seen a lot of conflicting information about the safety of farm-raised fish. I stopped buying farm-raised salmon years ago because of the concern. How does farm-raised trout stack up to other fish in terms of nutrition and safety? Where does most of the supply come from in USA? A. Unfortunately, this issue is a moving target.  Exponential growth in aquaculture and the pressure to control costs means that procedures are constantly evolving.  If watchdog groups make enough noise about a safety or nutrition concern, the industry often changes practices in response.  So, something that was a concern […]
November 5, 2013

Boomers: Are You Eating a SAD diet? You May Be at Risk

Did you know that most medical doctors don’t know much about nutrition? It’s true.  Maybe they’ve taken a class in medical school about the basics and, unless they pursue nutrition further, they really don’t learn much about it.  As a result, they often tell their patients that if they eat a “balanced” diet, that’s all they need to maintain good health.
October 30, 2013

8 Foods That Can Help You Avoid A Stroke or Heart Attack!

I have some patients who have to take statins – cholesterol lowering drugs – at least for a while.  Their former diets of too much animal fat contributed to high “bad” LDL and too low “good” HDL.  In addition, adding too much refined sugar to this mix created inflammation throughout their bodies – and as a result, they developed plaque buildup in their arteries.
October 23, 2013

Understanding Food Cravings: Love Your Gut

Doreen Virtue is a psychotherapist who knows a lot about nutrition. Her book, Constant Craving: What Your Food Cravings Mean and How to Overcome Them, teaches readers the “art” of understanding food cravings. Her book blends, as Virtue puts it, the psychological, metaphysical, and scientific reasons we crave certain foods. “My education about weight and appetite stems from first-hand experience with food cravings,” she writes. “I’ve learned that maintaining weight loss hinges upon maintaining peace of mind.” As a psychotherapist, Virtue has worked with many drug addicts. “I found that, as was the case with my drug-addicted clients, each food […]
October 23, 2013

Increased Focus on Men’s Eating Disorders

Food was cathartic for Max Sala, something that held his life together and at the same time tore it apart. As a child he ate for comfort, arriving for his freshman year of high school, as he put it, “significantly overweight.” Then Sala, now 19 and a student at the University of California at Davis, started losing weight and couldn’t stop. Sometimes he would go days without eating. Other days he would ravage his family kitchen in the middle of the night, gorging himself, and then purge. Purging, he said, was “like a breath of fresh air.” To this day, […]