Category: dieting/obesity

(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) MiniQQ/Flickr Here’s a question to ponder: Why do we eat three meals a day? Of course, many of us don’t actually eat three meals a day on a consistent basis; breakfast skippers are a significant demographic all by themselves. But this is a cultural question, like asking Why do we drive on the right side of the road, even though a lot of us don’t drive. In general, however, we are motorists, and in general, we partake of breakfast, lunch and dinner. So: Why three meals? Why not two or five? Is there something inherently beneficial about the holy trinity of food consumption? Given the way that the three-meals tradition has produced, or at least not impeded,

Laughter may be the best medicine, but have you ever considered that humor may not always be funny, and even worse, can be very hurtful? Recently on the set of the latest Adam Sandler movie several Native American extras and actors quit, having had enough of his malodorous humor about putting your pee-pee in their tee-pee, Beaver Breath, and her named friends No-Bra and Sit’s-on-Face. There is a real corrosive effect from sexist and racist humor, and a prejudicial attitude combined with disparaging humor can increase discrimination. Psychologists from Western Carolina University have proposed the “Normative Window Theory of Prejudice.” This theory suggests that we rank social groups by how acceptable it is to discriminate and have prejudicial attitudes

Let’s face it: much of the food that we eat is crap. One reason for this is it’s hard to figure out what is in our food. We rely on food labeling for guidance in making better nutritional decisions. Food nutrition labels play a major role in choosing products to take off the shelves, place into our grocery cart, and then put into our body. These labels have been the subject of battles between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the food industry, and consumer advocates. And what these battles have produced is a mumbo-jumbo of micronutrient percentages, calories, and confusing portion sizes. In trying to help us, some folks got the bright idea to add additional jargon to food packages, such as low

(CC BY-ND 2.0) Nancy Hugo, CKD/Flickr The American kitchen is a key contributor to America’s lofty obesity rate according to many dietitians and other healthy eating experts. You may very well respond, “Well, duh! Of course. The kitchen is where the food is! You want to lose weight, stay the heck out of your kitchen.” But it’s not that simple. For one thing, meals produced in your kitchen tend to be healthier, more nutritious, and lower in calories than meals produced commercially, especially those from establishments with drive-thru service. You have far more control over what goes into meals that you produce yourself. While this is not a good thing in every case, at least it usually doesn’t involve