Apps to Help You Navigate What Is Healthy and What Isn't

How Do We Even Know What Is Healthy Anymore? These Apps Can Help

By Kurtis Bright

The Answers To All Your Food Choice Questions Are a Swipe Away--Just Download These Apps

No one needs to tell you that smart phones are ubiquitous these days. We’ve all been stuck walking behind someone who is hogging the sidewalk while staring at their phone, walking at a snail’s pace, swerving randomly back and forth. And there’s nothing quite as poignantly illustrative of the aloneness-togetherness of modern life than when you see a table full of friends out for dinner together, but silent and not looking at each other--because they are all furiously texting away.

But as annoying as our modern connected life is, it has its benefits: we have more information at our fingertips than 99 percent of humanity ever had available in all the libraries of the world.

This is of course a double-edged sword: there’s tons of information out there, but there is just as much, if not more, misinformation as well.

And misinformation is the order of the day, when it comes to making healthy food choices. Recently, however, some really useful apps have emerged that can help clear up the confusion as to what’s actually healthy and what’s not, even as you do your shopping on the fly.

• Chemical Cuisine - This is an app that was created under the auspices of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and it has data on a plethora of additives, including descriptions and an evaluation of the relative safety of each. Whenever you come across a product containing on of those multi-syllabic, impossible-to-pronounce names, simply enter it into the Chemical Cuisine database and you’ll get a rating: safe, cut back, caution, avoid, or certain people should avoid.
• Dirty Dozen - Cataloguing the dozen most chemically compromised fruits and vegetables--that is, those with a thin skin which thus absorb more pesticides, or which can take up chemicals via their root systems--this app advises you which ones you should always buy organic. It is of course daunting to face the prices of organic fresh fruits and veggies these days, so we all appreciate saving a few bucks when possible. That’s why this app is so useful: they also have a list called the Clean 15, which are fruits and vegetables that are least likely to carry chemical contaminants to your table.
• Seafood Watch - The condition of the world’s life-giving oceans is in dire straits and grows worse every day. Not only is there widespread bleaching of the coral reefs and the massive plastic floating trash island in the Pacific, we are also overfishing several species into extinction. With this app the ecologically and health conscious shopper can buy seafood guilt-free. It gives you a color rating--red means overfished or farmed in harmful ways, yellow is somewhat better, and green is the best option of all. But there is also a Super Green list, giving you seafood options that are best for sustainability, and also those that are most likely to be free of contaminants like PCBs and mercury.
• Fooducate - An extremely clever app that has a database of over 200,000 food items with a letter grade and nutritional value listing, it will also tell you if the food contains artificial additives. Not only that, it will offer healthier options--all by simply scanning in the UPC code.

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Making The Whole Grain Switch: Some Amazing Benefits Of Eating Whole Grains

Making The Whole Grain Switch: Some Amazing Benefits Of Eating Whole Grains

By Kurtis Bright

Everybody’s Talking About Whole Grains--But Why? Here Are Some Amazing Benefits

With so many conflicting dietary recommendations out there, it’s easy to get confused. Every day it seems like there’s some new breakthrough health study, some re-discovery of a long-lost indigenous plant that is the latest miracle cure.

However some things are based on pretty solid evidence that has been accumulated over a long time. One of these that is pretty much universally agreed upon is that we need whole grains in our diet.

However, as with many things in this age of too much information and not enough knowledge, even the term itself can be confusing: what exactly are whole grains?

The difference between refined grains and whole grains may seem a matter of splitting hairs, but it is actually quite important: whole grains include all the parts of the original grain kernel, the bran, germ and endosperm, which give us the fiber we need. Two sliced of dark rye bread contain 5.8 grams of fiber whereas two slices of white bread only contain 1.9 grams of fiber.

And fiber is important because it digests more slowly, and makes us feel fuller and more satiated. What’s more, fiber helps control blood sugar levels, lowers LDL or bad cholesterol, and reduces the risk of colon cancer. For grains with the highest fiber content look for oats, barley and bulgur. So when you eat foods made with whole grains as opposed to refined grains (white bread, pasta, etc.) you are going to not only feel fuller longer, you will avoid the dreaded sugar crash that comes with eating high glycemic-index foods.

These days a random loaf of bread on the supermarket shelves is as likely to tout some sort of “whole wheat/whole grain” notice on the label as not. But as with most food labels, manufacturers are tricksy little Hobbitses: even if it says “made with whole grains” that bread could still contain a majority of refined grains over whole grains.

Another thing to look for is that the grain is listed among the first three ingredients on the label. And another trick from unscrupulous manufacturers seeking to cash in on people’s desire for healthier food: be wary of “healthy” looking bread that is simply refined grain bread that has been dyed brown or mixed with molasses to give it a darker color.

In addition to helping us feel fuller and staving off hunger longer, whole grains also help with digestion. We’ve known this for some time, but recent studies are showing that the benefits of fiber aren’t limited to just keeping you regular.

For one thing, fiber helps prevent diverticulosis, a bowel condition typified by inflammation, constipation and diarrhea. It also helps keep the bacterial balance in the gut healthy. And the lactic acid in whole grains aid digestion and nutrition absorption, and may even benefit the immune system.

What’s more, whole grains also can help lower blood pressure by lowering cholesterol and triglycerides. Eating whole grains have even been found to contribute to a 19 percent lower risk of hypertension in men who ate seven or more servings a week.

Perhaps best of all, by replacing refined grains with whole grains, your risk of heart disease is greatly reduced.

Gosh, it’s almost like we evolved to eat whole, natural foods as they grow out of the ground, as opposed to refined, chemical-laden, mass-manufactured “foods” that have been stripped of all nutritive value in the name of profit.

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What You Eat Could Be Affecting Your Mood

What You Eat Could Be Affecting Your Mood

By Kurtis Bright

Avoiding Sugar Crashes Is Only Half The Battle--Food Strategies That Can Boost Your Mood

At some point or another, everyone has experienced “stress eating,” that is to say, eating from a place of emotional need. Crying into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s after a breakup is a common rom-com trope for good reason.

But the fact is, grabbing a candy bar or other sweet snack when we feel stressed is actually natural on some level, and even based on biological imperatives. The simple truth is that foods like these make us feel good because our ancient wiring has built-in rewards for us for taking in (formerly) desperately needed fats and sugars.

However, that taste of sugar and sense of well-being comes with a price: the inevitable sugar crash. Following the elation of the sugar high comes the morass of low energy, crankiness and even depression--an ugly vicious circle that leads many to seek a quick fix for their low mood in the form of another candy bar, then another and another. So little wonder that people in many developed countries are so depressed, obese and suffering from diabetes.

Lucky for us, there are foods that are better at giving us better moods--moods that last--along with higher energy. Over the long term, foods like these will keep you in a better, more productive mood.

• Caffeine - Much is made of the notion of coffee addiction, both teasing and periodic alarm. However, the energy and buzz of elation you get following your morning cup of joe is not a joke: a study at Harvard in 2011 showed that women who drank at least two daily cups of coffee showed a 15 percent lower chance of depression than their coffee-deprived counterparts. And depression risk decreased by 20 percent for those who consumed four cups a day. Because caffeine triggers the release of dopamine, it helps you focus and improves outlook. In moderation, virtually all modern studies show that coffee is a fairly benign drug of choice. Just be aware that if you drink coffee too late in the day it can and will affect your sleep, and if you are a coffee-drinker who experiences anxiety--a very real possible result according to studies--you should probably cut back a bit.
• Fat - We crave fat at a biological, animal level, simple as that. Back when our ancestors were still scavenging on the savannah while trying to avoid lions and other predators, to find a food source containing a lot of fat was something like striking biological gold. The reward centers in our brains are hardwired to release dopamine and other feel-good chemicals when we absorb fat for this reason. Fat slows digestion and our bodies can store it for later use, so when you and your body don’t know where your next meal is coming from, you tend to crave it. What's more, your body is designed to hang onto every molecule you take in, banking that valuable fat for later. It is perhaps because of this physical need that the body has for fat that we experience a calming sense of satisfaction when we eat it. When studies examine people with mood disorders, they find that eating two seafood meals per week high in omega-3 fatty acids is strongly correlated to lower rates of depression. Researchers think this is because these fats help maintain brain function in regions responsible for mood and emotion.
• Afternoon Carbs - Despite what you’ve been told by your trendy, gluten-free neighbor, carbohydrates are not the devil. The fact of the matter is carbs are vital to our energy levels and brain function. If you are one of the many people who experience a dreaded late afternoon decline in mood and energy, it might well be due to the fact that your brain is running low on serotonin. Have a small serving of carbohydrates, say 25 to 30 grams or so, for instance, three-quarters of a cup of Cheerios or other unsweetened cereal. Even that small amount can give you a surprising boost without a huge caloric cost or a massive sugar crash after.

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Fountain Of Youth in the Food Store: Five Foods You Should Be Eating To Live Longer

Fountain Of Youth in the Food Store: Five Foods You Should Be Eating To Live Longer

By Kurtis Bright

Choosing the Right Foods for Longer Life

We humans have had a fascination with death since we’ve been human. There is evidence of funerary practices occurring at some of the oldest human habitations, so we know that we have been pondering death for a very long time.

The flip side of considering death and what it is and what meaning it has is of course focusing on life, and how to stay alive for as long as possible. Even before Ponce de Leon’s search for the Fountain of Youth in the Florida Everglades, and right up to Howard Hughes’ mad regimen of germophobia designed to allow him to live forever, our obsession with long life continues.

Well good news, everyone: there actually is a fountain of youth--uh, sort of. But you don’t have to hack your way into the wilds of central Florida to find it. These five foods will help you live a longer, healthier life.

• Nuts - Bodybuilders along with casual dieters have long relied on nuts, knowing that they provide a protein punch at just a tiny caloric cost. A handful of almonds will keep you going for a long time. Even better, they can help you keep up your daily energy, but even your life itself. A study performed at the Harvard School of Public Health showed that the more often people ate nuts, the lower their risk of dying was.
• Whole grains - It is well known nowadays that white bread is virtually devoid of nutrients and sets off a glycemic roller coaster reaction in your body. Luckily it turns out that whole grain breads, pastas and other bakery items not only don’t trigger as severe a glycemic reaction, they can also help you live longer. A Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine study found that for each additional one ounce serving of whole grains a person ate, they had a 5 percent lower overall mortality risk, and a 9 percent lower risk of death from heart problems.
• Spice it up - A study in China that followed over 450,000 men and women demonstrated that those who ate spicy foods six or seven days a week had a 14 percent lower mortality risk than those who ate them once each week. Pass the hot sauce!
• Seaweed - There have been over a thousand studies on seaweed and counting, demonstrating all kinds of benefits: lowered risk of inflammation, immune system boosting capabilities, and retarding the growth of cancer just to name a few. And a recent meta-study looked at all of these, seeking to quantify the copious use of seaweed in Japanese cuisine to help explain the longevity rate in that country, which is one of the highest in the world.
• Something Fishy - We’ve known for a long time that fish contain carotenoids, compounds that protect against neurological diseases, as well as omega-3s. These fatty fish help reduce inflammation, which has been linked to allergies, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Make sure you buy only organic, sustainable fish that isn’t loaded with heavy metals or toxins--go to seafoodwatch for more.

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Strategy Is The Key To Healthy Eating: How To Stock Your Fridge For Success

Strategy Is The Key To Healthy Eating: How To Stock Your Fridge For Success

By Kurtis Bright

How You Can Increase Your Chances Of Eating Healthy With A Little Planning

In this rapid-fire world, it isn’t easy to maintain a healthy diet, but setting yourself up for success can go a long way toward keeping a healthy weight and avoiding unhealthy snacking.

One reason why garbage snack foods and fast food are so tempting that many people don’t know about is that food manufacturers pay chemists lots of money to create formulas for their foods that are literally as addicting as possible through a combination of fats, salt and sugar. The human animal craves these naturally, dating from a time when nutrition was much harder to obtain--and they take advantage of that.

But another reason we grab the potato chip bag or hit the drive-thru on the way home after a long day is clearly convenience.

What if we could build our own “drive-thru” that only dispensed healthy snacks? Or construct ways to make healthy food more convenient for ourselves? When you’re really hungry--right now-hungry, not later-hungry--and you had the option to grab something quick yet healthy out of the fridge, would you do it?

There’s only one way to find out! Here’s a few ways to begin to set yourself up for successfully maintaining a healthy diet, some foods you can prepare in advance for quick snacking in the moment.

• Sliced turkey wraps - Low in fat, high in protein, and super versatile, our Thanksgiving friend turkey is a winner as a snack. One great idea is to make yourself a couple of turkey wraps with your favorite ingredients, then slice them, wrap them, and store them in the fridge. Going for a tasty disc of turkey, lettuce, cheese and tortilla is a damn sight better than scarfing down potato chips.
• Hummus - Mmmm, hummus. A tub of homemade hummus is easy to whip up--all you need is garbanzo beans, garlic and olive oil--maybe add a bit of cayenne pepper or chopped basil if you’re feeling sassy. A traditional middle eastern dip that is high in protein and fiber, yet low in calories is easy to prep, and easy to dive into when you are struck by the hunger beast. Pre-slice some cucumber and wash some organic cherry tomatoes ahead of time for dipping, and you have an awesome and healthy snack.
• Carrot sticks - This old standby is a fave not only for convenience’s sake but also for the insanely low calorie content of this nonetheless very filling and satisfying food--one that is also high in fiber and vitamins A and K. If you eat 120 grams of carrots--about a cup, chopped--you are only eating about 55 calories. For a little perspective on that, in order to eat the same number of calories in potato chip form you would need to limit yourself to about 9.5 grams. Prep yourself for going to carrot town by washing, peeling and slicing organic carrots into sticks, then store them in water in the fridge. They stay crisp for days and you can grab as many as you want on the go, with no fear of gaining weight.
• Hard-boiled eggs - Loaded with over six grams of protein at an extremely low caloric trade-off of around 70kCal, a quick egg on your way out the door can keep you on your feet for hours without a nasty glycemic crash or ruining your waistline.
• Seltzer - If you haven’t kicked the soda habit yet despite all the bad news about it, try stocking your fridge with seltzer water. If you go for the pre-flavored kind, take care to look for brands that are lightly flavored so it’s a treat for your palate without the deadly added sugar or aspartame of soda. Keep in mind another little-known fact: our bodies send us signals that we’re hungry when we are merely dehydrated. Go for a seltzer next time you get a rumbling in the gut and see if you concur.

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Some Foods Are Worse Than Others: A Few to Avoid at All Cost

Some Foods Are Worse Than Others: A Few to Avoid at All Cost

By Kurtis Bright

Although We’re Swimming in Unhealthy Food Choices, Avoid These in Particular to Keep From Drowning

If you can take a step back and objectively look at what food manufacturers are trying to sell us in the developed world, it’s almost funny how horrible this “food” is for you.

Or it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

It’s impossible to drive along main street in any U.S. town without being pummeled with brightly-colored signs advertising all manner of junk food--and that’s just the restaurants.

Imagine yourself as an alien next time you walk in to a grocery store and consider the walls of sugary soda and deep-fried, preservative-laden, genetically-modified, partially-hydrogenated garbage that surrounds you: what might one think of a species that eats stuff like this? Are they suicidal or what?

But as ludicrously, objectively terrible as much of our so-called food selection is, there are certain items that are definitively worse than others. Some of the most heinous offenders, foods you should avoid at all cost.

• Farmed salmon - The sales pitch is that, while you might not want to make farmed salmon your first choice, it is nonetheless tolerable, and that it may even be better for the environment due to massive overfishing of wild salmon. However, don’t buy the hype. Farmed salmon is raised on an abnormal diet of grains--not often found in the wilds of the rivers and coastal areas where the animals live naturally. And then there’s the heavy doses of antibiotics required to keep the fish alive in the disgusting, unnatural, and unhealthy pens in which they spend their entire lives. The vitamins, chemicals, and other drugs that are fed to these animals have a cost: they accumulate in your system, often dangerously so. Such is that alarm over this issue that New Zealand, Australia and even Russia have banned the sale of farmed salmon.
• Genetically engineered papaya - These days the vast majority of Hawaiian papaya is genetically modified to resist a disease called ringspot. And despite the sock-puppet accounts you can find on online media telling you there is nothing to fear from eating GE foods, study after study has shown that animals fed GMO grains suffer organ damage, intestinal damage, tumors, and birth defects. The E.U. has flat-out banned all Hawaiian papayas because it considers them too dangerous and compromised.
• Meat tainted with Ractopamine - There is an unlikely ally for factory farmers called ractopamine, an asthma drug that is routinely fed to cattle, pigs and turkeys. The reason isn’t to help the breathing of the animals; rather, it has been found to be a powerful muscle enhancer, thus speeding the growth of the animals and enhancing profits. The problem with ractopamine is that residue remains in the meat you buy at the store, up to 20 percent of it. And it is poisonous: over 1700 people have been hospitalized after eating ractopamine-laced pork in the last 20 years. It’s in 45 percent of U.S. pork and 30 percent of ration-fed U.S. cattle. If you want to know how bad the danger really is, consider that even China has banned the chemical. As if you needed another reason to avoid factory-farmed meat.
• Sports drinks contain flame retardant - Something called brominated vegetable oil was first developed to be used as a flame retardant. Ever seeking new and unique ways to poison us, sports beverage manufacturers have found it can be used as a cheap flavoring in citrus-flavored beverages. Despite the Food and Drug Administration--being the sharp tacks they are--approving its use for human consumption in 1977, subsequent studies have shown that brominated vegetable oil is bioaccumulative in human tissue, especially in breast tissue. Subsequently it can also be found in breast milk, and is known to cause reproductive issues and behavioral problems in large doses.

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Feed Your Head: How Eating Healthy Isn’t Just For Your Body Anymore

Feed Your Head: How Eating Healthy Isn’t Just For Your Body Anymore

By Kurtis Bright

Eating For Your Mental Well-Being Is Just As Important As Eating For Your Physical Health

When it comes to the notion of “eating healthy,” most of us think about fats, proteins and carbs, and the resulting physical shape we end up with when we alter their ratios in our diet.

What goes in has a bearing on what results, of course: if the machine receives only soda, potato chips and deep-fried meat, you’re probably going to end up with a machine that doesn’t run optimally.

But there is a vital part of the machine that we often don’t think about, and it is one of the most important parts--at least it tells us it is: the brain.

If you consider the fact that our brains account for 20 percent of our daily energy expenditure, it is almost unfathomable that we don’t think more carefully about the ways various foods affect our mental functioning. Especially considering how much we now know about nutrition, you would think we would work harder to fine-tune our mental functioning through diet, at least to the same degree as we attempt fine-tune our physical functioning in the same way.

So how can we use our diet to push our mental health and brain function ever higher? Here’s a few proven ways:

• Something Fishy - They say that “fish is brain food” and it really is true. No single source provides so much in the way of omega-3 essential fatty acids, one of the most important nutrients for brain health. When it comes to mental health, having a deficiency in one of these omega-3s like DHA has been linked to depression, biopolar disorder and even schizophrenia. You can also use DHA to helps stave off age-related mental decline, and it lowers the risk for developing dementia and Alzheimer’s.
• Careful With That Coffee, Eugene - Recent studies have gone a long way to lighten the bad reputation of coffee, conferring on our favorite morning beverage health benefits such as reducing your risk of contracting type 2 diabetes. However sip your morning brew with a grain of salt: its caffeine is a double-edged sword. While its energy-enhancing properties are well-documented--and appreciated by millions on a daily basis--there is a proven and equally well-documented link between anxiety and caffeine. This association is so strong, in fact that the American Psychiatry Association recognizes “caffeine-induced anxiety disorder” in its standard guide. Studies have found that in inpatient settings, caffeine increased not only anxiety, but also hostility and psychotic symptoms, so go easy and know when to say when.
• Always B Closing - Deficiency in Vitamin B12 is still surprisingly common, affecting 40 percent of adults even in the 21^st century when anything and everything has had supplements added. It shows itself as anxiety, depression, brain fog, memory loss and mental confusion. Left unchecked, vitamin B12 deficiency even progress to schizophrenia, so its nothing to scoff at. Since B12 is only found in animal sources, vegetarians and especially vegans are at risk of developing a deficiency. However, take care if you start popping vitamin supplements: sometimes simply upping your B12 intake isn’t enough--there can be absorption issues as well. Somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of adults over 50 have trouble absorbing B12 from food. The good news is that if you take a bit more than you need, you’ll just excrete in your urine.

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