| Nutrition pros help find the grains of truth amid the hype about what ...
The worst thing you can do is say, 'I have 10 top foods, and that's all I'm going to eat.' " I guess that rules out the Special K diet I was going to start tomorrow. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that advocates good nutrition and sound science and blew the whistle on trans fats and other dietary disasters, recommends adding sweet potatoes, grape tomatoes, broccoli, citrus fruits, butternut squash, spinach, kale, skim or 1 percent milk, wild salmon, brown rice and whole-grain rye crackers to your diet. But what about all those buzz words, such as omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, whole grains and probiotic cultures that we've been hearing so much about? You know, the ones that are supposed to make you live forever, or something like that.
Diet helps keep children seizure-free
LAFAYETTE, Calif. Without hesitation, Cathy Holt can tell you how long it has been since Noah's latest seizure.The Lafayette, Calif., mother keeps a running total. Her blond, blue-eyed 4-year-old has been seizure-free for 40 weeks.That is a life-altering change for Noah, who had been averaging a seizure a week since he was 6 months old. The longest one lasted three hours. Many ended in a hospital emergency room.Noah tried state-of-the-art medications to control his epilepsy, without success.A low-tech approach transformed the boy's life a strict high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that defies all good-nutrition recommendations.Known as the ketogenic diet, it has been around since biblical times and has gone in and out of favor.Instead of fruits and vegetables, Noah's meals often include heavy cream, bacon and butter laced with cinnamon.Why and how the diet works remains a mystery.But Children's Hospital Oakland, Kaiser Permanente, the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford and other institutions have put scores of epileptic children on the diet, with varying degrees of success.Experts stress that the diet can have side effects and should be attempted only under strict medical supervision.
Poverty Drains Nutrition From Family Diet
THURSDAY, Feb. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Members of poor households in which it is consistently hard to afford enough high-quality food end up eating nutritionally risky diets, Canadian researchers reveal. The new study is the first to show that food insecurity directly translates into poor nutrition. It also suggests that in such homes, adults and teens, rather than very young children, are the most likely to be subsisting on diets low in vitamins, minerals, fruits, vegetables, grains and meat. "Over the long term, [food insecurity] could be expected to precipitate and complicate diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease," cautioned study co-author, Sharon Kirkpatrick, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.
Dietary exercises take students from brainstorms to brain freezes
There was a whole lot of slurping going on at Franklin School on Thursday. And there may have been a few children suffering from brain freeze.For the second time this year, lunchtime was turned into a lively nutrition lesson as kids participated in a "Mix It Up" activity focused on the benefits of eating fruit. Their reward for paying attention? A frozen 5-ounce serving of a "strawberry whirl" or "pomegranate paradise" smoothie from Jamba Juice."It doesn't just taste good, it tastes really good!" said first-grader Raghav Bangalore.During each lunch session, students were randomly assigned to one of six tables and asked to brainstorm different ways to eat a banana, apple, cantaloupe, strawberries, raspberries or pomegranate.Fifth-graders Kole Bartley and Kieley Trempy found themselves sitting at the "pomegranate table." They said they loved pomegranates and described the taste as between sweet and sour."You have to eat the seeds," said Kieley, to nods of agreement from Kole.
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