Month: October 2019

October 24, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC From lentil- and chickpea-pastas and cauliflower-based everything to alternative milks (so. many. alt. milks.), it’s clear that plant-based eating is more than just a trend; it’s here for good. After a long-held belief that meat should be the focus of their meals, Americans are leaning in to the scientific research that repeatedly finds that a plant-forward diet is the healthiest way to eat and giving veggies more real estate on their plates. Of course brands have taken notice and for the most part, that’s awesome. There are more vegan products on the market than ever, making it easier for consumers to up their plant-consumption, even if they don’t want to (or can’t) eat all vegan all the time. However, dietitians have a PSA to healthy eaters: not all foods marketed as “vegan” or “plant-based” are legitimately healthy. “Companies often use terms that cast a health halo around their product,” registered dietitian Debbie Petitpain, RDN says. When it comes to food confusion, you could say using “vegan” and “plant-based” is the new “natural.” Why not all vegan and plant-based foods are healthy While the term vegan is pretty straightforward (indicating that animals weren’t used to make the product at all), registered dietitian Amy Kimberlain, RD, CDE, an Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics media spokesperson, says that “plant-based” is more nebulous, which adds to the confusion when shopping for healthy foods. “[Different people] have different definitions of what it means,” she says, adding that it’s

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October 24, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC intro Today, the average American consumes almost 60 pounds of added sugar per year, which translates to about 17 teaspoons a day. Despite this mass overconsumption of sugar by Americans, it is well understood that eating too much sugar is bad for your health. It contributes to weight gain, cavities, acne and long-term health problems like type 2 diabetes, cancer, liver disease, heart disease, dementia, mood disorders, and metabolic issues. While most people know that sugar is not doing them any favors, the reality is much more serious than that: Sugar directly impacts your biology in addictive ways. Research presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual conference shows that sugar actually activates the reward center of your brain—the same one that lights up from cocaine and heroin. The stimulation of these neural pathways is reinforced every time we eat sweets and causes the brain to become increasingly hard-wired to crave sugar on a regular basis. Sugar directly impacts your biology in addictive ways. Even if you don’t think you eat a lot of added sugar, after you start to look at your diet, I bet you’ll find sugar is hiding in more places than you thought—like the smoothie you grabbed from the juice bar, the dressing at your go-to salad spot, the tomato sauce with your favorite dinner, and let’s not forget that after-dinner chocolate. If you just read that and thought, “Crap!” you’re not alone. It’s not your fault. We’ve all been

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