Heads up: There might be canola oil in your oat milk

January 25, 2019 at 08:59AM by CWC Plant-based milks have never been more popular (or plentiful) in 2019—what a time to be alive!—but out of all the options, oat milk is currently queen bee. And while oat milk fans probably already know to avoid carrageenan and check the sugar content before adding it to their coffee, there’s an ingredient that pops up in many common oat milk brands that has people doing a double-take: rapeseed oil. The name alone is off-putting. If you take the time to whip out your phone and do a quick Google search while staring at the dairy-free case, you’ll find that it’s commonly talked about alongside canola oil. Here’s why: they’re basically the same thing. Some background: Rapeseed oil is made from the seeds of the rape plant (a relative of mustard). Rapeseed oil naturally contains high amounts of erucic acid (between 30-60 percent), which has been associated with heart problems in mice. In the 1970s, food scientists developed a rapeseed plant that had much lower levels of erucic acid through cross-breeding techniques (not to be confused with genetically-modifying the plants). They named the plant (and the oil created from it) canola. Per the FDA, in order for an oil to be called canola, no more than two percent of its fatty acid profile can come from erucic acid. So yeah, there are some slight differences, although outside of the US and Canada, people conflate the two things—likely because most “rapeseed oil” today is made with these lower-erucic

Read More

Whole30 has a *lot* of rules—this cheat sheet summarizes everything you need to know

January 25, 2019 at 06:55AM by CWC It’s a familiar scenario in 2019: You meet a friend for dinner, and suddenly she’s swiping left on the bread basket, ordering her steak without the cream sauce, and treating the dessert menu like it’s covered in Zika germs. (Still a thing, FYI.) But before you start searching for a new companion with whom you can split your chocolate lava cake, consider the fact that her condition could be temporary. Like tons of other people, she may just be doing Whole30—a crazy-popular nutrition challenge whereby people ditch a few food groups for 30 days to in order to improve their health and eating habits. You might say that the program, developed by sports nutritionist Melissa Hartwig, helped launch Paleo-style eating back into mainstream territory. (Like Paleo, refined sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy are just a few of Whole30’s no-go ingredients—meals revolve around veggies, fruit, and animal protein instead.) And your mom, your aunt, and your BFF aren’t the only ones on board. Stars like Busy Philipps and Emmy Rossum are also fans. So why, exactly, has Whole30 caught on like a flaming sage bundle since it launched in 2009? According to Diana Rodgers, RD, a Whole30 coach and owner of Sustainable Dish, the program is a great way to re-evaluate your eating habits if you feel like they’ve veered off course. “In our modern food landscape, where we have 24/7 access to hyperpalatable [processed] food, we’re wired to seek out as many calories as possible,” she explains. “But by focusing

Read More

How to deal if hair dyes make your scalp itchy and red

January 25, 2019 at 07:12AM by CWC A few months ago, a photo made the rounds on the Internet of a woman who’s head swelled to twice it’s normal size after she had an allergic reaction to hair dye. It was shocking, to say the least, but most allergies to hair dye are way more subtle: itchy red scalp, watery eyes, and flaking. It begs the question: Is there any way to really avoid hair dye allergies or even the sensitivity that comes from allowing dye to sit on the scalp for hours? Despite the fact that we, as consumers, now care more than ever about the ingredients in our beauty products, hair dye is one aspect of the industry that hasn’t seen a ton of forward progress. Unless you’re interested in toning your strands with things like coffee or beet juice, there is no such thing as “natural hair dye.” Chemicals need to be applied to open the cuticle of the hair, so that the color molecule can go into the cortex of the hair (and stay there!), resulting in the glorious and strikingly different “after” photo. Many products on the market contain a combination of ammonia and peroxide. While things are admittedly getting better—in October of last year, the FDA banned lead acetate as a color additive in dyes, and Madison Reed introduced the first ever “six-free” product—there’s still a ways to go. “There are products in hair color that trigger allergies to hair color called PPD (1,4-phenylenediamine) and PTD (1,4-toluenediamine),”

Read More

Etiquette tips for inviting (or not!) coworkers to your wedding

January 25, 2019 at 05:30AM by CWC Remember when Jim and Pam got married on The Office and the entire staff of Dunder Mifflin attended their wedding? From line-crossing boss Michael to chronically unfriendly Angela and social loose cannon Dwight, literally everybody got an invite. (Come to think of it, those characters were always particularly light on the work-life boundaries with one another.) But since life isn’t but a delightful sitcom, the matter of whom to invite to your wedding can be a much more complicated ordeal…with far more disastrous implications if not handled properly. If you’re in the midst of wedding planning and you’re deciding whom to invite, the subject of coworkers may come up—especially if you have a few close friends at your job. You spend a hearty chunk of your life with them, but if you invite some, should you invite them all? Where is the line? “Deciding who from the office to invite to the wedding is one of the most commonly asked wedding-etiquette questions,” says Anne Chertoff, the wedding expert of Beaumont Etiquette. “Deciding who from the office to invite to the wedding is one of the most commonly asked wedding-etiquette questions.” —Anne Chertoff, wedding-etiquette expert Perhaps that’s because the premise includes several tough-to-solve conundrums, like how to artfully invite some coworkers and not others to your nuptials. And if you go forth with that plan, how do you break the news to the colleagues who didn’t make the cut? Could it be best to just

Read More