Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week climate change lowers crops’ nutrition, beliefs impact meal satiety, and eating close to bedtime linked to body fat.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• The great nutrient collapse – Fascinating research emerging on how the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is actually increasing the amount of sugar and reducing the amount of nutrients in the plants on earth, including our food. It’s refreshing to read such great journalism. (Politico)
• So Your Kitchen Sponge Is A Bacteria Hotbed. Here’s What To Do – In case that sponge story has been keeping you up at night, NPR calls BS. (NPR)
• Later circadian timing of food intake is associated with increased body mass index – More new research on how eating close to bedtime (regardless of when that actually is or what you eat) impacts body composition. (ScienceDaily)
• You’re Only as Full as You Expect to Be – I don’t usually share scientific findings that haven’t gone through peer review yet, but this was super interesting and consistent with research that is already published. It seems what you believe about the food you eat has a bigger impact on how satisfying it is than the actual qualities (nutrition, meal size, etc.) of the food. Think about what that might mean in your life. (Medline)
• Willpower Doesn’t Work. Here’s How to Actually Change Your Life. – An interesting take on the roles of clear thinking and commitment in bypassing the willpower problem. (Medium)
• Omega-3 helps the gut stay healthy, study finds – Omega-3 fatty acids may work a bit like probiotics in the gut. (MedicalXpress)
• Depression is a physical illness which could be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, scientists suggest – If this is true, diet and exercise should have a tremendous impact in helping with depression, which the evidence supports. (Telegraph)
• Are we putting too much blame on ‘emotional eating’? – A good question. (Washington Post)
• Dull Knife? No Sharpener? Grab a Mug – Who knew? (Serious Eats)
• MEXI CAULIFLOWER RICE STUFFED PEPPERS  – Summer food! Yum. (Sprouted Kitchen)

What inspired you this week?

“A binge never happens in a peaceful, loving environment. So, if you can create that environment somehow for yourself that’s going to be the way.” – Maria

Have you tried everything to quit binge eating and nothing seems to work? Are you still on the fence about whether or not practicing mindfulness will actually help your situation?

If the answer is yes then today’s episode may change your life.

To say that Maria had it tough growing up would be an understatement. The torment she suffered as a child had such a huge impact that it penetrated every facet of her life, resulting in severe depression and a binge eating disorder.

One day after a particularly painful binge, Maria came to a crossroads with herself. She knew it was time to get better or her life would end.

A series of serendipitous events soon unfolded and she arrived into the world of practicing mindfulness. It was here that her healing process started to begin.

Today Maria speaks openly about her journey. She describes how mindfulness changed her mindset, her relationship with her body, and how it brought joy to her life literally for the first time.

She also reveals the exact tools she used that made it possible for her to quit bingeing for good.

Maria says that her life now amazing. She credits mindfulness for enabling her to finally find peace and create a loving environment that allows her to thrive, one that she’s realized she deserved all along.

Maria now takes the lessons she has learned and helps people with their binge eating disorders. She is an incredibly strong woman with an extraordinary story.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Drawing on nearly a decade of strength training and nutrition, Maria Marklove helps people to stop binge eating for good. Join her at www.noctrlz.co.uk

Full Catastrophe living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

What I Learned from 10 Days of Silence

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

Redirect: Changing the Stories We Live By by James Pennebaker

Softly Sleeping by Daniel Conway

The Mindful Meal Challenge

7 Reasons Keeping a Food Journal is Better Than Counting Calories – What-the-Hell Effect

Loving Kindness Meditation  (Metta Meditation)

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week plastics turn up in seafood and sea salt, Mary’s chicken outed as a factory farm, and NOT dieting helps with weight loss.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Silly Rabbit! Original Trix With Artificial Colors Is Back After Customers Revolt – When preserving your memories matters more than preserving your health. SMH. (WSJ)
• Guess What’s Showing Up In Our Shellfish? One Word: Plastics – And it isn’t just shellfish (see below). This is a disturbing trend, and it isn’t a problem you can shop your way out of. (NPR)
• Sea salt around the world is contaminated by plastic, studies show – Personally I try to avoid plastics (especially for food and beverage storage) whenever possible, but it is incredibly difficult. Keep in mind that the inside of most cans are also lined with plastics. (The Guardian)
• From Coal to Kale: Saving Rural Economies with Local Food  – I love the idea of local farms reviving local economies, disrupting the industrial food system and making us healthier in the process. Yes please! (Civil Eats)
• WHOLE FOODS “FREE-RANGE” CHICKEN SUPPLIER SAID TO ACTUALLY RUN FACTORY FARM – This is exactly why we need more small farms. Mary’s chicken is a staple of Whole Foods and fancy restaurants, and it appears they have been lying about how their birds are raised. Ethical food doesn’t scale well and demand is greater than supply at the moment. (The Intercept)
• Want to fix America’s health care? First, focus on food – 100%. (The Conversation)
• French parents know how to teach their kids to love food without overeating – French parents are my spirit animals. (Quartz)
• Here Are 10 Pictures of Your Daily Recommended Servings of Fruits & Vegetables – It’s likely less than you think. The bar is pretty low, still hardly anyone reaches it. (The Kitchn)
• Taking a break from dieting may improve weight loss – I have a better idea: stop dieting altogether and find incremental ways to eat healthier without sabotaging your metabolism. (ScienceDaily)
• Your stools reveal whether you can lose weight – Interesting new data suggests why some people may have a harder time losing weight than others eating the same foods. Generally gut bacteria is something you can change with a better diet (though it takes awhile), so this is actually good news. (ScienceDaily)
• JAMAICAN JERK EGGPLANT STEAKS – Wow, this sounds delicious and perfect for the season. (Dishing Up the Dirt)

What inspired you this week?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week exercise more to maintain weight in middle age, the secret to getting motivated, and how lysine and arginine increase satiety.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life: the new sleep science – Sleep is foundational to self-care and an essential Home Court Habit. Don’t view it as a luxury. (The Guardian)
• Don’t overthink your exercise: just 2.5 hours per week of any kind could help you live longer – Yep. If you “don’t have time to exercise” you aren’t being creative enough. Your commute, housework or other daily activities can all count as exercise if you’re using your body. (Vox)
• Middle age fattens you up if you do not increase your physical activity – We already knew this, but I think it’s good news that simply adding steps is enough to counteract it. (ScienceDaily)
• Procrastination is a Practice Ground for Life Mastery – I love this reframe. Procrastination is really about avoiding discomfort, but embracing discomfort is the way out of most of your problems. Practice makes perfect. (Zen Habits)
• Forget About Inspiration. This Is the Real Key to Getting Motivated – And speaking of procrastination, if you’re sitting around waiting to become motivated you’ve already lost. (Heleo)
• Brain cells that control appetite identified for first time – Super interesting. Two specific amino acids, lysine and arginine (broken down from proteins you eat), are directly detected by satiety neurons in the brain. I predict the tanycyte diet is around the corner. (ScienceDaily)
• Vision and Hearing Loss Are Tied to Cognitive Decline – I’ve been seeing more data recently that maintaining adequate vision and hearing (by making sure your glasses and hearing devices are in good working order) is critical to maintaining cognitive (and therefore overall) health. (NY Times)
• Our weight tells how we assess food – This article doesn’t explain this very well, but I find the idea fascinating as it may one day help provide strategies for people to adopt a mindset of healthier living. (ScienceDaily)
• How Exercise Might Increase Your Self-Control – Again, there isn’t ton to work with here (super small study), but anecdotally many people have told me that their exercise habit is a cornerstone to adopting other healthy habits in their lives. (NY Times)
• back to school breakfast – breakfast tacos with cilantro jalapeño yogurt sauce – Tacos for breakfast? Yes please. (Crunchy Radish)

What inspired you this week?

Getting inspired is easy. A great article, book, or documentary can be incredibly powerful in sparking a desire for a new direction in your life. But no matter how desperately you want to change, internalizing a new philosophy enough to permanently modify your behavior can feel impossible.

This is how Anne used to feel when she would read Summer Tomato. After several years of striving to have the “perfect” diet that eventually destroyed her relationship with food, she was ready to embrace joy in eating and prioritize her own happiness (in addition to health).

But she would read articles like How to Eat Half a Donut and think that while it sounded amazing, there was no way she could ever do something like that. Clearly I (Darya) was fooling myself into using willpower and not thinking it’s really willpower, or was a different breed of human altogether. Normal people don’t eat half a donut.

Anne had her doubts she was capable of truly leaving her old habits behind, but she kept trying because she knew she couldn’t go back to her former restrictive mindset.

Today she’s called in to proudly share her success story of how she was finally able to build up a set of positive experiences that gave her the confidence and ability to choose foods based on her needs and values, rather than her fears and impulses. She no longer believes that willpower and restriction are necessary for her to control her own behavior, and can easily walk away from an unfinished donut or cupcake if it isn’t bringing her the joy she expected.

She explains the exact steps she took that led to her transformation and enabled her to finally internalize the foodist mindset she only understood intellectually, but not emotionally, until this year.

If you’ve been struggling to believe you’re capable of leaving your restrictive dieting mindset behind for good, Anne’s story will give you both the hope and practical advice you need to get there.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

The Worst Thing You Can Do if You’re Trying to Lose Weight – Self-worth and the bathroom scale

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Food Inc. documentary

Confirmation bias

Summer Tomato Book Review: The China Study

The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Goals are for Losers: The Life-Changing Advice No One Tells You

How To Eat A Half A Donut

Use This Mindful Eating Placemat to Remember to Slow Down and Enjoy Your Food

9 Simple Tricks To Eat More Mindfully

Headspace

Mindful Meal Challenge

How To Avoid Drinking Too Much In Social Situations Foodist podcast

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week mice trained to binge on full stomach, the problem with HIIT, and black tea is a superfood too.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• For Your Brain’s Sake, Keep Moving – Exercise is arguably the single best way to maintain your brain health with age, in case you didn’t know. (NY Times)
• Feeling sated can become a cue to eat more – Wow this is nuts. A new study in mice shows that feeding cues can be reversed when they are subjected to abnormal food access, i.e. no food when hungry and hyperpalatable food when already full. Essentially they trained the mice to binge when they were already full. It’s worth noting that mice do not have the body image issues and emotional baggage that we have as human dieters. This gives us one more biological reason why dieting inevitably backfires. (ScienceDaily)
• The circadian rhythm research that just won a Nobel prize in medicine, explained – The science of why living in accordance with light/dark cycles is important is easy to ignore in our high-tech world, but that would be a mistake. (Vox)
• High-intensity workouts won’t work for most people – Doing what you find enjoyable is the best predictor of maintaining an exercise habit. While HIIT workouts work great from a biological perspective, if you hate them and won’t do them then they aren’t the solution for you. (ScienceDaily)
• Obesity Was Rising as Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC. – This is painful to read. Fast food was born in America, so we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, and it will take many decades to undo the damage. In developing nations these companies know exactly what they are promoting and make no apologies for it. (NY Times)
• Black tea may help with weight loss, too – Are you surprised to learn that all this time black tea may have also been a “superfood,” but science just didn’t know it yet? I’m not. (ScienceDaily)
• FDA failing to act on risky foods – This is incredibly frustrating. What’s the point of food safety regulations if they aren’t inspected or enforced? (Watertown Daily Times)
• France bans plastic cups, plates and cutlery – Amazing. (Independent)
• Turkish Cauliflower & Yoghurt Soup – Nom nom. (Stone Soup)

When Kevin and I first decided to start a family I thought getting pregnant would be pretty easy. Even though I’m 37, I know I’m super healthy and that my mother and her four sisters all had children in their late 30s without issue.

I figured that despite my chronological age, biology would still clock me in under 30 (later fertility testing actually showed this to be true).

Still, after several months of trying it didn’t happen and I started to become concerned. Had we waited too long?

At that point we started to get more serious. First I made my husband adjust his twice weekly sauna sessions (fun fact: it can take 3-6 months for sperm counts to recover after intense heat exposure). He didn’t want to give up the practice completely, so he would bring Ziplock bags of ice to rest his junk on while in the heat.

I also started using at home ovulation test strips and learned that the app I had been using to track my cycle was off by nearly a week in predicting ovulation. Oops.

When neither of these fixes resulted in pregnancy by the end of a full year of trying we decided it was time to run some tests to see if something was biologically dysfunctional. We both went through the usual battery of fertility tests and learned what we thought we already knew, which is that both of us are really healthy (not just “for our age”) and capable of conceiving.

This was great news, but also disheartening. If nothing is wrong, then why isn’t it working?

It was shortly after this that we got a wonderful update from our friend Dr. Rhonda Patrick from FoundMyFitness and learned that she was expecting. Rhonda is the queen of nutrition and anti-aging hacks, and is one of the few online sources I really trust for solid scientific nutrition information.

When we told her we had also been trying to conceive, she casually mentioned that she “just gave up coffee and BOOM!” got pregnant a couple of weeks later after trying for 10 months. She said she had stumbled onto some research that caffeine, and especially coffee, increases risk of spontaneous abortion that may happen even before embryo implantation.

What?! Why had I never heard this before?

While I don’t drink a lot of coffee, I usually have one (pretty strong) cup each morning. After digging around a bit in the research myself I learned that indeed high doses of caffeine increase early miscarriage risk, and that coffee (even decaf) seems to be more of an issue than tea or other caffeinated beverages. Regular coffee intake by men may also decrease likelihood of a successful pregnancy.

I found this fascinating, but not particularly good news. I’ve been drinking coffee pretty regularly since I was 15 and was not excited to give up my habit. I’d feel extra bad making Kevin give it up as well. As a compromise I switched to green tea at the beginning of my next cycle, vowing to give that up next time if this wasn’t enough.

Then BOOM, I found out I was pregnant four weeks later.

I couldn’t believe it worked, and was actually pretty convinced it was a fluke. But I couldn’t keep the secret from my childhood best friend who I knew had also been trying to get pregnant for even longer than I had. I was certain she was drinking coffee (we were hanging out at cafes at 15 together, after all) so shared my secret.

She was also reluctant to give up her morning brew, but went off caffeine completely at the start of her next cycle and got pregnant right away. She’s due in January.

I’m very aware that this is anecdotal evidence backed up by some intriguing, but not fully conclusive, science. Obviously coffee and caffeine are not the only factors in fertility, and there are certainly women who can conceive while consuming it and those who can’t conceive but have never touched it.

But I’m also a bit blown away by how well it has worked for myself and friends this year, and there’s virtually no risk in giving up coffee for a couple of months if you’ve been struggling to conceive. It’s certainly cheaper than IVF, which you should probably give up coffee to do anyway.

For myself I continued to avoid coffee through the first trimester. Once I was a couple of weeks into the pregnancy this was easy, since it both smelled and tasted horrible to me.

But a few weeks into the second trimester my nausea turned into headaches and coffee started smelling and sounding good again. I let myself have a cup every now and then, and have slowly ramped up over time without issue. (If I’d had a history or miscarriages or other sensitivities I probably wouldn’t have done this).

Before trying to get pregnant I had never heard that coffee or caffeine increased miscarriage risk or made conception more difficult, and it was not mentioned to me by my doctors at the fertility clinic. To me it seems like knowledge worth sharing.

What’s your take on coffee and pregnancy?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week how to be perpetually healthy, questioning the sustainability of online meat, and what it means to be a supertaster.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• The 10 Things Perpetually Healthy Nerds Do that Unhealthy People Don’t. – This is a goldmine. (Nerd Fitness)
• Can We Trust the Sustainable Meat We Order Online? – Excellent question. This article does a good job of looking at the challenges we face as Real Food tries to go mainstream and reach more people. That would obviously be great, but there are challenges to scale that make maintaining quality and ethical standards very challenging. I’ll be watching this space closely. (Civil Eats)
• How Science Saved Me from Pretending to Love Wine – One of the better articles I’ve ever read on the role of genetics in food preferences. Yes, I still strongly believe you can train your palate to like more foods (I have done it, and I have that cilantro soap gene), but it can be helpful to know what obstacles you face in the process. (New Yorker)
• What I’ve Learned from Eating Abroad – I love this perspective. Much of my own evolution in how I understand food, health, and quality of life has come from world travel. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• Meet the nocebo effect, the placebo effect’s evil twin that makes you feel pain – A nice reminder that a large chunk of your life’s experience is based solely on what you are expecting. That doesn’t make it not real, but it does mean you may have more control than you think depending on how you frame things. (Vox)
• The Fight for the Right to Eat Seal Blubber – A super interesting and inspiring story. (Slate)
• This is the most valuable wild salmon fishery in the world – And the new EPA may turn it into a mine. I really hope this doesn’t happen. (CNN)
• Should We Be Treating Type 2 Diabetes With Bariatric Surgery? – The success rate is shockingly high. It’s great if you can get healthy and lose weight without surgery, but there’s no shame in choosing an option that you know will work when nothing else has. (Weighty Matters)
• The Future of Food – Perspectives worth reading. (The Nation)
• SHAKSHUKA WITH FRESH CRANBERRY BEANS – How delicious does this look?? Yum. (The Year In Food)

What inspired you this week?

“You have to rig the game so you can win, set yourself the lowest minimal bar to do something. That was really the key to my success.” – Sarah

It happens to the best of us. You get a little older, your life changes, you start moving less, maybe have a kid or two, and before you know it the extra pounds have slowly crept on. And when you finally realize something needs to be done about it you find you can’t lose it as easily as you used to.

This can be a crucial moment in a person’s life. Do I hop on a diet and get back to my target weight right away or do I look at my lifestyle and start thinking long-term? The latter can seem like a daunting task and you may lack confidence in your ability to do it. But it is the only way to achieve lasting success.

This insight was the key to Sarah’s success. Having been raised on whole foods she found Summer Tomato and immediately identified with the philosophy of using Real Food to lose weight. She knew dieting was not the answer.

Exercise was a different story. Sarah knew that developing a consistent workout routine would be crucial for her success, but that it would also be her most challenging obstacle to overcome.

In this episode Sarah explains the very small yet critical mindset shift she made that enabled her to not only build an exercise routine, but to look forward to it every day.

If you hate exercise and have been trying to develop a routine for years without success I invite you to try Sarah’s approach. It’s a game changer.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting by Darya Rose, Ph.D

You Never Regret A Workout

Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

MyFitnessPal

Mindful Meal Challenge

Zero – fasting tracker app from Kevin Rose

No, You Don’t Deserve That Indulgence Today

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

A heads up that this will be my final post for awhile as I’m going on maternity leave. Wish me luck! If you’d like to follow along on Instagram you can do so at @daryarose.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week it’s OK to let your kids trick-or-treat, gut fungi are a thing, and how to reclaim your mornings.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• My Kids Go Trick or Treating. Yours Probably Should Too. – If you’ve ever tried a restrictive diet you know how depriving yourself can result in a rebound binge effect. Kids are not immune to this psychological phenomenon either. I love Yoni Freedhoff’s advice to treat Halloween as a teachable moment to develop a healthy and realistic relationship with sugar and special occasions. (Weighty Matters)
• Read this and you may never eat chicken again – One of the many reasons I don’t eat industrial meat at all if I can help it. Skipping it is also a good way to stick it to the man. (The Guardian, EcoWatch)
• Gut fungi could play a role in obesity epidemic – Move over gut bacteria, gut fungi want some attention too. Also FYI, when you read about a mouse study that used a “high-fat diet,” what they really mean is a Western diet that is high in both fat and sugar. Mice won’t eat lots of fat without sugar added. Go figure. (ScienceDaily)
• It’s easy to become obese in America. These 7 charts explain why. – It really isn’t that complicated, but it’s nice to see it all laid out. Fixing it is another story. (Vox)
• Kimbal Musk Wants to Feed America, Silicon Valley-Style – I’m super interested to see how food evolves. It’s a complex problem and as much as I love the idea of everyone having their own backyard garden, I know that isn’t realistic. It’s exciting to consider what someone with resources like Musk can do in this space, though I hope he makes it better and not worse. (NY Times)
• You Get 25,000 Mornings as an Adult: Here are 8 Ways to Not Waste Them – In case you haven’t noticed, a huge part of maintaining strong healthystyle habits is smart energy and time management. Some great tips here. (James Clear)
• Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life ‘In An Underslept State’ – Sleep is also critical in energy management. Make sure you prioritize it. (NPR)
• Anthony Bourdain Wants You to Waste Less Food – Excited to see this film. Food waste is a critically important issue and I’m happy the important people are starting to pay attention. (Civil Eats)
• French supermarkets banned from throwing away and spoiling unsold food – So awesome. More please. (Independent)
• The Minimalist’s Strength Workout – Good suggestions if you’re looking for a simple strength training workout. (Outside Online)
• Magic Sausage & Cabbage Supper – I made a meal similar to this a couple of days ago. So simple and delicious. (Stone Soup)

What inspired you this week?

“I’ve felt the option is either cake or not cake. And so then how do you start a habit to NOT do something?” – Mindy

Mindy was excited when she found Summer Tomato. The thought of being able to lose weight without counting calories or going on another strict diet was a revelation.

Right away she bought a pedometer to make sure she was getting enough steps each day, stopped counting calories and started focusing on cooking Real Food for herself and her family. But as time passed Mindy wasn’t losing weight with her new healthstyle, she was gaining.

Mindy was hoping that giving up dieting would automatically end her cravings for sweets at the end of the day, but it didn’t and without trying to restrict herself she started eating more than ever. Now she wonders if it’s even possible for her to stop. In fact, when she reached out to us she asked if it would be possible for her to keep her bingeing habit and do something else to lose the extra pounds.

In this episode Mindy and I examine her current habits and triggers to help her recognize that there is actually a third path available. One that doesn’t require her to give up sweets, but does help her find a healthier alternative to regular bingeing.

It’s difficult to believe that you can lose weight without restricting your eating if the only thing you’ve ever done instead is overeat. Finding the solution takes some experimentation, as well as recognizing and reframing your limiting beliefs so you can imagine yourself taking a different path.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

MyFitnessPal

Mindful Meal Challenge

Oak – Meditation & Breathing app

How to Turn Theoretical Health Goals Into Practical Habits – Foodist podcast

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Hey guess what? I’m back! I’m going to try my best to start up FTLOF again and start posting new content. I’m making no promises about consistency, but I’m excited to jump back into ST. I’ve missed you guys!

These are some of my favorite articles from while I was away. We’ll get back to a newsier schedule next week.

Real Food trumps macronutrient hacking, plastic in bottled water, and the downfall of a scientist.

Next weeks Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the past few dozen weeks

• What We Know (and Dont Know) About How to Lose Weight One of the better analyses I’ve read about the landmark new study showing that low-carb and low-fat diets work about equally well if you’re focused on Real Food. (NY Times)
• Microplastic Contamination Is Found in Most Bottled Water, a New Study Says I don’t trust plastic at all. Yes, even the kind labeled “BPA-free.” I only drink from plastic water bottles when desperate and instead prefer my refillable glass BKR bottle. I also avoid drinking from cans, since they are lined with plastic. This is even more important when pregnant and breastfeeding. I use glass Lifefactory baby bottles to feed Zelda. (TIME)
• The Last Conversation Youll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right Solid advice. And also amusing. This stuff really isn’t so complicated. It’s the doing it part that’s hard. (Grub Street)
• The Strange, Uplifting Tale of ?Joy of Cooking? Versus the Food Scientist I’m so bummed to learn that Brian Wansink is a p-hacker. There are other labs that have found conclusions similar to his about how your environment can nudge you toward eating more or less than you realize, so I’m not worried on that front. I just liked the guy. Womp womp. (New Yorker)
• Why the British soda tax might work better than any of the soda taxes that came before Interesting model that seems to be impacting real products. Will be interesting to see how this experiment turns out. (Washington Post)
• The Secret to a Longer Life? Dont Ask These Dead Longevity Researcher’s LOL. Don’t forget to live. (NY Times)
• Hearts Get ‘Younger,’ Even At Middle Age, With Exercise You guys all exercise by now, right? Because you know it’s the most important thing you can do for your health and it makes you feel awesome. Of course. Nice work. (NY Times)
• Dan Barbers Seed Company Seeks to Sow the ?Democratization of Flavor How amazing is this?! And if you haven’t tried a honeynut squash yet, you absolutely should try to find one next winter. (Civil Eats)
• Lift Weights, Eat More Protein, Especially if Youre Over 40 Your protein needs change as you age. (NY Times)
• The Mysterious Interior World of Exercise Interesting new discovery about how exercise communicates with your liver. (NY Times)
• Sichuan Fish Stew (Shui Zhu Yu) Gimme gimme gimme. (Not Eating Out in New York)

What inspires you these days?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Soil is so hot right now, why and how to eat more seaweed, and new dangers of canned foods.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday.Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try thisawesome free speed reading appto read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• A Grass-Roots Movement For Healthy Soil Spreads Among Farmers This is fantastic news. Soil health is critical to both the health of the planet and the nutrition in the food we eat. I’m very happy to see it getting attention from farmers and even Big Ag. (NPR)
• A Seaweed Primer: How to Use Kelp, Nori, Wakame, and More. I’m a huge fan of sea vegetables, and I regularly encourage you to consume them here at ST. That said, I know it’s an ingredient that can be intimidating. This is a great primer with some serving suggestions for getting started. (Serious Eats)
• Can You Lose Weight by Eating More Often?. Yeah, no. Wise words as always from the Nutrition Diva. (Quick and Dirty Tips)
• How to Make a Weeknight Grain Bowl That Is Actually Delicious Anything that can speed up dinner prep in a healthy and delicious way is welcome in my home. (NY Times)
• Food packaging could be negatively affecting nutrient absorption in your body I avoid plastic-lined cans (or any plastic container for that matter), but this wasn’t one of the reasons on my list. (ScienceDaily)
• 10 Effortless Cooking Tips for the MasterChef Wannabe From a Foodist Kitchen student who is taking it to the next level. So inspiring. (Not So Fast)
• Tick Tock: Your Body Clocks A reminder of why you should work with your biological clocks instead of always fighting against them with an irregular schedule. (News In Health)
• Food allergy is linked to skin exposure and genetics Interesting new research on what may be causing certain types of food allergies. (Eureka Alert)
• Binge-eating mice reveal obesity clues Looks like junk food turns mice into binge eaters. Go figure. (Science Daily)
• Can Responsible Grazing Make Beef Climate-Neutral? I hope to see more of this. (Civil Eats)
• One Soup Three Ways Brilliant. (Green Kitchen Stories)

What inspired you this week?

Sometimes it can feel as if you are completely alone in your healthstyle struggles. While some problems are fairly commonplace (e.g. How can I fit a workout into my busy workday?), other’s can feel so uniquely your own that it feels nearly impossible to come up with a solution.

In today’s episode I help Ellen tackle a very specific problem, demonstrating the systematic approach I use to breakdown a complex issue and find an answer.

On the surface Ellen’s healthstyle is dialed in, and she juggles her family and career in tech like a champ. Unfortunately, several factors have conspired to make it so that she has an objectively unfair cooking arrangement with her husband. Because of it she often feels resentment during dinnertime, which triggers overeating and is ruining a part of her life she deserves to enjoy.

Ellen has already tried several strategies to resolve this on her own, but a fix has remained elusive.

Today Ellen and I explore her remaining options method that involves clarifying the different aspects of the issue that she can and can’t control and come up with a strategy for her to use moving forward.

Ellen’s issue is an example of a problem that is very unique to her situation, but the systematic approach we use to land on a realistic solution can be applied broadly.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Jamie Oliver’s Meals in Minutes

Blue Apron

Mindful Meal Challenge

Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology by Jack Kornfield

Oak Meditation

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

Show details:

1:54 – Darya explains the two kinds of influences that need to be thought through to fix any problem: external and internal.

5:18 – Start with what’s easiest.

5:45 – Ellen has a habit of overeating, that’s triggered by her husband and makes her resentful.

8:35 – Ellen has tried several things to control her overeating.

12:25 – Living in a man’s world.

15:40 – Making enough food to feed teenage boys and husband is exhausting.

17:15 – Ellen has thought through many solutions, but nothing has worked. She has fallen out of love with cooking and needs a reframe.

19:21 – Darya recommends cooking dinner fewer times per week to lesson the pressure it causes, addressing external/environmental influences on the problem.

20:04 – Does this need to be a conversation with her husband?

25:35 – Meal kits a possible solution for Ellen’s husband and kids to use on days Ellen needs a break from cooking.

31:02 – What about changing Ellen’s mindset instead of changing her husband?

33:45 – Why most people think about mindful eating the wrong way and how to make it a forever practice.

36:38 – How the skill of being mindful can make you aware of how your triggers affect your thoughts, emotions and body. This allows you to consciously relax, change course, or not engage with them to create more internal peace.

40:49 – Consider a more formal meditation practice to build your mindfulness muscle even stronger.

41:00 – What a formal meditation practice looks like.

41:30 – Why it can be better to change your perspective rather than change the world to suit your mood.

43:58 – Darya recommends the book Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach

44:41 – …and A Wise Heart, by Jack Kornfield, who runs Spirit Rock (where Darya did her 10 day silent meditation retreat)

44:58 – …and the Oak meditation app (now live), which has easy breathing exercises, a good guided meditation and a timed, unguided meditation with light music in the background.

47:32 – Start small by meditating 5 minutes a day or just doing it a few times a week.

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week eggs and romaine recalled, you aren’t as active as you think, and gluten-free is impossible.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday.Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try thisawesome free speed reading appto read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomatoand theSummer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• 206 Million Eggs Recalled Over Salmonella Fears – Industrial eggs at it again. Ugh. (NY times)
• E. Coli Linked to Chopped Romaine Lettuce Infects People in 11 States – Speaking of industrial food… are you over this shit (literally) yet? (NY Times)
• It’s not your fitness tracker — it’s you – Another example of how what you believe about your health habits doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. (ScienceDaily)
• How to Clean and Fillet Fresh Sardines – I’ve always wanted to learn to cook whole, fresh sardines, but have been too intimidated to buy them. This makes it look so easy. You don’t even need a knife. (Serious Eats)
• Warm Ocean Mind: Becoming I’mmersed in the Moment – A nice reframe on presence. (Zen Habits)
• The Dilemma of the Gluten-Free Diet – Apparently eating gluten-free is virtually impossible. Hmm. (WSJ)
• Pasta Just Became The Latest Weight Loss Cure, But We Have Bad News For You – LOLZ. (Science Alert)
• The Power of Umami – Proper seasoning is the secret to making food that tastes good. Don’t forget the umami. (Stone Soup)
• Sitting is Bad for Your Brain, Not Just Your Heart or Metabolism – I’d file this under hypothesis-generating observation rather than firm conclusion, but I’m glad researcher’s are taking a look here. (Neuroscience News)
• Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Zest & Cheese – Spring has sprung! Here’s an easy classic for the season. (Foraged Dish)

What inspired you this week?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week willpower is overrated, alcohol isn’t healthy, and the downside of posting calories.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday.Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try thisawesome free speed reading appto read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomatoand theSummer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Why willpower is overrated – This might be the best article on willpower I’ve ever read. My favorite line —>”And structuring your life is a skill.” (Vox)
• American Nostalgia on a Bun – Interesting look at the appeal of fast foods and, inevitably, diets as a product of American culture and values. (The Atlantic)
• It’s time to rethink how much booze may be too much – I’ve been avoiding posting about this study until I found a reasonable analysis of it. Thanks Vox for finally providing one.
• Will calorie counts on menu items do more harm than good? – OMG someone is actually thinking about psychology in public health. Be still my beating heart. (Washington Post)
• When Is It Safe to Eat Salad Again? – This is so depressing. Shopping at farmers markets is a great way to get around this sort of nonsense. (NY Times)
• To Slash Your Risk of Heart Disease, Keep Moving – Unfortunately this headline doesn’t even hint at what’s new and cool about this study: that exercise can vastly improve health outcomes even when you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease. (NY Times)
• Should You Eliminate Oil from Your Diet? – In the real world it often does more harm than good. (Scientific American)
• Study highlights need for strength training in older women to ward off effects of aging – Last I checked there were at least one or two women who read this site and care about aging well. (ScienceDaily)
• Are G.M.O. Foods Safe? – This question is one of my pet peeves. Safe for human consumption is not at all my concern about GMO foods. I’m more worried about soil depletion, ecology, pesticide use, and increasing the power of Big Ag. I hope one day we can have grownup conversations about this stuff, but I’m not holding my breath. (NY Times)
• Curried lentil, tomato and coconut soup – What a simple and wonderful way to use some basic pantry items. (Arthur Street Kitchen)

What inspired you this week?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week food poisoning is the new normal, try LISS instead of HIIT, and the devastation of sunscreen.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• My Life-Threatening Bout With E. Coli Food Poisoning – Some readers wanted me to remind you that you can still get food poisoning from farmers markets. This story is pretty scary. As farmers markets get more popular, larger farms and ones that may or may not be organic are going to become more common. Unfortunately there’s no way to guarantee your food will never be contaminated. (NY Times)
• How salad became a major source of food poisoning in the US – That said, some farming and food prep practices regularly result in contamination. Vox does a nice job of explaining why you should avoid bagged/boxed salads here.
• Please Don’t Encourage Your Kids To Diet – This. (Weighty Matters)
• You don’t need HIIT to get fit. Try this instead. – Great reminder. LISS was pretty much the only exercise I could do late in pregnancy and when I was healed enough to start moving again postpartum. And I would have gone crazy without it. (Washington Post)
• Frequent sauna bathing reduces risk of stroke – The magnitude of this effect is mind-blowing. The health benefits of sauna have been mounting and it is something I’ve been trying to work into my regular schedule. (ScienceDaily)
• Hawaii Approves Bill Banning Sunscreen Believed To Kill Coral Reefs – Whoa! I’ve never been particularly impressed with the benefits of sunscreen. I use it to avoid burns, but I never buy higher than SPF 30. Now here’s a much better reason to avoid the synthetic stuff. Hats ftw. (NPR)
• Seniors stick to fitness routines when they work out together – Amazing how excited these seniors are about sticking with their workout routine once they were allowed to be in a group with folks their own age. Another reminder of how subtle psychological perks are so much more powerful than evoking willpower. (ScienceDaily)
• 8 Easy Things You Can Do to Make Mind-Blowing Roasted Vegetables – Good tips. (The Kitchn)
• If You Need Proof The Food Industry Doesn’t Care About You, Look No Further Than Smucker’s “No Sugar Added” Jam – Reading food labels, while important, can be an exercise in exasperation. I generally avoid the middle aisles to keep my sanity. (Weighty Matters)
• ASPARAGUS ORANGE SPINACH SALAD WITH BASIL LEMON VINAIGRETTE – Springy-est salad ever. (Yay for Food)

What inspired you this week?

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week Michael Pollan talks shrooms, fish more toxic than ever, and perfect poached eggs.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Michael Pollan — Exploring The New Science of Psychedelics – Fascinating conversation between two of my favorite thinkers on an incredibly important topic. Research into psychedelic drugs is consistently showing that 1-2 sessions (controlled and guided, obviously) can have profound beneficial effects on a number of mental health conditions, as well as ending addictive behavior. Behavior change is really hard, and anything with this much potential and so few risks and side effects deserves further examination. (The Tim Ferriss Show)
• Starting Monday, calorie counts on menus are going to be mandatory – This is a good read if for no other reason than it reminds you that a stupid turkey sandwich can have 700 calories. (Vox)
• Mercury rising: Are the fish we eat toxic? – This is so depressing I don’t even know what to say. I’ll simply remind you that environmental mercury contamination comes from burning coal. (ScienceDaily)
• The Belly Fat Battle – Terrible headline, but this article is actually an interesting examination of the potential causes of middle age waist expansion. Visceral fat is uniquely dangerous, but it still isn’t exactly clear why that is. (Scientific American)
• The Last Conversation You’ll Need to Have on Eating Right: The Follow-ups – Ironically, a follow up on the previous article that claimed to answer all your questions about nutrition. For the record, I disagree with them about hard vs soft cheese (e.g. vitamin K2) and La Croix (I don’t touch the stuff because it comes in plastic-lined cans). Other than that the advice is pretty ok. (Grub Street)
• Romaine Riddle: Why the E. Coli Outbreak Eludes Food Investigators – More follow up on the romaine lettuce outbreak and why it has been so hard to trace the source of contamination. If you hope to avoid these kinds of outbreaks it helps to know what the risk factors are and how regulations may help. (NY Times)
• America’s largest pork producer pledged to make its meat more humane. An investigation says it didn’t. – Oof. This one is hard to read. However I feel very strongly that if you choose to eat meat you should know what the true cost is to get it on your plate. Eat with your eyes open. (Vox)
• How a Low-Carb Diet Might Aid People With Type 1 Diabetes – I don’t often share articles about specific medical conditions that aren’t caused by lifestyle factors, but this new study is so surprising and the approach so simple I’m making an exception. (NY Times)
• Working together key to weight loss in relationships – Different types of relationships create different challenges for getting healthy. Unsurprisingly, the person you spend the most time with has a profound impact on your ability to make change. (ScienceDaily)
• This Is The Chillest, Easiest Way to Poach An Egg – Mind. Blown. (Lifehacker)

What inspired you this week?

“’This will be my last ice cream ever’ is a thought I have had so many times I’m embarrassed by it.” – Paul

Late night bingeing is an especially tough habit to break.

You repeat the same destructive behavior over and over, knowing it’s wrong, but stopping feels impossible because it doesn’t seem like something you can control. Rationalizing the behavior becomes second nature, and you don’t see a way out.

This is Paul’s story. Paul knows his bingeing habit is the reason he is overweight. His late night episodes alone in the kitchen are something he looks forward to, but also wants to stop.

It doesn’t matter if it’s celery sticks or potato chips, it is the act of being able to eat as much as he wants–with no one around to judge him–that’s such a relief and so rewarding.

Sometimes behavior patterns like these can be changed by identifying and avoiding your triggers or finding an alternative outlet for whatever it is your brain is craving. But, those solutions are only useful after you’ve unraveled why you are using this behavior as a source of relief in the first place.

Today I help Paul find his “why” so that he can find peace and enjoy indulgences without regretting or overdoing them.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

How To Stop Overeating When Emotional Eating Combines With Food Moralizing (Foodist Podcast)

How To Stop Moralizing Your Food Choices (Foodist Podcast)

How To Stop Moralize Your Food Choices 2 (Foodist Podcast)

The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

Nintendo Switch

Super Mario Odyssey

Thinking Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

Show details (links don’t work on mobile devices):

2:51 – Paul has a habit of binge eating before bed.

4:48 – It’s not a hunger issue, how to tell.

6:05 – The “What-the-Hell Effect” struggle is real.

6:31 – Paul has plenty of other healthy habits, so his bingeing episodes are most likely the reason he isn’t losing weight.

7:30 – The trigger? Paul needs a reward at the end of the day.

8:25 – The only person who knows what your triggers are is you.

8:50 – Rest and enjoyment are essential for a healthy life.

10:13 – Food moralizing also fuels Paul’s commonly leads to bingeing.

11:27 – How food moralizing works.

13:58 – Specific locations can trigger bad habits.

14:46 – It’s good to know what your triggers are, so you can recognize and avoid them.

16:20 – Food moralizing is a Jedi mind trick played on yourself.

18:23 – There can be multiple factors involved in undoing a bad habit.

19:56 – Question your assumptions.

20:16 – Paul doesn’t feel sick or physically bad after bingeing, it’s more the guilt that behavior this is why he’s overweight.

26:56 – When Paul indulges in front of other people he feels judged and embarrassed.

29:45 – It’s less likely that you will overindulge if you are actually enjoying your food.

30:03 – The scarcity mentality can also lead to bingeing.

32:13 – Recognizing your limiting beliefs gives you the ability to redirect your behavior.

33:12 – What is missing in your life that you are trying to fill with this behavior?

36:40 – Classic thought patterns of binge eaters.

41:33 – Find a powerful motivator that makes you want to stop.

45:52 – Find an alternative form of relief and indulgence.

47:55 – How to break a habit.

48:33 – Are you a fundamentally flawed person if you binge?

51:52 – How to make a lasting behavior change (Darya’s method).

55:14 – Is it helpful to think of bingeing as an addiction?

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Better late than never, right?

This week food prescribed as medicine, pesticides poison farmers, and GMO labels are coming.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Cod and ‘Immune Broth’: California Tests Food as Medicine – Wow, I would absolutely love to see more of this. Medicine is wonderful, but there is no doubt that a better nourished body will be better at healing itself. (NY Times)
• These Farmers Switched to Organic After Pesticides Made Their Families Sick – Turns out being healthy is more important than money sometimes. (Civil Eats)
• Trans Fats Should be Eliminated Worldwide by 2023, W.H.O. Says – So good to hear. This is also a good reminder that replacing animal products with plant products isn’t always an improvement health-wise. (NY Times)
• Salmonella sickens nearly three dozen people amid recall of more than 200 million eggs – TWO HUNDRED MILLION EGGS. FFS I’m tired of writing about food poisoning. (Washington Post)
• G.M.O. Foods Will Soon Require Labels. What Will the Labels Say? – Nice summary of what does and doesn’t qualify for labeling under the new rules. It’s more lax than I expected, especially as someone who cares about the environmental impact more than eating altered DNA (what a weird standard, right?). Still, it’s progress. (NY Times)
• It seems like every fruit and vegetable is being snack-ified. But are these chips healthy? – Is it better to buy alternative “veggie chips” than potato chips? I hope this is obvious to most longtime readers at this point, but it’s a nice reminder. (Washington Post)
• Who Are You Calling Normal? – Love this perspective on where your attributes and behavior stand compared to the population. Hint: It changes, so don’t freak out about it. (Scientific American)
• A Classic Indian Cookbook Returns, This Time for Americans – I had no idea that Salman Rushdie’s sister had a cult cookbook. Ordered obvs. (NY Times)
• The Yogi masters were right — meditation and breathing exercises can sharpen your mind – This headline is overly bold, not a ton can be concluded from this research. But it’s interesting and I hope it spurs further exploration. (ScienceDaily)
• Ultimate Loaded Hummus – When I was growing up I think “loaded” meant something different, but I love the idea of hummus as a meal. Yum. (Yummy Beet)

What inspired you this week?