Category Archives: Healthy eating

Food Form, Texture, and Matrix Matter

Food Form, Texture, and Matrix Matter
What does “food matrix” mean? French researchers Anthony Fardet and Edmond Rock lament the public confusion about the health value of foods. Much of the confusion arises from the focus on specific nutrients to emphasize or avoid. The nutrient-based recommendations, Fardet and Rock opine, reflect a reductionist approach to nutrition that's gone overboard, while ignoring…
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Legumes Can Improve Your Health

Legumes Can Improve Your Health
Legumes as human food The legume plant family supplies a major fraction of the world’s human food, second only to members of the grass family, such as wheat, corn, and oats. Pulses include legumes that humans eat as dried seeds, including beans, peas, and lentils. Unfortunately, over the last 100 years, pulse consumption has declined…
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Reducing the Environmental Impacts of Diet

Reducing the Environmental Impacts of Diet
Food production and greenhouse gas emissions Researchers at the University of Minnesota labeled the convergence of 1) diets increasing in calories and animal products, 2) increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, and 3) increasing environmental deterioration as a global trilemma. These three trends bode ill for people and the planet. Global food demand (measured as that…
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Meal Timing and Metabolic Health

Meal Timing and Metabolic Health
Eat the same number of calories for better metabolic health Hit a home run: Eat more calories earlier in the day by shifting your food intake from dinner to lunch and/or from lunch to breakfast. Also, shift your calories from sugars and starches to vegetables, fruits, beans, and nuts. You can improve your metabolic health…
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