Participants in school-based gardening and food programs benefit from lasting impacts on dietary behaviors
To encourage fruit and vegetable consumption among youth, experiential food education programs such as gardening and cooking lessons have increased across both community and school settings. A recent research article in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, revealed how this early learning positively influenced food decisions as children grew older. Lead […]
Are healthy foods automatically sustainable, too?
Many people are keen on making healthy as well as sustainable food choices, and they often intuitively equate “healthy” with being “sustainable.” A study by researchers at the University of Konstanz, the Johannes Kepler University Linz and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is focusing on whether or not this perception corresponds to reality. It […]
Allergic responses to common foods could significantly increase risk of heart disease, cardiovascular death
Sensitivity to common food allergens such as dairy and peanuts could be an important and previously unappreciated cause of heart disease, new research suggests — and the increased risk for cardiovascular death includes people without obvious food allergies. That increased risk could be comparable to — or exceed — the risks posed by smoking, as […]
Can Eating Leftover Rice Kill You? Here’s The Science Behind ‘Fried Rice Syndrome’
Once again, TikTok has spurred intense conversations relating to food safety. In recent weeks, a 2008 news story resurfaced on the social media platform, terrifying users about the dangers of eating reheated leftover starches, particularly rice and pasta. On TikTok, it’s referred to as “fried rice syndrome.” Originally published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, […]
Common Food Additives Singled Out for Cardiovascular Risk
Food additive emulsifiers were individually associated with modest increases in cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a large French epidemiological cohort, researchers found. Various types of emulsifiers — widely used to keep oils and water mixed together and prolong the shelf-life of processed foods — were positively associated with higher risks of CVD and coronary heart disease […]
Replacing saturated fat and salt with herbs/spices is both tasty and healthy
In response to the low-fat craze of the 1990s, many food companies removed saturated fats from their products, only to replace them with sugars to maintain their palatability. Unfortunately, the resulting products were no healthier than the originals, and the average person today consumes too much saturated fat. Now, a team of Penn State researchers […]
Infant formula safety checks can be improved with stratified sampling
Producers of infant formula employ comprehensive food safety systems, including product testing to ensure those systems are working. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds that some testing methods are more powerful at catching contaminants than others. Spacing out samples over time in a stratified sampling pattern is better at catching risky […]
Food allergy in infancy linked to childhood asthma and reduced lung function
Having a food allergy as a baby is linked to asthma and reduced lung function later in childhood, according to a world first study. The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and published in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, found that early life food allergy was associated with an increased risk of both […]
Aspartame Is a ‘Possible’ Carcinogen, WHO Declares
The WHO has declared aspartame, a food additive used frequently in diet soda and other low-calorie beverages, “possibly” carcinogenic to humans, but did not make any changes to its recommendations for maximum daily aspartame consumption. “It is very important to note that this was a hazard identification and not a risk assessment,” Mary Schubauer-Berigan, PhD, […]
PURE Healthy Diet Sees Advantage by Promoting Whole-Fat Dairy for Heart Health
By counting whole-fat dairy as a protective food, the new PURE Healthy Diet score strengthened the relationship between healthy eating and heart disease in a large study. For individuals with and without cardiovascular disease (CVD), higher intake of protective foods (i.e., PURE diet score ≥5 points out of 6) compared with lower intake (diet score […]