A newly released study of 40,000 women from Johns Hopkins and National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that 30% of breast cancer cases in women in the US could be prevented by maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding hormone therapy, limiting alcohol and avoiding tobacco. Continue reading
Category Archives: Nutrition
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Three Delicious Salad Dressings
Have you ever noticed how so many different cuisines include a dish that pairs some type of greens with some type of fat? Whether it’s lettuce and olive oil, cabbage and mayonnaise (cole slaw), sauteed greens + pignola nuts, spinach with bacon dressing, or deep-sea fatty fish and seaweed (sushi), parsley salad with tahini dressing, you are apt to find green leaves combined with fats over and over again. Continue reading
Nutrition or Entertainment?
A friend of mine says that ultraprocessed items don’t nourish, but rather they entertain. A few weeks ago I saw a commercial for Lay’s Potato Chips whose tag line was “Good food for the fun of it.” That sure sounds like entertainment to me.
Let the Growing Season Begin!
The first time I joined a community-supported agriculture (CSA), almost ten years ago, its kickoff late on a Thursday afternoon sent me racing out of the office at the end of the day. The first week’s bounty included lettuce greens, herbs, onions, kohlrabi, radishes. Adults chatted and children hopped around like happy rabbits as we waited for strawberries to arrive. After a long winter, we all hungered for fresh food. Continue reading
A Box of Real Food
What to do next when your body still has a strong tendency to store significant amounts of belly fat? This question was put to me twice this week on behalf of two different people. Both eat a nourishing diet rich in whole foods. One runs marathons. And yet… Continue reading
Variety is the Spice of Life
How many times have you asked yourself or someone else: “I wonder which nut is the BEST?” “Is it really true that the BEST oil is olive oil?” “I heard that bananas are the BEST for potassium.” Is it true? Continue reading
My Mom’s Best Aphorisms
Tomorrow my mom will turn 80! Can you imagine?! Eighty years! In honor of my mighty wise mom, and 80 years walking this wondrous planet, here are some of the marvelous things that she taught me. Continue reading
Chocolate Mousse
What follows is a true story. It really happened, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Just over 13 years ago, on a snowy evening in January 2003, my daughter and I went out and brought home the sweetest, gentlest, 8-week-old Labrador Retriever puppy. She was a chocolate lab, and so we named her Mousse. Mousse played ball; Mousse cuddled with the children; Mousse helped me weed the garden; Mousse stole food from the kitchen table when she thought no one was looking; Mousse hung out with the chickens and enjoyed visiting with our friends and neighbors, both human and canine. Mousse became family, and all was well. Continue reading
Winner by a Mile
Last year, an article entitled “Can We Say What Diet is Best for Health?” was published in the scientific literature, and James Hamblin wrote a story about it for the Atlantic. He called it “Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner is Real Food.” You know, I would have edited out the word “Real” and then called it, simply, “Food.” The original article was written by David Katz and Stephanie Meller, of Yale School of Public Health. Continue reading
The Magical Fruit
On the occasion of my ninth birthday, my beloved Uncle Lenny gave me a book called The Human Body, which still owns a place on the shelves that hold my medical books. I called it “The Body Book,” and I carried it everywhere until I had learned everything in it, cover to cover. I was fascinated not only by the contents, but also by the idea that each part of the body was uniquely designed to do exactly what was required of it. Form followed function, and I couldn’t get enough. That, parenthetically, was also the year I realized I was going to become a doctor. Continue reading