Eats « Weekly Gravy

Getting kids to eat right can be a challenge, but an easy place to start is with the lunch they bring to school. Make the contents of their lunchbox more fun, and they’ll be more likely to eat what you pack. These creative tips will make this meal more nutritious, too. Begin with a sandwich makeover. Use a soft whole-wheat bread, or a gluten-free whole-grain bread if needed, instead of white. Fill the sandwich with high-quality protein like slices of roast chicken or turkey. Instead of a traditional spread like mayonnaise, try a thin layer of finely mashed avocado to add more fiber to their diet along with nutrients like vitamin E and other antioxidants. Just mash half of a ripe avocado with a squeeze of lime and a pinch of salt and spread it on the bread. To make sandwiches more enticing, use a cookie cutter to turn them into fun shapes. Vegetables, crucial to your child’s growth and overall health, seem to be the toughest foods to get kids to eat. One easy way to pique their appetites is to turn the veggies into mini kabobs. Children can feel overwhelmed by large chunks of food, but will eat them if they’re in bite-sized pieces. Cut steamed broccoli and cauliflower into small florets and thread them onto skewers along with grape tomatoes. Fill a… read on >

When summer fruits and vegetables start to disappear from grocery stores, and the action shifts indoors to watching sports and munching on unhealthy snacks, it helps to have a diet plan in place to avoid weight gain. First, remember that farmers’ markets are still open across the country. You can buy local as long as you make the shift from summer crops to fall ones. That means tomatoes and cucumbers give way to offerings like root vegetables, including carrots, parsnips and turnips, and the wide variety of squashes such as acorn, butternut, Hubbard and kabocha. These are all great for hearty, cook-ahead soups and stews for dinners and brown bag lunches. Vegetables in the orange family, including sweet potatoes, are rich in vitamin A. But don’t overlook nutrient-dense dark, leafy greens like varieties of chard and bok choy. Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables may be abundant in your area, and they taste great roasted with a slight drizzle of olive oil and finished with a splash of balsamic vinegar — hearty enough for a vegetarian meal. Though local melons, stone fruits and many berries may be gone, explore sweet fall fruits like apples, pears and grapes, as well as the more exotic pomegranates, persimmons and quince, the season’s first cranberries and even fall raspberries. Have fruit salads ready to snack on instead… read on >

If you have high blood pressure, getting a flu shot could save your life, researchers say. A new study found that patients with high blood pressure who got a flu shot had a nearly 18% lower risk of dying during flu season. Previous research has found that the stress flu puts on the body may trigger heart attacks and strokes. Patients with high blood pressure already are at increased risk for both. For the study, researchers analyzed data from Denmark on more than 608,000 people, aged 18 to 100, with high blood pressure during nine flu seasons, from 2007 to 2016. The investigators looked at how many patients got a flu shot before each flu season and how many died. After adjusting for patient characteristics — such as age, health problems and medications — in a given flu season, flu vaccination was associated with an 18% lower risk of death from any cause; a 16% lower risk of death from any cardiovascular cause; and a 10% lower risk of death from heart attack or stroke. The findings were to be presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), in Paris. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. “Given these results, it is my belief that all patients with high blood pressure should have… read on >

The word on eggs changes faster than you can say “sunny-side up.” One day their cholesterol isn’t a concern and the next day it is. After a 2018 study found an egg a day was fine for healthy people, a 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that this amount could raise the risk for cardiovascular disease and early death. So what’s the answer? Moderation and balance. While eggs do have cholesterol, the cholesterol and saturated fat in meat is still likely to be more dangerous than eggs if you overdo it. Also, the JAMA study found no increased risk from eating eggs if kept at fewer than three a week. It’s important to keep in mind that egg yolks (where the cholesterol is found) do deliver a world of nutrition, including healthy fatty acids, and a wide array of vitamins and minerals, with only 70 calories apiece. The problem is when we indulge in egg dishes that contain a lot of gooey cheese, which adds hundreds of calories and, like meat, saturated fat. One answer is to pick Parmesan for recipes. It has a bolder flavor than many other cheeses, which allows you to use a lot less without sacrificing taste. Another step is adding fresh vegetables to boost the nutrition profile of egg dishes. This frittata is perfect… read on >

Your lunch leftovers are doing no favors for urban birds’ hearts, new research shows. Fatty food scraps may be boosting the cholesterol levels of crows in U.S. cities, but whether it’s a threat to their health isn’t clear. A team from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., analyzed blood cholesterol levels of 140 crow nestlings in urban and rural areas of California. Those in urban areas had higher levels of cholesterol than those in rural areas, the findings showed. The researchers also tested the impact of human food by giving nestlings in rural New York state a regular supply of cheeseburgers. They then compared the cholesterol levels of those crows with nearby nestlings that didn’t get cheeseburgers. The cheeseburger-fed nestlings’ cholesterol levels were higher, and comparable to those of the city-dwelling crows in California. But whether higher cholesterol is bad for crows is uncertain. “Despite all the bad press that it gets, cholesterol has benefits and serves a lot of essential functions,” said study author Andrea Townsend, an assistant professor of biology. “It’s an important part of our cell membranes and a component of some crucial hormones. We know that excessive cholesterol causes disease in humans, but we don’t know what level would be ‘excessive’ in a wild bird,” she explained. The study was published Aug. 26 in The Condor: Ornithological Applications journal. The researchers followed… read on >

Do you love restaurant-style scallops but feel nervous about making them at home? Here’s the 101 to cooking the perfect scallop every time. The trick to creating tasty scallop dishes is to choose “dry” scallops — these aren’t treated with phosphates, which can give them an off-taste and make them stringy when cooked. Scallops pair deliciously with citrus, such as oranges. If available, choose blood oranges for their beautiful color and tart flavor. Note: For sustainability, choose sea scallops over bay scallops. Scallops in Citrus Sauce 2 blood or navel oranges 1 pound dry sea scallops 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour or 1 tablespoon coconut flour 2 tablespoons coconut or grapeseed oil 1/2 cup vegetable or chicken broth 2 tablespoons drained capers 1 tablespoon unsalted butter Peel the oranges and then section them over a bowl to catch the juices, which will make part of the base for the sauce. Set both aside. Season the scallops with the salt and black pepper. Dust them with the flour. Note: Use coconut flour for a gluten-free option — its texture means you can use less. Heat a large skillet over high heat and add the oil. Add the scallops and sear them without moving for two to three minutes to allow a thick crust to form. Flip and cook… read on >

Creamy chocolate pudding is major comfort food, but most store-bought and even homemade versions have loads of sugar and little nutrition. Yet it is possible to make a super chocolatey pudding that’s also good for you. The key ingredients are rich avocado, high in healthy fats and vitamins K, E and B plus loads of fiber; and banana for creaminess and sweetness in place of white sugar. Topping the finished pudding with sliced berries adds an additional antioxidant boost. Oh, yes, then there’s the chocolate. This recipe uses two kinds of chocolate for depth of flavor — bittersweet morsels and unsweetened cocoa powder. Both are high in cacao content, which means you’ll get more fiber and iron. Rich Chocolate Pudding 1 cup skim milk 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 2 tablespoons cornstarch 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate morsels 1 avocado, diced 1 banana 1 cup berries of your choice Place milk, cocoa and cornstarch in a small saucepan and whisk well to blend. Add the chocolate morsels and place the saucepan over low-to-medium heat. Cook for about three minutes, whisking well, until chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and cool slightly before proceeding. Place chocolate mixture, the avocado and the banana in a food processor. Blend until smooth and creamy, scraping the bowl as needed. Spoon into serving cups or glasses, then cover with plastic wrap… read on >

Tired of that spare tire? Low-calorie diets work, but can be difficult to follow. A much simpler approach to losing weight might be to just stop eating every other day. It’s called alternate-day fasting (ADF). As the name implies, you starve yourself by fasting one day and then you feast the next, and then repeat that pattern again and again. In just the month-long trial of the ADF diet, study volunteers lost more than seven pounds. That weight loss occurred even though people on the ADF diet ate about 30% more on the days they were allowed to eat than they normally would. Even with that extra food on feast days, the study volunteers still consumed fewer calories overall because of their fasting days, the researchers explained. “This is an easy regimen — no calculation of calories — and the compliance was very high,” said the study’s senior author, Frank Madeo, a professor of molecular biology at Karl-Franzens University of Graz, in Austria. Madeo said the researchers didn’t study how the ADF diet might compare to other types of intermittent-fasting diets or to a more typical lower-calorie diet. He said that the ADF study didn’t appear to have any impact on the immune system (at least in this short-term study), but that diets that simply rely on lower caloric intake may dampen immune system function.… read on >

A quirk in quality testing could mean that pot-laced chocolates are more potent than their label indicates, researchers report. Many states that allow the sale of marijuana-infused edibles — gummy bears, cookies and chocolates — require package labeling that shows the products’ level of THC, the compound that gets you high. But potency testing on chocolate products appears to be slightly skewed, said David Dawson, a research principal with CW Analytical Laboratories, one of California’s longest-operating marijuana testing labs. It turns out that larger samples of chocolate used in testing actually produce less accurate results than smaller samples, Dawson said. “It’s pretty striking and definitely goes against your basic gut instinct,” Dawson said. “As the amount of sample you are testing increases, it should be more representative of the whole of the product. Thus, you should be getting more solid values,” Dawson said. “We saw the opposite here, where we actually start getting less accurate and precise values the more actual product we are testing at a given moment.” The testing flaw tends to cause a chocolate product’s THC levels to be reported as lower than they actually are, Dawson said. For example, a bar containing 97 milligrams of THC might test at 93 milligrams. The variance “isn’t enough to truly pose a danger to consumers, but it is enough to possibly make a good… read on >

The health risks of sugary drinks, from juice to soda, are well known. They can lead to overweight and diabetes, stroke and other problems in the brain, including poorer memory and smaller brain volume. But diet sodas aren’t the answer. A number of studies have found an association between artificially sweetened beverages and an increased risk of stroke, heart disease, heart attack and other heart-related deaths in women. The most recent was published earlier this year in the journal Stroke, with researchers suggesting that, even without identifying a specific cause and effect, people should seriously consider the potentially harmful effects of artificially sweetened drinks. And there’s more. Researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine followed 4,000 people of both sexes over 10 years. Using MRI tests, they linked just one artificially sweetened soda a day to brain changes that can lead to dementia, as well as the type of stroke caused by a blockage in a blood vessel. These risks were triple those of people who don’t drink diet sodas. It didn’t seem to matter which common artificial sweetener — saccharin, aspartame or sucralose — was consumed. While some people see diet soda as a way of weaning off regular soda, it may be healthier in the long run to skip this type of transition. If you like soda’s carbonation more than the better… read on >