Monthly Archives: April 2012

Health, Nutrition

The 9 Nastiest Things in Your Supermarket

Think pink slime is gross? Wait ’til you see what other unappetizing secrets lurk within your grocery store.

By Leah Zerbe & Emily Main

“Pink Slime”

The Gross Factor: The meat industry likes to call it “lean finely textured beef,” but after ABC News ran a story on it, the public just called it what it looks like—pink slime, a mixture of waste meat and fatty parts from higher-quality cuts of beef that have had the fat mechanically removed. Afterwards, it’s treated with ammonia gas to kill Salmonella and E. coli bacteria. Then it gets added to ground beef as a filler. Food microbiologists and meat producers insist that it’s safe, but given the public’s reaction to the ABC News report, there’s an “ick” factor we just can’t overcome. The primary producer of pink slime just announced that it’s closing three of the plants where pink slime is produced, and Kroger, Safeway, Food Lion, McDonald’s and the National School Lunch Program (among others) have all pulled it from their product offerings.
Eat This Instead: Organic ground beef is prohibited from containing pink slime, per National Organic Program standards, so it’s your safest bet. If you can’t find organic, ask the butcher at your grocery store whether their products contain the gunk.

Vet Meds in Beef

The Gross Factor: Hankering for a burger? Besides a hefty dose of protein, a 2010 report from the United States Department of Agriculture found your beef could also harbor veterinary drugs like antibiotics, Ivermectin, an animal wormer linked to neurological damage in humans, and Flunixin, an anti-inflammatory that can cause kidney damage, stomach and colon ulcers, and blood in the stool of humans. Still hungry? We didn’t think so.
Eat This Instead: Look for beef from a local grass-fed beef operation that rotates the animals on fresh grass paddocks regularly, and inquire about medicine use. Typically, cows raised this way are much healthier and require fewer drugs. The meat is also more nutritious, too. If you’re in the supermarket, opt for organic meats to avoid veterinary drugs in meat.

Heavy Metal Oatmeal

The Gross Factor: Sugary and calorie-laden, those convenient instant-oatmeal packets all have one thing in common. They’re sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which, according to tests from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, may be contaminated with mercury. The group tested 55 samples of HFCS and found mercury in a third of them at levels three times higher than what the average woman should consume in a day.
Eat This Instead: Buy yourself some instant oats, which cook in less time than it takes to microwave a packet of the sugary stuff, and add your own flavorings, like fresh fruit or maple syrup. And buy HFCS-free versions of other foods, as well. The artificial sweetener lurks in seemingly all processed foods.

Filthy Shrimp

The Gross Factor: Food safety experts refer to imported shrimp as the dirtiest of the Seafood’s Dirty Dozen list, and it’s not hard to see why when you consider the common contaminants: Antibiotics, cleaning chemicals used in farmed shrimp pens, residues of toxic pesticides banned in the U.S., and pieces of insects. Less than 2 percent of all imported seafood is inspected—clearly, that’s a problem.
Eat This Instead: Look for domestic shrimp. Unfortunately, 70 percent of domestic shrimp comes from the Gulf of Mexico, and the recent oil spill may have long-term impacts on its shrimp stocks. But shrimp can be purchased from Texas, the East Coast, Maine, and the Carolinas, so you still have options.

MRSA in the Meat Aisle

The Gross Factor: Hard-to-treat, antibiotic-resistant infections are no joke. Superbug strains like MRSA are on the rise, infecting 185,000 people -and killing 17,000-people annually in the U.S. Thought to proliferate on factory farms where antibiotics are overused to boost animal growth, a Jan. 2012 study from Iowa State University found that the dangerous organisms wind up in supermarket meat, too. The dangerous MRSA strain lingered in 7 percent of supermarket pork samples tested. The bacteria die during proper cooking, but improper handling could leave you infected. The spike in superbug infections is largely blamed on antibiotic abuse in factory farms that supply most supermarkets.
Eat This Instead: The Iowa state researchers found MRSA in conventional meat and store-bought “antibiotic-free” meat likely contaminated at the processing plant. Search LocalHarvest.org to source meat from small-scale producers who don’t use antibiotics or huge processing plants.

Pregnancy Hormones in a Can

The Gross Factor: Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that acts like the hormone estrogen in your body, is used to create the epoxy linings of canned food. What food processors don’t tell you is that the chemical was created over 70 years ago as a drug that was intended to promote healthy pregnancies. Though it was never used as a drug, the food industry saw no problem adding this pregnancy drug to a wide range of products, including canned food linings and plastic food containers. “Low levels of BPA exposure has been linked to a wide range of adverse health effects, including abnormal development of reproductive organs, behavior problems in children, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic changes that result in altered insulin levels, which leads to diabetes,” says Sarah Janssen, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. And its use in canned food is the number one reason why 90 percent of Americans have it in their bodies.
Eat This Instead: Look for products in glass bottles or aseptic cartons. Canned food manufacturers are in the process of switching over to BPA-free cans, but because those cans are produced in facilities that also produce BPA-based can linings, there’s no way to keep BPA-free cans from becoming contaminated.

Bacteria-Infused Turkey

The Gross Factor: Turkey marinated in MRSA? It’s true. A 2011 study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that half of the U.S. supermarket meat sampled contain staph bacteria, including potentially lethal MRSA. Turkey was the worst offender: Nearly 80 percent of turkey products samples contain staph bacteria. Pork (42 percent) was next in line in terms of bacterial contamination, followed by chicken (41 percent), and beef (37 percent). Researchers ID the overuse of antibiotics as the culprit.
Eat This Instead: If you serve meat for Thanksgiving, invest in an organic, pastured turkey, such as one from Ayrshire Farm in Maryland.

Moldy Berries

The Gross Factor: If pregnancy hormones in your canned fruit isn’t enough to make you turn to fresh, consider this: The FDA legally allows up to 60 percent of canned or frozen blackberries and raspberries to contain mold. Canned fruit and vegetable juices are allowed to contain up to 15 percent mold.
Eat This Instead: Go for fresh! When berries are in season, stock up and freeze them yourself to eat throughout the winter. To freeze them, just spread fruits out on a cookie sheet, set the sheet in your freezer for a few hours, then transfer the berries to a glass jar or other airtight, freezer-safe container.

Rocket Fuel in Lettuce

The Gross Factor: Lettuce is a great source of antioxidants, and thanks to the great state of California, we can now eat it all year long. However, much of the lettuce grown in California is irrigated with water from the Colorado River. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Colorado River water is contaminated with low levels of perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel known to harm thyroid function, and that perchlorate can be taken up inside lettuce plants. A separate study from the Environmental Working Group found perchlorate in 50 percent of store-bought winter lettuce samples.
Eat This Instead: Perchlorate is hard to avoid, but some of the highest levels in the country have been found in California’s agricultural regions. If you eat locally and in season, you can ask your local farmers whether it’s a problem in their irrigation water supply.

Original Article: http://www.rodale.com/pink-slime?page=0

Health

Young Americans Need to Cut Calorie Intake: Study

TUESDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) — American youngsters have a long way to go to reach new goals for a lower childhood obesity rate, a new study shows.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has set a goal of reducing the childhood obesity rate to 14.6 percent by 2020, and to do so children aged 2 to 19 would need to eliminate an average of 64 calories a day.

Without this reduction in calorie intake, the average child or teen would be nearly 4 pounds heavier in 2020 than a child of the same age in 2007. In addition, more than 20 percent of youth would be obese, up from 16.9 percent currently.

The last time the childhood obesity rate in the United States was 14.6 percent was in 2002.

“Sixty-four calories may not sound like much individually, but it’s quite a consequential number at the population level, and children at greatest risk for obesity face an even larger barrier,” study author Dr. Y. Claire Wang, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, said in a university news release.

“Closing this gap between how many calories young people are consuming and how many they are expending will take substantial, comprehensive efforts,” Wang added.

The new goal could be achieved by reducing calorie intake, increasing physical activity or both. But, although 64 calories is the overall average reduction required to meet the 2020 goal, certain groups of young people may need higher or lower calorie reductions.

White youngsters would need an average reduction of 46 calories, compared with 91 calories for Mexican-Americans and 138 calories for black children, who have higher rates of obesity. Children and teens in low-income communities also have higher rates of obesity and would require greater calorie reductions than those in higher-income areas.

The researchers suggested many policy strategies that could help American youngsters reduce calories:

  • Replacing all sugar-sweetened beverages in school with water and preventing children from drinking additional sugary beverages outside of school could eliminate an average of 12 calories per day.
  • Having children aged 9 to 11 take part in a comprehensive physical-education program could eliminate an average of 19 calories per day.
  • After-school activity programs for children in kindergarten to fifth grade could eliminate an average of 25 calories per day.

The study was published this week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines how parents can help their children maintain a healthy weight.

SOURCE: Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, news release, April 10, 2012
Health, Nutrition

5 Habits of Highly Successful Dieters

Habits of Highly Successful Dieters

By Heidi Grant Halvorson, PhD

          Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Eat less, exercise more. That’s the recipe for losing weight, and we all know it by heart. So if we want to get slimmer, and we know the formula, then why can’t we do it?

Commitment is important—in fact, it’s essential—but it’s only the beginning. The key to successful dieting is bridging the gap between what you want to do and actually doing it. The desire is there; you just need a plan.

The scientifically proven tactics detailed in this slideshow will help you do just that. I say that with confidence—not only as a social psychologist who studies motivation, but also as someone who has benefited from these tricks firsthand. Each one—especially #2—helped me lose almost 50 pounds after my son was born three years ago.

Strategy #1: Be very specific

When we make goals that are vague, like “I want to lose weight,” we set ourselves up to fail.

Motivation happens when your brain detects a difference between where you are and where you want to be. When you are specific about your goal (I want to lose 10 pounds), that difference is clear, and your brain starts throwing resources (attention, memory, effort, willpower) at the problem. A clear target looks something like this: “I want to weigh 135 pounds. I weigh 155 now, so that’s a difference of 20 pounds.”

Being specific gives you clarity because you’ve spelled out exactly what success looks like. That means more motivation—and better odds of success.

Strategy #2: Create an OK-to-eat plan

Faced with unexpected temptations—the dessert menu, the catered work lunch—we end up eating things that sabotage our weight-loss goals. The best way to guarantee you make the right choices is to create an “if-then” plan:

“If the dessert menu arrives, I’ll order coffee.”

“If I am at a business lunch, I’ll have a salad.”

Studies suggest that coming up with safe-to-eat plans makes you two to three times more likely to reach your diet goals.

Strategy #3: Track your success

To stay clear about that gap between where you want to go and where you are now, monitor your progress. Keep getting on that scale; mark the days you exercise on a calendar.

Another thing: When you think about the progress you’ve made, stay focused on how far you have to go, rather than how far you’ve come. If you want to drop 20 pounds, and you’ve lost 5 so far, keep your thoughts on the 15 that remain. When we dwell too much on how much progress we’ve made, it’s easy to feel a premature sense of accomplishment and start to slack off.

Strategy #4: Be a realistic optimist

As much as we want to believe otherwise, losing weight isn’t easy. It turns out that it’s important to accept this.

Believing you will succeed is key, but believing you will succeed easily (what I call “unrealistic optimism”) is a recipe for failure. Take it from the women, all obese, who enrolled in a weight-loss program in one study. Those who thought they could lose weight easily lost 24 pounds less than those who knew it would be hard. The successful dieters put in more effort, planned in advance how to deal with problems, and persisted when it became difficult.

So don’t try to tamp down your worries—they can help prepare you for shape-up challenges.

Strategy #5: Strengthen your willpower

The capacity for self-control is like a muscle: It varies in strength from person to person and moment to moment. Just as your biceps can feel like jelly after a workout, your willpower “muscle” gets tired when you overtax it.

To strengthen it, pick any activity that requires you to override an impulse (such as sitting up straight when your impulse is to slouch), and add that to your daily routine. And take baby steps. Instead of going junk-free overnight, begin by eliminating, say, those chips you eat by the bag, and substitute them with a fruit or vegetable.

Hang in there, and sticking to your diet will become easier because your capacity for self-control will grow.

Original Article: http://health.yahoo.net/articles/weight-loss/photos/5-habits-highly-successful-dieters#0

 

Health

6 Surprising Sleep Stealers

Are you groggy in the daytime, but you don’t know why? You might have an unsuspected sleep disorder. Learn 6 surprising signs of a sleep problem.

By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com

If mornings find you feeling like you just drifted off a few hours before, or if you droop with weariness no matter how much coffee you drink, you just might be suffering from a sleep problem. But wait, wouldn’t you know about it, if you were? Not necessarily, experts say. In many cases, instead of keeping you awake, a sleep problem sabotages your sleep in more subtle ways, leaving you frazzled and frustrated without knowing why. Here are six signs that you have a sleep problem that’s secretly stealing your rest.

Acid reflux

Sleeping poorly and waking up with “morning mouth” or a sour taste in your mouth can be a signal of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or asymptomatic heartburn.

What’s going on: Acid reflux causes the body to partially awaken from sleep, even when you’re not aware of typical heartburn symptoms. The result of this “silent reflux” is fitful, uneven sleep — but by the time you wake up, you’ve finished digesting and you don’t know why you slept poorly.

Alarming stat: Recent sleep studies have shown that up to 25 percent of people who report sleeping poorly without a diagnosed cause have sleep-related acid reflux. But because they don’t have obvious heartburn symptoms, they’re unaware of the condition.

What helps: Luckily, there are many ways to minimize acid reflux and prevent it from interfering with sleep.

  • Don’t eat for at least two hours before going to bed.
  • Avoid acid-causing foods, such as heavy sauces, spicy food, fatty meats, citrus, and tomatoes at dinner and afterward.
  • Don’t drink after dinner; alcohol stimulates reflux.
  • Don’t take aspirin or other painkillers, which are hard on the stomach and esophageal lining, just before bed.
  • Try chewing gum before bed; it can boost the production of saliva, which neutralizes stomach acid.
  • Sleep on your left side; acid clears out of the esophagus faster when you’re on your left side. (Sleeping on the right side can actually make acid reflux worse.)
  • If you sleep on your back, elevate your head and shoulders.
  • If all else fails, take an antacid.

 

Limb movement disorders

Waking up tangled in the covers or in a different part of the bed than where you started out could signal restless leg syndrome or a related problem, periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), which is characterized by involuntary jerking, kicking, or twitching. Pain, numbness, or a tingling sensation are also common signs. If moving your legs relieves symptoms, that’s another clue.

Alarming stat: Restless leg syndrome affects up to 10 percent of the population, and the chance of developing it goes up with age. Symptoms tend to increase over time.

What’s going on: Doctors don’t know what causes sleep movement disorders, but they do know they set up a vicious cycle that interrupts deep, restful, REM sleep. The restlessness can prevent you from sinking into deep sleep, or a muscle jerk can wake or partially rouse you from deep sleep.

What helps: Try some tactics to get at symptoms, the cause, or both.

  • Symptoms ease with exercise and stretching. Take a walk before bed, and do stretching exercises such as hamstring stretches a few times a day. See a doctor to discuss your symptoms and get a diagnosis, which may also involve looking for underlying conditions related to restless leg syndrome or PLMD.
  • Eat a diet high in iron and B vitamins, particularly folic acid, since iron and folate deficiency have been linked to restless leg syndrome. Red meat, spinach, and other leafy greens are good sources of both nutrients.
  • If your doctor diagnoses restless leg syndrome or PLMD, medications used to treat Parkinson’s can relieve symptoms by eliminating the muscle jerks. Your doctor may also prescribe medication to help you sleep more deeply, with the idea of preventing the involuntary movements from keeping you in light sleep.

Bathroom calls

The inability to get through the night without urinating more than once both interrupts sleep and decreases the amount of restful REM sleep. Known as nocturia, it includes both waking up with an urgent need to use the bathroom and needing to go so frequently that your sleep is fractured by physical tension.

 

 

Alarming stat: The National Sleep Foundation estimates that 65 percent of older adults are sleep deprived as a result of frequent nighttime urination.

What’s going on: Normally, our bodies have a natural process that concentrates urine while we sleep so we can get six to eight hours without waking. But as we get older, we become less able to hold fluids for long periods because of a decline in antidiuretic hormones.

What helps: Experiment with a number of strategies to see what works to decrease nighttime urination.

  • Don’t drink any liquids for at least three hours before going to bed. This includes foods with a lot of liquid in them, like soups or fruit.
  • Lower your coffee and tea consumption; the acids in coffee and tea can irritate the bladder.
  • Don’t drink alcohol, which functions as a diuretic as well as a bladder irritant.
  • Use the bathroom last thing before getting in bed, relaxing long enough to empty your bladder all the way.
  • Get checked for conditions that cause urination problems. In men, prostate problems are the most common culprit; inflammation of the prostate, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPN), and prostate tumors can all cause frequent urination. In women, overactive bladder (OAB), bladder infections, cystitis, and incontinence can cause nocturia.
  • If you haven’t been tested for diabetes recently, consider it a possible cause.
  • Evaluate your medication list; certain drugs such as diuretics and heart medications can increase urination. If that’s the case, talk to your doctor about taking them earlier in the day or making other changes.
  • Consider taking a prescription antidiuretic to cut down on nighttime urination if all else fails andthere’s no underlying issue.

Teeth grinding or jaw clenching

Officially known as bruxism, teeth grinding or jaw clenching often occurs without your being aware of it; experts estimate that 95 percent of people who grind their teeth or clench their jaws don’t know they do it until a sleep partner notices the telltale sound or a dentist detects wear on the teeth. Jaw clenching is even harder to detect than grinding; one sign is waking with pain or stiffness in the neck.

Alarming stat: Experts estimate that during sleep bruxism, the upper and lower teeth can come into contact up to 40 minutes per hour, and with a force of up to 250 pounds on particular teeth. (Under normal chewing circumstances, your teeth make contact for a total of about 20 minutes a day, with only 20 to 40 pounds of pressure.)

What’s going on: Bruxism is considered a “subconscious neuromuscular activity,” which means your brain is affecting your muscles without you being aware of it. The exact cause is still unknown, though scientists are investigating the role of neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Stress, smoking, caffeine, and alcohol are all known to contribute to or worsen nighttime bruxism. Because grinding or clenching involves tensing of the jaw muscles, it interferes with the relaxation necessary for deep sleep. Also, when you’re grinding or clenching, your body is engaged in movement — even though you don’t know it — rather than resting.

What helps: Start with some professional advice.

  • Get a dental checkup. A dentist can look for underlying causes, such as problems with your bite alignment, and can prescribe a mouth-guard-type device such as a dental splint.
  • If jaw clenching is your primary issue, there are specific dental devices for that.
  • Experts also suggest giving up gum chewing during the day, because the habitual chewing action can continue at night.
  • Botox injections to the jaw muscle are one of the newest treatments for bruxism.
  • Some people have had success using a new biofeedback device called Grindcare, approved by the FDA in 2010.

Alcohol rebound

It’s common to drink enough to feel drowsy, fall asleep suddenly, and sleep heavily. But if you wake several hours later and can’t get back to sleep, or you toss and turn for the rest of the night, that’s a sure sign of alcohol rebound.

Alarming stat: Even a moderate dose of alcohol, such as two drinks, consumed as much as six hours before bedtime (think happy hour), has been shown in studies to increase wakefulness during the second half of sleep. By this time, the alcohol has already been eliminated from the body, which shows that drinking causes a long-lasting effect on sleep rhythms.

What’s going on: As your body metabolizes alcohol during the night, sleep becomes increasingly disturbed. Sleep is deeper than normal during the first half of the night but much lighter during the second half, and nightmares are more common. Some experts call this syndrome “glutamine rebound” because alcohol inhibits glutamine, one of the body’s natural stimulants. Once you stop drinking, your body produces more glutamine than it needs to make up for it. The increase in glutamine levels stimulates the brain, keeping you from reaching the deepest, most healing levels of sleep.

Also, alcohol is extremely dehydrating, so your body reacts after a few hours by craving water, which is why you wake up thirsty during the night. And because alcohol is a sedative, it relaxes the muscles of the nose and throat, exacerbating snoring. If you suffer from a sleep breathing problem such as apnea, alcohol is known to worsen it considerably.

What helps: How and when you drink can have a big effect.

  • Drink in moderation.
  • Don’t drink within two hours of bedtime, which, studies show, has the worst effect on sleep.
  • Drink a lot of water along with your alcohol to help prevent dehydration and to “water down” the alcohol in your system. (That’s why experienced drinkers always order a water chaser.)

Sleep breathing problems

If you sleep fitfully, feel exhausted all the time, and wake with a sore throat or neck pain, breathing problems might be to blame. Severe snoring — particularly when accompanied by gasps or snorts — can also indicate a more serious problem with obstructed breathing during sleep. There are two stages of sleep-disordered breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea is diagnosed when sleep is interrupted by intervals of ten seconds or more. A milder sleep breathing problem, upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS), occurs when breathing is obstructed but the intervals between breaths are under ten seconds. Although snoring can be a clue to sleep apnea, many people with apnea don’t snore.

Alarming stat: Experts estimate that 20 million Americans have sleep apnea, but 87 percent of them are unaware they have the problem.

What’s going on: The throat closes and cuts off airflow, preventing you from getting enough oxygen. When blood oxygen levels drop, the brain knows it’s not getting enough oxygen and wakes you up, either fully or partially. This causes fitful, unproductive sleep and decreases REM sleep, but you may not be aware that it’s happening. In UARS, it’s often tongue position that blocks air from getting into the throat. In sleep apnea, weight gain is a major factor because when people gain weight they end up with extra-soft tissue in the throat area, which causes or contributes to the blockage.

What helps: Experiment with different methods of tackling nighttime breathing issues.

  • Try snore-stopping nose strips, available over the counter at drugstores, or use saline nasal spray to irrigate your nasal passages.
  • Experiment with sleep positions; obstructed breathing is more common when you’re sleeping on your back. Use pillows to prop yourself on your side. Some experts recommend the tennis ball trick, in which you use an elastic band to attach a tennis ball to the back of your pajamas or T-shirt so it presses into your back when you start to roll over.
  • Losing weight — even just ten pounds — can decrease or even eliminate sleep-disordered breathing.
  • If problems persist, schedule an exam by an otolaryngologist to determine if a structural problem with your nose, mouth, or throat is causing your interrupted breathing.
  • It’s also important to have your oxygen levels measured during sleep, which can be done during a sleep study or with a take-home device.
  • More and more, doctors are recommending oral appliances that change your mouth position by moving your jaw forward to open up the throat as first step for some types of obstructed breathing, particularly UARS.
  • One of the most effective cures for disordered breathing is a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, a mask that blows air directly into your airways. Another mask called a BiPap (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure Device) works similarly but has dual pressure settings. However, compliance is a problem with airway masks, so be careful to choose a model that’s comfortable for you, so you’ll continue to use it.
  • Surgery to remove excess tissue from the throat or shrink nasal tissues can be a successful approach to treating apnea and UARS as well.

Original Article: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/sleep-disorders/6-surprising-sleep-stealers

 

Health, Nutrition

6 Hidden Fat Traps on Restaurant Menus

By Oprah.com | Healthy Living – Fri, Mar 30, 2012 12:44 PM EDT

Sneaky Salads

You order the dressing on the side, but this calorie-saving tactic can backfire. Chefs like to keep dressing to a minimum–too much can make a salad wilty, says Mike Schwartz, chef instructor for the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) and founder of BAO Food and Drink. A restaurant’s usual drizzle of salad dressing will barely cover the bottom of a 4-ounce ramekin, though, and that looks cheap, so Schwartz says chefs will almost always send out extra. Take two large spoonfuls and mix in with your greens, then set it out of reach. Picking around deep-fried tortilla strips, Chinese noodles and croutons are no-brainers, but those other crunchy bits (like sunflower seeds and banana chips,) are often roasted in oil or salt. Even good-for-you ingredients can multiply at restaurants. Tracy Gensler, RD, a Best Life nutritionist, says she recently measured out a cup and a quarter of walnuts in her take-out dinner salad–that’s a full cup more than a typical serving size, and an extra 980 calories, just nuts.

Delicious Language

We know better than to fall for “creamy,” but not all unhealthy code words are so blatant. “Crispy” meat, fish and vegetables are usually fried in oil; “crusted” entrees often involve lots of butter, cheese or oil (that’s what helps the breadcrumbs, almonds and flour stick); “rich,” “velvety” and “gooey” can signify sky-high amounts of fat; “sizzling” food sizzles because of (you guessed it) oil. Detailed descriptions make food sound even more appealing: In one study by Brian Wansink, PhD, author of Mindless Eating, diners were 27 percent more likely to get dessert when it was called “German Black Forest double-chocolate cake” instead of “chocolate cake. Try to read between the lines of unusual techniques like “oil-poaching,” which involves submerging food in oil and cooking it slowly over low heat. From a health perspective, that’s closer to frying than water-poaching.

Pictures That Are Worth a Thousand Calories

Some items that increase the restaurant’s bottom line can have the same effect on yours, says William Poundstone, who analyzed restaurant marketing tricks in his book, Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It). He says pictures are powerful motivators, so photos on menus at chain restaurant and illustrations at more upscale places (often in the upper right-hand corner, where eyes automatically go first), as well as borders and frames, highlight the items the restaurant is eager to sell. People pay the most attention to whatever gets the most space on the menu, says Poundstone, so when you see three pages of appetizers, this sends the message, “Ordering extra food before your meal isn’t excessive; it’s the normal thing to do.” And while tossing together inexpensive veggies in a side salad is one way to make them more profitable (salads involve relatively little labor), deep-frying them as appetizers is another. It involves just a few ingredients, is quick to prepare, and can be very hard for diners to resist.

Dishes You’ve Never Really Stopped to Think About

Unless you’re a knowledgeable cook, there are probably a few dishes that you always order without knowing how to make them, what’s in them, or what exactly they are. Here’s your cheat sheet: Miso is high in sodium (986 mg in one cup; 251 mg in a tablespoon), and “tempura” is Japanese for “we borrowed this dish from the Portuguese, and that’s why it’s so fattening” (kidding; it signifies “deep fried”). Pork belly, the popular boneless meat, has 16 times more saturated fat than pork tenderloin and 10 times more saturated fat than pork chops. You may be pleasantly surprised to discover pork belly’s country cousin, bacon, in sautéed vegetables and sauces…until you realize that sweet-smoky flavor is also supremely fatty-salty. Then there’s confit. French women may not get fat, but you will if confit becomes your go-to bistro dish. This meat-preserving method, which involves cooking meat submerged in its own rendered fat (or in duck fat), traditionally involves duck or goose and was justifiable in the time before refrigerators. But it’s cropping up on menus these days as chefs try it with pork, lamb, turkey and even fish.

Nude Foods That Are Hiding Something

Wonder why vegetable purees at restaurants always taste richer than the ones you blend at home? Schwartz from ICE says that it’s usually due to cream (or sour cream, in the case of some cold soups). To suss out dairy, he suggests asking if the soup is vegan. Schwartz sees patrons passing on the potatoes and ordering rice instead, but he says it’s common for Western-style chefs to add oil or butter for extra flavor and to keep grains from clumping (he advises requesting it “steamed plain”). “Grilled” suggests a flaming charcoal grill with open bars to allow fat to drip away, but Schwartz says diners and some chain restaurants tend to use flattop grills, which means the food sits in a pool of grease and soaks up fat. Ask your server if the restaurant uses a flame or flat-top grill, and then decide if you’d rather have your meat cooked another way, says Schwartz.

The “Better Choice” Dessert

If you’ve decided to order a treat, don’t compromise. You’ll not only feel as if you missed out on what you really wanted, but you may accidentally order something even more fattening. Let’s say you’re dying for a piece of flourless chocolate cake but you feel like the pear tart would be healthier (it’s got fruit, right?). Gensler found an example of a slice of chocolate cake with 234 calories and 11 grams of fat, compared to a pear tart with 340 calories and 17 grams of fat (the tart was bigger, and most likely made with more butter). If you’re craving ice cream but wonder if flan or gelato would be wiser, go with your gut: 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream has 145 calories and 8 grams saturated fat, and the same amount of flan has 220 calories and 6 grams of fat. Gelato also has less fat than ice cream–but more calories. This is a numbers game that’s not worth playing, so satisfying your cravings with just one creamy, velvety scoop.

Health, Motivational

Optimism and Your Health