The Junk Food Nutritionist

Take a look at the ingredients list on one of those cardboard rolls of biscuits you can buy in the refrigerated section of the store. Here’s what I see on one mainstream product’s “homestyle original biscuits”: Enriched bleached flour, Water, Soybean oil, Sugar, Baking Powder, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Whey, Xanthan Gum. Hmm…It starts out sounding home-style—flour, water, oil, sugar, baking powder. You can make a biscuit with all these ingredients. But who, while cooking at home, adds whey and xanthan gum?  And some of this brand's biscuits have even more ingredients you wouldn’t cook with at home, including partially hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. Trans fatty acids or Trans fats, which I’m sure you’ve heard are worse than other forms of fat and should be avoided) and chemical preservatives.  Even a company that claims to be more natural has a long list of ingredients. But, if you make it yourself, you only need 4 ingredients. Making them yourself doesn’t tak...

By now, you’ve heard that a glass of wine a day is good for you. But, you probably also know that wine, like any alcohol has negative health effects. So, let’s sort through some of this research…. Looking on ScienceDirect for studies on “wine antioxidants,” I found more than 17,000. I narrowed it down to free journal articles published this year (2015), because we want the most recent data. I then selected three articles to share.   Consumers Views of Wine’s Benefits The first study I want to share actually studied consumers views of wine related to health benefits. Consumers were given a list of possible health benefits and asked to mark which health benefits red wine and white wine had. About three-quarters of respondents said red wine “helps the cardiovascular system” and “lowers your cholesterol.” Only 9% said white wine had the same benefits. Consumers seem to be right. Red wine contains more flavonoids (antioxidant or antioxidant-like compounds) tha...