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In the category of “news you can use,” Emily Oster summarizes a new study that compares weight loss on various diets. After cutting through all the muck, we get the chart on the right. The answer, it turns out, is that all of the diets are about equally effective.
So which one you choose is mostly a matter of preference. If you think you can stick to a low-carb diet, choose one of those. If you like vegetables, choose a veggie-based plan. If you think you can tolerate low fat, go for one of those. What matters isn’t so much the mechanics of the diet, but whether you can stick with it over the long haul.
(If your doctor recommends a particular diet because you suffer from some particular condition, then of course this changes things. And remember, “don’t be an idiot” is always an unvoiced component of all diet and health recommendations.)
As for me, I’m on the three-quarters diet. I do this about once a decade or so and then spend the succeeding decade gaining back the weight I lost. This is my third go-around. As you might guess, it’s a pretty simple diet: eat less food. In particular, I try to eat about three quarters of my usual meals and snacks. I’m finding it much more annoying this time than in the past—partly because I’m working at home, where temptation is ever present, and partly because my motivation and self-discipline have deteriorated over the years. However, the precipitous collapse of my body over the past six months is providing at least some short-term motivation, and yesterday I learned that my sleep apnea is apparently much worse than it was a decade ago. Maybe weight loss will help with that. I hope so, since I had no luck with a CPAP machine back then, and I kind of doubt I’ll have better luck this time around. But we’ll see.
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Super Shred: The Big Results Diet
4 Weeks 20 Pounds Lose It Faster!
Genre: Health & Fitness
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: December 31, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Seller: Macmillan / Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
The diet that works faster and forever! SUPER SHRED Using the same principles—meal spacing, snacking, meal replacement and diet confusion—that made his SHRED a major #1 bestseller—Dr. Ian has developed what dieters told him they needed: a quick-acting plan that is safe and easy to follow at home, at work, or on the road. SUPER SHRED It’s a program with four week-long cycles: — Foundation , when you’ll eat four meals and three snacks a day, start shedding pounds and set yourself up for success — Accelerate , when you’ll kick it up and speed up weight loss — Shape , the toughest week in the program, and the one that will get your body back by keeping it guessing — Tenacious , a final sprint that cements your improved eating habits and melts off those last stubborn pounds The SHRED system never leaves you hungry. It’s a completely new way to lose weight, stay slender, and feel fantastic about your body, mind and spirit! Includes more than 50 all-new recipes for meal replacing smoothies and soups!
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Your diet is probably loaded with too many omega-6 fatty acids and not enough of the omega-3 variety. Westerners often consume 10 to 15 times as many of the former as of the latter — but doctors say that for a healthy heart, the ratio should be more like 2.3 omega-6 to 1 omega-3.
A peer-reviewed study funded in part by the organic milk industry has revealed that organic dairy in the diet can help right this imbalance.
Scientists studied nearly 400 milk samples from 14 American dairies over 18 months and discovered that the fatty-acid ratios were nearly ideal in organic milk. In nonorganic milk, not so much. For every 2.5 grams or so of omega-6 fatty acids in a glass of organic milk, the researchers found 1 gram of omega-3. Compare that to a fatty-acid ratio of 6 to 1 in milk from cows raised by nonorganic dairies.
Drinking whole organic milk “will certainly lessen the risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” said the study’s lead author, Charles M. Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“All milk is healthy and good for people,” he continued, “but organic milk is better, because it has a more favorable balance of these fatty acids” — omega-3, typically found in fish and flaxseed, versus omega-6, which is abundant in many fried foods like potato chips.
“In my judgment, the benefits from this healthy balance of fatty acids in organic milk is the most significant nutritional benefit demonstrated so far for organic food,” Benbrook told The Seattle Times.
What gives? Why would organically managed cows produce healthier milk than others? The key is the diet. Here is the explanation in the paper, which was published Monday in the journal PLOS ONE:
Milk from cows consuming significant amounts of grass and legume-based forages contains higher concentrations of [omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid] than milk from cows lacking routine access to pasture and fed substantial quantities of grains, especially corn. …
The U.S. National Organic Program (NOP) requires that lactating cows on certified organic farms receive at least 30% of daily Dry Matter Intake (DMI) from pasture during that portion of the year when pasture grasses and legumes are actively growing, with a minimum of 120 days per year.
So the next time somebody tells you there’s no evidence that any organic foods are more healthful than others, just give them a big, wet, forgiving kiss with milk-mustachioed lips.
Source
More Helpful Fatty Acids Found in Organic Milk, The New York Times
Organic Production Enhances Milk Nutritional Quality by Shifting Fatty Acid Composition: A United States–Wide, 18-Month Study, PLOS ONE
New WSU study suggests organic milk may be more heart-healthy, The Seattle Times
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
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Vegetarians can use protein sources like almonds and walnuts to maintain a balanced diet. Photo: Cindy Baldhoff
When Christina Coley became a vegetarian 25 years ago, she did it as a personal, moral choice.
“I was actively involved in animal rights and didn’t think [eating meat] was a good way to live,” she says. But now the mother of three, who lives in Idaho, says she and her husband also appreciate the environmental benefits of vegetarianism.
“We have learned in the recent past that raising animals purely for food has a big impact on global warming, ozone issues and the like,” she says. “I believe that by not eating meat, I am helping preserve the environment a little bit.”
She says a vegetarian lifestyle is more sustainable, because she can easily choose to buy food that is grown locally. “I can even grow it myself,” Coley adds. “I’m not sure you can do that with meat very easily, if at all.”
A 2006 study by the University of Chicago backs up Coley’s statement. In “Diet, Energy and Global Warming,” researchers found that the average American diet gets about 47 percent of its calories from animal sources, which results in a carbon footprint of 2.52 tons annually. When red meat makes up about 50 percent of a diet’s calories, that number jumps to 3.57 tons. However, when just 25 percent of the calories come from fish, but no other meat sources, the carbon footprint drops to around 1 ton.
As World Vegetarian Day is observed on Oct. 1 — kicking off Vegetarian Awareness Month — it’s a good time to reassess what you’re eating and look at the effect it’s having on the planet. While many people are conscientious about recycling, using less electricity and composting, they may not be aware just how big of an effect their diet has on the environment.
According to the Vegetarian Society, livestock farming accounts for almost 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions created by human-related activities, and the United Nations claims that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than the world’s transportation sources combined. (Much of that comes from the nitrous oxide found in manure.)
Another environmental effect comes from the fossil fuels used to transport animals for slaughter and for delivery after being processed, and to power the production of their feed. Any way you crunch the numbers, it all adds up to a significant contribution to greenhouse gases, and lowering meat consumption is an important tool in furthering environmental sustainability.
Next page: Easy ways to “go vegetarian”
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Genre: Health & Fitness
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: June 21, 2013
Publisher: Callisto Media Inc.
Seller: Callisto Media, Inc.
The Fast Diet is proven to be the easiest and simplest way to lose weight, permanently. Intermittent fasting, also known as the 5 2 Diet, is a sensible and effective approach to weight loss. It’s simple—you’ll eat low-calorie meals two days a week, while eating your recommended daily requirement of calories on the other five days. Once you start the 5 2 Diet, you’ll watch the pounds melt away. THE FAST DIET COOKBOOK gives you the recipes and guidance you need to easily transform your body and your eating habits forever. Start fasting right away for health and weight loss, with: • Dozens of delicious, easy recipes for both fasting and non-fasting days • 32 tasty recipes for your low-calorie fasting days, including Banana Walnut Muffins, French Onion Soup and Vegetable Lo Mein • Over 40 filling recipes during your non-fasting days, like Tomato Basil Flatbread, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, and Spinach Mushroom Lasagna Bake • A one-month meal plan, customized for both men and women based on recommended daily calorie intake • Information on the science of intermittent fasting and how it promotes weight loss and optimum health
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A harp seal and her pup: adorable but chemical-laced prey for polar bears.
A warming world is a cruel world for polar bears. Not only is their terrain melting beneath their feet. Now comes news that climate change is pushing East Greenland’s population to switch prey and increasingly eat types of seals that are loaded with chemical contaminants.
Polar bears living in East Greenland feed mainly on ringed seals, harp seals, and hooded seals. They may all sound the same to inexperienced seal-meat eaters like you and me. But these species of seals have different lifestyles that lead to different levels of chemical pollution in their meat.
Scientists studied the dietary habits of East Greenland’s polar bears from 1984 to 2011 and discovered a 42 percent fall in the amount of relatively clean ringed seal that they ate. In its place, the bears substituted more harp and hooded seals — species whose flesh contain higher levels of long-lived contaminants known as persistent organic pollutants. That’s because these species of seals, which are larger than ringed seals, are higher up in the food chains. It’s also because they are “subarctic” seals — they travel further south, closer to the industrialized world, where they swim and feed in more human-produced filth.
The scientists believe the changing diet is climate-related, in part because the dietary changes were most stark in the warmest years.
“Our results suggest that [East Greenland] bears are using subarctic seals as an increasingly important, albeit more contaminated, food resource,” the researchers wrote in a paper published recently in the journal Global Change Biology. “A shifting diet may have health consequences.”
Yuck, time to get those dirty seals out of your diets, polar bears!
Or not. The good news here is also the bad news. As Arctic sea ice continues to melt, the bears will find it harder to hunt the harp and hooded seals, which use the ice as pup-rearing platforms. And once that contaminated source of food has dried up, it could become frightfully difficult for the bears to find any food at all.
“This additional food source, subsequent to declines in ringed seal in the diet, may only be a temporary one,” the scientists wrote.
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy
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The 14-Day Gluten-Free Plan for Physical and Mental Excellence
Novak Djokovic & William Davis, MD
Genre: Health & Fitness
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: August 20, 2013
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Seller: Random House, LLC
In 2011, Novak Djokovic had what sportswriters called the greatest single season ever by a professional tennis player: He won ten titles, three Grand Slams, and forty-three consecutive matches. Remarkably, less than two years earlier, this champion could barely complete a tournament. How did a player once plagued by aches, breathing difficulties, and injuries on the court suddenly become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world? The answer is astonishing: He changed what he ate. In Serve to Win, Djokovic recounts how he survived the bombing of Belgrade, Serbia, rising from a war-torn childhood to the top tier of his sport. Then he reveals the diet that transformed his health and pushed him to the pinnacle. While Djokovic loved and craved bread and pasta, and especially the pizza at his family’s restaurant, his body simply couldn’t process wheat. Eliminating gluten—the protein found in wheat—made him feel instantly better, lighter, clearer, and quicker. As he continued to research and refine his diet, his health issues disappeared, extra pounds dropped away, and his improved physical health and mental focus allowed him to achieve his two childhood dreams: to win Wimbledon, and to become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world. Now Djokovic has created a blueprint for remaking your body and your life in just fourteen days. With weekly menus, mindful eating tips for optimal digestion, and delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes, you’ll be well on your way to shedding extra weight and finding your way to a better you. Djokovic also offers tips for eliminating stress and simple exercises to get you revved up and moving, the very same ones he does before each match. You don’t need to be a superstar athlete to start living and feeling better. With Serve to Win, a trimmer, stronger, healthier you is just two weeks away. From the Hardcover edition.
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