Good evening friends!
Happy Palm Sunday to everyone celebrating today! Hope you had a blessed day.
Here are the top stories that made it to this Sunday Roundup!
Fruitwater, Coca-Cola’s Flavored Seltzer, to Hit Shelves April 1
I’ll let you figure out if this drink is really what Coke names it. Carbonated water, no fruit juice, sweetened with Splenda, contains natural fruit flavors, enhanced with nutrients. So it actually has no fruit at all! Shocker, right? Not so much. If you prefer flavored water over plain, save your money and your health by making your own. Just add any cut-up fruit, whole berries, lemon slices, cucumbers… to your cup of water. And there you have it: all natural fruit water!
FDA Ready to Approve Frankenfish Despite Fishy Science
Genetically modified salmon is probably going to receive FDA approval this April. This Frankenfish has been engineered to be ready for consumption in 16-18 months instead of 30 months that the Atlantic salmon takes. The claims are that this fish will be safe for consumption and will not affect the wild salmon as it will not penetrate their habitat and if it did it won’t be able to reproduce. My truth: STOP messing with nature!! Major grocery stores in the US such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have vowed not to sell the salmon, but as it won’t be labeled, you’ll never know where you might be eating somewhere else. You can voice your concern and sign a petition to the FDA on this link.
Foods can Help Fight Inflammation
It is known that obesity can trigger a series of inflammatory reactions in the body; and chronic inflammation has been linked to many diseases including some kinds of cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s. Instead of jumping to quick-fixes and pills, a healthful diet (and weight-loss) can reverse that. An anti-inflammatory diet is one based on whole foods with emphasis on plants including leafy greens, citrus, tomatoes and wild salmon. For more details, you can check a post I have written a while ago about foods to include and avoid in an anti-cancer or anti-inflammatory diet.
Ready-to-Eat Foods for Toddlers Often Too Salty: Study
After assessing the content of 1,115 packaged foods aimed for babies and toddlers, researchers found the majority (almost 75%) of those for toddlers very high in sodium. Some foods contained up to 40% of the sodium allowance for a day. The American Heart Association recommends the sodium intake be less than 1,500mg per day. This is just another reminder to read labels extra carefully and to try to prepare meals at home as much as possible. Salt is an acquired taste. It is essential not to create a preference for salt this early in life.
180,000 Deaths Worldwide Each Year May Be Associated With Sugary Soft Drinks, Research Suggests
Sugary drinks including sodas, sports drinks and fruit juices have been associated with about 180,000 deaths per year from diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. I discussed another study in last week’s roundup linking children’s consumption of sweetened beverages to higher calorie intake especially of fatty foods. Again, this is an indication to the overall lifestyle of the people who consume the most sweetened drinks. For instance, Japan had the lowest consumption of sweetened drinks and the lowest death rate associated with them.
Photo source: http://www.commons.wikimedia.org
No one food is solely responsible for bad health. It is the mix of all the foods we consume that affect our state of health or disease. But the keyword here must be real food. Sweetened soft drinks, for instance, that have no nutritional value but come with a list of health side effects are far from real.
What are your thoughts about genetically-modified salmon? Would you eat it?
