Why are so many people trying to detox from sugar? People are finally discovering that the average American consumes at least 19 teaspoons a day of added sugar. “Added sugars”, unlike the natural sugars in fruits, vegetables, milk, and meats are added to foods to increase the sweetness. Each teaspoon (4 grams) of sugar has [...]

The first time that I read the “Fat Trap,” an article in the New York Times, a picture of two scoops of chocolate ice cream drizzled with caramel appeared to the side on each of the eight pages of the article. It really made me angry. I thought how sad it was that potentially some [...]

My beautiful daughter, Heather, took her fire hazard (Christmas tree) to the backyard on Christmas Day. Resolutions are often like that; discarded faster than a dried out fire hazard. Otherwise, they are likely to kindle and burn you with guilt and self-doubt. Because many people have had failure experiences with resolutions, they increasingly decide not [...]

Mary Ireland gives suggestions for creating a healthier lifestyle in 2012.

I was visiting my mother when she served steamed broccoli that was so salty, I could not eat it. I think this was a bad combination of my mother’s decreasing sensitivity to saltiness as she got older, causing her to use more, and my increasing salt sensitivity from being on a low-sodium diet. Or maybe [...]

Since I wrote Enjoying Chocolate – A Spoonful of Reality about a year a half ago, there have been two new reviews – two meta-analysis studies finding links between cocoa consumption and cholesterol profile improvements.

Mary Ireland discusses findings from the “Breast Cancer and the Environment: A Life Course Approach” study released last week and gives dietary suggestions for reducing cancer risk.

There no question that starting the day with a good breakfast is important; it’s especially important for children, for their health and for their school performance. Public programs have been designed to provide breakfast for ‘at risk’ children to insure the children start the day with the energy and nutrients to power their thinking for [...]

It is interesting that Kazimierz Funk, the Polish biochemist who is credited with formulating the concept of vitamins in 1912, made his observations and did his work just about 100 years ago. Funk got the idea to study nutrients in foods, after he read about a Dutchman, Christiaan Eijkman, a Nobel prize-winning professor of physiology, [...]

A handout from the Sugar Association entitled “Not Empty Calories” ends with the words “The old saw, ‘a little goes a long way’ holds true for foods made with sugar.” I obtained this handout at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) in San Diego this past September 2011. I accepted the materials from [...]