Category: Healthy Food

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Last updated: September 25, 2022

In this article, I will explain how best to cut and eat rambutans, and I will also share some of my favorite ways to enjoy fresh rambutan fruit in recipes.

Somewhere between a sea urchin having a bad hair day and a brightly colored alien lifeform is the rambutan.

Given its odd appearance, I don’t blame you for having some questions about how to handle it. Most notably, how do you cut and eat a rambutan fruit?

Read on, and find out how to cut that hairy, leathery skin of the rambutan to get to the deliciously smooth sweet-sour flesh.

Originally from Southeast Asia but now common in many tropical locales, rambutan fruits are quite popular with anyone who’s had the opportunity to try one.

These odd-looking fruits, which are about the size of a kiwi, have a thick, leathery, pink-red shell with greenish-yellow “hairs” growing off of them.

Inside, the smooth white flesh has a texture similar to a pear or

Americans are obsessed with protein. Fat and carbs have been vilified – for unjustified reasons for the most part; there’s nothing inherently wrong with these two macronutrients, even though some fats and refined carbs are foods to limit.

Protein on the other hand has gained a health halo, as many people think that eating more of it will build muscle and help them eat less – hence the popularity of protein shakes and powders.

The body requires protein for its upkeep – from 10-35 percent of daily calories should come from protein, or about 0.8 gram of protein per kg of weight. Athletes, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and older adults need more protein than the average adult. 

Protein malnutrition plagued the world in the past, and is still an issue in some parts of the world. The American diet, however, has abundant sources of protein from plants (nuts, seeds, legumes, soy, grains etc.) and from animal sources (meat, fish, seafood, cheese, eggs etc.). Pair this abundance with our appetite for protein, which drives people to pack a protein bar and jerky in their bag just in case, and most Americans get twice as much as they need.

Too

Although people blame vacations, holiday meals and older age, weight is actually gained slowly and steadily over a lifetime. Much like you don‘t notice the slow bodily transformation from teenager to young adult to middle aged, as there’s no clear demarcation, weight stealthily adds up unnoticed – until it is.

More than 40 percent of the adult US population is obese, and since obesity is a risk factor for a multitude of chronic diseases – including stroke, heart disease, diabetes and several cancers – understanding how weight is gained can help mitigate this raging epidemic.

A new study in the Journal of Obesity looks at weight gain over a decade of almost 14,000 statistically representative Americans. The results are concerning.

Over 10 years more than half of the people followed in the study gained 5 percent or more body weight, more than a third gained 10 percent body weight or more, and a fifth added 20 percent.

Weight gain over the decades

The study shows an inverse relationship between age and weight gain. The greatest weight is gained by young people – between 20s and 30s – in which an average of almost 18 pounds of weight is added on.

Climate change is a pressing issue, and mitigating it may demand some personal sacrifices. Our food system and dietary choices are linked to climate change because food production contributes about one third of greenhouse gasses worldwide. 

Some diets contribute more greenhouse gasses than others.

Some food patterns pose more chronic disease risk than others.

Are carbon footprint and disease risk aligned?

Production of animal foods emits more greenhouse gasses. Beef production emits 10 times more than chicken, and 20 times as much as growing legumes, nuts and seeds. We also know that diets high in red and processed meat are linked with higher risk of heart disease, cancer and overall earlier death.

There are very few studies about the relationship between diet, environment and health, according to researchers from Tulane University, led by Donald Rose, and some of the data relies on specific populations, such as Seventh-Day Adventists, who are not representative of the general population, as their lifestyle and demographics aren’t just a choice of plant-based diets. The researchers set out to check personal health/planet health relationships in a representative population. The study appears in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

The researchers looked at the diet of

Obesity rates have doubled in the US over the past three decades, and are now at about 42 percent. This rise follows a dramatic change in our food environment and our eating habits. Over the last few decades food technologists and food manufacturers have increased and popularized food products that are abundant, relatively inexpensive, calorically dense, and are what’s called “highly palatable”.

What’s highly palatable? A winning formula is one that combines sugars, fat and salt in a way that pleases our reward systems, giving us pleasure. The food industry has been busy making highly processed products from low-cost raw ingredients, and formulating them into super pleasing things to eat. They’re so pleasing that it’s hard to stop eating them – and we’re encouraged to never forget an opportunity to snack on them by massive and ever present marketing efforts.

A new study in the journal Public Health Nutrition examines just how much reformulation occurred in the past decades. While other studies focused on the rise in sugar in the American diet, the authors say theirs is the first longitudinal study of the spread of hyper palatable foods.

The researchers looked at the prevalence of hyperpalatable foods in a

Exercise is a fundamental and super important key to wellness. Physical activity helps prevent diseases, it slows aging, and boosts mental function. It makes you look and feel better. 

But despite what junk and fast food manufacturers suggest in their clever marketing, tying sugary drinks to athletes and the olympic games, exercise will not enable you to burn off all that many extra calories, and on its own – without a reduction on caloric intake – exercise yields less than expected weight loss. 

An exercise deficit issue?

We can’t really outrun the fork and out-exercise a poor diet. 

Obesity isn’t an exercise deficit problem, it’s mostly an overeating and poor diet problem, Americans aren’t that much less active than they were a few decades ago, and exercise alone isn’t a weight loss plan, studies have shown. The calories burnt by exercise are at least partly compensated for, through energy conservation during the rest of the day and by a vigorous appetite and post-workout eating.

Most overweight people who try to lose weight don’t respond to exercise alone that much, but that doesn’t mean that exercise doesn’t help you lose weight. Exercise not only helps burn calories and keep muscle mass

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Last updated: April 2, 2022

This article about stroopwafel irons carries a bit of nostalgia for me. As a child, with my Dutch heritage, I was lucky enough to be treated to stroopwafels (stroop waffles, or thin waffles) every now and then.

And today, I still happily make my very own stroopwafels, because they are just so irresistibly delicious. Not very healthy though, but it’s okay to indulge sometimes, right?

To share my enthusiasm for stroopwafels with you, I am going to explain what they are, what they are not, and what you need to prepare them in your own kitchen at home. Yum!

Originating from The Netherlands, a stroopwafel is essentially a cookie that consists of two thin layers of baked dough that are joined by a caramel filling. The Dutch word “stroop” means syrup, and “wafel” means “waffle”.

Sounds simple, right?

A stroopwafel is indeed quite a straight-forward cookie. But as with so many other delicacies, it’s important to get the ingredients and process right.

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Last updated: June 14, 2022

Have you had a Vitamix blender for a while now and you start seeing that cloudy film in your container that just won’t go away?

Or perhaps you have only recently bought a Vitamix blender and you want to make sure the container stays clean?

Then this guide to cleaning a Vitamix container will hopefully help you in making it look brand new again. Make a habit of regularly cleaning it the right way so that nasty stains won’t ever appear.

A powerful Vitamix blender isn’t cheap so you want to make sure it stays in good shape for as long as you have it in your kitchen.

While Vitamix containers are certainly very durable, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to look after them.

Lucky for us, cleaning a Vitamix container is very easy. And with a bit of effort, you can keep your Vitamix container looking

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Last updated: August 27, 2022

When buying a piece of ginger root and you cannot use the entire root in one go, you need to store the remainder to make it last as long as possible.

Ginger is a favorite spice that has many uses in the kitchen and home, but storing the root, or rhizome, for later use must be done in the right way to extend its shelf life.

The best method to store ginger depends on if the ginger is whole, peeled, sliced, or grated. Whole and unpeeled is the easiest and best way to store ginger; it can be kept in a pantry or refrigerated or frozen. Peeled, sliced, or grated ginger must be protected from air contact and refrigerated.

Try out some of the below ginger storage methods to extend its shelf life and have ginger on hand when you need it!

Whether you grow your own ginger at home or buy the root from a