Tag: eating
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What Makes Food Delicious?
Fat. Sugar. Salt. But what if you’re trying to improve the nutritional value of your food, and maybe try some options that don’t rely on fat, sugar, and salt to be palatable? One of the best ways to jazz up food is spices. And few (possibly no) traditions have as sophisticated a spice palate as…
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A Bright Moment for the President’s Council on Fitness
At the start of 1963, Kennedy discovered Roosevelt’s 1908 order establishing the 50-mile march for officers. He sent it to Marine Commandant David M. Shoup, noting that the leathernecks of the time had been able to complete the trek within 20 hours on a single day, and asking if “the strength and stamina of the modern…
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Vegetable, Fruit, Berry
So it turns out a tomato is not only a fruit but — botanically speaking — is also classified as a berry. This is rough news for aggregate fruits like strawberries and blackberries, which, it turns out are not, technically, berries at all. Fun! But all it really means is that scientific classification of plants…
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Are You Enjoying It?
Do you have a particular food you can’t have “just a little bit” of? Some foods are easy to keep eating — not only do they leave you hungry, they may even leave you thinking you want (“need”) more of the same. Candy and chips often have this effect — people will eat as much…
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The Best Reason to Exercise: Health and Well-Being
Being obese is a risk factor for bad health outcomes, but it’s far too simple a story. Anyone, whatever their size, can improve their health with exercise. Exercising won’t necessarily cause weight loss, but anyone can improve their heart function, blood sugar, sleep quality, and bone density. Exercise even improves cognition and mood. So why…
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Cleansing the Mind of Snake Oil
You can’t actually “detox” your body, but a market eager to sell you One Weird Trick and various magic elixirs makes it impossible to go very far without seeing a pitch for it. The reality is both harder (a single purchase won’t restore health) and easier (regular walking and sensible eating can). So why do…
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One Weird Trick?
The fitness industry is full of hard sells for simple solutions. Some of them are just junk, but most of them have a grain of truth to them, which is part of what makes it so hard to figure out what will help you. Effective weight management and healthy habits are never down to just…
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A Simple Trick for Better Eating
What if you forgot completely about everything you ate as soon as you were finished eating it? A (very small) study in people with amnesia found that they would simply eat another meal if it was served outside their memory window, even if it was shortly afterward. (Interestingly, they showed a preference for different foods…
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Soylent Meal Replacement? It started with a young software engineer looking to feed himself as easily and cheaply as possible, leading to a blog entry about his experience, “How I Stopped Eating Food.” It continued with a crowdfunding campaign that raised over $750,000, and Soylent is now a company with $20 million of new investment.…