With National Peach Month upon us, there are a lot of tempting fresh peach recipes to make with seasonal stone fruit. If you live in a part of the country where fresh peaches are unavailable, it’s still possible to celebrate peaches during the month of August with the canned and frozen fruits in your grocery store.

According to Alison Lewis, nutritionist and founder of Ingredients, Inc., canned fruits are comparable to fresh and frozen fruit when looking at nutritional values.

The Pros

“Eating canned peaches can be healthy,” said Lewis, “Canned peaches sometimes retain more nutrients than fresh because they are picked fully ripe and then processed right away. Fresh fruit may be picked before they are ripe and may travel long distances and suffer improper storage conditions which means nutrients may be destroyed along the way.”

Read Full Post >

It looks like BPA strikes again and this time our canned tomatoes and beans are under attack.

Just a few years ago bisphenol-A, or BPA, a toxic chemical that has been linked to biological problems and developmental problems in the young, was found in many popular reusable water bottles and baby bottles. This discovery gained lots of attention and called for a major change in the manufacturing of many products.

Now it is being found that the lining of most cans contains a resin that can pick up the toxin BPA. Canned tomatoes are more susceptible due to their acidic properties; the acid increases the rate at which BPA is absorbed into food. This is found to be true for canned soda and canned beans as well.

The risk that this poses is argued to be significant, especially for children under the age of six. Due to their smaller size, the levels of BPA that children are exposed to is higher than that of adults. Children also metabolize BPA slower therefore the toxins stay in their systems longer causing a higher risk for damage to their developing bodies.

Read Full Post >

Formerly “weight challenged,” Denis Faye dropped 50 pounds following a 5-year jaunt through Australia, a trip that helped him become the extreme sports and fitness enthusiast he is today. His sports include swimming, scuba, rock climbing, spelunking, mountain biking, trekking, and—most importantly—surfing. He’s been a professional journalist for 20 years, writing for Outside, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, Wired, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, GQ, Surfer, and Pacific Longboarder. Denis now writes for Beachbody, which provides effective home workout dvds such as the very popular P90x program and the cardio workout dvd, TurboFire.

If ever a food confused health conscious eaters, it’s canned tuna. On one side, there’s the ascetic dieter, who eats the stuff right from the tin along side his single celery stick. On the other side, there’s your mom’s awesome cream-of-mushroom soup-drenched tuna casserole, which is trumped anti-nutritionally only by that greasy diner mainstay, the tuna melt. (True fact: in many restaurants, the tuna melt outdoes the hamburger for both calories and fat.)

And then there are the questions of mercury and overfishing and omega-3 fatty acids. Is this a healthy food or not? What’s a fish eater to do?

Fortunately, once you break it down, it’s not that complicated. As it turns out, a can of tuna can be healthy, ethical, and yummy – as long as your get your hands on the right can.

Read Full Post >

The more I learn about what is involved with our food supply, the more I want to make an effort to buy locally grown foods…

BPA, or bisphenol A, is a chemical inside some plastics and most canned foods you eat. What’s the problem with that? The chemical can slowly leach into water or food over time, which creates potential health problems like cancer, disruption to thyroid function, and obesity.

“It’s particularly concerning when it’s lining infant formula cans,” said Shanna Swan, a professor and researcher at the University of Rochester in New York.

BPA is used to keep food fresher longer and prevents it from interacting with metal and altering the taste.

Read Full Post >

It’s no secret that the economy stinks these days. According to a survey by a Chicago-based research firm, people are passing on the healthier options offered at fast food and casual dining restaurants in favor of a super-sized serving of comfort. Eighty-two percent of respondents say their better-for-you items are selling ‘lousy.” Customers are citing economic factors for their preferences.

More than half of consumers say they are more concerned about their eating habits than they were a year ago… yet:

• 70% say that healthful foods are harder to afford
• 53% say they buy less-healthful items because those items are cheaper (not necessarily, as I wrote about the price of salmon vs. hotdogs)
• 44% say their budget prevents them from eating healthful foods
• 34% of respondents say that they are choosing cheaper fast food over more-healthful options
• 9% are skipping breakfast and 3% are skipping lunch
  

To that, I say, this is totally unnecessary. People may think they are saving, but trust me, they are paying for it in their health. They’ll pay even more later whether it’s in some combination of weight gain, lower energy levels or poorer quality of life.

Instead, here are some tips to maximize your comfort with minimal strain on your pocketbook.
Read Full Post >