Archive for category FAT

The 6 Worst Coffee Drinks

Coffee consumption has been linked to diminished risk of Alzheimer’s, better brain function, and even better memory. The fact is, coffee in its purest, blackest form is good for you. But that mix of chocolate, whipped cream, egg nog, and mystery syrup in your cup is not coffee. And it’s definitely not good for you. It sure is popular, though: Researchers studied coffee habits in New York and found that two-thirds of Starbucks’ customers opt for blended coffee drinks over regular brewed coffee or tea. The average caloric impact of the blended drinks was 239 calories. The regular coffee or tea, by comparison, was only 63 calories after factoring in added cream and sugar.

So even if you like your coffee sweet and light, you can strip away 176 calories every day, just by making this one swap—and shed a pound and a half a month. We’ve tracked down the worst dessert-in-a-cup crimes against weight loss, plus much healthier alternatives. Make these swaps to turn your neighborhood coffee shop of horrors into a tasty oasis of pick-me-ups—and stick with your new choices to keep the weight coming off.

6. #6: Worst Chocolaty Coffee Drink: Starbucks Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino with Whole Milk and Whipped Cream (venti)

520 calories, 23 g fat (15 g saturated, 0.5 g trans), 350 mg sodium, 69 g sugars

Talk about double trouble. Within this chocolate calamity lurks three-quarters of your recommended daily intake of saturated fat, and as much sugar as you’ll find in 10 Rainbow Popsicles! Slash your calorie intake by switching to skim milk and cutting out the whipped cream. Knock the size down to a grande, and switch from the frappe to an iced mocha, and you’re looking at a drink with 350 fewer calories than when you started. Make a switch like that every single day, and you’ll lose about 6 pounds in two months!

Drink This Instead!

Grande Iced Caffe Mocha with Skim Milk (No Whipped Cream)

170 calories, 2.5 g fat (1.5 g saturated, 0 g trans), 70 mg sodium, 28 g sugars

 

5. #5: Worst Seasonal Coffee Drink: Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Gingerbread Latte (large)

450 calories, 12 g fat (7 g saturated), 290 mg sodium, 68 g sugars

This holiday horror packs a whopping 68 grams of sugar (that’s as much as in three and a half Twinkies!) and almost a quarter of your daily calories. (Hope you weren’t planning to eat much today.) To enjoy the same chilly gingerbread coffee flavor, simply swap the latte for iced coffee and drop down a size. Suddenly, you’re looking at nearly half as much sugar and a far more digestible 270 calories. Read the rest of this entry »

7 Spices That Could Extend Your Life

Spice Up Your Life

Avoid an overflowing medicine cabinet by tapping into the healing powers hiding inside your kitchen cabinet. More and more modern-day research identifies what ancient healers have known for centuries—spices hold amazing healing properties. With many overflowing with natural compounds that deter type 2 diabetes, one of the nation’s fastest-growing medical problems, spices could serve as an economical way to save lives. The best part? They’re delicious! Enjoy!

Coriander

Superfood effects: Aromatic and medicinal, this spice has been shown to ease anxiety and help people sleep. It’s also an important spice for people living with type 2 diabetes. A 2011 study published in the Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences found coriander acted as a natural blood-sugar and cholesterol regulator.

Use it: Ground coriander seeds pair well with eggs, salad dressings, chili sauces, and guacamole.

 

Turmeric

Superfood effects: The curcumin compound in turmeric, a main ingredient in curry, shows promising cancer-fighting abilities in lab studies. A “cooling” spice, turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties that help thwart tumor growth and block biological pathways needed for melanoma and other cancers to flourish. In 2007, Chinese scientists found curcumin helps tamp down hormones needed for prostate cancer to take root in the body.

Use it: Pair turmeric with black pepper to seriously amplify its effects. Indian scientists found that adding the black pepper compound piperine to curcumin increased its bioavailability in humans by 2,000 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

Movie Stars’ 7 Smartest Power Food Picks

Kimchi

Star Status: Oscar nominee and Les Miserables and Wolverine star Hugh Jackman is so enthusiastic about this traditional Korean staple that he cohosted an episode of the Kimchi Chronicles cooking show!

Power-Food Perks: Nearly every Korean meal features this spicy fermented dish that almost always features cabbage and sometimes other veggies like cucumber and radishes. It’s loaded with immune-boosting properties that promote better digestive health. And get this: In 2005, Seoul National University researchers found that a majority of chickens fed kimchi extract in their study recovered faster from bird flu!

Miso Soup

Star Status: Mother Nature Network reports that Oscar-nominated actress Anne Hathaway traded in pizza and other junk food for the a vegan diet plan that included the likes of miso soup and other plant-based picks to comfortably squeeze into the skin-tight Catwoman costume in Dark Knight Rising. Read the rest of this entry »

The 7 Best Stress-Fighting Foods

Your dietary dilemma: Instantly gratifying your anxiety-induced urge to eat won’t help you keep your cool, but neither will skipping meals altogether. The solution? “On a stressful day, you don’t have to be a nutritional star,” says Heidi Skolnik, nutritionist for the New York Giants. “You just don’t want to make an already bad day worse.” Here’s how to make it better, and keep stress whipped into submission all day long.

7. When You’re in Gridlock : Gridlock adds half an hour to your commute.

Stress antidote: A Starbucks skim-milk chai latte and half a bagel with cream cheese. The carbohydrates in the bagel provide energy, and they’re balanced by protein from the milk in the latte, which makes you feel alert. And both items are portable.

6. When You Have a Big Presentation: The IT guy never reserved the PowerPoint projector for your departmental presentation.

Stress antidote: Milk, hold the coffee and sugar. Stress may lower your levels of serotonin, one of the body’s critical stay-calm chemicals. But milk contains whey protein, which Dutch researchers found can help boost tryptophan, one of the building blocks of serotonin, by 43 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

8 Ingredients You Never Want to See on Your Nutrition Label

The year was 1950, and The Magic 8-Ball had just arrived in stores. It looked like a toy, but it wasn’t. It was a future-telling device, powered by the unknown superpowers that lived inside its cheap plastic shell. Despite a bit of an attitude—”Don’t count on it,” “My reply is no”—it was a huge success. Americans, apparently, want to see their futures.

A few decades later, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act that, among other things, turned the 45,000 food products in the average supermarket into fortune-telling devices. Americans inexplicably yawned. I’m trying to change that. Why? The nutrition label can predict the future size of your pants and health care bills.

Unfortunately, these labels aren’t as clear and direct as the Magic 8-Ball. Consider the list of ingredients: The Food and Drug Administration has approved more than 3,000 additives, most of which you’ve never heard of. But the truth is, you don’t have to know them all. You just need to be able to parse out the bad stuff. Do that and you’ll have a pretty good idea how your future will shape up—whether you’ll end up overweight and unhealthy or turn out to be fit, happy, and energized.

Here, I’ve identified 8 ingredients you never want to see on the nutrition label. Should you put down products that contain them? As the Magic 8-Ball would say: Signs point to yes.

8. BHA:

This preservative is used to prevent rancidity in foods that contain oils. Unfortunately, BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) has been shown to cause cancer in rats, mice, and hamsters. The reason the FDA hasn’t banned it is largely technical—the cancers all occurred in the rodents’ forestomachs, an organ that humans don’t have. Nevertheless, the study, published in the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, concluded that BHA was “reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen,” and as far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough to eliminate it from your diet. 

You’ll find it in: Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles

 

7. Parabens:

These synthetic preservatives are used to inhibit mold and yeast in food. Read the rest of this entry »