The 21-Day Immunity Plan – by Dr. Aseem Malhotra
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We previously reviewed Dr. Malhotra’s “A Statin-Free Life”, and this time he’s back with more lifestyle medicine to naturally improve an important system (or set of systems, depending on how we want to slice it) with our diet and other lifestyle factors.
This is not, however, an “appeal to nature” fallacy, and in fact Dr. Malhotra is a professor of evidence-based medicine (as well as being a cardiologist, not generally a field of the whimsical).
The main premise of the book is that while there are indeed foods that boost immunity per se, the immune system doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is inextricably linked to other systems, and the metabolism as a whole. Thus, the lifestyle approach here prioritizes immune-boosting things as a focus (and avoiding immune-harming things), while lifting overall health too.
The titular “21-day immunity plan” is, thus, largely dietary, but also addresses exercise, and stress management, amongst other factors.
The style is mostly quite light pop-science, with a lot of references to harder science for those who want it.
Bottom line: if you’d like to boost your immunity measurably in the next 21 days, this book is the one for you!
Click here to check out The 21-Day Immunity Plan, and increase your immunity!
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Aging For Beginners – by Ezra Bayda & Elizabeth Hamilton
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This one’s not about how to avoid aging, but rather, how to be at peace with whatever aging may be happening, perhaps despite our best efforts.
The book is dedicated:
❝To all the starving and suffering children throughout the world, with the wish that they may someday have the opportunity to experience the life of a contented geriatric❞
It’s a stark reminder that old age is a privilege that many do not get to enjoy, thanks to poverty, disease, wars, and accidents and incidents along the way.
So, how to go about making the very most of what we have, for those of us who are perhaps going gray in a comfortable, safe environment?
The answer may surprise you: the authors tackle things head-on without dressing old age up in euphemisms or platitudes—they cover not just the physical decline that typically occurs eventually, but also the impact of the physical pain that this may bring, the way this may play into loneliness and helplessness, and perhaps anxiety and/or depression. And, of course, the topic of grief and loss, that for most of us becomes all the more part of our lives as we get older. For that matter, our own mortality is also something the authors come back to from start to finish.
Thus, this is not necessarily a cheerful book—but it gives the tools such that we can be cheerful about life in general, in the face of all the aforementioned things, without pretending that things that are not good are good, just, making our peace with what is, and making the most out of what we have.
The authors are Zen teachers with decades of experience, and this book is heavily influenced by Zen principles. And yes, it does teach meditation too, but that’s just one tool in the toolbox.
The style is deep and yet very readable, heavy of tone and at the same time inspiring of lightness of heart.
Bottom line: if you’d like to worry less about aging (while still doing all you want to stay young), this book can certainly help with that.
Click here to check out Aging For Beginners, and be at peace with yourself.
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Heat, air quality, insurance costs: how climate change is affecting our homes – and our health
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This year, ten days of extreme heat in Europe killed roughly 2,300 people, severe flooding on the New South Wales coast left more than 48,000 stranded, and wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed at least 16,000 homes and other buildings.
Events such as these signal what climate scientists have long warned: climate-related extremes are becoming more frequent and intense.
Poor housing can leave us more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. So in today’s warming world, it’s increasingly important our homes and our housing system are climate resilient. This means they must protect us from heatwaves, floods and bushfires, and keep out air pollutants. And the housing system must function to provide affordable and secure housing.
Location is important too. Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment, released this week, estimates 8.7% of residential buildings are in very high-risk areas (prone to hazards). This proportion is projected to increase to 13.5% by 2090 in a scenario with a high global warming level.
Housing and health are inextricably linked. In a new paper published in the Lancet Public Health, my colleagues and I identify several ways climate change affects our homes, and in turn, our health.
On a basic level, housing shields us from the elements. But when we look at the bigger picture, resilient housing and housing systems have a key role to play in helping us face the challenges of climate change.
How does climate change affect our homes and our health?
Climate change can lead to deterioration in the indoor conditions in our homes.
For example, extreme temperatures can compromise air quality by making building materials more likely to degrade and generate pollutants. Particulate matter and other hazardous air pollutants from bushfire smoke can infiltrate indoor environments. Both of these processes can contribute to poor indoor air quality. This is not to mention that extreme heat outside can lead to unbearable temperatures indoors.
Meanwhile, floods, storms and cyclones can cause structural and water damage to homes. This can expose occupants to toxins, for example from contaminated water, and increase the risk of allergic reactions, respiratory problems, and infectious diseases (such as water-borne and mosquito-borne diseases).
Climate change and housing security
The risks associated with climate change can also influence housing security and affordability.
Both housing insecurity and unaffordability are significant predictors of poor mental health and wellbeing, and both are already significant problems independent of climate change.
But a changing climate exacerbates these problems. Equally, the housing crisis leaves us more vulnerable to climate change.
Climate-related disasters put a strain on housing costs and general cost-of-living pressures. Residents may need to pay for maintenance and repairs alongside their mortgages and rental payments. Meanwhile, increasing extreme weather events push insurance premiums higher. All this puts pressure on housing affordability.
Extreme temperatures also increase the risk of energy poverty. Not being able to adequately heat or cool a home can negatively affect both physical and mental health for its occupants.
What’s more, climate-related disasters can drive forced relocation, with flow-on effects to health and wellbeing through disruption to family life, loss of income, gender-based violence, social disconnection, and reduced access to services.
Notably, the effects of climate change reduce the supply of affordable housing, especially affordable rentals, which are more likely to be damaged or lost from hazards, for example due to lower structural quality. Lower-income renters as a result find it harder to compete for the remaining stock.
There are also other examples showing the effects of climate change on housing are inequitable, with the consequences flowing disproportionately to less advantaged groups.
When areas with low climate risk become more desirable, this can drive up housing and other costs in an area. Climate “gentrification” can displace low-income households to higher risk and less protected areas. We’ve seen this happen in countries including the United States and Denmark.
What does climate-resilient housing look like?
Housing needs to protect people from the growing risks posed by climate change. In a physical sense, this means it must be robust enough to bear more intense weather conditions, be energy efficient, and have good thermal performance that allows for both ventilation and climate control.
To achieve this, climate-resilient housing should include features such as:
- well-constructed foundations, walls and roofs
- ventilation and insulation
- energy-efficient cooling and heating
- exterior shading and roof reflectivity
- building materials that are fire- and heat-resistant.
Building codes need to be cognisant of the changing climate, while existing housing may need to be upgraded.
We’ve seen some signs of progress. For example, updates to the National Construction Code in recent years have accounted for the increasing impact of climate change, by raising energy efficiency and thermal performance standards, among other measures.
There is also a need for stronger tenant protection policies. Rental housing is disproportionately of poor quality, yet it houses a large portion of the more vulnerable people in the population. Minimum standards for rental housing must be climate resilient.
But housing people well isn’t just a question of the physical construction of homes.
Climate-resilient housing should be affordable, secure and provide residents the chance to access opportunities for work, education and social connection that sustain wellbeing.
So much public discussion has focused on the need to meet housing supply targets, but we can’t forget that people need to be housed well to flourish.
This article is part of a series, Healthy Homes.
Ang Li, ARC DECRA and Senior Research Fellow, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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End the Insomnia Struggle – by Dr. Colleen Ehrnstrom and Dr. Alisha Brosse
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We’ve reviewed sleep books before, and we always try to recommend books that have something a little different than the rest, so what makes this one stand out?
While there is the usual quick overview of the basics that we’re sure you already know (sleep hygiene etc), most of the attention here is given to cold, hard clinical psychology… in a highly personalized way.
How, you may ask, can they personalize a book, that is the same for everyone?
The answer is, by guiding the reader through examining our own situation. With template logbooks, worksheets, and the like—for this reason we recommend getting a paper copy of the book, rather than the Kindle version, in case you’d like to use/photocopy those.
Essentially, reading this book is much like having your own psychologist (or two) to guide you through finding a path to better sleep.
The therapeutic approach, by the way, is a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance-Commitment Therapy (ACT), which work very well together here.
Bottom line: if you’ve changed your bedsheets and turned off your electronic devices and need something a little more, this book is the psychological “big guns” for removing the barriers between you and good sleep.
Click here to check out End the Insomnia Struggle, and end yours once and for all!
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Pomegranate vs Strawberry – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing pomegranate to strawberries, we picked the pomegranate.
Why?
Both are good, but…
In terms of macros, pomegranate has more fiber, carbs, and protein, making it the winner in this category.
In the category of vitamins, pomegranate has more of vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B7, B9, E, and K, while strawberries have more of vitamins A, B3, and C, giving pomegranates an 8:3 victory here.
Looking at minerals, pomegranate has more copper, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while strawberries have more calcium, iron, and manganese, meaning pomegranates lead 5:3 in this round.
In other considerations, both have plenty of polyphenols, though pomegranate peel specifically has some extra beneficial properties (since the peel is quite tough as-is, it can be steeped for tea, or else dried and ground to a powder for use as a supplement), making this round either a tie or a win for pomegranates, depending on whether or not we count the peel-only benefits.
Either way, adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for pomegranates, but by all means enjoy either or both, as diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Pomegranate’s Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel
Enjoy!
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They Were Injured at the Super Bowl Parade. A Month Later, They Feel Forgotten.
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KFF Health News and KCUR are following the stories of people injured during the Feb. 14 mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration. Listen to how one Kansas family is coping with the trauma.
Jason Barton didn’t want to attend the Super Bowl parade this year. He told a co-worker the night before that he worried about a mass shooting. But it was Valentine’s Day, his wife is a Kansas City Chiefs superfan, and he couldn’t afford to take her to games since ticket prices soared after the team won the championship in 2020.
So Barton drove 50 miles from Osawatomie, Kansas, to downtown Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife, Bridget, her 13-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and Gabriella’s school friend. When they finally arrived home that night, they cleaned blood from Gabriella’s sneakers and found a bullet in Bridget’s backpack.
Gabriella’s legs were burned by sparks from a ricocheted bullet, Bridget was trampled while shielding Gabriella in the chaos, and Jason gave chest compressions to a man injured by gunfire. He believes it was Lyndell Mays, one of two men charged with second-degree felony murder.
“There’s never going to be a Valentine’s Day where I look back and I don’t think about it,” Gabriella said, “because that’s a day where we’re supposed to have fun and appreciate the people that we have.”
One month after the parade in which the U.S. public health crisis that is gun violence played out on live television, the Bartons are reeling from their role at its epicenter. They were just feet from 43-year-old Lisa Lopez-Galvan, who was killed. Twenty-four other people were injured. Although the Bartons aren’t included in that official victim number, they were traumatized, physically and emotionally, and pain permeates their lives: Bridget and Jason keep canceling plans to go out, opting instead to stay home together; Gabriella plans to join a boxing club instead of the dance team.
During this first month, Kansas City community leaders have weighed how to care for people caught in the bloody crossfire and how to divide more than $2 million donated to public funds for victims in the initial outpouring of grief.
The questions are far-reaching: How does a city compensate people for medical bills, recovery treatments, counseling, and lost wages? And what about those who have PTSD-like symptoms that could last years? How does a community identify and care for victims often overlooked in the first flush of reporting on a mass shooting: the injured?
The injured list could grow. Prosecutors and Kansas City police are mounting a legal case against four of the shooting suspects, and are encouraging additional victims to come forward.
“Specifically, we’re looking for individuals who suffered wounds from their trying to escape. A stampede occurred while people were trying to flee,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. Anyone who “in the fleeing of this event that maybe fell down, you were trampled, you sprained an ankle, you broke a bone.”
Meanwhile, people who took charge of raising money and providing services to care for the injured are wrestling with who gets the money — and who doesn’t. Due to large donations from celebrities like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, some victims or their families will have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical expenses. Other victims may simply have their counseling covered.
The overall economic cost of U.S. firearm injuries is estimated by a recent Harvard Medical School study at $557 billion annually. Most of that — 88% — represented quality-of-life losses among those injured by firearms and their families. The JAMA-published study found that each nonfatal firearm injury leads to roughly $30,000 in direct health care spending per survivor in the first year alone.
In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, as well-intentioned GoFundMe pages popped up to help victims, executives at United Way of Greater Kansas City gathered to devise a collective donation response. They came up with “three concentric circles of victims,” said Jessica Blubaugh, the United Way’s chief philanthropy officer, and launched the #KCStrong campaign.
“There were folks that were obviously directly impacted by gunfire. Then the next circle out is folks that were impacted, not necessarily by gunshots, but by physical impact. So maybe they were trampled and maybe they tore a ligament or something because they were running away,” Blubaugh said. “Then third is folks that were just adjacent and/or bystanders that have a lot of trauma from all of this.”
PTSD, Panic, and the Echo of Gunfire
Bridget Barton returned to Kansas City the day after the shooting to turn in the bullet she found in her backpack and to give a statement at police headquarters. Unbeknownst to her, Mayor Quinton Lucas and the police and fire chiefs had just finished a press conference outside the building. She was mobbed by the media assembled there — interviews that are now a blur.
“I don’t know how you guys do this every day,” she remembered telling a detective once she finally got inside.
The Bartons have been overwhelmed by well wishes from close friends and family as they navigate the trauma, almost to the point of exhaustion. Bridget took to social media to explain she wasn’t ignoring the messages, she’s just responding as she feels able — some days she can hardly look at her phone, she said.
A family friend bought new Barbie blankets for Gabriella and her friend after the ones they brought to the parade were lost or ruined. Bridget tried replacing the blankets herself at her local Walmart, but when she was bumped accidentally, it triggered a panic attack. She abandoned her cart and drove home.
“I’m trying to get my anxiety under control,” Bridget said.
That means therapy. Before the parade, she was already seeing a therapist and planning to begin eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a form of therapy associated with treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Now the shooting is the first thing she wants to talk about in therapy.
Since Gabriella, an eighth grader, has returned to middle school, she has dealt with the compounding immaturity of adolescence: peers telling her to get over it, pointing finger guns at her, or even saying it should have been her who was shot. But her friends are checking on her and asking how she’s doing. She wishes more people would do the same for her friend, who took off running when the shooting started and avoided injury. Gabriella feels guilty about bringing her to what turned into a horrifying experience.
“We can tell her all day long, ‘It wasn’t your fault. She’s not your responsibility.’ Just like I can tell myself, ‘It wasn’t my fault or my responsibility,’” Bridget said. “But I still bawled on her mom’s shoulder telling her how sorry I was that I grabbed my kid first.”
The two girls have spent a lot of time talking since the shooting, which Gabriella said helps with her own stress. So does spending time with her dog and her lizard, putting on makeup, and listening to music — Tech N9ne’s performance was a highlight of the Super Bowl celebration for her.
In addition to the spark burns on Gabriella’s legs, when she fell to the concrete in the pandemonium she split open a burn wound on her stomach previously caused by a styling iron.
“When I see that, I just picture my mom trying to protect me and seeing everyone run,” Gabriella said of the wound.
It’s hard not to feel forgotten by the public, Bridget said. The shooting, especially its survivors, have largely faded from the headlines aside from court dates. Two additional high-profile shootings have occurred in the area since the parade. Doesn’t the community care, she wonders, that her family is still living with the fallout every day?
“I’m going to put this as plainly as possible. I’m f—ing pissed because my family went through something traumatic,” Bridget vented in a recent social media post. “I don’t really want anything other [than], ‘Your story matters, too, and we want to know how you’re doing.’ Have we gotten that? Abso-f—lutely not.”
‘What Is the Landscape of Need?’
Helped in part by celebrities like Swift and Kelce, donations for the family of Lopez-Galvan, the lone fatality, and other victims poured in immediately after the shootings. Swift and Kelce donated $100,000 each. With the help of an initial $200,000 donation from the Kansas City Chiefs, the United Way’s #KCStrong campaign took off, reaching $1 million in the first two weeks and sitting at $1.2 million now.
Six verified GoFundMe funds were established. One solely for the Lopez-Galvan family has collected over $406,000. Smaller ones were started by a local college student and Swift fans. Churches have also stepped up, and one local coalition had raised $183,000, money set aside for Lopez-Galvan’s funeral, counseling services for five victims, and other medical bills from Children’s Mercy Kansas City hospital, said Ray Jarrett, executive director of Unite KC.
Money for Victims Rolls In
Donations poured in for those injured at the Super Bowl Parade in Kansas City after the Feb. 14 shootings. The largest, starting with a $200,000 donation from the Kansas City Chiefs, is at the United Way of Greater Kansas City. Six GoFundMe sites also popped up, due in part to $100,000 donations each from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Here’s a look at the totals as of March 12.United Way#KCStrong: $1.2 million.Six Verified GoFundMe AccountsLisa Lopez-Galvan GoFundMe (Taylor Swift donated): $406,142Reyes Family GoFundMe (Travis Kelce donated): $207,035Samuel Arellano GoFundMe: $11,896Emily Tavis GoFundMe: $9,518Cristian Martinez’s GoFundMe for United Way: $2,967Swifties’ GoFundMe for Children’s Mercy hospital: $1,060ChurchesResurrection (Methodist) “Victims of Violence Fund”: $53,358‘The Church Loves Kansas City’: $183,000
Meanwhile, those leading the efforts found models in other cities. The United Way’s Blubaugh called counterparts who’d responded to their own mass shootings in Orlando, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and Newtown, Connecticut.
“The unfortunate reality is we have a cadre of communities across the country who have already faced tragedies like this,” Blubaugh said. “So there is an unfortunate protocol that is, sort of, already in place.”
#KCStrong monies could start being paid out by the end of March, Blubaugh said. Hundreds of people called the nonprofit’s 211 line, and the United Way is consulting with hospitals and law enforcement to verify victims and then offer services they may need, she said.
The range of needs is staggering — several people are still recovering at home, some are seeking counseling, and many weren’t even counted in the beginning. For instance, a plainclothes police officer was injured in the melee but is doing fine now, said Police Chief Stacey Graves.
Determining who is eligible for assistance was one of the first conversations United Way officials had when creating the fund. They prioritized three areas of focus: first were the wounded victims and their families, second was collaborating with organizations already helping victims in violence intervention and prevention and mental health services, and third were the first responders.
Specifically, the funds will be steered to cover medical bills, or lost wages for those who haven’t been able to work since the shootings, Blubaugh said. The goal is to work quickly to help people, she said, but also to spend the money in a judicious, strategic way.
“We don’t have a clear sightline of the entire landscape that we’re dealing with,” Blubaugh said. “Not only of how much money do we have to work with, but also, what is the landscape of need? And we need both of those things to be able to make those decisions.”
Firsthand Experience of Daily Kansas City Violence
Jason used his lone remaining sick day to stay home with Bridget and Gabriella. An overnight automation technician, he is the family’s primary breadwinner.
“I can’t take off work, you know?” he said. “It happened. It sucked. But it’s time to move on.”
“He’s a guy’s guy,” Bridget interjected.
On Jason’s first night back at work, the sudden sound of falling dishes startled Bridget and Gabriella, sending them into each other’s arms crying.
“It’s just those moments of flashbacks that are kicking our butts,” Bridget said.
Tell Us About Your Experience
We are continuing to report on the effects of the parade shooting on the people who were injured and the community as a whole. Do you have an experience you want to tell us about, or a question you think we should look into? Message KCUR’s text line at (816) 601-4777. Your information will not be used in an article without your permission.
In a way, the shooting has brought the family closer. They’ve been through a lot recently. Jason survived a heart attack and cancer last year. Raising a teenager is never easy.
Bridget can appreciate that the bullet lodged in her backpack, narrowly missing her, and that Gabriella’s legs were burned by sparks but she wasn’t shot.
Jason is grateful for another reason: It wasn’t a terrorist attack, as he initially feared. Instead, it fits into the type of gun violence he’d become accustomed to growing up in Kansas City, which recorded its deadliest year last year, although he’d never been this close to it before.
“This crap happens every single day,” he said. “The only difference is we were here for it.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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Is it true foods with a short ingredient list are healthier? A nutrition expert explains
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At the end of a long day, who has time to check the detailed nutrition information on every single product they toss into their shopping basket?
To eat healthily, some people prefer to stick to a simple rule: choose products with a short ingredient list. The idea is foods with just a few ingredients are less processed, more “natural” and therefore healthy.
But is this always the case? Here’s what the length of an ingredient list can and can’t tell you about nutrition – and what else to look for.
Hryshchyshen Serhii/Shutterstock How ingredient lists work
You can find an ingredient list on most packaged food labels, telling you the number and type of ingredients involved in making that food.
In Australia, packaged food products must follow certain rules set by the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code.
Ingredients must be listed in order of ingoing weight. This means items at the beginning of the list are those that make up the bulk of the product. Those at the end make up the least.
Food labels also include a nutrition information panel, which tells you the quantity of key nutrients (energy, protein, total carbohydrates, sugars, total fat, saturated fat and sodium) per serving.
This panel also tells you the content per 100 grams or millilitres, which allows you to work out the percentage.
Whole foods can be packaged, too
Products with just one, two or three items in their ingredient list are generally in a form that closely reflects the food when it was taken from the farm. So even though they come in packaging, they could be considered whole foods.
“Whole foods” are those that have undergone zero to minimal processing, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, lentils, legumes, whole grains such as oats or brown rice, seeds, nuts and unprocessed meat and fish.
To support overall health, the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eating whole foods and limiting those that are highly processed.
Many whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, don’t have an ingredient list because they don’t come in a packet. But some do, including:
- canned or frozen vegetables, such as a tin of black beans or frozen peas
- canned fish, for example, tuna in springwater
- plain Greek yoghurt.
These sorts of food items can contribute every day to a healthy balanced diet.
What is an ultra-processed food?
A shorter ingredient list also means the product is less likely to be an ultra-processed food.
This describes products made using industrial processes that combine multiple ingredients, often including colours, flavours and other additives. They are hyperpalatable, packaged and designed for convenience.
Ultra-processed foods often have long ingredient lists, due to added sugars (such as dextrose), modified oils, protein sources (for example, soya protein isolate) and cosmetic additives – such as colours, flavours and thickeners.
Some examples of ultra-processed foods with long ingredient lists include:
- meal-replacement drinks
- plant-based meat imitations
- some commercial bakery items, including cookies or cakes
- instant noodle snacks
- energy or performance drinks.
If a food is heavily branded and marketed it’s more likely to be an ultra-processed food – a created product, rather than a whole food that hasn’t changed much since the farm.
Nutrition is more than a number
Choosing products with a shorter ingredient list can work as a general rule of thumb. But other factors matter too.
The length of an ingredient list doesn’t tell us anything about the food’s nutritional content, so it’s important to consider the type of ingredients as well.
Remember that items are listed in order of their ingoing weight, so if sugar is second or third on the list, there is probably a fair bit of added sugar.
For instance, a food product may have only a few ingredients, but if the first, second or third is a type of fat, oil or sugar, then it may not be an ideal choice for every day.
You can also check the nutrition information panel. Use the “per serve” column to check the nutrients you’d get from eating one serve of the food. If you want to compare the amount of a nutrient in two different foods, it’s best to look at the per 100g/mL column.
Some examples of foods with relatively short ingredient lists but high amounts of added fats and sugars include:
- potato crisps
- chocolate
- soft drink.
Alcoholic beverages such as beer or wine may also have only a few ingredients, but this does not mean that they should be consumed every day.
Non-food ingredients
You can also keep an eye out for cosmetic ingredients, which don’t have any nutritional value. These include colours, flavours, emulsifiers, thickeners, sweeteners, bulking agents and gelling agents.
It sometimes takes a bit of detective work to spot cosmetic ingredients in the list, as they can come under many different names (for example, stabiliser, malted barley extract, methylcellulose). But they are usually always recognisable as non-food items.
If there are multiple non-food items included in an ingredient list, there is a good chance the food is ultra-processed and not ideal as an everyday choice.
The bottom line? Choosing foods with a shorter ingredient list can help guide you choose less processed foods. But you should also consider what type of ingredients are being used and maintain a varied diet.
Margaret Murray, Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Swinburne University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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