This is what early mornings are looking like in my life these days - tea, a pile of academic articles, and an excel spreadsheet. I've reached the data extraction stage of my thesis, and I can not wait for it to be over!
What’s good around the web is a weekly series where I share some of what I’ve been reading around the web. Each week I post links to five nutrition related articles, good recipes, and just general good reads. I hope you enjoy it! If you’ve got at article or recipe you’d like to see featured, please email me.
1. So what do Scandinavian women eat?
2. Great post on artificial sweeteners and why you should avoid them (this also happens to be the subject of my thesis work).
3. Dietary advice for the gluttony season.
4. New research says that healthy obese is a myth. This is a subject I've always been very interested in, and I'm quite surprised by this. I'll have to dive deeper into the research before I really know what to think.
5. Do our eating habits start in the womb?
Recipe tip! Joy talks us through measuring flour in cups vs on a scale.
All text and photos © The Muffin Myth 2013
kellie@foodtoglow
I am looking forward to taking the time to read all of these links as every single one is of interest. Thanks for finding these, and for sharing. And good luck with the data extraction!
themuffinmyth
Thanks Kellie!
erika
I loved the article on what Scandinavian women eat--I feel like we hear a lot about Parisians, but good to learn about another culture! Their diet sounds pretty freaking awesome. I also thought the womb/eating habits article was really interesting...and scary. Talk about another serious responsibility for parents.
And are you going to share your thesis with us once you've defended it?? Sounds like interesting stuff!
themuffinmyth
To be honest, the Scandinavian diet baffles me a little bit. It's VERY bread heavy and the portions are HUGE! The meals I see people eating in our lunch room at work amaze me - yet in general Scandinavian people are quite lean and healthy, so in a way the Scandinavian paradox is similar to the French paradox.
I'll probably talk about my thesis work a bit once I get past this god awful data extraction phase! I'll share a simplified version of my learnings here - no body needs this much data!
Jess
I'm so interested to hear that you're doing your thesis on artificial sweetners. I feel like there is a lot of misinformation out there, but I'm totally bothered by how much these sweetners are starting to show up in everything...and with very little indicate on the packaging. Great links, Katie!
themuffinmyth
I know what you mean, artificial sweeteners can be pretty sneaky. I'm specifically studying artificial sweeteners and their relationship to obesity, so I'm not looking at all at the impact they have when they're added to foods. But I know they're turning up in yoghurts, milks, etc. Yuck!
Tessa
Wow. Food for thought.
I recall my b in l, a veteran oncologist, at every social function, very picky about diet drinks. Some sugar substitutes were not negotiable for him.
And sadly, adipose is adipose. We sense it is not good for us. And I do have some.
And, I wish I could just limit myself with those Christmas goodies. I try.
Sigh!
themuffinmyth
Actually, not all adipose is created equal. There is a substantial difference noted in research between visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue. Visceral seems to function as an organ, having it's own endocrine system. When I studied metabolically healthy obese previously, there was a clear difference in metabolic morbidities depending on the location / type of adipose tissue. I'll be interested to see whether that is addressed in this study. At this point I've only read the newspaper article summarising the study, but I'd like to download the meta analysis and read it myself so I can form an opinion.
And yes, artificial sweeteners are scary. I avoid any and all of them.