Dietitian explains what you should know about processed, ultra-processed foods
Processed, and especially ultra-processed, foods have been blamed for the national rise in obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Aug 1, 2024
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Processed, and especially ultra-processed, foods have been blamed for the national rise in obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Aug 1, 2024
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A new study found that eating a snack of baby carrots just three times a week significantly increased skin carotenoids in young adults. Levels of these phytonutrients were boosted even more when this healthy snack was combined ...
Jul 1, 2024
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Consumer data shows people with obesity are more price-sensitive than others when it comes to buying unhealthy foods, suggesting a food tax could be an effective public health measure.
Jun 12, 2024
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Lunchables and popular brands of children's veggie puffs were found to have high levels of lead, something Northeastern expert Neil Maniar said families "shouldn't gloss over."
Jun 12, 2024
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We all know fresh produce is good for us, but fruit, vegetables and herbs have a tendency to perish quickly if left uneaten.
May 28, 2024
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Do you push away the breadbasket or opt out of any meal that includes macaroni? If so, chances are you are one of the millions of people watching your carbs, or carbohydrates.
May 1, 2024
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High-protein, low-carb diets have long been considered the gold standard method for gym-goers and bodybuilders aiming to gain muscle and lose fat. But one bodybuilding champion has shown that this might not necessarily be ...
Mar 13, 2024
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Since 2020 or so, there have been recurring national shortages of estrogen transdermal patches in Australia.
Mar 6, 2024
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Political polarization. Economic struggles. Inequity. Climate change. War. In an often-bruising world, you can hardly blame people for seeking out ways to cushion themselves. From weighted blankets to "cozy" murder mystery ...
Feb 1, 2024
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What does it take to make meaningful, lasting lifestyle changes? Some may argue it takes a fair amount of willpower to develop new habits, but a person can't rely on willpower alone.
Jan 8, 2024
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The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were first introduced outside the Andes region four centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world's cuisine. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses.
Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to Uruguay. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru (from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago. Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. Of these subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in the Chiloé Archipelago (the potato's south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes worldwide.
Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Nonetheless, thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.
The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about 33 kg (73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA