GREATER JOLIET AREA YMCA

When it comes to functional superfoods, walnuts appear on nearly every list out there. Once cast aside because of their high fat content, they have worked their way to the top of the list of healthiest foods. Heart healthy, brain healthy, and just plain yummy, walnuts deserve a place in everyone’s pantry.

We now know that eating high-fat whole foods is not associated with obesity. This is because these foods are more satiating and cause you to eat less overall. And walnuts contain only healthy fats, including the omega-3 fatty acids shown to support brain function, reduce inflammation, and improve cholesterol levels. In addition to the healthy and beneficial fats in walnuts, they also pack a powerful dose of high-quality antioxidants. One ounce of walnuts has as many antioxidants as the average person gets from fruits and vegetables in a day.

Some quick and easy ways to increase your walnut consumption is to add them to oatmeal, muffins, salads and even smoothies. Or just eat them out of hand.

Just remember, while they are a healthy food, they are very calorically dense. A one-ounce serving is just 14 halves, and contains 185 calories and 19 grams of fat. Don’t fret about the fat content—it’s healthy fat and will keep you full. Just don’t mindlessly eat your way through the whole bag!

During these summer months, active and busy kids can certainly benefit from this great source of dense, portable nutrition. However, it can be tough to get kids to eat whole nuts, even if they’re disguised in other foods. Not so anymore, with this delicious recipe for the young, and young-at-heart! Sweet, chewy and satisfying, these quick-and-easy bars are a delicious way to enjoy your walnuts.
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Eggcelent News

Eggs have a lot going for them. Their versatility is amazing—they can be scrambled, fried, poached, or even made ahead into grab-and-go mini frittatas (recipe below!). They play well at every meal, from the obvious choices at breakfast, to hardboiled eggs on a lunchtime salad, to a light but satisfying veggie-packed frittata for dinner.

Packed with protein, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats, eggs may be the most perfect food—except for one little problem.

Cholesterol.

Each egg contains about 190 milligrams of cholesterol, whereas the recommended daily intake is only 300 milligrams. However, it turns out the science and reasoning behind that recommendation is flawed. Once, researchers thought that the more cholesterol you eat, the more you’d have in your body. More recently studies, however, find little correlation between dietary and body cholesterol.

Of course, many egg lovers get around the cholesterol problem by tossing the yolks. However, science agrees that in healthy people, eating up to three whole eggs per day is totally safe. So eat the whole egg!

Other than packing all that cholesterol, the yolks contain most of the vitamins, minerals and fats. These fats are the healthy omega-3 kind, and many farmers supplement the hens’ diets with omega-3 oils to produce eggs with even higher levels of these brain-boosting fats. Beyond that, the yolks just taste good and make your meal even more satisfying.

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Ditching Diet Soda

If you’re still drinking diet soda as a healthier alternative to regular sodas or other sweetened beverages, it’s time to stop. Instinctively, we think that in order to control our weight, it’s smarter to drink a zero-calorie diet soda instead of a regular soda with hundreds of calories of pure sugar. However, scientific research has shown that this untrue for decades. Clearly the soda manufacturers have been very successful in their advertising campaigns.

Your weight is a result of far more than a simple calories-in-calories-out equation. Underlying and unconscious drives determine what you eat far more than you might realize. Artificial sweeteners play all sorts of tricks on your body’s chemistry, making it much more detrimental to your health than the real stuff.

First off, sweet tastes—artificial or natural—increase appetite. When you drink a diet soda, your body recognizes the sweet taste and responds with this appetite increase. However, the part of your brain that derives satisfaction from food is unaware of the diet soda. This results in a disconnect: one part of your brain responds to the sweetness, but another part is unaware of it because there is not actually any nutrition in it. Our brains and bodies are not happy with imbalances, and strive to correct them. In this case, they strive to correct it by increasing your appetite further so you get the food to make the food-satisfaction pathways in your brain happy. Put simply, your brain recognizes the sweet taste but doesn’t find any food, so compels you to get the food it expected to find.

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“Juicing” can mean different things to different people, but the one thing most can agree on is that the term refers to juices made from fresh fruits and vegetables, usually from a home juicer. It does not refer to your typical, inexpensive store-bought juice—not even upscale and healthy-seeming ones like Naked Juice.

The process of juicing separates the liquid portion of the fruits and vegetables from the fiber, which is referred to as pulp. The resulting beverage is rich in the vitamins and minerals contained in the produce, and the easily digested carbohydrates provide a quick dose of energy. Some drink this juice in addition to regular food for added nutrition, while others choose to consume solely juice for several days as a juice fast or “cleanse”.

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When looking for ways to get more fruits and veggies in a simple and delicious way, many health-conscious consumers have turned to smoothies and juices. Whether as a meal replacement or just for extra nutrition, drinking your produce has become more and more popular. There is definitely some debate and controversy over the merits of each option. However, it is undeniable that both do have some advantages, as long as you’re careful.

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A Case For Saturated Fats

Americans have long been told that saturated fats are to be avoided, because they lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. New studies are emerging, however, that suggest they aren’t so bad after all. Looking carefully at both sides of the debate can help shed light on which choices are best.

Saturated fats are mainly found in animal products, such as butter, bacon, fatty meats, lard and milk fat. However, they can also be found in some plant products, most notably coconut oil and palm oil. If it is a natural product and is solid at room temperature, it is most likely a saturated fat.

According to the USDA Dietary Guidelines, published in 2010, we should strive to get fewer than 10 percent of our calories from saturated fats. Given an average 2,000-calorie diet, that’s about 22 grams of saturated fats per day. Most of the saturated fats in American’s diets come from regular cheese, pizza, grain- and dairy-based desserts, chicken and chicken mixed dishes, sausages and bacon, and burgers. For comparison’s sake, an ounce of Cheddar cheese contains 6 grams, a Big Mac has 10 grams and a 10-ounce ribeye has 28 grams.

The dietary guidelines state we should avoid foods containing saturated fats when possible, and strive to get most of our fats from unsaturated sources, such as those found in seafood, nuts, seeds, and oils. Historically, these were shown to have a protective effect on the heart.

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