Nutrition Archive

Healthy-sounding claims on food packaging can be misleading. Here's how to find impostors.

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The New Year may have you thinking about a healthier diet, but you may need to do some detective work to find the healthiest foods in your grocery store. Food manufacturers often use terms that make products sound healthier than they are.

"Finding the healthiest foods takes time and effort, and we want things that are quick and easy. We need to take a couple of steps back and look beyond the flashy labels to see what actually is — and isn't — in the foods," says registered dietitian Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Preparing your own plant-based meals — focused on beans, grains, and veggies — is easier than you think.

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Eating more plant-based foods has many advantages, especially for your heart. But even with the best of intentions, many people find the transition to plant-centric meals a little daunting. Take for instance the daily dilemma of deciding what's for dinner. Where do you even begin?

Instead of trying to cook an entire vegetarian meal from scratch, start with one small step and build from there, says Dr. Rani Polak, founding director of the Culinary Healthcare Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching program at Harvard's Institute of Lifestyle Medicine (see "What is lifestyle medicine?").

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Editor's note: This year, we're highlighting legumes on this page. Low in fat but rich in protein and other nutrients, they're a staple of plant-based eating. Starting in February, we'll feature a different legume each month, along with information and recipe tips from different cultures around the world.

But we're starting off with the basics: a simple recipe for cooking dried beans.

Research we're watching

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People whose daily diets include at least two servings per day of milk, yogurt, or cheese appear to have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, or death than people who don't consume dairy products.

The findings, published Sept. 11, 2018, in The Lancet, were based on food questionnaires from more than 136,000 people from 21 countries. After a follow-up that lasted an average of nine years, researchers found that adults who consumed two or more servings of dairy each day had a 22% lower risk for heart disease, a 34% lower risk for stroke, and a 23% lower risk of heart-related death. Observational studies such as this one cannot prove cause and effect. But dairy-based foods contain vitamins D and K, calcium, and other nutrients thought to be good for cardiovascular health. The findings support the benefits of all types of dairy, including full-fat versions. However, current guidelines still recommend nonfat or low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese, which contain fewer calories and less saturated fat.

There's a lot you can do to improve your outcome if you're taking an active surveillance approach to your diagnosis.

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About 90% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer have the localized kind, which means the cancer is confined to the prostate gland. And for many, a reasonable approach is active surveillance, in which men choose to monitor their cancer instead of going straight into invasive treatments, such as surgery or radiation therapy.

Active surveillance includes a doctor visit about every six months, most often with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal exam.

In the journals

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An observational study has shown an association between eating vegetable nitrates, found in green leafy vegetables and beets, and a lower risk of developing an early stage of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of permanent vision loss among Americans ages 60 and older. The results were published online Oct. 17, 2018, by the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Researchers studied the eating habits of more than 2,000 adults ages 49 and older over a 15-year period and compared them with diagnoses of AMD among the group. They found that people who ate 100 to 142 milligrams (mg) of vegetable nitrates each day had a 35% lower risk of developing early AMD than people who ate less than 69 mg of vegetable nitrates daily.