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Interesting Trivia from Outdated USDA Food Guides

January 22, 2014 by

Over the years, the USDA has compiled a large number of informational food guides to advise people on everything from counting calories to managing diabetes. While some of the advice remains with us today, other tips have been superseded by new discoveries and better nutrition knowledge.

Here are some interesting tips from past USDA food guides:

  • In the 1940s, food portion sizes were measured using a yardstick rather than the cups or ounces that we use today.
  • In the 1960s, the USDA recommended that people eat the same amount of grains as they did fruits and vegetables. Today, we know that we should limit the amount of grains we consume, in favor of eating more fruits and veggies.
  • Many of the USDA’s food guide tips developed in the 1980s are still in use today, such as limiting sodium intake, drinking alcohol in moderation and avoiding saturated fat and cholesterol.

Too see more past food guides from the USDA, click here.

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Improve Your Diet with a DASH Healthy Eating Plan

December 18, 2013 by

High blood pressure is a major health concern, and it can often be mitigated by limiting the amount of salt in your diet. The NIH's DASH Eating Plan can help those at risk for high blood pressure to stay on track with a low-sodium diet.

The DASH Eating Plan stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, the formal name for high blood pressure. DASH recommends limiting your sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams per day, because this is the adequate intake level determined to lower blood pressure.

In order to follow the DASH Eating Plan, you must eat a certain number of servings per day from all of the food groups. For example, DASH advises that followers consume 6 – 8 servings of whole grains per day, like whole wheat pastas, breads or oatmeal. It also recommends 4 – 5 servings of fruits, 4 – 5  servings of vegetables, and only a limited amount of sweets and sugars. DASH also encourages people to exercise for 30 minutes per day to produce faster results.

DASH Eating Plan [National Institutes of Health]

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Three Great Websites for Fall Recipes

November 20, 2013 by

With so many festive fall activities on your calendar, you'll need some warm and filling recipes to entertain your guests and keep your family healthy. These creative websites are full of both unique and classic cold weather foods that you can easily make at home.

Spoonful’s Fall Recipes
With a simple, attractive layout and creative recipes that are good for the whole family, Spoonful is a great choice for fall cooking inspiration. Its Fall Recipes page includes delicious dishes such as cute Scarecrow Cookies, as well as cumulative recipe lists with themes like Dinner Every Day in October to help you get your meal planning under control this autumn.

All Recipes’ Fall Seasonal Cooking
Popular cooking website All Recipes organizes many of its dishes based on season, and its Fall Seasonal Cooking section will surely become a go-to tool when the weather gets chilly. With recipes such as Autumn Pork Roast and Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake, you’ll never run out of meal ideas with the help of All Recipes.

Food & Wine’s Fall Flavors
Blending the classy, tasteful feel of Food & Wine magazine with the convenience of a cooking website, this site has created a page devoted to the magazine’s best fall foods. Browse sections like Warming Drinks and Fiery Foods for Cold Weather to find hearty, elegant meals that are sure to excite your tastebuds.

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Veg Out with These Vegan and Vegetarian Recipe Sites

November 6, 2013 by

Cutting meat out of your diet is proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, help you lose weight, and lower the amount of greenhouse gases in the environment. If you’ve chosen to go vegan or vegetarian, these creative and helpful websites will help you stay on track with your meat-free lifestyle.

VegWeb
Not just a recipe website, VegWeb is also one of the oldest online communities for connecting vegans and vegetarians. Here you’ll find an expansive assortment of meatless recipes for every meal of the day, as well as a thought-provoking blog, discussion forums, and tips for transitioning to a vegan lifestyle.

Vegetarian Times
Vegetarian Times is a simple, convenient online recipe book full of meat-free recipes that expand far beyond your basic tofu. The recipes are organized extensively by type of meal, cuisine, holiday and even season, providing you with a seemingly endless assortment of meals for any given day. If you follow a specialty diet such as gluten-free or low-calorie in addition to your vegetarian lifestyle, Vegetarian Times has sections tailored to those needs as well.

Post Punk Kitchen
With humble beginnings as an online vegan cooking show featuring live bands, Post Punk Kitchen has since become a popular website with a devoted following of like-minded, meat-free individuals. The site takes a fun, laid-back approach to teaching others the ways around a vegan kitchen, and the videos that accompany each recipe make this website feel like you're hanging out with your best friends.

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Alain de Botton’s Artful Self-Help Guides

October 23, 2013 by

Alain de Botton has made it his goal to show how acquaintance with some of the world's greatest thinkers can offer comfort and enable happiness. Once an academic, de Botton left the ivory tower to write books for general audiences. His work presents topics as varied as airports, stoicism, cookies, shoe shining, and shipping, aiming throughout to help people lead meaningful lives. Interested? Check out these five Alain de Botton books:

  • The Consolations of Philosophy argues that the world's most important philsophers taught tactics for dealing with the day to day business of life. Touring philosophical history, de Botton shows how great works can help readers overcome frustrations like heartbreak, austerity, and unhappiness.
  • How Proust Can Change Your Life, likewise, offers Proust's novel Remembrance of Things Past as a unique self-help book. Culling a number of parables from Proust, de Botton presents lessons in a characteristically humorous style.
  • The Architecture of Happiness investigates the often unnoticed — yet frequently deep — ways the spaces we inhabit impact our emotional well-being. This is a book that will change how you see the world around you.
  • A Week at the Airport derived from time de Bottom spent at England's Heathrow airport, as writer-in-residence. De Botton views airports as peculiar modern spaces that concentrate beginnings and endings in a way made possible only by the airplane itself. Gorgeously illustrated and often quite moving, this might be the best introduction to de Botton's writing.
  • The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work engages our most important occupation: working. De Botton turns an ethnographer's eye on businesses like logistics, career counseling, and cookie making in order to discover what it is that makes work meaningful.

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Funniest American Writers Past and Present

March 26, 2013 by
What’s better than reading a book that makes you laugh out loud on almost every page? American literary history is full of writers blessed with a gift for humor. Here are five of the funniest writers, past and present, who are sure to tickle your funny bone while stimulating your intellect:
 
James Thurber, 1894 – 1961
James Thurber was a celebrated American author and master of wit, best known for his cartoons and short stories published in the New Yorker. The book that put him on the map was My Life and Hard Times, an innovative comedic work combining autobiography and fiction. Some of his must-read short stories are “The Dog That Bit People” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” 
 
Dorothy Parker, 1893 – 1967
Dorothy Parker was a poet, critic, satirist, and short story writer, celebrated for her searing wit. She became one of the most renowned members of the Algonquin Round Table, a famous group of New York City writers, artists, actors, and critics who would gather at the Algonquin Hotel and exchange witty remarks. She is best known for her brilliantly funny verses, which include the classic light verse poems “Resume” and “Bohemia.” 
 
Mark Twain, 1835 –1910
Though Mark twain was most known for his novels, he was also famous for his funny short stories, satirical writings and speeches, and witty sayings. His laugh-out-loud short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” became an early classic of American humor writing. He traveled around the country giving humorous talks and lectures, and many consider him to be pre-cursor to today’s conception of a stand-up comedian.
 
David Sedaris, 1956 – 
David Sedaris is one of the most celebrated contemporary humor writers at work today. Particularly famous for his funny personal non-fiction writings, he has authored several bestselling essay collections, including the highly popular Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. He is also known for his radio readings and hilarious public appearances. 
 
Ogden Nash, 1902-1971
Ogden Nash was a renowned writer of light verse, famous for his verbal dexterity, wit, and inventiveness. He was particularly noted for coming up with highly original, surprising, and funny-bone-tickling uses of rhyme in his poems. His poems frequently appeared in major publications like The New Yorker and he also toured the country making appearances in comedy shows and radio programs. 
 
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Hey Residents, Read All About It!

February 4, 2012 by

Check back for helpful information about pop culture, recipes, health and fitness, and much more! Thanks!

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