Choosing Healthy Foods

Does where you buy your food determine how healthy you are? A recent study suggests that there may be a link between the type of store where you do most of your food shopping and your weight and the health of your diet overall. Which stores were better? Some of the results were what you might expect. People who shopped often at convenience stores ate fewer fruits and vegetables. Convenience stores don’t tend to have large produce departments, so this makes sense. Fruits and vegetables were a bigger part of the diets of people who frequented supermarkets and specialty stores. Overall diet quality was highest in those who shopped at food co-ops. From a weight perspective, people who shopped at specialty stores and farmers markets tended to weigh less and people who shopped at food co-ops had smaller waists. Which comes first? Now the question is, do healthy people tend to shop at certain stores or do certain shopping habits make you healthier? This recent study isn’t able to say for sure...

We’ve all heard the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but a recent study suggests that apples may keep the scale from tipping too. Can apples really help with weight management? A recent study found that children ages 2-18 who ate apples were less likely to be obese and had better diets overall than children who didn’t eat apples. The relationship between having a healthier weight was seen with whole apples and total apple products, but not with apple sauce or apple juice individually. The researchers suggest that this may be because whole apples tend to be more filling than apple juice or sauce. It is important to note that while eating fruit overall has been associated with being healthier, this single study doesn’t necessarily mean that an apple a day is the key to weight loss or management. It may in fact be that children who eat apples tend to have other healthy habits too. Is it just apples? How about other fruit? Fruit overall offers a lot of beneficial nutrients fo...