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Your Instagram feed is filled with perfectly arranged, rainbow-colored smoothie bowls and matcha lattesthats nothing new. But youve probably noticed a formerly vilified ingredient is now the star of the show. Traditional dietary recommendations be damned; according to practically every wellness influencer out there, high fat is in.

From that food blogger using an entire avocado as a questionably designed sandwich bun to your fitness instructor mainlining coconut oil with her salmon fillet, it seems that as long as its hashtagged #goodfat, consuming a million grams of fat is healthy for you.

"I think this is, in part, a reaction to the failings of the low-fat diet craze of the 70s and 80s," says Matt Priven, a Boston-based registered dietitian nutritionist. "Those diets really missed the mark and did not help people achieve their health goals."

That craze is still alive and well in grocery stores, with low-fat and fat-free yogurt, cheese, and frozen foods filling the dairy cases and aisles. One of the issues with low-fat diets is fat tends to give food flavor (and often texture), so to counter the lost taste, companies tend to add boatloads of sugar to make the food palatable again, creating a different set of problems.

The most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans say fat should account for 20 to 35 percent of your total daily calories. Any lower than that can lead to deficiencies in vitamins A, D, E, and K, "as well as some phytonutrients, which require dietary fat for proper absorption," Priven says.

What Priven is referring to is bioavailability, or how much of a nutrient is able to enter the body. There are various ways we can increase nutrient availabilityfor instance, soaking nuts in water allows you to absorb more of their nutrients, rather than letting them pass through your system unused.

Additionally, when you enjoy a big salad filled with delicious, fresh vegetables in every color of the rainbow with low-fat dressing, it does a disservice to your body. Fat unlocks more of the phytonutrients Priven refers tosuch as lutein in green peppers and lycopene in tomatoeswhich are both powerful antioxidants with cancer-fighting properties. Lutein, lycopene, and their oxidative metabolites in chemoprevention of cancer. Khachik F, Beecher GR, Smith JC. Journal of cellular biochemistry. Supplement, 1996, Feb.;22():0733-1959. Get the biggest bang for your buck and enhance the availability of nutrients with a full-fat dressingor, better yet, make your own without all the preservatives and ingredients you cant pronounce.

The tired diet clich of always being famished partly stems from these low-fat regimensa lot of us can relate to still feeling hungry after eating a salad dressed in reduced-fat vinaigrette. On top of helping us absorb more nutrients, fat helps keep us satiated; it contains 9 calories per gram compared to the 4 grams each we get from carbs and protein, and its density helps keep us fuller longer.

So in this regard, its not entirely a bad thing that social media influencers are touting a higher-fat diet. The type of fat is what mattersbut there are competing studies on the subject.

Dietary guidelines recommend monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as olive oil, nuts, and avocados, as well as fatty fish, flaxseeds, and chia seeds for their omega-3 content, an essential fatty acid proven to benefit heart health. Omega-3 fatty acids: role in cardiovascular health and disease. Engler MM, Engler MB. The Journal of cardiovascular nursing, 2006, Mar.;21(1):0889-4655. These fats have been generally considered preferable to saturated fat. However, recent studies brought into question the guidelines that say to keep saturated fat to a maximum of 10 percent of your total fat calories.

For example, a study published in late 2016 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found a high intake of saturated fat did not heighten the risk of cardiovascular disease in its participants and, in fact, increased levels of their good cholesterol (known as HDL cholesterol; LDL is the one you want to decrease). Visceral adiposity and metabolic syndrome after very high-fat and low-fat isocaloric diets: a randomized controlled trial. Veum VL, Laupsa-Borge J, Eng . The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2016, Nov.;105(1):1938-3207. Researchers attributed this finding to the high quality of foods participants consumed.

Does that mean its time to guzzle $20 worth of coconut oil in one sitting? Not quite. We often dont get the full picture of the studies reported in the news, and neither do social media influencers.

David L. Katz, M.D., the founding director of Yale Universitys Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and chief medical officer of digital health company FareWell, "emphatically" disagrees with the study's findings.

"The evidence is now overwhelming and clear that even with high HDL, people on [high-saturated-fat] diets have more, not less, heart disease," he says. "The weight of evidence clearly now indicates that LDL levels are the best predictors of cardiovascular risk, and those too go up with saturated fat intake."

So how about a high-fat diet with mostly unsaturated fats instead? Katz says that aside from the saturated-fat argument, "total fat level in the diet is rather unimportant provided that the sources of fat are wholesome."

But before you douse that sliced avocado in half a bottle of avocado oil and top it off with a little fried avocado, keep reading.

The ketogenic diet, which youve probably heard about via Instagram, is a low-carb, high-fat regimen. Plenty of influencers are touting the benefits of this regimen; they primarily report significant weight loss, which is attributed to the diet's low-carb, high-fat meals and snacks with names like "fat bombs."

Long story short, this diet is designed to put the body in a metabolic state known as ketosis, during which the liver breaks down fat to produce ketones that are used as energy. Originally intended to treat epilepsy patients, many have been using it as a quick way to burn fat and lose weight.

If total fat is irrelevant as long as it's from good sources, can we go keto crazy? Not so fast.

Many others in the field prefer a more moderate approach, including Priven, who believes balance is key.

When we [increase] intake of a certain food group, the collateral effect is usually a decreased intake of another food group, he says, meaning high fat in our diet leaves less room for other nutritious foods. Ultimately, the ketogenic diet is still a diet. Its highly unsustainable and potentially problematic from a health standpoint; staying in ketosis means avoiding tons of healthy foods like fruit, beans/legumes, grains, and many vegetables.

With so many messages coming at us every day from bloggers, Insta-famous foodies, nutrition headlines, etc., how do we know what to eat if what theyre telling us isnt always accurate?

Priven recommends balanced eating and working on sustainable habits. So eat that avocado bun but not for every meal. Toss some butter in your saut panbut the grass-fed kind, not trans-fat margarine. Get beefy on taco night but opt for hormone-free meat. Ultimately, it comes down to something you probably knew all along: Use the good stuff and use it in moderation.

Kristen Ciccolini is a freelance food writer and plant-based nutrition coach based in Boston. She is focused on nutrition education and teaches busy women how to incorporate healthy habits into their everyday cooking. When she's not nerding out over food, you can find her upside down in a yoga class or right side up at a rock show. Follow her on Twitter @kciccolini.

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If You're Eating Like Wellness Influencers on Instagram, You Could Be Having Too Much Fat - Greatist

Columbus Business First

Columbus Business First Columbus Business First The "road diet" project that's repaving, restriping and adding bike lanes to Indianola Avenue in Clintonville is headed toward completion. All work is expected by be done by Aug. 25, according to the Clintonville Area Commission. The project also ...

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Columbus Business First - Columbus Business First

British fitness influencer Chessie King is known for her realistic views on health, fitness, and body positivity. What does that mean exactly? Well, you're never going to see her recommend doing a detox or completely cutting out a particular type of food from your diet to lose weightbecause who has time for that?! (This healthy eating pro has more to say on the old-school diet fads that need to go away.) While Chessie's 200K+ Instagram followers know and love her for her ability to talk candidly about how to love your body and work toward a goal at the same time, one of her recent posts showed that King has traveled a long road to get where she is now. (FYI, here's the truth about detox teas.)

3 different bikinis, 3 different weights, 3 different states of mind. Same height (just under 6ft/180cm) Body confidence comes from experience. Years of building up a relationship between your mind & your body. Years of learning what works for YOU. Do you hate working out? Do you hate eating 'healthy'? Do you give up on 'being good' after a week? Stop looking at exercising & eating well as a chore, stop telling yourself you 'have to'. You don't 'have to', you 'want to'. You WANT to feel good when now but more importantly, you want to feel good when you're 50. I've been through so much with my body, I've now found such a happy & caring friendship with it. I don't force myself to do ANYTHING, I have just learnt exactly what works for me. It's taken a while, but now it's something I'll have with me for life. The understanding & knowledge we have of our bodies is invaluable. STOP doing these 2 week no carbs, stop doing these 3 day 'detoxes'... START learning what your body needs, try different ways of training, moving & eating. Do it for YOU now & for the rest of your life

A post shared by C H E S S I E K I N G (@chessiekingg) on Jul 18, 2017 at 12:53pm PDT

"Three different bikinis, three different weights, three different states of mind," Chessie captioned a photo collage that shows her at three different weights. "I've been through so much with my body. I've now found such a happy and caring friendship with it. I don't force myself to do ANYTHING, I have just learned exactly what works for me," she continued.

For Chessie, the key to becoming comfortable and confident in her skin was to get as much information as possible about wellness. (Read: not dieting.) "The difference in getting to where I am now is experience and educating myself," she tells Shape exclusively. "I love learning about my body and the muscles I'm using when I work out. I also love knowing what food does to me."

More than anything, she says she uses her own journey as an opportunity to encourage others not to go to extremes to look a certain way or hit a specific number on the scale. "Stop doing these two-week[s of] no carbs, stop doing these three-day 'detoxes'... Start learning what your body needs," she wrote in the Instagram caption. "Try different ways of training, moving, and eating."

"I want to look good for summer" "I want my bikini body back" SURE... but whyyyyy don't you want to look good for winter too? For Father Christmas? How about FEELING good for life? FEELING like a superwoman the whole year round? Yes '8 week transformations' are amazing to get you going & if you're learning from them AMAZING... but if you just stop there after the 8 weeks, your body isn't going to stay like that forever AND you may have changed your body but not your mindset. I can change my body in 2 seconds, from the left photo to the right & in both, I feel good. I know I train consistently, I know I fuel myself well, I know it's okay to let my belly out when I'm sitting down next to the pool. SO... long term/life plan: Educate yourself, that doesn't mean doing a personal training course, that means learning about yourself, how to train & how to eat. Do your own research, your own body is your best friend, explore it Find a class you love & look forward to, find a PT that works you hard but looks after you, find a friend that gives you that little boost of motivation when you need it... find things that work for YOU! So tonight, do one thing for me & let your belly release, embrace it, give it a little jiggle

A post shared by C H E S S I E K I N G (@chessiekingg) on Aug 8, 2017 at 1:05pm PDT

In fact, King is a subscriber to the idea that any fitness or diet changes you make should be for life. In another recent post, she explained the drawbacks of the ever-popular fitness transformation and "bikini body" phenomenon. "Yes, 'eight week transformations' are amazing to get you going and if you're learning from them, AMAZING. But if you just stop there after the eight weeks, your body isn't going to stay like that forever and you may have changed your body, but not your mindset," she said in her caption. (Related:This Fitness Blogger Is Making an Important Point About How We Measure Weight Loss Success)

We've got to say, she has a point. Feeling comfortable with your body is important, but being healthy for the long haul? That definitely takes precedence.

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Why This Fitness Influencer Will *Never* Recommend a Detox - Shape Magazine

Jenna Gallegos, The Washington Post

Losing weight is tough. It would be easier if a benevolent someone concerned about your health controlled exactly how much you ate and how often you exercised, right? Thats the situation for most dogs and cats in the United States, and yet the majority are overweight or obese.

As with our own dieting woes, the unpleasant prospect of the simple solution feeding our furry friends less makes us reach for alternative, quick-fix strategies. Many pet parents have turned to radically new menus. These grain-free, all-meat and raw-food diets are inspired by the meals eaten by wild relatives of our fidos and felixes.

But are these diets really better for our pets? Veterinarians and pet nutrition researchers say probably not.

According to clinical veterinary nutritionists at Tufts University, grain-free foods were one of the fastest-growing sectors of the pet food market in 2016. All I ever hear is, oh, on a good diet, its grain free, said Dena Lock, a veterinarian in Texas. The majority of her pet patients are overweight.

Why have these pet diets become so popular?

Its a marketing trend, Lock said.

Grain-free is marketing. Its only marketing, said Cailin Heinze, a small-animal nutritionist at Tufts Universitys Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. A lot of foods market themselves by what theyre not including, and the implication is that the excluded ingredient must be bad.

Grain-free is definitely a marketing technique that has been very successful, said Jennifer Larsen, a clinical nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis. (Disclosure: I went to graduate school at the University of California at Davis, but studied plants, not pets.) People think that if they pay a lot for food and there are a lot of exclusions on the bag, that the food is healthier, but theyre buying an idea, she said, not necessarily a superior product.

There is absolutely no data to support the idea that grain-free diets are better for pets, Heinze and Larsen noted.

Some pet owners have a false impression that grains are more likely to cause an allergic reaction, but its much more common for dogs to have allergies to meat than to grain, Heinz said. Chicken, beef, eggs, dairy and wheat are the most common allergies in dogs. And its not that theres anything particularly allergenic about these foods, she said, theyre just the most frequently used ingredients.

Marketing campaigns such as Blue Buffalos Wilderness or Chewys Taste of Wild claim that their grain-free, meat-forward formulations better reflect the ancestral diets of our dogs and cats evolutionary predecessors, but the veterinarians I spoke with also questioned this logic.

For one, our pets wild cousins arent all that healthy. People believe that nature is best, Larsen said, but animals in the wild dont live that long and they dont lead very healthy lives.

For dogs, we know that they have diverged from wolves genetically in their ability to digest starches. Dogs arent wolves, said Robert Wayne, a canine geneticist at UCLA. They have adapted to a human diet. Research in Waynes lab showed that most wolves carry two copies of a gene involved in starch digestion, while dogs have between 3 and 29 copies. According to Heinze, the average dog can easily handle 50 percent of its diet as carbs.

For cats, this argument makes a little more sense. Cats are carnivores rather than omnivores, so they have higher protein requirements than dogs, but cats can digest and utilize carbohydrates quite well, said Andrea Fascetti, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis.

Many grain-free pet foods are made with starch from potatoes or lentils and they may be higher in fat. If you cut grains but increase calories, your pet is going to gain weight, Heinze said.

Dogs and cats also have a drastically different lifestyle from wolves or tigers. Pets are almost always spayed and neutered which is in itself a risk factor for obesity. And most live inside or in pens, so their energy needs are reduced dramatically.

In the wild, wolves and feline predators eat the hair, bones and cartilage of their prey, not just meat. For pet owners who do choose to feed their animals an all-meat diet, its essential to add supplements to make sure their pet isnt missing out on key nutrients such as calcium, Fascetti said. And theres the environmental impact to consider: Pets consume a quarter of all animal-derived calories in the United States.

Experts especially caution against feeding pets raw meat. Its not uncommon to find things like salmonella and E. coli and listeria in raw meat, Larsen said. There are a lot of microbes present in our farming systems, and unlike when an animal is hunting in the wild, there are many opportunities for bacteria to contaminate meat between the time an animal is slaughtered and when it reaches our kitchens.

Even if eating contaminated meat doesnt make pets sick, it poses a health risk to pet owners and their children who handle the pet food and waste. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration both warn against feeding raw meat to your pets, and I really cant advocate it, because its not safe for the whole family, Heinze said.

But what about all those benefits you hear about from feeding a raw diet, like shiny coats and less frequent stools? I cant tell you how many clients send me pictures of poop, Larsen said. But changes to a pets bathroom habits dont have anything to do with their food being raw.

Raw diets tend to be lower in fiber, and high fiber probably results in larger stools. But we dont have a sense of whether stool quality and quantity correlate with health, Fascetti said. And that shiny coat probably is because of high fat, Heinze said.

If pet owners wish to formulate their own diets, they should work with their veterinarian and a board-certified nutritionist. If youre feeding your pet a balanced diet such as in a commercial chow, obesity is the biggest nutrition issue pet owners should worry about, Heinze said.

We want our pets to enjoy what theyre eating, so many foods and especially treats are formulated to be high in fat, Larsen said. Most people dont realize that a milk bone has about as many calories as a candy bar, Lock said.

I know the struggle. My own hefty husky mix stares at me with her big brown eyes and licks the window whenever she wants food. Ive taken to calling the dental chews I buy her guilt-a-bones, because I cant help but give her one every time I leave.

But studies have found that feeding dogs to maintain a lean body weight has very positive effects on their overall health and can even increase life span. This is also the case in mice and rats, and we believe that these findings apply to cats as well, Fascetti said.

Theres no one magic diet for every animal. These experts strongly recommend working with your veterinarian to find a diet that works for you and your pet. When it comes to navigating marketing claims in the pet food aisle, Lock suggests finding a company that employs a veterinary nutritionist and does feeding trials. Try not to get too hung up on the no list, Heinze said. Claims like no gluten, no grains, and no soy generally mean no science.

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Grain-free pet foods are no healthier, vets say - The Denver Post

Nutrigenomix offers dietary guidance based on saliva-based DNA tests. Some experts say you cant decide which food is best from information in a DNA test.

From fad diets to surgeries, Americans are constantly seeking the newest cure to what ails us.

In fact, we spend billions of dollars each year searching for this key to health and happiness.

The weight loss business alone spurs countless diet plans, books, apps, shakes, pills, and more.

Its no wonder, then, that every time a new solution shows up on the health stage millions flock to it for answers and guidance.

Like many health and nutritional options before it, one of these newest solutions, DNA testing, is raising eyebrows.

DNA testing has been increasingly popular in recent years as a way to understand your genetics, your family history, and your origins.

But can these DNA tests be used for so much more?

What if, in addition to telling you where youre from or that youre related to a famous historical figure, your genes could be used to make you healthier today?

Thats exactly what Ahmed El-Sohemy, the founder and chief scientific officer of Nutrigenomix, says his product can do.

Nutrigenomix uses nutrigenomic testing to provide you detailed dietary information based on your DNA.

Nutrigenomics is the area of science that looks at the effects of food on gene expression. In other words, these tests can tell you how your unique set of 23 pairs of chromosomes determines what you should and shouldnt eat.

We have known for a long time that some individuals respond differently from others to the same foods, beverages, nutrients, and supplements they consume. That is, a one-size-fits-all approach to optimal nutrition is ineffective, El-Sohemy told Healthline.

We now know that genetic differences variations in the sequence of a gene can explain some of these different responses. We wanted to provide tests consisting of genetic markers related to several important lifestyle factors, including weight management and body composition, nutrient metabolism, eating habits, cardiometabolic health, food intolerances, and physical activity.

Skeptics, however, say a DNA test might reveal gene variants, but theyre not a source of reliable nutritional advice.

When companies use the nutrigenomics model for food sensitivities, thats when I get a bit hesitant to accept all the science based on individual screenings, Stella Metsovas, a clinical nutritionist and author of Wild Mediterranean, told Healthline. Its still too complex of a science to apply overall, especially when lifestyle factors are concerned.

Some of these DNA tests use blood samples, but many products like El-Sohemys Nutrigenomix rely on saliva tests because theyre convenient.

Plus, human spit contains all the genetic material testers need to produce your detailed DNA nutritional map.

Once the sample is collected, the test is shipped back to the companies.

In several weeks, youre sent a packet of information about your specific genetic markers a guide to your nutritional DNA makeup.

Clients are often surprised by the number of genetic markers available to guide dietary choices beyond macronutrients such as fat and protein, El-Sohemy said. We can determine what type of fat an individual is most likely to benefit from in terms of weight loss and cardiometabolic risk.

Once you have the results, you can decide what you do with them.

Some companies, like Nutrigenomix, require clients to work with a doctor in order to interpret the results and apply them to their daily food choices.

We believe that providing our service through a qualified healthcare professional is the most responsible and effective way to communicate this type of health information, El-Sohemy said. A healthcare practitioner a doctor, dietitian, etc. works alongside a client to interpret and communicate their individual test results. Together, they create goals to mitigate risk of nutrient deficiencies and optimize body composition. As one-size-fits-all approaches tend to be impractical, this approach allows a trained healthcare professional to work closely with their client to ensure that their dietary goals are met.

If the results show youre sensitive to starch, you might cut out potatoes, corn, and other starch-heavy foods.

If the results show youre sensitive to saturated fat, you might limit your intake to lower your risk for cardiovascular health issues.

Due to the variety and number of genes tested, clients can also prioritize which goals to address first, such as reducing sodium to lower their risk of high blood pressure. And once they are able to adopt these strategies successfully, new goals can be made based on other genetic risks they have, El-Sohemy said.

Unlike books or apps, nutritional DNA tests wear a hefty price tag.

Each test can set you back several hundred dollars, and you may need to partner with a doctor or genetic coach in order to decipher the results. Thats even more money out of pocket.

Athletes are among the many clients for these nutrigenomics companies. With a greater emphasis on athlete performance through dietary approaches, DNA nutrition tests can help athletes and coaches find new ways to maximize performance.

People facing mysterious dietary challenges are also turning to these tests.

When typical allergy tests and elimination diets provide no insight, these DNA-based nutrition tests may be a last-resort option for people looking for answers to undiagnosed problems.

Metsovas doesnt believe the average person should be forking out the dough for these tests just yet, however.

DNA companies refer to these tests as personalized dietary advice, which stems from the theory that human needs vary considerably from diet to diet, she said. For example, ketosis might work wonders on Jane, helping regulate insulin levels and thereby [helping her with] losing weight, while maintaining lean muscle tissue. Susie might respond unfavorably due to various health factors such as hypothyroidism, an indication that there might be other issues in the body, including the microbiome.

The tricky part of the model is that your lifestyle plays a huge role on how your genes are expressed, she added.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics said in a statement regarding these tests, The use of nutrigenetic testing to provide dietary advice is not ready for routine dietetics practice.

A study in the British Medical Journal found that people who knew their DNA-based health risks were no more likely to change their dietary behaviors.

For her part, Metsovas says a microbiome analysis is the way to go before you pick up a DNA kit.

However, this type of testing faces a great deal of skepticism by many in the medical community, too.

Keep in mind this is a test for genetic modifiers of diet, El-Sohemy said. The test we developed does not diagnose or predict the likelihood of developing any disease. But, it does tell an individual how they respond to various aspects of their diet.

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Can Your DNA Determine the Best Diet for You? - Healthline

Can the Paleo diet really improve your health? Best-selling author and certified nutrition consultant Dianne Sanfilippo joins Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero to address the critics, dispel a few myths and share of few recipes for those who want to give it a try.

Model Karlie Kloss walks the runway at the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show in 2014. Picture: Getty

TRAINER to some of the worlds most famous Victoria Secret models, Justin Gebland, has revealed his tips and tricks for what really works when it comes to dieting.

In the 21st Century, new weight-loss fads tend to take on a life of their own from detoxifying tea to waist training, the list is endless.

Geblands A-Lister clientele includes super models Karlie Kloss, Candice Swanepoel, Irina Shayk, Erin Heatherton and Martha Hunt according to the Daily Mail.

Irina Shayk on the runway at Victoria's Secrets 2016 Fashion Show in Paris, France. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Gebland was quick to point out that yes, exercising is important, especially for his clients but what we all choose to put into our bodies is the key to successful weight loss.

When it comes to diets that work Gebland said he is a big supporter of the strict low-carb and high fat Paleo, or caveman diet.

According to LA Weekly, stars like Jessica Biel and Jack Osbourne swear by the primal diet which is based on a combination of modern science, an ancestral hunter-gatherer diet and common sense.

Jessica Biel has been a big public advocate for the Paleo Diet. Picture: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

According to Eat Drink Paleo, the diet is focused on consuming whole, unprocessed foods like grass-fed meat, free-range poultry, vegetables, fruit.

The diet recommends avoiding grains, legumes, refined sugar and dairy and even though it is skewed towards the low-carb end of the scale, eliminating carbs is not the name of the game.

Advocates say the Paleo Diet can improve physical and mental health and aid weight loss.Source:News Corp Australia

When it comes to juice detoxes or liquid diet fads Gebland is not a fan, alleging they are not an effective method when it comes to losing weight.

He confessed that at fashion week, some models went on a juice diet without consulting him and, Not one lost weight, some actually gained weight. That got me in big trouble.

The super model trainer is not alone in his distaste; experts tend to advise caution when it comes to liquid diets as they lack vital nutrients and can cause an array of serious health problems.

Liz Applegate, director of sport nutrition at the University of California in Davis told Live Science, There is no scientific evidence that juice cleanses are a sensible approach to better health.

Gebland believes there is a time and a place for the trend but it has no place in weight loss.

When it comes to the Victorias Secret angels preparing for the cat walk he said there is no place for starvation, Food is key to energy. They are not bean poles.

Angel and client of Gebland, Erin Heatherton at Victoria's Secret 2013 Fashion Show in New York City. Jamie McCarthy/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Professor Loren Cordain of Colorado State Universitys health and exercise department published The Paleo Diet in 2001 and its popularity has continued to soar.

The diet, like others, has its many critics and supporters.

Nutrition & Diabetes released a study last year that stated a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet increased weight gain.

The University of Melbourne used this study as a basis to claim following the Paleo Diet for a mere eight-week period can not only have an undesired weight increase effect but can also cause health complications.

However the University of Laboratory of Integrative research conducted their own eight-week study which showed the improvement of eight already healthy individuals health.

The group traded their traditional Western diet for the Paleo diet and it resulted in increased levels of interlukin-10, which is linked to better immunity and a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Gebland stands by his opinion that it is the best way to lose weight and build muscle.

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Super model trainer reveals how to get a runway-ready body - NEWS.com.au (blog)

Nobody brags about eating junk. A healthy diet includes veggies and eschews too much sugar, and if you eat that way, you can feel satisfied that you are eating clean. But you know what? Eating clean is a trap.

Sure, it feels good to eat a clean meal or two. Nevermind that theres no consistent definition of clean. I liked the word when I first heard it, because I took it to mean unprocessed foods (fresh vegetables, home-cooked meals) and it wasnt wedded to any particular theory, like eating low-carb or low-fat. But the same vagueness that was once its appeal has been co-opted. Now anything can be clean if its sold by someone standing on a beach looking gorgeous.

This was probably inevitable. For years weve heard that diets dont work; what you need to be healthy is a lifestyle change. So, breed that mostly sensible concept with our modern craze for the all-around enviable lifestyle, and what you get is an influencer (Instagrammer, movie star, supplement huckster, et. al.) who can paint you a picture of the amazing person you will be if you eat what they eat.

Gwyneth Paltrow used to be best known as an actress, but in the last decade shes built an even

Heres how the appeal works: each guru presents a simple idea held up by a scaffolding of half truths and cherry picked data. Debunk one small pillar, and the others still stand. Nobody has time to debunk them all, and if you try, you look like a killjoy. But from a distance, that one big idea looks like a beacon of clarity in a confusing world.

Here are some examples: You just need to eat nothing but vegetables. Or avoid most vegetables. Or cut out gluten. Or eliminate dairy, grains, and sugar.

The Whole30 diet declares swaths of food off-limits, and sets up ironclad rules about the little

These arent variations on one basic idea of healthy eating; theyre each a different gimmick masquerading as common sense. Bee Wilson writes in The Guardian that weve been snookered by a dream of purity in a toxic world and [w]e are so unmoored that we will put our faith in any master who promises us that we, too, can become pure and good.

This fantasy backfires, though, when we look at the foods and diets and people who dont qualify as clean. Does that mean that other foods, and the people who eat them, are dirty? Its not like quinoa is that different from rice, or sweet potatoes are that different from regular potatoes. Coconut sugar is far more expensive than regular sugar, as Wilson points out, but nutritionally almost identical.

The same goes for processed food. Its not as if processing is inherently bad. (Cooking is a form of processing, after all). Twinkies, for example, arent unclean. Theyre just high in sugar and low in a lot of healthy nutrients, so it makes sense not to eat too many of them.

Picture a wholesome meal: lots of veggies, maybe some pastured meat or free-range eggs, lovingly

Without the halo of clean eating, were back to evaluating foods on their merits, and figuring out whether they fit into the diet that makes sense for each of us. Sorry if thats less romantic.

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Eating Clean Won't Solve Any of Your Problems - Lifehacker Australia

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's aphorism "Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you what you are" is one of the most overused cliches in food culture, appearing everywhere from the opening sequence of Iron Chef to T-shirts and coffee mugs. But to the culinary historian Laura Shapiro, learning what someone ate is just the beginning of unlocking his or her identity.

"Tell me what you eat," Shapiro imagines herself asking her subjects, "and then tell me whether you like to eat alone, and if you really taste the flavors of food or ignore them, or forget all about them a minute later. . . . Please, keep talking . . . and pretty soon, unlike Brillat-Savarin, I won't have to tell you what you are. You'll be telling me."

In short, you can't tell a life story without telling a food story, though it's astonishingto Shapiro, anywayhow many biographers try. Food provides a new way to consider people's lives, not just their activities, but also their needs and how they care for others. This is especially true of women, who have, historically, been called upon to feed others. Shapiro's three earlier books, Perfection Salad, Something From the Oven, and Julia Child: A Life, all considered the lives and work of women who changed the way Americans ate during the 20th century. Her latest, What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories, is an experiment in straight-up biography: the food stories of six famous women, only one of whom cooked professionally. Some never cooked at allor ate, for that matter. But not eating is part of a food story too.

Her subjects are Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, novelist Barbara Pym, and Rosa Lewis, the Cockney scullery maid who became one of the most celebrated caterers and hoteliers of Edwardian London. Each woman left a lengthy paper trail, which Shapiro followed faithfully to the very end, through archives and libraries on two continents. The amount of research that must have gone into this book is staggering: Wordworth's barely legible early 19th-century diaries through Gurley Brown's chatty, heavily italicized editor's letters, with detours through endless menus, memoirs, correspondence, cookbooks, newspaper clippings, histories, and much, much more. Though each chapter is fewer than 50 pages, these aren't biographical sketches: they are complete portraits.

Naturally, after spending so much time with people, even people who are dead, you tend to feel close to them (as Shapiro, a former alt-weekly journalist, points out, dead people never hang up on you). You want to refer to them informally, by their first names, as Shapiro does. Some, it's obvious, were more congenial companions than others. Shapiro appears to feel the strongest kinship with Pym, who took notes at restaurants on what other people ate and filled her novels with meticulously described meals. "Tea plays so many symbolic roles," Shapiro writes, "that another writer would have had to create a whole slew of walk-on characters to say what Barbara says with a cup."

She also feels a deep appreciation for Wordsworth, who for years selflessly took care of her brother, William, and his family, during which she was determined to find joy and blessedness in every aspect of her life, even a disgusting black pudding. Dorothy discovered the upside of invalidism in late middle agenow everyone had to care for her for a change and, especially, cater to her incessant demands for food to satisfy her feelings of "faintness and hollowness" as she slid deeper into dementia.

This is far more understandable and less reprehensible than how Eva Braun, who became enamored of Hitler when she was just 17 (her first words to him, incidentally, were "Guten Appetit" as she served him Leberkse, a Bavarian sausage), spent the second half of her life willfully creating her own glamorous reality, in which Hitler didn't call her because he was a neglectful boyfriend, not because he was busy invading most of Europe and killing millions of people. "For Eva," Shapiro writes, "who was looking forward to starring in a movie about herself when the war was overHitler had promisedlife itself was tantamount to a glass of champagne."

Braun drank champagne because she was on a perpetual diet. So was Gurley Brown, who discovered dieting in the summer of 1959 at the ripe old age of 37. She was a successful ad copywriter, able to pay cash for a Mercedes-Benz 190 SL, but she was a failure as a woman because David Brown, whom she had targeted as the ideal husband, refused to set a wedding date. The Serenity Cocktail ("pineapple chunks, soybean oil, calcium lactate, vanilla, fresh milk, powdered milk, and brewer's yeast") did its magic, thoughthey finally made it to city hall that Septemberand after that, her greatest joy in eating came from the discipline of counting calories. Her favorite comfort food was sugar-free Jell-O prepared with one cup instead of four so, Shapiro writes, "the dense, rubbery results would deliver the strongest possible hint of chemical sweetening."

Shapiro is bewildered, but also amused, by Gurley Brown's refusal to reconcile her girlish self-image with the powerful editor and businesswoman she truly was. (Her chapter is, at certain points, laugh-out-loud funny.) Gloria Steinem once begged Helen "to say something strong and positive about herselfnot coy, not flirtatious, but something that reflected the serious, complicated person who was in there, under the wig and makeup." Helen tried, Shapiro reports, she really did, but the best she could do was "I'm skinny!"

The most poignant food story belongs to Roosevelt. At times it's also nearly as funny as Gurley Brown's. This is largely because of Henrietta Nesbitt, the inexperienced and, as it turned out, inept Hyde Park neighbor Roosevelt hired to be the White House housekeeper and who tortured FDR and various guests for a dozen years with overcooked meat and watery prune pudding. Other biographers, such as Blanche Wiesen Cook, have proposed that Roosevelt herself was indifferent to food and that Mrs. Nesbitt was her ongoing revenge against FDR, for both his 1918 affair that destroyed her entire sense of identity and, later, for forcing her to assume the role of First Lady. Shapiro sees it an entirely different way.

"Yes, asceticism was a strong aspect of her personality," she writes, "but what's striking about her culinary asceticism is that she practiced it chiefly in context of being wife to FDR. Inside the White House, she was apathetic about what was on her plate. Outside, we get glimpses of a very different Eleanor. . . . It was Eleanor, away from FDR and ensconced with the people she cherished, who discovered the delights of appetite." Those were the meals, Shapiro writes, that Eleanor associated with love. It's a devastating commentary on the Roosevelts' marriage. But it also shows the power of a food story. v

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The stories of six famous women, as told through their diets - Chicago Reader

Losing weight is tough. It would be easier if a benevolent someone concerned about your health controlled exactly how much you ate and how often you exercised, right? Thats the situation for most dogs and cats in the United States, and yet the majority are overweight or obese.

As with our own dieting woes, the unpleasant prospect of the simple solution feeding our furry friends less makes us reach for alternative, quick-fix strategies. Many pet parents have turned to radically new menus. These grain-free, all-meat and raw-food diets are inspired by the meals eaten by wild relatives of our fidos and felixes.

But are these diets really better for our pets? Veterinarians and pet nutrition researchers say probably not.

According to clinical veterinary nutritionists at Tufts University, grain-free foods were one of the fastest-growing sectors of the pet food market in 2016. All I ever hear is, oh, on a good diet, its grain free, said Dena Lock, a veterinarian in Texas. The majority of her pet patients are overweight.

Why have these pet diets become so popular?

Its a marketing trend, Lock said.

Grain-free is marketing. Its only marketing, said Cailin Heinze, a small-animal nutritionist at Tufts Universitys Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. A lot of foods market themselves by what theyre not including, and the implication is that the excluded ingredient must be bad.

Grain-free is definitely a marketing technique that has been very successful, said Jennifer Larsen, a clinical nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis. (Disclosure: I went to graduate school at the University of California at Davis, but studied plants, not pets.) People think that if they pay a lot for food and there are a lot of exclusions on the bag, that the food is healthier, but theyre buying an idea, she said, not necessarily a superior product.

There is absolutely no data to support the idea that grain-free diets are better for pets, Heinze and Larsen noted.

Some pet owners have a false impression that grains are more likely to cause an allergic reaction, but its much more common for dogs to have allergies to meat than to grain, Heinze said. Chicken, beef, eggs, dairy and wheat are the most common allergies in dogs. And its not that theres anything particularly allergenic about these foods, she said, theyre just the most frequently used ingredients.

Marketing campaigns such as Blue Buffalos Wilderness or Chewys Taste of Wild claim that their grain-free, meat-forward formulations better reflect the ancestral diets of our dogs and cats evolutionary predecessors, but the veterinarians I spoke with also questioned this logic.

For one, our pets wild cousins arent all that healthy. People believe that nature is best, Larsen said, but animals in the wild dont live that long and they dont lead very healthy lives.

For dogs, we know that they have diverged from wolves genetically in their ability to digest starches. Dogs arent wolves, said Robert Wayne, a canine geneticist at UCLA. They have adapted to a human diet. Research in Waynes lab showed that most wolves carry two copies of a gene involved in starch digestion, while dogs have between 3 and 29 copies. According to Heinze, the average dog can easily handle 50 percent of itsdiet as carbs.

For cats, this argument makes a little more sense. Cats are carnivores rather than omnivores, so they have higher protein requirements than dogs, but cats can digest and utilize carbohydrates quite well, said Andrea Fascetti, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of California Veterinary School in Davis.

Many grain-free pet foods are made with starch from potatoes or lentils and they may be higher in fat. If you cut grains but increase calories, your pet is going to gain weight, Heinze said.

Dogs and cats also have a drastically different lifestyle fromwolves or tigers. Pets are almost always spayed and neutered which is in itself a risk factor for obesity. And most live inside or in pens, so their energy needs are reduced dramatically.

In the wild, wolves and feline predators eat the hair, bones and cartilage of their prey, not just meat. For pet owners who do choose to feed their animals an all-meat diet, its essential to add supplements to make sure their pet isnt missing out on key nutrients such as calcium, Fascetti said. And theres the environmental impact to consider: Pets consume a quarter of all animal-derived calories in the United States.

Experts especially caution against feeding pets raw meat. Its not uncommon to find things like salmonella and E. coli and listeria in raw meat, Larsen said. There are a lot of microbes present in our farming systems, and unlike when an animal is hunting in the wild, there are many opportunities for bacteria to contaminate meat between the time an animal is slaughtered and when it reaches our kitchens.

Even if eating contaminated meat doesnt make pets sick, it poses a health risk to pet owners and their children who handle the pet food and waste. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionand the Food and Drug Administrationboth warn against feeding raw meat to your pets, and I really cant advocate it, because its not safe for the whole family, Heinze said.

But what about all those benefits you hear about from feeding a raw diet, like shiny coats and less frequent stools? I cant tell you how many clients send me pictures of poop, Larsen said. But changes to a pets bathroom habits dont have anything to do with their food being raw.

Raw diets tend to be lower in fiber, and high fiber probablyresults in larger stools. But we dont have a sense of whether stool quality and quantity correlate with health, Fascetti said. And that shiny coat probably is because ofhigh fat, Heinze said.

If pet owners wish to formulate their own diets, they should work with their veterinarian and a board-certified nutritionist. If youre feeding your pet a balanced diet such as in a commercial chow, obesity is the biggest nutrition issue pet owners should worry about, Heinze said.

We want our pets to enjoy what theyre eating, so many foods and especially treats are formulated to be high in fat, Larsen said. Most people dont realize that a milk bone has about as many calories as a candy bar, Lock said.

I know the struggle. My own hefty husky mix stares at me with her big brown eyes and licks the window whenever she wants food. Ive taken to calling the dental chews I buy her guilt-a-bones, because I cant help but give her one every time I leave.

But studies have found that feeding dogs to maintain a lean body weight has very positive effects on their overall health and can even increase life span. This is also the case in mice and rats, and we believe that these findings apply to cats as well, Fascetti said.

Theres no one magic diet for every animal. These experts strongly recommend working with your veterinarian to find a diet that works for you and your pet. When it comes to navigating marketing claims in the pet food aisle, Lock suggests finding a company that employs a veterinary nutritionist and does feeding trials. Try not to get too hung up on the no list, Heinze said. Claims like no gluten, no grains, and no soy generally mean no science.

Read more:

The hidden environmental costs of dog and cat food

These states have the fattest pets and they might surprise you

Washington Post employees rallied to save a crab. We called her Old Bae.

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Grain-free pet foods are no healthier, vets say. Focus on this nutrition issue instead. - Washington Post

Home Liver Is your diet making your liver sick?

Many diets have been hailed as being able to improve your health, such as the Mediterranean diet. On the other hand, there are diets that can make us quite ill. The Western diet is often discussed as being detrimental to health.

The typical Western diet is high in fat and sugar, and we already know these two components can wreak havoc on our health. The latest findings suggest that the Western diet can have detrimental effects on our liver as well.

A new study was done where researchers fed mice a Western diet, which is high in fat and sugar. These mice were more likely to develop liver tumors compared to mice who did not consume the Western diet. When the Western diet-fed mice were treated with antibiotics, they did not respond to the treatment.

The researchers specifically looked at mice missing farnesoid x receptor (FXR), which is involved in bile synthesis, secretion, and transport. Bile is necessary for proper digestion. Low FXR levels are seen in patients with cirrhosis or liver cancer.

The FXR-deficient mice and healthy mice were fed a high-sugar and high-fat diet for 10 months.

The FXR-deficient mice developed liver tumors and had higher levels of genes that trigger inflammation.

Lead author of the study Dr. Yu-Jui Yvonne Wan explained, Gut and liver health are linked. Because the liver receives 70 percent of its blood supply from the intestine, it is important to understand how the gut contributes to liver disease development.

There are many studies that attribute a Western diet to poor health and this is just another one that solidifies the point. Instead, we should opt for a diet low in fat and sugar. As mentioned earlier, the Mediterranean diet time and time again is hailed for its numerous benefits to health. It emphasizes a high intake of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and above all, low fat and sugar.

Take a close look at your diet and make necessary changes if you find youre adhering closer to a Western diet. Replacing processed, fatty, and sugary foods with foods that are naturally occurring can go a long way in preventing disease.

Related:What causes liver pain?

Related Reading:

What causes liver pain after drinking?

Simple diet plan to overcome fatty liver disease: Foods to eat and avoid

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Is your diet making your liver sick? - Bel Marra Health

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