News from Fort Worth, Dallas, or points in-between: The good news and the back news about food, diet, vegetarian and vegan happenings in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

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Diet and Food Information You Can Use

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The Good News

Message “Low Glycaemic Index Is Good" Disputed

The glycaemic index, a current diet trend that is the underlying message in many popular diets, “does not seem useful in understanding how diet impacts health,” says the author of a new study. The use of glycaemic index (GI) to rank carbohydrates in their ability to affect blood glucose has become more and more mainstream convincing millions of Americans to follow high protein, high fat diets. 

But a study published in the February issue of the British Journal of Nutrition reported: “The present results [of the study] call into question the utility of GI to reflect glycaemic response to food adequately, when used in the context of usual diet.”

Study leader Mayer-Davis explained that in scientific literature, a food's GI is based on fasting. “This is unrealistic because we eat throughout the day, and a certain food eaten at lunchtime can have a different impact on blood-glucose levels compared to eating that same food for breakfast after fasting overnight,” said Mayer-Davis. “In general, the GI does not seem to be useful in understanding how diet impacts health, and use of the GI may not be an effective way to identify foods for optimal health,” she said.

After five years of follow-up the results showed that the GI of the diet was not only unrelated to any of the measures of blood glucose, it is also overstated and not backed by a fair amount of published research.

Source: Journal of Nutrition

     Soy Does Lower Blood Fat Levels, Reduce Risk of Disease Soy protein isolates (SPI), and not soy isoflavones, are associated with lowering blood fat levels, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), claims a new study published in The American Journal of  Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 83, pp. 244-251), despite a recent scientific statement by the American Heart Association stating that soy had little effect on cholesterol levels, and raised doubts about health claims associated with soy.

“[The new] results support the ability of soy protein to modulate the ratios of serum lipids in healthy young men in a beneficial direction for CVD risk, irrespective of the isoflavone content of the soy protein,” wrote lead author Brianne McVeigh from the University of Guelph, Canada.

Source: The American Journal of  Clinical Nutrition


The Bad News

Cocoa Mulch Kills Pets Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called "Theobromine," an ingredient that is used to make chocolate. It smells like chocolate and really attracts dogs.  When eaten, it is lethal to dogs and cats. Read labels so you don't buy a product containing Theobromine. Be aware of what your neighbors are using, too, when you walk your dog--on a leash, of course.

Source: Snopes

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