Food and Nutrition

A new study is revealing just how unhealthy most kids' meals are. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports.

Skip the greasy fast-food joint and save calories by making your own meaty and tasty burgers at home with these deliciousrecipes from David Zinczenko, the author behind "Cook This, Not That!"

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen investigates an aphrodisiac in Peru that may be the solution for women with a low sex drive.

Why you should add them to your diet.

- A substance in purple fruit binds to poorly bound iron, which are linked to toxins, which may be linked to degenerative diseases such Alzheimer, Parkinson, and multiple sclerosis.

- Blue berries, concord grape juice, dried figs, black raspberry sauce

TODAY's diet and nutrition expert Joy Bauer answers viewers' questions about their diet dilemmas, including how to increase vitamin D absorption by eating more dairy.

Vitamin D
- Absorption assisted by fat and some proteins
- Can be absorbed from fat-free dairy products
- Supplements should be taken with large meals

Bottled vs. Brewed Green Tea
- Bottled has lower (significant) polyphenol content

Sarah De Heer from KitchenDaily tells us how to pick the best apples.

Find out how eating vegetables can help reduce cancer risk.

Learn what foods are best for you when you're expecting.

Kids in New York get schooled on the ABC's of eating. CNN's Stephanie Elam reports.

- NAAO; National Action Against Obesity.

In March, CNN's Anderson Cooper sat down with Jamie Oliver to discuss his crusade to change the way kids eat.

In April, Jamie Oliver took CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta around a grocery store to show him how to shop healthy.

A diet meant to stop hypertension is also shown to reduce kidney stones.

- DASH: Dietary, Approaches to, Stop, Hypertension
- A diet high is fruits, vegetables, nuts, and dairy product but low in red meat and sugar drinks.
- May reduce hypertension and prevent kidney stones.
- The study group that ate this diet also seemed to have high citrate levels an important salt that prevents calcium stones.

Since most of us develop an acidic body chemistry over time, we need alkalizing foods to restore pH balance.  Wheatgrass juice is a powerful alkalizer.  It is also a preferred food because it seems to possess the ability to single-handedly change people's body chemistry when used in sufficient amounts.  As a result, it is exactly the kind of food needed to help jump start the processes of the body.  It is also the perfect food to consume when life's challenges (like traveling for work) get in the way of the lifestyle choices you prefer.  For many, consuming wheatgrass juice is like have a license to exist in the world around us.

It is important to note that we don't want our bodies to be either alkaline or acidic; rather, we are trying to achieve balance.  We love our wheatgrass juice; but don't think it appropriate to live on it alone.  You can help your body build a solid long term foundation by using some wheatgrass juice and making great choices at the grocery store.

DynamicGreens

Maintaining a balanced pH level in the body is critical for longterm good health. The problem with the typical North American diet is that our bodies can become overly acidic. Why is this important? Acidosis creates many health problems and a pH balanced body resolves them. The rationale dates back to work done by  Dr. Otto Heinrich Warburg who in 1931 was awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology / Medicine.   Dr. Warburg looked at a complex relationship between acidic body chemistry, toxicity (caused by fermenting sugars), low oxygen states and corresponding sub-optimal performance of the body.

Wheatgrass juice is a powerful alkalizing agent which can help body gain and maintain a balanced pH. Your local health food store usually has pH test kits available. Note that the the perfect pH level for human blood ranges between 7.2 and 7.35. Your testing kit should have instructions which discuss the various ranges of all bodily fluids.

DynamicGreens

(Reuters) - In a taste of things to come, food scientists say they have cooked up a way of using nanotechnology to make low-fat or fat-free foods just as appetizing and satisfying as their full-fat fellows.

- Nanotechnology -- which, among other things, may be used to alter when, how and where in our bodies food is digested.
- "We are unpicking the mechanisms of digestion used to break them down so we can design fats in a rational way that are digested more slowly."
- The European Commission has set up a research project called NanoLyse aimed at devising ways of detecting and measuring nano technology in foods.

"These particles could be hazardous and we need to know more about their effects both in the body and in the environment," -- "Since these particles are very small, they can...enter cells or even the nucleus of a cell if they have the right characteristics."

Josh Levs interviews food safety expert Caroline Smith DeWaal about how to protect the nation's food supply.

Doctors believe nearly 3 million Americans could be living with celiac disease without knowing it.
- Vast majority of Americans may not know
- Gluten wheat barley and rye are off the menu
- Symptoms diarrhea, fatigue, abdominal pain, and infertility

More than half of the oil 2.9-3.2 million barrels, 70-79%, is still in the gulf as microscopic droplets underneath the surface and sea floor according to the Georgia group.

- Benzene a x1000 times higher than allowed in the mud of Louisiana marshes. 
- The small Plankton, bacteria , that are taken up by the oysters, that are taken up by the shrimp, and eventually work their way up the food chain.

A new report suggests that relatively low-level exposure to common pesticides, probably from reidues on foods, doubles children's risk of developing ADHD.
- Study links Ognanophosphate Pesticides in common foods to ADHD, may affect functioning of nervous system.
- 28% of frozen blue berries, 25% of straberries there was residue of oganophosphate.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports on a new report that finds nuts are good for the heart in many ways.