Five pieces of fruit and veg daily 'as good for heart as 4000 steps' - Daily Mail

Yunnan Noodle Shack: Restaurant to eat alone in Toronto | CTV News - CTV News Toronto

Introverts, meet your match.

Wooden panels separate cubicles, call buttons let diners choose when they interact with restaurant staff, and phone stands sit on every table, making it completely socially acceptable to put headphones in and watch Netflix.

“In North America, eating alone is sad,” Andy Su, co-owner of Yunnan Noodle Shack with his wife Jane Yu, told CTV News Toronto, miming air quotes around the word sad.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

It’s an unconventional combination – the dim lighting of a spa, the cubicles of a library and the breezy music of a jazz club – but it works.

“We just want to be the background, the customer is the main character,” Su said, sitting in one of his restaurant’s cubicles ahead of the grand opening this week, located downtown on Baldwin Street near Beverley Street.

Su and Yu moved to Canada from China more than a decade ago. Back home, eating alone is common, particularly at lunchtime, Yu explained. But apart from ramen counters, the couple noticed solo dining didn’t exist in Toronto.

“It’s so good when you can truly feel yourself again. Probably somewhere inside of you, someone is screaming, ‘I’m here! Why’d you leave me in a dark spot for a long time?’ Have a conversation with yourself,” Su said.

Yunnan is named after Su’s hometown in southwestern China and the menu is based on dishes from there – minced pork chili or slow cooked pork shoulder paired with rice noodles, hot and sour wontons, and a pan fried egg with in-house pickled cabbage and cold rice noodles for the non-meat eaters.

Before Yunnan, Su went to law school and Yu was an early childhood educator. But as Yu put it, quoting Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump", “Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you're going to get.”

The couple is aiming to open a “Yin” to the restaurant’s solitary “Yang,” next door, hopefully in June.

Su paints a picture of a Chinese bakery where they serve handmade rice balls with lemon tea. A social scene spills out onto the stairs outside where live music accompanies chatter.

“On the stairs, people are chatting. Inside, people are thinking,” he said.  

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What is the healthiest cereal? How to have your cereal and eat it too - USA TODAY

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What is the healthiest cereal? How to have your cereal and eat it too  USA TODAY
What is the healthiest cereal? How to have your cereal and eat it too - USA TODAY
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Are grapes good for weight loss? How many to eat, benefits explained - USA TODAY

You be the judge: should my partner stop eating in bed? - The Guardian

The prosecution: Hugo

Our bed is full of scratchy crumbs. I issued a food ban years ago but Harriet completely ignores it

My partner Harriet and I have been living together for six years, and the one thing that’s not changed during that time is her bed-eating habits. I can’t deal with crumbs in the bed. I have had a ban on food in the bedroom for as long as I can remember, but she just ignores it.

I hate getting into bed and feeling as if I’m lying on sandpaper. The crumbs are scratchy against my legs. Harriet will deny eating in bed until the cows come home, but I can feel bits of crisps and breadcrumbs on me. It drives me mad.

Sometimes, I will make us get out of bed and vacuum the sheets, or brush the crumbs out by beating the sheets with a cushion. It’s not a very relaxing routine when you’re meant to be winding down. Often, Harriet thinks the whole thing is funny; other times she calls me paranoid.

I think the idea of eating in bed is bad for you, in a psychological sense. Harriet will stay in bed all day “working”, but I don’t think she does as much as she could. Lying down, surrounded by packets of food is gross and doesn’t set you up for a solid day of work. I prefer to go to a co-working space as I think it’s important to put some distance between home and work. It’s especially important to create a space between sleeping and working, but if you work in bed all day that’s impossible.

When I try to tell her off, she says “I’m not being constrained by your patriarchal norms,” and claims I’m trying to control her. It has nothing to do with the patriarchy; I’d just like the bed we share to be clean and crumb-free. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Harriet also says that because she is the one doing most of the cleaning in our flat she can make whatever mess she wants, but that is ridiculous. We live together and need to make an effort to be clean for each other, otherwise we’ll end up justifying any type of bad behaviour.

The defence: Harriet

Food tastes better in bed. But I also keep it clean – Hugo is just imagining the crumbs on the sheets

I eat everything in bed – and I usually hide the evidence pretty well. One time, I chucked the wrapper of some gluten-free biscuits down the side of the bed – Hugo was not happy when he found it. I work from home all day as a freelance writer, whereas Hugo uses co-working spaces for his social marketing job.

Sometimes I’ll eat a whole meal in bed. I make sure I take the plate downstairs so Hugo doesn’t know, but afterwards the room can smell of food so I get caught out. It’s hard not to spill things in bed, but I’ve perfected the art of propping a hard pillow behind me and balancing my plate of goodies on another cushion in front of me. I just tuck my chin in a lot when I eat.

Food just tastes better in bed. When you look at dogs in the wild, or even in a house, when you give them a delicious piece of food, they retreat to their bed to eat it, which has a lot to do with feeling safe and comfortable. I’m like a dog in that sense.

The sort of person who eats in bed is also the sort of person who can’t be bothered to go to the shop. That’s me. I’ll just raid the cupboards and see what’s there. I’m partial to rice cakes, crisps and whatever snacks we have lying around, but these are quite crumby. I’ve also been known to eat a Domino’s pizza in bed, which is deliciously naughty. That is usually saved for when Hugo is out, as I know I’ll get mega-told-off for that.

I have tried to eat less in bed recently, as Hugo really hates it, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference to how much I get accused. When Hugo and I get into bed at night, I’ve noticed he’s paranoid about crumbs, even when there aren’t any. He will say, “Agh, the sheets feel like sandpaper on my legs.” He can be dramatic, but the thing is, most of the time there is no food left in the bed because I’m a clean freak. I remove the crumbs and vacuum, and also change the sheets once a week. So, Hugo is imagining crumbs. I guess it’s a bit like “the boy who cried wolf”. Nowadays, he just doesn’t believe me. It’s probably my fault.

The jury of Guardian readers

Should Harriet stop eating in bed?

In Ireland, we have a saying: “I wouldn’t kick them out of bed for eating crisps”, but in Harriet’s case, I absolutely would. A bed should be for sleeping and sex, not the slovenly act of eating in and leaving the shrapnel behind.
Alex, 28

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If Harriet lived alone she could do as she pleased. However, she’s in a relationship so the bed is a shared space. When negotiating the terms of cohabitation, it is fair to refer to social norms and best practice. Eating in bed is problematic because spills are hard to clean up. She needs to concede.
Irene, 53

Hugo cannot simply “ban” and “tell off” his partner for doing something she wants to do. If he wants her to stop eating in bed, they should have a discussion – or sleep in separate beds. Eat away, Harriet, and live your best life!
Ben, 49

Usually I’d be on Harriet’s side here, as Hugo sounds a bit bossy. But I must say, Harriet’s commitment to habitual bedtime eating sounds both deranged and extremely devious, given all the crumbs and smells, and Hugo’s clear objections. Eating in bed is a treat, not something to be done three times a day!
Anita, 60

I must admit, I do love a pizza in bed on special occasions, but it sounds like Harriet is overdoing it. Eating in bed should happen only when you are a) hungover or b) post-coital.
Ryan, 22

Now you be the judge

In our online poll below, tell us: should Harriet stop snacking between the sheets?

The poll closes at 9am GMT on Thursday 11 May

Last week’s result

We asked if Marley should get off her phone.

90% of you said yes – Marley is guilty

10% of you said no – Marley is innocent

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You be the judge: should my partner stop eating in bed? - The Guardian
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How Eating Ultraprocessed Foods Can Affect Your Mental Health - The New York Times

Eating packaged foods like cereal and frozen meals has been associated with anxiety, depression and cognitive decline. Scientists are still piecing together why.

Roughly 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from highly processed foods. We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products — like some breakfast cereals, snack bars, frozen meals and virtually all packaged sweets, among many other things — is linked to unwelcome health outcomes, like an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and even cancer. But more recent studies point to another major downside to these often delicious, always convenient foods: They appear to have a significant impact on our minds, too.

Research from the past ten or so years has shown that the more ultraprocessed foods a person eats, the higher the chances that they feel depressed and anxious. A few studies have suggested a link between eating UPFs and increased risk of cognitive decline.

What’s so insidious about these foods, and how can you avoid the mental fallout? Scientists are still working on answers, but here’s what we know so far.

What qualifies as an ultraprocessed food?

In 2009, Brazilian researchers put food on a four-part scale, from unprocessed and minimally processed (like fruits, vegetables, rice and flour) to processed (oils, butter, sugar, dairy products, some canned foods, and smoked meats and fish) and ultraprocessed. “Ultraprocessed foods include ingredients that are rarely used in homemade recipes — such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, protein isolates and chemical additives” like colors, artificial flavors, sweeteners, emulsifiers and preservatives, said Eurídice Martínez Steele, a researcher in food processing at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. This classification system is now used widely by nutrition researchers.

UPFs make up a majority of the packaged foods you find in the frozen food aisles at grocery stores and on the menu at fast-food restaurants — 70 percent of the packaged foods sold in the United States are considered ultraprocessed. They’re increasingly edging out healthier foods in people’s diets and are widely consumed across socioeconomic groups.

“Ultraprocessed foods are carefully formulated to be so palatable and satisfying that they’re almost addictive,” said Dr. Eric M. Hecht, an epidemiologist at the Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. “The problem is that in order to make the products taste better and better, manufacturers make them less and less like real food.”

What effect do ultraprocessed foods have on mental health?

Recent research has demonstrated a link between highly processed foods and low mood. In one 2022 study of over 10,000 adults in the United States, the more UPFs participants ate, the more likely they were to report mild depression or feelings of anxiety. “There was a significant increase in mentally unhealthy days for those eating 60 percent or more of their calories from UPFs,” Dr. Hecht, the study’s author, said. “This is not proof of causation, but we can say that there seems to be an association.”

New research has also found a connection between high UPF consumption and cognitive decline. A 2022 study that followed nearly 11,000 Brazilian adults over a decade found a correlation between eating ultraprocessed foods and worse cognitive function (the ability to learn, remember, reason and solve problems). “While we have a natural decline in these abilities with age, we saw that this decline accelerated by 28 percent in people who consume more than 20 percent of their calories from UPFs,” said Natalia Gomes Goncalves, a professor at the University of São Paulo Medical School and the lead author of the study.

It’s possible that eating a healthy diet may offset the detrimental effects of eating ultraprocessed foods. The Brazilian researchers found that following a healthy eating regimen, like the MIND diet — which is rich in whole grains, green leafy vegetables, legumes, nuts, berries, fish, chicken and olive oil — greatly reduced the dementia risk associated with consuming ultraprocessed foods. Those who followed the MIND diet but still ate UPFs “had no association between UPF consumption and cognitive decline,” Dr. Goncalves said, adding that researchers still don’t know what a safe quantity of UPFs is.

Why might ultraprocessed foods have this effect?

It’s unclear. “Many high-quality, randomized studies have shown the beneficial effect of a nutrient-dense diet on depression, but we still do not fully understand the role of food processing on mental health,” said Melissa Lane, a researcher at the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Australia. However, there are some clues.

Much of the research has focused on how poor gut health might affect the brain. Diets that are high in ultraprocessed foods are typically low in fiber, which is mostly found in plant-based foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Fiber helps feed the good bacteria in the gut. Fiber is also necessary for the production of short-chain fatty acids, the substances produced when it breaks down in the digestive system, and which play an important role in brain function, said Wolfgang Marx, the president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research and a senior research fellow at Deakin University. “We know that people with depression and other mental disorders have a less diverse composition of gut bacteria and fewer short-chain fatty acids.”

Chemical additives in UPFs might also have an impact on gut flora. “Emerging evidence — mostly from animal studies, but also some human data — suggests that isolated nutrients (like fructose), additives such as artificial sweeteners (like aspartame and saccharin) or emulsifiers (like carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80) can negatively influence the gut microbiome,” Dr. Marx said.

Poor gut microbiota diversity — as well as a diet high in sugar — may contribute to chronic inflammation, which has been linked to a host of mental and physical issues, Dr. Lane said. “Interactions between increased inflammation and the brain are thought to drive the development of depression,” she said.

It’s also worth considering the possibility that the link between highly processed foods and mental health works in both directions. “Diet does influence mood, but the reverse is also true,” said Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “When you get stressed, anxious or depressed, you tend to eat more unhealthy foods, in particular ultraprocessed foods that are high in sugar, fat and chemical additives.”

How to recognize ultraprocessed foods

The best way to identify ultraprocessed foods is to read product labels. “A long list of ingredients, and especially one that includes ingredients you would never use in home cooking,” are clues that the food is ultraprocessed, said Whitney Linsenmeyer, an assistant professor of nutrition at Saint Louis University in Missouri and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Chemical names, unpronounceable words, and anything you would be unlikely to find in a kitchen cabinet are often signs that a food is in the ultraprocessed category.

You can still use convenience foods to make cooking easier without resorting to ultraprocessed foods. Products such as canned beans, frozen vegetables, precooked brown rice or canned fish are all shortcut ingredients that fit well within the scope of a healthy diet, provided there aren’t any industrial items on the ingredient list. “If the added ingredients are ones you would use yourself, like herbs, spices, salt or cooking oils,” Dr. Linsenmeyer said, “that’s an indication that the food, while processed, is not inherently bad for you.”

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How Eating Ultraprocessed Foods Can Affect Your Mental Health - The New York Times
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Eight simple ways to eat healthy without blowing your food budget - University of Alberta

Inflation is biting into the average shopper’s food budget, but there are ways to still keep good nutrition on the table, says a University of Alberta expert.

Basic cooking skills, combined with a dash of careful planning, can help ease the expected hike Canadians are going to pay in 2023 for groceries, says registered dietitian Heidi Bates.

“We have the ability to be savvy shoppers, to plan differently and to do more food preparation ourselves to offset inflation and still eat really well,” says Bates, with the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences. 

Despite sky-high prices, fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products are key to a healthy balanced diet and important to keep on the menu, she adds.

Produce is packed with vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre. Dairy products and fortified soy beverages provide needed calcium. And meat, poultry, fish and plant-based foods are critical sources of protein. They’re all part of a healthy diet that can help lessen the risk of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis, Bates notes.

“These conditions often present in midlife, but the groundwork is laid across your whole lifetime, so we want to see people eating well from childhood on, and we don’t want to compromise nutrition.”

Here’s how to keep nutritious food on the table, even on a tight budget.

Get (back) into the kitchen

Pre-made meals delivered to the doorstep are convenient but more costly than eating in. 

“You’re going to pay more than you need to if someone is prepping food for you,” Bates notes. “We need to revisit and reinvest in cooking at home.” 

Besides saving money, cooking also feeds the soul. “It’s a great opportunity to spend time together as a family and have some fun.”

Keep it simple

Start with easy recipes like those found in the Pure Prairie Eating Plan, written by U of A nutrition professors Rhonda Bell and Catherine Chan, or pick a few from Canada’s Food Guide, Bates suggests. And be patient in building those meat-and-potatoes skills; learn as you go and celebrate the tasty successes, she adds. 

“Cooking is a process. Don’t expect to become Julia Child — but you don’t need to, either.”

Plan ahead

Before going for groceries, have a rough idea of what your meals will be for the week. 

“If you’re going to the store with no real plan, it becomes hard to have a targeted approach to shopping,” which can lead to costly food waste, Bates says. 

“Upwards of 63 per cent of food we throw away could have been eaten if we’d planned differently.”

Beware of bulk buying

That big bag of bananas looks like a good deal, but does it make sense for, say, a small household? 

“Although the price may look lower at the front end, if it’s way more than you can eat, it doesn’t make much economic sense.” 

Try to have a plan for using up too much perishable bounty — freeze those blackening bananas for baking projects.

Have the basics handy

Bulk buying does make sense for stocking the pantry with an ongoing supply of staples like pasta, flour, sugar, rice, lentils and canned foods.

“They can be used in many different recipes and they help build the platform for a lot of meals.”

Pay attention to portions

That single steak, though expensive, may go further than you think, says Bates. For example, a healthy serving of meat for one person is only the size of the palm of a woman’s hand. 

“If you think about portion sizes, what’s in one package might be two or three portions, not just one.” 

Larger cuts of meat, such as roasts, can be stretched to make multiple meals like soups or casseroles. 

“Look at every opportunity to have and use leftovers.”

Fresh or frozen? Try a little of both

When buying fruit and vegetables, it makes sense to take advantage of both fresh and frozen versions, depending on cost-friendliness. Fresh, locally grown produce — in Alberta, that includes root vegetables like potatoes and carrots — is often a better deal because of lower transportation costs, Bates notes. 

“Take advantage of foods where they are more simply available.” 

At the same time, buying exotic produce like berries is often a better deal when they’re frozen, and it can be used gradually, avoiding waste. Keep it nutritious by buying unsweetened fruit and avoiding frozen vegetables that come with sauce.

Have a budget buddy

For single people or small households, shared shopping is one way to make costly food items more affordable, Bates suggests. 

“Go in with a friend or relative to buy expensive things that aren’t one-person friendly. People are much more receptive to having those conversations than we might think, because everyone is facing the same thing.”

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Eight simple ways to eat healthy without blowing your food budget - University of Alberta
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