Summer Food Myths

A brief but interesting article I came across on one of my favourite sites, Eatingwell.com

Some persistent food and health myths just don’t seem to go away. To really be healthy this summer, stick to common sense and don’t get duped by these summer food myths.

The Myth: Garlic is a natural mosquito repellent.

The Truth: Garlic wards off vampires, but it won’t keep mosquitoes at bay. Researchers at the University of Connecticut tested the theory without success, although they did suggest that perhaps participants hadn’t eaten enough garlic to see results. If your home does tend to suffer from mosquitoes, you’ll probabaly want to find some professionals from somewhere like www.pestcontrolexperts.com instead of relying on garlic to stop your skin from being bitten.

The Myth: Doing crunches is the only way to get a flat belly.

The Truth: Crunches may help tone your belly, but they’re not the only route to a flatter stomach. For example, cosmetic facilities such as luxurgery offer a variety of body sculpting procedures including liposuction to help people achieve the body of their dreams. Furthermore, eating whole grains, such as quinoa, brown rice or bulgur wheat, may also help you shed belly fat. People who ate 3 servings of whole grains (such as a 1/2 cup of cooked oatmeal, a slice of whole-wheat bread and 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice) a day lost more weight and, specifically, more abdominal fat than those who ate less than a quarter of a serving, according to findings reported in a study in The Journal of Nutrition.

The Myth: Watermelon’s tasty, but not terribly nutritious.

The Truth: Even though watermelon is very watery (read: hydrating) and low in calories (only 46 per cup!), it packs a healthy nutrition punch. In addition to some vitamin C (20% of the Daily Value per cup), watermelon delivers lycopene—the same red-tinged antioxidant found in tomatoes, linked to a lower risk of certain cancers.

The Myth: Buying fresh produce at farmers’ markets is expensive.

The Truth: Farmers’ markets might seem more expensive than grocery stores, but prices at farmers’ markets for conventionally grown produce items were lower than they were at supermarkets in a study conducted by Jake Robert Claro for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, according to a blog on the topic written by Barry Estabrook. The same was true for organic produce.