Dan's Plan

If you’ve ever prepared a meal or packed a lunch for someone you care about, you might have tried to make the meal extra tasty with a little additional butter or packed an extra cookie in that lunch. Folks over at the Nudge blog highlight a recently published study showing that people te…nd to choose a variety of healthy and less healthy foods for themselves, but more unhealthy foods for a friend. The lessons here? 1) Do your friends a favor and serve them good, healthy food and 2) Don’t allow yourself to be (over)served food that you would not otherwise serve yourself.

This study also reminds me of a 2006 paper by Brian Wansink in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. In it, he described how the majority of “nutritional gatekeepers” or people who are primarily responsible for purchasing and preparing most of the food in a household believed that other people in the household (e.g., children and husbands) held most of the influence in terms of what foods were consumed by the family. Interestingly, non-gatekeepers responded that they would pretty much eat whatever was prepared and that the gatekeeper held most of the power. The lesson here? A home’s nutritional gatekeeper is biggest food influence in the lives of his or her family members.

http://nudges.org/2010/03/31/trying-to-eat-healthier-dont-let-your-friend-order-your-meal/

Bacon vs Bagel

http://www.newswise.com/articles/bacon-or-bagels-higher-fat-at-breakfast-may-be-healthier-than-you-think

I am a scientist. For scientists, methods can be pretty important. I like to think that there is a “correct way” to do most things (yes, I have argued that there is a right and wrong way to load a dishwasher). So you can imagine my delight when I encountered the videos on chow.com titled, “You’…re doing it all wrong.”

Chow.com is a great resource for a lot of things food-related, but the “you’re doing it all wrong videos” are awesome because they teach you about common mistakes and how to step up your game a notch. Current videos cover topics from nachos and grilled cheese to gnocchi and latkes. The common denominator - whatever you’re cooking is likely to taste better.

Now, I don’t think that anyone should be discouraged from cooking due to lack of formal training. Quite to the contrary I encourage everyone, especially young people to spend time in the kitchen. However, a few tips and pointers never hurt.