It's National Spinach Day!!

Spinach growing in a field

Have you ever eaten anything with "florentine" in the name?

If so, then you've eaten spinach and perhaps, didn't even know it.

Today is National Spinach Day, according to the National Day Calendar website, which states "not only are there so many delicious ways that you can enjoy spinach, it is also extremely good for you!"

"An annual plant, spinach is native to central and southwestern Asia. Thought to have originated in ancient Persia, Arab traders carried spinach into India, and then it was introduced into ancient China where it was known as 'Persian vegetable.'"

A bag of spinach

"The earliest available record of the spinach plant was recorded in Chinese, saying the spinach plant was introduced into China via Nepal. In 1533, Queen Catherine de Medici of France, liked spinach so much that she insisted it be served at every meal.  To this day, dishes made with spinach are known as “Florentine”, reflecting Catherine’s birth in Florence.

• Spinach is:

* Eaten raw or cooked and is available  fresh, frozen or canned. *  One of the best sources of iron. *  A great source of calcium, folic acid, fiber, protein, calcium and vitamins A, C and K. *  Is loaded with cancer-fighting antioxidants. *  Believed to help improve cardiovascular and gastrointestinal health.

So to celebrate today, eat a hearty helping of spinach. Or at least sprinkle some on top of your salad.

Cornell Study Shows Overweight Health Bloggers Have Shaky Credibility

From Cornell University:

A blogger’s weight affects her or his credibility with readers seeking food advice, according to a Cornell study published online and in a forthcoming print issue of the journal Health Communication.

The study revealed that when a blogger is overweight, as shown in the blogger’s photo, readers are far more skeptical of the information that blogger provides when compared with a thin blogger’s recommendations, even when the content is exactly the same.

The findings are increasingly important as more than half of smartphone users report that they use their device to look up health-related information, making the internet one of the top places people get informed about health issues. 

“When we search for health information online, there are a lot of related cues that can bias our perceptions in ways that we may not be consciously aware of,” said Jonathon Schuldt, assistant professor of communication and lead author of the study. “Awareness of these biases could help us better navigate health information online,” he said. It could also help us “avoid being swayed by nutritional information simply because it is posted by someone who is thin rather than heavy,” he added.

But the study also suggests that “weight bias and prejudice – which are so rampant in our society – can spill over and affect not only the inferences we make about people, but also objects that are associated with them,” Schuldt said.

In one experiment, 230 subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups. They were all shown photos of the same 10 meals – including black bean and cheese quesadillas, chopped salad with croutons, sliced beef with vegetables and so on. With each photo was also a thumbnail photo depicting the supposed author of the blog post. 

Participants were then asked to judge how healthy the meal was overall on a scale of one to seven. The only thing that differed between the two groups was the thumbnail photo of the blogger, which was a real picture of the same person before and after weight loss.

The researchers found that when the photo of the overweight woman accompanied the meal, “our participants perceived those meals to be less healthy” than the same meal presented with a photo of a thin blogger.

“People appear to assume that if a heavier person is recommending food, it is probably richer and less healthy,” Schuldt said.

In a second experiment, the researchers also included calorie and fat content information next to the image of the food and above the thumbnail of the blogger. “What we found is that even when we provided nutrient information that is much more relevant to the food’s health quality, people are still strongly influenced by the body weight of the recommender,” Schuldt said.

The researchers even went so far as to vary the fat and calorie content, so that some subjects saw a healthy nutritional label and others saw a label with approximately double the calorie content and triple the fat. They found that this increase in fat and calories influenced impressions to a similar extent as the heavy vs. thin blogger, all else being equal.

“When we dramatically increased the fat and calorie content, it had just as much impact as when we said the food was posted by a heavy person,” Schuldt said.

More Schools are Adopting the USDA Healthy Meals Standards

The USDA says nearly 80 percent of schools are participating in the USDA healthy school meals program.

Six States Meet Nearly 100 Percent of New School Lunch Requirements

OK, what's going on in New York state?

Check out this http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/08/16/back-to-healthy-school-meals-usda-congratulates-six-states-for-nearly-100-of-schools-meeting-new-meal-standards/ story about what some states are doing to meet the new healthy school meals guidelines. Six states have met nearly all the new guidelines.

How To Eat Well and Healthy at College

Some information from the USDA on how to keep those freshmen 10 or 20 pounds from showing up.

Go to http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/08/12/myplate-goes-to-college/ to check it out.