Food for Health

This is going to be one of those Santa Claus/Easter bunny moments for some of you out there, especially athletes who are my age (let’s just say that includes all who’ve passed the half-century mark).

Back in the 1970s (I know, not one of the exemplary eras for healthy living), I had friends who were marathon runners and tri-athletes, and one of them swore to me that drinking beer was part of his nutrition regimen. It has hops, he used to say, and those help restore some of whatever it is your body loses when it sweats a lot.

Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow but sometime real soon you’re going to be thinking hard about how to store your Thanksgiving meal leftovers. 

It’s cold and damp outside and time to eat foods that make you feel warm. Cocoa, obviously, is a good choice. Iced tea and lemonade, obviously bad choices. Ice cream? No.

Lentils? Yes, especially if you eat them when they are warm (as opposed to cold, on a salad, which is also very yummy but not particularly warming).

All warm foods, obviously, are warming (hello). Lentils are doubly warming, however; they are also included in the list of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s warming foods (I think it has something to do with the qi or air flow in your body).

It never ends, the revision of our favorite food myths. Now it turns out that carrots aren’t actually very good for your eyesight. Bugs Bunny, where are you? Will we learn next that spinach doesn’t give us super-strength equal to that of Popeye the Sailor Man?