Can smelling food make you fat? A new study may have just discovered the answer.

You’ve likely heard the phrase ‘a moment on the lips, forever on the hips’, but it looks like now you don’t even need that brief moment of actual contact to gain weight. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that the sense of smell impacts metabolic health and obesity.

The Study

Berkeley researchers concede something we can all attest to: our sense of smell helps us to make food choices and appreciate the deliciousness (or not!) of what we eat. As you chew, air is forced through your nasal passages, carrying the smell of the food along with it. A lot of what you “taste” actually relies on what you smell. Without that interplay of taste and smell, you would not be able to experience complex flavors. Imagine biting into your favorite warm, gooey, fatty comfort dish and pinching your nose closed while you do it. Not the same, right?

However, the study’s results, which were published in the journal Cell Metabolism this past July, unravel a new function for the olfactory system: “to control energy homeostasis in response to sensory and hormonal signals.” Researchers found that obese mice that lost their sense of smell shed weight on a high-fat diet even though they ate the same diet as mice that retained their sense of smell but gained twice their body weight. The mice with the best sense of smell gained the most weight. So, what gives?

Andrew Dillin, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Research, professor of molecular and cell biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, told Berkeley News what the study’s outcome suggests. “Sensory systems play a role in metabolism. Weight gain isn’t purely a measure of the calories taken in; it’s also related to how those calories are perceived.”

The Takeaway

These findings imply that smelling food can affect how the body processes calories, indicating a crucial connection between the olfactory system and regions of the brain that regulate metabolism.

So, how do we use this information to our advantage? Maybe not at all. First, it is important to note that simply smelling food (and not consuming it) isn’t going to lead to weight gain – according to the study, the two go hand-in-hand in realizing that outcome (for now, at least). Then, there is the fact that the study was conducted on already obese mice, not humans. Trials on humans, and already obese ones at that, could lead to different, or less significant, implications.

Even so, the results of the study point in a promising direction. Andrew Dillon imagines the future: “If we can validate this in humans, perhaps we can actually make a drug that doesn’t interfere with smell but still blocks that metabolic circuitry. That would be amazing.”

For now, it’s hard to make a conclusive argument for refraining from smelling your food if you’re trying to lose weight. Plus, who would want to? Smelling your food is half the fun, especially when it comes to indulging in high-fat options! I’ll sit this one out. Pass the pizza.

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15 good reasons to approach the season of cocktails and cookies with healthy aplomb.

Caring about our weight is part of the American experience, like finding a Victoria’s Secret next to a Cinnabon at the mall. We shouldn’t count calories but we do, despite reading subscriptions to Cosmo and remembering that beauty comes in all sizes. 

In a world of Occupy Wall Street, the Great Recession, and an overseas war, life can feel out of control so we control what we can. We hold our bodies up as some kind of indication of how “good” or “disciplined” we’ve been and in a world of fantastical thinking, that life will then reward us with great jobs, healthy relationships, and a reliable economy if only we can just put down the carbs.

We set ourselves up to fail. Alanis Morisette, famous noter of irony, admits to iVillage, “I remember being at my most thin one day, feeling like I could barely drag my lethargic body around, only to be met with the most compliments I had ever received.” At the same time, she has felt the scorn of extra weight. “Equally, and perhaps more abrasively, when someone inside the struggle with food tips the scales high above the average Hollywood red-carpet star, comments are thrown out about how indulgent and undisciplined they are.”

Pop culture forbids us from ever forgetting about our weight. Open up a web page and you’ll find that actress Mischa Barton is too thin. Reality host and soap star Alison Sweeney went spinning on Thanksgiving day. Jennifer Love Hewitt did Pilates while her family ate mashed potatoes. Jessica Simpson may or may not be getting a $4 million deal from Weight Watchers to lose her baby weight. Good thing, because Mariah Carey calls her baby weight body “rancid.” All of this seeps into our brains like high-fructose corn syrup.

We have the right to be a little bit chubby or a little bit skinny. (As long as nobody is giving themselves diabetes or an eating disorder, right?) We are more than numbers on a scale. We are more than our jean size.

And just in time for the holidays, 15 good reasons to approach the season of cocktails and cookies with healthy aplomb.

1. It is a universal truth that the last three pounds you triumphantly lose will go completely unnoticed by everyone else.

2. Sneaking a bag of sliced celery sticks into a movie theater is as pointless as the $8 box of Sugar Daddies you will buy halfway through the movie.

3. When a “friend” caresses your upper arm and says “You’d be gorgeous if you just toned this up,” you will look him up on Facebook ten years later and find that he died alone.

4. We are living in a glorious age where leggings paired with a flowing shirt are fashionable.

5. The law of nature gives women periods. Periods give us cravings. Cravings give us Tater Tots. This is the law of nature.

6. If a burger comes with a side salad, is it really a burger? (See above: The Law of Nature.)

7. After a certain age, your face looks thin despite a muffin top around your waist.

8. Fretting over your muffin top will just make you want to bake muffins.

9. The more weight you gain, the bigger your breasts. Money once spent on push-up bras can be redirected towards organic donuts. Donuts made of buttermilk, organic cane sugar, and ripened strawberries which melt in your mouth.

10. If your significant other is male, accept the fact that he will likely eat three times as much as you and still retain a flat stomach.

11. If you find yourself hiding the last of the Thanksgiving potatoes from your significant other, no one will judge you.

12. A cupcake will not kill you. However, falling off your spin bike because you were distracted by visions of cupcakes just might.

13. In some circles, abstaining from once-a-year delicacies such as eggnog means you hate children, Santa, and the Baby Jesus.

14. If we could harness all the energy we spend worrying over a few extra pounds, we would have the ultimate renewable energy source. Seriously.

15. Pop culture says we are all too skinny or too fat. Common sense says we are all beautiful. Suck it, pop culture. Suck it.

Images: powellburns, puikibeach, kristinausk 

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Did you know that if you swallow your gum, it will hang out in your stomach forever? Such are the legends of childhood burned in our brain. But what’s truth, what’s myth, and what’s there simply to scare us into good behavior? After all, aren’t all the best nursery rhymes really about avoiding bubonic plague and possibly flesh-craving wolves?

But not all food is so frightening. We decided to debunk some of our strangest myths about food – check out what we found!

Double dipping your food is dangerous.

This is TRUE. Yes, many of us all familiar with George Constanza and his double-dipped chip. (And if you are not, click here immediately.) But will the double-dipped chip really make you sick? Yes, it turns out that it could. Experts say that double dipping a chip can transfer about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the dip. So if you at a party, that means 50 to 100 bacteria can travel from one mouth to another, courtesy of the dip. And sure, we like our friends. But do we really like them that much?

If you drop food on the ground, you have five seconds before it is contaminated.

And yet, this is FALSE. First of all, nasty bacteria such as Salmonella (which causes food poisoning) can live on surfaces for over four weeks. If you drop a piece of bologna on tile, 99 percent of the bacteria will practically instantly adhere to the cold cut. If you drop it on wood, around 68 percent of the bacteria moves onto the sandwich meat. If it is on a carpet, .5 percent of bacteria makes bologna its new home. And it all happens instantly. Still want to eat it?

Fresh fruits and veggies are more nutritious than frozen ones.

This is FALSE, and score for the refrigerator set. (Like the jet set, but cooler.) Some of this has to do with fruits and veggies high carbon footprint. Fruit and veggies are at their best nutritional levels right after they are picked from the vine. So the farther they have to travel to your mouth, the more time they have to degrade. When you properly freeze something, you are essentially halting its degradation. But look for clumping in your frozen bag of goodies – if there’s clumping, it is likely the food thawed on travel.

Eating at night makes you gain weight.

This is FALSE and is really a matter of word play. And yes, before Oprah and her minions set upon me; allow me to introduce the science behind it. The time of day of consumption does not reflect on how much weight you will gain. The reason you gain weight is because you consume more calories than you burn. If you have consumed less calories during the day and have a larger meal at night, you’re not going to gain weight. Does that mean you should pig out right before bed time? Heck no, because if you want to maintain your weight, you should always budget your calories .

You can cure a hangover with food.

This is FALSE but man, I wish this were true. Now that I am older and learned, I drink less. (More emphasis on the older and less on the learned, but still.) But “back in the day” (I’m also holding an ear horn to my head right now) I used to party like it was 1999 for about eight years running. So I became well acquainted with epically-bad hangovers.

And I swore that slices of plain, whole wheat bread were the key to lessening my barf-marathon. But in actuality, they weren’t. You have a hangover because you drank too much and are dehydrated. (So, yes, drink a lot of water. But you’ll still going to feel terrible until the excessive alcohol is out of your system.) You’ve also over-taxed your liver, which is less able to supply glucose to all the needed parts and causing all these yucky feelings. The only true cure to a hangover is not to drink so much alcohol in the first place.

Image: Triple Tri

The post ‘Double Dipping Will Kill You’ and Other Strange Myths About Food appeared first on EcoSalon.

Is a fuller figure feasible in the world of haute hemp?

It’s a question that has been nagging at me ever since seeing Bahar Shahpar’s last few ready-to-wear collections. Sure, leggy is cool, but can’t Shahpar offer up vegans with more meat on their bones?

The eco fashion pioneer has separated from the dyed-in-the-wool pack by spinning unbleached raw materials into edgy urban street wear. But when it comes to body types, her models tend to appear as gaunt and ghostly as the ubiquitous runway scarecrows favored by the ungreen.

“I think looking healthy is key, and yes, that means more meat on one’s bones than a typical runway model,” observes EcoSalon Fashion Editor, Amy DuFault, who has kept a constant pulse on the garb revolution for the website and runs her own eco boutique called Shift. “We have to keep in mind, when we see a runway show we want to see beautiful women, not my next door neighbor with four screaming kids, but when it comes to this new beauty, it’s all about freshness and maybe even (gasp) fun!”

Perhaps nothing is more fun than Gary Harvey’s salvaged couture evening collections, but his models still seem to be following the Devil Wears Prada credo of living on a cube of cheese a day to squeeze into sample sizes. Fun isn’t a constant state of famished!

Like Amy, I always assumed designers flaunting green as the new black would make allowances for models hired to walk the sustainable runways of the world. Not limited to size zero convention, starving artists of the fashion underground might order up robust vegans with ample thighs to showcase their visions, real women sans the sculpted cheekbones, chemically altered tresses or sharp angled back bones protruding from halter dresses a la Holly Go-Extra-Lightly.

“Have you ever personally related to the goth girl with demon eyes and skeleton legs?” asks DuFault. “It’s just not reality. When we see fresh new faces and bodies representing eco fashion, they are healthy and relatable. I mean, with a little organic make-up, daily yoga and a trainer, anything is possible.”

DuFault points out that eco fashion in general refers to a “new consciousness” that we have the clothes we wear and how we relate to fashion, and that several designers are stepping up to the fuller plate as witnessed in The Green Shows during New York Fashion Week.

Upcoming designers like Lara Miller, Bodkin and Tara St. James choose models with a look more in line with upscale alternative sportswear and couture. “You see this forward look about them but still, something inherently natural and pretty,” says DuFault.

Perhaps most forward of all is the move towards plus-size green fashion (which really just means size 6+4=10). Normal size women also want planet-friendly frocks, and sites like Green Gretchen provide sources of lines that carry XL sizes or go up to sizes 12 and beyond, from Lola and Gigi boutiques to collections of plus size designers like Diane Kennedy and Chloe Angus.

As Gretchen puts it: “For smaller, independent designers, it’s very difficult and sometimes cost prohibitive to add an extra size to their collection, but many are doing it and making most of their pieces available in XL’s. Hopefully, the day will come when more designers will create plus-size eco friendly collections, and by this I mean not just upsizing their regular collections but really designing for the larger sized woman.”

Perhaps, too, the day will come when they will wean their green and lean models and showcase vibrant and fit torsos, like ours – you know – the folks who actually fork over the cash for the clothes. After all, good bones are like good bodices: In the eye of the beholder.

Images: Green by Design;  Treehugger; Laura Miller

The post The Skinny on Green Models: Size 10 Still a Cut Below? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Did you know that nobody in Washington, D.C. is overweight? Also, people are fat because they are lazy slobs, period.

Get hip to this: people used to walk more, back in the “Old Days.” They also died of syphilis and croup and had slaves, but whatever. New fattie James Polk blames his freshly expanding waistline on a recent move from Washington, D.C. to suburban Mississippi, where “overly-ample ‘waddler[s]'” are carted to “the front door of Wal-Mart” in an article titled “Fat People Don’t Walk” at the New American Village. Because fat people don’t walk, they just get airlifted to their next donut, amirite?

Presumably, thin, black-clad city dwellers are always jogging chicly to their next Urban Funk Double-Dutch slash Brazilian jiu jitsu class/exciting laptop-necessitating job/rooftop garden party. The article is couched in terms of “city planning” and “medical costs” and “I’m really just concerned about your health here, guys,” (which, worry less, okay?) but it’s swimming in fat – and poverty-bashing. Apparently it’s bad enough to be fat, but going to Wal-Mart while being fat is unpardonable and merits public shaming.

Look, walking more is great. It’s good for you, it doesn’t pollute, it frees up resources – I’m all for walking. I’m all for being healthy and active. But putting fat/poor/tasteless/rural on an oppositional axis to slim/attractive/urban/culturally-and-morally superior is not only incorrect, it’s cruel.

I’m not sure what the point of this article is supposed to be. Let’s rebuild Los Angeles to fit an East-Coast gentleman-of-leisure’s specifications? Force calisthenics on Southern rural-dwellers with few resources? Reproduce widely-disseminated stereotypes about what fat people must be like? Or just point and laugh at all those dumb fatties at Wal-Mart?

Image: kayugee

The post No, <em>This</em> Is Why You’re Fat appeared first on EcoSalon.

Mmmm. CANDY! Just smell the bowl full of those darling, little bars of CANDY. Just look at those chewy bites of CANDY!

Now, walk away. That’s right. Walk away and no one will get hurt.

Halloween is really one of the hardest nights to stay disciplined, to focus on staying healthy and stick to your local, organic fare and not endorse one night a year when it’s okay for kids to rot their teeth and poison their bodies with sugar and trans fats.

We get hundreds of visitors to our suburban-esque San Francisco hood and once the bell starts ringing, it tends to get frenetic. You can’t spend the evening just bobbing for organic apples but you can make some changes in your holiday routine.

Here are some good tips for staying focused for a  healthier Halloween:

1. Plan ahead pumpkin head!

Eat a really big, healthy dinner around 5 p.m. Give your kids a good dinner, too. Usually they’re too excited to eat, so just threaten them: No green stuff, no brown stuff. Growing up, we always had chili dogs on Halloween, but no one will eat that anymore. A veggie pizza is yummy and filling, and toss a massive salad for yourself and your friends. And don’t forget, many good foods stem from the pumpkins you carve, i.e. delicious and beneficial dried seeds, soups and desserts. Pumpkin is one of the super foods!

2. Pluck fruits of the vine, Frankenstein

Here’s something novel. Buy healthy treats to give away so if you have a few it won’t hurt: Organic fruit snacks, like the new ones from Amy’s,  Fair Trade organic dark chocolate squares, Z-bars. Don’t get carried away and give out toothbrushes, though. Everybody hates neighbors who give out toothbrushes. They deserve to get tee-peed.

3. Keep a Healthy Stash, Monster Mash

Keep a healthy, beat-the-blues treat aside for yourself, such as an organic dark chocolate bar, a bowl of fresh fruit or popcorn. I don’t know who made up the rule that giving away candy means you can’t snack on healthy treats throughout the night. Popcorn is high in fiber and I like to season mine with a bit of Cayenne pepper. Look out!

4. Slurp to your heart’s desire, thirsty vampire

Drink tons of water all night (from your reusable bottle, of course). Keep a water bottle by the front door, and keep sipping. Staying hydrated is a surefire way to keep up your energy throughout this high energy night, and to keep yourself from eating unhealthy foods that will just make you feel lousy in the morning  – you know, that Halloween hangover.

5. Sit on the porch and stay present

This is a great night to interact with neighbors, neighbors we are usually isolated from during the busy work week. Pull up a chair on the front steps with your bowl of healthy giveaways and haunt your old friends. It’s good for the spirit!

Top image: Doug88888

Image One: Organic Authority

The post Halloween Hangover? 5 Tips to Avoid the Scary Stuff and Stay Healthy appeared first on EcoSalon.

For good reason, Ralph Lauren is distancing himself  from this extremely altered photo of model Filippa Hamilton, who at 5’10” and 120 pounds was allegedly fired for being too fat to wear the designer’s Town and Country fashions.

Last week, the website BoingBoing posted the image online, upsetting the Lauren team for the bad p.r. which suggests the fashion house likes its models emaciated. According to Shine, public interest prodded the company to offer an apology for the “poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body.” They said they would take every precaution to prevent such sloppy Photoshop gaffes in the future.

Lauren had threatened to sue BoingBoing over copyright infringement. To this, the website suggested, that instead:

“Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better. And every time you threaten to sue us over stuff like this, we will:

a) Reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it, and;

b) Publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart; and

c) Offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.”

Lauren won’t admit to firing Hamilton, a size 4 beauty who has been modeling for the brand since she was 15. She was reportedly let go “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under contract,” but Hamilton argues it’s all a ruse.

“They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore,” she said. “I was shocked to see that super skinny girl with my face..It’s very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren could do something like that.” Meantime, the model says she hasn’t gained weight, but sample sizes are getting smaller.

Hamilton isn’t the only victim of Photoshop manipulation. Singer Kelly Clarkson saw her shape drastically altered for the August cover of Self Magazine.

I’ve noticed, too, the svelte Twiggy look is back, despite all the groundwork by health advocates to change the unrealistic body images of women perpetrated on women by those who rule the industry – Anna Wintour and her cronies. Smaller models are once again in Vogue, sending the wrong messages to our daughters and all women.

According to Examiner, Cosmopolitan editor Kate White has offered Phillipa an 8-page spread in her magazine after hearing about the travesty.

Images: BoingBoing, Shine, People

The post The Skinny on Being a Ralph Lauren Fashionplate appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m always looking for ways to burn calories while living life off the elliptical.

A Swiss friend tells me her mother always did core exercises while driving. I’ve tried those crunches behind the wheel, as well as kegel tightening during pregnancy and stretching the burgeoning turkey neck with a series of juts and releases of my chin in slow traffic. The neck thing is a bit pathetic. I’m certain passersby think I’m a crazed soccer mom with a terrible tick.

Truth be told, I prefer lifestyle burning in the seclusion of my own house, including the kitchen, where I’m totally willing to work for food.

Here are a few ways to burn while your churn, spin, scrub and whisk. Get your kids into the act, as well, for family fun and fitness. Even Martha Stewart would agree the eco-kitchen workout is a good thing.

1. The Salad Spin Arm Rotation

We tend to get lazy relying on the prewashed lettuces at the market. My husband reminds me that’s how cases of salmonella have occurred from bags not really washed so well. Instead, wash it yourself, and spin in a good eco fiber spinner, such as the nifty bamboo bowl from Cooking. You will tone your biceps (say goodbye to that jiggly upper arm flab) and gain wrist strength from the crank or pull cord. Your reward will be a healthier salad with low calorie dressing. Opt for lettuce like arugula which takes extra effort to dry. Spin away, sexy mama!

2. Floor Scrub Cardio Boost

Get down on your hands and knees, you, and start scrubbing away the extra pounds that piled up while you were lazy using that mop. Benefits include having a floor clean enough to eat off of. And, you probably will just grab a bite from the fridge while you are on the floor, since you will be too exhausted to get up and eat lunch. I once heard a Weight Watchers leader (a nutritionist at Stanford) say scrubbing the kitchen floor is how she builds up her cardio endurance. Use a safe product, like Earth Friendly Floor Cleaner or BILO wax/polish to help get the job done, along with reusable towels instead of disposables.

3. Refrigerator Wipe Down Lunges

You don’t have to bend over backwards to clean the shelves of your refrigerator, but you can do some nice lunges removing the compartments and getting them as spanking clean as this Energy Star appliance from the Eco Fridge company. Your friends will envy your sense of order and your shapely thighs. You can also stretch the calves and toe muscles reaching those higher shelves. When you’re done, eat an orange. You deserve it.

4. Washing and Drying by Hand

I remember so well doing dishes by hand in my college apartment sans a dishwasher. I was so slim. Wait, I also ran about four miles a day. Anyway, the old wipe-on, wipe-off saves lots of water and energy and gets that heart pumping. Heck, you can work up quite a lather scrubbing those pots, sister! Whistle while you work and burn even more C’s. Try using a green dishsoap, like the fragrant Nancy Boy, and organic flour sack towels for wiping like this set from Williams-Sonoma.

5. Hunt and Gather and Make From Scratch Marathon

Try following Martha’s example of making an entire meal by scratch, from the harvesting of organic veggies and fruit from your yard (think slow simmering casseroles in the crock pot or homemade pies) to the kneading of your bread and preparation of your own delicious pasta or free range meat dish. It’s a lot of work but you never heard those pioneer women kvetch, did ya? Invite the kids to help because they love to cook and need exercise, too.

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