IINsider’s Digest: Walter Willett on red meat, Vegans bash Starbucks, and Chocolate eaters have lower BMI

The IINsider’s Digest gathers all of the hottest nutrition headlines from around the web in one place. This week, two Integrative Nutrition graduates are making the headlines: Heng Ou’s food delivery service for new moms, MotherBees, is featured in the Los Angeles Times, while Elizabeth Stein’s Purely Elizabeth ancient grain products are in the Miami Herald. IIN visiting teacher Michael Jacobson speaks out about beetle coloring in Starbucks’ Frappuccinos, and IIN visiting teacher Dr. Walter Willett answers questions about the study that found red meat unhealthy

Five Questions: Dr. Walter Willett on red meat
Featuring IIN Visiting Teacher Dr. Walter Willett
The Los Angeles Times
Earlier this month, Willett and colleagues, who have studied the link between diet and health for decades, published a study that followed more than 100,000 people over more than 20 years — and found that the amount of red meat they ate was linked to a rise in risk of premature death. Read more.

Vegans bash Starbucks for beetle coloring in frappuccinos
Featuring IIN Visiting Teacher Michael Jacobson, PhD
USA Today
 Starbucks has the vegan community seeing red over what it recently began using to color its Strawberry Frappuccinos: beetles. That’s beetles as in ground up cochineal beetles – mostly found in Mexico and South America. Read more. 

MotherBees.com: Food delivery for new moms
featuring IIN grad Heng Ou of MotherBees.com
The Los Angeles Times
Something clicked with Heng Ou a couple of years ago. Ou had invited a friend with a newborn baby over for a big pot of chicken soup. "It just felt so good to make knowing that I was making it not just for the mom but also for the baby, and [my friend] would go home a lot more content," Ou says. "It was such a huge pleasure. It was a moment of postpartum care that I never had." Read more.

Ancient Grains Take Center Stage at New-Products Expo
Featuring IIN Grad Elizabeth Stein of Purely Elizabeth
The Miami Herald
Ancient grains and ancient concepts starred at this year’s Natural Products Expo West, a titanic trade show for natural and organic products. The supplements and powdered this-and-that of previous shows have given way to real food. From farms, not factories. And the Edgy Veggie says hallelujah. Read More.

The Chocolate Diet?
NY Times
A new study shows that people who eat chocolate frequently have lower body mass indexes than those who eat it less often. The researchers could not explain precisely why something usually loaded with sugar, fat and calories would have a beneficial effect on weight. But they suspect that antioxidants and other compounds in chocolate may deliver a metabolic boost that can offset its caloric downside. Read more.

A revealing journey as a woman reduces weight by half
CNN
When Julia Kozerski saw a camera, she would duck and dodge out of the way. She'd hide behind other people or offer to take the picture to avoid being photographed. It was an embarrassment, somebody having that photograph, she said, who at her heaviest weighed 338 pounds. "They told the truth. It haunts you." Read more.

USDA Website Aims to Promote Local Food, But Does It?
Forbes
A few weeks ago the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced – with much fanfare – the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass” (KYF), a website which includes a 78 page report, videos of case studies, and an interactive map about the USDA’s activities in supporting and promoting local food.  But sadly the site is simply a promotional tool for the USDA to prove the worth of local food systems, and does not provide the information those already working in the field need to expand and connect their programs. Read more.