Health beauty and Cooking

4–6 servings
2 cups garbanzo beans
¼ cup tahini
Juice of 3 lemons
2 garlic cloves
Salt, to taste
2 celery stalks, sliced
Pita crisps (recipe follows)
1. In a food processor or blender combine all ingredients and blend
until smooth. Serve with celery slices and pita crisps.
Pita Crisps:
2 whole wheat pita breads
J cup olive oil
Coarse salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Split the pita breads in half horizontally,
brush cut sides with olive oil. Cut each round into eight
wedges.
2. Arrange, cut sides up, on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with
coarse salt and ground pepper. Bake until golden and crisp, 10
to 12 minutes.
Note: For a low-carb, wheat-free substitution, you may also use the
hummus as a vegetable dip instead of using pita crisps.

I recently saw Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate and noticed that poultry was listed as a healthy protein. I am not surprised that you’re recommending fish, nuts or beans. But why poultry?

ANSWER: While fish, nuts and beans are by far the healthiest proteins you can add to your diet, poultry does have an advantage over beef, lamb and pork.

Compared with red meat, chicken and turkey have relatively low levels of saturated fat — about half as much saturated as unsaturated fat.

What’s the rap on saturated fat? It increases heart attack and stroke risk when compared to healthy fats.

“Healthy fats” means the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat in fish, olive oil and other vegetable oils. This does not include trans fat, most of which is artificially produced from vegetable oil. Trans fat is even worse than saturated fat when it comes to increasing heart disease and stroke risk.

One important point of clarification: Saying that chicken is a healthful protein should NOT be interpreted as an endorsement of chicken nuggets or other prepared fried chicken dishes as some kind of health food. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Most chicken nuggets are coated with a batter that is made from processed white flour and contains lots of salt.

The exact ingredients vary depending on the brand or restaurant, but it’s a safe bet that very little, if any, whole grain is used in these preparations. And most will be high in fat because of the way they are processed or prepared.

When the Healthy Eating Plate mentions chicken or turkey as healthy proteins, it is referring to baked poultry, preferably skinless to reduce fat.

A quick summary of other recommendations made on the Healthy Eating Plate includes the following advice:

• Make half your meal vegetables and fruits. Go for variety. And keep in mind that potatoes and French fries don’t count.

• Choose whole grains whenever you can. Limit refined grains, like white rice and white bread, because they produce a rapid rise in blood sugar.

• Pick the healthiest sources of protein, such as fish, poultry, beans and nuts; cut back on red meat; avoid bacon, cold cuts and other processed meats.

• Healthy oils (like olive and canola oil) are good for you. Don’t be afraid to use them for cooking, on salads and at the table.

• Drink water, tea or coffee. Milk and dairy are not must-have foods; limit them to one to two servings a day. Go easy on juice. Avoid sugary drinks.

• Stay active!

Chicken can be part of a good, healthy diet — a diet that reduces your risk of disease and helps control your weight. But chicken and most other foods can be junked up and made unhealthy, depending on how they are prepared.

Even within the realm of healthy proteins, you still need to assess healthfulness on a case-by-case basis. Remember, too, that your overall, long-term dietary pattern is what matters most, not a wing or thigh here and there.

High-protein diets and superhero workouts — those were two of the most sought-after topics on the Internet in 2011.

Or at least according to the number crunchers at Google. Recently, the popular search engine company released the results of its 11th annual “Zeitgeist” report, which includes a compilation of the most popular and fastest-rising search terms of the year. The company sorted through billions of worldwide Google searches throughout 2011 to come up with its results.

While Rebecca Black, the teenager whose infamous auto-tuned song and viral video, “Friday,” was the most popular search term of 2011 in the United States, health topics were also high on the list. In the workout category, health-conscious Americans were extremely interested in learning how to look like the muscular lead character in the superhero movie “Thor,” starring Chris Hemsworth, followed by the “Ryan Gosling workout,” the “Chris Hemsworth workout,” and the “Captain America workout.”

As for diets, it appeared that many Americans were looking to emulate the high-protein eating habits of many celebrities and tabloid fixtures. “Dukan diet” was the No. 1 search term in the fastest-rising diet category, followed by the “four-hour diet” and “17-days diet.” The Dukan diet, a protein-based eating plan developed by the French nutritionist Pierre Dukan, was well known in France but skyrocketed in popularity this year after reports that Kate Middleton had used it to drop two dress sizes before her wedding to Prince William. The diet has also been linked to celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Gisele Bundchen. But it is not without its detractors. Last month the British Dietetic Association named it one of its “Top 5 Worst Celebrity Diets to Avoid in the New Year.”

Diets were all the rage as well on Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google, with “Weight Watchers” and “diet/obesity” two of the top health-related search terms among its users in 2011. Meanwhile, another Google rival, Yahoo!, released its own search results, which found that “pregnancy symptoms,” “diabetes symptoms” and “gall bladder symptoms” were its top three health symptom searches of 2011. The search engine also released a detailed list of the top health questions that its users plugged into Yahoo! throughout 2011. Among those that made the list: “Is a fatty breakfast better than a low-fat breakfast?” “What is physical fitness?” “What is dementia?” and “What causes pancreatic cancer?”

Some Yahoo! topics varied in popularity by month. The terms “sunscreen,” “poison oak rash” and “sinusitis” spiked in popularity in May, spurred no doubt by Americans heading outdoors with fears of sunburns and allergic reactions in mind. But the reasons for the sudden interest in other search topics were less clear. The phrase “treating depression” spiked between March and August, for example, and “What is bipolar disorder?” saw a jump in searches in March, April and August.