Kent State Interns

Raise your hand if breakfast is your favorite meal of the day (ME x 1000). I wake up every morning looking forward to what I am going to cook up to set my day off on the right foot. Most days I am a savory gal wanting some yummy sauteed veggies in my scrambled eggs with some buttered toast. Other days I can get down with some fluffy chocolate chip protein pancakes with all the syrup. The choices are endless and almost too overwhelming to decide...nah, just me? If you haven't been living under a rock for your whole life, you have probably heard the old phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day". And this is in fact somewhat true! When you break down the word breakfast it literally spells "break" and "fast". The wonderful first meal of the day is helping you to break that overnight fast you just endured. This break sets your metabolism up for the rest of your day. When you fuel your body in the morning with a meal, it is basically telli

Ketogenic Gets a Makeover We have all heard of the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet focuses on the low-carbohydrate, high fat diet consumption. But what happens when an individual does not want to include high-animal fat sources in their ketogenic diet? Welcome, the ketotarian diet. The ketotarian diet is the plant-based version of the ketogenic diet, relying on plant-sources for fat. Plant sources, like nuts and olive oil, make up 60-75% of calories for fat. The premise of the ketotarian diet is similar to ketogenic diet, where you try to have your body enter a state of ketosis to the utilize fat for energy instead of your body’s main energy source of glucose, or sugar. Many benefits are claimed on this diet such as fat loss and disease prevention, however, this is still a very restrictive diet plan that has little research on it to support its efficacy. Basic guidelines presented by Dr. Will Cole, a functional medicine practitioner states:

Lectin Free Diet?? Recently, I overheard a cook at a long-term care facility explaining to her friends/co-workers that she read a book by a doctor and that they should not eat any foods containing lectins. According to what she read, lectins are poisonous and cause disease. She started naming foods to avoid. This list included foods I consider to be healthful and gave me pause….fruits, vegetable, beans, and whole grains. Hmmm….  The book she is referring to is written by Dr. Steven Gundry. Dr. Gundry claims that lectins cause weight gain, inflammation, and damage intestinal lining. Dr. Gundry also suggests that lectins block the absorption of important nutrients. Most notably, he sells “lectin blocking” supplements on his website – 120 capsules for $49.95 (plus shipping). What exactly are lectins and is there scientific evidence to back up these claims??  Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins found in all plant foods. Lectins as a group offer no nutritional value a

According to the CDC, the recommended daily intake of vegetables for adults is about 2-3 cups per day and fruit is about 1.5- 2 cups per day (can vary depending on the person), however, only 1 in 10 adults in the U.S. meet these daily values. 1 Many of the top leading deaths in the U.S. are caused from chronic diseases such as diabetes or heart disease which tend to correlate with a diet high in fat and low in both fruits and vegetables. 1 Getting the adequate amount of fruit and vegetables can be extremely hard for many reasons; time, cost, taste, etc.    Being a college student, I find I have a much easier time getting my daily fruits in compared to my veggies.    I don’t love raw vegetables but baking/sautéing them always seems to take too much time.    I was online shopping one day and came across an air fryer for under $50 and I had heard a lot about them so I decided to order it (impulse buy, whoops).    I received it 4 days later and my vegetable intake has never been b

Peanut Butter…what kind is the healthiest?! Have you ever been in the peanut butter isle at the grocery store and become very overwhelmed? Well that stops today! I am going to share with you some tips and tricks on peanut butter.. YAY! First check out the ingredients label – you want 2 simple ingredients….salt and peanut butter..duh! Seems too easy right? Well, a lot of peanut butter companies tend to add a lot of ingredients that do not need to be added to peanut butter like palm oil, sugar, and molasses. If your label simply says “peanuts and salt” you are good to go! One amazing and healthy peanut butter (in moderation) is the Natural Creamy Peanut Butter made by Smucker’s! It only contains peanuts and salt.   I have attached a picture of it below including the nutrition and ingredient label.   It is in a glass jar which makes it easy to microwave….yes, I said it…. microwave! For those of you who have never bought peanut butter like this before…here is