Eating

On Monday, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health released study results showing that red meat consumption was associated with a higher risk of early death. The more red meat -- beef, pork or lamb, for the purposes of the research -- study participants reported they ate, the more likely they were to die during the period of time that data collection took place (more than 20 years). So what is it in red meat that might make it unhealthy?   No one is sure, exactly, but the authors of the Harvard study mention a few possible culprits in their paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine .   First, eating red meat has been linked to the incidence of heart disease.  The saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, pork and lamb are believed to play a role in the risk of coronary heart disease .  The type of iron found in red meat, known as heme iron, has also been linked to heart attacks and fatal heart disease.  Sodium in processed meats may increase blood pressure, which is a risk factor for heart disease. Other chemicals that are used in processed meats may play a role in heart disease as well, by damaging blood vessels.

What spreads almost as fast as necrotizing fasciitis, a.k.a. flesh-eating infection? News stories about it. Surely by now you've heard about the horrifying case of Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student who cut her leg on May 1 and was on life support by May 4. When Copeland regained consciousness, much of the plugged-in world knew what she still did not: Her left leg had been amputated, skin on her abdomen had been removed and...

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat Thomas McNamee Free Press, 339 pp., $27 Ask your average Food Network viewer or Yelp poster about Craig Claiborne and you're likely to be met with a blank look and a "Who?" How fleeting is fame in the food world. Claiborne is one of the giants of this modern age, even if today - less than 20 years after his passing - he is largely forgotten. People remember James Beard because of the foundation that keeps his name alive. Julia Child lives on in television reruns (even if some fans now believe she looked just like Meryl Streep)

Sprouted-grain bread offerings in the market have been slowly but steadily on the uptick of late, and a number of health claims have attached themselves to the spongy, nutty-tasting loaves: more digestible, richer in protein and higher in vitamins and minerals compared with other breads. But are the claims true? Yes -- and no. Sprouted-grain products have distinct nutritional advantages over white breads, but when compared to other whole-grain breads, they're usually nutritionally comparable -- although nutrient contents can vary, depending on the sprouts included.

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

Rats fed fructose-laced drinking water for six weeks performed more slowly in a maze-navigating task, UCLA researchers have found. (Read this L.A. Times opinion article .) They think the effect is due to changes in the way the brain responds to insulin as a result of exposure to fructose. “Our study shows that a high fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body,” study senior author and UCLA professor Fernando Gomez-Pinilla said in a release about the finding, which was published in the Journal of Physiology (postdoc Rahul Agrawal was first author)

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

So how many omega-3 fatty acids are enough — and how should you get them? That likely depends on your age and your specific health concerns. The United States does not yet have guidelines for DHA or EPA, and consensus among nutrition experts is elusive. But specialty groups, some governmental agencies and individual experts have started to take a stand. For healthy adults without major medical issues, the European Food Safety Agency recommends a daily dose of 250 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA, while the National Heart Foundation of Australia suggests 500 milligrams.

A portion is a portion is a portion -- unless, that is, it's a giant, super, king or grande portion, in which case it's probably trouble. Over the last 30 years, portions have grown by heaps and mounds in restaurants across the country and in many homes as well. During that same time, the waistlines of Americans consuming those mega-meals have grown more and more generous too -- to the point that now two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight.

Go with a guide who knows local street food and, if possible, can help you find relatively clean stalls. According to customers I talked with, quality street-food vendors can often be found near universities and railway stations. For the sake of food safety, choose hot snacks. Try to get them when they've just come out of the griddle or fryer. It's best to avoid eating meat, even if it's well cooked. I failed to follow this last rule: It's usually smart to avoid chutneys and juices and to discard raw items such as onion and tomatoes . travel@latimes.com

Is a hyper-curated playlist the new house-made charcuterie? Whether a restaurant's playing Lady Gaga or Langhorne Slim says as much about the place as its Mason jar drinking glasses or farm-to-table pickle plate. And in an era when even Facebook tracks one's music choices, restaurants are paying more attention than ever to what goes with the hickory-roasted carrots - not just the za'tar -laced crème fraîche but, say, also Lambchop (the band, not the meat). When a customer walks into a restaurant - even before Jack White's "Sixteen Saltines" becomes the soundtrack for the sunchoke soup - the music sets the tone for the dining experience, says Bill Chait, the restaurateur behind L.A.'s Short Order, Picca, Sotto, Rivera and Playa, among others.

Joyce Redman, a two-time Oscar-nominated Irish-born actress whose erotically charged dinner-eating scene opposite Albert Finney was a highlight of the bawdy 1963 British film comedy "Tom Jones," has died. She was 96. Redman died Thursday in Kent, England after a short battle with pneumonia, said her son, actor Crispin Redman. A veteran of the London and Broadway stage, Redman received her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for "Tom Jones," which starred Finney as the incorrigible 18th century English title character who has a series of amorous adventures.

At Home on the Range A Cookbook Margaret Yardley Potter with a forward by her great granddaughter Elizabeth Gilbert McSweeney's Books: 256 pp., $24 You've probably never seen the fine art of bread-making broken down quite like this in a recipe: "Now relax. Sit down, light a cigarette, write a letter or make your own plans for the next fifteen minutes while the dough 'tightens up' as we bakers say. "Is your cigarette finished? Let's go. This is fun. " So writes Margaret Yardley Potter in her cookbook "At Home on the Range.

The fantastical murals of San Francisco's Mission District are an intriguing dialogue between artists and their city that you can easily experience on foot. On any given day in Clarion Alley, tourists from all over the world mingle with field-tripping students (and the homeless). Start at the Mission Street end of Clarion Alley, then exit at Valencia Street and head south (turn left). Check out the murals all the way to 20th Street. Typically, walk one or two blocks (east or west) to view.

Anyone who's gone on a diet knows: It's easier to avoid potato chips if you don't have any. So it's not a surprise that researchers found that California high school students eat less fat and sugar and fewer calories at school than their peers in states that allow the sale of snacks with more of those items. What's more, the California students didn't compensate outside of school; they ate an average of 158 calories a day fewer than students in the other states, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.The California students' consumption outside of school was approximately the same as the students in the other states.

The Christian faith holds several acts of "super-sizing" to be miracles accomplished by Jesus Christ -- a handful of fish and loaves of bread expanded to feed thousands; a wedding feast running low on wine suddenly awash in the stuff. Now a new study of portion expansion puts Jesus once more at the center. In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists' renderings of the New Testament's Last Supper.

A Life regimen Dr. Jeffry Life's prescription for a healthy and buff midlife and beyond: Workout: Life recommends at least three weight and four cardio sessions per week: "Do some exercise you enjoy doing -- not something that you dread -- then push it. Work really hard at finding your comfort zone -- and stay out of it." Do aerobics with hard intervals, and push weights to failure (the point where you can push no more). If any exercise gets too easy, up the intensity and the weight; the harder you work, the more fat you burn all day long.

Keith Miller got a beast of a wake-up call Thursday morning. The 71-year-old had just stepped outside his Altadena home to get the newspaper when he saw "this huge bear, looking like a Volkswagen, staring at me," Miller said. "It ran one way and I ran the other. " Before Miller made it back inside, he turned to see where the bear - which had been snacking on leftover birthday cake tossed in a garbage can - was headed. That's when he saw two cubs scamper up an oak tree in his frontyard.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama didn't pull any punches during this year's White House correspondents dinner, poking fun at his past experience in canine cuisine, at the Republican Party and, most persistently, at his presidential rival Mitt Romney. “What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?” Obama asked the audience Saturday night, a reference to the recent brouhaha over his eating of dog meat as a child. “A pit bull is delicious.” Continuing with the dog jokes, Obama showed a fake “super PAC” ad warning of the dangers his administration poses toward man's best friend.