Marks Daily Apple
Serving up health and fitness insights (daily, of course) with a side of irreverence.

Archive for the ‘ Hype ’ Category

9 Jun

Drink Less Water?

20879435 7c6e768449Dear Mark,

I always hear that I should be drinking eight glasses of water a day, but it takes a lot of unnatural effort to get close to that. Is it just me? What’s your take on the water rule?

Best,

Jaime

As you know by now, my job is to question Conventional Wisdom. One of the classic health paradigms I’ve always had a problem with is the blanket recommendation by the general health community that we all should be consuming copious amounts of water. It just doesn’t make sense to me and it never has. Face it, Grok did NOT walk around with a canteen or an Evian bottle affixed to his loincloth. He and the Grok family thought Nalgene was the name of the tribe across the valley and they never owned a sippy cup with which to gulp down mass quantities of H20. Day after day it was a drop here and a mouthful there – if a source of water other than a dewy leaf was even available. Since Grok and his cadre probably didn’t spend too much time hanging around the water hole. (All those predators you know…) 8 glasses of water a day is unlikely a physiological necessity, not to mention an evolutionarily relevant model. Grok obtained most of his water directly from the food he ate, and I believe that we probably should, too.

13 May

Top 10 Fast Foods in Disguise

archesSome make no qualms about it. Others (and this may be worse) market their food under the guise of health while continuing to sell the same old garbage. Sure. They may provide healthier options than the junk they typically shill. But beware. Just like the food manufacturers that made it onto our Top 10 Junk Foods in Disguise list last week these fast food joints understand that it is the pretense of health that sells – not health itself. And it’s not just individual food items marketed as the “healthy option” that we take issue with. Now we have entire restaurants that the innocent public just assumes are healthy, either because they bill themselves as such or because, hello, smoothies are health food, right…anyone…Bueller?

6 May

Top 10 Junk Foods in Disguise

t101 1Organic; low-carb; reduced sugar; preservative and chemical free; made from all natural ingredients; and now with special bacterial cultures designed to help you poop! Seriously, is there anything that “health” food can’t do (or fix, or correct, or modify, or prevent…)?

Uhh…yeah. Especially if it’s junk food masquerading as health food.

In recent years, food manufacturers have grown increasingly privy to the American public’s dietary whims. In the early 90s, they fell over themselves to cut the fat, replaced sugar with sugar alcohols to keep up with the low-carb dieters of the new millennium and are now plying us with promises of eco-chic or otherwise “green” food.

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15 Apr

10 True Old Wives’ Tales: Take 2

Turns out, we have a lot of wannabe detectives in our midst! Our last post on which old wives’ tales were in fact true got such a great response we figured we’d give you 10 more to add to your repertoire!

8 Apr

10 Outrageous Diet Scams

Here at Mark’s Daily Apple we know that the key to reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is a healthy lifestyle that includes a nutritious diet and plenty of physical activity. Tough? Sure. Effective? Absolutely.

But what if someone told you that you could ditch the exercise and the healthy eating and still fit in your favorite jeans? You know by now that it’s not going to work, but for millions of Americans it sounds like a solution worth signing up for!

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