I am happy to announce that Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival, which has a special Health and Wellness focus this year, has selected me to speak on two different but related topics. My first presentation will be about “Going Against the Grain to Combat Obesity and Diabetes” on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, at 3 p.m. The second one, “It’s Gluten Free, but Is It Healthy?” will be the next day, on Sunday, October 16, 2011, at 3 p.m. Both presentations will take place in the lower level of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library at 101 N. Stone Ave. in downtown Tucson and will be followed by book signings of both my books, Going Against the Grain and Gluten Free Throughout the Year, at the Southern Arizona Celiac Support (SACS) booth in the Jacome Plaza that is virtually next door to the library.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) – Refined carbs, not fats, are what is making us fat and sick. It isn’t really news, but I guess it is when a mainstream newspaper like the Los Angeles Times runs a big feature on the topic right before the holidays.

“Fat is not the problem,” Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the Times. “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases (such as metabolic syndrome or Syndrome X).”

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by Melissa Diane Smith

Religiously avoiding foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup? You’ll also need to watch out for foods that contain corn sugar, a change in name that appears to be coming and means the same thing.

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The podcast interview that Jimmy Moore of The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show did with me is now available! Jimmy is doing a great job spreading the word about the health benefits of low-carb diets, I love his enthusiastic personality, and I really enjoyed being on his show. He and I had a wonderful chat and we covered a lot of territory about the many unadvertised troubles with grains. If you have not yet read my Going Against the Grain book (or if you just need a little refresher on the information), the interview is a good overview of many of the topics I cover in that book. The interview runs less than an hour, and the many subjects we discussed in that time include:

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) We desperately need a food revolution and there are indications that one may have already started.

First lady Michelle Obama is spreading the word around the country about making better food choices in her anti-obesity campaign and she just planted her second organic White House vegetable garden.

Last week ABC News reported that a coalition of Chicago high school students went to a meeting of the Chicago Board of Education to speak out against their school lunch menu. The students are fighting against the nutrient-poor, frozen and highly processed foods they are being served in the school cafeteria. Some students were quoted as saying, “Nutrients are missing. Calories are high. Sugar is high,” and, “Parents rely on schools to give their children nutritious meals, not tan-colored slop.” In addition, they said they rarely see any vegetables being served.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have an 87 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer, a particularly deadly form of cancer, according to a 14-year study of 60,000 people just published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

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by Melissa Diane Smith

(Opinion) There are many positive signs that there is a growing movement of people trying to get healthy: More people are eating gluten free, more are buying organic foods, more are paying out of their own pockets for complimentary and alternative medical treatments, and more are growing their own food in their own gardens.

But amidst those encouraging trends, there are several key health and nutrition concepts that most people, including many who eat gluten free, are missing or have never even heard. Part of my mission for this site is to inform you about health information you don’t hear elsewhere. So, to provide food for thought for the new decade, here is my list of the top concepts people need to understand to protect their health in the next decade and beyond:

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