Happea Nutrition Blog

Food is amazing and supports health. However, food alone can't treat a single disease and prevention is also complicated because genetics play a huge role. Using this mantra pushes all responsibility on the consumer and away from the systems that are in place, preventing us from reaching optimal health. It's a sedative that satisfies a few, leaves many where they are now, and takes away responsibility from policy makers to propose a true reform that would actually benefit the public's health. It should never be food/lifestyle OR medicine.

Ask any shirtless guy in the grocery store, and you will find out that seed oils are toxic. Claims are made about seed oils being inflammatory and causing diseases. But many nutrition experts seem to disagree. So what is it about these oils that’s so polarizing?

Making lifestyle changes is incredibly hard. But once you let go of the need to be perfect and realize that doing small changes and slowly moving up to where you want to be is more powerful than going all in and failing, you will truly begin to create a healthier life for yourself.

As the new year approaches, I am preparing for all the new wellness trends that may pop up and the fancy new names marketers find for the same diets. I'm not expecting any of the predatory marketing around food, health, and body shape to go away. But some trends are more annoying (and harmful) than others. Here are the top five 2022 wellness trends that I am sick and tired of and why you should leave them behind too.

This is the favorite marketing line of many supplement companies. The logic is as follows: people have more deficiencies today because our "modern" food is depleted of nutrients. This is because the soil is of very poor quality these days and no longer yields produce rich in the minerals we need. Therefore, the only way to get enough nutrients is to take supplements. But is this claim based on solid data? Or is it fabricated and based on a few cherry picked studies?

If you consult any wellness website, you will quickly find out that sugar may be "bad" but artificial sweeteners are "even worse". Usually they will simply use the appeal to nature fallacy: at least sugar is natural. Artificial sweeteners are chemicals! The appeal to nature fallacy is when anything natural is labeled as safe and anything "unnatural" as dangerous. Of course it's total bogus since some of the most dangerous toxins know to man occur in nature, but that's a discussion for another time. I looked at some of the research on artificial sweeteners and diet soda for you. Here are the tope questions I get answered.

Sugar has become the definition of poor health and is blamed for everything from obesity to mental decline. Is it fair to so categorically blame all ills on sugar? At the end, many our our cells do need glucose and sugar is the most readily available source of energy. There is a lot of confusion about sugar, with some people comparing it to drugs (sigh...). So, let's look at the data objectively!

There has been a lot of buzz around timing of meals recently, especially after two studies were published in October. One suggesting that eating late may be directly related to weight gain and another suggesting that eating late may change hunger and appetite but does not impact weight.

A quick Google search will likely leave you overwhelmed with advertisements for new fad diets and foods to eat if you want to quickly shed 10 pounds. The reality is: there is no instant trick to getting healthy. While starting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be challenging, it is best to start with the basics. Here are 5 tips that you can start with today to improve your health and well-being in an attainable way.