A low-carb diet to deli meats, here are 6 ways to follow the healthy route

The research lends strong support to the notion that diet quality, not quantity, is what helps people lose and manage their weight most easily in the long run.

Below are some of our readers’ favorite nutrition stories from the past year, packed with information that may help you eat better in 2019.

How a Low-Carb Diet Might Help You Maintain a Healthy Weight

By Anahad O’Connor

A large new study published in the journal BMJ in November found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. After five months on the diet, they burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet, suggesting that restricting carb intake could help people maintain their weight loss more easily.

The new research is unlikely to end the decades-long debate over the best diet for weight loss. But it provides strong new evidence that all calories are not metabolically alike to the body. And it suggests that the popular advice on weight loss promoted by health authorities — count calories, reduce portion sizes and lower your fat intake — might be outdated. Read more here.

The Key to Weight Loss Is Diet Quality, Not Quantity, a New Study Finds

By Anahad O’Connor

A study published in February in JAMA found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.

The research lends strong support to the notion that diet quality, not quantity, is what helps people lose and manage their weight most easily in the long run. It also suggests that health authorities should shift away from telling the public to obsess over calories and instead encourage Americans to avoid processed foods that are made with refined starches and added sugar, like bagels, white bread, refined flour and sugary snacks and beverages, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Read more here.

Which Kinds of Foods Make Us Fat?

By Gretchen Reynolds

For a diet study published this summer in Cell Metabolism, researchers randomly assigned one of 29 different diets to hundreds of adult male mice. Some diets supplied up to 80 percent of their calories in the form of saturated and unsaturated fats, with few carbohydrates; others included little fat and consisted largely of refined carbohydrates, mostly from grains and corn syrup, although in some variations the carbs came from sugar.

Yet other diets were characterized by extremely high or low percentages of protein. The mice stayed on the same diet for three months — estimated to be the equivalent of roughly nine human years — while being allowed to eat and move about their cages at will. The mice were then measured by weight and body composition, and their brain tissue was examined for evidence of altered gene activity.

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How would Jesus Christ have fared amongst contemporary Indian godmen?

Pro-service, anti-ritualism; pro-poor, anti-elitism; pro-women; anti-patriarchalism; pro-freedom, anti-orthodoxy; Yeshu Baba's career as a godman would have ended before it began.

The first time I heard the term ‘Yeshu baba’ was in Tihar jail.

I was not a prisoner – I was visiting along with a group of school-children who were performing a Christmas programme for about a thousand women inmates in Jail No. 6, Central Prison.

The children sang Christmas carols and the prisoners sang along. Afterwards, one of the inmates came up to the microphone and thanked the kids for their programme on the birth of ‘Yeshu Baba’.

The name struck me and stuck with me. I had heard Jesus Christ referred to as ‘Isa Masih’ or ‘Ishu Masih’ in Hindi before, of course. ‘Yeshu Baba’ sounded a lot more human and definitely a lot more familiar.

If you were to put a picture of (a non-crucified) Jesus next to one of a contemporary Indian baba, like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a casual observer might see little or no difference (except in height, in the case of Sri Sri, and hair colour in the case of Jaggi Vasudev.)

As I rode back from the jail that Christmas afternoon with a bus full of school kids, a question struck me and then lodged itself in my brain:

How would Yeshu Baba have fared in contemporary India, the very land of babas?

As someone constantly fascinated with the psychology of new religious movements, cults, godmen and their followers, I decided to read through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament which document the life of Jesus to try and find an answer to my question.

The conclusion I reached was that by contemporary standards, Yeshu Baba would have been a disaster as a contemporary Indian godman. In the following paragraphs I literally quote chapter and verse to undergird my hypothesis.

Relationship with the rich

Patronage by the wealthy is essential for any baba’s career, which is why most successful babas cultivate the rich assiduously. One should not hold it against them when they spend the majority of their time ministering to those with the means to fund their operations. It is good business sense to minister spiritually to those who can support you, and not waste too much time and energy on the poor masses. (The poor can find spiritual sustenance at large satsangs.)

Business Standard

A foreign tourist's guide to experiencing the many Mumbais in Mumbai

India's largest city is known for both the poverty of its slums and the richness of its history, museums, nightclubs, restaurants and street food.

The profile of the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world, may have risen when it was showcased in the Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” but my tour guide didn’t particularly care about that at the moment. What concerned him more was the pejorative nature of the word “slum” and how outsiders perceived Dharavi, an area smaller than New York City’s Central Park but where about a million people live and work. (Business Standard)

“We don’t want people to think slums are dangerous and full of lazy people,” said Hitesh Vaidya, a guide for Reality Tours and Travel. The reality of daily life in Dharavi is sobering, however: Laborers work in unsafe conditions, and a lack of basic services like clean water and sanitation facilities endangers the health of residents. Mr. Vaidya and I spent the next couple of hours touring the many different industries and businesses within Dharavi, which included plastics recycling, textile manufacturing and food production. I left with a better knowledge of both the poverty and industriousness of Dharavi, as well as an understanding of Mr. Vaidya’s point: that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Mumbai (sometimes called by its former name, Bombay) is an electric and complicated city, an extraordinary place, both uplifting and heartbreaking. Its eclectic composition of different groups and cultures makes it a difficult city to define, but for many, it’s a city that represents possibility. Dharmesh Gandhi, a friend who lives in Mumbai, offered his take on India’s financial center and one of the world’s most populous cities: “It’s like New York,” he said. “Everything is happening here, so everyone wants to come here.”

After a four-day visit this past October, it was easy to see why: The shopping and entertainment options were excellent, and opportunities for great dining were second-to-none. And while the rupees flow freely in Mumbai, I was able to keep my spending under control.

A couple of logistical items: My flight, booked through Jet Airways, cost a bit over $200 for a one-way flight from Sri Lanka. As I was re-entering India, I had to produce my double-entry e-visa once more to passport control. My Uber ride from the airport was about 370 rupees, or a little more than $5. If you’d prefer not to use Uber, another popular service is Ola Cabs. I used both while in Mumbai, typically opening both apps and using whichever had a car closer to me. The ubiquitous tuk-tuk is conspicuously absent in much of Mumbai (“The traffic here is bad enough,” Mr. Gandhi told me). In central Mumbai, you’ll just see regular taxis. Fortunately, they’re metered, with fares beginning at 22 rupees.

I was well-located in the Fort neighborhood of the city, close to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus railway station, the huge Victorian landmark constructed in the late 19th century. My quarters at the Hotel Residency Fort, Mumbai, booked for $52 a night on Hotels.com, were modest luxury, roomy and air-conditioned, and with free breakfast.

A walk around the neighborhood was the first order of business: A stop by Mumbai’s first Anglican church, St. Thomas Cathedral, established in 1718, was followed by a visit to the free Jehangir Art Gallery near Wellington Fountain. I enjoyed the Nayanaa Kanodia exhibition, “The Quintessential Woman: A Celebration,” which featured oil paintings and drawings celebrating feminism. Another exhibition, “Rural Beauty,” featured darker, more sensual pencil and pastel works by Parshuram B. Patil.