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Nutrition

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Nutrition

Tahini Is One Ingredient, and the Jar in Your Cupboard Is Probably the Wrong One

Ground sesame, nothing else. Whether it is hulled or unhulled changes the taste completely, the bitterness people complain about is usually a sign of the cheap kind, and the trick that stops it seizing is counterintuitive.

Aug 21, 2026/3 min read

A jar of pale tahini with a spoon lifting a ribbon of the paste

Nutrition

Psyllium Husk Is the Dullest Thing in the Supplement Aisle and Almost the Only One That Works

It has an authorised FDA health claim, which almost no supplement does, and meta-analyses behind it for cholesterol, blood glucose and constipation. One gel-forming property explains all three, and so does the way it goes wrong.

Aug 20, 2026/5 min read

Nutrition

Sugar-Free Does Not Mean Carbohydrate-Free, and the Biscuit Knows That Even If You Do Not

A product can be free of sugar, full of refined flour, sweetened with something that still raises glucose, and carry more fat and calories than the version it replaced. Regulators in Europe eventually stopped allowing a diabetic food category altogether.

Aug 19, 2026/3 min read

An opened packet of plain biscuits beside a heap of white flour

Nutrition

Eating the Same Meal in a Different Order Cut Post-Meal Glucose by More Than a Third

Identical food, identical calories, identical macronutrients. The only variable was what went in the mouth first, and glucose at sixty minutes fell by 36.7 per cent. It is the cheapest intervention in diabetes nutrition.

Aug 18, 2026/3 min read

Three plates in sequence: salad, then grilled fish, then rice

Nutrition

A Protein Bar Is Ultra-Processed. New Trial Data Says That May Not Be the Point

Protein-enriched processed foods produced higher satiety hormones and lower calorie intake than normal-protein versions of the same products. It complicates a classification a lot of advice now rests on.

Aug 17, 2026/3 min read

Packaged protein snacks arranged on a table

Nutrition

Nobody Counts What They Drink, Which Is Where Most of the Sugar Is

Liquid sugar arrives faster than any solid food, does almost nothing to make you feel full, and is invisible in the mental accounting people do about their diet. Four cups of sweet karak is a dessert nobody counted.

Aug 17, 2026/3 min read

A glass of karak chai beside condensed milk and sugar

Nutrition

The Lunchbox Rule That Matters Is Not the One About Sugar

New dietary guidance sets a hard number for added sugar in a school meal. The harder problem is a box that comes home full, because a nutritious lunch that goes uneaten is not a lunch.

Aug 16, 2026/3 min read

An open school lunchbox packed with fruit, sandwiches and snacks

Nutrition

A Diet Trial Was Stopped Early Because the Control Group Was Doing Measurably Worse

PREDIMED tested a Mediterranean diet with added olive oil or nuts against low-fat advice. Diabetes incidence was 6.9 per cent with olive oil against 8.8 per cent on the low-fat arm, and the follow-up trial did considerably better.

Aug 15, 2026/3 min read

Nutrition

Watermelon Has a High Glycaemic Index and It Does Not Matter, Which Tells You What Is Wrong With the Number

Glycaemic index measures the quality of a carbohydrate in a standardised portion nobody eats. Glycaemic load multiplies it by the amount actually on the plate, and the two frequently disagree.

Aug 14, 2026/3 min read

Nutrition

People With Diabetes Are Still Being Told to Avoid Fruit, and the Evidence Points the Other Way

Fruit contains sugar, so the advice writes itself and it is wrong. The relevant distinction is not sweet versus not sweet. It is whether the sugar is still inside a structure that has to be dismantled before it can be absorbed.

Aug 13, 2026/3 min read

Nutrition

Somebody Actually Measured What Five Varieties of Dates Do to Blood Sugar, in the UAE, in People With Diabetes

Dates are sweet, so the assumption is that people with diabetes should avoid them. A study of Fara'd, Lulu, Bo ma'an, Dabbas and Khalas found low glycaemic indices and no significant glucose excursions in the diabetic group.

Aug 12, 2026/3 min read