That's Fit

As healthy at green tea is by itself, there's a growing body of evidence that suggests adding citrus to your daily spot will promote even greater antioxidant absorption.

Fewer than 20-percent of catechins (antioxidants found in green tea) are able to survive their passage through the small intestines. When combined with citrus -- specifically, and conveniently, lemon juice -- 78-percent of catechins were able to survive this perilous journey. Tea combined with orange juice (or drinking a glass of O.J. along with your cup of tea) kept 71-percent of catechins alive as they passed through the non-acidic environment of the small intestines.

The full study can be read in a 2007 issue of the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.

Not that long ago, people were up in arms over the discovery that their diet soda was possibly causing them to gain weight. Honestly, I wasn't too convinced. I felt that the study demonstrated more of a correlation than causation, which also made me wonder to what degree outside variables were controlled for. Now, fast forward a few months, and there's now new evidence that causation can be proved, whereas before it could only be speculated.

Researchers from Perdue University assert that artificial sweeteners -- such as those found in diet soda -- essentially create a disconnect between the brain and stomach, causing people to feel less full than they should while or after eating a meal. As a result, people tend to consume more calories, which researchers claim may be part of the reason why obesity rates have climbed steadily since the late 1950s, when diet soda was first introduced.

Counting calories can be a drag, let's face it. Some people do it some of the time, while others never do it at all. I'll be the first to admit that it's a hassle. So, what do we do instead? We make educated guesses. A body of research has shown that we're wrong more times than we're right, so maybe this isn't the best approach, either. What, then, is the best way to go (providing we leave counting every calorie we consume out of the question)? Well, for starters, being at least reasonably aware of how many calories we're drinking.

That's what researchers from Perdue University suggest, pointing to the common practice of overindulging on liquid calories. More specifically, the researchers tested whether people who consumed many calories in drink form before a meal would take those calories into account when it came time to actually chow down. Turns out, the vast majority of people didn't.

Moreover, volunteers in the Perdue study reported feeling full -- whether they ate whole foods before their meal or had a drink. The major difference was that the group who had a drink (ex. watermelon juice instead of an actual piece of watermelon) consumed more total calories for the day.

It's easy to know many calories are in a particular meal when you prepare it yourself. You can easily look at nutritional labels and do some simple math. However, things sometimes get a bit more tricky when you dine out or eat an on-the-go meal.

This may all change in a few years, though, thanks to ingenuity of some computer engineers at Purdue University. As I write this, they are working to create cell phone-compatible software that will turn your phone into a veritable calorie-counting abacus.

Much like current websites that offer photo analysis of your diet, this software will review photographs you take of your food with your phone's camera. But, unlike said websites, this new device will be able to distinguish between very similar looking foods and even calculate portion sizes.