Even though low-carb diets are no longer the rage, potatoes still have a bad reputation for wrecking diets. Brand new research from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania comes to a different conclusion, at least about the purple variety. A study followed 18 overweight and obese people who also had high blood pressure. Participants were asked to either eat six to eight golf ball-sized purple potatoes for lunch and dinner, or stick to a potato-free diet. After a month, participants switched diet routines. Participants who ate potatoes saw a significant drop in their high blood pressure—diastolic pressure fell an average 4.3 percent while systolic blood pressure dropped an average 3.5 percent.

Read more: 5 Surprisingly Healthy Fruits and Veggies You Aren’t Eating

Is it possible to eat for $7 or less a day? At least one New Yorker, Zack, an aspiring comedian, says he does it. Here’s how, along with more strategies anyone can use:

Buy in bulk. Zack drives to the suburbs in New Jersey to shop at bulk retailers, such as Sam’s Club. He fills large duffel bags of food to bring back to the city and estimates it saves a significant chunk of change each month.

Stockpile supplies. Cans of beans and tomatoes are cheap, store easily, and make quick, filling meals.

Compare prices. For some items, such as fruit, buying from street vendors turns out to be cheaper than shopping at Manhattan grocery stores.

Read more: How to Eat for $7 or Less a Day

How can you not love eggs?! They are so easy to make, really versatile and very nutritious.

So what’s with the bad reputation? Are you still hearing that you should avoid the yolk or eggs all together because they are high in fat and can raise your cholesterol? Here are some great reasons to forget the bad advice and get cracking:

• One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality protein and all 9 essential amino acids.
• Eggs are a source of healthy fat. One egg contains just 5 grams of fat and only 1.5 grams of that is saturated fat.

Read more: Great reasons to love eggs

With so much going on before our production even began (including wild winter weather), I’m not sure where to begin with this shoot!

The initial plan was to head straight to Ithaca, NY, to speak to Dr. Brian Wansink about his research relating to the psychology of how and why we eat. (We hoped to gather enough tips before making it back for dinner!). However, winter travel turned out to be especially dicey on the East Coast, and our first attempt to get to Ithaca during a blizzard failed. All flights were cancelled so the shoot had to be postponed a week and a half. To no surprise, another East Coast snowstorm rolled in. The result: four of my flights were cancelled in a matter of 24 hours. The idea of camping out at the airport was fun when I was a child, but not so much in my adult years. Thankfully, my producer made the best out of the situation, sending me funny videos of him driving in the snow to pick me up from Binghamton, NY. But those videos came after my flights to Ithaca and Syracuse were cancelled. In the end, I made it to Ithaca safely and it was time for us to get to work. Oddly enough I had no idea what work I had just signed up for.

Video & article: Mindless eating

Americans are fat and getting fatter by the year. Recent data reported in medical journal Lancet showed that BMI (Body Mass Index), a recognized measurement of obesity, is higher on average in America than in any other nation.

The obesity problem, however, is international. The report in Lancet states that “In 2008, 9.8 percent of the world’s male population were obese, as were 13.8 percent of women. In 1980, these rates were 4.8 percent and 7.9 percent.” U.S. eating habits and diets have been exported, many experts say. Nations which before had relatively lean diets which

Read more: 10 States With the Deadliest Eating Habits

Novel way to lose weight: Eat less and exercise more.

Shortly after the year started, in early January, Australian researchers announced the only reliable way to lose weight was to eat less, exercise, or do both. But the eye-rolling should be directed toward the magical, fat-burning promises made by some products and eaten up by some consumers.

The researchers intended to disprove the idea that a person can lose weight by simply tricking his or her body into burning calories from fat, not carbohydrates, and thus make stored fat evaporate. Their study showed that mice, genetically altered to burn fats rather than carbohydrates, had body compositions similar to that of normal mice. That’s because their bodies simply converted the unused carbs into stored fat.

“Our data urges a correction in people’s concept of a magic bullet – something that will miraculously make them thin while they sit on the couch watching television,” said Greg Cooney, one of the study researchers and a scientist at Sydney’s Garvan Institute for Medical Research.

Caffeine affects kids’ sleep.

That stuff we drink in the morning to stay alert seems to do just that. Kids who consume caffeine sleep less, and the more they consume, the less they sleep, a study found. A survey of children’s snack and beverage consumption revealed that kids ages 8 to 12 took in the equivalent of nearly three cans of caffeinated soda per day. They also slept an average of 8.47 hours per night, less than is recommended by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).

The survey, conducted by William Warzak, a psychology professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and colleagues, queried parents of 200 children ages 5 to 12. Despite caffeine’s diuretic effect, the kids who drank it didn’t appear prone to bed-wetting.

Kids who study abroad drink more alcohol.

Hey, parents, if you send your kids abroad (to study), a pond away from parental guidance and punishment, they’re going to live a little. In October, researchers reported in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that students doubled how much they drank while they were away, upping their consumption from about four alcoholic drinks per week while at home to about eight weekly drinks abroad.

The findings also support the idea that students younger than 21, the legal drinking age in the United States, take advantage of relaxed drinking laws abroad. The underage students in the study nearly tripled their drinking, whereas students over 21 doubled their intake of alcohol.

Read more: Duh! The Most Obvious Scientific Findings of 2010

Other than getting a good night’s sleep, there’s probably no other thing that impacts your productivity and mood at work more than what you eat. Yet you probably give little thought to what you consume before and during work, defaulting instead to what’s convenient, cheap, and tasty. And when you do think twice about what you eat, it’s usually in the context of a diet that’s focused on losing weight rather than improving your cognitive functioning and energy levels. Fortunately, there are a few basic food rules that go a long way towards achieving these latter goals. Here are the best of them.

Read more: 6 Rules: How to Eat Right on the Job

It’s true that connections are being made all the time with the foods we eat and the way we feel, think, and behave.

The burning question is if eating certain foods makes you smarter, happier, or more able to constructively respond to stress.  The key lies in finding those food to help boots your brainpower.

Try these to help your mind

• Antioxidants: Foods and supplements containing antioxidants are known to boost your brain health as well as longevity. To get your share of antioxidants, look for darkly colored vegetables and fruits (blueberries). Green tea is a beverage jam-packed with antioxidants.
• Omega-3 fatty acids: Omega-3 fatty acids are found in all sorts of seafood. This includes salmon, halibut, and scallops. Omega-3′s have been linked to nerve cell regeneration and reduced brain inflammation.
• B vitamins: The B vitamin family is a rich source of food for your nervous system. The messages our brain sends back and forth between our nerves depend on B-complex vitamins, namely folic acid, vitamin B6, and choline. Foods filled with B-complex vitamins aren’t too hard to find. Folic acid can be found in dark green vegetables (spinach, asparagus, romaine lettuce, and turnip or mustard greens). Beans also contain folic acid. For a folic acid feats, try garbanzo or pinto. For choline, crack an egg, because egg yolks are rich in this . Other sources include soybeans, peanut butter, potatoes, and whole-wheat bread.
• Iron: Iron helps our blood to deliver oxygen to our body. Deficiencies in iron have been associated to all sorts of problems, including ADHD, learning disabilities, and lowered IQ. Our reasoning skills could benefit from foods that contain iron. You can easily find iron in foods like spinach, blackstrap molasses, lentils, tofu, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.
• Vitamin E: Some people can stave off mental decline with a daily crossword, Sudoku puzzle, or a few hours of ‘The Price Is Right’. Foods with vitamin E could also help keep you sharp! Vitamin E, especially taken along with vitamin C, has been linked to reduced cognitive decline with aging. The following foods are rich with vitamin E: mustard and turnip greens, spinach, and broccoli. And if green doesn’t do it for you, you can pop sunflower seeds, almonds, or olives for a dose of vitamin E.

Here are a few links that can help you with nutritional make-overs:

• Recipe makeovers: 5 ways to create healthy recipes
• Healthy Eating Makeover
• Overhaul Your Family’s Eating Habits

A French epicurean once said, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” But can eating certain foods make you smarter, happier, or more able to constructively respond to stress? Could junk food lead to a junk attitude? Connections are being made all the time between the foods we eat and the way we feel, think, and act.

Did you know, for instance, that depression and aggression have been linked to diets that are high in harmful fats and low in beneficial fruits and veggies? Or that eating fish and seafood may reduce the risks of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease? Or that tea may bring on a calm yet alert state of mind?

Memory, alertness, and mood can all be impacted by your nutritional choices. And while intelligence and mental functions are complex and involve many bodily systems and processes, there are a few key nutrients that could help to boost your cerebral stamina.

Foods to boost your brain power

• Antioxidants: Foods and supplements containing antioxidants (e.g., phytochemicals, catechins) could boost your brain health and longevity. Darkly coloured vegetables and fruits contain phytochemicals (blueberries, in particular), and green tea is packed with catechins.
• Omega-3 fatty acids: Omega-3 fatty acids found in many kinds of seafood, including salmon, halibut, and scallops, have been linked to nerve cell regeneration and reduced brain inflammation.
• B vitamins: B is for brain, that’s for sure. The B family of vitamins is a rich source of food for the nervous system. The messages our brain sends back and forth between our nerves depend on B-complex vitamins, especially folic acid, vitamin B6, and choline. Finding foods full of B-complex vitamins isn’t too hard. Folic acid can be found in dark greens, including spinach, asparagus, romaine lettuce, and turnip or mustard greens. Loads of beans contain folic acid, too. Try black, garbanzo, or pinto for a folic acid feast. Crack an egg for choline: egg yolks contain this B-vitamin in abundance. Other sources include soybeans, peanut butter, potatoes, and whole-wheat bread.
• Iron: Iron helps our blood to supply oxygen to our body. Deficiencies in iron have been associated with ADHD, learning disabilities, and lowered IQ. It stands to reason, then, that our reasoning skills could benefit from foods that contain iron. Find iron in foods like spinach, blackstrap molasses, lentils, tofu, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.
• Vitamin E: Some stave off mental decline with a daily crossword or Sudoku puzzle. Foods with vitamin E could keep you sharp, too! Vitamin E, especially taken along with vitamin C, has been linked to reduced cognitive decline with aging. Take note of vitamin-E-rich foods: mustard and turnip greens, spinach, and broccoli. And if green is not your colour, you can pop sunflower seeds, almonds, or olives for a dose of vitamin E.