FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: How genetic tests impact your motivation, moralizing food linked to weight regain, and Whole Foods packaging linked to cancer

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week how genetic tests impact your motivation, moralizing food linked to weight regain, and Whole Foods packaging linked to cancer.

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Links of the week

• What Happens When You’re Convinced You Have Bad Genes – Looks like DNA tests can prime you to have a fixed mindset about your health. Don’t fall for it. (The Atlantic)
• Why People Wait 10 Days to Do Something That Takes 10 Minutes – Another big issue in changing health behaviors is delayed action/procrastination. It’s a common occurrence, but you can get past it. (The Atlantic)
• Successful Weight Management May Depend on the Embrace of Imperfection – Another big one that I’ve discussed a lot here at Summer Tomato is moral licensing. Looks like a new study has quantified how much this tendency is likely to impact weight regain. Hint: it’s not good. (Weighty Matters)
• Whole Foods Ranked Worst on Cancer-Linked Package Chemicals – Props to Whole Foods for addressing this immediately. Still it is disappointing to know that compostable packaging can be linked to cancer. Hoping the packaging industry figures this issue out soon. (Bloomberg)
• The fat-burning heart-rate zone is a myth: How exercise and weight loss really work – Yep. (Washington Post)
• This Emotion Can Help You Eat Healthier – Love this. (Greater Good Magazine)
• Your ‘grass-fed’ beef may have not have come from a cow grazing in a pasture. Here’s why. – This article has been stressing some people out. My advice: find a good butcher you trust that knows the farms. The next best thing is using those animal welfare ratings Whole Foods posts at their meat counter. (Washington Post)
• Scant Evidence Behind the Advice About Salt – I love science, but it makes some topics way too complicated for a normal person to make realistic decisions. Here’s what you need to know: 75-80% of the sodium you eat comes from processed foods. Processed foods are bad for you for a zillion reasons. Avoid processed foods and cook for yourself, and you can use as much salt as you need to make your food taste good. (NY Times)
• ‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen It’: Lean Stone Crab Season Follows Red Tide in Florida – You can expect a lot more stories like this in the coming years. It’s such a tragedy. (NY Times)
• Golden Beet Hummus – A less calorie-dense and more nutrient-dense take on one of my favorite snacks. (101 Cookbooks)

What inspired you this week?