About Dr. Gourmet

My name is Timothy Harlan and I am both a physician and a chef. This blog is a general collection of information and random ideas on eating great food and eating healthy.

You can find out more at the Dr. Gourmet web site. Eat well, eat healthy, enjoy life!

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High Fiber Diets Don't Prevent Diverticulosis

Back in the 1960s two researchers theorized that a diet low in fiber meant higher pressure inside the colon, leading to the outpouchings of the wall of the colon that we call diverticula. When these diverticula become inflamed, this is called diverticulitis, and symptoms of [...]

How to get pre-schoolers to eat more vegetables

A few months ago I shared a study that illustrated one way to get kids to eat more vegetables: hide the vegetables in other foods by adding pureed vegetables to foods like zucchini bread, pasta with tomato sauce, and chicken noodle casserole. Since small children tend [...]

Reducing Weight Gain for Frequent Restaurant Eaters : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

In the busy world we live in, it can be tough to avoid eating out because it’s just so darn convenient. Unfortunately, restaurant portion sizes can be two, three or even four times standard portion sizes (or more), and you know what that means: eating [...]

Can Red Meat be Part of a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet?

Red meat consumption has been linked with poor cholesterol scores, breast, colon and rectal cancers, increased risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases. For a long time when I talked to my patients about eating healthier they would immediately tell me that they would stop [...]

Macronutrients vs. Overall Diet: Which is More Important? : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

It’s an axiom among dietitians that “people eat food, not macronutrients.” That’s one of the reasons that I find fad diets to be so silly: so many of them demonize entire classes of foods (”all oils are bad,” “avoid all carbohydrates,” “don’t eat animal products”). While [...]

Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Prevent Cellular Aging : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

Your cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new cells, which are created by cell division. Telomeres are DNA sequences, and multiples of these telomeres form a protective cap on the ends of certain chromosomes. As these chromosomes are divided to create new cells, one [...]

Mediterranean Diet not just for Mediterranean people : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Mediterranean Diet, and of course the biggest one is that you can only eat Greek food. Long-time readers and followers of Dr. Gourmet know that Dr. Gourmet’s mission is translating Mediterranean Diet principles for the American (Western) [...]

You CAN get used to less salt! : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

Not long ago a reader wrote to me and asked what reducing our salt intake was going to prevent. He seemed to think that the need to reduce our sodium intake had not been adequately established and that the issue was not salt itself but [...]

Fiber for Breakfast Keeps You Satisfied : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

Recently researchers in Sweden compared the effects on appetite and satiety of eating rye porridge for breakfast or a similar number of calories of whole wheat bread (Phys Behdoi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.10.023). Why rye porridge? When rye grains are processed into whole grain rye flakes for porridge the [...]

Fast Food Kids' Meals : Dr. Gourmet's Health and Nutrition Bites

Just as in the United States, kids in Australia eat a lot of fast food – one recent study estimates that 25% of school children in Australia eat fast food at least once a week, with that number increasing to 43% in adolescents. That’s actually [...]