By Andy Bellatti, MS, RD and Alannah Dibona, MA, MS

When we tackled the topic of food myths last month, our inbox was flooded with more reader-submitted followup myths than we could debunk at one time. We asked our nutritionists back to debunk some more common misconceptions about food, health, and nutrition that are still widely believed, even though there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We also asked them some of your questions. Here's what they said.

Myth 1: Skipping a Single Meal Will Slow Your Metabolism and Force Your Body into "Starvation Mode"

Many of you brought this one up after our last article. You rightfully pointed out that when we debunked the "Don't Eat After X:00pm" myth, we said that skipping a meal will cause the body to enter starvation mode and encourage overeating the next day. We went back to Boston-based nutritionist and wellness counselor Alannah DiBona, who made the intial claim, with your skepticism.

"I love being taken to task," she said, and went on to explain that your suspicions were correct. Skipping a meal does not appreciably change your metabolic rate, and it certainly doesn't send your body spinning into a fat-saving "starvation mode." However, that doesn't mean you should skip eating if you're hungry and the clock happens to be have passed an arbitrary time. When you do, your blood sugar plummets, which results in cravings and increased hunger pangs. When you do sit down to your next meal, your body will send you messages that you're hungrier than you actually are, and you're likely to overeat. The best advice? Eat when you're hungry, and eat something appropriate for the time of day. If it's 9pm and you're not headed to bed for another three hours, have a light snack instead of going to bed hungry.

As for the so-called "starvation mode?" DiBona notes that it actually takes two to three weeks of consistently low caloric intake and at least 24-hours of no caloric intake for your body to compensate with significant metabolic shifts. The United Nations University has an excellent (if not old) paper on the effect of low and no-calorie diets on people of otherwise normal weight that illustrates exactly when the basal metabolic rate begins to trend downward after a dietary change. 

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SOURCE: Lifehacker.com, Andy Bellatti, MS, RD is a Seattle-based nutritionist and the author of the nutrition blog Small Bites. You can follow him on Twitter at @andybellatti. Alannah Dibona, MA, MS, is a Boston-based nutritionist and wellness counselor, and the woman behind mindbodysportconsulting.com.

By Melinda Beck, Wall Street Journal Health Journal, March 15, 2011

Lisa Rayburn felt dizzy, bloated and exhausted. Wynn Avocette suffered migraines and body aches. Stephanie Meade's 4-year-old daughter had constipation and threw temper tantrums.

Some people claim that eating gluten products can cause health problems like body aches and chronic fatigue -- and even some behavioral problems in children. WSJ's Melinda Beck talks with Kelsey Hubbard about a new study that sheds light on what may be going on.

All three tested negative for celiac disease, a severe intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains. But after their doctors ruled out other causes, all three adults did their own research and cut gluten—and saw the symptoms subside.

A new study in the journal BMC Medicine may shed some light on why. It shows gluten can set off a distinct reaction in the intestines and the immune system, even in people who don't have celiac disease.

"For the first time, we have scientific evidence that indeed, gluten sensitivity not only exists, but is very different from celiac disease," says lead author Alessio Fasano, medical director of the University of Maryland's Center for Celiac Research.

The news will be welcome to people who have suspected a broad range of ailments may be linked to their gluten intake, but have failed to find doctors who agree.

"Patients have been told if it wasn't celiac disease, it wasn't anything. It was all in their heads," says Cynthia Kupper, executive director of the nonprofit Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.

The growing market for gluten-free foods, with sales estimated at $2.6 billion last year, has made it even harder to distinguish a medical insight from a fad.

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The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our Zeitgeist—but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dieticians have been telling the American people to eat a low-fat diet, and in particular, to avoid saturated fats. Only recently, have nutrition experts begun to encourage people to eat “healthy fats.”

This past December, the Los Angeles Times reported that excess carbohydrates and sugar, not fat, are responsible for America’s obesity and diabetes epidemics. One of the lead researchers in this field, Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, “The country’s big low-fat message backfired. The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today.” Another expert, Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, “Fat is not the problem.”

Last month, Martha Rose Shulman of the New York Times Recipes for Health section, wrote that she’s taken the “no low-fat pledge.” Shulman writes, “I took a pledge the other day that will surprise my longtime followers. It even surprised me. I pledged to drop the term ‘low-fat’ from my vocabulary.”

Shulman, an influential food and recipe writer with over 25 books to her name, has long promoted low-fat and light cooking, but now writes, “There are many recipes in my cookbooks from the 90s that now look and taste dated to me. I’ve put back some of the oil and cheese that I took out when editors were telling me to keep total fat at 30 percent of total calories–a concept that is now obsolete even among policymakers.”

She and a room full of “nutrition scientists, dietitians, doctors, chefs and food service titans” recently listened to experts on nutrition debunk some of the common fat myths. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, who co-directs the program in cardiovascular epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, was also there and said, “No randomized trial looking at weight change has shown that people did better on a low-fat diet. For many people, low-fat diets are even worse than moderate or high-fat diets because they’re often high in carbohydrates from rapidly digested foods such as white flour, white rice, potatoes, refined snacks and sugary drinks.”

Dr. Oz from the Oprah show says, "They [chia seeds] just may be one of the healthiest things around."

1. Help weight loss. Chia seeds are popular for weight loss. They reduce food cravings by preventing some of the food that you eat from getting absorbed into your system. This blockage of calorie absorption makes them a great diet helper.

2. Feel fuller faster: They can also help your diet by making you feel full. This is because they absorb 10 times their weight in water, forming a bulky gel.

3. Hydration for athletes: They are also great for athletes because the "chia gel" can hydrate the body.

4. Reduce your blood pressure: There's evidence to suggest they can reduce blood pressure.

5. Omega-3: They are the richest plant source of Omega-3 (the vital fats that protect against inflammation — such as arthritis — and heart disease). In fact, they contain more Omega-3 than salmon!

6. Benefits for diabetes: Because chia seeds slow down how fast our bodies convert carbohydrates into simple sugars, studies indicate they can control blood sugar. This leads scientists to believe chia seeds may have great benefits for diabetics.

7. They are easier to digest than flax seeds, and don't need to be ground up.

How to Eat Chia Seeds

Chia seeds make an incredibly healthy — and often unnoticeable — addition to many foods. Here are some great ways to enjoy chia seeds:

• They can be eaten raw. (They have a nice "nutty" flavor.)
• They can be soaked in fruit juice (in Mexico, they call this "chia fresca").
• They're perfect in porridges and puddings.
• They make an ideal addition to baked goods including breads, cakes and biscuits. (See links to energy bar recipes below.)

How Many Chia Seeds Should You Eat?

We recommend two daily doses of about 20 g each (1.5 ounces total).

SOURCE: Information from www.nutsonline.com and a great source for purchasing bulk fresh chia seed

RECIPES: Fruit Nut Energy Bars, Fruit Nut and Seed Bars