Tropical Shrimp Salad Recipe, Spotlight on Shrimp, Choosing and Deveining Shrimp, Fasting to Manage Type 2 Diabetes, plus Weight Gain Despite Exercise

When it comes to classic warm-weather dishes, shrimp salad is often at the top of the list. But when summer’s heat is raging, the traditional mayo dressing can feel heavy. This recipe pairs shrimp with sweet mango and creamy avocado for a tropical taste sensation. Need to tweak your diet for better diabetes control? A new study compared three top options to uncover the best option, while other research I’m sharing found that too many calories rather than a lack of exercise is what’s behind weight gain.

Tropical Shrimp Salad

• Tropical Shrimp Salad

  This shrimp salad refresh uses a light vinaigrette to bring out the flavors of the shellfish as well as the mango and avocado. For ease, zest the citrus fruits before juicing them.

  Ingredients

  For the vinaigrette:

  • 1 tablespoon orange zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
  • 2 tablespoons lime zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley

  For the salad:

  • 1 pound jumbo or extra-large shrimp, preferably wild caught, peeled and deveined if needed
  • 1 large ripe mango, diced
  • 1 large ripe avocado, diced
  • 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 6 cups mixed lettuces such as arugula, radicchio, and green leaf, rough chopped

  Directions

  Step 1

  Boil the shrimp in a large pot of salted water until they turn pink, 3 to 5 minutes; drain and set aside to cool.

  Step 2

  In a small bowl, whisk together the zests, juices, honey, and soy sauce. Keep whisking as you drizzle in the olive oil. Fold in the cilantro or parsley.

  Step 3

  In a large bowl, combine the shrimp, mango, avocado, and tomatoes. Drizzle on half the vinaigrette and toss gently. 

  Step 4

  Divide the lettuces among four plates and top with equal amounts of the shrimp mixture. Pass the rest of the vinaigrette separately.

  Yields 4 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Choosing Shrimp

According to the National Fisheries Institute, each American eats about 5 pounds of shrimp a year. To meet the demand both here and around the world, many countries, including Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, farm shrimp for export, often under conditions that could be unsafe and hard to check on. Farmed shrimp clustered in ponds require antibiotics and chemicals to ward off diseases—they’re not only in these shrimp, but they also leech into waterways, raising concerns for the environment. One positive step forward is recirculating farms, which are in early stages in the US, that raise shrimp in large indoor tanks or under hoop houses.

For a variety of reasons, many people choose wild-caught shrimp over farm-raised. The shrimp may be healthier, but there has been the problem of bycatch—other fish and sea creatures that get caught in shrimp nets. Fortunately, more sophisticated equipment and innovations have reduced bycatch amounts in some waters, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and around Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery.

While there’s no single right answer, you can look for packaging that bears the label of an organization that looks out for consumers. The Marine Stewardship Council or MSC is the main certifier of sustainable wild fisheries, and 36 shrimp fisheries currently carry its blue fish label. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watchis a program that provides science-based recommendations about which seafood to buy based on sustainability. 

Also to keep in mind: Whole Foods stores have their own standards for both wild shrimp and farmed shrimp. The company’s standards for farm-raised shrimp ban antibiotics and preservatives and prohibit the conversion of sensitive ecosystems such as mangrove forests into shrimp farms, a practice that has devastated parts of Southeast Asia. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Deveining Shrimp

What looks like a vein running the length of a shrimp’s back is actually its digestive tract. If the shrimp ate before getting caught, the tract can be very noticeable. Though it might be safe albeit gritty to eat, many people like to “devein” their shrimp before cooking. Allow yourself a few minutes: since you’ll be using a sharp knife, you don’t want to rush through the process, which is simple enough.

Once the shrimp is peeled, simply run the tip of a paring knife down the length of its back to expose the digestive tract and then pop it out. Rinse the shrimp under cold water and place it in a colander before moving to the next one.

For Your Best Health

Fasting to Manage Type 2 Diabetes

A new study from the Endocrine Society is the first to compare three popular diets head-on—intermittent fasting (also known as 5:2 intermittent energy restriction or IER), time-restricted eating (TRE), and calorie cutting (continuous energy restriction or CER). 

Researchers found that all three can help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight and lower blood sugar, but one diet stood out: intermittent fasting. This involves eating normally five days a week and restricting calories on the other two. It led to better results in fasting blood sugar, improving insulin sensitivity, lowering triglycerides, and sticking with the plan.

“The research fills a gap in directly comparing 5:2 intermittent energy restriction with 10-hour time-restricted eating in patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes. The findings provide scientific evidence for clinicians to choose appropriate dietary strategies when treating such patients,” said Haohao Zhang, PhD, chief physician at The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, China. 

Dr. Zhang and colleagues performed a single-center, randomized, parallel-controlled trial at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from November 19, 2021, to November 7, 2024. Ninety patients were randomly assigned to one of the three diet plans, with consistent weekly caloric intake across all groups. A team of nutritionists supervised the 16-week intervention.

At the end of the study, there were no significant differences in HbA1c reduction and weight loss between the IER, TRE, and CER groups. However, the absolute decrease in HbA1c and body weight was greatest in the IER group. The IER group had the highest adherence rate at 85%, followed by the CER group at 84% and the TRE group at 78%. Dr. Zhang said these findings highlight the feasibility and effectiveness of dietary interventions for people who have obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Fitness Flash

Weight Gain Despite Exercise 

We aren’t moving less—we’re just eating more, according to a Duke University study showing that diet, not laziness, is fueling the obesity epidemic across industrialized nations. Our diet, not our activity level, is what has changed the most. 

“Despite decades of trying to understand the root causes of the obesity crisis in economically developed countries, public health guidance remains stuck with uncertainty as to the relative importance of diet and physical activity. This large, international, collaborative effort allows us to test these competing ideas. It’s clear that changes in diet, not reduced activity, are the main cause of obesity in the US and other developed countries,” said Herman Pontzer, PhD, principal investigator with Duke University’s Pontzer Lab, part of the department of evolutionary anthropology at the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.

The researchers analyzed thousands of measurements of daily energy expenditure, body fat percentage, and body mass index from adults aged 18 to 60 across 34 populations spanning six continents. The more than 4,200 adults included in the study came from a wide range of lifestyles and economies, including hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, farming, and industrialized populations. To further categorize the level of industrialization, the researchers also integrated data from the United Nations Human Development Index to incorporate measures of lifespan, prosperity, and education.

“While we saw a marginal decrease in size-adjusted total energy expenditure with economic development, differences in total energy expenditure explained only a fraction of the increase in body fat that accompanied development. This suggests that other factors, such as dietary changes, are driving the increases in body fat that we see with increasing economic development,” said Amanda McGrosky, PhD, a Duke postdoctoral alumna and lead investigator for the study, now an assistant professor of biology at Elon University.

The researchers hope the study helps clarify public health messaging and strategies to tackle the obesity crisis and explain that the findings do not mean that efforts to promote physical activity should be minimized. Instead, the data support an emerging consensus that both diet and exercise should be prioritized. “Diet and physical activity should be viewed as essential and complementary, rather than interchangeable,” the study noted. The researchers will next work to identify which aspects of diet in developed countries are most responsible for the rise in obesity.

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Chicken Sausage Skillet Dinner Recipe, Spotlight on Fennel, Wok—A Stovetop Essential, Add Spice for Portion Control, and Mindfulness and Step-tracking Boost Motivation

I love a meal that comes together in one pot with ingredients that create a yummy sauce. I’m using chicken as a change from pork sausage and checking off all the boxes by combining it with fresh peas and new potatoes. There’s also a reason for the sprinkle of peperoncino—a study showed that chili peppers can help you eat less while still feeling satisfied. And if you’re looking for added motivation to get involved in warm-weather activities, there’s an app that can help.

Chicken Sausage Skillet Dinner

• Chicken Sausage Skillet Dinner

  Parboiling the potatoes cuts the cooking time of this flavorful dish. The recipe makes a delicious dinner, but it’s also great for a picnic since you can enjoy it at room temperature—for safety, remember to consume hot or cold foods within an hour of taking them off the stove or out of the fridge. Note: If you can only find chicken sausage links, simply squeeze them out of their casings and into the hot pan.

  Ingredients

  • 1 pound fingerling or new red potatoes
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 1 pound chicken sausage
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
  • 1/4 teaspoon peperoncino (Italian red pepper flakes)
  • 1 cup homemade or low-sodium store-bought chicken stock
  • 1 cup freshly shelled green peas
  • 1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, divided use
  • Freshly ground black pepper to taste

  Directions

  Step 1

  Parboil the potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes; drain. When cool enough to handle, cut them in half.

  Step 2

  Heat a large flat-bottom wok over medium heat. When hot, add the olive oil and the chicken sausage, breaking it up with a wooden spoon and stirring until the meat is opaque and cooked through. Add the fennel seeds, peperoncino, and potatoes and sauté with the chicken until the potatoes crisp.

  Step 3

  Add the stock and use the spoon to release any bits of fond on the bottom of the pan. Raise the heat and cook down the stock until reduced by half. Add the peas and half the Parmigiano-Reggiano, stirring constantly (the sauce will thicken as the cheese melts).

  Step 4

  Off the heat, add black pepper to taste. Top each portion with more Parmigiano-Reggiano and a drizzle of olive oil.

  Yields 4 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Fennel Seed

Members of the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club know that I’m a fresh fennel fan, but I also love fennel seeds, harvested from the plant’s flowers and then dried. While they’re ubiquitous in Italian pork sausages, they’re not always included in chicken sausages, so I’ll simply add them for their distinctive light licorice taste. Part of the same family as anise, fennel is more subtle.

Delicious in pork dishes, fennel seeds are also a great addition to summer potato, seafood, and pasta salads. When shopping, look for fennel seeds that are a pale green, not grey or brown, for freshness. If a recipe calls for ground fennel, simply pulverize them in a spice or coffee bean grinder.

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Wok: A Stovetop Essential

Did you know that a flat-bottomed wok can lead a double life as a frying pan? With higher sides and a wide surface area, a wok should be used for more than stir-fries—often it can sear, sauté, and even deep fry, not to mention cook stews and curries. Many companies now manufacture high-quality woks made of carbon steel that cost less than $70 and will last for decades with the proper care.

For Your Best Health

Add Spice for Portion Control

It’s a provocative—and potentially tasty—concept: Making meals slightly spicier can lead to eating fewer calories, according to Penn State University Sensory Evaluation Center researchers who examined how increasing “oral burn,” the spicy taste from ingredients like chili peppers, affects how much food people consume during a meal.

“We know from previous studies that when people slow down, they eat significantly less,” said Paige Cunningham, PhD. “We suspected that making a meal spicier might slow people down. We thought, let’s test, under controlled experimental conditions in the lab, if adding a small amount of spice, but not so much that the meal is inedible, will make people eat slower and therefore eat less.”

The researchers found that increasing spiciness slightly with dried chili pepper did indeed slow down eating and reduce the amount of food and energy consumed at a meal, all without negatively affecting the palatability of the dish.

The team conducted three related experiments with a total of 130 adults who were served one of two lunch meals—beef chili or chicken tikka masala—in one of two versions: mild or spicy. The spiciness level was controlled by carefully varying the ratio of hot versus sweet paprika added to the dishes while keeping chili flavor constant.

The researchers recorded participants on high-definition video while they ate their meals to monitor their eating behaviors. From the videos, the team measured the amount of food and water consumed, meal duration, eating speed of grams per minute, bite rate, and bite size and collected ratings on appetite, liking, and spiciness before and after the meal.

The study suggests that the reduction in intake is driven by changes in what are called oral processing behaviors. Specifically, participants ate the spicier meals more slowly. Dr. Cunningham explained that a slower eating rate often means food is in the mouth longer, which can help signal fullness and lead to eating less. Other studies that slow eating rate by manipulating texture have shown similar effects, she said.

“What’s critical here is that the reduction in intake occurred without negatively impacting how much participants liked the food,” said John Hayes, PhD, Penn State professor of food science, director of the Sensory Evaluation Center, and corresponding author on the paper.

He added that water intake didn’t differ significantly between spicy and mild meals, suggesting that one seemingly obvious explanation, that people drank more water and filled up faster, was not the primary reason people ate less. “This is why we need to do empirical studies of behavior, because what you might intuitively expect is often not the case,” Dr. Hayes said.

He also noted that appetite ratings made before and after the meals were similar, suggesting participants still felt full after the spicy meal, despite eating less of it. “This points to added chilies as a potential strategy for reducing the risk of energy overconsumption,” he said. “While portion control wasn’t the explicit goal of this study, our results suggest this might work. Next time you’re looking to eat a little less, try adding a blast of chilies, as it may slow you down and help you eat less.”

The team is now focused on understanding how oral burn can impact other eating behaviors, like snacking.

Fitness Flash

Mindfulness and Step-tracking Boost Motivation

A study from the Centre for Motivation and Behaviour Change at the University of Bath in the UK and published in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity shows that combining step-tracking with mindfulness training delivered via a mobile app can significantly boost the desire to exercise.

While step-tracking alone versus step-tracking alongside a daily mindfulness training course had similar impacts on short-term physical activity, with all study participants exercising more than before the study, those in the mindfulness group did increase their intentions to stay active, a key psychological driver of lasting behavior change.

Lead researcher Masha Remskar, PhD, from the department of psychology at Bath, said, “Our findings show that even short-term mindfulness training combined with step-tracking can make people want to move more, which could have lasting benefits. Helping people build that internal drive towards behavior is essential, especially at a time when many people are struggling to stay active.”

The trial involved 109 adults in England who weren’t meeting recommended activity levels. Over 30 days, all participants were asked to aim for 8,000 steps a day using a basic tracker. Half also followed a daily mindfulness program via a mobile app, with short practice sessions focused on body awareness, movement, and exercise. The sessions that participants used were created by the research team, in collaboration with the Medito Foundation, and are available through the free app Medito.

By the end of the month, both groups had become more active. On average, participants in the mindfulness group increased their activity by approximately 373 minutes of moderate exercise per week, while those in the steps-only group averaged 297 minutes per week. Those who used the mindfulness app also reported a significantly stronger intention to keep exercising, which may suggest that a gradual longer-term change was beginning (the current study did not include a longer follow-up period to explore this trend further).

“Intentions are one of the strongest predictors of future behavior,” Dr. Remskar added. “What’s exciting is that adding a mindfulness component to step-tracking seems to help people mentally commit to being more active. We are particularly excited to have worked with a non-profit collaborator, Medito, which means that the mindfulness program is freely available to anyone who wishes to try it for themselves.”

“This is an exciting first study that combines mindfulness training with strategies designed to help people move more and internalize their motivation for physical activity,” said Max Western, PhD, study co-author and senior lecturer in the department of health at Bath. “There is a lot of potential here and we are keen to refine these tools to make them more engaging and effective, especially for people balancing competing demands.”

Future studies will test whether the motivational benefits seen here translate into real-world behavior over time.

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