Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette Recipe, Spotlight on Scallions, How to Boil Small Potatoes, Imperfect Calorie Counting and Exercising to Burn Fat

Summer may be winding down, but there’s still plenty of time to enjoy outdoor get-togethers with family and friends. Whether you’re hosting or want a great dish to bring for a BBQ, this potato salad, garnished with scallions, will delight. If you’re trying to lose weight—and who isn’t?—no food needs to be off limits, including potato salad! But there are certain tweaks you can make to your plan to improve results. Two new research studies provide details on calorie tracking and fat-burning exercises.

Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette

• Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette

  This German-style (no mayo) potato salad gets a flavor boost from one of my favorite vinaigrettes, a melding of two vinegars—one more tart, one more sweet. I also love the mix of sautéed shallots and raw scallions or chives, all mild members of the genus allium. This side dish tastes best served warm or at room temperature. Double or triple the ingredients for a large crowd.

  Ingredients

  For the vinaigrette:

  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar of Modena
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1/8 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste
  • 1/2 small garlic clove, peeled and minced 
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 
  • Freshly ground black pepper to taste

  For the salad:

  • 2 pounds small red potatoes, unpeeled
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 ounces best-quality bacon, cut into 1-inch sections
  • 4 shallots, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup fresh scallions or chives, sliced on the diagonal  
  • Coarse sea salt, to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

  Directions

  Step 1

  Make the vinaigrette: In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the two vinegars, mustard, honey, salt, and garlic. Gradually whisk in the olive oil until the dressing is emulsified. Season to taste with black pepper and more salt, if desired. Set aside while you cook the potatoes.

  Step 2

  Boil the potatoes until the tip of a knife easily pierces one or two, about 10-15 minutes (see “Quick Kitchen Nugget” below). Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a colander to drain and cool slightly while you proceed.

  Step 3

  Heat a heavy skillet or frying pan. When hot, add the olive oil and sauté the bacon. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a dish lined with paper towels. Add the shallots to the hot pan and sauté until they are softened and lightly browned. 

  Step 4

  Cut the potatoes in half and place them in a large serving bowl. Dress with the vinaigrette. Top with the sautéed shallots and the fresh scallions or chives. Toss gently and season to taste with salt and pepper. Just before serving, sprinkle on the bacon bits.

  Yields 6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Scallions

Also called green onions in some parts of the country, scallions offer sweet onion flavor and two textures—the stronger white ends and the mild green tops or leaves. Use the entire scallion after trimming off the roots and snipping the tips (if needed). The ends should feel firm, not mushy, and the tops should be crisp and bright green, not wilted or dark.

A staple in many Asian cuisines, chopped scallions are also delicious when sprinkled on scrambled eggs and folded into cream cheese for a bagel topping. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Boiling Small Potatoes

Small or baby potatoes, whether red, white, or purple, don’t need to be halved or quartered before boiling. In fact, keeping them whole can prevent them from falling apart during the cooking process. Start by placing the whole, unpeeled potatoes in a pot large enough to hold them in a single layer and add enough cold water to cover them by about an inch. Bring the water to a boil, add a teaspoon of sea salt, and let them cook for between 12 and 15 minutes, until the tip of a sharp knife pierces two or three of them. Use a large slotted spoon to transfer them to a colander, then proceed with your recipe. For a quick side dish, smash them with the back of a spoon, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and top with grains of Maldon salt.

For Your Best Health

Imperfect Calorie Counting May Be Good Enough

Successful dieters often credit keeping a food journal or tracking calories as an important habit to have. But how well do these behaviors correlate to weight loss? That’s one of the questions answered in the study “How much food tracking during a digital weight‐management program is enough to produce clinically significant weight loss?” recently published in the journal Obesity.

Over the course of a six-month period, researchers from the University of Connecticut (UConn), the University of Florida, and the University of Pennsylvania tracked 153 weight-loss program participants who used a commercial digital weight-loss program to record their food intake (it was the new Personal Points program developed by WeightWatchers, intended to simplify record-keeping by designating a number of foods as zero-point items, meaning they did not have to be entered). 

UConn assistant professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences Ran Xu, PhD, and PhD student Richard Bannor analyzed the data to see whether there were patterns associated with weight-loss success from a data science perspective. Using a method called receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis, they uncovered how many days people need to track their food to reach clinically significant weight loss. 

“It turns out, you don’t need to track 100% each day to be successful,” says Dr. Xu. “Specifically in this trial, we find that people only need to track around 30% of the days to lose more than 3% weight and 40% of the days to lose more than 5% weight, or almost 70% of days to lose more than 10% weight.” 

“A lot of times people feel like they need to lose 50 pounds to get healthier, but actually we start to see changes in things like blood pressure, lipids, cardiovascular disease risk, and diabetes risk when people lose about 5% to 10% of their weight,” says study co-author and UConn Department of Allied Health Sciences Professor Sherry Pagoto, PhD. “That can be accomplished if participants lose about one to two pounds a week, which is considered a healthy pace of weight loss.

“One thing that is interesting about this data is, oftentimes in the literature, researchers just look at whether there is a correlation between tracking and overall weight loss outcomes. Ran took a data science approach to the data and found there is more to the story,” Dr. Pagoto says. “Now we’re seeing different patterns of tracking. This will help us identify when to provide extra assistance and who will need it the most.”

Future studies will dig deeper into these patterns to understand why they arise and hopefully uncover interventions to improve outcomes. For now, if you use these apps, know that you can still get significant results, even if you miss some entries.

Fitness Flash

Exercising to Burn Fat

The study “Discrepancy between predicted and measured exercise intensity for eliciting the maximal rate of lipid oxidation,” done by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease found that fat burning during exercise varies widely between people. We don’t all burn fat at the same target heart rate, and reaching a preset exercise machine setting won’t bring the same results for everyone.  

“People with a goal of weight or fat loss may be interested in exercising at the intensity which allows for the maximal rate of fat burning. Most commercial exercise machines offer a ‘fat-burning zone’ option, depending upon age, sex, and heart rate,” says lead author Hannah Kittrell, MS, RD, CDN, director of the Mount Sinai Physiolab, a clinical body composition and exercise physiology laboratory at Mount Sinai Morningside, and a PhD candidate in the Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and Science laboratory. “However, the typically recommended fat-burning zone has not been validated, thus individuals may be exercising at intensities that are not aligned with their personalized weight loss goals.”

Reaching a target heart rate is still great for overall health, but if fat-burning is one of your key fitness goals, the researchers suggest having clinical exercise testing, a diagnostic procedure to measure your physiological response to exercise to get a more personalized exercise prescription. (Talk to your doctor or personal trainer about where to get this evaluation.)

“We hope that this work will inspire more individuals and trainers to utilize clinical exercise testing to prescribe personalized exercise routines tailored to fat loss. It also emphasizes the role that data-driven approaches can have toward precision exercise,” says senior author Girish Nadkarni, MD, MPH, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai, director of The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine, and system chief, Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine, Department of Medicine.

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Herb-Crusted Grilled Salmon Recipe, Spotlight on Salmon, Food Processors, Embracing Down Time, and Going the Distance with Exercise

With herb gardens in maximum bloom, now is the perfect time for one of my favorite grilled fish recipes—tons of flavor with a quick prep. How to use the time not spent in the kitchen? You might consider testing out the findings of two fascinating studies. One showed that making a point of spending idle time—doing nothing—is a great way to get creative juices flowing, while the other suggests devoting some time to daily physical exercise to keep your brain sharp. 

Herb-Crusted Grilled Salmon

• Herb-Crusted Grilled Salmon

  In a hurry for dinner? This fresh herb crust takes just a few minutes to make and there’s no marinating time required. I like to use salmon filet rather than steaks because they’re almost bone free, but select the freshest cut available at the store.

  Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the grill rack 
  • 1-1/2- to 2-pound salmon filet
  • 2 cups loosely packed fresh mixed herbs including parsley, dill, and basil 
  • 4 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
  • 1/2 teaspoon each coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Directions

  Step 1

  Check the salmon for any hidden bones and pull them out with a pair of kitchen tweezers. Place the filet skin side down on an oiled grill rack. Set up your grill for direct heat.

  Step 2

  Place the herbs and garlic in a food processor and run until finely chopped. Add the lemon juice and pulse briefly. With the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil and process until you get a paste.

  Step 3

  Use a spatula or your fingers to spread the herb mixture over the salmon. Grill until the flesh is firm and opaque, between 5 and 10 minutes depending on thickness; it should reach 145°F on an instant read thermometer.

  Yields 4-6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

The Benefits of Salmon

When it comes to the healthiest fish varieties, salmon is at the top of every list, thanks to its healthy omega-3 fatty acids; vitamins B3, B5, B6, B12, D, and E; and the minerals selenium and potassium—all contribute in different ways to boosting heart and brain health and combatting inflammation and cognitive decline. According to experts at the Cleveland Clinic, when possible, it’s better to eat wild salmon for a number of reasons—environmental concerns, lower risk of contamination, and higher omega-3 fatty acid content, to name three. Both wild and farmed salmon have low levels of mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants. 

Because of depletion, only farm-raised Atlantic salmon is sold in US seafood markets—commercial fishing is prohibited. Farm-raised salmon from Norway is often an excellent choice because it’s raised in its natural habitat. If you buy farm-raised salmon, look for responsibly sourced fish certified by a third-party organization like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. Numerous species of Pacific salmon are available wild, such as chinook, sockeye, and coho. You might be surprised to know that Costco sells wild-caught salmon at reasonable prices. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Let Your Food Processor Do Its Job

If you have a food processor, there’s no need to pre-chop small ingredients like herbs, garlic cloves, and ginger chunks by hand when they’re part of a recipe that’s made in the processor. Just give herbs a quick rinse and a pat dry with a paper towel and peel garlic and ginger before tossing them into the work bowl, then let the machine chop them before adding in your other ingredients. Larger and/or harder foods, like onions, can be quartered first to get more even mincing in the machine.   

For Your Best Health

Embrace Down Time

Ever wonder what jump-starts creativity? For some people, it’s doing nothing at all. According to a University of Arizona study, creative people are more likely to make the most of their down time during a typical day by exploring their mind—this so-called idle time is especially fruitful because, often, one idea leads to another. 

History is filled with anecdotes of famous scientists, artists, and philosophers who enjoyed being alone with their thoughts, and those people often generated some of their best ideas during idle time, says Jessica Andrews-Hanna, PhD, an associate professor in the school’s Department of Psychology and senior author of the paper. “In today’s busy and digitally connected society, time to be alone with one’s thoughts without distraction may be becoming a rare commodity,” she adds.

Dr. Andrews-Hanna and her colleagues set out to research how thoughts naturally arise and unfold over time in unprompted contexts. They divided their study into two parts. First, they asked each of 81 participants to sit alone in a room for 10 minutes without any access to digital devices and, without any prompts, asked them to voice their thoughts aloud in real time. The recorded files were then transcribed and analyzed.

The researchers assessed the participants’ creativity through a divergent thinking test, a lab-based verbal test that measures a person’s ability to think outside the box. Participants who performed well had thoughts that flowed freely and were associated with one another, often indicated by phrases such as this reminds me of or speaking of which. “While many participants had a tendency to jump between seemingly unrelated thoughts, creative individuals showed signs of thinking more associatively,” says Quentin Raffaeli, lead study author.

They also found that creative people were more engaged in their thoughts when they were left alone without distractions like a cell phone. “Creative people rated themselves as being less bored, even over those 10 minutes. They also spoke more words overall, which indicated that their thoughts were more likely to move freely,” Dr. Andrews-Hanna says.

The second part of the study was in the context of a much larger span of time, the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people were alone with their thoughts more often. Over 2,600 adults answered questions through a smartphone app called Mind Window, developed by Dr. Andrews-Hanna and her graduate student Eric Andrews. Participants who self-identified as being creative reported being less bored during the pandemic. “As we become more overworked, overscheduled, and addicted to our digital devices, I think we need to do a better job in our homes, our workplaces, and our schools to cultivate time to simply relax with our thoughts,” Dr. Andrews-Hanna says.

The researchers are continuing their work using the Mind Window app. They encourage people to download and use it to help scientists understand how people across the world think in their everyday lives. “Understanding why different people think the way they do may lead to promising interventions to improve health and well-being,” Dr. Andrews-Hanna says.

Fitness Flash

Exercise: Going the Distance 

A study done at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and CINVESTAV in Mexico City, Mexico, provides novel insight into the benefits of exercise, which should motivate us to keep moving throughout our lifetime, especially during middle age. Building on the knowledge that long-term exercise profoundly benefits the aging brain, the researchers wanted to better understand how it helps prevent the decline in memory function related to aging.

Among the first structures of the brain affected by aging are the hippocampus and adjacent cortices, areas essential for learning and memory. Deficits in cognitive ability are associated with reduced hippocampal volume and degradation of synaptic connectivity between the hippocampus and the perirhinal-entorhinal cortex. Increasing evidence indicates that exercise benefits brain function: physical activity can delay or prevent these structural and functional reductions in older adults. 

For the study, researchers analyzed the effects of long-term running on a network of new hippocampal neurons generated in young adult mice, at middle age. Using special tracing technology, they were able to show that running throughout mouse middle age kept those adult-born neurons wired.

“Long-term exercise profoundly benefits the aging brain and may prevent aging-related memory function decline by increasing the survival and modifying the network of the adult-born neurons born during early adulthood, and thereby facilitating their participation in cognitive processes,” said Henriette van Praag, PhD, corresponding author, an associate professor of biomedical science in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine and a member of the FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute.

“Long-term running may enhance pattern separation ability, our ability to distinguish between highly similar events and stimuli, a behavior closely linked to adult neurogenesis, which is among the first to display deficits indicative of age-related memory decline,” said Carmen Vivar, PhD, corresponding author, Department of Physiology, Biophysics and Neuroscience, Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN in Mexico. “Our study provides insight as to how chronic exercise, beginning in young adulthood and continuing throughout middle age, helps maintain memory function during aging, emphasizing the relevance of including exercise in our daily lives.” 

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