Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies Recipe, Spotlight on Hazelnuts and Chocolate Chunks, Weight Loss Diets for YOU, and Evening Activity for Better Sleep

How often do you want to indulge in a sweet treat yet wish that it could be healthier? I’ve got you covered with melt-in-your-mouth cookies! They have a nice dose of fiber, one of the key elements mentioned in a new study on weight loss. And if you’re looking for ways to get more sleep, you’ll be intrigued by the other study I’m sharing—it found that short bursts of activity in the evening may help. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

• Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

  These cookies take inspiration from buttery shortbread. They come together in minutes, taste sublime, and pack in a good amount of fiber thanks to the whole wheat pastry flour, the hazelnuts, and even the chocolate! 

  Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup pastry flour
  • 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
  • 2 ounces roasted and skinned hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

  Directions

  Step 1

  Preheat your oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, and salt. Add the olive oil, chocolate, and hazelnuts, and mix with your hands to form a dough.

  Step 2

  Transfer the dough to a piece of parchment paper about 13 inches by 18 inches and pat it down to flatten it a bit. Top with another piece of parchment and roll out the dough to roughly a 10-inch square. Pop it in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up slightly. 

  Step 3

  Discard the top piece of parchment and use a serrated knife to cut the dough into 20 cookies. Carefully separate the cookies (use a small offset spatula if needed), putting about an inch of space between them.

  Step 4

  Slide the parchment with the cookies onto a large cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through. Let the cookies cool to room temperature before eating.

  Yields 20 cookies

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Hazelnuts

Hazelnuts are one of the unsung stars in the nut category, with a sweet taste that’s best when roasted but not salted. These crunchy nuts pack a lot of nutrients into a single ounce: 3 grams of fiber, 4 grams of protein, and 17 grams of fat—76 percent of which are healthy monounsaturated fats and 12 percent are healthy polyunsaturated fats. Hazelnuts also provide great amounts of vitamin E and the minerals copper and manganese, plus some B1, B6, and magnesium. Toss a handful into salads and vegetable dishes for an added layer of flavor. Ground hazelnuts can be used for baking as well as a substitute for breadcrumbs. 

Because their brown skins can be bitter, remove them when using in a dessert recipe. The simplest way is to boil them for 2 minutes in water and baking soda in these proportions: 1 cup  hazelnuts, 2 cups water, and 3 tablespoons of baking soda. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, use your fingers to pop the nuts out of their skins.

Briefly roasting hazelnuts brings out their sweetness. Spread your skinned nuts in a single layer in a rimmed sheet pan and place in a 350°F preheated oven for 10 minutes or until you can smell their aroma. Note: To save time, you can roast hazelnuts in their skins, then transfer them to a clean dish towel and rub them vigorously; this technique will remove most, though usually not all, of the skins. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Chopping Your Own Chocolate Chunks

I like to fold chocolate chunks rather than store-bought chips into recipes because I can use my favorite chocolate bars and not be limited by the few cacao options in the baking aisle of my supermarket. Simply place your favorite bar on a secure cutting board and use a serrated knife to make cuts along its length, starting from one of the short sides.

For Your Best Health

Weight Loss Diets: Do It Your Way…With These Suggestions

“Flexibility and personalization are key to creating programs that optimize dieters’ success at losing weight and keeping it off,” said Manabu T. Nakamura, PhD, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the leader of the new study “Successful dietary changes correlate with weight‐loss outcomes in a new dietary weight‐loss program.”

The research involved a group of dieters who participated in a regimen called the “Individualized Diet Improvement Program,” or iDip, which uses data visualization tools and intensive dietary education sessions to increase dieters’ knowledge of key nutrients, enabling them to create a personalized, safe, and effective weight-loss plan. “Sustainable dietary change, which varies from person to person, must be achieved to maintain a healthy weight. The iDip approach allows participants to experiment with various dietary iterations, and the knowledge and skills they develop while losing weight serve as the foundation for sustainable maintenance,” explained Dr. Nakamura. 

Based on the dietary guidelines issued by the Institutes of Medicine, the iDip team created a one-of-a-kind, two-dimensional quantitative data visualization tool that plots foods’ protein and fiber densities per calorie and provides a target range for each meal. The pillars of iDip are increasing protein and fiber consumption—80 grams of protein and 20 grams of fiber a day—as part of a 1,500-calorie or less daily diet. 

Starting with foods they habitually ate, the dieters created their individualized plans. And, indeed, in addition to personalization and flexibility, participants who consumed greater amounts of protein and fiber had the greatest success. In tracking dieters’ protein and fiber intake, the team found a strong correlation between protein and fiber consumption and weight loss at 3 and at 12 months. “[This] suggests that participants who were able to develop sustainable dietary changes within the first three months kept losing weight in the subsequent months, whereas those who had difficulty implementing sustainable dietary patterns early on rarely succeeded in changing their diet in the later months,” Dr. Nakamura said. The team hypothesized that this correlation could also have been associated with some dieters’ early weight-loss success, which may have bolstered their motivation and adherence to their program.

At the one-year mark, successful dieters (41 percent of participants) had lost 12.9 percent of their body weight, compared with the remainder of the study sample, who lost slightly more than 2 percent of their starting weight. “The research strongly suggests that increasing protein and fiber intake while simultaneously reducing calories is required to optimize the safety and efficacy of weight loss diets,” said first author and University of Illinois alumna Mindy H. Lee, registered dietitian-nutritionist for the iDip program.

Dr. Nakamura emphasized the importance of preserving lean mass while losing weight, especially when using weight-loss drugs. “Recently, the popularity of injectable weight-loss medications has been increasing,” he said. “However, using these medications when food intake is strongly limited will cause serious side effects of muscle and bone loss unless protein intake is increased during weight loss.”

Body composition analysis indicated that iDip dieters maintained their lean body mass, losing an average of 7.1 kilograms of fat mass and minimal muscle mass at the six-month interval. Among those who lost greater than 5 percent of their starting weight, 78 percent of the weight they lost was fat.

The project was funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Fitness Flash

Evening Activity for Better Sleep

Rigorous exercise before bed has long been discouraged because it can be stimulating, but researchers from University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, found that short bursts of light activity can lead to better sleep.

For the study, published in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, participants completed two four-hour evening sessions of prolonged sitting broken up with 3-minute activity breaks every half hour. The scientists found that after the intervention the participants slept 30 minutes longer.

Lead author Jennifer Gale, PhD candidate in the Department of Human Nutrition at Otago, said that sitting for long periods is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and death. “We know that for many of us, our longest period of uninterrupted sitting happens at home in the evening. In our previous studies we have found that getting up and doing two to three minutes of exercise every 30 minutes reduces the amount of sugar and fat in your bloodstream after a meal. However, many sleep guidelines tell us we shouldn’t do longer bouts of higher intensity exercise in the hours before sleep, so we wanted to know what would happen if you did very short bouts of light intensity activity repeatedly throughout the evening.” 

The activity breaks involved three exercises: chair squats, calf raises, and standing knee raises with straight-leg hip extensions. “These simple body-weight exercises were chosen because they don’t require equipment or a lot of space and you can do them without interrupting the TV show you are watching,” said primary investigator Meredith Peddie, PhD, senior lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition. “From what we know from other studies, you could probably get a similar effect if you walked around your house, marched on the spot, or even danced in your living room. The most important thing is that you get out of your chair regularly and move your body.” 

The fact that this exercise resulted in longer sleep is particularly important, the researchers pointed out, because insufficient sleep can negatively affect diet and has been associated with heart disease and type 2 diabetes. “We know higher levels of physical activity during the day promote better sleep, but current sleep recommendations discourage high-intensity exercise before bed because it can increase body temperature and heart rate resulting in poor sleep quality,” Dr. Peddie said. She added, “It might be time to review these guidelines as our study has shown regularly interrupting long periods of sitting is a promising health intervention.” 

Get More Recipes In Your Inbox!

Sheet Pan Souvlaki
Recipe, Spotlight on Mint, How to Choose Skewers, The “Secret Sauce” for Losing Weight and The Long Reach of Exercise

Warm weather reawakens my desire for effortless cooking, but I still want food that’s intensely flavorful. This take on chicken souvlaki is the perfect answer—simple and succulent. It relies on a wonderful mix of spices enhanced by extra virgin olive oil. It’s also an excellent example of how delicious food can be good for you. For many people, higher temperatures also reawaken the desire to get into summer shape. Timely research on how the human touch can be more helpful than apps for weight loss may have you rethinking hiring a nutrition coach. As you prep for summer activities, you’ll be fascinated by new research on just how wide-reaching the benefits of exercise is for every part of your body. 

Sheet Pan Souvlaki

• Sheet Pan Souvlaki

  Traditional souvlaki is, of course, meat grilled on skewers. This version of one of my favorite recipes is perfect for those times when you can’t get to the grill but want to taste souvlaki’s deep, rich spices. Besides the traditional way of serving souvlaki on a pita with tzatziki sauce, this chicken is delicious over rice with a side of tomatoes and cucumber and my light, minty yogurt dressing. 

  Ingredients

  For the chicken:

  • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided use
  • Juice of 1 large lemon
  • 4 garlic cloves, very finely minced  
  • 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander 
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
  • 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
  • 2 large red onions, peeled and cut into eighths

  For the yogurt dressing:

  • 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice, more to taste
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh spearmint

  Directions

  Step 1

  In a bowl large enough to hold the chicken, make a marinade by whisking together 2 tablespoons olive oil, the lemon juice, garlic, salt, and all the spices. 

  Step 2

  Using a cutting board reserved for raw meat, cut the thighs into evenly sized strips. Place the strips in the marinade and toss to coat. Allow the chicken to marinate on a counter for 30 minutes, or up to overnight in the fridge.

  Step 3

  When ready to cook, preheat your oven to 350°F. Use a tablespoon of olive oil to lightly coat a rimmed sheet pan. Spread out the strips. Drizzle the onions with olive oil and arrange them among the chicken pieces. Bake for 30 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer reaches 165°F when testing a few chicken strips.

  Step 4

  While the chicken is roasting, make the yogurt dressing by whisking together all its ingredients. Taste and add more salt, pepper, and/or lemon juice if desired. (If you want to make the sauce in advance, keep it in the fridge until needed). Just before serving, drizzle the top with more olive oil.

  Step 5

  To serve, plate strips of chicken with the red onions along with the yogurt dressing and your choice of sides or pitas.

  Yields 4 to 6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Choosing Mint

Many recipes that call for mint don’t specify the type to use. Unless you grow your own, you might be surprised to learn that there are well over a dozen varieties, with spearmint and peppermint being the most well-known yet quite different in taste and appearance.

There’s a good reason that candies and drinks, especially around the holidays, feature peppermint. Peppermint is 40% menthol, and it’s the menthol that tingles your palate. Spearmint, on the other hand, has almost no menthol. It gets its sweetish taste from a phytochemical called carvone, and that makes it perfect when you want just a nuance of mint in dishes like yogurt dressing, tabbouleh, or mint sauce for lamb. 

Both types of mint make great additions to your herb garden or window box—once you have them at your fingertips, you’ll look for even more ways to enjoy them. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget

When You Want to Grill: Choosing Skewers

With summer grilling season upon us, it’s time to take stock of your BBQ tools. Whether you want to grill meat, veggies, or fruit, having a selection of skewers is a must. While bamboo skewers are great for finger foods, but for grilling, the soaking process and their shorter size make them more work than strong metal ones. And, of course, they’re not reusable.

There are many styles of metal skewers to choose from. I recommend looking for some specific features that make them easier to handle and thread. The skewer itself should be at least 12 inches long. You can find skewers that are nearly a foot and a half in length, but before you make any purchase, make sure they will fit inside your grill! I also prefer those with a wide, flat surface that ends in a sharp point, better for piercing raw meat and harder veggies and fruits. 

Helpful hack: Coat your skewers with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil before loading them up—the cooked food will release that much more easily.

Also aim for skewers with heat-resistant handles that are easy to grab—do still wear grill mitts for safety—rather than skewers with only a metal ring. As convenient as online shopping is, if  possible, test out different brands at a physical store to see which ones fit best in your hand. 

Wash and dry your skewers as soon as feasible after cooking. That’s when traces of food will come off more readily (dropping them into your sink for a soak in warm soapy water for a few minutes will help).

For Your Best Health

The “Secret Sauce” for Losing Weight

As great as the need is for low-cost, effective weight loss treatments, current technology—even with all the apps available—is not advanced enough to replace human coaches, according to the SMART study conducted by Northwestern Medicine and published in JAMA. 

“Giving people technology alone for the initial phase of obesity treatment produces unacceptably worse weight loss than giving them treatment that combines technology with a human coach,” said corresponding study author Bonnie Spring, PhD, director of the Center for Behavior and Health and professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

In the study, people who initially only received technology without coach support were less likely to achieve meaningful weight loss, considered to be at least 5% of body weight, compared to those who also had a human coach. Investigators intensified treatment quickly (by adding resources after just two weeks) if a person showed less than optimal weight loss, but the weight loss disadvantage for those who began their weight loss effort without coach support persisted for six months, the study showed. Note: It is possible for some people to achieve clinically meaningful weight loss without anti-obesity medications, bariatric surgery, or even behavioral treatment, Dr. Spring said. In the SMART study, 25% of people who began treatment with technology alone were able to achieve a 5% weight loss after six months without any treatment augmentation. But that means 75% were not.

Eventually, more advanced technology may be able to supplant human coaches, Dr. Spring said. “We may not be so far away from having an AI chatbot that can sub for a human, but we are not quite there yet. It’s within reach. The tech is developing really fast.”

Scientists are now trying to parse what human coaches do that makes them so helpful, and how AI can better imitate a human, not just in terms of content but in emotional tone and context awareness, Dr. Spring added.

An unsolved problem is matching treatment type and intensity to individuals’ needs and preferences. “If we could just tell ahead of time who needs which treatment at what intensity, we might start to manage the obesity epidemic,” Dr. Spring added.

Fitness Flash

The Long Reach of Exercise 

The health benefits of exercise are well-known, but new research published in the journal Nature shows that the body’s response to exercise is more complex and far-reaching than previously thought. In a lab study on rats, a team of scientists from across the United States found that physical activity caused many cellular and molecular changes in all 19 of the organs they studied in the animals!

Exercise lowers the risk of many diseases, but scientists didn’t fully understand how it changes the body on a molecular level. This is partly because most studies have focused on exercise’s effects on a single organ or on one gender only, among other limited variables. To take a more comprehensive look at the biology of exercise, scientists with the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) used an array of techniques in the lab to analyze molecular changes in rats as they were put through their paces with weeks of intense exercise. 

The team studied a range of tissues from the animals, such as the heart, brain, and lungs. They found that each of the organs they looked at changed with exercise, helping the animals regulate their immune system, respond to stress, and control pathways connected to inflammatory liver disease, heart disease, and tissue injury.

The data provide potential clues to many different human health conditions. For example, the researchers found a possible explanation for why the liver becomes less fatty during exercise, which could help in the development of new treatments for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (formerly called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). “Even though the liver is not directly involved in exercise, it still undergoes changes that could improve health. No one speculated that we’d see these acetylation and phosphorylation changes in the liver after exercise training,” said Pierre Jean-Beltran, PhD, a co-first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, when the study began. “This highlights why we deploy all of these different molecular modalities—exercise is a very complex process, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Two or three generations of research associates matured on this consortium project and learned what it means to carefully design a study and process samples,” added Hasmik Keshishian, PhD, a senior group leader under Steve Carr, senior director of Broad’s Proteomics Platform, and co-author of the study. “Now we are seeing the results of our work: biologically insightful findings that are yielding from the high-quality data we and others have generated. That’s really fulfilling.”

Additional MoTrPAC studies are underway to study the effects of exercise on young adult and older rats, and the short-term effects of 30-minute bouts of physical activity. The consortium has also begun human studies and is recruiting about 1,500 individuals of diverse ages, sexes, ancestries, and activity levels for a clinical trial to study the effects of both endurance and resistance exercise in children and adults.

The team hopes that their findings could one day be used to tailor exercise to an individual’s health status or to develop treatments that mimic the effects of physical activity for people who are unable to exercise. 

Get More Recipes In Your Inbox!