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Daily Edition • Wednesday, Aug 12

This Is Why Grandma’s Cooking Sticks With You

A woman with a brain and food items sprouting from her head holds a gold spoon, contemplating her meal.

All Healthy Design Studio

Deja Vu All Over Again: There’s a reason a cookie baked using your grandma’s famous recipe can take you right back to her kitchen, even years later. Food memories tend to hit differently than other types of memories — they’re often more vivid and harder to shake. But new research is beginning to explain exactly why that is.

The Study: The vagus nerve is the main line of communication between your gut and your brain. USC researchers wanted to know if it also plays a part in memory, so they tracked brain activity in rats while they ate. Nutritious food triggered a rise in acetylcholine, a chemical tied to memory formation, in neurons feeding into the brain’s memory center. When the researchers cut off communication along the vagus nerve, that rise disappeared, and the rats struggled to remember where they’d found food.

The Takeaway: Your body may reward foods that nourish you by making those meals stick in your memory, not just because they taste amazing.

Keep in Mind: This research is in rats, so it’s unclear if the same pathway works in humans. The study also found a steady junk food diet weakened this connection over time.

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How Much Do You Know About the Meat You Buy?

A variety of packaged meats, including beef and salmon, beside a branded ButcherBox cardboard box.

Courtesy: ButcherBox

A lot of grocery store protein asks you to trust the label. But vague sourcing, unclear standards, and hard-to-verify claims can make it tough to know what you’re actually bringing home.

ButcherBox does more of that homework for you. It partners with farmers and fishermen that meet its quality standards, offering options like 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef and wild-caught seafood, with no added hormones or antibiotics. Everything arrives at your door with free delivery, and you can move or cancel your box without penalties.

Use code ALLHEALTHY to get $20 off your first three boxes.

See What’s In A Box

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Mindfulness

Feeling Frazzled? Try This

A person in a red workout outfit sits cross-legged on a patterned mat, practicing meditation with hands in a mudra position.

Kateryna Hliznitsova/Unsplash

Mind-Body Connection: Sometimes the quickest way to get out of your head is to get back into your body. A body scan is a simple mindfulness practice that involves slowly moving your attention through your body, noticing sensations, tension, and emotions without trying to change them. It can be a useful wind-down ritual before bed (or whenever life has you feeling scattered).

How to Do It: Get comfortable in a seated position and close your eyes. Start the scan by noticing your head, face, jaw, and neck. Slowly move your attention through your shoulders, arms, chest, belly, legs, and feet. Notice areas that feel tense or relaxed, and gently soften your muscles and joints where you can. Return to your breath when your mind wanders. Here’s a great guided version of this practice that takes less than 10 minutes.

The Benefits: Research suggests body scans may offer physical and mental health benefits. A systematic review of body-scan studies found a small improvement in mindfulness, although the researchers noted that the overall evidence was limited. Other research on mindfulness meditation has found small improvements in stress and pain, along with benefits for mood disorders and emotional dysregulation.

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SPOTLIGHT

The Wisdom of Getting Your Life Back

A man with short dark hair and a beard is looking directly at the camera, wearing a dark shirt against a plain background.

AJ DAULERIO
Journalist, Editor

Courtesy: AJ Daulerio

What can someone who spent years battling addiction teach the rest of us about living better? Quite a lot, if AJ Daulerio’s The Small Bow is any indication.

Daulerio, the former Gawker and Deadspin editor whose career imploded amid the Gawker-Hulk Hogan lawsuit, has spent the past decade rebuilding his life in sobriety. He got sober in July 2016 after years of heavy drinking and drug use.

In 2017, he launched The Small Bow as a place to write through his recovery. The newsletter has since grown into a broader project exploring addiction, mental health, spirituality, family, and the messy business of becoming a different person. Daulerio writes with unsparing candor about AA, therapy, meditation, making amends and, perhaps most importantly, keeping his own ego in check.

All of us — even those who haven’t struggled with addiction — can learn a lot from his perspective: staying well requires ongoing work. Such work includes examining your behavior (and changing it when called for), accepting uncomfortable truths, repairing relationships, and finding practices that keep you grounded.

Becoming healthier, physically or spiritually, is a practice (and often a daily one). You don’t need to be in recovery to borrow something from that.

FOLLOW | READ | WATCH

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Quick Picks

Don’t Sugar-Coat It — Is sugar really toxic?

Worth a Look — Pet insurance may start at just $10 a month, but what does that cover?*

Watch the Clock — Eating breakfast after this time could hurt your longevity potential.

Too Hot to Handle — Why are you less hungry during a heatwave?

Under the Microscope — This common microplastic could increase fatty liver disease risk.

^*Indicates a brand partnership

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What We're Cooking

Charred Corn & Clam Pasta With Tomatoes

Linguine pasta with clams, cherry tomatoes, corn, and leafy greens, garnished with lemon on a decorative plate.

Courtesy: Food52

Serves: 4 | Cook Time: 25 minutes

This summer pasta keeps the noodles in the background, letting sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, and briny clams take center stage. Charring the corn before adding the tomatoes brings out its natural sweetness, while the clams and white wine create a savory broth that coats the pasta. Peppery arugula wilts into the mix, and fresh basil and a squeeze of lemon add a bright finish. It’s a light, seafood-forward dinner that makes the most of peak-season produce.

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ALL HEALTHY + OPTIMISM

Take a Breath

Fluffy white clouds against a clear blue sky.

Meina/Unsplash

When stress starts piling up, one of the simplest ways to reset is also one of the most effective: your breath. Research suggests that slow, intentional breathing can help calm the nervous system, improve focus, and reduce feelings of stress in just a few minutes.

In partnership with our parent company, Optimism, we’re sharing a free 7-Day Breathwork Course that teaches simple techniques you can practice in about five minutes a day.

Check It Out

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Looking for a Therapist That Fits Your Needs?

The connection you have with your therapist matters. BetterHelp uses a personalized matching process to help you find a licensed therapist who fits your preferences. New users can receive 25% off their first month of professional online therapy with the discount applied automatically.

Learn More

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HEALTHY HABIT

Build a Better 3 P.M. Default

The afternoon slump is predictable, so plan for it. Keep a snack, take a short walk, drink water, or step outside before you reach for whatever is closest. You don’t need to defeat 3 p.m. with discipline. You just need a default that works better than chaos.

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Final Thought

Lush green forest with tall trees and a winding dirt path leading into the trees. Light fog rests over the landscape.

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”

– Worldwide Laws of Life, Mother Teresa

Alissa Schilling/Unsplash