What do some of the leading researchers in nutrition, exercise and diet eat for lunch? My curiosity got the best of me, so I went to Pennington Biomedical and took a peek inside the lunch boxes of some very smart people.
Dr. Anadora Bruce-Keller describes what she's having: "Cut up pieces of fruit with wheat berries that I cover in kefir and, on occassion, chia seeds."
Her research is all about the gut microbiome - meaning the organisms that live in the digestive tract.
"An unhealthy gut microbiome - which is shaped specifically by high fat, low fiber - can decrease the resistance to depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment, all the things that we don't want," she says.
Keller is just one of Pennington’s researchers whose work actually informs the way they eat. Dr. Courtney Peterson is another.
"I'm eating three bananas, I'm eating a salad with corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado and romaine lettuce, and about a handful of walnuts," she says.
It’s not what Peterson eats - which is pretty healthy - but it’s when she eats it.
"My research is on meal timing, so how the time of day that you eat affects your health," she says. Peterson tries to eat all her meals a little earlier in the day.
And sometimes, it’s not when you eat, but how much you eat. Cory Lemon eats roughly three or four pounds of salad for lunch every day.
He's a very active guy at Pennington. He helps run exercise trials to study obesity and diabetes. Lemon has always been active - he just hasn’t always eaten this healthy.
"My twin brother and I used to get a party-sized lasagna - which could supposedly feed 16 - put it in the oven, split it down the middle, here's your half, here's mine," Lemon says.
Copyright 2015 WRKF
