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Over the past few years, my supplement collection has become about as lavish as my skincare regimen. It started with the basics—vitamin D, vitamin B12—and has evolved to include the fancier variety—Goop’s nutrient and antioxidant powder, hair and scalp tablets, “skin-perfecting” capsules I import from France.

I recently learned when it comes to my skincare routine, less is more (when used correctly), and I wondered if the same could be true for my supplement intake. Are these capsules, tablets and powders actually making me healthier and improving my hair and skin? Or am I just your common sucker for good marketing?

If I am, I’m not the only one. In 2020, sales of vitamins, minerals and other supplements totalled well over 1 billion dollars in Canada alone. But some of us (bonjour!) may not be taking supplements effectively.

“It’s best not to take supplements you don’t need to take, and instead to try to get essential vitamins and nutrients from food,” says Andy De Santis, a registered dietitian at Health in Davisville in Toronto. What’s more, mixing some supplements could be dangerous. “There are probably 40 bad interactions,” says De Santis, “like calcium and iron.” And mixing supplements with medications, like blood thinners, can be particularly dangerous.

We caught up with De Santis as well as Ciara Foy, a registered nutritionist and author of Empowered by Food: Heal Your Hormones, Balance Stress, and Become Unstoppable to learn what supplements are worth taking, and how to take them safely and for the best absorption. (Note: They both stress the importance of consulting your doctor and perhaps taking a blood test before adding any supplements to your diet.)

Which supplements to take

Vitamin D and folic acid

De Santis and Foy both commonly recommend vitamin D to their clients. According to Health Canada, many people meet some of their vitamin D requirements through exposure to sunlight, but the amount of exposure fluctuates with the time of year, especially in Canada. “Because of this, most people need to rely on a supplement to get enough,” says De Santis. He and Foy also commonly recommend folic acid to people who could become pregnant. According to Health Canada, folic acid can help reduce the risk of a neural tube defect, a type of birth defect that can affect a baby’s spinal cord, brain and skull.

Omega-3

Another supplement De Santis and Foy often recommend is an Omega-3. These fatty acids are naturally found in fish and certain nuts and seeds, like walnuts and flaxseeds, so supplements are sometimes suggested for patients who lack those foods in their diet.

In addition to helping with overall wellbeing, Omega-3s have many health benefits including reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, depression, and more. But, most people don’t get enough in their diet, says Foy—and it doesn’t help that Omega-3s are volatile fatty acids. “They start to degrade with heat, light and oxygen,” says Foy, “so even if you eat a lot of fish, you’re probably not getting as much Omega-3 as you may think.” For best absorption, Foy suggests taking an Omega-3 supplement in an oil form and keeping them in the fridge to prevent them from going rancid.

Which supplements to avoid

Multivitamins

A 2011 study in Iowa tracked more than 38,700 women over nearly two decades and found those who regularly took certain dietary vitamin and mineral supplements, including multivitamins, had a higher risk of early death than those who didn’t.

“I don’t recommend a multivitamin willy nilly,” says De Santis. “I prefer my clients to focus on their dietary pattern first and use supplements from there.” The same goes for Foy—she says she only recommends a multivitamin, in the form of a prenatal supplement, to clients who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Iron

Another popular supplement is iron (iron deficiency is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in the world)—but taken incorrectly, iron supplements can also be harmful. Iron should only be taken under the guidance of a medical professional, says De Santis. Taking iron supplements in high doses for a prolonged period of time, or a single overdose, can lead to iron toxicity, which can cause damage to the gastrointestinal system, liver or brain.

“If you have anemia, I’d look at how we can improve your diet to increase your iron intake,” he says. If a blood test shows you’re low in iron and your doctor suggests supplements, a physician will likely recommend not drinking coffee, says Foy, since coffee will reduce iron absorption, and may also recommend taking vitamin C to increase absorption.

Vitamin C

Speaking of vitamin C, De Santis says no one is short in it—so don’t bother with a daily supplement. “A cup of orange juice, a piece of fruit or vegetable gives you all the vitamin C you need for the day,” he says.

Since vitamin C has been connected to boosting immune function, some people like taking it when they feel a cold coming on—but if you do, steer clear of the popular powdered versions, warns Foy, because they tend to be loaded with sugar. “Vitamin C competes with sugar for uptake into your white blood cells, which are the ones that are helping to fight a virus and help to support your immune system,” she says. Instead, take vitamin C in tablet form every four hours when you’re feeling sick—and don’t worry about overdoing it. “It’s a water-soluble vitamin so your body will get rid of anything it doesn’t need.”

Melatonin

The same cannot be said for melatonin, which is commonly used to help fall asleep. There are warnings on the label to not take it for a prolonged period of time, says Foy. “Your body can produce melatonin, so you want to work on creating an environment where your body can produce it instead of just giving it to your body,” she says. This includes incorporating exercise into your day and limiting screen time. Keep melatonin just for the times when jetlag is keeping you up, says Foy.

Which supplements to consider

Vitamin B, Collagen, Zinc and Magnesium

There are a few supplements De Santis and Foy occasionally suggest to clients or that can be safe to take independently. B vitamins, such as a B-complex, can help with energy, metabolism, and support the body during stress, says Foy. “For most people, especially women, a good B complex is very important.” She suggests taking methylcobalamin, a form of vitamin B, that absorbs better than the others.

De Santis sees the benefit of taking collagen supplements for beauty purposes, as they’ve been shown to improve skin hydration, elasticity, roughness, and density.

According to Foy, zinc, preferably in the form of a lozenge from a health food store, can help stave off or shorten the length of a cold.

Magnesium helps regulate blood pressure, supports the immune system and assists with muscle and nerve function. “There are many different types of magnesium,” says Foy, “and I often recommend magnesium bile glycinate for those who can’t sleep, magnesium maleate for with fibromyalgia or other pain, and magnesium citrate for digestive issues.”

The best time and way to take supplements

Unless otherwise instructed, most supplements should be taken in the morning. “Anything that has to do with energy, like B complex and vitamin D, should be taken in the early part of the day,” says Foy. Omega-3s should typically be taken twice a day. “So it might be once in the morning and once with dinner,” says Foy. Also, be sure to read the labels. For example, Foy explains most supplements should be taken with food because that’s how the body is used to taking in nutrients.

Just like your skincare products, supplements need to be good quality and used as directed in order to work effectively. And given the advice from Foy and De Santis, you may want to rethink those powders and tablets that sound a little too good to be true.

Next: What You Need to Know Before Taking Biotin Supplements

If you’ve walked into a drugstore lately, you’ve likely noticed the oral health aisle—everything from brushes and floss to electrical gadgets and bleaching kits—steadily expanding. But do we really need to think about our teeth beyond brushing a couple of times a day?

Perhaps because visits to a family doctor and a dentist are decoupled, people don’t always associate dental health with their overall physical health. But Dr. Laura Dempster, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s faculty of dentistry, says it’s “important to appreciate that dental health is part of overall systemic health, because what happens in your mouth can impact the rest of your body and vice versa.”

When it comes to dental health, the most important thing is to find a routine that works and a dental practitioner who can help you make the right choices. “Oral hygiene should be individualized to the patient,” says Dempster. And if you really want to maximize how effective you are, she says to give your teeth their most thorough clean before bed. We produce less saliva—which protects our teeth—while we sleep.

For example, harmful bacteria like Streptococcus mutans build up in your mouth when you don’t remove the plaque from your teeth by brushing and flossing properly, which can lead to cavities and gum disease. This disease makes your gums bleed, and the bacteria can then enter your bloodstream, where they encourage clots to form, increasing your risk of heart disease.

Luckily, Canadians take pretty good care of their teeth—75 percent visit a dental clinic each year. Keep in mind: by the time symptoms develop, a problem has already been brewing under the surface for a while, which is why Dempster stresses the importance of regular checkup.

So, dentist visits aside, how do we keep our mouths healthy?

How to floss

It’s recommended that we floss once a day, but only 28 percent of Canadians floss even five times a week. Brushing only cleans the surface of your teeth, leaving plaque—a sticky film filled with bacteria—to build up in between teeth and cause problems. This was why floss was developed, says Dempster.

While flossing is ideal, other tools can mimic what it does. Dempster says a Sulcabrush (a small, angled brush) or Soft-Picks (which look like toothpicks with rubber bristles on them) can help create a routine, since using these tools gets you into the habit of flossing daily—cleaning between your teeth in any way is better than not at all. And while a Waterpik, which uses water pressure to clean between your teeth, may claim to have the same effect as flossing, Dempster says that it’s more effective for flushing out food but doesn’t help with plaque, which is sticky and doesn’t wash off well with just water. Plaque requires the sort of mechanical removal that flossing provides.

How to whiten teeth safely

Teeth whitening isn’t new—ancient Romans used a mixture of urine (which contains ammonia) and goat milk for their smiles.

Today, an increasing number of better-smelling products designed for at-home use are available to us. However, it’s normal for teeth to darken as we get older. Over time, enamel—the hard mineral layer that protects our teeth—gets stained or worn down, exposing dentin—a yellowish tissue—underneath. “I think the pressure to whiten your teeth is more of a societal pressure,” Dempster says.

This societal pressure might be putting our teeth at risk. “I’m not convinced that there’s a safe way to whiten your teeth,” she adds. Some whitening products, like strips, contain carbamide or hydrogen peroxides, which act as bleaching agents that penetrate part of the tooth to remove stains. In the process, they can increase tooth sensitivity or irritate gums, and Dempster says there’s emerging evidence that whitening can directly damage teeth.

At-home products don’t allow for a lot of control by the user, so it’s best to talk to your dentist or hygienist if you’re really eager for pearly whites. They can guide you in choosing the right whitening products or let you know if you should opt for an in-office treatment to ensure that you don’t cause your teeth any damage.

Is fluoride toothpaste safe?

Fluoride is a mineral found naturally in our teeth and bones. It’s also added to some municipal water supplies and found in products like toothpaste because it helps to strengthen enamel. For all its benefits, though, this mineral is shrouded in controversy.

Some people believe that too much fluoride can cause cancer when it accumulates in the bones. But several studies in different populations have been unable to find a strong link between cancer and fluoride, and organizations such as the World Health Organization, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and Canada’s National Research Council have said that there is no direct association between fluoride and cancer. In fact, water fluoridation is associated with a 20 to 30 percent reduction in tooth decay at the population level.

In Canada, municipalities decide whether to fluoridate their water. Toronto’s water, for example, has been fluoridated since 1963, and as of 2017, about 39 percent of Canadians had access to fluoridated water.

Benefits of tongue scraping

In addition to brushing, some people use tongue cleaning tools, such as tongue scrapers. While many do it to control bad breath, the goal of cleaning the tongue is actually to remove plaque and bacteria that build up on it.

While some professionals say tongue scrapers can do a better job than toothbrushes, Dempster says you can clean your tongue just as easily with a toothbrush as you can with a special scraping tool. The best way to do this is by using your brush to lightly scrape from back to front, while avoiding activating your gag reflex.

Now that you’ve learned expert-approved dental tips, find out about common dental issues and what they say about your overall health.

Over the past few years the skin care world has exploded, and once-buzzy words like “micellar” and “hyaluronic” have now become part of our vocabulary—and our skin care regimens. What began as a one- or two-product routine has expanded to more stuff than can possibly fit in a medicine cabinet, leading us to wonder, Is this all necessary?

Short answer: no. We asked four dermatologists about their skin care routines and recommendations for women of different ages, and their answers were similiar—and surprisingly simple. While skin care isn’t one-size-fits-all—skin type and specific concerns can influence a regimen—the derms agree that only a handful of products are truly necessary.

The top recommendation is, yes, sunscreen. “People want to pile six things on their face, but the most powerful thing to do is to consistently use sunscreen from as early in life as possible,” says Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd, a Miami-based dermatologist and faculty member of Canada’s Skin Spectrum Summit. Sunscreen is the first line of defence against fine lines, wrinkles, sagging skin and hyperpigmentation. It can even help reverse sun damage.

Look for a sunscreen that’s broad-spectrum, which protects against UVA and UVB rays, and has a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30. But sun safety shouldn’t stop there—everyone should also wear a hat with a three-inch brim, seek shade, wear long sleeves and pants and reapply sunscreen every two hours during exposure.

The other non-negotiables, according to the derms, are cleansers and moisturizers. Cleansers should be used at least once a day, ideally at bedtime, to remove makeup, debris, pollutants and anything else that may have latched onto the skin throughout the day. “That gives the skin a clean canvas and enables it to breathe and repair any damage,” says Dr. Monica Li, a dermatologist in Vancouver.

A few of the derms use moisturizers that contain ceramides, which are lipids that our body produces natually. Ceramides make up around half of our skin’s outer barrier, but we lose them as we age and by overusing exfoliants or other harsh ingredients like the ones in acne medications. Luckily, we can replenish our ceramide supply by using products with synthetic ceramides. They help soothe skin, tame eczema and rosacea and lock in moisture for dry skin.

Aside from sunscreen, cleanser and moisturizer, there are two other products that pop up in the dermatologists’ routines and recommendations: vitamin C and retinoid. Both ingredients can be effective at targeting age-related concerns, like dark spots and fine lines, with regular use.

Here, the derms share how to achieve a healthy complexion without a complicated, time-consuming and costly routine.

dermatologist skin care routine | Dr. Monica Li

30s: Dr. Monica Li, Vancouver

What’s happening?

“Most people are starting to show the earliest signs of aging. We might see fine lines, a few wrinkles and some volume loss. We also start to see the effects of sun exposure throughout our lifetime. We may not have been careful in the sun as kids, so even if we’re careful now, we can see the signs of sun damage from when we were young.”

What’s your routine?

“In the morning, I always clean my face with a gentle cleanser that has ceramides in it, then a gentle toner that contains micellar water, which helps shrink the appearance of pores. I pat a few drops of vitamin C serum into my skin, wait a few minutes, and then I put on light face lotion. I don’t like a heavy moisturizer during the day as it can clog my pores. That’s followed by a mineral sunscreen. At night, I use the same cleanser and toner, but two or three nights a week I swap it out for a cleanser that has salicylic acid in it for an exfoliating effect. On the nights I don’t use my salicylic acid cleanser, I use retinol. I spread a thin layer across my face and wait a few minutes before applying an eye serum and moisturizer. I change moisturizers and use ones containing ingredients or formulations that are evidence-based—ceramides, as it supports a healthy moisture barrier; hyaluronic acid, as it has water-drawing and hence moisturizing properties; and colloidal oatmeal, as it helps to soothe the skin and retain hydration at the skin surface. I’m a proponent of trying different products as there are always new ones in the skin care market—and I want to be in the know!”

What do you recommend to patients in their 30s?

“There’s still time for prevention in our 30s! Retinol is key. It can help produce collagen, so it helps reduce fine lines and shrink the appearance of the size of pores. It can be drying and irritating, but it’s still effective if used just two to three times a week. It comes in different potencies for different uses. The most potent ones are called retinoids, which are by prescription, and those ones can also treat skin ailments, such as acne. The other ingredient that’s really important for 30-year-olds is topical vitamin C, which helps the skin cells repair against environmental damage.”

dermatologist skin care routine | Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd

40s: Dr. Heather Woolery-Lloyd, Miami

What’s happening?

“People in their 40s start to complain about wrinkles—it starts in the early 40s for lighter skin, late 40s for darker skin. In the mid-to late 40s, the complaint is skin sagging. We start seeing skin laxity, like jowls, marionette lines and heaviness in the cheeks. When you’re young, the apples of your cheeks are high, but because we live on planet Earth, gravity pulls them down over time. Dark spots from the sun are also a big concern—they start in the 30s but become more prominent in the 40s. And, if you have dark skin, dark spots are common starting in the 20s because of acne.”

What’s your routine?

“I don’t have a very complicated skin care routine, primarily because I’m a busy mom. In the mornings, I use a gentle cleanser. After cleanser, I sometimes use a moisturizer if my skin is dry. I always use a chemical sunscreen that’s SPF 30 because it’s clear, so I don’t get that white cast on my skin that mineral sunscreens cause. At night, I use the same gentle cleanser, and if I feel my skin is becoming more uneven or if I want to prevent unevenness, I use a dark spot corrector pad—they’re great for evening out skin tone. Occasionally I use a retinoid. My skin is dry, so I use it when my skin can tolerate it. But I use a moisturizer on top and that helps. I go on and off eye cream—it just depends on how compliant I am!”

What do you recommend to patients in their 40s?

“I like antioxidants, such as vitamin C or green tea polyphenols, which promote a brighter complexion and helps with sun protection. Sunscreen with SPF 30 prevents 97 percent of the sun’s UVB rays from entering the skin, but there’s about 3 percent that goes into the skin and can be disruptive—sunlight UVB is a type of radiation. I also like a retinoid, which has been proven in multiple large controlled trials to prevent and reverse wrinkles.”

dermatologist skin care routine | Dr. Marlene Dytoc

50s: Dr. Marlene Dytoc, Edmonton

What’s happening?

“In their 50s, many women experience the advent of menopause, so there are hormonal changes that can impact skin, like dryness and irritation. This can also predispose you to conditions such as eczema, especially in dry climates. People also see more photoaging, the development of fine lines and wrinkles, and a decrease in collagen, due to cumulative sun exposure. This is also the age when people may notice the structure of the face starts to drop, and we get more concerned about pre-cancerous spots developing.”

What’s your routine?

“Before I leave the house in the morning, I use a cleanser and then a moisturizer with ceramides to repair the skin barrier and really moisturize my skin. Then I apply a broad-spectrum mineral sunscreen. In the evening, I wash my face again and put on some moisturizer. Some people would like to be more proactive with their skin and use anti-aging properties like retinols and acids, but I just don’t—I prioritize sunscreens and moisturizers that are hypoallergenic. Sun protection and adequate moisturization are key to an anti-aging routine.”

What do you recommend to patients in their 50s?

“Since dryness is often a concern, we want to concentrate on moisturizing by choosing a product that has humectant, emollient and occlusive properties, a great trifecta, plus ingredients that replenish the skin barrier. For cleansers, we want one that’ll help skin maintain a healthy pH balance. If you use alkaline cleanser, it strips away the skin barrier, making skin drier and enabling allergens and irritants to penetrate the skin, giving rise to different kinds of rashes, including contact dermatitis or eczema. We recommend cleanser soap with a pH similar to the optimal pH range of the skin, which lies between 4.7 and 5.75. Retinol is an anti-aging ingredient to try. It can increase dryness, but you can apply moisturizer an hour after retinol, and it’ll help. It’s important to know that genetics have a lot to do with aging, so these anti-aging topical agents are not the cure for aging.”

dermatologist skin care routine | Denise Wexler

60s and beyond: Dr. Denise Wexler, London, Ont.

What’s happening?

“The face starts to descend a bit. You may notice fat loss in certain areas, like under the eyes and cheeks. The skin itself is thinner; there has been collagen loss. There are wrinkles—the amount depends on how much you’ve protected yourself, and heredity. There may be signs of sun damage, such as brown marks and lesions. Your skin will also probably be drier than it was when you were younger.”

What’s your skin care routine?

“In the morning, I use a very mild cleanser, which I use just once a day. I always use sunscreen. I’ve worn sunscreen since I was a dermatology resident. Then I use a moisturizer on top of that—one school of thought is sunscreen should be the last layer applied, but I prefer it this way, or I choose a combination moisturizer with sunscreen. I like hyaluronic acid moisturizers: They’re anti-aging and help even skin texture and colour. Then I do my makeup. At night, I don’t necessarily remove all my makeup. I don’t like to wash my skin again because I find it gets too dry. I don’t get clogged pores or pimples anymore, so I don’t feel the need to cleanse—I just go right into my routine of rotating between a vitamin C serum, a hyaluronic acid serum and topical retinoid, or a moisturizer.”

What do you recommend to patients over 60?

“Keep wearing sunscreen! It’s the most important thing to do. I also like a prescription retinoid. It tends to be more effective than over-the-counter retinols—retinols being a type of retinoid—for minimizing the signs of aging.”

dermatologist skin care routine | Skin Care Products Hero

BH Picks

Moisturizer:

Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Moisturizing Cream, $63, sephora.com

CeraVe Moisturizing Cream Daily Face & Body Moisturizer, $26, well.ca

Sunscreen:

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra-Fluid Lotion SPF 50 Face, $29, shoppersdrugmart.ca

EltaMD UV Clear Broad Spectrum SPF 46, $57, tightclinic.com

Vitamin C:

Vichy Liftactiv Vitamin C Brightening Skin Corrector, $46, shoppersdrugmart.ca

Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum, $103, sephora.com

Retinol:

L’Oréal Paris Serum with 0.3% Pure Retinol, Night Serum for Face, $40, shoppersdrugmart.ca

Skinceuticals Retinol 0.3, $82, skinceuticals.ca

Next: How to Spot a Problematic Spot—Use the ABCDE Method

When I was growing up, my dad would often make nachos on the weekends, especially in the fall, because nachos and football go hand in hand. We’d go for a family hike in the Cleveland metro parks—the weather was usually cold and rainy, but his nachos were something to look forward to afterward. He piled them high with cheddar cheese and, um, more cheddar cheese. I’m sure there were other toppings, too, but all I remember is A LOT of cheese.

I love his nachos, but I also love reinventing an old favorite. So what I did here was replace the tortilla chips with roasted sweet potato slices. They’re definitely different but delicious and much healthier than fried tortilla chips. The potatoes are topped with, yes, cheese, but lots of other bright favorites, plus a homemade spicy jalapeño ranch to finish it all off.

Sweet Potato Nachos with the Works

Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 45 minutes
Total: 1 hour
Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 pounds sweet potatoes (4 to 5 sweet potatoes), cut lengthwise into wedges
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Fine pink Himalayan salt
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 to 2 teaspoons chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 (15.5-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
¾ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup shredded pepper Jack cheese
1 large avocado
Juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for serving

For serving

Greek yogurt ranch
Sliced green onion
Crumbled feta cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425°F.
On a baking sheet or in a cast-iron skillet, toss together the sweet potatoes and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season with salt. Arrange the sweet potatoes in a single layer, being sure not to crowd the baking sheet. Bake until the potatoes are slightly softened, 15 to 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil with the onion powder, paprika, chipotle powder, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Drizzle the spice mix over the potatoes and toss to coat. Continue baking until the sweet potatoes are crisp on the outside and tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, leaving the oven on.
Scatter the black beans over the sweet potatoes, then cover with the shredded cheeses. Return the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted and bubbly, 5 to 10 minutes.
In a small bowl, combine the avocado, lime juice, and cilantro. Mix well, mashing up the avocado. Taste and add salt as desired. Top the nachos with the avocado mixture. Top with the dressing, green onion, and crumbled feta as desired. Sprinkle with more cilantro before serving

3d Halfbakedharvesteveryday

Reprinted from Half Baked Harvest: Every Day. Copyright © 2022 by Teighan Gerard.Photographs copyright © 2022 by Teighan Gerard and Kristen Kilpatrick. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.

Next: This Recipe for Oven-Fried Eggplant Parm Is Easy and Adored

Lydia Bach didn’t initially aspire to fuel a fitness phenomenon. She started her career working as a tax lobbyist for the nonpartisan Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois near her hometown of Decatur. But in the early 1960s, she became disillusioned with the government and felt she could do more good traveling the world. Lydia traveled to Syria to do humanitarian work. She traveled to Afghanistan. She taught English in Ethiopia and did aid work in Spain. Eventually, in the late sixties, she followed friends to London.

Lydia arrived as Lotte Berk’s fame was peaking. She was never a dancer, but she was athletic growing up, spending her days on the playground jungle gyms and later, in college, joining her boyfriends on ski trips and tennis courts. She’d always liked challenging herself physically. So when her friend Britt Ekland— the Bond girl— told her about an exercise class that offered women a truly challenging workout, she had to check it out. “I was really physically strong,” she told me in an interview. “I’d traveled the world by land. So I was shocked when I couldn’t do any of the moves.”

Lotte hit it off with Lydia right away. Lydia was striking— long and lean with waist-length blond hair and big blue eyes— and charismatic. Both women were direct, adventurous, sensual, and independent. And after a few classes, Lydia was hooked. She loved the way the workout energized her, the way it pushed her physically. “It changed my body,” she told me. She became a regular.

One day, seeing her passion for the classes, a friend suggested that she take the workout to New York. Lydia had been to New York only once, and she hated it. But she loved a challenge. She ran the idea by Lotte, who handed over the U.S. and Canadian rights to her technique for several thousand pounds in cash, a percentage of Lydia’s future earnings, and the promise of seeing her name go international. Later, according to Esther, Lotte regretted that she parted with these rights so willingly, and without the guidance of a lawyer: When book offers and other business opportunities came her way, she was forced to turn them down, since she no longer owned what she had created. In the early seventies, New York City was descending into a long period of decay. The Upper East Side, though, remained more or less pristine. The neighborhood had long held a reputation as the most elegant in the city, with its regal brownstones, world-famous museums, and visible wealth. It was home to exactly the kind of woman who might have the time and money to pay someone to help her shape her body.

In April 1971, Lydia opened the Lotte Berk Method studio in a townhouse on 67th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. The studio spanned several floors, and instead of green carpet, Lydia went for pink. The larger space— and the bathroom’s location inside the studio— made it an instant upgrade from the original. Lydia was renting, and for a while, she was also sleeping on the studio floor. In the dozen years since Lotte had first started teaching, a handful of other small fitness studios had sprung up in New York and Los Angeles, giving Lydia some competition. Disciples of German strong man Joseph Pilates— the inventor of the eponymous strength and flexibility workout—taught lessons in studios and homes around Manhattan, from an outpost in Henri Bendel’s department store to instructors’ apartments. The New York Times would showcase Lydia’s studio alongside two others, one offering stretching and strengthening from a dance teacher and another acrobatics. But Lydia had a secret weapon. With Lotte’s blessing, she sent out hand-calligraphed invitations to her mentor’s New York-based client list— wealthy ladies who had taken classes at Lotte’s studio while passing through London— encouraging them to visit her Upper East Side studio. Like its London predecessor, the studio was soon filled with recognizable faces, from Ali MacGraw and Candice Bergen to Princess Lee Radziwill. Later, Lydia told The New York Observer, she taught three generations of Kennedys in one class.

In the beginning, the studio remained an exclusively female space. “I felt that women should be able to go someplace and not have to care what they looked like, to be comfortable,” Lydia told me. “And I thought, Fuck you, men, you’ve got all your clubs around New York City. Now we’ve got ours.” But her attitude softened over the decades. She hired a male instructor and began to teach a handful of male students— including the writer Tom Wolfe.

Tom’s wife, Sheila, was a client and believer in the workout, and she thought its exercises might help her husband. After years of sitting at desks and writing, the Bonfire of the Vanities author was so stiff he could barely reach past his knees. Tom became a client, and six months later, he was able to do a backbend and a split. Tom and Sheila’s daughter, the journalist Alexandra Wolfe Schiff, remembers accompanying both her parents to class as a teenager. “Everybody went there,” she told me.

In the beginning, Lydia carried on Lotte’s legacy of incorporating sexual frankness into the workout. In that same New York Times article about the studio, Lydia described the method as “a combination of modern ballet, yoga, orthopedic exercise and sex.” In her 1973 exercise book Awake! Aware! Alive!, which features photos of Lydia wearing a sheer leotard, she devotes the entire last chapter to sex. “All of the exercises in this book are important for sex,” Lydia advises. (The book’s editor at Random House was the legendary Nan Talese, who was also a client at Lydia’s studio. Talese told me coyly, “The men in the office used to come and look at the pictures that were spread out on my sofa.”) The 1970s American press loved this angle. In a feature that excerpted the book, Cosmopolitan gushed in the title, “Exercise Your Way to a Better Sex Life!” But over time, as American culture shifted, so did the Lotte Berk Method. From the mid- 1970s into the 1980s, the idea that women enjoyed sex became less revelatory. Women developed more physical confidence, and Lydia tweaked the method to be more physically rigorous. “I loved the challenge of making it harder, faster, and better,” she told me. She hired a growing roster of instructors, mostly former dancers, to teach at the studio and do the same.

By the early 1990s, few of the Lotte Berk Method’s American devotees knew anything about its origins. In a 1994 article for Harper’s Bazaar, journalist Annemarie Iverson wrote of her classmates at the Upper East Side studio: “Most had never met Lotte Berk. Some had no idea that she was a real person who lived in London.” One client tells her, “Lotte is the woman with long blond hair.” To which Iverson explains, “It was a common mistake: She confused Lotte with Lydia Bach.” (The fact that they have the same initials only added to the confusion.) Another client corrects: “No, no, no. There is no single Lotte.” Was she wrong? Lotte did contain multitudes. And before long, the studios teaching her method— or variations thereof— would multiply exponentially. Most would drop references to the workout’s creator altogether, partly due to licensing agreements and partly to an evolving clientele, opting instead to align themselves with her exercises’ signature piece of equipment: the ballet barre. In the decades that followed, Lydia and her disciples would train nearly all of the women (and one man) who’d go on to open today’s biggest barre franchises, from Core Fusion and Physique 57 to Pure Barre and The Bar Method.

On a steamy Tuesday morning in late July 2019, I traveled an hour and a half west of London to the idyllic country town of Hungerford, Berkshire. Lotte’s daughter, Esther Fairfax, lives in a modest home just a short walk from the town’s main street, a windy road of shops, pubs, and inns. Esther, then a radiant eighty-five years old, was teaching a 9:30 a.m. class in her home studio—a sun-drenched living room off her kitchen, decorated with abstract oil paintings, light beige carpet, and a white ballet barre around the perimeter. Today’s class, like every class, would be filled with her regulars. One of these regulars, Jennie, had been showing up for forty-seven years.

Dressed in a black leotard, sheer black tights, and a fitted floral shirt, Esther greeted me with a warm smile. She still wears her white hair in a sleek Sassoon-esque bob. She had recently been ill and was relieved to be teaching again after a short hiatus. “I’ve really missed this,” she told me. I would be joining her class that morning. I was intrigued to see how contemporary barre had evolved from the original workout—whether, like a game of physical telephone, the technique had been morphed beyond recognition.

Her home was filled with mementos of her life and fitness career—photographs, books, a copy of Lydia Bach’s Awake! Aware! Alive! Soon students began showing up, a small group of mostly blond British women in their sixties and older, dressed in tank tops and leggings. (Take away their British accents and they could have been my mom’s Dance It Off friends at her suburban Atlanta cardio dance studio.) “All right, let’s go!” Esther announced. We made our way into the living room studio and found our
places at the barre, and she switched on a bossa nova CD. Esther began the class with a gentle warm-up not unlike warmups at contemporary barre studios in New York. But as class got going, it was clear that this would not be the serious, intensely choreographed workout I was used to, where the goal of each set of moves, instructors explain, is to work your muscles until they literally quiver. Everyone moved at their own pace and to a slightly different beat. No headset microphone was necessary; we could hear Esther fine without one. And as the class progressed, her students chimed in to remind everyone what exercise came next: “Oh, this one’s Sara’s favorite.” “Bugger, I hate this one.” “Time for fold-ups.” I recognized most of the moves, though they did feel something like second cousins to the ones I’d become familiar with in contemporary barre classes. And I was lost in an unfamiliar terminology.

Fold-ups— or “fold yourself in half”— were tiny crunches. When Esther told us to make “happy feet,” I asked, “You mean, flex?” and she quickly tsk-tsked me: “That sounds too much like the gym.” Later, we were instructed to get into what Pure Barre instructors call the pretzel and Esther calls the tramp— a difficult floor position in which one leg is bent in front and the other in back and the hips and butt are rotated forward and lifted. I was the only one in the room who struggled with this one.

About halfway through class, a few students called for Esther to get out the whip, and she revealed a well-worn brown leather weapon. She teasingly tapped me with it during fold-ups, correcting my form with her free hand. Shortly after, during a period of class in which everyone got very quiet, we sat in a circle with our legs crossed and Esther instructed us to “lift, two, three, four, five, and release, two, three, four, five.” It took me a moment to realize we were doing Kegels. At some point the music switched from Latin to French. When we moved on to legwork, Esther told me, “You know, you could be good if you kept coming back.”

Class ended and the women walked back into the kitchen, chatty and energized. I was proud I had kept up with them, though my legs felt a little wobbly. (The relaxed vibe was deceiving—I would be sore everywhere for the next two days.) Everyone changed into street clothes around the kitchen table, paid Esther in cash, and said their goodbyes. When the last student left, Esther turned to me. “These women have been with me for a long time,” she said. “This is my life.”

Today, stand-alone barre studios number more than 850 in this country, and that’s not counting the one-off classes being taught at gyms like Equinox and other multipurpose studios or the many virtual offerings that emerged during the coronavirus pandemic. Pure Barre’s client base alone is more than half a million strong. While many women still seek out the workout to “lift, tone, burn” their way to a “ballerina body,” many stick with it because, as I discovered, it can make you feel good: The first time I returned to barre after giving birth to my son, I left the studio feeling hopeful, proud of myself, and lighter on my feet than I had in months. And when I asked barre-devotee friends and acquaintances why they enjoy the workout, several said it made them feel “energized” or “motivated.” Some pointed to its meditative qualities—the workout is so challenging, it requires complete focus, which can be head-clearing. “I forget about what’s going on outside the room,” my friend Melanie, a forty-year old
human resources director in Connecticut, told me. Barre is also gentler on the body than workouts that involve a lot of bouncing or pounding. Journalist Samantha Matt wrote in Women’s Health that barre “totally changed [her] life” by helping her manage her fibromyalgia, a condition that causes full-body pain, stiffness, and fatigue. “When I first felt my muscles tighten after taking a few classes, I immediately became addicted to the burn.”

And it’s widely recommended for pregnant women. It turns out Lotte’s obsession with the so-called inner core— the ab muscles and pelvic floor— led to exercises that can help with labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery. My college classmate Sarah, a lawyer living outside Chicago, took barre classes until the day before she gave birth to each of her three children, and she’s convinced the workout helped her deliveries go smoothly, telling me: “My ability to push was amazingly impacted.”

And then there are the workout’s sexual health benefits. With the Swinging Sixties spirit long extinguished— Lotte Berk’s “prostitute” and “sex” moves were long ago renamed— the workout’s teeny-tiny resistance movements, performed at a ballet barre, can even make classes feel prim. Instructors rarely draw attention to the fact that the workout can, as many instructors privately admit, bring very real improvements to women’s sex lives. “It’s kind of like this weird elephant in the room,” a barre-going friend in her late twenties who lives in San Francisco told me. “No one talks about it. But after you’ve done barre for like four days in a row, you’re not going to lie there like a dead fish during sex. You feel like a strong woman who’s like, rawwwr, you know?”

But even without barre being an explicit sex-enhancing workout, women can still reap its benefits— from pelvic floor strength to increased stamina. “I think if we were all pelvic thrusting, holding on to the barre, and the instructor was like, ‘This will be so great when you’re having sex later!’ everyone would immediately get uncomfortable,” my San Francisco friend told me. When Lotte Berk first introduced women to her workout in the sixties, the class’s sexual openness felt thrilling and empowering,
because it was taboo. Now, more than fifty years after the sexual revolution, turning a rigorous strength-training workout into something overtly sexual feels gratuitous. “I want that hour to myself for my peace and my well-being and my mental health,” Burr Leonard, the creator of The Bar Method, told me, echoing the feelings of other women I spoke with. “I think that’s what it does most powerfully.”

Lets Get Physical Barre Fitness

Excerpted from Let’s Get Physical, by Danielle Friedman. Copyright © 2022, Danielle Friedman. Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Next: The Benefits of a Ballet-Inspired Workout

Hal Johnson started using a fitness tracker long before our watches transformed into microcomputers capable of monitoring our heart rate while playing music and making calls.

In fact, back in 1992, he and BodyBreak co-founder Joanne McLeod launched their own, tracking exercise and calorie counts from data users manually inputted. The tracker was, however, on a 5.25-inch floppy disk.

The husband-and-wife duo known for their 90-second health-tip segments that aired on Canadian TV in the ’90s and 2000s have been living their “keep fit and have fun” motto for over three decades. These days, working remotely from their studio gym in their home in Muskoka, Ont., Johnson and McLeod track their workouts and close their daily goal rings with (decidedly more portable) Apple Watches.

Since the first clip-on Fitbit debuted in 2008, wearable fitness trackers have been a growing market for users looking to log their 10,000 steps a day and more. That market exploded by a whopping 22 percent in 2020—today, at least one in four Canadians owns one. From Garmins to Whoop to the Oura Ring, the wearable technology industry is projected to grow to approximately $68.5 billion by 2023, according to GlobalData forecasts.

But in the same way that cellphones are no longer simply for phone calls, fitness trackers have evolved far beyond fitness. Over the past decade, health-oriented metrics have become a staple on these trackers, enabling users to potentially get ahead of health issues like a heart attack, stroke or even COVID.

“It’s one of my most important devices now,” says Johnson, 65, over the phone on a chilly winter afternoon. “It’s not only about the fitness but the health stuff in [the Apple Watch]. It’s just so convenient.” Johnson has just come back from the first of his daily workouts: a 16-kilometre skate on a track through the woods near the couple’s home. McLeod, 63, meanwhile, is deep into training for an Ironman 70.3 she’s entering in September. “I’ve always used my wearable tech as a motivator,” says McLeod, who uses an Apple Watch to track open water swims and stay on top of her training calendar.

Likewise, Johnson, an admitted tech junkie, wears his Apple Watch every day to fuel his fitness progress. But two years ago, his smartwatch became more than just a way to gamify his workouts. It very likely saved his life.

Back in February 2020, Johnson was playing hockey with his local 55+ league, and midway through the game he checked the workout measurements on his Apple Watch out of habit. To his surprise, within the first hour of the game, he had burned 450 calories more than what was normal for him. “I thought, wow, that’s unusual—so I checked my heart rate, and it was extremely high,” he recalls.

Johnson used the electrocardiogram (ECG) function on his watch, which measured how steadily his heart was beating. At the time, this tech was a new idea: press a button and get a measurement that was once only available in a health care setting. Even more novel was the response from Johnson’s watch: “Your heart is in A-fib. Go to the hospital.”

Atrial fibrillation (or A-fib) is a form of irregular heart rhythm—or arrhythmia—that affects up to 200,000 Canadians, putting them at risk of stroke or heart failure. Risk for the disease increases with age, but for a fitness buff like Johnson, it wasn’t even on his radar. In fact, he was shocked, particularly since it’s not in his family history. “I mean, I’m Hal Johnson,” he says with a laugh. “You think, I’m out doing stuff, and watching what I eat. And all of a sudden, [a major health issue] happens.”

The data from Johnson’s watch was confirmed by hospital testing. He was ultimately given blood thinners and, after a few weeks, underwent an electrical cardioversion to shock and reset his heart to normal sinus rhythm.

The idea of strapping on a device to better understand your health is certainly appealing—as a recent survey out of HEC Montréal discovered, two-thirds of those surveyed are already regularly tracking one or more aspects of their health. And wearable devices need a medical device licence from Health Canada before they can offer functions like ECG. Yet some studies warn that putting advanced health tools onto the wrists of consumers, who lack medical training to interpret the results, can contribute to anxiety and potentially overtreatment. The question becomes: Is 24/7 access to health monitoring helpful or hurtful?

Body Break Lifesaving Smart Watch Hero 2 — Joanne wears The North Face half zip, t-shirt & cycle shorts from H&M, sneakers by Ash at the Bay, Smartwool socks. Hal wears The North Face vest, pants & shoes. Hoodie by Acne Studios at the Bay, Smartwool socks. Yoga mat is by BYoga

Mary Louise Adams is a sociologist of sport and fitness in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University. She notes that while the phenomenon of wearables is relatively new, the concept of self-monitoring health has roots reaching back to the 1980s. “The alternative health movement was a big critique of the kind of medical system that made people like my mother absolutely never ask a question to a doctor,” she says. “That kind of overbearing, treat-the-patient-as-a-child-no-matter-how-old-they-are medical system.”

The movement encouraged people to take more agency for their own health—that not everything needed to be dealt with at the doctor’s office. Zoom forward to 2022, two years into a worldwide health crisis, sales of self-monitoring devices are booming—and heart rate and ECG on-the-go aren’t the only measurements today’s wearable devices can track.

Many wearables can clock blood oxygen levels, typically used to assess cardiovascular health. A recent study out of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City found that heart rate variability (HRV), essentially a measure of the time between heartbeats, from consumer wearables could even predict the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. Garmin, Samsung Galaxy and Apple Watch all have “fall detection”—should the wearer take a tumble and be immobilized for more than a minute, their emergency contacts will receive a text alert with their location. And in some cases, the watch can call 911 outright when the user finds themselves in distress.

Johnson and McLeod are semi-regular users of that function themselves—McLeod once fell off her bike and received a call from her daughter moments later. “Anytime you can alert somebody to do a wellness check on you, I think that’s a good thing,” says McLeod. (Johnson also uses the feature but jokes he “falls too much.” “Joanne will call and say, ‘What did you do now?!’” he laughs.)

Research teams across Canada are hard at work assessing the potential medical value of these tools. A team at Kingston General Hospital studied Fitbit Charge HR as a means of monitoring the heart rate of 50 ICU patients (and they continue to use Fitbits to monitor how well 12 older patients recover from critical care). In Toronto, the University Hospital Network’s Peter Munk Cardiac Centre has paired with Apple Watch to see how it could help with monitoring the health of patients with worsening heart failure—comparing the data the watch produces with those cardiac tests traditionally performed in a hospital setting. “It is tremendously exciting to see the consumer wearable device field evolve,” says Dr. Heather Ross, division head of cardiology at the centre. “It’s going to be crucial to ensure that new technologies are validated in a rigorous way so that we are certain that the data that they are collecting is the ‘ground truth’ in comparison to accepted medical-grade technologies.”

The results of the study could determine whether doctors might be able to accept an ECG report that’s generated from an Apple Watch. After his A-fib incident, Johnson brought his own report to his cardiologist team at the hospital, but—perhaps not surprisingly—they weren’t particularly interested in it. “Everything I told them, they really didn’t trust it,” he says.

Dr. Harriette Van Spall is an academic cardiologist and researcher at McMaster University who provides care to patients with cardiovascular disease. She often recommends wearable activity sensors for her patients because people often overestimate just how active they are. “I find it’s a great motivator for patients,” she says. “And research studies show that these devices can be quite useful in increasing your step counts, decreasing your sedentary time and maintaining that for a period of months.”

As for tracking biometrics like blood pressure, oxygen levels or arrhythmia, she says that there is a lot of potential, but not yet enough studies to validate the data that biometric sensors (available in some wearable tech, and also in things like special textile or ECG patches) can measure. For these tech wearables, she notes, “in healthy people, the yield for detecting abnormal heart rhythms is very, very, very low.” She points to an Apple study of 420,000 people that found A-fib in just 0.5 percent of them (who were commonly older and men)—meaning they received alerts regarding abnormal rhythms. These people were sent ECG patches to wear, but ultimately only 1 in 5 returned the patch to submit data. Of those who returned them, about a third had atrial fibrillation and it’s unclear if detecting this warranted treatment or even if treatment improved their health. Thus, only 0.03 percent of all people screened had A-fib. So the implications are unclear.

And while Van Spall appreciates that people can feel a sense of safety and empowerment when wearing one of these trackers, she cautions that they can’t be their only touchpoint with health care. “We don’t know how many people who have a normal rhythm on these devices are actually normal in terms of their heart rhythm,” she says. “So receiving the alerts doesn’t mean that you have an arrhythmia, and on the other hand, not receiving the alerts doesn’t mean that you don’t have the arrhythmia.”Of course, there are times when all of this health data tracking can be just…too much.

Jen Ng was 45 when she was diagnosed with high blood pressure, so for her birthday, she bought herself a Fitbit Charge 4. “I decided to give myself the gift of health,” says the Vancouverite, who works in supply chain management. “I knew I was getting into that age zone when people talk about women getting heart attacks. And especially as a single female, you have to be taking care of yourself.”

While heart health was her primary goal, she decided to start monitoring her sleep performance as well. “At first, it’s novel, it’s cute,” she says. “You look at your phone app when you wake up and see what score you got. It’s like a video game you’re playing.”

The problem was, she couldn’t get her Fitbit sleep score to report anything higher than 84 percent—nor was it clear what it was measuring or what she needed to do to change that result. “Not to stereotype, but culturally speaking, that’s a failing grade!” laughs Ng, who is Chinese Canadian. “I can’t even get an A+ when I’m asleep?”

She started to develop anxiety around her sleep “performance,” especially as her scores began to get worse. Ultimately, she quit wearing the watch for four months. Once she felt ready to strap the Fitbit on again, she put boundaries firmly in place. “I only wear it during the day, I track my steps and I check that I’m in the cardio or fat-burning zone.”

Ng isn’t an isolated case. A 2020 study out of the University of Copenhagen found that while data from wearable devices may be a resource for self-care, it can also create uncertainty, fear and anxiety. Vancouver-based naturopathic doctor and performance coach Dr. Jason Marr has seen such tracking anxiety come up at his practice. “You’re relying now on an external device to tell you how you’re feeling,” he says. “It often reduces agency—some people don’t feel as empowered, like they don’t have as much control of their health when things are going wrong, sometimes leading to lack of mindfulness or awareness of what is going on.” Though Marr also notes that there’s a lot of potential with wearable tech to “help us understand our body and our health, but the data has to be used properly and appropriately in context to be effective and beneficial.”

Body Break Lifesaving Smart Watch Hero 3 — Hal wears Nike windbreaker & Adidas sweats, both from The Bay, white t-shirt from Smartwool. Joanne wears The North Face top, Girlfriend Collective leggings from Le Maison Simons.

In a lot of ways, the health-monitoring capabilities of wearable tech are still very much in their early days. Apple is studying tremor tracking for Parkinson’s patients as a means of monitoring the effectiveness of their medication and changes in symptoms. Oura has partnered with the University of California San Diego to use its metrics as a means of mapping the physiological aspects of pregnancy. On Johnson’s personal wish list is the ability to monitor his blood pressure.

Van Spall also sees high potential in more readily accessible—and clinically validated— blood pressure measurements on wearable tech. “So many of our heart failure treatments reduce blood pressure, and we track [it] to make sure that it’s not too low,” she says. “It would be wonderful if, instead of putting your arm through a blood pressure cuff, you’re just wearing a watch.”

Johnson and McLeod continue to gamify their fitness on their Apple Watches, and often jokingly challenge each other with how low they can get their resting heart rate—a sign of great heart health. But Johnson recognizes he needs to keep his boundaries in check when he’s monitoring his health stats. “It’s good to know just the basics,” he says.

And as for Ng, she’s keeping a more careful eye on her reactions to the data as she cautiously moves back into wearable tech. “I have a blood pressure problem—but is monitoring my heart rate a good thing or bad thing, and how is it correlated?” says Ng. “No one is teaching you how to read these metrics, or how they’re evaluating and looking at other variables. And it’s hard to be objective. You can turn anything into something in favour of what you’re obsessed with. And that’s dangerous, too.”

Next: How to Protect Your Health Data on Your Tech

“Health data is the most sensitive personal information that exists,” says Ann Cavoukian, executive director of the Global Privacy and Security By Design Centre and former three-term information and privacy commissioner of Ontario. In the wrong hands, she explains, health data can spell capital T trouble for individuals.

Big players like Garmin, Fitbit and Apple state that they don’t share user data from their devices, and Cavoukian feels most confident in Apple’s end-to-end encryption. Leaks and breaches can happen, however, if a user allows access to a third-party app (to analyze the results of their heart rate tracking, for example).

Here are three ways you can protect your data privacy:

1. Read the fine print.

“Before you consider putting on a third-party app, think through the potential consequences,” says Cavoukian. “Are you certain that none of your data will be shared without your consent?” If you can’t easily find the info, she says, email the company directly. “And if you don’t get any kind of response back or they just point you to some web page, don’t do it.”

2. Turn off location tracking.

Many apps that ask for it will work just fine without your location—and there’s good reason to turn it off. In a New York Times investigation into smartphone tracking, privacy researcher Paul Ohm noted that location tracking data is never truly anonymous. “Really precise, longitudinal geolocation information is absolutely impossible to anonymize.”

3. Lock data down with two-factor authentication.

With two-factor authentication, anyone logging into your account needs to enter a code sent to another device, like your phone.

Next: Here’s How a Smart Watch Helped Save Hal Johnson’s Life—And a Warning About Wearable Tech

Gluten-free grains are important pantry staples for many people. That group includes people diagnosed with celiac disease (an intestine-damaging autoimmune disorder), gluten intolerance, or a wheat allergy. For everyone else, they can also offer some health and cuisine benefits (but not in every case).

Here’s what to know about gluten-free grains. Plus, a gluten-free grains list for easy shopping.

What are gluten-free grains?

Think of gluten like food glue. Or, in more palatable terms, consider it a sticky protein that helps hold food together, keeping it shapely. That’s a good thing in the culinary sense.

Gluten is in wheat, barley, rye, and triticale—and, of course, all of the many forms of wheat, such as bulgur, durum, einkorn, emmer, farina, farro, graham, Kamut, semolina, spelt, and wheatberries.

For those who need to avoid gluten for health reasons, eating tiny amounts of these grains—even if they are far down on an ingredient list of soups, sauces, salad dressings, and other products, like supplements or even makeup—can cause gastrointestinal distress or an immune response that can damage the body.

Finding gluten-free grains

If you need or simply want to choose gluten-free grains and grain-based foods, it’s far easier to do that today than ever before, thanks to its burgeoning popularity and continuing cuisine innovation.

In fact, from 2021 to 2027, the gluten-free food market globally is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nine percent, according to Market Watch.

One big caveat: You need to know what to look for in bulk bins or the grain aisle. Some gluten-free picks you’ll want to embrace are rice, amaranth, buckwheat, corn, millet, sorghum, teff, quinoa, and fonio. While some of these are classified as pseudo-cereals—basically grain-free seeds—they’re highly nutritious and can be eaten just like grains.

Are there gluten-free whole-grains?

You’re in luck. All grains are born as whole-grains, including gluten-free grains. So, when avoiding gluten, aim to enjoy mainly foods featuring whole-grain versions of rice, corn, sorghum, and more—and their whole-grain flours.

This offers the best health advantage since you’ll be getting all parts of the grain, including the fibre-packed bran and nutrient-rich germ. In practical terms, when going for grains, aim for whole-grains like brown rice, instead of processed, refined grains like white rice, most of the time to obtain all of its edible plant-based benefits.

Gluten-free grains and pseudo-cereals (seeds)

Use the below list as a mini-summary of gluten-free whole-grains and pseudo-cereals.

Brown rice

A darling of gluten-free grains, brown rice is notable for its antioxidants, B vitamins, and magnesium. It’s available in short (stickier) and long-grain (fluffier) varieties. Brown rice takes longer to cook than refined white rice, but offers a chewier texture and nuttier taste.

Find whole-grain rice in other cool colours, too, including red, purple, and black, which offer a boost of bioactive compounds. For bonus nutrition and culinary intrigue, use these whole-grain rice varieties as a better-for-you swap instead of white rice.

Check out House of Wellness’s selection of brown rice.

Whole-grain amaranth

This tiny, misunderstood “whole-grain” is chockfull of nutritional features. A cup of cooked amaranth offers a healthful kick of protein (9 grams), fibre (5 grams), and minerals, including iron, potassium, and calcium. While amaranth is classified as a pseudo-cereal, people enjoy it like a grain, such as an oatmeal- or porridge-style hot cereal.

Tip: Amaranth becomes nuttier by pan-toasting it at the beginning of recipe prep.

Whole-grain buckwheat

Buckwheat is another pseudo-cereal. It can punch up the protein, fibre, magnesium, or potassium in your eating repertoire. And in a totally nutty, hearty, and rather earthy way.

You’ll adore it ground into flour as the star of buckwheat crepes or pancakes. It’s sometimes combined with all-purpose (wheat) flour to lighten up texture and tone; so be aware of this when dining out. Buckwheat can also be enjoyed in soba noodles and as groats (kasha).

Whole-grain corn

Instead of nibbling on corn-on-the-cob as a veggie, corn could transform into comforting cornmeal (also called polenta) or hominy (an alkali-treated dried corn) dishes.

Yellow cornmeal is a standout nutritionally for the eye-protective lutein and zeaxanthin it offers. When cooked, polenta can be enjoyed as hot cereal or even crispy fries (yum). And, of course, corn can be ground and found in corn tortillas and chips.

Whole-grain millet

Birds can peck on millet. But it’s also a gluten-free seed that you’ll want to toss into your own diet, especially due to its notable amount of protein, magnesium, phosphorus, and heart-protective antioxidants. Plus, according to a research review published in Frontiers in Nutrition, regularly eating millet may help reduce blood glucose and risk for developing diabetes.

Mild tasting, millet is best when seasoned and spiced up. It’s also tasty when you toast it before using it in recipes, giving it extra nuttiness. The seeds add delightful texture to breads and quick-breads. Millet flour is a great ingredient for homemade bread, too.

Whole-grain sorghum

Nutty, chewy sorghum is an ancient grain with lots to boast about. It’s got plenty of protein, fibre, and potassium, plus plant sterols with potential cholesterol-lowering abilities. As a bonus, sorghum is good for the planet, especially since it is mainly rain fed instead of relying on irrigation.

Serve it just like rice, quinoa, or Israeli couscous. And as a fun food, pop whole-grain sorghum just like traditional stovetop popcorn.

Whole-grain teff

Teff is an itty, bitty-sized seed that’s big on minerals, including iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. There are numerous varieties and shades, but you’ll likely find a reddish-brown variety with bold flavour and a hint of earthy sweetness.

Serve whole teff as a hot breakfast cereal; mix it with millet or quinoa in a pilaf; or try it as an intriguing flour choice for chewy cookies.

Quinoa

Quinoa is a seed with a double whammy of plant protein and dietary fibre, making it quite satiating. If you’re looking for a good source of iron or anti-inflammatory antioxidants, it’s got those, too. Choose various colours, including white and heartier tasting red and black. Enjoy it like rice or as the main ingredient of stuffings, salads, and desserts.

Hint: Unless purchasing pre-rinsed quinoa, rinse it before cooking to reduce bitterness from naturally-occurring plant chemicals called saponins.

Try GoGo Quinoa’s Royal White Quinoa ($9, houseofwellness.ca).

Fonio

Fonio is an ancient, nutty, earthy grain from West Africa, but it’s only recently been popping up in the marketplace in America. Iron is its standout nutrient. It looks and cooks like couscous … in five minutes flat. Serve it like a couscous-style side or salad, or in grain bowls, veggie burgers, and beyond.

By the way, choose any gluten-free whole-grains and pseudo-cereals ground into flours and enjoy within grain-based foods, such as soba noodles made exclusively with 100 percent whole-grain buckwheat flour or whole-grain gluten-free bread featuring brown rice as its first ingredient.

What about oats?

The oats in that comforting bowl of oatmeal are unique since they’re technically gluten-free. However, since they can be grown or processed near wheat, barley, or rye, they can come into “cross-contact” with gluten. That’s why you may need to avoid oats on a gluten-free eating plan unless you can be certain the oats are free of gluten.

If you have access to the food label, medical experts with the Celiac Disease Foundation advise only choosing oats labeled gluten-free. The good news is that all lovable forms of oats are whole-grains. This includes oat groats, steel-cut (or Irish), old-fashioned rolled oats, quick-cooking and, surprisingly, instant oats.

A fibre in oats called beta-glucan may help manage blood glucose and blood cholesterol levels, per Europe PMC. Just try to skip instant oats if you prefer less processed grains or a chewier texture.

Serve them in sweet and savoury (ris-oat-o, is a savoury version of oatmeal treated more like the rice dish risotto), and hot and cool ways.

Should you avoid gluten-containing grains?

Avoiding gluten is vital for some people, but not everyone needs to or should jump onboard a gluten-free lifestyle. Like any diet that eliminates specific foods, it can have undesirable consequences if followed improperly. For instance, a gluten-free diet of mostly processed foods could lead to insufficient fibre intake and fewer health-promoting nutrients.

It may lead to weight gain if you mistakenly believe going gluten-free is a no-brainer strategy for shedding excess pounds. After all, chowing down a bagful of gluten-free cookies will not shrink your belly. Plus, swapping gluten-free grains and gluten-free grain flour into your cooking and baking may negatively impact cuisine texture and, in some cases, taste.

So, if you don’t need to avoid gluten, go ahead and enjoy the glorious array of grains available, like barley, rye, einkorn, emmer, Kamut, spelt, bulgur, and durum wheat—all of which contain gluten. And savour gluten-free grains as you wish, too.

Gluten-free grain recipes

Whether you’re choosing to go gluten-free out of necessity—or you simply want to reduce gluten due to personal desire—there’s no reason to have lackluster meals. Indulge in my inspired, plant-forward gluten-free recipes that are packed with flavour and wholesomeness.

Next,: 6 Antinutrients in Beans, Grains, and Veggies and How to Avoid Them

When the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down, Canadians across the country started looking for new ways to spend time outdoors while staying safe. In the early days of lockdown, now over a year ago, greenhouses and seed suppliers saw a huge boom in sales. In fact, according to one report from Halifax’s Dalhousie University, 51 percent of Canadians got their hands in the dirt last spring and summer to grow at least one type of fruit or vegetable. And of those home gardeners, nearly one in five (or about 17.4 percent) were first-timers.

It makes sense that gardening is booming during these uncertain times. Aside from increasing access to healthy fruits and veggies, gardening is also great for our mental health. It helps to reduce stress, boost confidence and self-esteem, and even reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. Plus, being outside and soaking up the rays boosts your body’s production of vitamin D, which is thought to raise serotonin levels and elevate your mood.

We spoke to Jillian Bishop, founder of Peterborough, Ontario-based seed supplier Urban Tomato, about how you can start a vegetable garden at home, no matter the size of your space.

General tips for gardens of all sizes

Follow these tips and tricks to increase your chances for a successful growing season.

First, make sure you have good soil. “Soil is really critical, whether you are in a large or small or container space,” says Bishop. “It can really impact the amount of harvest you have and it can prevent pests and other challenges you might come across.” The exact type of soil you should be on the lookout for depends on a lot of factors, like whether your garden is indoors or outdoors and if you’re using planters or growing straight from the ground. But, generally, including some compost or some other sort of nutrient (like fertilizer) is always great to mix in.

Another important tip Bishop has for first-time gardeners is to not be afraid to pick at your food. “The more you pick them, the more they produce,” says Bishop. “If you see a bean and then you pick it, it’ll tell the plant to keep making more.” This can help you have a big harvest even if your space is small.

And finally, plant something you’ll actually want to eat. Focussing on things you like will help you narrow down what to grow and get you excited for your harvest. “Picture yourself in August and think about what you’d like to be harvesting and work backwards from there to decide what you’d like to plant in the spring,” says Bishop.

I have a backyard

If you have an outdoor space like a back or front yard that you’ve never used as a garden, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the grass in the area where you want to plant. While last fall would’ve been the best time to do this, starting in spring is still possible. You could start by pulling out the grass, but “digging it up by hand is a nightmare and will probably destroy people’s will to garden,” says Bishop.

Instead, Bishop suggests using a technique called “lasagna gardening.” Basically, put down a few layers of thick cardboard over the area where you want your garden to be. This will start to kill off the grass. Then, build up layers: add dried leaves, straw, soil, compost, triple mix and keep layering. This will create rich soil as all the different components break down. Don’t forget to keep it moist so the organic materials start to decompose.

Once you’ve got your garden bed ready to go, it’s time to add either veggie seeds or seedlings (either are great options for an outdoor garden). Some of the easiest veggies to grow from seeds include radishes (which take 30 days) and any sort of leafy green like lettuce. Bishop also suggests beans and herbs like basil, which are also really easy to grow and don’t take too much time before you can eat them. “You’re just waiting for the plant to have enough energy to produce the leaf that you eat,” says Bishop.

And with outdoor gardens, timing is everything. Plant too early, and you risk losing your crops to a frost or a late snowstorm. Plant too late, and things might not have enough time to grow. Generally, the old wives’ tale of waiting until Victoria Day, the May Two-Four long weekend, to plant is a good guideline. But a lot still rides on the specific weather conditions in your area. Bishop suggests checking the good ole Farmer’s Almanac or even weather networks for long-term forecasts and information on when the last frost has come and gone to help you decide when to plant.

I have a balcony or patio

The first thing you need are planters to house your garden. Aside from taking into consideration the types of veggies you’ll be growing and how much space they need, the main thing to look out for is drainage. “If the container is sitting somewhere you don’t want it to get wet, make sure you have something under to catch the water,” says Bishop. “But most importantly, the water needs to be able to flow through so the plants aren’t just sitting in a pool of water.”

Another important thing to be wary of is overcrowding. Some plants, like tomatoes or cucumbers, start off really small but then grow to be quite big by the time you’re ready to harvest. “It’s tempting to put three tomatoes into one pot, but you’d probably get more of a harvest if you only planted one,” says Bishop. “Otherwise [the plants] will compete with one another and they probably won’t be as productive as you would like.” To combat this, Bishop suggests interplanting, or planting different herbs and veggies together in the same planter to make the most out the space while avoiding overcrowding. This might mean planting one tomato plant among smaller plants that need less space like herbs or lettuce.

And while you might not have too much horizontal space on your balcony, you can take advantage of your vertical space and grow plants that will climb. “In a container, you can really think about growing up,” says Bishop. “Cucumbers, for example, will grow up a trellis, or climbing beans. You can really maximize space by growing up.”

I don’t have any outdoor space

If you live in a home without any outdoor space, you can still create a small garden on a sunny windowsill. There are tons of indoor planters on the market. While some come with bells and whistles like lights and self-watering systems, your basic terracotta or plastic pot with a drainage hole at the bottom will work just as well. “If you have a really bright, sunny, south-facing window, [planters with built-in lights] aren’t necessary,” says Bishop. Something to catch the water that will flow out of your pot, like a plate or a stand, is totally necessary though.

In an indoor space, you will be a bit more limited in what you can grow, but you can grow just about every kind of herb—they’re typically low maintenance, and just need a sunny window and frequent watering. Bishop also says that microgreens are another easy-to-grow veggie that would work well in an indoor garden. “They’re really high in nutrients, they grow really fast, and they don’t need a ton of space,” says Bishop. Plus, since you’re only eating the sprouts, you’ll harvest them before they get too big.

Now that you know how to start a vegetable garden, here are 37 sustainable swaps to make for a greener spring.

The cheese and bread crumbs are key here (though they’d make pretty much anything delicious, if we’re being honest). While the eggplant is traditionally pan-fried in oil, I like to do mine in the oven—it’s hands-off, less messy, and I personally think the taste comes through better. In fact, I think of this dish as a kind of lasagna bake, minus the noodles, plus pesto and insanely delicious cheesy oregano bread crumbs.

The one thing to note is that it’s important to salt the eggplant before cooking to draw out excess moisture, so be sure not to skip this step. And feel free to prep the dish in advance, all the way up to the final bake. You can keep it in the fridge for a day or two, then fire it off and add the bread crumbs before you serve it. This is eggplant to get excited about. Trust me.

Oven-Fried Eggplant Parm Recipe

Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 1 house 15 minutes
Total: 1 house 45 minutes
Serves: 8

Ingredients

4 pounds eggplant, cut lengthwise into ¼-inch-thick planks
Fine pink Himalayan salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing and drizzling
¾ cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
¾ cup pesto
Crushed red pepper flakes
1 (24-ounce) jar marinara sauce (I like Rao’s)
1 cup shredded low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella cheese
Fresh basil leaves, for serving

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease two baking sheets.
Place the eggplant on a clean kitchen towel and heavily salt each side. Let drain for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together the olive oil, bread crumbs, ¼ cup of the Parmesan, and the oregano. Season with salt.
In a separate small bowl, stir together the ricotta, pesto, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
Pat the eggplant dry. Drizzle both sides with olive oil and season with pepper. Arrange on the prepared baking sheets (it’s okay if the slices overlap). Roast, rotating the pans halfway through, until the eggplant is soft and beginning to brown slightly, 25 to 30 minutes.
Spread ½ cup of the marinara sauce on the bottom of a 9 × 13-inch baking dish. Arrange a quarter of the eggplant over the sauce, overlapping as needed to create an even layer. Dollop with about ½ cup of the ricotta mixture and spread it out evenly. Spread on another ½ cup marinara sauce. Repeat the layers twice more. Add the remaining eggplant, the remaining marinara, the mozzarella, and top with the remaining ¼ cup Parmesan.
Cover with foil and bake until the mozzarella is melted and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the top, and continue baking until the topping is lightly golden and crisp, about 15 minutes more. Let stand for about 10 minutes.
Top with fresh basil leaves and serve.

3d Halfbakedharvesteveryday

Next: How to Make Vegan Eggplant Parmesan