Seed Oils – Updated 08.24.24

If you consume social media, you may have heard: Seed oils are terrible for your health–even toxic! Cooking oils derived from seeds cause everything from heart disease to inflammation to fatigue to bad skin–according to a certain subset of Internet influencers. Yet contrary to the posts demonizing the common ingredients, a bevy of scientific research disagrees…

And broadly, the best path to a healthy diet is probably what you’d expect. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, with whole grains and lots of fiber, is best, say Calder and Johnson. “It’s what your mother told you,” Johnson adds. Moving more and eating slightly less overall, are probably also good ideas for most Americans, notes Harris. “It’s not sexy, but that’s the way it is.” What science actually says about seed oils — https://www.popsci.com/health/are-seed-oils-bad-for-you/

Update

The American Heart Association supports the inclusion of omega-6 fatty acids as part of a healthy diet. There’s no reason to avoid seed oils and plenty of reasons to eat them — https://www.heart.org/en/news/2024/08/20/theres-no-reason-to-avoid-seed-oils-and-plenty-of-reasons-to-eat-them

You’re welcome.

May 25, 2024

Eat The Real Paleo Diet…(eat more plants)

It has long been thought that meat played an important role in the diet of hunter-gatherers before the Neolithic transition. However, due to the scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Paleolithic sites, little information exists about the dietary habits of pre-agricultural human groups. A new study challenges this notion by presenting compelling isotopic evidence of a strong preference for plants among 15,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Morocco. This is the first time a significant amount of plant consumption has been measured for a pre-agricultural population, shedding new light on the dietary practices of ancient human societies. More plants on the menu of ancient hunter-gatherers — https://www.mpg.de/21865602/more-plants-on-the-menu-of-ancient-hunters-gatherers

April 20, 2024

Who Needs Shark Tank When You Have the USDA

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Imagine a small business that makes hummus like these guys https://www.eatlittlesesame.com/pages/our-story

Now imagine the government tossing money at them.

The United States Department of Agriculture awarded Little Sesame $2.2 million to develop its business and support organic chickpea farmers. https://www.fastcompany.com/91090694/usda-little-sesame-organic-farming-grant-hummus-chickpea-biden-administration

This makes me want to become an organic chickpea farmer but I’m too old to switch careers now.

I also know nothing about farming.

April 17, 2024

Things That Make You Go Hmm…

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2020 Dietary Guideline Committee Members and the Companies That Paid Them

Conflicts of interest for members of the US 2020 dietary guidelines advisory committee.

Hmm…

Thank you Dr. Farrago.

March 9, 2024March 11, 2024

More on Blue Zones and a Diet You Probably Never Heard Of

Food is another key component of healthy living in blue zones, says Buettner. People there tend to consume unprocessed foods, beans, legumes, fruits, and vegetables—often following traditional recipes that have been passed down through generations. That style of eating is good for heart and cognitive health, says Linda Hershey, MD, PhD, FAAN, professor of neurology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. “Numerous high-quality studies support the benefits of the MIND, DASH, and Mediterranean diets, which emphasize green leafy vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, fish, poultry, oil, and whole grains, and discourage fried food, processed meat, snack foods, and sweets,” Dr. Hershey says.
“Blue Zones” Author Dan Buettner Shares the Secrets to a Long and Healthy Life — https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/author-dan-buettner-shares-secrets-to-long-healthy-life

Just Another Diet You Probably Never Heard Of

Researchers used the portfolio diet score to rank the participants’ consumption of plant proteins, nuts and seeds, viscous fiber, phytosterols and plant sources of monounsaturated fatty acids. After up to 30 years of follow-up, those with the highest portfolio diet score had a 14% lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke compared to those with the lowest score. The findings were published Wednesday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

“We’re always looking at ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, and one effective way to do that is to lower blood cholesterol levels, particularly LDL cholesterol,” said Dr. Kristina Petersen, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Petersen, who was not involved in the research, is well-versed in how diets can affect heart health. She co-authored an AHA scientific statement published in April that scored 10 popular diets for their heart-health benefits. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension – or DASH – diet was the only eating pattern to get a perfect score, with the Mediterranean and pescetarian diets rounding out the top three. The portfolio diet was excluded from the assessment “because it’s not particularly common,” she said.
Ever heard of the portfolio diet? — https://www.heart.org/en/news/2023/10/25/ever-heard-of-the-portfolio-diet-it-may-lower-risk-for-heart-disease-and-stroke

February 10, 2024

History Lesson for Today – Happy New Year!

When the Year of the Dragon arrives, birth rates in China tend to boom. Many parents believe that a child born during this year, a lucky dragon baby, will be destined for success. Though this perception is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, with parents investing greater resources in their dragon child, the extraordinary expectations surrounding the zodiac creature speak to its deep associations with intelligence, authority and good fortune. This year, the dragon will take the helm from the rabbit on February 10, ushering in a long-anticipated period of prosperity unique to the mythical being.
Why Is the Year of the Dragon Considered So Lucky? — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-is-the-year-of-the-dragon-considered-so-lucky-180983764/

December 28, 2023

Cantaloupe Anyone?

The deadly cantaloupe Salmonella outbreak in Canada has now sickened at least 164 people in that country, according to Public Health Canada. Sixty-one of those people have been hospitalized, and seven deaths have been reported. Those same cantaloupes have sickened at least 302 people in the United States, with four deaths; three in Minnesota and one in Oregon.
https://foodpoisoningbulletin.com/2023/deadly-cantaloupe-salmonella-outbreak-in-canada-sickens-164/

My local store has whole cantaloupes on sale this week three for $5.00.

I don’t think they’ll sell many.

December 16, 2023

Grow Your Own Food

Netherlands-based designer Kyran Knauf has created a tabletop device that allows users to breed and harvest crickets as an alternative protein source.

Called Crikorama, the machine can host a continuous cycle of approximately 3o crickets through their lifecycles before they are harvested and eaten as a “sustainable” replacement for meat.
Kyran Knauf creates tabletop cricket farm for household meat alternative — https://www.dezeen.com/2023/12/15/kyran-knauf-tabletop-cricket-farm-for-alternate-food-source/

Photo source: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/crikorama/

YUM!

October 19, 2023

How To Reduce Your Risk of Developing DM2 (type 2 diabetes)

Replacing one serving of red meat a day with a serving of plant-based protein sources like nuts or legumes decreased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 30%, and substituting a serving of red meat for dairy decreased the risk by 22%.
More Than One Red Meat Serving A Week Can Increase Diabetes Risk — https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/10/19/more-than-one-red-meat-serving-a-week-can-increase-diabetes-risk-study-finds/

The Forbes article has links to other research studies on meat consumption and health.

Link to the Harvard press release — Red meat consumption associated with increased type 2 diabetes risk — https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/red-meat-consumption-associated-with-increased-type-2-diabetes-risk/

The study featured in the articles above was published on Thursday, October 19, in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

My Personal Opinion

If you eat meat, eat less. If you don’t eat meat, consider the occasional meal with meat for its nutritional benefits. My diet is approximately 75% meat-free, I do not have diabetes.