Category: Lifelong Learning

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ATTENTION PARENTS – New Wrinkle Worry

“When kids use anti-aging skin care, they can actually cause premature aging, destroy the skin barrier and lead to permanent scarring,” says Dr. Brooke Jeffy, a Scottsdale, Arizona, dermatologist who has posted her own social media videos rebutting influencers’ advice.

More than the physical harm, parents and child psychologists worry about the trend’s effects on girls’ mental health — for years to come. Extensive data suggests a fixation on appearance can affect self-esteem and body image and fuel anxiety, depression and eating disorders. ‘I didn’t want to get wrinkles’: The alarming effects of tweens using antiaging products — https://www.fastcompany.com/91183100/didnt-want-wrinkles-alarming-effects-kids-using-anti-aging-products

You’re welcome.

Reducing leisure screen time to just a few hours a week could decrease behavioral issues and increase positive social interactions for children and adolescents, according to a randomized trial of 89 families in Denmark. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, included 181 children aged 4 years through 17 years.

Less Screen Time Linked to Improved Sociability and Behavior in Children

JAMA. 2024;332(9):697-698. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.14875

And healthier skin in young girls.

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All my recipes in one place – Emiko Davies

Sunday 8/25

My cookbook obsession started in my 20’s. Dad always told me if you learn how to cook you’ll always enjoy your meals. I found this to be mostly true. Ask anyone in the family about my famous Mustard Chicken or Tofu Tacos, two recipes of mine which I’ve made just one time apiece. Some recipes are meant to be one and done. Others change and get better over time. To be a better cook you have to learn how others cook. One herb or spice that you don’t use in a dish you’ve made for years can make a difference. Technique matters. Let the experience of others be your constant guide.

A few years ago I stopped buying paper cookbooks. The house was filling up with hundred of books, not just cookbooks, so I decided to cut back drastically on paper based books and transitioned to ebooks. Sometimes I borrow cookbooks from the local library to browse for more cooking knowledge. And then there’s the infinity of the internet where you can find the same recipe repeated over and over claimed by all to be their unique creations. But occasionally you stumble upon a website and you know you’ll come back for tips over and over again.

Emiko Davies is an Australian-Japanese food writer, photographer and cookbook author based in Italy for the past 20 years. Davies just posted an index of her recipes from the past 14 years. https://www.emikodavies.com/all-my-recipes-in-one-place/

I love Italian food. Time to learn how to make it better.

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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.

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How To Study Anything

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Memo to My Younger Self

Most Adults Don’t Do Enough Strength Training

Tommy Lundberg, an exercise researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, and the author of The Physiology of Resistance Training, says that strength training is far more important than most people realize.

“You get improved glucose control, especially if you have Type 2 diabetes,” he says. “You feel better —which is a very important effect, as it can reduce stress levels — and you typically get better sleep. As you age, it helps you function better so you can carry out your daily activities for a longer period of time. It also helps reduce your risk of falls.” https://www.newsmax.com/health/health-news/strength-training-resistance-longevity/2024/01/24/id/1150856/

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Quote for Today – 05.24.24

“We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, individual destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

Steven Pressfield

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Lessons I Wish I Had Learned From a Lifetime of Cooking #4

How to Use Chopsticks – the article https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-use-chopsticks/

The video:

Lesson #4. You can always get better at something.

Back in my East Coast days I would take a bunch of guys into NY Chinatown for some authentic Chinese food. The restaurant was a classic hole in the wall, one of the places that didn’t cater to non-Chinese diners. All the menus were in Chinese and the family banquet style menus were posted near the ceiling on the wall. The group would get seated, tea was served, and I would point to the menu on the wall for our table. Sometimes I pointed to a menu I thought I had ordered in the past and the food was different from the last visit. Didn’t matter. It was all good.

My friends all got forks, spoons, and knives. The waiter would remove my silverware and return with a pair of chopsticks and one of those awkward soup spoons. I always had to ask for a fork and regular spoon because I was really bad at using chopsticks.

I still can’t use chopsticks very well. Too bad we didn’t have the internet or YouTube back then. At least I now have instructions and a video to watch.

Time to practice!

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More Cranberries

Cranberry is associated with multiple health benefits, which are mostly attributed to its high content of (poly)phenols, particularly flavan-3-ols. However, clinical trials attempting to demonstrate these positive effects have yielded heterogeneous results, partly due to the high inter-individual variability associated with gut microbiota interaction with these molecules. In fact, several studies have demonstrated the ability of these molecules to modulate the gut microbiota in animal and in vitro models, but there is a scarcity of information in human subjects. In addition, it has been recently reported that cranberry also contains high concentrations of oligosaccharides, which could contribute to its bioactivity. Hence, the aim of this study was to fully characterize the (poly)phenolic and oligosaccharidic contents of a commercially available cranberry extract and evaluate its capacity to positively modulate the gut microbiota of 28 human subjects. After only four days, the (poly)phenols and oligosaccharides-rich cranberry extract, induced a strong bifidogenic effect, along with an increase in the abundance of several butyrate-producing bacteria, such as Clostridium and Anaerobutyricum. Plasmatic and fecal short-chain fatty acids profiles were also altered by the cranberry extract with a decrease in acetate ratio and an increase in butyrate ratio. Finally, to characterize the inter-individual variability, we stratified the participants according to the alterations observed in the fecal microbiota following supplementation. Interestingly, individuals having a microbiota characterized by the presence of Prevotella benefited from an increase in Faecalibacterium with the cranberry extract supplementation.

Short term supplementation with cranberry extract modulates gut microbiota in human and displays a bifidogenic effect — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-024-00493-w

The further I got into reading this study the more I realized it was way over my pay grade.

I’ll sumarize – eat more cranberries because they’re good for you.

My earlier post Cranberries was much easier to understand.

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Lessons Learned From a Lifetime of Cooking #3

Technique matters. Note the parboiling then rinsing of the potatoes.

Not all potatoes are the same. Note the specific variety used.

Garlic. But of course.

My mind drifts back to the time I spent in Madrid, sitting outdoors at a cafe enjoying the evening, a glass of Spanish wine and potatoes.

Lesson #3. You can always get better at whatever dish you think you know how to cook. Even if it’s simple fried potatoes.

This video has over one million views. The house smells wonderful now.

The next time I make these potatoes I’ll cut back on the amount of olive oil.

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