Tag: Diet and Health

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Finally Feeling Normal

Monday I restarted a food diary. The recollection of my indiscipline over the past several months plus a recent online article on this topic reminded me of the effectiveness of writing down what you eat especially if you want to lose weight or maintain what was lost. Put simply I’ve been bad. Time once again to get better at what I need to do. Two months ago I wrote “I’m not sure how much longer I can cheat like this and not gain any weight but I’m sure enjoying whatever time I have before I need to start restricting certain foods and drinks”.

The scale read 176 a few days ago.

I hit The Panic Button.

At the present I am walking a tightrope between normal and overweight.

The struggle continues. But sometimes I plug in the old numbers to remind myself of the old me.

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Eat More Walnuts – the WAHA Study

“Regularly eating walnuts will lower your LDL cholesterol and improve the quality of LDL particles, rendering them less prone to enter the arterial wall and build up atherosclerosis, and this will occur without unwanted weight gain in spite of the high-fat — healthy vegetable fat, though — content of walnuts,” Emilio Ros, MD, PhD, senior author of the Walnuts and Healthy Aging (WAHA) study, said in an interview.

WAHA is a parallel-group, randomized, controlled trial that followed 636 patients over 2 years at centers in Loma Linda, Calif., and Barcelona. They were randomly assigned to either a walnut-free or walnut-supplemented diet, and every 2 months they were underwent nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and recorded their compliance, toleration, medication changes, and body weight.

Walnuts Lowered LDL Cholesterol in Healthy Seniors: WAHA Study – Medscape – Aug 30, 2021. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/957523?src=rss#vp_1

The study was funded by the California Walnut Commission.

But don’t let that stop you from eating walnuts.

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Scientists Find Missing Link Between High-fat diet, Microbiota and Heart Disease (that many of us already know about)

The collaborating research teams found that a high-fat diet causes inflammation and damages intestinal epithelial cells in animal models. The high-fat diet impairs the function of energy-generating mitochondria, Byndloss explained, causing the intestinal cells to produce more oxygen and nitrate.

These factors, in turn, stimulate the growth of harmful Enterobacteriaceae microbes, such as E. coli, and boost bacterial production of a metabolite called TMA (trimethylamine). The liver converts TMA to TMAO (trimethylamine-N-oxide), which has been implicated in promoting atherosclerosis and increasing the relative risk for all-cause mortality in patients.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Study reveals missing link between high-fat diet, microbiota and heart disease.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210812145052.htm (accessed August 14, 2021).

OK so maybe I’ve exaggerated a wee bit about most of us having knowledge about TMAO (trimethylamine-N-oxide). If the news about TMAO is new to you I suggest visiting Dr. Michael Greger’s website www.nutritionfacts.org and start here: https://nutritionfacts.org/2020/09/29/updating-our-microbiome-software-and-hardware/

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Probiotics in Cheese? Yes!

Is cheese a healthy source of probiotics?

Q. I’m trying to add more probiotics into my diet. Is cheese a good source?

A. Probiotics, good bacteria that can contribute to gut and overall health, can be found in some types of cheese as well as in dietary supplements, fermented foods, and yogurt. Typically, probiotics are in cheeses that have been aged but not heated afterward. This includes both soft and hard cheeses, including Swiss, provolone, Gouda, cheddar, Edam, Gruyère, and cottage cheese.

Harvard Health Blog — https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/is-cheese-a-healthy-source-of-probiotics

11 Types of Cheese That Contain Probiotics — https://fermenterskitchen.com/11-types-of-cheese-that-contain-probiotics/

Lifelong learning. The end of formal schooling should not be the end of your education. I keep my brain active by trying to be less stupid each and every day. Who knew some cheeses are good sources of good bacteria?

Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve been eating more cheese. I became a lot less worried about the saturated fat and more focused on the nutritional benefits. Now I have another reason to eat more feta cheese. The next taco meal will be Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw – (NOT) Bon Appétit.

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Fermented Foods for Gut Health – Center for Applied Nutrition UMass Medical School

Top Fermented Foods

Kefir

Plain Yogurt

Dry Curd Cottage Cheese or Farmer’s Cheese, or fermented cottage cheese

Certain aged cheeses (check label for live and active cultures)

Fermented Vegetables

Tempeh (choose gluten free)

Miso (refrigerated)

Pickles (in salt, not vinegar)

Sauerkraut (choose refrigerated)

Kimchi

Kombucha (no sugar)

Other probiotic drinks (no sugar), like beet Kvass, apple cider

Fermented Foods for Gut Health — https://www.umassmed.edu/nutrition/blog/blog-posts/2019/6/fermented-foods-for-gut-health/

I’ve spent some time at the request of a reader to list the top fermented foods for gut health. Many websites have very similar lists. If you’re interested in learning more about what some of these foods are the Healthline article 8 Fermented Foods and Drinks to Boost Digestion and Health is a decent source. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/8-fermented-foods

But if you really want to learn about fermented foods you’ll never eat because you won’t find a store nearby that carries them read the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fermented_foods

Although I think I can get Bánh cuốn at the Vietnamese grocery store.

The take home lesson is simple. Find a few fermented foods you enjoy eating and eat them often. Beet Kvass? No thanks. I’ll stick with yogurt, pickles, and sauerkraut.

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Eat More Sauerkraut

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00754-6

Over the 10-week randomised dietary intervention, the high-fibre diet increased levels of microbiome-encoded glycan-degrading carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) without altering the intestinal flora, whereas the high-fermented-food diet incrementally increased microbiota diversity while decreasing inflammatory markers.

Here’s Why You Need To Eat Your Sauerkraut! Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes – https://www.drsharma.ca/heres-why-you-need-to-eat-your-sauerkraut

I like sauerkraut. I like pickles. I really like yogurt.

But please don’t come anywhere near me with that kim-chi stuff.

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Vegetarian Journal – 2021 Issue 2 – Scientific Update

One study focused on almost 9,000 breast cancer survivors and asked the women about their diet every four years after their diagnosis. Over the follow-up period, averaging 11.5 years, women who ate more fruits and vegetables and women who ate more vegetables had a lower risk of dying from any cause than did women with lower intakes of these foods. Women with the highest intakes of vegetables and fruits averaged 7.4 servings per day; those with the lowest intake averaged 2.2 servings per day.

Farvid MS, Holmes MD, Chen WY, et al. Postdiagnostic fruit and vegetable consumption and breast cancer survival: prospective analyses in the Nurses’ Health Studies. Cancer Res. 2020;80(22):5134-5143.

Total fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a reduced risk of frailty with those averaging seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily having a lower risk than those averaging fewer than three servings a day. Leafy green vegetables, yellow and orange vegetables, and apples and pears were specific fruits and vegetables associated with a lower risk.

Fung TT, Struijk EA, Rodriguez-Artalejo F, Willett WC, Lopez-Garcia E. Fruit and vegetable intake and risk of frailty in women 60 years old or older. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020 [published online ahead of print].

The quotes above are just two of the studies profiled in the Vegetarian Journal’s most recent scientific update. Unfortunately the citations are not links to the original studies. Here is the link to the full Vegetarian Journal Scientific Update:

https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2021issue2/2021_issue2_scientific_update.php

Eat your vegetables!

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Association Between Fruit Intake and Diabetes Risk

A healthy diet including whole fruits, but not fruit juice, may play a role in mitigating T2DM risk.

Associations Between Fruit Intake and Risk of Diabetes in the AusDiab Cohort — The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, dgab335, https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgab335

Link to the journal study above.

But if you want the highlights play the video that follows.

I had three servings of fruit today.

I also rescued a tiny turtle.

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I Love Mushrooms

Mushrooms are rich in vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants. The team’s findings show that these super foods may also help guard against cancer. Even though shiitake, oyster, maitake and king oyster mushrooms have higher amounts of the amino acid ergothioneine than white button, cremini and portabello mushrooms, the researchers found that people who incorporated any variety of mushrooms into their daily diets had a lower risk of cancer. According to the findings, individuals who ate 18 grams of mushrooms daily had a 45% lower risk of cancer compared to those who did not eat mushrooms.

Penn State. “Higher mushroom consumption is associated with a lower risk of cancer.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 April 2021. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210421200133.htm
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