Beans with Greens & Veggie Passover

Image from cancerhealthandwellness.com

Some recipes you might enjoy. I particularly like beans with greens. Perhaps it’s the southerner in me? Collard greens with black-eyed peas; turnip greens with fat white butter beans; arugula with chickpeas and a little lemony garlic dressing. (The last one isn’t southern, unless you mean southern Italy.)

Ergo, these recipes from Martha Rose Shulman are right up my alley. Scroll down to the bottom for links to all four.

The Times also has an article about a Vegan Passover. I imagine that’s about as challenging as a vegan thanksgiving.

Fighting bone loss with that dynamic duo: broccoli & spinach

ScienceDaily.com has an article on the role that two joined proteins, osteopontin and osteocalcin, play in the role of bone health. The article says that bone loss may begin with tiny holes in the bones – holes no bigger than 500 atoms in diameter! – That’s tiny! They say a person may fall or trip and that the force of the impact deforms those joined proteins.

Really?  Amazing!

Because those two joined proteins get deformed, the bone develops these nanoscale-sized holes called dilatational bands (as in dilated? Open? Like an iris?)

The dilatational bands may sound bad, but they’re actually a defense mechanism meant to shore up weak bone. But if the force of your fall is too great, or if your bones are too lacking in one or both of those joined proteins (osteopontin and osteocalcin) – then a fracture or break may occur.

This is where the broccoli and spinach come in to play.

Now that osteocalcin is known to participate in bone fracture, new strategies for strengthening the bond between osteocalin and osteopontin can be investigated, Vashishth said. Augmenting the body’s natural supply of osteocalcin, for example, could be one possible strategy for treating osteoporosis and other conditions leading to increased fracture risk, he said. Osteocalin must be in its carboxylated form to get absorbed into bone, and the protein is carboxylated by vitamin K. Vashishth said future studies could investigate the relation between vitamin K intake, osteocalcin, and bone strength.

“Currently, all of the advice for treating osteoporosis is related to calcium. We believe there’s more to the story than just calcium, and the results of this new study raise an important question about vitamin K. Leafy green vegetables are the best source of vitamin K — wouldn’t it be great if eating spinach and broccoli was not only healthy, but also good for your bones? We plan to investigate this link in future,” Vashisth said.

In some ways, this isn’t anything new. We all know how important it is to get adequate K1 and K2 (the K1 is the stuff found in leafy greens; K2 in butter and organ meats). The Japanese have been using Vitamin K supplements to combat osteoporosis for years.  If you don’t get enough of the K vitamins from your diet, you might consider supplementation.  Of all the K supplements out there, there are only a handful that come close to having any kind of therapeutic dosage levels:  LEF Super K and Vitacost Vitamin K with Advanced K2 Complex (NOTE:  This used to be called NSI Vitamin K with Advanced K2 Complex. They seem to have switched to being called “Vitacost” brand now, which explains why Vitacost has been phasing out many of the LEF brand supplements. Of the two, I prefer the LEF, even though it’s more expensive.)

If you missed it, an explanation of the difference between K, K2 and the different forms of K2.

Beware of drugs + grapefruit

Grapefruit increases the potency of some medications, thereby presenting a risk of overdose. Statins are particularly more potent if taken with grapefruit or grapefruit juice, but there is a list of more than 85 different drugs on which grapefruit has a similar effect, among them birth control pills, some opiates and pain relief pills, some immunosuppressant medications taken by organ transplant patients, AIDS medications and estrogen therapies.

The full list of drugs can be found here, but they suspect the list may be growing.

Why grapefruit and not orange juice or lemonade? I don’t know. But if you’ve been taking your medication with grapefruit juice, maybe switch to something else.

 

Another reason to eat tomatoes – Lycopene lowers stroke risk

Photo from eyecandy.nanakaze.net

By how much? In a recent study involving 1031 men ages 46 to 55, those with the highest levels of lycopene were 55% less likely to have a stroke. So your risk is a little lower than half. Pretty impressive. Lycopene is one of those antioxidents found in food – oddly enough, a lot of lycopene-rich food is red: tomatoes, watermelon, guava, cabbage, chili powder, grapefruit, persimmons, but asparagus and parsley are also good sources of the nutrient.

You can read the study at the link above. And here’s a list of the top ten lycopene-foods.

Well that’s a relief

For years now there’s been this theory that severe calorie restriction led to longer life. I kept thinking, “It also leads to crappy bones, so I might live a long time, but I’ll end up in a wheelchair.”

Today, it seems, you can have your long life and non-crappy bones by throwing that severe-calorie-restriction-theory in the trash bin. Because it isn’t true. (Was that one of Linus Pauling’s theories, by the way?) I will definitely sleep better tonight knowing it’s okay if the tops of my thighs rub against each other when I walk.

However, this should not be taken as proof that it’s okay to become morbidly obese. The risk of diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers definitely increases if you are overweight. The middle ground. That’s what we should all be aiming for.

“First thing we do…”

Heroes

… so goes the first part of a Shakespearian quote with regard to lawyers. But wait. Not so fast. There’s an article in The New York Times that discusses the onslaught of lawsuits being brought against various food corporations, comparing their vigor to the yesteryears’ lawsuits against the tobacco industry. The suits are many and varied. Two moms are suing the makers of Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berry Cereal because the label says it contains berries, but it doesn’t. (I sort of agree with one lawyer’s comment that anyone with half a brain should know there’s no such thing as a “crunch berry.” But then again… why put it on the label if it isn’t there? But then again… weren’t they just having fun with the name?) There are others: why doesn’t a yogurt company list “sugar” in the ingredients? (Instead, it’s called “evaporated cane juice.” Admit it. It is misleading.)

Now some of this stuff may seem relatively harmless. But how many of you use Pam cooking spray? (I must admit, I use it on the griddle if I’m making pancakes.) If you read the label, the can says that Pam contains “propellant,” but does not elaborate about what that “propellant” is exactly. Want to hazard a guess? (And I do mean hazard.) Butane, petroleum gas, and propane. Good grief! Might as well go suck on the exhaust pipe of your car or on the gas hose on your gas grill. Yikes!

All in all, I’m for more truth in advertising and in labeling.

You can read about it here.

Mediterranean Diet: Good for your heart and your bones!

An article is in the upcoming Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism about a study that shows a Mediterranean Diet (high in fruits, vegetables and olive oil) boosts osteocalcin levels in bones. Wee. Increased osteocalcin translates to more protection for your bones. Think of it like kevlar for your osteoblasts. Well… maybe not kevlar.  But it’s good.

Statistics show that osteoporosis incidence is lower in the Mediterranean Basin. So scientists began asking, “What gives?”  They found that olive oil in both controlled lab studies as well as actual “real life” situations had a protective effect on bones. (NOTE:  I’d like to interject here that another reason osteoporosis may be less prevalent in the Mediterranean Basin might be due to the fact that it’s SUNNY!  All the time! The population may inherently have higher vitamin D levels – not to be all naysayer about this exciting discovery, just pointing out … the… obvious…sigh.)

Anywho, this olive-oil-is-wonderful-news is in keeping with those other studies about olive extract. Makes me feel justified in spending the extra money on the Omega 3 with olive leaf extract.

You can read the latest on olive oil here.

Carb Cravings – your empty stomach may be the cause.

There’s an article in the New York Times today that says people who fast overnight or skip meals are more likely to reach for a piece of bread than protein, fruits or vegetables at their next meal. Boy, can I attest to the truth of that! I always thought it was because I was such a runner that my body craved carbs all the time. But now I’m seeing that it was the whole depravation thing. Which seems like, for people who are dieting and depriving themselves, this hard-wired tendency towards carbs might defeat the purpose of skipping those meals.

But there’s more. People who start with something starchy like bread (as opposed to salad or something) tend to eat much more food on top of having made poorer food choices. From the article:

Dr. Tal and his colleagues knew from previous research that hunger influences food choices. After skipping a meal or two, people naturally consume more calories than they otherwise would when finally given the opportunity to eat. Studies have also shown that high-calorie foods stimulate greater activity in reward centers of the brain when people eat them after missing breakfast.

But the researchers wanted to know whether hunger, in addition to causing greater caloric intake, would also cause people to gravitate toward certain types of foods when given an array of choices. To find out, they recruited 128 Cornell students, who were assigned to one of two groups. One group was told to fast for 18 hours — starting at 6 p.m. — and then to show up the next day for a buffet-style lunch. The second bunch of students, serving as the control group, did not fast the night before.

* * *

Those in the group that had fasted, it turned out, were more likely to begin their meals with starches, eating the bread or French fries before anything else about a third of the time, compared with just over 10 percent of the time with the control group. Those who fasted were also less likely to eat vegetables first. Only a quarter of them did so, compared with about half of the people in the control group.

“Importantly,” the researchers wrote, “starting their meal with a particular food led all participants to consume 46.7 percent more calories of it” compared with other foods. They also found that people who chose not to eat the vegetables first consumed about 20 percent less of them. Those who went straight for the starches ultimately ate about 20 percent more calories over all than their peers.

“This shows that what you choose first is important when it comes to how much you ultimately eat,” Dr. Tal said.

Interesting. No wonder that, when I finally stopped trying to lose weight (which I didn’t need to lose by the way), I lost weight.

Those clever marketers.

Have I talked about this before? I could swear I had. But maybe I just remember seeing the product in the store, thinking I should blog about it, but then never did.

Plum Amazins is the name. (Get it. It’s a play on “raisins”.) They’re prunes, chopped into little pieces to look more like raisins. There’s no mention of the word “prune” in the name – ergo removing the stigma of prune-eating… those knowing looks of, “Are you having a little blockage?”

The box is cute, has an interesting shape (compared to a box of prunes) and the colors make you think you’re being all crunchy granola green and healthy.

I bought a box today because i wanted to see what they were like… And because I need to get back to eating prunes. I should compare the price and see whether this is more affordable (because the sliced and diced format means you can fit more into a box), or is it all packaging and there’s really no there there? I suspect the latter because…

Unlike a box of raisins, when you open this container there’s about 1.5 inches of empty space. Bleh.

But they’ve got this going for them: they’re drier and less sticky than regular prunes. Much less sticky. I can eat a handful and not feel as if I need to wash my hands before I touch anything. You could definitely sprinkle them on cereal, yogurt or in your oatmeal. You know what they’re like, in terms of texture? Sort of a little like a dried date, but not as seedy.

Drawbacks: You can’t tell how many you’ve eaten. So if you’re specifically trying to count off 10 prunes, you’re out of luck.

If you’d prefer organic diced prunes (er… plums…) The Taylor Brother Farms of California packages and ships them. They mention in the literature that diced prunes are great for adding moisture to baked items. Interesting.

Discovery: it’s not that hard to eat 600 mg of calcium.

Boring minutia: what I ate yesterday. (This will not become a running column.)

Goat cheese and spinach omelette with mesclun salad = 278 mg of calcium (according to the interwebs; and that’s not counting the salad.)

Small bag of almonds = 100 mg of calcium (according to the nutritional label)

2 (possibly 3) cups of spinach, avocado, grapefruit, sunflower seed salad = 584 mg of calcium (not including the calcium in the sunflower seeds)(according to self nutrition data)

1 cup of Chobani yogurt = 200 mg of calcium (according to the label)

Total for the day = 1162 mg of calcium.  Hooray.

And it wasn’t in the least bit painful.

FYI, if you’re reading food labels and trying to figure out how much calcium is in a product, just add a “0″ to whatever number they have listed in a percentage. For example, the yogurt label said it was 20% of the recommended daily allowance. The USDH recommends 1000 mg of calcium per day, so 20% of the recommended daily allowance means there are 200 mg of calcium in the yogurt. The package of almonds said it had 10% of my RDA. That means it has 100 mg of calcium. Got it? Good. Get eating.