Healthy Sunshine

The quick answer:  Aside from a healthy diet and exercise, the next best thing you can do is get enough sunshine to maintain a healthy serum vitamin D level.  It’s good for your mood and can help prevent a long list of diseases. 

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A Curious Intersection

The last 34 days I pounded out the first draft of a book.  As some of you know we live in Laguna Beach most of the year.  It’s a funky town with a curious history:  It was first settled by homesteaders in the 1870s who were all some kind of Mormon—not the kind that followed Brigham Young to settle the Great Basin, but they did consider themselves Mormon and left a spiritual legacy. 

Artists followed the homesteaders in the early 1900s.  Thanks to its picturesque coves and beaches, Laguna became an art colony important to the painting school known as Early California Impressionism.  These people left a spiritual legacy found in the many art galleries today.  Hollywood people followed the artists when the new Pacific Coast Highway reached town.  Laguna was busy during the Great Depression thanks to a new technology: movies with sound.  The beach you see above was the scene of Errol Flynn’s pirate movie, Captain Blood.

Finally in the ‘50s—with Hollywood movies like Gidget, and the sweet tones of the Beach Boys—the town became known for wave riding.  The rise of surfing and skimboarding (invented locally at Victoria Beach) created a unique culture inspired by the Aloha spirit from Hawaii. 

So I had the idea to write a book for visitors that could explain the spiritual roots of a town settled by such unique people.  And let me assure you—the people here are unique.  But here is the curious intersection between Word of Wisdom Living and life in a beach town:  Vitamin D.  In the picture above the best thing that is happening is the production of vitamin D from the action of sun on the cholesterol in your skin.  So let the sun shine.

About Vitamin D

It’s essential to eat vitamin-rich food because the body can’t produce vitamins, with one exception:  With a little sunshine, the body can make it’s own vitamin D.  Unfortunately, the weathermen and dermatologists have scared us out of getting enough sunshine.  Ever had your vitamin D level tested?

Sufficient D is essential to good health; vitamin D receptors are found in cells all through your body.  The growing list of conditions where vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor includes seasonal affective disorder (SAD), osteoporosis, muscle and joint pain including back pain, certain cancers (breast, ovarian, colorectal, and prostate), obesity and diabetes, stroke or heart attack, G.I. diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or Crohn’s disease, and immunological diseases such as MS and Parkinson’s disease.  It’s a long list. 

Vitamin D deficiency increases as you move away from the equator.  In the Sunbelt you can get adequate D year around, though it takes longer in winter.  But if you live above the 40^th latitude parallel, roughly a line through Portland, OR, Salt Lake City, and New York City, you can ski all winter in your bathing suit and not get enough D.

There’s an annual cycle to your vitamin D level.  For most, our D level peaks in the last sunny days of summer, then hits rock bottom as winter turns to spring.  This is the point when you feel the blues, lack energy, or suffer muscle aches.  Because spring just started, your D is likely at its annual low-point (unless you’ve just back from sunbathing here in Laguna Beach). 

The Vitamin D Solution

The best book I’ve seen on vitamin D is The Vitamin D Solution, written by Dr. Michael Holick, PhD, MD.  Holick suggests a 3-step solution of 1) testing, to know where you are, 2) sensible sunshine, and 3) safe supplementation when sunshine isn’t available. 

The book makes two remarkable statements about vitamin D and cancer:

First, on the benefit of getting sensible sunshine: “vitamin D could be the single most effective medicine in preventing cancer, perhaps even outpacing the benefits of . . . a healthy diet”.  We hear all the time that we should avoid avoid sunshine to prevent skin cancer, which brings us to the second point.

Second, the book quotes Dr. Edward Giovannucci on the benefits of sunshine for vitamin D versus the risk of skin cancer:  sufficient “vitamin D might help prevent 30 deaths for each one caused by skin cancer”.    I like those odds: 30 better outcomes at the risk of one bad outcome.

Testing Our Vitamin D

I recently saw my dermatologist.  She’s a charming woman who cares about her patients.  We talked about the trade-off between getting enough vitamin D the natural way—by sunshine—versus the risk of skin cancer.  The good doctor pointed out that in southern California, you could get sufficient vitamin D with 15 minutes of sunshine on most days.  Of course you have to show a little skin, so I do my workouts outdoors around noontime, wearing shorts and shirts without sleeves (except when it’s cold).  When no one’s around I take off my shirt, but I try to avoid the “pinkness” that’s the first stage of a sunburn. 

About six months ago I had my vitamin D level tested and the level was 43 ng/mL.  Any value over 30 is considered healthy so I was happy with my method.  The beautiful wife walks in the morning with her talking friends so gets less vitamin D.  So she started laying out for a few minutes midday.  We’ve been taught for so long that the sunshine is bad that it was hard for her but she was recently tested for vitamin D and got a good number also.

Depending on where you live, you need to develop a strategy for maintaining adequate vitamin D.  It’s a bigger challenge for those in the northern latitudes so you need to consult your doctor.  And you can always visit Laguna for Spring break.

Please note the term "a little" sunshine, sun that burns or turns the skin pink may be harmful and should be avoided.  (If you live in the northern latitudes, don’t tolerate the sun, or are concerned about your vitamin D, consult your doctor.)

Please comment:  Want to share your experience with vitamin D, or how you tested?  Do you live in the northern latitudes?  If so, what do you do in winter to maintain vitamin D.

The Joy of Salads

The quick answer:  To meet the national goal of 4-5 daily vegetable servings, eat a green salad most days. 

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Food Math

I grew up in a large family where money, of necessity, was carefully managed.  Our folks were hardworking and prudent.  We drove older cars and took local vacations. Mom and Dad kept the wolf from the door.  Our clothes weren’t the latest style but we felt secure.  If we wanted any of those special things that revolve in and out of fashion, we had to earn them ourselves.  So out of my growing up I offer this bit of wisdom:  If money is tight in your home, be grateful.  Your poverty just might force you to buy unprocessed food and cook it yourself. 

Driving home from the grocery store I asked this question:  What do I pay, on average, for a pound of food?  So I weighted the groceries and calculated the cost.  We paid $2.22 per pound.  My horseback estimate of our average cost is $2.50/lb.  In a minute I’ll estimate the annual cost to feed a family of six.

At Word of Wisdom Living we’re cost conscious.  We really believe that it’s cheaper to buy natural food and prepare it yourself, than to buy the modern American diet (MAD) of processed foods.  It takes more time to cook meals from scratch, but that’s how you put the love into your meals.  This extra work requires that all the family participate.  A meal shouldn’t be about mom slaving alone in the kitchen; rather it can be a daily lesson in family teamwork. 

I did a little math for a family of six (two adults, two teens, two children, in total the equivalent of 4.8 adults):

1. The family eats 95 pounds of food a week—all prepared my mom and her team.
2. The family spends $1016 a month for that food.  (This assumes food at $2.50/lb.)
3. The annual cost is $12,191, but you can spend a lot more if you’re not organized. 
4. The key to provident living is to eat more natural foods in season that cost around 1 $/lb. and less meat, dairy, and processed foods that cost 3-8 $/lb. 
5. Two exceptions to #4:  First, enjoy nuts—though they cost more, eat a daily serving.  Second, take the beautiful wife out to dinner now and then. 

A word about natural foods in season:  Last summer I analyzed the produce section of a Smart & Final store.  Of about 100 different produce items, all but two could be purchased for under 1 $/lb.  (Avocados, for example, cost more.)  I was so impressed with this food value that I vowed to mention Smart & Final in a post.  I just did, but not to exclude Sprouts or Whole Foods, TJ’s, produce stores like Growers Direct, or the ubiquitous farmers’ markets. 

The Vegetable Challenge

Of your 15 or so daily servings of food, try to make 4-5 of them vegetables.  That’s the guidance of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and is congruent with the canonized scripture on diet called the Word of Wisdom.  After a year of observation we’ve learned this:  it’s hard to eat 4-5 daily vegetable servings.    If you exclude French fries and the ketchup they’re dipped in, the average American eats about 1 daily vegetable serving.  Just one!

Here’s the key to reaching 4-5 daily vegetable servings:  Eat a green salad most days.

Green Salad

Growing up, dinner usually included a salad.  We are a variety: Waldorf salad (apples, celery, walnuts); potato salad (a lot of work); carrot and raisin salad (really healthy except for the mayo); macaroni salad with canned shrimp (my favorite); and a relic of that time—Jello salad, usually with a can of fruit cocktail. 

The beautiful wife grew up eating green salads so that became our standard.  Over time the salads were improved by replacing pale iceberg lettuce with dark greens, like spinach, romaine, arugula and broccoli.  That’s the new wisdom for greens:  the darker the better.   Greens cost more in the winter but year around a salad of dark greens is the best nutrition value you can find.  Last night for dinner we enjoyed a super nutrition bargain: the last of the Black Bean Soup with a spinach salad.  Simple, cheap, healthy, and green.

For more on the benefit of greens, check the YouTube lecture by University of Iowa professor Dr. Terry Wahls.  Wahls successfully reversed her MS by turning to a diet of plant foods with lots of greens.  It’s called Minding Your Mitochondria.

Traditional Salad Dressing

Enjoy your salad with a dressing made from healthy oil.  In our view, olive oil is healthy oil but refined soybean oil, commonly used in commercial dressings, isn’t.  In olden times, vinaigrette salad dressing made of olive oil and vinegar (in a 3:1 ratio), plus salt and pepper with any other seasoning, was kept on most tables.  Substituting lemon juice for part of the vinegar improves the taste for some.  If the tartness of vinegar bothers, add a little honey.  Because oil and vinegar don’t mix, the dressing is shaken to create a temporary emulsion when serving. 

There was real food wisdom in the vinaigrette tradition.  Researchers have discovered that some plant nutrients, like carotenoids, are fat-soluble.  These nutrients are more bioavailable if served with a little fat.  So be sure to include a dressing made from healthy oil with your salad.  For a Basic Vinaigrette Recipe, go here. 

Please comment. We talked about cabbage salad in the post, The Joy of Coleslaw, and shared a recipe.  In the next post we’ll share a pattern recipe useful for a variety of salad combinations.  Please share your favorite green salad recipe, or healthy salad dressing.

The Joy of Cooking

The quick answer:  For best health, you have to be a cook or at least be on good terms with a cook.

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The Siren Song

In Greek mythology the daughters of Achelous lured passing sailors to their death by singing their siren song.  It was a song so irresistible seamen would leap into the ocean and succumb to their power—the men's only protection was to cover their ears. 

The poet Walter C. Perry spoke of this:  “Their song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of corruption and death.”

So the term “siren song” refers to a message that is both seductive and destructive.  Which brings us to the brilliant advertising campaigns of Food Inc.  These campaigns too are cleverly manipulative, distort the truth, and bring early death.  I see them on TV but listen with amusement and never ever take their propaganda to be wisdom.

Seduction through Convenience

In the last century, as the Industrial Revolution rolled through our food supply, a repeating song for new factory-made food products was “convenience.”  It came in stages but bit-by-bit the art of cooking was reduced to opening packages.  My first job out of college was with P&G, a venerable company that offered food products like Duncan Hines cake mixes.  Later canned frosting was offered.

The packaged cake mix with canned frosting could serve as a metaphor for the adulteration of our food supply.  The box had a very long shelf life, the cake was easy to make and required little skill, and of course it was sweetly unhealthy. 

The directions on the cake mix called for an egg to be added (the yolk emulsifies the water and oil) but it wasn’t really needed as chemical emulsifiers were added at the factory.  The idea was that adding an egg, though not needed, gave the woman making the cake the illusion of “cooking.” 

We laughed at how easily women could be manipulated but out of company loyalty didn’t ponder long the consequences of our corporate philosophy—what was left when you took all the work out of cooking?  Eating one packaged cake won’t kill you but a diet full of such factory-made products will.  That’s one thing we proved in the last century.

The Joy of Cooking

Some years ago my Mom remarked with surprise, how all her friends had stopped cooking.  They had worked long and hard at rearing their children but as their husbands retired from working, the wives retired from cooking.  They ate out, bought “take out,” or pulled factory-made meals from the freezer.  Today you can eat a variety of foods without ever cooking and these women followed that downward path.  What was the result?  All of Mom’s friends have passed away (their husbands typically died first) except one who suffers from dementia. 

Mom still cooks, enjoys good health, and lives independently.   But she doesn’t have anyone from her generation to talk to—and for my Mom, that’s a big problem.

The Pendulum Swings

The cooking pendulum has started to swing back towards equilibrium.  I see this in our readers, how they are relearning how to cook more and open packages less.  You’re ahead of the curve, this isn’t happening in every home, but you provide a model for the future that others can emulate.  The good Lord bless you.

Please comment:  Please comment on what you are doing to advance home cooking, or tell of someone who helped you.  Or share your idea on how to spread the word.

The Staff of Life

 

The quick answer:  Enjoy your grains whole (more fiber than sugar) and baked only to a golden brown.

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A Brief History of Eating Like Kings

Over the last century (actually 135 years) the Industrial Revolution rolled through our food supply looking for ways to apply the “factory system” to the most traditional of human activities:  cooking meals. 

The first big change was replacing millstones with steel rollers for grinding grains.  The roller mills, it was discovered, could grind the grain much finer and in stages, allowing the separation of bran, fiber, and germ from the starchy endosperm.  The result was a fine, white (due to chemical bleaching) flour and this revolutionized cooking.  Think of the angel food cake, or Wonder bread.

In times past the tedious process called “bolting,” in which flour was sifted through cloth to separate out the finest grains, could make such fine flour.  This was done for kings.  But now the common man could eat the king’s flour. 

This became a repeating theme in the industrialization of food—making available to ordinary people the food of kings.  In fact this had already started—the precursor to the Industrial Revolution had been the steady mechanization of the sugar industry in the 1800s.  Sugar was becoming cheaper and more available and people who wanted to eat as kings could eat all the sugar they wanted.

Doesn’t eating the king’s food bring to mind the Old Testament story of Daniel?  Unfortunately modern man didn’t have the wisdom of Daniel.

Dr. Denis Burkitt

Dr. Burtkitt (1911-1993) was a British surgeon and devout Christian who served in Africa.  He found the indigenous people to be surprisingly healthy and free of the modern diseases.  Burkitt was an intensely curious person and he determined that the removal of fiber from the modern diet was a contributing factor to the modern pandemic of diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.  He wrote a book in 1979 titled, Don’t Forget Fibre in Your Diet.  Of course, being English, he spelled “fiber” differently, but you get the idea.  The natural fiber in food is part of what makes it healthy.

More Fiber Than Sugar

There are so many grain-based processed foods it makes your head spin.  In the supermarket there is the breakfast cereal aisle but also the cookie, cracker, pastry, and pasta aisles.  The processing, better-said “adulteration”, of food has turned the grocery into a modern house of horrors.  Am I being too dramatic?  If you have seen a loved one suffer from the modern diseases you might not think so.

Word of Wisdom Living, and every advocate of better diet and health that I’ve seen, recommends eating grains intact—what we call “whole grains.”  It’s hard to sort this out with packaged foods like breakfast cereal so we introduced the “more fiber than sugar rule.”  There’s some science behind this rule, reflected in government encouragement to eat more fiber and also less sugar.  If you must buy packaged foods, the “fiber>sugar rule” is the best guide.

The Acrylamide Issue

The beautiful wife cautions me against making these post too long so I shoot for 500 words as a reasonable test of your attention span.  I’m there now so I’ll talk about the acrylamide issue in the next post.  Briefly, when you cook grains and other proteins to a dark brown, you generate a toxic byproduct called acrylamide. 

Briefly, the protection against this is to avoid all deep fat fried foods , all charred foods, and to follow a new Golden Rule.  This Golden Rule says to cook or bake proteins until they are just “golden” in color, not brown, or especially dark brown.  We’ll come back to this in the next post.

Healthy Change

Comment:  Whole grains are one of the best food values but we think it best to enjoy a variety.  Please comment on how you include whole grains in the diet of your family, or share a favorite recipe.

My Favorite Cookie Recipe

I haven’t posted a recipe for a while so, by way of apology, here’s one of my favorites.  This isn’t one of those guilty pleasures, it’s a hearty, healthy cookie.  Men like them, they’re good for duck hunting.  If you run out of ammo you can throw ‘em at the birds.  If you miss, they’ll fly back to get a bite and you’ll get another chance.

I know what you’re thinking:  This recipe isn’t too different from the one on the Quaker Old Fashioned Oats boxtop.  Maybe not, but it’s definitely healthier.  When I health-up a recipe (and fatuously add my name to something that’s been made for centuries) I start with four things:  Make the flours whole grain; reduce the sugar; use a healthy fat; and add something wholesome. 

This recipe has a little more butter, less flour, and 1/3 less sugar than the Quaker Oats recipe.  I also skip the cinnamon and raisins but add healthy walnuts and chocolate chips.  I don’t actually know how healthy the chocolate chips are but I can vouch for the walnuts.  Hope you like ‘em.  If you have a favorite recipe, won't you please share it?

Skip’s Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 C butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 C turbinado sugar (or any raw sugar)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 C whole wheat flour (fresh ground is best)
• ¼ C wheat bran (if you have it, otherwise use wheat germ, or just more flour)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 C rolled oats (Old Fashioned, not instant oats)
• 1 C chopped fresh walnuts, chopped
• 2/3 C semisweet chocolate chips (we prefer the mini size and I divide the 12-oz package to get 3 batches)

Directions:

1. Turn oven on to 350 F (after checking that your children haven’t left any toys inside).
2. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar; beat in two eggs and vanilla.
3. In a smaller bowl blend dry ingredients (flours, salt, and baking soda).
4. To the large bowl, stir in the dry ingredients, oats, walnuts, and chips.
5. Place rounded tablespoons of dough on a baking pan and flatten with a fork.  (If you do this a lot, get one of those scoops with the device that pops the dough out.)
6. Bake 12 minutes or so, cool, transfer from pan to wire grill for a few minutes to dry a bit.  We bag them into sandwich bags and freeze them for later, taking a bag out each day.  If there are kids around give them a cookie with an apple, orange or banana.

Enjoy Meat—Sparingly

The quick answer:  In the end, our care of animals will say everything about what kind of humans we have become.

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The Devil’s Herd

I love the old West . . . the ranches and barns . . . cattle in the fields . . . the smell of the tackroom . . . even the aroma of corrals . . . all those cowboy values and traditions.  My late Uncle Fred was as good a cowboy as you might meet.  He cussed a little and got to church late but was good to the core.  The picture above is his daughter Peggy—who I got in plenty of mischief with as a child—sitting pretty on a handsome cutting horse.

I love western music too.  A favorite song is Johnny Cash singing Ghost Riders in the Sky.  The song, I think, could be a warning for the exploitation of animals by the food corporations.  It tells of a group of ghost cowboys who had fallen short in their lives and were doomed to endlessly ride the skies, chasing the devil’s stampeding herd.  It closes with this cowboy call to repentance (it helps if you sing):

As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from Hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the Devil's herd, across these endless skies

The good Lord gave man dominion over the animals but with that power came a duty of care.  This post is a call to reconsider our relationship with the animals of the world, lest we too wind up chasing the devil’s herd.  Yippie yi yaaaaay.

Fanny Farmer

Fanny Farmer (1837-1915) was a remarkable American woman.  At age 16 she suffered a crippling stroke, sometimes had to use a wheelchair, but gained fame and comfortable wealth by writing the Fanny Farmer 1896 Cook Book, a bestseller still in print.  Ms. Farmer introduced careful measurement (tsp, tbsp, cup) to recipes.  She also taught diet at Harvard Medical School and was director of the Boston Cooking School. 

So Ms. Farmer can be considered a guide to proper dining in the early 1900s.  Her cookbook provided a month of dinner recipes and each recipe started with meat and potatoes.  In America, as the 19^th Century opened, meat was in the center of the plate at every meal.  Though not all that healthy, a meat-based diet was possible then.  It would be catastrophic today, which brings us to our modern problem of chronic disease.

Chronic Disease

Meat is good for us—it’s the only natural source of vitamin B-12 that is essential to our health—but too much meat is problematic.  In the modern American diet (MAD) we eat three or four times more meat than needed.  An Oxford University study of the English diet found that reducing meat intake to three servings weekly—the amount a person might consider “sparing”—would reduce mortality from chronic diseases.  Specifically, they projected these benefits for England:

• 31,000 fewer heart disease deaths each year.
• 9000 fewer deaths from cancer.
• 5000 fewer deaths from stroke.

As America is a much larger country than England, we can expect commensurately bigger benefits.

A Family Council

I like meat.  We enjoy fish, poultry, and red meat.  We’ve found a local source of good pastured beef and enjoy a roast if we have guests for Sunday dinner.  But, following the Word of Wisdom, we eat meat sparingly.  Each person gets to decide what “sparing” means for them but as a rule, guys will want more than women.

So meat is a family issue, one that is best addressed in thoughtful and respectful conversation.  Many homes have the practice of using “family councils” to address important decisions.  Diet issues like the ratio of meat to vegetables qualify as such a decision.  As women tend to outlive men, if you wish to be together for more of those last golden years, it’s really important that guys get serious about healthy eating when they’re young.

Healthy Change

Please comment:  Share the ways you feature meat in your diet.  Where do you find healthy meat?  How do you use it as a condiment, rather than the main course?  What do you do to show reverence for the Creation of animals?

Healthful Snacks

The quick answer:  There’s nothing wrong with a snack between meals.  Just make sure it’s real food. 

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The 13 Themes

As you know, the 52 Healthy Changes follow 13 themes, which repeat in the quarters of the year and when taken together reform the modern American diet (MAD).  The three oracles of scripture, tradition, and science guide our transformation.  A reader asked to see the themes listed so here they are:

#1   Slash sugar intake

#2   Enjoy healthy fats and shun unhealthy fats;

#3   Organize your diet;

#4   Proper meals;

#5   Exercise;

#6   1^st vegetable topic;

#7   Micronutrients (antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, minerals);

#8   Special topics (snacks, fasting, natural light, spices);

#9   Meat topics;

#10 Whole grains;

#11 Home cooking;

#12 2^nd vegetable topic;

#13 More special topics (sunshine, sleep, stress, probiotics/fermentation)

This is a work in progress so expect these to change with time as new information appears, or to combat some new craziness dreamed up by Food Inc.

Food Inc.=Tobacco Inc.

We believe in and support the free enterprise system.  We really do . . . with one caveat:  We support it as long as the corporations look after our best interests.  Unfortunately when a business gets large, as happens in a big country like America, there’s a tendency for the ruling powers to stop caring about the customers.  This is sadly true with Food Inc.

 I don’t think it has to be that way, but at the moment I can’t think of a large food corporation that really cares about us consumers.  It’s just about the money.  Some fine day in the not-too-distant future, we may look back at their conduct as the low moral point of our time.  

A fascinating article in the N. Y. Times, “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” told of a 1999 gathering of the titans of Food Inc.  The CEOs of Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills, P&G, Coca-Cola and a few others gathered to discuss their role in the rise of obesity that threatens our healthcare system.  One speaker linked the products of Food Inc to the rise of obesity and then did the unthinkable—the one thing no Food Inc CEO wanted to hear—he compared them to the tobacco companies.

The CEOs weren’t ready to hear the message that their crown jewel products were part of our obesity problem, and that they were acting much as the cigarette companies had, so the meeting was a failure.  It was probably their last chance to be good citizens. 

The author of the article, Mike Moss, has a book out this spring, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.  The book promises to reveal the clever science used to find the “bliss point” in factory food—the optimal mix of sugar, salt, and fat that can hook us on their products.  It’s troubling, the sophistication and science being used to promote factory made food-like substances of doubtful healthfulness.

Healthy, Affordable Snacks

The goal of this post is to rediscover healthy snacks.  In a prior post we summarized reader’s healthy snacks.  Here are ten ideas for traditional snacks that are wholesome and affordable:

1. Fruit:  Nature wraps some fruits in individual servings, like the apple, banana, orange, and peach.  Purchased in season, they’re a nutritional bargain.  In winter, enjoy dried fruits.
2. Veggies:  Carrot sticks and celery (with PB) are favorites.  But try broccoli, cauliflower, or zucchini with a little hummus.   Important point:  To get your daily five veggie servings, you should get at least one in your snacks.
3. Green Smoothies; easiest way to eat your greens plus you get fruit too.
4. Seeds:  Sunflower seeds are a healthy treat.  Popcorn is a real bargain—put popcorn in a paper bag, staple it closed, and pop it in the microwave.
5. Nuts: Buy them in bulk at harvest, save them in the freezer, and enjoy year around. 
6. Homemade bread:  This is my favorite snack, toasted with butter.  You can bake a loaf for under a buck if you buy yeast in bulk.  Homemade bran muffins make a great snack; put a batch in the freezer.
7. Homemade granola makes a great snack too.  Try Katie’s Granola Recipe.
8. Hard-boiled eggs:  A great treat: boil them on Monday and enjoy all week; pastured eggs are high in omega-3 fats.
9. Cheese, especially with bread or healthy crackers, or in a quesadilla.
10. Sardines:  For essential long-chain omega-3 fats, sardines are the best value.  Our grandparents ate them on crackers; we should rediscover the humble sardine.

Healthy Change:  We used the weekly menu rule to take control of food selection.  To control snacking, prepare a snack plate early in the day. 

Please comment:  When we eat regular, healthy meals, we snack less and make better choices.  You can find healthy store-bought snacks but ours are mostly homemade.  The best snacks are minimally processed—whole food snacks are best; we draw the processing line at granola and trail mix.  Please share your favorite snack ideas.

Antioxidants

The quick answer:  There’s a billion or more fires within you—in the cellular mitochondria that produce your life-giving energy.  You need the energy, but you also need to provide the antioxidants that protect against the fire’s oxidation by-products—free radicals.  

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Antioxidants

We make energy at the cellular level—mitochondria, microscopic organelles within our cells—oxidize, or burn, glucose to create life-giving energy.  The harder working the cell—think of heart muscle—the more mitochondria there is.  One problem: oxidation also results in free radicals, which are molecules lacking an electron.  If they don’t get that electron, they’re like a bull in a china shop, wrecking other molecules to steal an electron. 

Nature provides a solution to the oxidation/free radical problem—antioxidants.  Antioxidants supply the needed electron and some can do it cyclically, over and over.  We get antioxidants from healthy foods, but the body can produce them also.  The melatonin produced when we sleep in the dark is a potent antioxidant protecting you all through the night.

The world of antioxidants is remarkable complex—we know little about them but it appears there are thousands of varieties.  Fruits, vegetables and grains—the basics of a natural diet—are rich in antioxidants but they provide different types.  To get an adequate supply, you need to eat a variety of natural foods.  It’s more than just the sum—there seems to be a synergistic effect from a variety of antioxidants.

Phony Antioxidants

Three of the vitamins are potent antioxidants—vitamins A, C, and E.  Some minerals, like selenium, are also powerful antioxidants.  The folks in the supplement business got excited about the protective powers of antioxidants and rushed a variety of products to the market.  Scientists have tried to provide supporting data but, to my knowledge, factory-produced antioxidants have not proven to be as helpful as natural sources. 

There was an antioxidant study in the news recently with a result that shouldn’t surprise a reader of this blog.  A 14-year study of over 5000 older adults found no protection from antioxidants against stroke or dementia. 

Basically, they gave people a diet questionnaire and divided them into three groups: most, average, or least dietary antioxidants.  At the end of the study there was no difference found between the three groups. 

Does this negate the importance of antioxidants?  No!  Here’s why:  A closer look showed the difference in antioxidant intake between the groups to be 90% due to the antioxidants in coffee and tea.  Apparently, with the exception of coffee and tea, the diet didn’t vary much among the groups and—no surprise—even though there are antioxidants in these hot drinks, there wasn’t an overall health advantage. 

The tragic thing about the study is the money wasted would have been better used to study people who really do eat differently—our readers.

Sunscreen for Plants

Here’s an interesting thought about antioxidants.  Plants need the sun to grow but they also must protect themselves against oxidation from the sun’s UV rays.  Imagine how you would survive naked to the sun from morning ‘til night.

So the surface, or skin, of plants is rich in antioxidants.  The small fruits like berries have a lot of skin for a small mass.  Ditto for the leafy greens, like kale and spinach.  This works also for grains, which are even smaller.  So be sure to include berries, dark leafy greens, and whole grains in your diet.

Antioxidants and Cancer

Free radicals cause oxidative stress and this has been linked to a higher risk for cancer, including breast cancer.  In addition to oxidative stress, one study found women with the lowest blood level of vitamin A to have twice the risk for breast cancer.  Those with the lowest blood level of vitamin E had triple the risk. 

That’s scary.  So eating a diet of natural foods rich in antioxidants—and getting plenty of sleep—is doubly important.

The beautiful wife reminds me that posts work best if kept to 600 words.  People tend to start skimming if the posts are longer—a beautiful daughter-in-law confirms this.  So I must stop, with this week’s Healthy Change:

Loving Vegetables

The quick answer:  Vegetables—learn to love them or prepare for an ugly death.

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Food and Reverence

Mike Pollan, best-selling author and U.C. Berkeley journalism professor, wrote perhaps America’s best nutrition book—In Defense of Food.  A prior post endorsed this book.  Pollan opens by giving away the book’s message in three succinct sentences:  “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”  He goes on to say, “. . . eating a little meat isn’t going to kill you.”

Actually, I think Pollan could have used just two sentences, because if you eat mostly plants—high in nutrients, low in calories, full of filling fiber—you won’t want to eat “too much.” 

Recently I read an explanation of the Jewish dietary code for kosher dining.  The writer acknowledged there wasn’t an obvious reason for some restrictions—like not mixing dairy and meat on the same plate—but thought it important to obey God, nonetheless.  The dinner table, he wrote, can be much more—it can be an altar.  I’ve thought a lot about this, how dining can help sanctify the lives of our families.

So combining all this, if I were to write a book today this would be my opening prescription:  “In eating, show reverence for God’s second best creation—our food supply.”  This suggests minimal processing—not adulteration—of food and implies a duty to care for animals, over which Man was given dominion.

Written more concisely:  To sanctify your life and optimize your health, eat mainly plants, minimally processed, seasoned with a little meat and fish.  Could it be said more simply?

Vegetables

Americans are unique in their dislike for vegetables.  The nutritionist David Ludwig agreed:  “In my experience, hating vegetables is essentially an American trait.  I never saw anything close to it during my travels through Asia, Europe, and South America.” 

In learning to love vegetables Healthy Change #2—Never eat deep fat fried foods—makes things worse.  French fries are America’s favorite vegetable.  So we have a bigger problem—if you throw out French fries, Americans eat, on average, less than one serving daily of vegetables, instead of the recommended 4-5.

Of the thirteen quarterly rotating themes of Word of Wisdom Living, vegetables alone are addressed twice, or 8 times in a year.  I don’t think it too much—the biggest challenge of healthy eating is for Modern Mankind to relearn eating vegetables.

Recent Discoveries

Around the world, people eat all the parts of plants—the fruit, seeds, roots, stalk, etc.  Here’s news from the book, Nutrition and Health about a particular part of plants, the leaf:  “One of the most remarkable surprises in nutrition studies in the last few years was the discovery of the remarkable dietary qualities possessed by the edible leaves of plants.  Among vegetable foods, only the leaf is rich in calcium, and is also rich in vitamins A, B and C, as well as fiber.”  The book, I should note, was written three generations ago in 1925.  Here's one more reason to eat salads: Leaves are also surprisingly rich in omega-3 fats.

In a prior post, In Defense of Veggies, we told of the remarkable benefits of the vegetable groups, including the dark leafy greens, cruciferous family, orange, and red veggies, and the alliums (garlic, onions, etc).  A salad with a nice oil and vinegar dressing should be eaten at most dinners. 

This post also notes how colored vegetables improve our appearance.  Scientists in Great Britain found a salutary improvement in skin color for people eating orange and red vegetables.  They not only had better skin color, they looked healthier.  So drop those French fries and enjoy some carrots, or a sweet potato.

One more thought:  If you don’t yet garden, consider planting a vegetable garden this spring.

Healthy Change #6:  This is the easiest of all the Healthy Changes but it's the start of a new outlook.

Do The Math

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans—our official healthy diet guide—recommends we eat five vegetable servings daily.  For food groups without powerful lobbies—vegetables are the best example—I trust the Dietary Guideline of five servings.   (For food groups with well-funded lobbies, like dairy, or edible oils, I take the guidance with a grain of salt.)  A serving is the amount that will fit in the palm of your hand—about 2-4 ounces, depending on hand size and food density.  Doing the math, five veggie servings a day with allowance for waste is:

• Two adults—about 15 lbs. per week.
• Mom, dad, and three grammar school kids—20-25 lbs.
• Family of six, ranging from toddler to high school—30-40 lbs.

Please comment:  It’s best not to force children to eat vegetables—that’s not a fight you can easily win.  A better idea is for mom and dad to eat vegetables with pleasure.  And get the kids their own copy of the Pixar classic, Ratatouille.  Ratatouille, is a traditional French dish of stewed vegetables—a fact not made clear in the movie. 

How do you help your children, and spouse, to love vegetables?  What is your favorite vegetable recipe?  Give us your best shot—veggies are the true test of Mom's seduction skills.

Olive Oil 101

The quick answer:  The extra virgin olive oils in your supermarket may not be all that innocent.  Try the California oils and see if you don’t like them better.

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The Problem with Olive Oil

I should be addressing this week’s Healthy Change subject—vegetables—but we’ll get to that tomorrow.  Today we have a more interesting comment from a reader:  What brands of olive oil can be trusted?

It’s a great question.  I don’t know the answer but I think that collectively our readers might.  So I’ll offer some information to start the conversation and ask for comments. 

When I wrote the recent post disparaging vegetable oils, I noted that olive oil now gets equal shelf space in the local supermarket.  That’s a big change from a decade ago and I noted an important difference between the two food groups:  There were just a few vegetable oil brands (Best Foods, Wesson Oil, Mazola Oil, Kraft Foods) but there was a plethora of olive oil brands.

I returned to the store and counted the olive oil brands—14.  It’s odd that the food giants haven’t dominated such an ancient product.  Three countries—Spain, Italy, and Greece—produce ¾ of the world supply, but other Mediterranean countries like Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia play a role, as does Argentina, Australia, and, drum roll, California. 

California is a relatively recent player (it produce 3% of the world supply).  The original Spanish friars planted olive trees around the missions but the industry slowly died due to the low cost of imported oils.  In recent decades there’s been a revival and excellent California olive oils are now available.

Benefits of Olive Oil

I have to be brief here as the beautiful wife said the last post was too long.  There’s an excellent summary of EVOO benefits here.  A brief summary:

1. Anti-inflammation:  The plant nutrients, especially polyphenols, have potent anti-inflammatory effect.
2. Anti-cancer:  An Italian research institute reviewed 25 studies of olive oil and cancer.  The results confirm the cancer risk reduction effect of olive oil, especially for breast cancer.
3. Cardiovascular:  Besides the anti-inflammatory benefit, olive oil is rich in antioxidants, including vitamin E and beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor).  Both are beneficial to vascular health.

Who Can You Trust?

There’s a big problem with olive oil:  Real olive oil is far more costly than other vegetable oils, so you can make a lot of money by slipping in cheaper oils.  In his later years, Mark Twain wrote a nostalgic book about his youth called Life on the Mississippi.  In the book he recounts, or imagines, a dialogue between two traveling salesman.  One brags about the money that can be made by shipping cottonseed oil to Italy where it is chemically treated and bottled as olive oil for shipment back to the US.  It’s a slippery business.

More recently, a UC Davis study found over 2/3 of the imported EVOO brands sold in California aren’t what the label claims—they’re mixed with lower grades or other oils.  One of the California EVOO brands also failed the test.  (It should be noted California growers funded the testing.)  For EVOO labeling, there’s no law against cheating, as the FDA hasn’t set standards for olive oil grades.

Olive Oil Aisle Visit

Here are a few things I noted in the olive oil aisle:

• Price —Olive oil costs more; prices ranged from 27 to 76 cents/oz. (in the 500 mL size), though most cost in the 50-60 cent range.  Why the difference in price?  I couldn’t tell—except the more expensive came in more interesting bottles.  It’s a big question with olive oil—what justifies a higher price? 
• California olive oil—I looked for domestic olive oil but everything was imported, even from less known countries like Tunisia.  California olive oils are gaining popularity, but they’re not that common yet.  I later found a bottle—Trader Joe’s Extra Virgin California Estate Olive Oil.
• Taste test —The beautiful wife and I tasted three extra virgin olive oils—two imported and TJ’s California EVOO.  Conclusion:  I thought the California EVOO tasted much better; the others had a heavy, almost-rancid taste.  The California oil had a fresher grassy taste.  Better yet, TJ’s 500 mL bottle only cost $6.00.  Not in our taste test:  Costco offers a California EVOO from Cullen Creek; per Costco, you have to buy a liter but it's a good value we want to try some day.

Please comment:  Do you have a favorite olive oil?  Please share your experience.