Is that a lot of nuts? That amount would last me a week. Everyone knows that nuts are very caloric, so surely that is the last thing one needs? Are nuts healthy? The Washington Post comments:
THIS STUDY analyzed data on 118,962 men and women who had never had cancer, heart disease or a stroke. Over a span of nearly 30 years, 27,429 of them died. Those who ate a one-ounce serving of nuts — roughly, a small handful — seven or more times a week were 20 percent less likely to have died for any reason than those who never ate nuts. Even those who ate nuts less than once a week had a 7 percent reduction in risk. Consuming nuts at least five times a week corresponded to a 29 percent drop in mortality risk for heart disease, a 24 percent decline for respiratory disease and an 11 percent drop for cancer.
While only 40% of Americans eat nuts everyday, this one addition to your diet could add substantially to your health. Not convinced yet? What do nuts do for your longevity?
No food is perfect and nuts are no different. They are high in calories, and the kind of fat in the nut is not always the best kind. This is why I avoid walnuts as walnuts are high in polyunsaturated fats that I wish to avoid. I eat almonds, macadamia nuts, and the occasional hazelnut.
But nuts being good for you does not mean that you can buy one of those round containers of Planter's fried nuts and eat them at one sitting! I would never ... well, lets just say that this is not a good idea! While I am not afraid of salt, I doubt that too much is good for you. Nor is eating that many nuts at once good for you. But surprisingly, while nuts are packed with calories, their use in moderation, or even slightly more than that, seems to actually cause weight loss.
Replacing one of your current snacks with nuts might be a good idea. Or you could add nuts to your repertory of cooking choices.
If I was going to try this recipe, I would increase the nuts and reduce the cheese. Google is your friend and they don't do evil, or so they claim; there are a huge number of healthy nut recipes available on the internet. I was going to say uncounted recipes, but Google counts the number of entries for you. There are 852,000 entries when you google nuts and brussels sprouts.
No, spreading Nutella on crackers doesn't count as a recipe.
So that means that everyone should eat nuts, right? No it doesn't. When I mentioned that I was writing about nuts to the beloved editor of this blog, Pam Dewey, she mentioned that nuts did not work for her and caused digestive issues. Everybody is different. I have a problem with Chia seeds. I won't say what my problem was, but my family preferred that I be somewhere else if I ate Chia seeds, and I had a number of embarrassing public displays of digestive distress until I realized what was causing it. So because of this common issue with nuts and seeds, be careful, and gradually add nuts to your diet and see what happens. You may or may not tolerate them.
So your action plan for this week is to add nuts to recipes that involve vegetables. Anything that increases your vegetable intake is good. And also add some nuts as a snack. As you may remember from last week, I add nuts to my yogurt, making my own blend of fruit, yogurt, and nuts.
Hearing my daughter play the theme from Gilligan's Island over and over again as she practices piano has led me to consider the hapless castaways. They seem to be a metaphor for the mess we are in. As you can see, others have had this thought too. I even saw an author interviewed on his book on the subject. But I doubt that each islander represents one of the seven deadly sins. Maybe the castaways were actually dead and in hell. No, No, that can't be right, no TV show would do that! Nor do I think Sherwood Schwartz's explanation that the show is a metaphor for international relations is valid, if he really said this. (It is dumb enough to be true.)
But the analogies are so obvious they could not have been intended.
First there is the millionaire, and his wife. They never actually seem to do anything, and he seems to always have an alcoholic drink with a straw. Everyone seems to have brought along a lot of possessions for a three hour tour—the Howes especially. The wealthy actually do a lot more than is realized, but often stereotypes have some basis in reality. The Howes are always ready to provide advice as long as no work is involved. What is weird is that every other castaway gives then deference even though on the island there is no reason for it.
The professor represents old-fashioned American ingenuity. He will get them off the island! But the Skipper and Gilligan seem to always mess everything up.
This is natural as the Skipper and Gilligan are the authority figures, the government, on the island. The government always messes everything up.
My blogging predecessor suggested that Ginger represents the propaganda machine. Maybe. In any event I always picture her meeting up in the jungle with the professor.
This leaves the unfortunate Mary Ann. Neither she nor the professor were important enough to be mentioned in the first season's theme song. She represents the common person who does all the work. While it seemed that Ginger helped, Mary Ann seemed to do most of the cooking.
Poor Mary Ann!Romantically Mary Ann's choices were limited—the Skipper or Gilligan. Not the best of choices. That's right, Mary Ann's only options, just like the common man she represents, was to be screwed by the government.
As for our heroes in real life, they got no residuals for their work. In real life they got screwed too.
While I doubt too many will actually watch a two hour documentary in Russian with English subtitles about Crimea becoming a part of the Russian Federation, it is an interesting propaganda piece well worth the investment if one is interested in the Ukrainian situation. My own personal view is that one needs to watch all different kinds of information and viewpoints. No doubt the information here is shaded toward a "proper" view of the rejoining of Crimea with Russia, as Western news programs wish their viewers to also have a "proper" view.
Note that the 97% vote in favor of Crimea joining is exaggerated, not through electoral fraud, but by a boycott of the election by some ethnic minorities--the Tatars in particular. This leads to the emphasis in the documentary of certain Tatars that supported the fight against the reestablishment of Ukrainian authority over Crimea. It is clear that the vast majority of Crimean citizens are totally in favor of being Russians, in fact they would say they always were.
When I hear the US State Department comment that Crimea should be returned to Ukrainian sovereignty, I have to smile. It ain't going to happen. If you do decide to watch the documentary, that much will be clear.
Of particular interest to me was the participation of the Cossacks in the Crimean situation, and the direct involvement of the Russian equivalent of the Hell's Angels--the Night Wolves.
There is also this "One Day At A Time"While I am referencing the gospel song "One Day At A Time," each of us must do things one day at a time, and in terms of health, one meal at a time. So let's begin with breakfast, the supposed king of meals. As the old saying goes, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." As in most of these folk wisdom sayings, I am not convinced this is so.
I think that not eating breakfast is a perfectly acceptable option, although I admit the scientific consensus is against it.
At 8:30 in the morning for four weeks, one group of subjects got oatmeal, another got frosted corn flakes, and a third got nothing. And the only group to lose weight was ... the group that skipped breakfast. Other trials, too, have similarly contradicted the federal advice, showing that skipping breakfast led to lower weight or no change at all.
“In overweight individuals, skipping breakfast daily for 4 weeks leads to a reduction in body weight,” the researchers from Columbia University concluded in a paper published last year.
The first study mentioned is not a very good study. From personal experience, a cereal for breakfast is not a good option for me unless I doctor the oatmeal up with protein and fat. I am sure the oatmeal and cereal were both served with "healthy" skim milk. What this may mean is that the people involved in the study might have had thier blood sugar drop later and cause hunger. (Note that I will discuss the oatmeal breakfast option next.)
This article continues:
This year, as the Dietary Guidelines are being updated, the credibility of its nutritional commandments has been called into question by a series of scientific disputes. Its advisory committee called for dropping the longstanding warning about dietary cholesterol, which had long plagued the egg industry; prominent studies contradicted the government warnings about the dangers of salt; and the government’s longstanding condemnation of foods rich in saturated fats seems simplistic, according to critics, given the ever more intricate understanding of the nutrition in fatty foods.
The studies that led to the recommendation that you eat breakfast are observational studies. The Post explains:
Observational studies in nutrition are generally cheaper and easier to conduct. But they can suffer from weaknesses that can lead scientists astray.
One of the primary troubles in observational studies is what scientists refer to as “confounders” — basically, unaccounted factors that can lead researchers to make mistaken assumptions about causes. For example, suppose breakfast skippers have a personality trait that makes them more likely to gain weight than breakfast eaters. If that’s the case, it may look as if skipping breakfast causes weight gain even though the cause is the personality trait.
That personality trait might consist of skipping breakfast, going to work, and then at 10 going to get some coffee and noticing the donuts in the break room...
How then will you know if skipping breakfast, or any of the other suggestions I will make, is good for you? Try it and see. If you skip breakfast and find yourself able to go to lunch without a donut or Snickers bar, and still eat a healthy lunch, then skipping breakfast might be for you.
Having cereal for breakfast is somewhat risky for many people. I am one of them. If I have oatmeal for breakfast, at 11 I will be ravenously hungry because the sudden influx of carbohydrates causes my body to overreact, and I over produce insulin and can become ill. I first noticed this at age 20 when my donut and coffee breakfast as a college student caused me to become ill, sweaty, and ravenously hungry at 11 after a morning class. To a degree this is just simply biology, and it is why many do so well on 6 meals a day as their blood sugar is dropping after carbohydrates.
Oatmeal is interesting because, while it is a healthy food choice, it actually has a pretty high glycemic index, meaning it could cause a spike in blood sugar. However, how you eat oatmeal could determine how much of a spike it could cause.
For instance, if you add a teaspoon of sugar or some honey to a bowl of oatmeal, the glycemic index will skyrocket and it will trigger an even greater spike in blood sugar levels. If, however, you add a tablespoon of butter and some cinnamon, it has less effect on blood sugar levels.
But even with these issues I have had some success with oatmeal if I eat it with normal milk for the additional, fat and add some soy protein powder to the oatmeal. Yes, I tended to eat lunch earlier than with other breakfasts, but this was not a big issue at the time for me. Will this work for you? Try it and see.
(As an aside, if you are a man over 40 you should seriously consider adding at least one capful of soy powder to your diet every day. This will help your prostate not grow as fast or as large. It will also reduce your PSA test results. I cannot recommend this highly enough.)
Another breakfast option is the traditional bacon and eggs. But as I pointed out in a previous post, this tradition was more of an advertising and PR victory than an actual tradition. I have also had success with this while I was gradually losing weight. I had one piece of low carb toast, two poached eggs, and beef bacon most mornings. As I mentioned two weeks ago, this bread was low carb but high in gluten, not a good choice for me.
For variety I often had low carb oatmeal. Guess what? It was high in gluten as well. If you have not yet started removing gluten as an experiment, it is not too late to start now. But back to bacon and eggs. I had this for months as my main breakfast, and my cholesterol dropped 40 points as I lost weight. This is another reason why you should be testing your blood lipids and other factors regularly, as I discussed in a previous week. Why do I use poached eggs? I like them better and the additional bonus is that there is no fat that is used in their preparation. Why do I use beef bacon? I do not eat pork for religious reasons. How will you know if a traditional bacon and egg breakfast will work for you? Try it and see.
I tried a version of this recently where I ate smoked salmon and poached eggs most mornings. It did not work as salmon is one food that those with a history of gout should not overdo. Yes, I had a flare-up. My point in bringing this up is to remind us all once again, we are all different, what works for you might not work for me, and what works for you at 30 might not work at 60. Try it and see.
Another popular health idea is that one should only eat fruit for breakfast. One would think that this would result in an even greater blood sugar rush than cereal, but it does not. This is due to the way that the body digests fructose. I have talked about this before. Basically the fructose does not impact blood sugar but is instead transported by the body to the liver and directly transformed into fat--this is one source of triglycerides. High triglycerides levels are very unhealthy.
Does this mean that one should not eat fruit? Not necessarily. If you eat a low fat diet, then yes the fructose will result in one having more fat in the diet than one realizes, but in the total context of the total diet this does not have to be bad. I recommend that a women eats one or two servings and a man two or three servings of fruit in a a day. So a fruit breakfast might fit right into your diet. I did this for a number of years, but it had zero effect on my other health practices so it did not work well for me. I would get 21 servings of fruit at the store, not that a banana is two servings, and I would prepare a week's worth of breakfasts at once. I would cut all the fruit up and add some nuts and divide it into 7 portions and freeze them and voila, breakfast for the week was done! All I had to do was defrost one container in the refrigerator the night before. You might not need to be so, well, anal about your breakfast fruit, but I found this helpful. Will breakfast fruit work for you? Try it and see.
Another option is to have nontraditional breakfast foods, as my mother used to say, "Have lunch for breakfast." My mother often had lintel soup for breakfast. I have never found this a satisfying idea, but you might like it.
What I have finally settled on for me for breakfast is yogurt and fruit with some nuts. I take 2/3 to 1 cup of frozen fruit, usually berries, and microwave them for one minute. The purpose of this is not to warm them up so much but to have them release juice. I then take this and add 1/4 cup of nuts and one cup of yogurt and mix them up. I find it very satisfying.
I am sure that each of these brands have normal unsweetened yogurt, buy them instead. One important note is the kind of yogurt you select. Most modern yogurts are so processed and sugar-laden that they are really not healthy anymore. Take a container of plain yogurt at the store and look at the label, then compare it to one of the processed yogurts that most people eat. You will see a dramatic difference in ingredients. I use unsweetened vanilla coconut yogurt; but normal yogurt or Greek yogurt is another viable option. Just get the real stuff, not something supposedly improved by the agribusiness industry. Try it and see.
I am never going to give you meal plans where I tell you what to eat. I don't know you or your metabolism. You do. If you are smart enough to read this blog, you are smart enough to experiment and see what works for you.
Which breakfast should you eat?
Try them and see.
Here is your homework:
If you are eating a low fat diet then the amount of fruit you eat can be higher.
Friday, February 26, 2016 at 3:00AM 
