A Simple Tip for the Weekend

Filed under: General Health

Many people like to use PAM cooking spray or something like it on their pans whenever they cook. It doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, but those aerosol sprays do contain a lot of chemicals, and even if they are the extra virgin olive oil(evoo) kind, how fresh are they? How hot did they get in shipping? How high quality of an olive oil is it really? These are questions where the answers really do make a big impact on your health.

Just because it is organic does not mean it is good for you

The rule of thumb has been for people to either say screw it and use the PAM anyway, or to pour high quality evoo in their pan. The problem with olive oil is that those calories add up, and it is easy to pour more in than you want. To solve the dilemma here is a simple tip that I picked up from Dr. Mohr (I can’t remember if it was Chris or Kara, regardless check them out at Mohr Results).

Pour your evoo into a spray bottle, and voila, you have a homemade PAM. You can now lightly coat a pan with a high quality evoo of your choosing, minus the excess calories and unnecessary chemicals.

As awesome as this tip is, I am taking it to a whole new level. Recently my good friend Cassandra Forsythe blogged about the dangers of plastic, and truth be told it can be even worse with lipids, like evoo, in plastic. Harmful chemicals can leech out and into your oil, taking a healthy food and making it a nutritional disaster. Rather than pouring that evoo into a plastic, possibly dangerous spray bottle, pour into a beautiful Misto Gourmet Stainles Steel Olive Oil Spray Bottle. It uses kitchen air as the propellant. It is washable, refillable and totally awesome. Maybe even a perfect Father’s Day gift for some of you last minute shopper’s out there.

Amazingly it was actually back home in Maine where I discovered this little item. I was at my parents house and I noticed it sitting on the counter. So a big thanks goes out to my mom for showing me this awesome product as I was pretty pumped to discover this.

Quinoa 2.0

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

Now as most of you know I am not a big fan of wheat. I prefer sprouted grain versions to decrease anti-nutrients and allow for much better vitamin and mineral absorption. Unfortunately, a great food seems to have been lumped into the wheat category, when in reality it stands far apart, especially since it is a seed and is related to rhubarb, not too wheat. Today I am taking about buckwheat, also sometimes known as kasha. Like quinoa, buckwheat is not a grain but a seed. Though it is treated like a grain for culinary purposes, it’s health benefits far exceed that of ordinary grains.

Buckwheat used to be widely grown in the Northeast as a popular and healthy crop in the 18th and 19th centuries. Due to the rise of nitrogen fertilizers, it was replaced by wheat and corn, which thrive in that nitrogen rich environment, and where buckwheat falters. Again showing how far our agriculture has fallen (for more info on why that is a terrible trade-off, check out The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I blogged about here).

Also like quinoa, buckwheat is high in fiber, has a very low impact on blood sugar, and is a complete protein. Most cereal grains like wheat, rice, millet and corn are lacking in a few essential amino acids. Buckwheat is also beneficial in the fact that again unlike wheat and other cereal grasses, it contains no gluten, making it safe to consume for people with gluten sensitivities.

Buckwheat has been studied quite extensively for it’s ability to lower cholesterol. Now I still don’t believe in the lipid hypothesis of cholesterol causing heart disease, but I do believe that oxidized cholesterol is a major problem, so anything that can help lower that is awesome. The proteins in buckwheat also help to stabilize blood sugars, very important for people with diabetes or metabolic syndrome. The benefits don’t stop there either. It’s proteins also reduce the activity of angiotensin converting enzyme, reducing blood pressure and hypertension. Pretty buckwheat is just full of kickassery.

Buckwheat is also high in zinc, copper, manganese, iron and selenium. It is also high in rutin, an antioxidant that supports the circulatory system by strengthening capillary walls, reduces recurrent bleeding in people with high blood pressure and weakened blood vessels and can increase microcirculation in people with chronic venous insufficiency.

An interesting aside, buckwheat is the common source of the malt in gluten free beer. Just thought I would throw that out there. Now go enjoy some buckwheat pancakes, filled with some delicious Maine blueberries.

Nutrition 101 – Pt 2.

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

For those of you who missed it, I began a 2 part series about Nutrition 101 HERE. Today is a continuation of my top 10 rules, guidelines, tips, what have you. Do remember that even with all these guidelines, there is no one perfect diet. Many people find many different ways of eating, that still fall under the realm of these guidelines yet are completely distinct, that are as healthy as can be. Now onto the fun stuff.

6. Eat Healthy Fat, and Lots of it.

• Fat is necessary for proper hormone production.
• The 80′s were wrong, do not fear fat.
• Fat doesn’t make you fat.
• The lipid hypothesis of heart disease is wrong.
• Eat fat from foods that meet the criteria of Rules 1 & 2.
• Do not fear saturated fat, as long as it comes from food following Rules 1 & 2.
• Minimize consumption of industrial vegetable oils – corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower, etc.
• Should usually be at least 1/3 of calorie intake.

7. Only drink single ingredient, zero calorie beverages.

• Liquid calories go unnoticed by the body, so they add up.
• Best choices – water, tea, some black coffee.
• Some fresh juice ok in moderation.

8. Minimize Supplementation, though some is OK.

• Use to enhance, not replace a balanced diet.
• Lack nutrients inherent to REAL food.
• Best choices – protein powder, vitamin D, fish oil, creatine, resveratrol, etc.

World's Best Protein Powder

9. Control Carbohydrate Intake

• Carbs should be mainly from nutrient dense fruits and veggies.
• Grains should only be from real whole grains – old fashioned oats, quinoa, sprouted grains, amaranth
• Minimize regular wheat intake – high in anti-nutrients – choose sprouted grain versions
• Best times for grain-based carbs – breakfast, pre and post training.
• Individual variance to this, so do not fear carbs, just use appropriately.

10. Live a Little!

• Break the rules once in a while.
• Do not fear eating a piece of cake, or some french fries, just do not make a habit of it.
• Understand what once in a while is, it is not a daily occurrence.
• Don’t always be “that guy (or girl)” who never eats anything at parties or social gatherings, it is ok to not be perfect.

I hope that helps some people, whether you are just trying to maximize health, lose weight, gain mass or some combination thereof, put these tips to use and you will certainly see vast improvements in all cases. Again, questions and comments are most welcome.

Addendum to Rule 2.

• Avoid artificial sweeteners, instead chose natural versions – Stevia, Lo Han, Molasses, Honey, Agave Nectar, etc – still only use sparingly.

Nutrition 101

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

I have had a few requests from readers to gather my thoughts and form a sort of nutrition 101 set of rules and guidelines to eat by. I will give my top 5 tips today and finish it next week. I do want to preface this list with the fact that my rules are constantly evolving, they are different now than they were just a year ago, and they will probably be different next year. I am always reading, learning and evolving my thoughts. So here goes.

1. Eat REAL whole, unprocessed food.

• If you couldn’t hunt, fish, pluck, grow, or ferment/culture the food, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
• If it wasn’t food 100 years ago, it probably isn’t food today.
• If it comes in a box or a plastic wrapper, it probably isn’t food, it is a food product. These are not the same thing, so learn to recognize that.
• If it contains lots of industrial vegetable oil (soybean, safflower, sunflower, etc) and/or sugar/high fructose corn syrup, don’t eat it.

2. Eat food as close to it’s natural state as possible.

Examples:

• meat, eggs and dairy from pastured/grass-fed animals
• eat full fat versions of these foods for the greatest profile and absorption of nutrients
• produce from local, seasonal, and sustainably grown sources

This is for Danny

3. Eat every 3-4 hours.

• This is not to “boost” your metabolism or any of that hocus pocus.
• It is mainly to prevent overeating at meals, and consumption of foods that don’t follow rules 1 and 2.

4. Eat protein with every meal or snack.

• Again, this isn’t to “boost” your metabolism, but regardless of goal, a higher protein diet has been shown to be more effective.
• Builds more muscle and repairs damaged tissue when trying to gain mass.
• Maintains muscle tissue when trying to lose mass.
• Produces a higher Thermic Effect of Feeding, meaning it require more calories to digest protein than other foods.

5. Eat at least 1 full serving of vegetables and/or fruits every time you eat.

• Just a simple way to reach that daily quota of 10+ servings of vegetables and fruits.
• Increases amounts of powerful phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals to optimize health.

That wraps up today’s installment. Now some people might disagree and put rule 5 as rule 1, or vice versa, and in reality, it really doesn’t matter. As long as there are the tenets that you eat by most of the time, because you are allowed to eat brownies and white bread once in a while (you know that right?) then the order of the rules really doesn’t matter, it is simply semantics. Questions and comments welcome.

The Importance of NEPA

Filed under: General Health, Weight Loss

This past weekend my fiance and I moved apartments. (Hence the lack of blogging since the beginning of last week!) It was absolute hell. We did the move almost entirely on our own, and our bodies took a toll. Loading our rented moving truck, an absolute monster (it was supposed to be a 16 footer, instead they gave us a 26 footer!) was hard enough, but moving all our crap up three flights of stairs was even more fun. To top it all off, our couch had a slightly raised staple that cut us both up pretty good, making it look like we got into a vicious knife fight.

Me behind the wheel of this rig

We ate like absolute crap this weekend, since we were almost completely out of edible food and whatever was left was half packed away, half buried behind boxes. I ate food that I haven’t eaten in years and years. The worst part was we didn’t take many food breaks, so when we did it, we absolutely crushed food, crushed it! Even with the unholy amount of crappy calories I stuffed down my piehole, I managed to lose a few lb’s over the weekend! This goes to show the absolute amazing effectiveness of NEPA. NEPA (non-exercise physical activity) is a pretty broad term, and I’m not sure that moving heavy crap up and down stairs doesn’t fall under the category of exercise, but bear with me for the sake of argument.

When it comes to fat loss, every little bit counts. Leigh Peele, known for her ability to elicit fat loss from clients who have been stalled for years, is a huge fan of NEPA. In her book, The Fat Loss Troubleshoot, and in pretty much every interview she does Leigh hammers home the point of being more active, of just moving more. It sounds cliche to park your car further away, take the stairs instead of the elevator (right Cass?), but things like that really do add up. Fidgeting burns tons of calories. Just getting up every hour at work to take a 5-10 minute walk, or do pushups or bodyweight squats in the bathroom adds up as well. At the end of the day, you could be talking about several hundred extra calories burned without inhibiting recovery capacity from your actual exercise sessions (and possibly enhancing recovery with increased bloodflow), that really adds up over time.

Long story short, be more active! Take small walks before dinner. Take the stairs at work. Every hour get up from your chair and move around, do some bodyweight movements or stretch. Just move more! It really does help, you don’t have to move everything you own to lose a few pounds, but just moving your body a little more every day will help the process along nicely.

The Return of Vitamin D

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

For those of you who read Eric Cressey and Tony Gentilcore‘s blogs have probably heard a ton about vitamin D. I am sure I have talked about it as well, though I am too lazy this morning to search where. Anyway, vitamin D is an incredibly important fat-soluble substance, really more similar to hormones than vitamins, because it is that awesome.

Unfortunately vitamin D is not present in large amounts in a lot of foods, our best source is some beautiful sunshine. Too bad people are so sun-phobic these days that they slather on some SPF 70 just to walk to their car. There has been some recent research showing that roughly 77% of the population may be deficient in vitamin D status. Even if people aren’t deficient, they likely are not in the optimal range, the RDA of 400 IU just does not cut it. That number is enough to prevent rickets or osteomalacia, not encourage optimal health. There is a vast difference between brimming health, and just being not sick.

Vitamin D plays many important roles in the body, including: the maintenance of organs, regulating calcium, bone growth and remodeling, anti-tumor and other immune boosting properties, etc. Now for you long time readers, you know that I highly dislike the MSN health and fitness page. I have ranted on that here and here before. On very rare occasions though, they really come through with some quality stuff. I recently came across an article about vitamin D and sunshine, and I loved it, it was one of their best health pieces, right HERE.

This article actually highlights some of the benefits of getting your vitamin D from just a daily dose of 10-15 minutes of sun exposure. I am of the mind that the sun is a wonderful healing tool. There is a reason that people recover better in hospitals when their shades are open. There is also a reason that we call it a “healthy” tan. It makes the skin look better, it gives the body a glow, hell it makes you feel better. Now people do take it far overboard, and I am certainly not suggesting that you rub baby oil on yourself and bask in the sun for hours on end, but I don’t think we need to slather sun block on ourselves every time we even think of heading outdoors.

One the best natural sources of vitamin D are pastured eggs, along with fatty fish like salmon, beef liver, and cod liver oils along with fortified foods. Unfortunately most people do not eat pastured eggs, they eat conventional eggs from hens fed a corn rich diet. Unfortunately, these eggs tend to be quite poor sources of this wonderful substance. Here is an awesome chart I stole from wholehealthsource a while back to prove my point. (I am paraphrasing)

In 2007, the magazine Mother Earth News decided to test the claim of the America Egg Board and Egg Nutrition Council that all eggs are created equal, regardless of source. They sent for pastured eggs from 14 farms around the U.S., tested them for a number of nutrients, and compared them to the figures listed in the USDA Nutrient Database for conventional eggs. Here are the results per 100 grams for conventional eggs and the average of all the pastured eggs:

Vitamin A:

• Conventional: 487 IU
• Pastured avg: 792 IU

Vitamin D:

• Conventional: 34 IU
  
• Pastured avg: 136 – 204 IU

Vitamin E:

• Conventional: 0.97 mg
• Pastured avg: 3.73 mg

Beta-carotene:

• Conventional: 10 mcg
• Pastured avg: 79 mcg

Omega-3 fatty acids:

• Conventional: 0.22 g
• Pastured avg: 0.66 g

As you can clearly see, pastured eggs blow conventional eggs out of the water in all measures of awesomeness. They have 4-6 times the vitamin D content, and if you are like me and have 4 whole eggs every morning, that adds up quite nicely. One little caveat though, all those nutrients listed are either fats, or fat soluble nutrients, so you need to eat the yolks to actually take advantage of all the benefits an egg has to offer, so man up and eat the whole thing.

In conclusion, get your vitamin D from more sun, better food choices, and maybe supplement with 1,000-2,000 IU every day (at least in the winter here in New England), it will only benefit you.

Also, do not forget to sign up for John Berardi’s Lean Eating Contest, for you males interested click HERE, for the ladies out there, click HERE.

The Benefits of Omega-6′s

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

Odd title right? Most people today think of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats as the devil. These fatty acids, coming mainly from refined industrial vegetable oils are the cause of low-level systemmic inflammation, and therefore partly responsible for every disease under the sun, at least that’s the theory. I do actually believe that there is a lot of truth to that statement, and that on the whole we as a society consume far too many omega-6′s and far too little omega-3′s. The problem arises when health-minded people attempt to eliminate omega-6′s from their diet, and consume vast quantities of omega-3′s. The 3′s are all well and good, but we need the 6′s too. It reminds of when health-minded people used to attempt to eliminate all saturated fat from their diet, their heart was in the right place, but their information was not.

Now I am not encouraging people to consume copious amounts of highly refined and damaged vegetable oils like soybean, safflower, sunflower, corn, cottonseed, etc, I am encouraging people to remember that swinging to far in any one direction is never the answer. There is one particular omega-6 fatty acid that I wanted to glorify today. That is Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA).

GLA is found in evening primrose oil, borage oil, black currant seed oil and a few others. It is known to have anti-inflammatory properties and is often used in treatment for acne and excezema. We actually produce GLA from linoleic acid (which in excess is a pretty nasty little fatty acid) by the enzyme delta-6-desaturase. Some people, especially as we age have a decreased ability to convert linoleic acid into GLA. This can also be a problem when there isn’t sufficient linoleic acid in the diet. Insufficient linoleic acid intake is most definitely not a problem for the average American consumer, but for people who take their nutrition to extremes and try to avoid all vegetable oils, it could actually become an issue. Those omega-6 fatty acids are essential, meaning we have to get them from the diet because the body can not produce them from other materials. They are needed for the inflammatory process, for making GLA, and deficiency symptoms can include dry hair, hair loss, and poor wound healing.

So unlike the other omega-6 fatty acids, GLA is anti-inflammatory and has immune-boosting properties, it is the paradox of the omega-6 world. It is also being studied for its anti-cancer properties, and its potential to prevent tumor growth and spreading.

In conclusion, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for all you omega-3 junkies out there, to maybe include a couple hundred milligrams of GLA from evening primrose or borage oil, just to be on the safe side.

The Newest SuperFruit

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

Lately there has been a lot of talk about these new esoteric superfruits that are commanding greater parts of the grocery store. They have been converted into multi-level marketing juice products that claim to cure everything that ails us. These “new” fruits range from noni, to goji berries, to the most famous of all, acai. While they may be all well and good, the juices from them are insanely priced for the benefit they offer. There is certainly no evidence that they are of any improvement over the plain wild blueberry, yet they cost significantly more.

What has been getting lost in the shuffle is the recent research on more common fruit that is finding them to be astoundingly potent. One example which I blogged about a while back is kiwifruit. Kiwifruit was compared to 27 other fruits and was found to be the most nutritionally dense of all of them. They are relatively cheap, portable, and can be eaten as is, skin and all like an apple. It is delicious I promise.

Some even more recent research has revealed another common fruit to be a new nutritional superstar. This new fruit? Plums. Yes, delicious, juicy, beautiful plums. Food scientist Dr. Luis Cisneros and plant breeder David Byrne judged more than 100 varieties of stone fruit, including plums, peaches and nectarines and found them to match or exceed the exalted blueberries in antioxidants and phytonutrients. According to Byrne, one inexpensive plum contains about the same amount of antioxidants as a handful of blueberries.

The good news doesn’t stop there. The researchers also tested the compounds in the fruit for it’s effects on breast cancer cells, in vitro (test tubes). The team found that the phytonutrients contained in the plums inhibited breast cancer cell growth without disrupting the growth of normal healthy cells. Granted this is in vitro, but still incredibly promising stuff.

Just one more piece of the puzzle to help convince women to stop smoking, drinking excessively, and consuming copious amounts of refined vegetable oils and to start eating pasture raised meats, healthy fats and tons of fresh fruits and veggies, including plums (and kiwifruit!). Put these steps into place and your risk of breast cancer drops dramatically.

In closing, you don’t need to spend all of your hard-earned income on expensive exotic fruit juices (though I do recommend some pomegranate), when you can achieve the same benefits with a daily dose of wild blueberries, plums, kiwifruit and other inexpensive and delicious fruit. Good news for the body, and the wallet.

The New Omega 3

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

I am back folks, been busy with a lot of family stuff the past week, driving all over New England, but I have a good one lined up for ya today. Everyone today knows about fish oil. They know that it can help lower LDL, triglycerides, decrease risk of sudden heart attack, improve joint health, the list goes on and on. To get a truly therapeutic dose though, it is recommended to take in between 1-3 grams of EPA/DHA per day. That is somewhere around 4-10 fish oil pills, depending on the strength of your brand. What if I told you there was a new, possibly better source of omega-3′s that required a much smaller dose and gave an even better outcome? Interested?

I do want to state first and foremost that this is all very preliminary. I am certainly not suggesting you just abandon your fish oil, as it has mountains of research and even more anecdotal evidence of its efficacy. This is just an interesting supplement to keep your eye on. It is called Krill Oil.

Krill oil is this beautiful red oil that comes from krill, obviously. Krill are a dietary staple of fish like salmon, and it is how salmon get their nice pink color. That color comes from a very powerful antioxidant called astaxanthin. Astaxanthin has 100-500 times the antioxidant capacity of Vitamin E and 10 times the antioxidant capacity of beta-carotene, a similar carotenoid. Many laboratory studies also indicate astaxanthin is a stronger antioxidant than lutein and lycopene, two other famous antioxidants. This alone is very compelling stuff. Side Note – farmed salmon are MUCH lower in astasxanthin, their color is usually added, another reason to buy wild.

Krill is also very high in omega-3 fatty acids, the ever important fat-soluble vitamins A and D, and it is believed to contain other healthy compounds not yet identified. Though it has lower amounts of EPA/DHA than traditional fish oil, in some recent head to head studies, krill oil has come out on top.

A recent study compared krill oil to fish oil and placebo on cholesterol, triglycerides and blood glucose. The groups were given either 1.5 grams of krill or fish oil, 1 gram krill oil, or placebo. Krill oil signifcantly lowered total cholesterol, LDL, glucose and triglycerides and raised HDL at both doses, and was better than fish oil at even the lower dose. So at even just 1 gram of krill oil, there were significant results seen in the 6 month study.

Krill oil is also becoming well known to help control the symptoms of PMS, includring dysmenorrhea as well as the emotional symptoms. This was achieved at a dose of 3g of krill oil. It is recommended to supplement for 3g daily 10 days prior to cycle, after which you can cut down to 1g.

To find out more about Krill Oil and its health benefits on PMS, heart and joint health, check out The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth by Dr. Jonny Bowden. Dr. Bowden’s work has truly opened my eyes to a whole new world, and a lot of the information I presented here today was from this fantastic resource.

Important Info For Expecting Parents

Filed under: General Health, Nutrition

I recently came across some interesting information on a blog that I frequent, Whole Health Source. He consistently puts out really good information that he is fortunate enough to have easy and free access to, being a PhD candidate. He recently posted about a very interesting turn of events taking place at Boston Children’s Hospital. A nurse there sent him an email that read like this:

On the unit I work on we get lots of babies who have “short gut syndrome” due to a variety of causes who have to be on parenteral nutrition to supplement their nutrition while their GI system grows and hopefully heals fast enough. The big problem (among many) with TPN (total parenteral nutrition) is that it destroys the liver and kids get horribly jaundiced (which also causes brain damage) and often they die of liver failure or need a liver transplant before their GI system grows enough to take them off TPN. Boston Children’s has done some amazing work showing that this is largely due to the fact that the lipids part of the TPN was a soybean based oil so they started using Omegaven instead which is a fish oil based IV lipid solution. So far the results have been amazing and reversed the damage in lots of kids livers and prevented it in those started on Omegaven at birth.

From Wikipedia:

Short bowel syndrome (SBS, also short gut syndrome or simply short gut) is a malabsorption disorder caused by the surgical removal of the small intestine, or rarely due to the complete dysfunction of a large segment of bowel. Most cases are acquired, although some children are born with a congenital short bowel. It usually does not develop unless a person has lost more than two thirds of their small intestine.

The normal TPN formula consists of either soybean or safflower oil (probably whichever one is cheapest at time of production, they are used interchangeably, another great topic discussed in The Omnivore’s Dilemma). These oils are composed of mainly pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, and no matter what the government, FDA, and ADA may want you to believe, these vegetable oils have no place in a healthy diet.

I agree with Stephan that as much as the fish oil substitute is clearly a much better option, since it is not only preventing but in some cases curing short gut syndrome, I still think there is room for improvement. The fatty acid composition should more closely resemble breast milk (I’m surprised the FDA hasn’t mandated that we pasteurize that) since that is what we evolved to be weaned on. I would like to see a higher saturated fat intake there, and agree with one of Stephan’s options: extra virgin olive oil, extra virgin coconut oil, and fish oil. You get heart healthy medium chain tryglicerides with anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties that do not need digestion, along with the great monounsaturated fats and EPA/DHA for proper heart, brain and nerve health and development.

It is also interesting to note that roughly 25% of Americans have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and it is now the number one cause of liver damage in the US, above cirrhosis. Recent animal studies are showing some scary reasons for this, the big one: high intake of omega-6 vegetable oils, like soybean, corn, and safflower. Hhhmmmm. Seeing a trend?

We need to stop the massive amount of refined vegetable oils that go into our food production, it is not benefitting any of us, especially developing infants.

On a much lighter note, I just dominated a homemade bison burger for dinner. Bison is pretty cheap relatively speaking, found in most supermarkets, free from hormones, antibiotics and is usually grass-fed. I added some Montreal steak seasoning, spinach, tomato, mustard, salsa, a slice of sharp cheddar raw milk cheese, all on an Ezekiel sprouted grain hamburger bun. Fantastic. Had a little pineapple for dessert.