Hate salad or veggies? Just keep eating them. Here’s how our tastebuds adapt to what we eat
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Do you hate salad? It’s OK if you do, there are plenty of foods in the world, and lots of different ways to prepare them.
But given almost all of us don’t eat enough vegetables, even though most of us (81%) know eating more vegetables is a simple way to improve our health, you might want to try.
If this idea makes you miserable, fear not, with time and a little effort you can make friends with salad.
Why don’t I like salads?
It’s an unfortunate quirk of evolution that vegetables are so good for us but they aren’t all immediately tasty to all of us. We have evolved to enjoy the sweet or umami (savoury) taste of higher energy foods, because starvation is a more immediate risk than long-term health.
Vegetables aren’t particularly high energy but they are jam-packed with dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals, and health-promoting compounds called bioactives.
Those bioactives are part of the reason vegetables taste bitter. Plant bioactives, also called phytonutrients, are made by plants to protect themselves against environmental stress and predators. The very things that make plant foods bitter, are the things that make them good for us.
Unfortunately, bitter taste evolved to protect us from poisons, and possibly from over-eating one single plant food. So in a way, plant foods can taste like poison.
For some of us, this bitter sensing is particularly acute, and for others it isn’t so bad. This is partly due to our genes. Humans have at least 25 different receptors that detect bitterness, and we each have our own genetic combinations. So some people really, really taste some bitter compounds while others can barely detect them.
This means we don’t all have the same starting point when it comes to interacting with salads and veggies. So be patient with yourself. But the steps toward learning to like salads and veggies are the same regardless of your starting point.
It takes time
We can train our tastes because our genes and our receptors aren’t the end of the story. Repeat exposures to bitter foods can help us adapt over time. Repeat exposures help our brain learn that bitter vegetables aren’t posions.
And as we change what we eat, the enzymes and other proteins in our saliva change too. This changes how different compounds in food are broken down and detected by our taste buds. How exactly this works isn’t clear, but it’s similar to other behavioural cognitive training.
Add masking ingredients
The good news is we can use lots of great strategies to mask the bitterness of vegetables, and this positively reinforces our taste training.
Salt and fat can reduce the perception of bitterness, so adding seasoning and dressing can help make salads taste better instantly. You are probably thinking, “but don’t we need to reduce our salt and fat intake?” – yes, but you will get more nutritional bang-for-buck by reducing those in discretionary foods like cakes, biscuits, chips and desserts, not by trying to avoid them with your vegetables.
Adding heat with chillies or pepper can also help by acting as a decoy to the bitterness. Adding fruits to salads adds sweetness and juiciness, this can help improve the overall flavour and texture balance, increasing enjoyment.
Pairing foods you are learning to like with foods you already like can also help.
The options for salads are almost endless, if you don’t like the standard garden salad you were raised on, that’s OK, keep experimenting.
Experimenting with texture (for example chopping vegetables smaller or chunkier) can also help in finding your salad loves.
Challenge your biases
Challenging your biases can also help the salad situation. A phenomenon called the “unhealthy-tasty intuition” makes us assume tasty foods aren’t good for us, and that healthy foods will taste bad. Shaking that assumption off can help you enjoy your vegetables more.
When researchers labelled vegetables with taste-focused labels, priming subjects for an enjoyable taste, they were more likely to enjoy them compared to when they were told how healthy they were.
The bottom line
Vegetables are good for us, but we need to be patient and kind with ourselves when we start trying to eat more.
Try working with biology and brain, and not against them.
And hold back from judging yourself or other people if they don’t like the salads you do. We are all on a different point of our taste-training journey.
Emma Beckett, Senior Lecturer (Food Science and Human Nutrition), School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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‘Disease X’: What it is (and isn’t)
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What you need to know
- In January 2024, the World Economic Forum hosted an event called Preparing for Disease X to discuss strategies to improve international pandemic response.
- Disease X is a term used in epidemiology to refer to potential disease threats. It is not a real disease or a global conspiracy.
- Preparation to prevent and respond to future pandemics is a necessary part of global health to keep us all safer.
During the World Economic Forum’s 54th annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, global health experts discussed ways to strengthen health care systems in preparation for future pandemics. Conspiracy theories quickly began circulating posts about the event and the fictional disease at its center, so-called Disease X.
What is Disease X?
In 2018, the World Health Organization added Disease X to its list of Blueprint Priority Diseases that are public health risks. But, unlike the other diseases on the list, Disease X doesn’t exist. The term represents a hypothetical human disease capable of causing a pandemic. Although experts don’t know what the next Disease X will be, they can make educated guesses about where and how it may emerge—and how we can prepare for it.
Why are we hearing about Disease X now?
COVID-19 has been the deadliest infectious disease outbreak of the 21st century. It’s also an example of a Disease X: a previously unknown pathogen that spreads rapidly around the world, claiming millions of lives.
When the WEF hosted a panel of experts to discuss Disease X, it was the first exposure that many people had to a concept that global health experts have been discussing since 2018.
Even before the routine pandemic preparedness event took place, online conspiracy theorists began circulating false claims that those discussing and preparing for Disease X had sinister motives, underscoring how widespread distrust of global health entities has become in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why does Disease X matter?
Epidemiologists use concepts like Disease X to plan for future outbreaks and avoid the mistakes of past outbreaks. The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent non-endemic outbreak of mpox highlight the importance of global coordination to efficiently prevent and respond to disease outbreaks.
Pandemics are inevitable, but the scale of their destruction doesn’t have to be. Major disease outbreaks are likely to become more frequent due to the impacts of climate change. Preparing for a pandemic now helps ensure that the world is better equipped to handle the next one.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Stretching for 50+ – by Dr. Karl Knopf
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Dr. Knopf explores in this book the two-way relationship between aging and stretching (i.e., each can have a large impact on the other). Thinking about stretching in those terms is an important reframe for going into any stretching program. We’d say “after the age of 50”, but honestly, at any age. But this book is written with over-50s in mind, as the title goes.
There’s an extensive encyclopedic section on stretches per body part, which is exactly as you might expect from any book of this kind. There is also a flexibility self-assessment, so that progress can be measured easily, and so that the reader knows where might need more improvement.
Perhaps this book’s greatest strength is the section on specialized programs based on things ranging from working to improve symptoms of any chronic conditions you may have (or at least working around them, if outright improvement is not possible by stretching), to your recreational activities of importance to you—so, what kinds of flexibilities will be important to you, and also, what kinds of injury you are most likely to need to avoid.
Bottom line: if you’re 50 and would like to do more stretching and less aging, then this book can help with that.
Click here to check out Stretching for 50+, and extend your healthspan!
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6 Ways To Look After Your Back
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Back To Back
When people think about looking after their back, often thought does not go much further than sitting with good posture, and perhaps even standing with good posture. And those things are important, but:
1) People’s efforts to have good posture often result in overcorrecting creating an anterior pelvic tilt that causes lower back problems.
Quick tip: if you’re sticking your butt out, you’re doing it wrong (no matter how great your butt is). Instead, to find the correct posture, go up on your tip-toes for a moment, then imagine a plumb-line down the center of your body, thus perpendicular to the floor, going all the way down to the ground. Now, slowly return your heels to the ground, but as you do so, keep your spine aligned to the plumb-line, so you’re not moving backwards as you drop, just directly down. This will land you in perfect posture.
Unless you have scoliosis. In which case, it’ll get you as close to good posture as is likely attainable from any quick tip.
2) There’s a lot more to looking after our back than just good posture!
Here are 5 other important things to do:
Be strong
Do strength-training for your back. How to do that is beyond the scope of today’s feature, but there are many good guides and also personal trainers that can be found.
Start off easy and work up, but do start. The stronger your back is, the less likely a momentary lapse in concentration is to throw out your back because you picked something up with imperfect form.
See also: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
Stretch intentionally
Many back injuries occur as a result of stretching and/or twisting awkwardly, so if you ensure your basic mobility and range of motion is good, the less likely it is that unthinkingly twisting around 270° to see where that wasp was going will slip a disk.
The more you stretch intentionally (carefully, please), the more you will be able to stretch unintentionally without injury.
See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility
Stand when you can, walk when you can
We humans have outrun our evolution in a lot of ways, and/but one thing our bodies are definitely not well-adapted for is sitting. Unless we are sitting in a low squat the way you might often see an orang-utan sitting, sitting is not a good way of being for us. Even sitting seiza-style or cross-legged is passable for a short while, not for too long.
So, while there sure are times we need to sit (especially if you’re driving!) minimizing those times is ideal. There are a lot of activities that are traditionally done sitting, where there’s no need for it to be so. For example, your writer here sits for the day’s main meal, but takes any smaller meal standing (and when guests visit for a coffee or such, I’ll offer them the couch while I myself prop up the fireplace). Standing desks are also great if you spend a lot of time at the computer for any reason.
See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More
Rest when you need to
You can’t stand all the time! But know this: if you want to rest your legs, lying down is a lot better for your back (and internal organs) than sitting.
Taking a 5 minute break lying on your couch, or bed, or floor, is a perfectly good option and only social convention says otherwise.
If you want a compromise option, though? A recliner chair, in the reclined position, is a better for your back than being scrunched up in the Economy Class Flight position.
PS: About that bed situation…
What Mattress Is Best, By Science?
Kill pain before it kills you
Painkillers aren’t great for the health per se, but pain (or rather, our bodily responses to such) can be worse. Half the time, when it comes to musculoskeletal problems, things get a lot worse a lot more quickly because of how we overcompensate due to the pain. So, take your pain seriously, and remember, the right amount of pain is zero.
If you’re thinking “but pain relief option xyz isn’t good for me”, we strongly recommend checking out:
The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
Take care!
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Eat to Beat Your Diet – by Dr. William Li
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We previously reviewed Dr. Li’s excellent “Eat To Beat Disease”, so you may be wondering how much overlap there is. While he does still cover such topics as angiogenesis, organ regeneration, microbiome health, DNA protection, and immunological considerations, and much of the dietary advice is similar, most of the explanation is different.
Because, this time, rather than looking at beating disease in general, there’s a much stronger focus on metabolic disease in particular, and yes, for those who want to do so, losing fat.
The scientific explanations are in-depth, such that you come way with not merely “I should eat an avocado once in a while”, but a comprehensive understanding of the body’s metabolic processes, from the chemistry to the organs involved, from the cellular to the systemic.
The style is on the hard end of pop-science. It’s approachably readable, while having a lot of densely-packed information with minimal fluff. You will be more than getting your money’s worth out of its 496 pages.
Bottom line: if you’d like to perk up your metabolism with a dietary approach that’s enjoyable and very restrictive, then this book will arm you with the knowledge to do that.
Click here to check out Eat To Beat Your Diet, and eat to beat your diet!
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The Science Of Sounds
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We Think You Might Like The Sound Of This…
We’ve written before about the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and how to do it.
We also reviewed a great book on a related topic:
This is Your Brain On Music – by Dr. Daniel Levitin
(yes, that’s the same neuroscientist that we featured as an expert talking about The Five Keys of Aging Healthily)
But what happens when we combine the two?
Mantra meditation & music
Most scientific studies that have been undertaken with regard to meditation tend to focus on mindfulness meditation. It’s easy, effective, and (which makes a difference when it comes to publication bias) is a very safe bet when it comes to funding.
However, today we’re going to look at mantra meditation, which has a lot in common, neurologically speaking, with music. Indeed, when the two were compared separately in a randomized control trial:
❝Daily mantra meditation or classical music listening may be beneficial for cognitive outcomes and quality of life of breast cancer survivors with cancer-related cognitive impairment.
The cognitive benefits appear to be sustained beyond the initial intervention period.❞
One possible reason for some of the similar benefits is the vagus nerve—whether intoning a mantra, or humming along to music, the vibrations can stimulate the vagus nerve, which in turn activates the parasympathetic nervous system, resulting in body-wide relaxation:
The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)
How effective is mantra meditation?
According to a large recent narrative review, it depends on your goal:
❝Based on the studies in the four important areas presented, there is no doubt of a strong connection between mantra meditation and human health.
Strong evidence has been found that practicing mantra meditation is effective in relieving stress and in coping with hypertension.
For the other two areas: anxiety and immunity, the evidence is inconclusive or not strong enough to firmly support the claim that the mantra meditation can be used to reduce anxiety or to improve immunity. ❞
Read in full: Scientific Evidence of Health Benefits by Practicing Mantra Meditation: Narrative Review
this is a very interesting read if you do have the time!
How do I practice mantra meditation?
The definition is broad, but the critical criteria are:
- You meditate…
- …using a mantra
Lest that seem flippant: those really are the two key points!
Meditation comes in various forms, and mantra meditation is a form of focussed meditation. While some focussed meditation forms may use a candle or some other focal point, in mantra meditation, the mantra itself provides the focus.
You may be wondering: what should the mantra be?
Classic and well-tested mantras include such simple things as the monosyllabic Sanskrit “Om” or “Ham”. We’re a health science newsletter, so we’ll leave esoteric meanings to other publications as they are beyond our scope, but we will say that these result, most naturally, in the humming sound that we mentioned earlier stimulates the vagus nerve.
But that’s not the only way. Practitioners of religions that have repetitive prayer systems (e.g. anything that uses prayer beads, for example) also provide the basis of focused meditation, using a mantra (in this case, usually a very short oft-repeated prayer phrase).
How long is needed for benefits?
Most studies into mantra meditation have used timed sessions of 15–30 minutes, with 20 minutes being a commonly-used session length, once per day. However…
- Vagus nerve benefits should appear a lot more quickly than that (under 5 minutes) in the case of mantras that cause that vibration we mentioned.
- Repetitive spoken prayers (or similar repeated short phrases, for the irreligious) will generally effect relaxation in whatever period of time it takes for your brain to be fully focused on what you are doing now, instead of what you were thinking about before. If using counting beads, then you probably already know what number works for you.
(again, as a health science publication, we cannot comment on any otherworldly benefits, but the worldly benefits seem reason enough to consider these practices for their potential therapeutic effects)
10almonds tip: for any meditative practice that you want to take approximately a given period of time, we recommend investing in a nice sand timer like this one, as this will not result in a jarring alarm going off!
Like to jazz things up a little?
Enjoy: Meditation That You’ll Actually Enjoy ← Meditation games!
Prefer to keep things to the basics?
Enjoy: No Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness ← The simplest scientific approach
Take care!
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10 Simple Japanese Habits For Healthier & Longer Life
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You don’t have to be Japanese or live in Okinawa to enjoy the benefits of healthy longevity. A lot of it comes down to simple habits:
Easy to implement
We’ll not keep the 10 habits a mystery; they are:
- Start the day with hot water: drinking hot water in the morning helps with hydration, warming the body, and aiding digestion.
- Enjoy a hearty breakfast: Japanese breakfasts are traditionally filling, nutritious, and help promote energy and longevity. Typical components include rice, miso soup, fish, and pickles.
- Take balanced meals: Japanese education emphasizes nutrition from a young age, promoting balanced meals with proteins, fiber, and vitamins & minerals.
- Enjoy fermented foods: fermented foods, such as nattō and soy-based condiments, support digestion, heart health, and the immune system.
- Drink green tea and matcha: both are rich in health benefits; preparing matcha mindfully adds a peaceful ritual to daily life too.
- Keep the “80% full” rule: “hara hachi bu” encourages eating until 80% full, which can improve longevity and, of course, prevent overeating.
- Use multiple small dishes: small servings and a variety of dishes help prevent overeating and ensure a diverse intake of nutrients.
- Gratitude before and after meals: saying “itadakimasu” and “gochisousama” promotes mindful eating, and afterwards, good digestion. Speaking Japanese is of course not the key factor here, but rather, do give yourself a moment of reflection before and after meals.
- Use vinegar in cooking: vinegar, often used in sushi rice and sauces like ponzu, adds flavor and offers health benefits, mostly pertaining to blood sugar balance.
- Eat slowly: Eating at a slower pace will improve digestion, and can enhance satiety and prevent accidentally overeating.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Get More Out Of What’s On Your Plate
Take care!
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