Brown Rice Protein: Strengths & Weaknesses
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I had a friend mention that recent research showed Brown Rice Protein Powder can be bad for you, possibly impacting your nutrient absorption. Is this true? I’ve been using it given it’s one of the few plant-based proteins with a full essential amino acid profile!❞
Firstly: we couldn’t find anything to corroborate the “brown rice protein powder [adversely] impacts nutrient absorption” idea, but we suspect that the reason for this belief is: brown rice (not brown rice protein powder) contains phytic acid, which is something of an antinutrient, in that it indeed reduces absorption of various other nutrients.
However, two things are important to note here:
- the phytic acid is found in whole grains, not in protein isolates as found in brown rice protein powder. The protein isolates contain protein… Isolated. No phytates!
- even in the case of eating whole grain rice, the phytic acid content is greatly reduced by two things: soaking and heating (especially if those two things are combined) ← doing this the way described results in bioavailability of nutrients that’s even better than if there were just no phytic acid, albeit it requires you having the time to soak, and do so at temperature.
tl;dr = no, it’s not true, unless there truly is some groundbreaking new research we couldn’t find—it was almost certainly a case of an understandable confusion about phytic acid.
Your question does give us one other thing to mention though:
Brown rice indeed technically contains all 9 essential amino acids, but it’s very low in several of them, most notably lysine.
However, if you use our Tasty Versatile Rice Recipe, the chia seeds we added to the rice have 100x the lysine that brown rice does, and the black pepper also boosts nutrient absorption.
Because your brown rice protein powder is a rice protein powder and not simply rice, it’s possible that they’ve tweaked it to overcome rice’s amino acid deficiencies. But, if you’re looking for a plant-based protein powder that is definitely a complete protein, soy is a very good option assuming you’re not allergic to that:
Amino Acid Compositions Of Soy Protein Isolate
If you’re wondering where to get it, you can see examples of them next to each other on Amazon here:
Brown Rice Protein Powder | Soy Protein Isolate Powder
Enjoy!
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Own Your Past Change Your Future – by Dr. John Delony
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This one is exactly what it says on the cover. It’s reminiscent in its premise of the more clinically-presented Tell Yourself A Better Lie (an excellent book, which we reviewed previously) but this time presented in a much more casual fashion.
Dr. Delony favors focusing on telling stories, and indeed this book contains many anecdotes. But also he bids the reader to examine our own stories—those we tell ourselves about ourselves, our past, people around us, and so forth.
To call those things “stories” may create a knee-jerk response of feeling like it is an accusation of dishonesty, but rather, it is acknowledging that experiences are subjective, and our framing of narratives can vary.
As for reframing things and taking control, his five-step-plan for doing such is:
- Acknowledge reality
- Get connected
- Change your thoughts
- Change your actions
- Seek redemption
…which each get a chapter devoted to them in the book.
You may notice that these are very similar to some of the steps in 12-step programs, and also some religious groups and/or self-improvement groups. In other words, this may not be the most original approach, but it is a tried-and-tested one.
Bottom line: if you feel like your life needs an overhaul, but don’t want to wade through a bunch of psychology to do it, then this book could be it for you.
Click here to check out Own Your Past To Change Your Future, and do just that!
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What Mattress Is Best, By Science?
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The Foundations of Good Sleep
You probably know the importance of good sleep for good health. If not, here’s a quick refresher:
- Why You Probably Need More Sleep
- How Sleep-Deprived Are You, Really?
- The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
You should also definitely check out this quite famous book on the topic:
Why We Sleep – by Dr Matthew Walker
What helps, to get that good sleep
We’ve covered this a little before too, for example:
- Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors
- Sleep Better With Better Air
- How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
How to level-up from there
One of the biggest barriers to good sleep for many people is obstructive sleep apea:
Healthier, Natural Sleep Without Obstruction!
We covered (in the above article) a whole lot of ways of mitigating/managing obstructive sleep apnea. One of the things we mentioned as beneficial was avoiding sleeping on one’s back, and this is something Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Somers agreed with:
Back Sleeping, And Sleeping Differently After 50
“But side-sleeping is uncomfortable”
If this is you, then chances are you have the wrong mattress.
If your mattress is too firm, you can get around it by using this “five pillow” method:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically
If your mattress is too soft, then sorry, you really just have to throw that thing out and start again.
The Goldilocks mattress
While different people will have different subjective preferences, the science is quite clear on what is actually best for people’s spines. As this review of 39 qualified scholarly articles concluded:
❝Results of this systematic review show that a medium-firm mattress promotes comfort, sleep quality and rachis alignment❞
~ Dr. Gianfilippo Caggiari et al.
Read in full: What type of mattress should be chosen to avoid back pain and improve sleep quality? Review of the literature
Note: to achieve “medium-firm” that remains “medium firm” has generally been assumed to require a memory-foam mattress.
How memory-foam works: memory-foam is a moderately thermosoftening material, designed to slightly soften at the touch of human body temperature, and be firmer at room temperature. This will result in it molding itself to the form of a human body, providing what amounts to personalized support for your personal shape and size, meaning your spine can stay exactly as it’s supposed to when you’re sleeping on your side, instead of (for example) your hips being wider meaning that your lumbar vertebrae are raised higher than your thoracic vertebrae, giving you the equivalent of a special nocturnal scoliosis.
It will, therefore, stop working if
- the ambient temperature is comparable to human body temperature (as happens in some places sometimes, and increasingly often these days)
- you die, and thus lose your body temperature (but in that case, your spinal alignment will be the least of your concerns)
Here’s a good explanation of the mechanics of memory foam from the Sleep Foundation:
Sleep Foundation | What is Memory Foam?
An alternative to memory foam?
If you don’t like memory foam (one criticism is that it doesn’t allow good ventilation underneath the body), there is an alterative, the grid mattress.
It’s very much “the new kid on the block” and the science is young for this, but for example this recent (April 2024) study that concluded:
❝The grid mattress is a simple, noninvasive, and nonpharmacological intervention that improved adults sleep quality and health. Controlled trials are encouraged to examine the effects of this mattress in a variety of populations and environments.❞
~ Dr. Heather Hausenblas et al.
Read in full: Effectiveness of a grid mattress on adults’ sleep quality and health: A quasi-experimental intervention study
However, that was a small (n=39) uncontrolled (i.e. there was no control group) study, and the conflict of interest statement is, well, interesting:
❝Heather A. Hausenblas, Stephanie L. Hooper, Martin Barragan, and Tarah Lynch declare no conflict of interest. Michael Breus served as a former consultant for Purple, LLC.❞
~ Ibid.
…which is a fabulous way of distracting from the mention in the “Acknowledgements” section to follow, that…
❝Purple, LLC, provided financial support for the study❞
~ Ibid.
Purple is the company that invented the mattress being tested. So while this doesn’t mean the study is necessarily dishonest and/or corrupt, it does at the very least raise a red flag for a potential instance of publication bias (because Purple may have funded multiple studies and then pulled funding of the ones that weren’t going their way).
If you are interested in Purple’s mattress and how it works, you can check it out here ← this is a link for your interest and information; not an advertisement or an endorsement. We look forward to seeing more science for this though, and echo their own call for randomized controlled trials!
Summary
Sleep is important, and while it’s a popular myth that we need less as we get older, the truth is that we merely get less on average, while still needing the same amount.
A medium-firm memory-foam mattress is a very good, well-evidenced way to support that (both figuratively and literally!).
A grid mattress is an interesting innovation, and/but we’d like to see more science for it.
Take care!
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Dry Needling for Meralgia Paresthetica?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Could you address dry needling, who should administer it, and could it be a remedy for meralgia paresthetica? If not, could you speak to home-based remedies for meralgia paresthetica? Thank you?❞
We’ll need to take a main feature some time to answer this one fully, but we will say some quick things here:
- Dry needling, much like acupuncture, has been found to help with pain relief.
- Meralgia paresthetica, being a neuropathy, may benefit from some things that benefit people with peripheral neuropathy, such as lion’s mane mushroom. There is definitely not research to support this hypothesis yet though (so far as we could find anyway; there is plenty to support lion’s mane helping with nerve regeneration in general, but nothing specific for meralgia paresthetica).
Some previous articles you might enjoy meanwhile:
- Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief
- Peripheral Neuropathy: How To Avoid It, Manage It, Treat It
- What Does Lion’s Mane Actually Do, Anyway?
Take care!
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The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook – by Nisha Vora
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We all know that we should “eat the rainbow” (and that no, Skittles do not count)… So why do we often find ourselves falling into the same familiar habits and well-worn comfort foods?
Nisha Vora, of “Rainbow Plant Life“, is here to make things a lot easier—brightening up our plates is her mission!
In this Instant Pot-authorized, beautifully illustrated cookbook, Vora offers us 90 recipes to do just that. And because it’s an Instant Pot cookbook, they’re all super easy.
What if you don’t have an Instant Pot? Well, don’t tell Instant Pot we said this, but another pressure cooker brand will work too. And if you don’t have any pressure cooker, the recipes are modifiable for regular pots and pans. The recipes also lend themselves well to slow-cooker cooking, for that matter!
Where Vora really excels though is in making mostly-one-pot dishes beautiful and tasty.
The recipes, by the way, are drawn from cuisines from all around the world, and cover:
- summer and winter dishes
- breakfasts, sides, mains, desserts
- the healthy and the decadent (and sometimes both!)
As for the presentation of each recipe, we get at least one full-page photo of the finished dish and sometimes extras of the steps. We get a little intro, the usual information about ingredients etc, and a no-fuss step-by-step method. It’s very easy to use.
If you have allergies or other dietary considerations, this book is pretty mindful of those, making substitutions minimal and easy.
Bottom line: this comprehensive book will seriously brighten up the colors of your cooking!
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Lifespan vs Healthspan, And The Spice Of Life
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Great newsletter. Am taking turmeric for inflammation of hips and feet. Works like magic. Would like to know how it works, and what tumeric is best combined with – also whether there any risks in longterm use.❞
Glad you’re enjoying! As for turmeric, it sure is great, isn’t it? To answer your questions in a brief fashion:
- How it works: it does a lot of things, but perhaps its most key feature is its autoxidative metabolites that mediate its anti-inflammatory effect. This, it slows or inhibits oxidative stress that would otherwise cause inflammation, increase cancer risk, and advance aging.
- Best combined with: black pepper
- Any risks in long-term use: there are no known risks in long-term use ← that’s just one study, but there are lots. Some studies were prompted by reported hepatotoxicity of curcumin supplements, but a) the reports themselves seem to be without evidence b) the reported hepatoxicity was in relation to contaminants in the supplements, not the curcumin itself c) clinical trials were unable to find any hepatotoxicity (or other) risks anyway. Here’s an example of such a study.
You might also like our previous main feature: Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
❝This push for longevity is appealing but watching my mother in her nineties is a life I’m not looking forward to. Healthy longevity, yes, but longevity for the sake of a longer life? No thank you.❞
Yes, you’re quite right, that’s exactly the point! Assuming we live to die of age-related conditions (i.e., we do not suffer a fatal accident or incident in our younger years), those unfun last years are coming whether they come at 75 or 95. Or earlier or later, because that can absolutely happen too!
For example: nearly 10% of Americans over 65 have difficulty with self-care
As a rule, and we’ve covered some of the science of this previously, having at least 4 out of 5 of the “big 5” lifestyle factors (diet, exercise, sleep, low-or-zero alcohol, not smoking) not only extends life, but specifically extends the healthspan, i.e. the count of healthy life-years that precedes final age-related decline.
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Remember – by Dr. Lisa Genova
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Memory is often viewed as one thing—either you have a good memory, or you don’t. At best, a lot of people have a vague idea of selective memory. But, the reality is much more complex—and much more interesting.
Dr. Genova lays out clearly and simply the various different kinds of memory, how they work, and how they fail. Some of these kinds of memory operate on completely different principles than others, and/or in different parts of the brain. And, it’s not just “a memory for faces” or a “memory for names”, nor even “short term vs long term”. There’s working memory, explicit and implicit memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, muscle memory, and more.
However, this is not just an interesting book—it’s also a useful one. Dr. Genova also looks at how we can guard against failing memory in later years, and how we can expand and grow the kinds of memory that are most important to us.
The style of the book is very conversational, and not at all textbook-like. It’s certainly very accessible, and pleasant to read too.
Bottom line: memory is a weird and wonderful thing, and this book shines a clear light on many aspects of it—including how to improve the various different kinds of memory.
Click here to check out Remember (we recommend to do it now before you forget!
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