Watermelon vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing watermelon to cucumber, we picked the cucumber.
Why?
Both are good! But in the battle of the “this is mostly water” salad items, cucumber wins out.
In terms of macros they both are, as we say, mostly water. However, watermelon contains more sugar for the same amount of fiber, contributing to cucumber having the lower glycemic index.
When it comes to vitamins, watermelon does a little better; watermelon has more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B6, C, and E, while cucumber has more of vitamins B2, B5, B9, K, and choline. So, a modest 6:5 win for watermelon.
In the category of minerals, it’s a different story; watermelon has more selenium, while cucumber has more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.
Both contain an array of polyphenols; mostly different ones from each other.
As ever, enjoy both. However, adding up the sections, we say cucumber enjoys a marginal win here.
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You might like to read:
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Peas vs Broad Beans – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peas to broad beans, we picked the peas.
Why?
Both are great of course, but…
Looking at the macros to start with, peas have more protein and more fiber. The differences aren’t huge, but they are clear.
In terms of vitamins, peas have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, E, K, and choline (some with very large margins, some with small), while broad beans contain a little more vitamin C (the margin is quite narrow though).
When it comes to minerals, peas have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while broad beans have more sodium. So this category wasn’t close.
Adding up the win from each of the categories makes for a clear triple-win for peas.
Easy-peasy!
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The Truth About Chocolate & Skin Health
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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
❝What’s the science on chocolate and acne? Asking for a family member❞
The science is: these two things are broadly unrelated to each other.
There was a very illustrative study done specifically for this, though!
❝65 subjects with moderate acne ate either a bar containing ten times the amount of chocolate in a typical bar, or an identical-appearing bar which contained no chocolate. Counting of all the lesions on one side of the face before and after each ingestion period indicated no difference between the bars.
Five normal subjects ingested two enriched chocolate bars daily for one month; this represented a daily addition of the diet of 1,200 calories, of which about half was vegetable fat. This excessive intake of chocolate and fat did not alter the composition or output of sebum.
A review of studies purporting to show that diets high in carbohydrate or fat stimulate sebaceous secretion and adversely affect acne vulgaris indicates that these claims are unproved.❞
Source: Effect of Chocolate on Acne Vulgaris
As for what might help against acne more than needlessly abstaining from chocolate:
Why Do We Have Pores, And Could We Not?
…as well as:
Of Brains & Breakouts: The Neuroscience Of Your Skin
And here are some other articles that might interest you about chocolate:
- Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
- The “Love Drug”: Get PEA-Brained!
- Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Enjoy! And while we have your attention… Would you like this section to be bigger? If so, send us more questions!
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Mouthwatering Protein Falafel
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Baking falafel, rather than frying it, has a strength and a weakness. The strength: it is less effort and you can do more at once. The weakness: it can easily get dry. This recipe calls for baking them in a way that won’t get dry, and the secret is one of its protein ingredients: peas! Add to this the spices and a tahini sauce, and you’ve a mouthwatering feast that’s full of protein, fiber, polyphenols, and even healthy fats.
You will need
- 1 cup peas, cooked
- 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (keep the chickpea water—also called aquafaba—aside, as we’ll be using some of it later)
- ½ small red onion, chopped
- 1 handful fresh mint, chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
- ½ bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp chickpea flour (also called gram flour, besan flour, or garbanzo bean flour) plus more for dusting
- 2 tsp red chili flakes (adjust per heat preferences)
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
For the tahini sauce:
- 2 tbsp tahini
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 5 tbsp aquafaba (if for some reason you don’t have it, such as for example you substituted 1 cup chickpeas that you cooked yourself, substitute with water here)
To serve:
- Flatbreads (you can use our Healthy Homemade Flatbreads recipe if you like)
- Leafy salad
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃.
2) Blend the peas and chickpeas in a food processor for a few seconds. You want a coarse mixture, not a paste.
3) Add the rest of the main section ingredients except the olive oil, and blend again for a few more seconds. It should still have a chunky texture, or else you will have made hummus. If you accidentally make hummus, set your hummus aside and start again on the falafels.
4) Shape the mixture into balls; if it lacks structural integrity, fold in a little more chickpea flour until the balls stay in shape. Either way, once you have done that, dust the balls in chickpea flour.
5) Brush the balls in a little olive oil, as you put them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 15–18 minutes until golden, turning partway through.
6) While you are waiting, making the tahini sauce by combining the tahini sauce ingredients in a high-speed blender and processing on high until smooth. If you do not have a small enough blender (a bullet-style blender should work for this), then do it manually, which means you’ll have to crush the garlic all the way into a smooth paste, such as with a pestle and mortar, or alternatively, use ready-made garlic paste—and then simply whisk the ingredients together until smooth.
7) Serve the falafels warm or cold, on flatbreads with leafy salad and the tahini sauce.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Tahini vs Hummus – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we scored 4/5 today!
Take care!
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Related Posts
The Art and Science of Connection – by Kasley Killam, MPH
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We can eat well, exercise well, and even sleep well, and we’ll still have a +53% increased all-cause mortality if we lack social connection—even if we technically have support and access to social resources, just not the real human connection itself. And as we get older, it gets increasingly easy to find ourselves isolated.
The author is a social scientist by profession, and it shows. None of what she shares in the book is wishy-washy; it has abundant scientific references coming thick and fast, and a great deal of clarity with regard to terms, something often not found in books of this genre that lean more towards the art than the science.
On which note, for the reader who may be thinking “I am indeed quite alone”, she also offers proven techniques for remedying that; not in the way that many books use the word “proven” to mean “we got some testimonials”, but rather, proven in the sense of “we did science to it and based on these 17 large population-based retrospective cohort studies, we can say with 99% confidence that this is an effective tool to mediate improved social bonds and social health outcomes”.
To this end, it’s a very practical book also, and should bestow upon any isolated reader a sense of confidence that in fact, things can be better. A particular strength is that it also looks at many different scenarios, so for the “what if I…” people with clear reasons why social connection is not abundantly available, yes, she has such cases covered too.
Bottom line: if you’d like to live more healthily for longer, social health is an underrated and oft-forgotten way of greatly increasing those things, by science.
Click here to check out The Art And Science Of Social Connection, and get connected!
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Rise And (Really) Shine!
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Q&A with 10almonds Subscribers!
Q: Would love to hear more ideas about effective first thing in the morning time management to get a great start on your day.
A: There are a lot of schools of thought about what’s best in this regard! Maybe we’ll do a main feature sometime. But some things that are almost universally agreed upon are:
- Prepare your to-do list the night before
- Have some sort of buffer between waking up and getting to productivity.
- For me (hi, your writer here) it’s my first coffee of the day. It’s not even about the caffeine, it’s about the ritual of it, it’s a marker that separates my night from the day and tells my brain what gear to get into.
- Others may like to exercise first thing in the morning
- For still yet others, it could be a shower, cold or otherwise
- Some people like a tall glass of lemon water to rehydrate after sleeping!
- If you take drinkable morning supplements such as this pretty awesome nootropic stack, it’s a great time for that and an excellent way to get the brain-juices flowing!
- When you do get to productivity: eat the frog first! What this means is: if eating a frog is the hardest thing you’ll have to do all day, do that first. Basically, tackle the most intimidating task first. That way, you won’t spend your day stressed/anxious and/or subconsciously wasting time in order to procrastinate and avoid it.
- Counterpart to the above: a great idea is to also plan something to look forward to when your working day is done. It doesn’t matter much what it is, provided it’s rewarding to you, that makes you keen to finish your tasks to get to it.
Have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply to this email, or use the feedback widget at the bottom! We always love to hear from you
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Feel-Good Productivity – by Dr. Ali Abdaal
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“Rise and grind” is not a sustainable way to live. Yet for most of us, there are things we do have to do every day that we don’t necessarily do for fun. So, how to be productive with those things, and not feel like we are constantly compromising and sacrificing our time on this earth for some intrinsically trivial but extrinsically required activity that’ll be forgotten tomorrow?
And most of us do also have dreams and ambitions (and if you don’t, then what were they before life snatched them away from you?), things to work towards. So there is “carrot” for us as well as “stick”. But how to break the cycle and get more carrot and less stick, while being more productive than before?
Dr. Abdaal frames this principally in terms of neurology first, psychology next.
That when we are bored, we simply do not have the neurochemicals required to work well anyway, so addressing that first needs to be a priority. He lays out many ways of doing this, gives lots of practical tips, and brings attention to the ways it’s easy to go wrong (and how to fix those too).
The writing style isdeceptively relaxed and casual, leading the reader smoothly into understanding of each topic before moving on.
Bottom line: if you want to get more done while feeling better about it (not a tired wreck), then this is the book for you!
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