Black Beans vs Pinto Beans – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing black beans to pinto beans, we picked the pinto beans.
Why?
Both of these beans have won all their previous comparisons, so it’s no surprise that this one was very close. Despite their different appearance, taste, and texture, their nutritional profiles are almost identical:
In terms of macros, pinto beans have a tiny bit more protein, carbs, and fiber. So, a nominal win for pinto beans, but again, the difference is very slight.
When it comes to vitamins, black beans have more of vitamins A, B1, B3, and B5, while pinto beans have more of vitamins B2, B6, B9, C, E, K and choline. Superficially, again this is nominally a win for pinto beans, but in most cases the differences are so slight as to be potentially the product of decimal place rounding.
In the category of minerals, black beans have more calcium, copper, iron, and phosphorus, while pinto beans have more magnesium, manganese, selenium, and zinc. That’s a 4:4 tie, but the only one with a meaningful margin of difference is selenium (of which pinto beans have 4x more), so we’re calling this one a very modest win for pinto beans.
All in all, adding these up makes for a “if we really are pressed to choose” win for pinto beans, but honestly, enjoy either in accordance with your preference (this writer prefers black beans!), or better yet, both.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
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Spiced Pear & Pecan Polyphenol Porridge
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Porridge doesn’t have to be boring; in fact, it can be a real treat. And while oats are healthy by default, this version has extra layers of benefits:
You will need
Per person:
- 1 cup milk (your choice what kind; we recommend almond for this)
- ½ cup oats
- 1 pear, peeled, cored, and sliced
- ¼ cup toasted pecans, chopped
- 2 tbsp goji berries
- 1 tsp sweet cinnamon
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Soak the goji berries in a small amount of hot water. If you have an espresso cup or something of a similar size, that’s a great “bowl” for this task. A ramekin will suffice, otherwise, but use only as much water as is absolutely necessary to cover the goji berries (excess water will just leech polyphenols from the berries, reducing their nutritional value).
2) Combine the pear and cinnamon in a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of water, and simmer for 5 minutes.
3) Combine the oats and milk in a separate saucepan (we imagine you know how to make porridge, but we’d be remiss to not include the step), and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring as necessary.
4) Drain the goji berries and the pear, if there is water remaining outside of the fruits.
5) Assemble: we recommend the order: goji berries, porridge, pear, pecans.
Alternative method: simply layer everything in a slow cooker, in the following order: goji berries (no need to pre-soak), oats, milk (stir it a little to ensure oats are all wet), pear-dusted-with-cinnamon (no need to pre-cook), pecans. Put it on the lowest heat with the lid on, and leave for a couple of hours.
Alternative alternative method: layer everything as we just said, but this time in portions of 1 jar per person, and leave it overnight, per overnight oats. Then, in the morning, gently warm it (if you like) by putting it in the microwave (lid removed!) for 2 minutes on medium power.
These latter methods are increasingly better nutritionally, as they won’t wash away some of the polyphenols from the goji berries and the lower temperatures keep the glycemic index of the oats lower, but we appreciate you won’t always have the time to do it this way.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health? ← it’s β-glucan, as found in oats!
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Goji Berries: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?
- Sweet Cinnamon vs Regular Cinnamon – Which is Healthier? ← this is a very important distinction
- Make Overnight Oats Shorter Or Longer For Different Benefits!
Take care!
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Dr. Greger’s Anti-Aging Eight
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Dr. Greger’s Anti-Aging Eight
This is Dr. Michael Greger. We’ve featured him before: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
This time, we’re working from his latest book, the excellent “How Not To Age”, which we reviewed all so recently. It is very information-dense, but we’re going to be focussing on one part, his “anti-aging eight”, that is to say, eight interventions he rates the most highly to slow aging in general (other parts of the book pertained to slowing eleven specific pathways of aging, or preserving specific bodily functions against aging, for example).
Without further ado, his “anti-aging eight” are…
- Nuts
- Greens
- Berries
- Xenohormesis & microRNA manipulation
- Prebiotics & postbiotics
- Caloric restriction / IF
- Protein restriction
- NAD+
As you may have noticed, some of these are things might appear already on your grocery shopping list; others don’t seem so “household”. Let’s break them down:
Nuts, greens, berries
These are amongst the most nutrient-dense and phytochemical-useful parts of the diet that Dr. Greger advocates for in his already-famous “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”.
For brevity, we’ll not go into the science of these here, but will advise you: eat a daily portion of nuts, a daily portion of berries, and a couple of daily portions of greens.
Xenohormesis & microRNA manipulation
You might, actually, have these on your grocery shopping list too!
Hormesis, you may recall from previous editions of 10almonds, is about engaging in a small amount of eustress to trigger the body’s self-strengthening response, for example:
Xenohormesis is about getting similar benefits, second-hand.
For example, plants that have been grown to “organic” standards (i.e. without artificial pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) have had to adapt to their relatively harsher environment by upping their levels of protective polyphenols and other phytochemicals that, as it turns out, are as beneficial to us as they are to the plants:
Hormetic Effects of Phytochemicals on Health and Longevity
Additionally, the flip side of xenohormesis is that some plant compounds can themselves act as a source of hormetic stress that end up bolstering us. For example:
In essence, it’s not just that it has anti-oxidant effect; it also provides a tiny oxidative-stress immunization against serious sources of oxidative stress—and thus, aging.
MicroRNA manipulation is, alas, too complex to truly summarize an entire chapter in a line or two, but it has to do with genetic information from the food that we eat having a beneficial or deleterious effect to our own health:
Diet-derived microRNAs: unicorn or silver bullet?
A couple of quick takeaways (out of very many) from Dr. Greger’s chapter on this is to spring for the better quality olive oil, and skip the cow’s milk:
- Impact of Phenol-Enriched Virgin Olive Oils on the Postprandial Levels of Circulating microRNAs Related to Cardiovascular Disease
- MicroRNA exosomes of pasteurized milk: potential pathogens of Western diseases
Prebiotics & Postbiotics
We’re short on space, so we’ll link you to a previous article, and tell you that it’s important against aging too:
Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
An example of how one of Dr. Greger’s most-recommended postbiotics helps against aging, by the way:
- The mitophagy activator urolithin A is safe and induces a molecular signature of improved mitochondrial and cellular health in humans
- Urolithin A improves muscle strength, exercise performance, and biomarkers of mitochondrial health in a randomized trial in middle-aged adults
(Urolithin can be found in many plants, and especially those containing tannins)
See also: How to Make Urolithin Postbiotics from Tannins
Caloric restriction / Intermittent fasting
This is about lowering metabolic load and promoting cellular apoptosis (programmed cell death; sounds bad; is good) and autophagy (self-consumption; again, sounds bad; is good).
For example, he cites the intermittent fasters’ 46% lower risk of dying in the subsequent years of follow-up in this longitudinal study:
For brevity we’ll link to our previous IF article, but we’ll revisit caloric restriction in a main feature on of these days:
Fasting Without Crashing? We sort the science from the hype!
Dr. Greger favours caloric restriction over intermittent fasting, arguing that it is easier to adhere to and harder to get wrong if one has some confounding factor (e.g. diabetes, or a medication that requires food at certain times, etc). If adhered to healthily, the benefits appear to be comparable for each, though.
Protein restriction
In contrast to our recent main feature Protein vs Sarcopenia, in which that week’s featured expert argued for high protein consumption levels, protein restriction can, on the other hand, have anti-aging effects. A reminder that our body is a complex organism, and sometimes what’s good for one thing is bad for another!
Dr. Greger offers protein restriction as a way to get many of the benefits of caloric restriction, without caloric restriction. He further notes that caloric restriction without protein restriction doesn’t decrease IGF-1 levels (a marker of aging).
However, for FGF21 levels (these are good and we want them higher to stay younger), what matters more than lowering proteins in general is lowering levels of the amino acid methionine—found mostly in animal products, not plants—so the source of the protein matters:
For example, legumes deliver only 5–10% of the methionine that meat does, for the same amount of protein, so that’s a factor to bear in mind.
NAD+
This is about nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+ to its friends.
NAD+ levels decline with age, and that decline is a causal factor in aging, and boosting the levels can slow aging:
Therapeutic Potential of NAD-Boosting Molecules: The In Vivo Evidence
Can we get NAD+ from food? We can, but not in useful quantities or with sufficient bioavailability.
Supplements, then? Dr. Greger finds the evidence for their usefulness lacking, in interventional trials.
How to boost NAD+, then? Dr. Greger prescribes…
Exercise! It boosts levels by 127% (i.e., it more than doubles the levels), based on a modest three-week exercise bike regimen:
Skeletal muscle NAMPT is induced by exercise in humans
Another study on resistance training found the same 127% boost:
Take care!
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I’ve been sick. When can I start exercising again?
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You’ve had a cold or the flu and your symptoms have begun to subside. Your nose has stopped dripping, your cough is clearing and your head and muscles no longer ache.
You’re ready to get off the couch. But is it too early to go for a run? Here’s what to consider when getting back to exercising after illness.
Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels Exercise can boost your immune system – but not always
Exercise reduces the chance of getting respiratory infections by increasing your immune function and the ability to fight off viruses.
However, an acute bout of endurance exercise may temporarily increase your susceptibility to upper respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu, via the short-term suppression of your immune system. This is known as the “open window” theory.
A study from 2010 examined changes in trained cyclists’ immune systems up to eight hours after two-hour high-intensity cycling. It found important immune functions were suppressed, resulting in an increased rate of upper respiratory infections after the intense endurance exercise.
So, we have to be more careful after performing harder exercises than normal.
Can you exercise when you’re sick?
This depends on the severity of your symptoms and the intensity of exercise.
Mild to moderate exercise (reducing the intensity and length of workout) may be OK if your symptoms are a runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing and minor sore throat, without a fever.
Exercise may help you feel better by opening your nasal passages and temporarily relieving nasal congestion.
If you have a runny or blocked nose and no fever, low-intensity movement such as a walk might help. Laker/Pexels However, if you try to exercise at your normal intensity when you are sick, you risk injury or more serious illness. So it’s important to listen to your body.
If your symptoms include chest congestion, a cough, upset stomach, fever, fatigue or widespread muscle aches, avoid exercising. Exercising when you have these symptoms may worsen the symptoms and prolong the recovery time.
If you’ve had the flu or another respiratory illness that caused a high fever, make sure your temperature is back to normal before getting back to exercise. Exercising raises your body temperature, so if you already have a fever, your temperature will become high quicker, which makes you sicker.
If you have COVID or other contagious illnesses, stay at home, rest and isolate yourself from others.
When you’re sick and feel weak, don’t force yourself to exercise. Focus instead on getting plenty of rest. This may actually shorten the time it takes to recover and resume your normal workout routine.
I’ve been sick for a few weeks. What has happened to my strength and fitness?
You may think taking two weeks off from training is disastrous, and worry you’ll lose the gains you’ve made in your previous workouts. But it could be just what the body needs.
It’s true that almost all training benefits are reversible to some degree. This means the physical fitness that you have built up over time can be lost without regular exercise.
To study the effects of de-training on our body functions, researchers have undertaken “bed rest” studies, where healthy volunteers spend up to 70 days in bed. They found that V̇O₂max (the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use during maximal exercise, which is a measure of aerobic fitness) declines 0.3–0.4% a day. And the higher pre-bed-rest V̇O₂max levels, the larger the declines.
In terms of skeletal muscles, upper thigh muscles become smaller by 2% after five days of bed rest, 5% at 14 days, and 12% at 35 days of bed rest.
Muscle strength declines more than muscle mass: knee extensor muscle strength gets weaker by 8% at five days, 12% at 14 days and more than 20% after around 35 days of bed rest.
This is why it feels harder to do the same exercises after resting for even five days.
In bed rest studies, participants don’t get up. But they do in real life. Olly/Pexels But in bed rest studies, physical activities are strictly limited, and even standing up from a bed is prohibited during the whole length of a study. When we’re sick in bed, we have some physical activities such as sitting on a bed, standing up and walking to the toilet. These activities could reduce the rate of decreases in our physical functions compared with study participants.
How to ease back into exercise
Start with a lower-intensity workout initially, such as going for a walk instead of a run. Your first workout back should be light so you don’t get out of breath. Go low (intensity) and go slow.
Gradually increase the volume and intensity to the previous level. It may take the same number of days or weeks you rested to get back to where you were. If you were absent from an exercise routine for two weeks, for example, it may require two weeks for your fitness to return to the same level.
If you feel exhausted after exercising, take an extra day off before working out again. A day or two off from exercising shouldn’t affect your performance very much.
Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Related Posts
Is it OK to lie to someone with dementia?
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There was disagreement on social media recently after a story was published about an aged care provider creating “fake-away” burgers that mimicked those from a fast-food chain, to a resident living with dementia. The man had such strict food preferences he was refusing to eat anything at meals except a burger from the franchise. This dementia symptom risks malnutrition and social isolation.
But critics of the fake burger approach labelled it trickery and deception of a vulnerable person with cognitive impairment.
Dementia is an illness that progressively robs us of memories. Although it has many forms, it is typical for short-term recall – the memory of something that happened in recent hours or days – to be lost first. As the illness progresses, people may come to increasingly “live in the past”, as distant recall gradually becomes the only memories accessible to the person. So a person in the middle or later stages of the disease may relate to the world as it once was, not how it is today.
This can make ethical care very challenging.
Pikselstock/Shutterstock Is it wrong to lie?
Ethical approaches classically hold that specific actions are moral certainties, regardless of the consequences. In line with this moral absolutism, it is always wrong to lie.
But this ethical approach would require an elderly woman with dementia who continually approaches care staff looking for their long-deceased spouse to be informed their husband has passed – the objective truth.
Distress is the likely outcome, possibly accompanied by behavioural disturbance that could endanger the person or others. The person’s memory has regressed to a point earlier in their life, when their partner was still alive. To inform such a person of the death of their spouse, however gently, is to traumatise them.
And with the memory of what they have just been told likely to quickly fade, and the questioning may resume soon after. If the truth is offered again, the cycle of re-traumatisation continues.
People with dementia may lose short term memories and rely on the past for a sense of the world. Bonsales/Shutterstock A different approach
Most laws are examples of absolutist ethics. One must obey the law at all times. Driving above the speed limit is likely to result in punishment regardless of whether one is in a hurry to pick their child up from kindergarten or not.
Pragmatic ethics rejects the notion certain acts are always morally right or wrong. Instead, acts are evaluated in terms of their “usefulness” and social benefit, humanity, compassion or intent.
The Aged Care Act is a set of laws intended to guide the actions of aged care providers. It says, for example, psychotropic drugs (medications that affect mind and mood) should be the “last resort” in managing the behaviours and psychological symptoms of dementia.
Instead, “best practice” involves preventing behaviour before it occurs. If one can reasonably foresee a caregiver action is likely to result in behavioural disturbance, it flies in the face of best practice.
What to say when you can’t avoid a lie?
What then, becomes the best response when approached by the lady looking for her husband?
Gentle inquiries may help uncover an underlying emotional need, and point caregivers in the right direction to meet that need. Perhaps she is feeling lonely or anxious and has become focused on her husband’s whereabouts? A skilled caregiver might tailor their response, connect with her, perhaps reminisce, and providing a sense of comfort in the process.
This approach aligns with Dementia Australia guidance that carers or loved ones can use four prompts in such scenarios:
- acknowledge concern (“I can tell you’d like him to be here.”)
- suggest an alternative (“He can’t visit right now.”)
- provide reassurance (“I’m here and lots of people care about you.”)
- redirect focus (“Perhaps a walk outside or a cup of tea?”)
These things may or may not work. So, in the face of repeated questions and escalating distress, a mistruth, such as “Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon,” may be the most humane response in the circumstances.
Different realities
It is often said you can never win an argument with a person living with dementia. A lot of time, different realities are being discussed.
So, providing someone who has dementia with a “pretend” burger may well satisfy their preferences, bring joy, mitigate the risk of malnutrition, improve social engagement, and prevent a behavioural disturbance without the use of medication. This seems like the correct approach in ethical terms. On occasion, the end justifies the means.
Steve Macfarlane, Head of Clinical Services, Dementia Support Australia, & Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions
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The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions
There’s a military dictum that “prior preparation and planning prevents p[retty] poor performance”, to paraphrase it very slightly.
Would it surprise you to know that soldiers going on the attack are not focused on the goal? Rather, they are focused on the process.
With drills and mnemonics, everything that can be controlled for in advance is; every action, every reaction, everything that can go wrong, and all the “if x then y” decisions in between pre-battle PREWAR and PAWPERSO and post-battle PACESDO (all mnemonic acronyms; the content is not important here but the principle is).
In short: take Murphy’s Law into account now, and plan accordingly!
The same goes for making your plans the winning kind
If you want your resolutions to work, you may need to make pre-resolutions now, so that you’re properly prepared:
- Do you want to make an exercise habit? Make sure now that you have the right clothes/shoes/etc, make sure that they fit you correctly, make sure you have enough of them that you can exercise when one set’s in the wash, etc.
- What grace will you allow yourself if tired, unwell, busy? What’s your back-up plan so that you still do what you can at those times when “what you can” is legitimately a bit less?
- If it’s an outdoors plan, what’s your plan for when it’s rainy? Snowy? Dangerously hot?
- What are the parameters for what counts? Make it measurable. How many exercise sessions per week, what duration?
- Do you want to make a diet habit? Make sure that you have in the healthy foods that you want to eat; know where you can and will get things. We’re often creatures of habit when it comes to shopping, so planning will be critical here!
- Do you want to cut some food/drink/substance out? Make sure you have a plan to run down or otherwise dispose of your current stock first. And make sure you have alternatives set up, and if it was something you were leaning on as a coping strategy of some kind (e.g. alcohol, cannabis, comfort-eating, etc), make sure you have an alternative coping strategy, too!
See also: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
We promised science, so here it comes
Approach-oriented resolutions work better than avoidance-oriented ones.
This means: positively-framed resolutions work better than negatively-framed ones.
On a simple level, this means that, for example, resolving to exercise three times per week is going to work better than resolving to not consume alcohol.
But what if you really want to quit something? Just frame it positively. There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous (and similar Thing Anonymous groups) measure days sober, not relapses.
So it’s not “I will not consume alcohol” but “I will get through each day alcohol-free”.
Semantics? Maybe, but it’s also science:
Why January the 1st? It’s a fresh start
Resolutions started on the 1st of January enjoy a psychological boost of a feeling of a fresh start, a new page, a new chapter.
Similar benefits can be found from starting on the 1st of a month in general, or on a Monday, or on some date that is auspicious to the person in question (religious fasts tied to calendar dates are a fine example of this).
Again, this is borne-out by science:
The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior
Make it a habit
Here be science:
How do people adhere to goals when willpower is low? The profits (and pitfalls) of strong habits
As for how to do that?
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
Trim the middle
No, we’re not talking about your waistline. Rather, what Dr. Ayelet Fischbach refers to as “the middle problem”:
❝We’re highly motivated at the beginning. Over time, our motivation declines as we lose steam. To the extent that our goal has a clear end point, our motivation picks up again toward the end.
Therefore, people are more likely to adhere to their standards at the beginning and end of goal pursuit—and slack in the middle. We demonstrate this pattern of judgment and behavior in adherence to ethical standards (e.g., cheating), religious traditions (e.g., skipping religious rituals), and performance standards (e.g., “cutting corners” on a task).
We also show that the motivation to adhere to standards by using proper means is independent and follows a different pattern from the motivation to reach the end state of goal pursuit❞
Read: The end justifies the means, but only in the middle
How to fix this, then?
Give yourself consistent, recurring, short-term goals, with frequent review points. That way, it’s never “the middle” for long:
The fresh start effect: temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior
See also:
How do people protect their long-term goals from the influence of short-term motives or temptations?
Finally…
You might like this previous main feature of ours that was specifically about getting oneself through those “middle” parts:
How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!
Enjoy!
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- Do you want to make an exercise habit? Make sure now that you have the right clothes/shoes/etc, make sure that they fit you correctly, make sure you have enough of them that you can exercise when one set’s in the wash, etc.
Feeding You Lies – by Vani Hari
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When it comes to advertising, we know that companies will often be as misleading as they can get away with. But just how misleading is it?
Vani Hari, of “Food Babe” fame, is here to unravel it all.
The book covers many areas of food and drink advertising and marketing, and gives particular attention to:
- Sodas (with and without sugar), and how deleterious they are to the health—as well as not even helping people lose weight, but actively hindering
- Nutritionally fortified foods, and what we may or may not actually get from them by the time the processing is done
- Organic food, and what that may or may not mean
She also covers a lot of what happens outside of supermarkets, way back in universities and corporate boardrooms. In short, who is crossing whose palms with silver for a seal of approval… And what that means for us as consumers.
A strength of this book that sets it apart from many of its genre, by the way, is that while being deeply critical of certain institutions’ practices, it doesn‘t digress into tinfoil-hat pseudoscientific scaremongering, either. Here at 10almonds we love actual science, so that was good to see too.
Bottom line: is you’d like to know “can they say that and get away with it if it’s not true?” and make decisions based on the actual nutritional value of things, this is a great book for you.
Click here to check out “Feeding You Lies” on Amazon and make your shopping healthier!
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