Unprocessed 10th Anniversary Edition – by Abbie Jay

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The main premise of this book is cooking…

  • With nutritious whole foods
  • Without salt, oil, sugar (“SOS”)

It additionally does it without animal products and without gluten, and (per “nutritious whole foods”), and, as the title suggests, avoiding anything that’s more than very minimally processed. Remember, for example, that if something is fermented, then that fermentation is a process, so the food has been processed—just, minimally.

This is a revised edition, and it’s been adjusted to, for example, strip some of the previous “no salt” low-sodium options (such as tamari with 233mg/tsp sodium, compared to salt’s 2,300mg/tsp sodium).

You may be wondering: what’s left? Tasty, well-seasoned, plant-based food, that leans towards the “comfort food” culinary niche.

Enough to sate the author, after her own battles with anorexia and obesity (in that order) and finally, after various hospital trips, getting her diet where it needed to be for the healthy lifestyle that she lives now, while still getting to eat such dishes as “Chef AJ’s Disappearing Lasagna” and peanut butter fudge truffles and 151 more.

Bottom line: if you want whole-food plant-based comfort-food cooking that’s healthy in general and especially heart-healthy, this book has plenty of that.

Click here to check out Unprocessed: 10th Anniversary Edition, and… Enjoy!

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    Battling body fat? Learn strategies for both men and women to overcome genetics and achieve sustainable fitness with proper diet, exercise, and recovery.

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  • Before You Reach For That Tylenol…

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    First, on names: we’ve titled this with “Tylenol” because that’s a well-known brand name, but the drug name is paracetamol or acetaminophen:

    • paracetamol is the drug name used by the World Health Organization, and thus also most countries.
    • acetaminophen is the drug name used in Canada, Colombia, Iran, Japan, US, and Venezuela.

    They are absolutely the same drug.

    Firstly, obviously, do avoid overdose

    The safe dosage described on the packet is generally accurate (usually around 4g/day, spaced out at 1g per 4 hours), and the dose required for toxicity is generally about 10g, or 200mg/kg body weight, whichever is lower. Since a single dose usually contains 2x 500mg = 1g, that makes overdose all too easy.

    The amount required for toxicity can be misleading too, because that’s assuming…

    • a healthy liver
    • no other health problems
    • no other medications that interact or add to the toxicity
    • no medications that strain the liver (as with many pro-drugs, and drugs in general that are metabolized by the liver, which is lots).

    Which is a lot of assumptions! Especially given that the liver can only process so much at once, meaning that if your liver has a lot of things to do, it can get a backlog, and you think “I’m not taking anything with this painkiller that I shouldn’t” but your liver is still metabolizing the last of last night’s glass of wine and one of your regular medications from this morning, because previously it was still metabolizing things from the day before yesterday, and so on.

    See also: How To Regenerate Your Liver ← the liver is an incredible organ that does an amazing job, but it can’t do that if you don’t do this

    Please don’t overdose deliberately either. Intentional overdoses make up a very large portion of acetaminophen overdoses (exact figures vary from year to year and place to place, but it’s always high), and what a lot of people doing that don’t realize is:

    1. it’s a very unpleasant way to die. You’ll take it, you might get some initial symptoms within the first hours or you might not, then you’ll probably feel better, and then the next day or so, you’ll enter the organs-shutting-down stage that usually will take most of a week to kill you slowly and painfully. Often your kidneys will go first but it’ll usually be liver necrosis that deals the final blow.
    2. it’s very difficult to treat. Stomach-pumping might work if you get it within 1 hour of overdose, and activated charcoal might help if you get it within 2 hours. Acetylcysteine may reduce the toxicity if you get it within the 8–48 hour window (depending on the speed of gastric emptying), but whether or not that will help depends on the severity of the overdose and other factors, so this is not something to bet on. After 48 hours, a liver transplant is the last resort, without which, mortality is around 95%.

    Unfortunately, this means that a lot of people who do not fully intend to die horribly, and hoped to either die peacefully or else be saved, die horribly instead.

    Ok, that was not a cheerful topic but it is important, before moving on, we’ll just put this here for anyone it may benefit:

    How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To) ← this is about suicidality, in yourself or others

    Secondly, that dosage is for occasional use only

    The problem often starts like this:

    ❝Due to its perceived safety, paracetamol has long been recommended as the first line drug treatment for osteoarthritis by many treatment guidelines, especially in older people who are at higher risk of drug-related complications❞

    People with chronic pain, whether high or low on the pain level of that chronic pain, can very easily get into a habit of “I’ll just take this to take the edge off”, for example when getting up in the morning (often a trigger for pain starting) or going to bed at night (one needs to sleep and the pain is a barrier to that).

    But… Those events, getting up and going to bed, it means that taking the drug also becomes part of one’s morning/evening routine—with many people even metering the doses out into pill organizers for the week, with this in mind.

    A large (n=582,961) study looked at two groups of people, all aged 65+:

    • 180,483 people who had been prescribed paracetamol repeatedly (≥2 prescriptions within six months)
    • 402,478 people of the same age who had never been prescribed paracetamol repeatedly

    The findings? Bearing in mind that “≥2 prescriptions within six months” is not something generally considered excessive…

    ❝Acetaminophen use was associated with an increased risk of peptic ulcer bleeding (aHR 1.24; 95% CI 1.16, 1.34), uncomplicated peptic-ulcers (aHR 1.20; 95% CI 1.10, 1.31), lower gastrointestinal-bleeding (aHR 1.36; 95% CI 1.29, 1.46), heart-failure (aHR 1.09; 95% CI 1.06, 1.13), hypertension (aHR 1.07; 95% CI 1.04, 1.11), and chronic kidney disease (aHR 1.19; 95% CI 1.13, 1.24).❞

    The researchers concluded:

    ❝Despite its perceived safety, acetaminophen is associated with several serious complications. Given its minimal analgesic effectiveness, the use of acetaminophen as the first-line oral analgesic for long-term conditions in older people requires careful reconsideration.❞

    You can see the study itself here: Incidence of side effects associated with acetaminophen in people aged 65 years or more: a prospective cohort study using data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink

    What to use instead?

    It’s been established that taking aspirin regularly isn’t great either:

    See: Low-Dose Aspirin & Anemia and Aspirin, CVD Risk, & Potential Counter-Risks

    And as for ibuprofen, we don’t have an article about that yet, but it’s gut-unhealthy (harms your microbiome), and besides, anything it can do, ginger can do as well or better (in head-to-head trials; we’re not speaking hyperbolically here):

    Ginger Does A Lot More Than You Think ← in fact, it was even found as effective as the combination of acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and caffeine

    There are other options though, and as pain is complicated and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, we’ve compiled the following:

    Take care!

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  • What to Eat When – by Drs. Michael Roizen and Michael Crupain

    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.

    Here at 10almonds, we cover a lot of the “what to eat”, but tend to only sometimes touch on the “when”—and indeed, this is a reflection of a popular focus. But what if we were to pay a little more attention to that “when”; what would it get us?

    According to Drs. Roizen and Crupain… Quite a bit!

    In this work, they take into account the various factors affecting the benefit (or harm!) of what we eat when:

    • in the context of our circadian rhythm
    • in the context of our insulin responses
    • in the context of intermittent fasting

    The style throughout is very focused on practical actionable advice. For example, amongst other lifestyle-adjustment suggestions, the authors make the case for front-loading various kinds of food earlier in the day, and eating more attentively and mindfully when we do eat.

    They also offer a lot of “quick tips” of the kind we love here at 10almonds! Ranging from “how about this breakfast idea” to “roasting chickpeas like this makes a great snack” to “this dessert is three healthy foods disguised as a sundae”

    All in all, if you’d like a stack of small tweaks that can add up to a big difference in your overall health, this is a book for you.

    Click here to get “What To Eat When” from Amazon today!

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  • Broccoli vs Cauliflower – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing broccoli to cauliflower, we picked the broccoli.

    Why?

    This one is quite straightforward. Superficially, they’re very similar:

    Both are great cruciferous vegetables with many health benefits to offer. Even for those keen to avoid oxalates, which cruciferous vegetables in general can be high in, these ones are quite low.

    However, if you have IBS, you might want to avoid both, for their raffinose content that may cause problems for you.

    For pretty much everyone else, unless you have a special reason why it’s not the case for you, both are a good source of abundant vitamins and minerals, and yet…

    Anything cauliflower can do, broccoli can do better!

    Broccoli contains more of the vitamins they both contain, and more of the minerals they both contain.

    Broccoli also beats cauliflower on amino acids (except lysine), and contains a lot more lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids important for healthy eyes and brain.

    So by all means enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, pick broccoli!

    Want to know more?

    Check out: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

  • Foods That Cause You to Lose Weight – by Dr. Neal Barnard
  • Seed Saving Secrets – by Alice Mirren

    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.

    We all know that home-grown is best, and yet many of us are not exactly farmers (this reviewer tries with mixed results—hardy crops survive; others, not so much). While it’s easy to blame the acidic soil, the harsh climate, or not having enough time and money (this reviewer blames all of the above), the fact remains that a skilled gardener can produce a good crop in any conditions.

    That’s where this book helps; right from the beginning, from the seeds. Have you ever bought a pack of seeds, excitedly sown them, and then had a germination rate of zero or something close to that (this reviewer has)?

    Alice Mirren takes us on a tour of how to save seeds from plants you know are regionally viable (not the product of some vast globalized industry that doesn’t know you live in an ancient bog with a cold south-east wind blowing in from Siberia), and then how to care for and curate them, how to store them for future years, how to keep a self-perpetuating seed bank.

    She goes beyond that, though. Regular 10almonds readers might remember about the supercentenarian “Blue Zones”, and how big factors in healthy longevity include community and purpose; Mirren advocates for organizing community seed banks, which will also mean that everyone (including you) has access to much more diverse seeds, and when it comes to the perils of natural selection, diversity means survival. Otherwise, if you have just one seed type, a single blight can wipe out everything pretty much overnight.

    Bottom line: if you grow your own food or would like to, this is a “bible of…” level book that you absolutely should have to hand.

    Click here to check out Seed Saving Secrets, and see the results in your kitchen and on your plate!

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  • The Neuroscience of You – by Dr. Chantel Prat

    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.

    The insides of people are rarely so standardized as one finds in a medical textbook, and that’s just as true of the brain as it is of any other organ—and often more so.

    Our brains all look quite different from each other’s. Of course there are similarities; a wobbly mass of white and grey matter with tiny blood vessels running through. The constituent parts are (usually!) all present and correct. But… what is “correct”?

    Dr. Chantel Prat takes us on a tour of the anatomical features that we may have grown or shrunken over the course of our life, according to how we’ve used them, or not. She also looks at what’s going on when it comes to the smaller scale—from the neuronal to the neurochemical.

    We learn the truth (and myth) when it comes to left- and right-brainedness, and we learn how whether we saw that dress as black and blue or white and gold, depends on our circadian rhythm (and thus whether we have wired ourselves for perceiving colors more or less often under daylight or artificial light). And lots more.

    The style throughout is very accessible, for a book that goes beyond most “how the brain works” books.

    Bottom line: if you’re interested in the workings of your brain (as opposed to: a standardized Platonic ideal of what a brain might be), then this book will set you on the right track.

    Click here to check out The Neuroscience of You, and learn more about what makes you you!

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  • A Deeper Dive Into Seaweed

    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.

    We wrote briefly about nori yesterday, when we compared it with well-known superfood spirulina. In nutritional terms, it blew spirulina out of the water:

    Spirulina vs Nori – Which Is Healthier?

    We also previously touched on it here:

    21% Stronger Bones in a Year at 62? Yes, It’s Possible (No Calcium Supplements Needed!) ← nori was an important part of the diet enjoyed here

    What is nori?

    Nori is a seaweed, but that can mean lots of different things. In nori’s case, it’s an aggregate of several kinds of red algae that clump together in the sea.

    When dried and/or toasted (which processes improve* the nutritional value rather than diminishing it, by the way), it looks dark green or dark purple to black in color.

    *Effects of pan- and air fryer-roasting on volatile and umami compounds and antioxidant activity of dried laver (Porphyra dentata) ← this is nori, by another name

    If you enjoy sushi, nori is the dark flat sheety stuff that other things are often wrapped in.

    The plant that has animal nutrients

    As established in the head-to-head we linked above, nori is a nutritional powerhouse. But not only is it very full of the perhaps-expected vitamins and minerals, it also contains:

    Omega-3 fatty acids, including EPA, which plants do not normally have (plants usually have just ALA, which the body can convert into other forms including EPA). While ALA is versatile, having EPA in food saves the body the job of converting it, and thus makes it more readily bioavailable. For more on the benefits of this, see:

    What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us

    Iodine, which land plants don’t generally have, but seaweed usually does. However, nori contains less iodine than other kinds of seaweed, which is (counterintuitively) good, since other kinds of seaweed often contain megadoses that go too far the other way and can cause different health problems.

    • Recommended daily amount of iodine: 150µg ← note that’s micrograms, not milligrams
    • One 10g serving of dried nori contains: 232µg ← this is good
    • Tolerable daily upper limit of iodine: 1,100µg (i.e: 1.1mg)
    • One 10g serving of dried kombu (kelp) contains: 13,270µg (i.e: 13.3mg) ← this is far too much; not good!

    So: a portion of nori puts us into the healthiest spot of the range, whereas a portion of another example seaweed would put us nearly 13x over the tolerable upper limit.

    For why this matters, see:

    As you might note from the mentions of both hypo- and hyperthyroidism, (which are exacerbated by too little and too much iodine, respectively) hitting the iodine sweet spot is important, and nori is a great way to do that.

    Vitamin B12, again not usually found in plants (most vegans supplement, often with nutritional yeast, which is technically neither an animal nor a plant). However, nori scores even higher:

    Vitamin B12-Containing Plant Food Sources for Vegetarians

    Beyond nutrients

    Nori is also one of the few foods that actually live up the principle of a “detox diet”, as it can help remove toxins such as dioxins:

    Detox diets for toxin elimination and weight management: a critical review of the evidence

    It’s also been…

    ❝revealed to have anti-aging, anti-cancer, anti-coagulant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-Alzheimer and anti-tuberculose activities.❞

    ~ Dr. Şükran Çakir Arica et al.

    Read: A study on the rich compounds and potential benefits of algae: A review

    (for this to make sense you will need to remember that nori is, as we mentioned, an aggregate of diverse red algae species; in that paper, you can scroll down to Table 1, and see which species has which qualities. Anything whose name starts with “Porphyra” or “Porphridum” is found in nori)

    Is it safe?

    Usually! There are two potential safety issues:

    1. Seaweed can, while it’s busy absorbing valuable minerals from the sea, also absorb heavy metals if there are such pollutants in the region. For this reason, it is good to buy a product with trusted certifications, such that it will have been tested for such along the way.
    2. Seaweed can, while it’s busy absorbing things plants don’t usually have from the sea, also absorb allergens from almost-equally-small crustaceans. So if you have a seafood allergy, seaweed could potentially trigger that.

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

    Enjoy!

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