Barley Malt Flour vs chickpea flour – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing barley malt flour to chickpea flour, we picked the chickpea.
Why?
First, some notes:
About chickpea flour: this is also called besan flour, gram flour, and garbanzo bean flour; they are all literally the same thing by different names, and are all flour made from ground chickpeas.
About barley malt flour: barley is a true grain, and does contain gluten. We’re not going to factor that into today’s decision, but if you are avoiding gluten, avoid barley. As for “malt”; malting grains means putting them in an environment (with appropriate temperature and humidity) that they can begin germination, and then drying them with hot air to stop the germination process from continuing, so that we still have grains to make flour out of, and not little green sprouting plants. It improves the nutritional qualities and, subjectively, the flavor.
To avoid repetition, we’re just going to write “barley” instead of “barley malt” now, but it’s still malted.
Now, let’s begin:
Looking at the macros first, chickpea flour has 2x the protein and also more fiber, while barley flour has more carbs. An easy win for chickpea flour.
In the category of vitamins, chickpea flour has more of vitamins A, B1, B5, B9, E, and K, while barley flour has more of vitamins B2, B3, B6, and C. A modest 6:4 victory for chickpea flour.
When it comes to minerals, things are much more one-sided; chickpea flour has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while barley flour has more selenium. An overwhelming win for chickpea flour.
Adding up these three wins for chickpea flour makes for a convincing story in favor of using that where reasonably possible as a flour! It has a slight nutty taste, so you might not want to use it in everything, but it is good for a lot of things.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?
- Gluten: What’s The Truth?
- Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
Take care!
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Hazelnuts vs Almonds – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing hazelnuts to almonds, we picked the almonds.
Why?
It’s closer than you might think! But we say almonds do come out on top.
In terms of macronutrients, almonds have notably more protein, while hazelnuts have notably more fat (healthy fats, though). Almonds are also higher in both carbs and fiber. Looking at Glycemic Index, hazelnuts’ GI is low and almonds’ GI is zero. We could call the macros category a tie, but ultimately if we need to prioritize any of these things, it’s protein and fiber, so we’ll call this a nominal win for almonds.
When it comes to vitamins, hazelnuts have more of vitamins B1, B5, B6, B9 C, and K. Meanwhile, almonds have more of vitamins B2, B3, E, and choline. So, a moderate win for hazelnuts.
In the category of minerals, almonds retake the lead with more calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while hazelnuts boast more copper and manganese. A clear win for almonds.
Adding up the categories, this makes for a marginal win for almonds. Of course, both of these nuts are very healthy (assuming you are not allergic), and best is to enjoy both if possible.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
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What Spending Time In Nature Does For Your Diet
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It’s generally well-known that spending time in nature is good for you. See for example:
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (Beyond Sunlight!)
- How Nature Provides Us With A Surprisingly Powerful Painkiller
- Over-50s Physio: What My 5 Oldest Patients (Average Age 92) Do Right
And of course, it generally means you are getting exercise.
But could it possibly do for your diet?
We eat what we see
No, that doesn’t necessarily mean snacking on the nature as we go!
Although we can do! Only if you can positively identify what is safely edible, though.
Note: whatever you do, please do not rely on AI to tell you what is safe to eat. You will die:
❝Popular AI-based mushroom identification tools were tested using 100+ photos of nearly 60 species, taken in real-world conditions.
Even the best-performing tool failed in almost 15% of cases, with others performing worse.
None of tested applications consistently provided a single, correct answer, demonstrating they cannot be trusted for definitive life-or-death identification decisions.❞
Read in full: AI-mediated risks and real-life challenges in mushroom foraging
Note that this is not good when sometimes the choice is between:
- Agaricus bisporus: small smooth white globe in a little stalk, also called “button mushroom” when it’s small. Tasty and nutritious.
- Amanita phalloides: small smooth white globe in a little stalk, also called “death cap mushroom”. Reportedly also tasty, and/but they will be able to pour your liver out of your body at your autopsy some days later.
Those two mushrooms do disambiguate themselves visually when they get older, and there are signs to tell them apart when they’re younger, but signs that AI is going to detect with anything resembling reliability.
But rather, what we wanted to talk about here is partly related to what you might have read about in such articles as:
And we ourselves touched on in our own article: The Real Magic Number For Daily Fruit/Veg ← in that third study
But this does it better: it turns out that if we spend more time amongst plants, we want to eat more plants!
Researchers (Dr. Dahlia Stott et al.) found that people who reported more incidental or intentional contact with nature tended to have higher diet-quality scores (based on the Healthy Eating Index-2020) and more sustainable dietary patterns (based on the EAT-Lancet Index).
On which note, Dr. Stott and her team separated exposure into indirect (viewing nature), incidental (having plants or greenery nearby), and intentional (actively visiting parks or natural spaces), with incidental and intentional exposure showing the strongest associations with better diets.
And why does this happen?
Participants said that spending time in nature made them want to eat more fruits and vegetables or think more about the origin and sustainability of their food.
The researchers hypothesized several mechanisms of action:
- Stress reduction: feeling calmer after time in nature may reduce stress-driven or impulsive eating.
- Health motivation: people seeking better physical health may be drawn to both outdoor activity and healthier food choices simultaneously.
- Mindfulness and reflection: nature may promote reflective states that make people more deliberate about food choices.
- Nature connectedness: feeling connected to ecosystems may encourage diets perceived as more “natural” or sustainable, such as eating more plant foods (per what the participants said)
You can read the paper in full, here: The connections among interactions with nature, diet quality, and sustainable eating
Want to learn more
You might consider this book we reviewed a while back:
The Dirt Cure – by Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein
Enjoy!
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Keep Your Wits About You – by Dr. Vonetta Dotson
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Dr. Dotson sets out to provide the reader with the tools to maintain good brain health at any age, though she does assume the reader to be in midlife or older.
She talks us through the most important kinds of physical activity, mental activity, and social activity, as well as a good grounding in brain-healthy nutrition, and how to beat the often catch-22 situation of poor sleep.
If you are the sort of person who likes refreshers on what you have just read, you’ll enjoy that the final two chapters repeat the information from chapters 2–6. If not, then well, if you skip the final 2 chapters the book will be 25% shorter without loss of content.
The style is enthusiastic; when it comes to her passion for the brain, Dr. Dotson both tells and shows, in abundance. While some authors may take care to break down the information in a way that can be understood from skimming alone, Dr. Dotson assumes that the reader’s interest will match hers, and thus will not mind a lot of lengthy prose with in-line citations. So, provided that’s the way you like to read, it’ll suit you too.
Bottom line: if you are looking for a book on maintaining optimal brain health that covers the basics without adding advice that is out of the norm, then this is a fine option for that!
Click here to check out Keep Your Wits About You, and keep your wits about you!
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Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer – by Dr. Patrick Walsh & Janet Farrar Worthington
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.
Prostate cancer is not glamorous or fun, and neither is this book.
Nevertheless, it’s a disease that affects 12% of men in general, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing every year after that.
So, if you have a prostate or love someone who has one, this book is worthwhile reading—yes, even as a preventative.
Like many cancers, prostate cancer is easy to treat if caught very early, becomes harder to treat as it goes, and almost impossible to cure if it gets as far as metastasis (i.e., it spread). Like all cancers, it’s better off avoided entirely if possible.
This book covers all the stages:
- How to avoid it
- How to check for it
- How to “nip it in the bud”
- Why some might want to delay treatment (!)
- What options are available afterwards
This latter is quite extensive, and covers not just surgery, but radiation, thermo- or cryoablation, and hormone therapy.
And as for surgery, not just “remove the tumor”, but other options like radical prostatectomy, and even orchiectomy. Not many men will choose to have their testicles removed to stop them from feeding the prostate, but the point is that this book is comprehensive.
It’s asking whenever possible “is there another option?” and exploring all options, with information and without judgment, at each stage.
The writing style (likely co-author Worthington’s influence; she is an award-winning science-writer) is very “for the layman”, and that’s really helpful in demystifying a lot of what can be quite opaque in the field of oncology.
Bottom line: absolutely not an enjoyable read, but a potentially lifesaving one, especially given the odds we mentioned up top.
Click here to check out Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide To Surviving Prostate Cancer, and be prepared!
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Vision for Life, Revised Edition – by Dr. Meir Schneider
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The “ten steps” would be better called “ten exercises”, as they’re ten things that one can (and should) continue to do on an ongoing basis, rather than steps to progress through and then forget about.
We can’t claim to have tested the ten exercises for improvement (this reviewer has excellent eyesight and merely hopes to maintain such as she gets older) but the rationale is compelling, and the public testimonials abundant.
Dr. Schneider also talks about improving and correcting errors of refraction—in other words, doing the job of any corrective lenses you may currently be using. While he doesn’t claim miracles, it turns out there is a lot that can be done for common issues such as near-sightedness and far-sightedness, amongst others.
There’s a large section on managing more chronic pathological eye conditions than this reviewer previously knew existed; in some cases it’s a matter of making sure things don’t get worse, but in many others, there’s a recurring of theme of “and here’s an exercise for correcting that”.
The writing style is a little more “narrative prose” than we’d have liked, but the quality of the content more than makes up for any style preference issues.
Bottom line: the human body is a highly adaptive organism, and sometimes it just needs a little help to correct itself. This book can help with that.
Click here to check out Vision for Life, and take good care of yours!
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Beetroot Juice & Caffeine Work Better Than Either Alone
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Beetroot has many beneficial properties, which we’ve written about before:
Beetroot For More Than Just Your Blood Pressure
…and as for caffeine, it’s a mixed bag but for most people, the benefits of moderate caffeine use outweigh the risks:
Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?
Now, caffeine’s less desirable effects can be mitigated somewhat by pairing it with l-theanine, as we’ve also discussed before:
L-Theanine: What’s The Tea? ← l-theanine also has many wonderful properties of its own, aside from its complementary effects when taken alongside caffeine
So, what’s the deal with caffeine and beetroot juice?
A performance-enhancing balancing act
Caffeine raises blood pressure, while beetroot lowers it, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
Researchers looked into the effects of caffeine and beetroot juice, together or separately, on athletic performance (in a 1000m run) in non-athletes.
They found:
- Caffeine alone enhanced second-run performance but not the first.
- Beetroot juice alone improved first-run performance but led to a performance decline after recovery.
- The caffeine + BJ combo resulted in the best initial and repeated 1000m run performances.
Specifically, they also noted:
- Caffeine alone caused higher blood lactate levels post-exercise.
- Beetroot juice increased muscle oxygenation by 25% during runs.
- The caffeine + BJ combo led to the highest post-exercise heart rate improvements.
You can read the paper in full here:
Caffeine and Beetroot Juice Optimize 1,000-m Performance: Shapley Additive Explanations Analysis
Now, maybe you don’t have a 1000m run to do, let alone multiple ones back-to-back, but most of us could sometimes do with an energy boost during the day, and this seems like an excellent way to get it.
That said, caffeine timing can be important too; midday is generally the best time for it, because:
- of course it should not be too late in the day, because the elimination half-life of caffeine (4–8 hours to eliminate just half of the caffeine, depending on genes, call it 6 hours as an average though honestly for most people it will either be 4 or 8, not 6) is such that it can easily interfere with sleep for most people
- because caffeine is an adenosine blocker, not an adenosine inhibitor, taking caffeine in the morning means either there’s no adenosine to block, or it’ll just “save” that adenosine for later, i.e. when the caffeine is eliminated, then the adenosine will kick in, meaning that your morning sleepiness has now been deferred to the afternoon, rather than eliminated.
Another reminder that caffeine is the “payday loan” of energy. So, midday it is. No morning sleepiness to defer, and yet also not so late as to interfere with sleep.
See also: Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep
Want to learn more?
Check out:
The Best Form Of Sugar For Energy During Exercise
Enjoy!
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