Chili Hot-Bedded Salmon
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This one can be made in less time than it takes to order and receive a Chinese take-out! The principle is simple: it’s a bed of greens giving pride of place to a salmon fillet in a deliciously spicy marinade. So healthwise, we have greens-and-beans, healthy protein and fats, and tasty polyphenols. Experientially, we have food that tastes a lot more decadent than it is!
You will need
- 4 salmon fillets (if vegan, substitute firm tofu; see also how to make this no-salmon salmon)
- 2 bok choy, washed and stems trimmed
- 7 oz green beans, trimmed
- 4 oz sugar snap peas
- 4 spring onions, sliced
- 2 tbsp chili oil*
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp garlic paste
- 1 tsp ginger paste
- 1 tsp black pepper
*this can be purchased as-is, but if you want to make your own in advance, simply take extra virgin olive oil and infuse it with [finely chopped, red] chili. This is a really good thing to do for commonly-used flavored oils, by the way—chili oil and garlic oil are must-haves in this writer’s opinion; basil oil, sage oil, and rosemary oil, are all excellent things to make and have in, too. Just know, infusing is not quick, so it’s good to do these in batch and make plenty well before you need it. For now, if you don’t have any homemade already, then store-bought is fine 🙂
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 360℉/180℃/gas mark 6
2) Lay out 4 large squares of foil, and put the bok choy, green beans, and sugar snap peas in a little pile in the middle of each one. Put a salmon fillet on top of each (if it has skin, score the skin first, so that juices will be able to penetrate, and put it skin-side down), and then top with the spring onions.
3) Mix the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl, and then spoon this marinade evenly over each of the fillets (alternatively, if you have occasion to marinade the fillets in advance and let them sit in the marinade in the fridge for some hours before, do so, in which case this step will already be done now, because past-you did it. Yay for past-you!)
4) Fold up the edges of the foil, making each one an enclosed parcel, gently sealed at the top by folding it over. Put them on a baking tray and bake for about 20 minutes.
5) Serve! If you’d like some carbs with it, we recommend our tasty versatile rice recipe.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Farmed Fish vs Wild-Caught ← don’t underestimate the difference this makes!
- Tasty Polyphenols For Your Heart And Brain
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
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When BMI Doesn’t Measure Up
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When BMI Doesn’t Quite Measure Up
Last month, we did a “Friday Mythbusters” edition of 10almonds, tackling many of the misconceptions surrounding obesity. Amongst them, we took a brief look at the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale of weight-related health for individuals. By popular subscriber request, we’re now going to dive a little deeper into that today!
The wrong tool for the job
BMI was developed as a tool to look at large-scale demographic trends, stemming from a population study of white European men, who were for the purpose of the study (the widescale health of the working class in that geographic area in that era), considered a reasonable default demographic.
In other words: as a system, it’s now being used in a way it was never made for, and the results of that misappropriation of an epidemiological tool for individual health are predictably unhelpful.
If you want to know yours…
Here’s the magic formula for calculating your BMI:
- Metric: divide your weight in kilograms by your height in square meters
- Imperial: divide your weight in pounds by your height in square inches and then multiply by 703
“What if my height doesn’t come in square meters or square inches, because it’s a height, not an area?”
We know. Take your height and square it anyway. If this seems convoluted and arbitrary, yes, it is.
But!
While on the one hand it’s convoluted and arbitrary… On the other hand, it’s also a gross oversimplification. So, yay for the worst of both worlds?
If you don’t want to grab a calculator, here’s a quick online tool to calculate it for you.
So, how did you score?
According to the CDC, a BMI score…
- Under 18.5 is underweight
- 18.5 to 24.9 is normal
- 25 to 29.9 is overweight
- 30 and over is obese
And, if we’re looking at a representative sample of the population, where the representation is average white European men of working age, that’s not a bad general rule of thumb.
For the rest of us, not so representative
BMI is a great and accurate tool as a rule of thumb, except for…
Women
An easily forgotten demographic, due to being a mere 51% of the world’s population, women generally have a higher percentage of body fat than men, and this throws out BMI’s usefulness.
If pregnant or nursing
A much higher body weight and body fat percentage—note that these are two things, not one. Some of the extra weight will be fat to nourish the baby; some will be water weight, and if pregnant, some will be the baby (or babies!). BMI neither knows nor cares about any of these things. And, this is a big deal, because BMI gets used by healthcare providers to judge health risks and guide medical advice.
People under the age of 16 or over the age of 65
Not only do people below and above those ages (respectively) tend to be shorter—which throws out the calculations and mean health risks may increase before the BMI qualifies as overweight—but also:
- BMI under 23 in people over the age of 65 is associated with a higher health risk
- A meta-analysis showed that a BMI of 27 was the best in terms of decreased mortality risk for the over-65 age group
This obviously flies in the face of conventional standards regards BMI—as you’ll recall from the BMI brackets we listed above.
Read the science: BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis
Athletic people
A demographic often described in scientific literature as “athletes”, but that can be misleading. When we say “athletes”, what comes to mind? Probably Olympians, or other professional sportspeople.
But also athletic, when it comes to body composition, are such people as fitness enthusiasts and manual laborers. Which makes for a lot more people affected by this!
Athletic people tend to have more lean muscle mass (muscle weighs more than fat), and heavier bones (can’t build strong muscles on weak bones, so the bones get stronger too, which means denser)… But that lean muscle mass can actually increase metabolism and help ward off many of the very same things that BMI is used as a risk indicator for (e.g. heart disease, and diabetes). So people in this category will actually be at lower risk, while (by BMI) getting told they are at higher risk.
If not white
Physical characteristics of race can vary by more than skin color, relevant considerations in this case include, for example:
- Black people, on average, not only have more lean muscle mass and less fat than white people, but also, have completely different risk factors for diseases such as diabetes.
- Asian people, on average, are shorter than white people, and as such may see increased health risks before BMI qualifies as overweight.
- Hispanic people, on average, again have different physical characteristics that throw out the results, in a manner that would need lower cutoffs to be even as “useful” as it is for white people.
Further reading on this: BMI and the BIPOC Community
In summary:
If you’re an average white European working-age man, BMI can sometimes be a useful general guide. If however you fall into one or more of the above categories, it is likely to be inaccurate at best, if not outright telling the opposite of the truth.
What’s more useful, then?
For heart disease risk and diabetes risk both, waist circumference is a much more universally reliable indicator. And since those two things tend to affect a lot of other health risks, it becomes an excellent starting point for being aware of many aspects of health.
Pregnancy will still throw off waist circumference a little (measure below the bump, not around it!), but it will nevertheless be more helpful than BMI even then, as it becomes necessary to just increase the numbers a little, according to gestational month and any confounding factors e.g. twins, triplets, etc. Ask your obstetrician about this, as it’s beyond the scope of today’s newsletter!
As to what’s considered a risk:
- Waist circumference of more than 35 inches for women
- Waist circumference of more than 40 inches for men
These numbers are considered applicable across demographics of age, sex, ethnicity, and lifestyle.
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Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain – by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett
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We’ve reviewed books about neurology before, and we always try to review books that bring something new/different. So, what makes this one stand out?
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists, starts with an overview of how our unusual brain (definitely our species’ defining characteristic) came to be, and then devotes the rest of the book to mostly practical information.
She explains, in clear terms and without undue jargon, how the brain goes about such things as making constant predictions and useful assumptions about our environment, and reports these things to us as facts—which process is usually useful, and sometimes counterproductive.
We learn about how the apparently mystical trait of empathy works, in real flesh-and-blood terms, and why some kinds of empathy are more metabolically costly than others, and what that means for us all.
Unlike many such books, this one also looks at what is going on in the case of “different minds” that operate very dissimilarly to our own, and how this neurodiversity is important for our species.
Critically, she also looks at what else makes our brains stand out, the symphony of “5 Cs” that aren’t often found to the same extent all in the same species: creativity, communication, copying, cooperation, and compression. This latter being less obvious, but perhaps the most important; Dr. Feldman Barrett explains how we use this ability to layer summaries of our memories, perceptions, and assumptions, to allow us to think in abstractions—something that powers much of what we do that separates us from other animals.
Bottom line: if you’d like to learn more about that big wet organ between your ears, what it does for you, and how it goes about doing it, then this book gives a very practical foundation from which to build.
Click here to check out Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain, and learn more about yours!
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Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts
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A panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists examined the evidence for 38 diets, and scored them in 21 categories (e.g. best for weight loss, best for heart, best against diabetes, etc).
We’ll not keep it a mystery: the Mediterranean diet has been ranked as “best overall” for the 8th year in a row.
The Mediterranean (And Its Close Friends & Relations)
We’ve written before about the Mediterranean diet, here:
The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← What isn’t it good for?
👆 the above article also delineates what does and doesn’t go in a Mediterranean diet—hint, it’s not just any food from the Mediterranean region!
The Mediterranean diet’s strengths come from various factors including its good plant:animal ratio (leaning heavily on the plants), colorful fruit and veg minimally processed, and the fact that olive oil is the main source of fat:
All About Olive Oil ← pretty much one of the healthiest fats we can consume, if not healthiest all-rounder fat
The Mediterranean diet also won 1st place in various more specific categories, including:
- Best against arthritis (followed by Dr. Weil’s Anti-inflammatory, MIND, DASH)
- Best for mental health (followed by MIND, Flexitarian, DASH)
- Best against diabetes (followed by Flexitarian, DASH, MIND)
- best for liver regeneration (followed by Flexitarian, Vegan, DASH, MIND)
- Best for gut heath (followed by Vegan, DASH, Flexitarian, MIND)
If you’re not familiar with DASH and MIND, there are clues in their full names: Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, and as you might well suspect, they are simply tweaked variations of the Mediterranean diet:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean ← DASH and MIND are the heart-healthiest and brain-healthiest versions of the Mediterranean; this article also includes a gut-healthiest version and a most anti-inflammatory version
What aren’t those best for?
The Mediterranean diet scored 1st or 2nd in most of the 21 categories, and usually had the other above-named diets keeping it company in the top few.
When it comes to weight loss, the Mediterranean scored 2nd place and wasn’t flanked by its usual friends and relations; instead in first place was commercial diet WeightWatchers (likely helped a lot by being also a peer support group), and in third place was the Volumetrics diet, which we wrote about here:
Some Surprising Truths About Hunger And Satiety
And when it comes to rapid weight loss specifically, the Mediterranean didn’t even feature in the top spots at all, because it’s simply not an extreme diet and it prioritizes health over shedding the pounds at any cost. The top in that category were mostly commercial diets:
- Jenny Craig
- Slimfast
- Keto
- Nutrisystem
- WeightWatchers
We’ve not as yet written about any of those commercial diets, but we have written about keto here:
Ketogenic Diet: Burning Fat Or Burning Out?
Want to know more?
You can click around, exploring by diet or by health category, here 😎
Enjoy!
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What Your Eyes Say About Your Health (If You Have A Mirror, You Can Do This Now!)
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In an age when doctors are increasingly pressed to get you out of their office quickly and not take the time to do thorough tests, having a good basic knowledge of signs and symptoms of disease has become more important than ever for all of us:
The eyes have it:
Dr. Siobhan Deshauer is back, this time working with Dr. Maria Howard, a Canadian optometrist, who advised behind-the-scenes to ensure the best information about these signs and symptoms and what they tell us:
- Color blindness test: Ishihara color test identifies color blindness; in the version in the video, seeing “74” is normal, “12” indicates red-green color blindness, and no numbers suggest complete color blindness due to genetics or retinal/optic nerve issues.
- Yellow sclera (scleral icterus): yellow sclera indicates high bilirubin from excessive red blood cell breakdown, liver damage, bile duct blockage, or Gilbert syndrome.
- Blue sclera: indicates thin collagen in the sclera, which can be linked to osteogenesis imperfecta, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and Marfan syndrome.
- Pink eye: caused by infections, autoimmune diseases, or trauma; persistent symptoms or associated pain/vision changes need medical evaluation.
- Physiologic diplopia (double vision): normal test where fingers appear doubled when focusing on different planes; absence may indicate amblyopia.
- Pinhole test (visual acuity): looking through a small pinhole can determine if glasses are needed for clearer vision.
- Nearsighted vs farsighted: nearsightedness risks retinal tears and night vision issues, while farsightedness increases the risk of glaucoma.
- Eye color and health: brown eyes lower cancer risk but higher cataract risk; light eyes higher cancer risk but lower cataract risk; sudden changes may indicate a condition.
- Kayser-Fleischer rings: golden-brown rings around the iris suggest copper buildup from Wilson disease, treatable with chelation therapy.
- Corneal arcus: gray/white ring around the iris indicates cholesterol buildup, normal with aging but concerning in younger individuals, signaling hypercholesterolemia or artery narrowing.
- Limbal rings: dark rings around the iris are generally aesthetic and not health-related.
- Red desaturation test: a difference in red color perception between eyes may indicate optic nerve or retinal issues.
- Eye twitching: often linked to stress, sleep deprivation, or caffeine; persistent twitching or muscle involvement requires medical attention.
- Pupillary reflex: pupil constriction in light; abnormal responses suggest trauma, overdose, or poisoning.
- Cataracts: lens cloudiness due to age, UV exposure, smoking, diabetes, or prednisone; also occurs sometimes in youth due to conditions like diabetes.
- Yellow spots (pinguecula and pterygium): sun damage, wind, and dust exposure cause yellow spots; protect with sunglasses to prevent progression impacting vision.
- Dark spots in the eye: includes freckles, moles (nevi), and melanoma; changes require medical evaluation.
- Hypnotic induction profile: eye roll test assesses susceptibility to hypnosis.
- Floaters: normal clumps in the eye; sudden increases, flashes, or curtain-like effects may signal retinal detachment.
- Retinal detachment: caused by aging-related vitreous shrinkage; treated with lasers, gas bubbles, or retinal buckles.
- Macular degeneration (Amsler grid test): wavy, fuzzy lines or missing vision spots may indicate this condition.
- Giant cell arteritis: no, that’s not a typo: rather it is about blood vessel inflammation that can cause blindness; treated with prednisone, symptoms include headaches and vision changes.
- Near point of convergence: focus test to detect convergence issues common with excessive screen time.
- Blepharitis: eyelid inflammation causing itchiness, burning, or flaky skin; treated with hygiene, antibiotics, or tea tree oil.
- Proptosis (Graves’ disease): bulging eyes due to hyperthyroidism; treatable with medications, radiation, or surgery.
- Ptosis (droopy eyelids): indicates myasthenia gravis, temporarily improved with the ice pack test.
- Night vision issues: caused by retinal problems or high myopia, not typically vitamin A deficiency in developed countries.
- Dry eyes: caused by screen time, smoking, medications, or autoimmune diseases; managed with lubricating drops, reduced screen time, and adjustments.
- Watery eyes: caused by irritation or blocked tear ducts; treated with lubricating drops or surgery.
- Retinoblastoma: rare childhood cancer detectable through flash photography showing one white pupil; early detection enables treatment.
For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
What Your Hands Can Tell You About Your Health
Take care!
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Sunflower Seeds vs Sesame Seeds – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sunflower seeds to sesame seeds, we picked the sunflower.
Why?
In moderation, both are very healthy. We say “in moderation” because they’re both about 50% fat and such fats, while vital for life, are generally best enjoyed in small portions. Of that fat, sunflower has the slightly better fat profile; they’re both mostly poly- and monounsaturated fats, but sunflower has 10% saturated fat while sesame has 15%. Aside from fats, sunflower has slightly more protein and sesame has slightly more carbs. While sesame has slightly more fiber, because of the carb profile sunflower still has the lower glycemic index. All in all, a moderate win for sunflower in the macros category.
You may be wondering, with all that discussion of fats, what they’re like for omega-3, and sesame seeds have more omega-3, though sunflower seeds contain it too. Still, a point in sesame’s favor here.
When it comes to vitamins, sunflower has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, and choline, while sesame is not higher in any vitamins.
In the category of minerals, sunflower has more phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while sesame has more calcium, copper, iron, and zinc. This is nominally a marginal win for sesame, but it should be noted that sunflower is still very rich in copper, iron, and zinc too (but not calcium).
Adding up the categories makes for a moderate win for sunflower seeds, but as ever, enjoy both; diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sunflower Seeds vs Pumpkin Seeds – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Could ADHD drugs reduce the risk of early death? Unpacking the findings from a new Swedish study
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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can have a considerable impact on the day-to-day functioning and overall wellbeing of people affected. It causes a variety of symptoms including difficulty focusing, impulsivity and hyperactivity.
For many, a diagnosis of ADHD, whether in childhood or adulthood, is life changing. It means finally having an explanation for these challenges, and opens up the opportunity for treatment, including medication.
Although ADHD medications can cause side effects, they generally improve symptoms for people with the disorder, and thereby can significantly boost quality of life.
Now a new study has found being treated for ADHD with medication reduces the risk of early death for people with the disorder. But what can we make of these findings?
A large study from Sweden
The study, published this week in JAMA (the prestigious journal of the American Medical Association), was a large cohort study of 148,578 people diagnosed with ADHD in Sweden. It included both adults and children.
In a cohort study, a group of people who share a common characteristic (in this case a diagnosis of ADHD) are followed over time to see how many develop a particular health outcome of interest (in this case the outcome was death).
For this study the researchers calculated the mortality rate over a two-year follow up period for those whose ADHD was treated with medication (a group of around 84,000 people) alongside those whose ADHD was not treated with medication (around 64,000 people). The team then determined if there were any differences between the two groups.
What did the results show?
The study found people who were diagnosed and treated for ADHD had a 19% reduced risk of death from any cause over the two years they were tracked, compared with those who were diagnosed but not treated.
In understanding this result, it’s important – and interesting – to look at the causes of death. The authors separately analysed deaths due to natural causes (physical medical conditions) and deaths due to unnatural causes (for example, unintentional injuries, suicide, or accidental poisonings).
The key result is that while no significant difference was seen between the two groups when examining natural causes of death, the authors found a significant difference for deaths due to unnatural causes.
So what’s going on?
Previous studies have suggested ADHD is associated with an increased risk of premature death from unnatural causes, such as injury and poisoning.
On a related note, earlier studies have also suggested taking ADHD medicines may reduce premature deaths. So while this is not the first study to suggest this association, the authors note previous studies addressing this link have generated mixed results and have had significant limitations.
In this new study, the authors suggest the reduction in deaths from unnatural causes could be because taking medication alleviates some of the ADHD symptoms responsible for poor outcomes – for example, improving impulse control and decision-making. They note this could reduce fatal accidents.
The authors cite a number of studies that support this hypothesis, including research showing ADHD medications may prevent the onset of mood, anxiety and substance use disorders, and lower the risk of accidents and criminality. All this could reasonably be expected to lower the rate of unnatural deaths.
Strengths and limitations
Scandinavian countries have well-maintained national registries that collect information on various aspects of citizens’ lives, including their health. This allows researchers to conduct excellent population-based studies.
Along with its robust study design and high-quality data, another strength of this study is its size. The large number of participants – almost 150,000 – gives us confidence the findings were not due to chance.
The fact this study examined both children and adults is another strength. Previous research relating to ADHD has often focused primarily on children.
One of the important limitations of this study acknowledged by the authors is that it was observational. Observational studies are where the researchers observe and analyse naturally occurring phenomena without intervening in the lives of the study participants (unlike randomised controlled trials).
The limitation in all observational research is the issue of confounding. This means we cannot be completely sure the differences between the two groups observed were not either partially or entirely due to some other factor apart from taking medication.
Specifically, it’s possible lifestyle factors or other ADHD treatments such as psychological counselling or social support may have influenced the mortality rates in the groups studied.
Another possible limitation is the relatively short follow-up period. What the results would show if participants were followed up for longer is an interesting question, and could be addressed in future research.
What are the implications?
Despite some limitations, this study adds to the evidence that diagnosis and treatment for ADHD can make a profound difference to people’s lives. As well as alleviating symptoms of the disorder, this study supports the idea ADHD medication reduces the risk of premature death.
Ultimately, this highlights the importance of diagnosing ADHD early so the appropriate treatment can be given. It also contributes to the body of evidence indicating the need to improve access to mental health care and support more broadly.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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