Seeds: The Good, The Bad, And The Not-Really-Seeds!

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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

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

❝Doctors are great at saving lives like mine. I’m a two time survivor of colon cancer and have recently been diagnosed with Chron’s disease at 62. No one is the health system can or is prepared to tell me an appropriate diet to follow or what to avoid. Can you?❞

Congratulations on the survivorship!

As to Crohn’s, that’s indeed quite a pain, isn’t it? In some ways, a good diet for Crohn’s is the same as a good diet for most other people, with one major exception: fiber

…and unfortunately, that changes everything, in terms of a whole-foods majority plant-based diet.

What stays the same:

  • You still ideally want to eat a lot of plants
  • You definitely want to avoid meat and dairy in general
  • Eating fish is still usually* fine, same with eggs
  • Get plenty of water

What needs to change:

  • Consider swapping grains for potatoes or pasta (at least: avoid grains)
  • Peel vegetables that are peelable; discard the peel or use it to make stock
  • Consider steaming fruit and veg for easier digestion
  • Skip spicy foods (moderate spices, like ginger, turmeric, and black pepper, are usually fine in moderation)

Much of this latter list is opposite to the advice for people without Crohn’s Disease.

*A good practice, by the way, is to keep a food journal. There are apps that you can get for free, or you can do it the old-fashioned way on paper if prefer.

But the important part is: make a note not just of what you ate, but also of how you felt afterwards. That way, you can start to get a picture of patterns, and what’s working (or not) for you, and build up a more personalized set of guidelines than anyone else could give to you.

We hope the above pointers at least help you get going on the right foot, though!

❝Why do baked goods and deep fried foods all of a sudden become intolerable? I used to b able to ingest bakery foods and fried foods. Lately I developed an extreme allergy to Kiwi… what else should I “fear”❞

About the baked goods and the deep-fried foods, it’s hard to say without more information! It could be something in the ingredients or the method, and the intolerance could be any number of symptoms that we don’t know. Certainly, pastries and deep-fried foods are not generally substantial parts of a healthy diet, of course!

Kiwi, on the other hand, we can answer… Or rather, we can direct you to today’s “What’s happening in the health world” section below, as there is news on that front!

We turn the tables and ask you a question!

We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

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  • Cost of living: if you can’t afford as much fresh produce, are canned veggies or frozen fruit just as good?

    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 cost of living crisis is affecting how we spend our money. For many people, this means tightening the budget on the weekly supermarket shop.

    One victim may be fresh fruit and vegetables. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests Australians were consuming fewer fruit and vegetables in 2022–23 than the year before.

    The cost of living is likely compounding a problem that exists already – on the whole, Australians don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. Australian dietary guidelines recommend people aged nine and older should consume two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables each day for optimal health. But in 2022 the ABS reported only 4% of Australians met the recommendations for both fruit and vegetable consumption.

    Fruit and vegetables are crucial for a healthy, balanced diet, providing a range of vitamins and minerals as well as fibre.

    If you can’t afford as much fresh produce at the moment, there are other ways to ensure you still get the benefits of these food groups. You might even be able to increase your intake of fruit and vegetables.

    New Africa/Shutterstock

    Frozen

    Fresh produce is often touted as being the most nutritious (think of the old adage “fresh is best”). But this is not necessarily true.

    Nutrients can decline in transit from the paddock to your kitchen, and while the produce is stored in your fridge. Frozen vegetables may actually be higher in some nutrients such as vitamin C and E as they are snap frozen very close to the time of harvest. Variations in transport and storage can affect this slightly.

    Minerals such as calcium, iron and magnesium stay at similar levels in frozen produce compared to fresh.

    Another advantage to frozen vegetables and fruit is the potential to reduce food waste, as you can use only what you need at the time.

    A close up of frozen vegetables (peas, carrot and corn).
    Freezing preserves the nutritional quality of vegetables and increases their shelf life. Tohid Hashemkhani/Pexels

    As well as buying frozen fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, you can freeze produce yourself at home if you have an oversupply from the garden, or when produce may be cheaper.

    A quick blanching prior to freezing can improve the safety and quality of the produce. This is when food is briefly submerged in boiling water or steamed for a short time.

    Frozen vegetables won’t be suitable for salads but can be eaten roasted or steamed and used for soups, stews, casseroles, curries, pies and quiches. Frozen fruits can be added to breakfast dishes (with cereal or youghurt) or used in cooking for fruit pies and cakes, for example.

    Canned

    Canned vegetables and fruit similarly often offer a cheaper alternative to fresh produce. They’re also very convenient to have on hand. The canning process is the preservation technique, so there’s no need to add any additional preservatives, including salt.

    Due to the cooking process, levels of heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C will decline a little compared to fresh produce. When you’re using canned vegetables in a hot dish, you can add them later in the cooking process to reduce the amount of nutrient loss.

    To minimise waste, you can freeze the portion you don’t need.

    Fermented

    A jar of red peppers in oil.
    Fermented vegetables are another good option. Angela Khebou/Unsplash

    Fermentation has recently come into fashion, but it’s actually one of the oldest food processing and preservation techniques.

    Fermentation largely retains the vitamins and minerals in fresh vegetables. But fermentation may also enhance the food’s nutritional profile by creating new nutrients and allowing existing ones to be absorbed more easily.

    Further, fermented foods contain probiotics, which are beneficial for our gut microbiome.

    5 other tips to get your fresh fix

    Although alternatives to fresh such as canned or frozen fruit and vegetables are good substitutes, if you’re looking to get more fresh produce into your diet on a tight budget, here are some things you can do.

    1. Buy in season

    Based on supply and demand principles, buying local seasonal vegetables and fruit will always be cheaper than those that are imported out of season from other countries.

    2. Don’t shun the ugly fruit and vegetables

    Most supermarkets now sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables, that are not physically perfect in some way. This does not affect the levels of nutrients in them at all, or their taste.

    A mother and daughter preparing food in the kitchen.
    Buying fruit and vegetables during the right season will be cheaper. August de Richelieu/Pexels

    3. Reduce waste

    On average, an Australian household throws out A$2,000–$2,500 worth of food every year. Fruit, vegetables and bagged salad are the three of the top five foods thrown out in our homes. So properly managing fresh produce could help you save money (and benefit the environment).

    To minimise waste, plan your meals and shopping ahead of time. And if you don’t think you’re going to get to eat the fruit and vegetables you have before they go off, freeze them.

    4. Swap and share

    There are many websites and apps which offer the opportunity to swap or even pick up free fresh produce if people have more than they need. Some local councils are also encouraging swaps on their websites, so dig around and see what you can find in your local area.

    5. Gardening

    Regardless of how small your garden is you can always plant produce in pots. Herbs, rocket, cherry tomatoes, chillies and strawberries all grow well. In the long run, these will offset some of your cost on fresh produce.

    Plus, when you have put the effort in to grow your own produce, you are less likely to waste it.

    Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • As the U.S. Struggles With a Stillbirth Crisis, Australia Offers a Model for How to Do Better

    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.

    ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

    Series: Stillbirths:When Babies Die Before Taking Their First Breath

    The U.S. has not prioritized stillbirth prevention, and American parents are losing babies even as other countries make larger strides to reduce deaths late in pregnancy.

    The stillbirth of her daughter in 1999 cleaved Kristina Keneally’s life into a before and an after. It later became a catalyst for transforming how an entire country approaches stillbirths.

    In a world where preventing stillbirths is typically far down the list of health care priorities, Australia — where Keneally was elected as a senator — has emerged as a global leader in the effort to lower the number of babies that die before taking their first breaths. Stillbirth prevention is embedded in the nation’s health care system, supported by its doctors, midwives and nurses, and touted by its politicians.

    In 2017, funding from the Australian government established a groundbreaking center for research into stillbirths. The next year, its Senate established a committee on stillbirth research and education. By 2020, the country had adopted a national stillbirth plan, which combines the efforts of health care providers and researchers, bereaved families and advocacy groups, and lawmakers and government officials, all in the name of reducing stillbirths and supporting families. As part of that plan, researchers and advocates teamed up to launch a public awareness campaign. All told, the government has invested more than $40 million.

    Meanwhile, the United States, which has a far larger population, has no national stillbirth plan, no public awareness campaign and no government-funded stillbirth research center. Indeed, the U.S. has long lagged behind Australia and other wealthy countries in a crucial measure: how fast the stillbirth rate drops each year.

    According to the latest UNICEF report, the U.S. was worse than 151 countries in reducing its stillbirth rate between 2000 and 2021, cutting it by just 0.9%. That figure lands the U.S. in the company of South Sudan in Africa and doing slightly better than Turkmenistan in central Asia. During that period, Australia’s reduction rate was more than double that.

    Definitions of stillbirth vary by country, and though both Australia and the U.S. mark stillbirths as the death of a fetus at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy, to fairly compare countries globally, international standards call for the use of the World Health Organization definition that defines stillbirth as a loss after 28 weeks. That puts the U.S. stillbirth rate in 2021 at 2.7 per 1,000 total births, compared with 2.4 in Australia the same year.

    Every year in the United States, more than 20,000 pregnancies end in a stillbirth. Each day, roughly 60 babies are stillborn. Australia experiences six stillbirths a day.

    Over the past two years, ProPublica has revealed systemic failures at the federal and local levels, including not prioritizing research, awareness and data collection, conducting too few autopsies after stillbirths and doing little to combat stark racial disparities. And while efforts are starting to surface in the U.S. — including two stillbirth-prevention bills that are pending in Congress — they lack the scope and urgency seen in Australia.

    “If you ask which parts of the work in Australia can be done in or should be done in the U.S., the answer is all of it,” said Susannah Hopkins Leisher, a stillbirth parent, epidemiologist and assistant professor in the stillbirth research program at the University of Utah Health. “There’s no physical reason why we cannot do exactly what Australia has done.”

    Australia’s goal, which has been complicated by the pandemic, is to, by 2025, reduce the country’s rate of stillbirths after 28 weeks by 20% from its 2020 rate. The national plan laid out the target, and it is up to each jurisdiction to determine how to implement it based on their local needs.

    The most significant development came in 2019, when the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence — the headquarters for Australia’s stillbirth-prevention efforts — launched the core of its strategy, a checklist of five evidence-based priorities known as the Safer Baby Bundle. They include supporting pregnant patients to stop smoking; regular monitoring for signs that the fetus is not growing as expected, which is known as fetal growth restriction; explaining the importance of acting quickly if fetal movement changes or decreases; advising pregnant patients to go to sleep on their side after 28 weeks; and encouraging patients to talk to their doctors about when to deliver because in some cases that may be before their due date.

    Officials estimate that at least half of all births in the country are covered by maternity services that have adopted the bundle, which focuses on preventing stillbirths after 28 weeks.

    “These are babies whose lives you would expect to save because they would survive if they were born alive,” said Dr. David Ellwood, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Griffith University, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Gold Coast University Hospital and a co-director of the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence.

    Australia wasn’t always a leader in stillbirth prevention.

    In 2000, when the stillbirth rate in the U.S. was 3.3 per 1,000 total births, Australia’s was 3.7. A group of doctors, midwives and parents recognized the need to do more and began working on improving their data classification and collection to better understand the problem areas. By 2014, Australia published its first in-depth national report on stillbirth. Two years later, the medical journal The Lancet published the second report in a landmark series on stillbirths, and Australian researchers applied for the first grant from the government to create the stillbirth research center.

    But full federal buy-in remained elusive.

    As parent advocates, researchers, doctors and midwives worked to gain national support, they didn’t yet know they would find a champion in Keneally.

    Keneally’s improbable journey began when she was born in Nevada to an American father and Australian mother. She grew up in Ohio, graduating from the University of Dayton before meeting the man who would become her husband and moving to Australia.

    When she learned that her daughter, who she named Caroline, would be stillborn, she remembers thinking, “I’m smart. I’m educated. How did I let this happen? And why did nobody tell me this was a possible outcome?”

    A few years later, in 2003, Keneally decided to enter politics. She was elected to the lower house of state parliament in New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital. In Australia, newly elected members are expected to give a “first speech.” She was able to get through just one sentence about Caroline before starting to tear up.

    As a legislator, Keneally didn’t think of tackling stillbirth as part of her job. There wasn’t any public discourse about preventing stillbirths or supporting families who’d had one. When Caroline was born still, all Keneally got was a book titled “When a Baby Dies.”

    In 2009, Keneally became New South Wales’ first woman premier, a role similar to that of an American governor. Another woman who had suffered her own stillbirth and was starting a stillbirth foundation learned of Keneally’s experience. She wrote to Keneally and asked the premier to be the foundation’s patron.

    What’s the point of being the first female premier, Keneally thought, if I can’t support this group?

    Like the U.S., Australia had previously launched an awareness campaign that contributed to a staggering reduction in sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. But there was no similar push for stillbirths.

    “If we can figure out ways to reduce SIDS,” Keneally said, “surely it’s not beyond us to figure out ways to reduce stillbirth.”

    She lost her seat after two years and took a break from politics, only to return six years later. In 2018, she was selected to serve as a senator at Australia’s federal level.

    Keneally saw this as her second chance to fight for stillbirth prevention. In the short period between her election and her inaugural speech, she had put everything in place for a Senate inquiry into stillbirth.

    In her address, Keneally declared stillbirth a national public health crisis. This time, she spoke at length about Caroline.

    “When it comes to stillbirth prevention,” she said, “there are things that we know that we’re not telling parents, and there are things we don’t know, but we could, if we changed how we collected data and how we funded research.”

    The day of her speech, March 27, 2018, she and her fellow senators established the Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education.

    Things moved quickly over the next nine months. Keneally and other lawmakers traveled the country holding hearings, listening to testimony from grieving parents and writing up their findings in a report released that December.

    “The culture of silence around stillbirth means that parents and families who experience it are less likely to be prepared to deal with the personal, social and financial consequences,” the report said. “This failure to regard stillbirth as a public health issue also has significant consequences for the level of funding available for research and education, and for public awareness of the social and economic costs to the community as a whole.”

    It would be easy to swap the U.S. for Australia in many places throughout the report. Women of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds experienced double the rate of stillbirth of other Australian women; Black women in America are more than twice as likely as white women to have a stillbirth. Both countries faced a lack of coordinated research and corresponding funding, low autopsy rates following a stillbirth and poor public awareness of the problem.

    The day after the report’s release, the Australian government announced that it would develop a national plan and pledged $7.2 million in funding for prevention. Nearly half was to go to education and awareness programs for women and their health care providers.

    In the following months, government officials rolled out the Safer Baby Bundle and pledged another $26 million to support parents’ mental health after a loss.

    Many in Australia see Keneally’s first speech as senator, in 2018, as the turning point for the country’s fight for stillbirth prevention. Her words forced the federal government to acknowledge the stillbirth crisis and launch the national action plan with bipartisan support.

    Australia’s assistant minister for health and aged care, Ged Kearney, cited Keneally’s speech in an email to ProPublica where she noted that Australia has become a world leader in stillbirth awareness, prevention and supporting families after a loss.

    “Kristina highlighted the power of women telling their story for positive change,” Kearney said, adding, “As a Labor Senator Kristina Keneally bravely shared her deeply personal story of her daughter Caroline who was stillborn in 1999. Like so many mothers, she helped pave the way for creating a more compassionate and inclusive society.”

    Keneally, who is now CEO of Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation, said the number of stillbirths a day in Australia spurred the movement for change.

    “Six babies a day,” Keneally said. “Once you hear that fact, you can’t unhear it.”

    Australia’s leading stillbirth experts watched closely as the country moved closer to a unified effort. This was the moment for which they had been waiting.

    “We had all the information needed, but that’s really what made it happen.” said Vicki Flenady, a perinatal epidemiologist, co-director of the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence based at the Mater Research Institute at the University of Queensland, and a lead author on The Lancet’s stillbirth series. “I don’t think there’s a person who could dispute that.”

    Flenady and her co-director Ellwood had spent more than two decades focused on stillbirths. After establishing the center in 2017, they were now able to expand their team. As part of their work with the International Stillbirth Alliance, they reached out to other countries with a track record of innovation and evidence-based research: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland. They modeled the Safer Baby Bundle after a similar one in the U.K., though they added some elements.

    In 2019, the state of Victoria, home to Melbourne, was the first to implement the Safer Baby Bundle. But 10 months into the program, the effort had to be paused for several months because of the pandemic, which forced other states to cancel their launches altogether.

    “COVID was a major disruption. We stopped and started,” Flenady said.

    Still, between 2019 and 2021, participating hospitals across Victoria were able to reduce their stillbirth rate by 21%. That improvement has yet to be seen at the national level.

    A number of areas are still working on implementing the bundle. Westmead Hospital, one of Australia’s largest hospitals, planned to wrap that phase up last month. Like many hospitals, Westmead prominently displays the bundle’s key messages in the colorful posters and flyers hanging in patient rooms and in the hallways. They include easy-to-understand slogans such as, “Big or small. Your baby’s growth matters,” and, “Sleep on your side when baby’s inside.”

    As patients at Westmead wait for their names to be called, a TV in the waiting room plays a video on stillbirth prevention, highlighting the importance of fetal movement. If a patient is concerned their baby’s movements have slowed down, they are instructed to come in to be seen within two hours. The patient’s chart gets a colorful sticker with a 16-point checklist of stillbirth risk factors.

    Susan Heath, a senior clinical midwife at Westmead, came up with the idea for the stickers. Her office is tucked inside the hospital’s maternity wing, down a maze of hallways. As she makes the familiar walk to her desk, with her faded hospital badge bouncing against her navy blue scrubs, it’s clear she is a woman on a mission. The bundle gives doctors and midwives structure and uniform guidance, she said, and takes stillbirth out of the shadows. She reminds her staff of how making the practices a routine part of their job has the power to change their patients’ lives.

    “You’re trying,” she said, “to help them prevent having the worst day of their life.”

    Christine Andrews, a senior researcher at the Stillbirth Centre who is leading an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness, said the national stillbirth rate beyond 28 weeks has continued to slowly improve.

    “It is going to take a while until we see the stillbirth rate across the whole entire country go down,” Andrews said. “We are anticipating that we’re going to start to see a shift in that rate soon.”

    As officials wait to receive and standardize the data from hospitals and states, they are encouraged by a number of indicators.

    For example, several states are reporting increases in the detection of babies that aren’t growing as they should, a major factor in many late-gestation stillbirths. Many also have seen an increase in the number of pregnant patients who stopped smoking. Health care providers also are more consistently offering post-stillbirth investigations, such as autopsies.

    In addition to the Safer Baby Bundle, the national plan also calls for raising awareness and reducing racial disparities. The improvements it recommends for bereavement care are already gaining global attention.

    To fulfill those directives, Australia has launched a “Still Six Lives” public awareness campaign, has implemented a national stillbirth clinical care standard and has spent two years developing a culturally inclusive version of the Safer Baby Bundle for First Nations, migrant and refugee communities. Those resources, which were recently released, incorporated cultural traditions and used terms like Stronger Bubba Born for the bundle and “sorry business babies,” which is how some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women refer to stillbirth. There are also audio versions for those who can’t or prefer not to read the information.

    In May, nearly 50 people from the state of Queensland met in a large hotel conference room. Midwives, doctors and nurses sat at round tables with government officials, hospital administrators and maternal and infant health advocates. Some even wore their bright blue Safer Baby T-shirts.

    One by one, they discussed their experiences implementing the Safer Baby Bundle. One midwifery group was able to get more than a third of its patients to stop smoking between their first visit and giving birth.

    Officials from a hospital in one of the fastest-growing areas in the state discussed how they carefully monitored for fetal growth restriction.

    And staff from another hospital, which serves many low-income and immigrant patients, described how 97% of pregnant patients who said their baby’s movements had decreased were seen for additional monitoring within two hours of voicing their concern.

    As the midwives, nurses and doctors ticked off the progress they were seeing, they also discussed the fear of unintended consequences: higher rates of premature births or increased admissions to neonatal intensive care units. But neither, they said, has materialized.

    “The bundle isn’t causing any harm and may be improving other outcomes, like reducing early-term birth,” Flenady said. “I think it really shows a lot of positive impact.”

    As far behind as the U.S. is in prioritizing stillbirth prevention, there is still hope.

    Dr. Bob Silver, who co-authored a study that estimated that nearly 1 in 4 stillbirths are potentially preventable, has looked to the international community as a model. Now, he and Leisher — the University of Utah epidemiologist and stillbirth parent — are working to create one of the first stillbirth research and prevention centers in the U.S. in partnership with stillbirth leaders from Australia and other countries. They hope to launch next year.

    “There’s no question that Australia has done a better job than we have,” said Silver, who is also chair of the University of Utah Health obstetrics and gynecology department. “Part of it is just highlighting it and paying attention to it.”

    It’s hard to know what parts of Australia’s strategy are making a difference — the bundle as a whole, just certain elements of it, the increased stillbirth awareness across the country, or some combination of those things. Not every component has been proven to decrease stillbirth.

    The lack of U.S. research on the issue has made some cautious to adopt the bundle, Silver said, but it is clear the U.S. can and should do more.

    There comes a point when an issue is so critical, Silver said, that people have to do the best they can with the information that they have. The U.S. has done that with other problems, such as maternal mortality, he said, though many of the tactics used to combat that problem have not been proven scientifically.

    “But we’ve decided this problem is so bad, we’re going to try the things that we think are most likely to be helpful,” Silver said.

    After more than 30 years of working on stillbirth prevention, Silver said the U.S. may be at a turning point. Parents’ voices are getting louder and starting to reach lawmakers. More doctors are affirming that stillbirths are not inevitable. And pressure is mounting on federal institutions to do more.

    Of the two stillbirth prevention bills in Congress, one already sailed through the Senate. The second bill, the Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education for Autumn Act, includes features that also appeared in Australia’s plan, such as improving data, increasing awareness and providing support for autopsies.

    And after many years, the National Institutes of Health has turned its focus back to stillbirths. In March, it released a report with a series of recommendations to reduce the nation’s stillbirth rate that mirror ProPublica’s reporting about some of the causes of the crisis. Since then, it has launched additional groups to begin to tackle three critical angles: prevention, data and bereavement. Silver co-chairs the prevention group.

    In November, more than 100 doctors, parents and advocates gathered for a symposium in New York City to discuss everything from improving bereavement care in the U.S to tackling racial disparities in stillbirth. In 2022, after taking a page out of the U.K.’s book, the city’s Mount Sinai Hospital opened the first Rainbow Clinic in the U.S., which employs specific protocols to care for people who have had a stillbirth.

    But given the financial resources in the U.S. and the academic capacity at American universities and research institutions, Leisher and others said federal and state governments aren’t doing nearly enough.

    “The U.S. is not pulling its weight in relation either to our burden or to the resources that we have at our disposal,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of babies dying, and we’ve got a really bad imbalance of who those babies are as well. And yet we look at a country with a much smaller number of stillbirths who is leading the world.”

    “We can do more. Much more. We’re just not,” she added. “It’s unacceptable.”

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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!

    Share This Post

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  • Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life – by Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj

    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.

    Notwithstanding the cover’s declaration of “you’re not sick, you’re thirsty”, in fact this book largely makes the argument that both are often the case simultaneously, and that dehydration plays a bigger role in disease pathogenesis and progression than it is credited for.

    You may be wondering: is this 304 pages to say “drink some water”?

    And the answer is: yes, somewhat. However, it also goes into detail of how and why it is relevant in each case, which means that there will be, once you have read this, more chance of your dehydrated and thus acutely-less-functional brain going “oh, I remember what this is” rather than just soldiering on dehydrated because you are too dehydrated to remember to hydrate.

    The strength of the book really is in motivation; understanding why things happen the way they do and thus why they matter, is a huge part of then actually being motivated to do something about it. And let’s face it, a “yes, I will focus on my hydration” health kick is typically sustained for less time than many more noticeable (e.g. diet and exercise) healthy lifestyle adjustments, precisely because there’s less there to focus on so it gets forgotten.

    The style is a little dated (the book is from 2003, and the style feels like it is from the 80s, which is when the author was doing most of his research, before launching his first book, which we haven’t read-and-reviewed yet, in 1992) but perfectly clear and pleasant to read.

    Bottom line: this book may well get you to actually drink more water

    Click here to check out Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life, and get hydrating!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Young Forever – by Dr. Mark Hyman

    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.

    A lot of work on the topic of aging looks at dealing with symptoms of aging, rather than the causes. And, that’s worthy too! Those symptoms often do need addressing. But this book is about treating the causes.

    Dr. Hyman outlines:

    • How and why we age
    • The root causes of aging
    • The ten hallmarks of aging

    From there, we go on to learn about the foundations of longevity, and balancing our seven core biological systems:

    1. Nutrition, digestion, and the microbiome
    2. Immune and inflammatory system
    3. Cellular energy
    4. Biotransformation and elimination/detoxification*
    5. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signalling molecules
    6. Circulation and lymphatic flow
    7. Structural health, from muscle and bones to cells and tissues

    *This isn’t about celery juice fasts and the like; this talking about the work your kidneys, liver, and other organs do

    The book goes on to detail how, precisely, with practical actionable advices, to optimize and take care of each of those systems.

    All in all: if you want a great foundational understanding of aging and how to slow it to increase your healthy lifespan, this is a very respectable option.

    Click here to get your copy of “Young Forever” from Amazon today!

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  • 5 Exercises That Fix 95% Of Your Problems

    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.

    Well, your musculoskeletal problems, anyway! The exercises won’t, for example, do your taxes or deal with your loud neighbor for you. But, they will help your body be strong, supple, and pain-free:

    20 minutes total

    The exercises & what they do:

    • Dead hang: improves shoulder health, decompresses the spine, and strengthens grip. Hang from a bar for 20–30 seconds, progressing to 1–2 minutes.
    • Glute bridge: builds glute strength, improves core stability, and reduces lower back tension. Perform 2 sets of 10–15 reps, with variations like single-leg bridges or added weight.
    • Farmer’s walk: a full-body workout that strengthens the shoulders, core, and grip while improving posture. Walk with weights for 30–60 seconds, 3 rounds, increasing weight or duration over time.
    • Resting squat: enhances ankle, hip, and knee mobility, restoring natural functionality. Hold a deep squat for 20–30 seconds, progressing to 1–2 minutes. Use support for balance if necessary.
    • Thread the needle: improves flexibility, reduces tension, and enhances rotational mobility. Perform slow, controlled rotations from an all-fours position, 2 sets of 10 reps per side.

    Suggested 20-minute workout plan:

    1. Dead hang: 3 sets of 30 seconds
    2. Glute bridge: 2 sets of 10–15 reps
    3. Farmer’s walk: 30–60 seconds, 3 rounds
    4. Resting squat: hold for 20–30 seconds, 2–3 rounds
    5. Thread the needle: 2 sets of 10 reps per side

    It is recommended to perform this routine 3 times per week with 1-minute rests between sets.

    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:

    The Most Anti Aging Exercise

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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