Easy Quinoa Falafel
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Falafel is a wonderful snack or accompaniment to a main, and if you’ve only had shop-bought, you’re missing out. Plus, with this quinoa-based recipe, it’s almost impossible to accidentally make them dry.
You will need
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
- ½ cup wholewheat breadcrumbs (or rye breadcrumbs if you’re avoiding wheat/gluten)
- 1 can chickpeas, drained
- 4 green onions, chopped
- ½ bulb garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for frying
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until it has an even, but still moderately coarse, texture.
2) Shape into 1″ balls, and put them in the fridge to chill for about 20 minutes.
3) Fry the balls over a medium-high heat until evenly browned—just do a few at a time, taking care to not overcrowd the pan.
4) Serve! Great with salad, hummus, and other such tasty healthy snack items:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in more of what we have going on today:
- Cilantro vs Parsley – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- An Apple (Cider Vinegar) A Day…
- Hero Homemade Hummus Recipe ← perfect accompaniment!
- Tasty Tabbouleh with Tahini Recipe ← also a great option!
Take care!
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Tips for Improving Memory
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Q&A with 10almonds Subscribers!
Q: Any tips, other than supplements, for improving memory?
A: So many tips! Certainly enough to do a main feature on, so again maybe we’ll do that in another issue soon. Meanwhile, here are the absolute most critical things for you to know, understand, and apply:
- Memory is a muscle. Not literally, but in the sense that it will grow stronger if exercised and will atrophy if neglected.
- Counterpart of the above: your memory is not a finite vessel. You can’t “fill it up with useless things”, so no need to fear doing so.
- Your memory is the product of countless connections in your brain. The more connections lead to a given memory, the more memorable it will be. What use is this knowledge to you? It means that if you want to remember something, try to make as many connections to it as possible, so:
- Involve as many senses as possible.
- When you learn things, try to learn them in context. Then when your mind has reason to think about the context, it’ll be more likely to remember the thing itself too.
- Rehearsal matters. A lot. This means repeatedly going over something in your head. This brings about the neural equivalent of “muscle memory”.
- Enjoy yourself if you can. The more fun something is, the more you will mentally rehearse it, and the more mental connections you’ll make to it.
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Food Fix – by Dr. Mark Hyman
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On a simplistic level, “eat more plants, but ideally not monocrops, and definitely fewer animals” is respectable, ecologically-aware advice that is also consistent with good health. But it is a simplification, and perhaps an oversimplification.
Is there space on a healthy, ecologically sound plate for animal products? Yes, argues Dr. Mark Hyman. It’s a small space, but it’s there.
For example, some kinds of fish are both healthier and more sustainable as a food source than others, same goes for some kinds of dairy products. Poultry, too, can be farmed sustainably in a way that promotes a small self-contained ecosystem—and in terms of health, consumption of poultry appears to be health-neutral at worst.
As this book explores:
- Oftentimes, food choices look like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose one).
- Dr. Hyman shows how in fact, we can have it more like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose two).
- He argues that if more people “vote with their fork”, production will continue to adjust accordingly, and we’ll get: healthy/sustainable/cheap (all three).
To this end, while some parts of the book can feel like they are purely academic (pertaining less to what we can do as individuals, and more on what governments, farming companies, etc can do), it’s good to know what issues we might also take to the ballot box, if we’re able.
The big picture aside, the book remains very strong even just from an individual health perspective, though.
Bottom line: if you have an interest in preserving your own health, and possibly humanity itself, this is an excellent book.
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How Useful Is Hydrotherapy?
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Hyyyyyyydromatic…
Hydrotherapy is a very broad term, and refers to any (external) use of water as part of a physical therapy. Today we’re going to look at some of the top ways this can be beneficial—maybe you’ll know them all already, but maybe there’s something you hadn’t thought about or done decently; let’s find out!
Notwithstanding the vague nature of the umbrella term, some brave researchers have done a lot of work to bring us lots of information about what works and what doesn’t, so we’ll be using this to guide us today. For example:
Scientific Evidence-Based Effects of Hydrotherapy on Various Systems of the Body
Swimming (and similar)
An obvious one, this can for most people be a very good full-body exercise, that’s exactly as strenuous (or not) as you want/need it to be.
It can be cardio, it can be resistance, it can be endurance, it can be high-intensity interval training, it can be mobility work, it can be just support for an aching body that gets to enjoy being in the closest to zero-gravity we can get without being in freefall or in space.
See also: How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Depending on what’s available for you locally (pool with a shallow area, for example), it can also be a place to do some exercises normally performed on land, but with your weight being partially supported (and as a counterpoint, a little resistance added to movement), and no meaningful risk of falling.
Tip: check out your local facilities, to see if they offer water aerobics classes; because the water necessitates slow movement, this can look a lot like tai chi to watch, but it’s great for mobility and balance.
Water circuit therapy
This isn’t circuit training! Rather, it’s a mixture of thermo- and cryotherapy, that is to say, alternating warm and cold water immersion. This can also be interspersed with the use of a sauna, of course.
See also:
- Ice Baths: To Dip Or Not To Dip?
- Saunas: Health Benefits (& Caveats)
- The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)
this last one is about thermal shock-mediated hormesis, which sounds drastic, but it’s what we’re doing here with the hot and cold, and it’s good for most people!
Pain relief
Most of the research for this has to do with childbirth pain rather than, for example, back pain, but the science is promising:
Post-exercise recovery
It can be tempting to sink into a hot bath, or at least enjoy a good hot shower, after strenuous exercise. But does it help recovery too? The answer is probably yes:
Effect of hot water immersion on acute physiological responses following resistance exercise
For more on that (and other means of improving post-exercise recovery), check out our previous main feature:
How To Speed Up Recovery After A Workout (According To Actual Science)
Take care!
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Coconut Milk vs Soy Milk – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing coconut milk to soy milk, we picked the soy.
Why?
First, because there are many kinds of both, let’s be clear which ones we’re comparing. For both, we picked the healthiest options commonly available, which were:
- Soy milk, unsweetened, fortified
- Coconut milk, raw (liquid expressed from grated meat and water)
Macronutrients are our first consideration; coconut milk has about 3x the carbs and about 14x the fat. Now, the fats are famously healthy medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), but still, one cup of coconut milk contains about 2.5x the recommended daily amount of saturated fat, so it’s wise to go easy on that. Coconut milk also has about 4x the fiber, but still, because the saturated fat difference, we’re calling this one a win for soy milk.
In the category of vitamins, the fortified soy milk wins. In case you’re curious: milk in general (animal or plant) is generally fortified with vitamin D (in N. America, anyway; other places may vary), and vitamin B12. In this case, the soy milk has those, plus some natural vitamins, meaning it has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, and D, while coconut milk has more of vitamins B3, B5, and C. A fair win for soy milk.
When it comes to minerals, the only fortification for the soy milk is calcium, of which it has more than 7x what coconut milk has. The coconut milk, however, has more copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. An easy win for coconut milk.
Adding up the sections gives us a win for soy milk—but if consumed in moderation as part of a diet otherwise low in saturated fat, a case could be made for the coconut.
The real take-away here today is not this specific head-to-head but rather: milks (animal or plant) vary a lot, have a lot of different fortifications and/or additives, and yes that goes even for brands (cow milk brands do this a lot) who don’t advertise their additives because their branding is going for a “natural” look. So, read labels, and make informed decisions about which additives you do or don’t want.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
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The Path To Revenue – by Theresa Marcroft
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So many books about start-ups skip right over the elephant in the room: survivorship bias. Not so for Marcroft! This book contains the most comprehensive and unapologetic treatment of it we’ve seen.
Less “here’s what Steve Jobs did right and here’s what Chocolate-Teapots-For-Dogs-R-Us did wrong; don’t mess up that badly and you’ll be fine”… and more realism. Marcroft gives us a many-angled critical analytic approach. In it, she examines why many things can seem similar in both content and presentation… but can cause growth or failure (and how and why), based on more than anecdotes and luck.
The book is information-dense (taking a marketing-centric approach) and/but well-presented in a very readable format.
If we can find any criticism of the book, it’s less about what’s in it and more about what’s not in it. This can never be a “your start-up bible!” book because it’s not comprehensive. It doesn’t cover assembling your team, for example. Nor does it give a lot of attention to management, preferring to focus on strategy.
But no single book can be all things, and we highly recommend this one—the marketing advice alone is more than worth the cost of the book!
Take Your First Step Along The Path To Revenue By Checking It Out On Amazon!
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State of Slim – by Dr. James Hill & Dr. Holly Wyatt
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The premise of this book is “people in Colorado are on average the slimmest in the US”, and sets about establishing why, and then doing what Coloradans are doing. As per the subtitle (drop 20 pounds in 8 weeks), this is a weight loss book and does assume that you want to lose weight—specifically, to lose fat. So if that’s not your goal, you can skip this one already.
The authors explain, as many diet and not-diet-but-diet-adjacent book authors do, that this is not a diet—and then do refer to it as the Colorado Diet throughout. So… Is it a diet?
The answer is a clear “yes, but”—and the caveat is “yes, but also some associated lifestyle practices”.
The diet component is basically a very low-carb diet to start with (with the day’s ration of carbs being a small amount of oats and whatever you can get from some non-starchy vegetables such as greens, tomatoes, etc), and then reintroducing more carbohydrate centric foods one by one, stopping after whole grains. If you are vegan or vegetarian, you can also skip this one already, because this advises eating six animal protein centric meals per day.
The non-diet components are very general healthy-living advices mixed in with popular “diet culture” advices, such as practice mindful eating, don’t eat after 8pm, exercise more, use small plates, enjoy yourself, pre-portion your snacks, don’t drink your calories, get 8 hours sleep, weigh all your food, etc.
Bottom line: this is a very mixed bag, even to the point of being a little chaotic. It gives sometimes contradictory advice, and/but this results in a very “something for everyone” cafeteria approach to dieting. The best recommendation we can give for this book is “it has very many ideas for you to try and see if they work for you”.
Don’t Forget…
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