Egg Noodles vs Soba Noodles – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing egg noodles to soba noodles, we picked the soba.

Why?

First of all, for any unfamiliar, soba noodles are made with buckwheat. Buckwheat, for any unfamiliar, is not wheat and does not contain gluten; it’s just the name of a flowering plant that gets used as though a grain, even though it’s technically not.

In terms of macros, egg noodles have slightly more protein 2x the fat (of which, some cholesterol) while soba noodles have very slightly more carbs and 3x the fiber (and, being plant-based, no cholesterol). Given that the carbs are almost equal, it’s a case of which do we care about more: slightly more protein, or 3x the fiber? We’re going with 3x the fiber, and so are calling this category a win for soba.

In the category of vitamins, egg noodles have more of vitamins A, B12, C, D, E, K, and choline, while soba noodles have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9. That’s a 6:6 tie. One could argue that egg noodles’ vitamins are the ones more likely to be a deficiency in people, but on the other hand, soba noodles’ vitamins have the greater margins of difference. So, still a tie.

When it comes to minerals, egg noodles have more calcium and selenium, while soba noodles have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. So, this one’s not close; it’s an easy win for soba noodles.

Adding up the sections makes for a clear win for soba noodles, but by all means, enjoy moderate portions of either or both (unless you are vegan or allergic to eggs, in which case, skip the egg noodles and just enjoy the soba!).

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Egg Noodles vs Rice Noodles – Which is Healthier?

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  • Green Coffee Bean Extract: Coffee Benefits Without The Coffee?

    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.

    Coffee is, on balance, very good for the health in moderation. We wrote about it here:

    The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)

    Some quick facts before moving on:

    Those are some compelling statistics!

    But what about the caffeine content?

    Assuming one doesn’t have a caffeine sensitivity, caffeine is also healthy in moderation—but it is easy to accidentally become dependent on it, so it can be good to take a “tolerance break” once in a while, and then reintroduce it with more modest moderation:

    Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?

    We also, for that matter, have discussed its impact on the gut:

    Coffee & Your Gut ← surprise, it’s a positive impact

    What if I don’t like coffee?

    We suspect that, having seen the title of this article, you know what the answer’s going to be here:

    Green coffee bean extract is the extract from green (i.e. unroasted) coffee beans. It has one or two advantages over drinking coffee:

    1. For those who do not like drinking coffee, this supplement sidesteps that neatly
    2. Roasting coffee beans destroys a lot (sometimes almost all; it depends on the temperature and duration) of their chlorogenic acid, a highly beneficial polyphenol; using unroasted (i.e. green) coffee beans avoids that

    See: Role of roasting conditions in the level of chlorogenic acid content in coffee beans

    All about GCE and CGA

    That’s “green coffee extract” and “chlorogenic acid”, respectively, bearing in mind that the latter is found generously in the former.

    As to what it does:

    ❝CGA is an important and biologically active dietary polyphenol, playing several important and therapeutic roles such as antioxidant activity, antibacterial, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, neuroprotective, anti-obesity, antiviral, anti-microbial, anti-hypertension, free radicals scavenger and a central nervous system (CNS) stimulator. Furthermore, CGA causes hepatoprotective effects.❞

    👆 Those are the things we know for sure that it does. And it may do even more things:

    ❝In addition, it has been found that CGA could modulate lipid metabolism and glucose in both genetically and healthy metabolic related disorders. It is speculated that CGA can perform crucial roles in lipid and glucose metabolism regulation and thus help to treat many disorders such as hepatic steatosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity as well.❞

    Read in full: Chlorogenic acid (CGA): A pharmacological review and call for further research

    About lipid metabolism

    • Green coffee extract supplementation significantly reduces serum total cholesterol levels.
    • Green coffee extract supplementation significantly reduces serum LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels.
    • Increases in HDL (“good” cholesterol) after green coffee bean extract consumption are significant in green coffee bean extract dosages ≥400mg/day.

    Source: The effects of green coffee bean extract supplementation on lipid profile in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

    About blood glucose and insulin

    • Green coffee extract supplementation significantly improved fasting blood sugar levels
    • Green coffee extract supplementation at ≥400 mg/day significantly lowered postprandial insulin levels (that’s good)

    Source: The influence of green coffee bean extract supplementation on blood glucose levels: A systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

    Want to try some?

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

    Enjoy!

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  • The Natural Facelift – by Sophie Perry

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    First, what this book isn’t: it’s mostly not about beauty, and it’s certainly not about ageist ideals of “hiding” aging.

    The author herself discusses the privilege that is aging (not everyone gets to do it) and the importance of taking thankful pride in our lived-in bodies.

    The title and blurb belie the contents of the book rather. Doubtlessly the publisher felt that extrinsic beauty would sell better than intrinsic wellbeing. As for what it’s actually more about…

    Ever splashed your face in cold water to feel better? This book’s about revitalising the complex array of facial muscles (there are anatomical diagrams) and the often-tired and very diverse tissues that cover them, complete with the array of nerve endings very close to your CNS (not to mention the vagus nerve running just behind your jaw), and some of the most important blood vessels of your body, serving your brain.

    With all that in mind, this book, full of useful therapeutic techniques, is a very, very far cry from “massage like this and you’ll look like you got photoshopped”.

    The style varies, as some parts of explanation of principles, or anatomy, and others are hands-on (literally) guides to the exercises, but it is all very clear and easy to understand/follow.

    Bottom line: aspects of conventional beauty may be a side-effect of applying the invigorating exercises described in this book. The real beauty is—literally—more than skin-deep.

    Click here to check out The Natural Facelift, and order yours!

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  • When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)

    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.

    When knowing what to do isn’t the problem

    Often, we know what we need to do. Sometimes, knowing isn’t the problem!

    The topic today is going to be a technique used by therapeutic service providers to help people to enact positive changes in their lives.

    While this is a necessarily dialectic practice (i.e., it involves a back-and-forth dialogue), it’s still perfectly possible to do it alone, and that’s what we’ll be focussing on in this main feature.

    What is Motivational Interviewing?

    ❝Motivational interviewing (MI) is a technique that has been specifically developed to help motivate ambivalent patients to change their behavior.❞

    Read in full: Motivational Interviewing: An Evidence-Based Approach for Use in Medical Practice

    It’s mostly used for such things as helping people reduce or eliminate substance abuse, or manage their weight, or exercise more, things like that.

    However, it can be employed for any endeavour that requires motivation and sustained willpower to carry it through.

    Three Phases

    Motivational Interviewing traditionally has three phases:

    1. Exploring and understanding the issue at hand
    2. Guiding and deciding importance and goals
    3. Choosing and setting an action plan

    In self-practice, maybe you can already know and understand what it is that you want/need to change.

    If not, consider asking yourself such questions as:

    • What does a good day look like? What does a bad day look like?
    • If things are not good now, when were they good? What changed?
    • If everything were perfect now, what would that look like? How would you know?

    Once you have a clear idea of where you want to be, the next thing to know is: how much do you want it? And how confident are you in attaining it?

    This is a critical process:

    • Give your answers numerically on a scale from 0 to 10
    • Whatever your score, ask yourself why it’s not lower. For example, if you scored your motivation 4 and your confidence 2, what factors made your motivation not a lower number? What factors made your confidence not a lower number?
    • In the unlikely event that you gave yourself a 0, ask whether you can really afford to scrap the goal. If you can’t, find something, anything, to bring it to at least a 1.
    • After you’ve done that, then you can ask yourself the more obvious question of why your numbers aren’t higher. This will help you identify barriers to overcome.

    Now you’re ready to choose what to focus on and how to do it. Don’t bite off more than you can chew; it’s fine to start low and work up. You should revisit this regularly, just like you would if you had a counsellor helping you.

    Some things to ask yourself at this stage of the motivational self-interviewing:

    • What’s a good SMART goal to get you started?
    • What could stop you from achieving your goal?
      • How could you overcome that challenge?
      • What is your backup plan, if you have to scale back your goal for some reason?

    A conceptual example: if your goal is to stick to a whole foods Mediterranean diet, but you are attending a wedding next week, then now is the time to decide in advance 1) what personal lines-in-the-sand you will or will not draw 2) what secondary, backup plan you will make to not go too far off track.

    The same example in practice: wedding menus often offer meat/fish/vegetarian options, so you might choose the fish or vegetarian, and as for sugar and alcohol, you might limit yourself to “a small slice of wedding cake only; coffee/cheese option instead of dessert”, and “alcohol only for toasts”.

    Giving yourself the permission well in advance for small (clearly defined and boundaried!) diversions from the plan, will stop you from falling into the trap of “well, since today’s a cheat-day now…”

    Secret fourth stage

    The secret here is to keep going back and reassessing at regular intervals. Set your own calendar; you might want to start out weekly and then move to monthly when you’re more strongly on-track.

    For this reason, it’s good to keep a journal with your notes from your self-interview sessions, the scores you gave yourself, the goals and plans you set, etc.

    When conducting your regular review, be sure to examine what worked for you, and what didn’t (and why). That way, you can practice trial-and-improvement as you go.

    Want to learn more?

    We only have so much room here, but there are lots of resources out there.

    Here’s a high-quality page that:

    • explains motivational interviewing in more depth than we have room for here
    • offers a lot of free downloadable resource packs and the like

    Check it out: Motivational Interviewing Theory & Resources

    Enjoy!

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  • Canned Tuna vs Canned Sardines – Which is Healthier?
  • Protein Immune Support Salad

    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.

    How to get enough protein from a salad, without adding meat? Cashews and chickpeas have you more than covered! Along with the leafy greens and an impressive array of minor ingredients full of healthy phytochemicals, this one’s good for your muscles, bones, skin, immune health, and more.

    You will need

    • 1½ cups raw cashews (if allergic, omit; the chickpeas and coconut will still carry the dish for protein and healthy fats)
    • 2 cans (2x 14oz) chickpeas, drained
    • 1½ lbs baby spinach leaves
    • 2 large onions, finely chopped
    • 3 oz goji berries
    • ½ bulb garlic, finely chopped
    • 2 tbsp dessicated coconut
    • 1 tbsp dried cumin
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 2 tsp chili flakes
    • 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • ½ tsp MSG, or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil, for cooking

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat a little oil in a pan; add the onions and cook for about 3 minutes.

    2) Add the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.

    3) Add the spinach, and cook until it wilts.

    4) Add the remaining ingredients except the coconut, and cook for another three minutes.

    5) Heat another pan (dry); add the coconut and toast for 1–2 minutes, until lightly golden. Add it to the main pan.

    6) Serve hot as a main, or an attention-grabbing side:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • How Not to Diet – by Dr. Michael Greger

    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’ve talked before about Dr. Greger’s famous “How Not To Die” book, and we love it and recommend it… But… It is, primarily, a large, dry textbook. Full of incredibly good science and information about what is statistically most likely to kill us and how to avoid that… but it’s not the most accessible.

    How Not To Diet“, on the other hand, is a diet book, is very readable, and assumes the reader would simply like to know how to healthily lose weight.

    By focussing on this one problem, rather than the many (admittedly important) mortality risks, the reading is a lot easier and lighter. And, because it’s still Dr. Greger advocating for the same diet, you’ll still get to reduce all those all-cause mortality risks. You won’t be reading about them in this book; it will now just be a happy side effect.

    While in “How Not To Die”, Dr. Greger looked at what was killing people and then tackled those problems, here he’s taken the same approach to just one problem… Obesity.

    So, he looks at what is causing people to be overweight, and methodically tackles those problems.

    We’ll not list them all here—there are many, and this is a book review, not a book summary. But suffice it to say, the work is comprehensive.

    Bottom line: this book methodically and clinically (lots of science!) looks at what makes us overweight… And tackles those problems one by one, giving us a diet optimized for good health and weight loss. If you’d like to shed a few pounds in a healthy, sustainable way (that just happens to significantly reduce mortality risk from other causes too) then this is a great book for you!

    Click here to check out “How Not To Diet” on Amazon and get healthy for life!

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  • Running or yoga can help beat depression, research shows – even if exercise is the last thing you feel like

    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.

    At least one in ten people have depression at some point in their lives, with some estimates closer to one in four. It’s one of the worst things for someone’s wellbeing – worse than debt, divorce or diabetes.

    One in seven Australians take antidepressants. Psychologists are in high demand. Still, only half of people with depression in high-income countries get treatment.

    Our new research shows that exercise should be considered alongside therapy and antidepressants. It can be just as impactful in treating depression as therapy, but it matters what type of exercise you do and how you do it.

    Walk, run, lift, or dance away depression

    We found 218 randomised trials on exercise for depression, with 14,170 participants. We analysed them using a method called a network meta-analysis. This allowed us to see how different types of exercise compared, instead of lumping all types together.

    We found walking, running, strength training, yoga and mixed aerobic exercise were about as effective as cognitive behaviour therapy – one of the gold-standard treatments for depression. The effects of dancing were also powerful. However, this came from analysing just five studies, mostly involving young women. Other exercise types had more evidence to back them.

    Walking, running, strength training, yoga and mixed aerobic exercise seemed more effective than antidepressant medication alone, and were about as effective as exercise alongside antidepressants.

    But of these exercises, people were most likely to stick with strength training and yoga.

    Antidepressants certainly help some people. And of course, anyone getting treatment for depression should talk to their doctor before changing what they are doing.

    Still, our evidence shows that if you have depression, you should get a psychologist and an exercise plan, whether or not you’re taking antidepressants.

    Join a program and go hard (with support)

    Before we analysed the data, we thought people with depression might need to “ease into it” with generic advice, such as “some physical activity is better than doing none.”

    But we found it was far better to have a clear program that aimed to push you, at least a little. Programs with clear structure worked better, compared with those that gave people lots of freedom. Exercising by yourself might also make it hard to set the bar at the right level, given low self-esteem is a symptom of depression.

    We also found it didn’t matter how much people exercised, in terms of sessions or minutes a week. It also didn’t really matter how long the exercise program lasted. What mattered was the intensity of the exercise: the higher the intensity, the better the results.

    Yes, it’s hard to keep motivated

    We should exercise caution in interpreting the findings. Unlike drug trials, participants in exercise trials know which “treatment” they’ve been randomised to receive, so this may skew the results.

    Many people with depression have physical, psychological or social barriers to participating in formal exercise programs. And getting support to exercise isn’t free.

    We also still don’t know the best way to stay motivated to exercise, which can be even harder if you have depression.

    Our study tried to find out whether things like setting exercise goals helped, but we couldn’t get a clear result.

    Other reviews found it’s important to have a clear action plan (for example, putting exercise in your calendar) and to track your progress (for example, using an app or smartwatch). But predicting which of these interventions work is notoriously difficult.

    A 2021 mega-study of more than 60,000 gym-goers found experts struggled to predict which strategies might get people into the gym more often. Even making workouts fun didn’t seem to motivate people. However, listening to audiobooks while exercising helped a lot, which no experts predicted.

    Still, we can be confident that people benefit from personalised support and accountability. The support helps overcome the hurdles they’re sure to hit. The accountability keeps people going even when their brains are telling them to avoid it.

    So, when starting out, it seems wise to avoid going it alone. Instead:

    • join a fitness group or yoga studio
    • get a trainer or an exercise physiologist

    • ask a friend or family member to go for a walk with you.

    Taking a few steps towards getting that support makes it more likely you’ll keep exercising.

    Let’s make this official

    Some countries see exercise as a backup plan for treating depression. For example, the American Psychological Association only conditionally recommends exercise as a “complementary and alternative treatment” when “psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy is either ineffective or unacceptable”.

    Based on our research, this recommendation is withholding a potent treatment from many people who need it.

    In contrast, The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists recommends vigorous aerobic activity at least two to three times a week for all people with depression.

    Given how common depression is, and the number failing to receive care, other countries should follow suit and recommend exercise alongside front-line treatments for depression.

    I would like to acknowledge my colleagues Taren Sanders, Chris Lonsdale and the rest of the coauthors of the paper on which this article is based.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.The Conversation

    Michael Noetel, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, The University of Queensland

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

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