Fruit & Veg In The Fridge: Pros & Cons
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
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
❝What effect does refrigeration have on the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables??❞
It’s difficult to give a single definitive answer, because naturally there are a lot of different fruits and vegetables, and a lot of different climates. The answer may be different for tomatoes in Alaska vs bananas in Arizona!
However, we can still generalize at least somewhat
Refrigeration will generally slow down any degradation process, and in the case of fruit and vegetables, that can mean slowing down their “ripening” too, as applicable.
However…
Refrigeration will also impede helpful bioactivity too, and that includes quite a list of things.
Here’s a good study that’s quite illustrative; we’d summarize the conclusions but the rather long title already does that nicely:
So, this really is a case of “there are pros and cons, but probably more cons on balance”.
In practical terms, a good take-away from this can be twofold:
- don’t keep fruit and veg in the fridge unless the ambient temperature really requires it
- if the ambient temperature does require it, it’s best to get the produce in fresh each day if that’s feasible, to minimize time spent in the fridge
An extra thing not included there: often when it comes to the spoilage of fruit and veg, the problem is that it respires and oxidizes; reducing the temperature does lower the rate of those, but often a far better way is to remove the oxygen. So for example, if you get carried away and chop too many carrot batons for your hummus night, then putting them in a sealed container can go a long way to keeping them fresh.
See also: How Does the Nutritional Value of Fruits and Vegetables Change Over Time?
Enjoy!
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The Off-Button For Your Brain
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The Off-Button For Your Brain
We evolved our emotions for our own benefit as a species. Even the “negative” ones:
- Stress keeps us safe by making sure we take important situations seriously
- Anger keeps us safe by protecting us from threats
- Disgust keeps us safe by helping us to avoid things that might cause disease
- Anxiety keeps us safe by ensuring we don’t get complacent
- Guilt keeps us safe by ensuring we can function as a community
- Sadness keeps us safe by ensuring we value things that are important to us, and learn to become averse to losing them
- …and so on
But that’s not always useful. What was once a very good response to a common source of fear (for example, a sabre-toothed tiger) is no longer a helpful response to a modern source of fear (for example, an important interview).
Sometimes it’s good to take the time and energy to process our feelings and the event(s) that prompted those feelings. Sometimes, we don’t have that luxury.
For example, if you are stressed about your workload? Then staying awake half the night thinking about it is only going to make your problems worse the next day.
So, how to switch that off, or at least put a pause on it?
The human mind tends to have a “negative bias”, evolved for our own protection. If something is “good enough”, we don’t need to worry about it, so we move on to the next thing, until we find something that is a problem, then we dwell on that. That’s not always helpful, and the good news is, there’s a way to flip the switch on this process:
Identifying the positive, and releasing the rest
This exercise can be done when you’re trying to sleep, or at any time you need a calmer, quieter mind.
Take a moment to notice whatever you’re experiencing.
If it’s something that feels good, or neutral, identify it with a single word. For example:
- Warmth
- Soft
- Security
- Smile
- Peace
If it’s something that feels bad, then instead of identifying it, simply say (or think) to yourself “release”.
You can’t fight bad feelings with force, and you can’t “just not think about them”, but you can dismiss them as soon as they arrive and move onto the next thing. So where your train of thought may previously have been:
It’s good to be in bed ➔ I have eight hours to sleep before my meeting ➔ Have I done everything I was supposed to? ➔ I hope that what I’ve done is good enough ➔ [Mentally rehearsing how the meeting might go] ➔ [various disaster preparations] ➔ What am I even going to wear? ➔ Ugh I forgot to do the laundry ➔ That reminds the electricity bill is due ➔ Etc
Now your train of thought may be more like:
Relief ➔ Rest ➔ But my meeti—release ➔ If I—release ➔ soft ➔ comfort ➔ release ➔ pillow ➔ smile ➔ release ➔ [and before you know it you’re asleep]
And if you do this in a situation where you’re not going to sleep? Same process, just a more wakeful result, for example, let’s move the scene to an office where your meeting will shortly take place:
Five minutes to go ➔ What a day ➔ Ok, I’d better clear my head a bit ➔ release ➔ release ➔ breath ➔ light ➔ chair ➔ what if—release ➔ prepared ➔ ready ➔ calm ➔ [and before you know it you’re impressing your work associate with your calm preparedness]
In summary:
If you need to stop a train of thought, this method may help. Especially if you’re in a situation where you can’t use some external distraction to keep you from thinking about the bad thing!
You’re probably still going to have to deal with the Bad Thing™ at some point—you’ve just recognized that now isn’t the time for that. Mentally postpone that so that you will be well-rested when you choose to deal with the Bad Thing™ later at your convenience.
So remember: identify the positive (with a single word), and anything else, just release.
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How To Gain Weight (Healthily!)
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What Do You Have To Gain?
We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:
- Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
- Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)
- Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)
There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.
Here’s our first article: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
While some people will want to lose fat, please do be aware that the association between weight loss and good health is not nearly so strong as the weight loss industry would have you believe:
And, while BMI is not a useful measure of health in general, it’s worth noting that over the age of 65, a BMI of 27 (which is in the high end of “overweight”, without being obese) is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality:
BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis
Here was our second article: How To Build Muscle (Healthily!)
And now, it’s time for the last part, which yes, is also something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.
How to gain fat, healthily
Fat gets a bad press, but when it comes to health, we would die without it.
Even in the case of having excess fat, the fat itself is not generally the problem, so much as comorbid metabolic issues that are often caused by the same things as the excess fat.
So, how to gain fat healthily?
- Obvious but potentially dangerously misleading answer: “in moderation”
- More useful answer: “carefully”
Because, you can “in moderation” put on less than one pound per week for a few years and be in very bad health by the end of it. So how does this “carefully” work any differently to “in moderation”?
The key is in how we store the fat
Not merely where we store it (though that’ll follow from the “how”), but specifically: how we store it.
- When we consume energy from food in excess of our immediate survival needs, our body stores what it can. This is good!
- When our body is receiving energy from food faster than it can physically process it to store it healthily, it will start shoving it wherever it can instead. This is bad!
This is the physiological equivalent of the difference between tidying a room carefully, and cramming everything into one cupboard in 30 seconds just to get it out of sight.
So, you do need to consume calories yes, but you need to consume them in a way your body can take its time about storing them.
We’ve written before about the science of this, so we’ll share some links to that in a moment, but first, here are the practical tips:
- Do not drink your calories. Drinking calories tends to be the equivalent of injecting sugars directly into your veins, in terms of how quickly it gets received.
- See also: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver ← this is highly relevant, because the same process that results in unhealthy weight gain, results in liver disease, by the same mechanism (the liver gets overwhelmed).
- Eat your greens. No, they won’t provide many calories, but they are critical to your body not being overwhelmed by the arrival of sugars.
- See also: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars ← the other 9 things are also helpful for not putting on fat unhealthily, so using these alongside a calorie-dense diet can result in healthy fat gain as needed
- Get more of your calories from fats than carbs. Fats will not overwhelm your body’s glycemic response in the same way that carbs will.
- Again this is about getting calories while not getting metabolic disease. See also: How To Prevent And Reverse Type Two Diabetes as the advice is the same for that, for the same reason!
- Consider going low-carb, but even if you choose not to, go for carbs with a low glycemic index instead of a high glycemic index.
- For reference, see: Glycemic Index Chart: Glycemic index and glycemic load ratings for 500+ foods
- Need healthy fats in a snack? Enjoy nuts (unless you have an allergy); they will be your best friend in this regard. As an example, a mere 1oz portion of cashew nuts has 157 calories.
- See also: Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
- Need health fats for cooking? Enjoy olive oil, as it has one of the healthiest lipids profiles available, and is a great way to increase the calorific content of many meals.
Lastly…
Be patient, enjoy your food, and stick as best you can to the above considerations. All strength to you.
Take care!
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Healthy Brain, Happy Life – by Dr. Wendy Suzuki
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We talked about Dr. Wendy Suzuki’s research in the category of exercise and brain-benefits in our main feature the other day. But she has more to say than we can fit into an article!
This book chronicles her discoveries, through her work in memory and neuroplasticity, to her discoveries about exercise, and her dive into broader neurology-based mental health. So what does neurology-based mental health look like?
The answer is: mitigating brain-busters such as stress and anxiety, revitalizing a fatigued brain, boosting creativity, and other such benefits.
Does she argue that exercise is a cure-all? No, not quite. Sometimes there are other things she’s recommending (such as in her chapter on challenging the neurobiology of the stress response, or her chapter on meditation and the brain).
The writing style is mostly casual, interspersed with occasional mini-lectures (complete with diagrams and other illustrations), and is very readable and informative throughout.
Bottom line: if you’d like the more in-depth details of Dr. Suzuki’s work, this book is a very accessible way to get 320 pages of that!
Click here to check out Healthy Brain, Happy Life, and give yours the best!
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Retrain Your Brain – by Dr. Seth Gillihan
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15-Minute Arabic”, “Sharpen Your Chess Tactics in 24 Hours”, “Change Your Life in 7 Days”, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 weeks”—all real books from this reviewer’s shelves.
The thing with books with these sorts of time periods in the titles is that the time period in the title often bears little relation to how long it takes to get through the book. So what’s the case here?
You’ll probably get through it in more like 7 days, but the pacing is more important than the pace. By that we mean:
Dr. Gillihan starts by assuming the reader is at best “in a rut”, and needs to first pick a direction to head in (the first “week”) and then start getting one’s life on track (the second “week”).
He then gives us, one by one, an array of tools and power-ups to do increasingly better. These tools aren’t just CBT, though of course that features prominently. There’s also mindfulness exercises, and holistic / somatic therapy too, for a real “bringing it all together” feel.
And that’s where this book excels—at no point is the reader left adrift with potential stumbling-blocks left unexamined. It’s a “whole course”.
Bottom line: whether it takes you 7 hours or 7 months, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks” is a CBT-and-more course for people who like courses to work through. It’ll get you where you’re going… Wherever you want that to be for you!
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5 Minute Posture Improvement Routine!
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McKay Lang walks us through it:
Step by Step
Breathing exercise:
- Place your hands on your lower abdomen.
- Take three deep breaths, focusing on body tension in the shoulders and neck… And release.
Shoulder squeeze:
- With your hands on your hips, inhale and squeeze your shoulders upwards.
- Hold your breath for 3–4 seconds, then exhale.
- Repeat two more times, holding the squeeze a little longer each time.
Upper shoulder massage:
- Massage your upper shoulder muscles to release tension stored there.
Overhead arm stretch:
- Raise your arms above your head, clasping each elbow with the opposite hand.
- Inhale deeply, stretch upwards, then exhale and release.
- Repeat, alternating elbows.
Neck and head push:
- Place your palms on the back of the head, and push your head into your hands (and vice versa, because of Newton’s Third Law of Motion).
- Do the same sideways (one side and then the other), to engage the other neck muscles.
Cool down:
- Gently unclasp your hands, bring your head upright, and massage your muscles. And breathe.
For variations and a visual demonstration of all, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
6 Ways To Look After Your Back
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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Finish What You Start – by Peter Hollins
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For some people, getting started is the problem. For others of us, getting started is the easy part! We just need a little help not dropping things we started.
There are summaries at the starts and ends of sections, and many “quick tips” to get you back on track.
As a taster: one of these is “temptation bundling“, combining unpleasant things with pleasant. A kind of “spoonful of sugar” approach.
Hollins also discusses hyperbolic discounting (the way we tend to value rewards according to how near they are, and procrastinate accordingly). He offers a tool to overcome this, too, the “10–10–10 rule“.
Also dealt with is “the preparation trap“, and how to know when you have enough information to press on.
For a lot of us, the places we’re most likely to drop a project is 20% in (initial enthusiasm wore off) or 80% in (“it’s nearly done; no need to worry about it”). Those are the times when the advices in this book can be particularly handy!
All in all, a great book for seeing a lot of things to completion.
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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