Mango vs Guava – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing mango to guava, we picked the guava.

Why?

Looking at macros first, these two fruits are about equal on carbs (nominally mango has more, but it’s by a truly tiny margin), while guava has more than 3x the protein and more than 3x the fiber. A clear win for guava.

In terms of vitamins, mango has more of vitamins A, E, and K, while guava has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B7, B9, and C. Another win for guava.

In the category of minerals, mango is not higher in any minerals, while guava is higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.

In short, enjoy both; both are healthy. But if you’re choosing one, there’s a clear winner here, and it’s guava.

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?

Take care!

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  • Sauerkraut vs Pickled Cucumber – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing sauerkraut to pickled cucumber, we picked the sauerkraut.

    Why?

    Both of these fermented foods can give a gut-healthy microbiome boost, but how do they stack up otherwise?

    In terms of macros, sauerkraut has more protein, carbs, and fiber. They are both low glycemic index foods, so we’ll go with the one that has more fiber out of the two, and that’s the ‘kraut.

    In the category of vitamins, sauerkraut has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and choline, while pickled cucumbers have more of vitamins A and K. An easy win for sauerkraut.

    When it comes to minerals, sauerkraut has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while pickled cucumbers are not higher in any mineral, except sodium (on average, pickled cucumbers have about 2x the sodium of sauerkraut). Another clear win for sauerkraut.

    In short, enjoy either or both in moderation, but it’s clear which boasts the most nutritional benefits, and that’s the sauerkraut!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Make Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Don’t Do *This* If You’re Over 50 (And Want Better Sleep)

    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.

    Dr. Michael Breus, sleep specialist, explains:

    Don’t make these mistakes

    Dr. Breus recommends avoiding…

    1. Misusing magnesium: magnesium is a helpful sleep aid but must be carefully monitored. Recommended doses are 250mg for women and 300–350 mg for men, with slight adjustments for hot climates or active lifestyles. Overdosing can cause stomach issues, diarrhea, and dehydration, disrupting sleep. He recommends starting with magnesium glycinate for fewer stomach issues, and later mix with magnesium citrate. Always check supplements to avoid excessive magnesium intake.
    2. Misusing melatonin: melatonin production declines after age 55–60, making low-dose supplementation (0.5–1 mg) beneficial. He recommends, however, avoiding high doses (3–10mg), and he recommends to take it 90 minutes before bedtime. Melatonin interacts with some medications (including some meds for blood pressure or depression), so consult a pharmacist before use to avoid risks like serotonin syndrome.
    3. Going to bed too early: going to bed too early disrupts circadian rhythms and reduces sleep drive, causing earlier waking. Now, being an “early bird” is a generally healthy thing, but if you’re already getting up at 5am, say, you probably want your schedule to not continue to creep further forwards until you become nocturnal. Set a consistent wake-up time and count 7.5 hours backward (plus a set time to fall asleep, e.g. 20 minutes, but you’ll know what it is for you) to determine bedtime.
    4. Excessive caffeine consumption: from the heading, it may seem like a no-brainer, but older adults metabolize caffeine 33% slower on average, prolonging its effects. Dr. Breus recommends to reduce intake with “caffeine fading,” switching to half-caffeinated coffee for a while and then considering transitioning to decaf. He also suggests enjoying increasingly lower-caffeine teas, like black tea in the morning, matcha in the afternoon, and herbal tea at night to reduce caffeine’s impact on sleep.
    5. Falling foul of serotonin: avoid taking 5-HTP supplements with SSRI antidepressants like Prozac or Zoloft due to the risk of serotonin syndrome.
    6. Consider checking for physical problems: if you regularly wake up tired and/or groggy (despite having ostensibly had enough sleep, and there not being a pharmaceutical explanation for your grogginess), consider screening for sleep apnea. Home sleep tests are a convenient way to identify and treat this common but often undiagnosed condition.

    For more on each of these, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like:

    How to Fall Asleep Faster: CBT-Insomnia Treatment

    Take care!

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  • Hazelnuts vs Chestnuts – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing hazelnuts to chestnuts, we picked the hazelnuts.

    Why?

    This one’s not close.

    In terms of macros, we have some big difference to start with, since chestnuts contain a lot more water and carbs whereas hazelnuts contain a lot more protein, fats, and fiber. The fats, as with most nuts, are healthy; in this case mostly being monounsaturated fat.

    Because of the carbs and fiber being so polarized (i.e., chestnuts have most of the carbs and hazelnuts have most of the fiber), there’s a big difference in glycemic index; hazelnuts have a GI of 15 while chestnuts have a GI of 52.

    In the category of vitamins, hazelnuts contain more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9, while chestnuts contain more vitamin C.

    When it comes to minerals, the story is similar: hazelnuts contain a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc, while chestnuts contain a tiny bit more potassium.

    All in all, enjoy either or both, but nutritionally speaking, hazelnuts are a lot better in almost every way.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Carrots vs Red Cabbage – Which is Healthier?
  • What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?

    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 speak often about the importance of dietary diversity, and of that, especially diversity of plants in one’s diet, but we’ve never really focused on it as a main feature, so that’s what we’re going to do today.

    Specifically, you may have heard the advice to “eat 30 different kinds of plants per week”. But where does that come from, and is it just a number out of a hat?

    The magic number?

    It is not, in fact, a number out of a hat. It’s from a big (n=11,336) study into what things affect the gut microbiome for better or for worse. It was an observational population study, championing “citizen science” in which volunteers tracked various things and collected and sent in various samples for analysis.

    The most significant finding of this study was that those who consumed more than 30 different kinds of plants per week, had a much better gut microbiome than those who consumed fewer than 10 different kinds of plants per week (there is a bell curve at play, and it gets steep around 10 and 30):

    American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research

    Why do I care about having a good gut microbiome?

    Gut health affects almost every other kind of health; it’s been called “the second brain” for the various neurotransmitters and other hormones it directly makes or indirectly regulates (which in turn affect every part of your body), and of course there is the vagus nerve connecting it directly to the brain, impacting everything from food cravings to mood swings to sleep habits.

    See also:

    Any other benefits?

    Yes there are! Let’s not forget: as we see often in our “This or That” section, different foods can be strong or weak in different areas of nutrition, so unless we want to whip out a calculator and database every time we make food choices, a good way to cover everything is to simply eat a diverse diet.

    And that goes not just for vitamins and minerals (which would be true of animal products also), but in the case of plants, a wide range of health-giving phytochemicals too:

    Measuring Dietary Botanical Diversity as a Proxy for Phytochemical Exposure

    Ok, I’m sold, but 30 is a lot!

    It is, but you don’t have to do all 30 in your first week of focusing on this, if you’re not already accustomed to such diversity. You can add in one or two new ones each time you go shopping, and build it up.

    As for “what counts”: we’re counting unprocessed or minimally-processed plants. So for example, an apple is an apple, as are dried apple slices, as is apple sauce. Any or all of those would count as 1 plant type.

    Note also that we’re counting types, not totals. If you’re having apple slices with apple sauce, for some reason? That still only counts as 1.

    However, while apple sauce still counts as apples (minimally processed), you cannot eat a cake and say “that’s 2 because there was wheat and sugar cane somewhere in its dim and distant history”.

    Nor is your morning espresso a fruit (by virtue of coffee beans being the fruit of the plant, botanically speaking). However, it would count as 1 plant type if you eat actual coffee beans—this writer has been known to snack on such; they’re only healthy in very small portions though, because their saturated fat content is a little high.

    You, however, count grains in general, as well as nuts and seeds, not just fruits and vegetables. As for herbs and spices, they count for ¼ each, except for salt, which might get lumped in with spices but is of course not a plant.

    How to do it

    There’s a reason we’re doing this in our Saturday Life Hacks edition. Here are some tips for getting in far more plants than you might think, a lot more easily than you might think:

    • Buy things ready-mixed. This means buying the frozen mixed veg, the frozen mixed chopped fruit, the mixed nuts, the mixed salad greens etc. This way, when you’re reaching for one pack of something, you’re getting 3–5 different plants instead of one.
    • Buy things individually, and mix them for storage. This is a more customized version of the above, but in the case of things that keep for at least a while, it can make lazy options a lot more plentiful. Suddenly, instead of rice with your salad you’re having sorghum, millet, buckwheat, and quinoa. This trick also works great for dried berries that can just be tipped into one’s morning oatmeal. Or, you know, millet, oats, rye, and barley. Suddenly, instead of 1 or 2 plants for breakfast you have maybe 7 or 8.
    • Keep a well-stocked pantry of shelf-stable items. This is good practice anyway, in case of another supply-lines shutdown like at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But for plant diversity, it means that if you’re making enchiladas, then instead using kidney beans because that’s what’s in the cupboard, you can raid your pantry for kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, fava beans, etc etc. Yes, all of them; that’s a list, not a menu.
    • Shop in the discount section of the supermarket. You don’t have shop exclusively there, but swing by that area, see what plants are available for next to nothing, and buy at least one of each. Figure out what to do with it later, but the point here is that it’s a good way to get suggestions of plants that you weren’t actively looking for—and novelty is invariably a step into diversity.
    • Shop in a different store. You won’t be able to beeline the products you want on autopilot, so you’ll see other things on the way. Also, they may have things your usual store doesn’t.
    • Shop in person, not online—at least as often as is practical. This is because when shopping for groceries online, the store will tend to prioritize showing you items you’ve bought before, or similar items to those (i.e. actually the same item, just a different brand). Not good for trying new things!
    • Consider a meal kit delivery service. Because unlike online grocery shopping, this kind of delivery service will (usually) provide you with things you wouldn’t normally buy. Our sometimes-sponsor Purple Carrot is a fine option for this, but there are plenty of others too.
    • Try new recipes, especially if they have plants you don’t normally use. Make a note of the recipe, and go out of your way to get the ingredients; if it seems like a chore, reframe it as a little adventure instead. Honestly, it’s things like this that keep us young in more ways than just what polyphenols can do!
    • Hide the plants. Whether or not you like them; hide them just because it works in culinary terms. By this we mean; blend beans into that meaty sauce; thicken the soup with red lentils, blend cauliflower into the gravy. And so on.

    One more “magic 30”, while we’re at it…

    30g fiber per day makes a big (positive) difference to many aspects of health. Obviously, plants are where that comes from, so there’s a big degree of overlap here, but most of the tips we gave are different, so for double the effectiveness, check out:

    Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)

    Enjoy!

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  • How To Leverage Placebo Effect For Yourself

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    Placebo Effect: Making Things Work Since… Well, A Very Long Time Ago

    The placebo effect is a well-known, well-evidenced factor that is very relevant when it comes to the testing and implementation of medical treatments:

    NIH | National Center for Biotechnology Information | Placebo Effect

    Some things that make placebo effect stronger include:

    • Larger pills instead of small ones: because there’s got to be more going on in there, right?
    • Thematically-colored pills: e.g. red for stimulant effects, blue for relaxing effects
    • Things that seem expensive: e.g. a well-made large heavy machine, over a cheap-looking flimsy plastic device. Similarly, medication from a small glass jar with a childproof lock, rather than popped out from a cheap blister-pack.
    • Things that seem rational: if there’s an explanation for how it works that you understand and find rational, or at least you believe you understand and find rational ← this works in advertising, too; if there’s a “because”, it lands better almost regardless of what follows the word “because”
    • Things delivered confidently by a professional: this is similar to the “argument from authority” fallacy (whereby a proposed authority will be more likely trusted, even if this is not their area of expertise at all, e.g. celebrity endorsements), but in the case of placebo trials, this often looks like a well-dressed middle-aged or older man with an expensive haircut calling for a young confident-looking aide in a lab coat to administer the medicine, and is received better than a slightly frazzled academic saying “and, uh, this one’s yours” while handing you a pill.
    • Things with ritual attached: this can be related to the above (the more pomp and circumstance is given to the administration of the treatment, the better), but it can also be as simple as an instruction on an at-home-trial medication saying “take 20 minutes before bed”. Because, if it weren’t important, they wouldn’t bother to specify that, right? So it must be important!

    And now for a quick personality test

    Did you see the above as a list of dastardly tricks to watch out for, or did you see the above as a list of things that can make your actual medication more effective?

    It’s arguably both, of course, but the latter more optimistic view is a lot more useful than the former more pessimistic one.

    Since placebo effect works at least somewhat even when you know about it, there is nothing to stop you from leveraging it for your own benefit when taking medication or doing health-related things.

    Next time you take your meds or supplements or similar, pause for a moment for each one to remember what it is and what it will be doing for you. This is a lot like the principles (which are physiological as well as psychological) of mindful eating, by the way:

    How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

    Placebo makes some surprising things evidence-based

    We’ve addressed placebo effect sometimes as part of an assessment of a given alternative therapy, often in our “Mythbusting Friday” edition of 10almonds.

    • In some cases, placebo is adjuvant to the therapy, i.e. it is one of multiple mechanisms of action (example: chiropractic or acupuncture)
    • In some cases, placebo is the only known mechanism of action (example: homeopathy)
    • In some cases, even placebo can’t help (example: ear candling)

    One other fascinating and far-reaching (in a potentially good way) thing that placebo makes evidence-based is: prayer

    …which is particularly interesting for something that is fundamentally faith-based, i.e. the opposite of evidence-based.

    Now, we’re a health science publication, not a theological publication, so we’ll consider actual divine intervention to be beyond the scope of mechanisms of action we can examine, but there’s been a lot of research done into the extent to which prayer is beneficial as a therapy, what things it may be beneficial for, and what factors affect whether it helps:

    Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials

    👆 full paper here, and it is very worthwhile reading if you have time, whether or not you are religious personally

    Placebo works best when there’s a clear possibility for psychosomatic effect

    We’ve mentioned before, and we’ll mention again:

    • psychosomatic effect does not mean: “imagining it”
    • psychosomatic effect means: “your brain regulates almost everything else in your body, directly or indirectly, including your autonomic functions, and especially notably when it comes to illness, your immune responses”

    So, a placebo might well heal your rash or even shrink a tumor, but it probably won’t regrow a missing limb, for instance.

    And, this is important: it’s not about how credible/miraculous the outcome will be!

    Rather, it is because we have existing pre-programmed internal bodily processes for healing rashes and shrinking tumors, that just need to be activated—whereas we don’t have existing pre-programmed internal bodily processes for regrowing a missing limb, so that’s not something our brain can just tell our body to do.

    So for this reason, in terms of what placebo can and can’t do:

    • Get rid of cancer? Yes, sometimes—because the body has a process for doing that; enjoy your remission
    • Fix a broken nail? No—because the body has no process for doing that; you’ll just have to cut it and wait for it to grow again

    With that in mind, what will you use the not-so-mystical powers of placebo for? What ever you go for… Enjoy, and take care!

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  • The Fast-Mimicking Diet

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    Live, Fast, Live Long

    This is Dr. Valter Longo. He’s a biogerontologist and cell biologist, whose work has focused on fasting and nutrient response genes, and how we can leverage them against diseases and aging in general.

    We reviewed his book recently:

    The Longevity Diet: Discover The New Science To Slow Aging, Fight Disease, And Manage Your Weight – by Dr. Valter Longo

    What does he want us to know?

    What to eat

    Dr. Longo recommends a mostly plant-based diet (especially vegetables, whole grains, and legumes), but also having some fish. The bulk of our dietary fats, however, he says are best coming from olive oil and nuts.

    He also advises aiming for nutritional density of vitamins and minerals in our diet, and/but supplementing with a multivitamin once every few days to cover any gaps.

    If in doubt choosing between plant-based whole foods, he recommends that we choose those our ancestors will have eaten.

    Read more: Longevity Diet For Adults

    When to eat

    Dr. Longo recommends time-restricted eating within a 12-hour window per day.

    See also: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype

    However, he also recommends (additionally or separately; it’s up to us; additionally is better but the point is it still has excellent benefits separately too) his “fast-mimicking diet” (FMD), which involves eating according to what we said in “What to eat”, but restricting it to 750 kcal per day, 5 days in a row, but not necessarily 5 days per week.

    For example, the following was a 3-month study that involved doing this for only one 5-day cycle per month:

    ❝Three FMD cycles reduced body weight, trunk, and total body fat; lowered blood pressure; and decreased insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). No serious adverse effects were reported.

    A post hoc analysis of subjects from both FMD arms showed that body mass index, blood pressure, fasting glucose, IGF-1, triglycerides, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and C-reactive protein were more beneficially affected in participants at risk for disease than in subjects who were not at risk.

    Thus, cycles of a 5-day FMD are safe, feasible, and effective in reducing markers/risk factors for aging and age-related diseases.❞

    ~ Dr. Min Wei et al. ← Dr. Longo was

    Note: the introduction mentions FMD in mice, but this is just referencing previous studies. This study is about FMD in humans!

    Read in full: Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease

    Want to know more?

    You might like this (text-based) interview with Dr. Longo, with the Health Sciences Academy:

    Eat, fast and live longer? Interview with Professor Valter Longo

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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