Mocktails – by Moira Clark
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 reviewed books about quitting alcohol before (such as this one), but today’s is not about quitting, so much as about enjoying non-alcoholic drinks; it’s simply a recipe book of zero-alcohol cocktails, or “mocktails”.
What sets this book apart from many of its kind is that every recipe uses only natural and fresh ingredients, rather than finding in the ingredients list some pre-made store-bought component. Instead, because of its “everything from scratch” approach, this means:
- Everything is reliably as healthy as the ingredients you use
- Every recipe’s ingredients can be found easily unless you live in a food desert
Each well-photographed and well-written recipe also comes with a QR code to see a step-by-step video tutorial (or if you get the ebook version, then a direct link as well).
Bottom line: this is the perfect mocktail book to have in (and practice with!) before the summer heat sets in.
Click here to check out Mocktails: A Delicious Collection of Non-Alcoholic Drinks, and get mixing!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Peaceful Kitchen – by Catherine Perez
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 author, a keen cook and Registered Dietician with a Master’s in same, covers the basics of the science of nutrition as relevant to her recipes, but first and foremost this is not a science textbook—it’s a cookbook, and its pages contain more love for the art than citations for the (perfectly respectable) science.
Mexican and Dominican cuisine are the main influences in this book, but there are dishes from around the world too.
The recipes themselves are… Comparable in difficulty to the things we often feature in our recipes section here at 10almonds. They’re probably not winning any restaurants Michelin stars, but they’re not exactly student survival recipes either. They’re made from mostly non-obscure whole foods, nutritionally-dense ingredients at that, with minimal processed foods involved.
That said, she does take a “add, don’t subtract” approach to nutrition, i.e. focussing more on adding in diversity of plants than on “don’t eat this; don’t eat that” mandates.
If there’s any criticism to be levelled at the book, it’s that in most cases we’d multiply the spices severalfold, but that’s not a big problem as readers can always judge that individually; she’s given the basic information of which spices in which proportions, which is the key knowledge.
Bottom line: if you’re looking to expand your plant-based cooking repertoire, this one is a fine choice.
Click here to check out Peaceful Kitchen, and try some new things!
Share This Post
How To Build a Body That Lasts – by Adam Richardson
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.
This book is written on a premise, and that premise is: “your age doesn’t define your mobility; your mobility defines your age”.
To this end, we are treated to 328 pages of why and how to improve our mobility (mostly how; just enough on the “why” to keep the motivation flowing).
Importantly, Richardson doesn’t expect that every reader is a regular gym-bunny or about to become one, doesn’t expect you to have several times your bodyweight in iron to life at home, and doesn’t expect that you’ll be doing the vertical splits against a wall any time soon.
Rather, he expects that we’d like to not dislocate a shoulder while putting the groceries away, would like to not slip a disk while being greeted by the neighbor’s dog, and would like to not need a 7-step plan for putting our socks on.
What follows is a guide to “on the good end of normal” mobility that is sustainable for life. The idea is that you might not be winning Olympic gymnastics gold medals in your 90s, but you will be able to get in and out of a car door as comfortably as you did when you were 20, for example.
Bottom line: if you want to be a superathlete, then you might need something more than this book; if you want to be on the healthy end of average when it comes to mobility, and maintain that for the rest of your life, then this is the book for you.
Click here to check out How To Build A Body That Lasts, and build a body that lasts!
Share This Post
Resistance Beyond Weights
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.
Resistance, Your Way
We’ve talked before about the importance of resistance training:
Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
And we’ve even talked about how to make resistance training more effective:
(High Intensity Interval Training, but make it High Intensity Resistance Training)
Which resistance training exercises are best?
There are two reasonable correct answers here:
- The resistance training exercises that you will actually do (because it’s no good knowing the best exercise ever if you’re not going to do it because it is in some way offputting to you)
- The resistance training exercises that will prevent you from getting a broken bone in the event of some accident or incident
This latter is interesting, because when people think resistance training, the usually immediate go-to exercises are often things like the bench press, or the chest machine in the gym.
But ask yourself: how often do we hear about some friend or relative who in their old age has broken their humerus?
It can happen, for sure, but it’s not as often as breaking a hip, a tarsal (ankle bones), or a carpal (wrist bones).
So, how can we train to make those bones strong?
Strong bones grow under strong muscles
When archaeologists dig up a skeleton from a thousand years ago, one of the occupations that’s easy to recognize is an archer. Why?
An archer has an unusual frequent exercise: pushing with their left arm while pulling with their right arm. This will strengthen different muscles on each side, and thus, increase bone density in different places on each arm. The left first metacarpal and right first and second metacarpals and phalanges are also a giveaway.
This is because: one cannot grow strong muscles on weak bones (or else the muscles would just break the bones), so training muscles will force the body to strengthen the relevant bones.
So: if you want strong bones, train the muscles attached to those bones
This answers the question of “how am I supposed to exercise my hips” etc.
Weights, bodyweight, resistance bands
If you go to the gym, there’s a machine for everything, and a member of gym staff will be able to advise which of their machines will strengthen which muscles.
If you train with free weights at home:
- Wrist curls (forearm supported and stationary, lifting a dumbbell in your hand, palm-upwards) will strengthen the wrist
- The farmer’s walk (carrying a heavy weight in each hand) will also strengthen your wrist
- A modified version of this involves holding the weight with just your fingertips, and then raising and lowering it by curling and uncurling your fingers)
- Lateral leg raises (you will need ankle-weights for this) will strengthen your ankles and your hips, as will hip abductions (as in today’s featured video), especially with a weight attached.
- Ankle raises (going up on your tip-toes and down again, repeat) while holding weights in your hands will strengthen your ankles
If you don’t like weights:
- Press-ups will strengthen your wrists
- Fingertip press-ups are even better: to do these, do your press-ups as normal, except that the only parts of your hands in contact with the ground are your fingertips
- This same exercise can be done the other way around, by doing pull-ups
- And that same “even better” works by doing pull-ups, but holding the bar only with one’s fingertips, and curling one’s fingers to raise oneself up
- Lateral leg raises and hip abductions can be done with a resistance band instead of with weights. The great thing about these is that whereas weights are a fixed weight, resistance bands will always provide the right amount of resistance (because if it’s too easy, you just raise your leg further until it becomes difficult again, since the resistance offered is proportional to how much tension the band is under).
Remember, resistance training is still resistance training even if “all” you’re resisting is gravity!
If it fells like work, then it’s working
As for the rest of preparing to get older?
Check out:
Training Mobility Ready For Later Life
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
General Tso’s Chickpeas
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 fiber-rich, heart-healthy take on a classic:
You will need
- 1 can chickpeas, drained
- ¾ cup vegetable stock; ideally you made this yourself from vegetable cuttings that you kept in the freezer for this purpose, but failing that, you should be able to get low-sodium stock cubes at your local supermarket.
- ¼ cup arrowroot starch (cornstarch will do at a pinch, but arrowroot is better and has no flavor of its own)
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- 2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
- ¼ bulb garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp honey (or maple syrup if you prefer, and if you don’t like sweetness, reduce this to 1 tbsp or even omit entirely, though it won’t be quite so “General Tso” if you do, but it’s your meal!)
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp hot sauce
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 3 green onions, sliced
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Coat the chickpeas in the arrowroot starch by tossing them together in a bowl
2) Heat the coconut oil in a skillet on a medium-high heat, and when hot, add the chickpeas, stirring for 3 minutes
3) Add the remaining ingredients in the order we gave (except the vegetable stock, which goes in last), stirring for 5 more minutes, or until the sauce thickens
4) Serve with the carb of your choice; we recommend our Tasty Versatile Rice Recipe
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure
- Honey vs Maple Syrup – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Black Beans vs Soy Beans – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing black beans to soy beans, we picked the soy.
Why?
Quite some heavyweights competing here today, as both have been the winners of other comparisons!
Comparing these two’s macros first, black beans have 3x the carbs and slightly more fiber, while soy has more than 2x the protein. We’ll call this a win for soy.
As a tangential note, it’s worth remembering also that soy is a complete protein (contains a full set of the amino acids we need), whereas black beans… Well, technically they are too, but in practicality, they only have much smaller amounts of some amino acids.
In terms of vitamins, black beans have more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B9, and E, while soy beans have more of vitamins A, B2, B6, C, K, and choline. A marginal win for soy here.
In the category of minerals, however, it isn’t close: black beans are not higher in any minerals, while soy beans are higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. An overwhelming win for soy.
It should be noted, however, that black beans are still very good for minerals! They just look bad when standing next to soy, that’s all.
So, enjoy either or both, but for nutritional density, soy wins the day.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Food and exercise can treat depression as well as a psychologist, our study found. And it’s cheaper
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.
Around 3.2 million Australians live with depression.
At the same time, few Australians meet recommended dietary or physical activity guidelines. What has one got to do with the other?
Our world-first trial, published this week, shows improving diet and doing more physical activity can be as effective as therapy with a psychologist for treating low-grade depression.
Previous studies (including our own) have found “lifestyle” therapies are effective for depression. But they have never been directly compared with psychological therapies – until now.
Amid a nation-wide shortage of mental health professionals, our research points to a potential solution. As we found lifestyle counselling was as effective as psychological therapy, our findings suggest dietitians and exercise physiologists may one day play a role in managing depression.
Alexander Raths/shutterstock What did our study measure?
During the prolonged COVID lockdowns, Victorians’ distress levels were high and widespread. Face-to-face mental health services were limited.
Our trial targeted people living in Victoria with elevated distress, meaning at least mild depression but not necessarily a diagnosed mental disorder. Typical symptoms included feeling down, hopeless, irritable or tearful.
We partnered with our local mental health service to recruit 182 adults and provided group-based sessions on Zoom. All participants took part in up to six sessions over eight weeks, facilitated by health professionals.
Half were randomly assigned to participate in a program co-facilitated by an accredited practising dietitian and an exercise physiologist. That group – called the lifestyle program – developed nutrition and movement goals:
Lifestyle therapy aims to improve diet. Jonathan Borba/Pexels - eating a wide variety of foods
- choosing high-fibre plant foods
- including high quality fats
- limiting discretionary foods, such as those high in saturated fats and added sugars
- doing enjoyable physical activity.
The second group took part in psychotherapy sessions convened by two psychologists. The psychotherapy program used cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the gold standard for treating depression in groups and when delivered remotely.
In both groups, participants could continue existing treatments (such as taking antidepressant medication). We gave both groups workbooks and hampers. The lifestyle group received a food hamper, while the psychotherapy group received items such as a colouring book, stress ball and head massager.
Lifestyle therapies just as effective
We found similar results in each program.
At the trial’s beginning we gave each participant a score based on their self-reported mental health. We measured them again at the end of the program.
Over eight weeks, those scores showed symptoms of depression reduced for participants in the lifestyle program (42%) and the psychotherapy program (37%). That difference was not statistically or clinically meaningful so we could conclude both treatments were as good as each other.
There were some differences between groups. People in the lifestyle program improved their diet, while those in the psychotherapy program felt they had increased their social support – meaning how connected they felt to other people – compared to at the start of the treatment.
Participants in both programs increased their physical activity. While this was expected for those in the lifestyle program, it was less expected for those in the psychotherapy program. It may be because they knew they were enrolled in a research study about lifestyle and subconsciously changed their activity patterns, or it could be a positive by-product of doing psychotherapy.
People in both groups reported doing more physical activity. fongbeerredhot/Shutterstock There was also not much difference in cost. The lifestyle program was slightly cheaper to deliver: A$482 per participant, versus $503 for psychotherapy. That’s because hourly rates differ between dietitians and exercise physiologists, and psychologists.
What does this mean for mental health workforce shortages?
Demand for mental health services is increasing in Australia, while at the same time the workforce faces worsening nation-wide shortages.
Psychologists, who provide about half of all mental health services, can have long wait times. Our results suggest that, with the appropriate training and guidelines, allied health professionals who specialise in diet and exercise could help address this gap.
Lifestyle therapies can be combined with psychology sessions for multi-disciplinary care. But diet and exercise therapies could prove particularly effective for those on waitlists to see a psychologists, who may be receiving no other professional support while they wait.
Many dietitians and exercise physiologists already have advanced skills and expertise in motivating behaviour change. Most accredited practising dietitians are trained in managing eating disorders or gastrointestinal conditions, which commonly overlap with depression.
There is also a cost argument. It is overall cheaper to train a dietitian ($153,039) than a psychologist ($189,063) – and it takes less time.
Potential barriers
Australians with chronic conditions (such as diabetes) can access subsidised dietitian and exercise physiologist appointments under various Medicare treatment plans. Those with eating disorders can also access subsidised dietitian appointments. But mental health care plans for people with depression do not support subsidised sessions with dietitians or exercise physiologists, despite peak bodies urging them to do so.
Increased training, upskilling and Medicare subsidies would be needed to support dietitians and exercise physiologists to be involved in treating mental health issues.
Our training and clinical guidelines are intended to help clinicians practising lifestyle-based mental health care within their scope of practice (activities a health care provider can undertake).
Future directions
Our trial took place during COVID lockdowns and examined people with at least mild symptoms of depression who did not necessarily have a mental disorder. We are seeking to replicate these findings and are now running a study open to Australians with mental health conditions such as major depression or bipolar disorder.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Adrienne O’Neil, Professor, Food & Mood Centre, Deakin University and Sophie Mahoney, Associate Research Fellow, Food and Mood Centre, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
