Oranges vs Lemons – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing oranges to lemons, we picked the oranges.
Why?
In the battle of these popular citrus fruits, there is a clear winner on the nutritional front.
Things were initially promising for lemons when looking at the macros—lemons have a little more fiber while oranges are slightly higher in carbs, but the differences are small and both are very healthy in this regard.
However, alas for this writer who prefers sour fruits to sweet ones (I’m sweet enough already), the micronutrient profiles tell a different story:
In terms of vitamins, oranges have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline. In contrast, lemons have a (very) little more vitamin B6. You might be wondering about vitamin C, since both fruits are famous for that—they’re equal on vitamin C. But, with that stack we listed above, oranges clearly win the vitamin category easily.
As for minerals, oranges boast more calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while lemons have more iron, manganese, and phosphorus.
Technically lemons also have more sodium, but the numbers are truly miniscule (by coincidence, we discover upon grabbing a calculator, you’d need to eat approximately your own bodyweight in whole lemons to get to the RDA of sodium—and that’s to reach the RDA, not the upper healthy limit) so we’ll overlook the tiny sodium difference as irrelevant. Which means, while closer than the vitamins category, oranges win on minerals with a 6:3 lead over lemons.
Both fruits offer generous helpings of flavonoids and other polyphenols such as naringenin and hesperidin, which have anti-inflammatory properties and more specifically can also reduce allergy symptoms (unless, of course, you are allergic to citrus fruits, which is a relatively rare but extant allergy).
In short: as ever, enjoy both; diversity is great for the health. But if you want to maximize the nutrients you get, it’s oranges.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Lemons vs Limes – Which is Healthier?
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Ending Aging – by Dr. Aubrey de Grey
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We know about how to slow aging. We know about diet, exercise, sleep, intermittent fasting, and other lifestyle tweaks to make. But how much can we turn back the clock, according to science?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey’s foundational principle is simple: the body is a biological machine, and aging is fundamentally an engineering problem.
He then outlines the key parts to that problem: the princple ways in which cells (and DNA) get damaged, and what we need to do about that in each case. Car tires get damaged over time; our approach is to replace them within a certain period of time so that they don’t blow out. In the body, it’s a bit similar with cells so that we don’t get cancer, for example.
The book goes into detail regards each of the seven main ways we accumulate this damage, and highlights avenues of research looking to prevent it, and in at least some cases, the measures already available to so.
Bottom line: if you want a hard science overview of actual rejuvenation research in biogerontology, this is a book that presents that comprehensively, without assuming prior knowledge.
Click here to check out Ending Aging and never stop learning!
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The Biggest Cause Of Back Pain
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Will Harlow, specialist over-50s physiotherapist, shares the most common cause (and its remedy) in this video:
The seat of the problem
The issue (for most people, anyway) is not in the back itself, nor the core in general, but rather, in the glutes. That is to say: the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus. They assist in bending forwards (collaborating half-and-half with your back muscles), and help control pelvic alignment while walking.
Sitting for long periods weakens the glutes, causing the back to overcompensate, leading to pain. So, obviously don’t do that, if you can help it. Weak glutes shift the work to your back muscles during bending and walking, increasing strain and—as a result—back pain.
The solution (besides “sit less”) is to do specific exercises to strengthen the glutes. When you do, focus on good form and do not try to push through pain. If the exercises themselves all cause pain, then stop and consult a local physiotherapist to figure out your next step.
With that in mind, the five exercises recommended in this video to strengthen glutes and reduce back pain are:
- Hip abduction (isometric): use a heavy resistance band or belt around legs above the knees, push outwards.
- The clam: lie on your side, bend your knees 90°, and lift your top knee while keeping your body forward. Focus on glute engagement.
- Clam with resistance band: use a light resistance band above your knees and perform the same clam exercise.
- Hip abduction (straight leg): lie on your side, keep legs straight, lift your top leg diagonally backward. Lead with your heel to target your glutes and avoid back strain.
- Hip abduction with resistance band: place a resistance band around your ankles, and lift leg as in the previous exercise.
For more on all these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- 6 Ways To Look After Your Back
- Strong Curves: A Woman’s Guide To Building A Better Butt And Body – by Bret Contreras & Kellie Davis
- How To Stop Pain From Spreading
Take care!
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How To Lower Your Blood Pressure (Cardiologists Explain)
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Today we enjoy the benefit of input from Dr. Zalzal, Dr. Weeing, and Dr. Hefferman!
If the thought of being in an operating room with three cardiologists in scrubs doesn’t raise your blood pressure too much, the doctors in question have a lot to offer for bringing those numbers down and keeping them down! They recommend…
150 mins of Exercise
This isn’t exactly controversial, but: move your body!
See also: Exercise Less; Move More
Reduce salt
Most people eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) are getting far too much—mostly because it’s in so many processed foods already.
See also: How Too Much Salt May Lead To Organ Failure
Eating habits
There’s a lot more to eating healthily for the heart than just reducing salt, and over all, the Mediterranean diet comes out scoring highest:
- What Is The Mediterranean Diet Anyway? ← a primer for the uncertain
- Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean ← includes a heart-specialized version!
Reduce alcohol
According to the WHO, the only healthy amount of alcohol is zero. According to these cardiologists: at the very least cut down. However much or little you’re drinking right now, less is better.
See also: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
Maintain healthy weight
While the doctors agree that BMI isn’t a great method of measuring metabolic health, it is clear that carrying excessive weight isn’t good for the heart.
See also: Lose Weight (Healthily!)
No smoking
This one’s pretty straight forward: just don’t.
See also: Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
Reduce stress
Chronic stress has a big impact on chronic health in general and that includes its effect on blood pressure. So, improving one improves the other.
See also: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
Good sleep
Quality matters as much as quantity, and that goes for its effect on your blood pressure too, so take the time to invest in your good health!
See also: The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
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How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Gentler Hair Health Options
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Hair, Gently
We have previously talked about the medicinal options for combatting the thinning hair that comes with age especially for men, but also for a lot of women. You can read about those medicinal options here:
Hair-Loss Remedies, By Science
We also did a whole supplement spotlight research review for saw palmetto! You can read about how that might help you keep your hair present and correct, here:
One Man’s Saw Palmetto Is Another Woman’s Serenoa Repens
Today we’re going to talk options that are less “heavy guns”, and/but still very useful.
Supplementation
First, the obvious. Taking vitamins and minerals, especially biotin, can help a lot. This writer takes 10,000µg (that’s micrograms, not milligrams!) biotin gummies, similar to this example product on Amazon (except mine also has other vitamins and minerals in, but the exact product doesn’t seem to be available on Amazon).
When thinking “what vitamins and minerals help hair?”, honestly, it’s most of them. So, focus on the ones that count for the most (usually: biotin and zinc), and then cover your bases for the rest with good diet and additional supplementation if you wish.
Caffeine (topical)
It may feel silly, giving one’s hair a stimulant, but topical caffeine application really does work to stimulate hair growth. And not “just a little help”, either:
❝Specifically, 0.2% topical caffeine-based solutions are typically safe with very minimal adverse effects for long-term treatment of AGA, and they are not inferior to topical 5% minoxidil therapy❞
(AGA = Androgenic Alopecia)
Argan oil
As with coconut oil, argan oil is great on hair. It won’t do a thing to improve hair growth or decrease hair shedding, but it will help you hair stay moisturized and thus reduce breakage—thus, may not be relevant for everyone, but for those of us with hair long enough to brush, it’s important.
Bonus: get an argan oil based hair serum that also contains keratin (the protein used to make hair), as this helps strengthen the hair too.
Here’s an example product on Amazon
Silk pillowcases
Or a silk hair bonnet to sleep in! They both do the same thing, which is prevent damaging the hair in one’s sleep by reducing the friction that it may have when moving/turning against the pillow in one’s sleep.
- Pros of the bonnet: if you have lots of hair and a partner in bed with you, your hair need not be in their face, and you also won’t get it caught under you or them.
- Pros of the pillowcase: you don’t have to wear a bonnet
Both are also used widely by people without hair loss issues, but with easily damaged and/or tangled hair—Black people especially with 3C or tighter curls in particular often benefit from this. Other people whose hair is curly and/or gray also stand to gain a lot.
Here are Amazon example products of a silk pillowcase (it’s expensive, but worth it) and a silk bonnet, respectively
Want to read more?
You might like this article:
From straight to curly, thick to thin: here’s how hormones and chemotherapy can change your hair
Take care!
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Watermelon vs Grapes – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing watermelon to grapes, we picked the watermelon.
Why?
It was close! And certainly both are very healthy.
Both fruits are (like most fruits) good sources of water, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Any sugar content (of which grapes are slightly higher) is offset by their fiber content and polyphenols.
See: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
While both are good sources of vitamins A and C, watermelon has about 10x as much vitamin A, and about 6x as much vitamin C (give or take individual plants, how they were grown, etc, but the overall balance is clearly in watermelon’s favor).
When it comes to antioxidants, both fruits are good, but again watermelon is the more potent source. Grapes famously contain resveratrol, and they also contain quercetin, albeit you’d have to eat quite a lot of grapes to get a large portion.
Now, having to eat a lot of grapes might not sound like a terrible fate (who else finds that the grapes are gone by the time the groceries are put away?), but we are comparing the fruits here, and on a list of “100 best foods for quercetin”, for example, grapes took 99th place.
Watermelon’s main antioxidant meanwhile is lycopene, and watermelon is one of the best sources of lycopene in existence (better even than tomatoes).
We’ll have to do a main feature about lycopene sometime soon, so watch this space
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Dark Calories – by Dr. Catherine Shanahan
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You may be wondering: do we really need a 416-page book to say “don’t use vegetable oils”?
The author, who was a biochemist before becoming a family physician, takes a lot of care to explain in ways the non-chemists amongst us can understand (with molecular diagrams very well-labelled), exactly why certain seed/vegetable oils (both of those names being imprecise and unhelpful as umbrella terms) cause metabolic problems for us, when in contrast olive oil, avocado oil, and even peanut oil, do not.
Understanding is, for many, the root foundation of compliance. We are more likely to abide by rules we understand the logic behind, than seemingly arbitrary “thou shalt not…” proclamations.
So that’s an important strength of the book, demystifying various fats and how our body responds to them on a biochemical level, not just “is associated with such-and-such, based on observational population studies”. This kind of explanation clears up why, for example, seed oils correlate with obesity more than calories, sugar, wheat, or beef—having as it does to do with affecting our body’s ability to generate and use energy.
She also offers practical tips/reminders throughout, such as how “organic” does not necessarily mean “healthy” (indeed, many poisonous plants can be grown “organically”), and nor does “organic” mean “unrefined”, it speaks only for the conditions in which the raw product was first made, before other things were done to it later.
We learn a lot, too, about the processes of oxidation, the biochemistry behind that (more diagrams!), and of course the inflammatory response to same (an important factor in most if not all chronic disease).
The style is mostly very easy-to-read pop-science, though if you’re not a chemist, you’ll probably need to slow down for the biochemistry explanations (this reviewer certainly did).
Bottom line: this is more than just a litany against vegetable oils; it’s a ground-upwards education in metabolic biochemistry for the layperson, and what that means for us in terms of chronic disease risks.
Click here to check out Dark Calories, and learn what’s going on with these oils!
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