Power Vegan Meals – by Maya Sozer

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This book has inspired some of the recipes we’ve shared recently—we’ve invariably tweaked and in our opinion improved them, but the recipes are great as written too.

The recipes, of which there are 75, are all vegan, gluten-free, high protein, and high fiber. Some reviewers on Amazon have complained that the recipes are high-calorie, and they often are, but those calories are mostly from healthy fats, so we don’t think it’s a bad thing. Still, if you’re doing a strict calorie-controlled diet, this is probably not the one for you.

Another thing the recipes are is tasty without being unduly complicated, as well as being mostly free from obscure ingredients. This latter is a good thing not because obscure ingredients are inherently bad, but rather that it can be frustrating to read a recipe and find its star ingredient is a cup of perambulatory periannath that must be harvested from the west-facing slopes of Ithilien during a full moon, no substitutions.

The style and format is simple and clear with minimal overture, one recipe per double-page; picture on one side, recipe on the other; perfect for a kitchen reading-stand.

Bottom line: these recipes are for the most part very consistent with what we share here, and we recommend them, unless you’re looking for low-calorie options.

Click here to check out Power Vegan Meals, and power-up your vegan meals!

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  • Every Body Should Know This – by Dr. Federica Amati

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    This book is very much a primer on how to eat healthily. The science is high-quality (the author is the head nutritionist at ZOE) and well-explained, and the advice is reasonable.

    Limitations: this book is not very deep, which we might expect from a book with this title. So, if you’ve been a long-time 10almonds reader, you might not learn a lot here, and this book might make a better gift for someone else.

    In particular, the book may be well-suited for someone who is thinking of having children soon, as there is an unusual amount of focus on fertility and young motherhood—perhaps because the author herself has young children and so was preoccupied with this when writing. For those of us who are definitely not having any more children, the focus on young motherhood is a little superfluous.

    The writing style is very readable pop-science, and nobody who is able to read English is likely to struggle with this one. It’s also quite conversational in parts, as the author discusses her own experiences with implementing the science at hand.

    Bottom line: if you want a good, solid, primer of how to eat well for a lifetime of health, especially if you are (or are thinking of becoming) a young mother, then this is a very good book. Otherwise, it’s probably a better to give it as a gift.

    Click here to check out Every Body Should Know This, and know the things!

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  • The Forgotten Exercise That Could Save Your Health After 50

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    A lot depends on this:

    Your heart is also a “use it or lose it” muscle

    It’s well-known that muscles in general require maintenance (by regular exertion thereof), or they will atrophy and weaken. However, this is not only true of our skeletal muscles (the ones people think about when they say “muscles”), but also muscles like the heart.

    Now, of course, we are all using our heart all the time, every day. One might be tempted to think it’ll be fine. It won’t; the body will not maintain anything beyond necessity. Thus, the prescription here is to regularly get our heart out of “zone 1”, its regular resting rate, which is usually about 50% or so of its maximum rate, and into “zone 2”, in which it beats at 60–70% of its maximum rate.

    To find your maximum rate: as a general rule of thumb, 220 minus your age will usually give a fairly accurate estimate, unless you are unusually fit or unusually unfit.

    Alternatively, if you have a fitness tracker, it can probably give you a number based on actual observation of your heartrate.

    The benefits of doing so, as mentioned in this video:

    • Improves heart health, circulation, and lowers blood pressure.
    • Burns belly fat by using stored fat as energy*
    • Boosts aerobic capacity, making daily activities easier.
    • Enhances insulin sensitivity, mental health, and sleep.
    • Helps manage arthritis, osteoporosis, and high cholesterol.

    *note that this won’t happen in zone 1, and if you spend more than a little time in zone 3, it will happen but your body will do a metabolic slump afterwards to compensate, while doing its best to replenish the fat reserves. So, zone 2 is really the goal for this one, unless you want to do HIIT, which is beyond the scope of today’s article.

    He recommends activities like brisk walking, cycling, or swimming. You don’t have to become a triathlon competitor if you don’t want to, but just pick what you like and do it at a fair pace. If it’s the brisk walking or cycling*, then (unless it’s very hot/humid where you are), if you break a sweat, you probably broke out of zone 2 and into zone 3. Which is fine, but wasn’t what you were aiming for, so it’s a sign you can go a little easier than that if you want.

    *of course the same statement is also true of swimming, but you’ll not notice sweating in a pool 😉

    As for how much and how often, averaging 20 minutes per day is good; if you want to condense that into 40 minutes 2–3 times per week, that’s fine too.

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More

    Take care!

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  • Chickpeas vs Soybeans – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing chickpeas to soybeans, we picked the soybeans.

    Why?

    Both are great! But:

    In terms of macros, chickpeas have more than 3x the carbs and only very slightly more fiber, while soybeans have more than 2x the protein. Given the ratio of carbs to fiber in each, soybeans also have the lower glycemic index, so all in all, we’re calling this a win for soybeans.

    In the category of vitamins, chickpeas have more of vitamins A, B3, B5, and B9, while soybeans have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, K, and choline—another win for soybeans.

    When it comes to minerals, chickpeas have more manganese and zinc, while soybeans have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium—meaning soybeans win yet again.

    Two extra things to know:

    • Chickpeas are naturally high in FODMAPs, which can be problematic for a minority of people—however, canned chickpeas are not.
    • Soybeans are famously high in phytoestrogens, however, the human body cannot actually use these as estrogen (we are not plants and our physiology is different). This means that on the one hand they won’t help against menopause (aside from the ways in which any nutrient-dense food would help), but on the other, they aren’t a cancer risk, and no, they won’t feminize men/boys in the slightest. You/they would be more at risk from beef and dairy, as the cows have usually been given extra estrogen, and those are animal hormones, not plant hormones.

    All in all, chickpeas are a wonderful food, but soybeans beat them by most nutritional metrics.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Why You Can’t Skimp On Amino Acids ← soybeans also have a great amino acid profile!

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

  • 11 Minutes to Pain-Free Hips – by Melinda Wright
  • How to Prepare for Your First Therapy Session

    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.

    Everyone (who ever has therapy, anyway) has a first therapy session. So, how to make best use of that, and get things going most effectively? Dr. Tori Olds has advice:

    Things to prepare

    Questions that you should consider, and prepare answers to beforehand, include:

    • Why are you here? Not in any deep philosophical sense, but, what brought you to therapy?
    • What would you like to focus on? Chances are, you are paying a hefty hourly rate—so having considered this will allow you to get your money’s worth.
    • How will you know when you’ve met your goal? Note that this is really two questions in one, because first you need to identify your goal, and then you need to expand on it. If you woke up tomorrow and all your psychological problems were solved, how would you know? What would be different? What does it look like?

    If you have a little time between now and your first session, journaling can help a lot.

    Remember also that a first therapy session can also be like a mutual interview, to decide whether it’s a good match. Not every therapist is good at their job, and not every therapist will be good for you specifically. Sometimes, a therapist may be a mismatch through no fault of their own. Considering what those reasons might be can also be a good thing to think about in advance, to help find the best therapist for you in fewer tries!

    For most on these ideas, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

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  • The Dopamine Myth

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    The Dopamine Myth

    There’s a popular misconception that, since dopamine is heavily involved in addictions, it’s the cause.

    We see this most often in the context of non-chemical addictions, such as:

    • gambling
    • videogames
    • social media

    And yes, those things will promote dopamine production, and yes, that will feel good. But dopamine isn’t the problem.

    Myth: The Dopamine Detox

    There’s a trend we’ve mentioned before (it got a video segment a few Fridays back) about the idea of a “dopamine detox“, and how unscientific the idea is.

    For a start…

    • You cannot detox from dopamine, because dopamine is not a toxin
    • You cannot abstain from dopamine, because your brain regulates your dopamine levels to keep them correct*
    • If you could abstain from dopamine (and did), you would die, horribly.

    *unless you have a serious mental illness, for example:

    • forms of schizophrenia and/or psychosis that involve too much dopamine, or
    • forms of depression and/or neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s (and several kinds of dementia) in which you have too little dopamine
    • bipolar disorder in which dopamine levels can swing too far each way

    See also: Dopamine fasting: misunderstanding science spawns a maladaptive fad

    Myth: Dopamine is all about pleasure

    Dopamine is a pleasure-giving neurotransmitter, but it serves more purposes than that! It also plays a central role in many neurological processes, including:

    • Motivation
    • Learning and memory
    • Motor functions
    • Language faculties
    • Linear task processing

    Note for example how someone taking dopaminergic drugs (prescription or otherwise; could be anything from modafinil to cocaine) is not blissed out… They’re probably in a good mood, sure, but they’re focused, organized, quick-thinking, and so forth! This is not an ad for cocaine; cocaine is very bad for the health. But you see the features? So, what if we could have a little more dopamine… healthily?

    Dopamine—à la carte

    Let’s look at the examples we gave earlier of non-chemical addictions that are dopaminergic in nature:

    • gambling
    • videogames
    • social media

    They’re not actually that rewarding, are they?

    • Gamblers lose more than they win
    • Gamers cease to care about a game once they have won
    • Social media more often results in “doomscrolling”

    This is because what prompts the most dopamine is actually the anticipation of reward… not the thing itself, whose reward-pleasure is very fleeting. Nobody looks back at an hour of doomscrolling and thinks “well, that was fun; I’m glad I did that”.

    See the science: Liking, Wanting and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction

    But what if we anticipated a reward from things that are not deleterious to health and productivity? Things that are neutral, or even good for us?

    Examples of this include:

    • Sex! (remember though, it’s not a race to the finish-line)
    • Good, nourishing food (bonus: some foods boost dopamine production nutritionally)
    • Exercise/sport (also prompts release of endorphins, win/win!)
    • Gamified learning apps (e.g. Duolingo)
    • Gamified health/productivity apps (anything with bells and whistles and things that go “ding” and measure streaks etc)

    Want to know more?

    That’s all we have time for today, but you might want to check out:

    10 Best Ways to Increase Dopamine Levels Naturally ← Science-based and well-sourced article!

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  • Daily Activity Levels & The Measurable Difference They Make To Brain Health

    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.

    Most studies into the difference that exercise makes to cognitive decline are retrospective, i.e. they look backwards in time, asking participants what their exercise habits were like in the past [so many] years, and tallying that against their cognitive health in the present.

    Some studies are interventional, and those are most often 3, 6, or 12 months, depending on funding. In those cases, they make a hypothesis (e.g. this intervention will boost this measure of brain health) and then test it.

    However, humans aren’t generally great at making short term decisions for long term gains. In other words: if it’s rainy out, or you’re a little pushed for time, you’re likely to take the car over walking regardless of what data point this adjusts in an overarching pattern that will affect your brain’s amyloid-β clean-up rates in 5–20 years time.

    Nine days

    The study we’re going to look at today was a 9-day observational study, using smartphone-based tracking with check-ins every 3½ hours, with participants reporting their physical activity as light, moderate, or intense (these terms were defined and exemplified, so that everyone involved was singing from the same songsheet in terms of what activities constitute what intensity).

    The sample size was reasonable (n=204) and was generally heterogenous sample (i.e. varied in terms of sex, racial background, and fitness level) of New Yorkers aged 40–65.

    So, the input variable was activity level, and the output variable was cognitive fitness.

    As to how they measured the output, two brain games assessed:

    1. cognitive processing speed, and
    2. working memory (a proxy for executive function).

    What they found:

    1. participants active within the last 3½ hours had faster processing speed, equivalent to being four years younger
    2. response times in the working memory (for: executive function) task reflected similar processing speed improvements, for participants active in the last 3½ hours

    And, which is important to note,

    ❝This benefit was observed regardless of whether the activities they reported were higher intensity (e.g., running/jogging) or lower intensity (e.g., walking, chores).❞

    ~ Dr. Lizbeth Benson et al.

    Source: Cognitive Health Benefits of Everyday Physical Activity in a Diverse Sample of Middle-Aged Adults

    Practical take-away:

    Move more often! At least every couple of hours (when not sleeping)!

    The benefits will benefit you in the now, as well as down the line.

    See also:

    The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More

    and, for that matter:

    Do You Love To Go To The Gym? No? Enjoy These “No-Exercise Exercises”!

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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