Rainbow Roasted Potato Salad

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This salad has potatoes in it, but it’s not a potato salad as most people know it. The potatoes are roasted, but in a non-oily-dressing, that nevertheless leaves them with an amazing texture—healthy and delicious; the best of both worlds. And the rest? We’ve got colorful vegetables, we’ve got protein, we’ve got seasonings full of healthy spices, and more.

You will need

  • 1½ lbs new potatoes (or any waxy potatoes; sweet potato is also a great option; don’t peel them, whichever you choose) cut into 1″ chunks
  • 1 can / 1 cup cooked cannellini beans (or your preferred salad beans)
  • 1 carrot, grated
  • 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
  • 3 spring onions, finely chopped
  • ½ small red onion, finely sliced
  • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • ½ tsp red chili powder
  • We didn’t forget salt; it’s just that with the natural sodium content of the potatoes plus the savory flavor-enhancing properties of the nutritional yeast, it’s really not needed here. Add if you feel strongly about it, opting for low-sodium salt, or MSG (which has even less sodium).
  • To serve: 1 cup basil pesto (we’ll do a recipe one of these days; meanwhile, store-bought is fine, or you can use the chermoula we made the other day, ignoring the rest of that day’s recipe and just making the chermoula component)

Method

(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

1) Preheat the oven as hot as it goes!

2) Combine the potatoes, white wine vinegar, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, black pepper, and red chili powder, mixing thoroughly (but gently!) to coat.

3) Spread the potatoes on a baking tray, and roast in the middle of the oven (for best evenness of cooking); because of the small size of the potato chunks, this should only take about 25 minutes (±5mins depending on your oven); it’s good to turn them halfway through, or at least jiggle them if you don’t want to do all that turning.

4) Allow to cool while still on the baking tray (this allows the steam to escape immediately, rather than the steam steaming the other potatoes, as it would if you put them in a bowl).

5) Now put them in a serving bowl, and mix in the beans, vegetables, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice, mixing thoroughly but gently

6) Add generous lashings of the pesto to serve; it should be gently mixed a little too, so that it’s not all on top.

Enjoy!

Want to learn more?

For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

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  • How Not To Get Sick: A Cookbook – by Dr. Benjamin Bikman and Diana Keuilian

    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 previously reviewed Dr. Bikman’s excellent “Why We Get Sick”, and if you haven’t read that yet, we recommend doing so.

    Nevertheless, you don’t need to have read it to benefit from this one, which is about cooking with those learnings (from the other book) in mind.

    Before getting to the recipes, we get a section recapping what we learned previously, as well as adding some more general lifestyle advices beyond the kitchen. The science is also expanded a bit, to include such things as the two-way relationship between insulin and aging, as well as the interplay with other metrics of health, including blood lipids, for example.

    The authors then provide a plan, in the three stages: reverse (insulin resistance), prevent (insulin resistance), maintain (insulin sensitivity).

    The recipes themselves, of which there are 70, are of course tailored to do the above three things; they’re also quite diverse, albeit if you are vegetarian or vegan, you should know in advance that most of these recipes are not.

    Bottom line: if the above doesn’t apply to you, and you would like to improve your insulin sensitivity, this book can indeed help.

    Click here to check out How Not To Get Sick, and stay well!

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  • What Too Much Exercise Does To Your Body And Brain

    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.

    “Get more exercise” is a common rallying-cry for good health, but it is possible to overdo it. And, this is not just a matter of extreme cases of “exercise addiction”, but even going much above certain limits can already result in sabotaging one’s healthy gains. But how, and where does the line get drawn?

    Too Much Of A Good Thing

    The famous 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of intense exercise) is an oft-touted figure. This video, on the other hand, springs for 5 hours of moderate exercise or 2.5 hours intense exercise as a good guideline.

    We’re advised that going over those guidelines doesn’t necessarily increase health benefits, and on the contrary, may reduce or even reverse them. For example, we are told…

    • Light to moderate running reduces the risk of death, but running intensely more than 3 times a week can negate these benefits.
    • Extreme endurance exercises, like ultra-marathons, may cause heart damage, heart rhythm disorders, and artery enlargement.
    • Women who exercise strenuously every day have a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes compared to those who exercise moderately.
    • Excessive exercise in women can lead to the “female athlete triad” (loss of menstruation, osteoporosis, and eating disorders).
    • In men, intense exercise can lower libido due to fatigue and reduced testosterone levels.
    • Both men and women are at increased risk of overuse injuries (e.g., tendinitis, stress fractures) and impaired immunity from excessive exercise.
    • There is a 72-hour window of impaired immunity after intense exercise, increasing the risk of infections.

    Exercise addiction is rare, though, with this video citing “around 1 million people in the US suffer from exercise addiction”.

    For more on finding the right balance, enjoy:

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  • 10 Tips for Better Sleep: Starting In The Morning

    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. Siobhan Deshauer advises:

    Checklist

    You’ll probably have heard similar advice before (including from us), but it’s always good to do a quick rundown and check which ones you are actually doing, as opposed to merely know you should be doing:

    • Wake up at the same time every day, including weekends, to maintain a consistent sleep schedule and avoid “social jet lag.”
    • Expose yourself to bright light in the morning, either sunlight or light therapy, to regulate your circadian rhythm and melatonin production.
    • Avoid caffeine late in the day to maintain natural sleep pressure, experimenting with a cutoff time based on your sensitivity (e.g. 6–10 hours before bedtime)*.
    • Limit naps to under 30 minutes and take them early in the afternoon to avoid disrupting sleep pressure.
    • Exercise regularly but avoid strenuous activity 2 hours before bed. Optimal exercise time is 4–6 hours before bedtime.
    • Avoid alcohol, as it disrupts sleep quality and may worsen conditions like sleep apnea. If drinking, have your last drink early in the evening—but honestly, it’s better to not drink at all.
    • Establish a wind-down routine 1–2 hours before bed, including dimming lights and engaging in relaxing activities to signal your body to prepare for sleep.
    • Keep your bedroom cool (below 68°F/20°C) and ensure your hands and feet stay warm to aid in natural body temperature regulation.
    • Limit device use before bed. If unavoidable, reduce blue light exposure and avoid mentally stimulating content. Set boundaries, such as placing your phone out of reach.
    • Ensure complete darkness in your sleeping environment using blackout curtains, covering light-emitting devices, or wearing a sleep mask.

    *we imagine she picked 6–10 hours because, depending on whether you have the fast or slow caffeine metabolizer gene, the biological halflife of caffeine in your body will be around 4 or 8 hours (that’s not a range, that’s two distinct and non-overlapping options). However, if we use 4 or 8 hours depending on which gene version we have, then that will mean that 4 or 8 hours later, respectively, we’ll have half the caffeine in us that we did 4 or 8 hours ago (that’s what a halflife means). So for example if you had a double espresso that number of hours before bedtime, then congratulations, you have the caffeine of a single espresso in your body by bedtime. Which, for most people**, is not an ideal nightcap. Hence, adding on a few more hours. Again, earlier is better though, so consider limiting caffeine to the morning only.

    **we say “most people”, because if you have ADHD or a similar condition, your brain’s relationship with caffeine is a bit different, and—paradoxically—stimulants can help you to relax. Do speak with your doctor though, as individual cases vary widely, and it also may make a difference depending on what relevant meds (if any) you’re on, too.

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  • How To Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally

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    Cortisol is a hormone that is important for us (we’d struggle to get up in the morning without it, for a start), but in this modern world we often have too much of it, too much of the time. How can we rebalance it? Dr. Mindy Pelz explains:

    Lifestyle adjustments

    A note in advance: the video makes frequent reference to things that “spike cortisol levels”, but this is probably intended as a stand-in for “raise cortisol levels”. Because, unlike for some things, in the case of cortisol, spikes aren’t usually a problem (indeed, they can be beneficial, and this is a large part of why cold showers and ice baths can be healthy; it’s an artificially induced cortisol spike, and this hormesis has an assortment of healthy benefits, each related to improving our body’s ability to switch quickly between states as appropriate); rather, it’s chronically high cortisol levels that are the problem. However, the video discusses things that can increase resting cortisol levels, so where she says “spike”, we suggest to read “raise”.

    Dr. Pelz, an advocate of intermittent fasting, mentions that done incorrectly and/or for the same way for too long, fasting can raise cortisol levels and thus sabotage our efforts—so varying our fasting style can help avoid that. For example, 16:8, 5:2, longer fasts less frequently, etc.

    On the topic of food, she also warns us of the dangers of ultra-processed food, harmful oils, and foods with added sugar, as these can all raise cortisol levels.

    When it comes to exercise, she notes that intense exercise without adequate recovery can raise cortisol levels, so again it’s good to mix up one’s methods, vary one’s exercise routine, and allow each well-worked muscle-group adequate rest afterwards.

    Dr. Pelz also talks mindset, and has her own interesting way of framing the well-established science that chronic stress means chronically high stress hormone (cortisol) levels; Dr. Pelz prefers to see it as negative vs positive thoughts, environments, etc.

    Any discussion of cortisol management would be incomplete without discussing the importance of good quality sleep. Dr. Pelz doesn’t mention this at all in her video, but it’s important to bear in mind too!

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  • Ice Cream vs Fruit Sorbet – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing ice cream to fruit sorbet, we picked the ice cream.

    Why?

    Well, neither are great!

    But the deciding factor is simple: ice cream has more nutrients to go with its sugar.

    While “fruit is good” is a very reliable truism in and of itself, sorbet tends to be made with fruit juice (or at best, purée, which for these purposes is more or less the same) and sugar. The small vitamin content is nowhere near enough to make up for this. The fiber having been removed by juicing or puréeing, the fruit juice with added sugar is basically shooting glucose and fructose into your veins while doing little else.

    Fruit juice (even freshly-pressed) is nowhere near in the same league of healthiness as actual fruit!

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    In short: please do not consider either of these things to be a health food. But if you’re going to choose one or the other (and are not lactose-intolerant), then ice cream has some small positives to go with its negatives.

    Take care!

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  • Amid Wildfire Trauma, L.A. County Dispatches Mental Health Workers to Evacuees

    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.

    PASADENA, Calif. — As Fernando Ramirez drove to work the day after the Eaton Fire erupted, smoke darkened the sky, ash and embers rained onto his windshield, and the air smelled of melting rubber and plastic.

    He pulled to the side of the road and cried at the sight of residents trying to save their homes.

    “I could see people standing on the roof, watering it, trying to protect it from the fire, and they just looked so hopeless,” said Ramirez, a community outreach worker with the Pasadena Public Health Department.

    That evening, the 49-year-old volunteered for a 14-hour shift at the city’s evacuation center, as did colleagues who had also been activated for emergency medical duty. Running on adrenaline and little sleep after finding shelter for homeless people all day, Ramirez spent the night circulating among more than a thousand evacuees, offering wellness checks, companionship, and hope to those who looked distressed.

    Local health departments, such as Ramirez’s, have become a key part of governments’ response to wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather events, which scientists say are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change. The emotional toll of fleeing and possibly losing a home can help cause or exacerbate mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, and substance use, according to health and climate experts.

    Wildfires have become a recurring experience for many Angelenos, making it difficult for people to feel safe in their home or able to go about daily living, said Lisa Wong, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. However, with each extreme weather event, the county has improved its support for evacuees, she said.

    For instance, Wong said the county deployed a team of mental health workers trained to comfort evacuees without retraumatizing them, including by avoiding asking questions likely to bring up painful memories. The department has also learned to better track people’s health needs and redirect those who may find massive evacuation settings uncomfortable to other shelters or interim housing, Wong said. In those first days, the biggest goal is often to reduce people’s anxiety by providing them with information.

    “We’ve learned that right when a crisis happens, people don’t necessarily want to talk about mental health,” said Wong, who staffed the evacuation site Jan. 8 with nine colleagues.

    Instead, she and her team deliver a message of support: “This is really bad right now, but you’re not going to do this alone. We have a whole system set up for recovery too. Once you get past the initial shock of what happened — initial housing needs, medication needs, all those things — then there’s this whole pathway to recovery that we set up.”

    The convention center in downtown Pasadena, which normally hosts home shows, comic cons, and trade shows, was transformed into an evacuation site with hundreds of cots. It was one of at least 13 shelters opened to serve more than 200,000 residents under evacuation orders.

    The January wildfires have burned an estimated 64 square miles — an area larger than the city of Paris — and destroyed at least 12,300 buildings since they started Jan. 7. AccuWeather estimates the region will likely face more than $250 billion in economic losses from the blazes, surpassing the estimates from the state’s record-breaking 2020 wildfire season.

    Lisa Patel, executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, said she’s most concerned about low-income residents, who are less likely to access mental health support.

    “There was a mental health crisis even before the pandemic,” said Patel, who is also a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine, referring to the covid-19 pandemic. “The pandemic made it worse. Now you lace in all of this climate change and these disasters into a health care system that isn’t set up to care for the people that already have mental health illness.”

    Early research suggests exposure to large amounts of wildfire smoke can damage the brain and increase the risk of developing anxiety, she added.

    At the Pasadena Convention Center, Elaine Santiago sat on a cot in a hallway as volunteers pulled wagons loaded with soup, sandwiches, bottled water, and other necessities.

    Santiago said she drew comfort from being at the Pasadena evacuation center, knowing that she wasn’t alone in the tragedy.

    “It sort of gives me a sense of peace at times,” Santiago said. “Maybe that’s weird. We’re all experiencing this together.”

    She had been celebrating her 78th birthday with family when she fled her home in the small city of Sierra Madre, east of Pasadena. As she watched flames whip around her neighborhood, she, along with children and grandkids, scrambled to secure their dogs in crates and grabbed important documents before they left.

    The widower had leaned on her husband in past emergencies, and now she felt lost.

    “I did feel helpless,” Santiago said. “I figured I’m the head of the household; I should know what to do. But I didn’t know.”

    Donny McCullough, who sat on a neighboring green cot draped in a Red Cross blanket, had fled his Pasadena home with his family early on the morning of Jan. 8. Without power at home, the 68-year-old stayed up listening for updates on a battery-powered radio. His eyes remained red from smoke irritation hours later.

    “I had my wife and two daughters, and I was trying not to show fear, so I quietly, inside, was like, ‘Oh my God,’” said McCullough, a music producer and writer. “I’m driving away, looking at the house, wondering if it’s going to be the last time I’m going to see it.”

    He saved his master recording from a seven-year music project, but he left behind his studio with all his other work from a four-decade career in music.

    Not all evacuees arrived with family. Some came searching for loved ones. That’s one of the hardest parts of his shift, Ramirez said. The community outreach worker helped walk people around the building, cot by cot.

    A week in, at least two dozen people had been killed in the wildfires.

    The work takes a toll on disaster relief workers too. Ramirez said many feared losing their homes in the fires and some already had. He attends therapy weekly, which he said helps him manage his emotions.

    At the evacuation center, Ramirez described being on autopilot.

    “Some of us react differently. I tend to go into fight mode,” Ramirez said. “I react. I run towards the fire. I run towards personal service. Then once that passes, that’s when my trauma catches up with me.”

    Need help? Los Angeles County residents in need of support can call the county’s mental health helpline at 1-800-854-7771. The national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 988, is also available for those who’d like to speak with someone confidentially, free of charge.

    This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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