Salt Sugar Fat – by Michael Moss

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You are probably already aware that food giants put unhealthy ingredients in processed food. So what does this book offer of value?

Sometimes, better understanding leads to better movation. In this case, while a common (reasonable) view has been:

“The food giants fill their food with salt, sugar, and fat, because it makes that food irresistibly delicious”

…but that doesn’t exactly put us off the food, does it? It just makes it a guilty pleasure. Ah yes, the irresistible McDouble Dopamineburger. The time-honored tradition of Pizza Night; a happy glow; a special treat.

What Pulitzer-winning author Michael Moss brings to us is different.

He examines not just how they hooked us, but why. And the answer is not merely the obvious “profit and greed”, but also “survival, under capitalism”. That without regulation forcing companies to keep salt/sugar/fat levels down, companies that have tried to do so voluntarily have quickly had to u-turn to regain any hope of competitiveness.

He also looks at how the salt/sugar/fat components are needed to mask the foul taste of the substandard ingredients they use to maintain lower costs… Processed food, without the heavy doses of salt/sugar/fat, is not anywhere close to what you might make at home. Industry will cut costs where it can.

Bottom line: if you need a push to kick the processed food habit, this is the book that will do it.

Click here to check out Salt Sugar Fat, and reclaim your health!

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Recommended

  • Do Breathe – by Michael Williams
  • Pinch of Nom – by Kate Allinson & Kay Allinson
    Home-style, slimming recipes that don’t taste like diet food. Easy to prepare, perfect for entertaining, and full of good ideas. Get cooking with Pinch of Nom!

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  • The Natural Facelift – by Sophie Perry

    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.

    First, what this book isn’t: it’s mostly not about beauty, and it’s certainly not about ageist ideals of “hiding” aging.

    The author herself discusses the privilege that is aging (not everyone gets to do it) and the importance of taking thankful pride in our lived-in bodies.

    The title and blurb belie the contents of the book rather. Doubtlessly the publisher felt that extrinsic beauty would sell better than intrinsic wellbeing. As for what it’s actually more about…

    Ever splashed your face in cold water to feel better? This book’s about revitalising the complex array of facial muscles (there are anatomical diagrams) and the often-tired and very diverse tissues that cover them, complete with the array of nerve endings very close to your CNS (not to mention the vagus nerve running just behind your jaw), and some of the most important blood vessels of your body, serving your brain.

    With all that in mind, this book, full of useful therapeutic techniques, is a very, very far cry from “massage like this and you’ll look like you got photoshopped”.

    The style varies, as some parts of explanation of principles, or anatomy, and others are hands-on (literally) guides to the exercises, but it is all very clear and easy to understand/follow.

    Bottom line: aspects of conventional beauty may be a side-effect of applying the invigorating exercises described in this book. The real beauty is—literally—more than skin-deep.

    Click here to check out The Natural Facelift, and order yours!

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  • Honeydew vs Cantaloupe – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing honeydew to cantaloupe, we picked the cantaloupe.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, there’s not a lot between them—they’re both mostly water. Nominally, honeydew has more carbs while cantaloupe has more fiber and protein, but the differences are very small. So, a very slight win for cantaloupe.

    Looking at vitamins: honeydew has slightly more of vitamins B5 and B6 (so, the vitamins that are in pretty much everything), while cantaloupe has a more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and E (especially notably 67x more vitamin A, whence its color). A more convincing win for cantaloupe.

    The minerals category is even more polarized: honeydew has more selenium (and for what it’s worth, more sodium too, though that’s not usually a plus for most of us in the industrialized world), while cantaloupe has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. An overwhelming win for cantaloupe.

    No surprises: adding up the slight win for cantaloupe, the convincing win for cantaloupe, and the overwhelming win for cantaloupe, makes cantaloupe the overall best pick here.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    Take care!

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  • Meningitis Outbreak

    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.

    Don’t Let Your Guard Down

    In the US, meningitis is currently enjoying a 10-year high, with its highest levels of infection since 2014.

    This is a big deal, given the 10–15% fatality rate of meningitis, even with appropriate medical treatment.

    But of course, not everyone gets appropriate medical treatment, especially because symptoms can become life-threatening in a matter of hours.

    Most recent stats gave an 18% fatality rate for the cases with known outcomes in the last year:

    CDC Emergency | Increase in Invasive Serogroup Y Meningococcal Disease in the United States

    The quick facts:

    ❝Meningococcal disease most often presents as meningitis, with symptoms that may include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, photophobia, or altered mental status.

    [It can also present] as meningococcal bloodstream infection, with symptoms that may include fever and chills, fatigue, vomiting, cold hands and feet, severe aches and pains, rapid breathing, diarrhea, or, in later stages, a dark purple rash.

    While initial symptoms of meningococcal disease can at first be non-specific, they worsen rapidly, and the disease can become life-threatening within hours. Immediate antibiotic treatment for meningococcal disease is critical.

    Survivors may experience long-term effects such as deafness or amputations of the extremities.❞

    ~ Ibid.

    The good news (but still don’t let your guard down)

    Meningococcal bacteria are, happily, not spread as easily as cold and flu viruses.

    The greatest risks come from:

    • Close and enduring proximity (e.g. living together)
    • Oral, or close-to-oral, contact (e.g. kissing, or coughing nearby)

    Read more:

    CDC | Meningococcal Disease: Causes & How It Spreads

    Is there a vaccine?

    There is, but it’s usually only offered to those most at risk, which is usually:

    • Children
    • Immunocompromised people, especially if HIV+
    • People taking certain medications (e.g. Solaris or Ultomiris)

    Read more:

    CDC | Meningococcal Vaccine Recommendations

    Will taking immune-boosting supplements help?

    Honestly, probably not, but they won’t harm either. The most important thing is: don’t rely on them—too many people pop a vitamin C supplement and then assume they are immune to everything, and it doesn’t work like that.

    On a tangential note, for more general immune health, you might also want to check out:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    The short version:

    If you or someone you know experiences the above-mentioned symptoms, even if it does not seem too bad, get thee/them to a doctor, and quickly, because the (very short) clock may be ticking already.

    Better safe than sorry.

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Related Posts

  • Do Breathe – by Michael Williams
  • Chaga Mushrooms’ Immune & Anticancer Potential

    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.

    What Do Chaga Mushrooms Do?

    Chaga mushrooms, which also go by other delightful names including “sterile conk trunk rot” and “black mass”, are a type of fungus that grow on birch trees in cold climates such as Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Europe, and Siberia.

    They’ve enjoyed a long use as a folk remedy in Northern Europe and Siberia, mostly to boost immunity, mostly in the form of a herbal tea.

    Let’s see what the science says…

    Does it boost the immune system?

    It definitely does if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies on humans yet. But for example:

    (cytokines are special proteins that regulate the immune system, and Chaga tells them to tell the body to produce more white blood cells)

    Wait, does that mean it increases inflammation?

    Definitely not if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies on humans yet. But for example:

    Anti-inflammatory things often fight cancer. Does chaga?

    Definitely if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies in human cancer patients yet. But for example:

    Continuous intake of the Chaga mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) aqueous extract suppresses cancer progression and maintains body temperature in mice

    While in vivo human studies are conspicuous by their absence, there have been in vitro human studies, i.e., studies performed on cancerous human cell samples in petri dishes. They are promising:

    I heard it fights diabetes; does it?

    You’ll never see this coming, but: definitely if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any human studies yet. But for example:

    Is it safe?

    Honestly, there simply have been no human safety studies to know for sure, or even to establish an appropriate dosage.

    Its only-partly-understood effects on blood sugar levels and the immune system may make it more complicated for people with diabetes and/or autoimmune disorders, and such people should definitely seek medical advice before taking chaga.

    Additionally, chaga contains a protein that can prevent blood clotting. That might be great by default if you are at risk of blood clots, but not so great if you are already on blood-thinning medication, or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, or are going to have surgery soon.

    As with anything, we’re not doctors, let alone your doctors, so please consult yours before trying chaga.

    Where can we get it?

    We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon.

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Forks Over Knives: Flavor! – by Darshana Thacker

    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.

    It’s important to not have to choose too much between health and flavor, because the outcome will never be a good one, either for your health or your happiness. And what’s bad for your happiness will ultimately not work out and thus will be bad for your general health, so, the question becomes: how to get both?

    This book handles that nicely, delivering plant-based dishes that are also incidentally oil-free, and also either gluten-free or else there’s an obvious easy substitution to make it such. The flavor here comes from the ingredients as a whole, including the main ingredients as well as seasonings.

    On the downside, occasionally those ingredients may be a little obscure if you don’t live in, say, San Francisco, and the ingredients weren’t necessarily chosen for cooking on a budget, either.

    However, in most cases for most people it will, at worse, inspire you to try using an ingredient you don’t usually use—so that’s a good result.

    The recipes are very clear and easy to follow, although not all are illustrated, and the “ready in…” times are about as accurate as they are for any cookbook, that is to say, it’s the time in which it conceivably can be done if (like the author, a head chef) you have a team of sous-chefs who have done a bunch of prep for you (e.g. sweet potato does not normally come in ½” dice; it comes in sweet potatoes) and laid everything out in little bowls mise-en-place style, and also you know the procedure well enough to not have to stop, hesitate, check anything, wash anything, wait for water to boil or anything else to heat up, or so forth. In other words, if you’re on your own in your home kitchen with normal domestic appliances, it’s going to take a little longer than for a professional in a professional kitchen with professional help.

    But don’t let that detract from the honestly very good recipes.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to level-up your plant-based cooking, this will definitely make your dishes that bit better!

    Click here to check out Forks Over Knives: Flavor!, and dig in!

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  • Why is pain so exhausting?

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    One of the most common feelings associated with persisting pain is fatigue and this fatigue can become overwhelming. People with chronic pain can report being drained of energy and motivation to engage with others or the world around them.

    In fact, a study from the United Kingdom on people with long-term health conditions found pain and fatigue are the two biggest barriers to an active and meaningful life.

    But why is long-term pain so exhausting? One clue is the nature of pain and its powerful effect on our thoughts and behaviours.

    simona pilolla 2/Shutterstock

    Short-term pain can protect you

    Modern ways of thinking about pain emphasise its protective effect – the way it grabs your attention and compels you to change your behaviour to keep a body part safe.

    Try this. Slowly pinch your skin. As you increase the pressure, you’ll notice the feeling changes until, at some point, it becomes painful. It is the pain that stops you squeezing harder, right? In this way, pain protects us.

    When we are injured, tissue damage or inflammation makes our pain system become more sensitive. This pain stops us from mechanically loading the damaged tissue while it heals. For instance, the pain of a broken leg or a cut under our foot means we avoid walking on it.

    The concept that “pain protects us and promotes healing” is one of the most important things people who were in chronic pain tell us they learned that helped them recover.

    But long-term pain can overprotect you

    In the short term, pain does a terrific job of protecting us and the longer our pain system is active, the more protective it becomes.

    But persistent pain can overprotect us and prevent recovery. People in pain have called this “pain system hypersensitivity”. Think of this as your pain system being on red alert. And this is where exhaustion comes in.

    When pain becomes a daily experience, triggered or amplified by a widening range of activities, contexts and cues, it becomes a constant drain on one’s resources. Going about life with pain requires substantial and constant effort, and this makes us fatigued.

    About 80% of us are lucky enough to not know what it is like to have pain, day in day out, for months or years. But take a moment to imagine what it would be like.

    Imagine having to concentrate hard, to muster energy and use distraction techniques, just to go about your everyday tasks, let alone to complete work, caring or other duties.

    Whenever you are in pain, you are faced with a choice of whether, and how, to act on it. Constantly making this choice requires thought, effort and strategy.

    Mentioning your pain, or explaining its impact on each moment, task or activity, is also tiring and difficult to get across when no-one else can see or feel your pain. For those who do listen, it can become tedious, draining or worrying.

    Man with back pain in kitchen, shopping on counter
    Concentrating hard, mustering energy and using distraction techniques can make everyday life exhausting. PRPicturesProduction/Shutterstock

    No wonder pain is exhausting

    In chronic pain, it’s not just the pain system on red alert. Increased inflammation throughout the body (the immune system on red alert), disrupted output of the hormone cortisol (the endocrine system on red alert), and stiff and guarded movements (the motor system on red alert) also go hand in hand with chronic pain.

    Each of these adds to fatigue and exhaustion. So learning how to manage and resolve chronic pain often includes learning how to best manage the over-activation of these systems.

    Loss of sleep is also a factor in both fatigue and pain. Pain causes disruptions to sleep, and loss of sleep contributes to pain.

    In other words, chronic pain is seldom “just” pain. No wonder being in long-term pain can become all-consuming and exhausting.

    What actually works?

    People with chronic pain are stigmatised, dismissed and misunderstood, which can lead to them not getting the care they need. Ongoing pain may prevent people working, limit their socialising and impact their relationships. This can lead to a descending spiral of social, personal and economic disadvantage.

    So we need better access to evidence-based care, with high-quality education for people with chronic pain.

    There is good news here though. Modern care for chronic pain, which is grounded in first gaining a modern understanding of the underlying biology of chronic pain, helps.

    The key seems to be recognising, and accepting, that a hypersensitive pain system is a key player in chronic pain. This makes a quick fix highly unlikely but a program of gradual change – perhaps over months or even years – promising.

    Understanding how pain works, how persisting pain becomes overprotective, how our brains and bodies adapt to training, and then learning new skills and strategies to gradually retrain both brain and body, offers scientifically based hope; there’s strong supportive evidence from clinical trials.

    Every bit of support helps

    The best treatments we have for chronic pain take effort, patience, persistence, courage and often a good coach. All that is a pretty overwhelming proposition for someone already exhausted.

    So, if you are in the 80% of the population without chronic pain, spare a thought for what’s required and support your colleague, friend, partner, child or parent as they take on the journey.


    More information about chronic pain is available from Pain Revolution.

    Michael Henry, Physiotherapist and PhD candidate, Body in Mind Research Group, University of South Australia and Lorimer Moseley, Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy, University of South Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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