South Indian-Style Chickpea & Mango Salad
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We have a double-dose of chickpeas today, but with all the other ingredients, this dish is anything but boring. Fun fact about chickpeas though: they’re rich in sitosterol, a plant sterol that, true to its name, sits on cholesterol absorption sites, reducing the amount of dietary cholesterol absorbed. If you are vegan, this will make no difference to you because your diet does not contain cholesterol, but for everyone else, this is a nice extra bonus!
You will need
- 1 can white chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 can black chickpeas (kala chana), drained and rinsed
- 9 oz fresh mango, diced (or canned is fine if that’s what’s available)
- 1½ oz ginger, peeled and grated
- 2 green chilis, finely chopped (adjust per heat preferences)
- 2 tbsp desiccated coconut (or 3 oz grated coconut, if you have it fresh)
- 8 curry leaves (dried is fine if that’s what’s available)
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Juice of 1 lime
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat some oil in a skillet over a medium heat. When it’s hot but not smoking, add the ginger, chilis, curry leaves, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds, stirring well to combine, keep going until the mustard seeds start popping.
2) Add the chickpeas (both kinds), as well as the black pepper and the MSG/salt. Once they’re warm through, take it off the heat.
3) Add the mango, coconut, and lime juice, mixing thoroughly.
4) Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
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What Happens In Your Brain When You Can’t Recall A Word
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Dr. Cella Wright explains:
Tip-of-the-tongue
“Tip-of-the-tongue” is a temporary retrieval glitch where you feel you know the word but can’t pull it up, even though its meaning and associations are partly accessible.
What’s happening: alongside normal word-retrieval activity, the conflict-detecting anterior cingulate becomes active, generating the familiar sense of frustration and near-recall.
Why it’s happening: while the word retrieval moves from meaning → associations → sound, the “sound” step seems most vulnerable to slipping, making the final step of recall stall. Note that if you’re trying to write it, the process is just the same, except that there’s a four step (spelling) that you also never get to because of not passing the “sound” step
This happens more with some words than others; proper nouns, infrequently used words, and abstract or less-visual terms—like “idiosyncrasy” or “revelation”—are most likely to trigger the state.
Further, related (but incorrect) words can act as blocking distractors, such as remembering “Dorothy” instead of “Judy Garland”, derailing your retrieval pathway.
Fun fact: this is one thing where multilingual people are at a disadvantage, a change from the usual “multilingualism has only benefits except in early years whereby it has the tradeoff of slowing the path to speech”. Multilingual speakers experience more tip-of-the-tongue states, likely because words from one language interfere with retrieval in another, especially during language switching.
Writer’s anecdote: I definitely have this often, with sometimes a word coming to me in a whole bunch of languages, just not the one I need!
You might be wondering about the extent to which this correlates with age, and yes, frequency does increase with age, but this can be for good reasons as well as bad, i.e. while it can potentially be due to cognitive decline in speech-related regions, it can also be a matter of simply knowing more words. And while there is theoretically no known limit to how much information can be stored in the brain, and in fact more items means more connections and therefore often greater ease of access, the fact remains that more connections also means more opportunity to errantly go off-piste.
For more on all of this plus a bonus tip for how to get unstuck, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)
Take care!
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The Real Magic Number For Daily Fruit/Veg
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’s the magic number when it comes to daily fruit/veg? Is it the famous 5-a-day? Is it 7, as championed in Japan? More?
In fact, the most important number is…
Drumroll please…
One.
Specifically, “one additional fruit/veg per day”.
More specifically: setting a goal of “one additional fruit/veg per day” resulted (when put to the test in studies) in a greater overall consumption of fruit and vegetables, than goals that seemed larger, such as “5 per day”.
The studies
Researchers Dr. Katherine Appleton and Dr. Zara Borgonha did a series of studies, and discovered the following:
- Study 1 found a “sweet spot”—moderate effort led to the biggest gains in intake of fruits and vegetables; extreme effort was less effective.
- Study 2 showed greater improvements with “Eat 1 more…” goals compared to “Eat this many” goals.
- Study 3 found that goal-promoting posters increased fruit and vegetable sales in university cafeterias by about 10%, but the effect was short-lived and unaffected by achievability or relevance.
So, for our purposes here at 10almonds, the first two studies are of the most relevance, unless you want to put up a goal-promoting poster on your fridge and enjoy a short-lived boost to fruit and veg purchases in your shopping.
You can read about the studies themselves, here:”
That “or perceived to be easier” is interesting, too, because in fact, eating 5 fruit/veg per day is really not a lot. If you’re vegan, that’s probably covered by breakfast. For others, hopefully it’s covered by the end of lunchtime. But really, if you are at all health conscious and do not have a conflicting chronic health condition that makes eating fruit and veg more troublesome (such as IBS, which is generally predicted by a diet low in fiber, considered to be a risk factor for developing it, later makes consuming a lot of fiber-rich foods more of a challenge), then for most people, eating a meagre 5 fruit/veg per day is not a lot.
And yet, if you hadn’t been counting (like many of the students who were participants in the study), it’d probably seem like you have to go out of your way to get them, and count them up over the course of the day.
In contrast, “just one more”? Well, that’s just one more. That’s easy, that’s “I added a handful of dried fruit to my breakfast”.
And of course, the best thing about “one more” is that it will continue to be “one more”, and unlike “5 a day” which will rapidly max out at the humble total of five, “one more” will continue to include one more fruit/veg until one is eating a deliciously varied diet of many plants.
Some other magic numbers you should know
While we’re talking fruit and veg and magic numbers…
The recommended amount of fiber per day is 25–40g, depending on advisory body (different organizations give different numbers), and yet, the average American gets only 16g per day.
So: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
Further, it is recommended (as a result of a truly huge study into gut health) to consume 30 different kinds of plants per week.
That might sound like a lot, but it’s very achievable; check out this book we reviewed previously:
How to Eat 30 Plants a Week – by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Enjoy!
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Fixing Fascia
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Fascia: Why (And How) You Should Take Care Of Yours
Fascia is the web-like layer of connective tissue that divides your muscles and organs from each other. It simultaneously holds some stuff in place, and allows other parts to glide over each other with minimal friction.
At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
Like any body part, it can go wrong. More on this later. But first…
A quick note on terms
It may seem like sometimes people say “myofascial” because it sounds fancier, but it does actually have a specific meaning too:
- “Fascia” is what we just described above
- “Myofascial” means “of or relating to muscles and fascia”
For example, “myofascial release” means “stopping the fascia from sticking to the muscle where it shouldn’t” and “myofascial pain” means “pain that has to do with the muscles and fascia”. See also:
Myofascial vs Fascia: When To Use Each One? What To Consider
Why fascia is so ignored
For millennia, it was mostly disregarded as a “neither this nor that” tissue that just happens to be in the body. We didn’t pay attention to it, just like we mostly don’t pay attention to the air around us.
But, much like the air around us, we sure pay attention when something goes wrong with it!
However, even in more recent years, we’ve been held back until quite new developments like musculoskeletal ultrasound that could show us problems with the fascia.
What can go wrong
It’s supposed to be strong, thin, supple, and slippery. It holds on in the necessary places like a spiderweb, but for the most part, it is evolved for minimum friction.
Some things can cause it to thicken and become sticky in the wrong places. Things such as:
- Physical trauma, e.g. an injury or surgery—but we repeat ourselves, because a surgery is an injury! It’s a (usually) necessary injury, but an injury nonetheless.
- Compensation for pain. If a body part hurts for some reason, and your posture changes to accommodate that, doing so can mess up your fascia, and cause you different problems somewhere else entirely.
- This is not witchcraft; think of how, when using a corded vacuum cleaner, sometimes the cord can get snagged on something in the next room and we nearly break something because we expected it to just come with us and it didn’t? It’s like that.
- Repetitive movements (repetitive strain injury is partly a myofascial issue)
- Not enough movement: when it comes to range of motion, it’s “use it or lose it”.
- The human body tries its best to be as efficient as possible for us! So eventually it will go “Hey, I notice you never move more than 30º in this direction, so I’m going to stop making fascia that allows you to go past that point, and I’ll just dump the materials here instead”
“I’ll just dump the materials here instead” is also part of the problem—it creates what we colloquially call “knots”, which are not so much part of the muscle as the fascia that covers it. That’s an actual physical sticky lumpy bit.
What to do about it
Firstly, avoid the above things! But, if for whatever reason something has gone wrong and you now have sticky lumpy fascia that doesn’t let you move the way you’d like (if you have any mobility/flexibility issues that aren’t for another known reason, then this is usually it), there are things can be done:
- Heat—is definitely not a cure-all, but it’s a good first step before doing the other things. A heating pad or a warm bath are great.
- Here’s an example of a neck+back+shoulders heating pad; you can get them for different body parts, or just use an electric blanket!
- Massage—ideally, by someone else who knows what they are doing. Self-massage is possible, as is teaching oneself (there are plenty of video tutorials available), but skilled professional therapeutic myofascial release massage is the gold standard.
- Foam rollers are a great no-skill way to get going with self-massage, whether because that’s what’s available to you, or because you just want something you can do between sessions. Here’s an example of the kind we mean.
- Acupuncture—triggering localized muscular relaxation, an important part of myofascial release, is something acupuncture is good at.
- See also: Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture ← noteworthily, the strongest criticism of acupuncture for pain relief is that it performs only slightly better than sham acupuncture, but taken in practical terms, all that really means is “sticking little needles in does work, even if not necessarily by the mechanism acupuncturists believe”
- Calisthenics—Pilates, yoga, and other forms of body movement training can help gradually get one’s fascia to where and how it’s supposed to be.
- This is that “use it or lose it” bodily efficiency we talked about!
Remember, the body is always rebuilding itself. It never stops, until you die. So on any given day, you get to choose whether it rebuilds itself a little bit worse or a little bit better.
Take care!
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Our ‘food environments’ affect what we eat. Here’s how you can change yours to support healthier eating
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.
In January, many people are setting new year’s resolutions around healthy eating. Achieving these is often challenging – it can be difficult to change our eating habits. But healthy diets can enhance physical and mental health, so improving what we eat is a worthwhile goal.
One reason it’s difficult to change our eating habits relates to our “food environments”. This term describes:
The collective physical, economic, policy and sociocultural surroundings, opportunities and conditions that influence people’s food and beverage choices and nutritional status.
Our current food environments are designed in ways that often make it easier to choose unhealthy foods than healthy ones. But it’s possible to change certain aspects of our personal food environments, making eating healthier a little easier.
Unhealthy food environments
It’s not difficult to find fast-food restaurants in Australian cities. Meanwhile, there are junk foods at supermarket checkouts, service stations and sporting venues. Takeaway and packaged foods and drinks routinely come in large portion sizes and are often considered tastier than healthy options.
Our food environments also provide us with various prompts to eat unhealthy foods via the media and advertising, alongside health and nutrition claims and appealing marketing images on food packaging.
At the supermarket, unhealthy foods are often promoted through prominent displays and price discounts.
We’re also exposed to various situations in our everyday lives that can make healthy eating challenging. For example, social occasions or work functions might see large amounts of unhealthy food on offer.
Not everyone is affected in the same way
People differ in the degree to which their food consumption is influenced by their food environments.
This can be due to biological factors (for example, genetics and hormones), psychological characteristics (such as decision making processes or personality traits) and prior experiences with food (for example, learned associations between foods and particular situations or emotions).
People who are more susceptible will likely eat more and eat more unhealthy foods than those who are more immune to the effects of food environments and situations.
Those who are more susceptible may pay greater attention to food cues such as advertisements and cooking smells, and feel a stronger desire to eat when exposed to these cues. Meanwhile, they may pay less attention to internal cues signalling hunger and fullness. These differences are due to a combination of biological and psychological characteristics.
These people might also be more likely to experience physiological reactions to food cues including changes in heart rate and increased salivation.
It’s common to eat junk food in front of the TV.
PR Image Factory/ShutterstockOther situational cues can also prompt eating for some people, depending on what they’ve learned about eating. Some of us tend to eat when we’re tired or in a bad mood, having learned over time eating provides comfort in these situations.
Other people will tend to eat in situations such as in the car during the commute home from work (possibly passing multiple fast-food outlets along the way), or at certain times of day such as after dinner, or when others around them are eating, having learned associations between these situations and eating.
Being in front of a TV or other screen can also prompt people to eat, eat unhealthy foods, or eat more than intended.
Making changes
While it’s not possible to change wider food environments or individual characteristics that affect susceptibility to food cues, you can try to tune into how and when you’re affected by food cues. Then you can restructure some aspects of your personal food environments, which can help if you’re working towards healthier eating goals.
Although both meals and snacks are important for overall diet quality, snacks are often unplanned, which means food environments and situations may have a greater impact on what we snack on.
Foods consumed as snacks are often sugary drinks, confectionery, chips and cakes. However, snacks can also be healthy (for example, fruits, nuts and seeds).
Try removing unhealthy foods, particularly packaged snacks, from the house, or not buying them in the first place. This means temptations are removed, which can be especially helpful for those who may be more susceptible to their food environment.
Planning social events around non-food activities can help reduce social influences on eating. For example, why not catch up with friends for a walk instead of lunch at a fast-food restaurant.
Creating certain rules and habits can reduce cues for eating. For example, not eating at your desk, in the car, or in front of the TV will, over time, lessen the effects of these situations as cues for eating.
You could also try keeping a food diary to identify what moods and emotions trigger eating. Once you’ve identified these triggers, develop a plan to help break these habits. Strategies may include doing another activity you enjoy such as going for a short walk or listening to music – anything that can help manage the mood or emotion where you would have typically reached for the fridge.
Write (and stick to) a grocery list and avoid shopping for food when hungry. Plan and prepare meals and snacks ahead of time so eating decisions are made in advance of situations where you might feel especially hungry or tired or be influenced by your food environment.
Georgie Russell, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University and Rebecca Leech, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Younger For Life – by Dr. Anthony Youn
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We’ve reviewed anti-aging books before, so what makes this one different? Mostly, it’s the very practical focus.
Which is not to say there’s not also good science in here; there is. But the focus is on what everything means for the reader, not what happened with a certain cohort of lab mice. Instead, he looks at the causes of aging, the process of aging, and what interventions to implement to address those, and reverse many of them.
Some parts are more general lifestyle interventions that 10almonds readers will know well already, but other parts are very specific advices, protocols, and regimes; in particular his skincare section is well worth reading. As for nutrition, there’s even a respectable recipes section, so this book does have it all!
The final section of the book is dedicated to plastic surgeries (the author is a plastic surgeon who believes that most people should not need those, and would do well to stick to the advices in the rest of the book). We suspect this last part of the book will be of least interest to 10almonds readers.
Bottom line: if you’re of the view that getting older should come with as little as possible physical deterioration along the way, then this book can help a lot with that.
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How to support a loved one with opioid use disorder
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Stacey Foley started using opioids while she was in an abusive relationship. When the relationship ended, her opioid use increased.
“I didn’t know how to work through the trauma,” Foley tells Public Good News. “I didn’t know how to handle my nervous system, and so opioids became my escape.”
Years later, after starting a new relationship and having two children, Foley recognized that her opioid use was affecting her parenting. She decided to make a change. Now, the Canadian speaker and writer has been in recovery from opioid use disorder for seven years.
Foley isn’t alone. After a doctor prescribed Lauren Wassum opioids to manage pain from an injury, she started using the medication to cope with the death of her uncle.
“I felt like the world was crashing around me. Really, it was that I just didn’t know how to deal with the grief,” Wassum says. Ten years later, after an overdose, she entered treatment. Now Wassum is a certified recovery specialist in Pennsylvania who helps others with substance use disorder live healthier lives.
Both Foley and Wassum say that support from others has been critical to their recovery.
“Every addiction is different. Every person is different. The best thing that you can really, truly do for someone is to be there to support them when they need it,” Foley says.
Read on to learn how you can support loved ones with OUD.
How does opioid addiction happen?
Taking opioids repeatedly, or differently than prescribed, can change how the brain works. The body may make fewer endorphins, chemicals that help regulate pain and stress. When people try to stop or reduce opioid use, they may experience withdrawal symptoms such as changes in body temperature, irritability, tremors, trouble sleeping, and intense cravings. This can make opioids hard to stop using and may lead to OUD.
OUD is a chronic health condition that can cause mental and physical distress. Because opioids can slow or stop breathing, OUD can also increase the risk of overdose and death. It can affect anyone at any stage of life.
“There’s no group that’s spared [from OUD],” Dr. Sarah S. Kawasaki, an addiction medicine specialist and associate professor at Penn State College of Medicine, explains.
What are signs that a loved one might be struggling with OUD?
OUD can cause physical symptoms like changes in pupil size, drowsiness, changes in appetite and weight, and flu-like symptoms. It can also show up in behavior, including pulling away from family, work, or daily responsibilities.
“Any addiction revolves around a pathologic craving,” Kawasaki says. “That craving leads to an inordinate amount of time spent thinking about how to earn money to get their next fix, how to achieve their next fix, how to avoid the negative symptoms of withdrawal. It’s doing so while neglecting family relationships, work relationships, financial obligations—at a great risk to personal freedom, to personal safety.”
James Sherman, a clinical research coordinator and lead substance use navigator at University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Addiction Medicine and Policy, is in recovery from OUD. He has firsthand experience with those behavioral changes.
“In my addiction, I often avoided interacting with my loved ones because I was fueled with so much guilt and shame due to my opioid use,” Sherman tells PGN. “In my drug use, work, family events, going to the doctor, adhering to my probation responsibilities—all of it went on the back burner.”
People with OUD might also show signs of emotional distress or mood changes.
“I think my husband always sort of had an inkling [that I was using opioids] because the high and low of opioids causes some pretty intense mood swings,” Foley says.
Seeing multiple health care providers for opioid prescriptions, or running out of medication early, can also be signs that someone may need help.
“If somebody has a prescription for opioids, but they find that they’re running out early, they need more and more, they’re frequenting emergency departments because they are running out of medicine and not feeling well and sometimes they use multiple prescribers—that is also a sign of addiction,” Kawasaki notes.
How can I support a loved one who’s living with OUD or in recovery?
Stay open and nonjudgmental.
Shame can keep people from seeking treatment or staying in recovery. A nonjudgmental approach can help loved ones with OUD make healthier choices.
“Sympathize with the person by focusing on concern rather than criticism,” Sherman says. “Emphasizing that ‘I care about you….’ rather than, ‘How could you do this?’”
Wassum’s partner modeled that approach when she sought treatment.
“When my overdose happened, he was like, ‘I will be here every step of the way. I know you can do this. I know you’re a good mom.’ Having that support makes a big difference,” she says.
Words and person-first language matter, too.
“Changing our language is really important—not calling someone an addict, a junkie, etc.,” Sherman says. “This is a person with a use disorder. This is someone you want to get better, instead of putting so much blame [on them].”
Check in regularly.
People living with OUD or in recovery may pull back from others, even when connection could help. Foley says regular phone calls, texts, and invitations can make a difference.
“[Support] really is about making sure that that person in your life knows that you’re there, that you’re checking on them, and that you’re supporting them because there are going to be so many days when temptation comes to use again,” she says.
Be patient.
A loved one may not be ready to seek help right away.
“When people try to push you into treatment and you’re not ready, that’s one of the hardest things,” Wassum says. “It’s almost like you feel like you have to go just to make them happy, and then you end up leaving or making it worse [for yourself] down the line.”
Being encouraging—rather than demanding—can help loved ones feel supported.
“I have found that using ‘we’ statements helps make loved ones feel like they’re not in this alone—‘We should schedule you an appointment,’ ‘We should try and get you into treatment,’” Sherman says.
When they’re ready, help them find treatment that fits their needs.
Treatment for OUD looks different from person to person. It may include counseling, peer support, in-patient treatment, or medication that helps people stop or reduce opioid use. Learning about and supporting a loved one’s treatment plan can help them stay in recovery.“All too often, the treatments for opioid use disorder are equally as stigmatized as the illness of opioid use disorder, and that can be lethal,” Kawasaki says.
Medication for opioid use disorder is often misunderstood as “trading” one addiction for another. That’s not the case.
“You can think of [MOUD] in terms of any medication that you need to control a chronic illness. If you have high blood pressure, if you have diabetes, if you have HIV, if you need to take medicine to suppress an illness that can cause catastrophic outcomes, you depend on that medicine,” Kawasaki explains. “If you stopped any one of those medicines, eventually, you would need to be seen in the emergency department with complications from those issues. Similarly, that’s the case with [MOUD].”
Find treatment resources by contacting SAMHSA’s National Helpline (1-800-662-HELP) or talking to a health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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