Sunflower Seeds vs Sesame Seeds – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sunflower seeds to sesame seeds, we picked the sunflower.
Why?
In moderation, both are very healthy. We say “in moderation” because they’re both about 50% fat and such fats, while vital for life, are generally best enjoyed in small portions. Of that fat, sunflower has the slightly better fat profile; they’re both mostly poly- and monounsaturated fats, but sunflower has 10% saturated fat while sesame has 15%. Aside from fats, sunflower has slightly more protein and sesame has slightly more carbs. While sesame has slightly more fiber, because of the carb profile sunflower still has the lower glycemic index. All in all, a moderate win for sunflower in the macros category.
You may be wondering, with all that discussion of fats, what they’re like for omega-3, and sesame seeds have more omega-3, though sunflower seeds contain it too. Still, a point in sesame’s favor here.
When it comes to vitamins, sunflower has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, and choline, while sesame is not higher in any vitamins.
In the category of minerals, sunflower has more phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while sesame has more calcium, copper, iron, and zinc. This is nominally a marginal win for sesame, but it should be noted that sunflower is still very rich in copper, iron, and zinc too (but not calcium).
Adding up the categories makes for a moderate win for sunflower seeds, but as ever, enjoy both; diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sunflower Seeds vs Pumpkin Seeds – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Sugar, Hazelnuts, Books & Brains
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It’s Q&A Day!
Each Thursday, we respond to subscriber questions and requests! If it’s something small, we’ll answer it directly; if it’s something bigger, we’ll do a main feature in a follow-up day instead!
So, no question/request to big or small; they’ll just get sorted accordingly
Remember, you can always hit reply to any of our emails, or use the handy feedback widget at the bottom. We always look forward to hearing from you!
Q: Interesting info, however, I drink hazelnut milk LOL so would have liked a review of that. But now I want to give hemp and pea milks a try. Thanks
Aww! Here then just for you, is a quick rundown…
- Pros: high in protein¹, vitamin B, and vitamin E
- Cons: high in fat², low in calcium
¹Compared head-to-head with almond milk for example, it has double the protein (but also double the calories)
²However, is also has been found to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol (and incidentally, also reduce inflammation), and in a later systematic review, it was found to not correlate to weight gain, despite its high calorie-content.
If you don’t already, and would like to try making your own…
Click here for step-by-step instructions to make your own hazelnut milk! (very simple)
Q: Wondering if you can evaluate CLA and using it to assist with weight loss. Thanks
Will do! (Watch this space)
Q: What’s the process behind the books you recommend? You seem to have a limitless stream of recommendations
We do our best!
The books we recommend are books that…
- are on Amazon—it makes things tidy, consistent, and accessible. And if you end up buying one of the books, we get a small affiliate commission*.
- we have read—we would say “obviously”, but you might be surprised how many people write about books without having read them.
- pertain in at least large part to health and/or productivity.
- are written by humans—bookish people (and especially Kindle Unlimited users) may have noticed lately that there are a lot of low quality AI-written books flooding the market, sometimes with paid 5-star reviews to bolster them. It’s frustrating, but we can tell the difference and screen those out.
- are of a certain level of quality. They don’t have to be “top 5 desert-island books”, because well, there’s one every day and the days keep coming. But they do have to genuinely deliver the value that we describe, and merit a sincere recommendation.
- are varied—we try to not give a run of “samey” books one after another. We will sometimes review a book that covers a topic another previously-reviewed book did, but it must have something about it that makes it different. It may be a different angle or a different writing style, but it needs something to set it apart.
*this is from Amazon and isn’t product-specific, so this is not affecting our choice of what books to review at all—just that they will be books that are available on Amazon.
Q: Great video on dopamine. Thumbs up on the book recommendation. Would you please consider doing a piece or two on inflammation? I live with Lupus and it is a constant struggle. Thanks for the awesome work you do. Have an excellent day.
Great suggestion! We will do that, and thank you for the kind words!
Q: Why is your newsletter called 10almonds? Maybe I missed it in the intro email, but my curiosity wants to know the significance. Thanks!”
It’s a reference to a viral Facebook hoax! There was a post going around that claimed:
❝HEADACHE REMEDY. Eat 10–12 almonds, the equivalent of two aspirins, next time you have a headache❞ ← not true!
It made us think about how much health-related disinformation there was online… So, calling ourselves 10almonds was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to that story… but also a reminder to ourselves:
We must always publish information with good scientific evidence behind it!
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Outlive – by Dr. Peter Attia
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We know, we know; this diet, that exercise, don’t smoke or drink, get decent sleep”—a lot of books don’t go beyond this level of advice!
What Dr. Attia offers is a multi-vector approach that covers the above and a lot more.
Themes of the book include:
- The above-mentioned things, of course
- Rethinking medicine for the age of chronic disease
- The pros and cons of…
- caloric restriction
- dietary restriction
- intermittent fasting
- Pre-emptive interventions for…
- specific common cause-of-death conditions
- specific common age-related degenerative conditions
- The oft-forgotten extra pillar of longevity: mental health
The last one in the list there is covered mostly in the last chapter of the book, but it’s there as a matter of importance, not as an afterthought. As Dr. Attia puts it, not only are you less likely to take care of your physical health if you are (for example) depressed, but also… “Longevity is meaningless if your life sucks!”
So, it’s important to do things that promote and maintain good physical and mental health.
Bottom line: if you’re interested in happy, healthy, longevity, this is a book for you.
Click here to check out Dr. Attia’s “Outlive” on Amazon today!
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Stretching Scientifically – by Thomas Kurz
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People stretching incorrectly can, even if they don’t injure themselves, lose countless hours for negligible flexibility gains, and put the failure down to their body rather than the method. You can have better.
This book’s all about what works, and not only that, but what works with specific goals in mind, beyond the generic “do the splits” and “touch your toes” etc, which are laudable goals but quite basic. A lot of the further goals he has in mind have to do not just with flexibility, but also functional dynamic strength and mobility, because it’s of less versatile use to have the flexibility only to get folded like laundry and not actually actively do the things you want to.
He does also cover “regardless of age”, so no more worrying that you should have been trained for the ballet when you were eight and now all is lost. It isn’t.
As for the writing style… The author, a physical fitness and rehabilitation coach and writer, wrote this book while at the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw during the Soviet period, and it shows. It is very much straight-to-the-point, no nonsense, no waffle. Everything is direct and comes with a list of research citations and clear instructions.
Bottom line: if you’ve been trying to improve your flexibility and not succeeding, let this old Soviet instructor have a go.
Click here to check out Stretching Scientifically, and stretch scientifically!
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Related Posts
Are You Taking PIMs?
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Getting Off The Overmedication Train
The older we get, the more likely we are to be on more medications. It’s easy to assume that this is because, much like the ailments they treat, we accumulate them over time. And superficially at least, that’s what happens.
And yet, almost half of people over 65 in Canada are taking “potentially inappropriate medications”, or PIMs—in other words, medications that are not needed and perhaps harmful. This categorization includes medications where the iatrogenic harms (side effects, risks) outweigh the benefits, and/or there’s a safer more effective medication available to do the job.
You may be wondering: what does this mean for the US?
Well, we don’t have the figures for the US because we’re working from Canadian research today, but given the differences between the two country’s healthcare systems (mostly socialized in Canada and mostly private in the US), it seems a fair hypothesis that if it’s almost half in Canada, it’s probably more than half in the US. Socialized healthcare systems are generally quite thrifty and seek to spend less on healthcare, while private healthcare systems are generally keen to upsell to new products/services.
The three top categories of PIMs according to the above study:
- Gabapentinoids (anticonvulsants also used to treat neuropathic pain)
- Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)
- Antipsychotics (especially, to people without psychosis)
…but those are just the top of the list; there are many many more.
The list continues: opioids, anticholinergics, sulfonlyurea, NSAIDs, benzodiazepines and related rugs, and cholinesterase inhibitors. That’s where the Canadian study cuts off (although it also includes “others” just before NSAIDs), but still, you guessed it, there are more (we’re willing to bet statins weigh heavily in the “others” section, for a start).
There are two likely main causes of overmedication:
The side effect train
This is where a patient has a condition and is prescribed drug A, which has some undesired side effects, so the patient is prescribed drug B to treat those. However, that drug also has some unwanted side effects of its own, so the patient is prescribed drug C to treat those. And so on.
For a real-life rundown of how this can play out, check out the case study in:
The Hidden Complexities of Statins and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)
The convenience factor
No, not convenient for you. Convenient for others. Convenient for the doctor if it gets you out of their office (socialized healthcare) or because it was easy to sell (private healthcare). Convenient for the staff in a hospital or other care facility.
This latter is what happens when, for example, a patient is being too much trouble, so the staff give them promazine “to help them settle down”, notwithstanding that promazine is, besides being a sedative, also an antipsychotic whose common side effects include amenorrhea, arrhythmias, constipation, drowsiness and dizziness, dry mouth, impotence, tiredness, galactorrhoea, gynecomastia, hyperglycemia, insomnia, hypotension, seizures, tremor, vomiting and weight gain.
This kind of thing (and worse) happens more often towards the end of a patient’s life; indeed, sometimes precipitating that end, whether you want it or not:
Mortality, Palliative Care, & Euthanasia
How to avoid it
Good practice is to be “open-mindedly skeptical” about any medication. By this we mean, don’t reject it out of hand, but do ask questions about it.
Ask your prescriber not only what it’s for and what it’ll do, but also what the side effects and risks are, and an important question that many people don’t think to ask, and for which doctors thus don’t often have a well-prepared smooth-selling reply, “what will happen if I don’t take this?”
And look up unbiased neutral information about it, from reliable sources (Drugs.com and The BNF are good reference guides for this—and if it’s important to you, check both, in case of any disagreement, as they function under completely different regulatory bodies, the former being American and the latter being British. So if they both agree, it’s surely accurate, according to best current science).
Also: when you are on a medication, keep a journal of your symptoms, as well as a log of your vitals (heart rate, blood pressure, weight, sleep etc) so you know what the medication seems to be helping or harming, and be sure to have a regular meds review with your doctor to check everything’s still right for you. And don’t be afraid to seek a second opinion if you still have doubts.
Want to know more?
For a more in-depth exploration than we have room for here, check out this book that we reviewed not long back:
To Medicate or Not? That is the Question! – by Dr. Asha Bohannon
Take care!
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A drug that can extend your life by 25%? Don’t hold your breath
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Every few weeks or months, the media reports on a new study that tantalisingly dangles the possibility of a new drug to give us longer, healthier lives.
The latest study centres around a drug involved in targeting interleukin-11, a protein involved in inflammation. Blocking this protein appeared to help mice stave off disease and extend their life by more than 20%.
If only defying the ravages of time could be achieved through such a simple and effort-free way – by taking a pill. But as is so often the case, the real-world significance of these findings falls a fair way short of the hype.
Halfpoint/Shutterstock The role of inflammation in disease and ageing
Chronic inflammation in the body plays a role in causing disease and accelerating ageing. In fact, a relatively new label has been coined to represent this: “inflammaging”.
While acute inflammation is an important response to infection or injury, if inflammation persists in the body, it can be very damaging.
A number of lifestyle, environmental and societal drivers contribute to chronic inflammation in the modern world. These are largely the factors we already know are associated with disease and ageing, including poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, lack of sleep, lack of social connection and pollution.
While addressing these issues directly is one of the keys to addressing chronic inflammation, disease and ageing, there are a number of research groups also exploring how to treat chronic inflammation with pharmaceuticals. Their goal is to target and modify the molecular and chemical pathways involved in the inflammatory process itself.
What the latest research shows
This new interleukin-11 research was conducted in mice and involved a number of separate components.
In one component of this research, interleukin-11 was genetically knocked out in mice. This means the gene for this chemical mediator was removed from these mice, resulting in the mice no longer being able to produce this mediator at all.
In this part of the study, the mice’s lives were extended by over 20%, on average.
Another component of this research involved treating older mice with a drug that blocks interleukin-11.
Injecting this drug into 75-week old mice (equivalent to 55-year-old humans) was found to extend the life of mice by 22-25%.
These treated mice were less likely to get cancer and had lower cholesterol levels, lower body weight and improved muscle strength and metabolism.
From these combined results, the authors concluded, quite reasonably, that blocking interleukin-11 may potentially be a key to mitigating age-related health effects and improving lifespan in both mice and humans.
Why you shouldn’t be getting excited just yet
There are several reasons to be cautious of these findings.
First and most importantly, this was a study in mice. It may be stating the obvious, but mice are very different to humans. As such, this finding in a mouse model is a long way down the evidence hierarchy in terms of its weight.
Research shows only about 5% of promising findings in animals carry over to humans. Put another way, approximately 95% of promising findings in animals may not be translated to specific therapies for humans.
Second, this is only one study. Ideally, we would be looking to have these findings confirmed by other researchers before even considering moving on to the next stage in the knowledge discovery process and examining whether these findings may be true for humans.
We generally require a larger body of evidence before we get too excited about any new research findings and even consider the possibility of human trials.
Third, even if everything remains positive and follow-up studies support the findings of this current study, it can take decades for a new finding like this to be translated to successful therapies in humans.
Until then, we can focus on doing the things we already know make a huge difference to health and longevity: eating well, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing stress and nurturing social relationships.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Upgrade Your Life – by Pat Divilly
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Pat Divilly takes us through the steps to establish what it is we want out of life, adopt daily habits of success, build our self-esteem and confidence, and pursue what’s actually fulfilling, whatever that is for us as individuals.
The general layout of the book is: first, figuring out where you genuinely want to go (not just where people expect you to want to go!), and then seeing about what things you can change, first small and then larger, to get there.
The scope of the book covers work life and personal life, and treats them both as something where you can optimize how things work for you, and those around you. All in all, unless your life is literally perfect in every way imaginable, there’s probably something in this book that will help you to, indeed, “upgrade your life”. And who wouldn’t want that?
Don’t Forget…
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