Superfood-Stuffed Squash

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This stuffed squash recipe is packed with so many nutrient-dense ingredients, yet it feels delightfully decadent—a great recipe to have up your sleeve ready for fall.

You will need

  • 1 large or two medium butternut squashes, halved lengthways and seeds removed (keep them; they are full of nutrients! You can sprout them, or dry them to use them at your leisure), along with some of the flesh from the central part above where the seeds are, so that there is room for stuffing
  • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
  • 1 cup wild rice, rinsed
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • ½ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
  • ½ cup dried cranberries goji berries ← why goji berries? They have even more healthful properties than cranberries, and cranberries are hard to buy without so much added sugar that the ingredients list looks like “cranberries (51%), sugar (39%), vegetable oil (10%)”, whereas when buying goji berries, the ingredients list says “goji berries”, and they do the same culinary job.
  • ¼ cup pine nuts
  • ½ bulb garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp dried thyme or 2 tsp fresh thyme, destalked
  • 1 tbsp dried rosemary or 2 tsp fresh rosemary, destalked
  • 1 generous handful fresh parsley, chopped
  • 1 tbsp chia seeds
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
  • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
  • Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing and frying
  • Aged balsamic vinegar, to serve (failing this, make a balsamic vinegar reduction and use that; it should have a thicker texture but still taste acidic and not too sweet; the thickness should come from the higher concentration of grape must and its natural sugars; no need to add sugar)

Method

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

1) Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.

2) Brush the cut sides of the squash with olive oil; sprinkle with a pinch of MSG/salt and a little black pepper (grind it directly over the squash if you are using a grinder; hold the grinder high though so that it distributes evenly—waiters in restaurants aren’t just being dramatic when they do that with pepper or Parmesan or such)

3) Arrange them cut-sides-down on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and roast for at least 30 minutes or until tender.

4) While that is roasting, add the chia seeds to the wild rice, and cook them in the low-sodium vegetable stock, using a rice cooker if available. It should take about the same length of time, but if the rice is done first, set it aside, and if the squash is done first, turn the oven down low to keep it warm.

5) Heat some oil in a sauté pan (not a skillet without high sides; we’re going to need space in a bit), and fry the chopped onion until translucent and soft. We could say “about 5 minutes” but honestly it depends on your pan as well as the heat and other factors.

6) Add the seasonings (herbs, garlic, black pepper, MSG/salt, nooch), and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring thoroughly to distribute evenly.

7) Add the rice, berries, and nuts, cooking for a further 2 minutes, stirring constantly, ensuring everything is heated evenly.

8) Remove the squash halves from the oven, turn them over, and spoon the mixture we just made into them, filling generously.

9) Drizzle a lashing of the aged balsamic vinegar (or balsamic vinegar reduction), to serve.

Enjoy!

Want to learn more?

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

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    Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett explores the fascinating world of the brain, from empathy to neurodiversity, in her practical and insightful book.

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  • Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

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    From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs

    We asked you for your (health-related) policy on sugar. The trends were as follows:

    • About half of all respondents voted for “I try to limit sugar intake, but struggle because it’s in everything”
    • About a quarter of all respondents voted for “Refined sugar is terrible; natural sugars (e.g. honey, agave) are fine”
    • About a quarter of all respondents voted for “Sugar is sugar and sugar is bad; I avoid it entirely”
    • One (1) respondent voted for “Sugar is an important source of energy, so I consume plenty”

    Writer’s note: I always forget to vote in these, but I’d have voted for “I try to limit sugar intake, but struggle because it’s in everything”.

    Sometimes I would like to make my own [whatever] to not have the sugar, but it takes so much more time, and often money too.

    So while I make most things from scratch (and typically spend about an hour cooking each day), sometimes store-bought is the regretfully practical timesaver/moneysaver (especially when it comes to condiments).

    So, where does the science stand?

    There has, of course, been a lot of research into the health impact of sugar.

    Unfortunately, a lot of it has been funded by sugar companies, which has not helped. Conversely, there are also studies funded by other institutions with other agendas to push, and some of them will seek to make sugar out to be worse than it is.

    So for today’s mythbusting overview, we’ve done our best to quality-control studies for not having financial conflicts of interest. And of course, the usual considerations of favoring high quality studies where possible Large sample sizes, good method, human subjects, that sort of thing.

    Sugar is sugar and sugar is bad: True or False?

    False and True, respectively.

    • Sucrose is sucrose, and is generally bad.
    • Fructose is fructose, and is worse.

    Both ultimately get converted into glycogen (if not used immediately for energy), but for fructose, this happens mostly* in the liver, which a) taxes it b) goes very unregulated by the pancreas, causing potentially dangerous blood sugar spikes.

    This has several interesting effects:

    • Because fructose doesn’t directly affect insulin levels, it doesn’t cause insulin insensitivity (yay)
    • Because fructose doesn’t directly affect insulin levels, this leaves hyperglycemia untreated (oh dear)
    • Because fructose is metabolized by the liver and converted to glycogen which is stored there, it’s one of the main contributors to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (at this point, we’re retracting our “yay”)

    Read more: Fructose and sugar: a major mediator of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

    *”Mostly” in the liver being about 80% in the liver. The remaining 20%ish is processed by the kidneys, where it contributes to kidney stones instead. So, still not fabulous.

    Fructose is very bad, so we shouldn’t eat too much fruit: True or False?

    False! Fruit is really not the bad guy here. Fruit is good for you!

    Fruit does contain fructose yes, but not actually that much in the grand scheme of things, and moreover, fruit contains (unless you have done something unnatural to it) plenty of fiber, which mitigates the impact of the fructose.

    • A medium-sized apple (one of the most sugary fruits there is) might contain around 11g of fructose
    • A tablespoon of high-fructose corn syrup can have about 27g of fructose (plus about 3g glucose)

    Read more about it: Effects of high-fructose (90%) corn syrup on plasma glucose, insulin, and C-peptide in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and normal subjects

    However! The fiber content (in fruit) mitigates the impact of the fructose almost entirely anyway.

    And if you take fruits that are high in sugar and/but high in polyphenols, like berries, they now have a considerable net positive impact on glycemic health:

    You may be wondering: what was that about “unless you have done something unnatural to it”?

    That’s mostly about juicing. Juicing removes much (or all) of the fiber, and if you do that, you’re basically back to shooting fructose into your veins:

    Natural sugars like honey, agave, and maple syrup, are healthier than refined sugars: True or False?

    TrueSometimes, and sometimes marginally.

    This is partly because of the glycemic index and glycemic load. The glycemic index scores tail off thus:

    • table sugar = 65
    • maple syrup = 54
    • honey = 46
    • agave syrup = 15

    So, that’s a big difference there between agave syrup and maple syrup, for example… But it might not matter if you’re using a very small amount, which means it may have a high glycemic index but a low glycemic load.

    Note, incidentally, that table sugar, sucrose, is a disaccharide, and is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

    The other more marginal health benefits come from that fact that natural sugars are usually found in foods high in other nutrients. Maple syrup is very high in manganese, for example, and also a fair source of other minerals.

    But… Because of its GI, you really don’t want to be relying on it for your nutrients.

    Wait, why is sugar bad again?

    We’ve been covering mostly the more “mythbusting” aspects of different forms of sugar, rather than the less controversial harms it does, but let’s give at least a cursory nod to the health risks of sugar overall:

    That last one, by the way, was a huge systematic review of 37 large longitudinal cohort studies. Results varied depending on what, specifically, was being examined (e.g. total sugar, fructose content, sugary beverages, etc), and gave up to 200% increased cancer risk in some studies on sugary beverages, but 95% increased risk is a respectable example figure to cite here, pertaining to added sugars in foods.

    And finally…

    The 56 Most Common Names for Sugar (Some Are Tricky)

    How many did you know?

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  • Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts

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    A panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists examined the evidence for 38 diets, and scored them in 21 categories (e.g. best for weight loss, best for heart, best against diabetes, etc).

    We’ll not keep it a mystery: the Mediterranean diet has been ranked as “best overall” for the 8th year in a row.

    The Mediterranean (And Its Close Friends & Relations)

    We’ve written before about the Mediterranean diet, here:

    The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← What isn’t it good for?

    👆 the above article also delineates what does and doesn’t go in a Mediterranean diet—hint, it’s not just any food from the Mediterranean region!

    The Mediterranean diet’s strengths come from various factors including its good plant:animal ratio (leaning heavily on the plants), colorful fruit and veg minimally processed, and the fact that olive oil is the main source of fat:

    All About Olive Oil ← pretty much one of the healthiest fats we can consume, if not healthiest all-rounder fat

    The Mediterranean diet also won 1st place in various more specific categories, including:

    • Best against arthritis (followed by Dr. Weil’s Anti-inflammatory, MIND, DASH)
    • Best for mental health (followed by MIND, Flexitarian, DASH)
    • Best against diabetes (followed by Flexitarian, DASH, MIND)
    • best for liver regeneration (followed by Flexitarian, Vegan, DASH, MIND)
    • Best for gut heath (followed by Vegan, DASH, Flexitarian, MIND)

    If you’re not familiar with DASH and MIND, there are clues in their full names: Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, and as you might well suspect, they are simply tweaked variations of the Mediterranean diet:

    Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean ← DASH and MIND are the heart-healthiest and brain-healthiest versions of the Mediterranean; this article also includes a gut-healthiest version and a most anti-inflammatory version

    What aren’t those best for?

    The Mediterranean diet scored 1st or 2nd in most of the 21 categories, and usually had the other above-named diets keeping it company in the top few.

    When it comes to weight loss, the Mediterranean scored 2nd place and wasn’t flanked by its usual friends and relations; instead in first place was commercial diet WeightWatchers (likely helped a lot by being also a peer support group), and in third place was the Volumetrics diet, which we wrote about here:

    Some Surprising Truths About Hunger And Satiety

    And when it comes to rapid weight loss specifically, the Mediterranean didn’t even feature in the top spots at all, because it’s simply not an extreme diet and it prioritizes health over shedding the pounds at any cost. The top in that category were mostly commercial diets:

    1. Jenny Craig
    2. Slimfast
    3. Keto
    4. Nutrisystem
    5. WeightWatchers

    We’ve not as yet written about any of those commercial diets, but we have written about keto here:

    Ketogenic Diet: Burning Fat Or Burning Out?

    Want to know more?

    You can click around, exploring by diet or by health category, here 😎

    Enjoy!

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  • What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – by Aubrey Gordon

    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.

    There are books aplenty to encourage and help you to lose weight. This isn’t one of those.

    There are also books aplenty to encourage and help you to accept yourself and your body at the weight you are, and forge self-esteem. This isn’t one of those, either—in fact, it starts by assuming you already have that.

    There are fair arguments for body neutrality, and fat acceptance. Very worthy also is the constant fight for bodily sovereignty.

    These are worthy causes, but they’re for the most-part not what our author concerns herself with here. Instead, she cares for a different and very practical goal: fat justice.

    In a world where you may be turned away from medical treatment if you are over a certain size, told to lose half your bodyweight before you can have something you need, she demands better. The battle extends further than healthcare though, and indeed to all areas of life.

    Ultimately, she argues, any society that will disregard the needs of the few because they’re a marginal demographic, is a society that will absolutely fail you if you ever differ from the norm in some way.

    All in all, an important (and for many, perhaps eye-opening) book to read if you are fat, care about fat people, are a person of any size, or care about people in general.

    Pick Up Your Copy of “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat”, on Amazon Today!

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Related Posts

  • Protein-Stuffed Bell Peppers
  • Treadmill vs Road

    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.

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝Why do I get tired much more quickly running outside, than I do on the treadmill? Every time I get worn out quickly but at home I can go for much longer!❞

    Short answer: the reason is Newton’s laws of motion.

    In other words: on a treadmill, you need only maintain your position in space relative the the Earth while the treadmill moves beneath you, whereas on the road, you need to push against the Earth with sufficient force to move it relative to your body.

    Illustrative thought experiment to make that clearer: if you were to stand on a treadmill with roller skates, and hold onto the bar with even just one finger, you would maintain your speed as far as the treadmill’s computer is concerned—whereas to maintain your speed on a flat road, you’d still need to push with your back foot every few yards or so.

    More interesting answer: it’s a qualitatively different exercise (i.e. not just quantitively different). This is because of all that pushing you’re having to do on the road, while on a treadmill, the only pushing you have to do is just enough to counteract gravity (i.e. to keep you upright).

    As such, both forms of running are a cardio exercise (because simply moving your legs quickly, even without having to apply much force, is still something that requires oxygenated blood feeding the muscles), but road-running adds an extra element of resistance exercise for the muscles of your lower body. Thus, road-running will enable you to build-maintain muscle much more than treadmill-running will.

    Some extra things to bear in mind, however:

    1) You can increase the resistance work for either form of running, by adding weight (such as by wearing a weight vest):

    Weight Vests Against Osteoporosis: Do They Really Build Bone?

    …and while road-running will still be the superior form of resistance work (for the reasons we outlined above), adding a weight vest will still be improving your stabilization muscles, just as it would if you were standing still while holding the weight up.

    2) Stationary cycling does not have the same physics differences as stationary running. By this we mean: an exercise bike will require your muscles to do just as much pushing as they would on a road. This makes stationary cycling an excellent choice for high intensity resistance training (HIRT):

    HIIT, But Make It HIRT

    3) The best form of exercise is the one that you will actually do. Thus, when it’s raining sidewise outside, a treadmill inside will get exercise done better than no running at all. Similarly, a treadmill exercise session takes a lot less preparation (“switch it on”) than a running session outside (“get dressed appropriately for the weather, apply sunscreen if necessary, remember to bring water, etc etc”), and thus is also much more likely to actually occur. The ability to stop whenever one wants is also a reassuring factor that makes one much more likely to start. See for example:

    How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    Take care!

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  • Is thirst a good predictor of dehydration?

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    Water is essential for daily functioning and health, and we can only survive a few days without it. Yet we constantly lose water through sweat, urination and even evaporation when we breathe.

    This is why we have evolved a way to regulate and maintain water in our bodies. Like other animals, our survival relies on a strong biological drive that tells us to find and drink water to balance fluid loss.

    This is thirst – a sensation of dryness in the mouth signalling we need to have a drink. This basic physiological mechanism is controlled mainly by part of the brain’s “control centre”, called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus receives signals from various regions of the body and in return, releases hormones that act as a messenger to signal the thirst sensation.

    KieferPix/Shutterstock

    What is dehydration?

    Staying hydrated (having enough water in our bodies) is important for several reasons, including:

    • regulating body temperature through sweat and respiration
    • lubricating joints and eyes
    • preventing infections
    • digesting and absorbing nutrients
    • flushing out waste (via the kidneys)
    • preventing constipation
    • brain function (including memory and concentration)
    • mood and energy levels
    • physical performance and recovery from exercise
    • skin health.

    Dehydration occurs when our body doesn’t have enough water. Even slight drops in fluid levels have noticeable consequences, such as headaches, feeling dizzy, lethargy and struggling to concentrate.

    Chronic dehydration can pose more serious health risks, including urinary tract infections, constipation and kidney stones.

    What does the evidence say?

    Despite thirst being one of the most basic biological drivers for good hydration, science suggests our feelings of thirst and subsequent fluid intake don’t always correlate with hydration levels.

    For example, a recent study explored the impact of thirst on fluid intake and hydration status. Participants attended a lab in the morning and then later in the afternoon to provide markers of hydration status (such as urine, blood samples and body weight). The relationship between levels of thirst in the morning and afternoon hydration status was negligible.

    Further, thirst may be driven by environmental factors, such as access to water. For example, one study looked at whether ample access to water in a lab influenced how much people drank and how hydrated they were. The link between how thirsty they felt and how hydrated they were was weak, suggesting the availability of water influenced their fluid intake more than thirst.

    Exercise can also change our thirst mechanism, though studies are limited at this stage.

    A man standing in a kitchen drinking a glass of water.
    Being thirsty doesn’t necessarily mean we’re dehydrated. puhhha/Shutterstock

    Interestingly, research shows women experience thirst more strongly than men, regardless of hydration status. To understand gender differences in thirst, researchers infused men and women with fluids and then measured their thirst and how hydrated they were. They found women generally reported thirst at a lower level of fluid loss. Women have also been found to respond more to feeling thirsty by drinking more water.

    Other ways to tell if you need to drink some water

    While acknowledging some people will need to drink more or less, for many people, eight cups (or two litres) a day is a good amount of water to aim for.

    But beyond thirst, there are many other ways to tell whether you might need to drink more water.

    1. urine colour: pale yellow urine typically indicates good hydration, while darker, concentrated urine suggests dehydration

    2. frequency of going to the toilet: urinating regularly (around four to six times a day) indicates good hydration. Infrequent urination can signal dehydration

    3. skin turgor test: gently pinching the skin (for example, on the back of the hand) and observing how quickly the skin returns to its normal position can help assess hydration. Slow return may indicate dehydration

    A woman's index finger and thumb pinch the skin on the back of her other hand.
    If skin stays elevated after pinching it may be a sign of dehydration. SusaZoom/Shutterstock

    4. mouth and lips: a dry mouth or cracked lips can be early signs of dehydration

    5. headaches and fatigue: frequent headaches, dizziness, or unexplained fatigue can be signs of inadequate hydration

    6. sweating: in physically active people, monitoring how much they sweat during activity can help estimate fluid loss and hydration needs. Higher levels of sweat may predispose a person to dehydration if they are unable to replace the fluid lost through water intake

    These indicators, used together, provide a more comprehensive picture of hydration without solely depending on the sensation of thirst.

    Of course, if you do feel thirsty, it’s still a good idea to drink some water.

    Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland and Kiara Too, PhD candidate, School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland

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

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  • Dates vs Raisins – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing dates to raisins, we picked the dates.

    Why?

    There are benefits for each fruit, but we say dates come out on top. See what you think:

    In terms of macros, while they’re both dried fruits, dates contain more water (unless you leave them sitting open for a while), which will tend to mathematically lower the relative percentages of other components because they’re being held against water weight too. However, even though this is the case (i.e. dates are being mathematically disadvantaged), dates contain more than twice the fiber that raisins do (8g/100g compared to raisins’ 3.7g/100g).

    While we’re talking macros, dates are also lower in total carbs, as well as obviously net carbs, and have a much lower glycemic index than raisins (dates have a glycemic index of 42, considered low, while raisins have a glycemic index of 64, considered medium; their respective glycemic loads are even more telling: 13 for raisins and just 2 for dates!).

    About those carbs… For dates, it’s an approximately equal mix of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, while for raisins it’s 49% glucose and 49% fructose. Because sucrose is the only disaccharide here, this (as well as the fiber difference) is one of the reasons for the different glycemic indices and glycemic loads, since glucose and fructose are more quickly absorbed.

    That’s more than we usually write about macros, but in this case, both fruits are ones especially often hit with the “aren’t they full of sugar though?” question, so it was important to cover the critical distinctions between the two, because they really are very different.

    Summary of macros: dates win easily in every aspect we looked at

    In the category of vitamins, raisins get a tally in their favor. Raisins are higher in vitamins B1, B2, C, E, K, and choline, while dates are higher in vitamins A, B3, B5, and B9, giving raisins a 6:4 lead here. In dates’ defense, the difference in vitamin K is marginal, and it’d make it a 5:4 lead if we considered that within the margin of error (because all these figures are of course based on averages), and the vitamins that dates are higher in, the margins are much wider indeed, meaning that both fruits have approximately the same overall levels of vitamins when looked at in total, but still, we’ll call this category a nominal win for raisins.

    When it comes to minerals, dates have more magnesium, selenium, and zinc, while raisins have more copper, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. Nominally that’s a 4:3 lead for raisins, but if we consider that raisins also contain more sodium, it’s more like a tie here. If we have to pick one though, this is a very slight win for raisins.

    Adding up the sections, we have one huge win for dates (macros) with two very marginal wins for raisins—hence, we say that dates win out.

    Still, of course enjoy both; diversity is good for the health.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    Take care!

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