Tasty Versatile Rice
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In the nearish future, we’re going to do some incredible rice dishes, but first we need to make sure we’re all on the same page about cooking rice, so here’s a simple recipe first, to get technique down and work in some essentials. We’ll be using wholegrain basmati rice, because it has a low glycemic index, lowest likelihood of heavy metal contamination (a problem for some kinds of rice), and it’s one of the easiest rices to cook well.
You will need
- 1 cup wholegrain basmati rice (it may also be called “brown basmati rice“; this is the same)
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (ideally you have made this yourself from vegetable offcuts that you saved in the freezer, then it will be healthiest and lowest in sodium; failing that, low-sodium vegetable stock cubes can be purchased at most large supermarkets. and then made up at home with hot water)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp turmeric powder (this small quantity will not change the flavor, but it has important health benefits, and also makes the rice a pleasant golden color)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp yeast extract (this gently improves the savory flavor and also adds vitamin B12)
- Optional small quantity of green herbs for garnish. Cilantro is good (unless you have the soap gene); parsley never fails.
This is the ingredients list for a super-basic rice that will go with anything rice will go with; another day we can talk more extensive mixes of herbs and spice blends for different kinds of dishes (and different health benefits!), but for now, let’s get going!
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Wash the rice thoroughly. We recommend using a made-for-purpose rice-washing bowl (like this one, for example), but failing that, simply rinse it thoroughly with cold water using a bowl and a sieve. You will probably need to rinse it 4–5 times, but with practice, it will only take a few seconds per rinse, and the water will be coming up clear.
2) Warm the pan. It doesn’t matter for the moment whether you’re using an electronic rice cooker, a stovetop pressure cooker, electronic pressure cooker, or just a sturdy pan with a heavy lid available, aside from that if it’s something non-stovetop, you now want it to be on low to warm up already.
3) Separately in a saucepan, bring your stock to a simmer
4) Put the tbsp of olive oil into the pan (even if you’re confident the rice won’t stick; this isn’t entirely about that) and turn up the heat (if it’s a very simple rice cooker, most at least have a warm/cook differentiation; if so, turn it to “cook”). You don’t want the oil to get to the point of smoking, so, to test the temperature as it heats, flick a single drop of water from your fingertip (you did wash your hands first, right? We haven’t been including that step, but please do wash your hands before doing kitchen things) into the pan. If it sizzles, the pan is hot enough now for the next step.
5) Put the rice into the pan. That’s right, with no extra liquid yet; we’re going to toast it for a moment. Stir it a little, for no more than a minute; keep it moving; don’t let it burn! If you try this several times and fail, it could be that you need a better pan. Treat yourself to one when you get the opportunity; until then, skip the toasting part if necessary.
6) Add the chia seeds and spices, followed by the stock, followed by the yeast extract. Why did we do the stock before the yeast extract? It’s because hot liquid will get all the yeast extract off the teaspoon 🙂
7) Put the lid on/down (per what kind of pan or rice cooker you are using), and turn up the heat (if it is a variable heat source) until a tiny bit of steam starts making its way out. When it does, turn it down to a simmer, and let the rice cook. Don’t stir it, don’t jiggle it; trust the process. If you stir or jiggle it, the rice will cook unevenly and, paradoxically, probably stick.
8) Do keep an eye on it, because when steam stops coming out, it is done, and needs taking off the heat immediately. If using an automatic rice cooker, you can be less attentive if you like, because it will monitor this for you.
Note: if you are using a simple pan with a non-fastening lid (any other kind of rice cooking setup is better), more steam will escape than the other methods, and it’s possible that it might run out of steam (literally) before the rice is finished. If the steam stops and you find the rice isn’t done, add a splash of water as necessary (the rice doesn’t need to be submerged, it just needs to have liquid; the steam is part of the cooking process), and make a note of how much you had to add (so that next time you can just add it at the start), and put it back on the heat until it is done.
9) Having taken it off the heat, let it sit for 5 minutes (with the lid still on) before doing any fluffing-up. Then you can fluff-up and serve, adding the garnish if you want one.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
- Chia: The Tiniest Seeds With The Most Value
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
Take care!
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Apple vs Cherries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing apples to cherries, we picked the cherries.
Why?
In terms of macros, apples start out strong with a little more fiber, carbs, and protein, for a modest first-round win.
In the category of vitamins, however, apples boast only more vitamin E, while cherries have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B7, B9, and C, winning this round easily.
Looking at minerals, apples are not higher any minerals, while cherries have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, winning this round even more easily.
In other considerations, cherries have rather more polyphenols, especially anthocyanins and phenolic acids, and bring some extra health-giving phytochemical benefits that you can read about in the “learn more” section, below. Meanwhile, another round to cherries.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for cherries, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
Enjoy!
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Body Recomposition: How To Get Toned Quickly
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Personal trainer Elisi Wolf explains how to cut straight to it:
As easy as 1-2-3
Many women say they want to “get toned,” which really means they want a body recomposition; looking leaner at the same weight is due to gaining muscle while losing fat—not weight.
Elisi says the sweet spot for effective recomposition is around 25% body fat, allowing for noticeable muscle gain and fat loss simultaneously, ending up with more like 21% body fat as a reasonable healthy end point to the recomposition phase (i.e., the point at which you’ll stop recomposing and start maintaining), though of course you might prefer more or less than that; that’s up to you.
How to do it, her way:
- Calculate maintenance calories: use a calorie calculator and subtract 400 to find your true maintenance; eat this amount for a week to confirm the scale doesn’t change
- Progress your workouts: consistently increase effort by adding weight, improving control (an oft-neglected factor that Elisi focuses on a lot in her training), and/or increasing movement (e.g. daily walks)
- Enjoy a high protein diet: protein is essential for muscle building, fat loss, and satiety; it also burns more energy to digest and keeps you full with fewer calories
About the progression: she recommends to, for example, start with 20 lb hip thrusts and increase weight every second week; eventually, this builds visible muscle without changing calories. Adapt the same model for your preferred exercises, of course.
About the protein: she also notes that we should not just increase protein intake, but also prioritize protein over carbs and fats; it’s not used for energy unless absolutely necessary, so most of it supports muscle gain. She advises that this works whether you still eat meat or enjoy a vegan diet—just ensure your protein intake is high and “clean” (i.e. unprocessed whole foods, or minimally-processed where some kind of processing is necessary—for example, cooking lentils is indeed a process).
About maintenance: once you’ve got to the body composition you want, you should find that your newly recomposed body is actually pretty easy to maintain, because muscle has a thermogenic effect, helping you burn more calories at rest and aiding fat loss (i.e. muscle “costs” calories just by being there—unlike fat, which triggers the body to slow down the metabolism to survive the famine for which we were surely preparing when we put the fat on).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Can You Gain Muscle & Lose Fat At The Same Time? ← we got this question in our Q&A day a little while ago, and here was our answer. We went for a less numbers-based approach, and a more principles-based approach. Both ways work, so by all means pick whichever method you personally find better suits how you like to do things!
See also: Can We Do Fat Redistribution? ← the answer is “yes” and this article explains how
Take care!
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The Surprising Food Compound That Fixes Leaky Gut
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First, what is leaky gut?
It’s when the barrier between the gut and the rest of the body gets punctured, and things that should definitely stay in the gut escape into the rest of the body.
You may be wondering: how does the gut get punctured and is this only a risk if someone’s stabbing or shooting us?
And the answer is: most often, the gut gets punctured from the inside, either by fungus (usually C. albicans) putting its roots through the intestinal walls, or by other adverse microbiome changes that result in a reduction in mucus and other components of gut’s selective barrier layer that usually allows nutrients to pass through while keeping unpleasantries contained.
You can read more about that, here: Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
And more specifically, for the implications and extra considerations pertaining to this, you might want to check out:
- The Alzheimer’s Gut-Brain Connection—Caught On X-Ray!
- Spicy Foods & Your Gut ← it’s probably not what you might expect!
- Minimize The Harm Of Antibiotics
So, what’s this about a nutrient, or indeed an antinutrient, that can fix it?
Mighty phytic acid to the rescue!
We’ve written before about phytic acid, usually in the context of it being an antinutrient, that is to say, it reduces the absorption of some nutrients, especially certain minerals.
See for example its mentions in the following articles of ours:
- Brown Rice Protein: Strengths & Weaknesses
- Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
- Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
…in which cases, usually we’re talking about soaking, cooking, and so forth to reduce the phytic acid content and resultant phytates.
A quick note before we continue: in nutrition science, phytic acid and phytates are closely related and in some contexts can even be interchangeable (them both being considered functionally the same antinutrient), but just to clarify…
- Phytic acid: the molecule itself, also known to its friends as inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6), which plants use to store phosphorus, especially in seeds, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
- Phytates: the salts formed when phytic acid binds to minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, or potassium. In foods and in the digestive tract, phytic acid mostly exists in these mineral-bound forms.
So for example:
- Phytic acid + calcium → calcium phytate
- Phytic acid + zinc → zinc phytate
- Phytic acid + iron → iron phytate
…and lo and behold, those are the minerals it stopped you from absorbing in those cases!
Now, researchers (Dr. Sujan Chatterjee et al.) have discovered that phytic acid also helps maintain the integrity of the intestinal barrier; when this pathway was disrupted in experimental models, the gut barrier became more permeable, and phytic acid supplementation restored much of the lost function.
Why/how this happens: Dr. Chatterjee and her teem found that phytic acid activates HDAC3, a protein that regulates genes involved in maintaining the gut lining; when HDAC3 activity falls, genes that can damage the intestinal barrier become more active, increasing intestinal permeability and inflammation.
So, in other words, a necessary part of a system was taken out, so the system stopped working properly!
This study also suggests that sometimes it’s one of the enzymes that’s lacking, and that restoring for example HDAC3 activity, if that be lacking, can help protect or repair the intestinal barrier.
You can read this paper in full, here: Phytic acid (InsP6) activates HDAC3 epigenetic axis to maintain intestinal barrier function
And you can read about what foods have often-high phytic acid contents when unprocessed (it’s a lot of edible grains, legumes, and nuts), here: Phytic Acid and Whole Grains for Health Controversy
…which may also explain why almonds improve gut barrier health, as we discussed here: What 47 Almonds Can Do For your Gut, Heart, Skin, & more
Want to learn more?
Do consider this very good book that we reviewed:
Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain – by Dr. Partha Nandi
Enjoy!
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Calcium Supplements & Dementia Risk
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.
Do you remember the famous (deeply flawed, further misreported, debunked) Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study that misrepresented data about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), understating the benefits and overstating the risks, scaring a generation off HRT for no good reason?
If not, then here’s more detail about that: Cancer & HRT: What’s Safe?
With that in mind, guess what else WHI data has been (mis)used by third-parties to warn us against? If you guessed calcium supplementation, you guessed correctly:
❝Calcium supplements with or without vitamin D modestly increase the risk of cardiovascular events, especially myocardial infarction, a finding obscured in the WHI CaD Study by the widespread use of personal calcium supplements. A reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in osteoporosis management is warranted.❞
You may be thinking: today’s title said about dementia, and this paper is about cardiovascular events, so what’s the connection?
The connection is: stroke is a cardiovascular event, and vascular dementia is a very common kind of dementia.
For much more detail on this, see: What’s Your Vascular Dementia Risk? ← includes actual numbers and a risk calculator tool and things like that
However, there’s more, for example:
❝The present study demonstrates that the use of Ca-containing dietary supplements, even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes.
Evaluation of randomised controlled trials is warranted to determine whether this relationship is a causal one.❞
Can you see how the press might take the first line and run with it, without addressing the second line?
See also: How Science News Outlets Can Lie To You (Yes, Even If They Cite Studies!)
We’ve also seen things like:
❝Calcium supplementation may increase the risk of developing dementia in elderly women with cerebrovascular disease.
Because our sample was relatively small and the study was observational, these findings need to be confirmed.❞
Source: Calcium supplementation and risk of dementia in women with cerebrovascular disease
Once again, a lot of news outlets will run with the first part without mentioning the latter parts.
And sometimes, it will be a case of “the title looks damning, even if the actual conclusion isn’t”, for example:
❝There was no association between treatment assignment and incident cognitive impairment.
Further studies are needed to investigate the effects of vitamin D and calcium separately, on men, in other age and ethnic groups, and with other doses.❞
Source: Calcium and Vitamin D Supplementation and Cognitive Impairment in the Women’s Health Initiative
…which will get shared around and seen by millions of people who don’t read beyond the title and think “oh, there is an association between calcium and vitamin D supplementation and cognitive impairment, the Women’s Health Initiative says so”, when in fact none of these things are what it is saying.
And that is how rumors run around the world while the truth hasn’t even tied its shoelaces yet.
And now for the truth
A long-term analysis of 1,460 women aged 70+ has found that daily calcium supplementation did not increase dementia risk over nearly 15 years of follow-up.
Specifically,
❝Mean baseline age was 75.1 ± 2.7 years. Dementia events were recorded in 269 women (18.4%), comprising 243 hospitalisations (16.6%) or 114 deaths (7.8%). No differences in the cumulative dementia-free survival rates were observed between groups in ITT and PP analyses.
Compared to placebo, calcium supplements did not increase risk of dementia-related events (unadjusted ITT hazard ratio [HR] 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.71–1.15), hospitalisations (HR 0.89, 95% CI 0.69–1.15) or deaths (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.54–1.13). Similar results were observed in PP analyses.❞
As you can see, the range neatly straddles “1” in each case, meaning that on average, it neither increases nor decreases the risk. And with regard to the different analyses, what that means is that both before and after adjusting for lifestyle, dietary, and genetic factors, there continued to be no association whatsoever.
In terms of p-score (a measure of how statistically significant the results are, by expressing the probability that this could have been arrived at by chance),
❝There was no significant difference (p = 0.28) in AMS scores between the calcium (n = 569) and placebo (n = 579) groups at the end of the RCT; median (IQR): 10 (9–10) in both groups.❞
You can read the paper in full, here: Calcium supplementation and the risk of dementia in the Perth Longitudinal Study of Aging Women: a post-hoc analysis of a randomised clinical trial for fracture prevention
That was, by the way, at 1200mg/day. So, a very normal amount of calcium, and generally considered slightly above what most people need.
Want to learn more?
While it appears calcium supplementation is healthful for most people at normal levels, there are still safe limits, and connected health considerations to bear in mind at the same time:
Vit D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing? ← this also talks about safe and effective doses, and what goes wrong if you take too much
There is also a common issue that a lot of people get enough calcium and vitamin D, but then a lot of that calcium doesn’t make it past the arteries.
Thus, the calcium paradox: we want to get (usually: more) calcium, but we want it building our bones, not lining our arteries. How, then, to resolve this problem, and simultaneously fight the dual threats of calcium deficiency (osteoporosis) and calcium excess (atherosclerosis)?
The answer lies in vitamin K2, which assists the calcium in getting to where you need it, rather than having it accumulating where you don’t.
Learn more: Vitamin K2 And The Calcium Paradox
Take care!
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Gut-Healthy Labneh Orecchiette
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Labneh (a sort of yogurt-cheese made from strained yogurt) is a great probiotic, and there’s plenty of resistant starch in this dish too, from how we cook, cool, and reheat the pasta. Add to this the lycopene from the tomatoes, the ergothioneine from the mushrooms, and the healthful properties of the garlic, black pepper, and red chili, and we have a very healthy dish!
You will need
- 10 oz labneh (if you can’t buy it locally, you can make your own by straining Greek yogurt through a muslin cloth, suspended over a bowl to catch the water that drips out, overnight—and yes, plant-based is also fine if you are vegan, and the gut benefits are similar because unlike vegan cheese, vegan yogurt is still fermented)
- 6 oz wholegrain orecchiette (or other pasta, but this shape works well for this sauce)
- ¼ bulb garlic, grated
- Juice of ½ lemon
- Large handful chopped parsley
- Large handful chopped dill
- 9 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
- 9 oz mushrooms (your choice what kind), sliced (unless you went for shiitake or similar, which don’t need it due to already being very thin)
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Cook the pasta as you normally would. Drain, and rinse with cold water. Set aside.
2) Combine the labneh with the garlic, black pepper, dill, parsley, and lemon juice, in a large bowl. Set aside.
3) Heat a little olive oil in a skillet; add the chili flakes, followed by the mushrooms. Cook until soft and browned, then add the tomatoes and fry for a further 1 minute—we want the tomatoes to be blistered, but not broken down. Stir in the MSG/salt, and take off the heat.
4) Refresh the pasta by passing a kettle of boiling water through it in a colander, then add the hot pasta to the bowl of labneh sauce, stirring to coat thoroughly.
5) Serve, spooning the mushrooms and tomatoes over the labneh pasta.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
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The Living Kitchen – by Tamara Green and Sarah Grossman
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For the most part, this is a very respectable book of recipes; plants-forward though not entirely plant-based (which from a cancer perspective is fine; poultry and fish are cancer-neutral, and fermented dairy may even be protective).
They do focus on including a lot of phytonutrient-rich foods (mostly: colorful plants), which indeed have a lot of anticancer potency between them.
It was an interesting choice to include some beef, since red meat is well-established as a carcinogen. The authors advise that it should be grass-fed, and this is a definite health improvement over the alternative, but still not great.
In a similar vein they recommend “sustainably farmed fish”. Not a known carcinogen, by the way (though watch out for antibiotics which are very high in farmed fish), but do you see the problem? Paying attention to sustainability is great; truly laudable. However, it won’t actually make any difference to the health impact on the consumer. Farmed fish is full of antibiotics, whether deemed sustainable or not.
The front cover shows a soup; the recipes in the book are a wide variety of different dishes, of which soups are just one category. There is a juices section, which not only was probably superfluous, but also is not amazing for the metabolism (and thus, not great in the context of cancer). On a more positive note though, the “mains” section is divided into “omnivore mains” and “vegetarian mains”, with equal attention given to both (20 pages each), so the recipes list isn’t entirely padded with juices and sauces and things (though yes, that also).
Bottom line: from an anticancer perspective, this one’s a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly good ones.
Click here to check out The Living Kitchen, and add to your culinary repertoire!
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