The Blue Zones Kitchen – by Dan Buettner
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We’ve previously reviewed Buettner’s other book, The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest, and with this one, it’s now time to focus on the dietary aspect.
As the title and subtitle promises, we get 100 recipes, inspired by Blue Zone cuisines. The recipes themselves have been tweaked a little for maximum healthiness, eliminating some ingredients that do crop up in the Blue Zones but are exceptions to their higher average healthiness rather than the rule.
The recipes are arranged by geographic zone rather than by meal type, so it might take a full read-through before knowing where to find everything, but it makes it a very enjoyable “coffee-table book” to browse, as well as being practical in the kitchen. The ingredients are mostly easy to find globally, and most can be acquired at a large supermarket and/or health food store. In the case of substitutions, most are obvious, e.g. if you don’t have wild fennel where you are, use cultivated, for example.
In the category of criticism, it appears that Buettner is very unfamiliar with spices, and so has skipped them almost entirely. We at 10almonds could never skip them, and heartily recommend adding your own spices, for their health benefits and flavors. It may take a little experimentation to know what will work with what recipes, but if you’re accustomed to cooking with spices normally, it’s unlikely that you’ll err by going with your heart here.
Bottom line: we’d give this book a once-over for spice additions, but aside from that, it’s a fine book of cuisine-by-location cooking.
Click here to check out The Blue Zones Kitchen, and get cooking into your own three digits!
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Do we really need to burp babies? Here’s what the research says
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Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to reduce how much a baby regurgitates milk after a feed.
It is true babies, like adults, swallow air when they eat. Burping releases this air from the top part of our digestive tracts. So when a baby cries after a feed, many assume it’s because the child needs to “be burped”. However, this is not necessarily true.
Why do babies cry or ‘spit up’ after a feed?
Babies cry for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with “trapped air”.
They cry when they are hungry, cold, hot, scared, tired, lonely, overwhelmed, needing adult help to calm, in discomfort or pain, or for no identifiable reason. In fact, we have a name for crying with no known cause; it’s called “colic”.
“Spitting up” – where a baby gently regurgitates a bit of milk after a feed – is common because the muscle at the top of a newborn baby’s stomach is not fully mature. This means what goes down can all too easily go back up.
Spitting up frequently happens when a baby’s stomach is very full, there is pressure on their tummy or they are picked up after lying down.
Spitting up after feeding decreases as babies get older. Three-quarters of babies one month old spit up after feeding at least once a day. Only half of babies still spit up at five months and almost all (96%) stop by their first birthdays.
There’s not much research out there on ‘burping’ babies. antoniodiaz/Shutterstock Does burping help reduce crying or spitting up?
Despite parents being advised to burp their babies, there’s not much research evidence on the topic.
One study conducted in India encouraged caregivers of 35 newborns to burp their babies, while caregivers of 36 newborns were not given any information about burping.
For the next three months, mothers and caregivers recorded whether their baby would spit up after feeding and whether they showed signs of intense crying.
This study found burping did not reduce crying and actually increased spitting up.
When should I be concerned about spitting up or crying?
Most crying and spitting up is normal. However, these behaviours are not:
- refusing to feed
- vomiting so much milk weight gain is slow
- coughing or wheezing distress while feeding
- bloody vomit.
If your baby has any of these symptoms, see a doctor or child health nurse.
If your baby seems unbothered by vomiting and does not have any other symptoms it is a laundry problem rather than something that needs medical attention.
It is also normal for babies to cry and fuss quite a lot; two hours a day, for about the first six weeks is the average.
This has usually reduced to about one hour a day by the time they are three months of age.
Crying more than this doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong. The intense, inconsolable crying of colic is experienced by up to one-quarter of young babies but goes away with time on its own .
If your baby is crying more than average or if you are worried there might be something wrong, you should see your doctor or child health nurse.
If your baby likes being ‘burped’, then it’s OK to do it. But don’t stress if you skip it. Miljan Zivkovic/Shutterstock Not everyone burps their baby
Burping babies seems to be traditional practice in some parts of the world and not in others.
For example, research in Indonesia found most breastfeeding mothers rarely or never burped their babies after feeding.
One factor that may influence whether a culture encourages burping babies may be related to another aspect of infant care: how much babies are carried.
Carrying a baby in a sling or baby carrier can reduce the amount of time babies cry.
Babies who are carried upright on their mother or another caregiver’s front undoubtedly find comfort in that closeness and movement.
Babies in slings are also being held firmly and upright, which would help any swallowed air to rise up and escape via a burp if needed.
Using slings can make caring for a baby easier. Studies (including randomised controlled trials) have also shown women have lower rates of post-natal depression and breastfeed for longer when they use a baby sling.
It is important baby carriers and slings are used safely, so make sure you’re up to date on the latest advice on how to do it.
So, should I burp my baby?
The bottom line is: it’s up to you.
Gently burping a baby is not harmful. If you feel burping is helpful to your baby, then keep doing what you’re doing.
If trying to burp your baby after every feed is stressing you or your baby out, then you don’t have to keep doing it.
Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University and Nina Jane Chad, Research Fellow, University of Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
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Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
We’ve talked before about how waist circumference is a much more useful indicator of metabolic health than BMI.
So, let’s say you’ve a bit more around the middle than you’d like, but it stubbornly stays there. What’s going on underneath what you can see, why is it going on, and how can you get it to change?
What is visceral fat?
First, let’s talk about subcutaneous fat. That’s the fat directly under your skin. Women usually have more than men, and that’s perfectly healthy (up to a point); it’s supposed to be that way. We (women) will tend to accumulate this mostly in places such as our breasts, hips, and butt, and work outwards from there. Men will tend to put it on more to the belly and face.
Side-note: if you’re undergoing (untreated) menopause, the changes in your hormone levels will tend to result in more subcutaneous fat to the belly and face too. That’s normal, and/but normal is not always good, and treatment options are great (with hormone replacement therapy, HRT, topping the list).
Visceral fat (also called visceral adipose tissue), on the other hand, is the fat of the viscera—the internal organs of the abdomen.
So, this is fat that goes under your abdominal muscles—you can’t squeeze this (directly).
So what can we do?
Famously “you can’t do spot reduction” (lose fat from a particular part of your body by focusing exercises on that area), but that’s about subcutaneous fat. There are things you can do that will reduce your visceral fat in particular.
Some of these advices you may think “that’s just good advice for losing fat in general” and it is, yes. But these are things that have the biggest impact on visceral fat.
Cut alcohol use
This is the biggie. By numerous mechanisms, some of which we’ve talked about before, alcohol causes weight gain in general yes, but especially for visceral fat.
Get better sleep
You might think that hitting the gym is most important, but this one ranks higher. Yes, you can trim visceral fat without leaving your bed (and even without getting athletic in bed, for that matter). Not convinced?
- Here’s a study of 101 people looking at sleep quality and abdominal adiposity
- Oh, and here’s a meta-analysis with 56,000 people (finding the same thing), in case that one study didn’t convince you.
So, the verdict is clear: you snooze, you lose (visceral fat)!
Tweak your diet
You don’t have to do a complete overhaul (unless you want to), but a few changes can make a big difference, especially:
- Getting more fiber (this is the biggie when it comes to diet)
- Eating less sugar (not really a surprise, but relevant to mention)
- Eat whole foods (skip the highly processed stuff)
If you’d like to learn more and enjoy videos, here’s an informative one to get you going!
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The Hidden Risk of Stretching: Avoiding Hamstring Injuries in Yoga
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What is Yoga Butt
Have you ever experienced a mysterious pain while stretching, or perhaps during yoga? You might be dealing with “yoga butt,” a common—although rarely discussed—injury. In the below video, the Lovely Liv from Livinleggings shares her journey of discovering, and overcoming, “yoga butt”.
Dealing With Yoga Butt
Yoga butt, or proximal hamstring tendinopathy, occurs when the hamstrings are overstretched without adequate strengthening. Many yoga poses help stretch the hamstrings, but often don’t focus on strengthening said hamstrings; this imbalance is what can lead to damage over time.
To help prevent Yoga butt, it’s essential to balance stretching with strengthening. You can look into incorporating hamstring-strengthening exercises like Romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls, and modified yoga poses into your routine.
(If you’re new to strengthening exercises, we recommend reading Women’s Strength Training Anatomy Workouts or Strength Training for Seniors).
Watch the full video to learn more and hopefully protect yourself from long-term injuries:
Let us know your thoughts, and whether you have any other topics you’d like us to cover.
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The China Study – by Dr. T Colin Campbell and Dr. Thomas M. Campbell
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This is not the newest book we’ve reviewed (originally published 2005; this revised and expanded edition 2016), but it is a seminal one.
You’ve probably heard it referenced, and maybe you’ve wondered what the fuss is about. Now you can know!
The titular study itself was huge. We tend to think “oh there was one study” and look to discount it, but it literally looked at the population of China. That’s a large study.
And because China is relatively ethnically homogenous, especially per region, it was easier to isolate what dietary factors made what differences to health. Of course, that did also create a limitation: follow-up studies would be needed to see if the results were the same for non-Chinese people. But even for the rest of us (this reviewer is not Chinese), it already pointed science in the right direction. And sure enough, smaller follow-up studies elsewhere found the same.
But enough about the research; what about the book? This is a book review, not a research review, after all.
The book itself is easy for a lay reader to understand. It explains how the study was conducted (no small feat), and how the data was examined. It also discusses the results, and the conclusions drawn from those results.
In light of all this, it also offers simple actionable advices, on how to eat to avoid disease in general, and cancer in particular. In especially that latter case, one take-home conclusion was: get more of your protein from plants for a big reduction in cancer risk, for example.
Bottom line: this book is an incredible blend of “comprehensive” and “readable” that we don’t often find in the same book! It contains not just a lot of science, but also an insight into how the science works, on a research level. And, of course, its results and conclusions have strong implications for all our lives.
Click here to check out The China Study, to know more about it!
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Is It Dementia?
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Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune)
Dementia affects increasingly many people, and unlike a lot of diseases, it disproportionately affects people in wealthy industrialized nations.
There are two main reasons for this:
- Longevity (in poorer countries, more people die of other things sooner; can’t get age-related cognitive decline if you don’t age)
- Lifestyle (in the age of convenience, it has never been easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle)
The former is obviously no bad thing for those of us lucky enough to be in wealthier countries (though even in such places, good healthcare access is of course sadly not a given for all).
The latter, however, is less systemic and more epidemic. But it does cut both ways:
- An unhealthy lifestyle is much easier here, yes
- A healthier lifestyle is much easier here, too!
This then comes down to two factors in turn:
- Information: knowing about dementia, what things lead to it, what to look out for, what to do
- Motivation: priorities, and how much attention we choose to give this matter
So, let’s get some information, and then give it our attention!
More than just memory
It’s easy to focus on memory loss, but the four key disabilities directly caused by dementia (each person may not get all four), can be remembered by the mnemonic: “AAAA!”
No, somebody didn’t just murder your writer. It’s:
- Amnesia: memory loss, in one or more of its many forms
- e.g. short term memory loss, and/or inability to make new memories
- Aphasia: loss of ability to express oneself, and/or understand what is expressed
- e.g. “More people have been to Berlin than I have”
- Or even less communication-friendly, Broca’s (Expressive) Aphasia and Wernicke’s (Receptive) Aphasia
- Apraxia: loss of ability to do things, through no obvious physical disability
- e.g. staring at the bathroom mirror wondering how to brush one’s teeth
- Agnosia: loss of ability to recognize things
- e.g. prosopagnosia, also called face-blindness.
If any of those seem worryingly familiar, be aware that while yes, it could be a red flag, what’s most important is patterns of these things.
Another difference between having a momentary brainlapse and having dementia might be, for example, the difference between forgetting your keys, and forgetting what keys do or how to use one.
That said, some are neurological deficits that may show up quite unrelated to dementia, including most of those given as examples above. So if you have just one, then that’s probably worthy of note, but probably not dementia.
Writer’s anecdote: I have had prosopagnosia all my life. To give an example of what that is like and how it’s rather more than just “bad with faces”…
Recently I saw my neighbor, and I could tell something was wrong with her face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then some moments later, I realized I had mistaken her hat for her face. It was a large beanie with a panda design on it, and that was facelike enough for me to find myself looking at the wrong face.
Subjective memory matters as much as objective
Objective memory tests are great indicators of potential cognitive decline (or improvement!), but even a subjective idea of having memory problems, that one’s memory is “not as good as it used to be”, can be an important indicator too:
Subjective memory may be marker for cognitive decline
And more recently:
If your memory feels like it’s not what it once was, it could point to a future dementia risk
If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, here’s the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free):
SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia
(The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)
There are things that can look like dementia that aren’t
A person with dementia may be unable to recognize their partner, but hey, this writer knows that feeling very well too. So what sets things apart?
More than we have room for today, but here’s a good overview:
What are the early signs of dementia, and how does it differ from normal aging?
Want to read more?
You might like our previous article more specifically about reducing Alzheimer’s risk:
Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk Early!
Take care!
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Carrots vs Parsnips – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing carrots to parsnips, we picked the parsnips.
Why?
There are arguments for both! But we say parsnips win on overall nutritional density.
In terms of macros, parsnips vary quite a lot from region to another, but broadly speaking, parsnips have more carbs and fiber, and/but the ratios are such that carrots have the lower glycemic index. We’ll call this one a win for carrots.
When it comes to vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, and choline, while parsnips have more of vitamins B1, B5, B9, C, E, and K. A small win for parsnips here.
In the category of minerals, carrots are not higher in any minerals, while parsnips are higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. An overwhelming win for parsnips.
While the overall vitamin and mineral content puts parsnips ahead, it’s still worth noting that carrots have highly bioavailable megadoses of vitamin A.
Another thing to note is that the glycemic index recorded for both is when peeled and boiled, whereas both of these root vegetables can be enjoyed raw if you wish, which has a much lower GI.
In short, enjoy either or both, but parsnips are the more nutritionally dense overall.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index
Take care!
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