The Power Foods Diet – by Dr. Neal Barnard
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First, what this is not: it’s not a cookbook. There are recipes, more than a hundred if we consider such things as “barbecue sauce” as a standalone recipe, and if we overlook such things as how “perfect hot oatmeal” is followed on the next page by a recipe for “perfect hot oatmeal with berries”.
However, as we say, it’s not a cookbook; it’s first and foremost an educational text on the topic of nutrition.
Here we will learn about good eating for general health, which foods are natural appetite-suppressants, which foods reduce our body’s absorption of sugars from foods (not merely slowing, but flushing them away so they cannot be absorbed at all), and which foods actually boost metabolism for a few hours after the meal.
Dr. Barnard also talks about some foods that are more healthy, or less healthy, than popularly believed, and how to use all this information to craft a good, optimized, dietary plan for you.
Bottom line: there’s a lot of good information here, and the recipes are simply a bonus.
Click here to check out The Power Foods Diet, and optimize yours!
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Beetroot vs Eggplant – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing beetroot to eggplant, we picked the beetroot.
Why?
It’s close!
In terms of macros, they’re equal on fiber, while beetroot has slightly more protein and carbs. In both cases, despite being quite firm vegetables when raw, they are nevertheless both mostly water. We’re calling this category a tie.
In the category of vitamins, beetroot has more of vitamins A, B2, B9, and C, while eggplant has more of vitamins B3, B5, B6, E, and K. That’s a marginal victory for eggplant.
When it comes to minerals, however, beetroot has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while eggplant is not higher in any minerals. A clear and easy win for beetroot this time.
In terms of polyphenols, both have good-but-different health-giving polyphenols to share, including the quercetin in beetroot and caffeic acid in eggplant—nothing that would tip one ahead of the other, though.
All in all, the categories added up are balanced, but beetroot won the minerals category much more convincingly than eggplant won the vitamins category, so we’re giving this one to beetroot, even if only on tie-breakers!
Of course, enjoy either or both; diversity is good 😎
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Beetroot For More Than Just Your Blood Pressure ← more beetroot benefits
Take care!
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Carrot vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing carrot to sweet potato, we picked the sweet potato.
Why?
Both are great! But there’s a winner in the end:
Looking at the macros first, sweet potato has more protein carbs, and fiber, and is thus the “more food per food” item. If they are both cooked the same, then the glycemic index is comparable, despite the carrot’s carbs having more sucrose and the sweet potato’s carbs having more starch. We’ll call this category a tie.
In terms of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins B9 and K, while sweet potatoes have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6. B7, C, E, and choline. Both are equally high in vitamin A. Thus, the vitamins category is an overwhelming win for sweet potato.
When it comes to minerals, carrots are not higher in any minerals (unless we count that they are slightly higher in sodium, but that is not generally considered a plus for most people in most places most of the time), while sweet potato is higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Another easy win for sweet potato.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear win for the sweet potato as the more nutritionally dense option, but as ever, enjoy either or both!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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The Myth of Normal – by Dr. Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté
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A lot of popular beliefs (and books!) start with the assumption that everyone is, broadly speaking, “normal”. That major diversions from “normal” happen only to other people… And that minor diversions from “normal” are just something to suck up and get over—magically effecting a return to “normalcy”.
Dr. Maté, however, will have none of these unhelpful brush-offs, and observes that in fact most if not all of us have been battered by the fates one way or another. We just:
- note that we have more similarities than differences, and
- tend to hide our own differences (to be accepted) or overlook other people’s (to make them more acceptable).
How is this more helpful? Well, the above approach isn’t always, but Mate has an improvement to offer:
We must see flawed humans (including ourselves) as the product of our environments… and/but see this a reason to look at improving those environments!
Beyond that…
The final nine chapters of the books he devotes to “pathways to wholeness” and, in a nutshell, recovery. Recovery from whatever it was for you. And if you’ve had a life free from anything that needs recovering from, then congratulations! You doubtlessly have at least one loved one who wasn’t so lucky, though, so this book still makes for excellent reading.
Dr. Maté was awarded the Order of Canada for his medical work and writing. His work has mostly been about addiction, trauma, stress, and childhood development. He co-wrote this book with his son, Daniel.
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Seed Saving Secrets – by Alice Mirren
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We all know that home-grown is best, and yet many of us are not exactly farmers (this reviewer tries with mixed results—hardy crops survive; others, not so much). While it’s easy to blame the acidic soil, the harsh climate, or not having enough time and money (this reviewer blames all of the above), the fact remains that a skilled gardener can produce a good crop in any conditions.
That’s where this book helps; right from the beginning, from the seeds. Have you ever bought a pack of seeds, excitedly sown them, and then had a germination rate of zero or something close to that (this reviewer has)?
Alice Mirren takes us on a tour of how to save seeds from plants you know are regionally viable (not the product of some vast globalized industry that doesn’t know you live in an ancient bog with a cold south-east wind blowing in from Siberia), and then how to care for and curate them, how to store them for future years, how to keep a self-perpetuating seed bank.
She goes beyond that, though. Regular 10almonds readers might remember about the supercentenarian “Blue Zones”, and how big factors in healthy longevity include community and purpose; Mirren advocates for organizing community seed banks, which will also mean that everyone (including you) has access to much more diverse seeds, and when it comes to the perils of natural selection, diversity means survival. Otherwise, if you have just one seed type, a single blight can wipe out everything pretty much overnight.
Bottom line: if you grow your own food or would like to, this is a “bible of…” level book that you absolutely should have to hand.
Click here to check out Seed Saving Secrets, and see the results in your kitchen and on your plate!
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The Lymphatic System Against Cancer & More
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Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
Just kidding; we’ll cover that first, as it’s definitely not talked about enough.
The lymphatic system is the system in the body that moves lymph around. It’s made of glands, nodes, and vessels:
- The glands (such as the tonsils and the adenoids) and nodes filter out bacteria and produce white blood cells. Specific functions may be, well, specialized—beyond the scope of today’s article—but that’s the broad function.
- The vessels are the tubes that allow those things to be moved around, suspended in lymph.
What’s lymph? It’s a colorless water-like liquid that transports immune cells, nutrients (and waste) around the body (through the lymphatic system).
Yes, it works alongside your vasculature; when white blood cells aren’t being deployed en masse into your bloodstream to deal with some threat, they’re waiting in the wings in the lymphatic system.
While your blood is pumped around by your heart, lymph moves based on a variety of factors, including contractions of small specialized lymphatic muscles, the pressure gradient created by the combination of those and gravity, and the movements of your body itself.
Here’s a larger article than we have room for, with diagrams we also don’t have room for:
Modelling the lymphatic system
To oversimplify it in few words for the sake of moving on: you can most of the time: think of it as an ancillary network supporting your circulatory system that unlike blood, doesn’t deal with oxygen or sugars, but does deal with a lot of other things, including:
- water and salt balance
- immune cells and other aspects of immune function
- transports fats (and any fat-soluble vitamins in them) into circulation
- cleans up stuff that gets stuck between cells
- general detoxification
There’s a lot that can go wrong if lymph isn’t flowing as it should
Too much to list here, but to give an idea:
- Arthritis and many autoimmune diseases
- Cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome
- Obesity, diabetes, and organ failure
- Alzheimer’s and other dementias
- Lymphadenitis, lymphangitis, and lymphedenopathy
- Lymphomas and Hodgkin’s disease (both are types of lymphatic cancer)
- Cancers of other kinds, because of things not being cleaned up where and when they should be
Yikes! That’s a lot of important things for a mostly-forgotten system to be taking care of protecting us from!
What you can do for your lymphatic system, to avoid those things!
Happily, there are easy things we can do to give our lymph some love, such as:
Massage therapy (and foam rolling)
This is the go-to that many people/publications recommend. It’s good! It’s certainly not the most important thing to do, but it’s good.
You can even use a simple gadget like this one to help move the lymph around, without needing to learn arcane massage techniques.
Exercise (move your body!)
This is a lot more important. The more we move our body, the more lymph moves around. The more lymph moves around today, the more easily it will move around tomorrow. A healthy constant movement of lymph throughout the lymphatic system is key to keeping everything running smoothly.
If you pick only one kind of exercise, make it High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT):
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
If for some reason you really can’t do that, just spend as much of your waking time as reasonably possible, moving, per:
For ideas on how to do that, check out…
Get thee to a kitchen
This is about getting healthy food that gives your body’s clean-up crew (the lymphatic system) an easier time of it.
Rather than trying to “eat clean” which can be a very nebulous term and it’s often not at all clear (and/or hotly debated) what counts as “clean”, instead, stick to foods that constitute an anti-inflammatory diet:
Take care!
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Healthy Cook’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet & Cookbook – by Dr. Albert Orbinati
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Chronic inflammation is a root cause of very many illnesses, and exacerbates almost all the ones it doesn’t cause. So, reducing inflammation is a very good way to stay well in general, reducing one’s risk factors for very many other diseases.
Dr. Orbinati starts by giving advice for adjusting to an anti-inflammatory diet, including advice on trying an elimination diet, if you suspect an undiagnosed allergy/intolerance.
Thereafter, he gives guidance on pantry-stocking—not just what anti-inflammatory foods to include and what inflammatory foods to skip, but also, what food and nutrient pairings are particularly beneficial, like how black pepper and turmeric are both anti-inflammatory by themselves, but the former greatly increases the bioavailability of the latter if consumed together.
The rest of the book—aside from assorted appendices, such as 8 pages of scientific references—is given over to the recipes.
The recipes themselves are, obviously, anti-inflammatory in focus. As one might expect, therefore, most are vegetarian and many are vegan, but we do find many recipes with chicken and fish as well; there’s also some use of eggs and fermented dairy in some of the recipes too.
The book certainly does deliver on its promise of flavorful healthy food; that’s what happens when one includes a lot of herbs and spices in one’s cooking, as well as the fact that many other polyphenol-rich foods are, by nature, tasty in and of themselves.
Bottom line: if you’d like to expand your anti-inflammatory culinary repertoire, this book is a top-tier choice for that.
Click here to check out Healthy Cook’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet & Cookbook, and spice up your kitchen!
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