Walnut, Apricot, & Sage Nut Roast

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It’s important to have at least one good nut roast recipe in your repertoire. It’s something that’s very good for making a good dish out of odds and ends that are in your house, and done well, it’s not only filling and nutritious, but a tasty treat too. Done badly, everyone knows the results can be unfortunate… Making this the perfect way to show off your skills!

You will need

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • ½ cup almonds
  • ¼ cup whole mixed seeds (chia, pumpkin, & poppy are great)
  • ¼ cup ground flax (also called flax meal)
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 large carrot, grated
  • 4 oz dried apricots, chopped
  • 3 oz mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 oz dried goji berries
  • ½ bulb garlic, crushed
  • 2 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 2 tsp dried rosemary
  • 2 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
  • 1 tsp yeast extract (even if you don’t like it; trust us; it will work) dissolved in ¼ cup hot water
  • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
  • Extra virgin olive oil

Method

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

1) Preheat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃, and line a 2 lb loaf tin with baking paper.

2) Heat some oil in a skillet over a moderate heat, and fry the onion for a few minutes until translucent. Add the garlic, carrot, and mushrooms, cooking for another 5 minutes, stirring well. Set aside to cool a little once done.

3) Process the nuts in a food processor, pulsing until they are well-chopped but not so much that they turn into flour.

4) Combine the nuts, vegetables, and all the other ingredients in a big bowl, and mix thoroughly. If it doesn’t have enough structural integrity to be thick and sticky and somewhat standing up by itself if you shape it, add more ground flax. If it is too dry, add a little water but be sparing.

5) Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin, press down well (or else it will break upon removal), cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake for a further 15 minutes, until firm and golden. When done, allow it to rest in the tin for a further 15 minutes, before turning it out.

6) Serve, as part of a roast dinner (roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy, etc).

Enjoy!

Want to learn more?

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

Take care!

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  • Demystifying Cholesterol

    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.

    All About Cholesterol

    When it comes to cholesterol, the most common lay understanding (especially under a certain age) is “it’s bad”.

    A more informed view (and more common after a certain age) is “LDL cholesterol is bad; HDL cholesterol is good”.

    A more nuanced view is “LDL cholesterol is established as significantly associated with (and almost certainly a causal factor of) atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and related mortality in men; in women it is less strongly associated and may or may not be a causal factor”

    You can read more about that here:

    Statins: His & Hers? ← we highly recommend reading this, especially if you are a woman and/or considering/taking statins. To be clear, we’re not saying “don’t take statins!”, because they might be the right medical choice for you and we’re not your doctors. But we are saying: here’s something to at least know about and consider.

    Beyond HDL & LDL

    There is also VLDL cholesterol, which as you might have guessed, stands for “very low-density lipoprotein”. It has a high, unhealthy triglyceride content, and it increases atherosclerotic plaque. In other words, it hardens your arteries more quickly.

    The term “hardening the arteries” is an insufficient descriptor of what’s happening though, because while yes it is hardening the arteries, it’s also narrowing them. Because minerals and detritus passing through in the blood (the latter sounds bad, but there is supposed to be detritus passing through in the blood; it’s got to get out of the body somehow, and it’s off to get filtered and excreted) get stuck in the cholesterol (which itself is a waxy substance, by the way) and before you know it, those minerals and other things have become a solid part of the interior of your artery wall, like a little plastering team came and slapped plaster on the inside of the walls, then when it hardened, slapped more plaster on, and so on. Macrophages (normally the body’s best interior clean-up team) can’t eat things much bigger than themselves, so that means they can’t tackle the build-up of plaque.

    Impact on the heart

    Narrower less flexible arteries means very poor circulation, which means that organs can start having problems, which obviously includes your heart itself as it is not only having to do a harder job to keep the blood circulating through the narrower blood vessels, but also, it is not immune to also being starved of oxygen and nutrients along with the rest of the body when the circulation isn’t good enough. It’s a catch 22.

    What if LDL is low and someone is getting heart disease anyway?

    That’s often a case of apolipoprotein B, and unlike lipoprotein A, which is bound to LDL so usually* isn’t a problem if LDL is in “safe” ranges, Apo-B can more often cause problems even when LDL is low. Neither of these are tested for in most standard cholesterol tests by the way, so you might have to ask for them.

    *Some people, around 1 in 20 people, have hereditary extra risk factors for this.

    What to do about it?

    Well, get those lipids tests! Including asking for the LpA and Apo-B tests, especially if you have a history of heart disease in your family, or otherwise know you have a genetic risk factor.

    With or without extra genetic risks, it’s good to get lipids tests done annually from 40 onwards (earlier, if you have extra risk factors).

    See also: Understanding your cholesterol numbers

    Wondering whether you have an increased genetic risk or not?

    Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods ← we think this is worth doing; it’s a “one-off test tells many useful things”. Usually done from a saliva sample, but some companies arrange a blood draw instead. Cost is usually quite affordable; do shop around, though.

    Additionally, talk to your pharmacist to check whether any of your meds have contraindications or interactions you should be aware of in this regard. Pharmacists usually know contraindications/interactions stuff better than doctors, and/but unlike doctors, they don’t have social pressure on them to know everything, which means that if they’re not sure, instead of just guessing and reassuring you in a confident voice, they’ll actually check.

    Lastly, shocking nobody, all the usual lifestyle medicine advice applies here, especially get plenty of moderate exercise and eat a good diet, preferably mostly if not entirely plant-based, and go easy on the saturated fat.

    Note: while a vegan diet contains zero dietary cholesterol (because plants don’t make it), vegans can still get unhealthy blood lipid levels, because we are animals and—like most animals—our body is perfectly capable of making its own cholesterol (indeed, we do need some cholesterol to function), and it can make its own in the wrong balance, if for example we go too heavy on certain kinds of (yes, even some plant-based) saturated fat.

    Read more: Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy? ← see for example how palm oil and coconut oil are both plant-based, and both high in saturated fat, but palm oil’s is heart-unhealthy on balance, while coconut oil’s is heart-healthy on balance (in moderation).

    Want to know more about your personal risk?

    Try the American College of Cardiology’s ASCVD risk estimator (it’s free)

    Take care!

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  • Fatty Acids For The Eyes & Brain: The Good And The Bad

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    Good For The Eyes; Good For The Brain

    We’ve written before about omega-3 fatty acids, covering the basics and some lesser-known things:

    What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us

    …and while we discussed its well-established benefits against cognitive decline (which is to be expected, because omega-3 is good against inflammation, and a large part of age-related neurodegeneration is heavily related to neuroinflammation), there’s a part of the brain we didn’t talk about in that article: the eyes.

    We did, however, talk in another article about supplements that benefit the eyes and [the rest of the] brain, and the important links between the two, to the point that an examination of the levels of lutein in the retina can inform clinicians about the levels of lutein in the brain as a whole, and strongly predict Alzheimer’s disease (because Alzheimer’s patients have significantly less lutein), here:

    Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

    Now, let’s tie these two ideas together

    In a recent (June 2024) meta-analysis of high-quality observational studies from the US and around the world, involving nearly a quarter of a million people over 40 (n=241,151), researchers found that a higher intake of omega-3 is significantly linked to a lower risk of macular degeneration.

    To put it in numbers, the highest intake of omega-3s was associated with an 18% reduced risk of early stage macular degeneration.

    They also looked at a breakdown of what kinds of omega-3, and found that taking a blend DHA and EPA worked best of all, although of people who only took one kind, DHA was the best “single type” option.

    You can read the paper in full, here:

    Association between fatty acid intake and age-related macular degeneration: a meta-analysis

    A word about trans-fatty acids (TFAs)

    It was another feature of the same study that, while looking at fatty acids in general, they also found that higher consumption of trans-fatty acids was associated with a higher risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration.

    Specifically, the highest intake of TFAs was associated with a more than 2x increased risk.

    There are two main dietary sources of trans-fatty acids:

    • Processed foods that were made with TFAs; these have now been banned in a lot of places, but only quite recently, and the ban is on the processing, not the sale, so if you buy processed foods that contain ingredients that were processed before 2021 (not uncommon, given the long life of many processed foods), the chances of them having TFAs is higher.
    • Most animal products. Most notably from mammals and their milk, so beef, pork, lamb, milk, cheese, and yes even yogurt. Poultry and fish technically do also contain TFAs in most cases, but the levels are much lower.

    Back to the omega-3 fatty acids…

    If you’re wondering where to get good quality omega-3, well, we listed some of the best dietary sources in our main omega-3 article (linked at the top of today’s).

    However, if you want to supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon that’s high in DHA and EPA, following the science of what we shared today 😎

    Take care!

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  • Treat Your Own Hip – by Robin McKenzie

    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.

    We previously reviewed another book by this author in this series, “Treat Your Own Knee”, and today it’s the same deal, but for the hip.

    A quick note about the author first: a physiotherapist and not a doctor, but with over 40 years of practice to his name and 33 letters after his name (CNZM OBE FCSP (Hon) FNZSP (Hon) Dip MDT Dip MT), he seems to know his stuff.

    He takes the reader through first diagnosing the nature of the pain (and how to rule out, for example, a back problem manifesting as hip pain, rather than a hip problem per se—and points to his own “Treat Your Own Back” manual if it turns out that that’s your problem instead), and then treating it. A bold claim, the kind that many people’s lawyers don’t let them make, but once again, this guy is pretty much the expert when it comes to this. Ask any other physiotherapist, and they probably have several of his books on their shelf.

    The treatments recommend are tailored to the results of various diagnostic flowcharts; essentially troubleshooting your hip. However, they mainly consist of exercises (perhaps the greatest value of the book), and lifestyle adjustments (these ones, 10almonds readers probably know already, but a reminder never hurts).

    The explanations are thorough while still being comprehensible, and there is zero sensationalization or fluff. It is straight to the point, and clearly illustrated too with diagrams and photographs.

    Bottom line: if you’re looking for a “one-stop shop” for diagnosing and treating your bad hip, then this is it.

    Click here to check out Treat Your Own Hip, and indeed Treat Your Own Hip!

    PS: if you have musculoskeletal problems elsewhere in your body, you might want to check out the rest of his body parts series (neck, back, shoulder, wrist, knee, ankle) for the one that’s tailored to your specific problem.

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  • Blue Cheese vs Brunost – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing blue cheese to brunost, we picked the brunost.

    Why?

    First, for the unfamiliar, as brunost isn’t necessarily as popular as blue cheese in N. America where most of our readers are:

    Brunost, literally “brown cheese” is a traditional Norwegian affair made from aggressively boiling milk, cream, and whey in an iron cauldron. Whereas the blue in blue cheese comes from mold, the brown in brown cheese comes from caramelizing the milk sugars in the cauldron. When we say “cauldron”, yes, there is nowadays mass-produced brunost that is no longer made in something that could be mistaken for a witch’s brew, but the use of cast iron is actually important to the process, and has been the subject of regulatory controversy in Norway; first the cast iron was abandoned, then because that changed the cheese they fortified the product with added iron supplementation, then that was banned, then they reversed it because it affected iron levels in the general population. Nowadays, it is usually made with iron, one way or another.

    Ok, so let’s see how they stack up against each other:

    In terms of macronutrients, the two cheeses are comparable in fat, but brunost has more carbs—because whereas bacteria (and to a lesser extent, the mold) ate nearly all the carbs in the blue cheese, the caramelization of the milk sugars in brunost meant the result stayed higher in carbs. Both are considered “low GI” foods, but this category is still at least a moderate win for blue cheese.

    When it comes to vitamins, brunost is higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12, while blue cheese is higher in vitamin B9. In other words, a clear and easy win for brunost.

    In the category of minerals, brunost has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. Meanwhile, blue cheese contains more zinc, although we can also mention that blue cheese has about 2x the sodium, which is generally not considered a benefit. The two cheeses are about equal in calcium and selenium. Adding these up makes for another clear and easy win for brunost.

    In short, unless you are strongly avoiding [even low-GI foods’] carbs for some reason, brunost wins the day by virtue of its overwhelmingly better vitamin and mineral content.

    Still, like most fermented dairy products, both cheeses can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a healthy diet (assuming you don’t have an allergy/intolerance).

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Is Dairy Scary?

    Take care!

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  • The Oh She Glows Cookbook – by Angela Liddon

    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.

    Let’s get the criticism out of the way first: notwithstanding the subtitle promising over 100 recipes, there are about 80-odd here, if we discount recipes that are no-brainer things like smoothies, sides such as for example “roasted garlic”, or meta-ingredients such as oat flour (instructions: blend the oats and you get oat flour).

    The other criticism is more subjective: if you are like this reviewer, you will want to add more seasonings than recommended to most of the recipes. But that’s easy enough to do.

    As for the rest: this is a very healthy cookbook, and quite wide-ranging and versatile, with recipes that are homely, with a lot of emphasis on comfort foods (but still, healthy), though certainly some are perfectly worthy of entertaining too.

    A nice bonus of this book is that it offers a lot of available substitutions (much like we do at 10almonds), and also ways of turning the recipe into something else entirely with just a small change. This trait more than makes up for the slight swindle in terms of number of recipes, since some of the recipes have bonus recipes snuck in.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to broaden your plant-based cooking range, this book is a fine option for expanding your repertoire.

    Click here to check out The Oh She Glows Cookbook, and indeed glow!

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  • Oral vaccines could provide relief for people who suffer regular UTIs. Here’s how they work

    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.

    In a recent TikTok video, Australian media personality Abbie Chatfield shared she was starting a vaccine to protect against urinary tract infections (UTIs).

    Huge news for the UTI girlies. I am starting a UTI vaccine tonight for the first time.

    Chatfield suffers from recurrent UTIs and has turned to the Uromune vaccine, an emerging option for those seeking relief beyond antibiotics.

    But Uromune is not a traditional vaccine injected to your arm. So what is it and how does it work?

    9nong/Shutterstock

    First, what are UTIs?

    UTIs are caused by bacteria entering the urinary system. This system includes the kidneys, bladder, ureters (thin tubes connecting the kidneys to the bladder), and the urethra (the tube through which urine leaves the body).

    The most common culprit is Escherichia coli (E. coli), a type of bacteria normally found in the intestines.

    While most types of E. coli are harmless in the gut, it can cause infection if it enters the urinary tract. UTIs are particularly prevalent in women due to their shorter urethras, which make it easier for bacteria to reach the bladder.

    Roughly 50% of women will experience at least one UTI in their lifetime, and up to half of those will have a recurrence within six months.

    A diagram of the urinary system.
    UTIs are caused by bacteria enterning the urinary system. oxo7051/Shutterstock

    The symptoms of a UTI typically include a burning sensation when you wee, frequent urges to go even when the bladder is empty, cloudy or strong-smelling urine, and pain or discomfort in the lower abdomen or back. If left untreated, a UTI can escalate into a kidney infection, which can require more intensive treatment.

    While antibiotics are the go-to treatment for UTIs, the rise of antibiotic resistance and the fact many people experience frequent reinfections has sparked more interest in preventive options, including vaccines.

    What is Uromune?

    Uromune is a bit different to traditional vaccines that are injected into the muscle. It’s a sublingual spray, which means you spray it under your tongue. Uromune is generally used daily for three months.

    It contains inactivated forms of four bacteria that are responsible for most UTIs, including E. coli. By introducing these bacteria in a controlled way, it helps your immune system learn to recognise and fight them off before they cause an infection. It can be classified as an immunotherapy.

    A recent study involving 1,104 women found the Uromune vaccine was 91.7% effective at reducing recurrent UTIs after three months, with effectiveness dropping to 57.6% after 12 months.

    These results suggest Uromune could provide significant (though time-limited) relief for women dealing with frequent UTIs, however peer-reviewed research remains limited.

    Any side effects of Uromune are usually mild and may include dry mouth, slight stomach discomfort, and nausea. These side effects typically go away on their own and very few people stop treatment because of them. In rare cases, some people may experience an allergic reaction.

    How can I access it?

    In Australia, Uromune has not received full approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and so it’s not something you can just go and pick up from the pharmacy.

    However, Uromune can be accessed via the TGA’s Special Access Scheme or the Authorised Prescriber pathway. This means a GP or specialist can apply for approval to prescribe Uromune for patients with recurrent UTIs. Once the patient has a form from their doctor documenting this approval, they can order the vaccine directly from the manufacturer.

    A woman sitting on a couch taking a pill.
    Antibiotics are the go-to treatment for UTIs – but scientists are looking at options to prevent them in the first place. Photoroyalty/Shutterstock

    Uromune is not covered under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, meaning patients must cover the full cost out-of-pocket. The cost of a treatment program is around A$320.

    Uromune is similarly available through special access programs in places like the United Kingdom and Europe.

    Other options in the pipeline

    In addition to Uromune, scientists are exploring other promising UTI vaccines.

    Uro-Vaxom is an established immunomodulator, a substance that helps regulate or modify the immune system’s response to bacteria. It’s derived from E. coli proteins and has shown success in reducing UTI recurrences in several studies. Uro-Vaxom is typically prescribed as a daily oral capsule taken for 90 days.

    FimCH, another vaccine in development, targets something called the adhesin protein that helps E. coli attach to urinary tract cells. FimCH is typically administered through an injection and early clinical trials have shown promising results.

    Meanwhile, StroVac, which is already approved in Germany, contains inactivated strains of bacteria such as E. coli and provides protection for up to 12 months, requiring a booster dose after that. This injection works by stimulating the immune system in the bladder, offering temporary protection against recurrent infections.

    These vaccines show promise, but challenges like achieving long-term immunity remain. Research is ongoing to improve these options.

    No magic bullet, but there’s reason for optimism

    While vaccines such as Uromune may not be an accessible or perfect solution for everyone, they offer real hope for people tired of recurring UTIs and endless rounds of antibiotics.

    Although the road to long-term relief might still be a bit bumpy, it’s exciting to see innovative treatments like these giving people more options to take control of their health.

    Iris Lim, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Science, Bond University

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

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