Water Bath + More Cookbook for Beginners – by Sarah Roslin

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Whether you want to be prepared for the next major crisis that shuts down food supply chains, or just learn a new skill, this book provides the tools!

Especially beneficial if you also grow your own vegetables, but even you just buy those… Home-canned food is healthy, contains fewer additives and preservatives, and costs less in the long run.

Roslin teaches an array of methods, including most importantly:

  1. fermentation and pickling
  2. water bath canning, and
  3. pressure canning.

As for what’s inside? She covers not just vegetables, but also fruit, seafood, meat… Basically, anything that can be canned.

The book explains the tools and equipment you will need as well as how to perform it safely—as well as common mistakes to avoid!

Lest we be intimidated by the task of acquiring appropriate equipment, she also walks us through what we’ll need in that regard too!

Last but not least, there’s also a (sizeable) collection of simple, step-by-step recipes, catering to a wide variety of tastes.

Bottom line: a highly valuable resource that we recommend heartily.

Get your copy of “Water Bath + Pressure Canning & Preserving Cookbook for Beginners” from Amazon today!

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Recommended

  • Heart Smarter for Women – by Dr. Jennifer Mieres
  • Coach’s Plan – by Mike Kavanagh
    Get motivated and hold yourself accountable with “Coach’s Plan”. Switch roles, trust the instructions, and eliminate self-doubt. Available now on Amazon!

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  • How To Heal Psoriasis Naturally

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    Nutritionist Julia Davies explains the gut-skin connection (& how to use it to your advantage) in this video:

    Inside out

    Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune skin condition, in which the skin renewal process accelerates from 28 days (normal) to 3–5 days, leading to red, scaly patches. It most commonly affects the outer joints (especially elbows & knees) but can appear anywhere, including the scalp and torso.

    Autoimmune diseases are often linked to gut barrier integrity issues, as leaky gut syndrome allows toxins/food particles to penetrate the gut lining, triggering an immune response, which means inflammation.

    Standard treatments often include topical or systemic immunosuppressants, such as steroids. Such medications suppress the immune response (and thus the symptoms) but they don’t address root causes.

    What to do about it, from the root

    As you might imagine, part of the key is a non-inflammatory (or ideally, anti-inflammatory) diet. This means starting by removing likely triggers; gluten sensitivity is common so that’s near the top of the list.

    At the very top of the list though is sugar*, which is not only pro-inflammatory but also feeds candida in the gut, which is a major driver of leaky gut, as the fungus puts its roots through your intestines (that’s as bad as it sounds).

    *as usual, sugar that comes with adequate fiber, such as whole fruit, is fine. Fruit juice, however, is not.

    It is likely to see early improvements within 6 weeks, and significant improvement (such as being mostly symptom-free) can take 6–8 months, so don’t give up if it’s day 3 and you’re not cured yet. This is a marathon not a sprint, and you’ll need to maintain things or the psoriasis may return.

    In the meantime, it is recommended to do all you reasonably can to help your gut to repair itself, which means a good amount of fiber, and occasional probiotics. Also, focusing on whole, nutrient-dense foods will of course reduce inflammation and improve energy—which can be a big deal, as psoriasis is often associated with fatigue, both because inflammation itself is exhausting (the body is very active, on a cellular level), and because a poor diet is not invigorating.

    Outside of diet, stress is often a trigger for flare-ups, so try to manage that too, of course.

    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 to read:

    Of Brains & Breakouts: The Brain-Skin Doctor

    Take care!

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  • How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

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    How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

    In Greek mythology, Prometheus suffered the punishment of being chained to a rock, where he would have his liver eaten by an eagle, whereupon each day his liver would grow back, only to be eaten again the next day.

    We mere humans who are not Greek gods might not be able to endure quite such punishment to our liver, but it is an incredibly resilient and self-regenerative organ.

    In fact, provided at least 51% of the liver is still present and correct, the other 49% will regrow. Similarly, damage done (such as by trying to store too much fat there due to metabolic problems, as in alcoholic or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) will reverse itself in time, given the chance.

    The difference between us and Prometheus

    In the myth, Prometheus had his liver regrow overnight every night. Ours don’t recover quite so quickly.

    Indeed, the science has good and bad news for us:

    ❝Liver recolonization models have demonstrated that hepatocytes have an unlimited regenerative capacity. However, in normal liver, cell turnover is very slow.❞

    ~ Michalopoulos and Bhusan (2020)

    Read more: Liver regeneration: biological and pathological mechanisms and implications

    If it regenerates, why do people need transplants, and/or die of liver disease?

    There are some diseases of the liver that inhibit its regenerative abilities, or (as in the case of cancer) abuse them to our detriment. However, in the case of fatty liver disease, the reason is usually simple:

    If the lifestyle factors that caused the liver to become fatty are still there, then its regenerative abilities won’t be able to keep up with the damage that is still being done.

    Can we speed it up at all?

    Yes! The first and most important thing is to minimize how much ongoing harm you are still doing to it, though.

    • If you drink alcohol, stop. According to the WHO, the only amount of alcohol that is safe for you is zero.
    • Consider your medications, and find out which place a strain on the liver. Many medications are not optional; you’re taking them for an important reason, so don’t quit things without checking with your doctor. Medications that strain the liver include, but are by no means limited to:
      • Many painkillers, including acetaminophen/paracetamol (e.g. Tylenol), and ibuprofen
      • Some immunosuppresent drugs, including azathioprine
      • Some epilepsy drugs, including phenytoin
      • Some antibiotics, including amoxicillin
      • Statins in general

    Note: we are not pharmacists, nor doctors, let alone your doctors.

    Check with yours about what is important for you to take, and what alternatives might be safe for you to consider.

    Dietary considerations

    While there are still things we don’t know about the cause(s) of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, there is a very strong association with a diet that is:

    • high in salt
    • high in refined carbohydrates
      • e.g. white flour and white flour products such as white bread and white pasta; also the other main refined carbohydrate: sugar
    • high in red meat
    • high in non-fermented dairy
    • high in fried foods.

    So, consider minimizing those, and instead getting plenty of fiber, and plenty of lean protein (not from red meat, but poultry and fish are fine iff not fried; beans and legumes are top-tier, though).

    Also, hydrate. Most people are dehydrated most of the time, and that’s bad for all parts of the body, and the liver is no exception. It can’t regenerate if it’s running on empty!

    Read more: Foods To Include (And Avoid) In A Healthy Liver Diet

    How long will it take to heal?

    In the case of alcoholic fatty liver disease, it should start healing a few days after stopping drinking. Then, how long it takes to fully recover depends on the extent of the damage; it could be weeks or months. In extreme cases, years, but that is rare. Usually if the damage is that severe, a transplant is needed.

    In the case of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, again it depends on the extent of the damage, but it is usually a quicker recovery than the alcoholic kind—especially if eating a Mediterranean diet.

    Read more: How Long Does It Take For Your Liver To Repair Itself?

    Take good care of yourself!

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  • What are plyometric exercises? How all that hopping and jumping builds strength, speed and power

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    If you’ve ever seen people at the gym or the park jumping, hopping or hurling weighted balls to the ground, chances are they were doing plyometric exercises.

    Examples include:

    • box jumps, where you repeatedly leap quickly on and off a box
    • lateral skater hops, where you bound from side to side like a speeding ice skater
    • rapidly throwing a heavy medicine ball against a wall, or to the ground
    • single leg hops, which may involve hopping on the spot or through an obstacle course
    • squat jumps, where you repeatedly squat and then launch yourself into the air.
    Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels

    There are many more examples of plyometric exercises.

    What ties all these moves together is that they use what’s known as the “stretch shortening cycle”. This is where your muscles rapidly stretch and then contract.

    A runner skips over an obstacle course in a field.
    Runners routinely practise plyometric exercises to improve explosive leg strength. WoodysPhotos/Shutterstock

    Potential benefits

    Research shows incorporating plyometric exercise into your routine can help you:

    Studies have found plyometric exercises can help:

    • older people who want to retain and build muscle strength, boost bone health, improve posture and reduce the risk of falls
    • adolescent athletes who want to build the explosive strength needed to excel in sports such as athletics, tennis, soccer, basketball and football
    • female athletes who want to jump higher or change direction quickly (a useful skill in many sports)
    • endurance runners who want to boost physical fitness, run time and athletic performance.

    And when it comes to plyometric exercises, you get out what you put in.

    Research has found the benefits of plyometrics are significantly greater when every jump was performed with maximum effort.

    Women jump on and off boxes.
    Jumping can help boost bone strength. WoodysPhotos/Shutterstock

    Potential risks

    All exercise comes with risk (as does not doing enough exercise!)

    Plyometrics are high-intensity activities that require the body to absorb a lot of impact when landing on the ground or catching medicine balls.

    That means there is some risk of musculoskeletal injury, particularly if the combination of intensity, frequency and volume is too high.

    You might miss a landing and fall, land in a weird way and crunch your ankle, or get a muscle tear if you’re overdoing it.

    The National Strength and Conditioning Association, a US educational nonprofit that uses research to support coaches and athletes, recommends:

    • a maximum of one to three plyometric sessions per week
    • five to ten repetitions per set and
    • rest periods of one to three minutes between sets to ensure complete muscle recovery.
    An older person does jumps on a race track.
    With the right guidance, jumps can be safe for older people and may help reduce the risk of falls as you age. Realstock/Shutterstock

    One meta-analysis, where researchers looked at many studies, found plyometric training was feasible and safe, and could improve older people’s performance, function and health.

    Overall, with appropriate programming and supervision, plyometric exercise can be a safe and effective way to boost your health and athletic performance.

    Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Mandy Hagstrom, Senior Lecturer, Exercise Physiology. School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

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

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Related Posts

  • Heart Smarter for Women – by Dr. Jennifer Mieres
  • The Path To Revenue – by Theresa Marcroft

    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.

    So many books about start-ups skip right over the elephant in the room: survivorship bias. Not so for Marcroft! This book contains the most comprehensive and unapologetic treatment of it we’ve seen.

    Less “here’s what Steve Jobs did right and here’s what Chocolate-Teapots-For-Dogs-R-Us did wrong; don’t mess up that badly and you’ll be fine”… and more realism. Marcroft gives us a many-angled critical analytic approach. In it, she examines why many things can seem similar in both content and presentation… but can cause growth or failure (and how and why), based on more than anecdotes and luck.

    The book is information-dense (taking a marketing-centric approach) and/but well-presented in a very readable format.

    If we can find any criticism of the book, it’s less about what’s in it and more about what’s not in it. This can never be a “your start-up bible!” book because it’s not comprehensive. It doesn’t cover assembling your team, for example. Nor does it give a lot of attention to management, preferring to focus on strategy.

    But no single book can be all things, and we highly recommend this one—the marketing advice alone is more than worth the cost of the book!

    Take Your First Step Along The Path To Revenue By Checking It Out On Amazon!

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  • Brain Maker – by Dr. David Perlmutter

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    Regular 10almonds readers probably know about the gut-brain connection already, so what’s new here?

    Dr. David Perlmutter takes us on a tour of gut and brain health, specifically, the neuroprotective effect of healthy gut microbiota.

    This seems unlikely! After all, vagus nerve or no, the gut microbiota are confined to the gut, and the brain is kept behind the blood-brain barrier. So how does one thing protect the other?

    Dr. Perlmutter presents the relevant science, and the honest answer is, we’re not 100% sure how this happens! We do know part of it: that bad gut microbiota can result in a “leaky gut”, and that may in turn lead to such a thing as a “leaky brain”, where the blood-brain barrier has been compromised and some bad things can get in with the blood.

    When it comes to gut-brain health…

    Not only is the correlation very strong, but also, in tests where someone’s gut microbiota underwent a radical change, e.g. due to…

    • antibiotics (bad)
    • fasting (good)
    • or a change in diet (either way)

    …their brain health changed accordingly—something we can’t easily check outside of a lab, but was pretty clear in those tests.

    We’re also treated to an exposé on the links between gut health, brain health, inflammation, and dementia… Which links are extensive.

    In closing, we’ll mention that throughout this book we’re also given many tips and advices to improve our gut/brain health, reverse damage done already, and set ourselves up well for the future.

    Click here to check out “Brain Maker” on Amazon and take care of this important part of your health!

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  • Carrots vs Broccoli – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing carrots to broccoli, we picked the broccoli.

    Why?

    These are both excellent candidates that should be in everyone’s diet, but there’s a clear winner:

    In terms of macros, carrots have 50% more carbs for the same fiber (giving carrots the relatively higher glycemic index, though really, nobody is getting metabolic disease from eating carrots, which are a low-GI food already), while broccoli has more protein. By the numbers, it’s a nominal win for broccoli here, but really, both are great.

    In the category of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A and B3, while broccoli has more of vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline. An easy win for broccoli. We’d like to emphasize, though, that this doesn’t mean carrots don’t have lots of vitamins—they do—it’s just that broccoli has even more!

    When it comes to minerals, carrots are genuinely great, and/but not higher in any minerals than broccoli, while broccoli has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc. So again, a clear win for broccoli, despite carrots’ fortitude.

    All in all, an overwhelming win for broccoli, though once again, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    What Do The Different Kinds Of Fiber Do? 30 Foods That Rank Highest

    Enjoy!

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