What’s the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating?

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Following a particular diet or exercising a great deal are common and even encouraged in our health and image-conscious culture. With increased awareness of food allergies and other dietary requirements, it’s also not uncommon for someone to restrict or eliminate certain foods.

But these behaviours may also be the sign of an unhealthy relationship with food. You can have a problematic pattern of eating without being diagnosed with an eating disorder.

So, where’s the line? What is disordered eating, and what is an eating disorder?

PIKSEL/Getty

What is disordered eating?

Disordered eating describes negative attitudes and behaviours towards food and eating that can lead to a disturbed eating pattern.

It can involve:

  • dieting
  • skipping meals
  • avoiding certain food groups
  • binge eating
  • misusing laxatives and weight-loss medications
  • inducing vomiting (sometimes known as purging)
  • exercising compulsively.

Disordered eating is the term used when these behaviours are not frequent and/or severe enough to meet an eating disorder diagnosis.

Not everyone who engages in these behaviours will develop an eating disorder. But disordered eating – particularly dieting – usually precedes an eating disorder.

What is an eating disorder?

Eating disorders are complex psychiatric illnesses that can negatively affect a person’s body, mind and social life. They’re characterised by persistent disturbances in how someone thinks, feels and behaves around eating and their bodies.

To make a diagnosis, a qualified health professional will use a combination of standardised questionnaires, as well as more general questioning. These will determine how frequent and severe the behaviours are, and how they affect day-to-day functioning.

Examples of clinical diagnoses include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

How common are eating disorders and disordered eating?

The answer can vary quite radically depending on the study and how it defines disordered behaviours and attitudes.

An estimated 8.4% of women and 2.2% of men will develop an eating disorder at some point in their lives. This is most common during adolescence.

Disordered eating is also particularly common in young people with 30% of girls and 17% of boys aged 6–18 years reporting engaging in these behaviours.

Although the research is still emerging, it appears disordered eating and eating disorders are even more common in gender diverse people.

Can we prevent eating disorders?

There is some evidence eating disorder prevention programs that target risk factors – such as dieting and concerns about shape and weight – can be effective to some extent in the short term.

The issue is most of these studies last only a few months. So we can’t determine whether the people involved went on to develop an eating disorder in the longer term.

In addition, most studies have involved girls or women in late high school and university. By this age, eating disorders have usually already emerged. So, this research cannot tell us as much about eating disorder prevention and it also neglects the wide range of people at risk of eating disorders.

Is orthorexia an eating disorder?

In defining the line between eating disorders and disordered eating, orthorexia nervosa is a contentious issue.

The name literally means “proper appetite” and involves a pathological obsession with proper nutrition, characterised by a restrictive diet and rigidly avoiding foods believed to be “unhealthy” or “impure”.

These disordered eating behaviours need to be taken seriously as they can lead to malnourishment, loss of relationships, and overall poor quality of life.

However, orthorexia nervosa is not an official eating disorder in any diagnostic manual.

Additionally, with the popularity of special diets (such as keto or paleo), time-restricted eating, and dietary requirements (for example, gluten-free) it can sometimes be hard to decipher when concerns about diet have become disordered, or may even be an eating disorder.

For example, around 6% of people have a food allergy. Emerging evidence suggests they are also more likely to have restrictive types of eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

However, following a special diet such as veganism, or having a food allergy, does not automatically lead to disordered eating or an eating disorder.

It is important to recognise people’s different motivations for eating or avoiding certain foods. For example, a vegan may restrict certain food groups due to animal rights concerns, rather than disordered eating symptoms.

What to look out for

If you’re concerned about your own relationship with food or that of a loved one, here are some signs to look out for:

  • preoccupation with food and food preparation
  • cutting out food groups or skipping meals entirely
  • obsession with body weight or shape
  • large fluctuations in weight
  • compulsive exercise
  • mood changes and social withdrawal.

It’s always best to seek help early. But it is never too late to seek help.

In Australia, if you are experiencing difficulties in your relationships with food and your body, you can contact the Butterfly Foundation’s national helpline on 1800 33 4673 (or via their online chat).

For parents concerned their child might be developing concerning relationships with food, weight and body image, Feed Your Instinct highlights common warning signs, provides useful information about help seeking and can generate a personalised report to take to a health professional.

Gemma Sharp, Researcher in Body Image, Eating and Weight Disorders, Monash University

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

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  • Food and exercise can treat depression as well as a psychologist, our study found. And it’s cheaper

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    Around 3.2 million Australians live with depression.

    At the same time, few Australians meet recommended dietary or physical activity guidelines. What has one got to do with the other?

    Our world-first trial, published this week, shows improving diet and doing more physical activity can be as effective as therapy with a psychologist for treating low-grade depression.

    Previous studies (including our own) have found “lifestyle” therapies are effective for depression. But they have never been directly compared with psychological therapies – until now.

    Amid a nation-wide shortage of mental health professionals, our research points to a potential solution. As we found lifestyle counselling was as effective as psychological therapy, our findings suggest dietitians and exercise physiologists may one day play a role in managing depression.

    Alexander Raths/shutterstock

    What did our study measure?

    During the prolonged COVID lockdowns, Victorians’ distress levels were high and widespread. Face-to-face mental health services were limited.

    Our trial targeted people living in Victoria with elevated distress, meaning at least mild depression but not necessarily a diagnosed mental disorder. Typical symptoms included feeling down, hopeless, irritable or tearful.

    We partnered with our local mental health service to recruit 182 adults and provided group-based sessions on Zoom. All participants took part in up to six sessions over eight weeks, facilitated by health professionals.

    Half were randomly assigned to participate in a program co-facilitated by an accredited practising dietitian and an exercise physiologist. That group – called the lifestyle program – developed nutrition and movement goals:

    Hands holding a bowl full of vegetables, with chopsticks.
    Lifestyle therapy aims to improve diet. Jonathan Borba/Pexels
    • eating a wide variety of foods
    • choosing high-fibre plant foods
    • including high quality fats
    • limiting discretionary foods, such as those high in saturated fats and added sugars
    • doing enjoyable physical activity.

    The second group took part in psychotherapy sessions convened by two psychologists. The psychotherapy program used cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the gold standard for treating depression in groups and when delivered remotely.

    In both groups, participants could continue existing treatments (such as taking antidepressant medication). We gave both groups workbooks and hampers. The lifestyle group received a food hamper, while the psychotherapy group received items such as a colouring book, stress ball and head massager.

    Lifestyle therapies just as effective

    We found similar results in each program.

    At the trial’s beginning we gave each participant a score based on their self-reported mental health. We measured them again at the end of the program.

    Over eight weeks, those scores showed symptoms of depression reduced for participants in the lifestyle program (42%) and the psychotherapy program (37%). That difference was not statistically or clinically meaningful so we could conclude both treatments were as good as each other.

    There were some differences between groups. People in the lifestyle program improved their diet, while those in the psychotherapy program felt they had increased their social support – meaning how connected they felt to other people – compared to at the start of the treatment.

    Participants in both programs increased their physical activity. While this was expected for those in the lifestyle program, it was less expected for those in the psychotherapy program. It may be because they knew they were enrolled in a research study about lifestyle and subconsciously changed their activity patterns, or it could be a positive by-product of doing psychotherapy.

    A woman in running shorts stretches her thigh.
    People in both groups reported doing more physical activity. fongbeerredhot/Shutterstock

    There was also not much difference in cost. The lifestyle program was slightly cheaper to deliver: A$482 per participant, versus $503 for psychotherapy. That’s because hourly rates differ between dietitians and exercise physiologists, and psychologists.

    What does this mean for mental health workforce shortages?

    Demand for mental health services is increasing in Australia, while at the same time the workforce faces worsening nation-wide shortages.

    Psychologists, who provide about half of all mental health services, can have long wait times. Our results suggest that, with the appropriate training and guidelines, allied health professionals who specialise in diet and exercise could help address this gap.

    Lifestyle therapies can be combined with psychology sessions for multi-disciplinary care. But diet and exercise therapies could prove particularly effective for those on waitlists to see a psychologists, who may be receiving no other professional support while they wait.

    Many dietitians and exercise physiologists already have advanced skills and expertise in motivating behaviour change. Most accredited practising dietitians are trained in managing eating disorders or gastrointestinal conditions, which commonly overlap with depression.

    There is also a cost argument. It is overall cheaper to train a dietitian ($153,039) than a psychologist ($189,063) – and it takes less time.

    Potential barriers

    Australians with chronic conditions (such as diabetes) can access subsidised dietitian and exercise physiologist appointments under various Medicare treatment plans. Those with eating disorders can also access subsidised dietitian appointments. But mental health care plans for people with depression do not support subsidised sessions with dietitians or exercise physiologists, despite peak bodies urging them to do so.

    Increased training, upskilling and Medicare subsidies would be needed to support dietitians and exercise physiologists to be involved in treating mental health issues.

    Our training and clinical guidelines are intended to help clinicians practising lifestyle-based mental health care within their scope of practice (activities a health care provider can undertake).

    Future directions

    Our trial took place during COVID lockdowns and examined people with at least mild symptoms of depression who did not necessarily have a mental disorder. We are seeking to replicate these findings and are now running a study open to Australians with mental health conditions such as major depression or bipolar disorder.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Adrienne O’Neil, Professor, Food & Mood Centre, Deakin University and Sophie Mahoney, Associate Research Fellow, Food and Mood Centre, Deakin University

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

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  • Get Ahead (Healthwise) This Winter

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    It’s December the first.

    A month later, it’ll be January the first, and very many people will be quite briefly making a concerted effort to get healthier.

    So, let’s get a head start, so that we can hit January already in great health!

    December’s traps to plan around

    In North America at least, common calendar-specific health problems associated with December are:

    • Infectious diseases (seasonal flu and similar unpleasantries)
    • Inactivity (seasonal weather)
    • Slower metabolism (seasonal eating and drinking, plus seasonal weather)
    • Alcohol (seasonal drinking)
    • Stress (seasonal burdens)

    So, let’s plan around those!

    But first, sleep

    Nothing will go well if we are not well-rested. There are six dimensions of sleep, but the ones that matter the most are regularity and duration, so plan for those and the rest should fall into place:

    Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep

    Skip those viruses

    If you’re doing the rest of what we advise, your immune system will probably be in good shape, unless you have some chronic disease that means you are immunocompromised, in which case the next things will be extra important:

    • Avoid enclosed spaces with lots of people where possible
    • Ventilation is your friend (as is air filtration)
    • Masks don’t protect against everything, but they do protect against a lot
    • Wash your hands more often than you think is necessary (invest in luxurious soap, to make it a more pleasant experience, then you’re more likely to do it often!)
    • Breathe through your nose, not your mouth (nostril hairs attract floating particles by static charge, and then dispose of intruders via mucus)

    See also: The Pathogens That Came In From The Cold

    Plan your movement

    But, realistically. Let’s face it, unless you already have such a habit, you’re not going to be hitting the gym at 6am every day, or be out pounding pavement.

    The weather often makes us more reluctant to exercise, so if that sound like you, plan something low-key but sustainable that will set you in good stead ready for the new year. Here are two approaches; you can do both if you like, but picking at least one is a good idea:

    1. Commit to just a few minutes of high-intensity exercise each day. If you don’t have equipment, then bodyweight squats are a great option.
    2. Commit to gentle exercises each day—pick some stretches and mobility drills you like, and focus on getting supple for the new year.

    See also: How To Keep On Keeping On, When Motivation Isn’t High ← this isn’t a motivational pep talk; it’s tricks and hacks to make life easier while still getting good results!

    Fuel in the tank

    It’s fine if you eat more in winter. We even evolved to put on a few pounds around this time of year. However, to avoid sabotaging your health, it’s good to do things mindfully. Pick one main dietary consideration to focus on, for example “anti-inflammatory” or “antidiabetic” or “nutrient-dense”.

    Those focused ways of eating will, by the way, have a huge amount of overlap. But by picking one specific factor to focus on, it simplifies food choices at a time of year when supermarkets are deliberately overwhelming us with choices.

    If you’re having a hard time picking just one thing to focus on, then we recommend:

    What Matters Most For Your Heart?

    About that festive spirit…

    Alcohol consumption goes up around this time of year, partly for social reasons, partly for “it’s cold and the marketing says alcohol warms us up” reasons, and partly for stress-related reasons. We’re sure you know it sabotages your health, so choose your path:

    How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol, or

    How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking (Without Abstaining)

    Relax and unwind, often

    There’s a lot going on in December: consumerism is running high, everyone wants to sell you something, finances can be stressful, social/familial obligations can be challenging sometimes too, and Seasonal Affective Disorder is at its worst.

    Make sure to regularly take some time out to take care of yourself, and make sure you’re doing the things you want to do or really have to do, not just things you feel you’re expected to do.

    Different people can have very different challenges at this time of year, so it’s hard to give a “one size fits all” solution here (and we don’t have the room to cover every possible thing today). You know your life best, so think what you’re most likely to want/need for you this month, and make sure you get it.

    At the very least, most of us will benefit from taking a few minutes to consciously relax, and often, so something that is almost always a good idea for that is:

    No-Frills, Evidence Based Mindfulness

    …but if you’re feeling in a more playful mood, consider:

    Meditation Games You’ll Actually Enjoy!

    Take care!

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  • GLP-1 Oral Meds: Any Drawbacks?

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    First introduced as a diabetes medication, GLP-1 drugs quickly took hold for off-label use as weight loss aids, even when the science was still very young.

    Here’s one of our first articles on that, back in the day: Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Big Research Gap

    As for that popularity? Check out: 1 in 5 US Women Aged 50–64 Has Used GLP-1 RAs: What We’ve Learned

    Spoiler, one of the things we’ve learned is: Most People Who Start GLP-1 RAs Quit Them Within A Year (Here’s Why)

    One of the main things in their favor is, of course, that (for most people, anyway), they work (except when they don’t: Why Intermittent Fasting (& GLP-1 Drugs!) Might Not Work For You).

    In other words, a rocky road with pros and cons. But today, let’s talk about the question many have been asking:

    Does it come in a pill?

    Most people don’t love injections, and GLP-1 drugs being injection-only for these past years has not been simply because the drug companies like to be annoying.

    In fact, there are often technical challenges with making a drug work by different routes of administration, for example:

    • Skincare products are usually not best taken rectally
    • It’s hard to make a gut-repair drug that can be taken as a transdermal skin cream
    • And so on

    For this reason, subcutaneous injections have worked as a way of delivering drugs to agonize GLP-1 receptors, in ways it’s been hard to do with a pill that has to get past stomach acid and your gut barrier, before getting into your bloodstream.

    However! Most recently, researchers (Dr. Vanita Aroda et al.) tested elecoglipron, a once-daily oral GLP-1 receptor agonist for type 2 diabetes, in a sizeable trial involving 406 participants across 9 countries.

    Unlike most GLP-1 drugs, elecoglipron is a non-peptide tablet taken once daily with no food or fluid restrictions, making treatment much more convenient.

    In numbers:

    • Before starting: the average participant was 58.4 years old, weighed 99.8 kg, had a BMI of 34.9 kg/m², and started with an HbA1c of 7.9%.
    • Blood sugar results: after 26 weeks, HbA1c fell by 0.91 to 1.88 percentage points depending on dose, compared with a 0.15 percentage-point reduction in the placebo group.
    • HbA1c results: up to 89.6% of participants receiving elecoglipron reached an HbA1c of 7% or below, compared with 24.9% of those receiving placebo.
    • Weight loss results: up to 72.3% of participants taking elecoglipron lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared with 20.2% in the placebo group.
    • Side effects: adverse events occurred in 63% to 87% of participants across the elecoglipron groups versus 63% with placebo, with the most common being nausea, constipation, diarrhoea, and vomiting. This sounds bad, and by itself it is, but it’s worth noting that the drug’s safety and tolerability were generally consistent with other GLP-1 receptor agonists. So in other words, in terms of adverse effects it’s very comparable to Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and all the others of that ilk.

    In other words: it works! Very comparable to other GLP-1 RAs. Same drug-related drawbacks, just without the needles.

    You can find the paper itself, here: Elecoglipron, an oral small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist in adults with type 2 diabetes (SOLSTICE): a multicentre, phase 2b, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like this book that we reviewed a little while back:

    Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs – by Johann Hari

    Take care!

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  • The Paleo Diet

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    What’s The Real Deal With The Paleo Diet?

    The Paleo diet is popular, and has some compelling arguments for it.

    Detractors, meanwhile, have derided Paleo’s inclusion of modern innovations, and have also claimed it’s bad for the heart.

    But where does the science stand?

    First: what is it?

    The Paleo diet looks to recreate the diet of the Paleolithic era—in terms of nutrients, anyway. So for example, you’re perfectly welcome to use modern cooking techniques and enjoy foods that aren’t from your immediate locale. Just, not foods that weren’t a thing yet. To give a general idea:

    Paleo includes:

    • Meat and animal fats
    • Eggs
    • Fruits and vegetables
    • Nuts and seeds
    • Herbs and spices

    Paleo excludes:

    • Processed foods
    • Dairy products
    • Refined sugar
    • Grains of any kind
    • Legumes, including any beans or peas

    Enjoyers of the Mediterranean Diet or the DASH heart-healthy diet, or those with a keen interest in nutritional science in general, may notice they went off a bit with those last couple of items at the end there, by excluding things that scientific consensus holds should be making up a substantial portion of our daily diet.

    But let’s break it down…

    First thing: is it accurate?

    Well, aside from the modern cooking techniques, the global market of goods, and the fact it does include food that didn’t exist yet (most fruits and vegetables in their modern form are the result of agricultural engineering a mere few thousand years ago, especially in the Americas)…

    …no, no it isn’t. Best current scientific consensus is that in the Paleolithic we ate mostly plants, with about 3% of our diet coming from animal-based foods. Much like most modern apes.

    Ok, so it’s not historically accurate. No biggie, we’re pragmatists. Is it healthy, though?

    Well, health involves a lot of factors, so that depends on what you have in mind. But for example, it can be good for weight loss, almost certainly because of cutting out refined sugar and, by virtue of cutting out all grains, that means having cut out refined flour products, too:

    Diet Review: Paleo Diet for Weight Loss

    Measured head-to-head with the Mediterranean diet for all-cause mortality and specific mortality, it performed better than the control (Standard American Diet, or “SAD”), probably for the same reasons we just mentioned. However, it was outperformed by the Mediterranean Diet:

    Paleolithic and Mediterranean Diet Pattern Scores Are Inversely Associated with All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in Adults

    So in lay terms: the Paleo is definitely better than just eating lots of refined foods and sugar and stuff, but it’s still not as good as the Mediterranean Diet.

    What about some of the health risk claims? Are they true or false?

    A common knee-jerk criticism of the paleo-diet is that it’s heart-unhealthy. So much red meat, saturated fat, and no grains and legumes.

    The science agrees.

    For example, a recent study on long-term adherence to the Paleo diet concluded:

    ❝Results indicate long-term adherence is associated with different gut microbiota and increased serum trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), a gut-derived metabolite associated with cardiovascular disease. A variety of fiber components, including whole grain sources may be required to maintain gut and cardiovascular health.❞

    ~ Genoni et al, 2020

    Bottom line:

    The Paleo Diet is an interesting concept, and certainly can be good for short-term weight loss. In the long-term, however (and: especially for our heart health) we need less meat and more grains and legumes.

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  • Benefits of Different Tropical Fruits

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝Would very much like your views of the benefits of different tropical fruits. I do find papaya is excellent for settling the digestion – but keen to know if others have remarkable qualities.❞

    Definitely one for a main feature sometime soon! As a bonus while you wait, pineapple has some unique and powerful properties:

    ❝Its properties include: (1) interference with growth of malignant cells; (2) inhibition of platelet aggregation*; (3) fibrinolytic activity; (4) anti-inflammatory action; (5) skin debridement properties. These biological functions of bromelain, a non-toxic compound, have therapeutic values in modulating: (a) tumor growth; (b) blood coagulation; (c) inflammatory changes; (d) debridement of third degree burns; (e) enhancement of absorption of drugs.❞

    *so do be aware of this if you are on blood thinners or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, as you might want to skip the pineapple in those cases!

    Source: Bromelain, the enzyme complex of pineapple (Ananas comosus) and its clinical application. An update

    Enjoy!

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  • 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:

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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