Category: Food

Sugar and Salt

I’ve been reading John McDougall’s book The Starch Solution. He’s definitely in the low-fat camp of vegans, and does point out that starchy vegetables, by and large, are very low in fat, which is one reason one can eat a lot of such foods because they tend to be low in calories with such low-fat content.

He surprised me with his comments about sugar and salt. Most of these nutrition gurus condemn both. Sugar because of the empty calories and salt because of its impact on blood pressure — not McDougall. He says go ahead and add a little sugar or salt to the starchy foods if that makes them more palatable for you. He doesn’t see the harm in doing that at all.

Beneficial Algae

Food Addiction

Much more common than people realize. Perhaps 75% of the population. Think those particular foods, like donuts, that you know are unhealthy, but you eat them regularly anyway. That’s food addiction.

Not only do you eat unhealthy food, but it creates craving and hunger with insulin spikes.

Conversely, when you become fat adapted, hunger is uncommon, and you seldom feel cravings for food.

Sugar Addicts

Oil Issues

There are a lot of issues with having much oil in one’s diet.

First and foremost is that oils, even the so called “better” oils, don’t have the nutritional punch to justify the calorie impact. So it is much better to eat actual olives than to use olive oil because the olives have all the nutritional profile of the olive, including significant fiber. Much of that nutritional profile gets stripped away when they create the oil.

It has been discovered that all oils have a deleterious effect on the body’s production of nitric oxide, which is key in protecting the elasticity and health of one’s arteries and blood vessels. So oils may undermine one’s heart health.

Consumption of oil makes the blood flow in one’s body much more viscous. The higher the viscosity of one’s blood, the weaker the flow. Why is that important? It is important because blood flow is the key mechanism for delivering oxygen and nutrients to the cells. Therefore, oils can undermine the health of your cells.

For these and perhaps many other reasons, don’t believe the hype that there are specific good oils that promote your health. They don’t — none of them do. You should minimize and/or eliminate oils in your diet, including cooking with oil.

Challenge

Sulforaphane

Sulforaphane.  Pharmaceutical companies have studied it for years because of its very positive effects on cancer.  You get it when you chew raw broccoli because then two compounds in the broccoli come together and create this new compound.  Even better if you chew the raw broccoli with mustard.  Broccoli sprouts have 10x the amount of sulforaphane as the mature plant.  Grind up a small amount of the sprouts as the first ingredient in your smoothie, but not too much because the taste is terrible.

Best Vegan Protein Sources

Nuts

I’ve recently changed my strategy with nuts. All the health studies show that eating nuts with prudent quantity is very good for your health and may in fact stabilize your weight. Nuts are high in protein, good fats, and many minerals.

My take on nuts has been I wanted to eat a small quantify of walnuts each day, as walnuts are the one nut high with omega 3 fat, and indeed walnuts are a good choice if you eat but one type of nut.

But then I looked at the nutritional profile of walnuts compared to almonds, pecans, and Brazil nuts. What I discovered was that these other nuts can be very high in nutrients that are not so deep with walnuts. For instance, when compared to walnuts, almonds are exceedingly high in B2, B3, Vitamin E (exceptional), phosphorous, fiber, and comparatively low in fat. Pecans are high in B1, manganese (exceptional), and zinc (exceptional). And Brazil nuts are all-stars when it comes to selenium — a single Brazil nut gives you all the daily selenium you need.

So I decided to divide my daily nut quotient among not 1 nut, but these 4 nuts in order to have a more well-rounded nut nutrient profile than I had with the single walnut.

So now my daily quotient of nuts includes: 6 almonds, 5 walnut halves, 3 pecans halves, and 1 Brazil nut. That comes to 171 calories — same as before with only walnuts — but this diversification has much broader and therefore better nutrition.

Best Vegan Protein Sources