Dietary Fiber and Mineral Availability

Health authorities tell us to eat more fiber for health, particularly whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Yet the Diet and Reinfarction Trial, which determined the effect of eating a high-fiber diet on overall risk of death, came up with this graph:



Oops!  At two years, the group that doubled its fiber intake had a 27% greater chance of dying and a 23% greater chance of having a heart attack. The extra fiber was coming from whole grains. The difference wasn't statistically significant, so we can't make too much out of this. But at the very least, it doesn't support the idea that increasing grain fiber will extend your life. 

Why might fiber be problematic? I read a paper recently that gave a pretty convincing answer to that question: "Dietary Fibre and Mineral Bioavailability", by Dr. Barbara F. Hartland. By definition, fiber is indigestible. We can divide it into two categories: soluble and insoluble. Insoluble fiber is mostly cellulose and it's relatively inert, besides getting fermented a bit by the gut flora. Soluble fiber is anything that can be dissolved in water but not digested by the human digestive tract. It includes a variety of molecules, some of which are quite effective at keeping you from absorbing minerals. Chief among these is phytic acid, with smaller contributions from tannins (polyphenols) and oxalates. The paper makes a strong case that phytic acid is the main reason fiber prevents mineral absorption, rather than the insoluble fiber fraction. This notion was confirmed here.

Whole grains would be a good source of minerals, if it weren't for their very high phytic acid content. Even though whole grains are full of minerals, replacing refined grains with whole grains in the diet (and especially adding extra bran) actually reduces the overall absorption of a number of minerals (free text, check out table 4). This has been confirmed repeatedly for iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. 

Refining grains gets rid of the vitamins and minerals, but at least refined grains don't prevent you from absorbing the minerals in the rest of your food. Here's a comparison of a few of the nutrients in one cup of cooked brown vs. unenriched white rice (218 vs. 242 calories):

Brown rice would be quite nutritious if we could absorb all those minerals. There are a few ways to increase mineral absorption from whole grains. One way is to soak them in slightly acidic, warm water, which allows their own phytase enzyme to break down phytic acid. This doesn't seem to do much for brown rice, which doesn't contain much phytase.

A more effective method is to grind grains and soak them before cooking, which helps the phytase function more effectively, especially in gluten grains and buckwheat. The most effective method by far, and the method of choice among healthy traditional cultures around the world, is to soak, grind and ferment whole grains. This breaks down nearly all the phytic acid, making whole grains a good source of both minerals and vitamins.

The paper "Dietary Fibre and Mineral Bioavailability" listed another method of increasing mineral absorption from whole grains. Certain foods can increase the absorption of minerals from whole grains high in phytic acid. These include: foods rich in vitamin C such as fruit or potatoes; meat including fish; and dairy.

Another point the paper made was that the phytic acid content of vegetarian diets is often very high, potentially leading to mineral deficiencies. The typical modern vegetarian diet containing brown rice and unfermented soy products is very high in phytic acid, and therefore it may make sense to ensure plentiful sources of easily absorbed minerals in the diet, such as dairy. The more your diet depends on plant sources for minerals, the more careful you have to be about how you prepare your food.

Gluten-Free Coffee Biscuits Recipe

Coffee laced cookies with chocolate chips

This is a cookie recipe for a grown up. Call them adult cookies. Or better yet, go a little UK and name them biscuits. It sounds a whisker more civilized when you declare to your co-workers, Excuse me while I fetch myself a coffee and a biscuit, Darling. Back in two shakes!

Much less Kindergarten, with all that grab your blankie from your cubbie business and the ritual involving tiny milk cartons and poking bendy straws through paper wrappers and the inevitable bad boy, Sully, who would blow on the straw and shoot the wrapper missile right at your ear (so annoying) and those graham crackers that never quite snap apart evenly and get stuck in your teeth (beyond annoying). Quiet time. With cookies.

A prelude to adult tea time, I suppose. But don't mention snuggies. I don't even know what a snuggie is, nor do I want to know why I would want to bring one to work with me and why they're making a day of it. It seems so. Let's see. The image of graham crackers and milk and that nasty snotty Sully shooting paper straw wrappers at my head comes to mind.

Kindergarten.

The word itself conjures that official classroom smell. Crayons and white paste and chalk. I'm snagged in the late trailing end of the Boomer Generation, can you tell? We had nap time on the floor with blankets and milk. I'm sure my sons have a their own '80's variation on this "time out" theme. (I'll have to ask them.)

What did you have for your Quite Time ritual?

Milk and cookies? Or Juice boxes and Cheetos? And why are cookies called cookies here in the States and biscuits in the UK? I ask you. Inquiring minds are scrambling to uncover these mysteries.

Read more + get the recipe >>

A few thoughts on Minerals, Milling, Grains and Tubers

One of the things I've been noticing in my readings on grain processing and mineral bioavailability is that it's difficult to make whole grains into a good source of minerals. Whole grains naturally contain more minerals that milled grains where the bran and germ are removed, but most of the minerals are bound up in ways that prevent their absorption.

The phytic acid content of whole grains is the main reason for their low mineral bioavailability. Brown rice, simply cooked, provides very little iron and essentially no zinc due to its high concentration of phytic acid. Milling brown rice, which turns it into white rice, removes most of the minerals but also most of the phytic acid, leaving mineral bioavailability similar to or perhaps even better than brown rice (the ratio of phytic acid to iron and zinc actually decreases after milling rice). If you're going to throw rice into the rice cooker without preparing it first, white rice may actually deliver an overall higher level of certain minerals than brown rice, though brown rice may have other advantages such as a higher feeling of fullness per calorie. Either way, the mineral availability of rice is low. Here's how Dr. Robert Hamer's group put it when they evaluated the mineral content of 56 varieties of Chinese rice:

This study shows that the mineral bio-availability of Chinese rice varieties will be [less than] 4%. Despite the variation in mineral contents, in all cases the [phytic acid] present is expected to render most mineral present unavailable. We conclude that there is scope for optimisation of mineral contents of rice by matching suitable varieties and growing regions, and that rice products require processing that retains minerals but results in thorough dephytinisation.

It's important to note that milling removes most of the vitamin content of the brown rice, and most of the fiber, both of which could be disadvantageous depending on what your overall diet looks like.

Potatoes and other tubers contain much less phytic acid than whole grains, which may be one reason why they're a common feature of extremely healthy cultures such as the Kitavans. I went on NutritionData to see if potatoes have a better mineral-to-phytic acid ratio than grains. They do have a better ratio than whole grains, although whole grains contain more total minerals.

Soaking grains reduces their phytic acid content, but the extent depends on the grain. Gluten grain flours digest their own phytic acid very quickly when soaked, due to the presence of the enzyme phytase. Because of this, bread is fairly low in phytic acid, although whole grain yeast breads contain more than sourdough breads. Buckwheat flour also has a high phytase activity. The more intact the grain, the slower it breaks down its own phytic acid upon soaking. Some grains, like rice, don't have much phytase activity so they degrade phytic acid slowly. Other grains, like oats and kasha, are toasted before you buy them, which kills the phytase.

Whole grains generally contain so much phytic acid that modest reductions don't free up much of the mineral content for absorption. Many of the studies I've read, including this one, show that soaking brown rice doesn't really free up its zinc or iron content. But I like brown rice, so I want to find a way to prepare it well. It's actually quite rich in vitamins and minerals if you can absorb them.

One of the things many of these studies overlook is the effect of pH on phytic acid degradation. Grain phytase is maximally active around pH 4.5-5.5. That's slightly acidic. Most of the studies I've read soaked rice in water with a neutral pH, including the one above. Adding a tablespoon of whey, yogurt, vinegar or lemon juice per cup of grains to your soaking medium will lower the pH and increase phytase activity. Temperature is also an important factor, with approximately 50 C (122 F) being the optimum. I like to put my soaking grains and beans on the heating vent in my kitchen.

I don't know exactly how much adding acid and soaking at a warm temperature will increase the mineral availability of brown rice (if at all), because I haven't found it in the literature. The bacteria present if you soak it in whey, unfiltered vinegar or yogurt could potentially aid the digestion of phytic acid. Another strategy is to add the flour of a high-phytase grain like buckwheat to the soaking medium. This works for soaking flours, perhaps it would help with whole grains as well?

So now we come to the next problem. Phytic acid is a medium-sized molecule. If you break it down and it lets go of the minerals it's chelating, the minerals are more likely to diffuse out of the grain into your soaking medium, which you then discard because it also contains the tannins, saponins and other anti-nutrients that you want to get rid of. That seems to be exactly what happens, at least in the case of brown rice.

So what's the best solution for maximal mineral and vitamin content? Do what traditional cultures have been doing for millenia: soak, grind and ferment whole grains. This eliminates nearly all the phytic acid, dramatically increasing mineral bioavailiability. Fermenting batter doesn't lose minerals because there's nowhere for them to go. In the West, we use this process to make bread. In Africa, they do it to make ogi, injera, and a number of other fermented grain dishes. In India, they grind rice and beans to make idli and dosas. In the Phillipines, they ferment ground rice to make puto. Fermenting ground whole grains is the most reliable way to improve their mineral bioavailability and nutritional value in general.

But isn't having a rice cooker full of steaming brown rice so nice? I'm still working on finding a reliable way to increase its nutritional value.

How to Eat Grains

Our story begins in East Africa in 1935, with two Bantu tribes called the Kikuyu and the Wakamba. Their traditional diets were mostly vegetarian and consisted of sweet potatoes, corn, beans, plantains, millet, sorghum, wild mushrooms and small amounts of dairy, small animals and insects. Their food was agricultural, high in carbohydrate and low in fat.

Dr. Weston Price found them in good health, with well-formed faces and dental arches, and a dental cavity rate of roughly 6% of teeth. Although not as robust or as resistant to tooth decay as their more carnivorous neighbors, the "diseases of civilization" such as cardiovascular disease and obesity were nevertheless rare among them. South African Bantu eating a similar diet have a low prevalence of atherosclerosis, and a measurable but low incidence of death from coronary heart disease, even in old age.

How do we reconcile this with the archaeological data showing a general decline in human health upon the adoption of agriculture? Humans did not evolve to tolerate the toxins, anti-nutrients and large amounts of fiber in grains and legumes. Our digestive system is designed to handle a high-quality omnivorous diet. By high-quality, I mean one that has a high ratio of calories to indigestible material (fiber). Our species is very good at skimming off the highest quality food in nearly any ecological niche. Animals that are accustomed to high-fiber diets, such as cows and gorillas, have much larger, more robust and more fermentative digestive systems.

One factor that reconciles the Bantu data with the archaeological data is that much of the Kikuyu and Wakamba diet came from non-grain sources. Sweet potatoes and plantains are similar to the starchy wild plants our ancestors have been eating for nearly two million years, since the invention of fire (the time frame is debated but I think everyone agrees it's been a long time). Root vegetables and starchy fruit ted to have a higher nutrient bioavailibility than grains and legumes due to their lower content of anti-nutrients.

The second factor that's often overlooked is food preparation techniques. These tribes did not eat their grains and legumes haphazardly! This is a factor that was overlooked by Dr. Price himself, but has been emphasized by Sally Fallon. Healthy grain-based African cultures often soaked, ground and fermented their grains before cooking, creating a porridge that's nutritionally superior to unfermented grains. The bran was removed from corn and millet during processing, if possible. Legumes were always soaked prior to cooking.

These traditional food processing techniques have a very important effect on grains and legumes that brings them closer in line with the "paleolithic" foods our bodies are designed to digest. They reduce or eliminate toxins such as lectins and tannins, greatly reduce anti-nutrients such as phytic acid and protease inhibitors, and improve vitamin content and amino acid profile. Fermentation is particularly effective in this regard. One has to wonder how long it took the first agriculturalists to discover fermentation, and whether poor food preparation techniques or the exclusion of animal foods could account for their poor health.

I recently discovered a paper that illustrates these principles: "Influence of Germination and Fermentation on Bioaccessibility of Zinc and Iron from Food Grains". It's published by Indian researchers who wanted to study the nutritional qualities of traditional fermented foods. One of the foods they studied was idli, a South Indian steamed "muffin" made from rice and beans. 

The amount of minerals your digestive system can extract from a food depends in part on the food's phytic acid content. Phytic acid is a molecule that traps certain minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium), preventing their absorption. Raw grains and legumes contain a lot of it, meaning you can only absorb a fraction of the minerals present in them.

In this study, soaking had a modest effect on the phytic acid content of the grains and legumes examined. Fermentation, on the other hand, completely broke down the phytic acid in the idli batter, resulting in 71% more bioavailable zinc and 277% more bioavailable iron. It's safe to assume that fermentation also increased the bioavailability of magnesium, calcium and other phytic acid-bound minerals.

Fermenting the idli batter also completely eliminated its tannin content. Tannins are a class of molecules found in many plants that are sometimes toxins and anti-nutrients. In sufficient quantity, they reduce feed efficiency and growth rate in a variety of species.

Lectins are another toxin that's frequently mentioned in the paleolithic diet community. They are blamed for everything from digestive problems to autoimmune disease. One of the things people like to overlook in this community is that traditional processing techniques such as soaking, sprouting, fermentation and cooking, greatly reduce or eliminate lectins from grains and legumes. One notable exception is gluten, which survives all but the longest fermentation and is not broken down by cooking.

Soaking, sprouting, fermenting, grinding and cooking are the techniques by which traditional cultures have been making the most of grain and legume-based diets for thousands of years. We ignore these time-honored traditions at our own peril.

Scalloped Potatoes - Vegan + Dairy-Free

Creamy vegan scalloped potatoes...

On a whim and out of nowhere (and at 2:54 AM, I'll have you know) I began conjuring images of creamy scalloped potatoes. Odd for someone who must avoid cheese and cream and butter and who- most days- is reconciled to her cheese-free life with a shrugging Lebowski-Zen detachment they write books about. Not to mention, it's been (literally) over a decade since I made this retro recipe, cream or no cream. Alas, I simply couldn't get the idea out of my sleepy Ewan McGregor-esque spiky head. 

The vegan scalloped potato challenge bit me. And refused to let go.

To make my pre-dawn vision a reality this classic recipe would need some serious tweaking. I mean, it's not just cheese you have to replace (and I'm no fan of plastic vegan cheeses, let me tell you). There is cream. And sweet moo-cow butter. Three key ingredients that make this comfy dish so melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Lucky for me I happened to have some dairy-free cream sauce left over from a vegan pasta I had tossed together the night before. A thick and silky hemp based sauce featuring artichokes and wine.

Accident? Destiny? Or simply the collective unconscious zeroing in on post-midnight potato cravings when your serotonin is dropping so fast your heart beat skips and triggers a hot flash?

You decide.

Read more + get the recipe >>

The future: I just saw it.

Today is Thursday 19th February 2009. I've just read an article in The New York Review of Books 'Drug Companies & Doctors': An Exchange dated 26th February 2009. I don't even possess a Flux Capacitor!

The above article was linked from Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption which I found on The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS).

"Because drug companies insist as a condition of providing funding that they be intimately involved in all aspects of the research they sponsor, they can easily introduce bias in order to make their drugs look better and safer than they are. Before the 1980s, they generally gave faculty investigators total responsibility for the conduct of the work, but now company employees or their agents often design the studies, perform the analysis, write the papers, and decide whether and in what form to publish the results. Sometimes the medical faculty who serve as investigators are little more than hired hands, supplying patients and collecting data according to instructions from the company.

In view of this control and the conflicts of interest that permeate the enterprise, it is not surprising that industry-sponsored trials published in medical journals consistently favor sponsors' drugs—largely because negative results are not published, positive results are repeatedly published in slightly different forms, and a positive spin is put on even negative results. A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome. It is not unusual for a published paper to shift the focus from the drug's intended effect to a secondary effect that seems more favorable."

Oh dear!

UK CRer has been on CRON for 20 years

View other CR videos at my youtube Channel

Make Me Live Forever

MAKE ME LIVE FOREVER
In a funny and thought provoking film that moves from the quirky to cutting edge science, Michael Mosley wants to find out if he can live forever.

He embarks on a calorie restricted diet, injects himself with testosterone and visits a life-extension house, all with the aim of seeing if any modern elixirs of youth actually work.

While he monitors his response to these techniques, he visits some remarkable individuals whose lives are intrinsically defined by the science of aging: the brave girl suffering from an accelerated ageing disease, the 62-year old woman who claims she looks forty thanks to daily hormone injections; and the scientist who has pioneered the creation of tailor made replacement organs using stem cells. What he learns about extending the human lifespan leads him to wonder, would he want to?

17 Feb 2009 22:35 BBC One (England)

17 Feb 2009 23:05 (Northern Ireland, Wales)

Don't miss it!

Karina's Gluten-Free Ryeless Rye Bread

My gluten-free ryeless rye bread recipe makes delicious toast.

Call me crazy but one of the comfort foods I miss most after living gluten-free for years is not some fancy French cookie or triple layer ganache swathed cake. Nope. 

It's rye toast- piping hot and crunchy around the edges slathered with melting peanut butter. 

My favorite tea time snack. There's something about that fragrant rye tang with caraway paired with sweet creamy peanut butter that sends my little endorphins into all's right with the world childlike bliss.

I'm easy, I know.

The snag is- ever since my celiac disease epiphany gluten-free rye bread has been playing hard to get. Recipes for ryeless rye bread have proved petulant and elusive. Rice flour or chick pea flour does not taste like rye, I'm sorry to tell you. And now peanut butter has gotten itself into all kinds of trouble with the whole e-coli thing (through no inherent fault of it's own-- the peanut is innocent, I tell you).

So what's a gluten-free goddess to do? Live without one of life's simple pleasures? (Aren't I already doing that, living sans bagels?!) Dear Zen Universe- honestly now- for the sake of calm detachment and flow must I give up all dreams of deli?

Not today.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials Part III

I'm happy to say, it's time for a new installment of the "Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials" series. The latest study was recently published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Dr. Anthony Sebastian's group. Dr. Sebastian has collaborated with Drs. Loren Cordain and Boyd Eaton in the past.

This new trial has some major problems, but I believe it nevertheless adds to the weight of the evidence on "paleolithic"-type diets. The first problem is the lack of a control group. Participants were compared to themselves, before eating a paleolithic diet and after having eaten it for 10 days. Ideally, the paleolithic group would be compared to another group eating their typical diet during the same time period. This would control for effects due to getting poked and prodded in the hospital, weather, etc. The second major problem is the small sample size, only 9 participants. I suspect the investigators had a hard time finding enough funding to conduct a larger study, since the paleolithic approach is still on the fringe of nutrition science.

I think this study is best viewed as something intermediate between a clinical trial and 9 individual anecdotes.

Here's the study design: they recruited 9 sedentary, non-obese people with no known health problems. They were 6 males and 3 females, and they represented people of African, European and Asian descent. Participants ate their typical diets for three days while investigators collected baseline data. Then, they were put on a seven-day "ramp-up" diet higher in potassium and fiber, to prepare their digestive systems for the final phase. In the "paleolithic" phase, participants ate a diet of:

Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, canola oil, mayonnaise, and honey... We excluded dairy products, legumes, cereals, grains, potatoes and products containing potassium chloride...

Mmm yes, canola oil and mayo were universally relished by hunter-gatherers. They liked to feed their animal fat and organs to the vultures, and slather mayo onto their lean muscle meats. Anyway, the paleo diet was higher in calories, protein and polyunsaturated fat (I assume with a better n-6 : n-3 ratio) than the participants' normal diet. It contained about the same amount of carbohydrate and less saturated fat.

There are a couple of twists to this study that make it more interesting. One is that the diets were completely controlled. The only food participants ate came from the experimental kitchen, so investigators knew the exact calorie intake and nutrient composition of what everyone was eating.

The other twist is that the investigators wanted to take weight loss out of the picture. They wanted to know if a paleolithic-style diet is capable of improving health independent of weight loss. So they adjusted participants' calorie intake to make sure they didn't lose weight. This is an interesting point. Investigators had to increase the participants' calorie intake by an average of 329 calories a day just to get them to maintain their weight on the paleo diet. Their bodies naturally wanted to shed fat on the new diet, so they had to be overfed to maintain weight.

On to the results. Participants, on average, saw large improvements in nearly every meaningful measure of health in just 10 days on the "paleolithic" diet. Remember, these people were supposedly healthy to begin with. Total cholesterol and LDL dropped. Triglycerides decreased by 35%. Fasting insulin plummeted by 68%. HOMA-IR, a measure of insulin resistance, decreased by 72%. Blood pressure decreased and blood vessel distensibility (a measure of vessel elasticity) increased. It's interesting to note that measures of glucose metabolism improved dramatically despite no change in carbohydrate intake. Some of these results were statistically significant, but not all of them. However, the authors note that:

In all these measured variables, either eight or all nine participants had identical directional responses when switched to paleolithic type diet, that is, near consistently improved status of circulatory, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism/physiology.

Translation: everyone improved. That's a very meaningful point, because even if the average improves, in many studies a certain percentage of people get worse. This study adds to the evidence that no matter what your gender or genetic background, a diet roughly consistent with our evolutionary past can bring major health benefits. Here's another way to say it: ditching certain modern foods can be immensely beneficial to health, even in people who already appear healthy. This is true regardless of whether or not one loses weight.

There's one last critical point I'll make about this study. In figure 2, the investigators graphed baseline insulin resistance vs. the change in insulin resistance during the course of the study for each participant. Participants who started with the most insulin resistance saw the largest improvements, while those with little insulin resistance to begin with changed less. There was a linear relationship between baseline IR and the change in IR, with a correlation of R=0.98, p less than 0.0001. In other words, to a highly significant degree, participants who needed the most improvement, saw the most improvement. Every participant with insulin resistance at the beginning of the study ended up with basically normal insulin sensitivity after 10 days. At the end of the study, all participants had a similar degree of insulin sensitivity. This is best illustrated by the standard deviation of the fasting insulin measurement, which decreased 9-fold over the course of the experiment.

Here's what this suggests: different people have different degrees of susceptibility to the damaging effects of the modern Western diet. This depends on genetic background, age, activity level and many other factors. When you remove damaging foods, peoples' metabolisms normalize, and most of the differences in health that were apparent under adverse conditions disappear. I believe our genetic differences apply more to how we react to adverse conditions than how we function optimally. The fundamental workings of our metabolisms are very similar, having been forged mostly in hunter-gatherer times. We're all the same species after all.

This study adds to the evidence that modern industrial food is behind our poor health, and that a return to time-honored foodways can have immense benefits for nearly anyone. A paleolithic-style diet may be an effective way to claim your genetic birthright to good health. 

Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials
Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials Part II
One Last Thought

I Love Raw

There has been some big changes lately in my diet. Over the years of eating a healthy both cooked/raw diet I noticed that I felt better after a raw meal rather than a cooked one. But I never really thought about this other than in the moment I experienced it. Cooked meals make me feel heavier, less sharp and I started to experience intermittent signs of acid reflux which led to some swallowing issues. Which were mostly solved with something called "Manuka Honey". It not only healed my throat and stomach but allowed me to eat properly again. But I continued to eat mostly cooked foods.

So over the last few months I've been really doing some research and exploring the world of raw food eaters. It's not surprise that eating a natural plant based diet that is totally raw is far better than the standard american diet. Most Raw food eaters had issues like obesity, which I don't have, but they also suffered other problems that were solved by going mostly raw. And the more raw food they ate, they claimed to feel better.

I somehow came across 'green smoothies' from youtube and since we have had a blender here for years now I decided to get it from the cupboard and use the thing. My first smoothie was the one I posted about earlier on. Now it's a bit different and I mix it up too. I loved it instantly and I wondered why I haven't been doing this for years. It takes around 5-10 minutes in the morning and I have it everyday for my breakfast. A salad for Breakfast? No I don't feel like it, but putting my greens into blender and making it a liquid is far better. So a few examples of my smoothies that I have in the morning are;

Green Smoothie1
150g Banana
150g Pineapple
100g Red Apple
100g Mango
150g Spinach
100g Kale
200-300ml Water
(I put in the water and the fruit and then put in the spinach and kale last).

After my smoothie I have a few walnuts to include fat so I can absorb some of the nutrients, and I have a whey protein shake.

Green Smoothie2
150g Bananas
150g Red Apple
150g Frozen Blueberries
100g Spinach
100g Kale
200-300ml Water
(because of the blueberries it turns out a bit dark green and sometimes brown, but it's mild tasting and very palatable, I very much enjoy it).

Fruit Smoothie

Water 300-400ml (depending on how thick you want it)
150g Tesco Frozen Summer Fruits (Rasberries, blackberrie, red currants and black currants)
150g Frozen Blueberries
1 or 2 medium sized bananas (this thickens it up a bit and gives it a sweeter taste)
(very simple, but nice and cold and delicious)

Still refining/experimenting with them and hopefully get a higher amount of greens in there without making the thing awful to eat. And by the way, I don't swallow these smoothies down right away, I take my time and drink/chew it slowly. Not sure if it's a good idea to consume very fast due to a possible spike in glucose and insulin. Not good.

After my green smoothie in the morning I feel so energized, very sharp, light, hydrated. My digestion is so much better, I've had zero pimples since drinking these smoothies. Now what will be interesting is to see how my body is reacting to this change when I get my test results. I am going to leave it until April, so this will be one year from my previous one and see how things are going on in my body. Some people are concerned about the higher intake of fruit (large majority of it is just in the morning) in my diet, but I think I'll be fine. Introducing your family to green smoothies is one of the best things you can do to encourage them to eat healthier. My father, Mother, My niece and nephew who are 6 and 7 both love the smoothies. Getting them involved in the making of it really helped too! I gave my cousin a tropical green smoothie, and he also liked it. You can barely taste any of the greens in there. But one important thing to make sure you do is only use leafy greens, not things like broccoli because this doesn't go together with fruit that well. I would encourage you to use 'youtube' and type in "green smoothies" to get some ideas.

There are many other changes I've also made too, which I'll mention in seperate posts.

A slight hitch.

On Friday 13th February, my mum collapsed and had to go to hospital. She's stable but completely incoherent at the moment, due to a combination of a) having a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and b) discontinuing her anti-dementia medication last week in the (mistaken) belief that it was giving her hallucinations.

It's hard to believe just how rapidly mental function in an old person can decline due to a UTI, but mum had a Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of 26 out of 30 on Monday 12th January. It would have been 0 last Friday.

Normal Blogging will be resumed when mum's infection has been treated and she is back on her medication. I will be getting mum to use D-mannose in her juice in future, as this is effective against E. coli and Klebsiella.

Continued on A slight hitch, Part 2.

Good video blog

Also another entertaining video blog is from Matt Monarch HERE

You can see a Video that was aired on TV featuring Matt. Hes been eating A Raw food diet for many years and explains some of the benefits from it. Pretty much the same things people who eat CR notice. Such as improved sense of well being, improved smell, sight, hearing. Improvements in skin, looking younger... and also I also noticed a big effect on my consciousness, I mean it's hard to explain but it's like a mental fog that you never knew was there is lifted and your brain just seems to wake up. And once you start eating healthy you know you can never go back.

Make Your Own Potato Chips

Make your own potato chips.

Before I get to how to cook your own potato chips and avoid the game we food allergic individuals refer to as Le Chip Roulette, I'd like to mention dreaming. Because I woke from some very strange dreams this morning. Dreams involving caveman chest hair and glistening inky fish and long distance songs on some radio left behind in an abandoned mining shack perfect for a David Lynch location shoot. Spandau Ballet, in fact- crooning, I know this much is tru-hoo.

It's day fifteen of the tenacious head cold I picked up in Los Angeles. And it's Friday the thirteenth. But I'm not so easily spooked. Old ghosts got nothing on this morning's weirdness. This is kindergarten stuff. Amateur hour. So I shook it off and brewed some tea.

I'm blaming high altitude and not enough fresh fruit.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Entertaining Talk

I highly recommend this video. It comes in 9 parts and he talks about how he cured himself from a disease that his doctors said couldn't be resolved other than by taking drugs. Very funny and interesting personal story.

I've also had experiences with doctors with them saying there is no connection between something and a disease. Doctors unfortunately, although they do great work, they are far behind on their knowledge of nutrition and disease.

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5
PART 6
PART 7
PART 8
PART 9

Cancer.

By request, I'm writing about cancer. I didn't know this, but cancer is now the No.1 killer of men in the UK. I previously thought that coronary heart disease was the No.1 killer.

Cancer is such a huge subject that, rather than oversimplify it, I'll put a link to Wikipedia. Warning: Pictures of tumours.

Vitamins get a mention, particularly Vitamin D, but EFAs aren't mentioned. This is odd, as typing "Omega-3 Cancer" into PubMed yields 612 human studies going back to 1984. Here are some of them:-

Some effects of the essential fatty acids linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid and of their metabolites gamma-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid, and of prostaglandins A1 and E1 on the proliferation of human osteogenic sarcoma cells in culture.

Selective killing of human cancer cells by polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Chronic arachidonic acid eicosanoid imbalance: a common feature in coronary artery disease, hypercholesterolemia, cancer and other important diseases. Significance of desaturase enzyme inhibition and of the arachidonic acid desaturase-independent pathway.

n-3 fatty acids and cancer.

Fish consumption and breast cancer risk: an ecological study.

Effect of docosahexaenoic acid on rate of differentiation of HL-60 human leukemia.

N-3 and N-6 fatty acids in breast adipose tissue and relative risk of breast cancer in a case-control study in Tours, France.

Opposing effects of dietary n-3 and n-6 fatty acids on mammary carcinogenesis: The Singapore Chinese Health Study.

Induction of apoptosis in human pancreatic cancer cells by docosahexaenoic acid.

Dietary intakes of omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and the risk of breast cancer.

Nutritional knowledge of primary health care physicians in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

13.12.09: Some newer studies:-

A systemic review of the roles of n-3 fatty acids in health and disease.

Anticancer actions of omega-3 fatty acids--current state and future perspectives.

The effect of omega-3 FAs on tumour angiogenesis and their therapeutic potential.

Therapeutic potential of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in disease.

Fish oil enhances the antiproliferative effect of 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 on liver cancer cells.


EDIT: I've been reading about a substance called methylglyoxal, a glycolysis inhibitor. As many types of malignant cancer cells rely on the glycolysis pathway for energy, methylglyoxal looks like a promising anti-cancer agent.

See In vivo assessment of toxicity and pharmacokinetics of methylglyoxal. Augmentation of the curative effect of methylglyoxal on cancer-bearing mice by ascorbic acid and creatine,

A brief critical overview of the biological effects of methylglyoxal and further evaluation of a methylglyoxal-based anticancer formulation in treating cancer patients,

Selective inhibition of mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis in human leukaemic leucocytes by methylglyoxal and

Critical evaluation of toxic versus beneficial effects of methylglyoxal.

It looks like the Indians are ahead of everyone else on this stuff.
Well, well, well. Controversy!

"Methylglyoxal is a regular chemical, not cleared for human use. It is made without conforming to sound manufacturing practices and widely respected codes of good laboratory practices followed throughout the world." O, RLY? See below.

"The IACS' main supplier of Methylglyoxal is an American warehouse corporation, Sigma Medical Company, which sells it for research purposes at $1 to 2 per gramme and specifically states that none of its chemicals is meant for medical use." If everyone stuck to the "rules", humankind would never make any progress.

The principal scientist involved is Professor Manju Ray, a biochemist, not a pharmacologist or cancer specialist." Biochemists know how cells work, so I would say that's a plus point, not a minus point. It's also argumentum ad-hominem.

"The "secret" of the "miracle" lies in the anti-tumour effect of Methylglyoxal - a property shared by hundreds of toxic chemicals. Methylglyoxal, it is claimed, inhibits electron flows in cancerous cells and blocks a crucial step necessary for the production of ATP, the cellular energy "currency". Methylglyoxal isn't anywhere near as toxic as standard chemotherapy drugs. Someone needs to learn some basic biochemistry!

"A critical ingredient, a control group with which the treated patients are compared, is absent from the study." It's unethical to have one group denied a treatment that might save their lives. The Lyon Diet-Heart trial was discontinued because the control group had a much higher mortality than the treated group.

"The researchers treated 24 patients, mostly in highly advanced stages of cancer, with oral administration of Methylglyoxal, with Vitamin C, over eight to 10 weeks. They claim that after treatment, 11 were in "excellent physical condition" and five were in a condition that "can be considered stable". "The rest either opted out of treatment or died during the course of study." This is disturbing enough." You left out the creatine and 0 out of 24 would almost certainly have survived without treatment.

"The study does not show how, through what process, the "cure" occurs." That's not the purpose of the study.

"What is equally astonishing is that the drug should be used in clinical trials on human beings in the first place. Such trials are permissible only after the pharmaco-kinetics (the way and the speed with which the body will handle the drug) is properly understood, and trials on experimental animals have been carried out. In this case, the first criterion was not fulfilled. And there is no mention of animal trials." An animal trial had been done. See the 1st study above.

Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake

A dairy-free vegan flourless chocolate cake- no tofu.

A deep dark chocolate cake recipe. Just in time for Valentine's Day. And the best part? It's not only gluten-free, but vegan as well. And it's technically a flourless chocolate cake (which for some retro-fueled reason still conjures the term sexy thanks to Sarah Jessica Parker).

In full disclosure (hey, I vet my recipes okay?) I added a scant amount of buckwheat flour to help it set up without eggs, but buckwheat isn't technically a grain, is it? More of a groat, a fruit kernel. In fact, buckwheat is a cousin to sorrel and rhubarb. I could try to impress you with shout-outs to the Polygonaceae family, dropping botanical distinctions like actinomorphic and calyx as fast as Madonna drops post-Guy Ritchie boyfriends, but I'd rather leave all botany urges behind and get back to chocolate and celebrating the dream of true love. 

All in the nick of time for Valentine's Day.

Read more + get the recipe >>

Supplements: Who needs 'em?

According to Health Professionals, nobody. Apparently, we get all of the vitamins, minerals & other nutrients that we need from a "Healthy Balanced Diet" (whatever that is!).

According to me, just about everybody. Due to modern farming methods, food ain't what it used to be. Dammit, even nostalgia ain't what it used to be! Due to changes in lifestyle:-

a) Most people are more sedentary than they used to be. This means that they require less food than they used to in order to not get fat. Less food, coupled with less nutrients in the food = dietary deficiencies.

b) Most people don't get as much sun on their skin as they used to, as they now work, play & live mostly indoors and when they do go outside, they are encouraged to Slip Slop Slap (slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat). This results in hypovitaminosis D, as only an Eskimo's diet contains enough dietary Vitamin D. The RDA of 200/400/600iu/day (depending on age) is woefully inadequate and totally out of touch with modern research.

c) Most people don't eat much oily fish. Also, animal & vegetable produce now contains more omega-6 & less omega-3 than it used to. This results in an imbalance.

d) Diets low in vegetable & fruits lack Potassium & Magnesium.

e) Diets low in fermented products lack Vitamin K2.

Because of the above, I supplement with:-
300mg/day of Magnesium as Citrate/Amino Acid Chelate, or 600mg/day as Oxide.
5,000iu/day of Vitamin D3.
15mg/week of Vitamin K2.
I also use Losalt, which provides 2 parts Potassium to 1 part Sodium.

Research shows.....

....that people who eat a low-fat breakfast like Special K are more likely to be slimmer than those who don't.

So states the Special K advert. I wonder whether the researchers used a control group who ate a high-fat breakfast? Somehow, I doubt it. I eat a high-fat breakfast, if you look at the Blog post immediately below this one and I am slimmer than when I didn't eat breakfast. Skipping breakfast causes low blood glucose, which encourages over-eating later-on. Therefore, people who eat breakfast are more likely to be slimmer than those who don't.

That's the problem with "Research". It usually shows what people want it to show. By omitting control groups, such research is utterly worthless. While I'm on a mini-rant, "Clinically proven" is another phrase often bandied about in advertisements. I have news for you. Clinical studies can only disprove something. The best that a clinical study can do is provide evidence that something is beneficial to some or most of the people in the study only. It cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the population.

Food Porn.

It's the only porn you're going to get on this Blog!

I was looking at Richard Nikoley's Blog at http://freetheanimal.com/ and I couldn't help but notice all of the pictures of yummy food on it. When I mention to people that I am on an "Atkins-style" diet, they usually say "Oh, so all you eat is bacon & eggs and those expensive low-carb bars, right?" I have yet to buy a low-carb bar.

This post should give you an idea of what I eat. Some of my meals contain Burgen soya & linseed bread and even sweetcorn. These foods are relatively high in starchy carbohydrate, but my body can tolerate them thanks to Vitamin D.

The first picture is what I often (but not always, as variety is important) have in the morning. It's basically coffee with extra oomph provided by a 60cc scoop of powdered linseeds (in the storage jar) and a 60cc scoop of unflavoured whey protein (a milk protein). Vanilla flavouring, brown sugar & Splenda improve the flavour of this concoction, which has the consistency of wallpaper paste!


I do eat bacon & eggs but not for breakfast. I usually have it for lunch, accompanied by chopped onions & mushrooms microwaved with Losalt, Lee & Perrins & Extra-Virgin Olive oil. A big squirt of tomato ketchup gives me my third portion of vegetables! The whole lot sits on top of a slice of Burgen toast.


For afternoon tea, I may have something salmony. Here's a simple smoked salmon sarnie made with ~100g of smoked salmon and a couple of slices of raw onion.


I have a friend who hates the skin & bones in tinned salmon. As this is where a lot of the omega-3 fat & minerals are, I tried an experiment to see if I could disguise them. I blended a 213g tin of wild red salmon with a couple of dollops of Hellman's Real Mayonnaise & a little "juice" from a tin of sweetcorn. I then mixed sweetcorn with the salmon mayonnaise. I dumped a load of the salmon & sweetcorn mayonnaise mix onto a slice of Burgen buttered with Anchor. A little sliced tomato & cucumber completed the ensemble.


Sometimes. I just dump everything on a plate!


For supper, I usually microwave something meaty with something vegetably. Here are some Somerfield "Best Ever" Pork & Chorizo sausages microwaved with chopped onions & mushrooms in a Lea & Perrins-based gravy.


Here's an Aldi quarter-pounder beefburger with microwaved chopped onions, mushrooms & English mustard.


Here's an Aldi chicken jambonette in a sun-dried tomato, balsamic & sweet basil sauce microwaved with peas & mixed veg. The sauce went everywhere!


Here's an Aldi lamb shank in a mint & red wine-flavoured sauce. The shank was in a bag, so the sauce didn't go everywhere when I microwaved it on the plate alongside the peas & mixed veg. The vegetables look a little strange as I microwaved them as they were with a little Losalt (and no added water), but they tasted just fine. Not adding any water means that there is no loss of minerals.


And finally, here's an Aldi pork shank in sweet & sour sauce cooked as per the lamb shank. Aldi have a lot of different varieties of chicken jambonettes, lamb & pork shanks and I will be trying them out as they are very reasonably priced.


So, can I spend the rest of my life on this sort of diet? Oh, yes yes yes yes yes!

The Firefox a.k.a. Red Panda.

My browser is named after this little fella (or girl, I can't tell!).



I left Red Pandas out of my previous Blog post as they are not Bears (Ursidae), but are in a family of their own (Ailuridae).

Like Giant Pandas, Red Pandas have a false thumb which helps them to grip bamboo shoots & leaves. They also spend most of their lives eating, pooing (as they also can't digest cellulose) and sleeping!



That's how I used to spend a lot of my life when I ate a high-carb diet. Since I've been eating more salmon, I've been more active than usual. It's not yet 8am and I'm on-line, typing this.

The Bear Essentials.

I'm writing about bears. Why? I was having a discussion, oh alright then, argument with a vegan lady. There was a thread on a message board about the slaughter of pigs and she argued that humans are not designed/evolved/w.h.y. to eat meat based on the following list:

Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws

Meat-eaters: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue
Herbivores: perspire through skin pores
Humans: perspire through skin pores

Meat-eaters: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding
Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding

Meat-eaters: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly
Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.
Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.

Meat-eaters: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat
Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater
Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater

Meat-eaters: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits.
Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits
Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits

Meat-eaters: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains

Based on a chart by A.D. Andrews, Fit Food for Men, (Chicago: American Hygiene Society, 1970)

The fact that humans can't digest cellulose (the stuff that plant cell walls are made of) seemed to have been conveniently left off the above list, so I pointed out that if she wanted to play the list game, perhaps she should read http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/carn_herb_comparison.html. Someone then posted a link to Humans are Omnivores. Humans are omnivores. End of.

Then I had a thought. Bears have a digestive system similar to ours. Here's a list of some bears and their characteristics:

Polar Bears: Body composition: Variable (they have a layer of blubber for thermal insulation and they gain body fat when food is plentiful to sustain them through times when food is unavailable). Activity: Very active (pregnant females hibernate). Fertility: On average 2 cubs every year. Diet: 99% meat (there may be some vegetable matter in the guts of the animals that they eat).

American Black Bears: Body composition: Leaner than Polar Bears as ambient temperatures are higher. Activity: Very active (even active when hibernating). Fertility: 2-3 cubs every 2 years. Diet: 10-15% meat, insects & plants.

Brown Bears: Body composition: Leaner than Polar Bears as ambient temperatures are higher. Activity: Very active (even active when hibernating). Fertility: On average 2 cubs every year. Diet: 90% plants, insects, fish and small mammals.

Giant Pandas: Body composition: Fat. Activity: Sedentary. Fertility: 1 cub every 2 years (if the mother has two cubs, she lets one of them die, as she can only raise one cub at a time). Diet: 99% bamboo shoots, but will eat meat, fish and eggs when made available by humans.

Do you see a pattern, here?

Big Easy Chili- and some super recipes

Big easy soup with beans and spicy sausage.

I'm back from our jaunt to Los Angeles- an impromptu trip that was over far too quickly (where does time fly to, by the way? They say time flies but I always want to know, where?). I have a handful of juicy details to report, and I will, in an upcoming post, but today is apparently sort of a big deal.

There's a game goin' on? And rumor has it, today's a big chili day. So I am reprising a big easy chili recipe and sharing a link to Whole Foods- for healthy and tasty vegan and gluten-free menu ideas and recipes for pot lucks and Super Bowl parties. Me?

I'll be doing laundry. Lots of laundry.

Read more + get the recipe >>