Nuts would be the ideal food if it were not for their fats and calories.
True?
The problem with nuts and seeds is not their fat contents; it is that we don't regard them as food; we eat them as snacks. Which is to say, we eat already too much at lunch and dinner, and in between we delight in the taste of nuts.
Uh-oh. Thus their calories will end up on our hips.
But if your lunch would be a handful of almonds and a fresh fruit, you would get your all your nutrition requirements in an ideal vehicle:
• Nuts don't need refrigeration (at least not in the short run) or re-warming
• Nuts contain all three major building blocks - proteins, carbohydrates and fats - mostly 'good' fats
• Nuts are full of minerals and vitamins
• Nuts are full of enzymes - and enzyme inhibitors.
They contain natural and essential phyto-nutrients, and we are just beginning to understand their importance for health.
How do the enzymes work in the nut? Nuts and seeds are carrying within them the ability with sprouting new life - all what they need is water. For creating new life, hundreds of actions to build future plant tissue are required. And for those actions to happen, the seed is packed with enzymes. But the actions should not happen prematurely, while the conditions are not right yet. To hinder too early action, nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors.
The moment one adds water, one destroy the enzyme inhibitors - basically, the germinating starts. Soaking nuts and seeds in water over night also makes nuts more easily digestible.
Nuts might help weight loss.
Weight loss on nuts? Am I nuts?
Indeed, nuts and seeds can help lose weight - despite their infamous fats.
• Nuts need thorough chewing. And one reason of binge eating is that a gallon of ice cream, soda pops and donuts do not satisfy your jaws' desire to chew. There's nothing more satisfying than crunching your way through a handful of nuts.
• The high fat content of nuts and their enzyme inhibitors delay stomach emptying, making nuts last longer. In comparison, sugar and starches (which are nothing more than one sugar molecule after the other in a long chain) will be digested in seconds - and will you make crave more soon.
• Nuts quench cravings by offering many nutrients.
Quench cravings? How does it work?
If one eats a doughnut, one basically eats a ball of starch and sugar, baked in bad fats, coated and sprinkled with sugar. Its white flour is devoid of any of the bran, good oils, minerals and vitamins the wheat grain originally possessed - everything has been milled out. After one doughnut, your brain feels a wonderful rush of incoming brain fuel - sugar - and wants more of the same. So you eat another one. Your brain feels high, but your body screams for the rest of the stuff that used to come with sugar and fat: the minerals, the vitamins, the enzymes. Not knowing better what your body really wants, you grab a third doughnut. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Aches and Pains
May 11, 2010
In my twenties doctors had different explanations about the weird aches and pains I complained of. They were either from aging (in my twenties!!), or they were all in my head, or – poor redheads all over the world! – it was just that redheads had lower pain thresholds.
Research meanwhile has confirmed that redheads have actually higher pain thresholds. Besides, I had a whopping but unrecognized case of gluten intolerance, probably since birth. Took me many years to figure it out.
You, too, might have gluten intolerance. Estimates go that one of one-hundred-five people has, most of them not yet diagnosed. Most of them are blond and blue-eyed – but not all of them (otherwise the diagnosis would be easy!).
Of course, aches and pains can have other causes than celiac disease (another word for gluten intolerance; as is non-tropical sprue). But food is often the culprit - dairy, in my opinion, the worst since it is highly inflammatory (besides fattening). If you have arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, fasciitis – or any “…itis" in your body, leave out milk and milk products for at least a month, and see if you get better.
Other suspicious foods are nuts (which, on the other hand, are very wholesome if you can tolerate them), nightshades (tomato, potato, eggplant, bell and hot peppers). Food additives can give bad reactions (and should not be in your food in the first place). Food intolerances can be very individual – for some it is an innocuous apple, for others shrimp or peanut or banana. By keeping a food journal you might find out – or help your doctor to find out.
Finding the cause and avoiding the offender, is the first step. On top of it, there are many herbs that reduce inflammation, like turmeric, garlic, rosemary. In fact, so many plants contain inflammation-dousing phyto-nutrients that eating more vegetables and herbs already might give you relief. If you want an herbal preparation, I usually recommend Zyflamend (be sure you have no allergy to any individual herb in there).
A good fish oil (you should not burp up fish!) has excellent anti-inflammatory action. As does olive-oil (unheated) in your salads. And lastly, a good probiotic, to quench the fire in your belly: Most inflammation originates in an inflamed bowel. Read More
A Tea From Your Garden
April 30, 2010
Green is the color of life, and green herbs keep us healthy.
From April to November, I find things growing in my garden that go into my daily garden tea. Only one question asked of that green thing: Is it edible? If it is not, forget it! If you don’t know, don’t even touch it – what you don’t know can kill you when you put it into your tea!
Today, this is what I gathered: Dandelion leaves and flowers, stinging nettle leaves, feverfew leaves, young burdock shoots. Pine needles (make sure you can identify them because hemlock and yew would be deadly!), rose leaves, raspberry leaves. And from my herb garden: rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley, chives (including their fat purple buds), sage, cilantro. I also started a vegetable garden in big pots on the terrace and I snipped off a few leaves off lettuce and broccoli.
These green things contain small molecules - phyto-nutrients - which we are not getting easily from our modern food. But our ancient bodies need them to function.
Nature gives me these green gifts every morning, and I breathe in the beauty of my garden (which is, admittedly, an unkempt jungle – but never touched by pesticides, herbicides, and the like!). When I come into the kitchen I feel as if I have meditated (I have meditated!). I throw my big handful of greens into a cup, pour boiling water over it and start my day in beauty, contemplation – and health.
And it tastes good, too. Read More