What’s Cooking?

Canola Oil

Is canola oil a healthy fat? Rightfully so since it had a bad reputation for awhile due to its association with a toxic acid called eurucic acid. More currently due to newer breeding processes reulted in its removal of this acid, making canola on the list of what is now called “healthy fats.” It is primarily an unsaturated fat and very low in omega-6 (fat and contain the same type of oil found in olive oil. However, Americans are awash in omega-6 fats and should be attempting to increase their intake of omega-3 fats instead.

But to its credit, it has a very mild flavor (unlike olive oil) and has been called a “neutral” oil so its very versatile for cooking and stands up fairly well to heat.
Bittman, Mark and Katz, David L., M.D. How to Eat” All your Food and Diet Questioned Answered.

Roasting Vegetables

Roasting has become a cooking favorite lately, but questions do arise due to the higher temperatures (400 degrees) needed for best results. Many people wonder if this type of cooking can destroy some nutrients, especially in some originally healthy vegetables? This may help.

All forms of cooking can destroy some nutrients. It’s impossible to avoid. However, there is some good news since cooking actually helps by releasing the nutrients from plant cell walls. These include lycopene (iin tomatoes), red peppers and beta-carotene in carrots, spinach, and kale. Therefore, eating cooked tomatoes as a sauce or juice should be the preferred way for optimum health and help the cell use its benefiial properties. Mushrooms, asparagus, and cabbage all supply more antioxidants when cooked, also.

On the other hand, Vitamin B6 and folate in broccoli and the polyphenols in onions that help protect against cancer and heart disease are better preserved in raw vegetables.
Sharon Palmer, RDN, author of Plant-Powered for Life, Duate, California. SharonPalmer.com

American Plate: 1930’s

Merry Christmas and a HAPPY NEW YEAR from Food, Facts, and Fads

Hard Times, Good Times

Here’s Another Story from Another Era

The 1930’s were a dichotomy of despair and progress. Two grim events dominated the 30’s: the global depression and the rise of Hitler and nationalism in Europe. In the midst of all the upheaval another dramatic change – In 1933, Prohibition was finally repealed. Oh and throw in a disastrous Dust Storm that lasted far too long.

The nation goes gaga over vitamins in the 30s. The only over-the-counter products that outsell them are laxatives. Where is the fiber?

Cooking at home became a necessity and a pastime among middle-aged women who had been forced to let their cooks and servants go. Women’s clubs lunches, afternoon teas, Sunday suppers, potluck dinners, church socials and county fairs were all popular ways to socialize.

Hollywood provided a steady stream of fantasy with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, and Shirley Temple. Cole Porter’s musicals ruled Broadway and Benny Goodman’s dance tunes played on Victrolas everywhere.

Soup Kitchens

For more than a decade known as the Great Depression, reliance on businesses had failed that they could not solve the problems of poverty including hunger. Local governments tried to help the needy, but expenditures, which averaged $8.20 per month per person did nothing to help the thousands more who required federal aid. Thus, organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation army provided help through soup kitchens and breadlines: 13 million people –25 percent of the population—were unemployed and hungry.

Route 66

Despite the odds, America forged ahead and with the opening of Route 66, food establishments like Stuckeys flourished. In the supermarkets, scores of new products were introduced and many still exist today.

When U.S. highway 66 was completed in 1938, it became a vital 2450- mile artery between Chicago and Los Angeles, snaking its way through 8 states. It veered north then south to pass through small towns to link them with more metropolitan cities. With the route, farmers had a pipeline for shipping their food to the big cities and offer help to those trapped by the tragic Dust Bowl that filled the lives of those farmers in that area. Stukeys gets its start when William and Ethyl Stuckey open a roadside stand in Georgia to sell pecans to motorists en route to and from Florida.

Shopping carts

I suppose no one is terribly interested in the history of the shopping cart; however, it is an appliance of sorts we could not do without. So here goes: Slyvan Goldman, owner of the Standard Food Markets and Humpty Dumpty in Oklahoma City, devised a shopping cart by fabricating lawn chairs into a frame that held two hand baskets. He figured if the shoppers could carry more, they’ll buy more. But the first shopping cart is a hard sell. Men found the carts less than masculine and women don’t see the point – they’re accustomed to shopping often. Finally Goldman pays ‘shoppers to cruise stores using the carts.

Kraft Dinner

In 1937, Spam is introduced – yes it’s still here. Kraft rolls out Kraft Dinner – a boxed meal that sells for 19 cents with an advertising slogan of “A Meal for Four in Nine Minutes”. At the end of the century, 1 million boxes a day of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese are sold in the U.S. Talk about processed food?? Apparently this has pleased the palates of our younger citizens for decades.

Fritos

San Antonio candy-maker C. Elmer Doolin stops in a café for a sandwich and is served a side dish of corn chips. He pays the café owner for $100 for his converted potato ricer and the recipe for “tortillas fritas”. Fritos are born, as Doolin and his family begin producing 10 pounds per day. They eventually move their operation to Dallas. Fritos Corn Chips are introduced nationally in 1949.

At the end of the decade, WW2 was boiling in Europe with America waiting in the wings. The “Bad Times” were just beginning.

What the Heck is a “Blind Robin”?

SOURCE: JohnSwinburn.com

Richard Tedrow says:
May 25, 2015 at 1:07 pm
“I would love to know where to get the Blind Robins of my (very) early youth. We would rent a small place in Plumb Point, MD on the Chesapeake Bay. There was a very — perhaps 15′ square — grocery carrying some essentials — milk, beer — and what my father termed “blind robins,” extremely salty small single fish in cellophane packages. My dad and I would eat them together. He would proclaim afterward that now we could talk only to each other because of the adverse affect on one’s breath. I was 4 or 5 years old, loved those little things but don’t believe I have seen them since. That was nearly 70 years ago and my mouth still remembers them. I would love to know where they could be gotten.”
My Experience with “blind robins” is almost identical to yours although my Dad always Insisted on a couple of anchovies instead. The adults in my family spared us the pleasure of a “blind robin” but the breath thing – I cannot remember yesterday, but still the breath thing lingered on until way after New Years Eve.

The Comment was posted on the blog of JohnSwinburn.com. Thanks, Richard

Richard: Try Amazon or online @ Seafood Market, LTD.

Sally Feltner, MS, PhD. foodfactsandfads.com

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

What the Heck is a FODMAP?

FODMAP Diet: What You Need to Know

Food and Nutrition Gut Health Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)Eating for Your Gut

Reviewed By:

Hazel Galon Veloso, M.D.

You may have heard of the FODMAP diet from a friend or on the internet. When people say “FODMAP diet,” they usually mean a diet low in FODMAP — certain sugars that may cause intestinal distress. This diet is designed to help people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and/or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) figure out which foods are problematic and which foods reduce symptoms.

“The low FODMAP diet is a temporary eating plan that’s very restrictive,” says Johns Hopkins gastroenterologist Hazel Galon Veloso, M.D. “It’s always good to talk to your doctor before starting a new diet, but especially with the low FODMAP diet since it eliminates so many foods — it’s not a diet anyone should follow for long. It’s a short discovery process to determine what foods are troublesome for you.”

What is FODMAP?

FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols, which are short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) that the small intestine absorbs poorly. Some people experience digestive distress after eating them. Symptoms include:

Cramping
Diarrhea
Constipation
Stomach bloating
Gas and flatulence

How does the low FODMAP diet work?

Low FODMAP is a three-step elimination diet:

First, you stop eating certain foods (high FODMAP foods).
Next, you slowly reintroduce them to see which ones are troublesome.
Once you identify the foods that cause symptoms, you can avoid or limit them while enjoying everything else worry-free.

“We recommend following the elimination portion of the diet for only two to six weeks,” says Veloso. “This reduces your symptoms and if you have SIBO, it can help decrease abnormally high levels of intestinal bacteria. Then every three days, you can add a high FODMAP food back into your diet, one at a time, to see if it causes any symptoms. If a particular high FODMAP food causes symptoms, then avoid this long term.”

What can I eat on the FODMAP diet?

Foods that trigger symptoms vary from person to person.

To ease IBS and SIBO symptoms, it’s essential to avoid high FODMAP foods that aggravate the gut, including:

Dairy-based milk, yogurt and ice cream
Wheat-based products such as cereal, bread and crackers
Beans and lentils
Some vegetables, such as artichokes, asparagus, onions and garlic
Some fruits, such as apples, cherries, pears and peaches

Instead, base your meals around low FODMAP foods such as:

Eggs and meat
Certain cheeses such as brie, Camembert, cheddar and feta
Almond milk
Grains like rice, quinoa and oats
Vegetables like eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini
Fruits such as grapes, oranges, strawberries, blueberries and pineapple

Get a full list of FODMAP food from your doctor or nutritionist.

Who should try it?

The low FODMAP diet is part of the therapy for those with IBS and SIBO. Research has found that it reduces symptoms in up to 86% of people.

Because the diet can be challenging during the first, most restrictive phase, it’s important to work with a doctor or dietitian, who can ensure you’re following the diet correctly — which is crucial to success — and maintaining proper nutrition.

“Anyone who is underweight shouldn’t try this on their own,” says Veloso. “The low FODMAP diet isn’t meant for weight loss, but you can lose weight on it because it eliminates so many foods. For someone at an already too low weight, losing more can be dangerous.”

How a Doctor Can Help

Dietary changes can have a big impact on IBS and SIBO symptoms, but doctors often use other therapies as well. Antibiotics can quickly reduce small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, while laxatives and low-dose antidepressants can relieve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

It is highly recommended to consult with a physician and or a registered dietitian for many reasons. A combination of dietary changes, medications and stress management techniques is often the best approach. Learn how you can work with a doctor to find the SIBO and IBS treatments that work well for you.

Note: Check the credentials of internet dietitians- look for the following: Certified, licensed

World Health Organization (WHO)

Switching to a healthier diet linked to improved longevity

Source:

Republished by Food, Facts, and Fads. Eatwell Guide, 2016 United Kingdom

More emerging evidence suggests that improving one’s diet could help prolong a person’s life.

Poor diet and lack of physical activity are “leading global risks to health,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO)Trusted Source.

In order to improve diet globally, the WHO is working with countries to commit to a number of initiatives, including the elimination of trans fatsTrusted Source, reducing salt intakeTrusted Source and developing guidelines around food labellingTrusted Source and the use of artificial sweetenersTrusted Source.

The United Kingdom Government published its Eatwell Guide in 2016 to help people follow a healthy, balanced diet. It outlines the importance of eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, reducing salt and saturated fat intake, and promotes the consumption of whole grains and pulses, alongside suggestions for portion size and caloric intake.

Despite this guide being published to ensure policy in the U.K. is developed in line with these dietary aims, research published in BMJ Open suggests that less than 0.1% of the country’s population follows a diet that adheres to the guide’s recommendations.

How healthy diets impact longevity

The U.K. Biobank is a database set up in 2006 that tracks the health of half a million people, aged between 40 and 69 years, and living in the U.K. The Biobank collects data on the diets of participants, as well as on their overall health.

A recent study by a team of researchers based at the University of Bergen, Norway analysed U.K. Biobank data from over 465,000 participants to determine the impact of adherence to the diet outlined in the Eatwell Guide on their life expectancy. Its results appear in Nature Food.

Dietary patterns of participants were assessed, with intake of all food groups split into five quin tiles, from lowest to highest. Dietary patterns associated with longevity were the quin-tiles for each food group with the lowest mortality risk.

Unhealthy dietary patterns were characterized by limited amounts of whole grains, vegetables and fruits, fish, and white meat, but a high intake of red and processed meats, eggs, refined grains and sugary drinks. Outcomes were also reported based on adherence to the dietary pattern recommended by the Eatwell Guide.

Researchers adjusted the data for factors including age, sex, area-based sociodemographic deprivation, smoking, alcohol consumption and physical activity level, and body mass index (BMI).

Their analysis indicated that a 40-year-old man changing his diet from an unhealthy diet to one following the Eatwell Guide dietary recommendations would add 8.9 years onto his life expectancy. For a woman of the same age, this change led to an 8.6-year increase in life expectancy.

For a 70-year-old man the change would correspond to a 4-year increase in life expectancy, and a 4.4-year increase for a woman of this age.

When these results were adjusted for BMI and energy consumption, the overall increase in life expectancy that could be attributed to improvements in diet dropped somewhat.

Meat consumption linked to higher death risk

Lead author Prof. Lars Fadnes of the University of Bergen, research group leader at Haukeland University Hospital, told Medical News Today:

“Our analyses and other research indicate that what we eat is linked to the risk of obesity, which again is a contributing risk factor to premature deaths. Our analyses could indicate that the risk for premature deaths related to overweight/obesity was about a quarter of the dietary increased risk from unhealthy eating and mortality.”

Researchers also looked at which foods had the greatest impact on decreasing the overall mortality risk.

They found that consuming more whole grains and nuts and less red meat and sugary drinks was associated with the biggest improvements in life expectancy.

Your Gut and Immune System

YOUR GUT Supports Immune Defenses

Eighty percent of your immune system is in your gut, so it makes sense that a well functioning gut is critical for a clean bill of health. An essential job of the gut is to arm the digestive tract against inflammatory and other harmful disease causing substances, for example in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). When there is a breakdown in the microbial lining that in banding together kept the lining strong, a loss of that strength is said to create a “leaky” gut that starts a whole inflammatory response to create chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, obesity, cognitive disorders and depression.

Your Gut Influences your weight and weight maintenance.

A 2021 study published in Scientific Reports tested the effects of a probiotic (“good” bacteria”) on weight loss in 70 subjects who were all overweight. 35 adults took probiotics and the remaining 35 took a placebo. After nine months with no exercise or diet interventions, 40% of the probiotic group had lost a clinically significant amount of weight compared with 3 percent in the placebo.

Dietary fiber is associated with promoting weight loss. In the body, fiber is fermented in the intestine creating short-chain fatty acids thatt help promote healthy metaboilisms. A healthy blood sugar balance and fat storage is also reported that affects weight maintenance that is so important in weight loss. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFA’s) also help alleviate or lessen inflammation by acting on hormonal and satiety receptors.

“Whole person health starts in the gut, says Supriya Rao, M.D., managing partner at integrative Gastroenterolgy Consultants, Rao explains the importance of getting enough exercise to improve gut health. Being sedentary or sitting is the new smoking” he says. Your gut health will thank you.”

Is eating fast food a Dementia Risk?

The health risks of eating ultra-processed foods _________ including sausages and burgers as well as pizza and ice cream ____________ are well documented. They have been shown to raise the risk of obesity, diabetes, and cancer among other ailments. (CNN.com )

In a new study, researchers followed more than 10,000 Brazilians with an average age of 51 for more than 10 years. They found that people who consumed more than 20% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods had a 28% faster cognitive decline compared to those with less than 20%. Unfortunately, that 20% is not a high threshold; just 400 calories out of the 2000 calorie diet. And most Americans are well over that, getting on average a whopping 58% of their calories from ultra-processed foods.

“The sample size is substantial and the follow-up extensive, Dr. David Katz, a nutrition specialist who was not involved in the study. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultra-processed foods are probably bad for our brains.”

Source: The Week. December 23, 2022, Volume 22, Issue 110.

Food and culture: Ethnicity at its best

As cultures tend to mingle and assimilate throughout the world they blend with the so called American diet (cheeseburgers) and bring with them their ethnic uniqueness, for example, about 25% of all restaurants in the U.S. have an ethnic theme. To study these inflences, we need to be aware of the nature of their traditional diiets as well as how they have changed within the cultures due to migration to the new way of eating,

Native American Influences

“Studies have lshown that the diseases that affected these societies differed signifantly from the diseases in North American societies today. For example, Alaskan natives who sill eat the traditional diet have cardiovascular diisease rates lower than those in the general North American population. Younger generations of Alaskan natives, however, who usually do not eat the traditional diet have developed cardiovascular diseases at rates similar to North American in general. This diet is often also called the “Western Diet”. It is also true of the Pima Indian tribe in Arizona compared to their counterparts in living in Mexico.” You can search Pima Indians on this blog from Food, Facts, and Fads.

Hispanic Influences

“Mexican cuisine today shows regional variety. In Southern Mexico, savory sauces and stews and corn tortillas reflect the native heritage. Yucatan cuisine follows Mayan tradition, with fresh produce adding color, flavor and nutrition to authenic Mexican dining. Traditional Mexican is healthful in that is high in complex carbs, beans, fruits and vegetables, particularly rich in vitamins A and C.”

Today true Mexican cooking bears little resemblance to the dishes usually found in “Mexican restaurants in North America. Usually it is based primarily on rice and beans. Restaurant Mexican foods tend to use large portions of meat as well as added portions of high-fat sour cream, guacamole, and Cheese to many dishes.”

Northern European Influences

Immigrants from Western Europe are responsible for the “meat-and-potatoes traditional manner of home cooking. This group contained large groups from The English, French, and Germans. A sizable portion of meat arranged with vegetables and potatoes that could be a dinner plate of boiled, mashed vegetables, sauerkraut, boiled or mashed still is the favorite of many Northern European diners.

The traditional pattern provides abundant protein, starch, and dairy nutrients. However, the protein contains insufficient amounts of whole grains, vegetables and fruits or whole grains. Many people from these cultures eat less than healthy dishes combined with high-fat versions that contribute to the high rates of heart disease and obesity and cancers.

African Influences

The “soul food” of African Americans is the basis of the regional cuisines of the southern U.S. African American women. The combination of these foodways with Native America, Spanish and French traditions produced Cajun and Creole cuisines enjoyed today in Louisiana and through out the nation. Pork and corn products were the basis of soul food. Today we all enjoy it as barbecued meat since many enjoy the foods brought from Africa as well as yams, African sweet potatoes, okra, and peanuts. Corn was ground for cornbread, greens like collards, mustard, and turnip and kale. were usually cooked with a small portion of smoked pork as well as black-eyed peas. This diet is obviously high in unhealthy components as well as increased heart disease and cancer. For example, the South east states of the typical American or “Western’ diet” is often called “The Stroke Belt? indicating diets high in calories and/or sodium.

Asian Influences
More than 200 different vegetables are used in the Chinese cuisine, bok choy and other forms of Chinese cabbage are perhaps the most widely eaten vegetable in the world. Rice is the core of the diet in southern China, home to the Cantonese culture whereas in Northern China wheat is used to make noodles. China is the original home of pasta, bread, and dumplings. Stir fried includes hot pot stews containing many vegetable mixtures and protein sources like legumes, nuts and seeds.

Chinese migration to North America began with the California gold rush in the middle of the 19th century. Chinese workers brought with them food preparation that tended [o to contain nutrients, as well as a variety of sauces and seasoning, used today in Chinese cookery.
North American restaurant versions of Chinese dishes are generally not authentic. Such food is often prepared with far more fat than true Chinese cooking which tends to use flavorful but fat free sauces and seasonings. The restaurant versions of Chinese dishes also contain much larger portions of protein.

Ethnic food shows us how our attitudes, practices and rituals around food reflect our most basic beliefs about our world and ourselves. The meaning of food sheds light on who we are as Americans. “We do not sit at a table only to eat, but to eat together. — Plutarch