Headline of the week surely has to go to: Daily bowl of quinoa could save your life, says Harvard University. You can read the original paper here. Quite interesting to see who funded the study:
Sources of support: This study is funded by an unrestricted research fund from NutraSource. Dr. Qi was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL071981), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK091718), the Boston Obesity Nutrition Research Center (DK46200), and United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant 2011036. Dr. Qi was a recipient of the American Heart Association Scientist Development Award (0730094 N). Funding from NutraSource. There were no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.
Nutrasource: ‘We are dedicated to making our clients’ products better from concept to claim’
I had a look to see what some of those organisations recommend regarding diet:
The NHLBI recommend the following regarding saturated fats, cholesterol and heart disease:
‘Importantly, most foods that are high in dietary cholesterol such as high fat meat and dairy products are also high in saturated fat. Saturated and trans fats raise blood LDL cholesterol and high levels of these fats have been associated with higher risk of heart disease. The ACC/AHA Panel also recommended replacing saturated and trans fats with unsaturated vegetable sources, such as olive or canola oil, to lower blood LDL cholesterol levels. Saturated fats are found in fatty cuts of meat, poultry with skin, whole-milk dairy foods, lard, butter, and coconut and palm oils. Trans fats are found in some bakery products and stick margarines. ‘ See here for further info.
The NIDDK recommend the following for diabetics:
6-10 servings of starch per day. ‘Starches are bread, grains, cereal, pasta, and starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes. They provide carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Whole grain starches are healthier because they have more vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Eat some starches at each meal. Eating starches is healthy for everyone, including people with diabetes. Starches include: bread, pasta, corn, pretzels, potatoes, rice, crackers, cereal, tortillas, beans, yams, lentils.’ See here for further info.
Enjoying reading Diabetes Warrior’s posts. Steve has been experimenting with adding higher amounts of fat to his eating plan and is charting the results on his blog.
It was Epilepsy Awareness Day on March 26th – check out the work of Matthew’s Friends. MF posted a link to an article in the Guardian Neurology Supplement detailing the increasing use of dietary therapies in the treatment of epilepsy and other diseases.
Robb Wolf posted a link to an article on emulsifiers Food Additives Feed the Fire, published in Nature magazine. I bought the article (short but extremely interesting). The findings suggest that ‘emulsifiers seem to induce the development of intestinal inflammation and metabolic syndrome in mice by disrupting the composition of the microbiota.’ The experiment used lower doses than those allowed in human food. Here is an explanation of emulsifiers in food.
We love Moroccan and Lebanese food, so this Paleo Moroccan Feast from The Clothes Make the Girl caught my eye. It looks delicious.
I have been making sauerkraut – see photo above. I used white and red cabbage, a little carrot, garlic, chilli pepper and ginger. It is fermenting away in the dark and we look forward to trying the results (assuming everything goes well). For more on all things fermentable, check out Sandor Katz’s website Wild Fermentation and his book The Art of Fermentation looks fantastic.
For those that tolerate dairy – check out this Feta, Nigella and Red Pepper dip from the excellent Bertie’s Food and Drink. We tried this dip and it is wonderful!
