Posts from — April 2009

The ad above makes me very happy and the trend toward low-fat diet ing makes me very sad, because some of the saddest people I have worked with in my nutritional practice are the ones that have tried to lose weight over the years with fat-free dieting.

Lard is a great source of saturated fat but it is not socially acceptable these days, and with the way most cattle are raised I wouldn’t trust just any old source of lard.  There are plenty of other healthy foods that contain saturated fats including coconut, butter, ghee, cream, palm oil, grassfed meat, and eggs.  Here are a few of the benefits of saturated fat, that can hopefully help to balance out the myths that demonize this healthy form of fat:

• Saturated fats make up 50% of the fats in our cell membranes (every cell is surrounded by a layer of fat).  Without saturated fats, our cells cannot regenerate properly.
• Saturated fats are very stable and do not go rancid easily like polyunsaturated (liquid oils) do.  This stability makes people who eat more saturated fat appear to age more gracefully (especially when it comes to skin appearance).
• Your body uses saturated fat (and other forms of healthy fat) to make brain hormones that help you think clearly and keep your mood elevated.  As the United States has progressed to a more low-fat way of thinking, the rate of prescriptions for anti-depressants has risen.  I’m sure there are many other factors going on here, but it’s an interesting trend.
• Adequate intake of saturated fat is necessary for production of sex hormones.  For some women, simply eating enough saturated fat has made them able to conceive a child after being diagnosed as infertile (for more info on this see www.westonaprice.org).
• Saturated fat is so important that if you don’t get enough of it in your diet, your body will switch over to making saturated fat from carbohydrates.
• Saturated fats help you absorb calcium from your food and they also help you retain healthy levels of other types of fat, particularly omega-3 fats.

There are a lot of opinions out there – in fact, I find that nutrition is one of the most opinionated fields around so I hope this entry doesn’t make you throw up your hands and wonder who to listen to since you may have just come from reading a blog on the benefits of fat-free dieting.  The bottom line is that everyone is different and people need varying amounts of fat, but pretty much everyone needs at least a small amount of saturated fat in their diet.  You just have to eat the way that seems right to you and makes your body feel alive.

And if it makes you feel better, I bought 7 pounds of butter from Marilyn Farms today (http://www.marilynfarms.com/index.php?main_page=mfc_product_edible_info&cPath=96&products_id=411).  No kidding.  That should last my husband and I at least through the end of the month.

NOTE: Please talk to your physician before making any dietary or supplement changes.  This blog is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified healthcare practitioner.

I’ll freely admit that I am a Pyrex junkie.  Specifically, I have become addicted to Pyrex storage containers.  In honor of earth day I’ve decided to try to pretend that my addiction to Pyrex has more to do with loving the environment and less to do with a chemical and emotional dependency that can only be filled by glass storage containers in assorted shapes and sizes that come with rubber lids.  Really, it’s a balance of the two. 

If you don’t own any of these storage containers, I suggest that you immediately buy a starter pack such as the Pyrex Storage 10-Piece Set, Clear with Blue Lids and try them out.  They are very affordable and can be purchased at Target, Wal-Mart or online at places like Amazon.com.  If you’re the type that would rather try before you buy AND if you’re really nice to me I’ll let you borrow some from the overflowing pile that I am hoarding in my kitchen cabinets (the first hit’s free).

To make this more of a nutrition-related blog and less of an addict’s rant, I will now bullet point for you the benefits of these containers:

• They eliminate the need for plastic baggies and plastic wrap.  Yes, sometimes there is a moment of hardship when you really want to cover food and store it in the container it was served in rather than transferring it to a separate container.  But, I have tried it and for the last 3 months I have boycotted all forms of plastic wrap, baggies, and press-and-seal.  My friends like to make fun of this random boycott (especially when we’re putting away leftovers after dinner) but the money I’ve saved on not buying disposable plastic goods just funded a project for my other addiction – knitting.
  
• They’re safer than plastic.  I don’t necessarily mean they’re safer kitchen-safety wise because if you drop them on a hard surface they will shatter (though I’ve had mine for years and nothing has broken yet).  I mean they’re safer for you because they don’t leach any scary plastic chemicals into your food.
  
• They can be frozen, microwaved, or baked.  This is an important combination which comes in handy for me all the time.  For example, when I’m making enchiladas or something else casserole-ish I make 2 batches in Pyrex pans with lids and freeze one.  The one that I bake immediately is great because whatever is left over gets a lid snapped onto it, is put in the fridge overnight, and reheated the next day for lunch.  The one that is frozen comes in handy on crazy evenings when I don’t have time to prepare.  I just put it in the oven (don’t preheat the oven, though – putting frozen glass into a hot oven can cause it to shatter), go about my evening, and in 45 minutes dinner is ready (less time if you own a microwave).
  
• They’re easy to clean.  Even if you have a “baked on mess” (said in the voice of the dishwasher commercial lady) you can just put a little baking soda in the pan, add water, and put it back into a warm oven for 10 minutes or so.  When baking soda heats up it releases carbonic acid, which dissolves even burned on food (not that I tend to burn food…) and allows it to be wiped out with a soft cloth.
  
• It travels well.  Glass is heavier than plastic, but these containers do travel well.  My only caution would be in packing lunch for a child, as glass containers and school usually don’t mix.  In those cases you may want to invest in some stainless steel containers like the LunchBots Duo Stainless Steel Lunch Container or possibly reusable plastic containers such as the Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids 44-pc. Food Storage Set.
  
• You can use them instead of take-out containers at restaurants.  I never would have thought of this idea myself (my Pyrex addiction doesn’t extend to restaurants), but this past weekend at a Mexican restaurant while I was loading my leftovers into a giant styrofoam container that will probably still be in perfect condition when I am 85 years old, a good (and very smart and/or very addicted) friend pulled two of the afore-mentioned containers out of her purse and used them for her and her husband’s leftovers!  Of course we all made fun of her the same way that I am made fun of for my plastic wrap boycott, but really I was in awe.  What a smartie!

Hopefully after reading this blog, you have decided to join my quest to save the earth by filling it with Pyrex storage containers.  Together, we can justify our addiciton!

It’s in my nature to buy weird exercise gadgets.  Between my mother and I you could probably set up your own exercise contraption storefront including such gems as the Tony Little’s Rock ‘n Roll Stepper (it may look silly, but it’s smaller than an actual stairstepper, does provide a moderate workout, gives your husband something to laugh at while you watch the morning news, and if nothing else small children enjoy using it as a see-saw) and the Ab Lounge Ultra (I don’t own this but there are about 15 different variations of it in my mom’s exercise room so I feel like it’s a long lost sibling).

I’m telling you this not to impress you with my online gadget purchasing abilities, but as a way to confess that I am a nutritionist who does not like to exercise.  Most people assume that someone as excited about food and health as I am would naturally be excited about exercise because that is the healthy thing to do.  But you’re wrong!  I regularly talk myself out of exercising with such mental gems as “my husband thinks my love handles are cute” and “why do I need strong arms if I never lift anything heavy anyway?”

But enough about me, I am writing this because I thought if I have a hard time getting motivated to exercise then maybe some of you do too.  With that in mind, I decided to put together this list to give you 5 reasons to exercise that have nothing to do with how you look in a bathing suit.  Wearing a bathing suit is not a daily occurence (unless you’re a lifeguard or swimsuit model, in which case I know of an extra ab lounge or two – are you interested?), and therefore is not a strong motivating factor when deciding between some time with the Tony Little stairstepper and some time on the couch drinking wine and eating potato chips.

Reason #1: Exercise burns off excess stress hormones.  Every time that you have a stressful encounter in your day, whether it’s as simple as an irritating phone call or as intense as being chased by a  rabid chupacabra, your body responds by releasing stress hormones.  Ideally, they would be broken down and disposed of throughout the day but if you’re someone whose day seems to be one stressful encounter after the next then you may be walking around with a lot of circulating stress hormones.  Short burst of stress are important for life (life would be boring if there was no resistance!) and the body knows how to recover, but chronic, day-after-day exposure to high levels of stress is dangerous.  Stress hormones alter body chemistry in such a way that they promote fat storage, encourage muscle breakdown, and inhibit growth and repair of body tissues.  Exercising helps to metabolize these hormones and get them out of the body, which over time (or for some people, immediately) may result in improved mood, increased tolerance to stress, and better sleep.

Reason #2: Exercise boosts detoxification.  When you exercise, you encourage filtration of lymph, the white-blood-cell-rich fluid that resides in lymph nodes and lymphatic vessels.  The lymphatic system does not have its own pump (like the circulatory system’s pump – your heart) so it relies on physical movement to clean out lymph.  The lymphatic system is basically the garbage collection system in the body, so getting it moving means that you’re cleaning up from the inside out.  If you have to be convinced that you need to be cleaned up (nothing personal, all of us do) just visit www.bodyburden.org and see how many hundreds of toxins were found in average people just like you and me.  I don’t mean to scare you - the body is smart and knows what to do with most toxins, it just needs a little extra care to keep it running well in today’s world.

Reason #3: Exercise can relieve joint pain.  When you exercise, you get blood moving through the joints, which “cleans out” inflammation and helps joints repair.  Exercise also strengthens the muscles that stabilize joints, which makes it less likely that you’ll be injured or suffer from chronic joint pain.  As a personal example, I’ve been practicing my Pilates Workout for Dummies workout (lame name, but good workout) routine because I was having some lower back pain from sitting at a computer so much.  After my first workout I immediately noticed that my back felt as good as it does when I leave the chiropractor, and it feels better each time I do it.  Getting rid of the back pain was nice, but my main take-home point here is that if you exercise to relieve joint pain, you technically have an extra $35 or so that you didn’t spend at the chiropractor which you can now spend on important things like buying yet another pair of high heels that will probably contribute to back pain but boy are they cute.  Not that I’m speaking from experience…

Reason #4: Exercise can improve your sex life.  Yes, exercise increases endurance, but on a very practical level it increases blood circulation in the entire body which improves blood flow to the reproductive organs.  In fact, proper blood flow is so important to sexual function that medications for erectile dysfunction target circulation.  Specifically, Viagra works by improving blood flow to the extremities (well, one extremity in particular) and is currently being studied as an aid to improve blood flow to the uterus for women with problematic pregnancies.  With that in mind, you can now change your romantic talk to something like, “Honey, I spent twenty minutes on the Tony Little  stairstepper today and my circulatory system is in great shape.”

Reason #5: Exercise makes you strong.  Yes, it improves the strength of your muscles but I feel that on a deeper level there is something about exercising yourself physically that makes you realize just how strong you really are as a person.  Not to be too mushy, but when you push yourself to walk a little farther up that hill or make it all the way through a difficult yoga workout you realize that you’re the one behind the controls and no matter what shape your body is in, you’re getting stronger every day.  And that knowledge makes the question of how you look in a bathing suit completely irrelevant.

My husband puts up with a LOT and is very patient with his scientific nutritionist wife.  He has pretty much come to grips with the fact that marrying me made him my eternal lab rat on which to perform nutritional experiments.  And I love him even more for that! He is naturally a pretty healthy eater, but he hates taking nutritional supplements.  Over the years I have discovered several methods to get him to do this.  I thought I’d share these methods with all you ladies out there to help you take care of the men in your lives.

Method #1: Tell him it’s good for him.  This doesn’t always work, but it’s a good start.

Method #2: Leave his supplements in a little dish on the counter with a glass of water near his keys, briefcase, or other work items.  If he is not  too fussy he may just make them part of his routine.  If he’s especially motivated, you can forget the dish and just leave the bottles of supplements out for him to get himself.  If needed, write his name and the number of pills/amount of powder he should take from each bottle so he realizes they are set out for him and not for your own enjoyment of having things on the counter.

Method #3: While he’s busy doing something else (watching tv, working on the computer, etc.) quietly hand him the pills and give him a glass of water.  This works surprisingly well on my husband, which makes me a little nervous to know that I could easily poison him and he wouldn’t know the difference since he doesn’t even look up anymore when I give him a handful of pills.  It is important to choose this method when he is doing something that puts him into a relaxing trance.  Don’t try to give him pills to swallow when he is doing something that irritates him (like talking on the phone with customer service at the cell phone company) or if he is doing something not conducive to pill swallowing, like mowing the lawn or showering.

Method #4: Tell him that this is what the soccer players in Europe take.  This doesn’t work for every supplement, but it does apply in the case of  Wobenzym (Naturally Vitamins – Wobenzym N, 200 tablets) , which is a proteolytic enzyme supplement that calms inflammation in the joints.  My husband loves European soccer and after knowing that those guys take Wobenzym (even if it was actually that one soccer player thought about taking it once) he is now so motivated to take it that he searches it out when his back hurts from lifting heavy things all day.

Method #5: Buy good-tasting vitamins, such as children’s chewable vitamins, Emergen-C powdered vitamin C (Emergen-C Vitamin C Fizzy Drink Mix, 1000 mg, Super Orange, 0.3 Ounce Packets (Pack of 36) ), and chewable fish oil gummies (http://www.marilynfarms.com/index.php?main_page=mfc_product_edible_info&cPath=66&products_id=127).  Yes, it may seem juvenile, but if you keep good-tasting supplements around they are more likely to be eaten with less complaining and more enjoyment.  Most chewables have lower doses of nutrients than their swallowable counterparts, but I think the lack of complaining increases absorption of nutrients so it all balances out in the end.  My husband’s favorite along this line was CoQMelt which was made by Douglas Labs but is now off the market for some reason and was replaced with a less tasty version.  If anyone out there knows where to find it I’d appreciate it!

Method #6: This was given to me by a friend last night as she and I were knitting and our husbands were watching (you guessed it) European soccer.  Her recommendation is to “coat the vitamins in peanut butter and chocolate, sort of how you get a dog to take medicine”.  She is funny.

Method #7: Tell him it’s good for his (insert your word for private parts here).  This method is only to be used when all else fails – if it is used too often it will result in “the boy who cried wolf” factor.  But, if he won’t take a supplement for any other reason and is especially resistant to it (including such classic reasons as “cod liver oil tastes like I’m licking a lemon scented fish”, “why do I have to drink something green”, “liquid glutathione makes my mouth taste like a dead raccoon”) then this method should work.  Trust me – men may not care if something is good for their heart, helps their memory, or improves their mood but if something is good for their private parts then they will quietly take it without much complaining at all.  I have proven this theory over and over with friends, family, and nutritional clients.  I know you’re probably wondering how you can know which supplements are good for this, but I’m going to let you in on a little nutrition secret – nutrition is a lot like the Kevin Bacon game.  It’s all related.  For example, a multivitamin contains vitamins and minerals that support overall health and overall health includes the health of private parts.  You just have to do a little research and eventually you’ll find the link. 

If any of you dear readers have additional methods you’d like to share or questions about my methods, please type them into the comments section.  Thanks for reading!
       

NOTE: Please talk to your physician before making any dietary or supplement changes.  This blog is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified healthcare practitioner.

In honor of a great friend who encouraged me to start my own blog site through my website, I am writing an article on the benefits of bacon.  This one’s for you, Liz!

I am an anomaly in my family – a half-Filipino mostly vegetarian, which in itself is a crime against my Filipino heritage, but I am what I am.  I don’t avoid meat for ethical reasons or for nutritional reasons – I honestly just don’t like the taste or the texture very much.  Some people don’t like eggplant; I don’t like meat – especially poultry and ground meat for some reason.  One of the only exceptions to this is bacon – I could eat bacon every day as long as it is cooked to the point that all the fat has melted off and it’s crispy (it’s a texture thing).  To justify this exception, I’m using this blog to list the nutritional benefits of bacon.  That’s right – there are benefits to indulging in bacon! 

Please keep in mind that I’m talking about nitrate-free bacon from pigs that have been raised on a balanced diet (containing a variety of foods, not just corn) and grew up in a healthy area (preferably in a field with room to run around, and not in a feed-lot).  Good things to look for on the label include such snippets as nitrate free, preservative free, free-range, grass-fed, pasture raised, and all-natural.  Any combination of the above works well; or even better – if you’ve got a farm nearby that raises hogs according to these standards, see if you can buy meat directly from them.

We’re also talking about moderation here – bacon has benefits, but any food eaten in excess may cause problems.  The key is balance!  And if bacon makes you happy, include it in your balancing act.

NOTE: Please talk to your physician before making any dietary or supplement changes.  This blog is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified healthcare practitioner.