Healthy Bytes

read time: 93 words, under a minute

Sounds like a late night sleezy commercial – eh?
But really there is a connection between sleep and weight.
That connection is hormones…

Hormones that toy with your appetite control system are affected by your level of rest.
Short change your sleep and you:
-> increase ghrelin which increases appetite
-> decrease leptin which signals satiety
-> increase cortisol which makes you fat

You crave those vending machine high calorie, high carb foods. That sends you on the sugar high, sugar crash cycle. And then of course you’re also likely to rely on caffeine.

read time: 236 words, about a minute

Now that organic has transitioned from counter culture to nearly ordinary, we have a replacement counter culture gastro-movement stretching our food consciousness… “local”.

First, a disclaimer… I live in the San Francisco Bay Area which is (a) very food centric; (b) within 500 miles of a heck of a lot of agriculture, including quite a bit of organic.
To say I’m spoiled with choice is an understatement.

Back to local… the definition of local varies a bit depending on what food religion you follow. Some worship within 100 miles, some 200 miles, some 250 miles.
Let’s accept - less than a full passenger car gas tank.

What’s the big deal?
Here are the main issues:

1. environmental. No pesticides make organic produce less environmentally damaging. Put it on a plane and fly it half way round the globe and the environmental impact increases.
Local scores “carbon credits”

2. freshness. If your buying local produce it is likely to be fresher, perhaps more nutrient dense.

3. economy. Support your local economy.

There was a fun article recently in Time - Eating Better Than Organic. The author lives in New York State and wrote from that perspective. Fun - and interesting - read.

Another great book is What To Eat by Marion Nestle. She’s a Professor of Nutrition at New York University. Excellent book. She walks you through a grocery store explaining things in a balanced, realistic way.

read time: 192 words, about a minute

I’ve noticed a new commercial pop up a few weeks ago about some brand of women’s replacement knees. The commercial emphasizes these knees are made for women and implies other knees are made for men and don’t work as well.

The first thought I had was…
Are there so many knee replacement that paying to produce and air this commercial is cost effective. Is this really going to drive a swarm of women to their docs requesting the “fem knee”?

CNN House Call ran a piece on the increase in knee replacements over the weekend…

1 pound of weight = 4 pounds of pressure on the knee
There are 400,000 knee replacements a year – projected to 8 fold increase to 3.5 million by 2030
A replacement knee lasts 15-20 years and cost $31,000
The average age for a knee replacement is decreasing – which means, the replacement may need to “replaced” before the person dies

The reason for the increase in the number of replacements and the decrease in average age… excess weight according to the orthopedic surgeon.

Excess weight and obesity aren’t self contained problems. They trigger one health issue after another.

We have gone over a number of Thanksgiving staples over the last few days - all wonderful seasonal foods. This year more than ever I am determined to keep the foods on our table seasonal – fresh and local. Why? Fresh foods are more nutritious – nutrients degrade rapidly after harvest so local seasonal foods spend less time in transit to my table.

So what’s in season?

All the cruciferous veggies:

Broccoli
Broccoli Romanesque
Broccoflower
Cauliflower – check out the orange and purple varieties!
Kale
Collards
Chinese Broccoli aka Gai Lan
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage

How about leafy Greens?

Spinach
Mustard
Bok Choys of all varieties
Swiss Chard
Rapini

Bulbs and Roots and Tubers?

Fennel
Artichokes
Beets
Turnips
Rutabagas
Celery Root
Carrots
Radishes – try the colorful watermelon radish
Yams
Sweet Potatoes – ever try the purple Okinawan variety?

And we have Squashes…

Butternut
Acorn
Kabocha
Delicata
Hubbard
Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes

We have the last of the figs but every season brings plenty of sweet fruits to enjoy

Apples – for fun try the ‘new’ heirloom varieties like Arkansas Blacks
Pears
Asian Pears
Pomegranates
Quince
Cranberries
Pineapple Guavas – maybe your friendly neighbor will have a tree – quite common in the East Bay Area.
And look - the start of citrus season…grapefruits, tangerines, mandarin oranges, meyer lemons, navel oranges, pommelos

With all this local bounty – pass on the south of the border Asparagus and pass the roasted Brussels Sprouts.

read time: 2 minutes

Yesterday we talked about Organic - the good.
Today - it’s the bad and the ugly.
The organic movement was limited to small farms that primarily practiced sustainable farming.

The demand for organic has grown quite a bit over the past couple of years. Spurred by folks gaining a greater awareness of what they choose to eat as well as the publicised plights of a food system gone arry. Mad Cow just to name one.

Demand attracts supply and we now see the interest of the large corporations chasing the organic dollars. Now when you see the word “Organic” - just like all the other idyllic label decorations of big food, inc. products - you have to scratch and sniff.

I mean “Organic Rice Krispies”, hmmm.
Maybe the rice was organic… but by whose defnition of Organic.
And what did they do to the rice (hint: process the goodness right out of it).

The word “natural” used to have a meaningful meaning. Now, it’s just part of the advertising lexicon.

Read more about that organic yogurt on the shelf, the sell out of the US Agriculture Department and USDA.

A recent Newsweek cover story takes a look at “Exposing the Organic-farming myth”.

And Mark Morford, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, offers his always colorful commentary… “Organic” takes superhighway into the mainstream.

read time: 3 minutes

Organic foods have gravitated from the “quaint” to the shelves of Wal-Mart. What’s the deal?

Back in the 1950’s “mono-culture” farming took hold. This is where instead of rotating crops, you plant the same crop over and over. The benefit was increased efficiency.

The problem… the soil gets depleted of nutrients.
When you rotate crops, different nutrients are used and different nutrients are added back in.

Plants need water and nutrients from the soil to grow. In turn, they nourish you when you eat them.

The amount of iron you got from one serving of spinach in 1948 (before mono-culture) now takes 60 servings… shiver me timbers, that’s a lot for even Popeye to gulp down.

True organic farming practices feed the soil and rotate crops. These veggies are more nutrient dense.

Of course organic crops also spare the pesticides.

So with organic, you get more of the good stuff and none or the bad stuff.

If you want to stretch your food dollars, focus on buying the organic grown version of the foods with the highest pesticide residue and the conventionally grown version of the foods with the lowest pesticide residue.

The Environmental Working Group did the research for you:

The Worse(most sprayed)

Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarine
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Grapes - Imported
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes

The Best (least sprayed)

Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn
Pineapples
Mango
Asparagus
Sweet Peas
Kiwi
Banana
Cabbage
Broccoli
Papaya