Curcumin – a universal cure?

For some time now I’ve heard great things about curcumin, the substance found in turmeric. It’s cancer prevention abilities were even mentioned during one of my classes. Intrigued, I decided to do some research and see what else curcumin is good for.

Sure enough I found an article that looked at about 300 scientific studies focused on curcumin. What they found was amazing: not only does curcumin help treat a variety of illnesses, but also its curative effects come with no side effects. Curcumin does this mostly by reducing inflammation and through antioxidant effect.

The diseases that were positively affected by curcumin included atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer, asthma, and hepatic, pancreatic, gastric and intestinal diseases. Even though most of the experiments discussed in the article were conducted on animals, the results are promising, especially since the scientists noticed no side effects even with big doses – something that is difficult to achieve with conventional medicine.¹

To look outside of modern science, the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda has also utilized curcumin infused turmeric for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Turmeric is part of many herbal mixtures in the treatment of numerous conditions, like rashes, and it is also used as an antibiotic. It can even help heal a sore throat. For the treatment of a sore throat, Ayurveda recommends to mix ½ a teaspoon of turmeric and salt each in a cup of hot water and use it as a gargle in the morning and in the evening. (The water shouldn’t be so hot as to burn your throat.)² I have tried this and it seems to have a soothing effect.

So not necessarily a cure for everything (actually, we don’t know that yet as science takes time), but it's useful in a multitude of ways nevertheless!

In light of the great health benefits of turmeric, adding it into the diet sounds enticing. It is quite easy to do – one can simply drink a mixture of the yellow powder with water, or add it as a spice in every day cooking. It is especially great in Indian style recipes; in fact, it is one of the ingredients of curry powder. This gives you a great reason to enjoy your favorite Indian curry, too!

I hope you have enjoyed my post – feel free to request topics for me to discuss, I would love that!

Love,

Anna-Kaisa

References:

1.       Bengmark, Stig MD, PhD, FRACS (hon), FRCPS (hon). “Curcumin, An Atoxic Antioxidant and Natural NFκB, Cyclooxygenase-2, Lipooxygenase, and Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Inhibitor: A Shield Against Acute and Chronic Diseases.” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2006 vol. 30. Pages 45-51. doi: 10.1177/014860710603000145. Web. April 1 2015.

2.       Lad, Vasant BAMS MASc. The Complete Book of Ayervedic Home Remedies. New York: Harmony Books. 1998. Print.

3 Weeks in Bulgaria

The VMV Supermarket chain advertising their
great selection of fresh Bulgarian fruits and vegetables

Having my family in Finland and Bulgaria means that I visit these two countries every summer. This time around I noticed new aspects about Bulgarian cuisine and eating style that may not be so clearly visible for those that don’t know any locals or the language.

Firstly, I was happy to see that many grocery store chains have started using the freshness of their produce as a marketing trick – Lidl (a German chain) even boasts that they are the only store to employ a freshness manager to make sure they carry the freshest fruits and vegetables possible. I would love to see something like this in the U.S.!

  

A different take on Caprese salad with cucumber puree
- delicious!

On a more worrying note, I noticed that people in Bulgaria use a lot of salt. To begin with, food products, especially cheese, tend to echo this trend by being very salty. Salt is also often heavily added to finished dishes both at home and in a restaurant – often without first tasting them. I personally had no need to add salt to any of my meals and on the other hand, when I cooked something, it wasn’t salty enough to others. The problem is that people are so used to eating high amounts of salt that upon trying to reduce it, the food doesn’t taste as good, which makes improvement difficult. Also, as learned during my spring semester at Berkeley, high salt intake tends to increase the craving for salt forming a classic vicious cycle.

  

Self-picked

Observing this high salt intake, I wanted to find out whether it has an effect on Bulgarian national health. Not surprisingly, when it comes to deaths due to hypertension (in which salt is a factor), Bulgaria had the third highest rate in Europe in 2011(1). Even though Bulgarians have also healthy eating habits, such as having salad as an appetizer at lunch and dinner, this doesn’t seem to be enough to counteract the effects of salt. Of course, salt is always added to salad, too. Tomato and cucumber are by far the most popular vegetables and in my opinion, Bulgarians could benefit from adding variety to their raw vegetable intake. However, I’ve seen many people eat very few vegetables and not just in Bulgaria, so having the same or almost the same vegetables every day is better than having no veggies at all.

  

Grandma's cherries

Interestingly, however, most people that have a yard grow their own produce and not just tomatoes and cucumbers: thus, there is a great potential for increasing variety. My husband’s grandmother, for example, grows also strawberries, lettuce, carrots, beans, plums, cherries and corn among others. For pensioners, growing some vegetables doesn’t only provide fresh food, but it also is a good way to reduce food costs as pensions are very small. Some even produce honey for sale to add to their meager monthly incomes. Unfortunately, pesticides are widely used even on these backyard gardens, as according to many gardeners, there wouldn’t be much produce left for consumption without them. I didn’t find out what is used, but I hope that there is not much residue left when it is time to do harvest.

Cauliflower bake

During this year’s trip, I noticed also that foraging is pretty common here, most popular items being plants that can be dried for tea or other ways used for making different kinds of drinks and syrups. Mashterka, for instance, is a tiny purple flower, which turns into a delicious herbal tea! I had the opportunity to pick some, as we came across it on one of our trips to see ancient ruins. By the way, there are plenty of archeological attractions to see here – this country has roots that go deep!

  

I hope you have enjoyed my post. See you next time!

Anna-Kaisa

Sources:

      (1)  Hypertension. World Health Rankings 2011 http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/hypertension/by-country/ 20 June 2015

Why Do We Eat So Badly?

■Men  ■ Women
Prevalence of Obesity and 
Overweight in the U.S. 
(adults, estimated %)
Source:NIH

I’ve just finished watching a documentary called “Fed-Up” (now that I finally had the time to do something else other than study) and it definitely was able to stir many emotions in me, even if I already knew of most of
the issues that the documentary presented. It seems crazy how many people are overweight or obese! Yet, when you stop and think about it, it starts to make sense. What it all boils down to is processed food.

The vast majority of the foods we see in the supermarkets are highly processed. Processing itself is not necessarily bad, but unfortunately most of the processing has to do with adding a lot of sugar, salt, fat and artificial ingredients to enhance the food’s shelf life, flavor or texture. Micronutriens, such as vitamins and minerals (except for sodium), are absent, or perhaps added to make the food seem better than it is. Processed food is all around us, it is convenient and tasty – how can you not eat it?

Let’s look at these three contributors to the appeal of processed food. The first, and one of the biggest, hurdles in eating less processed food is convenience. Living in Silicon Valley, it is not hard at all to feel the pull of convenience over health – since I am using most of my time for studying, while also attempting to add some exercise into my routine, cooking is just a very time consuming activity that becomes hard to fit in. Time is difficult to come by and it probably takes some serious prioritizing and reorganizing of one’s life to change that.

Americans get most of their calories from processed food

Secondly, the documentary made a good point, which I have also contemplated and experienced in the past – if the food is there, it is hard to resist, but if it is not there, resisting is obviously a piece of cake. The solution to this might seem simple – just don’t buy any processed/unhealthy foods and fill your cabinets with nuts, fruit and vegetables instead. However, unhealthy and unfortunately very appealing food is all around us; in the grocery store, on TV, on the streets. Sometimes I think there is a McDonald’s every five blocks! It is difficult to keep processed food at a distance when it is shoved in your face all the time.

Cash register temptations

Thirdly, unless you have weaned yourself off of sugar and salt, processed food most of the time tastes pretty good. There is something in our primitive brain that tells us to eat those foods that taste sweet, fatty and satisfying. Luckily, processed food is not the only food that tastes great. And what’s better, the more of healthy stuff you eat, the more you will prefer it over processed food. I have noticed that milk chocolate just doesn’t taste as good as it used to, for example. Eating is also a very emotional activity that keeps us from letting go of some foods – just imagine someone telling you that you can never have your favorite family dish ever again.

So let’s all just stop buying processed food. We’ll simply close our eyes when we drive down the street, make time to cook and buy nothing that is bad for us. That is of course if we can afford to choose. Some people rely on processed food to provide them with enough calories for every day activities, whereas buying processed food for others may mean being able to buy more of something else, like clothing. Furthermore, healthy food is sometimes difficult to have access to – not necessarily because it is more expensive, but because supermarkets selling fresh produce are not close to everyone, not even here in the Bay Area, the mecca of technology and innovation.

So what should we do? Convincing big food companies to ditch the bad stuff and produce healthy food is probably not going to happen any time soon and the government will not be able to shift their subsidies from wheat and sugar to kale and oranges. Part of the answer is education, but no amount of education is going to help if people don’t have the means to do what they are taught. 

What we can do is to look at our own choices. Question them. Why do I buy the products I buy? Are these products good for me? Is there a better option? Could I make some more time each week to cook from scratch? Even small changes matter, as they will eventually lead to big improvements.

Love,

Anna-Kaisa

References

NIH Obesity and Overweight statistics

USDA Food Consumption Statistics

As per Nicole's suggestion, here is a recipe of vegan brownies that uses coconut oil. I adapted it from http://www.veganbaking.net/recipes/brownies-and-bars/brownies/ultimate-brownies

To make the recipe more healthy, instead of all-purpose flour I used whole wheat flour and instead of vegan butter I used coconut oil. Also, half of the sugar I used was organic coconut palm sugar. I omitted the espresso powder.

The previous time I made these I used coconut butter and there was a slight difference in flavor and texture: coconut oil gives a less strong coconut flavor to the brownies, but makes the consistency softer, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a good idea to let the brownies cool completely as it says in the recipe, which will make the consistency firmer. I was too eager and tried them straight from the oven and found the brownies very soft.

I have experimented with making baked goods more healthy and it is often very difficult to do that and maintain the same delicious flavor. With this recipe I was able to use whole wheat flour and coconut sugar without diminishing the deliciousness of the brownies. I acknowledge that it is nice to have something sweet sometimes and I think that this recipe is one that will be as close to a healthy treat as you can get! These brownies contain flax seed with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, whole wheat flour with fiber and B-vitamins, coconut oil with medium chain fatty acids and antioxidants, and cocoa powder with antioxidants and fiber. There is no cholesterol or animal fats. They do contain white sugar, but by using coconut sugar, I was able to decrease it by half. So good!

Thanks, Nicole for the suggestion!

If you have recipes that use coconut oil, please share with us!

Love,

Anna-Kaisa

Berkeley and Coconut

I have just finished my first semester at Berkeley and I must say it has been very exciting, yet tough (which explains the absence of new posts). Transitioning from the small classroom setting and the “easy” pace of the community college to large lecture halls and mountains of material to memorize was challenging and somewhat stressful. Still, I really enjoyed my time at Berkeley and can’t wait to take more classes soon!

One of the great things about Berkeley is that now my classes have been more directly about nutrition. I was excited to learn about a number of metabolic pathways in the body and for instance how the B-vitamins work in energy production. It is great to understand the workings of the body and not just accept information as facts as I have had to so far. I also had the opportunity to research coconut oil for one of my classes and I would like to share some of my findings here.

Non-scientific Internet articles boast that coconut oil has quite a few positive effects on the body. While it is good to take these kinds of big promises with a grain of salt, in this case at least there is truth to them. Scientific evidence shows that virgin coconut oil may help weight loss as its medium chain fatty acids are not deposited into adipose tissue like long chain fatty acids are (these are found in most other oils and fats, eg. soy bean oil, canola oil etc). Also, virgin coconut oil may reduce inflammation and have antioxidant effects, both of which help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. And these are just a few examples.

I, as many others, have long been under the impression that saturated fat is bad for you, no matter what its source. Most of the fatty acids in coconut oil are saturated, and so I was surprised to find that coconut oil has these very different health effects. However, these results pertain to virgin coconut oil, not highly processed coconut oil, which is often called copra oil. Coconut oil was indeed long believed to be very bad for you and many experiments reflected this fact – then all of a sudden, coconut oil experiments started yielding positive results. It seems to me that the distinction between virgin coconut oil and copra oil is what caused the change. Probably the coconut oil that was used in the past was the copra oil form of coconut oil, not virgin coconut oil, and as soon as scientists began to make the distinction, results also started to shift.

Impressed by virgin coconut oil’s health benefits, I decided to try it myself. I now add it to my oatmeal every morning and find it very delicious. If you’d like to try coconut oil, it is best to buy organic virgin coconut oil. Health food stores sell it and I noticed that Trader Joe’s carries it too. When it comes to weight loss benefits, coconut oil is something to use as a substitute, not necessarily as an addition, as it still contains plenty of calories. You might try to use it in cooking partly substituting some other oil for example.

I hope you enjoyed the post, please let me know if you have questions about anything at all!

Wishing you success and wellbeing for the New Year 2015!

Anna-Kaisa

References

Basic Report:  04047, Oil, coconut. United States Department of Agriculture. National Nutrient Database. http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/636?fg=&man=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=25&offset=&sort=&qlookup=coconut Accessed October 25, 2014

Jaarin K, Norliana M, Kamisah Y, Nursyafiza M, Saad Qodriyah H. M. Potential Role of Virgin Coconut Oil in Reducing Cardiovascular Risk Factors. Exp Clin Cardiol. 2014Vol 20 Issue 8:3399-3410. http://cardiologyacademicpress.com/soap/pdf/delme_2111_53e5509713a294.54422935.pdf Accessed October 26, 2014.

Nevin K G, Rajamohan T. Influence of virgin coconut oil on blood coagulation factors, lipid levels and LDL oxidation in cholesterol fed Spraguee Dawley rats. e-SPEN. 2008;3:1:e1–e8. DOI: 10.1016/j.eclnm.2007.09.003

Granholma A-C, Bimonte-Nelson H A, Moore A B, Nelson M E, Freeman L R, Sambamurtia K. Effects of a Saturated Fat and High Cholesterol Diet on Memory and Hippocampal Morphology in the Middle-Aged Rat. J Alzheimers Dis. 2008; 14(2): 133–145. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670571/ Accessed October 26, 2014

Nagao K, Teruyoshi Y. Medium-chain fatty acids: Functional lipids for the prevention and treatment of the metabolic syndrome. Pharmacological Research. 2010; 61:208–212. http://www.meltorganic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Medium-chain-fatty-acids-Functional-lipids-for-the-prevention-and-treatment-of-the-metabolic-syndrome.pdf 

Marten B, Pfeuffer M, Schrezenmeir J. Review: Medium-chain triglycerides. Institute of Physiology and Biochemistry of Nutrition, Federal Research Centre of Nutrition and Food, International Dairy Journal. 2006;16:1374–1382. DOI: 10.1016/j.idairyj.2006.06.015 

Hamsi M A, Othman F, Das S, Kamisah Y, Thent Z C, Saad Qodriyah H M, Zakaria Z, Emran A, Subermaniam K, Jaarin K. Effect of consumption of fresh and heated virgin coconut oil on the blood pressure and inflammatory biomarkers: An experimental study in Sprague Dawley rats. Alexandria Journal of Medicine. 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajme.2014.02.002 

"Recycling" food

So much food is wasted every day in the world that it makes me cringe every time I have to add to the pile of wasted food and throw away something that has spoiled. Luckily, there are ways to “recycle” food at home, and by this I mean turning leftovers into something delicious preventing spoilage or – better yet – turning something you didn’t think you could eat anymore into something completely good to eat.

Bread is often a difficult case: you put it in a plastic bag and it gets moldy soon, or you put it in the fridge in a plastic bag and it gets moldy a little bit slower but it doesn’t taste as good as it did before. Then you leave it on the countertop in a paper bag and it gets dry even if keeping away the mold. To keep bread tasting great after a longer period of time or to avoid wasting it, I often freeze extra bread that I know I won’t be able to eat in time. If the bread gets moldy, there’s nothing to be done – mold secretes enzymes and chemicals into the bread in order for it to absorb the nutrients; great for the fungus, but not very helpful, nor healthy, for humans. But, if the bread is free of mold and only becoming dry, then I do have a trick to offer, which I use quite often.

I learned this from my mother when I was growing up: you can make French toast! Or “poor knights” as they are called in Finland (go figure…).  My version is of a healthy kind – I’m keeping my promise to only include healthy foods in this blog even if I have quite the sweet tooth myself. 

So what I do is I first drench the dried up bread (whole grain, of course) in milk or almond milk. I haven’t tried juices yet, but they might also work. When the bread has softened up (takes a few minutes or so), I put them in a frying pan that I have sprayed over with a little bit of canola oil (contains plenty of good fats) and heat until they are golden brown. Lastly, I put some garnish on these “poor knights”, my favorite being apple sauce without added sugar. Anything you fancy works well, such as jam or maple syrup, but for some reason the healthy option has tasted the best to me.

If you have great ideas about making use of dried up bread or any other food items in order to avoid waste, I would love to hear about them! It is good for both your budget and the nature to not waste food!

I hope you enjoyed my post!

Love,

Anna-Kaisa

Airplane dining

Dinner - pretty presentation but not very nutrient rich

I have made the transatlantic flight more than a dozen times and it always is as long and uncomfortable as ever. However, it gets nicer every year, especially the possibility to order special meals has improved a great deal. This time, I had several options for a vegetarian meal and I decided to choose the basic lacto-ovovegetarian meal instead of my usual Indian vegetarian dinner.

I must have flown so many times that this time I didn't put much thought into packing, including packing snacks. Usually I have had all kinds of things with me, including sandwiches, nuts, fruit and energy bars, whereas this time I only packed two bananas and some prunes. I realized I would be depending on airplane food, as I wouldn't have much else to eat.

When dinner time arrived,  I started feeling nervous as my special meal wasn't arriving.  It turned out they didn't have it - luckily the other dinner option was vegetarian pasta.  I was starving and so the food tasted surprisingly good. Nevertheless, my meal consisted mostly of white flour, which is quite nutrient poor. The salad was tiny and had one cherry tomato, one olive and a few salad leaves. Still,  I finished everything because I don't like wasting food.

Breakfast - eggs were tasty and broccoli is very nutritious,
 no whole grain though!

As we were closing in on the destination,  we had breakfast - this time they did have a special meal for me. It was scrambled eggs, steamed (read microwaved) vegetables,  a breakfast roll, yogurt and a fruit cup. Again, I was really hungry,  so the eggs and the veggies hit the spot perfectly. The other stuff wasn't so great (how is the fruit cup always so awful?), but again I didn't like the idea of wasting food, so I finished everything.  

The positive aspects of both meals were the facts that some veggies were offered and that they had made sure that even the cheese was vegetarian friendly. (I know it's weird, you'd think that cheese by default is vegetarian, but that is not the case. Think rennet extracted from calf stomach.)

Due to extremely high airport prices and badly prepared snacks from my part, the airplane food fit the bill of providing me sustenance for the duration of the flight. Overall the food was fine, but there is a serious lack of whole grains. Apparently the majority of people prefer white bread or are ignorant of the benefits of whole grain, since none was available on the flight. Luckily my final destination was Finland, which has excellent bread and other whole grain products for me to enjoy! 

So many whole rye breads to choose from and without sugar! Mmmmm...

Hopefully on the way back I will see improvement and perhaps some whole grains (I doubt it though). This time I will also make sure to pack more snacks, including a sandwich made with whole rye bread. Then only can I be sure to get some whole grain on the long and tedious flight back to California. I have plenty of different breads to choose from!

I hope you enjoyed the post. If you have an idea for me to discuss, let me know!

Love,

Anna-Kaisa