Category Archives: Articles

Unpleasant Food Facts

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Allergies: The most common food allergies are milk, eggs, seafood, wheat, nuts, seeds, chocolate, oranges, tomatoes.

Carcinogens: a musty mold called aflatoxin found on corn, nuts, sorghum

Chemicals:

  • In 1986 there were some 60,000 chemicals in common commercial use in the USA.
  • American industry produced 96 billion pounds of hazardous chemical waste per year; much of which is disposed of in unsafe ways and some of which ends up in our water cycle.

Migraines: For some people food can be a trigger: MSG, sodium nitrate, red wine, old cheese, avocados, ripe bananas, curried meat.

Plaque: Saliva contains streptococci bacteria that use sugar to wrap themselves in a sticky protective wall or plaque. They produce acid that eats enamel.

Quality of Food:

  • Broccoli loses 1/3 of its vitamin C within 2 days of picking
  • canned juice loses 70% of its Vitamin C if it is stored in a hot space

Decorating Dessert

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Your kids may not care if their dessert has a decorative pizazz but sometimes you want it to look special. Here are a few ideas to help you make the ordinary look like a treat.

  • Pies: try a crumble topping or turn the top layer of pastry into a carved design and serve it with vanilla drizzle
  • Ice cream: add a small ladle of sauce and a sprinkling of crushed candies in a contrasting colour
  • Muffins: Just before you bake them, sprinkle a few crushed nuts mixed with brown sugar over muffins
  • Quick breads: Add a thin drizzle of icing sugar mixed with juice over quick breads, bundt cakes, or scones
  • Scones: Heat sweet scones in a toaster oven, split them in half and add butter and strawberry jam between the layers. Finish with a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of thinned strawberry jam

Organic Farming in Your Backyard or on the Balcony

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Organic farming is how most people through history created a good yield for their crops. With the hyped promise of the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century, organic farming became more complicated. Not only was it considered backwards and low yield, but in some areas it came up against local regulations and buying habits.

I remember as a kid hearing that compost boxes were smelly and unacceptable. At the same time, my mother spoke about them as common practice while she was growing up. The notions that artificially stimulated crops were less healthy or that locally grown crops were more nutritious, were unspoken. The negative consequences of chemical fertilizers and endless cropping of the same fields, were unheard of.

My parents were both born in the city in England and grew their own vegetables, but in the North American suburb where I was raised, most people grew lawns with a few border flowers. As the hippie generation made it less egregious, Dad went back to farming a small plot of land behind the house, growing tomatoes, beans and rhubarb.

These days, the hot trend is to buy crops grown within 100 miles of your home and preferably, if you have the knack, in your backyard. Not all your neighbours will agree, but at least compost boxes are fashionable enough to be found at garden centres everywhere.

This past summer, my partner and I devoted much of our spare time to turning part of the lawn into beds where next year, we can enrich the soil with compost and try our hand at vegetables. Neither of us has much experience with farming, so it’s going to be a challenge. The first step was marking out an area that got sufficient sunlight. We are lucky: part of the lawn backs onto a ravine and we could create terraces that face the sun for most of the day. The soil is lifeless sand. Finding a worm in it is cause for celebration. We’ve been burning wood in the fireplace to create ash and composting for 2 years to create organic matter to till into the soil.  We know it is worth the time.

Organic crops taste good and their nutritional content matches or exceeds chemically grown fruits and vegetables. According to David Suzuki, growing some crops organically uses up to 30% less energy. They need less water and fewer pesticides (and those are organic). They are better able to withstand drought because the soil is more alive with higher amounts of carbon and valued micro-organisms.

I know from other readings that I can probably increase my success rate by combining plants that like to grow together.

When I was a kid, bananas were only available in season. Now they are available round the year from plantations that spray their crops with fungicides. The fruit travels 100s of miles to reach me and its nutritional value is depleted. The average meal, we’re now told, travels 2400km to our tables. To arrive looking fresh, they are picked early and once picked, many fruits and vegetables begin to lose what remaining vitamins and minerals they had.

By organically growing some of our crops in our own backyards, or on our balconies using vermiculture, we reduce air pollution, green our gardens, create bio-diversity in our neighbourhoods, improve the nutritional content of our meals, and get a little exercise. Bonus!

Stem Cells

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Stem cells are useful because they tend to morph into the organs where they are transplanted. There are ethical concerns around this and in many places stem cell research is illegal or frowned upon. At the same time, they offer strong potential for simplifying cardiac surgery and there are over17.5 million Americans who might benefit in this one field alone.

For example, Steven Ebert at the U. Central Florida, has engineered stem cells to include the same enzyme that makes fireflies glow. The cells get brighter as they morph into healthy heart tissue. If put into surgical use, not only would the heart be repaired, but monitoring the patient’s recovery would be improved because surgeons could see how well the patient is doing using optical means instead of re-opening the chest.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association, is a featured cover story in this month’s highly ranked Stem Cell and Development Journal.

Anti-oxidant Black Rice Bran

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A spoonful of black rice bran contains more anthocyanin antioxidants than a spoonful of blueberries and has less sugar, more fiber and more vitamin E antioxidants.

Anthocyanin antioxidants are believed to help fight heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

History

One variety of black rice bran was called  “Forbidden Rice” in ancient China only nobles were allowed to eat it.
Source: Zhimin Xu, Associate Professor at the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, La

Organic Farming

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Comparisons of organic and conventional fruit farms found that organic farming produces healthier, tastier berries and leaves the soil in a better state for future crops. The soil is both healthier and genetically more diverse.

A study by researchers  looked at 31 chemical and biological soil properties and soil DNA on 26 commercial fields in California, half of which were organic. They then checked the taste, nutrition and quality of the 3 types of strawberries grown.

Conventional farms in the study used methyl bromide as a fungicide. Critics claim it is ozone-depleting and there are plans to replace it with the even more toxic chemical methyl iodide.  This study, conducted by 9 experts in the fields of agro-ecology, soil science, microbial ecology, genetics, pomology, food science, sensory science, and statistics,  found that organic farming would provide better  results on almost every level.

They found that organic strawberries

  • have higher antioxidant activity
  • higher concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds
  • longer shelf life
  • more dry matter, or, “more strawberry in the strawberry”
  • in at least one variety, tasted and looked better and in the other two, were equal to the conventional counterparts

As for the organic soils, they had greater carbon sequestration, and more nitrogen, microbial biomass, enzyme activities, and micronutrients.

DNA analysis showed that the organically managed soils were far more complete with greater genetic diversity. This makes the soil more resilient to stress and better able to act as the basis for future farming.

Source:  John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of a paper published today in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE.

Omega-3

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Omega-3 fatty acids are an effective way to reduce chronic inflammation and insulin resistance which means that some diabetics may be able to control their symptoms with diet.

Here is how it works according to Dr. Olefsky, professor of medicine and associate dean of scientific affairs for the UC  San Diego School of Medicine, and his colleagues. The key is in the body fat itself.

Body tissues are rich in specialized white blood cells called microphages that digest the junk in our cells. They do this by secreting cytokines (a type of protein) which can cause inflammation. Obese body fat contains lots of microphages,  so it produces lots of cytokines. The resulting inflammation can raise insulin resistance in surrounding tissues and that can lead to type 2 diabetes symptoms.

The UC researchers found a receptor (a G-protein called GPR120) in mature fat cell macrophages that is normally off. Turned off, the macrophages cause inflammation. However, omega-2 fatty acids DHA and EPA can turn on GPR120 and once on the macrophages causes less inflammation.

Of course, more research is required and this study doesn’t mean you can stop using insulin and start eating bacon as long as you also consume a lot of fish oil. For one thing, the research doesn’t tell us how much DHA and EPA are needed and what levels are safe.  Consuming lots of fish oil has been linked to bleeding and stroke.

However it is worth following the research and talking to your doctor about it. Plus it shines a light on why Omega-3 is so widely regarded.

Eat Seasonal

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Eating produce at its peak is the best way to maximize taste and nutrition. Some foods that are available all year round have been forced or are picked early and travel miles to the grocery store. Every vegetable, fruit and grain humans consume has a natural time when it is ripe. If you are buying something that is out-of-season locally then it is either forced or shipped from distant lands where it is in season.

Salmonella

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Safe food handling is essential if you don’t want the food you eat to make you ill. Recent research shows that Salmonella bacterium are over 100 million years old and have evolved into over 2500 strains, so it is unlikely we will ever destroy the strain, nor should we. All things have their place, but your table is not the right place for this potential killer.

Not all salmonella bacterium are harmful to humans although some can make a person very sick. While you may think that food that’s gone off a bit is still okay for the family pet, remember that among those 2500 strains are a few that hurt them as well.

Habitat and Spread

Salmonella thrives in the guts of over 100 species of animal from camels to cockroaches. It spreads by triggering diarrhea and vomiting. Once in the open, it can survive on almost any surface. An infected pen, finger or spoon placed in the mouth, transfers the bacteria to its new host. Animals that are not kept clean can end up with their fur or feathers coated in bacterium picked up from feces. Stroking them can leave a residue on hands. Infected animals that lick your face or things you touch can also spread salmonella.

There’s no point being paranoid about it. Salmonella is a fact of life. 100,000 could fit on the head of a pin.  It likes warm, damp places with low levels of oxygen. It can lie dormant for a year if conditions are poor.

The Rise of Salmonella

Interestingly, while Salmonella has been with us throughout human history, it has grown 10-fold as a problem since the 1940s and the rise of industrial farming. Many animals herded together in confined areas provides Salmonella with opportunities to thrive. Factory-based food processing provides many potential points of entry for bacterium to get into the package and then into your hands.

The most common strain affecting humans in developed nations is Salmonella enterica. You may feel the effects within 12 hours or not for 2 or 3 days. The symptoms can last a week unless it gets into your blood at which point antibiotics are used to treat it. Most people recover from this strain of Salmonella.

More deadly is Typhi which causes typhoid fever. Common in the developing world Typhi migrates to the liver and spleen. Up to 21 million people get typhoid each year and the death rate is about 1 in 8 without treatment.

What to Do

The way to fight Salmonella is to wash your hands before eating, keep your kitchen clean, and cook food until done. Cook beef to a minimum of 145 degrees F and chicken to 165F.

The body has its own defences: stomach acid and friendly flora in the intestines. However, antacids reduce pH levels in the stomach and antibiotics can destroy friendly flora in the gut. Yogurt is a good choice for replenishing the natural defenses of the intestines and it may settle your stomach.

History

Salmonella was discovered in the 1880s by Dr. Theobald Smith while working at the US Department of agriculture on vaccines for pigs. He named it after his boss, Dr. Daniel Salmon

Diets

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Fad diets don’t work for everyone and new research published in the  July 2010 issue of Genetics, may explain why, although we shouldn’t be surprised. Diet plans are often based on physical appearance but diet interacts with genetics which means that each person responds in a unique way to the plan.

Some people are probably more sensitive to their diets and respond more rapidly to the changes in what and how much they eat. But others are not. In fact, changing their diet may have virtually no effect on their body weight.