This is a challenge that’s been getting some attention, and it’s worth having fun with!
You’ll get more fiber, eat less processed foods, and it supports your healthy gut microbes. Of course, having a healthy gut influences the rest of the body, improving digestion, energy, mood, sleep, and just plain feeling good.
I didn’t used to eat breakfast, as part of an intermittent fasting regimen. Now, I eat a hearty breakfast and eat again when I feel hungry in the afternoon. Letting hunger drive your eating, and then eating slowly and chewing well until satisfied, makes a difference.
That’s often it for the day. No dinner, and it makes intermittent fasting easier.
I do know the experience of overeating because the taste of something is so satisfying. I’m working with that. Also, I used to have a leaky gut and started working to improve my gut health in 2007, so it’s been a focus for a while.
Here’s what I’ve been eating for breakfast, with minor variations:
The organic sprouted rolled oats came from Wheatsville, an Austin food coop. They cook in 5 minutes, although I changed the proportions to 1/3 cup each of boiling water and oats and immediately turn the heat down to as low as it goes.
Add to that coconut milk yogurt, pecans, dried cranberries, beautiful organic blueberries, flax seeds, hemp seeds, maple syrup, and 5 spices (Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, orange peel, and allspice). While the oats are cooking, add everything else to a bowl. When the oats are done, add to your bowl and stir well.
Voila! 13 plants, from Wheatsville, Costco (the pecans and maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels!), and HEB, our beloved Texas chain that does so much for Texas communities in crisis from disasters and Texas public schools.
Really, it’s pretty simple: a whole grain, nuts, seeds, berries, yogurt, a natural sweetener, and spices. Have fun improvising on that!
Next up, a veggie curry served over quinoa.
Can I consume 30 plants in two meals in one day? Stay tuned!
A local food trailer that serves wonderfully healthy vegan food has inspired me. The food trailer is called ATX Food, and it’s parked just outside Bicycle Sports Shop on South Lamar, just south of the McDonald’s on Barton Springs and Lamar (which appears to be closed).
ATX Food makes fabulous quinoa bowls! There are several varieties. Each bowl on their menu includes toasted quinoa, half a perfectly ripe avocado, pickled red cabbage, and a generous dusting of sesame seeds. These bowls are colorful as well as healthy!
The photo below is their Chickpea Power Bowl. Other ingredients include wild mushrooms and fresh field greens (hiding under everything else). A green goddess dressing tops it off.
You can get bowls with squash, tomatoes, kale…and there’s even version with barbecued tempeh.
One of these bowls is more than enough food for me. And they are $12. I thought I would try my hand making them at home.
I like to improvise, and I went to town on my homemade grain bowls! Every day I concoct something different. like a variety of colors and textures and tastes. I like my bowls to serve my health as well as my eyes and tastebuds and mouth-feel.
So far I’ve used quinoa and wild rice, both hearty grain-like seeds. In the future I may use brown rice, black rice, buckwheat.
I could also replace the grains/seeds with legumes, and if I want more protein, I can add baked tofu, nuts, seeds, a jammy egg, feta, a sardine. (I’m not vegan, but I am making my diet more plant-based.)
I typically add spring mix but I could use any other kind of lettuce. Other raw veggies: those colorful mini-bell peppers, mixed colors of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, snap peas, green onions, chopped cauliflower, broccoli, or kale will all make a more salad-like bowl.
Possibilities for cooked veggies include asparagus, carrots, celery, green beans, mushrooms, spinach, sweet potatoes, squash, kale, chard, collards, beets. It’s good to research which veggies have more nutrients cooked, versus raw. (Not everyone agrees.) It’s a good way to use leftovers, too.
I enjoy the taste of pickled veggies, and I’ve pickled red cabbage at home…it’s easy, adds a pop of color and taste, and is a lot faster than making kraut. Pickled beets, okra, or ginger add nice pops of flavor, too.
Fermenting food is one of my favorite ways to prepare food. How much should you eat in a day? Short answer: as many types as you can, to strengthen your immune system and improve digestion.
Right now I have kombucha in my cupboard, going through a second fermentation with pomegranate juice. A two-quart jar of beet kvass sits on my counter. My refrigerator holds two jars of homemade kim chi.
I’ll soon be making kraut from a big beautiful red cabbage and salt. Kombucha, kvass, kim chi, and kraut are the big 4 Ks in my kitchen.
I also fermented soy beans, inoculating them with store-bought frozen natto. I now have lots of sticky, stringy natto that is so good with kim chi, and so good for getting calcium into your bones.
Wow, where am I? I really went off on a tangent there! I add kim chi or kraut to my bowls.
There are lots of ways to garnish a bowl: fresh sprouts, microgreens, pepitas, pistachios, chopped walnuts or almonds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, pomegranate seeds, blueberries!
I like Bragg’s dressings made with olive oil. I love a good sesame-ginger dressing too. There’s a delicious miso dressing sold at H-E-B (Oka’s) that I want to replicate with healthy oil. Salsa, tahini, and yogurt are other possibilities.
The opportunities to create beautiful food that tastes great are many. These bowls are balanced, colorful, textured, and nutrient-dense. I like to eat one for my main meal of the day. If I’m hungry in the evening, I eat lightly.
I’ve been wearing a continuous glucose monitor for a few months. It’s a sensor on the back of my upper arm that I scan with my phone using an app that analyzes data.
I enter what I eat and when.
I was curious about how glucose affected me. Apparently people can’t tell when their glucose is too high, unlike when it’s too low. And with so many people being prediabetic or diabetic, I wanted personal information.
Things I’ve learned:
It’s all about carbs/sugars/starches — whatever you call it, it’s converted to glucose.
Warm roasted potatoes make my glucose spike high. Cold potatoes not so much, and I presume that other starchy foods like cold rice or pasta salads would be the same. Better cold than hot.
(Another benefit: I understand many grains and starchy veggies, when served cold, create resistant starch, which feeds gut bacteria.)
Half a serving of warm potatoes doesn’t spike it nearly as much. Same with a banana. Half is better — you still get some carbs but keep glucose levels down.
I’ve read that not everyone responds the same. Some people may be able to eat warm potatoes and not have their glucose spike as high as mine did.
I haven’t tested popcorn yet and am curious.
You want your glucose to come back to baseline within 2-3 hours after eating.
One staple of my diet, at least in summer, is a large salad of greens, cucumber, bell pepper, tomato, green onions, black olives, capers, walnuts, and sprouts, with half a filet of wild salmon or some chicken sprinkled across the top, drenched in a balsamic vinaigrette I make with olive oil.
It does not budge my blood sugar.
My reading on a really good day
Walking or otherwise exercising after eating lowers glucose because you’re burning it as energy, especially if you eat carbs.
You want to keep glucose levels between 70 and 140, with your daily average below 105.
Fasting glucose is measured two hours after waking up and not eating anything. Eating dinner and/or drinking alcohol closer to bedtime raises it. Try to eat your last meal at least 3 hours before bedtime.
Also, you may understand from this why intermittent fasting (eating within a 4-8 hour window) makes such a difference in health.
If you don’t want to use a CGM device, you can use the finger prick method of obtaining your fasting glucose level two hours after waking. Research shows that a fasting glucose reading of 86 is ideal for health and longevity purposes.
That, and keeping it steady from day to day, are the best and easiest ways to optimize healthy blood sugar levels.
NutriSense is the company I used. I had access to a dietitian for free the first month.
My email this morning contained news from Science Daily that researchers have discovered the mechanics of why COVID tends to be more severe in the elderly and people with underlying conditions.
I’m no scientist, but this was something I wondered about. I’m 67 and although I don’t consider myself elderly, I am an elder. (Humor me.)
I wondered what exactly is it about being older that makes one more vulnerable. I know lots of people my age and older who are healthy and living active lives. They don’t have underlying conditions, and apart from wrinklier skin, graying hair, and joints that are a little bit stiffer, are pretty healthy and fit.
According to this research as I understand it, it’s cellular oxidation that gives the COVID virus something to latch onto.
“Our analysis suggests that greater cellular oxidation in the elderly or those with underlying health conditions could predispose them to more vigorous infection, replication and disease,” says co-author Rajinder Dhindsa, an emeritus professor of biology at McGill University.
…According to the researchers, preventing the anchor from forming could be the key to unlocking new treatments for COVID-19. One strategy, they suggest, could be to disrupt the oxidizing environment that keeps the disulfide bonds intact. “Antioxidants could decrease the severity of COVID-19 by interfering with entry of the virus into host cells and its survival afterwards in establishing further infection,” says Professor Singh.
Cells produce free radicals as the body processes food and reacts to the environment. If the body cannot process and remove free radicals efficiently, oxidative stress can result. Antioxidants can help prevent this.
It appears that over time, an excess of free radicals can do the kind of cellular damage that results in not only more severe cases of COVID, but also heart disease, cancer, stroke, arthritis, Parkinson’s, respiratory illness, and more.
How do you prevent oxidative stress? Avoiding inflammation, pollution, smoking, and too much UV exposure help.
You can also consume antioxidants from food. They are free-radical scavengers.
Antioxidant is a broad label for hundreds of substances that do the same thing: prevent or slow oxidative stress.
You’ve probably heard of some of them, like beta-carotene and lycopene. Each one does a specific thing, but all of them are plant-based, so it’s important to eat lots of fruits and veggies, especially the most colorful ones like berries, citrus, greens, beets, tomatoes, mangoes, etc.
Without knowing this, I learned that I was already doing a lot of things right.
I drink matcha every morning (green tea is a major antioxidant).
I eat lots of leafy greens.
I eat a small apple for a snack nearly every day.
I keep frozen berries on hand for smoothies.
I make and drink beet kvass (a fermented drink).
I cook with a lot of herbs and spices. I grow herbs and pick them right before cooking.
With supplements, more is not necessarily better, and some can interact with meds. You probably want to talk to a nutritionist first.
I hope that this is helpful. I hope you stay well, and if you get sick, that you recover well. If you want to know more, I found this article credible and helpful.
I did a craniosacral therapy session last week on a friend whom I hadn’t seen since the start of the pandemic. I went to his home since he has a massage table. We wore masks during the session with the window open.
The session was successful. He’d taken a spill on his bike, hit his head, didn’t seem too badly injured, went home…and noticed that he just didn’t feel right for a couple of weeks and called me. He felt shifts and releases throughout the session.
I sent him my Post-Concussion Self Care guidelines. If it was a concussion, it was minor, but any time the brain gets sloshed via head injury, craniosacral therapy can help, after any swelling goes down.
Anyway, he’s a great cook, and he invited me to share a mid-afternoon meal of his homemade green soup outdoors on his patio. Of course I accepted!
It was so delicious, I want to make it myself.
Here’s how he described making it: 1. In a stockpot, sauté an onion in olive oil. 2. Chop 2-3 different bunches of greens and stir into onions and olive oil. Choose from chard, spinach, kale, beet greens, collards, dandelion greens, arugula, or whatever leafy greens you like or have on hand. 3. Add 1 teaspoon salt. 4. Add about 6 cups water, cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. 5. When cool enough to handle, pour into a Vitamix and blend. 6. If purée is too thick, add water to thin to desired consistency. 7. Season to taste with more salt and pepper.
After heating it, he added chunks of avocado, a handful of pumpkin seeds, fresh garlic chives, and salt and pepper to taste. Oh, and bird peppers! I tried one. Too hot for me.
Yum. The amazing thing is how simple this recipe is. Of course, you could fancy it up by adding garlic, herbs, lemon juice or vinegar, and veggie or chicken stock instead of water. You could add a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream or some croutons, or grate Parmesan on top.
I’ve since made it in an Instant Pot. Even quicker! Sauté onions and greens in olive oil. Add water and salt. Use the pressure cooker setting for 5 minutes, then let it naturally release. Run it through a Vitamix or use an immersion blender. Season and garnish.
Okay, readers, I posted on the basics of the immune system. If you missed that post, click here to read it. Bare bones version: we have an innate immune system that immediately goes to work against pathogens, and a slower adaptive immune system that kills pathogens, remembers them, and confers immunity by producing antibodies to those specific pathogens.
Since SARS-CoV-2 is a novel (new) virus, our adaptive immune systems have nothing to remember, which explains why it is so contagious and why it is taking so many people down. We don’t know yet if this virus will mutate and evade adaptive memory. Can people get it twice? We don’t know.
In this post, I want to explore how what we eat and drink affects our immune systems.
In general, eating lots of fruits and vegetables is recommended for the fiber and nutrient density, as is moderate to no alcohol consumption. Maintaining a healthy weight is also recommended.
There’s a lot that we don’t know yet about the highly complex immune system, but we do know that malnourished people are more vulnerable to infectious diseases, as are the elderly. You of course are aware that you do not have to be living in poverty in a third world country to be malnourished. Diets high in processed foods (a first world problem) can result in malnourishment.
Micronutrients that affect immune responses
The micronutrient deficiencies that have been shown to alter immune responses in animals include the following:
zinc
selenium
copper
iron
folate
Vitamin A
Vitamin B6
Vitamin C
Vitamin D3
Vitamin E
Foods high in these nutrients are recommended, and if these foods are unavailable, supplements should be helpful. High quality multivitamin and multimineral supplements can help.
I found this cool website where you can select a micronutrient and see what foods are high in it. Did you know that hemp seeds are high in zinc? I didn’t.
Stomach acid declines with age, which impacts nutrient absorption
Older people are more likely to be deficient in micronutrients. One possible factor is that stomach acid production declines with age. Zinc deficiency, high sugar intake, and eating too quickly also contribute. Stomach acid helps break down food for digestion and absorption of nutrients.
A way to remedy this is to take HCl, hydrochloric acid, with meals. Chewing food thoroughly, limiting processed foods, eating fermented foods, drinking apple cider vinegar in water, and eating ginger are recommended ways to boost stomach acid production without taking an HCl supplement.
The gut microbiome influences the immune system, and vice versa
Seventy to eighty percent of immune cells are found in the gut. The gut microbiome provides antigens and influences immune system cells. Food is a foreign substance introduced into the body, and the immune system decides if it’s beneficial or a threat. These two systems regulate and support each other.
When all is well, the immune system helps maintain stability of beneficial gut microbes, and microbes support the development of immune cells, as well as fine-tuning immune responses.
Keeping the gut microbiome healthy includes:
Not taking antibiotics unless absolutely necessary,
Consuming prebiotics — nondigestible fiber feeds the health-producing gut bacteria. Eat lots of veggies and fruits for fiber.
Eating fermented foods like sauerkraut, yogurt, and beet kvass increases beneficial micro-organisms in the gut.
Improving gut health and reducing gut inflammation (leaky gut)
One concern about the modern diet is that it may produce systemic inflammation through gaps in the cells that line the small intestines. This is called leaky gut, or intestinal permeability. These gut lining cells produce the anti-microbial chemicals that are part of the innate immune system.
Here are some recommendations to reduce gut inflammation:
Avoid processed, high fat, and high sugar foods.
Avoid common allergens, such as wheat and dairy.
Avoid alcohol.
Investigate a low-FODMAP diet.
Add foods with probiotics (kefir, yogurt, kimchi, etc.) and take probiotic supplements.
Add foods with prebiotics (bananas, berries, etc.). Prebiotic supplements are available.
Reduce your use of NSAIDs.
Reduce your stress level.
If you smoke, quit.
Working with a nutritionist can be very helpful.
This is Day 7 of sheltering in place in Austin, Texas. Here’s our case count as of last night. We’ve had another death. We’ve been getting roughly 20 more known cases per day.
Expect the case count to go up quite a bit tonight. There’s a report that a group of 70 people (mostly UT students) in their 20s went to Cabo in Mexico for spring break a week and a half ago, and after returning to Austin, 28 of them have tested positive, so far. About half the cases in Austin are still those ages 20-40.
Here’s a poignant video showing the empty streets of normally bustling Austin. The sentiment at the end says it all.
Today is Day 2 of sheltering in place in Austin, Texas. We had 119 known cases as of last night (but no deaths so far), and we know the virus is being transmitted in the community. No one I know has it so far, that I’ve heard, but friends and relatives of friends do. The number of cases will almost certainly go up over the next two or three weeks. The hope is that then the number of cases will start declining because of first, social distancing, and now, sheltering in place.
For me, this means staying home, which I have been since Saturday, and for the week before, my outings were rare. I’ve ordered groceries online and picked them up. I have a wonderful daughter who can pick items up and bring them to me. I have groceries enough to last for at least a week, and I’m keeping a list on the fridge door of the items I run out of that I can get next time I shop (which will probably be online to be delivered or picked up curbside, but I do have a mask and gloves in case I need to venture inside a store). My fridge, freezer, and nonperishable shelves are full.
I feel pretty good about my chances of getting through this without getting sick, or of being mildly ill if I do get it. I had a cold in October that was mild and lasted two days, and I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d previously had a cold. My immune system is robust.
However, it’s unpredictable. I’m in the 60+ population and therefore considered at risk. I do yoga and dance regularly (now doing these online), I eat healthy (organic unprocessed food mostly), and I meditate, which helps keep my nervous system more balanced rather than going into stress, which is hard on the immune system. I’m working on improving my sleep, getting more deep and REM sleep according to my Fitbit.
I take really high quality supplements from Premier Research Labs and Wellevate. (I have practitioner accounts with both that you can order through if you wish.) I have homeopathic remedies on hand too. I have health insurance should I need it, and I hope that if I do, the health care system isn’t overwhelmed and can tend to me. I’m very very fortunate and grateful.
Y’all, no one is immune. This virus targets humankind. It’s a great equalizer. It doesn’t respect fame, power, talent, or riches. Movie stars, professional athletes, famous artists, royalty, and politicians have come down with it. Because it’s novel, no one has immunity, except those who have completely recovered from it.
I’m hearing people say things like “What a year this past week has been” and “there are many days in a day.” We’re in a time of rapid change.
I believe when this pandemic is over, some aspects of our lives will not go back to the way they were. This will influence people living through it for the rest of our lives. We will not take our health for granted. We will better understand the relationship between lifestyle and health. We will require that our governments take actions that support our health over corporate profits.
Dead people don’t buy stuff.
I hope the biggest takeaway is that we humans are ALL connected through our humanity. We are all dependent on this planet for our lives. Maybe we will treat each other, and our home planet, much better.
Blessings for health, immunity, resiliency, resourcefulness, and connection. 💚🙏🏽
I subscribe to Science Daily, and at a minimum, I check out the headlines for the results of studies in the almost-daily emails they send me. I follow up on a few, reading the plain-language synopses of scientific studies that may be over my head in terms of using “science-use”.
Many of my friends and integrative bodywork clients are 60+. I myself take supplements and try to eat a healthy balanced diet. I was curious: Am I getting the right nutrients to nourish my brain?
The article cites a study that shows that higher levels of specific nutrients is robustly linked with higher brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tests in older adults. They looked at 32 nutrients in 116 healthy adults age 65-75. They also invited 40 participants back after two years and got the same results.
Rather than surveying participants on their diets, they looked at biomarkers in the blood. This would show what’s actually being absorbed.
They also used fMRI technology to look at how local and global brain networks performed, to see how many steps it took to complete a task on several cognitive tests.
This appears to be a very robust study.
What they found is that indeed, several nutrients are linked with higher brain performance. The nutrients are:
omega 3 fatty acids (found in salmon, sardines, walnuts, flaxseed, hempseed, avocados and more — amount should be higher than omega 6)
omega 6 fatty acids (found in flaxseed, hempseed, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and nuts)
carotenoids (found in red, orange, and yellow vegetables and fruit)
lycopene (a carotenoid found in red tomatoes, watermelon, grapefruit, and papayas)
riboflavin (Vitamin B2, found in eggs, organ meats, lean meats, mushrooms, spinach)
folate (Vitamin B9, found in dark green vegetables, dried legumes, eggs, beets, citrus)
Vitamin B12 (found in organ meats, clams, sardines, fortified nutritional yeast, other fortified foods)
Vitamin D (found in sunlight on the skin and supplements — no foods contain enough to prevent deficiency)
The researchers found that higher levels of omega 3s in particular boosted the functioning of the frontoparietal network, which supports the ability to focus attention and engage in goal-directed behavior.
My take is to eat nutrient-dense foods every day for every meal. I eat wild salmon (it can be canned) or sardines several times a week, keep nuts on hand for snacking, eat the healthiest eggs I can get at least once a week, buy large bags of baby spinach and broccoli at Costco, enjoy fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and watermelon in season, make a delicious chicken-liver paté, and eat dried beans almost daily. I cook with olive, avocado, ghee, and coconut oil.
Also, take note of what foods are not listed. What are some shifts you could make to improve your brain health?
I also supplement with Vitamin D and a methylated B complex. If you have had genetic testing that shows you have an MTHFR mutation (which I do), when you buy Vitamin B supplements, be sure the label says folate instead of folic acid and methylcobalamin (B12) instead of cyanocobalamin. If you don’t know if you have an MTHFR mutation, get these methylated versions of these nutrients because it’s estimated that 60 percent of Americans do have a mutation.
The Splendid Table podcast had a guest caller who shared her recipe for umami powder, in October 2017. She’d grown up in Japan, and after returning to the U.S. as an adult, experimented and came up with this flavor-enhancing powder that you can add to American favorites as well as East Asian ones.
Here’s the episode (the umami power segment starts at 41:30 and ends at 46:30), and here’s the recipe. I thought I’d share my experience making it, as well as ways to use it.
Ingredients:
1-oz. package of bonito flakes (makes 6 tablespoons)
1 oz. bulk dried shiitake mushrooms (or if not available in bulk, a small package — use the rest in soups)
small package of kombu (with what you don’t use for umami powder, add half a sheet when cooking dried legumes — it takes the gas out, and you can fish it out before serving )
Tools:
coffee/spice grinder
medium-size bowl
kitchen scale
scissors
small whisk
Instructions:
Fill the coffee/spice grinder with bonito flakes and pulverize into a fine powder. Empty the grinder into the bowl. Repeat until all the bonito flakes are ground up.
Do the same with the shiitakes. You may need to manually break large ones up to fit into the grinder. Repeat as needed. Add the shiitake powder to the bonito flake powder.
Place sheets of kombu on the scale and add/subtract to get one ounce. Use scissors to cut 1/4″ strips of kombu lengthwise, and then cut across the strips to make 1/4″ squares.
Put these into the grinder and grind to a fine powder. Add to the bonito and shiitake powder.
Whisk the three powders gently to mix well.
Makes 1 cup of light, fluffy powder. I stored it in a jar, and you could also put some in a spice container for sprinkling on food.
The originator of this recipe, Erica from Seattle, recommends adding the powder to burgers, meatloaf, and “a savory oatmeal that was phenomenal”.
She also mentions adding it to seafood soups to make them taste like they’ve simmered for hours.
Other ideas:
Sprinkle it on food as a seasoning.
Use it to add flavor to sauces and broths.
Add it to savory porridges like congee.
Sprinkle it on a piece of fish before cooking.
Sprinkle on chicken before baking.
Add to ricotta with herbs to make spread for toast or crackers.
I’ve been writing about TMJ pain and dysfunction on my Facebook business page and on my Austin, Texas, USA, private-practice website’s blog. Now I’m sharing an index of these posts here on my “big blog”.
If you have TMJ disorder and want to read any of those posts, here are the links.
I view TMJ issues as not just biomechanics, although it plays a role. This issue has social, emotional, historical, biological, cognitive, and spiritual aspects. I am very aware that some people, especially in the mainstream medical and dental fields, may believe it’s unnecessary or even laughable to provide information on so-called “woo-woo” or “fluffy” topics like essential oils, yoga, and the throat chakra for people who are suffering from jaw pain and dysfunction.
So let me share how I came to write this series of posts. Instead of just going to experts (and I have done that), I also asked women who suffer from this problem what helps, and they told me. And I believe them!
Since nine times more women than men experience severe, chronic TMJ issues, this is super valuable information to share.
I want the world to know that TMJ treatment is available beyond night guards, pain meds, and surgery, and there are so many options for self-care: massage, exercises, training yourself in new habits, reducing stress, improving posture, acupressure, nutrition, stretching, journaling, meditating, and more. I’m working on designing programs to evaluate and treat specific TMJ-related issues. More later!
If you bump into this limited and limiting attitude, please share this post, and please share in the comments your experiences and any other resources you have found helpful.
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 