Midlife Health: Go For Dark, Rich and Healthy!

‘Tis the season for CHOCOLATE!  If you’re a fan, this is a great time to indulge because there are so many different chocolate treats being sold for the holidays.  No need to feel guilty because in moderate amounts, chocolate actually has numerous health benefits.

One of its benefits is that it contains flavonoids which act as antioxidants and protect the body from aging. Flavonoids may also help reduce the cell damage that can promote tumor growth.

If you have high blood pressure you’ll be delighted to hear that researchers at the University of Cologne in Germany report that eating DARK chocolate can help lower blood pressure.

Chocolate also:

• Stimulates the production of endorphins which are the “feel-good” chemicals
• Contains serotonin which acts as an anti-depressant
• May decrease your risk of a stroke
• May be good for your heart - increased blood flow, mild anti-clotting effects, reduced plaque formation

To get the most benefit, stick with dark chocolate that contains at least 70% cocoa.  It has many more antioxidants than milk or white chocolate.  I’ve eaten chocolate that is 95% cocoa but that takes a little getting used to!

Don’t wash it down with a glass of milk though.  A report from Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome states that “milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate … and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate.”

How much chocolate should you eat? You’ll be pleased to know that chocolate has a low glycemic index, meaning that it does not cause your blood sugar to spike. However, all things  in moderation!  About an ounce a day is fine.  More than that and you will take in extra calories that you may not want.

If you’re looking for a great recipe, here is one compliments of www.freecoconutrecipes.com  I made this recently and it’s delicious.

Frozen Chocolate Coconut Fudge

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup nut or seed butter  (I used almond butter)
1/4 cup (generous) cocoa powder
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup (generous) coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup raw honey

Mix together all ingredients. Pour on a piece of unbleached parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Spread out to about 1/4″ thick.
Place fudge in freezer. Let set for about 30 minutes.
Break into pieces and serve or put in container back in freezer until you are ready to serve.

Midlife Wellness: Honey for Healing

Bees make honey when the enzymes in their stomachs react with the nectar of flowers.   It is  made up primarily of glucose together with fructose and is twice as sweet as sugar.   You can substitute 1/2 - 3/4 cup honey for 1 cup of sugar in recipes.

In its raw, unfiltered/minimally filtered state, honey is a concentrated source of essential nutrients such as some minerals, B-complex vitamins and vitamins C, D and E.

Aside from being used for sweetening foods and beverages, honey is also used to promote energy and healing. Germs don’t grow well in honey which makes it a natural antiseptic and a good salve for burns and wounds.

Researchers at the University of Sydney found that when diluted honey is applied to a moist wound, it produces hydrogen peroxide, a known anti-bacterial agent. Further research revealed that honey may be a natural remedy for some of the hospital “superbugs” that are resistant to antibiotics.

Honey has been used for many centuries. The ancient Greeks, the Romans and the Egyptians were great proponents of using the golden gooey stuff. My favorite way to use it is for a sore throat or cough.  I put a teaspoon or so in a cup of hot tea along with some lemon juice.  According to my husband, the brew works much better if you add rum!

Pure, uncontaminated honey is greatly underutilized these days as a healing remedy.  However, there are marked differences in the antibacterial activity of different types of honey. Manuka honey, made by bees in New Zealand, has been found to have the most healing properties of any honey on the market.

A word of warning: NEVER give honey of any type to an infant under one year of age.  In its natural form it can contain spores of the bacteria that cause botulism. This poses no problem for healthy adults and older children unless it happens to be tainted honey smuggled in from China. I was mortified when I read a recent article about “honey smuggling.”  It seems that this honey can contain illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. Not only that, but some products marked as honey have almost no honey in them. They are a mix of sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery (coarse unrefined sugar from the sap of certain palm trees), barley malt sweetener or other additives with just a small amount of actual honey.

If you use honey and buy it from a supermarket, I suggest you read the article at http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering/

Midife Health: The Incredible, Edible Egg

Despite all the bad press over the years, “eggsperts” are finally admitting that perhaps the egg isn’t such an “evil” food, something I’ve never believed.  Unless of course you happen to order a quiche in a restaurant (as I did last night) and forget to ask if it’s made with real eggs or yellow liquid out of a carton. It took me 5 minutes to realize my error, at which time I promptly asked the question, got my response and changed my order.  As a Naturopath, I’m very conscious about what foods I put in my body - fake eggs are not real food!

Eggs are one of my favorite foods as long as they come straight from the farm and are laid by chickens that are allowed to roam in the grass where they can eat bugs, worms etc.  These nutrition-rich natural eggs with golden-yellow yolks and fresh flavor are remarkably different from the supermarket variety.

Although eggs do contain cholesterol, they are also high in phosphatides (an oily organic compound that makes up cell membranes) and lecithins (essential for metabolizing fats), so they don’t add to the risk of hardening of the arteries. They are also a rich source of essential nutrients (many of which we become deficient in as we age) along with high quality protein and riboflavin. Not to mention they are easy and quick to use in all manner of recipes.  They beat a McDonald’s hamburger any day!

You may, however, be surprised to learn that not all eggs are equal, even when they’re marked “organic.” The best eggs come from family farms where chickens are raised on well-managed, rotating pastures.  Next best are those where chickens have ample space and are encouraged to go outdoors to well-managed runs or pastures. Eggs that I stay away from are ones that come from the industrial-scale egg operations where chickens are confined in cramped quarters with no access to the outdoors.

If you are an egg lover and are interested in the rankings of various organic eggs, go to http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard.  You might be surprised.  I know I was!

Midlife Health: Forgetfulness

Periwinkle

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, “Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?”

“Outstanding,” Fred replied. “They taught us all the latest psychological techniques - visualization, association - it’s made a big difference for me.”

“That’s great! What was the name of that clinic?”

Fred went blank. He thought and thought but couldn’t remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, “What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?”

“You mean a rose?”

“Yes, that’s it!” He turned to his wife. “Rose, what was the name of that clinic?”

By the time we get to midlife, or even before, we can all probably relate to the joke.  First you forget your car keys, then you don’t remember whether you paid the phone bill and next you can’t remember your ATM password.  Forgetfulness can be a normal part of aging.

Scientists now tell us that most of us can stay both alert and able as we age, although it may take us longer to remember things. I like to think of it as already having so much information and knowledge in my brain that some of it gets misplaced for a time underneath another pile of good information.  It’s not lost, just buried.

In addition to some of the popular brain training games and memory techniques, there’s a supplement that might be helpful - Vinpocetine.

Vinpocetine is an extract from the leaf of the periwinkle plant.  Studies have shown that it can help circulation in the brain, improve oxygen use and make red blood cells more flexible and less clumped together.  It was developed in the 1960s and is available as a prescription drug in Japan and Europe but as a dietary supplement in the US and Canada.

Interestingly, this brain booster has also been shown to improve eyesight in many cases. That way, you can see more clearly what you’ve forgotten!

As always, check with your practitioner first regarding any possible side effects and interactions with other substances.

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All material is provided for informational or educational purposes only. Consult a physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or condition.

Obesity and Disease: It’s about the Quality of the Calories, not the Quantity

Yesterday I joined a number of colleagues and other nutritionally-oriented folks for another of our Weston Price Foundation events.  The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded 10 years ago to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price. His research demonstrated that humans achieve perfect physical form and perfect health generation after generation only when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and animal fats. As a Naturopath and having studied nutrition for many years, I agree wholeheartedly.

The guest speaker for the event was Gary Taubes, an award-winning science writer, whose latest book is entitled Good Calories, Bad Calories. He argues that obesity is caused not by the quantity of calories you eat but by the quality. Carbohydrates, particularly refined ones like white bread and pasta, raise insulin levels, promoting the storage of fat.  Or putting it another way, eating foods high on the glycemic index, which is a way of rating foods according to their ability to increase blood sugar, will make you fat.  The diet of most people in the US consists of far too many of these refined starchy foods.

Why is such a diet detrimental to your health?  Because high glycemic foods:

• Cause a sudden spike in blood sugar.
• Over-stimulate insulin production leading to “insulin resistance” which promotes high blood pressure, clogged arteries, heart attacks and strokes.
• Adversely affect calorie metabolizing.
• Increase the size of fat cells.
• Convert more calories to fat (not lean).
• Stimulate appetite and the storage of fat.
• Damage cells, causing accelerated aging of all tissues and organs
• Double or triple your risk of developing type 2 (adult onset) diabetes, according to Harvard Research.
• Depress good HDL cholesterol. British researchers say that the best dietary way to raise HDLs, they found, was low glycemic index diet.

I have long been a supporter of eating foods low on the glycemic scale and have been doing so myself for many years.  Not that I don’t venture out and eat high glycemic foods on occasion – some of them are so tasty and one has to be a  bit of a devil at times! 

Certain folks are more susceptible to the effects of high glycemic foods than others and will put weight on more quickly.  My husband is one such case.  He is a “meat eater”.  When he eats too many simple carbohydrates (high glycemic), his weight shoots up almost overnight.

I highly recommend the following book if you would like to learn more about the Glycemic Index and if you have a personal experience you would like to share, I invite you to add your thoughts in the comment section below.