Your nutrition questions answered
Several of you have written with questions about oats and oatmeal—in particular, whether steel-cut (or Irish) oats are healthier or more nutritious than regular oats. I think some of you will be surprised by the answer. Read or listen to this week’s podcast here.
Do you really need to avoid sushi, cheese, or peanuts when you’re pregnant? Rules for what is safe to eat during pregnancy are different in various parts of the world. How seriously should women should take bans on various foods? Read or listen to this week’s podcast here.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions from listeners about fasting: Is it safe? Is it beneficial? In this week’s podcast, I take a look at the potential health benefits of fasting, the pros and cons of fasting as a weight loss strategy, and offer some tips on how to fast safely. Read or listen to the podcast here.
Q. I tend to get food poisoning about once a year. Often, however, I am the only person in a group that gets it. Is there anything I can eat that would make my GI tract more resistant? Would probiotics help?
A. It’s true that some people seem to be more resistant to food-borne pathogens than others. So, how can you strengthen your own resistance? Continue reading “Can Certain Foods Protect You from Food Poisoning?”
I’ve gotten a lot of questions from listeners about fasting: Is it safe? Is it beneficial? How long should one fast? How often?
This article is also available as a podcast:
People have fasted as a spiritual practice since ancient times. Today, there are a lot of people claiming that fasting also has a lot of health benefits. And, in fact, research shows that short fasts, lasting anywhere from 20 to 36 hours can in fact reduce some risks for heart disease and diabetes–and maybe even cancer.
As I explained in episodes #31 and #32, going without food for several hours does NOT cause your metabolism to slow down nor does it wreak havoc with your blood sugar. Short fasts actually improve insulin sensitivity and this is pretty big deal. When your cells are sensitive to the effects of insulin, they do a much better job modulating your blood sugar levels after meals and this makes life a lot easier for your poor old pancreas. Loss of insulin sensitivity is a risk factor for both heart disease and diabetes.
Short fasts also reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in cells. Many theorize that this helps prevent and repair DNA damage that could otherwise develop into cancer. There’s even some research suggesting that fasting slows the little clocks that tick inside our mitochondria and trigger senescence, or aging. In other words, fasting might help us live longer by keeping our organs youthful.
I want to emphasize that this is all still very much in the theoretical and experimental phase, but there are a lot of people who have embraced intermittent fasting as an anti-aging strategy. Some of them fast one day a week or one weekend a month. Others fast every other day. If you’re curious about how this works, I’ve put a link in the show notes to an interesting blog about one man’s experience with intermittent fasting.
Interestingly, you can get the metabolic benefits of fasting even if you make up for the lost calories by eating more when you’re not fasting. It doesn’t seem to be about eating less as much as it’s about going longer between meals.
Intermittent fasting doesn’t necessarily lead to weight loss, but it often does. Research shows that when people skip a meal or stop eating for an entire day, they do tend to eat more at the next meal. But even if they allow themselves to eat as much as they want, they don’t quite make up for the calories they missed.
I know that flies in the face of everything you hear, but skipping meals can actually be an effective weight loss strategy. I’ll post a link in the show notes to a summary of some research on this as well as a link to an article I wrote on the pros and cons of fasting as a weight control strategy.
Fasting is not for everyone. Though some people describe feeling euphoric and energized, others feel cranky and sick. And if you’re pregnant, diabetic, severely underweight, recuperating from surgery, or have a serious medical condition, you really shouldn’t fast without close medical supervision. In fact, those with medical conditions are often exempted from religious fasting obligations.
If none of that applies to you and you think you’d like to try an occasional fast, here are some guidelines on how to do it safely.
RESOURCES:
Benefits of fasting for weight control and disease prevention (U.S. News and World Report)
Effect of intermittent fasting on insulin action (Journal of Physiology)
Effects of intermittent fasting on cardiovascular health (Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism)
A Year of Intermittent Fasting (Blog of one man’s experience)
Pros and Cons of Modified Fasting for Weight loss (Nutrition Over Easy Blog)
What’s a healthy weight? (BMI Calculator)
Originally published at QuickandDirtytips.com
A new recipe? No, a round-up of questions from the Nutrition Over Easy mailbag:
Q. I enjoy peanut butter and peanuts. I recently heard that it is not healthy to consume peanut & peanut butter because of aflatoxin. Is this accurate information or just a myth? Continue reading “Peanuts, Yogurt, Spinach, Graham Flour”
Q. Taught by my grandmother, I practice the time-honored tradition of eating spring greens: dandelions, burdock, stinging nettles, pigweed, lamb’s quarters, plantain, shepherd’s purse, garlic mustard, chickweed, cleavers, and so on. What does modern nutrition have to say about this? Are these greens truly “blood cleansing” or “liver cleansing?
A. In traditional Chinese acupuncture, each season is associated with a different organ and spring is the season of the liver. Many other traditional and alternative healing systems teach that certain plants “cleanse” or “strengthen” the blood or other organs. You won’t find too much about that in Western nutrition science, though. Continue reading “Seasonal Vegetables: Spring Cleaning for the Body?”
Q. Do alternative flours such as almond flour offer any real health advantages and if so (or if not), why?
A. It’s hard to say that something is good for you based entirely on what it isn’t! Whether alternative flours offer any health advantages over wheat flour really depends on what you’re avoiding (and why), which ones you choose, and what you’re making.