Chris, at Mele Cotte, is sponsoring her second annual Cooking To Combat Cancer event. When I randomly stumbled across her blog and read her story, I knew immediately that I wanted to get involved. And I mean immediately – since tomorrow is the deadline to submit recipes and commit to the cause. I’m a nutrition therapist, how could I pass up on an excuse to push my “food to support healing” mantra on others? Plus, it’s for a very good cause. And who hasn’t been touched by cancer in one way or another? I imagine we all have.

Research suggests that eating lots of fruits and vegetables may provide protection against cancer. Not only that, but a diet of fresh, organic whole foods boosts immune function and helps the body combat cancer. Preventive, protective, and healing!

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food, as Hippocrates so aptly put it bazillions of years ago.

Mango trivia
The mango is a luscious, juicy, drippy tropical fruit native to Southern and Southeast Asia, but can also be found in Central and South America and Africa. Its wild ancestors originated in the Himalayan foothills (I love that). One of the top fruit crops on the planet, more mangoes are consumed worldwide than apples. Surprised? Here’s another bit of surprising trivia – the mango is a cousin to pistachios and cashews, but has the largest seed in the fruit kingdom. The wide, flat seed is almost as long and wide as the fruit.

Mango nutrition
According to Dr. Sue Percival, nutrition and immunity specialist at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Science, mangoes contain potent antioxidants that inhibit cancer formation by protecting cells from free-radical damage. Although Dr. Percival’s research was conducted using cells from mice, dietary analysis of gallbladder cancer patients and mango consumption showed similar findings. Low in calories and high in fiber, mangoes also contain beneficial pytochemicals and a number of enzymes that enhance digestion and protect against intestinal infections.

Mango allergies
Although rare, some people who are highly reactive to certain foods, may respond to mangoes as well. So, if you have food allergies, introduce them slowly and monitor for allergic responses.

Now that we know mangoes are healthy foods for everyone, cancer patients especially, I thought I’d feature a recipe combined with another amazing health-promoting food – cilantro. I’ll feature cilantro in a future post, you’ve probably had enough of my nutritional rants for one day! Enjoy!

Mango and cilantro salsa
what you need
1 ripe mango, peeled and diced
1/4 cup chopped scallion, green part only
1/4 cup chopped cucumber
1 tablespoon finely diced fresh jalapeno (you can omit this if you don’t like spicy)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 small garlic clove, finely diced
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
what you do
Mix gently and serve with salmon, crackers, or whatever your heart desires. Yum!

Enjoy in good health!
Melissa

Disclaimer: All material on this website is provided for informational and educational use only and should not be used for diagnostic purposes. Consult with your physician regarding any health or medical concerns you may have.

Well, does it? Be honest.

Actually, I just wanted to get your attention, but I will admit that my jeans feel a bit snug after a long winter of stews, soups, and casseroles. But that’s changing since I’m drifting into my spring eating habits. I like to wander culinarily from season to season. I’m into the fresh stuff right now, which is naturally lower in calories, so I never stress much about small weight fluctuations either way.

But I do fuss about it when my jeans start feeling too tight. Maybe I shouldn’t. Ladies, the next time you’re doing that thing in front of the mirror where you squirm around twisting and twirling, trying to see whether your jeans look too tight or your bum looks too big, just stop – don’t even bother. You’re way too smart for that. Seriously. Research shows a direct correlation between an ample booty and increased cognitive ability – in women and their offspring.

Huh?

And whose idea was it to do a study on curvy women and brain power, anyway?

I wonder.

But, I’m also not complaining. In fact, I’m thinking it’s about dang time. Yippee, hallelujah, and pass the gluten-free snickerdoodles!

The study I’m referring to has to do with omega-3 fatty acids (no pun intended), a woman’s waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and the relative proportion of upper-body fat to lower-body fat. We’re talking smaller waists and bigger rear-ends and hips, so this full-figured, hippo-mamma featured above wouldn’t qualify. She doesn’t exactly have a small waist, but I think we can safely say she’s bottom heavy.

Dr. William Lassek, a rather geeky* University of Pittsburgh epidemiologist, co-authored a recently released study entitled, Waist-hip ratio and cognitive ability: is gluteofemoral fat a privileged store of neurodevelopmental resources? Published in Evolution and Human Behavior, it suggests that men prefer women with smaller waists and wider hips for evolutionary reasons. Survival of the fittest – those women are smarter and have a heightened survival advantage. In addition, the study found that the children of vee-vee-la-voom moms also scored higher on cognitive tests.

The body fat around a woman’s hips is higher in omega-3s, which improves brain function and is important to fetal neuro-development. Omega-3s also boost fertility and overall health. According to Dr. Lassek and his colleagues, it stands to reason that for survival purposes, men would prefer women who are smarter, more fertile, healthier, and who produce brighter offspring. The curves just come with the territory.

Oooh – so, men can’t help it? I see. Gawking at curvy women is just a matter of male genetic expression. Slack-jawed drooling can’t possibly be part of the natural selection process, so don’t get carried away, but this is certainly interesting and entertaining research.

Little did we know that waist-to-hip ratio has been of interest to evolutionary psychologists for years now. Several studies, including an analysis of data collected by the US Department of Health and Human Services (our tax money at work), link female body shape with mental performance. Lower-body fat is higher in omega-3s while abdominal and upper-body fat is higher in omega-6s and saturated fats. It is hypothesized that omega-6s are less important to brain development and function and may even be detrimental. Omega-3s are thought to enhance communication between brain cells, making for zippy intelligence.

Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers compared female waste-to-hip ratios to scores on cognitive function tests and found that a lower WHR correlated with higher scores. They also found that as the mom’s ratio goes down, the children’s intelligence scores go up. The data is fairly persuasive. The study sample included more than 16,000 women and the curvy girls with hourglass figures outsmarted the skinny ones on cognitive tests – same with their offspring.

Are you wondering how you figure out this magical ratio and how your IQ is somehow connected to your rear-end? You divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement and hope for the best. According to these guys (remember these are guys doing the research), this study suggests an “ideal” WHR of somewhere around 0.6 to 0.7. Think J-Lo – small waist, ample booty.

Bottom line? Next time you shop for new jeans and have to give up after 10 minutes of shimmying and wrestling with a size that just won’t cooperate with you, let it go. You’re too smart for those jeans anyway!

In good health,
Melissa

If you want more info on fats and oils, check out my “do you need an oil change” post.

* I actually find “geeky” rather appealing, but back in caveman days, the nerdy guys most likely didn’t last long. Plus, curvy women – if they were that smart – probably chose the guys who could protect them from the sabertoothed tigers. But here we are a bazillion years later and it’s the nerdy guys doing research on the curvy girls. Hmmm, a bit ironic, wouldn’t you agree?

I’m going to skip the nutrition, put off the recipe posting, and share with you a few of my favorite YouTube videos and one very entertaining audio clip. So, if you have nothing exciting happening tonight, make yourself a cup of green tea with agave (or, pour yourself a glass of red wine) and enjoy!

And remember, laughter and wonder are as good for your health as asparagus and broccoli.

1. This will make you smile no matter how cranky you are that you have nothing to do on a Saturday night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnVDHzUAj30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTSFhIv9bYg

2. This one will leave you absolutely astonished – amazing strength and flexibility on display.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lN96dgt_Y

3. This was from an older post of mine, but it always makes me laugh. Bill Maher, with this anti-pharma rant of his, makes some good points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXXTCc-IVg

4. And just so you know I haven’t forgotten that this blog is also about food, I’m sending you to one of my favorite culinary websites and blogs, Leite’s Culinaria, for an audio by Jess Thompson about dining in Chicago. Snicker, snicker.

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/media/thomson_audio.html

I have more, but I’ll spare you the skate-boarding dog and the tsunami surfer. Have a nice weekend!

In good health (and laughter),
Melissa

Antioxidants. Oxidative damage. Phytochemicals. Photosynthesis. Polyphenols. Tocopherols. Glutathione. Enzymes with antioxidant activity. Yada, yada, yada.

What does all that mean?

If you focus on real food – fresh and simple food, it really doesn’t matter. Food is much more than all these nutritional constituents that sound so impressive. Plus, it’s rather daunting when food is reduced to natural chemical components that are sometimes hard to distinguish from the unnatural ones. All the words get confusing, whether it’s the good stuff or the bad stuff.

As a nutrition therapist, all these geeky words appeal to me. But food is more than science. Or less, depending on how you want to look at it. We’ve made it all incredibly complicated when in reality, it should be easy and fun. Food is fun, don’t you think? Otherwise there wouldn’t be an entire TV Food Network dedicated to creating elaborate chocolate desserts, 30 minute meals, grilled foods, comfort foods, and down-home cooking (among others). And who hasn’t rolled their eyes at another Rachael Ray book, magazine, or product? Geez, when does that girl sleep? It’s a good thing she sticks to 30 minute meals.

You wouldn’t be reading food blogs if you didn’t think bringing good food to your table wasn’t important, but sometimes we get so focused on the individual nutrients being delivered from a piece of food that we forget about the whole. The benefit of these individual ingredients might not be the same without consuming the whole food and letting them work their magic together. What I mean by that is – go to the source. Eat a whole apple, a piece of salmon, some broccoli, a tomato, or a handful of walnuts. Whole, fresh foods are gluten-free by default and each has its own assortment of healthy nutrients that work as a team.

The Standard American Diet is rather dreadful in many ways, and we know it, so we’ve accessorized our diets with all kinds of trendy and novel substitutes for the real thing. There are so many supplements on the market, who knows what is what. Nutrients are being added to packaged foods as a marketing tool. Food that is reengineered to come in a box isn’t natural, but to make it more appealing to the consumer, manufacturers add something special like vitamin D, fiber, iron, or omega-3s and boldly announce it on the package. Something to catch your eye and make you think it is somehow better than the original food. For example, even the most fortified baby formula doesn’t compare nutritionally to mother’s milk, which is whole food in its finest form.

Okay, I’m not totally against packaged or processed food, but it’s important to limit your intake and stick with whole, fresh, real food choices. And contrary to what it might sound like from the first few paragraphs of this post, I’m actually quite fond of the science behind the food and I do take supplements, but we don’t need to get neurotic about it. We simply need to eat a variety of whole foods and pick from a range of colors, which ends up providing us with an assortment of vitamins and minerals.

Now back to the first word in this post – a science word – antioxidants.

Antioxidants are molecules, or substances in foods, that are protective to normal physiological functions in the human body. They slow or prevent oxidation, which is a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. To make a long and rather complicated story short, free radicals can cause cell damage. We don’t want that. Foods high in antioxidants protect us from cell damage and boost immune function. Vitamins A, C, and E are antioxidants, as are selenium, lycopene, lutein, glutathione, and beta-carotene. But don’t worry about that, just eat your fruits, veggies, and nuts.

The following is a list of the top 15 foods with the highest antioxidant content per serving size. The complete study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

blackberries
walnuts
strawberries
artichokes, prepared
cranberries
coffee
raspberries
pecans
blueberries
cloves, ground
grape juice
dark chocolate
cranberry juice
cherries
red wine

Okay, so this doesn’t mean 4 cups of coffee in the morning, a bar of dark chocolate at lunch, and a bottle of wine at dinner. But it does mean those foods are rich in antioxidants and can be included in a healthy diet if eaten in moderation.

Add these foods to your shopping cart and enjoy a daily dose of antioxidant protection! See below for one of my favorite treats. Redwood Hill Farm goat yogurt topped with mixed berries. Yum!

In good health,
Melissa

Merry Christmas! Snow has been falling steadily since sometime last night – it’s a white Christmas in Colorado. I’ve got green chile stew simmering on the stove and a fire burning in the fireplace. Much to be thankful for!

Warm wishes to all, goodwill towards men, and peace on earth.

From Fairbanks’ house to yours . . .

Cheers!
Melissa

Last weekend there was three inches of snow on my picnic table (see 10-22 post), now it’s 75 degrees and bluebird skies. I love Colorado!

Just a quick update for the two of you following this blog. I’m in the process of changing everything over to WordPress and will be back in action soon. Don’t give up on me!

In the meantime, check out this video. It’s short and worth a look if you’re at all into preventive medicine and “alternative” approaches to health care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXXTCc-IVg

I’ll be back!

In good health,
Melissa

I took this photo yesterday while waiting for my cocoa pumpkin muffins to bake (see accompanying post for the recipe). I scribbled this in the falling snow on my backyard picnic table. Not exactly picnic weather yesterday, but there’s potential today. That’s what I love about Colorado. If you don’t like the weather, just bake something and wait 22 to 24 minutes. Chances are, things will look different when the buzzer goes off.

This morning the temperature was a cool 12 degrees when I got up (although it was 4:30 AM), but now the sun is shining and it looks to be a beautiful, fall day in Colorado. Hope it’s equally nice wherever you are!

This past week has been, and still is, a crazy one for me. Although it may seem like I’m not doing much since I’ve hardly left my house in days, I’ve been chained to my computer and working long hours. My office is starting to look like a scene from that old movie, Hackers. Of course, the remains of the food littering my floor is all gluten-free. You won’t find any Dominoes boxes with half-eaten pizza around my desk and I’m not being chased by an evil computer genius and don’t have a cool nickname like Crash Overdrive or Acid Burn, but nonetheless, I’ve been frantically busy wearing off the letters on my keyboard (seriously, I’m not kidding). It’s a good thing I have that 21st century, Darwinian memory chip in my brain labeled “keyboard characters” or I’d be in big trouble.

Not that you’re probably interested, but I’ve been doing some high res scanning of old ski photos, then cleaning them up in Photoshop, then passing them along to the nice people at Alpenglow Magazine for a feature story they’re doing on vintage ski fashions. Things like that always take longer than you anticipate and there are often glitches along the way, but it was a fun project.

In between ski fashions and my regular life, which has been incredibly limited lately, I’ve been working away at two different Power Point presentations on celiac disease. Actually, I’m using Keynote instead of Power Point since I’m a Mac girl. It’s the same program Al Gore used to produce An Inconvenient Truth. Results may vary as my end-product won’t win any Academy Awards and villous atrophy, while microscopically fascinating, isn’t as on-screen dramatic as large coastal cities being engulfed by rising seas. So, no Emmys and no Academy Awards (not to mention Nobel Peace Prizes) for me, but I have been busy making slide after slide on the pathogenesis and treatment protocols for celiac disease. Once I’m finished, I’ll post a few of them on my blog for “educational purposes only.” It’s interesting stuff for sure and the increased awareness and advances being made in diagnostic testing and treatment are long overdue. More on all that later, but for now, I thought I’d post some alternative flour information from the “Nutrition Therapy” part of the presentation I’m creating.

These are all flours I use, although I haven’t tried the green pea flour yet. I plan to do that this weekend, so I’ll fill you in on how ground green peas taste in muffins. Or how muffins look tinted lime green. Viridian sounds more exotic than lime green. I’ll call them “viridian protein muffins” since peas have a good share of protein. Hmmm? Should be interesting. One thing I’ve learned about living gluten-free is not to make assumptions. Some of my best creations have come from combinations you would never except. Mesquite and sorghum flour; millet and quinoa; amaranth, almond, and teff. The abundance is actually a bit overwhelming!

This may sound rather “Pollyanna-ish” but I feel blessed to have celiac disease. Post-celiac-syndrome is more like it since I don’t like the word “disease” and actually don’t have one at the moment, thank you very much. It’s not a big deal to me to give up wheat and without celiac disease, I never would have jumped into this silo of delightful and exotic alternative grains and flours. It’s a gift in my mind, not a burden, and with a little creativity and a flair for gusto, you can live much healthier than in your pre-celiac-diagnosis days.

Here’s a taste of some exotic flours to consider adding to your pantry. Unfortunately, non of this comes cheaply. “Alternative” flours are usually more expensive and often require special orders, but things are changing and more of these choices are hitting the shelves of natural food stores. Bug your local grocer to add some to their shelves. You can also order most of them on-line from Bob’s Red Mill, which is a wonderful source for GF flours, grains, and even recipes.

Wheat? Boorrring . . .

alternative flours to try
buckwheat
sweet Peruvian mesquite (yum, yum, yum, one of my favorites)
teff
millet
Italian chestnut
quinoa
pinto bean
almond
hazelnut
garbanzo bean
sorghum
coconut
green pea
navy bean
amaranth
fava bean

And there are more, but this is a good start. The world of gluten-free is a world of abundance. No whining!

In good health,

Melissa
P.S. My “oil crisis” post is in the works. Stay tuned.

I’m at the Celiac Sprue Association national conference in Tucson, Arizona. Things will be in full swing tomorrow and I’ll keep you posted as to what’s going on. There are four days of great speakers scheduled; from Lee Tobin at the Whole Foods Gluten Free Bakehouse to Stefano Guandalini, gastronenterologist and international celiac specialist from the University of Chicago Hospital. Lifestyle changes, gluten free baking, what’s on the horizon, nutrition therapy, new products, updates on research, and on and on.

I’ll fill you in as long as I can manage my internet connection. It’s a bit sketchy at the place I’m staying. Otherwise I’ll put together a detailed blog entry when I return.

More later…
Melissa

This post will be the art of aging, part 1. Part 2 will follow at a later date. I need to get older to do part 2.

The good, the bad, and the ugly truth about aging and how to avoid acting your age as you rack up those birthdays.

When we hear the word aging, we automatically think of older people, but the truth is, we start aging at birth when we choke, sputter, and take our first screeching breath announcing our arrival to the world. Functional and structural changes occur in the body throughout life, but once maturity is reached at age 20 to 25 years, growth stops and by around age 30, age-related changes can become noticeable. Can become noticeable, but many of these changes aren’t inevitable. Let’s start with the cold, hard facts (the bad and the ugly) . . .

Changes in body composition occur. Lean muscle tissue decreases and body fat increases. Research indicates that beginning at age 30 we can expect a loss of about a half-pound of muscle tissue per year. As this ratio changes, metabolic rate falls.

Decreases in strength and power occur. With the loss of lean muscle tissue comes a decline in the functional structure of the muscle which translates to less strength, less power, and a longer response time.

Flexibility is reduced. Tendons, ligaments, and cartilage become stiffer and more rigid with age and more prone to injury.

Cardiac function is reduced. Heart muscle strength begins to decline as we age, and with it, pumping power. Arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and increases in blood pressure also make it difficult for the heart to function properly.

Aerobic capacity declines. Simply put, this means it becomes more difficult for the heart and circulatory system to transport the oxygen the body needs to exercise.

Yada, yada, yada. Okay, we get it. So, now who says we have to follow those rules? Well, the truth is, we don’t.

Now the good news. Although a reduction in muscle mass and an increase in fat tissue is the norm with aging, it’s not inevitable. It takes some effort, but with regular exercise, some type of strength training, yoga, and by controlling energy intake (it’s that calories in/calories out thing) and eating the right kinds of foods, older athletes can maintain the same body-fat ratios as younger athletes. Studies show that people who engage in resistance training can increase their lean body mass component and decrease body fat. It’s even possible to gain muscle mass with increasing age. I’m not all that into the gym scene, but a good vinyasa yoga class with some arm balances and inversions can accomplish the same thing. It really doesn’t matter, just get up and move. Dance, walk the dog, do cartwheels, play tennis, stay active.

Along with maintaining lean muscle tissue, strength training also increases muscular strength and power, no matter what your age. In fact, the results of one study showed that untrained men ages 60 to 72 were able to increase quadriceps strength by over 100 percent and hamstring strength by over 200 percent — all in just 12 weeks of resistance training. Strength training has also been indicated to help protect against osteoporosis. Good, good. Do pushups. Use jugs of laundry detergent for weights, you don’t have to make this complicated.

Flexibility can be maintained or increased at any time of life. Being aware of proper hydration and participating in a flexibility program can help prevent injuries, and protect joints, muscles, and connective tissue. Yoga and Tai Chi are great choices no matter what your age. An added benefit is increased balance, grace, and coordination. Yoga, yoga, yoga. That’s my mantra. And I’m a true believer that balance is a great indicator of overall health. It’s one of those things you can easily work on and increase whether you’re 10, 20, or 100 years old. It doesn’t matter, you can enhance balance at any age. (I plan to do a complete post on balance one of these days, that’s how important I believe it is to optimal well-being.)

Cardiac health can be enhanced and functional losses reduced with proper training and nutrition as well. Many of the cardiovascular changes that take place as we age are the result of lack of use and poor lifestyle choices rather than aging. Regular aerobic exercise, a healthy diet, eliminating stress, and getting quality sleep (that can be a tough one), can minimize or even reverse cardiovascular declines. Although aerobic capacity tends to decline with age, this doesn’t have to be the norm.

Make up your own rules! What you eat, think, and do will reflect in how you age. Emotions and attitudes about aging are just as important as physical activity. And don’t forget the sense of humor!

In good health!
Melissa