tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13038804900725743172024-03-13T03:07:54.677-07:00Get Fit for a Long Active LifeA site about fitness, exercise, diet, lifestyle and attitude for a long, active life, from a septuagenarian who exercises vigorously, goes on 20-mile walks, climbs steps up more than 100 storeys, despite an impaired heart from a massive cardiac arrest suffered in 1989.Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-34028936533794885562011-07-14T15:20:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:02:23.760-07:00Summer time, and the eating is easy.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimJR2E6iXsft1H-K0PKXmtAI2VhZQPyb086XhttQGMnjuxRDsquTCN5ULeGWTInLkanTdsUGJ5JvAZ8zReTR0yJoo2vT9LAZFZXxE1xlbNwwqipTYqOvM9p5376JncJqsrxmwsGDPs3_j1/s1600/CHICKEN%252C+RICE+%2526+PINEAPPLE+SALAD.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimJR2E6iXsft1H-K0PKXmtAI2VhZQPyb086XhttQGMnjuxRDsquTCN5ULeGWTInLkanTdsUGJ5JvAZ8zReTR0yJoo2vT9LAZFZXxE1xlbNwwqipTYqOvM9p5376JncJqsrxmwsGDPs3_j1/s1600/CHICKEN%252C+RICE+%2526+PINEAPPLE+SALAD.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a name='more'></a><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimJR2E6iXsft1H-K0PKXmtAI2VhZQPyb086XhttQGMnjuxRDsquTCN5ULeGWTInLkanTdsUGJ5JvAZ8zReTR0yJoo2vT9LAZFZXxE1xlbNwwqipTYqOvM9p5376JncJqsrxmwsGDPs3_j1/s400/CHICKEN%252C+RICE+%2526+PINEAPPLE+SALAD.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;"><i>This cool salad goes well on a hot summer day</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;"><i>with well chilled sangria.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">If I misquoted the words of the song, the eating is still easy on hot summer days when you serve cold, tasty, extra-healthy salads. Here are two that are certain to make the day delightful. Start with the ersatz coleslaw, follow with a chicken, rice and pineapple salad for the main course, and finish with a choice of berries and vanilla-flavoured, no-fat yogurt for a no-work, instant, healthy desert.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Here’s the first salad.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>DISGUSTINGLY HEALTHY COLESLAW<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">This bears but a faint resemblance to regular coleslaw, but Joan and I enjoy it much more.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Ingredients.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> 1/3 large green cabbage; 1 large red onion; 2 large carrots; 1 large Granny Smith apple; 1.5 cups sultana raisins.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Directions. </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Coarsely cut the cabbage and onion and chop to coleslaw-size in a food processor. Shred the carrot with a hand shredder. Peel, core and cut the apple into bite-size chunks. Mix in a large serving bowl. Add raisins. You can also add walnuts, crushed peanuts, seeds such as sunflower or pumpkin; slices of sweet pepper, or what-have-you. You can hardly go wrong experimenting with this salad. I always start with at least the listed ingredients, and sometimes add more and sometimes not. It depends on what’s in the refrigerator.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Serves six, or three meals for Joan and me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">The avocado and green tea dressing, which I blogged March 11, is a very healthy choice that goes well with this salad. Serve salad and dressing separately, to be wedded at the table. For the recipe, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://fitforlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/avocado-and-green-tea-is-there.html#more"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">click here.</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> Then return to this page for the recipe for the main course salad.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Here’s the recipe for the main course salad.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>CHICKEN, RICE, PINEAPPLE SALAD<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Ingredients.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> 1.5 cups brown rice (or alternatively 1 cup brown rice and ½ cup wild rice); 1 cup (540 mL, 19 fl oz) sliced pineapple in pineapple juice; ½ cup lemon juice (bottled juice from concentrate); 2 large,skinless, boneless chicken breasts; 1.5 cups frozen corn kernels; 1 Granny Smith apple; 1 green pepper; 1 large navel orange. 1/3 English cucumber; 1 cinnamon stick.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Directions. </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">If you use wild rice, start cooking this alone for the first 10 or 15 minutes before adding the brown rice, which requires less cooking time. Cook the rice in a mixture of pineapple juice drained from the can; lemon juice, and water. Our rice cooker requires two cups of liquid for 1.5 cups of rice. We get about 1/2 cup of pineapple juice from the can, to which I add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 of water. The proportions might vary, because I seem to get somewhat volumes of juice from different same-size, same-bands cans of sliced pineapple; while different rice cookers or cooking methods often require different volumes of liquid. Try for enough lemon juice to make the rice quite tart, but not bitter. Add the stick of cinnamon to the rice and liquid, and cook.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Chop the pineapple slices into bite-size pieces, and set aside to drain any remaining liquid in a sieve or colander. You don’t want the pineapple to add too much liquid to the salad. You might wind up with about a mouthful of additional juice to drink. That’s a bonus unless you’re like W.C. Fields, who protested, “Who put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Cook then chop the chicken breasts in bite-size chunks. We prefer to cook chicken breast in a steamer. That keeps the meat moist, particularly suited for this salad. Alternatively, I sometimes microwave the breasts in a covered casserole dish with about two tbsp of lemon juice to keep them moist. We wind up with a mixture of lemon and chicken juice, which is added to the soup stockpot that accumulates in the freezer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Cook the corn until just tender. I microwave it for a few minutes in a glass bowl with a little water. Drain after cooking. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Set aside cooked rice, chopped chicken and drained corn to cool.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Meanwhile, prepare the remaining ingredients. Peel the orange and peel and core the apple. Chop orange, apple, cucumber and green pepper (after discarding the seeds). Place all in a large serving bow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Time now to prepare a quick, simple dressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>HONEY DRESSING.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Ingredients:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"> 1 cup Kraft No-fat Miracle Dressing; 1 cup olive or canola oil. (We prefer the bland flavour of canola oil; in terms of heart-healthy unsaturated fat, there’s little to choose between these two oils.); 3 or 4 tbsp liquid honey.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;"><b>Directions: </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Microwave the liquid honey for a few seconds, enough to make it quite warm, thus making it easy to pour and mix. Mix the Kraft dressing, oil and honey. You want this dressing quite sweet to go with the tart rice. Add to the salad and mix to coat all. Chill well before serving.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Serves six.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt;">Make this meal memorable by serving it with well-chilled sangria.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sandy’s Happy Heart Cooking</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Plain, economical, easy-to-make, disgustingly healthy. </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">None of this</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (or as little as possible):</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> trans fat; saturated fat; refined carbohydrates; hydrogenated foods; whole milk products; fried or sautéed food; egg yoke. </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Very little of this:</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> red meat; high glycemic foods; added salt; low-fat milk products, e.g., low-fat cheese. </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In moderation</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">:</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> boneless, skinless chicken breasts; extra-lean ground turkey meat (microwaved to remove more fat); sweeteners (Demerara sugar, honey and sucralose-based products. </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Good to go stuff:</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Fish with high omega-3 fatty acids; soy food; no-fat milk products (notably yogurt); non-hydrogenated canola margarine. </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Lots of the best stuff:</span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> vegetables (a rainbow of dark colours); fruits (especially berries, and tomatoes, cooked with a little oil as a top cancer-fighting food); whole grains (especially steel-cut oats for breakfast); nuts and seeds. Ground flax seeds, a teaspoon or more every day; very in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and fibre.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">***************</span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-91974741574548638922011-07-02T10:14:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:14:28.852-07:00Killer haute dogs and Sandy's antidote<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">“No hot dogs.” That was at the top of the dietary advice I was given on being discharged from the hospital following my cardiac arrest in 1989.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In point of fact, what I was actually advised was no sausages or wieners. Which, of course, means no hot dogs. Which is what we’re going to talk about here. The hot dog, saturated with artery-clogging, heart-stopping saturated fat and goodness knows what other poison, wrapped in a white bun.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">That was 22 years ago. Now, the lowly hot dog has been elevated from junk food to gourmet food and renamed the haute dog. If hot dogs were unhealthy, $9 to $11 haute dogs are killer foods. They should be served with warning labels, like cigarettes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I learned all I need to know about haute dogs in a recent Toronto <i>Globe and Mail </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">article (“The rise and rise of the haute dog,” June 29). I learned that Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulard has introduced a $9 haute dog at his New York restaurant; TV’s <i>Top Chef All-Stars </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">winner Richard Blais is opening a “Haute Doggery” restaurant in Atlanta; and <i>Nation’s Restaurant News </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">has hailed hot dogs as one of the year’s top trends.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Haute dogs are just one more incendiary in the food industry’s constant bombardment—from newspapers, magazines, books, television—of new, appealing, tasty, trendy, gourmet and haute cuisine food—95 percent of which the U.S. government’s <i>Dietary Guidelines for Americans </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">tell us we should either avoid or eat much less of. Rest assured that anything called gourmet or haute cuisine is bad for your pocketbook and worse for the rest of you. No wonder that 68 percent of adult Americans are either <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm">overweight or obese</a>, with Canadians not far behind, while childhood obesity is considered an epidemic. The amount of money spent to promote unhealthy foods seems exceeded only by the resultant medical costs.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Consider a couple of featured haute dogs. At the Tubby Dog restaurant in Calgary, for $10 you can indulge in Sherm’s Ultimate Gripper. It includes Jalapeno nacho cheese; a fried egg; a slice of grilled ham; bacon bits, sautéed onions; mustard; a five-ounce, deep-fried, bacon-wrapped beef wiener; and a toasted white bun. At Skinner’s Restaurant in Lockport, Manitoba, $11.20 will buy another killer haute dog with a foot-long pork and beef wiener wrapped in a white bread bun.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">What, exactly, is so bad about haute dogs?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Let’s make a list—in addition to the customary saturated fat in the wieners—using that Ultimate Gripper from Calgary’s Tubby Dog as our example.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>First the cheese.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> It may have lots of nutrition but like all whole milk diary products, most notably butter and cheese, it’s loaded with those artery-clogging saturated fats, i.e., solid fats. We eat “too many calories from solid fats, added sugars and refined grains,” warn the <i>Diary Guidelines.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Eggs</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> are very high in nutrition, but also high in dietary cholesterol, which isn’t necessary since our bodies normally produce all the cholesterol we need. All the health authorities I’ve consulted recommend no more than 300 mg a day of dietary cholesterol for healthy people and 200 mg for those at risk of heart trouble. One egg yoke contains 200 mg or more, while other big cholesterol sources include diary products, red meat, and some shellfish. At least one team of medical researchers disputes the claims that 200 to 300 mg of dietary cholesterol per day are safe to eat (see my blog <i>Controversial Food, </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">November 17, 2010).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Additional saturated (i.e., solid) fats</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> in the grilled ham, bacon, and sautéed onions, and a big load of salt in the ham.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Frying</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">—the egg, bacon bits, sautéed onions, but especially the deep-fried bacon-wrapped wiener—could be the worst feature. Frying saturates your food with even more saturated fat, can transform the cooking oil into deadly trans fat, change the chemical composition of the food, increase heart and cancer risks, and cause digestion problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>The custom-made bun. </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Of course it’s custom-made. How else could it hold so much unhealthy food? But what makes it truly unhealthy is the white flour—one of the refined carbohydrates that also include white rice, other refined grains, and sugar. Nutrients in natural carbos are largely removed in refined carbos. They can drain your body’s store of nutrients; spike insulin production, thereby increasing body fat and obesity; addle the mind; cause inflammation, resulting in heart disease, cancer and destruction of brain cells. No wonder the <i>Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> say Americans (Canadians, too) eat too much “refined grains.” And don’t be fooled by baked goods, like hot dog buns, that feature “enriched flour.” That’s just white flour in which a small amount of the removed nutrients have been returned.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>WHAT TO DO?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Simple. Sandy’s nutshell guide to disgustingly healthy cooking has been tweaked. Here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i>Sandy’s Happy Heart Cooking</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>. </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Plain, economical, easy-to-make, disgustingly healthy food. <b><i>None of this</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i> (or as little as possible):</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> trans fat; refined carbohydrates; hydrogenated foods; whole milk products; fried and sautéed food (we pseudo sauté vegetables, microwaving them in a glass bowl with a little non-hydrogenated canola margaine); egg yoke. <b><i>Very little of this:</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> red meat, high glycemic foods (notably potatoes. except sweet potatoes and yams). <b><i>In moderation</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>:</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> boneless, skinless chicken breasts; extra-lean ground turkey meat (microwaved to remove more fat); salt; sweeteners (Demerara sugar, honey and sucralose-based products); low-fat milk products (e.g., partly-skimmed milk cheeses). <b><i>Good to go stuff:</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> Fish with high omega-3 fatty acids (the <i>Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> say at least eight ounces a week); soy food; no-fat milk products (notably yogurt); non-hydrogenated canola margarine. <b><i>Lots of the best stuff:</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> vegetables (a rainbow of dark colours); fruits (especially berries, and tomatoes, cooked with a little oil as a top cancer-fighting food ); whole grains (steel-cut oats make an exceptionally healthy and very economical breakfast); nuts (peanuts are recommended in <i>Dietary Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">) and seeds. Ground flax seeds are a class apart, the only plant food that’s high in omega-3 fatty acids, plus exceptionally high in antioxidants and fibre. A teaspoon or more a day is recommended by many Canadian doctors.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">But you really need a more extensive guide. <i>Dietary Guidelines for Americans </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">is the best one I’ve found. You can get a free, 100-page copy, by clicking on this <a href="http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/">link.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Next week: <i>Summer Time, and the Eating is Easy. </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">A pair of cool salads for hot days.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana;">TAGS: Hot dogs, junk food, food health risks, gourmet food, haute cuisine, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, trans fat, carbohydrates, hydrogenated food.</span>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-71552687077942883722011-06-16T21:42:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:19:03.502-07:00On being 80 with a stress test<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It is not for nothing that they are called waiting rooms, those rooms with chairs and old magazines at offices of doctors, dentists and in hospitals. There is extra waiting time, as I </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a name='more'></a>have just been reminded, when you have a cardiovascular Cardiolite stress test. It’s an interesting four-hour experience. How I managed on the treadmill also seems interesting.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">I get this test every couple of years because of that 1989 cardiac arrest that left a permanent scar on my heart, somewhat impairing its operation, pumping less than a normal amount of blood with each stroke.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The four hours are not at all unpleasant. At 80, I have a well-develop skill that allows me to make use of at least part of that waiting time. Much more pleasant are the attractive young women nurses and technicians, the only attandantss involved in procedure, except for my cardiologist, Dr. Zavary, at the final stage. The young ladies seem to reserve their friendliest smiles for harmless old geezers, which I suspect they might be reluctant to share with less young Lotharios.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Here’s the drill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">Check in at the Ross Memorial Hospital. Wait for the first step, in which an attendant injects the Cardiolite into my veins. Back to the waiting room while this tracer makes its progress through my miles of blood vessels. I put the wait to good use. Stretching out my legs, folding my hands in my lap, I lean back with my head against the wall, and have a little sleep. A powernap. I must be an inspiration. When I awake, I see a couple of other guys, younger than I, sleeping soundly. Is powernapping contagious?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Next step. Lie flat on a narrow bed for 10 minutes while an overhead “camera” takes pictures of whatever the Cardiolite is doing in my veins. On to the stress test on the treadmill. The speed increases in stages. After treading on the treadmill comes another injection of Cardiolite, then back to the waiting room while this added tracer traces its way through the blood vessels. I’m instructed to drink at least two glasses of water, but I don’t have to hold it. I’m told that if I feel the need, “It’s okay to pee.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I’m already napped out, so I look for recipes in back copies of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Home and Garden, and Canadian Living. </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Almost all the recipe pages are torn out. Will any of them actually be used? It’s so much easier to collect recipes than to cook them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Back to the overhead camera for another 10 minutes of picture taking, and I’m finished except for the Ecocardiogram at Dr. Zavary’s office, which completes the four hours.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DECADE BIRTHDAYS<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Birthdays are better than New Year Days for making resolutions, taking stock, and looking ahead. Birthdays are the real New Year Days in your life. This seems especially so at the start of a 90th decade. More uncertainty looms than at the start of earlier decades.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">My life is crammed with activity, more than I can handle, more books still to write than I have years left to do them. I want to keep on doing what I call my work—reading, researching, writing, earning. More importantly, I want to be an active helpmate for Joan, my helpmate for 59 years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A newspaper item informs me that the abilities of major league baseball players start to decline at about age 38 and falls off the cliff after 40. Exceptions are mostly attributed to those who used illegal steroids to extend their careers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">So after 40 years of declining ability, it would seem that we 80-year-old folk should be pretty feeble. Which we are not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Yet there’s no denying slowing down. No matter how hard we exercise or how much we watch our diets, the body moves a little slower and the brain ticks a little slower. Endurance might seem okay. We might be able to walk as far, but it takes a little longer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A trio who have sailed through their 90th decade, inspire and motivate me with hopeful expectation for mine. Recently I mentioned to my barber that I had just turned 80. A lady waiting for her turn in the barber chair, exclaimed, “I celebrated my 90th birthday on Sunday.” She looked in marvelous health, which she attributes to exercise, particularly when she was a young athlete. A friend, barely into her 100th decade, keeps in shape by a careful diet and daily walks (outdoors if weather permits, otherwise on a treadmill), and keeps up with the world emailing and cruising the web. Another oldster I recently met keeps in shape in part by taking care of a large lawn and a large garden on his acreage. “Use it or loose it,” he says of his muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And perhaps it’s possible to not only slow down the slowing down, but even reverse it —at least a little, and temporarily. I say this because of my stress test. I won’t get the full results for a few weeks when I meet with Dr. Zavary. But I know how I did on the treadmill. Two years ago I managed to stay on the accelerating machine for nine minutes and 30 seconds. This time, without difficulty, I managed 10 minutes and 15 seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Why had I seemingly turned back the clock by 45 seconds, as it were? Why, in the past two years, had I not stumbled further into dottiness and enfeeblement? Was it because I had stepped up my exercise pace a notch, especially on walks as long as few to as many as 28 miles? Was it because Joan and I had made our already heart-healthy diets even more focused and healthier? Was it because I’ve been a year without any statin medication, of which the known possible side effects include muscle loss?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Who knows?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">TAGS. Seniors. Stress test. Cardiovascular system. Fitness. Exercise. Diet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-21991108601810087872011-05-12T09:52:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:23:37.367-07:00Lazy cabbage pot dinner<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Cabbage and veggie meat: is there a better dish than this?</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit offers a recipe for a meal it calls “Lazy Cabbage Roll Casserole.” I cooked a modified version I call Lazy Cabbage Pot Dinner. It’s healthier, easier to make, and tastes great.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl-80Wt31DZ_9-9hEr_Vcy-i97bmFx8BsIZ_I1btj7GzDrCrXVxAUu7vcc5HKWZgtX5r31rtJmSB8RUpSdf7cxfPRImXYhMJtMmlRef9HBQdUeu_Uts1S4FJ85MYHTzFbijK0o9CqKerM/s1600/LAZY+CABBAGE+POT+DINNER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyl-80Wt31DZ_9-9hEr_Vcy-i97bmFx8BsIZ_I1btj7GzDrCrXVxAUu7vcc5HKWZgtX5r31rtJmSB8RUpSdf7cxfPRImXYhMJtMmlRef9HBQdUeu_Uts1S4FJ85MYHTzFbijK0o9CqKerM/s400/LAZY+CABBAGE+POT+DINNER.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Lazy cabbage pot dinner</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i></i></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">HKPRDHU says its casserole dish is good for you because cabbage is “…a great source of Vitamin C (which helps your body absorb iron in your food), fibre (which helps keep your ‘gut’ healthy) and folate (helps reduce birth defects).”</span><br />
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</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">I say, my cabbage pot dinner is even better for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">HKPRDHU says the casserole dinner is very simple and easy to make.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">I say my Cabbage Pot Dinner is easier to make. I can’t think of a meal that is more nutritious, more economical, easier to make, requires less prep time, and tastes as great as this Lazy Cabbage Pot Dinner. The first time I cooked this, Joan and I agreed that this is one of our regular dinners; we think it’s that good.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Just for the fun of it, let’s compare my pot dinner with the casserole dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">First, the casserole dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Ingredients:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> 1 lb. ground meat (beef, chicken or turkey. 1 medium onion, chopped. 3 Tbsp. rice. 1 can cream of tomato soup or tomato juice. 3 cups chopped cabbage. Salt and pepper.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Directions: 1) </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Preheat over to 325<sup>0</sup> Fahrenheit. 2) In a skillet, brown ground meat with onion, salt and pepper. Drain any excess fat from ground meat. 3) Add rice, cream of tomato soup, one soup can of water. Cook on low for 10 minutes. 4) Place cabbage in greased two-quarter casserole, then pour ground meat over the cabbage. 5) Bake casserole covered for 1.5 hours. Makes five servings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">What’s not to like about this?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">First, the salt. The health police keep telling us we are killing ourselves with too much salt—unless you’re about to sweat it out on a 15-mile walk on a hot day. Take a look at the salt content of canned cream of tomato soup or tomato juice. Out of sight. (See my blog “How to Make Tomato Juice Safe,” May 5, 2010). And HKPRDHU says to sprinkle more salt on the ground meat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Secondly, the ground meat. Again, the health police. They tell us, eat less red meat and poultry, and eat more fish (see my blog <i>A fish story and a disgustingly healthy casserole</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">, March 2<i>)</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">. In our house, we eat very little red meat or poultry, except for skinless chicken breasts and “extra lean” ground turkey. We cook that turkey meat in the microwave. It’s amazing how much saturated fat the microwave squeezes out of this extra lean meat (see my blog “The Sight of Saturated Fat,” June 9, 2010). But I doubt that veggie meat cooked in a microwave would work well with this dish.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Finally the rice. Is that white rice in this recipe? White rice is a refined carbohydrate, and if you are serious about a healthy diet, you don’t want to eat refined carbos. Stay away from white sugar, white flour, white rice. Go for brown rice. It’s not just healthier, it tastes much better.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The cabbage roll casserole might be fine for an occasional dinner, but as a regular dish I don’t think it conforms to the advice of the health authorities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Now let’s look at the recipe for my Lazy Cabbage Pot dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Ingredients:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> Five cups chopped green cabbage (half a rather small cabbage). Two large cooking onions, chopped. 2 packages (340 grams, 12 ounces each) Yves Veggie Ground Round simulated beef. 1 can, 398 ml “no salt added” tomato sauce. 1.5 cans water. 6 Tbsp. brown rice. ¼ Tsp cumin. ¼ Tsp ground black pepper.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Directions:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> Combine all in a large pot, mix well. Cover, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer for one hour. How can any meal be easier than that?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Makes eight servings. As with other busy people, I appreciate the time saved by cooking food in batches. And why not? We cook for two. If you cook for one, you might prefer to half this recipe.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Unlike the casserole, this pot dish contains no unhealthy saturated fat and no cholesterol. It does have a little more salt than we would prefer (270 milligrams per 55 grams in the simulated meat) but less than in the casserole recipe. And the soy-based meat is much healthier, a great source of fibre and exceptionally high in a wide range of minerals and vitamins. “Soy foods are the best food you can put on the table,” according to James Anderson, Virginia Medical Centre and University of Kentucky.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">At a time of soaring food prices, many of us are looking for ways to keep our food costs down, especially since the healthiest foods often costs more. The economics of this pot dinner are pretty good, but not as good as the casserole dish, because real meat is cheaper than vegie simulated meat.. I paid $4.49 for each vegie package of 340 grams or 12 ounces. That works out to $6 per pound. The supermarket price I saw for lean ground beef was $4.49 per pound. The cabbage cost me about 35 cents; the two onions, 40 cents; the tomato sauce, $1.79, and the small amount of rice, about 10 cents. That comes to $11.59, or $1.40 for each of eight servings. Not bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">That said, there are a couple of minor caveats about the cabbage pot dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The first is that cabbages and onions don’t constitute the rainbow of different coloured vegetables we’re urged to eat. That’s very easy to remedy. Before our main course we almost always have a what-have-you tossed salad, thrown together from whatever we can find in the refrigerator: romaine lettuce, red onions, green peppers, grated carrots, tomatoes (in season), broccoli, seeds, nuts or the like. And we serve it with that extra healthy avocado and green tea dressing (see blog “Avocado and Green Tea Dressing”). A great follow-up is a simple fruit salad, perhaps with a little liquid honey or yogurt.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">How could you beat that for a balanced meal?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The other caveat is the concerns that I’ve echoed from some nutrition researchers about possible adverse health effects of eating too much soybean food (see my blog “Will Soy Food Make You Sick?” April 2, 2010). But this needs to be qualified. The risks, such as they are, are related to consuming unfermented soybean food, such as soymilk almost every day, year-round. The simulated meat, however, is based on fermented, not unfermented, soybeans. And good though it is, who wants to eat it every day?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The health police tell us to eat fish at least three times a week; we have skinless chicken breasts once or twice a week; small servings of microwaved extra lean ground turkey meat no more than once a week; red meat only on rare occasions; and fish about three times a week, on average. It varies, because if we have something like this cabbage dinner three or four days in a row, we might follow it with fish three or four days in a row. Vegie meat we average maybe a couple of days a week, in shepherd’s pie, chili, Bolognese sauce dish, and, now, lazy cabbage pot dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Now, if we could find a recipe to make soybean simulated ground beef that tastes as good as the Yves stuff, has less salt, and cost less… I’ll look into that.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">TAGS: Cabbage. Soybean food.</span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-48742315141062289432011-04-28T12:56:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:25:14.528-07:00Can you cut your risk of heart attack without using risky statins?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Can you reduce your risk of heart attack by improving your blood cholesterol, without the use of risky statin drugs?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">I don’t know.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But I know this. I’ve stopped using statins for a full year and I have significantly improved my blood cholesterol. I did it by diet and exercise. I want to improve my cholesterol readings a bit more, but I’m definitely on the right track. Progress isn’t fast, but I’m not that far from my goals.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We’ve been told often enough about the two types of cholesterol in our blood and how they affect our chances of heart attack—even a cardiac arrest that can kill you within three minutes.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">There’s the “bad” LDL cholesterol, the low-density lipoprotein stuff. Then there’s the good HDL—the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The LDL can stick to the walls of your arteries, building up plaque that can choke your flow of blood. HDL can help prevent that by helping clear away the LDL. So the trick is to keep the LDL in your cholesterol down and HDL up.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Untold millions of people have risky cholesterol levels. The most common way to improve cholesterol levels is with a chemical pharmaceutical known as statins. First statin on the market was Pfizer’s Lipitor. With 2008 sales of US$12.4 billion, it is the world’s biggest selling pharmaceutical.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But statins can have side effects. These can include diarrhea and upset stomach, Pfizer’s consumer literature warns. More ominously, it also warns that “…any new muscle pain or weakness… could be a sign of rare but serious muscle side effects.” AstraZeneca warns that its Crestor statin can cause stomach pain, dizziness, headache, constipation, jaundice, hepatitis, joint pain, memory loss, and muscle pain and weakness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Many of these conditions are said to be temporary, and the worst—particularly muscle weakness and pain—are said to be very rare. I’m not sure just how rare that might be. I was not reassured last year when I Googled “Lipitor and muscle pain” and got 3.5 million hits. I was even less reassured when we met a friend whom had not seen in some time, and who is now walking with a cane, as a result of muscle loss caused, she told us, by taking Lipitor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I had been taking Lipitor since my cardiac arrest in 1989, but in the past couple of years I began to feel my leg muscles ache. Of course, muscle pain is what you get when you exercise vigorously enough to improve muscle strength and conditioning. “No pain, no gain,” as Jane Fonda famously proclaimed. And I had stepped up my exercise to prepare for a couple of challenges I wanted to meet: in 2009, a fund-raising climb to the top of one of the world’s tallest buildings, Toronto’s CN Tower; and last year, my first marathon, a 42-km walk, followed by a 128-km, four-day, fund raising walk for our local hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I’m still not sure whether my aching muscles had anything to do with statins, or whether they’re just due to exercise and old age, as I approach my 80th birthday in less than a month. But I do feel less pain after stopping Lipitor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Regardless, if I could improve my blood cholesterol without the use of a chemical drug, that seemed like a good thing to do. Surely no one doubts that, if you can get the needed benefits, diet and exercise are healthier than drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">DIET AND EXERCISE<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Joan and I sharpened our diet, not only to minimize heart risk, but also cancer risk. We stick to plain and simple, easy-to-make food. We never (or as little as we can) eat these foods: trans fat; saturated fat, refined carbohydrates; egg yoke, high-cholesterol foods; red meat; potatoes and other starchy food. We eat every day: seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables; canola or olive oil; fish, low-fat poultry, or soy-based simulated ground beef; ground flax seed; whole grains. We eat very often: tomatoes (best cooked with a little oil), legumes (including peanuts), skimmilk, no-fat yogurt; sunflower, pumpkin or other seeds. For a more detailed description of our diet, see my January 8 blog, “With no statin drugs, will this diet lower my LDL cholesterol.” More recently, we put a little more emphasis on eating fish and a little less poultry following publication of the outstanding 100-page </span></span><i><a href="http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=dietary+guidelines+for+americans+2010&aq=2&aqi=g10&aql=f&oq=dietary+guidelines"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010,</span></span></a></i><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (see my blog March 2, “A fish story and a disgustingly healthy casserole.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">As for exercise, I do about 5 to 10 hours a week, occasionally more. The longest workout weeks are when I go for long walks. I do four regular exercises on different days. Walking is my favourite. Considering ease, enjoyment and health benefits, I think it’s the world’s best exercise. If the weather’s not good, or if I’m pressed for time, I try to get at least as much benefit in less time by riding my stationary bicycle, on which I pumped both arms and legs. About twice a week I walk up and down our basement steps 25 to 50 flights (325 to 650 steps). And I try to do at least 10 pushups every day—the old man’s type, from the knees rather than the toes up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">BY THE NUMBERS<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">So how much has all this improved my blood cholesterol?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">First, let’s look at some target levels, as recommended by the </span><a href="http://www.cfpc.ca/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">College of Family Physicians of Canada.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> In Canada, cholesterol readings are measured in millimoles per litre (mmol/L); in the United States, in milligrams per decilitre (md/d). To convert Canadian data to U.S. readings, multiply by 38.5. But you don’t need to do the conversion to see the effect of diet and exercise on my cholesterol: just note the changes over the past year and how they compare with the target levels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">For healthy people, the Family Physicians recommend an LDL level of less than 3.0 mmol/L; HDL of more than 1; and a ratio of total cholesterol to HDL of less than 6:1.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But better numbers are recommended for those considered at high risk—and that includes all heart attack survivors, like me. I assume all who take statins are also at risk: why else would they need the drug? For those of us at high risk, the Family Physicians recommend an LLD of less than 2.0 mmol/L; HDL of more than 1.0 mmol/L (the higher the better), and a ratio of total cholesterol to HDL of less than 4:1.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">So how have I done since I stopped taking statins? From April last year to April 26 this year, my bad LDL dropped from 3.21 to 2.46 mmol/L; the good HD remained unchanged, at 1.68 mmol/L; and the total cholesterol to HDL ratio improved from 3.17 to 2.46 mmol/L. So without statins, I’m fine on two of the three levels recommended by the Family Physicians for we folk at high risk. My LDL fell 75 mmol/L in the past year, and now I need to make it fall another 50 mmol/L.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•••••••••••••••••••••••••<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In my eXerlog book you’ll find recommended cholesterol targets, and a “bloody table” where you can enter your specific targets then record your numbers from blood tests as you progress to those targets by diet and exercise. You’ll also find much more in eXerlog: a great primer on exercise, fitness and health; a logbook to record daily exercises; a grid to set fitness goals and track progress. All for as little as $8.95. </span><a href="http://www.earlegray.ca/books/97-exerlog"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Click to order.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•••••••••••••••••••••••••<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I’LL TRY EATING PLANT STEROLS <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I hope to do that by doing what I’m already doing, with a couple of diet adjustments. We’ve already made the first adjustment, by eating eight to 12 ounces of fish per week, as recommended by </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Dietary Guidelines for Americans</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">—especially salmon and tuna, fish that are high in heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And just today, I have added plant sterols to the diet, hopefully to speed the fall of LDL levels. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Plant sterols are one of the phytochemicals found in some fruits, vegetables and grains that can help improve your blood cholesterol, or keep it healthy. Sterols do that by blocking the absorption of dietary cholesterol in your blood. They also “have other positive effects on cholesterol regulations,” according to a report from the </span><a href="http://www.berkeleywellnessalerts.com/alerts/healthy_heart/sterols_and_stanols_to_lower_cholesterol104-1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">University of California, Berkeley.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> The report describes taking sterols as “a middle step” between diet and exercise or drugs “to improve your [cholesterol] numbers.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sterol supplements and food “fortified” with sterols have been approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and recommended by the American Heart Association. The recommended dose is two milligrams a day, taken in two servings, perhaps with breakfast and supper. This, it is claimed, can reduce that bad LDL cholesterol by 9 to 20%. “Results may be seen in as little as two weeks,” while “older people tend to have larger drops,” according to the Berkeley report.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">You can’t, however, get enough sterols to have that effect simply by eating the plants from which they come. One website tells me you would have to eat 80 oranges, or 22 kg (48 pounds) of broccoli every day. You can get the recommended daily dose eating about two tablespoons of fortified margarine or two glasses of fortified orange juice, or by taking supplements. I’ve chosen sterol-fortified, non-homogenous, canola-based margarine. Even without the plant sterols, it’s a heart-healthy choice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I doubt that by themselves, plant sterols would get my LDL down to where it should be. But with diet and exercise, it might get me there quicker. We’ll see.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">BOTTOM LINES<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Know your numbers. “More than 80% of people who have had heart attacks have high cholesterol,” Pfizer claims in a magazine ad for its Lipitor. That tells you why you need to know your cholesterol numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">If your cholesterol needs improving, should you follow my example?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Not on my recommendation!<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I have no qualifications to make any recommendations. I write about my own experience, and simply parrot what I’m able to find out from the best health authorities. More importantly, what works for me won’t work the same for everyone. Our genetics are all different. Joan and I are good examples. We both eat exactly the same foods, but because of her disability, exercise doesn’t play a role in keeping Joan’s cholesterol levels healthy. Yet Joan’s LDL level is consistently less than even the 2.0 mmol/L level recommended for those at risk, while I have to struggle to drop mine down from more than 3 mmol/L.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> “For 2 out of 3 people with high cholesterol, diet and exercise may not be enough,” says that Pfizer ad.. Or could it be that the diet isn’t rigid enough or the exercise isn’t consistent enough? Could it be that diet, exercise and plant sterols could do the trick without statins for a greater number of people?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">If you need to improve your blood cholesterol, it seems inevitable that you will face one of two risks: either the side-effect risks of statins, or the risk that diet and exercise won’t do the job. Which risk you take should surely be a conscious and deliberate choice made by each individual, preferable after consultation with a doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I’ve made my choice. I think it’s the healthiest choice. Statins were my fallback if diet and exercise didn’t work. But they’re working. And I hope to never again have to take statins.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">TAGS. Cardiovascular disease. LDL [low-density lipoprotein] cholesterol. HDL [high-density lipoprotein] cholesterol. Pfizer. Lipitor. AstraZenac. Crestor. Muscle weakness. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. College of Family Physicians of Canada. Phytochemicals. Plant sterols.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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</div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com79tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-90955341323677865172011-03-11T08:30:00.000-08:002011-07-02T09:46:48.295-07:00Avocado and green tea: is there a healthier dressing than this?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">Recently while watching the Doctor Oz Show on television, Joan found a unique way to consume green tea.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_msRvVuG_VAJ8pPjhzjBYgNUTJwygC8-Q0APgqblbtFEiSYdTPLp4TXmtLqySi6If_Q1oUtJVf31JRtsbiVlZJOuEshf63X7bz68a4gaRzw8oPygn4lh6_ChWtgSvbmMKa8lig8c3jeP/s1600/Avocao+%2526+green+tea+dressing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_msRvVuG_VAJ8pPjhzjBYgNUTJwygC8-Q0APgqblbtFEiSYdTPLp4TXmtLqySi6If_Q1oUtJVf31JRtsbiVlZJOuEshf63X7bz68a4gaRzw8oPygn4lh6_ChWtgSvbmMKa8lig8c3jeP/s320/Avocao+%2526+green+tea+dressing.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Avocado and green tea dressing does triple duty:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>a sauce </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>for fish and such vegetables as asparagus</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>and Brussel sprouts; </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>a little thinner for a </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>coleslaw</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>dressing; and thinner yet for </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><i>other salads.</i></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Dr. Mehmet Oz is the host of this popular health and nutrition show. His other jobs include vice chair and professor of surgery at Columbia University, and director of the Cardiovascular Institute at New York Presbyterian Hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">On this particular TV episode, Joan tells me, Dr. Oz ground up green tea leaves in a food processor, and added them to a salad dressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">What a great idea! And I already had a very, healthy salad dressing recipe that just might be further boosted by the addition of ground tea leaves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The result is an extra healthy salad dressing that can do double duty as a sauce for fish or such vegetables as asparagus and Brussel sprouts.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Dr. Oz says that to get the full health benefits of green tea you need to drink about six or more cups of the stuff every day. That’s a little more than many—perhaps most—people might enjoy. But Dr. Oz says you can consume the equivalent of eight cups a day as ground up green tea leaves in a salad dressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">We’ve all heard about the great benefits of green tea. For many years I’ve even wondered whether this might be the secret of the apparent longevity of China’s communist leaders. They all seem to smoke like chimneys and live to about 97. Who knows? What we do know is that a study of 40,000 Japanese green tea drinkers over periods of seven to 11 years, reported in the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association, </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">found that those who drank five or more cups of green tea per day had a 26 percent lower risk of premature death due to illness than those who drank less than one cup per day. And the Harvard Boston area Health Study claims that drinking green tea can cut the risk of heart attack by 44 percent, compared with those who drink no tea. Tea is also said to reduce the risk of high blood pressure by dilating arteries. It provides chlorine, helping to reduce tooth decay. Finally, it is said to yield the same level of energy and attentiveness as black tea, but with only one-third as much caffeine.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">*********************************<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>NO GOURMET RECIPES HERE<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Plain and simple, easy-to-make, extra healthy, heart- and cancer disease-fighting food. <b>We never (or as little as possible) eat these foods:</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> trans fat); saturated fat; refined carbohydrates; egg yoke; high-cholesterol foods; red meat; potatoes. <b>We</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> <b>eat every day:</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> fruits and vegetables (7+ servings); canola and olive oil (for poly- and monounsaturated fats); either fish, poultry or soy-based simulated ground beef; ground flax seed; whole grains<b>. We eat very often: </b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Tomatoes, cooked with oil; legumes (including peanuts); skim milk; no-fat yogurt; seeds (e.g. pumpkin, sunflower). That’s the basis for our recipes. Can this diet and exercise lower my LDL cholesterol without statins? We learn on April 26.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">**********************************<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">As it happened, it was time to make another batch of avocado dressing and I was about to make a double batch because we had four avocados in the refrigerator. We also happened to have, in a can labelled Twining’s Irish Breakfast Tea, about half a cup of a green tea called Formosa Gunpowder. We bought it long ago in a little teashop in Petrolia, a little town in southwestern Ontario that was the oil capital of Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Petrolia sent more drillers around the globe to find and develop oil fields on every continent except Antarctica than any other town anywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">I could hardly believe it when we were told that the very tiny Formosa Gunpowder tea leaves were hand-rolled—until I saw how much they expand in hot water.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Americans may have their Tea Parties, but every Canadian knows—or supposes—that no American knows how to make tea. It’s commonly understood that all Americans make tea with water that’s more or less hot. We know that the only way to make proper tea is with water that’s freshly boiling. It is then left to steep five minutes before pouring. Except for green tea. Americans probably make better green tea than we Canadians. The tea connoisseurs at the Petrolia teashop advised us that, to preserve its delicate aroma and flavour, green tea should always be made with water that is never quite as hot as boiling. But I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">In a food processor, the Formosa Gunpowder was quickly ground to tiny black specks, ready to add to what I now call Disgusting Healthy Avocado Green Tea Dressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Two days after I first added green tea leaves to the avocado dressing, our son and his wife, Gordon and Cheryl, were here for Sunday dinner. We served a large baked Atlantic salmon fillet. After my previous log about complaints that salmon “tastes too fishy” for many people, our friend Rick Carpenter emailed to advise that Atlantic salmon tastes less “gamey.” He’s right; the flavour is much milder. We used our Avocado and Green Tea Dressing as a sauce on the fish. It passed the taste test with flying colours. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The recipe makes one Imperial quart of dressing, or about 1 quart and one pint U.S. measure. Feel free to vary the amount of tea leaves, lemon juice, or sweetener, according to taste. The dressing tends to thicken a bit after standing a day or two in the refrigerator. You can thin to a desired consistency by adding a little water and lemon juice. I like to keep this in a quart jar with a tight lid. If I need to thin it, I add a little water and lemon juice then shake the jar vigorously to mix.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Ingredients<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 avocados<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">3 heaping tbs green tea leaves<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">12 oz unflavoured, no-fat yogurt<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">6 oz canola oil<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">6 oz concentrated lemon juice<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 tbs. sucralose-based sweetener such as Splenda or Loblaw’s Sucrella.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 tbs Joan’s salad herbs (see earlier blog for this easy recipe).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Preparation<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Grind the tea leaves in a food processor. Peel the avocados with a potato peeler, cut them open, and remove the stones. Your fingers will get a little messy from the avocados. Combine the avocados with the other ingredients and blend in a food processor until perfectly smooth. In about 15 minutes, you’ll have an Imperial quart of dressing which should be good to keep in the refrigerator for at least a week. If the dressing is a bit too thick, thin it with water or oil and lemon juice. I like to vary the viscosity: thick for a sauce, a little thinner for a coleslaw, and thinner yet for most other salads.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Nutrition</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">. We’ve already recapitulated the widely advertised health benefits of green tea. Avocados seem equally healthy. They are said to have more nutrition and dietary fibre than any other fruit. The canola oil and avocados load this dressing with heart-healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats (MUFAS and PUFAS), perhaps the most widely recommended food to help maintain cardiovascular health. Avocados are very low in saturated fat and cholesterol, a good source of fibre, and high in a wide range of vitamins and minerals. If you have a choice, pick California rather than Florida avocados for nearly twice as much MUFA: 9.8% by weight compared with 5.5%, according to the USDA Nutrition Data Laboratory. Both verities have less than 2% PUFAS. But here in Ontario, the only avocados I find in the supermarket come from neither Florida nor California, but from Mexico. Saturated fat is 2% by weight.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The Loblaw’s Blue Menu no-fat yogurt we use has only 10 mg of dietary cholesterol per 175-g serving, and is a good source of potassium, calcium, riboflavin, phosphorous, and vitamins B<sub>12 </sub>and D. Canola oil, at 7%, has less saturated fat than any other dietary fat, half as much as olive oil. It has 61% MUFA content, 11% Omega 3 fatty acids, and 21% Omega 6 (which we normally get lots of from a wide range of foods).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">TAGS. Salad Dressing. Green tea. Avacados. Canola oil. Yogurt. Omega 3 fatty acids. <o:p></o:p></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-90722045370213972662011-03-11T05:21:00.001-08:002011-03-11T07:28:18.611-08:00Salad herbs: Joan's quick, easy and healthy recipe<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">These are the herbs we use to spice our salad dressings.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><a name='more'></a>The blend is easy to prepare, in about one minute. It’s delicious, and nutritious. No salt, no highly refined sugar. You can use this for any dressing.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><b>Ingredients</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">¼ cup dried parsley<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 tbs each oregano, basil, marjoram, fennel and dry mustard.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">1.5 tbs each ground black pepper and Demerara sugar.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Mix thoroughly in pint jar. Makes one cup.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The crunchy, golden-colored Demerara sugar provides a distinctive flavour and texture. It is healthier than regular white or brown sugars, which are refined carbohydrates. Demerara sugar is a complex carbohydrate retaining nutrition that’s missing in refined carbohydrates. Refined carbohydroates drain the body’s store of nutrients; affect the brain and nervous system; and spike insulin production. They can mess up our minds, resulting in confusion, irrational thinking, lethargy and moodiness. Insulin spikes tend to increase body fat and obesity; may cause inflammation, resulting in heart disease, cancer, and destruction of brain cells. That’s why we use Demerara sugar, honey, or Sucraolse sweeteners to help make sweet life even sweeter. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">TAGS: Herbs. Spices. Salad dressings. Demerara sugar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-13165650636663430062011-03-02T05:08:00.000-08:002011-03-11T07:17:02.093-08:00A fish story and a disgustingly healthy casserole<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The U.S. government wants Americans to eat more than twice as much salmon and some other seafood, and less meat and poultry.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><a name='more'></a>The advice comes from the seventh edition of <i>Dietary Guidelines for Americans,</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> recently issued by the departments of agriculture and health. It seems just as applicable to those other North Americans who live north of the 49th parallel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWUiOGCY2-sWyl2EQM1NoCZk80K8qiAEOrzQ-CxJefbXzTUx84OHgxBs82i_wxG9m9YkulB3Zl8zlQLCZ-ID9ov1kqblsa3DlEfci3uG7vtsM_Wgwbwl0l7q7N5_5wXJleKAjMT1X2cG-/s1600/CHINESE+DELIGHT.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWUiOGCY2-sWyl2EQM1NoCZk80K8qiAEOrzQ-CxJefbXzTUx84OHgxBs82i_wxG9m9YkulB3Zl8zlQLCZ-ID9ov1kqblsa3DlEfci3uG7vtsM_Wgwbwl0l7q7N5_5wXJleKAjMT1X2cG-/s320/CHINESE+DELIGHT.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><i>A heart-healthy casserole, with rice, salmon, four mixed vegetables, topped by canned tomatoes</i>.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">The advice might be a little disconcerting to half the people in the United States, and at least one Canadian, my wife. A survey a few years ago found that half of all Americans don’t like eating salmon, because they said it tastes “too fishy.” That’s a complaint that Joan has occasionally voiced. But Joan tolerates salmon because it’s so healthy, and sometimes even enjoys it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">As for me, I grew up not only loving the taste of salmon, but even more, enjoying the thrill of fishing and catching them. Salmon fresh from the ocean, sliced into stakes, and pan fried in real butter is a taste experience as good as it gets. Unfortunately, it’s also a totally unhealthy way to eat fish—but who knew that 65 years ago?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">So let’s talk about why it’s so important to eat seafood; and how the joy I had catching and eating salmon led to a disgustingly healthy casserole dish that overpowers the too-fishy taste of salmon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>SALMON: KING OF THE HEALTHY SEAFOOD <o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> More specifically, the new <i>Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> urge eating seafood that is high in a pair of omega-3 fatty acids, known as EPA and DHA (eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic, if anyone actually cares to know). The list of food that makes the cut reads “salmon, anchovies, herring sardines, Pacific oysters, trout, and Atlantic and Pacific mackerel (but <i>not </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">king mackerel, which is high in mercury).” An appendix shows that four types of salmon have the most EPA and DHA with the least mercury. They are Atlantic, Chinook (aka Spring, King and Tyee), and Coho. The Chinook are the big, pink fish, prized for their size by sports fishermen, one of whom was Bing Crosby. The biggest ever caught weighed 126 pounds. Anchovies, herring and shad have at least as much EPA and DHA, but with a little more mercury. The prized, deeper red and more costly Sockeye have only about half as much EPA and DHA, while shrimp has as little at 5% as much as the top-rated salmon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The government wants American to eat at least eight ounces of seafood every week. They now eat only 3.5 ounces per week. That figure is likely about the same for most Canadians—but probably greater for those on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">While eating more fish, the <i>Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> call for eating less total food. That reflects the fact that most of the seven billion people in this world suffer from malnutrition; half because they don’t have enough to eat, and the rest of us because we eat too much. And the thing the <i>Guidelines</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> say to eat less of is meat and poultry, too much of it is saturated with heart-clogging saturated fat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">We are told to eat a variety of seafood. Salmon is the big thing in our house, but we also eat tuna frequently, and cod, ocean perch, and sardines sometimes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">There is a good reason to eat more of this type of seafood. It cuts your risk of being killed by heart trouble. According to the <i>Guidelines,</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> “Consumption of about eight ounce per week of a variety of seafood, which provides an average consumption of 250 mg per day of EPA and DHA, is associated with reduced cardiac deaths among individuals with and without pre-existing cardiovascular disease.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">For more detail, you can download the excellent, 130-page <i>Dietary Guidelines for Americans</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> at www.dietaryguidelines.gov. It’s free. Look at appendix 11 to see which seafood is the heart healthiest.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">If you really care to know all the great things about salmon, you can download from the World’s Healthiest Foods, a 14,00-word essay that draws on some 60 studies by food and nutrition researchers (www.whfoods.com). It’s also free. WHF ranks salmon as a “superior” food not only because of the EPA and DHA, but also “because of its great ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s, and its healthy supportive balance of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats [the MUFAS AND PUFAS). All of which is said to help reduce the risk of inflammation and “maintain the integrity of our immune and circulatory systems.” WHF ranks salmon as an “excellent source of selenium, a very good source of protein, niacin, and vitamin B12, and a good source of phosphorous, magnesium and vitamin B6.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The WHF claims that eating salmon will reduce the risk of virtually every type of heart trouble: heart attack, stroke, fatal heart arrhythmia, high blood pressure, inflammation, and deep vein thrombosis. It also cites studies claiming that eating salmon by itself, or sometimes in combination with fruits, vegetables or grain, offers a wide range of other benefits: reduced risks of colon and prostate cancer, diabetes, macular degenerations, dry eyes, obesity, sunburn and age-related dementia. Seafood is thought to help improve mood, relieve depression, avoid violent behaviour and improve mental ability. It has long been noted as brain food, and some anthropologists claims that eating seafood is how we humans originally got our big brains, which set us apart from the chimps and the apes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">How valid are all these amazing claims? Who knows? But we can be confident that salmon can help avoid heart trouble, that it’s safe to eat, and perhaps some of those extra claims are valid. But stick to wild salmon. It tastes much better than farm fish, and is probably healthier.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> <b>I’SE THE BYE THAT CATCHES THE FISH<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">(With apologies to a rollicking Newfoundland folk song.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">The house on the rural west coast where I was raised perched on the brow of a hill. At the foot of the hill was the Pacific shore, strewn with big driftwood logs, stumps and other battered wood; a pebble beach when the tide was high but with sharp, barnacle-crusted boulders when it was low; and our family yacht, a 14-foot, clinker-built rowboat. A mile or more offshore, directly opposite our house, was the largest and most easterly of four islands. And when the salmon were running, from May to September, near the rocky easterly point of that island was usually the best place to catch Coho, one of the four types of salmon rated heart-healthiest by the new <i>Guidelines.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">During the languid summer months when the salmon were running, I was the main fish catcher in our family, from the time I was 11 or 12 until I left home at 18. Dad, when younger, had been a cowboy who rode Brahma bulls in the small-town rodeos of Southern Alberta, and wasn’t really thrilled about riding a rowboat. When my younger brother took out the boat it was more often not to fish but to row several miles up the coast to visit the girl he eventually married.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">My fishing mentor was Nells Strom, who worked at a sawmill at New Westminster in the winter, and in the summer rowed some 40 miles in a driftwood rowboat to his tiny driftwood cabin on the island. It was then the only inhabited building on any of the four islands, which are now studded with substantial houses. Nells sawed and planed lumber from driftwood cedar, which he used to build his boat, without the help of power tools. He sold his salmon to wives in the houses that straggled along the dirt road and potholes that served as our coastal highway. He pronounced the fish just as it is spelt. “Any sal-mon today, Mrs. Smith?” Nells sometimes took me fishing and taught me his secrets of catching the Coho.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Our fishing gear was primitive. No rod, no reel, no nylon line, no net to land the fish. What we had we wrapped in a short, V-notched board: less than a hundred feet of heavy, cod linen line, attached to about three feet of “piano” wire, attached to about a six-inch metal flasher, another two or three feet of piano wire, and finally the lure and hook, aptly called a spoon. One or two small lead sinkers kept the gear at the appropriate, shallow depth as I trolled for salmon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">As I rowed, about 50 feet of line and gear trailed from a willow or other supple stick jammed upright in the gunwale. More line was coiled at the bottom of the boat and the end was securely fastened so no fish could run away with all the gear. If I rowed as hard as I could, the flasher (or dodger) could be seen rising to the surface. Otherwise, as I rowed, the willow stick gently undulated back and forth with each pull of the oars.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">I knew I had a Coho when the stick was suddenly bent flat. Quickly the line was untwisted from the stick to run through my fingers with just enough pressure to tire the fish as it ran for its life. When the fish tired, the line was slowly hauled in, hand over hand, until the fish again began to run, the line once more lightly braked as it ran through my fingers. A good fighting Coho, weighing as much as 10 pounds but more typically four to six, would dramatically leap from the water and angrily splash its tail. It usually took 20 minutes to an hour to get a tired fish beside the hull, ready to be flipped aboard. At first I landed our fish by sticking fingers up the gills; eventually we acquired a gaff.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Nells arrived at our house one day to ask if I would like to join him in a hand logging operation. But that was the year that I left home for the life of a newspaper man in the big city, and I had left just a couple of weeks earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">We managed somehow to avoid killing ourselves with our salmon stakes unhealthily fried in butter. In the late fall and winter months when there were no salmon to catch, we frequently ate canned salmon, sometimes fish that Mom had canned but more often canned salmon from the store. Mom made a casserole dish with canned salmon that was one of my favourites. It still is. But I have modified it to make it even healthier and to try to overpower the “too fishy” taste.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>DISGUSTINGLY HEALTHY CHINESE DELIGHT<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Other than the name and the rice, there is there nothing remotely Chinese or even oriental about this dish. But it’s difficult to find a more nutritious, delicious, heart-healthy, easy-to-make meal than this. I’ve modified it from how my mother prepared it, by adding salsa sauce, mixed vegetables rather than just peas, and Canola oil to enhance the “bio-availability” of the health benefits of tomatoes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Ingredients<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">1.5 cups rice.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">3 cans (213 grams or 7.5 ounces each) of salmon. Be sure to use the liquid. Use Coho if you can find it; it’s a red fish with better flavour than pink salmon and more heart-healthy than costly Sockeye. Use pink salmon if you can’t find Coho.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">1 cup salsa sauce. Use hot or medium hot sauce if you want to maximize overpowering the fishy taste. And you can serve it with some ketchup, which also helps.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">1 can (796 Ml, 28 oz) diced no added salt tomatoes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 tbs canola or olive oil<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 cups frozen mixed vegetables. The packaged frozen vegetables I like includes peas, carrots, whole kernel corn, green beans and lima beans.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Directions<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Cook the rice. Partially pre-cook the mixed frozen vegetables. I place them in a glass bowl with perhaps a quarter-cup of water and nuke them in the microwave for about seven minutes. Drain off any remaining water. Add oil to tomatoes and mix. Place rice in a oven-proof, lightly greased casserole dish. We use a vegetable oil spray. Add layer of salmon, layer of vegetables, and top with the tomatoes and oil. Bake at 350<sup>0</sup> F. for 45 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Nutrition notes<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">We’ve already covered the great health benefits of salmon. Tomatoes are also one of the world’s healthiest foods, especially when cooked with a little oil. “Eating tomato-based products every day should be a part of a healthy diet,” say researchers at The Prostate Centre, Princess Margaret Hospital, Canada’s leading cancer research hospital. (See my blog, <i>Tomato’s Journey,</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"> April 29, 2010.)<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">As for the vegetables, nutritionists tell us to eat a rainbow of different colours. There is red, green, yellow and white in the frozen carrots, green beans, corn and lima beans.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">This dish makes six servings; three meals for Joan and me. Each serving has almost four ounces of salmon—well on your way to the recommended eight ounces per week.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">TAGS. Seafood. Salmon. Coho. Omega-3 fatty acids. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Cardiovascular health.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-74015669088352023422011-01-21T10:43:00.000-08:002011-02-22T10:35:29.817-08:00Steel cut oats with flax seed and fruit: the ultimate healthy breakfast?<div style="text-align: center;"><b>After 65 years I learn to love porridge without brown sugar.</b><br />
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<b><a name='more'></a></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW5q6spJVmkkHoZZ2m3SQyA_HGkClKarjNgfyQzkK_GxAcEPiHW91ao9HfulI6MDzwOZPnQmkiXdSCoYuEvRlamz_zAfsVLR49CM0i6NQdieUA_Mwq6NFHVbKFSIlAkd3CBED0Gw_Pzz5v/s1600/oatmeal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW5q6spJVmkkHoZZ2m3SQyA_HGkClKarjNgfyQzkK_GxAcEPiHW91ao9HfulI6MDzwOZPnQmkiXdSCoYuEvRlamz_zAfsVLR49CM0i6NQdieUA_Mwq6NFHVbKFSIlAkd3CBED0Gw_Pzz5v/s320/oatmeal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Steel cut oats and lots of fruit. Berry good!</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br />
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<b><i><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It has taken me 65 years before I accidentally discovered how to enjoy porridge without dumping a load of brown sugar on it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Growing up the son of a Scot with very English grandparents on the maternal side, porridge for breakfast most mornings was almost inescapable. I think they were quick cooking rolled oats, not quite the same as traditional Scottish oatmeal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The Scots never put sugar on their oatmeal, inexplicably preferring a little sprinkling of salt. The English seemed to have a sweeter tooth. My mother, with her English rearing, could never quite understand people who preferred their tea, coffee, or porridge without sugar. So we had dark, brown sugar on our porridge every morning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">When I was 15, I boarded with my Scottish aunt and uncle in Vancouver. There was never any sugar on the table when porridge was served for breakfast, but it was there on the rare occasions when corn flakes were served. Sugar on oatmeal was unheard of when she was a girl in Edinburgh, but in that era—certainly in the Gray family—corn flakes were also unheard of. So putting sugar on corn flakes violated no bone-deep Scottish custom. I dearly loved my Aunt, but I could never learn to love her porridge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">It is 65 years later and we have switched from rolled oats to steel cut oats for the porridge we eat most mornings. We add ground flax seeds to our porridge. Our measuring spoons reside in a large can of coffee grounds because making coffee is what they are most often used for. Thus one morning I stood in front of large pot of boiling water preparing to cook steel cut oats and ground flax seeds, a coffee can in one hand and measuring spoons in the other. The next thing I noticed was that boiling water had suddenly become very dark. Call me absentminded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Nothing daunted, I continued making coffee-favoured porridge. “Not bad,” was Joan’s verdict. Cooked with Sultana raisins, it was at least palatable without brown sugar.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Our son Gordon, however, says that eating coffee grounds is not good for you. A 1992 article in the trade journal </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/food-manufacturing-food-coffee-tea/286754-1.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Tea and Coffee</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">disagrees. It claims that decaffeinated coffee grounds can be “Just as edible as raw soy beans, lentils, chick peas or other seeds,” and very nutritious. And if everyone in North America ate their coffee grounds, a million tons of waste that’s dumped every year could be turned into food. Strange as it might seem, people are still not eating their coffee grounds.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Gordon suggested we cook our oats in apple juice. As it happened, we had just kicked our apple juice habit, because fruit juices have no fibre, too much sugar, and not enough nutrition. Why not use whole apples, especially my favourite Granny Smith apples, with their full, sharp, tart flavour?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">A little more experimenting, and we now have steel cut oats cooked with apples and raisins, served with a topping of more berries, no brown sugar, and coffee grounds strictly optional—perhaps best for those most concerned to minimize waste.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Recipe for steel cut oats with flax, apples and raisins.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Ingredients:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> 1 cup steel cut oats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> 1/2 cup fresh ground flax seed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> 1 cup cup sultana raisins</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">2 large Granny Smith apple.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> 6 cups of water.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Directions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Peel and core the apple, and purée in blender or food processor. Bring water to boil in a large pot. Add apple, raisins, oats and flax seeds, being careful to pour in the oats and flax slowly while stirring. After about 5 minutes, when the porridge begins to thicken, reduce heat and summer for another 30 minutes. I like to cook this in an open pot. Add more water if needed. The longer oats are cooked, the more water they absorb, and the larger the bulk of oatmeal. Serve with skimmed milk and top with more berries. We prefer President’s Choice packaged blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and raspberries. The favour is sharper if the berries are just partially thawed. Berry good!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Makes eight servings—four breakfasts for Joan and me. Keep leftover in a closed container in the refrigerator. The leftover will absorb more of the water and become a little solid with a greater volume. Place desired amount of leftover porridge in a pot, add water, breakup with a fork, heat, and eat. If you cook enough oats you can mimic an old nursery rhyme: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“Peas porridge hot, Peas porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, Nine days old.”</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">N<b>UTRITION NOTES</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Avoid that unhealthy sugar rush<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Steel cut oats—tiny brown pellets—are loaded with nutrition and fibre. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Beta-glucan,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> a type of fibre found in oats, has been shown to reduce high levels of LDL cholesterol, the cholesterol that can clog your arteries. And antioxidant compounds unique to oats help prevent free radicals from damaging HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol that is important in keeping your arteries unclogged. (See </span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“</span></span></u></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><u><a href="http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=54"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Oats</span></span></span></a></u></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">,”</span></span></u></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> World’s Healthiest Foods). Steel cut oats offer greater health benefits than instant oatmeal, quick oats, or regular oats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Joan used to complain that porridge soon left her feeling hungry. That’s the “empty calories” syndrome—an unhealthy sugar rush, followed by an unhealthy insulin rush, followed by a feeling of hunger. The brown sugar was probably the main culprit, but the type of oatmeal is also a factor. Steel cut oats help fight the empty calories syndrome because they take longer to digest than the other oatmeals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The sugar rush is measured by the Glycemic Index, which, on a scale of 1 to 100, measures the speed at which your body converts carbohydrates into glucose in you blood stream. Generally the lower the GI, the better. Instant oatmeal rates a very high 82 GI; quick oats, 64; regular oatmeal, 58; steel cut oats, 51. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">(The New Glucose Revolution: Shoppers Guide to GI Values. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Cambridge, M.A. Da Capo Press, 2010).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Also, instant, quick and regular rolled oats have been steamed, cooked, pressed with a roller and dried, resulting in some nutritional loss..<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Ground flax seed:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">good for whatever ails you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Anyone who hasn’t been urged to help protect his heart by consuming more omega 3 fatty acids lives on another planet. Salmon is commonly recommended, but it might not be best to put all your omega in a fish basket: plants are said to provide a source of Omega 3 that’s more stable. Ground flax seed—the richest source of ALA Omega 3 fats and lignans, an antioxidant, and very high in dietary fibre—is said to be effective in reducing LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. It has also been claimed to help combat cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, among other things. It is probably the plant seed most widely recommended by doctors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">An apple a day<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The blueberries, raisins and apple provide the sugar for this oatmeal but they avoid the bad sugar big rush you can get from piling on refined sugar. The sugar in these fruits is digested slowly, resulting in low GI ratings: 53 for wild blueberries, 38 for apples, and 64 for raisins. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •Blueberries</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> are said to be among the very best of all fruits and vegetables for antioxidants that help prevent heart trouble, macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s disease, colon cancer (see report on </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=8"><span style="font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">blueberries</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">). </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">They are very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium; a very good source of dietary fibre and vitamins C and K, as well as a good source of manganese. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •An apple </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">a day might really help keep the doctor away. “An increase intake of apples has been correlated with a decreased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and incidence of thrombotic stroke,” reports a study, </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/fw04/apples.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Why Apples are Healthful</span></span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> from the Oregon State University. That might be because the antioxidant flavonids widely found in fruit are more easily absorbed into the blood stream when they come from apples.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •Raisins</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> are the richest source of sugar in this oatmeal, but they’re much healthier than the table sugar they replace. They have almost no saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium; are a good source of dietary fibre, and a very good source of iron.</span></span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">TAGS. Oats. Apples. Raisimn. Blueberries. Flax seeds. Coffee.</span></span></span></div></span><br />
</i></b>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-50069529172649792022011-01-16T09:59:00.000-08:002011-02-22T10:38:53.650-08:00Disgustingly healthy muffins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">My Disgustingly Healthy Muffins are not really disgusting but they are really healthy. They are so healthy that the recipe was tacked up on the bulletin board at the cardiac rehab centre of the Ross Memorial Hospital here in Lindsay.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMuzWN1MFWIpIR6kBJng3DA245Iua-sDRYs54h8DPPbR0H46zdd40igxKLBZ8vkUFUfV66jx4lsz1401kurbPfgd-Tb9WgA-3FKjDpQ4EZ7Rw8oB-DIUNF60hZf-H9xbw7RwkLtACm7tV/s1600/MUFFINS+10.10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMuzWN1MFWIpIR6kBJng3DA245Iua-sDRYs54h8DPPbR0H46zdd40igxKLBZ8vkUFUfV66jx4lsz1401kurbPfgd-Tb9WgA-3FKjDpQ4EZ7Rw8oB-DIUNF60hZf-H9xbw7RwkLtACm7tV/s400/MUFFINS+10.10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A platter of my heart-healthy muffins. Can they</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>help lower that bad LDL cholesterol?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">That was three years ago. Joan and I were working out in the hospital’s rehab program. Joan was there because she had undergone a tricky four-hour operation at the Toronto General Hospital for a rare heart condition that had almost killed her and has left her with a permanent health impairment. I was allowed to participate because of a cardiac arrest 19 years earlier, when our hospital did not yet have a rehab program.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">One day I mentioned—well, bragged, I guess—about my muffins. “Let’s see the recipe,” said the nurse, who, together with the physiotherapist and an assistant, managed the rehab program. I brought the recipe in at the next session. It was checked by the nurse, the physiotherapist, and a hospital dietician, and posted on the bulletin board.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Now I can’t say that the recipe for my Disgustingly Healthy Muffins has been approved by our wonderful Ross Memorial Hospital. But it has been checked by at least three health care professionals. And if anyone knows of a muffin recipe that is more heart healthy, please do send it to me. I would truly like to try it out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">******************************<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b><i>NO GOURMET RECIPES HERE<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Plain and simple, easy-to-make, extra healthy, heart- and cancer disease-fighting food. <b>We never (or as little as possible) eat these foods:</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> trans fat); saturated fat; refined carbohydrates; egg yoke; high-cholesterol foods; red meat; potatoes. <b>We</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> <b>eat every day:</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i> fruits and vegetables (7+ servings); canola and olive oil (for poly- and monounsaturated fats); fish, poultry or soy-based simulated ground beef; ground flax seed; whole grains<b>. We eat very often: </b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Tomatoes, cooked with oil; legumes (including peanuts); skim milk; no-fat yogurt; seeds (e.g. pumpkin, sunflower). That’s the basis for our recipes. Can this diet and exercise lower my LDL cholesterol without statins? We learn on April 26.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><i>******************************</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Neither egg yoke nor oil are among the ingredients in this recipe: just simple, heart-healthy food: whole wheat flour, wheat bran, oat bran, ground flax seed, skim milk, egg white, demerara sugar and raisins. Like everything we bake, we use only whole wheat flour. There is no white, or “enriched,” flour in our house. Oat bran and ground flax seeds are probably the two most widely advocated foods to protect the health of your heart, and wheat bran can’t be too far behind. The demara sugar is much less refined than normal table sugar, either white or brown, and retains more of the nutrients of the raw cane sugar. If you can’t find demerata sugar at the supermarket, turbinado sugar is very similar. Both are a medium-brown colour, with crunchy, large grains or crystals. Look for them at a bulk food store. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">We eat very little bread in our house. Most of the time, there isn’t a loaf to be found. We gobble these muffins instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">I enjoy cooking but I have too much to do to spend all my life in the kitchen. So I like to cook or bake big amounts or big batches. My Disgustingly Healthy recipe is particularly big. It makes 36 muffins and two large loafs, or 48 muffins. Most of that goes into the freezer and it’s a couple of weeks before I have to make another batch. If you don’t want that many muffins, you can cut this recipe in half. If you do the whole recipe, you will need a very large metal mixing bowl.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Here’s my Disgustingly Healthy Muffiins recipe.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><b>Ingredients:<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">8 cups whole wheat flour.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2.5 cups ground flax seed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">2 cups oat bran<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">4 cups wheat bran<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">3 cups powdered skim milk<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">5 cups Sultana raisins<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">3 cups demerara sugar<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">1 carton (500 grams) egg white<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">5 tbs baking powder<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">3 tbs baking soda<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">6.5 cups water<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Combine all the dry ingredients in your very large mixing bowl and mix well. Combine the egg whites and perhaps half the water in a separate bowl, beat slightly with an egg beater, and add to the dry mix. Add the rest of the water and mix thoroughly. If your muffin tins and 9x5-inch baking pans are not the non-stick type, spray with no-fat vegetable spray. Spoon into your muffin tins, and baking pans if you are making loafs as well as muffins. I cook the muffins at 370<sup>0</sup>F. for 20 minutes; the loafs will take 40 to 50 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Because they are loaded with grains, these muffins don’t rise in the oven as much and are not quite as light and fluffy as some muffins. But our friends rave about the taste and the hearty texture.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">Please do send me your comments about these muffins, or any alternative muffin recipe you’d like to share.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">TAGS: Muffins. Wheat bran. Oat bran. Ground flax seed. Demerara sugar. Whole wheat flour. Egg whites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-82785037382343563532011-01-08T07:44:00.000-08:002011-03-11T07:46:23.545-08:00With no statin drugs, will this diet lower my LDL cholesterol?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"></span></b></span><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a name='more'></a>WHY</span></b></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Our family physician, has told me I should reduce the level of my LDL blood cholesterol. I want to do that without a drug called statins, because I am concerned about risk of loss of muscle strength that can be a serious side effect of statins. I hope to do it with a slight increase in the aerobic intensity of my exercise and a sharper focus on our diet. My LDL level was recently measured at 2.95 millimoles per litre (mmol/L. In U.S., 114 mg/d, milligrams per deciliter). Our doctor wants to see that reduced to 1.8, and the Canadian College of Family Physicians agrees that those who have had heart attacks should aim for a level of less than 2. We also want to lower our cancer risks. As it turns out, the best foods that might lower LDL cholesterol (and perhaps boost the good HDL cholesterol) also seem to be largely the best foods that might reduce cancer risks. Diet, of course, is only half the battle. Without regular exercise, almost every day, I don’t think that diet by itself can do the job.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But why blog about it? I do that first for our own benefit. Nutrition is a complex subject. Because science has not yet unlocked all its many mysteries, endless advice from even the most authoritative sources is often uncertain, constantly changing, confusing, and conflicting. Only by writing am I able to organize from such advice a plan that seems to make sense—guidelines for Joan and me to follow. I hope my blog readers will find it interesting, and perhaps even helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A word of caution: if you change your diet in any way because of anything I write, you do so at your own risk. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Before making any substantial diet changes, you should consult a physician or a dietitian—or both.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We won’t know whether the diet and exercise are doing what we hope until April 26 when I get the results of my next blood tests. Meanwhile, I’ll blog some recipes and menus that fit our guidelines—such as my recipe for Disgustingly Healthy Muffins and one for the healthiest, best-tasting shepherd’s pie ever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">WHAT WE NEVER EAT (WELL, HARDLY EVER)</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">What we try to never eat<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Trans fat, </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">the evil fat we’ve all be warned about. It’s found in hydrogenated food. It’s there to keep lard, margarine and other items firm at room temperature; to extend the shelf life of some foods; to keep peanut butter homogenized so that the oil doesn’t separate and float to the top.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Refined carbohydrates.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Carbos are fuel, converted by our digestive system into glucose and burned by our muscles. Nutrients in natural carbos are largely removed in highly refined cabos. Refined, or simple, carbos drain the body’s store of nutrients; affect the brain and nervous system; and spike insulin production. Refined carbos can mess up our minds, resulting in confusion, irrational thinking, lethargy and moodiness. For kids, school grades suffer. Some have even suggested that refined carbos can contribute to criminal behaviour. Insulin spikes tend to increase body fat and obesity; may cause inflammation, resulting in heart disease, cancer, and destruction of brain cells See </span></span><a href="http://www.organicauthority.com/health/health/the-health-hazards-of-refined-carbohydrates.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Health Hazards of Refined Carbohydrates</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Big sources of refined carbos to avoid include white flour and all baked products with white flour; white or polished rice; refined sugar (mostly white but also brown); and many “fruit cocktail” drinks.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•Egg yoke and beef liver.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> See following item on dietary cholesterol.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">• Red meat, </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">more accurately mammal meat, has been linked in a number of studies with increased risk of both heart disease and cancer. Red meat has lots of nutrition and may well be safe in moderate amounts for people not considered at risk for heart disease or cancer—but for those of us who are, why chance increasing the risks? Venison (buffalo, deer, moose, elk) is low in saturated fat and is healthier than most other red meats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">What we will eat as little of as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Saturated fat. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">USDA’s Dietary Guidelines urge Americans to reduce their total fat consumption to between 20% and 30 % of total daily calories, with no more than 10% from saturated fat. Some sat fat comes with such good stuff as mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids (MUFAS and PUFAS, which help reduced that dangerous LDL cholesterol in your blood). Saturated fats are saturated with as much hydrogen as found in a natural state. Minimizing sat fat consumption is said to help avoid clogged arteries and heart trouble, although the relationship between sat fat and heart trouble is controversial. Sat fats have also been linked with cancer. Whole milk, including such diary products, such as cheese; red meat; and animal fats (such as lard) are principal sources of saturated fat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Other things we will limit.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Dietary cholesterol. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Our bodies normally produce all the cholesterol we need. Advice about dietary cholesterol is conflicting, especially that about egg yoke (see my blog “Controversial food”). Many dietitians now recommend eggs in large part because of the big load of nutrition in the yoke; others disagree. The American Heart Association, the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Department of Health, among others, still recommend no more than 300 mg a day for healthy people and 200 mg for those at risk, such as heart-attack survivors. One large egg yoke contains 200 mg of dietary cholesterol, or more. Other big sources of dietary cholesterol include whole milk and whole milk products, such as cheese; red meat (1 oz of beef liver has more than 300 mg) and some shellfish, such as shrimp. These big sources, and egg yoke, are excluded from our diet. Other sources of dietary cholesterol, which we will eat, include fish (50 grams in 100 grams of frozen wild Pacific salmon) and no-fat diary products (14 grams in three-quarters of a cup of Loblaw’s no-fat, vanilla-flavoured yogurt).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Fruit juice.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> When the juice is extracted from the fruit, all the fibre and much of the nutrition stays behind in the pulp. What is left isn’t much better than flavoured water and sugar. Better to drink smoothies, which include all the fruit but the peel and pits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•Demerara sugar.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> This is better than refined sugar and possibly better than Splenda, the no-fat, no-calorie, no-carbo sweetener we have been using. Demerara is processed from cane sugar but retains all the natural vitamins and minerals and remains a complex rather than simple carbohydrate. Content is said to be 95% sugar, with 15 calories per teaspoon, and 38 mg of minerals and vitamins, including “lots of potassium.” It is dark brown with large grains that have a slight molasses flavour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Potatoes. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">These tubers have lots of great nutrition but can cause a big sugar rush, which cause an insulin rush, which cause other problems. We have replaced them with sweet potatoes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">WHAT WE EAT LOTS OF<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">What we will eat every day.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Fruits and vegetables </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">are the cornerstones of our diet. We are somewhat increasing the amount we eat to more than eight servings a day. “Eat at least one dark green and one orange vegetable each day,” advises Canada’s Food Guide. Broccoli is the star in our vegetable list. Ounce for ounce, it ranks near the top of vegetables packed with the most nutrition. Dr. Dean Ornish is a strong broccoli advocate. In his best-selling book, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease,” </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">he</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">ranks broccoli as the best vegetable to help fight heart disease.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •MUFAS and PUFAS, </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">the poly-and monounsaturated fatty acids. Both get credit for lowering total cholesterol and LDL. Much-touted Omega 3 fats are found in some PUFAS. The two most common MUFAS and PUFAS oils are olive oil and canola oil. U.S. Food and Drug Administration says “…eating about 2 tablespoons (23 grams) of olive oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the monounsaturated fat in olive oil.” Olive oil has more MUFAS than canola ((74% versus 64%) but more than twice as much saturated fat (14% versus 6%). Olive oil also has polyphenols, said to be a powerful antioxidant that helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure; canola has “the best source of omega -3 fats [which also lower cholesterol] of all popular oils,” says the Canola Council of Canada. It also claims that canola oil is “…the healthiest of all commonly used cooking oils” and the lowest in saturated fat. But when it comes to lowering that LDL, extra virgin olive oil might have an edge. Dr. Bruce McDonald, executive director, Manitoba Health Council, writing in the </span><a href="http://www.canolacouncil.org/health_nutritional.aspx"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Canola Council’s web site</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, states: “Diets containing canola oil have been found equally effective as those containing corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil and sunflower oil in reducing plasma total and LDL cholesterol in both normal and hyperlipidemic subjects.” That olive oil isn’t mentioned implies that it is more effective in lowering LDL. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Bottom line:</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Canola might be the best oil for cooking, and olive oil the best for salads.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Ground flax seed, </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">the richest common plant source of ALA Omega 3 fats and lignans (an antioxidant), and very high in fibre, is probably the most widely recommended health seed. Claims have been made that it is effective in reducing LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, helping clear clogged arteries, and in combatting cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, among other things. Researchers, however, say that more work is needed to validate some of these claims. The Flax Council of Canada says one tablespoon a day is enough. Plant-based Omega 3 is said to be a useful complement to Omega 3 from fish. Flax seed is best freshly ground, but can be stored up to a month in an opaque contains, the Flax Council advises. Canada is the world’s leading producer of both flax seed and canola oil.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•Skin cancer-fighting foods. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Foods recommended by the University of Maryland’s Medical Centre that might help fight skin cancer include fish, beans, carrots, chard, pumpkin [pumpkin seeds], cabbage, broccoli, flaxseed, celery, onions, tomatoes, apples, cherries, grapes, tea and wine. Nutrition consultant Sherry L. Granadner recommends cooked tomatoes, and “lots of coloured fruits and vegetables, leafy greens, fatty fish… and dark chocolate.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•Fish, poultry or Yves soy-based simulated ground beef.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> For Omega 3 fatty acids, eat fish two or three times a day, we’re loudly and constantly advised. We eat mostly wild Pacific salmon, either frozen fillets or canned (pink or sockeye), and occasionally Pacific cod. Poultry is usually chicken breast, whole roasted chicken (sans skin), or extra lean ground turkey, microwaved to remove even more fat. Soy has been called “The healthiest food you can put on the table,” but a daily diet of too much is said to pose health risks (see my blog article “Will soy food make you sick for life?”)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">•Avocados </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">are said to contain more nutrition and fibre than any other fruit</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This is a fruit that’s high in MUFAS and PUFAS, including Omega 3, very low in saturated fat and cholesterol. The downside is that it is also high in calories. We use it mostly in the dressing for our disgustingly healthy winter salad, which we eat about eight months of the year until local tomatoes and other salad greens are in season.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Whole grains. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Brown and wild rice, wheat, rye, and oats, with an emphasis on oats. Steel-cut oats for breakfast several times a week are a mainstay.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Smoothies.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> We’re trying different fruit smoothies to replace daily fruit juice, using the whole fruit, except the peel and pits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">What we eat every week<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •Tomatoes, cooked, with oil. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tomatoes are at or near the top of the list of the world’s healthiest foods. They are fat- and cholesterol-free; a very good source of dietary fibre; vitamins A, C, and K; a good source of other vitamins and minerals, and the richest source of lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that helps fight heart disease, cancers and macular degeneration. But to get the most of these benefits, tomatoes should be cooked with a little oil (see my blog, “Tomato: top-cancer fighting food”). We use tomatoes in casseroles, soups, chili, pasta sauce, and salsa. Ketchup is also a good source, but look for low-sugar, low salt ketchup. Yet who can resist fresh, raw tomatoes in season? They are the feature of our summer salads, as well as eaten sliced or gobbled whole.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i>•Legumes. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The legumes we eat are mostly frozen peas, canned red kidney beans, and peanuts. Canned red kidney beans are now available with no added salt, in at least some supermarkets, including Loblaws. Peanuts are really legumes, like peas and beans, but have many of the attributes of nuts. Their relatively high content of MUFAS and PUFAS plus a small amount of resveratol, the ingredient that makes red wine heart healthy, make peanuts an ally in the fight against heart risks. Also said to help reduce cancer risks, especially colon cancer. Peanuts are a good source of protein, but high in calories. We like them in our winter salad, and I love peanut butter. We stick to peanut butter that contains nothing but peanuts, especially no hydrogenated oil (trans fat). Oil will rise to the top of the jar. We store the jar upside-down to mix the oil with the solid stuff.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> •</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Skim milk and no-fat yogurt. </span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We eat one of these almost every day for breakfast; skim milk with oatmeal; or yogurt with three fruits and granola. We sometimes have yogurt and fruit for our dinner desert.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">HOW WE COOK IT<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Are vegetables healthiest cooked or raw? Nearly 2,400 years ago, Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, argued that vegetables, fruits, and roots are best eaten raw. But it is a many-sided question, and scientists are still looking for answers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The consensus is that we get more of the nutrition from most vegetables—and, as we have noticed, at least one fruit, tomatoes—when they are cooked. Cooking usually allows our bodies to absorb more of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in food, but it can also destroy or leach out some of these good things. One group of important vegetables that we are sometimes advised are most healthiest eaten raw are cruciferous vegetables [broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, kale, radishes, rutabaga and turnips and a few others). But there is mixed advice about this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We have already noted how cooking increases the “bioavailability” of lycopene, the powerful, cancer-fighting antioxidant found predominantly in tomatoes. In addition, says a report in </span><i><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=raw-veggies-are-healthier"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Scientific American</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, </span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“Cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables also supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do when raw.” But heat can also destroy vitamins, particularly vitamin C, when vegetables are cooked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Heat can easily destroy compounds in cruciferous vegetables that our bodies convert into cancer-fighting antioxidants, dietitian Leslie Beck reports in the </span><i><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/ask-a-health-expert/ask-a-dietitian/is-spinach-more-nutritious-raw-or-cooked/article1794425/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Globe and Mail.</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> An enzyme found in broccoli can also be damaged by cooking, adds </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Scientific American.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Too bad, because our digestive system can convert that enzyme into substances that “might block the proliferation of and kill precancerous cells,” as well as help fight a bacterium that “causes ulcers and increases a person’s risk of stomach cancer.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“On the other hand,” says </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Scientific American,</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> cooking broccoli and certain other plants forms a chemical compounded called indole—which “helps kill precancerous cells before they turn malignant.” And the </span><a href="http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=9"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">George Mateljan Foundation</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> says this: “Broccoli can provide you with some special cholesterol-lowering benefits if you will cook it by steaming. The fibre-related components in broccoli do a better job of binding together with bile acids in your digestive tract when they've been steamed. When this binding process takes place, it's easier for bile acids to be excreted, and the result is a lowering of your cholesterol levels. Raw broccoli still has cholesterol-lowering ability—just not as much.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">How vegetables are cooked is also important. “Water is your enemy,” says Leslie Beck, because boiling vegetables leaches out a significant amount of nutrients. But one study concluded that while steaming and boiling best preserve antioxidants found in carrots, zucchini, and broccoli, boiling was said to be best.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“Comparing the healthfulness of raw and cooked food is complicated, and there are still many mysteries surrounding how the different molecules interact in the human body,” </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Scientific American</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> concludes. Science is still looking for the answers that Aristotle thought he had found.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">What to do?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We cook most of our vegetables except the cruciferous ones, which we eat sometimes cooked and sometimes raw. That should give us the benefits of both raw and cooked cruciferous. Simple, no? We try to make sure our vegetables are never overcooked—especially broccoli.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We boil only a very few vegetables—such as rutabaga— and in as little water as possible. How else to cook rutabaga? Water from boiled vegetables can be added to a pot of soup stock. When you peel and throw away the skins, some of the best nutrition is thrown away with them. Skins can be boiled and that water also added to the soup stock, as Joan has done. But we now peel so few vegetables that I just throw the skins away—perhaps I’m lazy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We fry nothing. Nor do we sauté. The heat from a hot frying pan can easily turn healthy oil into toxic compounds when onions, mushrooms, peppers or other vegetables are sautéed. Wet sauté, in which water is added to the oil, has been advocated. The water is said to minimize the oil’s contact with the hot pan. I find wet sauté awkward. I place chopped vegetable in a glass bowl with about a tablespoon of canola-based non-hydrogenated margarine, and nuke them in the microwave for four or five minutes. The vegetables are very nicely sautéed and the oil doesn’t get too hot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Most of our vegetables we cook in a steamer. If we’re cooking broccoli with frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, corn, peas, beans) the mixed vegetables get about 20 minutes but the broccoli goes into the steam for only the last five minutes. We also bake, grill, microwave, and stir-fry (with water, no oil). Sweet potatoes we bake mostly in the microwave, but in the oven if we’re roasting poultry. We even roast chicken breast, with skin and bones, removing the skin (and bones, too) before eating. Allowing for the little weight of the bones and skin, the cost of the meat in a chicken breast is about one-third the cost of skinless, boneless chicken breasts. And since skin and bones are so easily removed, why pay someone to do the job? Joan boils the scrap bones from cooked poultry, and that really is worth adding to the stockpot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">PS: I hope you’ll stick with me for future blogs as we explore delicious and nutritious recipes that conform with guidelines that I hope will best minimize heart and cancer risk. I promise future blogs to be much shorter.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">TAGS.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Avocados. Broccoli. Canadian College of Family Physicians. Cancer. Carbohydrates. Cholesterol. Cruciferous vegetables. Diet. Eggs. Fish. Flax seed. Fruit. Grains. Legumes. Milk. Potatoes. Poultry. Red meat. Saturated fat. Smoothies. Soy food. Statins. Sugar. Tomatoes. Trans fat. Vegetables. Yogurt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-83169371108822111762010-12-13T23:46:00.000-08:002011-03-11T07:09:26.799-08:00Heart and cancer risks: life's a gamble<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The treatment for heart-risky cholesterol levels is generally a three-legged stool: exercise, diet, and statins, a pharmaceutical. But there are risks—a risk if I kick out the stool’s statin leg, and a risk if I don’t.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">Should I rely on statins to help improve my cholesterol levels, and gamble that they will not cause pain and loss of muscle strength?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Or should I gamble that I can improve my cholesterol levels and reduce my heart risk by exercise and diet, without statins? If that gamble doesn’t work, what will it do to my risk of more big heart trouble?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">And what about the cancer risks that Joan and I both face? Joan has skin cancer. Regular treatment by a dermatologist has it under control, but it has the potential to be a serious problem. Several years ago, Joan underwent a major operation that completely removed a threatening cancer. I’ve had colon cancer. It was detected and removed at a very early stage, leaving no adverse effects, but, as with Joan, it highlights an element of risk..<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Foods and exercise that affect heart risks also affect cancer risks. So how we deal with the heart will, to at least a significant degree, affect how we deal with cancer. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>LDL, STATINS, AND ACHING MUSCLES<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Statins are used to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by reducing the amount of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in your blood, and increasing HDL (high-density lipoprotein). LDL tends to clog the arteries, causing heart trouble; HDL helps to flush it out. Lipitor is the best-selling statin, and the world’s biggest selling pharmaceutical. I had been using Lipitor for many years, since my cardiac arrest in 1989. But there can be side effects. Serious muscle weakness and pain is one possible side effect.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">For me, aching leg muscles have been a bit of a sore point—if you’ll pardon a pun—that goes a long way back. When I was a little boy, perhaps nine or 10, there were nights when the pain in my legs brought me close to childish tears. “Growing pains,” my parents said. Mother applied Sloan’s Liniment. I can still see on the bottle the picture of Dr. Sloan, with his beard that touched his bellybutton, and smell the odour, strong enough to make you plug your nose. As soon as it was applied, the ache of the muscles was no longer noticed, overpowered by the burning fire of hot liniment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I felt aching leg muscles again during the past year or so as I hiked more than a thousand miles to train and participate in my first marathon, a 42-km walk, followed less than two weeks later by a four-day, 125-km hike; and now at times when I work for an hour, or even two, on my exercise bicycle, pedaling with both my legs and arms. These are normally healthy aches that can come from aerobic exercise. Yet I am suspicious that the aches are exacerbated when I use the statin medications, Lipitor or Crestor. Is that just my imagination? Is it psychosomatic? Am I like the guy who declared, “Thank goodness I don’t have hypochondria: it’s the only thing I haven’t got.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">It was a friend who inadvertently brought the risk to my attention. We had not seen her for quite some time until about two years ago when we were surprised to find her walking with a cane. “Lipitor,” she explained. “There are scores of law suits about what it has done to muscles.” Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, has, indeed, been embroiled in lawsuits. Lipitor has saved millions of lives. There is no doubt that. There is also no doubt in my mind that—if it is possible—it’s better to achieve the same result without the use of a pharmaceutical. And Pfizer warns that side effects its statin can include diarrhea, upset stomach, and “changes in some blood tests.” More ominously, a Pfizer advertisement also warns that “…any new muscle pain or weakness… could be a sign of rare but serious muscle side effects.” I’m uncertain just how rare that might be. If Google “Lipitor and muscle pain” you will get more than 3.5 million hits.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I felt pretty good about my cholesterol levels when I saw the latest readings in late October during our semi-annual visit with our family physician, Dr. Maria Cescon. At least I did until Dr. Cescon pointed out what I had overlooked. LDL cholesterol of less than 5 millimoles per litre of blood (mmol/L) and HDL of more than 1, are considered safe by the College of Family Physicians of Canada. My LDL level was 2.95 and my HDL 1.61—very good by those particular guidelines. Except those guidelines are for people at low risk of heart trouble. “If you’ve already had a heart attack,” say the Family Physicians, “your LDL needs to be less than 2.0 mmol/L.” Dr. Cescson says it should be down to 1.8. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">“Exercise has clearly not been enough,” Dr. Cescon said, in prescribing Crestor, at half the strength I had once taken Lipitor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">There might, however, have been some good effect from all that walking. I had already stopped taking Lipitor, even at half strength, during the six months since my previous blood tests. Between the two test periods, my LDL level declined more than 8% (from 3.21 to 2.95 mmol/L), which was good—but not good enough. Not so good was a slight increase in HDL (from 1.68 to 1.61).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>WHAT TO DO?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Now, Dr. Cescon was urging me to try Crestor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">What to do? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">Should I take the Crestor and the supposedly rare risk of severe muscle failure? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">Or should I forgo the statin and gamble that exercise and diet can improve my cholesterol to the recommended levels?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;">I am continuing my bet on diet and exercise. I am gambling that, with a little extra effort are care, this time it will improve my cholesterol levels, without statins. I am adjusting my exercise to a modestly higher level of aerobic intensity. At least one researcher claims that walking isn’t sufficiently aerobic to improve cholesterol levels. We are also adjusting our diet to focus more tightly on foods that fight heart and cancer risks. Fortunately, they are pretty much the same foods—close enough to combine them in a diet. And in generally they are overall the healthiest foods.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Will the gamble work? Will it reduce my risk of heart failure? Or will it increase it?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">We won’t have an indication for nearly five months, until April 26 and our next checkup with Dr. Cescon, when we will get the results of our next blood tests.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">And what about our cancer risks? There is no similar cancer-risk marker to be revealed on a particular date, yet the effects of diet and exercise on cancer and heart risks seem as closely bound as pages in a book.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>Our little health concerns are really of no consequence nor interest to others. What might be of interest is to see if, and to what extent, my exercise and diet succeed in replacing statins to reduce heart risk. And how that might also reduce cancer risks. So it could be interesting to see what April 26 brings.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>The best foods to fight heart and cancer trouble, </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">as suggested by dietitians, and food and health researchers, will be the subject of my next blog. After that, we’ll talk, from time to time, about what we are doing to incorporate these foods in our meals and menus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">It will be an adventure you can follow on my blogs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">TAGS. Cardiovascular disease. Cancer. Exercise. Diet. Muscles. Muscle pain. Statins. Lipitor. Crestor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-36491672042102382222010-11-16T13:46:00.000-08:002011-03-11T07:10:52.594-08:00Controversial food<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The chaos of nutritional change, contradiction, and confusion.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
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<i><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important;"><div style="display: inline !important;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>Nutrition science advances through a fog of change, contradiction and confusion. Eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, more than one a day will boost your life-threatening cholesterol. An Australian doctor tries a diet of four eggs a day and his cholesterol level is said to drop so low it can’t be measured. A young bodybuilder thrives on a diet of 18 eggs a day. Saturated fats can clog your arteries and kill you but at least one study says there is no link between saturated fats and heart disease. But replacing saturated with unsaturated fat is found to reduce the risk of heart disease. Coconut oil, at 77 percent, has the highest level of saturated fat. Pacific islanders get 30 to 60 percent of their calories from coconut oil and have virtually no heart disease. Yet despite the chaos, there is no doubt that advances in nutritional knowledge and advice help extend healthy and vigorous lives.</i></span></div></div></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">My previous blog reported the study of three academics who assert in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> that eggs are dangerous to your health. Does a contrary report from Australia put egg on our faces?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Rick Carpenter of Lindsay, one of my astute blog readers, emailed me the </span><a href="http://health.ninemsn.com.au/whatsgoodforyou/theshow/693988/are-eggs-bad-for-your-heart"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Australian report</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Dr. Andrew Rochford is a 30-year-old family man, handsome enough on the Web that he would have no trouble as the star in a soap opera, Young Doctor Rochford. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The father of a toddler son and twin baby girls, his daytime job is emergency registrar at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In 2005, Rochord and his then girlfriend Jamie Nicholson were winners of a TV reality show called The Block, </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">copping prize money of AUD$178,000. The reality contest endowed Rochford with some celebrity status and a role in a television show, What’s Good For You. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“In his role on the series he has eaten 15 kilos of carrots to see whether his eyesight improves, stung himself with bluebottles to test five different remedies, and waxed one side of his body to see if the hair will grow back coarser and darker,” the show’s report states.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">AN EGG EATING ORGY<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">One of Dr. Rochord’s TV assignments in 2006 was to eat four eggs a day (yoke included) for two weeks “to find out if eggs are bad for our heart and if there is a limit to how many we should be eating.” The experiment also included testing the cholesterol level of Oscar McGill, then an 18-year-old body builder who was training for the world championships and whose regular daily diet included 18 eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> After two weeks and 56 eggs, “Andrew’s cholesterol levels have actually fallen… so low the machine doesn’t have a number for it.” As for Oscar, “Another great result from a bloke whose diet is totally dominated by eggs.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Brisbane cardiologist Dr. Karam Koster offers an explanation why—counterintuitively—eating lots of cholesterol might actually lower the cholesterol in your blood. “People who eat a lot of eggs actually shut down their body’s production of cholesterol,” he said. “So the more eggs somebody eats, the less cholesterol our body produces. So that’s why a lot of people who eat a lot of eggs don’t get heart disease necessarily.” Note the qualifier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I’m skeptical. A couple of my blog readers are much better role models. At 65, Rick Carpenter confesses to overweight and poor diet at an earlier age, but now watches his diet closely (with special research about pure cocoa, cayenne pepper, fresh garlic, and turmeric and black pepper), and vigorously exercises 30 minutes every day (“an absolute must”). He eats lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and “maybe an egg or two a couple of times a week,” well within the American Heart Association’s recommended daily average of no more than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol. He now has everything under control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Lois Brennan has limited herself to just one egg a wek (her special Sunday treat) ever since she suffered a heart attack 25 years ago. For exercise, she walks every day, outdoors if the weather is fine, on her treadmill if it’s not. I know of no one who is brighter or who keeps up to date on the Internet at age 90.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">CONFUSING CONTRADICTIONS<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The reason that the findings and advice of nutrition experts—about eggs and a hundred other foods—is so constantly changing and often contradictory is because nutrition science is empirical, unlike physical sciences with their ironclad laws of nature. Every since an apple supposedly fell on the head of Newton, scientists have known precisely how the law of gravity will affect the fall of a feather or a bar of pig iron. In the apparent absence of such clear nutritional laws, nutritionists must rely on thousands of observations of the different health effects of different foods, involving an incredible number of variables.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Consider the potato. It’s loaded with nutrition, but might give your blood a big, unhealthy sugar rush. Just how it will affect you is difficult to say. It depends in part on the potato: where it was grown, the type of fertilizer used, how old it is, how it was stored, how it was cooked, and perhaps a dozen other factors. Worse, the same cooked potato will affect different people differently. And it can affect a person differently at different times of the day. Since there are a score of factors about the potato that govern its effects, nearly seven billion different people, and 24 hours in the day, does mean that potatoes have a trillion possible different health effects?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Thus anomalies abound. Jazz pianist Eubie Blake, who smoked, drank, didn’t exercise, and lived to age 96, famously said, “If I’d known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself.” At the other end of the spectrum was Max Bell, whom I knew six decades ago when I worked as a neophyte reporter in Calgary on his newspaper, The Albertan.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Max made his pile in oil and became the de facto controlling shareholder of what for a time was Canada’s largest newspaper chain, including the Globe and Mail. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Max was a total alcohol and tobacco abstainer, an exercise fanatic who liked to amuse party guests with the endurance of his pushups, urged his son to “Keep up the physical jerks,” and died at age 60. The Max Bell Foundation continues to fund research on “public policies and practices with an emphasis on health and wellness, education, and the environment.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Another factor adding to the confusion will hardly be a big surprise. It is the apparent conformity of the findings of at least some studies to the interests of they who paid for the studies. Thus we read a few years back of a study from Scotland about the health benefits of Scotch whisky. Not that such findings are necessarily wrong. My former cardiologist (he has since retired) claimed that whisky (no more than two ounces a day) is “good stuff.” Indeed, even nutritionists at Berkeley University say that there is now “hardly any argument” about the findings of dozens of studies that moderate or light drinkers have a 30 to 50 percent lower risk of heart disease than nondrinkers. But because too many people drink too much, booze winds up killing more people in accidents and illness than it saves by preventing heart attacks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">A FEW FAT FACTS<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Let’s consider a few fat facts. Fats are worth considering for at least two reasons. Possibly more than anything else, fats illustrate how much dietary advice has changed in just the past couple of decades. Fats are said to have greater impact—both good and bad—on your cardiovascular health than egg yokes or other dietary cholesterol. And cardiovascular illness is the biggest single cause of death among North Americans, most Europeans, and many others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Twenty years ago Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">was the best selling layman’s book for preventing or recovering from or preventing hart disease. Ornish advocated a strict, ultra low-fat vegetarian diet to reverse heart disease, and a somewhat less strict preventive diet. Based on 14 years of controlled experiments, the book offered evidence, including scanned images, that exercise, stress management and the vegetarian diet can clean out the pipes and reverse heart disease. My cardiologist said it is an excellent diet, but few people can manage to stick to it. Fish were ruled out because fish are loaded with fat. Today, we are urged to eat fish two or three times a week, precisely because of their fat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “It used to be so simple,” says the Harvard Medical School in its 2008 booklet, Healthy Eating.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “Fats were the villains, and carbohydrates were the heroes,” so “experts encouraged people to eat less fat.” Now we are bombarded with messages to eat unsaturated fats (especially the type found in fish); limit our consumption of saturated fats; and completely avoid trans fats, if we can.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Saturated fats are saturated with the maximum hydrogen found in nature; trans fats are man-made and “partially hydrogenated” to increase the hydrogen load to unnatural levels. Trans fats are the worst, not least because they increase that bad LDL and reduce the good HDL in our blood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Unsaturated fatty acids (UFAS) are, as you would guess, less saturated with hydrogen. They consist of monounsatured fatty acids (MUFAS) and polyunsatured fatty acids (PUFFAS)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">THE MUFAS AND THE PUFAS<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Not too confuse things too much, the MUFAS and the PUFAS include, among others, Omega 3, Omega 6, ALA , EPA and DHA fats. Let’s sort them out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> MUFAS seem to get the most of the credit among the UFAS for lowering the LDL s and boosting HDLs, which help clean up LDL’s artery-clogging mess. MUFAS are commonly found in a number of cooking oils and nuts. Two of the most widely advocated are Canola and Olive oils. Olive oil is 75 percent MUFAS, which is better than Canola’s 61 percent; but Canola has only 7 percent saturated fat, which is better than the 15 percent in Olive oil. Don’t ask me which of these two champs is the winner: undoubtedly you could find contradictory studies. We use both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> PUFAS are said to have an enormous range of health benefits, especially in reducing the risk of heart trouble. But at least </span><a href="http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1033&bih=634&q=the+good+the+fad+and+the+unhealthy&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai="><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">one major study</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> claims they have no such effect at all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> PUFAS are called “essential fatty acids” because our bodies do not produce them, so we must eat the foods that contain them. The two PUFAS of most interest are Omega 3 and Omega 6, with the three types of Omega 3 fats that have long scientific names, more easily known as ALA, EPA and DHA.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Omega 6 are ALA fats, said to help healthy skin, hair, nails and hormonal and emotional balance. We usually get all the Omega 6 we need from most vegetables, meats, eggs, grains, nuts and baked goods. But a proper balance between Omega 6 and 3 is said to be important, and most western diets do not include enough Omega 3 for a good balance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> EPA and DHA are the forms of Omega 3 fats said in most studies to reduce the risk of heart trouble. They are most commonly found in cold water fish, especially salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that “Supportive but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.” The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has approved a food label claim that doesn’t mention the heart but says that DHA “supports the normal development of the brain, eyes and nerves.” The DHA and EPA fats come from seawater algae eaten by the fish. A </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Wikipedia article</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> helpfully notes that if you’re opposed to killing fish you can get your quota of DHA and EPA by eating algae.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The biggest source of the ALA Omega 3 fats—by a country mile—is flax seeds (which must be ground to get the full benefit). Your body converts ALA into the heart-healthy DHA and EPA fats, but it’s a slow and inefficient process and nutritionists says it’s better to get these two fats by eating fish. Flax seeds, however, are also very high in fibre and phytochemicals known as lignans. The synergistic effects of the ALA, the fibre and the lignans are widely touted as a cure for whatever ails you, or for avoiding it—including constipation; heart trouble; diabetes; breast, colon and prostate cancer; arthritis; Alzheimer’s disease, and feelings of depression. Although perhaps not supporting every claim, a daily dose of flax seed is recommended by thousands of doctors, the Mayo Clinic and the registered dietitians at HealthCastle.com, while the U.S. National Cancer Institute says it’s worth more study.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">THE BOTTOM LINE<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">In the lottery of life there are no rules and no guarantees. But no one disputes that good diet, exercise and healthy lifestyle can at least improve the odds of a long and vigorous life for most of us. Life expectancies continue to expand—age 100 is no longer remarkable. Despite all the change, confusion and contradiction, who can doubt that today’s nutritional advice is a part of that improvement?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> My father died at age 54 and Joan’s mother at age 51, both from heart trouble. There’s no doubt in my mind that if 50 to 70 years ago doctors and nutritionists had the knowledge to offer the nutritional advice now universally dispensed to cardiac patients, both would have lived considerably longer. There was no one to advise my father that hamburgers were not the healthy choice he thought, and that suet pudding and bread fried in bacon fat are dietary disasters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Perhaps those who say it is safe for even diabetics, pre-diabetics (like me) and those in danger of or with heart trouble (like me) to eat two or more eggs a day are right. Or perhaps the report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">is right. But the safest advice seems to come from the American Heart Association, which recommends no more than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol per day for health people and 200 mg for those of us in the risky category—essentially on egg a day for the healthy people and virtually none for the rest of us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> As for Joan and I, we’re switching back to simulated eggs that provide the great health benefits of the white without the risk of the yoke, and make fabulous scrambled eggs. And we’ll more sharply limit saturated fats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I had said I would talk in this blog about how I plan to reduce my LDL cholesterol without the aid of medication. In my next blog I will tackle how we plan to meet the special diet needs of both Joan and I. It turns out to be little different than the most widely accepted diet advice for everyone, except for some fine-tuning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">TAGS:</span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Coronary heart disease. Eggs. Dietary cholesterol. Dietary fats. Canadian Journal of Cardiology. Potatoes. Whisky. Flax seeds. Harvard Medical School. National Cancer Institute. Mayo Clinic. Andrew Rochford. Eubie Blake. Max Bell. Dean Ornish.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div></i>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-44640825376499769272010-11-07T04:40:00.000-08:002010-11-16T13:31:07.632-08:00Eggs are not healthy, says a report that scrambles a controversy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrNRWBNZ5VjAbvHfslMuBDOVbhgqgwafPkIHBYdgjdTkBNtkGmvM4Hn8sYd8n_Vo833rcTgxVxk5uPbepX1Sd7JUKsS09QCBgk6vEUDg8MwdKwuEQCwXKO6ZsOz7SNl-Yuw45cMRpigtr/s1600/iStock_eggs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrNRWBNZ5VjAbvHfslMuBDOVbhgqgwafPkIHBYdgjdTkBNtkGmvM4Hn8sYd8n_Vo833rcTgxVxk5uPbepX1Sd7JUKsS09QCBgk6vEUDg8MwdKwuEQCwXKO6ZsOz7SNl-Yuw45cMRpigtr/s320/iStock_eggs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Eggs are not as healthy as they are cracked up to be, says a report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.</span></i><br />
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</i></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">First we were told to eat very few eggs because the yoke contains too much cholesterol. Then we were told that eggs aren’t really bad for our health, and that it’s safe to an egg every day. Now the authors of a report in an academic journal claim that eggs put people at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes than a pair of infamous “dietary disasters,” the KFC Double Down burger and Hardee’s Monster Thickburger.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> What’s going on here?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> It’s all very confusing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> When I was released from hospital following my cardiac arrest in 1989, I was advised to eat no more than two eggs a week. On our very recent semi-annual checkups, our family doctor told Joan and I that the two-eggs a week advice is no longer valid, that it’s safe to eat one or two eggs a day. Eight days later, the news media carried stories of a report in the </span><a href="http://www.pulsus.com:80/journals/journalHome.jsp?HCtype=Physician&jnlKy=1&/home.htm&"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Canadian Journal of Cardiology</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">claiming that eggs are risky for your health.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The two-eggs-per week rule for people with heart trouble was based on a 1970 recommendation from the American Heart Association. The AHA continues to recommend that, “People with heart disease should limit egg yokes to two per week.” For healthy people, it recommends less than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol per day—enough for one egg per day if other sources of cholesterol are carefully limited.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> An eight-year study of 117,000 men and women on “egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease” published in the </span><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/281/15/1387"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Journal of the American Medical Association</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> in 1999 concluded “that consumption of up to one egg per day is unlikely to have substantial overall impact on the risk of CHD [coronary heart disease] among healthy men and women.” Other case studies have also concluded that moderate egg consumption offers little or no heart risk to healthy people, despite the very high concentration of cholesterol.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Why? It seems to be another case of good fat, bad fat. Only 27 percent of the fat-like cholesterol in an egg is the bad saturated fat containing the bad cholesterol, the LDL (low-density lipoprotein); the rest is the healthier unsaturated fat. Aside from the cholesterol question, eggs are loaded with healthy nutrition: an excellent source of protein and a solid source of 14 essential nutrients, say </span><a href="http://eggs.ab.ca/about-eggs/health-benefits"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Alberta Egg Producers.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Dietitian Clara Rosenbloom, in an article in the web site of the </span><a href="http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=ikIQLcMWJtE&b=4869055&ct=7511425"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada,</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> writes that the early studies on which the two-eggs per rule was based were in error, and summarizes the subsequent change in thinking:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “These early studies included foods that were rich in both cholesterol and saturated fat (such as butter), so scientists incorrectly believed that cholesterol was the main culprit. When researchers recently re-evaluated the data, they learned that diets high in saturated or trans fat—not dietary cholesterol—are mostly responsible for increases in blood cholesterol levels… Because one large egg contains just 1.6 grams of saturated fat and no trans fat, scientists have recently concluded that the earlier link between eggs and blood cholesterol was largely exaggerated. However, foods that contain high levels of dietary cholesterol, such as egg yokes, may have a small effect on cholesterol levels in people diagnosed with high blood cholesterol or type 2 diabetes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Yet some studies apparently suggest that dietary cholesterol might adversely affect the ratio of total HDL and LDL. Another study suggests that eggs can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes </span><a href="http://www.biowizard.com/pmabstract.php?pmid=19017774"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">http://www.biowizard.com/pmabstract.php?pmid=19017774</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">. The U.S. Department of Health in a 1991 study cited in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">recommends a daily limit of not 300 mg of dietary cholesterol, as suggested by the American Heart Association, but 200 mg, and not just for those with coronary disease or diabetes, but also for healthy people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The authors of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> report—David Spence, a stroke prevention expert at the Robarts Research Centre in London, and nutrition and cholesterol researchers David Jenkins of Toronto and Jean Davignon of Montreal—say eggs are far from as safe as widely believed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> There is “widespread misconception” among both the public and physicians “that consumption of dietary cholesterol and egg yolks is harmless,” they write. “Dietary cholesterol increases the susceptibility of low-density lipoprotein [LDL] to oxidation, increases postprandial lipemia and potentaties the adverse effect of dietary saturated fat. Dietary cholesterol, including egg yolk, is harmful to the arteries.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In layman’s language, the three researchers claim that egg yokes can:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •Increase the oxidation of LDL, the “bad” cholesterol in your blood. LDL oxidation can result in inflammation of the arteries, increasing the risk of heart attack or stroke.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •Cause a greater boost in the saturated fat in your blood that normally follows a meal (postprandial) for a period of time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> •Increase the potential of saturated fat to clog your arteries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The authors suggest that studies indicating healthy people are not harmed by eating eggs, might be in error. “Although some studies showed no harm from consumption of eggs in healthy people, this outcome may have been due to lack of power to detect clinically relevant increases in a low-risk population.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The authors take issue with studies that have been cited to support claims that eggs are safe to eat, particular that 1999 JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">study </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">and a 2007 study (“Regular egg consumption does not increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease”) in the Medical Science Monitor. </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Egg proponents who cite these studies, say the authors, fail to mention that participants who became diabetic during the studies had increased cardiovascular risk from eating eggs. In the case of the JAMA study “consumption of one egg a day doubled their risk as compared with less than one egg a week.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The comparison of eggs with the “dietary disasters” of the KFC Double Down burger and Hardee’s Monster Thickburger came from comments by David Spence as quoted in news reports. Depending on the size of the egg, Spence and his colleagues say that a yoke contains 215 to 275 mg of cholesterol. That’s more than the 200 mg per day recommended by the U.S. Department of the Health, more than the 150 mg in a KFC Double Down, and more than the 210 mg in the Monster Thickburger. Aside from the cholesterol, however, the two burgers are also dangerously high in salt and saturated fat. Eggs have less salt, and no fat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The Egg Farmers of Canada quickly issued a release disputing the attack on l’oeuf</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">. “With obesity increasing in North America at an alarming rate, medical professionals should be encouraging the consumption of nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods, such as eggs,” declared Bonnie Cohen, an Egg Farmers’ dietitian. The Egg Farmers say that a large Canadian egg has only 195 mg of cholesterol, rather than the 215 to 270 mg cited by Spence and his colleagues. “If the researchers get this number wrong, we must question the accuracy of the complete report,” said Laurent Souligny, chair of the Egg Farmers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Bottom line<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Whether eggs are harmful or helpful to your health, this much is certain: they won’t improve</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> your cholesterol levels, especially the LDL that causes clogging in the arteries and heart trouble. Does this concern you? It concerns me. Because I’m a heart attack survivor, I’m said to be at high risk of more heart trouble. My LDL level is well within the recommended range for those deemed to be at low or moderate risk, but too high for those said to be at high risk. Dr. Marie Cescon, our family physician, wants me to lower my LDL to a recommended level.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I’ll continue to eat eggs—but just the whites, not the yokes. The whites have virtually all the nutrition of whole eggs without the cholesterol. They have no fat and are a very good source of protein, although somewhat high in salt (</span><a href="http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/157/2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">NutritionData.com.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">) We will again eat frozen, packaged, coloured egg whites, as we did more than two decades ago. “Things are seldom what them seem, skim milk masquerades as cream,” wrote librettist W.S. Gilbert. And egg white masquerade very well as real scambled eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In my next blog, I’ll talk about how I plan to tackle the challenge of lowering my LDL, by exercise and fine-tuning an already healthy diet. And why I need to lower that LDL without the aid of medication.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> TAGS: Eggs. Cholesterol. Canadian Journal of Cardiology. American Heart Association Journal of the American Medical Associiation. LDL (low-density lipoprotein). Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Egg Farmers of Canada. U.S. Department of Health.</span></span> </i><br />
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</i>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-43150941550731465682010-11-06T08:04:00.000-07:002010-11-06T08:04:58.884-07:00Don't get fooled by the local eating edict<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeKugLsW05EJeVfeZONMuMilT8ov3DzUyHPBzgZzkX-YcViOK_kjh-bP_lb4SZxg2LEGQ6qbgQpIHaXZQP16nV59PTwvcCtybs9mOsQajFLtAxv2PvSl0l6Wwx5gBuf1qg5Slw7rfn1bY/s1600/farmers+market+istock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeKugLsW05EJeVfeZONMuMilT8ov3DzUyHPBzgZzkX-YcViOK_kjh-bP_lb4SZxg2LEGQ6qbgQpIHaXZQP16nV59PTwvcCtybs9mOsQajFLtAxv2PvSl0l6Wwx5gBuf1qg5Slw7rfn1bY/s400/farmers+market+istock.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Who can resist the appeal of fresh, local produce? But imported foods often better served our needs.</span></i><br />
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<i><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Our local library is promoting the most foolish book of the year. The City of Kawartha Lakes Public Library invites us to get “on the same page” by reading “The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating,” by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. Smith and MacKinnon chronicle a year of eating nothing but food from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. No rice, pineapples, oranges, bananas, peanuts, olive oil, tea, coffee or sugar. They ate such things as turnip sandwiches and seaweed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Why? Because, they say, food in a North American meal typically travels at least 1,500 miles—sometimes 10,000 miles—before it reaches the dinner plate. That burns up gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, causing global warming. “Eating locally,” says David Suzuki, “may be one of the most important ways we save ourselves and the planet.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> But if it’s bad to import food thousands of miles, it must be just as bad to export food thousands of miles. Try telling that to prairie farmers who rely on wheat sales to China!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Only a fool would ignore the benefits of local produce. Never are those more appealing than at this time of the year when all the supermarkets, the farmers’ markets and the roadside stands groan with cornucopias of fresh, wholesome foods, bursting with flavour. What can taste fresher than food that goes from farm to table?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> But it’s just as foolish to ignore foods from distant sources when they do offer more of what you need—nutrition, flavour, price, convenience, or the wide variety of different fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and other good stuff that are the essence of a healthy diet. What good does it do you to eat locally grown plums if you need the extra potassium found in bananas?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Who benefits if you pay a premium—a premium of price, choice or convenience—in order to avoid distant foods as much as possible?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Not you. It doesn’t benefit your health, or your pocketbook. Not 30 million other Canadian consumers. Not some of the world’s most destitute people whose livelihoods depend on the sale of bananas, pineapples and other food.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Not most of our farmers. They can compete very well, thank you, without the need for any social stigma attached to distant food. Many would be hurt if everyone ate local.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Not those whose jobs and incomes depend on a prosperous economy. Not in a county where one-third of all jobs depend on export sales. Not at a time when most of the world—including Canada—teeters on a knife-edge between economic recovery and slipping back into a hard-times recession. Not when the greatest danger of that is the type of trade restraint implicit in the local eating edict.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Not the environment. There are better ways to curb global warming. Forget about giving up peanuts from Georgia or rice from Thailand. Instead, give up eating red meat, even if it’s local. That would be better for both you and the environment. It takes 900 litres of crude oil to raise a 560-kilogram steer. [Tim Appanzeller, “The End of Cheap Oil.” National Geographic, June, 2004.]</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> By the time the horns, hide, hoofs and other parts are removed, the animal is transported, butchered, sold, and cooked, more than three litres of oil has been burned to yield one kilogram of roast beef. And that doesn’t consider the greenhouse gas emitted by the belching and flatulence of cattle, a substantial source of global warming. There are also other ways you can help curb global warming. Drive your car less and walk more. Scrap your gas- or electric-powered lawn mower for a push motor. It cuts your grass just as well, doesn’t pollute and won’t disturb the neighbours at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Plant trees in your back yard to soak up carbon dioxide and shade your house on hot, hazy and humid summer days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Trade—across provinces and regions or among countries—is oxygen for our economy. Misguided efforts that seek to curb that come at a price. Consider Woodville Farms, a produce farm near here owned by the Otter family. Cabbages thrive in the climate and soil conditions here, but not in Florida. Woodville Farms grows lots of cabbage and ships them by the truckload to Publix Super Markets in Florida, the largest employee-owned supermarket chain in the United States. The trucks haul back oranges to Ontario, where the climate is not noted for growing citrus fruit. What would happen to this family-owned enterprise in Woodville if the good people in Florida decided they would not eat cabbage because it isn’t local? How would Ontario consumers be served by impairing the supply of oranges? What would happen if the Chinese decide to boycott Canadian wheat?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Don’t be taken in by those who want you to boycott distant food. Eat what’s best for you, whether it’s tomatoes from your backyard garden or kiwi fruit from New Zealand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">TAGS: Food. The 100-Mile Diet. Alisa Smith. J.B. Mackinnon. International trade. Agriculture. Global warming.</span></span><!--EndFragment--> </i>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-83358657391979942062010-11-01T07:43:00.000-07:002010-12-22T13:14:05.022-08:00Why walking is world's best exercise<a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDpd8fqzJye6vsOBRoGkvq1VTKUZHYmjzWpRwMS2KyoEKFhBQnzNlvqrqgWi_cF_kaFThXVke5aUuDhVE6gxHiqs2pxhyphenhyphenYk_YOaZCMXo9xuI28aA9Ikm8HQTLPamVY9FHN5J4WFCxHgmL/s1600/Earle:C.+Whitnall++10.10.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDpd8fqzJye6vsOBRoGkvq1VTKUZHYmjzWpRwMS2KyoEKFhBQnzNlvqrqgWi_cF_kaFThXVke5aUuDhVE6gxHiqs2pxhyphenhyphenYk_YOaZCMXo9xuI28aA9Ikm8HQTLPamVY9FHN5J4WFCxHgmL/s320/Earle:C.+Whitnall++10.10.07.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">After the first 30 km of my 120-km fundraising walk, Catherine Whitnall, feature writer for Kawartha Lakes This Week, took this photo. I doubt I looked quite this fresh after the full 120 km.</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></i></div><i></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Walking is the world’s best excise. It offers the most benefits and advantages. Improved physical, mental and emotional health are the big benefits. As for advantages, for most people walking is the easiest, most popular and most enjoyable exercise; it costs little and the risk of injury is very low. Fresh air, sunshine, and the tranquility and inspiration of outdoor nature can add more great benefits. Solitary walking affords particular benefits for deep thinking, communing with nature, or just getting better acquainted with yourself. Walking with a mate, a friend or a group can strengthen relationships and provide other social benefits. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> For best results, fitness experts recommend brisk walking. That is generally considered walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour (5.6 km per hour), which makes it an aerobic exercise. But that’s a faster pace than many—including me— can maintain for any considerable distance. Endurance is thought to be more important than speed. Walking at as brisk a pace as you can sustain will give you all the benefits that walking can provide, whether that is a little more or less than 3.5 mph.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> We’ll look at all these factors, and in the “bottom line,” I’ll tell you about what I have found from my own experience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Fitness benefits<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“The best sports for fitness are the ones in which you exercise continuously, those that are least likely to injure you, and the ones you enjoy most,” Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a leading authority on sports medicine and fitness, writes in </span><a href="http://drmirkin.com/public/Fitness.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s Pocket Guide to Fitness and Sports.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Mirkin also points to a particular reason why walking is one of the exercises that contribute most to overall fitness. “The best sports for fitness,” he writes, “use your legs because the blood vessels are so much larger that you can circulate far more blood with your leg muscles.” Running, jogging, skating, cross-country skiing and stationary bicycles are other activities that use leg muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The fitness benefits of aerobic activity (and even less intense than aerobic) have been known since at least the ancient Greeks some 2,500 years ago, and are still being constantly measured in hundreds, if not thousands, of studies. Stronger cardiovascular system and muscles, more energy, less illness and longer life are big fitness gains. Exercise reduces the risks of such threats as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, and some cancers. For most of us, walking is the best way to get those benefits—and not just because it uses our leg muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Safety<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“The safest sports are low-impact aerobics, walking, swimming and pedaling a stationary bicycle,” Mirkin writes. Runners can get the same, or greater, benefits in less time than walkers, but risk of injury is high.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “Close to two-thirds of people who run—competitively and recreationally—are injured every year,” Connie Bryson reports in </span><a href="http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/researchnews/2010/summer/keeponmoving/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Research News</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">, </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">an online journal of Alberta Innovates Health Solutions, an agency of the Alberta government. “</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Current treatments are effective for about 85% to 95% of runners. But the problem is that more than three-quarters of those people will have a reoccurrence of their injury. Many of them will go on to develop osteoarthritis.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “The long-term consequences of running injuries mean they can’t just be thought of as a nuisance anymore,” says Dr. Reed Ferber, assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, and director of the Running Injury Clinic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Walk for a bigger brain<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“It is exercise alone that supports the spirit and keeps the mind in vigour.” Cicero, 65 B.C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">In just the past couple of decades, </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">medical researchers confirmed Cicero’s finding of more than 2,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Our brain begins to slowly shrink at about age 20, then shrinks faster after 60 when it typically loses between one-half and one percent of volume each year. Neurosurgeons now say that aerobic exercise—brisk walking in most studies—can actually reverse that process to rebuild shrunken brains, at least to some extent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “</span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12586857"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Aerobic Fitness Reduces Brain Tissue Loss in Aging Humans</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">,” claimed a report by researchers at the University of Illinois in a 2003 edition of the Journal of Gerontology.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Three years later, in the November 2006 issue, the Illinois researchers offered even more positive news: “</span><a href="http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/11/1166.abstract"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Aerobic Exercise Training Increases Brain Volume in Aging Humans</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">,”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> These, and “hundreds and hundreds” of other research papers on how walking and other aerobic exercises boost mental performance, have been put into lay language in a best selling 2008 book, Spark! The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> by John D. Ratey, Harvard associate professor of psychiatry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“Exercise is as important for the brain as it is for the heart,” Ratey writes. “Exercise,” he asserts, “is the single most powerful tool to optimize your brain function.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In a Columbia University study, the memory area of the brain increased by 30 percent among a group of volunteers who undertook a three-month exercise program. In a 2001 California study, the academic performance of physically fit students was said to be twice as good as the performance of their unfit peers. A 2004 review of more than 850 studies involving school children shows how exercise has a positive influence on memory, concentration and classroom behaviour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Apparently not all exercise helps the brain—only aerobic exercise that also strengthens the cardiovascular system. Bending, stretching, pushing, pulling and lifting are good exercises to build muscles and keep the body flexible, but they apparently do not have the same effect on the brain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> And even strenuous exercises carried to the point of exhaustion can be counter-productive, warns a </span><a href="http://www.healthfitness.com.au/mind/exercise_mental_performance.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">report</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> from University of Melbourne researcher Elaine Mulcahy. “Steady-paced aerobic exercise improves the brain’s ability to solve problems and make decisions fast and effectively,” Mulcahy writes. But “fatigue and over-training will not help the brain, and exercising to exhaustion “is more likely to take you one step forward but two steps back.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Walk and be happy<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Exercise can make you not only smarter, but also happier. The Association of Applied Sports Psychology in Madison, Wisconsin, list these psychological benefits of exercise:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “Improved mood; reduced stress; improved self-esteem; pride in physical accomplishments; increased satisfaction with oneself; improved body image… decreased symptoms associated with depression.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The Association says that, “Even a brief walk at low intensity can improve mood and increase energy.” For long-term benefits, it advocates exercising three times a week for 30 minutes at moderate intensity. To reduce symptoms of depression, programs longer than 10 weeks are said to work best.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Aerobic exercise “reverses the detrimental effects of stress” and “lifts depression,” Deborah Kotz reports in </span><a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/fitness/articles/2010/06/30/0630healthexercise_print.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">U.S. News and World Report.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Thirty minutes of aerobic exercise “can be an instant way to blow off tension by boosting levels of ‘soothing’ brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephine,” Kotz writes. She adds that “burning off 350 calories three times a week… can reduce symptoms of depression about as effectively as antidepressants.” Exercise is thought to stimulate the growth of brain neurons damaged during depression, and “boost the production of brain molecules that improve connections between nerve cells, thereby acting as a natural antidepressant.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Getting outdoors is another benefit of walking. “Spending time outdoors seems to have discernible benefits for physical and mental health,” reports the </span><a href="http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-prescription-for-better-health-go-alfresco"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">HealthBeat</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> letter from the Harvard Medical School. The sunshine will boost your vitamin D levels and your mood; your concentration will improve, and you may heal faster. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In England, the “Green Exercise Research Team” at the University of Essex has for the past seven years been studying “the benefits of engaging in physical activities whilst simultaneously exposed to nature.” The team’s study of </span><a href="http://www.greenexercise.org/Abstracts.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The health benefits of walking in greenspace</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> included significantly improved mood and self-esteem. “Feelings of anger, depression, tension and confusion all significantly reduced and vigour increased,” the authors write.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Bottom line<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">I can tell just by looking that walking more than one thousand miles in the past year has enlarged my leg muscles but I don’t know that it’s done anything to enlarge my shrinking brain and I certainly don’t think it’s made me any smarter—more’s the pity. But I know this: I do my best thinking and get my best ideas when I go walking, and if my spirit is low it never fails to get a boost. I was in a funk when I first set out on my recent four-day funding-raising hike for our local hospital. I had spent a restless night, feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty of tasks that confronted me. Well before I finished my first day’ day’s hike of 35 km I was able to think my way through what had seemed so difficult in the dark of night. The funk vanished with the morning mist, the brisk fresh air, the sunshine and the dramatic gold and scarlet colours of Ontario in the fall.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Walking has never failed to provide me with an answer whenever I had a problem or something that needed thinking through. Nor am I alone in that. </span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">When Adam Smith, the great Scottish professor of moral philosophy, took long, solitary walks through Glasgow, the result was The Wealth of Nations, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">surely one of the 10 most influential books ever written. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said that when he had a knotty legal case to consider, the best thing he could do was go for a walk.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> As for fitness, while walking seems the best all-round exercise for most of us, it shouldn’t be our only exercise. We need at least a little cross training to strengthen more than just leg muscles, we need some bend, stretch, push and lift exercises to strengthen other muscles and keep out bodies flexible. After a long walk—perhaps 30 km or more—your legs might ache for several days, and strenuously exercising aching muscles can result in longer-term injury. It is on those days that a little cross training is particularly good. And walking isn’t much fun—and could even be risky—if it’s raining, snowing or the trail is icy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I’ll confess that during the year I spent training for my first marathon, a 42-km walk followed by a four-day, 120-km fundraising walk, I neglected to some extent some of my other exercises. Otherwise, here are the exercises I frequently use to supplement walking:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">•Flexibility and strength training.</span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I follow a 40-minute video on a DVD disc. Twice a week is recommended. The program I use is Heart Beat: Healthy Heart Program, produced by St. Paul’s Hospital, in Vancouver, B.C., but there are hundreds of good execise videos to choose from.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Stationary bicycle.</span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I call it my exercycle, because both the foot pedals the handlebars swing to exercise the upper body as well as the legs. Each is usually an hour, but as long as two or three hours (with brief pauses) if I’m watching a baseball or football game on TV. I can burn up a couple of thousand calories in one workout.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Stair climbing.</span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I spent a year climbing our basement steps and up the steps of tall buildings before tackling the 1,776 steps up Toronto’s CN Tower in 2009. My office pretty much fills the basement of our house, so I’m constantly up and down the 13 steps. For a workout, I will still sometimes tackle 20 or more flights at a time. I keep a close watch on my pulse and pause if I get near my maximum heart training rate. Nothing I do send my pulse up faster than stair climbing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Push-ups. </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Every morning (unless I forget) I do 10 half push-ups, i.e., pushing up from the knees rather than from the toes for full push-ups. According to a table from the central YMCA in London , the muscular endurance of a 20-year-old male who can do 35 to 45 half push-ups in 60 seconds is rated good to excellent; those 61 to 70 years old do well to manage 22 to 40 half push-ups. The figures are a little less for females. [See the full table by clicking on the </span><a href="http://www.earlegray.ca/images/stories/pdf/exerlog-2011-excerpt.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">excerpt from my eXerlog</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">.] I don’t know what the ratings are for 79-year-old men, but the best I can manage in 60 second is 20.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Finally, a word on walking safety. </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">While this is one of the safest exercises, it is not entirely without risk. A twisted and sprained ankle is a risk when you hike on uneven ground and rugged trails offer greater risk. You can also stumble and fall. The risk is greatest near the end of a long walk when you are tired. On sections of my recent 120-km hike, unobtrusive rocks poked up an inch or two, ready to catch an unwary toe and cause a stumble. I did, in fact, stumble and fall once. The other risk, already mentioned, is straining aching leg muscles by strenuously exercising them before they heal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> For paved or equally easy trails, a good pair of walking shoes are suitable. For hiking on less stable or uneven ground, lightweight hiking boots will do. For even tougher trails, you need heavier, waterproof hiking boots high enough to cover the ankle and help prevent twisting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> TAGS: Walking. Health. Mental health. Emotional health. Aerobic fitness. Brain. Mood.</span></span> </i>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-44041518299818700192010-10-15T20:55:00.000-07:002010-11-06T09:21:38.708-07:00Diary of an old man's long walk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i></i></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><a name='more'></a></i></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbjwpbwWlqubzTCn0M82ybZk95K1lxVH6jKcNgzQ6gQlKOMWeU5UkMoJM_5WyUHGqqtO2iVuyQn-uBNJPVlwTaqdH4cjYGowaH8lEkkLo0Tnxi8bwuiYNCrb_E83ZehzMW_u9o9SKxnfg/s1600/Earle+&+Gang+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbjwpbwWlqubzTCn0M82ybZk95K1lxVH6jKcNgzQ6gQlKOMWeU5UkMoJM_5WyUHGqqtO2iVuyQn-uBNJPVlwTaqdH4cjYGowaH8lEkkLo0Tnxi8bwuiYNCrb_E83ZehzMW_u9o9SKxnfg/s400/Earle+&+Gang+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Staff and heart patients from the Ross Memorial Hospital rehab centre who joined me on a five-km section of my four-day fundraising walk for the hospital. That’s me, fifth from the right, in the black hat and white tee shirt, and that's my Joan on the far right. Photo by Karen Scott.</i></span></i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i> </i></span></i></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><i><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Saturday, October 2</span></b></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">/<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">A crushing personal failure seems to suddenly loom in front of me. For a year I have been training for a four-day, 120-kilometre, fundraising hike in support of Ross Memorial Hospital here in Lindsay. I’ve walked more than a thousand miles (1,600 km) to prepare. I’ve blogged about it, written about it in the local newspaper, and even the hospital has hyped it. In just five days I’m scheduled to start that hike—but suddenly, I’m not sure that I can.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The problem is not my impaired 79-year-old heart. Because of a cardiac arrest in 1989, each stroke of my heart pumps out only 70 percent as much blood as a normal, healthy heart. But exercise and careful diet have largely overcome that. Last year, I was among a few thousand who managed to climb 1,776 steps to the top of one of the world’s largest buildings, Toronto’s CN Tower, in a fundraising event for the city’s United Way. And just six days ago, on September 26, I walked 42 km on my first marathon, a fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The problem is that my legs ache. Big time. They also ached after my marathon. But that was not a problem. In three days the pain had disappeared.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Yet now they ache again, and I know why. Because of a strange quirk of my physiology, my first symptom of an impending cold, flu or some other ailment, is aching legs. Will this knock me out of my walk? To ward it off, I’ve been resting, drinking buckets of juice, water and sodas, and gobbling vitamin C pills and a patent medicine said to speed recovery from a cold.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Wednesday, October 6.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The cold has been checked to a few sneezes, sniffles and a little blowing. The pain has subsided. Nothing to stop me walking. Because they seemed to make me a little groggy, I took no more of the cold medicine pills on Monday or Tuesday, but took them again today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> A group of Ross Memorial cardiac rehab patients is scheduled to join me at 2 tomorrow afternoon for the final five km of my day’s walk. I’ll need to start at 6:30. Joan will drive me to the trailhead at Bethany. We’ll need to be up by 4:30. We’ll see.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">MISERY LIFTS WITH MORNING MIST<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Thursday, October 7.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">A miserable start. I had spent a depressing night, feeling overwhelmed by the seeming difficulty of some tasks that confront me. And the ache in my legs had flared again. I now blame that on the cold pills; they seem to exacerbate the ache.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> But misery lifted with the morning mist. Difficulties loom largest in the dark of night, and muscles ache worst first thing in the morning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The sun had not yet appeared and daylight was dim when I started walking at 6:45. As the sun rose, so did my spirits, while the ache abated, at least until the end of the day’s walk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> October in Ontario is the best time for hiking. The bugs that bugged me in the summer are gone, and so is oppressive summer heat. When I hiked the Bethany-to-Lindsay rail bed of a former CPR branch line in June, squadrons of deerfly harassed me. They landed on the half moon opening at the back of my adjustable baseball cap. I constantly banged the back of my head, and killed a vicious fly with every swat, sometimes two or three. Now they are gone to wherever they go in October.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> For most of the distance to Lindsay, the route is flanked by bush and the sluggish Pigeon River, with just a few glimpses of farms and rolling hills. The scarlet and orange of the maples and aspen are near their glorious peak.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Daylight brings clarity to more than just the scenery, and solitary walking is the very best way to think things through. Well before reaching Lindsay, I had clearly resolved in my mind how to handle the tasks that had seemed so overwhelming in the night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The final five kilometres of the day’s walk marked the start of the 90-km rail trail of the pioneer Victoria Railway, which ran north to Haliburton. I was joined on this section by the three young ladies who manage Ross Memorial Hospital’s rehab centre, and eight of their heart patients. I enjoyed the company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Friday, October 8. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">joan had picked me up and driven home by 4 p.m. after yesterday’s walk. I had 12 hours to rest my aching legs, soaking in a hot tub, sitting with my feet propped up, and lots of time in bed. But—as they would for me with any 35-km walk—they ached again by the time I reached the tiny village of Burnt River, on a gloriously scenic route.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Saturday, October 9.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">This was my shortest day, 15 km from Burnt River to Kinmount. I was joined by my son Gordon and Gordon Zimmerman, a recent heart attack survivor and Ross Memorial rehab patient who had walked the final five miles on Thursday. It was a leisurely stroll to Kinmount. We took almost four hours and it helped rest my legs for Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Sunday, October 10.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">A sign midway along the route informs me that the rail trail from Kinmount to Haliburton is 40 kilometres. It is the longest of the four-day walks. With very brief stops to take a few photos, it took me nine hours. My daughter Carol and son-in-law Brain walked down from Haliburton to accompany me on the last four kilometres. We arrived at the park in downtown Haliburton by 5. The four days of walking was over. Joan was there to drive me back to Lindsay, a quiet dinner to celebrate, and home to bed and rest for the legs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">WALKING’S MIRACLE MEDICINE<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Walking is simply the world’s best exercise. It offers the greatest combination of health, psychological, emotional and intellectual benefits; plus the gains from outdoor activity and sunshine. It’s easy for most people to do, the cost is low, and so is the risk of injury.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “The best sports for fitness are the ones in which you exercise continuously, those that are least likely to injure you and the ones you enjoy most,” Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a leading expert in sports medicine and fitness, writes in </span><a href="http://drmirkin.com/public/Fitness.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s Pocket Guide to Fitness and Sports.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">He must be talking about walking when he adds: “The best sports for fitness use your legs because the blood vessels in your legs are so much larger that you can circulate far more blood with your leg muscles.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> As for safety, Mirikin writes: “The safest sports are low-impact aerobics, walking, swimming and pedaling a stationary bicycle.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Yet you can, however, injure yourself even walking: with painful blisters, by stumbling and falling, by twisting an ankle. The ground on the two rail trails to Haliburton provides relatively easy hiking but with some stony, loose gravel or sand, and muddy sections that require lightweight hiking boots. Unobtrusive rocks protrude an inch or two above the roadbed to stub an unwary toe, causing me to stumble a few times, and fall on one stumble. More rugged trails require heavier, waterproof hiking boots, high enough to cover the ankles and help prevent twisting them. Good walking or running shoes, however, are all that’s needed on thousands of miles of trails, such as the fabulous Trans Canada trail. And as with any aerobic exercise, it’s always possible to injure your muscles by pushing yourself too far—which we’ll talk about a little later.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">WALK FOR A BIGGER BRAIN<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">“It is exercise alone that supports the spirit, and keeps the mind in vigour.” Cicero, 65 BC.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Our brains begin to shrink at about age 40, but “brisk walking” can reverse the process and grow a bigger brain, according to a study reported in the November, 2006 Journal of Gerontology by University of Illinois researchers Arthur F. Kramer and Edward McAuley.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Researchers had earlier confirmed what Cicero suggested, that exercise keeps the mind alert. It improves your mental ability by bringing blood and oxygen to the brain. But the discovery that aerobic exercise (but not strength training) can grow the brain was new. The researchers used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging to study the effect of brisk walking (up to 45 minutes, three times a week) with a group of 60- to 79-year-old sedentary volunteers. “After only three months, the people who exercised had the brain volume of people three years younger,” Kramer commented. </span><a href="http://www.scientistlive.com/European-Science-News/Medical/Exercise_increases_brain_growth_factor_and_receptors/21307/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Later studies</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> support the finding that exercise can grow the brain and reverse age-related decline of mental ability.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">GREEN WALKING<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> “Spending time outdoors seems to have discernible benefits for physical and mental health,” reports the </span><a href="http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-prescription-for-better-health-go-alfresco"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">HealthBeat</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> letter from the Harvard Medical School. The sunshine will boost your vitamin D levels and your mood; your concentration will improve, and you may heal faster. And what better way to spend time outdoors than walking?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> In England, the “Green Exercise Research Team” at the University of Essex has for the past seven years been studying “the benefits of engaging in physical activities whilst simultaneously exposed to nature.” The team’s study of </span><a href="http://www.greenexercise.org/Abstracts.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The health benefits of walking in greenspace</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> included significantly improved mood and self-esteem. “Feelings of anger, depression, tension and confusion all significantly reduced and vigour increased,” the authors write.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">OH, MY ACHING MUSCLES<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">You can, however, always get too much of the even the very best things. When it comes to walking, that too-much line gets closer every passing year. I feel that I came close to it on my four-day hike. After a year and more than a thousand miles of training, long walks of 30, 40 or even 50 km, are not now a great problem: doing them on consecutive days can be. My legs ache after long walks walks. That can be a good thing. “Go for the burn,” said Jane Fonda. “No pain, no gain.” Aching muscle grow stronger when they recover while resting, doing easy exercises, or exercising other muscles, medical authorities assure us. But vigorously exercising aching muscle can take them past the point of pain to injury and set you back for months. Five days after my walk, my legs still ache. I don’t think I pressed them to the point of injury, but I’ll be a bit more cautious next time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Next year I hope to do another long fundraising walk for Ross Memorial, on the magnificent Trans Canada trail. I might be wise to limit the longest days to no more than 30 or 35 km, and to follow those days with easier walks of no more than 15 km.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> TAGS: Walking, Physical health. Mental health. Emotional health. Mood. Aerobic exercise. Strength training.</span></b></span><!--EndFragment--> </i></i></span>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-40008902943910335922010-09-27T22:42:00.000-07:002010-11-06T09:23:33.017-07:00My impaired 79-year-old heart takes me, very slowly, on my first matathon<a name='more'></a><!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My 79-year-old impaired heart took me on my first marathon on Sunday. I did the entire distance, I think. I’ll explain that later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is one of the big ones. It attracted 22,000 runners and walkers from 40 countries for three races: a 5-km race, the 21.2 km half marathon, and the 42.2 km marathon. The flat terrain is described as ideal for slow runners and faster walkers. I created a new category for myself: slow walker.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The marathon raised $2.7 million for more than 100 charities. That included a modest amount my walk raised for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thirty-seven-year-old Kenneth Mungara of Kenya won the full marathon with a time of 2.07.58, less time than in took many runners to do the half marathon. My daughter Carol placed fourth among women in her age group for the half marathon, and seventh among all women for that event.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My own performance was placed in its proper insignificance by another 79-year-old. Ed Whitlock, of Milton, Ontario set a world record for 79-year-olds by finishing the half marathon in 1:34.27 hours.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noted several well-overweight half marathoners (some of whom were among those who didn’t finish), and two handicapped people: a young man pushing himself in a wheelchair, and a young blind woman. A short leash tethered the blind woman to another young woman, her guide and running partner. I hope the blind woman and the young man met their goals. The young man was almost the only person I left in my wake.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">************************************<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b><i>There is still time to join my sponsors for this marathon, with a donation of just $5, or $10, or even more, to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Your support will be greatly appreciated. To make your donation directly to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, <a href="http://www.fitforheart.ca/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=427506&lis=1&kntae427506=9230B92B6FF84590A81B25021FF02ABF&supId=292447063">click here.</a> Thank you.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">***********************************<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Start time was 7:30, under a cloudless sky and a cool 10 C—a perfect day for running or walking. The staging area on Queen Street was thronged shortly after 6:30 when Carol, my son-in-law Brian, and I arrived. The street was cordoned off into “corals,” designated by red, purple, yellow, green and white balloons, each for the different races and different racers and walkers. Fast, elite runners went first. Someone was smart enough to figure out that I belonged in the last group. It was almost 7:45 before our group was really moving. Kenneth Mungara, Ed Whitlock, and others had already finished. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I neared the halfway mark, I had a police escort for a few kilometres. He was a sweeper, following in his police car the last marathoner. Me. He called me over at one point and admonished me not to walk in the curb lane, which some marathon-support vehicles were starting to use as they packed things up in this section of the route. “Walk in front of me,” he said. I did, and then decide it might be good to walk on the sidewalk. He called me over again. “Don’t walk on the sidewalk unless you’re dropping out,” he said. I think that’s what he hoped. “If you’re still in the marathon, walk on the lane in front of me.” Later, he called me over a third time. “They are starting to open this section of the route to all the traffic. Do me a big favour. Walk on the sidewalk for the rest of the route.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the final 25 kilometres or so, I had the route to myself, “Far from the Madding Crowd.” The watering stations, the portable toilets, the route markers, were all being carted off.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That caused a few problems. When I got to the far eastern end of the route, I walked a couple of extra, very-long blocks because I think I might have missed a very short stub, which I suspect was added to make the distance precisely 42.2 km. I didn’t want to cheat on the distance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were more problems walking back. After the few minutes it took Carol to run the half marathon, she and Brian drove home, then drove back because they wanted to walk with the old man on a final section. I certainly didn’t mind; I enjoy the company. Besides, Brian and his vehicle were my transportation for almost an hour-long drive to their house where my car was parked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communicating by cell phone, we mapped a plan. While I walked west for the final 10 kilometres or so they would walk east. I suggested we walk on the sunny side of the street so that we would be sure to meet. But we didn’t meet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While they walked east on Eastern Avenue, I walked west on Queen Street. I blame the route map. It shows the return route going west on Queen Street for an unknown distance before switching to Eastern Avenue. But it doesn’t show where it switches, and the markers along the route were long gone. Before realizing it I had walked too far west. After asking directions, I finally walked to Eastern Avenue—too late. Carol and Brian had already passed by.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The marathon route crosses over the Don Valley expressway and a railway on a bridge on Eastern Avenue dubbed “the flyway.” For the benefit of the marathoners, the flyway was closed to traffic until 2 p.m., well before I got there. There is no sidewalk on the flyway. I walked back to Queen Street, where the bridge does have a sidewalk.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We finally met on Queen Street, at a point that the map indicates is two km from the finish. It was 4 p.m., about the time I had estimated I would finish. Carol’s legs ached from her half marathon and a couple of hours walking, and so did mine. Although I could have managed that final little bit, with the off-route diversions I figured I had already walked the full 42-kilometres, or very close to it. Brian and Carol were also pressed for time. Brian hailed a taxi back to his car, parked in his office building.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So that is how I walked the full marathon without reaching the finishing line.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>POST WALK NOTES<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The marathon confirmed a couple of things I already knew. I knew I could not complete it in the qualifying time of 6.5 hours. I knew I could walk 42 km; in nearly 1,500 kilometres of training this year, I had made numerous 30- and 35-km walks, and one 48-km walk.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will I go on another marathon? Probably not. The goal of a marathoner is to go as fast as possible. My goal is to go as far as possible. The marathon demonstrated that, for me, the two are not compatible. The top walking speed I can sustain for any significant distance, slow though it is, is about 5-1/4-km-per-hour. The marathon showed that after about 15 or 20 kilometres at that pace, my legs begin to increasingly ache. That’s fine for a marathon, after which I can rest my legs for a day or two while the muscles heal and, hopefully, grow stronger.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next week, however, I face a bigger, and for me, a more important challenge: a four-day, 120-km fund-raising walk for Ross Memorial Hospital: three approximately-35-km days and one short 15-km day. I won’t have off days to rest aching legs, so I’ll slow to a hiking pace of no more than 5-km-per-hour, perhaps slightly less. And I hope to stop and click a few photos along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I’m looking forward to starting on the rail trails from Bethany to Haliburton on October 7.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><b>TAGS.</b></span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. Heart and Stroke Foundation. Ross Memorial Hospitall. Marathons. Running. Walking. Muscle strength. Muscle pain. Physical training.</span><!--EndFragment-->Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-40215063851061476452010-09-24T10:38:00.000-07:002010-11-06T10:50:26.467-07:00How to get big gains from no-pain exercise<!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><i></i></span></div><i><a name='more'></a>Jane Fonda and sports medicine expert Dr. Gabe Mirkin agree: no pain, no gain, when it comes to exercise. But Harvard medical professor Harvey Simon claims that “moderate, painless exercise is extraordinarily beneficial.” So who’s right?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Go for the burn,” social-activist actresses cum exercise advocate Jane Fonda once urged us. “No pain, no gain.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a leading expert in sports medicine and fitness agrees. “You can prevent muscle soreness by stopping exercising when your muscles start to feel sore, but then you will not improve,” says the author of <i>The Sportsmedicine Book</i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, the best-selling book on the subject. <i>[Dr. Gabe Mirkin’s Pocket Guide to Fitness and Sports.] “</i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Your muscles are strengthened “by taking a hard workout and then having sore muscles on the next day,” then resting or doing easy workouts until the soreness disappears. “Your muscles,” he says, “grow and heal while you recover.” And, he writes, “Pain is necessary for the muscle damage to grow larger and stronger muscles.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could damaged muscles be a bit like broken bones? When the bone heals, where it broke becomes stronger than before the break. So too with a broken pipe that’s been welded.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In training exercises, athletes and competitive sports players stress their muscles so hard they need anywhere from one to 14 days to recover, Merkin reports. They do not attempt to train for muscle burning “until the soreness has gone away completely… World-class marathon runners run very fast only twice a week. The best weightlifters lift very heavy only once every two weeks. High jumpers jump for height only once a week.” <a href="http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/1181.html">http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/1181.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have been told that to get good benefits we need not only pain to strengthen muscles, but at the heart of the matter, we need vigorous aerobic exercise to strengthen our cardiovascular system. We have been told we should exercise at anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of the maximum rate that our heart and lungs can sustain for more than about two minutes—the heart training rate. “For maximum cardiovascular benefits, nothing can take the place of aerobic exercise performed at your heart training rate,” according to researchers at the University of California, Berkley.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>NO PAIN, BIG GAINS<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The experts were wrong, says Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School. “For achieving and maintaining health, moderate, painless exercise is extraordinarily beneficial.” <a href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/524377">http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/524377</a> Simon’s claim for no pain, big gains is argued in his book, <i>The No Sweat Exercise Plan: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, and Live Longer </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simon pleads guilty to having once “proclaimed that the only way to benefit from exercise was to exercise aerobically,” i.e., make your heart beat at 70 to 85 percent of its maximum sustainable rate, for 20 to 60 minutes of continuous exercise, three to seven times a week. “I wrote that golf was the perfect way to ruin a four-mile walk—but I was wrong.” He adds:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Without contradicting the value of aerobics, new data show that it is possible to attain nearly all of the health benefits of exercise without attaining high levels of aerobic fitness… intensity is less important than the net amount of exercise, and intermittent exercise is as effective as continuous exercise. In fact, golf is very beneficial indeed, as long as players walk the course two to three times a week.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simon cites the results of 22 studies involving 320,000 people from around the world on the observed cardiovascular benefits of moderate, painless exercise. In one study, the observed death rate of more than 10,000 Harvard alumni who walked at least nine miles a week was lowered by 22 percent. More than 39,000 American female health professionals who walked at least one hour a week had a 51 percent lower risk for coronary artery disease.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the benefits go well beyond a healthy heart, Simon says. “Many observational studies also suggest that ‘no-sweat’ exercise can help reduce the risk for stroke (by 21 to 34 percent); diabetes (16 to 50 percent); dementia (15 to 50 percent); fractures (40 percent); breast cancer (20 to 30); and colon cancer (30 to 40 percent).”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simon coined the term “cardiometaboliic exercise” (CME) to help guide moderate exercisers. Dusting for 30 minutes will earn you 75 CME points; pushing a hand lawnmower for 30 minutes will give you 200 CME points, and 30 minutes of cross-country skiing, 350 points. “For general health and gradual weight loss, aim for 150 points a day,” he writes. To lose weight faster and/or reduce dietary calories more sharply, aim for 300 CME points a day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>WHO’S RIGHT?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So who’s right? Both are. If you aim to compete in a marathon or triathlon, or earn big money as a professional hockey player, strenuous exercise for muscle- and cardiovascular-building advocated by Dr. Mirkin would seem to fit the bill. If your goal is simply a longer and healthy life, Simon’s “no-sweat” exercise might be enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for me, I like to be between these two polar posts. I enjoy exercising more vigorously than Simon’s minimum. I’m not among the athletes and competitive sport players for whom Mirkin writes, and at my age, couldn’t join that crowd even if I wanted to. But I do enjoy setting myself a few reasonable challenges, and I especially enjoy walking and long hikes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">TAGS: <u>How to get big gains. </u>Jane Fonda. Gabe Mirkin. Harvey Simon. Muscle pain. Muscle strength. Physical training. Heart training rate. The No Sweat Exercise Plan. Walking. Diabetes. Dementia. Breast Cancer. Colon cancer. Cardiovascular disease. Cardiometabolic exercise.</span><!--EndFragment-->Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-35914296586372720092010-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:002010-11-06T11:09:56.579-07:00Run for your life. Or just walk.<!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a>You see them out pounding pavement at the break of dawn, running for their life—running to keep fit, strong and healthy. Some are competitive runners, training for the next marathon; others are recreational runners.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no doubt about it: running is one of the world’s best, and most popular fitness exercises. Millions do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But more people walk rather than run to help get or stay fit.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is best? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Runners will say running, and walkers will say walking. There is, in fact, little difference, between the potential fitness and health benefits of running or walking. So the answer to the question is subjective. It’s a matter of which is best for you, for your circumstances, your preference, and your enjoyment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big advantage of running is that it can provide fitness benefits in much less time than walking. The big advantage of walking is that it avoids the high risk of injury experienced by runners.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those factors aside, the calorie burn calculator in my <i>eXerlog</i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> ebook shows how running and walking can provide similar fitness benefits.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally, the more energy you put into your exercise, the more you’ll benefit. The energy you use can be measured by the calories you burn.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the calorie burn calculator in <i>eXerlog,</i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> you can punch in the figures for your weight, type of exercise, and duration, and my calculator can tell you that a 150-pound person running at 6 minutes per mile will burn 1,035 calories while running 10 miles in one hour. A 150-pound person walking at 3.5 miles per hour will cover 10.5 miles in three hours while burning 1,080 calories. So it takes a fast runner about one-third of the time to burn approximately as many calories as a moderately brisk walker. Somewhat slower runners might burn calories at twice rather than three-times as fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with all calorie calculators, the figures are approximate. Actual calories burned will vary with ambient temperature, individual metabolism, performance efficiency, and other factors. You’ll burn calories, and lose weight much faster with strenuous activity in hot, humid weather—although the risk of serious, even fatal injury might be great for anyone not in peak, athletic condition. Calgary Stampeder quarterback Henry Burris claims to have lost 10 pounds during a single football game played in hot, humid weather in Toronto in 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But while runner’s get there faster, they are far more prone to injuries.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>MOST RUNNERS ARE HURT<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Close to two-thirds of people who run—competitively and recreationally—are injured every year,” Connie Bryson reports in the Alberta online journal <i><a href="http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/researchnews/2010/summer/keeponmoving/">Research News.</a> </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“Current treatments are effective for about 85% to 95% of runners. But the problem is that more than three-quarters of those people will have a reoccurrence of their injury. Many of them will go on to develop osteoarthritis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The long-term consequences of running injuries mean they can’t just be thought of as a nuisance anymore,” says Dr. Reed Ferber, assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, and director of the Running Injury Clinic.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Dr. Ferber and his team use a specially-developed three-dimensional gait analysis system and other assessment tools to discover the biomechanical root cause of a running injury, which can then be corrected with proper therapeutic exercises,” Bryson reports. The technology has been installed at a Calgary sports clinic, and Dr. Ferber hopes to see it installed at 500 clinics during the next five years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although rare, the ultimate risk of running is sudden death from heart attack, a risk that cast a pall over the sport for some time in the case of Jim Fixx. The author of the best-selling <i>Complete Book of Running, </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Fixx has been credited with having helped start an American fitness revolution, popularizing running, and demonstrating the health benefits of regular jogging. In 1984, at age 52, Fixx died of a heart attack following his daily run in Vermont.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>ENJOY<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Aside from risk and the time element, personal preference would seem to be the most important factor in choosing between running and walking, or any other sport or fitness exercise.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Runners enjoy the personal challenge their sport involves, especially competitive runners. “Runner’s high”—the euphoric state that has been compared to feeling high on drugs, and that is sometimes felt on long, arduous runs—might add to the enjoyment. The condition is also experienced in other sports, even hiking. When I was younger—a few decades ago—I occasionally experienced that runners’ high on long, solitary hikes in the Rockies. I was high, high in the Rockies.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .2in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walking also offers other attractions. <span style="color: black;">When you walk you can exercise not only your body but also your mind, in a way that’s difficult to do when you’re running or jogging. When Adam Smith, the great Scottish professor of moral philosophy, took long, solitary walks through Glasgow, the result was <i>The Wealth of Nations, </i></span><span style="color: black;">surely one of the 10 most influential books ever written. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said that when he had a knotty legal case to consider, the best thing he could do was to go for a walk. Another prominent lawyer has said that an hour’s walk frequently does more good than a whole day spent in the law library. Walking has never failed to provide an answer for me whenever I have been faced with a problem, decision or task that needed thinking through. Most challenges have been simple one-mile problems while others end up as eight- or 10-mile problems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TAGS: Runners. Running injuries. Running Injury Clinic. Runners’ high. Walking. Calories. Calorie burn calculator. Jim Fixx. Complete Book of Running. Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. William O. Douglas</span><!--EndFragment-->Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-32350209782636349882010-09-06T06:28:00.000-07:002010-11-06T11:21:24.883-07:00Don't kill yourself with exercise<!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a>Be cautious if you are launching an exercise program for the first time. Dr. Terence Kavanagh, Cardiac Health Foundation, warns:<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We know from studies that if you don’t exercise at all and you engage in a sudden bout of vigorous activity, you can increase your chances of having sudden death by a hundred times, a hundred fold.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But with patience and proper precaution, exercise can accomplish great things. Dr. Kavanagh, a cardiologist and Canada’s best-known authority on exercise and fitness, has demonstrated that. His guidance has helped thousands restore or maintain vigorous fitness and health. Seven of his patients were the first heart attack survivors to enter and complete the grueling 26-mile Boston Marathon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Increasingly the experts agree that moderate exercise provides the best returns in improving or maintaining physical fitness. Too little does no good. Too much takes you past the point of rapidly diminishing returns and into the realm of increased risk of injury or health damage. Unless you are an aspiring professional athlete, enjoy 10-mile runs, or want to compete in a triathlon, the surprisingly small additional health gains that result from more than just brisk and regular exercise are probably not worth the effort and risk.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But while the experts agree that there is probably an optimum amount of exercise for each of us, in terms of effort and fitness rewards, they don’t all agree on what that is.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are generally considered to be three components of physical fitness: body weight and composition; muscular strength, endurance and flexibility, and aerobic or cardiovascular fitness. While aerobic fitness generally ranks first, muscular strength and flexibility are also important.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exercise is usually measured three ways: frequency (generally the number of times per week); duration (how long you exercise each time), and intensity (how hard your heart, lungs and muscles work, usually measured by how fast your heart beats).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Exercise can be classed as either anaerobic or aerobic. During the intense exertion of anaerobic activity, we consume oxygen at a faster rate than our cardiovascular system can supply it. In effect, we borrow the oxygen from glucose and glycogen, stored in our liver and muscles. <i>We can keep this up for no more than two minutes, at most, </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">after which we are left huffing and puffing as our systems attempt to pay back the borrowed oxygen. Running as hard as possible to catch a bus or being chased up a tree by a grizzly bear are forms of anaerobic activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anaerobic exercises are great training for football players, sprinters, and weight lifters. But most of us will get greater benefits from aerobic exercises, conducted at a slower pace, which does not exceed the capacity of our systems to deliver the needed oxygen.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“For maximum cardiovascular benefits, nothing can take the place of aerobic exercise performed at your heart training rate,” according to researchers at the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkley.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But how frequently and how long should we exercise? Three to five times a week is commonly recommended. “If you can’t exercise regularly, you’re better off not exercising at all,” says Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, founder of the 650-staff Cooper Aerobic Centre in Dallas, Texas.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Kavanagh recommends an optimum 60 minutes a day at your heart target rate, five days a week. More seems hardly worthwhile: “Those with the time and inclination to train seven times a week show maybe an additional one or two percent increase,” according to Dr. Kavanagh. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guidelines issued jointly by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association in 2007 recommend either moderately intense aerobic exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week; or “vigorously intense” exercise 20 minutes a day, three days a week. In addition to aerobic exercises, the guidelines also call for strength training exercises twice a week, with eight to 10 different exercises, each to be repeated eight to 10 times.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you may need to do more. “The 30-minute recommendations is for the average healthy adult to maintain health and reduce the risk for chronic disease,” the ACSM and AHA state. If you want to improve your fitness or lose weight, “60 to 90 minutes of physical activity [five days a week] may be necessary.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The advice for adults over 65, or those with chronic conditions, such as arthritis, is, “If you can exceed the minimum recommendations, do it.” It also advises seniors to “develop an activity plan with a health professional to manage risk and take therapeutic needs into account.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here’s a helpful tip, if you’re hard pressed to find the time to exercise: “Research shows that moderate-intensity physical activity can be accumulated throughout the day in 10-minute bouts, which can be just as effective as exercising for 30 minutes straight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TAGS: Exercise death risk. Heart attack. Myocardial infarction. Kenneth Kavanagh. Anaerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise. Cardio vascular system. Exercise frequency. Exercise duration. Exercise intensity. Heart training rate. Kenneth H. Cooper.</span><!--EndFragment-->Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-10874202488970759962010-08-30T14:09:00.000-07:002010-11-06T09:48:17.701-07:00I meet the nicest people when walking.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGItXyJ-5DAVlnlfKClx5a5JMlAQwj6YTHIKf2P4AqWdAKO0afDuW08_Bnj4p-OisEJJgJgDjU7fBBPzqm6s_x8i_iN6u5vCTrUPJLZMGUmTyTk_CewQPOx4j9UD54p8DKBcSo23z4iPw/s1600/06+TC+TRAIL+10.07.18+.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGItXyJ-5DAVlnlfKClx5a5JMlAQwj6YTHIKf2P4AqWdAKO0afDuW08_Bnj4p-OisEJJgJgDjU7fBBPzqm6s_x8i_iN6u5vCTrUPJLZMGUmTyTk_CewQPOx4j9UD54p8DKBcSo23z4iPw/s400/06+TC+TRAIL+10.07.18+.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">On my walks this year I have met the nicest people. Most walker, hikers and bikers (the pedal-power type of bikers) are. They are a special class of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Some I have met on the rail trails that I walk, and others on Lindsay sidewalks before I reach the trails.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Last week I met Wayne Klein and Chelsea. Chelsea is a tiny, white, woolly lapdog.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Most dog walkers carry a plastic bag to scoop the poop. It’s the right thing to do, and conspicuous park and trail signs urge dog walkers to do just that. Wayne doesn’t carry just a single plastic bag, he carries a handful of them. “When I see people who don’t scoop, I offer them a bag,” Wayne says. “Sometimes I’ll even do the scoop for those who don’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> What a civic-minded, great thing to do. I’m inspired. We no longer have a dog, but I’m motivated to carry a few plastic bags when I go walking. I look forward to the first opportunity to put one to good use. “Excuse me, Mam,’ would you like this plastic bag to scoop the poop?” It will be interesting to see the reaction.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Chelsea, too, is inspiring. She is getting old now, but when she was younger, she and Wayne would visit Ross Memorial Hospital and the Victoria Manor Home for the Aged, where Chelsea won and warmed the hearts of seniors. Especially Alzheimer’s patients.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> One old timer, sitting motionless in a chair, his arms dangling by his side, hardly looked alive, Wayne recalled. “But I noticed,” said Wayne, “that his eyes followed Chelsea. Then he flicked his fingers, motioning for Chelsea to come. He petted Chelsea when she came, and he grinned from ear to ear.” A lady was radiant when she held Chelsea in her lap. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Others also inspire. The first couple of kilometres of the rail trail that stretches south from Lindsay for 30 kilometres to Bethany hugs the Scogog River and is paved. An attractive lady parked her bicycle. She had a big plastic bag and she was picking up pop cans and other garbage that thoughtless people had strewn beside the trail. “I can’t get it all,” she tells me, “but I do what I can.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> I’m not sure whether I was inspired or shamed into following her example: we should all be such good citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> The following week I met five senior ladies on the Victoria Rail Trail that stretches 90 kilometres north from Lindsay to Haliburton. This trail, too, is paved for the first couple of kilometres. The ladies were pushing large shopping carts, laden with garbage they picked up along the trail. They do it every year, they tell me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Brenda is another lady, a neighbour about three blocks from our house, whom I met while walking. We fell into conversation because of our lawnmowers. She and I are, as far as I know, the only people in the neighbourhood who cut their lawns with manual pushmowers. We compare notes. Whether the grass should be cut short or long, where to get our mowers sharpened. Brenda is ecstatic in praise of her pushmower. It doesn’t pollute the atmosphere, it doesn’t add to global warming, it’s almost silent (only a slight swish-swish as the revolving blades kiss the steel where the grass is cut), it cuts the grass just as well as a powermower, and it provides a little healthy exercise. The world would be a better place if far more people followed Brenda’s example. Brenda is also one of the first sponsors of my October hike from Bethany to Haliburton, with a contribution to Ross Memorial Hospital. We could use more of that example, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> One day I met a couple of young guys—one looked to be in his late teens, the other, early twenties—who intended to hike along the Victoria Rail Trail from Fenelon Falls to Kinmount. I met them as I was finishing my walk; they were just setting out. They had enormous packsacks; apparently they planned to camp. They were resting, the younger one lying on his back, inspecting the sky. They had walked no more than three kilometres. “How much farther to Kinmount?” the kid asked, plaintively. “Another 30 kilometres.” I tried to encourage them by suggesting they might wish to settle for the 15 kilometres to Burnt River. I wonder if they ever made it that far.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-54020336937446863022010-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:002010-11-06T10:00:35.631-07:00How to beat the heat and humidity<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lKmVDuDOV09NqlYcAsfebSoqKQu_dz5vZ4M3hro7a5VOsz_7zR-iQ2r0byVjp_yOlp-Rmac5KZaQakzMW6_kS_tarZWtEgQJNvFx618zbXreamGyA5Sjx1VZBY0d845mLeekEElblH2f/s1600/rail+bridge+vertical3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lKmVDuDOV09NqlYcAsfebSoqKQu_dz5vZ4M3hro7a5VOsz_7zR-iQ2r0byVjp_yOlp-Rmac5KZaQakzMW6_kS_tarZWtEgQJNvFx618zbXreamGyA5Sjx1VZBY0d845mLeekEElblH2f/s400/rail+bridge+vertical3.JPG" width="303" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> A former railway bridge across the Scugog River is now a footbridge.</span></i><br />
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<i><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">The weather one day last week threw me an unexpected challenge—the prospect of a training walk on a particularly hot and humid day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I had decided to alter my program in the final weeks leading up to the 42-km marathon on September 26 and the 120-km, four-day hike in October. I would do fewer but longer walks: 20- to 30-km each, three times a week, with rests or cross-training exercises in between.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> I went to bed early planning to start out at 5:30 a.m. for a 25-km walk. In the middle of night, I had a better idea. I would do just a 13 km walk on a favourite route in the morning and a dozen km in the afternoon. I had a meeting to attend in downtown Lindsay in the afternoon. It seemed sensible to walk along a 12-km round-trip route, rather than drive. The idea was particularly appealing when my alarm clock sounded at 5 a.m. I set it back for an extra hour of sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> The morning haze was as heavy as fog when I set out at 6:30. My route took me along nice neighbourhood sidewalks for a few blocks, across a pair of small parks, and down a short paved trail to the start of the Victoria Rail Trail that stretches 90 km north to Haliburton. But I turned south along more sidewalks, across the city’s swankiest residential area (it’s not very big) then to a trail along the west bank of the Scugog River to downtown. A pair of bridges here cross the Scogog to a another rail trail that stretches 30-km south to Bethany. The first short section of this rail trail hugs the east bank of the river. On early summer mornings the Scugog is a mirror reflecting big willow trees, houses and a pair of footbridges. On this hazy morning, the images are reflected in a smoky mirror.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> For a long morning walk, on the return I would normally head north on the Victoria Rail Trail, adding 10- to 15-km to the trip. Instead, I walked straight home in anticipation of the second walk in the afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Early afternoon brought a temperature of 31C., not that formidable for a relatively short walk. But the humidity approached 100 percent and the humidex—the temperature it actually feels like—hit 41, according to the TV weather channel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Dr. Gabe Mirkin, former competitive marathon runner, author of 10 fitness and diet books, and publisher of an e-zine for uber exercisers and sports buffs, offers some advice on how to handle exercise in hot weather. For racers, Mirkin says, “Start out significantly slower than you usually do and gradually increase your effort to keep yourself from slowing down.” When the weather is hot, the heart has to dissipate heat from the muscles by pumping it to your skin and the extra work limits “how much blood it can pump to bring oxygen to muscles and you have to slow down.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Mirkin also recommends salt and sugar for hot weather exercise. Excessive salt consumption can cause severe health problems, but Mirkin says, “If you exercise regularly for more than a couple of hours, particularly in hot weather, you need extra salt. You also need more sugar in hot weather to increase endurance… We drink Pepsi and eat salted peanuts on long [bicycle] rides in the summer.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Probably good advice. But I had a better idea. Why seat it? Instead of walking to that afternoon meeting, I drove there in our air-condition car then spent in the rest of the day in our air-conditioned bungalow. Seems a more sensible way for old geezers, especially one with a slightly bum heart, to beat the heat and humidity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> It was cooler this week, so I did both the morning and afternoon walks</span></span></span></span></div></span></i><br />
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</span></i></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-16079568042961666092010-08-05T13:28:00.000-07:002010-11-06T10:16:20.710-07:00Oh, those aching muscles!<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a>I was surprised when I awoke one morning this week to find that my legs ached.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could this be? I had already walked more than a thousand kilometres this year, building my leg muscles as I train for a 42-K marathon walk in September and a 120-K, four-day hike in October.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not a killer pain. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would guess number 5. Bad enough for an old geezer. And let’s be honest, we guys have a lower pain threshold than the gals. The real tough people of this world are not the rugged John Wayne type but the female type.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But why any pain? My legs no longer ached after a 10- or 20-K walk, unless I pressed my speed as hard as I could. Like a dimwit, the answer came to me in a flash. The day before I spent a couple of hours kneeling on my hands and knees, pulling weeds. It wasn’t my walking muscles that ached, but my bending muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different muscles for different jobs. That suggest we need different exercises. We need aerobic exercises to keep our vital cardio vascular system healthy, but we also need stretch and strength exercises. That’s what pulling weeds told me. We need those exercises especially as we get older and our muscles weaken and stiffen. We need neck exercises, for example, so we can look behind us when we back up the car.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twice a week is often enough for stretch and strength exercises, Sue Evans, physiotherapist at Ross Memorial Hospital’s rehab centre, advises me. I’ve been failing to do it even that often. I do a few pushups every day (unless I forget) and occasionally (more frequently in winter) workout on my stationary bicycle, peddling with my feet and swinging the handlebars with my arms. If I can watch part or all of a baseball game, I may do that for two or three hours. But with my long training walks and a full slate of activities and work, there never is enough time for everything. Never ever. If there were, life would be boring.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I do stretch and strength exercises, I follow a 40-minute video workout, “Heart Beat: Healthy Heart Program,” produced by Providence Health Care, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver. It can be as easy or vigorous as you want to make it. You lift hand weights. If you’re just starting strength and stretch exercises, you might start with two-pound weights. If you’re already in the he-man class, you might use 10-pound weights. I use seven-pound weights.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might be able to buy the Heart Beat video on DVD or tape at the rehab centre at your nearby hospital. I bought my copy two years ago directly from St. Paul’s hospital, where I was told that they wouldn’t ship it and I would have to come to Vancouver to buy it. Since we already planned a drive to Vancouver, it worked out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Exercise can beat arthritis” is another easy video workout that we have. A blurb on the back of the package claims, “It is also ideal for older adults.” That’s us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can’t find either, there are a ton of other DVD exercises to choose from. When I Googled “DVD exercise workouts,” I got 14,200,000 hits; when I narrowed it down to “DVD exercise workouts reviews,” I got only 6,190,000 hits. Getting information on the web, as someone has already said, is like getting a drink of water from a fire hydrant.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it turned out, my leg pain didn’t hurt—at least, didn’t hurt my fitness nor my training. I didn’t exercise that day. It was a good day to work behind the computer. And the next day, the pain was nearly all gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the pain was a good thing. Dr. Gabe Mirkin, former marathon runner and author of <i>The Healthy Heart Miracle </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">and nine other fitness and diet books, says this about muscle pain:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Training for sports is done by taking a hard workout and then having sore muscles on the next day. Then you take easy workouts or you take off until the muscle soreness disappears. You improve by taking hard workouts and your muscles grow and heal while you recover on your easy days.” <a href="http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/1181.html">See Mirkin’s e-zine.</a> Mirkin also warns that you risk injury if you exercise hard while your muscles are still sore.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the advice of the experts is this: do both aerobic and stretch and strength exercises, exercise vigorously—and take it easy.</span><!--EndFragment-->Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1303880490072574317.post-76586571542142804212010-07-27T03:49:00.000-07:002010-11-06T11:27:43.430-07:00Black hat best for hiking—unless it's a white hat.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_X93DEh5c6yIlVezBIFg69DKcvJaKE61AQrYw3_XB-RDM1JYORvONcG5ggdQoEb3gKc2nO-KYO6ilbV7td0z7VlCLITmx4tc6WTPNajsugiswcIfhYPntOW1oAbndcQp5qWJmiNQib3Qw/s1600/BLACK+HAT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_X93DEh5c6yIlVezBIFg69DKcvJaKE61AQrYw3_XB-RDM1JYORvONcG5ggdQoEb3gKc2nO-KYO6ilbV7td0z7VlCLITmx4tc6WTPNajsugiswcIfhYPntOW1oAbndcQp5qWJmiNQib3Qw/s400/BLACK+HAT.jpg" width="381" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On the trail in my black baseball cap</span>.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5WFJQ7o3eb-W9-7KbHc9K_IyuxQ7UdBV_jilV2A4cOgMj7kKIxPkCVgeL-wH-eswLmvwvLIYTxE5cRo97gfcSbzDRyQbFMDV_mPInGYaeyxULSP52INJsSjeipk2MDw7GSEKG1rfqKOA/s1600/white+hat+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5WFJQ7o3eb-W9-7KbHc9K_IyuxQ7UdBV_jilV2A4cOgMj7kKIxPkCVgeL-wH-eswLmvwvLIYTxE5cRo97gfcSbzDRyQbFMDV_mPInGYaeyxULSP52INJsSjeipk2MDw7GSEKG1rfqKOA/s400/white+hat+cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Not on the trail, but in my white trail hat.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>(Photo by Charles Cooper).</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><!--StartFragment--> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For tramping along the splendid rail trails of the Kawarthas I have augmented my black baseball cap with a fine, white, broad-brimmed straw hat that once was stylish but is now rapidly becoming battered and sadly out of shape.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, the black baseball cap is the perfect headgear for hiking—unless it’s the white hat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the best baseball cap I have ever owned. My granddaughter gave it to me; surplus headdress from her closet. Much too mannish for an attractive young lady. It is made of durable cotton-polyester blend and ventilated with the requisite half moon opening at the back, plus an array of six small red button-like dots with tiny holes. The visor is heavy but flexible plastic covered with the black cloth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A label identifies it as an “American Needle Quality Headwear.” That means it was made in China, which is confirmed by a much smaller label.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an idiosyncratic cap. On the front, above the visor, red lettering bordered by white proclaims “CANADA.” Above that a crest with a maple leaf depicts a hockey player chasing a puck. A hockey icon on a baseball cap? Only in Canada, eh! Those clever Chinese understand that baseball sits far down below hockey on the totem pole of Canadian passions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an American hat, made in China for Canadian craniums. Now, that’s globalization.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only fools and tenderfeet set out on decently long hikes in the country without headgear. You need a hat to protect you from the sun, help shelter you from the rain, and keep the flying bugs off your head and out of your hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no better headgear than a baseball cap for protecting you from the sun. Nothing on your head will shade you as well from the sun’s blinding glare. That’s why baseball players wear baseball caps.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exposure to a blazing sun is also exposure to its burning weapons. It doesn’t take long for the sun to burn your skin. Its ultraviolet rays can give you skin cancer. It can make you dizzy and sick before you finish a day’s walk. It can knock you down with sunstroke.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My baseball cap not only helps ward off the burning weapons, it also helps shelter my bean when it rains. The raingear in my packsack is a plastic poncho. It has a hood that fits neatly over the baseball cap. It would not fit over a broad-brimmed hat. The cap’s protruding visor provides extended shelter from the rain.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in protecting me from bugs that the baseball cap fails. While a black hat helps cut the sun’s glare, that dark spectrum attracts mosquitoes, tiny black flies and bigger, more vicious deerflies and horseflies. Those flying bugs instantly find the half moon opening.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bugs are as smart as hikers in knowing the best time to be up and out on hot summer days: very early. They like early morning when the world is calm; the breeze has not begun to whisper, nor the sun to blaze. They love low-lying wooded areas where water lies still in ditches, marshes and sluggish streams.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flying bug armada is out in force early in June when I set out from Bethany on the 28-kilometre walk along the rail trail to Lindsay. The bush that borders the first two thirds of the trail, and hems a few marshes, blocks any glimpse of rolling hills or farmland. I was alone with the bugs. Especially the deerflies. Every five minutes or so I felt an urgent need to swat myself on the back of the head, hitting the half-moon opening. With every bang on the head I killed at least one big fly. Sometimes as many as three. I swatted them on my hands, my legs, my face, but nowhere as often as on the back of the head.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I improvised protection. I tucked a handkerchief under my cap to cover the half moon hole and hang down the back of my neck. Not quite as romantic a picture as the French Foreign Legion troops depicted in old movies, marching across desert sands in their pillbox caps, with rigid visors and the ducktails to shade the backs of the their necks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few kilometres later I removed my cap to scratch my head and aerate the hair. I found that the handkerchief had fallen off, and presumably lay on the trail I know not how far back. I didn’t walk back to look for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been walking now with my white, broad-brimmed, fine mesh white straw hat. Soon the cooler weather of September, and perhaps even an early frost, will banish the flying bugs. As I venture into abandoned bugland, I will again wear my black baseball cap.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> TAGS: Walking. Clothing. Hats.</div></span></div>Earle Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348023261325248895noreply@blogger.com1