Month: September 2014

German dark rye bread

  • 3 cups All purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 5/16 oz active dry yeast
  • 1 tablespoons caraway seeds
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 31/2 cups rye flour
  • 8 teaspoons wheat gluten
  1. Place white flour, cocoa, yeast, caraway seeds, gluten, and salt in large bowl. Stir to mix.
  2. Place water, honey, and butter in a saucepan and heat until butter melts. When this liquid mixture registers 1050-1150F add to dry ingredients and mix until moistened, then beat very hard for 3 minutes.
  3. Stir in rye flour, enough to make a soft dough.
  4. Knead 8 to 10 minutes.
  5. Roll out and shape to fit 2 greased loaf pans.
  6. Brush tops lightly with oil and cover with a damp cloth.
  7. Raise in unheated oven over a pan of hot water for 1 hour until doubled.
  8. Punch down and allow to raise again until almost doubled.
  9. Preheat oven to 4000F. Bake 25 minutes.
  10. Remove from oven and immediately remove from pans; let cool on racks.

Onion-Rye dinner rolls

  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 5/16 oz active dry yeast
  • 1/2 lukewarm water (1100F)
  • 3 cups white flour
  • 2 tablespoons caraway seeds
  • 6 tablespoons minced onion
  • 1/2 wheat germ
  • 1-1 1/4 cups rye flour
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons water
  1. Scald milk; combine it in mixing bowl with honey, salt, and butter.
  2. Stir well; cool to lukewarm.
  3. Dissolve yeast in the lukewarm water; combine with milk mixture.
  4. Add white flour and beat vigorously 1 minute or until batter is very smooth.
  5. Add caraway seeds, onion, wheat germ, and enough rye flour so dough is firm enough to knead.
  6. Turn dough onto floured surface; knead 8 minutes.
  7. Place in greased bowl, turning once to coat evenly.
  8. Cover and let rise in warm place until dough is doubled (one hour).
  9. Punch down dough and roll by hand into a long rope about 1  1/2 inches thick.
  10. Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces and shape into buns.
  11. Place 2 inches apart on an oiled baking sheet.
  12. Cover with towel and let rise until doubled.
  13. Preheat oven to 4000F.
  14. Beat the egg with warm water and brush the top of the buns.
  15. Bake 12-15minutes or until nicely browned

Yield 18-24 dinner rolls.     

potassium

World’s Healthiest Foods rich in potassium
FoodCalsDRI/DV
 Beet Greens 39 37.3%
 Swiss Chard 35 27.4%
 Lima Beans 216 27.2%
 Sweet Potato 180 27.1%
 Potatoes 161 26.4%
 Soybeans 298 25.3%
 Spinach 41 23.9%
 Pinto Beans 245 21.3%
 Lentils 230 20.8%
 Avocado 240 20.7%

For serving size for specific foods see the Nutrient Rating Chart.

Basic Description

Potassium is a mineral found in varying amounts in almost all foods. Vegetables, especially green leafy varieties, are generally our richest sources of potassium.

We list three excellent sources of potassium, 16 as very good sources, and 39 as good sources by our Nutrient Rating System. In other words, over half of our WHFoods provide you with significant amounts of potassium! In fact, all of our WHFoods contain at least some small but measurable amount of this mineral.

Along with sodium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium, potassium is an electrolyte, meaning that it helps to conduct electrical charges in the body. Like all the other electrolytes, our bodies have evolved elaborate systems to control blood levels in a narrow range. This is good news since normal levels of potassium are absolutely critical to life—if potassium levels get too high or too low, the heart and nervous system completely shut down. Luckily, most of us are able to obtain enough potassium from foods to meet our most basic needs. But since just meeting a minimal intake need is not a recipe for health, many people in the United States often fail to obtain optimal amounts of this nutrient, and pay a health cost for it.

This is because Americans fail to regularly eat fresh fruits and vegetables, while eating heavily salted prepared foods. In fact, a recent survey suggests that only about 5% of Americans meet minimal goals for eating fruits and vegetables. If you do not regularly meet these goals, it will be difficult to ensure your potassium intake will be optimal.

It is impossible to understand the role of potassium without addressing sodium as well. Sodium and potassium exist in a partnership, and each important use of potassium requires sodium to maintain balance. Importantly, as average diets in the United States have become depleted in potassium, they have become much more concentated in sodium.

For example, a heavily salted commercial tomato juice—despite containing a potassium rich food like tomato—often contains a ratio of sodium to potassium of more than 2:1. This ratio is not a desirable one! By comparison, our Mushroom, Tomato, and Basil Frittata has a ratio of sodium to potassium of 1:3, a much more health-promoting pattern. In fact, we believe one of the central benefits of the World’s Healthiest Foods approach is the way it rebalances sodium and potassium in a manner that is more consistent with good heart and kidney health.

Role in Health Support

Maintaining Normal Blood Pressure

Diets high in potassium are associated with improved blood pressure control. There are several mechanisms contributing to this beneficial effect, including improved kidney function, reduction in blood clotting, and more efficient opening of blood vessels. Because of these important benefits, therapeutic diets aimed at improving blood pressure control often place primary focus on increasing potassium from foods.

A good example of how foods rich in potassium can decrease elevated blood pressure is seen in the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet trials, where participants with high blood pressure who consumed an average of 8 to 10 total servings of fresh fruits and vegetables per day experienced significant drops in their blood pressure level. These servings focused on whole food choices similar to those featured in our recipes and the diet avoided processed and salt-choked choices like French fries. One key factor in these blood pressure benefits was the healthy balance of potassium to other minerals in these fresh fruits and vegetables.

Kidney Health

Perhaps the most important way to ensure strong kidney health is to keep your blood pressure under good control. As discussed above, diets high in potassium are well known to help with this.

In addition, diets rich in potassium have been associated with a reduction in kidney stone risk. This is thought to be because the naturally occurring potassium salts in plant foods help to neutralize acidity in the blood stream. This prevents leeching of calcium from the bones to buffer the acid, which in turn reduces urine calcium, preventing its deposition in the form of a stone. Please note that while diets rich in potassium can be helpful in preventing certain kidney-related problems in a healthy people with good kidney function, persons already known to have kidney problems and who are diagnosed with certain diseases of the kidney may need to carefully regulate their intake of potassium, since their kidneys might not otherwise be able to regulate the levels of potassium in their bloodstream.

Summary of Food Sources

Probably the first food that comes to mind when thinking about potassium is the banana. This is not wrong—by our Rating System, bananas are a good source of potassium. But there are 32 foods on our Rating Chart with more potassium per calorie than the banana.

Speaking more generally, the most potassium-rich food sources of potassium are fruits and vegetables. Some legumes, fish, and dairy products can also make important contributions to our daily potassium intake; yet, because these foods have more calories, they are not as highly rated by our Nutrient Richness System. For example, Swiss chard and lima beans both contain nearly 1000 milligrams of potassium, but because a serving of lima beans contains six times as many calories than a serving of chard, the nutrient richness of the chard is higher.

Potassium content within the group of fruits and vegetables can vary widely, even between two foods that seem superficially very similar. For example, a cup of cooked Swiss chard contains more than three times as much potassium as the same amount of kale or mustard greens.

Trypsin

Trypsin (EC 3.4.21.4) is a serine protease from the PA clan superfamily, found in the digestive system of many vertebrates, where it hydrolyses proteins.[2][3] Trypsin is produced in the pancreas as the inactive proenzyme trypsinogen. Trypsin cleaves peptide chains mainly at the carboxyl side of the amino acids lysine or arginine, except when either is followed by proline. It is used for numerousbiotechnological processes. The process is commonly referred to as trypsin proteolysis or trypsinisation, and proteins that have been digested/treated with trypsin are said to have been trypsinized.

Activation of trypsin from proteolytic cleavage of trypsinogen in the pancreas can lead to a series of events that cause pancreatic self-digestion, resulting in pancreatitis. One consequence of the autosomal recessive disease cystic fibrosis is a deficiency in transport of trypsin and other digestive enzymes from the pancreas. This leads to the disorder termed meconium ileus. This disorder involves intestinal obstruction (ileus) due to overly thick meconium, which is normally broken down by trypsin and other proteases, then passed in feces.[7]

Trypsin is available in high quantity in pancreases, and can be purified rather easily. Hence it has been used widely in various biotechnological processes.

In a tissue culture lab, trypsin is used to re-suspend cells adherent to the cell culture dish wall during the process of harvesting cells.[8] Some cell types have a tendency to “stick” – or adhere – to the sides and bottom of a dish when cultivated in vitro. Trypsin is used to cleave proteins bonding the cultured cells to the dish, so that the cells can be suspended in fresh solution and transferred to fresh dishes.

Trypsin can also be used to dissociate dissected cells (for example, prior to cell fixing and sorting).

Trypsin can be used to break down casein in breast milk. If trypsin is added to a solution of milk powder, the breakdown of casein will cause the milk to become translucent. The rate of reaction can be measured by using the amount of time it takes for the milk to turn translucent.

Trypsin is commonly used in biological research during proteomics experiments to digest proteins into peptides for mass spectrometry analysis, e.g. in-gel digestion. Trypsin is particularly suited for this, since it has a very well defined specificity, as it hydrolyzes only the peptide bonds in which the carbonyl group is contributed either by an Arg or Lys residue.

Trypsin can also be used to dissolve blood clots in its microbial form and treat inflammation in its pancreatic form.

In food

Commercial protease preparations usually consist of a mixture of various protease enzymes that often includes trypsin. These preparations are widely utilized in food processing:[9]

  • as a baking enzyme to improve the workability of dough;
  • in the extraction of seasonings and flavourings from vegetable or animal proteins and in the manufacture of sauces;
  • to control aroma formation in cheese and milk products;
  • to improve the texture of fish products;
  • to tenderize meat;
  • during cold stabilization of beer;
  • in the production of hypoallergenic food where proteases break down specific allergenic proteins into nonallergenic peptides. For example, proteases are used to produce hypoallergenic baby food from cow’s milk thereby diminishing the risk of babies developing milk allergies.

Trypsin inhibitor

Main article: Trypsin inhibitor

In order to prevent the action of active trypsin in the pancreas which can be highly damaging, inhibitors such as BPTI and SPINK1 in the pancreas and α1-antitrypsin in the serum are present as part of the defense against its inappropriate activation. Any trypsin prematurely formed from the inactive trypsinogen would be bound by the inhibitor. The protein-protein interaction between trypsin and its inhibitors is one of the tightest found, and trypsin is bound by some of its pancreatic inhibitors essentially irreversibly.[10] In contrast with nearly all known protein assemblies, some complexes of trypsin bound by its inhibitors do not readily dissociate after treatment with 8M urea.[11]

smoothies

Fresh juices and smoothies make a nutritious snack or breakfast, helping you meet your daily fruit recommendation, between 1.5 to 2 cups per day, as set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Blending fruits does not significantly change their nutritional value unless you store the blended drink for an extended period.

Dr. Brian Clement, director of the Hippocrates Health Institute, has made several statements online claiming that green smoothies should not be considered “health food” and should instead be considered “recreational” because the act of blending them for 90-120 seconds destroys anywhere from 85-92% of nutrients in a smoothie.

His premise is (overly)simple. Oxidation caused by oxygen being sucked into the blender during a blend cycle “destroys” nutrients in the food that would otherwise be preserved if eaten in its solid state.
Now I’m not denying that some nutrient loss does occur from blending. However, oxidation occurs when whole foods are juiced, cut, chopped, shredded, peeled, chewed, dehydrated and otherwise exposed to air. Nutrients in food begin to degrade the instant they are harvested, exposed to UV light and heat. You can’t get 100% of the nutrients in every food unless you get down on all fours and eat plants right out of the soil they grow in.

First of all, a professional blender blends a smoothie in 30 seconds or less, not 90-120 seconds (the time it takes, he claims, to cause 92% nutrient loss).

Secondly, green smoothies are loaded with antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, flavonoids and carotenoids that help reduce and prevent oxidation.

Victoria Boutenko conducted an experiment on potatoes where she juiced one and blended the other. After two days, the blended potato had very little oxidation, most of which was at the top of the glass where the liquid was exposed to air. The juiced potato turned brown and oxidized much more rapidly.

folate

What can high-folate foods do for you?

  • Support red blood cell production and help prevent anemia
  • Help prevent homocysteine build-up in your blood
  • Support cell production, especially in your skin
  • Allow nerves to function properly
  • Help prevent osteoporosis-related bone fractures
  • Help prevent dementias including Alzheimer’s disease

What events can indicate a need for more high-folate foods?

Continue reading “folate”

Sugar

we need sugar to live, it is responsible for a lot of the energy our body produces.

It’s a matter of how much activity from different sorts of taste buds the brain labels as a good thing.

When our taste buds developed, some way back in our evolutionary history, there would not have been any problems with obesity, acquired diabetes, etc. Sweetness in nature means sugar (fructose, glucose, sucrose), sugar means ready-to-use energy, which is pretty much always good. If you are choosing between two types of plant to eat, going for the sugary one is a big advantage.

People do seek out salty foods (in the West, everyone eats more than is recommended as it’s added to everything for taste). Salt (sodium chloride) is a very useful chemical as sodium ions are crucial in making nerves work. People don’t enjoy eating pure salt presumably because although eg heart disease might not have been a problem for our ancestors, it’s not that hard to kill yourself immediately with salt if you don’t know when to stop – especially if you live near the sea.

Bitterness mostly acts as a warning sign for decomposition and the presence of toxins in food. Humans have adapted to be able to enjoy a certain amount, but it’s usually a reason to be suspicious of a food. I’ve heard children are hypersensitive to bitterness, perhaps because it’s best for them to be extra wary of things which might be toxic, and this is why they are so suspicious of vegetables, never mind coffee.

‘Umami’ is supposed to help you with your protein needs, obviously.

Texture is also important of course, which helps us seek out fatty foods. (Fat, like sugar, was good news as an energy source.) Even if your nose and taste buds stopped working completely, you might still not be that keen on mud.

I don’t know about ‘tastes’ that aren’t in taste buds (ie those more closely connected to smell). It may be that we have a whole range of indicators for freshness/nutrition/edibility and that these various smells/flavours set them off.

Humans are particularly good at enjoying a range of tastes though – chilli and mint probably evolved their temperature-related flavours to put animals off eating them.

Uploaded on Jul 30, 2009
Watch “The Skinny on Obesity” with Dr. Lustig: http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]More UCTV videos about sugar: http://www.uctv.tv/sugar
Dr. Lustig’s book (comes out Dec 27, 2012), “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease”: http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beat…

Published on Oct 18, 2013
(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) Dr. Robert Lustig, UCSF Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, updates his very popular video “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” He argues that sugar and processed foods are driving the obesity epidemic, which in turn affects our endocrine system. Series: “UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine presents Mini Medical School for the Public” [10/2013] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 25641]

By Dr. Mercola

“Death by sugar” is not an overstatement…
Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also chronic and lethal disease.
There’s really no doubt anymore that excess sugar can be toxic to your body, and it’s only a matter of time before it will be commonly accepted as a causative factor of most cancers, in the same way as we accept that smoking and alcohol abuse are direct causes of lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism.
His work has highlighted the major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used by the human body.
If you haven’t already seen it, I would strongly encourage you to watch Dr. Lustig’s lecture featured above.
He’s a very compelling lecturer and you will learn loads, particularly about how fructose is ruining your health biochemically.

People Are Really Waking Up to the Dangers of Sugar

His lecture, which was posted on YouTube in July 2009, went viral and has received more than 2.2 million views so far.
Many of those views are no doubt due to this newsletter, as my two previous articles on Dr. Lustig’s work: “Sugar May Be Bad, But This Sweetener is Far More Deadly”, and “This Common Food Ingredient Can Really Mess Up Your Metabolism” alone have well over one million views. People are watching the lecture at the rate of 50,000 a month, even though it’s 90 minutes long, The New York Times reports.i Calling sugar a “toxin” or a “poison” 13 times, and referring to it as “evil” five times, Robert Lustig explains that the dangers of sugar apply to all forms of it, whether it’s the white granulated stuff – commonly known as sucrose – or high fructose corn syrup.
And his stance has nothing to do with calories, according to the NYT:
“It’s a poison by itself,” Dr. Lustig says.