New Sweet from the Ginza Cozy Corner in Tokyo, Japan

Magic Rainbow Mont Blanc

You eat strawberry, lemon, melon and blueberry rainbow cream, while enjoying a nice surprise of cream puffs and crackling crumbs (with popping candy).

The price is 580 yen plus tax.

Oat and Seed Bars

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large ripe bananas
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
2 to 3 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Grease 8-inch square baking dish or line with parchment paper.
2. In food processor, blitz oats until coarsely ground. (They don’t have to be finely ground. It’s okay if you see some bits.)
3. In large bowl, combine ground oats, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
4. In small bowl, mash bananas with a fork. Add melted coconut oil and maple syrup. Mix together.
5. Add banana mixture to dry mixture and mix until combined. Fold in seeds, cranberries, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Place mixture in square baking dish and flatten with spatula.
6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool for lo minutes before removing from the pan. Cut into bars. Keep in fridge for up to 1 week, or freeze for up to 3 months.

Makes 8 bars.

Source: Alive magazine

Home-Cooked Meals Linked to Lower PFAS in the Body

Brenda Goodman wrote . . . . . . . . .

People who eat more home-cooked meals had lower levels of hormone-disrupting PFAS chemicals in their blood compared to others, according to a new study.

People who reported eating popcorn, mostly the kind that’s pre-packaged for cooking the microwave, had significantly higher PFAS blood levels.

The study — which drew its data from the government’s long-running National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — compared blood levels of certain kinds of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances to the foods people said they remembered eating on dietary questionnaires between 2003 and 2014.

The most important finding of the new study is that it showed people who tended to eat more fresh food and food prepared at home had slightly lower levels of five “long-chain” PFAS chemicals in their blood, compared to those who ate more of their meals at fast-food and other types of restaurants. The study was observational, which means it can’t show cause and effect.

PFAS blood levels tested in the study have been dropping over past 2 decades, as chemical manufacturers have voluntarily phased out the production of some kinds — the “long-chain” ones. In 2016, the FDA revoked regulations that allow long-chain PFAS chemicals in food packaging.

But shorter-chain PFAS chemicals have replaced them in many products, and researchers say not enough is known about whether these compounds are any better for the environmental or our health. The CDC calls the chemicals a “public health concern” and says more research is needed to better understand the health effects of PFAS exposure.

Experts who were not involved in the study say it is useful because it shows that food choices can impact the chemical loads we carry in our bodies.

“Making food at home minimizes contact with food packaging and exposure to chemicals that affect the developing thyroid gland and are associated with a host of health consequences,” says Leonardo Trasande, MD, a professor of pediatrics and environmental medicine at New York University’s Langone Health. He’s also wrote a book called Sicker, Fatter, Poorer, about how hormone-disrupting chemicals affect your health.

‘Forever Chemicals’

There are thousands of different kinds of synthetic PFAS chemicals. They have been used since the 1950s to make products such as stain-resistant carpets, cosmetics, waterproof fabrics, and nonstick cookware. They have contaminated water supplies because of the heavy use of firefighting foams that contain PFAS.

PFAS chemicals leach into food through wrappers and containers that are coated to make them grease-proof. They may also creep into food during processing.

They’re sometimes called “forever chemicals,” because many don’t break down in the environment. They take years to break down in our bodies.

What are Food Additives?

Most additives fall into a few basic categories: preservatives, flavor changers, and added vitamins and minerals supply extra nutrients.

Previous studies have shown PFAS chemicals can interfere with a body’s natural hormones and may make it harder to get pregnant. They’ve been linked to growth and learning problems in kids. They may cause problems with the immune system such as reducing the body’s response to vaccines. Other studies have linked them to increased cholesterol levels and cancer.

PFAS chemicals may even influence body weight. A 2018 study by researchers at Harvard and Pennington Biomedical Research Institute found that people with higher PFAS levels were more likely to regain lost weight, possibly because of changes to their resting metabolic rate — the number of calories the body burns at rest.

Concerns about PFAS health impacts are mounting. Washington recently became the first state in the U.S. to ban PFAS chemicals in consumer products and firefighting foams. Denmark also recently banned PFAS from food packaging.

Scientists: Watch What You Eat

Researchers say it stands to reason that eating less packaged and processed food could cut a person’s exposure.

“We all know that eating more fresh foods and eating more home-cooked is better for our health for a wide range of reasons. This study provides yet another reason to eat more fresh foods and foods cooked at home,” says study author Laurel Schaider, PhD, a research scientist at Silent Spring Institute in Newton, MA.

The study also found that people who reported eating more fish and shellfish were more likely to have higher PFAS levels. That finding isn’t surprising. Previous studies have found that larger fish take on the chemicals of the smaller fish they eat. So larger predatory fish can wind up with substantial amounts of PFAS in their flesh, which would otherwise be healthy to eat.

Trasande says the solution to that is to eat smaller fish, like sardines, and smaller shellfish, like shrimp and scallops.

Popcorn was another big culprit.

“We found a strong association with microwave popcorn,” Schaider says. Levels of one kind of PFAS chemical, called PFDA, were 63% higher in those who reported eating popcorn at least once daily over the past year. Surveys showed most of the popcorn eaten in the study was microwave popcorn.

Schaider says that while that’s not great news, there are easy substitutes.

“I personally have high blood pressure, so I make popcorn on the stove,” she says.

If you want to stick with your microwave, you can add unpopped kernels to a plain brown paper bag to avoid PFAS chemicals. Schaider says previous testing of these kinds of bags didn’t detect any PFAS chemicals in them.

Trasande says the study is straightforward.

“It shows that the decisions about what we eat and where that food comes from can have measurable changes on our PFAS exposures,” he says.

The FluoroCouncil, an industry group that represents companies that make fluoropolymer products, says the use of PFAS chemicals in food packaging is safe.

According to a statement posted on the group’s website: “The use of PFAS in food packaging is strictly regulated by the FDA, which has determined the specific PFAS currently used are safe for their intended use. In addition, a robust body of scientific data demonstrates these FDA-reviewed PFAS substances do not pose a significant risk to human health or the environment.”

Source: WebMD

Veggies’ Popularity Is All in the Name

How do you make healthy food more popular? Start by giving it a yummy-sounding name, researchers say.

People are much more likely to choose good-for-you foods like broccoli or carrots if labeled with names that emphasize taste over nutritional value, according to Alia Crum, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, and her colleagues.

In previous research, Crum’s team found that Stanford students were far more likely to go for decadent-sounding veggies like “twisted citrus glazed carrots” over an equivalent option that might be labeled “dietetic carrots.” The key, however, is the food must actually be tasty, the new study confirms.

“This is radically different from our current cultural approach to healthy eating which, by focusing on health to the neglect of taste, inadvertently instills the mindset that healthy eating is tasteless and depriving,” Crum, senior author of the new report, said in a university news release.

“And yet in retrospect, it’s like, of course, why haven’t we been focusing on making healthy foods more delicious and indulgent all along?” she added.

In the new study, the researchers tracked food choices made by students enrolled across a network of 57 U.S. colleges and universities. The investigators looked at 71 vegetable dishes labeled with either taste-focused, health-focused or neutral names.

Students were 29% more likely to select veggies when taste was emphasized rather than health. And they were 14% more likely to consume vegetables that had a tasty-sounding name instead of a nondescript name, such as “orange vegetable.”

Diners also ended up eating nearly 40% more vegetables (by weight) when appetizing marketing was deployed, the findings showed.

Mouth-watering names increase a diner’s expectation of a yummy meal, Crum said. Certain key words — such as “garlic,” “ginger,” “roasted,” “sizzling,” and “tavern-style” — seem to do the trick, she noted.

Knowing this could make a difference in the effort to get people, particularly young people, to eat more healthfully, the study authors said.

According to study co-author Bradley Turnwald, “College students have among the lowest vegetable intake rates of all age groups. Students are learning to make food decisions for the first time in the midst of new stresses, environments and food options. It’s a critical window for establishing positive relationships with healthy eating.”

The report was published online in Psychological Science.

Source: HealthDay

Maintaining Weight Loss Beneficial for People with Type 2 Diabetes

People with Type 2 diabetes who regained weight forfeited the initial benefits of reduced risk of heart disease or stroke compared to those who maintained their weight loss, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the open access journal of the American Heart Association.

Regaining weight previously lost is common and can deteriorate the initial benefits of lowered heart disease or stroke risks. Few studies have directly compared cardiometabolic risk between people who successfully lost weight and maintained the weight loss to those who regained weight, particularly among people with Type 2 diabetes.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 1,600 participants with Type 2 diabetes in an intensive weight loss study who lost at least 3% of their initial body weight. They found that among those who lost 10% or more of their body weight and then maintained 75% or more of their weight loss four years later saw a significant improvement in risk factors, such as improved levels of HDL (good) cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure, waist circumference and diabetes control. However, those benefits deteriorated among those who regained weight.

“Our findings suggest that in addition to focusing on weight loss, an increased emphasis should be placed on the importance of maintaining the weight loss over the long-term,” said Alice H. Lichtenstein, D.Sc., senior study author and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. “The bottom line is that maintaining the majority of the weight loss is essential to reducing cardiovascular risk.” Lichtenstein is a member of the American Heart Association’s Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health – Lifestyle Nutrition Committee.

The researchers used data from the Look AHEAD study, which assessed a year-long intensive lifestyle intervention program to promote weight loss, compared to standard care for heart disease and stroke risk, among people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and who were overweight. The intensive lifestyle intervention program focused on achieving weight loss through healthy eating and increased physical activity, while standard care consisted of diabetes support and education. A three-year maintenance phase included monthly group meetings and recommendations to replace one meal per day with something similar to a replacement shake or bar, and to continue engaging in regular physical activity.

Source: American Heart Association

---

Today’s Comic