The Rich Benefits of Eating Chocolate

Tough to keep things like chocolate in perspective - high quality dark chocolate can be enjoyed with minimal blood sugar disruption, but if you are not capable of eating only a small amount daily, just stay away until you are healthy, with stable blood sugar and close to desired level of body fat.

• Science now shows that chocolate may be good for you. Five chemical compounds contained in raw, unadulterated chocolate are highlighted to show exactly what they are and how they work.
• First, antioxidant polyphenols that neutralize free radicals provide some of the most compelling aspects of eating chocolate because they can reduce processes associated with the development of diseases like Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer.
• Second, chocolate contains anandamide, named after the Sanscrit word for “bliss,” which is a neurotransmitter in the brain that temporarily blocks feelings of pain and anxiety.
• The caffeine and theobromine in chocolate have been shown to produce higher levels of physical energy and mental alertness while, counter-intuitively, lowering blood pressure in women.
• Chocolate’s heart-friendly properties may be due to the presence of epicatechins, antioxidants which are found in higher concentrations in darker and raw forms.
• Studies showed that one-and-a-half ounces of dark chocolate a day for 2 weeks reduced stress hormone levels.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/14/chocolate-benefits.aspx?e_cid=20131014Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131014Z1

Butter+MCT+Coffee - It's a Win

But there's a catch: you have to use the right coffee and butter.

"Just putting butter into bad coffee is a bad idea," Dave Asprey, executive of the Bulletproof brand and blog told the Daily News.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/adding-butter-coffee-increases-energy-coffee-executive-article-1.1384539#ixzz2XeuyXaOp

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1384539#bmb=1

Also, putting bad butter into good coffee isn't the greatest.  Good coffee, Kelly Gold unsalted butter, and the best MCTs you can find - that's a combo!

Sardines - They Are Not Just for Breakfast

primaldocs.com/opinion/how-and-why-to-eat-sardines

This is a good summary of how many ways and why you would want to eat sardines, and how to pick them.

My take - skip the ones in soy oil, or any oil except olive oil.  Then eat them any way you like them!

High Fat, High Health

Stewart, a professor of medicine and director of Clinical and Research Exercise Physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, says that his team’s latest analysis is believed to be the first direct comparison of either kind of diet on the effects to vascular health, using the real-life context of 46 people trying to lose weight through diet and moderate exercise. The research was prompted by concerns from people who wanted to include one of the low-carb, high-fat diets such as Atkins, South Beach and Zone as part of their weight-loss program but were wary of the diets’ higher fat content.

In the first study, presented June 3 at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Denver, the Johns Hopkins team studied 23 men and women weighing on average 218 pounds and participating in a six-month weight-loss program that consisted of moderate aerobic exercise and lifting weights, plus a diet made up of no more than 30 percent of calories from carbs, such as pastas, breads and sugary fruits. As much as 40 percent of their diet was made up of fats coming from meat, dairy products and nuts.
After shedding 10 pounds, this low-carb group showed no change in two key measures of vascular health: finger tip tests of how fast the inner vessel lining in the arteries in the lower arm relaxes after blood flow has been constrained and restored in the upper arm (the so-called reactive hyperemia index of endothelial function) and the augmentation index (a pulse-wave analysis of arterial stiffness).

http://archive.gazette.jhu.edu/2011/08/01/low-carb-high-fat-diets-add-no-arterial-health-risks-to-obese/

While this is another bit of good news about the safety of high fat diets, the funny part is that there wasn't any of this testing 30 to 40 years ago when the "conventional wisdom" adopted the low fat diet. There was very little scrutiny, sadly.  Would that the establishment had been as disciplined about evaluating the effects of low fat diets - but perhaps the current efforts are the result of "lessons learned" about embracing dietary philosophy without rigorous evaluation.

More from the article:

Low-carb dieters showed no harmful vascular changes but also on average dropped 10 pounds in 45 days, compared to an equal number of study participants randomly assigned to a low-fat diet. The low-fat group, whose diets consisted of no more than 30 percent from fat and 55 percent from carbs, took on average 70 days, nearly a month longer, to lose the same amount of weight.

“Our study should help allay the concerns that many people who need to lose weight have about choosing a low-carb diet instead of a low-fat one, and provide reassurance that both types of diet are effective at weight loss and that a low-carb approach does not seem to pose any immediate risk to vascular health,” Stewart said. “More people should be considering a low-carb diet as a good option,” he added.

Eat Red Meat and Cholesterol For Health

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19452526

This study examined the relationship between pancreatic cancer risk and intake of fresh meat, eggs, total fat, and different types of fat. The diets of 120,852 men and women were analyzed over a 13.3 year period.

The study found:

• Those that consumed the most meat had a 24% decreased rate of pancreatic cancer compared to those that consumed the least meat.
• Those that consumed the most red meat had a 46% decreased rate of pancreatic cancer compared to those that consumed the least red meat.

HT:  http://healthydietsandscience.blogspot.com/2012/02/red-meat-and-dietary-cholesterol-offer.html

There's much more, I highly recommend you check out the link of the article and the summary from the link above.  Eat meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar/no wheat.

Magnesium and Inflammation

Summary : To evaluate the association between severe hypomagnesemia and the low-grade inflammatory response in subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS), ninety-eight individuals with new diagnosis of MetS were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. Pregnancy, smoking, alcohol intake, renal damage, hepatic disorders, infectious or chronic inflammatory diseases, malignancy, use of diuretics, statins, calcium antagonist, antioxidants, vitamins, anti-inflammatory drugs, or previous oral magnesium supplementation were exclusion criteria. According serum magnesium levels, participants were assigned to the following groups: 1) severe hypomagnesemia (≤1.2 mg/dL)\; 2) hypomagnesemia (>1.2≤1.8 mg/dL)\; 3) Normal serum magnesium levels (>1.8 mg/dL). The low-grade inflammatory response was defined by elevation of serum levels of (CRP;1.0 ≤10.0 mg/L) or TNF-alpha (TNF-α ≥3.5 pg/mL). Severe hypomagnesemia, hypomagnesemia, and normomagnesemia were identified in 21 (21.4%), 38 (38.8%), and 39 (39.8%) individuals. The ORs, adjusted by WC, showed that severe hypomagnesemia (OR: 8.1\; CI 95%: 3.6-19.4 and OR: 3.7\; CI 95%: 1.1-12.1), but not hypomagnesemia (OR: 1.8\; CI 95%: 0.9-15.5 and OR: 1.6\; CI 95%: 0.7-3.6), was strongly associated with elevated CRP and TNF-α levels, and that normomagnesemia exhibited a protective role (OR: 0.32\; CI 95%: 0.1-0.7 and OR: 0.28\; CI 95%: 0.1-0.6) for elevation of CRP and TNF-α. Results of this study show that, in subjects with MetS, severe hypomagnesemia, but not hypomagnesemia, is associated with elevated concentrations of CRP and TNF-α.
http://www.jle.com/en/revues/bio_rech/mrh/e-docs/00/04/69/2E/resume.phtml

What's the story here?  Since you don't get magnesium in your water any longer, you likely need to supplement.  Good news?  It's easy and cheap to do! http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=natural+calm
The 16oz bottle lasts months.  The Eades and Robb Wolf advocate supplementing this mineral, with the recommendation that it be taken before bedtime as a natural "calming" or "soothing" effect.  However, beware, too much will create the Milk of Magnesia effect, go easy at first, and add more to discovery how much you can tolerate.

CFJ: How The World Sees CFers

A coffee shop near my hotel, which is currently flooded with Reebok-wearing athletes.  I order an Americano and ask for heavy cream to top it off.

The barista, a plump woman who was just as wide as she was tall, says, “OK, that’s enough. I have to ask. What is with all you fit-looking people drinking this high-fat, heavy whipping cream in your coffee? There have been so many of you here this week asking for this high-fat cream. I would think you would ask for skim milk or soy milk. How y’all remain so fit?”

I didn’t want to get into a nutrition talk with this woman. There was a lineup, I was in a rush, and I am in no way a poster girl for the 100 percent Paleo lifestyle, so I came up with a quick answer.

“Fat doesn’t make you fat. I ate bacon for breakfast this morning, too,” I said.

“So you’re telling me I should start eating bacon and I can look like you?” asked the woman, an excited sparkle in her eye, clearly visualizing the bacon she was going to fry up as soon as her shift was over.

I got the distinct feeling I may have set this woman off on the wrong track and immediately regretted my careless bacon promotion.

The Leftover Bagel Mystery

The hotel I’m staying at serves a continental breakfast in the morning. When they were told a group of athletes was coming, they upped their bagel quota.

“Usually when we know sports teams are coming, we know athletes like their bagels. We always seem to run out when the football teams stay here,” said one of the hotel employees.

Oddly enough, this weekend bagels are going stale.

“Y’all are more into the sausages,” laughed the same hotel employee, shaking her head in what looked like confused disgust. “We’ll remember that for next year— CrossFitters like sausages.”

http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Games2011Day2_Beers.pdf

Ageless Grace Indeed

It's worth taking a look at this blog just to see the first photo, which inspired the title for this post.
http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com/2011/04/fermented-asian-food-and-gut-dysbiosis.html

BLUF:  Fermented food is so cool even Tim Ferriss recommends it.

Coconut Oil - Magic?

Well, not exactly magic, as I don't believe in 'magic bullet' solutions to diet and health problems, but you can get your coconut oil on to reduce appetite, and set you up for a day's worth of high speed high fat metabolism:  About two months ago, as a sort of personal experiment, I began eating two tablespoons of coconut oil for breakfast. Just 250 calories of coconut oil, plus my supplements, seemed to hold me until lunch, which was a surprise. Not only that, I didn't seem to be quite as hungry during the rest of the day. Not only that, I seemed to do much better at weight maintenance than I have for many years.
http://lowcarb4u.blogspot.com/2011/04/magical-mystical-coconut-oil.html

The post goes into why - short version:  medium chain fatty acids have an optimal metabolic impact by requiring little digestion while supporting production of ketones. 

Eating Grass

If money were no object, my CF gym would be right in the middle of my pastured beef cattle. Pastured animals change everything in the food chain from bad to good, and would be cost competitive without the negative impact of the Feds.

Along with taste, freshness and cost, consumers these days are also concerned with where their food comes from.

This new focus has created a renewed interest in grass-fed beef, both as a healthy alternative to corn- and hormone-fed cows and as an environmentally friendly industry.

Until just a few generations ago, beef cattle intended for human consumption were raised on a diet of grasses and hay. Their diet began to include corn and grains with the rise of industrialized farming after World War II. Pasture-based farming never went away completely, though, and is growing on family farms across the U.S.

Pasture-based agriculture benefits humans, the environment and animals in many ways. Grass-fed beef is higher than grain-fed in omega-3 fatty acids, and lower in calories and fat. It also has higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid, another fat thought to reduce heart disease and cancer risks, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Read more:  http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/From-grass-to-plate-1193392.php#ixzz1HrHr9zLj

Grass On Fire

I previously posted a link to a short version of a video of the author referenced below, and really enjoyed the "Grass" summary, which starts off with a thought experiment:
Consider two groups of animals:
    Group one - cattle, gorillas, and sheep
    Group two - humans, lions, and polar bear

Which of these two groups of mammals are “designed” to digest a low fat diet?
Neither!Digestion and ingestion are different processes. Clearly the first group of mammals ingest a low fat, high fiber diet. But mammalian enzymes cannot hydrolyze (digest) the cellulose and other complex carbohydrates that make up plant fiber. Microorganisms, however, produce enzymes that can. Herbivorous mammals live in a symbiotic relationship with these organisms. The host mammal possess digestive systems that permit fore-gut fermentation (the cattle and sheep, for example, via their reticulo-rumen), or hind-gut fermentation (the gorilla, for example, via it’s enlarged colon and cecum). In either case, the products of these fermentation processes are short-chain, volatile fatty acids (principally acetic, propionic, and butyric acids). Interestingly enough, 60 – 80 % of a ruminant’s (Pond, 2005) and 66 % of a gorilla’s (Popovich, et al., 1997) energy needs come from these fatty acids. These animals digest a high fat diet!

http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com/2011/03/nature-votes-last.html
Another taste of Grass' post:
Mankind has been consuming animal products, especially fat, for a very long time. Several authors have argued that one of the two critical drivers for the development of our species, Homo sapiens, is the consumption of a diet consisting primarily of organ meats, animal fats, and muscle meats (Kaplan et al., 2000, Stanford and Bunn, 2001, Bramble and Lieberman, 2004). The other developmental driver was the practice of cooking (Wrangham, et al., 1999, Wrangham, 2006). Wrangham’s book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human is a fascinating and very readable examination of this topic.

All living tissue requires energy for maintenance. Our basal metabolic rate, when adjusted for total body size, is the same as other primates (Leonard and Robertson, 1997). By eating a truly nutrient dense diet, one based upon animal products, our ancient ancestors no longer needed to maintain the large digestive tracts required by mammals living on high fiber diets. Our large intestine, or colon, is less than 60 percent of the mass that would be expected from our total body mass (Martin, et al., 1985). In fact, the volume of the entire human gut is only 60 percent of what would be expected from our total body mass (Aiello and Wheeler, 1995). This reduction in human gut size frees up at least 10 percent of the expected basal metabolic rate for our brain’s requirement (Aiello and Wheeler, 1995). In addition, the cholesterol (and other nutrients, including choline) provided by a diet based on animal products provided the vital “raw material” to build the brain (Leonard, et al., 2007). Plant-based diets lack these vital nutrients.

Butter? Yes!

Nice write up by Whole9; my comments at the end.
http://whole9life.com/2010/11/butter/
[We can’t justify butter] consumption without making some significant efforts to improve the quality of the butter and remove the milk solids.

• Grass-fed or “pastured”. The cows must be grass-fed, or “pastured”, indicating that they are not raised primarily on unnatural diets.  This is perhaps the biggest contributing factor to the overall health of the cow, and the milk it produces.  These cows live outside, are free to roam, and are treated humanely, unlike their factory “farmed” counterparts.  Healthy, happy cows living in their natural environment produce healthier butter.

• Organic. The cows must not be given hormones or antibiotics, or be exposed to synthetic pesticides and other banned substances. While the “organic” label is sometimes manipulated to increase profits, in this instance, it actually means something with respect to the cow’s health and treatment.  None of that junk in the cow’s environment means none can make their way into your butter.

• Clarified. You then must remove the dairy proteins by clarifying the organic, pastured butter at home.  (Instructions for clarifying your own butter are easy to find on the web.)   The clarification process removes the milk proteins, leaving behind pure, golden butterfat. (Just so you know, ghee and clarified butter are similar but not identical; ghee is heated longer, until the milk solids brown.  That imparts a richer, smokier flavor into the butterfat.)

In summary, the only way we can recommend eating butter is if it comes from a humanely raised, grass-fed, organic source, and you take the time to clarify it.  There are no major down sides to butter produced in such a manner, and we can happily recommend you use your clarified butter or ghee as one of your (varied) added fat sources.
Whole9's recommendations are on the conservative side for me.  I've read Dr. Cordain's concerns about dairy, and while there's obviously some risk, the big risk is in overconsuming carbohydrate.  In my view, that's 80% of the problem, and you needn't worry about the other 20% until you nail the first 80% and get your carbohydrate consumption within a safe range, for a long enough period of time that you allow your metabolic systems to heal.  That said, if you follow the above process you get an even better fuel source than can be had by just choosing pastured dairy.

A slice of pastured dairy butter is now like a dessert for me.  It sure adds a lot of flavor and pleasure to eating deli meat!  My kids like it too, even just plain.  Whether or not it has the CLA (conjugated linoleic acid; google it) it is supposed to have, or not, it is at worst a very fine fuel for the well tuned human engines.

Eat Your Fat NOT Your Veggies!

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4419153/eat-your-fat-not-your-vegetables/?playlist_id=86892
Great piece, well done mylady!

WHS - Benefit of Pastured Dairy

Dairy - complex issue, but pastured is the way to go.

"Pastured Dairy may Prevent Heart Attacks

Not all dairy is created equal. Dairy from grain-fed and pasture-fed cows differs in a number of ways. Pastured dairy contains more fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamin K2, vitamin A, vitamin E, carotenes and omega-3 fatty acids. It also contains more conjugated linoleic acid, a fat-soluble molecule that has been under intense study due to its ability to inhibit obesity and cancer in animals. The findings in human supplementation trials have been mixed, some confirming the animal studies and others not. In feeding experiments in cows, Dr. T. R. Dhiman and colleagues found the following (1):

Cows grazing pasture and receiving no supplemental feed had 500% more conjugated linoleic acid in milk fat than cows fed typical dairy diets.

Fat from ruminants such as cows, sheep and goats is the main source of CLA in the human diet. CLA is fat-soluble. Therefore, skim milk doesn't contain any. It's also present in human body fat in proportion to dietary intake. This can come from dairy or flesh.

In a recent article from the AJCN, Dr. Liesbeth Smit and colleagues examined the level of CLA in the body fat of Costa Rican adults who had suffered a heart attack, and compared it to another group who had not (a case-control study, for the aficionados). People with the highest level of CLA in their body fat were 49% less likely to have had a heart attack, compared to those with the lowest level (2).

Since dairy was the main source of CLA in this population, the association between CLA and heart attack risk is inextricable from the other components in pastured dairy fat. In other words, CLA is simply a marker of pastured dairy fat intake in this population, and the (possible) benefit could just as easily have come from vitamin K2 or something else in the fat.

This study isn't the first one to suggest that pastured dairy fat may be uniquely protective. The Rotterdam and EPIC studies found that a higher vitamin K2 intake is associated with a lower risk of heart attack, cancer and overall mortality (3, 4, 5). In the 1940s, Dr. Weston Price estimated that pastured dairy contains up to 50 times more vitamin K2 than grain-fed dairy. He summarized his findings in the classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. This finding has not been repeated in recent times, but I have a little hunch that may change soon..."

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/05/pastured-dairy-may-prevent-heart.html

Sun and D, 2

More from Feasting on Fitness:  http://feastingonfitness.blogspot.com/2010/05/sunshine-of-your-love-part-1-safely.html

Christy does a thorough review - take a look.

Caffeine Health Bonus

"Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD hypothesized that caffeine may inhibit the intraocular generation of reactive oxygen species in the lens and consequent damage to the tissue.
The team studied the oxyradical effects in vitro by incubating mice lenses in medium exposed UVA in the presence of kynurenine with and without caffeine. In vivo studies were conducted in rats by incorporating caffeine with galactose in their diet. In both cases, caffeine was found to be effective in protecting the lens against damage."
http://www.newswise.com/articles/caffeine-may-help-prevent-cataract-formation

What's the application of incubated mice lenses to humans?  Beats me.  Hope it's significant!

Mustard - Get Some

http://www.heartscanblog.blogspot.com/
Fascinating analysis.  I like the doc's conclusion.
"So perhaps mustard isn't exactly a super health food. But it may have some bona fide health effects and should be used generously especially if you are concerned about blood sugar and inflammatory phenomena."