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A variety of fried snacks and soft drinks are for sale in Mexico City's Centro Historico neighborhood. Meghan Dhaliwal/for NPR hide caption

Hunger once seemed like a simple problem. Around the globe, often in low-income countries, many people didn't get enough calories.

But increasingly, hunger exists side-by-side with obesity. Within the same community, some people are overweight while others don't have enough to eat.

And the tricky part: You can't "fix" hunger by just feeding people empty calories. You've got to nourish people with healthy, nutrient-dense foods, so they don't become obese.

A new report published in The Lancet shines a spotlight on this paradox. The dual problems of undernourishment and obesity often referred to as the double burden of malnutrition.

For example, people can begin life not getting enough calories and become stunted below average height for age but by adulthood can become overweight due to an abundance of cheap calories.

Similarly, an obese teenager even in a wealthy country like the U.S. can easily grow overweight from eating junk food yet still be deficient in micronutrients that are key for optimal health.

"The new nutrition reality is about countries having not just undernutrition or just having obesity but about ... the combination of both," says Corinna Hawkes, a report author, and director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.

The report finds an estimated 2.3 billion children and adults are overweight and more than 150 million children are stunted. The problem, researchers say, is that the ideal diet includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and beans, but much of the globe has developed a taste for snack foods full of refined carbohydrates and sugar.

"The poorest low- and middle-income countries are seeing a rapid transformation in the way people eat, drink and move at work, home, in transport and in leisure," says report author Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "The new nutrition reality is driven by changes to the food system, which have increased availability of ultra-processed foods that are linked to increased weight gain."

Popkin and his co-authors argue that systematic changes are needed to fix the problem: Everything from changing food production and processing to how foods are priced, labeled and marketed.

"All relevant policies and investments must be radically re-examined," says Francesco Branca, Director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development at the World Health Organization.

And, given that poor diets are now linked to more deaths than smoking, there's an urgency, researchers say.

"We can no longer characterize countries as low-income and undernourished, or high-income and only concerned with obesity. All forms of malnutrition have a common denominator: food systems that fail to provide all people with healthy, safe, affordable and sustainable diets," Branca says.

We asked experts and thinkers in global nutrition to share initiatives and policies aimed at tackling the problem. Some are old, some old; all these efforts take on urgency given the scope of the problem.

Grow healthier foods

Focusing on the production and distribution of nutrient-dense foods is a good place to start, says Danielle Nierenberg, president and founder of Food Tank. She points to the work of the World Vegetable Center, which helps farmers in Asia and Africa grow an array of vegetables in an effort to prevent micronutrient deficiencies and malnutrition.

"One of the most interesting things they do is help provide resources for women farmers to create value-added products, like vegetable powders. These have the dual benefit of preventing food loss and waste, and providing essential nutrients throughout the year, as well as a source of income," Nierenberg says.

She says in addition to projects like this, the group works to improve vegetable breeding practices.

"This focus on veggies will help transform diets and health but only if governments and policy makers realize their importance," Nierenberg says.

She also points to the work of the International Center for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics' (ICRISAT) Smart Food project that is promoting grain crops like millets and sorghums to improve nutrition. Both are nutrient-dense and provide a mix of fiber, protein and micro-nutrients.

"Milllets and sorghums have long been neglected and they have an image problem they're thought of as 'birdseed' or considered poor people's foods," Nierenberg says. "But they're highly nutritious, they have a low glycemic index, they're resilient to drought and disease and they're delicious."

Money talks

To address obesity and poor nutrition, we can't rely on people to use willpower to make healthier choices, says Will Masters, professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition and Science Policy at Tufts University. Instead, he argues that government regulations and taxes can play a key role in shifting what we eat and drink.

He points to the U.K., where the government introduced a tax on sugary drinks that took effect in 2018. The policy was structured to give manufacturers an incentive to redo their products: When a company reduces sugar in its products below a certain threshold, they can avoid the tax.

There's already some evidence that the policy has led to changes on store shelves. The U.K. grocery retailer Tesco reformulated all 251 of its house brand sodas to reduce sugar and avoided the levy. "Tesco customers are now consuming on average over 20% less sugar from our soft drinks than in 2011," a Tesco executive told The Guardian in 2016.

"It's a clear example where taxes are a stick that leads the company to dial down the sugar in these beverages, " Masters says.

Governments can also design food subsidy programs that encourage healthier eating among low-income beneficiaries of government food aid. The idea is that people who are low-income beneficiaries of government food aid don't just need calories they need nourishment. And they may need to be educated on how to get it.

Professor Hawkes, who is one of the authors of the new Lancet report, cites Egypt and Mexico as examples. In Mexico, "people who received cash [for food] also received training and education about healthy eating," she says.

With a change in government in Mexico last year, these programs are in flux. In the U.S, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) federal nutrition program also combines food assistance with nutrition education and support for low-income moms.

Promote breastfeeding

To prevent undernutrition early in life, there are increasing efforts to promote breastfeeding around the globe, says Jessica Fanzo, professor of global food and agricultural policy and ethics at Johns Hopkins University. The added benefit is that breastfeeding can also help protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes later in life.

"There is strong evidence suggesting that exclusively breastfeeding children has both short-term and long-term benefits to child health and nutrition," Fanzo says.

She points to the growth of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, which was started by WHO and UNICEF back in the early 1990s, in an effort to promote breastfeeding. A hospital or clinic maternity ward can be designated "baby-friendly" when it implements a series of steps such as not accepting free or low-cost baby formulas, helping mothers start breastfeeding within a half-hour of birth, giving newborns no food or drink other than breastmilk (unless medically necessary), keeping babies in the room with their mothers to encourage breastfeeding on demand and giving no pacifiers to babies.

The program has been implemented in hospitals and clinics in many countries, and has been shown to be effective in helping women both initiate breast feeding and stick with it. Fanzo says it's one evidence-based way to promote health and good nutrition.

Invest in farmers

To transform the food system, governments have to help farmers, especially in low- and middle-income countries, says Ertharin Cousin, a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former executive director of the World Food Programme.

She says there are lots of initiatives that can work aid to secure financing, technologies to improve storage so farmers don't lose their harvests, access to improved seeds and fertilizer.

Cousin says there are lots of unfunded business opportunities within the food and agricultural sectors. Together with a group of partners, earlier this year she started a hybrid nutrition impact fund, Food Systems for the Future (FSF) Institute. She says the goal is to improve nutrition outcomes for underserved and low-income communities.

Get to know your veggies

Imagine growing vegetables that you never eat. That's the reality for some farm families in the highlands of Guatemala.

"Many of these moms work in the fields tending to a marvelous variety of vegetables that are largely grown for export," says Roger Thurow, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs who focuses on food and agriculture.

There's a big opportunity, he says, to improve nutrition by making people more comfortable using vegetables in the kitchen. He points to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Program by Primeros Pasos, a clinic in the western highlands of Guatemala that teaches families the importance of eating the nutrient-dense crops around them. The moms in the program attend regular nutrition classes, which include cooking lessons.

Within the U.S., the group Share Our Strength operates Cooking Matters in cities throughout the country. Classes are held to teach families who have very limited budgets to shop for and cook healthy meals. It's one of a growing number of programs aimed at changing behavior by teaching people how to cook and educating them about the important health benefits of good nutrition

Thurow writes in his book, The First 1,000 Days, about other initiatives, including a home visitation program in Chicago to help support and educate moms in low-income neighborhoods about the importance of good nutrition. In his book he describes a doula a health worker who assists a woman during pregnancy and delivery bringing a bag of fresh produce to pregnant women when she comes to see them.

"It's basically house-to-house combat against malnutrition," Thurow says.

See more here:
Overweight Yet Undernourished: How To Solve The Global Hunger Paradox : Goats and Soda - NPR

Did you grow up eating low-salt food because someone in your family had high blood pressure (BP)? If yes, youre probably luckier than you realise.

One in four Indian adults has hypertension. Increasingly people in the 25-34 age group are falling prey to this disease that increases wear and tear in the blood vessels. Though there are many reasons for this, a high-salt diet is not blameless.

Heres how it affects your health:

Ever noticed how you feel thirsty after going through a bag of chips? Regular salt contains roughly 40% sodium (the rest is chlorine). When we consume a lot of salt in a short time, the body tries to dilute the sodium in our blood with water. When the amount of water in the blood rises, the overall volume of blood increases. Now the heart has to pump more. Hardworking as it is, the heart likes to work just the right amount. Too much strain on the heart can weaken the heart muscle, or even lead to heart failure.

Salt poisoning isn't only real, it's already affecting public health in evident ways. Image: WWW

Research has also linked high-salt diets to increased risk of kidney disease, brain stroke, diabetes, dementia and poorer bone health.

High BP affects every organ in the body, especially the heart. BP is measured in millimetres of mercury - any reading over 140/90 is considered high. This reading means that blood vessels withstand at least 140 mm of pressure every time the heart contracts and 90 mm when it relaxes.

Over time, the blood vessels become rigid as a result of high pressure. This sets off a vicious cycle. High BP makes the blood vessels rigid, and rigid blood vessels increase BP further and high BP also increases the chances of cholesterol plaque buildup in the arteries which can become choked. This, in turn, can lead to a host of problems like heart attack and brain stroke.

Between 2009 and 2011, German scientists ran a bunch of tests on astronauts on two simulated missions to Mars over 105 days and 205 days, respectively (the second mission was for 520 days, but the scientists studied the astronauts for a little less than half that duration). Every 30-60 days, the scientists changed the amount of salt in the astronauts diet. The variations were 12 grams of salt a day, 9 grams daily or 6 grams per day.

At the end of the period, they found a connection between high salt intake and water retention in the kidneys not only did the test subjects have less water in their pee for days when they ate more salt, but they also started drinking less water because their kidneys were retaining water already.

The scientists found one more thing: changing the amount of salt in the daily diet also triggered a change in the production of two hormones aldosterone, which cleans the sodium out of the kidneys, and glucocorticoids, which keeps the metabolism ship-shape. This hormonal imbalance, they said, can cause a range of metabolic disorders, from diabetes to metabolic syndrome.

Salt affects the excretion of calcium through our pee. More salt equals more calcium loss equals loss of bone density, and potentially, the formation of kidney stones. Its fitting that the way to pass the smaller kidney stones is to drink lots of water, which also improves the overall salt-water balance in the blood.

Scientists at New Yorks Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, and the Department of Neurology, Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, Knight Alzheimers Disease Research Center, Washington University, have found that the more salt you eat, the more tau proteins build up in your brain. Usually, tau proteins help the brain cells get nutrition. But when theres an imbalance of tau proteins, it can lead to a decline in brainpower. The scientists published their research inNature Neuroscience- a peer-reviewed journal - in October 2019.

For more information, please read our article onRock Salt: Benefits and Side-effects.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.

Updated Date: Dec 24, 2019 12:28:59 IST

Tags : Effects Of Too Much Salt, Healthy Diet, High In Salt, High-Salt Diet, Low-Salt Diet, Salt, Salt Health Effects, Salt Health Problems, Side-Effects Of Salt

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Diets low in salt aren't just 'good for health' they keep life-threatening conditions at bay - Firstpost

Its that time of year again to reflect on New Years resolutions. The Cambridge dictionary defines a resolution as a promise to yourself to do or to not do something orstopdoing somethingbad, which sounds simple enough right?

But according Psychology Today, only 41% of Americans make New Years resolutions and only 8% achieve their resolutions. Not the most promising statistics.

Making a New Year's resolution is great in theory, but what makes the biggest difference in whether you achieve your goal is if it becomes a long-term positive change. New Years doesnt need to be the only time to make self-improvements.

Mypatient Luis Salazar made a monumental transformation that has lasted for more thaneight years and he plans on making it last a lifetime. I sat down with him to talk about his journey and share it with you as a source of motivation and inspiration.

Emily Rubin:When didyour weight become an issue?

Luis Salazar: I was an overweight child and through my first year of college. In 2011, at the age of 20, I was diagnosed with prediabetes, fatty liver, high blood pressure and multiple GI problems. I was also clinically depressed and didn't like my body.

ER: What was your diet like at this point?

LS: Prior to my weight loss journey, my diet consisted of lots of fast food, soda and candy. Breakfast would be two donuts and a coke. For lunch, I would typically go to a fast food restaurant eat a burger with fries with another coke. Dinner was take-out Chinesefood or pizza. I would also snack all day on copious amounts of candy and soft drinks.

ER: What were your previous diet attempts?

LS: I tried Slim Fast, the South Beach Diet and the Atkins Diet. I also tried the "oatmeal diet" which just consisted of eating only oatmeal for every meal.

ER:What was your light bulb moment that pushed you to lose weight?

LS: I was at my primary care physicians office and my blood pressure was 200/90 because of my family history and previous [blood pressure] readings, I was put on blood pressure medications. I remember in my head thinking, "I'm way too young to be on medications."

At 20 years old, I had a multitude of conditions due to my poor dietary habits. All of this was very alarming to me that I had let myself get this heavy. Mentally, I was depressed and not happy with my life. After that day a coworker, who was also struggling with weight, and I decided we were going to diet and workout together to hold each other accountable.I wanted to make this change to better myself and lead to a healthier lifestyle.

ER:How much did you lose and how long did it take?

LS: I lost over 150 pounds in just over a year.I've kept the weight off since 2012.

ER: What is your diet now?

LS: Instead of counting calories, I count mymacronutrients (macros) grams of proteins, carbs and fats.Depending on my training schedule or goals, my ratios for grams may change. It's been super helpful and has taught me that youre not meant to be depriving your body, youre meant to be feeding it to perform.

During my weight loss journey I met with you and you showed me that I was eating too little and restricting my calories. You really helped me find a balance to support my activity level.

ER:How do you maintain your weight?

LS: Along with counting macros, I work out five to six times a week. My exercise of choice is CrossFit, which has brought such immense happiness to my life with all the challenges and goals Ive accomplished.

ER:What kept you motivated when you were down?

LS: My biggest motivation was myself. I was my own cheerleader. I wanted to change my body and my mind. I was so used to overeating and living unhappily. I always envisionedthe light at the end of the tunnel. I would set small achievable goals to reach. Once I hit one, I'd strive to hit another.

ER: What is the biggest struggle: food, exercise, temptation?

LS: My biggest struggle is definitely food. I always have to remind myself to eat smart, make healthy choices and eat in moderation.

ER:How has your weight loss affected your relationships?

LS: Weight loss has had a major effect on my relationships. I'm so much happier and energetic. I've also become way more social and outgoing. When I was overweight, I found myself wanting to just stay home and be alone. After losing weight, I wanted to meet new people. It gave me the confidence to be myself and live my life to the fullest.

ER:Who are your biggest supporters?

LS: My biggest supporters are most definitely my mother and friends. Part of the reason I love CrossFit so much is the community. I've been able to meet people from all walks of life and of all fitness levels. It is a very encouraging environment and it pushes me to be better every day.

ER:What are your biggest accomplishments?

LS: I've ran the Broad Street Run seven years in a row. I've done three half marathons. I've competed and placed in several CrossFit and strongman competitions. For the last year, I've been coaching CrossFit at Subversus Fitness. I coach around 10-15 hours every week. It gives me such happiness to show people the amazing abilities of the body and how fitness can make you better in many ways.

ER: What is your New Years Resolution?

LS: This year my resolution is to continue sharing knowledge of fitness and health with others. It brings me great joy to see how being healthy and staying active has made people so much happier. I want to continue to set a goal to be consistent with my training and tracking.

Emily Rubin, R.D., has been a registered dietitian with Thomas Jeffersons division of gastroenterology and hepatology for 18 years. She is the dietitian for its celiac center, Fatty Liver Center and Weight Management Center. She is also the public relations chair for the Philadelphia Dietetic Association. She will be writing occasionally on topics related to nutrition and dieting.

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Jefferson Health patient who lost 150 pounds encourages others to keep their New Year's resolutions - PhillyVoice.com

Wine & Dine

Text by Zaral Shah. Photographed by Joshua Navalkar

Were only about halfway into the celebratory season, but conversations filled with No more cheat days for me this year or I cant even imagine how many weeks its going to take to offset all that sugar! and I cant go see my nutritionist until I work off the mithai have taken over. To prevent deprivation from being the only solution to healthy festive eating and give sweets a starring role rather than an insignificant cameo in your diet, many Mumbai sweet spots are whipping up wholesome alternatives that are sure to leave you spoilt for choice.

With organic, vegan and gluten-free offerings, protein-packed or paleo cakes, or the many keto-friendly foods on menus across the city, the aim is primarily to create and encourage beneficial habits instead of diet fads. Laying emphasis on the keto diet, Karishma Boolani sports scientist and founder, HUMANICS shares, In the human body, the sugar burning mechanism is your fuel engine and the fat burning mechanism is your electric engine. It is essentially designed to use the fuel (sugar) energy in emergency situations and live off the electric (fat) engine for the most part. Yet the diets that most people follow have been doing the exact opposite; the majority of calories in our diet have been refined carbohydrate sources. When we eat a lot of carbs, we burn sugar as a primary energy source. The human body is the most intelligent machine, and its essential that we do not work against the way nature intended, it is very important to understand the science in order to work with its physiology and allow it to thrive.

Zaral Shah gets the facts (and fiction) about healthy sweets from the owners of five establishments that focus on unprocessed ingredients and clean eating.

Raveena TauraniFOUNDER AND CEOYOGISATTVA

Above: Vegan Saffron Malai Ladoos; Below: Vegan Gajjar Ka Halwa

Silver serving bowl, Silver urli both from Sangeeta Boochra

I developed severe lactose intolerance in 2015, which is when I began looking for dairy-free options. It was during this journey that I became passionate towards creating cleaner, unprocessed desserts with higher digestibility, because of the lack of choice for me during that time.

I think people have always been conscious of what they eat. Whats changed is that more people have begun focusing on sourcing cleaner, organic ingredients to cook with. The biggest myth about healthy desserts is that you can consume them daily. Dessert whether healthy or not should be consumed only once in a while. It cannot be a part of your daily lifestyle.

Weve used almond milk and coconut cream in the gajjar ka halwa and saffron malai ladoos. Weve done our best to get the consistency and taste as close as possible to whats already available. They are cleaner versions of the original, but you wont feel like youre missing out in any way.

We dissolve the saffron in hot water for its flavour to develop before using it; and we make our own coconut milk which we leave in the fridge overnight so that it becomes thicker in consistency like malai. These processes ensure maximum flavour and quality.

The Limited Edition Diwali Gift Box which had an organic soy wax candle and organic, vegan and gluten-free saffron malai ladoos, pistachio cookies and gajjar ka halwa were extremely popular. During Christmas, people are more focused on buying our limited-edition vegan and gluten-free pumpkin spice muffins, gingerbread spice cake or spiced plum cake. New Year is all about our savoury healthy food options ranging from beet and quinoa falafels with a spicy harissa dip to our gluten-free breads, dips and crackers.

The attendance we see for our dessert cooking classes is far higher than for our savoury food ones. Weve always received great feedback because people are happier to be able to eat something sweet without the guilt. Learning to nourish yourself, even if it is dessert, is truly empowering. We also provide an organic resource guide of where to locally source the ingredients that have been used in the workshop.

Ankita ChawlaFOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHEFEAT-A-WHEY

Clockwise from top: Almond and Orange Paleo Bundt Cake; Red Velvet Protein Cake; Chocolate and Almond Keto Brownies

Clockwise from above: Lotus Leaf Brass Dessert Plate from Nicobar; Spice Enamel Brass Thali (used as cake base), Marble Cloche, both from Clove

Having battled obesity for most of my teenageyears, I decided to lose weight when I was 18, and the most difficult thing to give up was sugar. Although I succeeded for a couple of years, I eventually started to binge eat sugary desserts. My face would immediatelybreak out and the numbers on the weighing scale also started to go up, so I decided to experiment with healthier dessert options to satisfy my cravings.

Today, people have become more aware and are educated about food and its impact on our health not just physical appearance, but how it affects our hormones too. It isnt about starving to lose weight or cutting off a food group entirely because those are all just short term. These days, people are not willing to compromise on their health, and so what they put into their bodies is quite important. The saying, you are what you eat fits this generation perfectly. We are a product of what we put into our bodies.

The biggest myth Ive come across since starting Eat-A-Whey is that people think that healthy means calorie- and fat-free. But no food you consume, other than water, is calorie-free. Our desserts are just healthier alternatives to the regular, high carb, sugary desserts. People need to understand that weight loss is all about calories. Its calories-in versus calories-out. If youre exceeding your daily recommended calorie intake, whether eating healthy or unhealthy food, you are going to gain weight.

Weve replaced the two main evil ingredients that youd find in a regular almond and orange cake: jaggery for white sugar, and almond flour for refined flour. Both of which spike insulin levels.It took us a while to nail the taste of the cake, as we were trying to bring out the real taste of orange by using fresh orange juice and no added flavouring. And weve been very fortunate to have only gotten rave reviews!

Aside from the whey protein powder used in the red velvet protein cake, we add almond flour and skim milk which increases the protein content. The other biggest source of protein is the Greek yogurt in the icing.

Rohan AgnaniHOME BAKER/ENTREPRENEURCHUBBY BAKER & CO.

I am diabetic and started this journey as a very personal one, and I also needed to control my sugar intake because I was on a ketogenic diet. But at the same time, I generally have the massive urge to eat something sweet during the day, so I knew I had to start understanding the world of keto desserts.

Honestly, people have become more conscious of what they are eating owing to the realisation of how damaging sugar and carbs are in general, especially when consumed on a daily basis. We are open to tonnes of information directly from health consultants and doctors due to Instagram and YouTube. One of the biggest myths about healthy desserts is related to taste; people think they taste horrible, but to the contrary, I have had non-keto customers specially asking for my keto cookies as they love the way they taste. The second comes from bakers who think that if they use wheat instead of flour, jaggery or sucralose instead of sugar, their desserts will be healthy. Thats actually a much more harmful myth. These desserts are probably better than having the desserts made by the former ingredients,but in no way are they completely harmless.

The chewy chocolate chip cookies are suitable for a keto diet as they are made with100 per cent dark chocolate which means that there is no mixing of milk solids or sugar. We also use almond flour which is the go-to flour for anything healthy. Other healthy flours being coconut flour, flaxseed powder, cilium husk, pumpkin seed meal amongst others. And we use erythritol and stevia as the sweetening agent which are keto compliant.

There is a mix of preferences when it comes to people wanting healthier alternatives of their favourite desserts.There are many who do love to go and try the healthier versions by choice and then some have no option but to do so. There are also those who do not want to fiddle with the sinful regular desserts as they can afford to eat them, health-wise. The response to my healthy bakes has been great, especially from customers who are not new to keto and other low carb diets. But those who are trying low carb diets and foods for the first time usually take a while to get accustomed to the taste.

Tara Bose KapurFOUNDERBOMBAY BIZARE BAKER

Vegan Doughnuts with Chocolate, Vanilla Cinnamon, Strawberry or Raspberry fruit pulp

Roti box lid (used as plate), Lotus Leaf Brass Dessert Plate both from Nicobar

I have always been a discerning, passionate foodie; I travel a lot and love dessert. When my son, now 16, was diagnosed with severe food allergies back in 2012, we reacted by stopping consumption of all foods he couldnt eat. A couple of years later, I wanted to order him a birthday cake but could not find anyone who was ready to make one which was suitable and, in despair, decided to bake it myself. It is still a massive favourite and appears on theBombayBizaremenu as homemade chocolate cake (vegan).

What do healthy desserts mean? The term sugar-free means many different things. It could mean the use of a sugar substitute like erythritol, stevia or monk fruit, ora sweetener like honey or dates which would be very bad for a diabetic person or one on a keto or low carb diet. So whenever a customer asks me for sugar-free, I always clarify what exactly they mean. All vegan and gluten-free bakes are made with raw cane sugar. And we offer customers the coconut sugar option too.

Most items on our menu are created in response to customer requests. The vegan doughnuts came into being as a vegan customer in Delhi asked my partner, Jyotika Kapur, if we made them. And so we did a recipe search and trials, and the doughnuts made it to our menu!

Our substitute for regular flour varies from whole wheat and almond flour to coconut, oatmeal, rice, tapioca or even millet flour.Recipes vary depending on the flour being used. We always have trials for our bakes and If it doesnt meet our standards, then it doesnt make it to the menu.

At least 50 per cent of our customers ask for details like the nutrition value or carb content, which chocolates and sweeteners we use or how many servings there are in one cake. Im self-taught and enjoy meeting the challenges given by clients. I started with vegan baking and added gluten-free, and the range now includes, vegan, gluten-free, vegan and gluten-free, sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, keto, non-fat and low carb.

Radhieka Mustafa PandeyaFOUNDERFITNESS BAKERY

Above: Nut Butter Balls, Rose And Pistachio Truffles; Below: Lemon And Orange Muffins

Top to bottom: Lotus Leaf Brass Bowl, Lotus Leaf Brass Dessert Plate, Roti Box lid (used as plate), all from Nicobar

My husband used to compete in physique competitions and couldnt eat dessert the regular ones. So I started baking specially for him. That is how I got into creating healthy desserts.

Two things have happened. Firstly, people have become more conscious of what they are eating because there has been a push from the alternate ingredient industry about healthier food options. There has also been a growth in gyms, studios, supplementsall of which are pushing for healthier lifestyles.And secondly, everything is now on social media. You see influencers eating healthy products, promoting them and looking great in the process; that motivates you too.

The lemon and orange muffins are made with almond flour, which is high in MUFAs (monounsaturated fatty acids), protein, manganese, vitamin E and coconut. It is also high in fibre, MCT and iron. And they are sweetened with raw organic honey which is unprocessed, high in antioxidants and boosts immunity.

Rose and pistachio is a match made in heaven. When you add the white chocolate, it becomes a festival in the mouth. After several trials, we fixed a certain ratio of dried rose petals to pistachio to white chocolate, to attain the perfect amount of flavour from each of these and not make it overly sweet or overbearingly rose-y.

There are a lot of people who dont always want chocolate or those who are travelling with the cake so cant have fruit in it. Once you take chocolate and fruit out of the mix, there arent too many options left. We thought of coconut its healthy, stays longer and tastes great. Cinnamon adds a lovely flavour to enhance the coconut. Figs just elevate the entire confection by adding a chewy texture and slight sweetness.

People love that they can turn to us for healthier options of their favourite desserts. Many clients tell us that they no longer enjoy regular desserts because they are so used to ours. It also takes guilt out of the equation. Although I still say that dessert is a treat and should be looked at as such especially if youre trying to lose weight or are diabetic.

More:
Letting Them Eat Cake - VERVE

Not to jinx it at this late hour but, against all odds, it looks like our species will make it to 2020. Time to break out the organic, sustainably sourced champagne. (It may taste like carbonated vinegar, but at least its still reassuringly expensive.) But what then? Will humanity manage to stick it out for a few more millennia? Not if we dont manage to stay healthy in the short term.

To that end, and as in years past, weve reached out to several prominent personalities in the health and fitness world (generously defined) to get theirtake on what we might expect in the year ahead.

The Second Running Boom, according to stats collected by RunningUSA, peaked back in 2013, when 19 million people signed up for U.S. road races. Thats roughly when the headlines about how too much running would kill you hit their peak, and also when Eliud Kipchoge made his marathon debut. Since then, numbers have been steadily ebbing: they hit 18.1 million in 2018. But the bleeding has almost stopped, andbuoyed by the persistent failure of studies to find any evidence that even extreme amounts of running will kill you and the persistent brilliance of Kipchoge2020 will be the year that the trend finally turns around. Lapsed runners will return to the fold, new runners will discover the Trial of Miles, and hardcore veterans will redouble their efforts. The year will reach its apogee in December when Kipchoge, while delivering his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speechin Oslo, actually levitates from the stage (though the usual cynics will maintain that this feat is somehow linked to the bluish flame that, from certain angles, appears to flicker from the soles of his sneakers).

Alex Hutchinson, OutsideSweat Science columnist and author of Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

I expect that people will become increasingly focused on trying to move more throughout the day. Not working out, not even going for a walk, but just taking time throughout the day to stand up from a chair and move around for a few minutes. Research shows that our bodies arent designed to be in one place for hours at a time. And of course, a short break is good for our brains.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

In 2020, we will start to see a big increase in the number of people working out using virtual training programs in their homes. Indoor cycling programs like Peloton and Zwift were just the beginning. Now, with programs like those by Mirror and Tonal, your gym and trainer are coming to you, right in the comfort of your home. The big question is whether or not people will find these as fun and effective without the live person and community aspects of going to the gym.

Andy Petranek, co-founder of the Whole Life Challenge

I think that in the post-Vaporfly world we are going to see a shoe arms race as other companies jump in and the discussion about possible regulation of shoe tech heats up. I think this is going to spill over to other areas of equipment as people and companies seek novel ways to improve efficiency.

Dr. Michael Joyner, physiologistat the Mayo Clinic

In my crystal ball, Im seeing much greater attention from Big Agriculture to how its practices affect climate change, along with increasing public demand for sustainable regenerative agriculture, meaning farming practices that sequester carbon, replenish nutrients in soil, and protect water resources. Its about time!

Marion Nestle,professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, emerita, and author of Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat

Are interval workouts better for you than running long distances? Is breakfast the most important meal of the day, or is extending your overnight fast better? Which one is the evil ill to all of our problems this year: fat, sugar, or animal proteins? If there's one thing I'm sure of, its that in 2020 we will continue our back and forth arguments over what the next superfood, super-exercise, and super-supplement are. Its in our nature to get lost in the details of exercise and diet advice, while forgetting that there is no easy answer when it comes to health and fitness. And that were a diverse group of individuals, so what works for you may not work for me. My hope is that the big picture makes a comeback. Instead of trying to hack or detail our way to health and wellbeing, we settle on the few very basic things that work: move, eat real food, sleep, form real bonds and relationships, go outside.

Steve Magness, Track and Field and Cross-Country Coach at the University of Houston, and co-author of The Passion Paradox and Peak Performance

I predict a continuation of last years sentiment that women are a lot like people. We will see a wave of men vocally supporting womens sports, sharing their female sports heroes, and emphatically demanding that everyone stop boxing in the potential reach of women athletes to only female fans. This massive tide of allyship will have a profound effect on the economics of womens sports. Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird will parachute into the World Series, mid-play, and do an open arm salute.

Lauren Fleshman, retired professional track and field athlete and co-founder Picky Bars

The main trend I see continuing, since I think itsalready underway, is kind of a reversal of what happened in the last two decades: for a long time, mainstream fitness was training in your grungy gym with other human-beings, everyone kind of struggling along together. During that period, fringe fitness was using fancy gadgets and devices and technologies to boostyour training. Then, sometime in the last few years, that completely flipped. Now mainstream is training with fancy gadgets (or in specific classes) and it is only the fringe folks who are training in low-tech, grungy gyms. I think this niche will continue to grow: the return of the garage gym kind of thing. I sense that, increasingly, people are getting sick of their health and fitness being just another part of living a productive, measured, and polished life. I dontthink this kind of back-to-basics training will be mainstream again anytime soon, but I do think more people will bounce back in this direction. In running, in strength training, in cycling. You name it. Im not against stuff like Peloton. Anything that gets someone moving who otherwise wouldntbe moving is a good thing. I just think high-tech fancy fitness is saturated and people are getting sick of being measured and compared in every element of their life... For all of Crossfitsfaults (such as coming after me on Twitterfor saying that walking is the best exercise there is and gets you 99 percent of the way there, which I stand by), they do a really nice job of keeping things low-tech, hard, and community-oriented. Instead of constantly criticizing, other fitness movements could learn from this.

Brad Stulberg, OutsideDo It Better columnist and co-author of Peak Performance

I think people are a bit fed up and just want to know what works. Theres ample opportunity to teach the consumer and exercise-goer instead of simply offering another product. Running will still continue to be big this year, especially going into an Olympic year. We will also continue to see the rise of disciplines outside of the fitness space but are still connected to itthink mindfulness and recovery. These arent fads and are truly here to stay.Joe Holder, fitnessand wellness columnist for GQ

People will look up from their smart watches and phones and actually speak to each other more in 2020. (A person can hope, right?)

Dr. Jordan Metzl, bestselling author and sports medicine physician

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These Will Be the Biggest Health Trends of 2020 - Outside

Clockwise from bottom left: Gary Le Clair, Andrea Levine, Nigel Williams and Harold Vega. (BizSense file photos)

From tending an olive farm along the French Riviera to competing in bodybuilding contests, the pursuits of Richmonds businesspeople outside the workplace took our Downtime series to unexpected places in 2019.

The fourth year of our series found a financial administrator who coaches high-school football while maintaining his NFL free agent status , an attorney and shareholder of a downtown law firm who gets his hands dirty throwing clay, and a real estate agent and modern architecture buff who finds her happy place fishing from a kayak.

Those stories and others that entertained us this year are recapped below, serving to inspire and remind us all that theres more to life than our respective daily grinds. Such stories will continue to be told in 2020, so if you or someone you know fits the bill with quirky pastimes or adventure-filled weekends, drop us a line at [emailprotected]RichmondBizSense.com. For previous installments in the series, click here.

Before the longtime law firm he co-founded collapsed this year, the partial namesake of LeClairRyan shared a taste of his lifes work outside of law: tending a small olive farm he owns along the French Riviera, where he and his wife make their own extra virgin olive oil.

I think its important in life to always have something youre looking forward to and youre excited about, said LeClair, now an attorney at Williams Mullen. This is a place where every mile I get closer to it, the pressures come off. I get excited, and I love it.

The former Hokies defensive lineman and NFL free agent has split his time since graduation practicing with pro teams while maintaining his job as a portfolio and investment administrator at financial planning firm Agili. Drawn to the financial field while playing on the football field, the 6-foot-3, 295-pounder balked when he and his college teammates were advised to hire a planner or advisor to handle their money.

I thought, why dont I do that myself, instead of hiring somebody, Williams said in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. You hear all these horror stories of people playing 20 years in the NFL or NBA and they go broke in the next coming years. So, I figured, why not? The best person to trust is yourself.

After a dozen years honing her advertising chops in Chicago, the associate creative director with local ad agency Elevation received a warm welcome back to town by her alma mater St. Catherines School, where the art she pursues outside of work was displayed as part of her graduating classs 25th reunion.

Painting for me is about a liberation and allowing anything to happen, and there are no rules whatsoever, Borum told BizSense in March. When thats brought into the office, that can absolutely be a helpful perspective.

The chairwoman and co-founder of Modern Richmond and agent at One South Realty Group picked up an unexpected pastime when she and her husband built a house a decade ago on Virginias Northern Neck: fishing the waters along the Chesapeake Bay by kayak.

Because of what I do for a living, this is like the other side of the universe, Levine said in May. This is what gives me relaxation and tranquility and juice and everything that I need to get back to what I do, because what I do is 24-7 and challenging and a lot of work.

Soon after he got his law degree from the University of Richmond, the attorney and shareholder at Sands Anderson said he felt compelled to pick back up what he had dabbled with and left in high school art class: ceramics.

When youre working behind a desk a lot or youre going to trial, something like that and getting out of that whole mindset, I think, is really important, Pitney said in September. Its good to help put things in perspective.

The 46-year-old owner of restaurant chain Chicken Fiesta got into competing several years ago, after a health scare led to doctor-ordered diet and exercise. Ever since, Vega has taken on the occasional challenge of slimming down and bulking up to get in competition shape a feat all the more impressive given the temptations of his workplace.

I love my food. I eat in here every single day. And when I come here on a different diet and I cant eat nothing, just a grilled chicken breast with no side, no condiment, no nothing, its very tough, Vega said. Now, its integrated in my life. I have to go to the gym. I need to go to the gym.

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Off the Clock 2019: A year's worth of Downtime - RichmondBizSense

Really hard.

Turkey, ham, stuffing. Mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole. Cookies, caramels, pies, jellos The tasty temptations abound, splayed out across tables at family Christmas gatherings (and some families have a few of those), work potlucks and other group functions.

For a lot of folks, the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year is a time of food. A time to satisfy that sweet tooth, indulge those savory cravings, and get good and full or, as is often the case, overfull.

It creates a real challenge for people who are trying to eat healthy, or who need or want to follow a special diet. Dietary restrictions are becoming more and more common, with a growing number of people discovering they have food allergies, or needing or choosing to follow a gluten-free, vegan or vegetarian, low-carb, or Keto diet, among myriad others.

Staying on the wagon with these diets isnt always easy especially around the holidays.

Alexa Stelzer, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at Essentia Health St. Marys in Detroit Lakes, said the biggest thing people can do to keep their food intake in check is to change their mindsets about the importance of food. To think about food less, and loved ones more.

For all people, whether on a special diet or not, Stelzer said, make the focus of the gathering be about connecting with and spending time with people, not so much about food Focus on having great conversations, rather than circling back to the food table. That can be really helpful.

In her role at Essentia, Stelzer works with clients one-on-one and in group settings, in both the hospital and clinic. Around the holidays, she commonly talks to them about how they can stick to their usual eating patterns in this unusually bountiful season. Some have strict guidelines they absolutely must stick to at all times of the year, such as a diabetes diet or a peanut allergy, while others are just trying to make gradual, healthy lifestyle changes.

I feel like more and more people are needing to follow special diets, she said. And I think a lot of people are becoming health conscious and are trying to follow diet patterns and eating patterns that they recognize can make them feel better in the long term.

Her recommended diets vary from person to person, but no matter what, she always tells her clients to develop eating plans they can realistically continue for years to come.

There are pros and cons to most any way of eating, but for a diet to be successful long-term, it has to be a diet that you can stick with, she said.

This can be trickier to do around the holidays, not only because of the tempting foods all around, but also because of the extended duration of the season.

It's pretty easy, if you're following a diet, to stick to it over one day, Selzer said. It's when we have multiple parties that we're going to, and we're continuing to not follow our eating plans over a longer period of time (that we run into trouble).

To avoid the pitfalls of overindulgence and unhealthy eating, she suggests people fill their holiday plates half-full with vegetables before adding any other types of food. This ensures a sizable portion of low-calorie, low-carb, fiber-rich, nutritional foods, and leaves less room on the plate for less healthy options.

Also, she recommends leaving leftovers at the party, instead of offering to take them home. Or, for those who host, sending leftovers home with guests who want them.

Probably the most important thing anyone can do, though, at any time of the year, is pay attention to every morsel that enters their mouth.

One of the most common things that I talk about this time of year, with holiday eating, is practicing mindful eating whether youre following a special diet or not, Stelzer said. Mindful eating is being really conscious of what and how you're eating. With mindful eating principles, you really slow down and savor the foods as you're eating them.

By tuning in to the smell, sight and taste of the foods you eat, she explained, you become more aware of the act of eating, and more easily recognize when youre satisfied and have had enough.

That's something I work with people on a lot being aware of hunger and recognizing that full feeling in your body, and remembering that if you continue to eat, you're going to get really uncomfortable, Stelzer said.

If you practice mindful eating, focus on family over food, stack your plate with veggies first, and leave the leftovers for someone else, you dont have to completely derail your diet over the holidays, she added. A number of people put their healthy patterns on hold through the holidays and then try to 'catch up' afterward. But it doesnt have to be an all or nothing sort of thing.

Alexa Stelzer, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at Essentia Health St. Marys, says planning is the key to successful holiday meals for those who are on a special diet, whether its vegan, low-carb, gluten-free or any number of others out there.

Stelzer offers the following tips for those who want or need to stay on the wagon:

Give the host a heads up. The host wants everyone at the party to have a good time and have options available for food, so a heads-up is usually appreciated. If they seem receptive, provide a little education about which ingredients to avoid and how to minimize risk of cross-contamination. Dont expect everything to be compliant with your diet, but the host can often make some modifications, such as cooking turkey and stuffing separately (to keep the turkey gluten-free), or making the salad a build-your-own option rather than mixing all the ingredients together ahead of time.

Bring a dish everyone can enjoy. Bring something that you absolutely love that complies with your diet. Then even if everything else is off-limits, youll still have an option you enjoy and that will satisfy you. Even better if you can bring a main dish and a dessert to make sure you get something hearty as well as something sweet. There are lots of specialized baking mixes that make the dessert side of things easy. And there is always the fresh fruit and veggie tray option, which is safe for most people. If cross contamination is a concern, be sure to bring your own serving utensils.

Prepare for questions. People will likely be curious about why you are eating the way you are. It is helpful to have some basic responses prepared. If you feel uncomfortable getting into details, leave your answers vague and say something like, I just feel better when eating this way, or I need to follow this diet for health reasons. You may also want to direct the curious to a relevant article or documentary for more information. You have no responsibility to educate and inform people if you dont want to. On the other hand, avoid educating and informing everyone you meet about the many reasons for your special diet if they arent asking or interested.

Express gratitude. Even the smallest efforts people make to provide appropriate dishes for you or to learn more about your special diet are worthy of a genuine thank you.

Consider being a host yourself. As a host, you have control over most of the food choices and the way they are prepared. You may want to avoid serving some of the out there foods from your special diet if your guests have never experienced them, unless you have an adventurous group. It be more crowd-pleasing to adapt classic holiday favorites to be compliant with your diet. The internet can be a great resource for finding appropriate substitutions, modified recipes, or entire diet-specific cookbooks. If guests want to bring a dish, make suggestions that would be safe for you, or just allow them to bring their favorites so you know theyll have an option theyre familiar with and enjoy. Be proactive and ask your guests ahead of time if they are following any special diets that you can help accommodate.

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Keep indulgences in check with mindful eating and a focus on family over food - Echo Press

Another busy year for clinical research has come and gone. What are the most important findings from 2019? Here is our overview of some of the most noteworthy studies of the year.

"Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble," wrote the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates whom historians call the "father of medicine" over 2,000 years ago.

Advances in therapeutic practices have been helping people cure and manage illness since before the time of Hippocrates, and, today, researchers continue to look for ways of eradicating diseases and improving our well-being and quality of life.

Each year, specialists in all areas of medical research conduct new studies and clinical trials that bring us a better understanding of what keeps us happy and in good health, and what factors have the opposite effect.

And, while each year, experts manage to overcome many obstacles, challenges old and new keep the medical research field buzzing with initiatives.

Reflecting on how research has evolved over the past decade, the editors of the reputable journal PLOS Medicine in a recent editorial emphasize "ongoing struggles" with infectious diseases, as well as growing tensions between two approaches in medical research. These approaches are the effort of finding treatments that are consistently effective in large populations versus the notion of "precision medicine," which favors therapy that we closely tailor to an individual's very personal needs.

But how has clinical research fared in 2019? In this special feature, we look at some of the most prominent areas of study from this year and give you an overview of the most noteworthy findings.

The medication we take as long as we follow our doctors' advice is meant to help us fight off disease and improve our physical or mental well-being. But can these usually trusty allies sometimes turn into foes?

Most drugs can sometimes cause side effects, but more and more studies are now suggesting a link between common medication and a higher risk of developing different conditions.

In March this year, for instance, experts affiliated with the European Resuscitation Council whose goal is to find the best ways to prevent and respond to cardiac arrest found that a conventional drug doctors use to treat hypertension and angina may actually increase a person's risk of cardiac arrest.

By analyzing the data of more than 60,000 people, the researchers saw that a drug called nifedipine, which doctors often prescribe for cardiovascular problems, appeared to increase the risk of "sudden cardiac arrest."

Project leader Dr. Hanno Tan notes that, so far, healthcare practitioners have considered nifedipine to be perfectly safe. The current findings, however, suggest that doctors may want to consider offering people an alternative.

Another study, appearing in JAMA Internal Medicine in June, found that anticholinergic drugs which work by regulating muscle contraction and relaxation may increase a person's risk of developing dementia.

People may have to take anticholinergics if some of their muscles are not working correctly, usually as part of health issues, such as bladder or gastrointestinal conditions, and Parkinson's disease.

The research that specialists from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom led looked at the data of 58,769 people with and 225,574 people without dementia.

It revealed that older individuals at least 55 years old who were frequent users of anticholinergics were almost 50% more likely to develop dementia than peers who had never used anticholinergics.

But, while common drugs that doctors have prescribed for years may come with hidden dangers, they are, at least, subject to trials and drug review initiatives. The same is not true for many other so-called health products that are readily available to consumers.

Such findings says the study's lead researcher, Prof. Carol Coupland, "highlight the importance of carrying out regular medication reviews."

In 2019, we have celebrated 50 years since someone first successfully sent a message using a system that would eventually become the internet. We have come a long way, and now, we have almost everything within reach of a "click and collect" order.

This, unfortunately, includes "therapeutics" that specialists may never have assessed, and which can end up putting people's health and lives in danger.

In August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning against an allegedly therapeutic product that was available online, and which appeared to be very popular.

The product variously sold under the names Master Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Supplement, Chlorine Dioxide Protocol, or Water Purification Solution was supposed to be a kind of panacea, treating almost anything and everything, from cancer and HIV to the flu.

Yet the FDA had never given the product an official assessment, and when the federal agency looked into it, they saw that the "therapeutic" a liquid solution contained no less than 28% sodium chlorite, an industrial bleach.

"[I]ngesting these products is the same as drinking bleach," which can easily be life threatening, warned the FDA's Acting Commissioner Dr. Ned Sharpless, who urged people to avoid them at all costs.

Many studies this year have also been concerned with cardiovascular health, revisiting long held notions and holding them up to further scrutiny.

For instance, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine in July which involved around 1.3 million people suggested that, when it comes to predicting the state of a person's heart health, both blood pressure numbers are equally important.

When a doctor measures blood pressure, they assess two different values. One is systolic blood pressure, which refers to the pressure the contracting heart puts on the arteries when it pumps blood to the rest of the body. The other is diastolic blood pressure, which refers to the pressure between heartbeats.

So far, doctors have primarily taken only elevated systolic blood pressure into account as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

However, the new study concluded that elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure are both indicators of cardiovascular problems.

Its authors emphasize that the large amount of data they had access to painted a "convincing" picture in this respect.

"This research brings a large amount of data to bear on a basic question, and it gives such a clear answer."

Lead researcher Dr. Alexander Flint

At the same time, a slightly earlier study, appearing in the European Heart Journal in March, emphasizes that having high blood pressure may not mean the same thing for everyone, and while doctors may associate it with adverse outcomes in some, this does not hold for all populations.

The study's first author, Dr. Antonio Douros, argues that "[w]e should move away from the blanket approach of applying the recommendations of professional associations to all groups of patients."

Dr. Douros and team analyzed the data of 1,628 participants with a mean age of 81 years. The researchers found that older individuals with lower systolic blood pressures actually faced a 40% higher risk of death than peers with elevated blood pressure values.

"[A]ntihypertensive [blood pressure lowering] treatment should be adjusted based on the needs of the individual," the study's first author advises.

When it comes to protecting heart health, 2019 studies have shown that diet likely plays an important role. Thus, research in the Journal of the American Heart Association in August showed that people who adhered to plant-based diets had a 32% lower risk of death that researchers associate with cardiovascular disease than those who did not.

People who ate plant-based foods also had a 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality, according to this study.

And another study from April in the journal Nutrients warned that people who follow a ketogenic diet, which is high in fats and low in carbohydrates, and who decide to take a "day off" from this commitment every now and again, may experience blood vessel damage.

Ketogenic or keto diets work by triggering ketosis, a process in which the body starts burning fat instead of sugar (glucose) for energy. But "cheat days" mean that, for a brief interval, the body switches back to relying on glucose.

"[W]e found [...] biomarkers in the blood, suggesting that vessel walls were being damaged by the sudden spike in glucose," notes first author Cody Durrer.

In 2019, the topic of how our food choices influence our health has remained popular among researchers and readers alike.

According to Google Trends, some of the top searches in the United States this year included intermittent fasting diets, the Noom diet, and the 1,200 calorie diet.

And this year's studies have certainly reflected the widespread interest in the link between dietary choices and well-being.

One intriguing study in Nature Metabolism in May pointed out that protein shakes, which are popular among individuals who want to build muscle mass, may be a threat to health.

Fitness protein powders, the study authors explain, contain mostly whey proteins, which have high levels of the essential amino acids leucine, valine, and isoleucine.

The research in mice suggested that a high intake of these amino acids led to overly low levels of serotonin in the brain. This is a key hormone that plays a central role in mood regulation, but which science also implicates in various metabolic processes.

In mice, the heightened levels of leucine, valine, and isoleucine, which caused excessively low serotonin, led to obesity and a shorter life span.

So, if too much of certain types of protein can have such detrimental effects on health, what about fiber? Dietary fiber present in fruit, vegetables, and legumes is important in helping the body take up sugars little by little.

But how much fiber should we consume? This is the question that a study commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) and appearing in The Lancet in January sought to lay to rest.

The research took into account the findings of 185 observational studies and 58 clinical trials, covering almost 40 years.

It concluded that to lower their death risk, as well as the incidence of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer, a person should ideally consume 2529 grams of fiber per day.

"Fiber-rich whole foods that require chewing and retain much of their structure in the gut increase satiety and help weight control and can favorably influence lipid and glucose levels," explains one of the authors, Prof. Jim Mann.

On the other hand, several studies from this year draw attention to just how detrimental foods that are not 100% natural can be. A small trial, whose results came out in Cell Metabolism in May, showed that processed food leads to abrupt weight gain but not for the reasons we may think.

The study authors said they were surprised that when they asked participants to eat either an ultraprocessed food diet or a nonprocessed food diet whose caloric contents the researchers matched perfectly the people who ate processed foods rapidly gained more weight than the ones who ate the nonprocessed foods.

The researchers blame this on the speed with which individuals end up eating processed foods, in particular. "There may be something about the textural or sensory properties of the food that made [participants] eat more quickly," says study author Kevin Hall, Ph.D.

"If you're eating very quickly, perhaps you're not giving your gastrointestinal tract enough time to signal to your brain that you're full. When this happens, you might easily overeat," he hypothesizes.

And more research in mice from Scientific Reports in January found that emulsifiers, which are a common additive present in many products from mayonnaise to butter, could affect gut bacteria, leading to systemic inflammation.

What is more, the impact on the gut could even influence processes that occur in the brain, increasing anxiety levels. "[W]e [now] know that inflammation triggers local immune cells to produce signaling molecules that can affect tissues in other places, including the brain," explains co-lead researcher Prof. Geert de Vries.

While some of the studies that made the headlines in 2019 were conclusive, many encourage further research to confirm their findings or further investigate the underlying mechanisms.

Stepping into the next decade, this much is clear: The wheels of medical research will keep on turning for better health across the globe.

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2019 in medical research: What were the top findings? - Medical News Today

Highlights

Winters have arrived and how! The chill in the air doesn't seem to be resting anytime soon and the layers of clothes have only just begun to increase. And let's admit it, during such a weather all we want to do is keep ourselves tucked inside our quilts in the comfort of our homes with a piping hot cup of chai. Without a doubt, a cup of tea in this weather is all we need, no matter if we are at home or at work, struggling to keep ourselves up.

While making a cup of simple tea might look like an easy task, it too can get tricky with each one of us having our own preferences. While some like it black, others like it with milk or with special chai masala, with or without sugar; such preferences might require some skill. And then comes the variety one can get! The typical Indian masala chai or the whole range of herbal teas such as ginger tea or one of the most sought after green tea - one just cannot have enough of tea all around the world.

(Also Read: This Tiny Tea Stall In Kerala Keeps Ramasseri Idli Alive)

Since winter season is the best time to brew a soothing cup of tea, we've got you the best of teas you can try this winter season to keep yourself warm and cosy.

Here's a wonderful concoction of freshly brewed chamomile tea with orange chunks, berries, ginger and mint leaves. While chamomile will help boost immunity during the scathing winter season, ginger and fresh berries will double the effect.

Perfect for days when you are feeling under the weather; the combination of honey with lemon is known to work wonders. Honey is known to be used traditionally in many concoctions to manage cold and cough while lemon is packed with vitamin C and antioxidants that helps foster immunity. These when combined with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties of ginger can be great for your winter health.

(Also Read: A Cup Of Tea May Help Improve Brain Health, Study Suggests)

How many of you have heard your mother and grandmother boast about the innumerable benefits of turmeric? Not just it boosts immunity, but haldi (turmeric) is also an excellent pain-reliever that is packed with anti-inflammatory properties. And so if you are a fan of herbal teas, here is an excellent brew packed with turmeric, black pepper, honey and ginger that will cleanse your body from the toxin overload

Here is the quintessential Indian chai that can wake up even the laziest of us from deep sleep just by its aromatic spices. Cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, star anise and much more, this kadak cup of masala chai is sure to keep cold at bay.

An innovative combination of tea and soup, here is a brew tailor-made for the winter season. Tangy and fresh tomato puree along with goodness of jasmine comes together with tabasco and thyme for a concoction that can be your go-to brew this season.

Make the best of winter season with these amazing tea recipes for your next tea-time. Let us know which one you liked the best in the comments section below.

About Aanchal MathurAanchal doesn't share food. A cake in her vicinity is sure to disappear in a record time of 10 seconds. Besides loading up on sugar, she loves bingeing on FRIENDS with a plate of momos. Most likely to find her soulmate on a food app.

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Winter Diet: 5 Interesting Tea Recipes To Keep You Warm This Winter - NDTV Food

The most common mistake we make when goal-setting is having a highly general end goal without a flexible, customizable framework (that becomes a blueprint for your game plan). Many people will say things like, This is the year I take control of my health! but if you dont have a picture of what that looks like of how youll actually execute small actions within your everyday life as a healthier person, how do you really know where to start and what to start with?!

Plus, a bigger problem that comes up in my line of work time and again is that the universe of diet culture and pseudoscientific information about health is so deafening (and that particular breed of disinformation is everywhere) that it tricks us into believing that in order to reach any health related goal we have to somehow become someone other than who we are right now living a lifestyle thats wholly different from the one in which we currently exist. Were told to cut out, eliminate, restrict, and cut back without realizing that these elimination-focused interventions come at the cost of living our lives! In order for anything to truly stick long-term, it has to work for your lifestyle not in opposition to it.

Think, Small, simple, specific.

Any health plan thats sustainable for you that will ultimately get you to reaching your goal (and maintaining that goal) has to consist of mostly small actions that feel attainable for you right now, actionable in a few hours from now (this sounds obvious, but in the world of keto and fasting, you never know) and just a little bit outside of your comfort zone to feel challenging enough for you (in my book Dressing on the Side, I talk about this using a Pareto 80/20 rule.)

If you want to lose weight and are committed to making healthier choices without uprooting your whole lifestyle, think about tangible things you can do every day that are equal parts hyper-specific, simple, and actually enjoyable (or at least sound like they might be!). For example: Adding more veggies to every lunch meal, committing to prepping breakfast every night before you go to bed,or setting a night-time alarm clock to get you into bed earlier than usual. And since all of us are different humans with different needs and lifestyles, staying accountable to yourself making your personal health a top priority and making plans to achieve goals that help you consistently do this over time is going to require you to set some boundaries (which is an ongoing challenge for everyone). If you need a place to start, Id suggest taking a look at page 92 of Dressing on the Side (which walks you through boundary-setting as it relates to health related goals). To start you off, use these three boundary-setting tips:

Step 1: Prioritize personal health by assessing your daily/weekly/monthly routine

Considering where you are when youre eating throughout the day is crucial, often because your environment is likely to determine what types of foods and snacks are actually available to you. Ask yourself, Where do I spend most of my time? Where do I lose time that Id otherwise use for physical activity of any kind? Where am I when I typically say, Whatever, Im getting cheese fries! How many days do I eat at home per week? Plan ahead by first determining where your schedule leaves you in terms of environment if you work from home but want to make exercise a priority, then youll have to schedule that in either at home, or make plans to leave your home. The same is true of the foods you eat. Assess your schedule, determine where you are and when, and use this framework as your guideline for how to put a healthier habit into action. For example: Lets say youd like to make more nutritious food choices, but youve been struggling because your current job requires dining out at lunches every week, at least four times per week. Your first step can be to decide a realistic number of eating occasions, or number of meals that youre committed to making more veggie-heavy, and develop a plan that meets the demands of your current routine. Lets say your first healthier eating habit to prioritize is adding more vegetables to your meals. After assessing your calendar, you settle on lunchtime as your target, and:

Step 2: Set boundaries that will help you stick with a schedule

If you only like the pancakes at your local diner, but your priority is to form healthier habits, then is having breakfast at said diner every single day of the week really your best bet? Establish a boundary with yourself or with others in your environment to put this into action, like going to this diner on Saturday and Sunday, and committing to making more breakfast meals at home during the week. If you always eat too-many-muffins at your monthly status meeting, then put a boundary into place that keeps you from eating muffins at this meeting, only. In other words, just because you say no to meeting muffins doesnt mean you never eat muffins. It means youre not going to eat them during this meeting time, but make a plan for when youll eat them this month so you dont have to live the rest of your life without baked goods! Entering that new date into your calendar and stick to that plan = boundary-setting success. Honoring whats important to you for the sake of your mental, physical, and emotional health does not require restriction of a specific food or nutrient for life, but it may mean leaving it off the table in a scenario that you find triggering for you. So put those muffins where they belong: into a free time slot on your calendar, with people you enjoy spending time with, sourced from the bakery that you love.

Step 3: Identify your boundary bullies (BBs)

Boundary bullies are the people, places, and other work or personal activities that pop out of nowhere and suck the time and energy out of your day. Figure out where they are, who they are, where theyre hiding, and what it is that makes you the victim of said bullying. Is it a post-work happy hour at the local bar where the Buffalo wings become dinner? (If thats the case, then pack a snack before you go). Is it a colleague who is always getting coffee at the same time you are, and always talks you into donuts? (If thats the case, then eat a snack before, or make this mid-morning run a part of your breakfast by eating half of your breakfast sandwich before the break, and the other half during coffee.) Is it friends who order items for the table when youre at a restaurant, only to leave you grazing on a bucket of fried dumplings you didnt even want in the first place, but dont want to waste them? (If thats the case, tell your friend, Im having the shrimp and broccoli! But Ill split the string beans instead.)

Real, genuine, and lasting self-care requires developing clearly defined personal health goals that will inform the food and exercise choices you make, and the boundaries you create to keep these routines in place. Over time, youll get new habits that set you up for better health and well-being for life.

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See the article here:
3 Tips to Create Healthy Habits That Stick - Thrive Global

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