Nuts about fat

December 9, 2008 at 8:34 pm (diet, health, nutrition, omega-3)
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Two articles caught my eye today: firstly, the BBC reports on a Spanish study concerning the addition of nuts to the diets of overweight people deemed to have “metabolic syndrome”. The researchers found that the addition of nuts to the so-called Mediterranean diet resulted in a reduction of waist girth, blood cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Almonds are a particularly beneficial food and have been shown to reduce appetite if eaten before a meal. This is thought to be due to their oleic acid content, but could be due to their high-quality protein and carbohydrate content. Almonds are also considered to be “pre-biotic”, in that they nourish and support the growth of beneficial bacteria in the large intestine.

A second article concerning fats was published in today’s Independent. Titled “Low-fat diets: Not fit for purpose“, the author discusses the lack of evidence behind the promotion of a low-fat diet, and charts the rise in obesity against the lowering of fat consumption. I think it’s really unfortunate that the author chose not to distinguish between types of polyunsaturated fats: those in the know understand that there is an optimum ratio of omega-3:omega-6 polyunsaturated fats in the diet and that the problem is that we are eating waaay too much omega-6’s. We should have about equivalent intakes of both types (that’s a 1:1 ratio). I do think it useful that he highlights the benefits of saturated fats in the diet: indeed lauric acid, as found abundantly in butter and coconut oil, is highly beneficial for the human organism. Yay butter! Boo margarine!

My personal experience bears testimony to this current research: I grew up in a household where tiny rations of butter were scraped onto bread, and margarine was routinely used in baking. As for oil, a drop of sunflower or canola oil was used to fry onions, but there was certainly no sign of olive oil, oily fish or flax seed oil. My brother and sister and I all suffered terrible hay fever. My sister has struggled with ezcema all her life and my brother developed asthma in his late teens. When I converted the vegetarianism at the age of 14, I had no concept whatsoever or eating well. I basically gave up meat, then moved out of my mother’s house and survived on whatever my meagre restaurant skivvy’s salary could provide me. Basically, bread, ramen noodles, margarine, peanut butter, and probably some healthier stuff like fruit in between the beer-drinking sessions. Needless to say, I also developed ezcema, had terribly itchy and dry skin, fine, sparse hair and incredibly dry eyes, especially when my hay fever kicked in around May. As I ‘grew up’ I improved my diet and paid great attention to eating well and getting fit. But, it was not until I read Udo Erasmus’ book “Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill” that I realised how I’d been punishing my body. I began taking flax seed oil and eating plenty of avocadoes, butter, and occasionally oily fish (yes, in contrary to my veggeir principles). I don’t think that I need to tell you that I no longer have bad skin or hair.

so, if you’re still not getting a regular dose of omega-3’s (and I mean daily), then what the heck are you waiting for?

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Motherhood and karma yoga

December 8, 2008 at 10:07 am (babies, health, love, my two cents, yoga)
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Karma yoga is one of the four pillars of Yoga:  it is the yoga of action as described by Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.  It supposes righteous adherence to duty (dharma) whilst remaining detached from the fruits of the labour.

Since becoming a mother 21 months ago, my Hatha yoga practice has suffered grave insults.  Rarely do I practice asanas more than twice a week and frequent are the weeks when I don’t practise at all.  However, since the beginning, I have retained in my head the concept that I am actually practising Karma yoga in the raising of my child.  In the week in which Karen Matthews was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter in order to secure reward money, it emerged that she was deemed to be unable  “…to successfully place the children’s needs above her own”.  This inability is the manifestation of a juvenile mindset; unable to delay gratification, unable to empathise.  Children are born egotists – they have no concept of a parent’s desire to sleep late, or skip dinner, or not go out for a walk on a rainy day.  Children…want…now.  And our role, as parents, is to both satisfy their needs whilst teaching them slowly to recognise that their needs and desires don’t always coincide with everybody else’s.

And so, parenting, I practice Karma Yoga.  When my daughter needs me, I give.  Love, hugs, food, attention, play, education.  Whether I achieve the objective of detachment from the results of my labour, I do not yet know.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  I suppose it’s natural that in teaching her to speak I hope to create an articulate, polite, well-spoken human being, and that in teaching her to eat I hope to develop a balanced palate, open to new flavours and textures, alive to the possibilities of healthy food and not numbed by doses of salt and sugar.  How to detach from the outcome then?  I know that it will create less anxiety at mealtimes if I detach from the desire to raise a healthy eater and instead focus on the action itself:  the feeding, the nourishing.  But, man, it’s difficult for me that she’s already choosing bread and jam over porridge and flax seeds, or pasta with tomato sauce over vegetable and barley soup.  Yes, the options should not even be available, but her rejection of lovingly prepared foods means that she goes hungry, and so I fail on both counts:  neither do I feed nor do I nourish.  And we all go to bed hungry:  she physically and I spiritually.

And so I practice daily the yoga of devotion and action.  My karma yoga as a parent stretches my limits in a way that other things have not.  I believe that parenting actually makes us better people.  I love the quote “adults don’t make children, children make adults”.  The ancient yogis had firm respect for the phases of life:  they far from believed that all of us are made to sit alone on a mountaintop in meditation until we reach Enlightenment.  In fact, one yogi in a city makes more positive change in the everyday world than do ten yogis in retreats.  And of course, the later phases of life, the renouncement, the time for contemplation, come after the family is grown and the career realised.

And so, I try not to stress about missing my hatha practice.  For today, too, I will detach from the fruits of my labour and love an cherish my daughter without thinking of her eventual adulthood and whatever surprises it may hold.  Om shanti peace.

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What are women up against?

December 7, 2008 at 11:18 pm (health, my two cents, yoga)
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I have lost count of the number of times I’ve advised single guy friends to take up yoga.  Not only for the obvious physical and mental benefits, but for the social opportunities yoga classes offer.  Anyone who’s ever been to a yoga class can attest that the ratio of men to women is not typically representative of society.  In other words, yoga classes are full of women.  Indeed, NAMASTA reports that fully 77% of US yoga practitioners are women.

So I have to say:  guys, what’s up with you?  I know so many women who are yearning for a better, healthier life and being held back by their partners.  I found it extremely instructive working with older British women through my post with Age Concern.  Given that women outlive men in almost all industrialised nations, I found myself working with many widows.  Although they missed their deceased husbands, what they did not miss was mealtimes.  Or rather, meal preparation.  They had lived through marriages of 40, 50 years and been confined to plates pleasing to the palates of their menfolk.  In their newfound independence, many opted for lighter, healthier foods ceasing altogether the preparation of roasts and fry-ups.  And this is not something confined to the older generation:  a good friend of mine has recently ended a 7-year relationship and what she is most excited about is amplifying her daily menu.  No more nursery food (chips, beans, pies) and hello again to chard, sweet potatoes and vegetables other than tomatoes.

I went to a yoga class whilst on a recent jaunt in Madrid.  10 attendees, all women.  The teacher is a friend of a friend, in a long term relationship with a child.  I innocently asked if her partner practises yoga as well.  To guffaws, I was told that no, indeed not.  In fact, he likes to sneak bits of meat to the kid – something his spouse abhors – and enjoys a sniff of cocaine on a night out.  You know, I wondered why she spent so much time on the 3rd chakra (Manipura), the seat of personal power.  I mean, if your own partner can’t bring himself to stop taking drugs or at least not give meat to the kid, then you’d have to feel yourself up against a big, immovable wall.  I would also cultivate my personal power.

Which brings me to the core of this post.  I am lucky enough to have someone to love, who loves me.  He is wonderful.  But he smokes, he starts the day with sugary black coffee, he eats white bread with jam, he thinks that buying organic vegetables is a waste of money, etc etc.  I’ve gotten him as far as recycling and he’s added superoods like gojis and seaweed to his existing vegetarian diet (he does eat pretty well compared to many) but you know, I still feel like my travels on my own path are slowed by the continuing presence of nasties in the cupboards.  I don’t know if I was happier when I was purer, but I know that striving to be the best I can brings me mental calm.  And of course, it would be easier in two.

So, guys, what are you waiting for?  Why are you so hooked on beer, doobs and cigarettes? Why is is that you’d rather tear a ligament once a month playing 5-a-side football than get down on a yoga mat and actually care for your body?  I can’t help thinking that the tyranny of the andro-centric society condemns us all to shorter, unhealthier lives.

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What makes us do it?

July 19, 2008 at 8:20 pm (health, my two cents)
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Working as a masseur in a hotel, I meet a lot of different people.  For a brief moment we enter each other’s lives.  Some are talkers, most are quiet.  My hands do the talking and I take everything in because like it or not we who work in natural health are constantly diagnosing -looking at the skin, the eyes, the hair, the nails, smelling, feeling, sensing.  It becomes second nature.  Sometimes you get in wrong but mostly you get the vibe.

This weekend I saw a couple of people twice.  When someone presents with a big, recent scar on their body it’s only professional to inquire as to its origin.  “A year and a half ago, colon cancer.  What a scare, all better now.” Whew, I think.  “So you’re looking after yourself, eating plenty of fiber?”

As I work I  get that cigarette smell you detect on smokers even if they’re washed and haven’t had a fag in hours.  There’s a staleness in the skin and breath.  You just know.  And sure enough  I saw the gentleman, fag in hand, upon my return to work today.

It makes me wonder, what makes us do it? I am a reformed smoker, and we are always the worst.  But we are this way because we know that once you really want to quit it’s not so hard. I reckon that most smokers smoke because they like it and are addicted, and that’s all there is to it.  It’s subtracting something pleasurable to eliminate cigarettes from your life(style).  But surely if you’ve had cancer, undergone the horrible treatments of surgery and radiation and/or chemotherapy, that would be incentive enough to stop smoking?  I mean, how clear a message do you need?

I remember the day (night) that I decided to stop taking drugs.  I started experimenting in my mid-teens and moved with a crowd where drug-taking was considered both normal and substantially risk-free.  I carried on with peaks and troughs until New Year’s Eve 1998-1999.  I had been clubbing like crazy in London for over 18 months, sleeping little imbibing lots. Weekends turned to weekdays…it was messy at times.  And then one night the whole world went brown.  I was at a house party, I got paranoid, it was NYE so getting home was impossible, I was trapped, high, unhappy.  At first light I started walking. I got home about 4 hours later (think Queen’s Park to Clapham Junction).  I put on the electric fire, dragged my eiderdown into the living room and drank tea and rang friends in Canada.  It was not a great day.  But you know what?  I stopped taking drugs.  I stopped drinking and I stopped smoking.  Like that.

So if that’s enough to stop me killing myself slowly with chemicals, surely cancer is enough to stop an educated, intelligent mature man from smoking himself to the oncology clinic?  Or is it?

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