Mark’s Daily Apple

Reader Response: Alternatives to Grains? What about Quinoa?

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KEEN-WAH

The Definitive Guide to Grains post last month got people talking about alternatives to the traditional rice, potato, and breads that load up the typical American dinner plate. For some, gluten is the major consideration. For others, it’s the glycemic load itself. While the Primal Blueprint recommends avoiding grains and higher glycemic foods altogether, at some point or another most of us partake in the context of occasional compromise. Additionally, some of us consciously choose to include grain alternatives in our diets more regularly for varied reasons surrounding personal taste, economical savings, environmental commitments, or alternative nutrient sources (particularly for vegetarians).

One of the most popular choices in grain alternatives, particularly among the more moderate paleo set, is quinoa. Technically not a grain but a relative of green leafy vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard, quinoa is a complete protein that offers a respectable serving of all nine essential amino acids as well as a strong showing of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus. For those reasons, we can understand its popularity and agree that it does, indeed, have a lot to offer, particularly considering its low cost and shelf stability. Nonetheless, we’d offer a caution to its praises. While quinoa offers a decent helping of protein, it’s still pretty carb intensive, clocking in at a 53 on the glycemic index. Also, though quinoa is technically gluten free, it does contain a protein substance that has been known to cause digestive reactions in some.

So, what are some other options if you’re looking for grain alternatives in your meals? We’d first say, while it can initially be difficult to lose the meat and potatoes mindset, it does get easier with time. Eventually, meat and a salad will seem just as normal a dinner routine and you won’t even miss the starches. Nonetheless, when you’re looking for “closerâ€� grain alternatives and have taken into account the added carb load, we do have some suggestions.

Nutrient-loaded squashes and sweet potatoes can serve as a respectable grain alternative. Likewise, lower glycemic beans such lentils can be a decent fill-in. One suggestion is to use these items, or quinoa, as a single ingredient in a veggie and meat dish rather than as the full dish itself. If you want or need to serve a grain alternative, use the substitute as a base for a more complex recipe. Say, add quinoa to greens and tuna, or use it sparingly as a base for meat and veggie stuffed peppers. Try cubed butternut squash in a rich fall salad full of nuts, chicken, and autumn veggies. Use summer squash and parmesan to make a warm but summery casserole side.

Another possibility is the humble but scrumptious eggplant, an ingredient that takes on the flavor of any sauce you make but adds a pleasant substance and texture to the dish. Baked eggplant slices also serve as a terrific substitute for pizza crust or bread sticks with the right dipping sauce. Use it and/or bits of roots and tuber veggies, tomatoes, onions, and herbs to create rich, flavorful “stews� that feel and taste like a hearty accompaniment or a main course. A dash of pine nuts or aged cheese can make it that much heartier

Other options yet? Mushrooms can take on the role of buns or crusts. Cut up and added to hot veggie dishes, mushrooms can offer the warm, pleasantly mild taste that we might crave from grains. Crustless quiches can do the same. Long julienned strips of cabbage or spaghetti squash can serve as a “pasta� of sorts for light summer fare or even warm, meaty sauces come fall.

These are just a few ideas for some inspiration, but we know where to turn for an endless supply of great suggestions? To our seasoned Apples: What Primal-friendly alternatives have you found or created in your own kitchen that satisfy the tastes and textures of each season? What suggestions would you offer to those who are trying to edge out grains from their diet and starchy cravings from their mealtime expectations?

Autumn Sweater, RaeA, roboppy, breezeDebris, VeganWarrior Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

Ten Awesome Carbs

Acorn Squash Recipes

Dear Mark: Vegetarian Protein Possibilities

KEEN-WAH What? Video Post

44 Finger Lickin’ Recipes for Vegetarians and Carnivores Alike

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Worker Bee Carbs, Diet, Health, Nutrition, Recipes 4 Comments »

How to Guide: Making the Switch to Primal Living in 6 Easy Steps

There is Light at the End of the Steps

Perhaps you’ve been reading MDA for some time now, finding yourself intrigued, maybe even testing the waters a bit. The Primal Blueprint sounds good to you. It speaks to you. It makes sense. The mind is clearly motivated, but the heart is, well, a bit trepidatious. Maybe the “Act As If� challenge interested you, inspired you, but you’re not quite there yet:

“Compared to my lifestyle now, I don’t know if I could make this big of a change.�

“Do I trust that I could stick to this kind of life?�

“Maybe this is just for diehards. Do I really have it in me to be part of something like this?�

It’s not uncommon to question our motivation, our ability, even our core confidence at significant turning points. There’s nothing like a big change to make us examine what we’re really made of. But far too many of us derail ourselves before we’re even out of the starting gate. Instead of guessing what we’d do, predicting where we’d stumble, anticipating how we’d eventually fail, how about throwing “foresight� to the wind and taking a bold leap of faith? Eh? Just so you know, we’re with you on this one.

It’s important to keep in mind that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your Primal lifestyle doesn’t need to be either. Especially if you’re more of a “slowly slip your way into the pool� type of person, perhaps these steps will make your transition a bit more manageable – and more inviting.

1. Accept that your process will be unique

Low carb living, for instance, initially takes a different toll on everyone. You might be starting from a standard American diet of 300-400 grams of carbs a day, or you might be cutting back from a lower carb diet of around 200. Either way, you know the direction you want to go, and that’s the key. You may be a diehard endurance athlete or accomplished weightlifter who feels the need for a new direction, a new focus in his/her health.

2. Allow yourself to ease into it

Not everyone needs or wants to take this approach, but there’s nothing wrong with allowing yourself this option. If you’re up for a “dive in,� particularly if you’re facing major health complication like diabetes or obesity, a fast and furious beginning can reap major health benefits quickly. (And for some, it’s like the band-aid conundrum: they’d rather do the brief, intense rip that gets them where they want to be.) However, there’s plenty of reason to take your time if that’s your way. You’ll allow yourself to gradually but genuinely incorporate the news aspects of diet, exercise, and stress reduction without feeling overwhelmed. And for some aspects of the Primal Blueprint, slow and steady may have definite benefits. Some people respond differently to the reduction in carbohydrates than others (particularly at the ketosis level). Initially, you might feel sluggish or foggy. Take time cutting down. Hold steady at 150 grams a day if needed, and use the time in the holding pattern to ramp up your efforts in other lifestyle changes. When you’re ready, coming down 10 grams at a time may be a better approach for you.

3. Divide and conquer

Sometimes it’s easier to tackle one aspect of a project (or a lifestyle) than to attend to all of them at once. If you’re trying to cut carbs and kick a nasty caffeine habit, it might behoove you to take on one at a time or at least take one slowly and focus on the other. Although all the elements of the Primal Blueprint work together (and actually make other efforts easier), there’s nothing wrong with honing in on a few select areas. Make a commitment to total health, put yourself in the center, but take on only what you feel is manageable for now. If you keep the rest in sight, chances are you’ll begin gravitating toward those other changes anyway. Healthy choices have a way of begetting other healthy choices.

4. Track your day-to-day practices (and progress)

It’s easy to sometimes get wrapped up in the “vastness� of a goal: the long-term nature of your plan. Allow yourself to focus on each day, but give yourself the opportunity to concretely view your ongoing commitment. Keep a kind of food/exercise/stress management journal. In addition to the actual foods and exercises themselves, make some observational notes on how you feel, what you are able to accomplish, where you feel challenged. Looking back on your notes will give you a sense of how far you’ve come. It can also serve as a reminder of how you made it through challenges in the past.

We wholeheartedly recommend using a tool like FitDay or The Daily Plate to this end.

5. Ease up if you hit rough road

Back off a bit on the intensity of exercise, for example, if you find you’re having a hard time adequately recovering from strength training or “sprinting� bouts. If you’re hitting the wall with carb reduction, hold steady or bump up your intake by 10-15 grams to see if it makes a difference over a week or two. Progress is rarely a smooth, uninterrupted trajectory for anyone. The point is to do what’s necessary to keep your general momentum and motivation going.

6. Give it time

The Primal Blueprint isn’t about temporary fixes or fad gimmicks. It’s an overarching design with suggestions to help you live your healthiest, most productive life. This kind of change takes time, care and ever evolving commitment to create a new and genuine lifestyle.

What are your thoughts on making the transition? What was/has been the most challenging aspect that had you perhaps accepting a “two steps forward, one step back� approach? What finally got you over the hump, so to speak? Do you have advice for new “apples� just beginning the transition?

extranoise Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

30 Day Primal Health Challenge

Health Challenge Update

Have You Decided to Be Healthy?

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Worker Bee Health, Health Challenges, How To, Personal Improvement, Primal Health 11 Comments »

June was a momentous month. We began with the Definitive Guide to the Primal Blueprint and ended with the 30-Day Primal Health Challenge. In between we had great conversations on everything from cold water therapy, carb binging and grains to managing stress, ketosis and nightshades. Revisit your faves or catch an article you missed… this is the best of June ‘08:

Dear Mark: Primal Personal Products? - June 2

10 Ways to Forage in a Fast Food Nation - June 3

The Definitive Guide to the Primal Blueprint - June 4

Drink Less Water? - June 9

10 Ways to Forage in the Modern World - June 10

What Happens to Your Body When… You CARB BINGE? - June 11

Nightshades - June 12

10 Ways to De-Stress - June 17

The Definitive Guide to Grains - June 18

Cold Water Therapy - Jun 19

Health Suicide in 10 Easy Steps - June 24

What Happens to Your Body When… You Haven’t Properly Trained for Your Marathon? - June 25

Act “As If” - 30-Day Primal Health Challenge - June 27

Dear Mark: Ketosis - June 30

What you would like us to write about? Though we never have a tough time finding something to voice our opinion about we are always interested in what our readers want, so drop us a line in the comment boards. And as per our “Dear Mark� series of posts we began this year, the topic can be personal. So what are you waiting for? You’ve just been offered free personalized health advice! Hit us up with a comment.

Aaron Best of 2 Comments »

30-Day Primal Health Challenge Update

The following is a slightly modified version of an email that went out to all Mark’s Daily Apple readers who openly expressed (either in the comment boards or via email) their interest in being participants in the 30-Day Primal Health Challenge. We thought we’d publish it here to offer our services (we’ll, as always, do our best to answer all comments and emails) to all participants and to request your feedback. We’ll be publishing weekly reader-experience updates, so if you’d like to share your story feel free to drop us a line.

Also, Charlotte of The Great Fitness Experiment will be going Primal for this challenge (she’s a sucker for experiments). She has put together a good summary of Primal guidelines for her readers. Check out her blog post in addition to our archives of over 1,200 blog posts to get you off on the right foot!

This is a special email to all 30-Day Primal Health Challenge devotees. As the post stated, this is a simple experiment to see what living 100% Primal 100% of the time is like. All you have to do is act as if.

At the end of the challenge we hope you can take something positive away from the Primal Blueprint, and more importantly that you can learn something about yourself and the lifestyle you had been leading.

Over the course of the 30 days you may lose weight, gain muscle, see increased energy, sleep soundly, and be able to more effectively handle stress. You may also find making lifestyle changes (however small) exceedingly difficult. (It is a challenge after all!) Because of this we will be offering special help and support to all participants.

If you have any questions about the Primal Blueprint, are having trouble sticking with the challenge, or need some advice or encouragement just drop us a line via email or leave a reply below for all to weigh in on.

For this challenge we will also be opening up our blog to the voices of challenge participants. Share your story - difficult hurdles, successes, triumphs, results etc. - with fellow MDA readers, so they can use it as encouragement and guidance in their efforts to lead a healthy lifestyle. If you are interested in providing regular weekly updates and/or your final results feel free to send us an email by the following dates:

July 9 - 1st week results

July 16 - 2nd week results

July 23 - 3rd week results

July 31 - 30 day challenge results

The challenge will officially begin today, July 1st.

Thank you for your participation and please stay in touch!

Aaron Announcements, Health, Health Challenges 12 Comments »

Top 10 Health Marketing Buzz Words (Ripe for Skepticism)

We’ve talked at length about the health benefits of certain foods, even going so far as to label them “Smart Fuels.� And, while we stand by our statements that there are foods out there that are particularly good for you once the marketing masterminds at food manufacturing firms catch wind of it, these poor foods are hailed as the new wonder food. In fact, they become so popular that they become buzz terms in the industry, able to sell just about any product provided it gets an honorable mention on a product label. Our beef? These so-called super foods can never live up to the hype and certainly can’t confer any kind of health benefit when they are served up in processed food items such as gum, candy, yogurt chips and sugar-laden juices! Read on to see our list of the top 10 health foods that have tried, and failed, to live up to the hype:

1. Acai

If Comedian Kathy Griffin had it right when she said people are afraid to speak ill of Oprah, then label us brave because we’re calling out the Queen of Media for hailing açai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) as the next super food. Touted by Oprah’s minions as “nature’s energy fruit,� this item boasts 10 times the antioxidant power of red grapes and a “synergy� of fats and fiber to promote digestive and cardiovascular health and essential amino acids for muscle regeneration. While there are certainly health benefits associated with the berries, the folks over at a Friendly Skeptic note that “the antioxidants in açai are not necessarily as potent as has been claimed� and that there is “no scientific basis whatsoever for making medical or health promoting claims for açai.�

2. Pomegranate

Pomegranate juice, pomegranate jam, pomegranate chutney, pomegranate martinis: Once a food is a super food, it weasels its way in to just about everything! We’re not knocking the benefits of pomegranate – which range from promises that it can prevent coronary artery disease to claims that it can stave off erectile dysfunction – what we’re having a hard time with is the price! Ranging from $5 to as high as $8 for a 16 oz serving, POM (and its various tea and pill derivatives) this is one outrageously priced tipple! Also, it should be noted, dear readers, that just one 8 oz serving of POM packs 34 grams of sugar. You’ve been warned.

3. Goji Berries

How could we not love Goji Berries when we ourselves even named them a Smart Fuel once upon a blog? Again, we stand by our statements that they do confer a number of health benefits – including stemming cancer activity and promoting eye health – but at about $60 a bag, we have a hard time recommending them as an integral part of a daily diet! After all, it is a berry we’re talking about here.

4. Organic

It seems that if you slap an organic label on anything (fruit, vegetable, granola bars, vodka (seriously) you get free reign to hike up the price and still have your item fly off the shelves! Indeed, it seems that whenever you add the term “organic,� it ultimately registers as “healthy� with Joe Consumer. Unfortunately, however, this isn’t necessarily the case. Case in point? Our May Top 10 Junk Foods in Disguise, nearly half of which was dedicated to profiling items that were labeled organic but were still unhealthy. Sigh. Next.

5. Green Tea

Of all the recent health buzz words, green tea is probably the most frequently used (and abused) word in the lexicon. Green tea chewing gum… really? Do you seriously think your sugar-free stick of supped-up Bubble Yum is going to confer the health benefits associated with this ancient Chinese medicine? And the green tea “just add water� supplements? Don’t even get us started! In our searches we even found Green Tea Kit Kat Bars hailing from Japan. Ugg. Hopefully, people can see right through these marketing schemes. While we don’t doubt that the polyphenols at work in Green Tea have their benefits, we recommend that you stick with green tea in its purest form – straight out of a teacup. Expect more to come.

6. Guarana

With its fancy name, its fancy country of origin (Brazil) and the fact that its added to just about every herbal supplement and energy drink, it would be plausible to believe that guarana conveys some kind of health benefit, right? Unfortunately, if you do a little research, you’ll find that guarana is… well, basically just a fancy way of saying… uhhh… caffeine. True, it comes from a berry, and we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that the berry itself is rich in tannins and other phytochemicals, but at the end of the day, this is a prime example of a relatively healthy food being blown up as the answer to all of our health needs.

7. Kombucha

Another fancy name, another relatively un-super super food. Kombucha is really just a fancy name for a sweetened tea grown from yeast and Acetobacter cultures. Early studies of kombucha suggest that it may help detoxify the body, but once in the hands of marketing peons, the benefits of the drink are completely blown out of proportion, with one kombucha drink manufacturer using the tag line “can a drink change your life.� Our answer? Not likely. But, at about $3 a pop, it sure will change the size of your wallet.

And now we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for some new super ingredients ready to make their debut on the wild and wacky world of food products:

8. Slimming Ingredients

The easiest way to sell a new item? Tell people that it will help them lose weight or stay trim. Enviga was just the beginning. The latest for your radar? PinnoThin, a polyunsaturated fatty acid pinolenic acid derived from the seeds of the Korean pine nut tree that is thought to act as an appetite suppressant while also delaying the emptying of the stomach so that people feel fuller, longer. The new compound received the top prize at the First International Conference on Innovations and Trends in Weight Loss and Weight Management, but according to a release, that award was based on a study involving only 18 women. We advise that before you get caught up in the hype (toasted pine nuts on everything!), wait for more conclusive evidence of the pros (and cons) of this new product!

9. Uchuva

Uchuva may sound appealing, but what if we told you it was really nothing more than a plain ol’ gooseberry? While it conveys some strong health benefits – providing the heftiest dose of fiber in the dried fruit realm – is it going to change your life? Probably not, but it sure does make a cute garnish for summer fruit dishes or a sweet addition to a ho-hum trail mix.

10. Cweet

We started with Equal and Sweet & Low, but quickly abandoned the little pink and blue packets when Splenda hit the scene (It tastes just like sugar! You can bake with it! It won’t give you the runs!). Now brace yourself for the newest kid on the block: Cweet. The compound – which is derived from brazzein, a sweet fruit found in West Africa – is thought to be 3000 times sweeter than sucrose and 1,000 times sweeter than plain ol’ cane sugar and is already slated for inclusion in products including chewing gum, sports drinks and candy. Want to know where you can pick some up? Unfortunately this compound is still awaiting FDA approval and, even if awarded “generally recognized as safe� status, still won’t hit stores until 2009.

Breno Peck, quack.a.duck, miheco, bookgrl, SiFu Renka, Bruno Roots, foodistablog, ashleyaull, kidjay Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

Classic Tuesday 10 Posts…

The 10 Dumbest Drugs Ever Invented

10 Alarming Healthcare Stats Put in Ruthless Perspective

10 Quick Tips to Boost Your Serotonin

More Tuesday 10s

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Worker Bee Health, Hype, Marketing, The Tuesday 10 10 Comments »