A Fat Chance
Is India suddenly waking up to the fact that fat intake in most of its forms really isn’t good for you? The lack of fat is increasingly apparent and fast becoming the new flim flam in tinsel town and the upper echelons of Indian society. Think about it, if you were paying Bollywood actresses per kg 15 years ago, you’d surely be saving huge amounts on screen these days.
If I manage to pull some of you into this piece then I’m going to be expecting some royalties from all of the dieticians that take heed. Too much bloody oil, ghee and butter and well, fat. Those were my first thoughts on arriving on Indian soil and launching myself into an Indian kitchen all those years ago. If you asked me now, nine years later, things have changed but there is still too much oil, ghee, butter and fat. What are we to do? I know that in reality, few of us really want to look like those miserable size zeroes that all the glossies keep pounding on about but at the same time, most of us would like to eat the same but with less, if you understand what I’m jabbering on about.
Luckily, at least for my own personal sadistic entertainment, I still have staff and friends that wax on with almost ecstatic emotion about how food tastes much better when it’s cooked in all that oil, almost salivating till I force feed them a couple of spoonfuls of cooking oil. Yippee! Butter and ghee undoubtedly taste wonderful but have you ever drank cooking oil? It tastes… tastes of, well, oil I suppose, no flavour enhancers there. Margarine tastes crap, other solid hydrogenated vegetable fats taste worse and stick to the inside of your mouth. They don’t dissolve at body temperature and if they stick to the inside of your mouth, then they are bound to get stuck everywhere else inside your body. Think about it! Everything in moderation. That wasn’t something someone said just for the sake of it and you really don’t need to fry practically everything other than your dal and rice to fulfil those taste buds.
I also love the snacking culture in India but why does almost everything have to come out of a kadhai full of oil? It’s almost gruesome to see samosas and kachoris simmering in those vast vats of oil, soaking up half of it. All those delicious bhujias, hiding almost 50 per cent fat. Packaged cookies and biscuits, stuffed full of chemicals and hydrogenated veggie fats — a free radical playground. Think about it for a minute. Don’t get me wrong; I love all of that and many things much worse. I love street food. I love nibbling. We all do but we have to take a step back sometimes and really think about what we are putting into our bodies. None of us have much time left and let’s face it, there are only a few places in India where you’ll need so much fat, where it’s minus 20°C for most of the year and the air is so thin that you need 2,000 calories an hour just to survive.
What’s the answer to a better lifestyle? I suppose going back to living off the land and doing a good day’s hard labour would probably do the trick. You rarely see working classes anywhere in the world that have the kind of diseases that the middle classes have. Why is that? But again, that ain’t going to happen for most of us. Fat arses sat down for most of the day in air-conditioned rooms and when you get up to move, it’s there wagging behind you! Fat makes fat! Doing nothing makes fat! Hence, do we need so much fat? What to do? We have legs, use them from time to time. Get outdoors! No one said my writings were going to be pretty. I’m here to make you sit up and think for a second, maybe that’s all most of you will do I guess.
What’s the solution? Do we all just carry on ignoring any and everything we keep reading about our intake of fat? It is 2010 and we are all supposed to be evolving as a species. Never mind the implications of global warming. Use less and consume less should really be the new mantra. Less is more, I suppose or should it be less is less? I think so.
The more I think about this babble, I’m going to use this as a build-up for my piece on the Mediterranean diet. Something I’ve been waffling on about for years but never gotten around to penning it down.
Fact is that if our waistlines do carry on expanding as quickly as they are then the human race, surely, is doomed. Fat, really doesn’t mean healthy anymore, I think we’re all aware of that fact and for all those who choose to believe that it is good for you, there’s a fat chance of remaining disease-free. The Telegraph India
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How Grass Buffers Keep Agricultural Herbicides At Bay
Grass buffer strips are commonly used in crop production to reduce herbicide runoff. These practices are encouraged through incentives, regulations or laws, and are effective at lowering herbicide concentration in runoff. However, subsurface filtration (under the buffer strips) is not as well documented, and neither are the effects of trees integrated into buffer strips with grasses. Understanding these effects is crucial as agriculture producers continue to adopt these strategies.
Researchers studied the impact of grass and grass/tree buffer strips on three herbicides commonly used in agriculture. The scientists studied the transport of the herbicides in both surface runoff and subsurface infiltration during two growing seasons.
Vegetative barriers reduce herbicide concentrations in runoff, but movement of herbicides through subsurface filtration actually increased. Total export of herbicides was reduced through the use of grass and grass/tree barriers. The research was conducted by Emmanuelle Caron, Pierre Lafrance, Jean-Christian Auclair of the University of Quebec, and Marc Duchemin of the Institute of Research and Development in Agri-Environment.
The results are reported in the March/April 2010 edition of the Journal of Environmental Quality, published by the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Soil Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America.
The results for the first year showed a 35% reduction in herbicide concentration in grass and grass/tree buffer strips than with no buffer. Herbicide concentrations in subsurface filtration increased 800-1200-% with buffer strips, although total overall concentration was reduced 40-60%. In 2005, total herbicide concentration exported through the buffer strips was 75-95% less than without the buffers. The findings indicate that grass barriers decrease surface water runoff while increasing subsurface infiltration, resulting in an overall loss of herbicides before reaching bodies of water.
Integrating trees into the barriers did not result in any significant differences. This was possible due to the fact that the trees were only two years old at the beginning of the study, and their root systems were not yet developed enough to demonstrate any impact. Further research is needed to determine the effects of long-established trees in buffer strips. Local meteorological conditions also play an important role in the efficiency of buffer strips, and the two years of the study experienced a wide range of variability that future long term research should address. PhysOrg
Grapes Cut Risk Factors For Heart Disease And Diabetes
Grape consumption can lower blood pressure, improve heart function and reduce other risk factors for heart disease and metabolic syndrome, according to a new study.
The effect is thought to be due to phytochemicals — naturally occurring antioxidants – that grapes contain, say the study’s researchers. The study will be presented today at the Experimental Biology convention in Anaheim, California.
The research shows encouraging results of a grape-enriched diet preventing risk factors for metabolic syndrome.
To reach the conclusion, researchers studied the effect of regular table grapes (a blend of green, red and black grapes) that were mixed into a powdered form and integrated into the diets of laboratory rats as part of a high-fat, American style diet. All of the rats used were from a research breed that is prone to being overweight.
They performed many comparisons between the rats consuming a grape-enriched diet and the control rats receiving no grape powder. Researchers added calories and sugars to the control group to balance the extra calories and sugars gained from getting the grape powder.
After three months, the rats that received the grape-enriched diet had lower blood pressure, better heart function, and reduced indicators of inflammation in the heart and the blood than rats who received no grape powder. Rats also had lower triglycerides and improved glucose tolerance.
The effects were seen even though the grape-fed animals had no change in body weight.
In all, researchers say the study demonstrates that a grape-enriched diet can have broad effects on the development of heart disease and metabolic syndrome and the risk factors that go along with it.
“The possible reasoning behind the lessening of metabolic syndrome is that the phytochemicals were active in protecting the heart cells from the damaging effects of metabolic syndrome. In the rats, inflammation of the heart and heart function was maintained far better,” says Steven Bolling, MD, heart surgeon at the U-M Cardiovascular Center and head of the U-M Cardioprotection Research Laboratory.
The researchers also looked for signs of inflammation, oxidative damage and other molecular indicators of cardiac stress. Again, the rats who consumed the grape powder had lower levels of these markers than rats who did not receive grapes.
There is no well-accepted way to diagnose metabolic syndrome which is really a cluster of characteristics: excess belly fat (for men, a waist measuring 40 inches or more and for women, a waist measuring 35 inches or more); high triglycerides which can lead to plague build-up in the artery walls; high blood pressure; reduced glucose tolerance; and elevated c-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation in the body.
Those with metabolic syndrome are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
But the U-M study suggests that it may be possible that grape consumption can change the downhill sequence that leads to heart disease by prolonging the time between when symptoms begin to occur and a time of diagnosis.
“Reducing these risk factors may delay the onset of diabetes or heart disease, or lessen the severity of the diseases,” says E. Mitchell Seymour, Ph.D., lead researcher and manager of the U-M Cardioprotection Research Laboratory. “Ultimately it may lessen the health burden of these increasingly common conditions.” DNA India
Personal Health: News and Notes
High-sugar processed foods can raise heart-disease risk
Yet another reason to avoid empty calories: Eating lots of high-sugar processed foods can worsen cholesterol and triglyceride levels, which are risk factors for heart disease.
Emory University researchers analyzed data from 6,100 participants in a national health and nutrition survey conducted annually between 1999 and 2006.
Daily consumption of sweeteners in processed foods averaged 3.2 ounces. That amounted to 16 percent of total daily calories, up from 11 percent in 1977.
The researchers found that the higher the participants’ consumption of such sugars, the higher their triglyceride (blood sugar) levels, and the lower their HDL cholesterol (“good” blood fat) levels.
“Our data support dietary guidelines that target a reduction in consumption of added sugar,” the authors concluded. The study appeared in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.-Marie McCullough
Study details achievement of kids with cochlear implants
The early going may be rough for some, but children with cochlear implants generally achieve levels of education and employment similar to those with normal hearing.
That finding, reported in this month’s issue of Archives of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, is drawn from interviewing parents of 100 deaf children in France who got implants before age 6.
Among the 74 who did not have additional disabilities, most of the children had attended or were currently in mainstream schools. One in four experienced delays in reading and writing. About half failed a grade at some point, though the risk was lower for those who could speak than for those who used sign language.
Of the eight implant-wearers over 18 who did not have additional disabilities, five had a university degree, within range of the proportion for the general French population. Those with extra disabilities did less well in school and tended to go to vocational school; the researchers concluded that those implants were still beneficial. Implants are electronic devices that bypass a malfunctioning ear, transmitting signals directly to the brain so the wearer can perceive sound. – Tom Avril
34 questions to determine whether that playground is safe
Is your child’s playground safe? If you want to know, get out your clipboard and get ready to take stock.
Researchers at the University of Alabama in Birmingham have come up with a 34-question checklist that will help parents and others evaluate the safety aspects of playgrounds. The aspects it covers include the depth of the material in sandboxes, whether the “fall-zone” areas are made of soft materials, whether a first-aid kit is nearby, and whether the equipment is securely anchored.
Another checklist looks at safety features in gymnasiums.
A 2005 U.S. Consumer Product & Safety Commission report estimated 50,000 to 200,000 children a year visit emergency rooms because of playground injuries.
The researchers examined 52 school and community playgrounds and 45 gyms across Alabama, identifying safety hazards at nearly all of them.The checklists can be found at http://www.ed.uab.edu/cea/playground_gym_assessment.htm. – Sandy Bauers
What’d she say? Recording that doctor visit might help recall
Have you ever walked out of your doctor’s office only to realize you’d already forgotten important details of what you discussed?
Recordings of those conversations with doctors could help, according to a small Scottish study of heart patients before surgery.
The researchers found that patients who got a recording of their consultation with a surgeon before heart surgery were more knowledgeable about their operation and less anxious about it.
The researchers studied 84 patients undergoing heart bypasses at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland between Feb. 10, 2005, and March 15, 2006. Patients who were given recordings of their consultations reported a greater sense of control compared with those who couldn’t listen to a replay.
“The addition of an audiotape . . . to written communication significantly increases patient’s recall of information and satisfaction level,” the researchers wrote in the study published last week in the Archives of Surgery.- Josh Goldstein