Fitness and Nutrition

[barton]

That was the general drift.  Speaking of nuts, does anyone have a favorite nut (and we should allow the various seeds, like almonds, that are also called "nuts" in the common parlance)?  Though I enjoy a good walnut or cashew, I think the pecan may be the greatest of the nuts.  I should add that the pistachio also has a rich and delicate flavor but falls short as an eating nut because of the labor involved.  It is, however, a superior flavoring nut.  Similarly, the almond, which has a taste and texture not unlike woodchips when eaten whole, does better as a flavor in something else.

[weezo]

Barton,

My favorite nut is a seed: Sunflower seeds. I prefer to buy just the kernel so I can pop a handful or two into open mouth when the mood strikes.

Back when I was teaching, the teachers all gathered at the same table in the lunch room. Some at the lunch the students got, some brought their own lunches. A lot of camaraderie was exchanged. The male teacher all sidelined in coaching the various teams to supplement the small salaries. One of the men, who taught business and economics, was single and approaching middle age. His mother made his lunch for him every day, and pressed and starched his always impeccable shirts. He always had a banana in the lunch box.

One day, a spritely teacher took a notion, and sneaked into his lunch box. When he withdrew the banana from the lunchbox at the teacher's table, it came out sheathed in a condom. Needless to say, the students never learned why the teacher's table roared that day! For a long time afterward, the man gingerly stared into his lunchbox before withdrawing the ubiquitous banana, and for a long time, the female teacher laughed over McPete's brazen assault on his lunch box. Last summer McPete made her exit from this world. The world has been a duller place since her departure.

But back to bananas. I tend to eat them often, sliced over a big bowl of spoon-sized shredded wheat with bran, smothered in 2% milk, and it is a breakfast that truly keeps me until lunch time. It's said that the banana is a source of potassium which is important in controlling blood pressure. Blood pressure has been a concern for more than ten years now, and only full retirement from teaching brought it under control. I guess I could 'speriment a bit and test my blood pressure on the days I eat a banana compared to the days I eat raisin bran (which always necessitates an early lunch).

[Donotremove]

Sure am glad I finally decided to lurk at this discussion site.  You folks are really great at splaining stuff about food and exercise, not to mention how to act at gatherings (just in case I should ever come upon one).  And, spearminting with bananas?  Who'd of thought?  I'm certainly gonna be back here when there are new posts, even though I am 20 years past any notion of doing a cartwheel.

[weezo]

Donot,

Glad y'all are 'special' happy l'arning 'bout t' way things be dun down south ways.

As to fitness, I joined Curves last December, and started out going twice a week. After time it was once a week. Then once every two weeks .... now, it's been a month since I've been ... with hubby spending time at the beach, I am busy, too busy to drive 20 minutes there, 30 minutes exercise, 20 minutes home, often with a side trip to the Walmart where I really get my excercise walking around the store. Maybe, when it cools down come September, I'll get back to it, but I have already decided to drop the membership at the end of the year. I was hoping for some socializing, but most of the time when I go, I am the only one there. Not at all what I wanted to do.

But, I have been a follower of good nutrition since I was in my twenties and first read Adele Davis. I've kept a good respect for getting enough protein although I'm not as keen on green salads like I should be. My boys grew up knowing that whatever ails you, taking a Vitamin C tablet will make it all right again. I remember when a crushed Vitamin C tablet on a spoonful of water would arrest my oldest son's asthma attacks without the expensive trip to the emergency room. Then, I learned that too much C and not enough calcium caused him to have nosebleeds without warning, so I got some calcium tablets and added them to his milk and other foods to be sure he got enough, and sure enough the nosebleeds came to an end. Vitamin B6 will end the blues that come with the monthly visitor, but does nothing for the severe cramping. B6 does nothing for the blues due to bipolar depression that set in at menopause. Neither does St. John's Wort. For that I have to take prescriptions from the doctor.

[barton]

Weez, I have some science background and some knowledge of food chemistry.  There are a lot of myths out there, but if we believe in them firmly we probably get a kind of placebo effect from what we eat.  Most tropical soils, for example, have been depleted of their potassium, so a modern banana isn't likely to be as good for potassium as a handful of raisins, or plums, or (non-tropical) nuts. 

The key mineral for blood pressure regulation is magnesium, so your affinity for sunflower seeds is a good one -- they are rich in magnesium.   I'm a sunflower seed eater, too, mainly because Agent Mulder likes them.

[desdemona222b]

Bart-

I'd love to here your opinion of the so-called "lemonade diet" to "detoxify" your system that my normally intelligent friend is going on this week.  She showed me this pamphlet she ordered from Barnes and Noble that was written 50 years ago.  Essentially one goes on a fast and drinks nothing but a concoction of lemon juice, water, cayenne pepper, and grade a maple syrup for 10 days.  The first thing you do is take a laxitive.

She got really annoyed when I told her that not only is she going to be depriving herself of the nutrients her body needs for 10 days (we only need 16% protein in our diet according to this quack, and it shouldn't be from animals.  Has it ever occurred to you that the animals we eat are vegetarian? - so the argument goes), she'd also be liable to have digestive complaints  and ulcerations around her mouth with all the acid and hot pepper she'll be drinking.  There are 2 tblsps of lemon juice per 10 ounces of water - seems like that would be enough to set your teeth on edge it's so acidic.

[Lhoffman]

I'd think the friend would be more likely to get blisters from the cayenne than have problems from the lemons.  But the reason this diet works is that lemons are diuretic.  In essence, your friend is losing water weight.  (The thining around the cayenne is that it revs up the metabolism....maybe so, maybe not.)

July is probably not the smartest time to force one's body into dehydration.

[weezo]

Bart,

Thanks for the advice on the bananas. They do bulk up breakfast enough to keep me from eating an early lunch, but I will consider the raisin bran, which is my alternate cereal from the shredded wheat that I use with the bananas.

Good to know the sunflower seeds are food for blood pressue. I didn't know that magnesium is a factor. I take a daily senior milti-vitamin, so I am getting 100 mg of magnesium a day. I could supplement that if it makes a difference. But, I'd just as soon eat the sunflower seeds!

Since you know more of the science of foods that I do, let me ask you about the nutritive value of pickled red beets. When my nephew Taylor was little, he didn't like them, but we had them pretty often when he came for his weekends in the country sans parents. We convinced him that they had lots of iron and were good for his blood. Of course, as children do, he grew up and learned to read labels, and one time he came out to visit and point out that according to the label on the jar there were no nutrients whatsoever in red beets. I grew up eating red beets because they were supposed to be a good source of iron to build red blood.

Is there any nutritive value in those colorful roots?

[Lhoffman]

Nutritional information on Beets, and pretty much anything else you can think of:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20bu.html

[harrie]

... Essentially one goes on a fast and drinks nothing but a concoction of lemon juice, water, cayenne pepper, and grade a maple syrup for 10 days.  The first thing you do is take a laxitive.

I think the first thing I would do is throw up.  That's a horrible mix.

[weezo]

Laurie,

Ahhhh. Thanks for the nutritional information on beets! They do indeed contain iron, just as my parents insisted. I forwarded the information to my nephew! Of course, he is now overweight, so the high carb content of the beets would not recommend them. But I feel vindicated!
I did not steer the child wrong on the nutritional value of beets for back when he was a normally slim young child.

[madupont]

Beets have nucleic acid, keeps the brain-power in gear. Blue menopause was the reason for soy products I was told. But I only have menopause during divorce anxiety. The way to handle menopause is to go dancing(described in another forum, somewhere....)

Bananas as we found out in Immigration forum contain DOW causing sterility in banana workers from Central American banana growing regions.

Which is how we get to nuts. Almonds for cancer.  Pecans are from Georgia and I eat them in a pie about once a year if I remember at Mardi Gras, otherwise take as required in whatever recipes asks for a few pecans to be thrown in like a few cookies or a cake. Last year, I had a fabulous experience with pralines because even if they are not holding shape from lack of hardness, you can still eat them all yourself.

I prefer cashews and begin to cook Indian  food when that happens. Ismail Merchant or Madhura Jaffrey, preferably.

If one is still blue after that, drink Gota Kola. It will now rain because I did all the watering.

[weezo]

Maddie,

If watering brought on the rain, we wouldn't be having this drought. I've been watering every other day, and there has been less than half an inch in about a month, maybe longer. My pepper plants are still the same size they were when I planted them in mid-May. No sign of flowers in all that time. And only one green tomato. Two of the plants are still as small as when planted. The others have gotten taller, but no fruit yet. And, the squashes have set blossoms, then they drop off and don't make little squashes. That despite all the watering I'm doing.

[weezo]

Just had a great chuckle. I sent the link to the nutritional information on beets, and he wrote back:


"Weezo,

I never liked beets they taste like old wet socks soaked in a sewage plant"

I told him with word choices like that, he should consider a career in writing.

[barton]

Weezo, looks like you found some answers on beets.  Like most vegetables, they are not terribly nutrient-dense, but they do have some value.  The lemonade diet sounds horrible -- the body needs from .75 to 1.0 grams of protein per kilo of lean body weight, per day.  These figures are heavily debated, but direct experience can be your guide in such matters.  If you get cravings and have trouble concentrating, muscle cramps, bloating and/or weakness, then you have probably dropped below your protein needs.  Low protein causes the body to go into famine mode, which makes it hoard every calorie it gets, hence encourages weight GAIN, not loss. 

The thing about protein being hard on the kidneys (which many low-protein apostles loudly declare) is ridiculous, unless you are really a heavy meat-eater.  You can detoxify your body with one normal kidney, and most people have two, so there is adequate redundancy in our body's filtration/purification system.