We live in an world which is connected and anyone can say or spread misinformation about foods and their benefits (or its detriments). There are celebrities, influencers, bloggers and others which contribute to this misinformation and whose opinions are taken as fact by many. This leads to some dubious claims about the health benefits of particular foods.
It is about time we took a stand and this month and we invite you to post information, which can be backed up by scientific evidence from a reliable source, on the health benefits of a particular food. This could be anywhere from an ingredient to combination of ingredients which work together to give a benefit.
Post your health claiming foods with the supporting evidence below. Note, if your post falls into the outlandish or misinformation category, expect other community members to set the record straight.
I hope my view is not considered too extreme but I will suffer the consequences if anybody has evidence to show that is the case.
I have three rules about what to eat:
Eat an amount that is sensible for your level of activity that is balanced between the major food groups and make as much of it as fresh as you can manage.
Do not take up any diet that says you must eat any particular food. There is no such thing, you can always have a good diet by leaving out one specific foodstuff. By all means avoid deficiencies by eating foods that contain the necessary vitamin or mineral but generally there are many that satisfy each requirement. You can always substitute.
Be very wary of anybody who says you must not eat some recognised food. I am not talking about avoiding poison but real food. Having said that, there are recognised foods that should only be eaten in moderation. There are the well know excesses of salt, fat, sugar etc, but these are already covered by rule (1) and they do not contain toxins, they are essential to your diet. I mean don’t each large amounts of things like rhubarb (oxalate) or badly stored potatoes (solanine) that actually do contain toxins.
A broad consequence of the above is you don’t need supplements except in extreme circumstances where you cannot have a proper diet. You only need vitamin pills if you cannot get enough through diet, more than you need is a waste of money and may be harmful. You only need electrolytes if you are obliged to sweat a great deal, such as working in an extreme environment, if you have a good diet taking a salt supplement will not make you run the 100m any faster.
If in doubt ask your doctor not some internet guru.
Oat bran…but not any oat bran. Consumption of adequate amount of oat bran, eater as whole oats or raw oat gran has shown to reduce the absorption of cholesterol to the blood stream. This is thought to be from β-glucan present in the oat bran/fibre.
It is worth noting that it appears highly processed oats/oat bran does not have the same effect as raw or unprocessed oats/bran.
Flavonoids, (from the Lat. Flavs=Yellow)
are one of the reasons fruit and vegetables are so good for you.
They are rich in antioxidants, can help the body fight inflammation, which is one of the body’s immune responses,
and it’s a great way to stay healthy and decrease the risk of some chronic diseases.
Foods rich in Flavonoids are:
Parsley
Onions
Berries
Black and Green tea
Bananas
All citrus fruits
Cocoa
This is interesting, I hope the day is not too far away when the mechanism is understood better. In the meantime for most of us more fibre is good regardless.
I see that red wine is also on the list - must be good stuff.
On a more serious note a quick search of our favourite authority on everything (Wikipedia) reveals:
Though there is ongoing research into the potential health benefits of individual flavonoids, neither the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has approved any health claim for flavonoids or approved any flavonoids as pharmaceutical drugs.[1][19][20][21] Moreover, several companies have been cautioned by the FDA over misleading health claims.[22][23][24][25].
and also
Flavonoids are poorly absorbed in the human body (less than 5%), then are quickly metabolized into smaller fragments with unknown properties, and rapidly excreted.[21][28][29] Flavonoids have negligible antioxidant activity in the body, and the increase in antioxidant capacity of blood seen after consumption of flavonoid-rich foods is not caused directly by flavonoids, but is due to production of uric acid resulting from flavonoid depolymerization and excretion.[30]
That is sad, I must be lucky with my GP. Maybe ask a person with recognised training then, a nutritionist or dietician but not a quack or somebody who hopes to sell you a book, a potion or a magic fruit.
Perhaps ask your doctor for are referral to a nutritionist, some of such services can be covered by the national elf.
Around 800 gm of lamb liver thinly sliced and shaken in a bag of flour with peper & salt.and a 400gm pack of Bertocchi rindless bacon rashers cut into small pieces.
We pan fry the bacon and set aside, fry the liver in batches until golden and set aside, make the gravy in the pan, then return the liver and bacon and simmer gently for at least 30 minutes.
That does indeed sound delicious. I recall someone suggesting adding bacon, thanks for the reminder! I’ve got two calf livers in the fridge waiting to be pate-ed.
As I read the linked article 100 g of liver contains about 8-11 times the RDI of vitamin A. And the safe limit is about 3 times RDI. So you would want to limit your liver feast to about 25-30g. Is that right?
Love pâté as well and only eat the liver ones (we buy them rather than making but any suggested recipes would be great). Chicken, pig, duck etc…delicious.
We grew up on lambs fry and bacon and can’t stand it any more. While my mother is a good cook, the lambs fry was floured and cooked in the pan until it became as dry as a leather boot in the Atacama desert. Even the smell of it cooking brings back less than fond memories.
France (and even Chile) where we have travelled is also Pâté heaven. The butcher there make their own and with a crusty baguette, some ripe tomato and aged cheese…heaven. I am missing it just thinking about what we ate…
This limit may be more about long term regular (daily?) consumption rather than infrequent indulgence. Infrequent indulgence (>weekly) should not be an issue.
