Smoothie vs. Cookie

So warm days are finally here, and with them comes my desire to eat more produce. It's warm enough in the morning for green smoothies again. Huzzah.

My current favorite green smoothie recipe:
1 or 2 bananas
A handful of frozen fruit- tropical (mango, pineapple) or berry (strawberry, blueberry, blackberry)
1/2 cup of organic yogurt, flavored or plain (organic coconut milk for vegan smoothie)
1/4 cup frozen spinach (less if no tropical fruit)
2 t chia seeds (cheap, and rich in Omegas. Read nutrition facts here)
A splash of unsweetened coconut flakes
Enough orange juice to make it your desired consistency

It's a great, filling breakfast for those of us with a sweet tooth, and I'm already well on my way to "5 a day." I find that when I have a breakfast smoothie, I tend to eat better for the rest of the day. The reverse is also apparently true. In a last-ditch bid for warming comfort foods, my body's been craving cookies. A weak moment at Costco led me to the packaged cookies and once I got a taste for them I wanted more. According to new research, it's not just me who's experienced junk food "addiction."
Published in March's Nature Neuroscience, a study conducted by the Scripps Research Institute looked at rats given unrestricted access to high-fat, high-calorie foods. The rodents began to eat compulsively, even when they received an electric shock every time they ate.

"We found that development of obesity was coupled with emergence of a progressively worsening deficit in neural reward responses. Similar changes in reward homeostasis induced by cocaine or heroin are considered to be crucial in triggering the transition from casual to compulsive drug-taking. Accordingly, we detected compulsive-like feeding behavior in obese but not lean rats, measured as palatable food consumption that was resistant to disruption by an aversive conditioned stimulus. Striatal dopamine D2 receptors (D2Rs) were downregulated in obese rats, as has been reported in humans addicted to drugs. Moreover, lentivirus-mediated knockdown of striatal D2Rs rapidly accelerated the development of addiction-like reward deficits and the onset of compulsive-like food seeking in rats with extended access to palatable high-fat food. These data demonstrate that overconsumption of palatable food triggers addiction-like neuroadaptive responses in brain reward circuits and drives the development of compulsive eating." 

It's my brain chemistry's fault that I love cookies. Luckily I also love watermelon, grapes, pears, peas, kale, asparagus, broccoli, and smoothies.

Cake, Controversy and Cancer Hope - This Week in Health

This week in my kitchen: Cauliflower, green bean and lentil curry with organic brown rice. YUM!

In lieu of a post with original content I bring you a roundup of some of the most interesting nutrition and women's/children's health stories of the week. What can I say, I've had a busy week. This is a feature I plan on adding to my blog in addition to a weekly original post. I know I like reading collections of news tidbits.

"Bacteria in yogurt could treat cancer, Irish research finds

New research has found that bacteria, commonly found in probiotic yogurt, is an effective way to deliver gene therapies to treat cancer. Researchers at UCC have found that the harmless bacteria has a natural ability to travel through the body and grow inside tumours. The team from the Cork Cancer Research Centre says it can genetically engineer these bacteria to pump out anti-cancer agents specifically inside tumours."

- Irish Examiner

"India Halts Use of Gardasil Vaccine After Four Deaths

The Indian Council of Medical Research has suspended the cervical cancer control vaccination program for girls in India. According to Mercola.com, the program is part of a two year study to look into the "utility of a vaccine in public health programs and acceptability of Gardasil, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine made by Merck [a US pharmaceutical company]." The suspension was made after four deaths and more than 120 complications were reported by young women who had received the Gardasil vaccine. ¹

Concerns have surrounded the use of Gardasil in the US for years, with more than 17,000 adverse events and 67 Gardasil related deaths in having been reported in the US since the vaccine's release in this country in 2006."

- Mothering Magazine

"Do toddlers need cake as well as carrots?

A new survey shows some nurseries are giving children too much in the way of fruit and vegetables, and not enough starchy carbohydrates to meet their energy needs. Have healthy eating messages left us in a state of confusion about what children should be consuming?
This latest study carried out by the local government regulatory body Lacors focused on children in nursery schools across 29 English councils. While finding that some children were being given portions that were too large and too high in salt, others were simply not being offered enough at all."

- By Clare Murphy, BBC News

"'High GI' carbohydrates increase women's heart risk

A study of over 47,000 Italian adults found that women alone whose diets contained a lot of bread, pizza and rice doubled their heart disease risk.
These foods have a high glycaemic index (GI), meaning they release energy and raise blood sugar quickly. The findings are published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
The experts say much more research is needed to understand why these high GI foods, rather than carbohydrates per se, appear to pose a risk - and why the risk applies to women and not men.
Low GI carbohydrates, such as pasta, which release energy and raise blood sugar far slower, showed no such link with heart disease."

-BBC News

"Nutritional risks of picky eating may be higher in autism

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many kids are picky eaters but new research suggests the trait is even more common in autistic children who tend to refuse more foods and are more likely to restrict their diets to a smaller variety of foods than other children.
Such habits in both autistic and non-autistic children may put them at nutritional risk.
"If children are not eating foods from each of the food groups in sufficient amounts they may be at risk for nutrient inadequacy," Dr. Linda Bandini, of the E. K. Shriver Center, University of Massachusetts Medical School and Boston University told Reuters Health in an email.
Picky eaters were found in both the ASD and typically developing children although the children with ASD "displayed more food refusal and exhibited a more limited food repertoire," the authors report in the Journal of Pediatrics." 

- Rachael Myers Lowe, Reuters 

Spring has sprung into my nose

A very pregnant me wandering in an orchard. Credit: C. Ian Campbell

Allergies. I have been a sufferer of seasonal allergies for as long as I can remember. I heard on the news yesterday that this year's allergy season is set to be one of the worst on record. Actually, I didn't really need the news to tell me that. Having left the windows open to get some air circulating during the unseasonably warm April, I've had to mop and wipe down my kitchen every morning this week because it's coated in bright yellow pollen.
So it's not just going outside that sends me running for my hankie - it's being inside my house too. Last year I finally went to the allergist to see what exactly it is I'm allergic to. Turns out it's everything - except dust. I'm allergic to trees, grasses, mold, ragweed, cats and dogs. He gave me samples of Nasonex and Zyrtec and sent me on my way.
In my experience over-the-counter allergy meds have only dampened my allergies, not gotten rid of them. And unfortunately it seems that the drowsy-inducing meds work better than non-drowsy. This spring I am excited to try out some natural alternatives. I have tried homeopathic nasal sprays and tablets in years past and they did little to nothing.
Plenty of natural treatments claim to offer relief. Butterbur (Petasites hybridus) is an herb whose antihistamine effects have been being studied and reported on in many journals recently. In 2002, the British Medical Journal published a ranomized, controlled study showing that just one tablet of butterbur four times a day was as effective as a Zyrtec (cetirizine) in controlling the symptoms of seasonal allergies. But a placebo-controlled study of butterbur's effectiveness in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in 2004, saw no significant difference in the symptoms experienced by the placebo and butterbur groups.
So which is it? Well for me, it sounds like it might be worth a try, if I can find it easily and it isn't too pricey. Other natural remedies I'm eager to try and have heard many good things about are:
A neti pot
Freeze-dried nettles
Goldenseal
Local raw wildflower honey
Vitamin C
Quercetin

My allergies got much worse while I was pregnant, and in the lactating years to follow. I wondered if it was just a fluke, and can't find too much research or information on the topic. A report in a 2006 issue of Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America says:

"Twenty to forty percent of women in their childbearing years have some form of allergy. Of those pregnant women who have known allergies, some studies suggest that as many as 10 to 30 percent experience increasing allergic symptoms during their pregnancy and return to their normal pre-pregnancy state after delivery. In addition, increased circulating blood volume and hormonal influences on nasal mucosal secretions that are seen in pregnancy promote nasal vascular engorgement and noticeable nasal congestion. It stands to reason, therefore, that pregnancy can amplify any pre-existing nasal condition."

So maybe it wasn't a fluke. Or maybe it's because I moved to the pseudo-woods where I am surrounded by trees.