Category: Diet and Nutrition

“Secrets” of Eggs

"Secrets" of Eggs

Eggs are an ideal food, and it is not for nothing that they are one of the first foods that are given to babies in complementary foods. Protein from it is absorbed by 98 percent, despite the fact that, for example, from mushrooms – only 20 percent.

Do you want…

  • build or maintain muscle mass
  • recovering from a severe illness
  • maintain a healthy diet on an ongoing basis

It’s all about the eggs.

There is an interesting feature that there is much more protein in the yolk than in the protein, so it is irrational to exclude it from food. Well, perhaps, to reduce the calorie amount… Although it’s better to save on something else.

Can you eat only eggs for breakfast?

The protein and fat contained in eggs alone is not enough for happiness. Be sure to add complex carbohydrates. It can be a couple of spoons of porridge, a slice of bread, a cucumber or a tomato, cabbage. Then such a meal will provide a feeling of satiety for several hours.

Is there a difference between chicken, quail, duck, goose, etc.?

Quail eggs are considered dietary, largely due to the fact that they have a very strong shell, through which it is not easy for harmful viruses and bacteria to get through. Therefore, cleaning such eggs is a dubious pleasure.

Ducks and gooses need very serious heat treatment, as waterfowl easily get parasites. Therefore, only cook for a long time, and no fried eggs, homemade mayonnaise, etc.

How to cook eggs so that they are as healthy as possible?

The most useful are soft-boiled, bagged or poached eggs. The protein is already denatured, it is easier to digest, and there is less thermal breakdown of amino acids.

Slightly less useful are hard-boiled and raw eggs.
An omelet is also good if cooked in the oven or under a tightly closed lid over low heat, avoiding a fried crust.

Fried eggs in any form are less healthy, as they already contain an increased amount of advanced glycation end products (AGEs, one of the main factors in aging).

Fried egg – 2749 AGE units
Poached egg – 90 units
Everything else is within these limits.
On average, a person can process about 15 thousand units of AGE per day, and the lion’s share of these units in our body occurs independently, in the process of life. Therefore, it is better not to add them to food intentionally.

Can eggs be eaten raw?

Thermally raw eggs are always a threat of salmonellosis, greater or lesser. If the eggs are washed properly, the threat is noticeably reduced.

What is so good about eggs?

In addition to the most useful protein in the world (with a minimum of carbohydrates), this:

  • a complex of fat-soluble vitamins A, E, D, K;
  • zinc – there is more of it than in poultry meat, and it is needed not only for the immune system (fighting viruses and bacteria), muscle growth and wound healing, but also for the proper functioning of the male genital area;
  • selenium is an essential substance for the functioning of the thyroid gland;
  • B vitamins, including B9-folic acid;
  • lecithin, which, among other things, is a building material for brain cells, providing our ability to think…

Eggs can be called a natural antidepressant because of the element choline, which increases the sensitivity of cell receptors to the happiness hormone dopamine.
Choline improves attention and concentration, and there are studies on its usefulness in the treatment of various dementias (senile dementia).

Can you eat egg shells?

If you live away from pharmacies as a hermit, then this is quite reasonable behavior – how to clean, boil, dry, grind and then add eggshell powder to water or food. Egg shells (quail egg shells are richer in trace elements than those from chicken eggs) contain many useful chemical elements, not just calcium. There is also magnesium, iron, potassium, sodium, sulfur, phosphorus and much more, including iodine.
But it’s still exotic.
It’s better to just buy multivitamins and calcium supplements, and spend the free time on something more pleasant.

Water and Health

Let’s try to clarify the information about water, since not everything is true.

Water is the main medium for metabolism.

  • Without it, metabolism is impossible;
  • Without water, you will not lose weight and will not recover even from a common cold;
  • The amount of water in the body is an indicator of youth;
  • Water is one of the most important participants in the regulation of body temperature;
  • Transport for useful, nutrients in the body;
  • Even oxygen in erythrocytes is also transported by water;
  • It also transports waste, harmful substances and removes them from the body;
  • Water humidifies the air coming from outside;
  • It creates hydrostatic, that is, water pressure in the vascular system and tissues, again providing metabolic processes;
  • And if you do not drink for a long time, then you will remember that it is also very tasty.

We are more than half water

When we are born, it makes up a little more than 80% of the total body weight.
In middle age, men are 60% water and women are 50%.
By old age, we dry completely – we contain only 40-45% of water.

Water in the body is divided into sectors

2/3, that is, almost 40% of body weight is contained inside our cells. All biochemical processes occur only in water, which is why it is so important.
The rest of the water is divided into 3 sectors:

  • the liquid part of the blood, the so-called plasma, that is, the intravascular fluid;
  • intercellular fluid, which, in addition to metabolic processes, also acts as a reserve in case of a lack of water in cells or vessels;
  • transcellular fluid, which is located inside the joints, in the ducts of the glands, in the spinal canal or skull.

Blood plasma and intercellular fluid are very similar in composition to each other. There are small differences. For example, in plasma there is a little more calcium and potassium, proteinate.
In the interstitial fluid there is more sodium, chlorides, and vice versa, there is practically no protein. But the intracellular fluid is fundamentally different from other fluids – it contains more potassium, magnesium, protein, there are no organic acids. These differences are not accidental, since due to the gradient, liquid or trace elements can leave the cell, remain inside, or vice versa enter it. The largest amount of water comes from outside – with food and drinks. This is the so-called exogenous water. With drinks (juices, tea, coffee, etc., except water) comes from 500 to 1700 ml per day. We get another 800-1000 ml with products and in ready meals.

The same water that is formed in the body itself, as a result of the oxidation of fats, proteins and carbohydrates, is called endogenous. It happens from 300 to 400 ml per day.

In total, from 1600 to 3100 ml comes in per day.

How much water is excreted from the body? The kidneys excrete from 1400 to 1800 ml per day on average, another 500-600 ml perspires through the skin. With breathing, we lose an average of 400 to 500 ml of fluid. These are the so-called intangible losses.
It is important to understand that the temperature and humidity of the environment can change this amount. Just like body temperature. For example, with an increase in body temperature by 1 degree, intangible losses increase by 500 ml per day. This is significant. It turns out that on average we lose from 2300 to 3100 fluids per day.

In order to feel good, be healthy and live long, it is necessary to maintain a balance between how much water came in and how much came out.

WHO believes that a person needs to drink at least 30 ml per kilogram of body weight. That is, a 70-kilogram person needs 2 liters 100 ml of water per day.

Vitamin D FAQ

Why is vitamin D needed?
Adequate levels of vitamin D are vital for bone health. But it must be taken not only for the prevention of rickets in children of the first year of life.
Skeletal system: mineralization and growth of the skeleton.
Muscular system: maintenance of muscle tone of the skeletal muscles.
Nervous system: involved in the conduction of nervous excitation, protective effect.
Circulatory system: participates in the regulation of blood coagulation processes.
Reproductive system: involved in the regulation of the formation of follicles in the ovaries and spermatogenesis.
Regulates the activity of over 200! genes involved in metabolic processes.
Diseases that are likely to be associated with low levels of vitamin D: bronchial asthma, osteoporosis, certain types of oncology, arterial hypertension, type 1 diabetes, autoimmune diseases.
How to get vitamin D?
Nutrition:

  • Fatty fish (mackerel, salmon, sardines, tuna)
  • Butter
  • Egg yolk
  • Milk products

Production in the skin under the influence of UV rays:

Depends on:

  • wavelength and angle of incidence of solar radiation
  • climatic conditions (cloudiness), air pollution levels
  • degree of skin pigmentation (dark or light)
  • sunscreen use

What is the amount of vitamin D?

A good (adequate) level of vitamin D is more than 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/l),

Deficiency – 21-30 ng/ml (51-75 nmol/l)

Deficiency – less than 20 ng/ml (50 nmol/l).

What vitamin D to take?

The recommended drug for the prevention of vitamin D deficiency is cholecalciferol (D3).

Which solution is better: water or oil?

You can take any!

How can you tell if you have a vitamin D deficiency?

Make a blood test from a vein for 25(OH)D.

Do children need to be tested for 25(OH)D?

Children who are not at risk do not need to take a vitamin D test to prescribe prophylactic doses!

Risk groups: premature and low birth weight babies; overweight and obese children; clinical signs of rickets, as well as having bone deformities; children with malabsorption syndrome – celiac disease, cystic fibrosis; children with autoimmune diseases; patients with chronic kidney disease.

Will frequent sun exposure help avoid vitamin D deficiency?

Sun exposure is not an adequate measure to prevent vitamin D deficiency!

Be aware of the negative effects of overexposure to the sun.

Solarium lamps do NOT produce vitamin D in the skin.

How long to take for prevention?

Taking vitamin D in a prophylactic dosage is recommended year-round, without a break in the reception for the summer months, even for the southern and sunny regions

Excessive exposure to the sun leads to photoaging of the skin and increases the risk of developing skin cancer in the future (accumulative effect). Therefore, we recommend that you protect yourself from the sun by all known methods and take vitamin D.

Is it enough to take vitamin D only by the mother if the child is breastfed?

Not enough. The child should also receive prophylactic doses of vitamin D.

Does the prescription of vitamin D depend on the type of feeding of the child?

More publications in favor of the fact that it does not depend on the conversion of vitamin D in children to mixed and formula feeding is not required, despite the fact that the mixtures are enriched with vitamin D.

Do children need to take calcium along with vitamin D?

For healthy children, prophylactic calcium intake is not recommended.

Is it better to take it during the day or in the evening?

There are no clear recommendations. It is usually recommended to take it in the first half of the day.

Preventive – how much?

Children from birth to 12 months – 1000 IU/day.

From 1 year to 3 years – 1500 IU/day.

From 3 to 18 years old – 1000 IU/day.

Eat right to live longer

According to world statistics, unhealthy eating indirectly leads to 11 million deaths every year!

Norwegian scientists have found that you can significantly extend your life just by changing your diet.

Previously, they analyzed a large-scale study of the Global Burden of Diseases (literally “Global Burden of Diseases”) and came to the conclusion that life expectancy can be adjusted by introducing certain foods into your menu or removing certain foods from it.

Despite the active promotion of healthy food in our time, most people remain adherents of the Western type of food, where there are a large number of:

  • processed foods (sausage, sausages, snacks, pastries, etc.)
  • semi-finished products;
  • red meat;
  • foods high in salt and sugar.

There are practically no fruits, vegetables and greens in the Western menu.

According to Norwegian scientists, a diet that will help prolong life should contain in sufficient quantities:

  • fruits;
  • vegetables;
  • legumes;
  • whole grains;
  • nuts.

The scientists counted:

If you adjust your diet at a young age, you can increase life expectancy and its quality by 10 years.

If the transition to a healthy diet happens immediately after 60 years, there is a chance to extend life by 8 years.

Switching to a balanced diet after 80 will add 3 years to life.

Therefore, whenever you decide to embark on the path of healthy eating, it will always be a good idea.

Based on their findings, scientists have created an online calculator https://food4healthylife.org, where everyone can estimate how much their life expectancy increases/decreases when using a particular product.

It’s easy to use

There are 2 scales next to each product:

  • how many grams of this product you consume now;
  • how much do you plan to consume.

By changing the amount of the product using the slider, you will clearly see how many years of life it will add.

By clicking the “Optimal” button, you will see an example of a diet that will lead to the best results.

When is the best time to drink coffee to be more productive?

When is the best time to drink coffee to be more productive?

The established tradition to start the morning with a cup of coffee is not very correct.
If you need stimulants in the morning to get back to normal, then you need to figure out what is wrong. We should wake up refreshed and in good spirits. Fatigue can be the result of an incorrect daily routine, when you go to bed too late and you simply do not have enough time to sleep. Or went to bed with a full stomach.
But if you sleep anxiously, constantly wake up, often run to the toilet, then you need to find the reason. Look for specialized doctors – from urologists to somnologists (sleep specialists). Perhaps you need medication to restore the nervous system – anti-anxiety or antidepressants.
By adding coffee in the morning, we borrow energy from the body and brain. Constantly borrowing, we deplete both the nervous and endocrine systems. And it is in the morning that we do not need this loan at all.
When you wake up, it is better to raise your energy with exercises or a short walk. And you should drink coffee after dinner, when your batteries run out.

What happens if you eat eggs every day?

There is a possibility of food intolerance due to the monotonous diet.
I remember there was such a king in world history who adored eggs and ate them at every opportunity.
And supposedly contemporaries noted that the body of the king exuded a stench.
I don’t know if this is a historical fact or an anecdote.
But in general, a good illustration of the saying “you are what you eat.”

Can you eat only eggs?

Any mono-diets, even on such valuable products as eggs, are extremely harmful.
Especially for weight loss.
Eat well, please.

To whom can eggs be harmful?

In addition to those suffering from allergies, people with diseases of the biliary tract should be more careful.
Diabetics of both types, people with Gilbert’s syndrome, eggs are not prohibited.

The child is allergic to eggs. Is there a chance that allergies will go away with age?

As a rule, you will have to live with this for the rest of your life. Unfortunately.

Aspartame and artificial sweeteners – helping or hindering weight loss?

With our appetite for low or zero sugar products increasing, artificial sweeteners are big business.

Food or drinks containing artificial sweeteners are often marketed as a healthier option, and it’s understandable why. Because artificial sweeteners are significantly sweeter than sugar, they can be used in very small amounts and contribute little to no calories. There are lots of types, but the most well researched are aspartame and saccharin.

A possible link between artificial sweeteners and cancer has been reported in the media. But despite lots of research in this area, there’s no convincing evidence that sweeteners in our food and drink increase the risk of cancer.

While there’s nothing to worry about from a cancer perspective, questions still remain about whether or not artificial sweeteners can help us lose weight. And as being overweight or obese increases the risk of 13 types of cancer, knowing whether they help is important.

But getting a solid answer to this question is tricky. Diet is notoriously difficult to study and so far, researchers have reached different conclusions. Overall, it looks like artificial sweeteners like aspartame aren’t causing harm, but they’re not having the big weight loss benefits that some people expected either.

Can we have our cake and eat it too?

If sweeteners are replacing a high calorie alternative, it seems logical that by reducing calories they should help with weight loss.

But whether this is the case is tricky to prove. It’s difficult to study the long-term impact of a specific part of our diet for lots of reasons. For one, measuring exactly how much people consume is hard. And there are lots of other things that could explain any differences – like other elements of a person’s diet or how much they exercise – so we need large studies that take these things in to account.

Most studies have looked at artificially sweetened drinks rather than sweeteners in foods, and the results are mixed. For this reason, the European Food Safety Authority won’t allow products containing artificial sweeteners to carry a weight loss health claim.

A 2016 review found that people using artificial sweeteners had both a lower calorie intake and reduced body weight. But these results should be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism as the study was conducted and funded by the International Life Sciences Institute, whose members include companies such as Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Pepsi. Each of these companies has a vested interested in the artificial sweetener business.

The results also don’t fully tally up with a more recent, independent analysis of 56 studies. This analysis found very little evidence to suggest low energy artificial or natural sweeteners, like stevia, are helping lots of people to lose weight.

But when 3 studies were picked out that only included overweight or obese adults, artificial sweeteners did provide a small benefit to weight loss. While positive for this group of people, the researchers say that larger and longer-term studies are needed to confirm this.

If not weight loss, then what about weight gain?

Surprisingly, some research has found that sweeteners might make us gain weight. But the latest review didn’t agree with this.

This raises an important question: if products containing artificial sweeteners contain less calories, why doesn’t the evidence show they are helping us to lose weight?

One explanation is something called ‘reverse causality’ – whereby people who are already overweight or obese are more likely to be choosing food or drinks with sweeteners to help with weight loss. This makes it difficult to say whether the artificial sweeteners or weight gain came first, or how one may affect the other.

But some researchers think there might be more going on, including effects on our gut health, appetite and desire for sweet foods.

But these are unproven theories.

Are sweeteners actually making us hungrier?

Throughout the day, our gut sends messages to our brain in the form of hormones. These hormones tell our brain when we are hungry or full. There has been some suggestion that sweeteners could interfere with these messages, and therefore make us eat more rather than less.

”When we eat food containing sugar, the gut produces more of the hormone that tells our brain we are full, and less of the hormone that tells our brain we are hungry. Currently, the evidence suggests that sweeteners don’t prompt the release of either of these gut hormones in humans,’ says Dr. Ana Pinto, a nutrition researcher from King’s College London (KCL).

Does a diet or low-calorie option at lunch equal more at dinner?

If sweeteners aren’t affecting our gut, is there a psychological effect?

Some research has proposed a reward effect, in which we feel we have some ‘calories to spare’ if we have replaced a high calorie product with a diet alternative.

Daphne Katsikioti, who also studies nutrition at KCL, explains: “‘Some researchers have suggested that when we eat or drink products containing artificial sweeteners, we later compensate for the ‘missing’ energy by eating more.”

But she adds that there’s good evidence to suggest that this doesn’t happen and that artificial sweeteners can be helpful to reduce calories.

Finally, some people have suggested that the intense sweetness that comes from sweeteners could lead to a particularly sweet tooth in the long term. The latest review found very little evidence of this, so more research is needed to pin down if this a possible side effect of artificial sweeteners.

To sweeten or not to sweeten?

Despite the theories, the European Food Safety Authority have ruled that artificial sweeteners in food and drink pose no threat to our health if consumed within daily allowances. For aspartame, this is equivalent to 15 cans of diet coke. That’s a stark contrast to what we know about the harms of having too much sugar.

But products containing sweeteners often don’t offer much nutritional benefit. And the lack of convincing evidence that they can help with weight loss shouldn’t be overlooked.

The take-home message is sugary drinks aren’t a silver bullet for weight loss. But if you drink a lot of sugary drinks and think a diet version might help you cut down on sugar, that’s a good step and is very unlikely to do you any harm.

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