RICE AND RESISTANT STARCH

Rice, Rice, Baby! Oh, that isn’t how the song goes? As a person with prediabetes, rice rarely makes it onto my menu. Chinese and Spanish dishes are some of my favorite meals, so I really miss them. Rice is a dietary staple for over half the world’s population, so changing the way we cook it could help tackle obesity and other diet-related health problems.

 Unfortunately, our usual choice of white rice has a high glycemic index, which means it raises the blood sugar readings two hours after eating and also can cause a swift dip soon after. This is because the way we usually cook rice and eat it prevents us from getting the benefit of resistant starch.

Glycemic Index of Rice Types: wild and brown rice are the lowest. White, instant, and sticky are the highest.
https://glycemic-index.net/glycemic-index-of-rice/

Resistant starch (RS) behaves more like dietary fibre than carbohydrate, as it is not broken down into simple sugars in the small intestine. There are several health benefits associated with resistant starch.

Resistant Starch is the starch which reaches the large intestine and then is fermented by bacteria. Therefore, RS is a type of fermentable fiber and could be considered one type of prebiotic, since it provides “food” for bacteria living in the large intestine. Fermentation of RS results in production of Short Chain Fatty Acids and a reduction in pH in the proximal large intestine.

Researchers using the traditional Sri Lankan cooking process as a starting point (40 minutes of simmering followed by oven drying for 2.5 hours), tested the effects of three other processing steps: adding coconut oil to the boiling water, refrigerating the rice for 12 hours before oven drying, and heating it up in a microwave after oven drying.

The results were interesting:

1. Adding oil to the water created ‘type 5’ Resistant Starch. The oil complexes with the amylose to form amylose-lipid complexes…this prevents the starch granules being attacked by enzymes,’ says Sudhair James, from the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka.
2. Chilling the rice after boiling increases ‘retrograded starch’ or ‘Type 3’ Resistant Starch when hydrogen bonds re-form within the starch, making some components less soluble.
3. The team found that both these processes led to an increase in Resistant Starch, which reheating the rice after oven drying did not appear to reverse.
4. In fact, the greatest effect, a 15-fold increase in Resistant Starch, was seen when all three treatments were used together. This translates to a calorie reduction of 10-12% in this particular variety, which James says could be ‘perhaps as high as 50 or 60%’ if the treatments were applied other varieties.

What we need to remember from this study is the metabolic response to food isn’t always predictable to what you get from an in vitro analysis.  “We as humans are remarkable at protecting our food intake and will compensate,” says Diane Robertson from the University of Surrey, UK, who has carried out similar studies investigating the resistant starch content of pasta.

She also points out global cooking practices are variable. While some cultures may boil rice for a long time and then dry it, as in this study, many only cook it for 10-15 minutes, which might lead to a more modest result in increasing Resistant Starch and reducing calories.

Some claim only Coconut Oil added to white rice is the “secret magical ingredient” needed to reduce your blood sugar by increasing the resistant starch in cooked, cooled, and reheated rice. Any healthy oil or butter will do the same thing, but keeping the amount to a tablespoon or less is important. More than that will just add too many calories.

Digestive System: from the mouth to the small intestine.

Resistant Starch acts like fiber because it’s digested in the lower colon, not in the small intestine. Consumption of resistant starch is associated with reduced abdominal fat and improved insulin sensitivity. Increased serum glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) likely plays a role in promoting these health benefits. In a recent study, participants typically received 10–60 grams of resistant starch per day. Health benefits were observed with a daily intake of at least 20 grams, but an intake as high as 45 grams per day was also considered safe.

We Americans typically get only about 5 grams of resistant starch each day, while some Europeans may get 3–6 grams, and the daily intake for Australians ranges from 3–9 grams. On the other hand, the average daily intake for Chinese people is almost 15 grams. Some rural South Africans may get 38 grams of resistant starch per day, according to a small study.

Nutrition Label: Prunes, note dietary fiber amounts as an equivalent for resistant starches.

Resistant Starch is defined as the amount of starch that reaches the large intestine. Since the FDA does not allow the term “resistant starch” on food labels, another a purified RS product (Ingredion), Hi-maize 260, is assayed instead for fiber content. This amount can be placed on the food label as the fiber content. Therefore, keeping track of your daily fiber intake is a good equivalent for Resistant Starch. For adults up to age 50, women should get 25 grams of fiber daily and men should aim for 38 grams. Women and men older than 50 should have 21 and 30 daily grams of daily fiber respectively, since they usually have reduced caloric needs due to reduced activity. You can find this nutritional information on the food package or on the internet.

Fibrous vegetables, whole grain breads and pastas, old fashioned oats, nuts, beans, legumes, and potatoes that have been cooked, cooled, and reheated are all good sources of resistant starches. We only need to remember to keep our “dressings light” and not to “eat twice as much, since we’re being so healthy.”

Various types of rice add color and visual interest to your plate and palette.

I enjoy black, red, wild, and brown rice. Long grain or Jasmine rice is better than short grain or parboiled rice. I cook my white rice with a tablespoon of butter added to one cup rice and two cups rice with just a pinch of salt added. I use a small pot with a tight-fitting lid and turn the heat on high. When the pot begins to boil, I turn the heat to lowest possible. I give the rice a stir, replace the lid, and set a timer for 30 minutes. Somewhere near the 30 minutes, I can smell the fragrance of the rice. I check the doneness of the rice by lifting up the rice grains, not stirring. Depending on the humidity, the rice may take longer than 30 minutes to fully cook. Likewise, if it’s dry outside, it could cook faster.

Whole grain, wild, and colored rices also take longer time and need a tad more water to fully cook. All rices increase in resistant starch if they are cooled for at least 12 hours and reheated in the microwave. Let’s get more resistant starch in our diets by consuming foods high in the nutrient or by cooking other starchy foods and letting them cool before eating them. We can do this, for it will bring a good food back onto our menu.

A few important tips as you increase your fiber:

1. Do so gradually to give your gastrointestinal tract time to adapt.
2. Increase your water intake as you increase fiber.
3. If you have any digestive problems, such as constipation, check with your physician before dramatically increasing your fiber consumption.
4. Also, remember, going whole hog into a new lifestyle isn’t advisable for anyone. Couch to 5K programs begin with short walks and gradually add distance and speed. Changing eating habits should follow suit. Add a new fiber source in place of a low fiber food for a week. Next week, take out another low fiber food and add a higher fiber food.

And share your Chocolate Cupcakes…

In my youth, I would wash down a dozen Twinkie’s with a Diet Coke in the dark, while standing on one leg, for I was certain this magic trick eliminated all calories from those billowy sugar pills. Like most heavily processed food snacks, a single Twinkie contains about 140 calories and 23 grams of carbohydrates, contributing to 8% of our daily calorie allowance. This includes 16 grams of sugars and less than 1 gram of dietary fiber.

Now I’m not good at higher mathematics, but 12 of these sweet treats are an overdose if consumed at one sitting. If we were to eat these cake treats, we’d make sure to close both eyes because if we can’t see it, it obviously never happened!! (Magical thinking is an eight year old child trait.)

When I gave up caffeine for Lent one year, I suffered bad headaches from caffeine withdrawal. This was when I was younger and was given to the “all or nothing” approach to life. Now I’ve learned the hard way the body doesn’t appreciate such insults. Only the mad or reckless treat their bodies with disrespect or dishonor. We should honor our bodies, for we are temples of the Holy Spirit and images of the living God.

My occasional offerings are with very dark chocolate

May you enjoy your food and know what you put into your body for better health and life.

Joy and peace,

Cornie

 

Simple cooking changes make healthier rice | Research | Chemistry World

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/simple-cooking-changes-make-healthier-rice/8386.article?adre

Role of Resistant Starch in Improving Gut Health, Adiposity, and Insulin Resistance – Advances in Nutrition

https://advances.nutrition.org/article/S2161-8313(22)00641-X/fulltext

9 Foods That Are High in Resistant Starch: Oats, Rice & More

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/9-foods-high-in-resistant-starch

The Glycemic Potential of White and Red Rice Affected by Oil Type and Time of Addition, by Bhupinder Kaur, Viren Ranawana, Ai-Ling Teh, and C Jeya.K Henry

Click to access glycaemic-potential-of-white-and-red-rice-affected-by-oil-type-and-time-of-addition.pdf

Should I be eating more fiber? – Harvard Health

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/should-i-be-eating-more-fiber-2019022115927

Glycemic Index of Rice Types:
https://glycemic-index.net/glycemic-index-of-rice/

Regular as Clockwork

My granddaddy was a conductor on the railroad. I’ve kept his old lantern as a memory of his occupation. In the daytime, he could hang out of the caboose to wave his hand so the engineer at the head of the train knew all was good to go. At night he’d wave the lantern up and down so the train could leave the station.

O. Winston Link:
Y6 #2122 sitting at the water tanks in Buena Vista, Virginia.

Trains have to run on fixed schedules because there’s more trains than tracks. An old cartoon from the 1930’s has two trains colliding, as the observer says, “What a way to run a railroad.” Irony was a thing back in the day, and not a recent invention lost on the dull of today. Running trains on time before we had GPS communications was a feat of excellence, and on time performance meant goods and people were transported in the most efficient and economical manner then as now. The railroads instituted standard time in time zones in the U.S. and Canada on November 18, 1883. Prior to that, time of day was a local matter, for most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by a well-known clock (on a church steeple, for example, or in a jeweler’s window).

The use of standard time gradually increased because of its obvious practical advantages for communication and travel. Standard time in time zones was established by U.S. law with the Standard Time Act of 1918, enacted on March 19. Congress adopted standard time zones based on those set up by the railroads, and gave the responsibility to make any changes in the time zones to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only federal transportation regulatory agency at the time.

Title: The Hand of Man
Artist: Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York)
Date: 1902, printed 1910

When Congress created the Department of Transportation in 1966, it transferred the responsibility for the time laws to this new department. Today we now have Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time, which leaves some of us wondering biannually is do we save or lose sleep, and if the change is really worth it. My daddy used to say the old folks thought the “extra hour of sunshine was burning up their gardens.” Of course, only the clock changed, not the hours of available daylight.

The railroads had a schedule for every train and every stop along its route to its destination. They were originally printed as broadsheets in newspaper or magazine form, but now they’re found on the internet, like most everything else.

Vintage Train Travel Poster

When I lived in the center of my state and I turned out the lights for bed at night, I could count on hearing the train pass through the crossing a mile down from my parsonage. It was always on schedule, just as I had a set bedtime for getting my best snooze times. Maybe you’re wondering why a cooking and health blog cares about trains, but being regular is important, just as having a schedule is for the trains.

Sunsweet Prune Juice Jar was used for ice water in the summer months.

My mother’s side of the family came from farming folk, so they appreciated the rhythms of nature. If I spent the day with my nannie, I was sure to be treated with a dose of prune juice from the dark green glass jar in her ice box. If that didn’t produce the desired result by the next morning, I got another dose to make sure I produced the much anticipated “bowel movement.” My people kept track of such things, and while a daily result wasn’t required, at least five of the seven days were deemed necessary for good health, or the dreaded fleet’s enema made its appearance. My people didn’t want to be “stove up,” as they called constipation.

Often this happened in the hot summer when we didn’t drink enough liquids to stay properly hydrated when playing outside. “Drink from the garden hose before you get thirsty,” mom always said. Usually we sprayed water on each other at the same time, but it was so hot, we’d be dry in no time.

Staying Cool in a Small Pool

So how can we keep regular year round, and especially in the hot summer months? This June has been unseasonably hot in many parts of the country due to climate change and the extreme weather events it brings. The Texans who froze in the winter are now experiencing brown outs as their electric grid attempts to handle their state’s larger population’s increased demand for air conditioning in the higher temperatures.

Up north, the midwest hasn’t seen heat this early in the year before. The average temperature in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (all the daily highs and lows combined) for the first 13 days was a toasty 81.4 degrees (the highs were 90-99F). That’s a full 14 degrees warmer than average. It also smashes the previous record from 1976 by a full 5 degrees. The Western states are experiencing a “heat dome,” with a significant drought and heat in an early and extreme summer heat wave, with the possibility of fires.

Those of us who live in the south know some real tricks to staying cool in a hot, humid summer: keep the window shades drawn until the sun passes by, keep the lights dim since they throw off heat, drink cool non alcoholic beverages hourly, eat light foods, cook outside if possible, limit traffic in and out of the home (every time the door opens, cool air escapes and hot air enters), wear cotton not polyester, and rest in the afternoon heat. Beyond this, keep a fan going to stir the air and maintain a positive attitude. Cooler days will come soon enough.

Cold Veggie Plate with a bit of Chicken

Eating raw veggies such as carrots, cauliflower, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and broccoli in a slaw with greek yogurt and apple vinegar and chopped fresh mint is very refreshing. You can also add feta cheese to it if you like. Also consider peas, lentils, and beans. We make soups in the winter, but these same ingredients will make good cold dishes in the summer. Three bean salad doesn’t have to swim in an olympic size pool of French dressing. Instead, make your own olive oil and vinegar dressing with garlic, parsley, oregano, cayenne pepper, a dash of salt, and basil if you like. Chill and serve.

For good gut health, aim to get 25 grams of fiber a day if you’re a woman, or 30 grams if you’re a man. If you’re still short after incorporating more veggies into your food plan, remember raspberries have a high fiber content with 8 grams per cup, 65 calories, 15 grams of carbs, and 5 grams of sugar. One kiwi twice a day (140 grams) has 5 grams of fiber, 90 calories, 21 g of carbohydrates and 15 g of sugar.

While my nanny recommended 4 ounces of prune juice as the “dose of salts” to keep me regular, it has 2 grams of fiber, 22 grams of carbs, and 13 grams of sugar with 83 calories. Another way to get the benefit of the laxative effect of prunes is to eat 1 ounce of the dried plums. This contains 67 calories, 18 grams of carbs, 2 grams of fiber, and 11 grams of sugar.

Calories and sugar intake are important to everyone, especially to older people and to those who have diabetes. If we approach our life as a whole, rather than cut it into parts, we’ll also feel more whole. Too often we exclude foods in a diet mentality, living in an “either/or” mindset, until we crack. Then we fall into “all or nothing” thinking, until we’re worse off than we were before, and we try the same scenario again.

Healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy spiritual life make for a whole person.

The plain, unvarnished truth is there’s no quick weight loss scheme that leads to long term weight loss, but adopting a long term lifestyle approach to new habits will bring the desired results. Try adopting “Life’s Simple 7” concept, developed by the American Heart Association, which recommends activity, healthy diet, weight loss; the management of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar; and stopping smoking for a healthy lifestyle.

If we were gentler with our selves and offered more grace to our embodied souls, no matter what shape they are in, we might live with more joy and peace. We only need to be “going on to perfection” in love of God and neighbor, not trying to perfect our BMI or our housekeeping. If it’s too hot to cook, remember fresh spinach, tiny tomatoes, and chopped summer squash are three veggie sides to add to 4 ounces of rotisserie chicken. Breathe and relax. Don’t add any sweat to the heat. It’s hot enough already.

Green Tea with Hibiscus Tea

Stay cool, I’m drinking decaf green tea by the pitcher full.

Love,

Cornie

Standard Time Began With the Railroads
http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/d.html

Steamy summer of ’21: Hottest June on record so far
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/06/15/steamy-summer-of-21-hottest-june-on-record-so-far

Health Benefits of Kiwi
https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-kiwi#1

Title: The Hand of Man
Artist: Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York)
Date: 1902, printed 1910
Medium: Photogravure
Dimensions: 24.2 x 31.9 cm (9 1/2 x 12 9/16 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Accession Number: 49.55.9. The title alludes to this modern transformation of the landscape and also perhaps to photography itself as a mechanical process. Stieglitz believed that a mechanical instrument such as the camera could be transformed into a tool for creating art when guided by the hand and sensibility of an artist.

Y6 #2122 sitting at the water tanks in Buena Vista, Virginia.
Creator: Link, O. Winston
Class Y6, No. 2122
Collection O. Winston Link Museum Archives Collection
Imagefile 039\200905082.JPG
Number of images 1
Object Name Print, Photographic
Object ID OWL2009.05.082
Extent of Description 1-photographic print, size 8″ x 10

Fiber isn’t Just for Clothing

Kimono Fabric Art

As an artist, when I hear the word FIBER, I first think of weaving, rugs, quilting, or clothing, which are often thought of as the homemaking arts. While these are often done by women, men also find some claim to fame also. The late artist Christo and Jean-Claude’s “The Gates,” in New York’s Central Park, is an example his visionary use of fabric to wrap buildings and to define natural spaces.

The Gates, New York, Central Park.

Likewise when we talk about diets, some keep close to the utilitarian needs of the body and food, while others stretch an idea to its most fanciful extreme. This leads us to ask: “What’s a Real Live Paleo People’s Diet?”

The food plan we know today as Paleo focuses on “foods our hunter-gather ancestors would have eaten, with an emphasis on meat.” It eschews grains, sugars, and modern vegetable oils in favor of high-quality meat, fish, eggs, and vegetables. Some folks want you to believe it’s an “All The Bacon You Can Eat Diet,” but they missed the message on high quality. Perhaps they they heard “high quantity “ instead.

Bacon Diet: Very Low Fiber

We modern people don’t have access to the same foods as those who live in nature all the time and get all their food by foraging or hunting. Our modern chickens are raised in concentrated animal feeding operations, in crowded buildings, and fed a scientific diet meant to fatten them up in the shortest possible time. This is why modern chickens are almost all white meat, since the birds rarely use their muscles any more. Our grains are designed for maximum yield and insect resistance. Many of our crops are also resistant to weed killers. Of course, we can buy organic products, but their costs are higher due to the greater labor used to bring in a crop equal to those using chemicals.

We also live in communities, rather than in small groups, so we have access to supermarkets, restaurants, and fast food joints. The more processed our food, the fewer and less diverse our gut biome will be. For instance, if all we eat is biscuits and gravy or burgers and fries at our local window of death, our lives are going to be shorter and less healthy. We know this by studying stool samples. Yep, there are scientists who look at poop. They’ve discovered evidence that our intestinal microbes are profoundly influenced by the foods we eat — or don’t: The gut ecosystems of members of a small group of hunter-gatherers inhabiting Tanzania’s Rift Valley show a strong cyclicality consistent with the population’s seasonally changing diet. The average diet of a western person produces a much less diverse gut biome, primarily due to our low intake of fiber.

Hunter-gatherers of Tanzania experience
seasonal variation in gut-microbe diversity

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine were the first to look at seasonal variations in the gut-microbial composition, or microbiota, of the Hadza, one of the world’s few remaining traditional hunter-gatherer populations. The research confirms that the Hadza microbiota is more diverse than, and substantially different from, that of industrialized countries’ urban-dwelling denizens.

The study was also the first to show that the microbiota of the Hadza population varied seasonally, and that this variation corresponded to their seasonally fluctuating dietary intake.

For more than 15 million years, human beings have co-evolved with thousands of microbial species that take up residence in the lowermost part of the intestine. They earn their keep by helping us:

1. digest food components we’re unable to break down by ourselves, chiefly dietary fiber;

2. manufacturing vitamins and other health-enhancing molecules;

3. training our immune system and fostering the maturation of cells in our gut; and

4. guarding our intestinal turf against the intrusion of all-too-eager competing microbial species, including pathogens.

The advent of agriculture about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago has radically altered our diet. In the past century alone, the typical person’s lifestyle has undergone further vast alterations: labor-saving devices’ encourages a sedentary existence, the introduction of antibiotics and cesarean section births, and the gradual supplanting of fiber-filled whole grains, fruits and vegetables by increasingly processed and fiber-free foods.  

These environmental changes have brought corresponding shifts in our microbial exposures, and in our intestines’ ability to serve as hospitable hosts for these symbionts, which are organisms living cooperatively within one another. But it’s been hard to apportion the relative contributions of technological and societal innovations to the loss of microbial diversity in modern populations. The Hadza study adds evidence that our diet is a major factor in our gut biome population and constitution.

The Hadza number just over 1,000 people, but only fewer than 200 of whom adhere to the traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which includes a diet composed mainly of five items: meat, berries, baobab (a fruit), tubers and honey. While Western diets are pretty much the same throughout the year, the Hadza lifestyle doesn’t include refrigerators and supermarkets. So the population’s diet fluctuates according to the season, of which there are two in the Rift Valley: dry—when meat, baobab and tuber consumption play a relatively larger role; and wet—during which berries, tubers, honey and baobabs prevail. (Tubers and baobab are available year-around.)

“The 100 to 200 Hadza sticking to this routine will possibly lose it in a decade or two, maybe sooner. Some are using cell phones now,” says Justin Sonnenburg, a microbiologist at Stanford University. “We wanted to take advantage of this rapidly closing window to explore our vanishing microbiota.”

The investigators collected 350 stool samples from 188 separate Hadza individuals over a roughly one-year period encompassing a bit more than one full seasonal cycle. A thorough analysis of the samples’ microbial contents revealed that the gut microbiota varied seasonally, in harmony with the Hadza dietary intake. In particular, a subset of microbial species’ populations diminished in the wet season, when honey accounted for a significant portion of caloric intake, and rebounded in the dry season, when consumption of fiber-rich tubers peaked.

What Americans Eat

The further away people’s diets are from a Western diet, the greater the variety of microbes they tend to have in their guts. And that includes bacteria that are missing from American guts.

“So whether it’s people in Africa, Papua New Guinea or South America, communities that live a traditional lifestyle have common gut microbes — ones that we all lack in the industrialized world,” Sonnenburg said.

In a way, the Western diet — low in fiber and high in refined sugars — is basically wiping out species of bacteria from our intestines. That’s the conclusion Sonnenburg and his team reached after analyzing the Hadza microbiome at one stage of the yearlong study.

But when they checked several months later, they uncovered a surprising twist: The composition of the microbiome fluctuated over time, depending on the season and what people were eating. And at one point, the composition started to look surprisingly similar to that of Westerners’ microbiome.

During the dry season, Hadza eat a lot more meat, as most Westerners do. When their diet changed, their microbiome shifted as well. Some of the bacterial species that had been prevalent disappeared to undetectable levels, similar to what’s been observed in Westerners’ guts.

But then in wet season — when Hadza eat more berries and honey — these missing microbes returned, although the researchers aren’t really sure what’s in these foods that bring the microbes back.

“We’re beginning to realize that people who eat more dietary fiber are actually feeding their gut microbiome,” Sonnenburg says.

Hadza consume a huge amount of fiber because throughout the year, they eat fiber-rich tubers and fruit from baobab trees. These staples give them about 100 to 150 grams of fiber each day. That’s equivalent to the fiber in 50 bowls of Cheerios — and 10 times more than many Americans eat. “Over the past few years, we’ve come to realize how important this gut community is for our health, and yet we’re eating a low-fiber diet that totally neglects them,” he says. “So we’re essentially starving our microbial selves.”

“I think this finding is really exciting,” says Lawrence David, who studies the microbiome at Duke University. “It suggests the shifts in the microbiome seen in industrialized nations might not be permanent — that they might be reversible by changes in people’s diets.

In closing, while we can’t all move to Tanzania and give up our day jobs, we all could incorporate more whole grains and less processed food. If we make a plan to try one new food each week, we can train our palettes to accept novel tastes and textures. We don’t need to buy 10 pounds of a new food! One pound would do, and we can learn a new recipe. This way we stretch our minds and learn a new trick. I remember learning to appreciate liver on one of these “try something new days.” I held out till I was hungry and then my dinner tasted ever so good! Search the outer aisles and look for foods in their simple state, rather than boxed in a mix.

The average adult person in the USA only gets about 15 grams of fiber daily, despite national health goals to increase intake. The message isn’t getting out. You can use the nutrition information on your package to check for the amount of fiber. For fruits and vegetables, a quick Google search will bring up the answer. I look for at least 3 grams of fiber in any item I purchase. This rules out “white” rice, bread, and most pasta products, but brown rice, whole wheat, and whole whole grain pasta and some bean product pastas can freely substitute for the other. The good news is these fill you up more because of the fiber, so hunger between meals isn’t as much of a problem. They also keep your blood sugar from spiking and crashing, which is another problem many with prediabetes and diabetes have.

High Fiber Veggies

Aim for 25 to 30 grams of fiber daily from your food sources. My morning old fashioned oatmeal contains 4 grams of fiber, the nuts add 2 grams, and the tablespoon of cocoa an additional 2 grams for a total of 8 grams of fiber. I’m already a third of the way there, and I’ve even had a chocolate fix! I usually add a 1/3 cup of instant nonfat milk and a pat of butter to my oatmeal with some vanilla and Splenda. If I can’t enjoy life, especially food, I won’t keep to my food plan.

My “hunting and gathering” is mostly done at my local grocery store, but I have four servings of lentil soup I made yesterday in the old crockpot from the rotisserie chicken and a frozen soup veggie package, to which I added garlic and Italian spices, plus an onion. Today it’s pouring down rain and I feel like doing nothing at all, except maybe a little laundry. Or maybe more coffee! I can always get excited for coffee!

Joy and Peace,

Cornie

Hadza Hunter Gathers Seasonal Gut Microbe Diversity Study

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/08/hunter-gatherers-seasonal-gut-microbe-diversity-loss.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/545631521/is-the-secret-to-a-healthier-microbiome-hidden-in-the-hadza-diet

King DE, Mainous AG 3rd, Lambourne CA. Trends in dietary fiber intake in the United States, 1999-2008. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2012 May;112(5):642-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2012.01.019. Epub 2012 Apr 25. PMID: 22709768.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22709768/

Healthy Beans and Legumes

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/healthiest-beans-legumes

The Standard American Diet

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/food-junkie/201308/the-american-diet