WASHINGTON – Eat less, live longer? It seems to work for monkeys: A 20-year study found cutting calories by almost a third slowed their aging and fended off death.

Even when other factors were accounted for -- eating fresh fruits and vegetables, smoking, exercise, obesity -- the heaviest meat-eaters were more likely to die over the next 10 years than the people who ate the least amount of meat.

"Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality," Sinha and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Mike Linksvayer, a 36-year-old chief technology officer at a San Francisco nonprofit group, embarked on just such a diet six years ago. On an average day, he eats an apple or some cereal for breakfast, followed by a small vegan dish at lunch. Dinner is whatever his wife has cooked, excluding bread, rice, sugar and whatever else Linksvayer deems unhealthy (this often includes the entr?e). On weekends, he occasionally fasts.

Linksvayer, 6 feet tall and 135 pounds, estimated that he gets by on about 2,000 to 2,100 calories a day, a low number for men of his age and activity level, and his blood pressure is a remarkably low 112 over 63. He said he has never been in better health.

Of Every Tree of the Garden Thou Mayest Freely Eat
In a study that gives a whole new meaning to the name "700 Club," researchers have concluded that women who use religious media resources?whether television, radio, or books?are more likely to be obese than women who do not. Purdue sociologists Ken Ferraro and Krista Cline analyzed data that tracked the religious practices and body mass indices of more than 2,500 people over the course of eight years. They found that use of religious media increased incidence of obesity by 14 percent among women. However, women who attended religious services often were less likely to be obese than those who didn't regularly haul themselves to their local house of worship. In 1988, Ferraro published a paper with the claim that states with larger populations claiming religious affiliations, especially states with large numbers of Baptists, had a high level of obesity. Apparently consuming large quantities of religious television is as bad as consuming large quantities of church bake sale goods.

Shoppers who judge the freshness of meat by its color may be deceived by a relatively new industry practice of treating meat with carbon monoxide, critics say.

Seventeen homeless adults, all with long and chronic histories of alcohol abuse, were allowed up to 15 glasses of wine or sherry a day -- a glass an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- in the Ottawa-based program, which started in 2002 and is continuing.

People might want to consider a vitamin supplement to raise their intake to 1000 IUs per day, Garland said, adding that it was well within the safety guidelines established by the National Academy of Sciences

FOOD MOODS

What your food says about how you feel

Angry Meat

Sad Sugary food, caffeine

In need of comfort Custard, ice cream

Lonely Rice, pasta

Stressed or ambitious Crisps, soy sauce, onions

Sexually frustrated Biscuits, bread

Jealous Pile the plate with anything

A 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles has been discovered at an archaeological site in western China ? possible proof for the argument that China invented pasta before Italy.

Once a little-known species, the Cavendish was eventually accepted as Big Mike?s replacement after billions of dollars in infrastructure changes were made to accommodate different growing and ripening needs. Its advantage was its resistance to Panama disease. But in 1992, a new strain of the fungus?one that can affect the Cavendish?was discovered in Asia. Since then, Panama disease Race 4 has wiped out plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan, and it is now spreading through much of Southeast Asia. It has yet to hit Africa or Latin America, but most experts agree that it is coming. ?Given today?s modes of travel, there?s almost no doubt that it will hit the major Cavendish crops,? says Randy Ploetz, the University of Florida plant pathologist who identified the first Sumatran samples of the fungus.

The Kegbot - It Gives You Beer

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Folks at Defcon got to spend some quality time with the Kegbot, a Linux-based freedom-as-in-free-beer dispenser. The system uses a specialized board and iButton reader to dispense a perfect, frothy pint in every pour. It can even keep track of who drank what and when and the folks at Make Magazine even go their own happy welcome from said Kegbot.

Mortuary cannibalism has been well-documented in South America ? in particular, the eating of the bones of the dead, properly called osteophagy. Mind you, South American tribes didn?t simply de-bone their loved ones and begin gnawing on their ulnas. Instead, they ground the bones and concocted complex meals with them, including mixing them with honey, cooking them into soups, and brewing them into manioc beer.

Sous vide is the practice of cooking food at low temperatures in vacuum-packed plastic bags. (The term is essentially French for "vacuum-packed.") Once you get beyond the cosmic ick of cooking in plastic, the sous-vide effect?something I have experienced in a few European restaurants and some ragtag home experiments?is uncannily tender. Food looks firm and neat but collapses quite willingly in your mouth. And since no juices or vapors escape from those little plastic parcels, food cooked sous vide is full of flavor?a little garlic goes a long way.

An expanding waistline may have less to with what a person eats than what?s already inside, say microbiologists Jeffrey Gordon and Fredrik Backhed at the Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis. Variations in the population of bacteria living in the gut may explain why some people pack on extra pounds while others stay slim.

Gordon and Backhed base their claim on a study of two groups of mice, one exposed to normal intestinal microbes and another raised in a germ-free bubble. The germ-free mice had 42 percent less body fat, even though they were fed one-third more calories. When the animals were inoculated with bacteria from their normal counterparts, the bubble mice increased their body fat by 57 percent in just two weeks.

This idea is so prevalent that it's frequently referred to simply as "caloric restriction." But new research suggests that this title may be a misnomer for what actually produces longevity. A team of researchers has shown in fruit flies that shifting a diet's relative amounts of nutrients, such as carbohydrates, protein, and fat, while only modestly cutting calories, extends life span just as much as a drastic calorie cut does.

The "burnt end" is, after jazz, Kansas City's most important gift to civilization. Some great Kansas Citian of the past realized that the ends of a barbecued brisket were the fattiest, saltiest, smokiest chunks of meat on God's own Earth. Every barbecue joint in KC?and practically nowhere else?sets aside its burnt ends, chops them up, and serves them with a little sauce. It is a profound experience to eat them.

Chlorine levels have been temporarily increased as a precaution, he said.

Two more tips from the world of nutrition and health:

 Beans, Lentils Reduce Breast Cancer Risk  (I should have included this in the “Fennel for gas problems” email)

Here’s something to add to health habits aimed at reducing your breast cancer risk: eat more beans and lentils. A report published in the April 20, 2005 International Journal of Cancer suggests that beans and lentils can really make a difference. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from more than 90,000 women who participated in the Nurses Health Study II, which follows women who had not reached menopause when the study began in 1991. Over the course of an eight-year follow up, 710 of the women developed breast cancer. In reviewing the data the researchers found that women who ate beans or lentils at least once a week were 24 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who consumed these foods less than once a month. The authors had been looking for a link between breast cancer risk and consumption of flavonols, compounds which are found in such foods as berries, grapes, parsley, spinach, onions, apples and broccoli, but no such association emerged from their analysis. Instead, they discovered a lower risk of breast cancer associated with dietary intake of beans and lentils.

Source: International Journal of Cancer, April 20, 2005



 Ginger for Nausea in Pregnancy

More evidence has emerged to support the use of ginger to overcome morning sickness. Italian researchers reviewed several studies that examined how effectively ginger helps women conquer nausea during pregnancy. They found that ginger worked better overall than a placebo and even better than vitamin B6, which they noted can help relieve morning sickness among some women. One of the studies compared a group of women who took 350 mg of ginger three times a day for three weeks with another group taking 25 mg of vitamin B6 three times a day for three weeks. The researchers reported improvement in more than half of the women in each group. Some of the studies included showed that ginger consistently did better than the placebo at quelling nausea even when women had a severe form of morning sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum. The study was published in the April 2005 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Other natural remedies for morning sickness include chamomile, peppermint, and raspberry leaf but none has been as well studied as ginger, the researchers said. In the studies reviewed, ginger was found safe for both mothers and babies.

Source: Obstetrics and Gynecology, April 2005

Just an aside:  remember that fresh ginger, or fresh ginger extract is better for nausea than is dried ginger, and dried ginger has more anti-inflammatory effect than fresh ginger—something to do with chemical changes to the phytochemicals as it is dried.

A tip that probably originated in the East Indian sector of our world.  You may have noticed that the “candy basket” at the front door of most Indian restaurants has sugar-coated fennel seeds for you to take a few when you leave the restaurant.  Now you know why.  All that lentil soup and curried chick peas!

If flatulence is a problem for your patients, suggest they try fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). The seeds, leaves, and roots of the fennel plant are readily available in many forms including plain seeds, sugar-coated seeds, extract, oil, and capsules. The taste is similar to licorice.  All forms offer a natural way to help relieve gas. When shopping, note that fresh fennel seeds should have a strong aroma, and other forms should have a freshness date. Simply chew one-half to one teaspoon of fennel seeds after eating, whenever distended from gas, or as recommended by product label. Children can take half the adult dose.