January 2019 Newsletter
A Time for Both Reflection and Looking Ahead
|
January is, famously, a month of new beginnings, named after the Roman god/goddess Janus, that literally two-faced (or two-headed) deity who faced both backwards and forwards, recalling the past even while she looked ahead to the future.
Janus is the god/goddess of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings.
May the New Year bring you some time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go next.
|
Snowfall
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, —
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem, —
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, —
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
Emily Dickinson
|
Cindy Britton
Full of Surprises
Although Cindy has worked at the Harvest Moon for only a couple of months, you may know her from one of the many other activities she’s involved in throughout our community. Cindy shares her days between the Harvest Moon, Monkey Business and various custom sewing projects. Like many of us in Floyd, Cindy has cobbled together a variety of jobs to earn her small town living.
She is also the mother of two teenage daughters who play in the marching band, so you may have crossed paths with her during a high school football game, marching in one of Floyd’s parades, or volunteering as a “band mom” with the Pride of Floyd County marching band.
But there are a couple of things about Cindy you may not know! First, she is an avid motorcycle enthusiast, and rides her own Ducati Monster 750. I had never heard of this motorcycle before talking with Cindy, so I just had to look it up. Pretty nice looking bike, huh!
|
Cindy has been riding motorcycles since she was a teenager, and even worked one year at a ‘biker rally’ vending tee-shirts. She said there were definitely a lot of rowdy, raucous Harley riders in attendance. Oh, what we put our mothers through!
Second, Cindy is not afraid of heights and used to spend a lot of time in her 20’s rock climbing.
I was excited to learn that Cindy has a bucket list. Do you have one? I couldn’t wait to hear some of the things on her list. Well…… she wants to visit Ireland, ride a bobsled at the Lake Placid Olympic Center, and ride horseback on the beach.
Can you see it now ……… in slow motion of course. Cindy riding a beautiful chestnut brown horse, hair blowing free in the wind and waves crashing in the background. Oh, and it is sunset. How cool would that be! I have never sat down and written out a personal bucket list, but Cindy has inspired me to get started!
Cindy’s favorite thing to do is laugh with her husband and daughters. She loves breakfast: eggs, fruit, cheese, bread and blueberries but stays away from Brussel sprouts and peppers. She is happiest when she’s had a productive day doing any of her many jobs, and then goes home to a nice glass of wine where someone else is cooking dinner for her!
In parting, Cindy shared with me some very wise words: “A person doesn’t have to have a lot of money to be rich, and appearances aren’t usually the whole story.” Wise words.
Please say ‘hi’ to Cindy next time you’re in the Moon. She is a great addition to the team!
|
Fiber and Why it Matters
How Fiber Helps Your Body
Getting enough fiber in your diet really does make a difference in your body’s overall health. Having a fiber rich diet can (1, 3):
• Reduce the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes
• Lower the risk of several forms of cancer: primarily colorectal cancer, but also mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, rectum and stomach cancers.
• Improve cholesterol and blood pressure
• Help regulate your digestion
• Slow digestion, so you feel full longer and eat less
• Increases the bulk and weight of the stool, diluting harmful substances and speeding their elimination from the body
• Protects the lining of the colon
So What Exactly is Fiber?
Fiber is the part of plant foods that our bodies can’t digest or absorb. It is found in fruits, vegetables, beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. (1)
There are 2 kinds of dietary fiber: insoluble and soluble. Our bodies benefit from both.
Soluble fiber comes from fruit, some vegetables, oats, beans, peas, lentils, and barley. When mixed with liquid, it forms a gel, which helps control blood sugar and reduces cholesterol.
Insoluble fiber comes from fruits, grains, and vegetables. It adds bulk and acts like a brush to clean out the colon. It helps food pass through the digestive tract more quickly and prevents constipation.
Why are Whole Grains Important when it Comes to Fiber?
A whole grain has all three of its original parts:
• The bran (fiber-rich outer layer)
• The endosperm (middle layer)
• The germ (inner layer)
Whole grains are rich in nutrients, including fiber. Whole wheat, oatmeal, rye, cornmeal, bulgur, barley, brown rice, and even popcorn are all whole grains. A refined grain has been milled, so only the middle layer (endosperm) is left. Milling removes much of the vitamins. “Enriched” flour has had some of the nutrients added back, but not the fiber. (1)
How Much Fiber Should I Eat?
The American Heart Association and Institute of Medicine recommend between 25 and 38 grams of fiber a day in a well-balanced diet. (1, 2) It is suggested that women aim for the lower end of this range, and men the higher end. Believe it or not, many of us consume only enough fiber each day to reach about half of the recommended daily allotment.
Following are some suggestions on how to increase your fiber intake:
• Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
• Try more recipes with beans, peas, barley, lentils, quinoa, bulgur, or brown rice.
• Choose breads, cereals, tortillas, and crackers that list a whole grain as the first ingredient on the label.
• Make at least half of your grain servings whole grains.
• Drink 6 to 8 cups of water and other fluids a day to aid digestion.
• If you eat wheat bran to keep your bowels moving, start with 1 teaspoon per meal. Increase slowly to 2 to 4 tablespoons a day. If you use psyllium fiber supplements, be sure to follow the directions and drink enough fluids to remain hydrated.
• Buy unprocessed foods when you can. Food processing often removes fiber. Read your food labels.
|
What Foods have the Most Fiber?
It appears that beans (black, kidney, navy, pinto, garbanzo and lima) win the distinguished honor for most fiber coming in at 7-10 grams per half cup serving.
Not a big fan of beans, then try 100% bran cereals which range in fiber from 7-14 grams per half cup serving.
You may be wondering why beans won the high fiber honor when some bran cereals have higher fiber counts. Well, many of the bran cereals tend to be processed, and along with the bran you are also getting added sugar that you don’t really need.
Also consider adding artichoke hearts (5 grams), avocados (6 grams), prunes (6 grams), and cooked barley (6 grams) to your high fiber repertoire.
Don’t forget to eat the skin on your fruits and veggies when possible as this is where the majority of the fiber lies (e.g.: apples, pears, garbanzo beans).
Where do I Start?
Simply begin by adding more high fiber foods to your diets each day. Don’t go crazy in the first week, but slowly add additional fiber over 2-3 weeks so that you don’t overwhelm your digestive system causing bloating and gas pains.
It might be interesting to spend the first week tracking how much fiber you are actually eating. You might be surprised how far you are from the 25-38 grams/day goal. Or better yet, maybe you’ll be surprised at how close you are!
Knowing your actual fiber intake will allow you to better plan any diet adjustments you want to make. Use the link below to access a thorough list of foods items and their associated fiber amounts.
mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/Images/915800109%20Revised%208-10_tcm75-14335.pdf
1. https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/Images/915800109%20Revised%208-10_tcm75-14335.pdf
2. https://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/fiber-how-much-do-you-need#1
3. http://www.aicr.org/reduce-your-cancer-risk/diet/elements_fiber.html
|
Prosperity to you and you and you and you!
Creole-Style Black-Eyed Peas
In the Southern United States, eating black-eyed peas or Hoppin’ John (a traditional soul food) on New Year’s Day is thought to bring prosperity in the new year.
Here is a nice recipe that is also high in fiber!
Ingredients
2 cups water
2 cups dried black-eyed peas
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups tomatoes, crushed
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
3 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup chopped scallion
1 cup cooked bacon pieces
salt to taste
Directions
In a medium saucepan over high heat, add 2 cups water and black-eyed peas. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, cover, remove from heat and let stand for 1 hour.
Drain the water, leaving the peas in the saucepan. Add 1 cup of chicken broth, tomatoes, onion, celery, garlic, mustard, ginger, cayenne pepper, bay leaf and salt. Stir together and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer slowly for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Add water or more broth as necessary to keep the peas covered with liquid.
Remove the bay leaf, pour into a serving bowl and garnish with scallion and bacon. Serve immediately.
Serves 8
1 cup serving contains 6 grams of fiber!
|
Increase the Odds of Success for Your New Year’s Exercise & Weight Loss Goals
1. Upgrade Your Dessert
Add some fiber – reduce the sugar. The next time you want to reach for a chocolate bar, instead try chocolate covered nuts, chocolate dipped banana bites, or chocolate chips mixed with popcorn.
2. Sit Differently
Most people sit in a C shape. Instead, pretend you have a tail, and bend slightly at the hips so you aren’t sitting on it. This can help untuck your pelvis and elongate your spine so your vertebrae can stack up straight.
3. Set a Bedtime Alarm
Try to get a minimum of 7 hours sleep each night. Set an alarm for 45-60 minutes before lights out. When it goes off, start your bedtime routine: turn of the t.v. or computer, shower, make lunches, prep overnight oats, read.
|
4. Walk to Every Destination Within One Mile
The more physical activity you can fit into each day, the better. Walk whenever possible. Walk to the mailbox. Park at the back end of the store’s lot, and walk the distance to the store. If you have an office job, get up and walk around every hour for a few minutes. Every time you’re on the phone, walk. If you tied to a land line phone, move your feet when on the phone. Move, move, move!
5. Check in with Yourself Midmeal
Sipping water between bites can help you slow down and eat more mindfully. Check in with yourself by putting down your fork, take a deep breath, and ask yourself how full you are and how much more food you think you need to be satisfied.
|
6. Designate a No Phone Zone
Again, aim for mindfulness when you eat. Set physical boundaries between you and your phone (or computer) when eating a meal. A recent report suggested that if your phone is within reach, even if it is turned off, it impairs cognitive performance, your ability to concentrate on something other than the phone. Tuck it away. Out of sight, hopefully out of mind.
7. Add Veggies at Breakfast
Most Americans need to increase their fiber and veggie intake. Try adding some mashed avocado to your toast, add a handful of baby spinach to your eggs, grate some zucchini into the pancake batter, and shred some carrots into your oatmeal. You get the idea!
8. Exercise Even for a Few Minutes
It is recommended that you get 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity physical activity each week. Don’t be intimidated by this number. Break it down into smaller increments: 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, it all adds up. Some studies even suggest that standing is better than sitting for metabolic health.
Excerpt from January 2019 Issues – Real Simple
|
What is Happening to the Human Microbiome?
Did you know……..
●The bacteria living in and on the average human body weigh between 3 to 4 pounds, as much as the human brain.
●Some bacteria are good and some are very bad.
●Bacteria in and on the human body out number human cells by 10 to 1. Humans are more bacteria than human.
●Our bodies are host to some 100 trillion bacteria.
●Babies are born bacteria free. It is not until they pass through the birth canal that they begin to accumulate bacteria.
●Scientists are worried about the diminishing diversity of bacteria being found in the human body, particularly in the gut and on the skin.
The human body has bacteria just about everywhere: eyebrows, beside the nose, inside the ear, back of the scalp, upper chest, your back, armpit, inner elbow, webbed area between the middle and ring fingers, side of the groin, top fold of the buttocks, behind the knee, the bottom of the foot, the navel, the palm of the hand, in our stomachs, in our noses, eyes, throats, mouths, intestines, urethras and vaginas. Yes, just about everywhere!
This wide and diverse conglomeration of bacteria is known as the human microbiome. And while the human genome has 23,000 unique genes, the human microbiome has 2 million. (1)
|
There are reasons why humans have developed such close relationships with bacteria over the millennia. Bacteria perform many beneficial functions for our bodies. They boost our immunity, protect us from infections, produce enzymes we need to digest our food, and assist with human reproduction. One example of bacteria that protects the skin is Bacillus subtilis. It produces bacitracin on the skin, a toxin that helps in fighting with other microbes.(4) Every step of the way, bacteria are working in and on our bodies to both protect us and aid in our bodily functions.
Yes, some bacteria are bad, very bad. Salmonella, E. coli, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Streptococcus pyogenes, and the list goes on. But without the good bacteria, our bodies would not stand a chance against the others. Without a strong, healthy and diverse microbiome, humans couldn’t survive. Bacteria are a part of who we are.
According to Maria Gloria Domingues-Bello, associate professor of medicine at NYU, ‘Humans in the U.S. have lost a third of their microbial diversity, mostly on their skin and in their stomachs and digestive tracts’.(1) Other medical experts have shared the same or similar concerns.
It is believed the problem of our disappearing bacteria is due to our overuse of antibiotics, the large number of C-sections performed in our country, a modern obsession with sanitation (hand cleaners and cleaning products), and the Western diet. According to Dr. Martin Blaser, author of, “Missing Microbes”, the bacteria extinction could be at the root of many of our modern day health issues like asthma, allergies, diabetes, obesity and even some forms of cancer.(1)
|
For example, in the early 20th century, most Americans had H. pylori in their stomachs. Fast forward to present day, and fewer than 6% of American children born after 1995 have it. These trends are the same in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.
“One day it occurred to me that this is an ancestral organism that’s disappeared. But ancestral organisms aren’t supposed to disappear,” Blaser said. “If one guy is disappearing, maybe some others are disappearing.”
For years, Scientists have been studying the role vaginal births play in the bacterial life of a newborn. Babies inherit much of the bacteria they need from their mother’s vagina during birth. A pregnant woman’s vaginal bacteria changes and diversifies as she prepares for birth, so children born via Cesarean section may be missing out on an important inoculation. After birth, a baby acquires the balance of its microbiome by the age of 3, Blaser said — during a time when the baby’s metabolic, immune, cognitive, and reproductive systems are undergoing extensive development.(2)
|
Our use, or over use of antibiotics during the last 75 years is also believed to be impacting the human microbiome.
Antibiotics have been over prescribed and used in instances when they were not critical, or worse yet, made no difference whatsoever in improving a person’s health.
In addition, farmers have been feeding antibiotics to livestock being raised for human consumption in an effort to increase their size and muscle mass.
Human overexposure to antibiotics in so many different forms has led to a bourgeoning drug resistance against some very bad bacterial such as MRSA.
Some of the most compelling evidence that the human biome is undergoing a mass extinction surfaces from the fecal studies done on ancient human remains and the gut biome studies of modern-day hunter-gathers as compared to those of us in the West.
|
Extinct microbes in fecal samples from archaeological sites across the world resemble those found in present-day rural African communities more than they resemble the microbes found in the gut of cosmopolitan US adults, according to research published December 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Cecil Lewis and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma.(7)
What is most interesting is that the guts of hunter-gatherers from Tanzania, Venezuela and Peru all have very similar makeups, including 50% more bacterial species and twice as many genes as people living on a Western diet.(5)
Hunter-gatherers of today eat up to 10 times more dietary fiber than most Americans consume each day. This fact is believed to be one of the largest factors affecting the human microbiome. Fiber comes of complex carbohydrates – vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and legumes – and these fibrous foods feed the beneficial bacteria and increase their presence in the gut. They also help the bacteria produce nutrients, such as short-chain fatty acids, which are beneficial for digestive health.(6)
|
So a key question is, can the microbiome diversity that’s been lost be recovered, or is it gone forever?
This is the million dollar question for which there is no current answer. Additional research is still needed.
Doctors, researchers and other experts have differing opinions on this issue. Some believe that the ‘missing’ bacteria are not extinct in urban populations, simply repressed. One doctor states, “Certainly, it is possible for humans to drive some bacteria species to extinction, but given how easily most bacteria species adapt…it’s not easy. For example, if you look deep enough in urban populations, you’ll still find those spirochaetes …they are just much more rare.”
But there are other experts who disagree with this viewpoint. Carl Zimmer, science writer for The New York Times and author of the book, ‘A Planet of Viruses’ said that it is possible for species of microbes to vanish completely. “From what we know about the ecology of bacteria, it certainly is possible that we could wipe them out,” he said. “Antibiotics are an incredibly powerful weapon against bacteria. You can see them knocking out species from individual people, and some species just don’t come back. If you keep repeating that, it’s harder for bacteria to keep going…if we are attacking them in the only place they can call home, it’s not like they can go anywhere else.”
In an effort to combat this possible extinction, Dominguez-Bello is collaborating with other researchers in an effort to collect and culture human bacteria samples from around the world so that they can be studied and saved from extinction. She and other researchers visit remote mountaintop, desert, and rainforest villages around the world to collect their samples.
|
New, Back in Stock, and Seasonal Items at the Harvest Moon During December!
|
|
|
