Recount: Trip to France and Food!

About two weeks ago my French class had a trip to Brest, France. Throughout the entire week we stayed there, I was living with a host family, and I got to try out a lot of new foods. However, the day that stood out was the day I arrived. That day I had both lunch and dinner with my host family.

For lunch that day my host family had prepared a salad with cabbage, rasped carrot, tomatoes and goat cheese. While for dinner they prepared the french meal "canard d'orange", which means "Orange Duck", with baked potatoes. Canard d'orange is duck marinated in oranges. In my opinion this food was absolutely delicious, and thinking about it, it was healthy as well! I'm going to tell you why, however before we begin I created a list of key terms I will be using and their definitions:

• Manganese: helps create essential enzymes for building bones
• Dietary fiber: normalizes and maintains bowel health, lower cholesterol levels, helps control body sugar level and helps in achieving healthy weight.
• Potassium: relief from stroke, blood pressure, heart and kidney disorders, anxiety and stress, enchased muscle strength, metabolism, water balance, and nervous system.
• Vitamin B1: plays an important role in maintaining a healthy nervous system and improving the cardiovascular functioning of the body. 
• Phosphorus: vital part of growth process of bones and teeth.
• Magnesium: vital for containing a normal heart beat.
• Calcium: vital to build and maintains strong bones.
• Iron: plays and important role in the production of hemoglobin and red blood cells.
• Protein: used to build and repair tissues, and is also used to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals.
• Vitamin A: Reproduction and immune system health.
• Vitamin E: Protection against toxins such as air pollution.
• Vitamin C: Protects against immune system deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, prenatal health problems, eye disease and even skin wrinkling.
• Vitamin K: Plays a role in the bodys blood clotting system.
• Vitamin B8: Controls hypertension, helps deal with depression, improves cognitive functioning.
• Pantothenic acid: Reduces chances of getting conditions like asthma, hair loss, allergies, stress and anxiety, respiratory disorders and heart problems.
• Niacin: lowers cholesterol levels and controls them
• Thiamine: Vitamin B1
• Riboflavin: Vitamin B2
• Zinc: responsible for many functions in the body and helps stimulate the activity of a 100 different enzymes.
• Folate: plays a role in DNA synthesis and repair.

To begin with, we had the lunch salad. Here were their ingredients and what minerals, vitamins or nutrients they were rich in:

• Cabbage: manganese, dietary fiber, potassium vitamin B1, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iron, pantothenic acid, protein and niacin.
• Tomatoes: potassium, manganese, dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin E and phosphorus.
• Carrots: vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B8, pantothenic acid, folate, potassium, iron, copper and manganese.
• Goat cheese: calcium, protein, vitamin A, vitamin K, phosphorus, niacin

Next up we had dinner. For dinner we had duck with baked potato. Duck meat is a good source of protein, phosphorus, riboflavin, iron, zinc, thiamine, folate and magnesium. However eating to much is not good as duck meat is relatively high in fat and cholesterol, especially if you eat the skin. Beside the duck we ate potatoes which contain vitamin C, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and fiber.

As you can see, apart from the duck being high in cholesterol and fat, the meals were very healthy. A light lunch, and more heavy dinner is how it should be. However, at the same time very healthy. I hope you enjoyed this recount of my trip to France and their food, and maybe try out one of these meals yourself!

Letter to the Editor of Health & Life Qatar

Cecilie Kamilla Kristensen
Dr Bryns Vei 5
3610 KONGSBERG
cecilie.kamilla@hotmail.no

23.05.2016

editor@health-n-life.com
Health & Life
Dubai

Dear Editor,

I have recently read your article in the 9th issue of Health & Life  called The No-Diet-Way, and I just wanted to say that this is the most useful article on healthy eating I've come across so far. It gave me a good perspective on diets and why they don't work out long-term. It is true that more an more people are trying the trend of "dieting", however as you mentioned it will not last, and might even harm your body.

Many people think that having a low fat diet, or high protein diet or very low calorie diets/meals replacement diets might help reduce weight and make them healthier. However, as written in your article, restricting certain food groups can cause nutrient deficiencies , which can lead to serious health problems. The body needs a variety of nutrients to achieve an obtain optimum health, and many diets require the elimination of essential nutrients.

Toward the end I enjoyed how instead of encouraging "dieting", you came up with the brilliant idea called the "no-diet dieting". It was very helpful that you added a list of things you can do to have a successful, long-term and healthy weight loss, without dieting. I believe that for me and many others, this will be something new and interesting to read and learn about, because in a world where so many people talk about dieting, it's hard to imagine that you can loose weight in any other way.

To conclude I would just like to say that the layout of your article was organized and easy to understand. The visuals, such as tables, fact boxes, listed items, bullet points, and the use of questions directed at the reader, kept me engaged throughout the entire article. It would be wonderful if you could continue to make articles on the topic of healthy eating, as I found this very interesting and would love to read more!

Sincerely
Cecilie Kamilla Kristensen

Poem about Healthy Eating

I created a poem about healthy eating to encourage you to make healthier food choices:

People who eat a lot of sugar,
Will look much more fuller

They also have a bigger risk of getting diabetes,

So are you sure you want to buy that bag of treaties?

If your answer is no,

Then don't do it!

I'm telling you, just let it go

Make better choices, commit and never quit!

Step over to a healthier side

It will make you feel better,

Make your life a happier ride

In the end you might actually fit into your sweater!

I wrote this poem after a class trip to France, where I was left with a lot of money to buy food, and I could make my own decisions about what to eat. It wasn't much different that in Norway, the only difference was that in France everything is so much cheaper, making it so much more tempting to go straight for the foods high in sugar. The first day I was swimming in sugar, eating candy and chips almost three days in a row. However after three days I realized what this was doing to me. I was less focused, more tired and felt worse in general. Therefore I decided that it was time to make healthier choices!

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Baked Dried and Salted Cod with Vegetables

Today I decided to share a recipe on how to make baked dried and salted cod with vegetables. This is a traditional meal that dates a long way back in the history of Norway. Even though it might take some time to prepare, it is definitely worth it! It is healthy, and super tasty, especially for all of you out there who love fish. 

Background of Dried and Salted Cod

The dried and salted cod itself, also known as Klippfisk, dates back at least 500 years. Salted cod was dried only by the wind and sun, and hung on wooden scaffolds or on clean cliffs or rocks by the seaside. By drying the fish, a lot of the nutrients are preserved, and the process of drying and salting the cod is said to make it tastier. Salting became common in the 17th century, when cheap salt became available. The method was cheap and could be done by the fisherman in families. The resulting product was easily transported to markets, and dried and salted cod became a staple item in the diet of the populations of Catholic countries on "meatless" Fridays and during Lent.

Ingredients:

• Dried and Salted Cod Round pieces (1 kg)
• Water
• Olive Oil
• 10 Potatoes
• 4 Carrots
• 4 Celery roots
• 2 Broccolis
• Salt and Pepper
• Scallions
• Parsley
• Ovenproof dish

Directions

Preparing the dried and salted cod:

1. Buy round pieces of dried and salted cod, up to 3 cm thick each.
2. Put them into water (5 liters). 
3. Let them stay in the water for three days, switching water every morning and evening.
4. After three days take the dried and salted cod out and put it into a plastic baking bag filled with olive oil and crushed garlic. Leave it there for one day in the refrigerator. 

The rest: 

1. Take 10 potatoes and peel them. Mix them with salt, pepper and crushed parsley.
2. Put the potatoes into the oven (convection/hot air) at 225 degrees celcius for 10 minutes.
3. Take the carrots, celery roots, and broccoli and cut them all up in 1 cm pieces. Put them all into an ovenproof dish and pour some olive oil on top.
4. Once the potatoes have been in the oven for 10 minutes, put the vegetables in, and then let it all bake for 20 minutes more.
5. After 20 minutes take out the ovenproof dish with the vegetables and put the vegetables out to the side. Then in that same ovenproof dish put the pieces of dried and salted cod, and on top of that put the vegetables. Also cut up the scallions into 1 cm pieces and sprinkle some on top.
6. Set everything into the oven, and let everything (along with the potatoes) bake for 15 minutes more (until the fish is 60 degrees celcius).

Take everything out after 15 minutes and you are ready to serve! I hope you enjoyed this unique recipe and soon I will also post a review on this recipe like I usually do. I hope you try and make this because the outcome is amazing!

NO MORE SUGAR!

Sugar, sugar, sugar...You add it to your morning cup of coffee or tea, you bake it into pastries, cakes, and cookies, and you might even sprinkle some on your breakfast cereal or oatmeal for added "flavor". However that's not it, sugar is also hidden in what you consume on a daily basis, such as sodas, fruit juices, candies and ice cream. You can even find them in processed foods, including breads, meats and ketchup. 

Most people view foods with sugar as tasty treats, but to the three words to more accurately describe sugar would be: toxic, addicting and deadly. Sugar is one of the most damaging substances that you can ingest, and what is scary is that it is exists in almost all foods you consume in your everyday diet. 

Today, an average American consumes about 32 teaspoons of sugar per day. Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology in the University of California, works with decoding sugar metabolism. He says that your body can safely metabolize six teaspoons of added sugar per day, which is three times less than most Americans are consuming. So if only six teaspoons get safely digested, what happens with the rest?

The excess sugar becomes metabolized into body fat, which can lead to many debilitating chronic metabolic diseases many people struggle with. Here are some examples of how sugar impacts your body:

•  It overloads and damages your liver. Sugar or fructose has similar affects to what alcohol does to your liver. All the food that you eat is broken down by the liver, so all the fructose you consume goes there, overloading the liver, and in the end causing liver damage.
• It tricks your body into gaining weight, as fructose tricks your metabolism by turning off your body's appetite-control system. It doesn't stimulate the insulin, which then fat ls to suppress ghrelin (hunger hormone), which then fails to stimulate leptin (satiety hormone). This causes you to eat more and develop insulting resistance.
• It can cause metabolic dysfunction. Eating too much sugar causes symptoms known as classic metabolic syndrome, which include weight gain, abdominal obesity, elevated blood sugar, high blood pressure and more.
• It increases you uric acid levels, which is a risk factor for heart and kidney disease.

In addition to all of these horrible effects sugar has on your body, it can also increase your risk of getting the condition "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)". It has been proven that too much sugar and fructose intake can cause the same disease as you can get from alcohol intake. One similarity between alcohol and sugar is that your liver metabolizes alcohol the same as fructose. Another thing is that fructose can also indirectly stimulate the brain and create a dependence (addiction), the same way that ethanol in alcohol does.




However don't think that this is the only thing sugar does to your body. Research has shown that sugar is a primary dietary factor that drives obesity and chronic disease development:

• Fructose is food for cancer cells, promoting cell division and speeding their growth, which allows the cancer to spread faster.
• Alzheimers disease can also arise from too much sugar. The connection between a high-fructose diet and your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, is the same pathway through which type 2 diabetes is caused. Experts say that brain disorders may be caused from the constant burning of glucose for fuel by your brain.

Other diseases linked to metabolic syndrome that can arise because of too much sugar include: type 2 diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems, heart disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome and dementia.

Now, after reading all of these negative impacts sugar has on your body, try to control the amount of sugar you consume. I know it might be hard to quit eating sugar for good, but by cutting out at least foods with added sugar (fructose) you will do your body a huge favor. Trust me, you might think sugar has had no effects on you yet, but you might regret it some day. Stop eating sugar, it is toxic, addicting and deadly.

Review on Crispbread Recipe

So it's a new week, meaning new blog post. As you might remember, last week, I shared a crispbread recipe with you. Therefore I decided to write a review on it. I'll talk about the nutrition content and why it is healthy.

The ingredients I used along with water and salt were: sammalt grov rug, havregryn, solsikkekjerner, linfrø and sesamfrø. All together this gave me 50 crispbread pieces, each with a mass around 25g.

Here is the nutrition content in one crispbread piece:

Energy: 104 kcal  

Protein: 3 grams

Fat: 5 grams

Carbohydrates: 11 grams

Fiber: 2 grams

As we can see there is not much fat or carbohydrates, but still it seems that there are many calories. How is the crispbread healthy then? How would you explain this?

Seeing the big numbers might panic you at first glance, but if you really think about it, you will realize something. Even though it has more calories per 100 grams than a piece of bread, it has double the amount of fiber. Therefore it is considered a healthier alternative. 

The only thing that can ruin the fact that they are  healthier is what you put on top of them. Normally, you would put a bit more topping on crispbread because of how thin they are, and maybe eat around two pieces. Then you end up with eating a lot more calories than if you just had eaten a piece of bread. To avoid this, try to not use too much topping, and that way two pieces will only equal to one piece of bread.

Here are a few suggestions of healthy toppings:

Crispbread topped with some strawberry jam and two slices of brown cheese

Crispbread topped with tomatoes and celery no top of two slices of cheese

To conclude we can see that crispbread are actually healthier than bread, however over time it's good to have variation. Whether you eat bread or crispbread, rye bread or rye crispbread is always better. That is what was used in the recipe. Additionally, fun fact, rye and oatmeal contain advantageous fiber types that can reduce cholesterol and regulate blood sugar.

Also in my previous blog post someone asked how to store them, and for how long they last. It's really simple. You can just leave them on you kitchen counter in a basket (like in the picture), and they can last for more than a week.