Here’s a recipe from gut health expert Dr. Vincent Pedre’s The GutSMART Protocol. The gut plays a powerful role in whole-body health and this delicious smoothie will will brighten your mornings!
Ingredients
2/3 cup almond milk (carrageenan-free, unsweetened)
1 teaspoon rice malt syrup or allulose
1/2 teaspoon alcohol-free vanilla flavoring
4 teaspoons almond butter
1/4 cup hazelnuts, chopped, plus 1 chopped hazelnut for garnishing
2 Brazil nuts
1 frozen banana, cut into chunks
Directions
Step 1
Blend all the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Pour into a glass and garnish with the reserved chopped hazelnut.
Buffalo Cauliflower Recipe, Spotlight on Hot Sauce, Cornstarch Versus Flour, How to Avoid Long COVID and Get Help for “Tech Neck”
Looking for a fun and fabulous option for your next meatless Monday or a zesty snack when friends come over? A platter of Buffalo wings made with cauliflower checks all the boxes, plus you’ll get the nutrients of one of the healthiest vegetables and all the benefits of olive oil in the hot sauce. I love it when improving on a good recipe makes it more delicious as well as better for you. Small changes like this really add up. That’s particularly important in view of a new study on long COVID, detailed below, that serves as a great reminder of why taking care of your health pays dividends.
Chicken wings and cauliflower have one thing in common: They take on the flavor of whatever delicious ingredients you lavish on them. Now, here’s what they don’t have in common: similar nutritional benefits—cauliflower wins that game hands down. But nowhere is it written that good for you can’t taste good to you as well. This refresh of Buffalo wings will convince you.
Ingredients
1 large head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1-1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1-1/2 teaspoons ancho chile powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/4 cup your favorite hot sauce
3 tablespoons lemon juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
Optional: blue cheese dip and celery sticks
Directions
Step 1
Place one of your oven racks in the bottom third of the oven and preheat it to 425°F. Line a large rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper.
Step 2
Cut the cauliflower into large florets with as much of the stem as possible intact to give them the look of wings. Transfer to a large bowl, including any cauliflower bits. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch, the garlic and ancho chile powders, and the black pepper, then whisk in two tablespoons of olive oil. Pour the mixture over the cauliflower and toss to coat.
Step 3
Arrange the cauliflower pieces on the sheet pan without crowding them and bake for 10 minutes. Take the sheet pan out of the oven and flip the cauliflower pieces. Bake for another 10 minutes.
Step 4
Meanwhile make the Buffalo sauce: whisk together the hot sauce, the remaining olive oil, the lemon juice, and minced garlic in a small bowl, and set aside.
Step 5
Take the cauliflower out of the oven, flip each piece again, and brush with the Buffalo sauce. Return to the oven for a final 10 minutes or until browned and crispy. Serve while still warm.
Yields 4 servings
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Tapping into Hot Sauce
For a quick jolt of heat, hot sauce can’t be beat. Unlike most bottled sauces, it has just a few ingredients, and just a few drops can elevate a dish rather than drown out its other flavors.
In its purest form, hot sauce is a mix of one or more varieties of chile pepper, vinegar, and spices designed to impart a zesty, slightly smoky flavor (with barely any calories). Frank’s Red Hot, the brand that, legend has it, started the Buffalo wing craze, adds only salt and garlic powder to its base of cayenne, vinegar, and water (if you’re watching your salt intake, don’t overdo it).
Beyond good taste, hot sauce may be good for you. Tons of research has looked at capsaicin, the compound that gives chiles their heat. It has significant anti-inflammatory effects that help ease pain.
Quick Kitchen Nugget
Cornstarch vs. Flour
Cornstarch, a popular thickening agent in certain cuisines, is an unsung hero in many US kitchens, with many cooks relying on flour to thicken dishes and coat foods. Both flour (from wheat) and cornstarch (from corn) are starches, but there are differences, starting with the fact that cornstarch is gluten-free, important to many people. Cornstarch easily blends into a small of amount of water to make what’s called a slurry that can then be added to soups or stews, for instance, without the fear of lumps and without altering the dish’s taste.
When you want to bake rather than deep-fry a food, cornstarch will brown and crisp it better than flour. And for those times when you want to deep-fry, it creates a crispier coating so the food absorbs less cooking oil.
For Your Best Health
Avoiding Long COVID
With COVID-19 likely here to stay, it makes sense to do all you can to minimize its effects should you get it (or get it again). According to a study led by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published in February 2023 in JAMA Internal Medicine, women who followed most aspects of a healthy lifestyle, including maintaining a healthy body weight, not smoking, engaging in regular exercise, getting adequate sleep, eating a high-quality diet, and consuming moderate amounts of alcohol, had about half the risk of long COVID compared with women without any healthy lifestyle factors. (Long COVID is known for causing fatigue, fever, and a variety of respiratory, heart, neurological, and digestive symptoms.)
“With ongoing waves of COVID-19, long COVID has created a serious public health burden. Our findings raise the possibility that adopting more healthy behaviors may reduce the risk of developing long COVID,” said Andrea Roberts, PhD, MPH, a senior research scientist in the department of environmental health at the Chan School and senior author of the study.
The researchers analyzed data from more than 32,000 female participants in the Nurses’ Health Study II who reported on their lifestyle in 2015 and 2017 and reported their history of SARS-CoV-2 infection from April 2020 to November 2021. More than 1,900 participants contracted COVID-19. Among them, 44 percent developed long COVID. Compared to women without any healthy lifestyle factors, those with five or six factors had a 49 percent lower risk of long COVID. A healthy body weight and getting seven to nine hours of sleep every night were the health factors most strongly associated with lower risk. The results also showed that, even among women who developed long COVID, those with a healthier pre-infection lifestyle had a 30 percent lower risk of having symptoms that interfered with their daily life.
According to the study, one possible explanation is that an unhealthy lifestyle is associated with increased risk of chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation, which have been linked with increased risk of long COVID. “In the past decades, scientists have accumulated evidence that healthy lifestyle is good for overall health. However, in the US for example, 70 percent of the population do not have a healthy body weight and 30 percent do not sleep enough. Findings from this study suggest that simple lifestyle changes, such as having adequate sleep, may be beneficial for the prevention of long COVID,” said lead author and nutrition fellow Siwen Wang.
Fitness Flash
Get Help for Tech Neck
All those hours spent on our devices—on average more than five hours a day on the phone and even more hours staring at laptops and computer screens—have resulted in the chronic pain condition known as tech neck. The repetitive strain on the bones, nerves, and muscles caused by looking down at a device can result in muscle stiffness, joint inflammation, pinched nerves, arthritis, and even bone spurs or herniated discs. “Humans are upright creatures, and our bodies aren’t designed to look down for long periods of time, which puts extra pressure on the cervical spine,” said Kavita Trivedi, DO, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and associate medical director of the Spine Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Your head weighs between 10 and 12 pounds, but when you bend it forward at a 45-degree angle to look at your cellphone, you increase the amount of force on your neck to nearly 50 pounds. “With repetition, that force can strain or injure the facet joints that connect our vertebrae. When that happens, the surrounding muscles naturally tighten up to protect nearby nerves, which leads to inflammation, pain, and knots in your neck—what is often referred to as tech neck,” Dr. Trivedi said.
Conservative treatments that help include medication and physical therapy, trigger point and steroid injections, nerve blocks, and minimally invasive techniques such as radiofrequency ablation. In very severe cases, surgery might be needed to relieve pain and restore function. “The good news is that most patients with tech neck don’t require surgery, and we have a wide range of therapies that can be very effective. There’s no need to live with pain if it can be treated,” Dr. Trivedi said.
If you don’t currently have neck pain, take steps to protect yourself, such as holding your phone at eye level as much as possible to help reduce the strain on your neck. “Our phones and tablets are valuable tools, and there’s no need to give them up,” Dr. Trivedi said. “The solution is to learn how to prevent tech neck while using these devices, and if pain develops, see a specialist who can help.”
French Onion Soup with Cheesy Croutons Recipe, Spotlight on Onions, A Better Beef Broth, Vegetables that Lower Diabetes Risk and Breakfast for Better Sleep
It’s one of the mainstays of fine French dining—classic soupe à l’oignon, or onion soup. You might think it’s hard to recreate at home, but if you have the patience to caramelize the onions, you can be enjoying it tonight! It’s a great way to get in more veggies, which may help you avoid type 2 diabetes, according to a new study I’m sharing here, too.
This simple adaptation of the classic French onion soup is a meal in itself—perfect for lunch or dinner. If you’ve got a free afternoon, making your own rich beef stock is a slow-food pleasure, but a store-bought brand will still deliver rich taste. Take the time to fully caramelize the onions at the start of this recipe—that’s where most of the active cooking time is needed and where the deep flavor develops. You’ll be well rewarded for the effort. This recipe is for a very large batch, enough for two or three meals, depending on how many people you’re serving. For the melted cheese topping, this twist on bread rounds is fun and easier to eat with a spoon!
Ingredients
For the soup:
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 pounds yellow onions, peeled and sliced into roughly ½” rounds
Coarse salt
Sugar
1/2 cup cognac
8 cups beef stock
1 cup dry vermouth
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the croutons:
10 baguette slices, about ½” thick, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
Directions
Step 1
Caramelize the onions: Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat. Note: Depending on the size of your skillet, you may need to work in batches or use two skillets at once. Add one tablespoon of the oil for every pound of onions you sauté at a time. As you place the onions in the pan, separate each slice into rounds. Toss the onions in the oil and then cover the pan to sweat the onions for about 10 minutes over low-medium heat, taking care not to burn them. Take off the cover, sprinkle the onions with large pinches of salt and sugar, and continue cooking until they become soft and browned, up to 50 minutes (the liquid in the pan will evaporate; add a tablespoon of water as needed to prevent burning). At the end of the cooking time, add the cognac to deglaze the pan and then transfer everything to a large stockpot.
Step 2
To finish the soup: Add the beef stock and vermouth to the stockpot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and continue cooking for another hour. Taste and add black pepper, if desired.
Step 3
For the croutons: Just before serving the soup, turn on your oven to broil. Spread out the bread cubes on a cookie sheet and toast under the broiler, watching closely, as it should take only a few seconds. Very carefully, take the sheet out of the oven and use tongs to push the toasted croutons together. Sprinkle on the grated cheese and put back under the broiler until the cheese melts, again for only a few seconds.
Step 4
To serve, ladle soup into bowls or wide mugs and, using tongs, top each with some cheesy croutons.
Yields 10-12 servings
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
The Color of Onions
Onions are wonderful flavor enhancers and can impart different degrees of sweetness based on the variety:
The most popular and easy-to-find onion is the yellow onion, a great option when the onions will be cooked. You might also see Spanish yellow onions, which are a bit sweeter.
Even sweeter are varieties such as Vidalia, Walla Walla, and Maui, though they’re not usually available year round. When caramelized, they add exceptional flavor to dishes like French onion soup.
Occasionally, you’ll see white onions, milder in flavor than yellow onions and with a great crunch that makes them perfect for eating raw.
Red onions add bright color to dishes, and a more noted, spicy flavor to go with it. The taste is sweeter right after summer harvest, but can turn sharp as they age, so you might find that they taste different depending on the time of year (they will always be milder when cooked). They’re a great choice for pickling and for boldly flavored recipes, but they can overpower a mild dish.
Quick Kitchen Nugget
A Better Beef Broth
Supermarket shelves are filled with options from thick pastes you dilute to ready-to-go cans. New, more authentically made broths, often labeled bone broths (though meaty bones are at the heart of any broth) are now available. Some come frozen, others in pouches or milk-like containers. Not always at the corner grocery, many are available online. Bonafide Provisions, Brodo, and Pacific Foods brands are some flavorful choices.
Be aware that many store-bought broths get a lot of their taste from added salt, sometimes a lot of it—anywhere from 350 to 700 mg a cup, a big chunk of the 1500 mg recommended maximum daily intake. For the salt conscious, it’s worth noting that Pacific Foods organic low sodium beef broth has just 125 mg sodium per serving. When using prepared broth, you may not need to add any additional salt to a recipe—reach for black pepper first to avoid sodium overload.
For Your Best Health
Vegetables to Lower Diabetes Risk
According to an Edith Cowan University analysis of the long-term “Danish Diet, Cancer and Health” study, eating your veggies can translate to lowering diabetes risk. Comparing dietary intake records from 54,000 people, the scientists found that those who consumed the most vegetables were 21 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who consumed the least amount.
At the top of the list were leafy greens and cruciferous veggies such as spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower. Interestingly, white potatoes, often thought of as unhealthy, were actually neutral…as long as they were boiled rather than mashed with butter and cream or deep fried. People who ate potatoes prepared with unhealthy fats were also more likely to consume more butter, red meat, and soft drinks, foods known to increase type 2 diabetes risk. The researchers also pointed out that plain potatoes shouldn’t be lumped in the same category as certain other high-carb foods such as white rice and pasta because the potatoes have fiber, minerals, and good nutrients, which make them a higher-quality carb.
The study, “Vegetable, But Not Potato, Intake Is Associated With a Lower Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health Cohort,”was published inDiabetes Care.
Fitness Flash
Breakfast for Better Sleep
Tired of waking up groggy? “Many of us think that morning sleepiness is a benign annoyance,” said Matthew Walker, PhD, UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology and senior author of the study, “How people wake up is associated with previous night’s sleep together with physical activity and food intake,” published in Nature Communications. “From car crashes to work-related accidents, the cost of sleepiness is deadly. As scientists, we must understand how to help society wake up better and reduce the mortal cost of society’s current struggle to wake up effectively each day.”
He and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, teamed up with other researchers, including those in the UK and Sweden, to learn how to avoid that sluggish feeling. By analyzing data culled from more than 800 people over a two-week period, they were able to predict individualized metabolic responses to foods based on a person’s biological characteristics, lifestyle factors, and the foods’ nutritional composition.
The participants were given a variety of breakfast meals; wore wristwatches to record their physical activity and sleep quantity, quality, timing, and regularity; kept diaries of their food intake; recorded their alertness levels from the moment they woke up and throughout the day; and wore continuous glucose monitors.
The researchers found that the secret to alertness is a three-part prescription: getting the right amounts of exercise and sleep and eating the right breakfast, one that won’t spike blood glucose. “All of these have a unique and independent effect,” said UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Raphael Vallat, PhD, first author of the study. “If you sleep longer or later, you’re going to see an increase in your alertness. If you do more physical activity on the day before, you’re going to see an increase. You can see improvements with each and every one of these factors.”
Here are the specifics:
Breakfast. The participants were given preprepared meals with different amounts of nutrients: moderate amounts of fat and carbohydrates; high protein; high carbohydrate; or high sugar. The worst type of breakfast, on average, was high in sugar; it was associated with an inability to wake up effectively and maintain alertness. The high-carbohydrate breakfast, without simple sugars and with only a modest amount of protein, was linked to individuals revving up their alertness quickly in the morning and sustaining that alert state.
“We have known for some time that a diet high in sugar is harmful to sleep, not to mention being toxic for the cells in your brain and body,” Dr. Walker said. “However, what we have discovered is that, beyond these harmful effects on sleep, consuming high amounts of sugar in your breakfast, and having a spike in blood sugar following any type of breakfast meal, markedly blunts your brain’s ability to return to waking consciousness following sleep.”
Sleep. Sleeping longer and/or later than usual resulted in individuals ramping up their alertness very quickly after awakening. According to Dr. Walker, between seven and nine hours of sleep is ideal for ridding the body of “sleep inertia,” the inability to transition effectively to a state of functional cognitive alertness upon awakening. Most people need this amount of sleep to remove a chemical called adenosine that accumulates in the body throughout the day and brings on sleepiness in the evening, something known as sleep pressure.
“Sleeping later can help with alertness for a second reason,” Dr. Walker said. “When you wake up later, you are rising at a higher point on the upswing of your 24-hour circadian rhythm, which ramps up throughout the morning and boosts alertness.”
Exercise. “It is well known that physical activity, in general, improves your alertness and also your mood level, and we did find a high correlation in this study between participants’ mood and their alertness levels,” Dr. Vallat said. ” Participants who, on average, are happier also feel more alert.”
It’s not completely clear what physical activity does to improve alertness the following day. “It may be that exercise-induced better sleep is part of the reason exercise the day before, by helping sleep that night, leads to superior alertness throughout the next day,” Dr. Vallat said.
“How you wake up each day is very much under your own control, based on how you structure your life and your sleep. You don’t need to feel resigned to any fate, throwing your hands up in disappointment because ‘it’s my genes, and I can’t change my genes,’” said Dr. Walker. “There are some very basic and achievable things you can start doing today, and tonight, to change how you awake each morning, feeling alert and free of that grogginess.”
Chicken wings and cauliflower have one thing in common: They take on the flavor of whatever delicious ingredients you lavish on them. Now, here’s what they don’t have in common: similar nutritional benefits—cauliflower wins that game hands down. But nowhere is it written that good for you can’t taste good to you as well. This refresh of Buffalo wings will convince you.
Ingredients
1 large head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1-1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1-1/2 teaspoons ancho chile powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/4 cup your favorite hot sauce
3 tablespoons lemon juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
Optional: blue cheese dip and celery sticks
Directions
Step 1
Place one of your oven racks in the bottom third of the oven and preheat it to 425°F. Line a large rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper.
Step 2
Cut the cauliflower into large florets with as much of the stem as possible intact to give them the look of wings. Transfer to a large bowl, including any cauliflower bits. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch, the garlic and ancho chile powders, and the black pepper, then whisk in two tablespoons of olive oil. Pour the mixture over the cauliflower and toss to coat.
Step 3
Arrange the cauliflower pieces on the sheet pan without crowding them and bake for 10 minutes. Take the sheet pan out of the oven and flip the cauliflower pieces. Bake for another 10 minutes.
Step 4
Meanwhile make the Buffalo sauce: whisk together the hot sauce, the remaining olive oil, the lemon juice, and minced garlic in a small bowl, and set aside.
Step 5
Take the cauliflower out of the oven, flip each piece again, and brush with the Buffalo sauce. Return to the oven for a final 10 minutes or until browned and crispy. Serve while still warm.
