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Olive Oil Hunter News #179

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Peaches-and-Cream Tart Recipe, Spotlight on Peaches, Resilience and a Diverse Gut Microbiome, Plus Secrets of Sleep

There’s nothing quite like biting into a summer peach, but when you want to make a peach dessert that has a wow factor, this tart delivers! Juicy peaches, sweet custard, and flaky pastry—who could ask for more? A lot of attention has been paid to having a healthy microbiome, and a new study adds a surprising benefit: emotional resilience. There’s also new research on another high-priority wellness item: sleep and how changes in your sleep pattern could signal health issues.

Peaches-and-Cream Tart

  • Peaches-and-cream tart Peaches-and-Cream Tart

    This recipe layers pastry cream and peach slices on freshly baked puff pastry, topped with a jam glaze. Both the peaches and the cream can be made in advance. Though there are a few steps to assembling the tart, using packaged all-butter puff pastry makes it very easy. Do read labels because many puff pastry manufacturers use artificial ingredients and no real butter in their dough. Look for the Dufour brand for flaky goodness. Note: If you already have jam with seeds, just increase the amount to 3/4 cup and pass it through a fine sieve after heating.

    Ingredients

    For the pastry cream:

    • 4 tablespoons cornstarch
    • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
    • Pinch of fine sea salt
    • 6 egg yolks
    • 2 cups whole milk 
    • 3/4 cup heavy cream
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract or paste

    For the tart:

    • 8 medium ripe peaches, about 5 ounces each
    • 2 tablespoons honey
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 package frozen puff pastry, about 14 ounces, thawed according to label directions
    • All-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour 
    • 1 medium egg
    • 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

    For serving:

    Directions

    To make the pastry cream, in a heat-safe bowl, whisk together the cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Add the yolks and whisk until the mixture is light yellow. 

    Step 1

    Place the milk and the heavy cream in a saucepan and scald them—you should see a light skin start to form as the liquid reaches a simmer, but don’t let it come to a boil. Vigorously whisk 1/4 cup of the liquid into the egg mixture, and then slowly whisk in the rest. Transfer the mixture back to the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Let it boil for 3 minutes as you continue to whisk; it should become quite thick. 

    Step 2

    Remove from the heat and transfer to a glass serving bowl, then whisk in the olive oil and vanilla. Let it cool slightly, then press a round of parchment paper over the surface to prevent a skin from forming and chill until cold and firm, about 3 hours or overnight.

    Step 3

    When you’re ready to assemble the tart, cut each peach into thin slices and place them in a large baking dish or on a wide plate. Drizzle on the honey and olive oil; toss gently to coat and set aside. 

    Step 4

    Heat your oven to 425°F. Scatter a handful of flour on a 17-inch by 13-inch piece of parchment paper and unfold the thawed dough on top of it. Use a rolling pin to roll out the seams; trim as needed to make a neat rectangle—it should be roughly 13 inches by 10 inches. Slide the parchment paper with the dough onto a rimmed sheet pan. With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, score a 1/2-inch border within the edges of the puff pastry without cutting completely through the dough. Prick the inner rectangle of dough lightly with a fork, making an even pattern across the surface. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. 

    Step 5

    Whisk the egg in a small bowl and lightly brush it over the pastry. Bake the tart until it’s puffed and golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Let it cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes (it may deflate a bit). Spread the pastry cream over the inner rectangle, using an offset spatula to smooth the surface. Top with even rows of peach slices. Briefly warm the jam in your microwave and use a clean pastry brush to dab it over the peaches.

    Serve right away.

    Serves 10

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Choosing Peaches

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Choosing Peaches

Fresh peaches on a branch

Unlike some fruits that can ripen on your counter, peaches are best when allowed to ripen on the tree. Since this rarely happens with peaches grown on a commercial scale, look for peaches at farmers’ markets. Their natural fragrance should tell you they’re ready to savor. 

There are two main types of peaches. Clingstone peaches, available from the middle of June, are especially sweet yet aren’t as easy to separate from their stone, or pit. Freestone peaches, which easily come away from the stone, make their appearance in late July. The lush orange-to-reddish color of peaches comes from their rich flavonoid content. Other nutrients include good amounts of vitamin C and some A, E, and K; the B vitamins niacin and folate; and minerals like iron, choline, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc, and copper.

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Freezing Peaches

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Freezing Peaches

Freezing fresh ripe peaches allows you to enjoy them past their season, though you’ll want to use them within a few months of freezing for optimal flavor. Rinse the peaches, pat dry, then cut them into slices or chunks. Line one or more rimmed sheet pans with parchment paper and arrange the slices on the paper, leaving some space between them. Freeze until solid, then place the slices in freezer-safe containers, filling each one to the max so that there’s little to no room for air, a cause of freezer burn. 

For Your Best Health: Resilience and a Diverse Gut Microbiome

For Your Best Health

Resilience and a Diverse Gut Microbiome

A new UCLA Health study titled “Stress-resilience impacts psychological wellbeing as evidenced by brain–gut microbiome interactions,” has found that resilient people exhibit neural activity in the brain regions associated with improved cognition and regulating of emotions, and are more mindful of and better at describing their feelings. What’s truly interesting is that the same people also exhibit gut microbiome activity linked to a healthy gut with reduced inflammation.

For the study, rather than examine microbiome activity and composition linked to disease conditions—like anxiety and depression—the researchers flipped the script and studied the gut microbiome and brain in healthy, resilient people who effectively cope with different types of stress, including discrimination and social isolation.

“If we can identify what a healthy resilient brain and microbiome look like, then we can develop targeted interventions to those areas to reduce stress,” said Arpana Gupta, PhD, senior author and co-director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center. This is believed to be the first study to explore the intersection of resiliency, the brain, and the gut microbiome.

Dr. Gupta and her team focused on methods to cope with stress, because research has shown that untreated stress can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes. While stress is an inevitable part of life, knowing how to handle stress may help keep people from developing diseases.

To conduct the study, published in Nature Mental Health, the researchers surveyed 116 people about their resiliency, like having trust in one’s instincts and positive acceptance of change, and separated them into two groups. One group ranked high on the resiliency scale and the other group ranked low. The participants also underwent MRI imaging and gave stool samples two or three days before their scans.

The researchers found that people in the high-resiliency group were less anxious and depressed, less prone to judge, and had activity in regions of the brain associated with emotional regulation and better cognition compared to the group with low resiliency. “When a stressor happens, often we go to this aroused fight-or-flight response, and this impairs the breaks in your brain,” Dr. Gupta said. “But the highly resilient individuals in the study were found to be better at regulating their emotions, less likely to catastrophize, and [better at keeping] a level head,” added Desiree Delgadillo, PhD, postdoctoral researcher and one of the first authors.

The high-resiliency group also had different microbiome activity than the low-resiliency group. Namely, the high-resiliency group’s microbiomes excreted metabolites and exhibited gene activity associated with low inflammation and a strong and healthy gut barrier. A weak gut barrier, otherwise known as a leaky gut, is caused by inflammation and impairs the gut barrier’s ability to absorb essential nutrients needed by the body while blocking toxins from entering the gut.

“Resilience truly is a whole-body phenomenon that affects not only your brain but also your microbiome and what metabolites that it is producing,” Dr. Gupta said. “We have this whole community of microbes in our gut that exudes these therapeutic properties and biochemicals, so I’m looking forward to building upon this research,” Dr. Delgadillo added.

The team’s future research will study whether an intervention to increase resilience will change brain and gut microbiome activity. “We could have treatments that target both the brain and the gut that can maybe one day prevent disease,” Dr. Gupta said.

As a reminder, you can boost the health of your gut microbiome by eating a diet with plenty of high-fiber foods like legumes, vegetables, and fruits, plus fermented foods like yogurt and pickles, and by limiting packaged and sugary processed foods and foods from animals fed with antibiotics. According to a separate study published in the journal Nutrients, the Mediterranean diet, with its high fiber content and bioavailability, and more than twice the important insoluble fiber in a typical Western diet, has been linked to having a beneficial microbiome.

Fitness Flash: Secrets of Sleep

Fitness Flash

Secrets of Sleep

Your sleep tracker might give you information not only about your sleep but also about potential chronic conditions. This is one of the findings of a study in the journal NPJ Digital Medicinethat analyzed data from 5 million nights of sleep across roughly 33,000 people. The researchers identified five main types of sleep, or sleep phenotypes, which can be further divided into 13 subtypes. They also found that how and how often a person switches between sleep phenotypes could offer two to 10 times more information relevant to detecting health conditions than just relying on a person’s average sleep phenotype alone.

Using data collected from Oura Ring, a smart ring that tracks sleep, skin temperature, and other variables, the researchers looked at individual people over a series of months, noting whether they had chronic health conditions such as diabetes and sleep apnea, or illnesses such as COVID-19 and the flu. They found that people would often move between sleep phenotypes over time, reflecting a change their health conditions and creating what resembles a person’s travel log through the data-driven sleep landscape the researchers created.

“We found that little changes in sleep quality helped us identify health risks. Those little changes wouldn’t show up on an average night or on a questionnaire, so it really shows how wearables help us detect risks that would otherwise be missed,” said Benjamin Smarr, PhD, one of the study’s senior authors and assistant professor at Jacobs School of Engineering and Halicioglu Data Science Institute at the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

In addition, the researchers highlighted that tracking changes in sleep over the long term at the population scale could unlock new insights that are relevant for public health, such as information on certain changes in patterns through these sleep landscapes that might be related to diseases.

Woman waking up rested

Sleep styles 

The researchers identified some trends that help intuitively separate the five sleep phenotypes.

Phenotype 1: This is what we think of as “normal” sleep—people get about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for at least six days in a row. This is the type of sleep recommended by the National Institutes of Health and the most common sleep type researchers found.

Phenotype 2: People sleep continuously about half the nights, but they only sleep for short periods of time in bouts of less than three hours on the other nights.

Phenotype 3: People sleep mostly continuously, but they experience interrupted sleep around one night each week. The interrupted night is characterized by one period of relatively long sleep of about five hours, and one period of short sleep of less than three hours.

Phenotype 4: People again sleep mostly continuously, but they experience rare nights in which long bouts of sleep are separated by a mid-sleep waking.

Phenotype 5: People only sleep for very short periods of time every night. This phenotype was the rarest the researchers found and represents extremely disrupted sleep.

Tracking changes in sleep type

To measure how sleep phenotypes changed over time, Varun Viswanath, a fifth-year PhD student at Jacobs and the paper’s lead author, constructed a spatial model of all 5 million nights in which the phenotypes were represented as different islands composed of mostly similar weeks of sleep. Different patterns emerged over time that allowed the researchers to model each individual’s routes between islands.

From there, what helped distinguish people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes and sleep apnea, was not their average phenotype. Instead, it was how frequently they switched between islands in this sleep landscape. In this way, even if someone switched phenotypes only rarely, the fact that they did switch could still provide useful information about their health.

The data showed that it is rare for most people to go multiple months without a few nights of disrupted sleep. “We found that the little differences in how sleep disruptions occur can tell us a lot. Even if these instances are rare, their frequency is also telling. So it’s not just whether you sleep well or not—it’s the patterns of sleep over time where the key info hides,” said study co-author Edward Wang, PhD, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at UCSD.

Conversely, people did not tend to remain in patterns defined by broken sleep. But how often they visited specific disrupted-sleep patterns said a lot about how well they were doing. “If you imagine there’s a landscape of sleep types, then it’s less about where you tend to live on that landscape, and more about how often you leave that area,” said Viswanath.

This work is the first to show that researchers can quantify the changing dynamics of people’s sleep over time and use this quantification to give people better insights into their sleep health. The research also suggests that these changes in sleep may indicate a higher risk for a wide range of conditions such as chronic illness or vulnerability to infection.

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Olive Oil Hunter News #178

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Summer on a Skewer Recipe, Spotlight on Muskmelons, Magnesium for Bone Health, Plus Walking to Alleviate Back Pain

Summer brings an amazing bounty of produce along with often-sweltering temps that make a hot kitchen the last place you want to be. I love these fruit-and-cheese skewers because there’s virtually no prep involved, yet the finished dish is elegant enough for a patio party! Are you a fan of nuts and seeds? These are excellent sources of an often-overlooked mineral that plays a vital role in bone health: magnesium. Read more about it below along with the results of a study on a simple way to help ease back pain. 

Summer on a Skewer

  • Summer Melon Skewers with mozzarella and prosciutto Summer on a Skewer

    Want an elegant lunch, first course, or light supper that doesn’t require any complex prep or cooking? Here are twists on two summer salad favorites: feta with watermelon and cantaloupe with prosciutto. When served on skewers, they become the perfect finger food. Make one variety or both, or mix and match the ingredients for a colorful presentation. The sweetness of the melons and the slight saltiness of the cheeses are elevated by a drizzle of olive oil and a splash of balsamic—no need to whisk up a vinaigrette. 

    Ingredients

    For the feta skewers:

    • 8-ounce block feta, preferably from Greece
    • 1/2 ripe watermelon 
    • Mint leaves
    • 6 long bamboo skewers 

    For the mozzarella skewers:

    • 1 large cantaloupe or honeydew
    • 12 mini mozzarella balls 
    • 6 slices of prosciutto, halved and rolled up, or 12 thin slices of your favorite salami
    • Basil leaves
    • 6 long bamboo skewers 

    For serving:

    Directions

    For the feta skewers, cut the feta and the watermelon into similarly sized cubes, 18 of the watermelon and 12 of the feta. Assemble ingredients on each skewer in this order: watermelon, mint, feta; repeat the pattern and then cap each skewer with an extra piece of watermelon.

    For the mozzarella skewers, use a melon baller to make 18 melon balls close in size to the mozzarella. Assemble ingredients on each skewer in this order: melon, basil, prosciutto; repeat the pattern and then cap each skewer with an extra piece of melon.

    Arrange the skewers on a platter and drizzle liberally with olive oil, splashes of balsamic, and a few twists from your black peppercorn grinder.

    Yields 6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Muskmelons

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Muskmelons

That’s the umbrella term of all sweet melons other than watermelon. While watermelon is alone in its category, there are close to two dozen muskmelon varieties, some smooth skinned and others with a rough pattern often described as a netting. Most people are familiar with cantaloupe and honeydew, but there are many more to explore, each delicious in its own way.

There’s a refreshing sweetness to casaba, crenshaw, and canary melons, with white, orange-pink, and pale green flesh, respectively. Becoming more available at farmers’ markets and Asian specialty stores are the round Persian melon with sweet pink flesh and the Chinese hami melon, which is extra sweet. Experiment with them in any recipe that calls for cantaloupe or honeydew, or just enjoy a thick slice on its own.

Melons have a high water content as well as important vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Muskmelons are typically rich in vitamin C, with cantaloupe topping the nutrient list: a one-cup serving has 95% of the vitamin C you need a day and all the vitamin A. (The rich red color of watermelon comes from lycopene, an important antioxidant, so enjoy it, too!)

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Choosing Melons

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Choosing Melons

Summer melon trio

Buying a whole melon can seem like playing a mystery game. Its sweetness is set at the time of harvest, and the rind doesn’t even indicate the color of the flesh. But there are some clues to help you pick a ripe, sweet melon. Whether round or oblong, the melon should be symmetrical in shape. It should feel weighty in your hands. Checking out the stem end is also key. Unlike a prime pumpkin, there shouldn’t be any stem still attached, and the indentation it left should be hollow and smooth. 

When a melon with netting on the rind is ripe, you should be able to easily smell its sweet aroma. But you won’t pick up any scent from a smooth-skinned melon like honeydew. Instead, look for a rind that’s more of a creamy shade rather than a stark color like green. A good watermelon should have a large, creamy-yellow spot where it sat on the ground, and the overall rind should be matte or dull, not shiny.

In terms of food safety, always rinse melons well before cutting to get rid of potential bacteria; those with netting will benefit from a light scrub with a vegetable brush. Pat the melon dry before prepping.  

For Your Best Health: Magnesium: The missing Mineral for Bone Health

For Your Best Health

Magnesium: The missing Mineral for Bone Health

Mixed nuts and seeds, a good source of magenesium

We already know the importance of calcium and vitamin D for strong bones, but we don’t often hear about magnesium, another key mineral. Magnesium is found in legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and green leafy vegetables, so it shouldn’t be a challenge for anyone following a Mediterranean-style diet to get enough of this essential nutrient.  

Adults need between 310 and 420 mg of magnesium per day, with no more than 350 mg coming from any kind of supplement. That’s because high amounts of supplemental magnesium can cause side effects like stomach cramps and nausea (excessive amounts have even been linked to an irregular heartbeat and heart attack, according to the NIH). But there’s no limit on how much you can get from food. If you love nuts and seeds, you’ll be especially thrilled that the top sources of magnesium include one-ounce servings of pumpkin seeds (156 mg), chia seeds (111 mg), almonds (80 mg), cashews (74 mg), and peanuts (63 mg). Other good foods are half-cup servings of cooked spinach (78 mg), black beans (60 mg), and edamame (50 mg); 2 tablespoons peanut butter (49 mg); and a 3-1/2 ounce baked potato with skin (43 mg). 

Fitness Flash: Walking: Help for that Achin’ Back

Fitness Flash

Walking: Help for that Achin’ Back

About 800 million people worldwide have low back pain, a leading cause of disability and diminished quality of life. Repeated episodes of low back pain are common: 7 in 10 people who recover from one episode of low back pain go on to have another within a year. 

The current best practice for back pain management and prevention is a combination of exercise and education. However, some forms of exercise don’t work for many people because of reasons like high cost, complexity, and the need for supervision. A clinical trial by Macquarie University Spinal Pain Research Group in Sydney, Australia, looked at whether walking could fit the bill. Their study, “Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an individualised, progressive walking and education intervention for the prevention of low back pain recurrence in Australia (WalkBack): A randomised controlled trial” was published in The Lancet.

The trial involved 701 adults who had recently recovered from an episode of low back pain and who were randomly allocated to either an individualized walking program and six physiotherapist-guided education sessions over six months, or to a control group. Researchers followed them for between one and three years, depending on when they joined the study. They found that adults with a history of low back pain who walked regularly went nearly twice as long without a recurrence. 

According to the paper’s senior author, Macquarie professor of physiotherapy Mark Hancock, PhD, the findings could have a profound impact on how low back pain is managed. “The intervention group had fewer occurrences of activity-limiting pain compared to the control group, and a longer average period before they had a recurrence, with a median of 208 days compared to 112 days,” Dr. Hancock said. “Walking is a low-cost, widely accessible, and simple exercise that almost anyone can engage in, regardless of geographic location, age, or socioeconomic status.

“We don’t know exactly why walking is so good for preventing back pain, but it is likely to include the combination of the gentle oscillatory movements, loading and strengthening the spinal structures and muscles, relaxation and stress relief, and release of ‘feel-good’ endorphins.

And of course, we also know that walking comes with many other health benefits, including cardiovascular health, bone density, healthy weight, and improved mental health.”

Added lead author Natasha Pocovi, PhD, “It not only improved people’s quality of life but reduced both their need to seek healthcare support and the amount of time taken off work by approximately half. The exercise-based interventions to prevent back pain that have been explored previously are typically group based and need close clinical supervision and expensive equipment, so they are much less accessible to the majority of patients. Our study has shown that this effective and accessible means of exercise has the potential to be successfully implemented at a much larger scale than other forms of exercise.”

To build on these findings, the team next hopes to explore how they can integrate the preventive approach into the routine care of patients who experience recurrent low back pain.

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Olive Oil Hunter News #177

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Cold Avocado and Cucumber Soup Recipe and The Mediterranean Diet for Longevity

Members of the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club are well aware of the benefits of extra virgin olive oil as part of the world-famous Mediterranean diet. Dozens of studies have assessed its health effects and its link to longevity, most commonly attributed to its improving heart health. But how the Mediterranean diet works its magic hasn’t been thoroughly understood. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston recently published the results of a long-term study that helps unravel this mystery. I’m thrilled to share their findings. And to start, here’s a recipe that highlights the plant-based approach that underscores the Mediterranean way of living. 

Cold Avocado and Cucumber Soup

  • Cold cucumber avocado soup Cold Avocado and Cucumber Soup

    There’s nothing more refreshing than a chilled soup for lunch or dinner during the dog days of summer, especially when there’s no cooking needed. I like to add a different kind of heat with a fresh hot pepper, but you can omit it if you aren’t a fan!

    Ingredients

    • 2 pounds cucumbers, about 2-3 large ones
    • 1 small jalapeño, halved and seeded, optional
    • 2 ripe Hass avocados
    • 2 cups plain nonfat Greek yogurt or skyr
    • 3 large scallions, trimmed
    • 3 garlic cloves, peeled 
    • 1 cup packed of fresh parsley, dill, and chives 
    • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 
    • 1/2 cup water, more as needed
    • 1 tablespoon sherry or red wine, more to taste
    • Coarse sea salt, to taste
    • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
    • Optional garnishes: thin slices of avocado, a dollop of yogurt or skyr, more fresh herbs

    Directions

    Halve the cucumbers lengthwise and use a large spoon to scoop out and discard most of the seeds; leave on the peel. Cut the cucumbers into chunks for easier puréeing. If using the pepper, halve it, scoop out the seeds and veins, and discard them along with the stem. Scoop all the flesh out of the avocados.

    Step 2

    Working in batches as needed, add the cucumbers, avocados, pepper if using, yogurt, scallions, garlic, herbs, olive oil, water, and vinegar to your food processor bowl or blender and process until puréed—the mixture should be fairly thick. If it’s too thick, add more water, 2 tablespoons at a time, until it’s pourable. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired. Chill in the fridge for about an hour.

    Step 3

    To serve, ladle portions into soup bowls or glasses, garnish as desired, and drizzle with more olive oil.

    Yields 8 servings

For Your Best Health: The Mediterranean Diet for Longevity

For Your Best Health

The Mediterranean Diet for Longevity

The study: “Mediterranean Diet Adherence and Risk of All-Cause Mortality in Women,” JAMA Network Open,2024.

The health benefits of a Mediterranean diet, on its own and when compared to other healthy ways of eating, are so strong that US dietary guidelines have repeatedly designated it as the healthiest recommended diet. It’s also gotten the nod from many health organizations around the globe, including the American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, and Australian National Heart Foundation. While these benefits aren’t in doubt, how it achieves them hasn’t been completely understood. This new study sought to better explain the various ways in which the body responds to the diet—how exactly closely following it lowers mortality risk. What’s more, the more than 25,000 participants were American women. In general, women aren’t included in the same numbers as men in most studies, and regarding research on the Mediterranean diet in particular, most studies have been done in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, where the diet is more of a way of life than in the US.

For the study, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, followed the women, who were all healthy at the start of the study, for up to 25 years. They found that participants who followed the diet most closely had up to 23% lower risk of all-cause mortality…and found evidence of biological changes to help explain why. They were able to detect and evaluate changes in approximately 40 biomarkers representing various biological pathways and clinical risk factors, both traditional ones and novel ones that hadn’t been used in prior studies. Biomarkers of metabolism and inflammation made the largest contribution, followed by triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, adiposity, and insulin resistance. Smaller contributions were seen from biological pathways relate to branched-chain amino acids, high-density lipoproteins, low-density lipoproteins, glycemic measures, and hypertension. 

“For women who want to live longer, our study says watch your diet!,” said senior author Samia Mora, MD, a cardiologist and the director of the Center for Lipid Metabolomics at the Brigham. “The good news is that following a Mediterranean dietary pattern could result in about one quarter reduction in risk of death over more than 25 years with benefit for both cancer and cardiovascular mortality, the top causes of death in women (and men) in the US and globally.”

“Our research provides significant public health insight: Even modest changes in established risk factors for metabolic diseases, particularly those linked to small molecule metabolites, inflammation, triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, obesity, and insulin resistance, can yield substantial long-term benefits from following a Mediterranean diet,” said lead author Shafqat Ahmad, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology at Uppsala University Sweden and a researcher in the Center for Lipid Metabolomics and the Division of Preventive Medicine at the Brigham. “This finding underscores the potential of encouraging healthier dietary habits to reduce the overall risk of mortality.”

Mediterranean food spread

How the Study Was Conducted

At the start of the study, blood samples, biomarker measurements, and dietary information were taken from the participants, who self-reported demographics and filled out a validated food-frequency questionnaire. The data collection period was from April 1993 to January 1996, and data analysis took place from June 2018 to November 2023.

Each participant was given a score for Mediterranean diet adherence, which ranged from 0 to 9. Eating a higher-than-median amount of each of a list of foods—vegetables (excluding potatoes), fruits, nuts, whole grains, legumes, and fish—earned 1 point. So did eating a good ratio of monounsaturated-to-saturated fatty acids such as olive oil compared to butter, a less-than-median amount of red and processed meat, and having an alcohol intake within the range of 5 to 15 grams a day (one 5-ounce glass of wine, a 12-ounce can of regular beer, or 1.5 ounces of liquor). Participants were then categorized into one of three levels: 0-3 or low, 4-5 or intermediate, and 6-9 or high. Women with scores of 6 or greater had a 23% lower relative risk of all-cause mortality than did women who scored 3 or less. 

“The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are recognized by medical professionals, and our study offers insights into why the diet may be so beneficial. Public health policies should promote the healthful dietary attributes of the Mediterranean diet and should discourage unhealthy adaptations,” said Dr. Mora.

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Olive Oil Hunter News #176

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Spanakopita “Cigars” Recipe, Spotlight on Pine Nuts, Handling Phyllo, Being Distracted Leads to Overindulging, Climbing Stairs for Longevity

They say cooking can be therapeutic—it’s a type of mindful activity that calls for being focused and it can also fill you with a sense of accomplishment. When you cook for others, that nurturing creates other positive feelings in you as well. There are few recipes that demand as much focus as those that include phyllo, delicate sheets of the thinnest dough that require an equally delicate touch on your part. You also need a lot of patience when building up layers, whether for a sweet baklava or these spinach-filled rolls. Most important, the results are delicious! Focus is also the subject of a new study on why people tend to overindulge. I’m sure you’ll find it as fascinating as I did. 

Spanakopita “Cigars”

  • Spanakopita cigars with phyllo Spanakopita “Cigars”

    Packaged spanakopita, often in canape-sized shapes, can taste rather bland. With a package of frozen phyllo (or fresh if you live near a Greek pastry shop!), you can make this wonderful dish with layers of flavor—the sweetness of the caramelized onions, pine nuts, and currants, the freshness of the parsley and dill, and the zest of the cheeses—all enhanced by the richness of fresh-pressed olive oil. If you have the time, you can steam and chop fresh spinach, but you’ll need a very big volume to achieve two pounds. Frozen is easier to work with—allow it to defrost overnight in the fridge along with the phyllo. This recipe also includes bulgur, a tasty whole grain. You can roll the dough and filling into many different shapes. Long logs, or cigars, are easy to roll up and the shape is less likely to tear the delicate phyllo. Enjoy the process of working with phyllo—it’s easy once you get the hang of it…if you allow yourself time to work at a comfortable pace.

    Ingredients

    • 2 pounds frozen leaf spinach, defrosted
    • 1/3 cup pine nuts
    • Extra-virgin olive oil
    • 1 pound sweet onions, preferably Vidalia, coarsely chopped 
    • 1/2 cup uncooked bulgur
    • 1 cup very finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
    • 1/2 cup other assorted fresh herbs, like oregano, dill, and spearmint
    • 1/3 cup dried tiny currants, such as Zante, or chopped golden raisins
    • 8-ounce block of fresh feta, preferably from Greece
    • 1/2 cup ricotta
    • Coarse sea salt, to taste
    • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
    • 3 large eggs
    • 16-ounce package frozen phyllo, defrosted
    • 1 tablespoon each white and black sesame seeds

    Directions

    Step 1

    Use your hands to squeeze and discard as much excess liquid from the spinach as you can, then place it in a large colander lined with paper towels over a bowl to continue draining. 

    Step 2

    Heat a large frying pan and, when hot, toast the pine nuts for just a minute or two to bring out their flavor; watch carefully because they can easily burn. Transfer the nuts to a small dish and set aside. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the hot pan, then the onions, and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring often, until the onions are very soft. While they’re cooking, make the bulgur in a small saucepan according to package directions; when done, there should be no water left in the pan.  

    Step 3

    Squeeze any remaining liquid from the spinach and transfer it to a large bowl. Add the pine nuts, onions, bulgur, chopped herbs, and currants or raisins. Finely crumble the feta and add it in along with the ricotta; mix thoroughly. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired—it may already taste salty enough from the feta. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs, reserving about 1/4 cup. Work the beaten eggs into the spinach mixture. 

    Step 4

    Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper and set it to one side. Prep the section of countertop where you’ll work with a sheet of parchment paper (see “Quick Kitchen Nugget” in Newsletter #176 for details). Pour olive oil into a small bowl.

    Step 5

    Gently open the phyllo package and unroll the dough onto another rimmed sheet pan lined with parchment paper; immediately cover it with a dry dish towel topped by a damp dish towel. When you’re ready to start, quickly remove one sheet of phyllo and place it on the parchment in front of you. Use the tips of a pastry brush to dab some olive oil across the surface—you don’t need to be too thorough since you’ll be adding more oil with each sheet. Top with another phyllo sheet and dab again, placing the oil on areas where you can see that there’s no oil on the first sheet. Repeat with a third sheet of phyllo. 

    Step 6

    Scoop out a generous half-cup of filling and use your fingers to spread it out in a line across the long end of the dough closest to you, 1 inch in from the edge and from the two short sides. Roll up the phyllo just enough to cover the filling, fold in the outer ends, dab on more oil, and roll up the rest of the way, adding a final dab of oil before transferring the cigar with a bench scraper or wide offset spatula to the parchment-lined sheet pan; cover it with another clean towel. 

    Step 7

    Repeat the process with the rest of the filling and phyllo. Once you’ve rolled all the cigars, remove the towel and use the pastry brush to brush them with the reserved egg, then sprinkle on the sesame seeds. 

    Step 8

    Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until the phyllo crisps and browns.  

    Yields 12 cigars

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Pine Nuts

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Pine Nuts

Pine nuts and pine cones

Pesto isn’t the only recipe that benefits from these sweet nuggets, which are actually the seeds of pinecones. Considering their tiny size, pine nuts are nutrient powerhouses: One ounce delivers 4 grams of protein, 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat, and good amounts of vitamin E, copper, and manganese. 

Though there are more than 100 species of pine trees, most pine nuts—you might see them packaged or referred to in recipes as pignoli—come from just three of them. Prized and enjoyed for centuries the world over, pine nuts are very slow to produce and hard to harvest. This all explains why they’re so much more expensive than true nuts. So you’ll want to use them judiciously. To preserve their flavor, store them in a sealed bag in your fridge or freezer, not on a cabinet shelf. To bring out that flavor, toast them in a warmed, dry pan for a minute or two before using them in recipes.

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Handling Phyllo

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Handling Phyllo

Unless you’re lucky enough to live near a Greek or Middle Eastern market that makes and sells its own phyllo, look for frozen versions at your supermarket. Because it is rolled paper thin, it is tricky to make from scratch at home—though it can be done.

Phyllo sheets are extremely fragile and can dry out and tear easily. A few quick tips will make it easier to work with, no matter what recipe you’re making. First, defrost frozen phyllo overnight in the fridge. About an hour before you use it, place the box on a countertop to bring it to room temperature. 

Before you get started, be sure your work surface is clean and dry. Place a long piece of parchment paper in front of you and another to one side. Gather three clean dish towels; slightly dampen one of them. Have your olive oil and a silicone pastry brush plus your filling at the ready. Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment.

Gently open the package and unroll the phyllo on the parchment. Immediately cover it with one dry towel topped by the damp towel. Peel back the towels just long enough to take out one sheet of phyllo and place it on the parchment in front of you, then follow your recipe’s directions. 

If you notice any rips that expose filling, cover them with small pieces of phyllo drizzled with oil—no one will be any the wiser! 

For Your Best Health: Being Distracted Leads to Overindulging

For Your Best Health

Being Distracted Leads to Overindulging

New research published by the American Psychological Association in the Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology aims to unravel the mystery of why we overindulge despite good intentions. The study looked at how distraction affects “hedonic consumption,” or buying and using products and experiences because they make us feel good and not necessarily because we need them.

“On any given day, a person may take great pleasure from one or more of these activities, yet people often consume more hedonic goods than they want or than is good for them,” said lead author Stephen Lee Murphy, PhD, of Ghent University in Belgium.

One reason for this overconsumption may be distraction, according to Dr. Murphy. When people are distracted while engaging in a hedonic activity, research suggests, they are likely to experience less enjoyment from it than if they were fully focused. That may lead to feelings of dissatisfaction and drive more consumption to compensate for the shortfall. If you tend to do other things while eating dinner, for instance, you risk overconsuming later on, possibly because the distraction caused you to enjoy your meal less—you weren’t sated because you weren’t focused on the pleasure of eating in the moment.

To better understand the role of distraction in overconsumption, the researchers first conducted an experiment involving 122 participants (mostly female and mostly between the ages of 18 and 24) who reported on how much they expected to enjoy their lunch before eating it. They were then asked to eat their lunch under one of three conditions: no distraction, moderate distraction (watching a video), and high distraction (playing Tetris). After lunch, participants reported on their actual enjoyment, satisfaction, desire for further gratification, and amount consumed. They also reported on their snacking later in the day.

Participants who ate while distracted reported lower enjoyment and satisfaction, which was associated with increased snacking afterward and a more general desire for further gratification.

The researchers believe that this proposed effect, which they called hedonic compensation, likely applies to activities beyond eating. For example, people who are distracted while watching a movie or playing a game may be more likely to engage in additional consumption, like checking social media, to compensate for a diminished enjoyment of the original activity.

The researchers also followed 220 participants aged 18 to 71 (again mostly female) for a week to investigate this broader effect beyond food. Participants filled out seven brief surveys per day via their smartphones regarding their hedonic consumption, distraction, and satisfaction. As with the food-based experiment, researchers found that when people were distracted during consumption, they were likely to enjoy a product less than they hoped, feel less satisfied, and experience an elevated need for further gratification.

“Overconsumption often results due to a lack of self-control,” said Dr. Murphy. “However, our findings suggest overconsumption may also often be driven by the simple human desire to reach a certain level of enjoyment from an activity. When distraction gets in the way, it’s likely we may try to compensate by consuming more.”

Dr. Murphy and his colleagues plan to conduct further research to replicate and confirm the existence of a hedonic compensation effect. If confirmed, they have plans to apply interventions that could help people pay more attention to their experiences in an effort to lower the likelihood of overconsumption. “By understanding the key drivers of hedonic overconsumption, we can develop strategies to help prevent its occurrence,” he said.

Fitness Flash: Climbing Stairs for Longevity

Fitness Flash

Climbing Stairs for Longevity

Choose stairs over elevators for your health

Cardiovascular disease is largely preventable through actions like exercise. However, more than one in four adults worldwide do not meet recommended levels of physical activity. Stair climbing is a practical and easily accessible form of physical activity that is often overlooked, according to research presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2024, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology.

To help determine whether climbing stairs, as a form of physical activity, could play a role in reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease and premature death, the study’s authors collected the best available evidence on the topic and conducted a meta-analysis. Studies were included regardless of the number of flights of stairs and the speed of climbing. There were nine studies with 480,479 participants in the final analysis—including both healthy participants and those with a previous history of heart attack or peripheral arterial disease. Ages ranged from 35 to 84 years old and 53% of participants were women.

Compared with not climbing stairs, stair climbing was associated with a 24% reduced risk of dying from any cause and a 39% lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease. Stair climbing was also linked with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.

“Based on these results, we would encourage people to incorporate stair climbing into their day-to-day lives…If you have the choice of taking the stairs or the lift, go for the stairs, as it will help your heart,” said study author Dr. Sophie Paddock of the University of East Anglia and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals National Health Service Foundation Trust in Norwich, UK. “Even brief bursts of physical activity have beneficial health impacts, and short bouts of stair climbing should be an achievable target to integrate into daily routines.”

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