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The Olive Oil Hunter News #72

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Nutty Oat Muffin Recipe, Spotlight on Oats (and Groats), plus the Body, Gut, and Brain Connection

This week’s news shows just how connected the body, gut, and brain are, with what we eat and how we move very much linked to our mental health. My nutty oat muffin recipe, so easy to make in less than 30 minutes, not only tastes great but can also help boost brain health as well as gut health, thanks to those oats. And we’re learning that movement goes beyond boosting physical health to also benefiting the brain—you can even pick types of exercise based on what mental benefits you seek. 

Nutty Oat Muffins

  • Nutty Oat Muffin Recipe Nutty Oat Muffins

    These muffins have a great crunch and are packed with whole grain goodness. 

    Ingredients

    • 1-1/2 cups white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour 
    • 3/4 cup rolled oats 
    • 2 ounces almonds or walnuts, roughly chopped 
    • 1 tablespoon baking powder
    • 1/4 cup brown sugar 
    • 1 tablespoon stevia
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
    • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
    • 1 cup blueberries, rinsed and patted dry
    • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 extra-large eggs
    • 1 cup milk, your choice of dairy or plant-based
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or paste

    Directions

    Step 1

    Preheat your oven to 400ºF if conventional, 380ºF if convection. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, nuts, baking powder, sugar, stevia, cinnamon, and salt. Add the berries and toss to coat (this will help them stay well distributed in the batter).

    Step 2

    In a separate bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the olive oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients over the flour mixture and use a spatula to fold them in just until no traces of flour remain.

    Step 3

    Use a large ice cream scoop to fill a 12-muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes or until the tip of a knife comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes and then transfer the muffins to a rack to finish cooling. Store in a covered tin for up to two days and then refrigerate.

    Yields 12 muffins

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Groats and Oats

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

From groats to oats

Oats are known as a good source of soluble fiber—the 5 grams per serving help lower cholesterol levels and heart disease risk. Oatmeal is just the beginning of what you can make from rolled oats. In the recipe above, they meld beautifully into the finished muffins. But when a hot bowl of oatmeal is on the breakfast menu, you might be wondering whether you should start with popular steel-cut oats instead. Both come from oat groats, the oat grain with the hull removed (the bran and germ are intact, so oats are still considered a whole grain). What happens to the groats next explains the difference between rolled and steel-cut oats.

Rolled oats are oat groats that have been steamed and then passed through roller mills. The thicker the rolled oats, the more nutrients they pack. 

Steel-cut oats are groats that have only been chopped into two or three pieces, no steaming or rolling. They need to be cooked much longer than rolled oats and are better in breakfast bowls than baked goods—they simply won’t soften enough. Because they need more water to cook than rolled oats, you end up with a bigger portion by volume. Finally, they’re digested more slowly than rolled oats; you feel full longer and have less of a spike in blood sugar—important if you’re managing a health condition like diabetes or prediabetes. 

Healthy Kitchen Nugget: A better vanilla?

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

A better vanilla?

If you’re looking for intense vanilla flavor but don’t want to go to the expense of buying vanilla beans, consider using vanilla paste in place of extract. You can use it teaspoon-for-teaspoon in recipes for a deeper flavor, plus it has vanilla bean seeds for that characteristic speckled look, and because it’s thicker, it adds less liquid to batters. Though you often see the suggestion to use vanilla bean paste in desserts where the vanilla is the star, such as ice cream, custard, and crème brûlée, I find it perks up the flavor of any recipe that calls for extract. 

For Your Best Health: Fiber: The new brain food

For Your Best Health

Fiber: The new brain food

You already know that fiber is a must for digestive health and that we often don’t get enough. Need more motivation to up your intake? Researchers in Japan found that fiber may help brain health. Their study, just published in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience, looked at the diet and health records of 3,500 participants from the 1980s to 2020. They found a link between a high-fiber diet and a reduced risk of dementia. 

There are two main types of fiber. Insoluble fibers, found mostly in whole grains and vegetables, are important for bowel health. Soluble fibers, found in foods like oats and legumes, are important for the beneficial bacteria that live in the gut, among other health benefits. When the researchers looked at the link between fiber intake and dementia, they found that soluble fiber had a more pronounced effect.

“The mechanisms are currently unknown but might involve the interactions that take place between the gut and the brain,” says lead author of the study, Kazumasa Yamagishi, MD, professor at the University of Tsukuba. “One possibility is that soluble fiber regulates the composition of gut bacteria. This composition may affect neuroinflammation, which plays a role in the onset of dementia. It’s also possible that dietary fiber may reduce other risk factors for dementia, such as body weight, blood pressure, lipids, and glucose levels. The work is still at an early stage, and it’s important to confirm the association in other populations.”

While we wait, there’s no reason not to stock up on those oats!

Fitness Flash: Movement for the brain

Fitness Flash

Movement for the brain

More amazing boosts to brain health come from exercise. A fascinating article posted by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, explores the new book Move!: The New Science of Body Over Mind (Hanover Square Press) by Caroline Williams, who points out that the connection between exercise and the brain goes deeper than the release of feel-good endorphins known as a runner’s high. 

She describes how movement or the lack of it can send signals we may not even be aware of to the brain. As the article explains it: “If our body is communicating to our brain that we are sedentary or weak, that might create underlying feelings of depression or anxiety, insecurity or uncertainty. On the flip side, moving and building strength could create positive changes in our bodily systems that, when passed along to the brain, give us a subtle sense of happiness, confidence, and positivity.” 

Based on interviews with researchers and practitioners around the world, Williams details the many ways that working your body can influence and improve your brain for the better. It’s full of suggestions for different ways of moving that have different brain health benefits. So, while any exercise is helpful for the body physically, you can also make choices tailored to your best mental health, like taking a group fitness class to feel more connected socially or dancing to your favorite music to escape anxiety while getting lost in its rhythms.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #71

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Chimichurri Aioli Recipe and the Gut Health Benefits of Olive Oil

There’s been a lot of research in recent years showing the relationship of gut health with overall health. The gut is thought to be as powerful a system as the brain—it’s sometimes called the second brain! Based on the level of diversity in its bacteria (called the gut microbiota), your gut can make you more or less susceptible to conditions like diabetes and heart disease. So, I was super excited to read about the ways in which extra virgin olive oil can enhance gut microbiota diversity. 

Fitness Flash: Gut Health and Olive Oil

The Gut Health Benefits of Olive Oil

Research Review: “Extra-virgin olive oil and the gut-brain axis: influence on gut microbiota, mucosal immunity, and cardiometabolic and cognitive health,” Nutrition Reviews, December 2021.

What We Know: Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is considered a functional food because it supports many aspects of health. It has a wide variety of healthful components, including monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs, and bioactive phenolic compounds that, as the review reminds us, “individually and collectively, exert beneficial effects on cardiometabolic markers of health and act as neuroprotective agents through their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities.” Simply put, those compounds boost heart, brain, and metabolic health in numerous ways.

The Benefits of Olive Oil in a Nutshell: Extra virgin olive oil boosts gut microbiota diversity, enhancing health while lowering inflammation, oxidative stress, insulin resistance, blood fats, blood sugar, and blood pressure.

The review goes on to state that “the gut microbiota and health of the intestinal environment are now considered important factors in the development of obesity, metabolic disease, and even certain neurodegenerative conditions via the gut-brain axis. Recently, data are emerging which demonstrate that the health-promoting benefits of EVOO may also extend to the gut microbiota.” 

For their review, the authors analyzed many recent studies on EVOO and the gut and found that EVOO reduces the abundance of bad bacteria, stimulates the growth of good bacteria, and increases the production of short-chain fatty acids, or SCFAs, which have a wide range of anti-inflammatory effects.

They also found that EVOO plays a role in the health of the intestinal mucosa, the mucous layer lining the digestive system (it’s actually part of the body’s immune system and acts as a protective barrier to invaders). The health of the intestinal mucosa seems to influence the body’s overall level of inflammation, and inflammation is at the root of many heart, metabolic, and brain diseases. As the review authors point out, “Western-style diets, low in dietary fiber and high in high pro-inflammatory fats, are associated with gut dysbiosis, increased gut permeability, systemic inflammation, and a variety of chronic diseases. Conversely, healthier dietary patterns like the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in dietary fiber, beneficial fatty acids, and polyphenolic compounds, are associated with greater gut microbial diversity, increased abundance of beneficial bacteria, and reduced levels of inflammation and risk of chronic diseases.” 

Among the many studies cited in the review is one on the effects of a Mediterranean diet on the gut microbiota of 612 elderly European participants. The study found that sticking to the diet for over 12 months led to “an increased abundance in several bacteria associated with improved cognition and was inversely associated with pro-inflammatory markers.” In general, people who get EVOO in their diet tend to have high numbers of many types of good bacteria—numbers that tend to be lower in people who eat a typical Western diet. 

The researchers also compared the results of many large-scale studies to find the optimal amount of olive oil to have every day for different health benefits. Here’s what they found: “At least 4 tablespoons per day is associated with a 30% lower risk of occurrence of cardiovascular events and improved cognitive function compared with a low-fat diet. In addition to using EVOO in [place] of saturated fats, the European Food Safety Authority also suggests a minimum daily intake of 20 g [about 1.5 tablespoons] of EVOO to assist in obtaining optimal cholesterol levels and protection of LDL [low-density lipoproteins] from oxidative damage. Although evidence in relation to the optimal amount of EVOO required to modulate the gut microbiota is still in its infancy, beneficial effects on the microbiota have been observed in two intervention studies at doses of 40 and 50 g/day (about 3 and 4 tablespoons, respectively).” 

Chimichurri Aioli

  • Chimichurri Aioli Chimichurri Aioli

    This olive-oil based recipe turns chimichurri into an aioli, a highly flavored, garlicky mayonnaise. It’s great as a veggie dip, a condiment, and even a dressing for cold pasta salad.

    Ingredients

    • 1/4 cup best quality prepared mayonnaise
    • 1 clove garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
    • 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
    • 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
    • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, such as Vinaigre de Banyuls, plus more to taste 
    • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 
    • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 
    • 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt, or more to taste
    • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 

    Directions

    Step 1

    Combine everything except the olive oil in the bowl of a food processor and process until the garlic and herbs are finely chopped. 

    Step 2

    With the motor running, slowly drizzle the oil through the feed tube until the mixture is smooth. 

    Step 3

    Taste, adding more vinegar or salt as needed. If the mixture is too thick, add a few drops of water and process for a few seconds. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. 

    Yields about a 1/2 cup 

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #70

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Cheddar Chile Cornbread Recipe, Spotlight on Cornmeal, The Color of Cheddar, Olive Oil in Early Pregnancy, and The Hidden Dangers of Uric Acid

Recipes don’t have to be complicated to be delicious, and this whole-grain cornbread, enhanced with olive oil, cheese, and peppers, is the perfect example—you’ll never use a boxed mix again! I’m including everything you need to know about the key ingredients that make this recipe special. You’ll also find results from the latest study on eating healthy during pregnancy—more proof of the universal benefits of a Mediterranean diet. Plus, details on the intriguing new book from my friend, Dr. David Perlmutter, all about an under-appreciated threat to metabolic health.

Cheddar Chile Cornbread

  • Cheddar Chile Cornbread Cheddar Chile Cornbread

    This zesty take on cornbread makes a great accompaniment to so many meals—an egg-based breakfast, a lunch of hearty chili, or a gumbo dinner. Reheat any leftovers and top with red pepper jelly for a great snack. Along with the peppers, the cornmeal and white whole-wheat flour bring a little of the always-needed fiber.

    Ingredients

    • 1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for the pan
    • 2 eggs
    • 1-1/4 cups milk
    • 1/2 cup sugar 
    • 1-1/2 cups 100% whole-grain, stone-ground cornmeal
    • 1-1/2 cups white whole-wheat flour
    • 1 tablespoon baking powder
    • 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper powder 
    • 2–3 chile peppers, such as serranos or jalapeños, seeded and finely chopped
    • 1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
    • 3 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated

    Directions

    Step 1

    Preheat your oven to 400°F. Lightly coat a 9″ round cake pan with olive oil.

    Step 2

    In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, eggs, milk, and sugar. In a large bowl, whisk the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and cayenne to blend. Add the peppers and cheese, toss to coat, and then add the liquid mixture. Fold gently until combined and pour into the pan.

    Step 3

    Bake until a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool for 5–10 minutes before turning out onto a plate. Serve warm.

    Yields 8 generous wedges

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Cornmeal

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Cornmeal: fine, coarse, or medium?

Cornmeal is the basis for many delicious foods, from cornbread to polenta. You can find it (often from online merchants like Vitacost) in various grinds—fine, medium, and coarse. Many chefs prefer the most flavorful coarse cornmeal for very slowly cooked polenta and the somewhat less flavorful fine cornmeal for baked goods with a finer crumb. For cornbread, medium grind is best for getting a toothsome finish (you can give the cornmeal a few pulses in a food processor to make it finer when using it in other recipes). Equally important is choosing 100% stone-ground cornmeal to get the benefits of the whole grain, including fiber. If you don’t use it up quickly, store it in the fridge or freezer to keep the natural oils from going rancid. Avoid degerminated cornmeal, which is processed and has far less nutritional value. Though cornmeal comes in white, yellow, and blue, there isn’t a very noticeable difference in taste between them, so color is more a personal preference. 

Healthy Kitchen Nugget: The color of cheddar

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

The color of cheddar

Speaking of taste, there’s little to no difference between white and yellow/orange cheddar varieties. But unlike cornmeal’s hues, which are determined by the type of corn milled, yellow/orange cheddar is the result of the addition of a vegetable food coloring called annatto that comes from the fruit of the achiote tree. The only reason it’s added at some dairies is because we’re used to seeing cheddar this color. As with many other foods, the trend now is for a more natural approach—in this case that’s white cheddar.

What does make a taste difference between cheddars? Aging. Like with other cheeses, as cheddar ages, its taste becomes more pronounced or full-bodied. A mild cheddar is a few months old, while the sharpest has aged for two years or more. I like sharp cheddar in general, and it’s especially good for baking because its flavor isn’t lost in the cooking process. Tip: It’s easier to grate cheese as soon as you take it out of the fridge—the warmer it gets, the mushier the shreds.

For Your Best Health: Olive oil and other unsaturated fats in early pregnancy

For Your Best Health

Olive oil and other unsaturated fats in early pregnancy

A mother and child study, done at the University of Turku and Turku University Hospital in Finland and published in the European Journal of Nutrition, found that eating a healthy diet in early pregnancy lowers the risk of gestational diabetes, which has been linked to being overweight. Both a poor-quality diet and a diet high in foods that increase inflammation in the body, notably those high in saturated fat, heighten the risk.

“Eating vegetables, fruit, berries, and wholegrain products as well as unsaturated fats is particularly important. These nutrients and foods reduce inflammation in the body and therefore also the risk of gestational diabetes. Mothers who are overweight or obese…before the pregnancy would most likely benefit from dietary guidance in early pregnancy,” says Kirsi Laitinen, PhD, associate professor in nutrition at the University of Turku.

Fitness Flash: Hidden dangers of uric acid

Fitness Flash

The hidden dangers of uric acid

I’m very excited to share news about the publication of Drop Acid: The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid—The Key to Losing Weight, Controlling Blood Sugar, and Achieving Extraordinary Health by David Perlmutter, MD, board-certified neurologist and five-time New York Times bestselling author who serves on the Board of Directors and is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition.

As he explains it, obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, neurological disorders, and premature death can all be stoked by high uric acid levels—something you may not even realize is circulating in your system unless you’ve ever experienced gout. 

“Researchers around the globe over the past decade have revealed that uric acid is actually playing a central role in metabolic disorders. From weight gain to elevated blood sugar, it’s uric acid that is orchestrating this metabolic mayhem. And this is a simple blood test that most Americans have likely already had. It’s part of your annual blood work,” Dr. Perlmutter writes. “Uric acid is derived from only three sources: Alcohol, purines (the breakdown product of the DNA and RNA in our foods) and, most importantly, fructose. We’ve known for decades that fructose is the gateway for metabolic problems, but we never understood how. Now, we’ve learned about the uric acid connection.”  

In the book, Dr. Perlmutter not only explores this new science, but also shares his simple “LUV” (Lower Uric Values) diet and a 21-day program for lowering uric acid and favorably impacting your metabolism. It’s available at Amazon. 

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #40

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Bacon Recipe, Spotlight on Strawberries, How to Properly Store Berries, Eating Whole Fruits and Counting Your Steps for Your Best Health

Salads were made for hot summer days when you want to keep cooking to a minimum. And there’s no better way to enhance your favorite greens with another hallmark of the season—fresh berries. The mix of sweet and savory is a true palate pleaser and really elevates the experience.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Bacon

  • The Olive Oil Hunter News #40 Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Bacon

    My wife, Meghan, and I enjoyed this simple salad on the first day of our first Chilean olive oil expedition, and we recreated it as soon as we returned home. For an equally delicious variation, substitute blueberries and chopped walnuts for the strawberries and almonds.

    Ingredients

    • 6 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
    • 10 ounces fresh spinach, sliced into thin strips
    • 1 quart ripe strawberries, hulled and sliced
    • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
    • Juice of one lemon
    • 1 teaspoon honey or more to taste
    • Coarse kosher or sea salt to taste
    • Freshly ground black pepper to taste
    • 1/4 cup sliced almonds

    Directions

    Step 1

    Place the bacon in a cold skillet and bring the heat to medium. Cook the bacon until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels and set aside. Arrange the spinach and strawberries in a large serving bowl.

    Step 2

    Make the dressing: Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Whisk to mix. Taste and add more honey or salt or pepper as needed. Just before serving, drizzle the dressing over the salad, tossing gently to mix. Top with the reserved bacon and the almonds.

    Yields 4 servings.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Savoring Strawberries

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Savoring Strawberries

I’m such a big fan of berries. Not only are they delicious, but the icing on the cake is that these fruits are nutrient powerhouses. Blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries seem to get all the attention for their phytonutrients—plant-based compounds that are essential for good health. But strawberries, too, have their fair share of anthocyanins, which give all berries their vivid colors. Strawberries also have fiber and vitamin C, one of their many antioxidants—a cup of berries has more C than an orange. Antioxidants help fight cell damage throughout the body. Choose strawberries with a uniform bright red color, a good indicator of their antioxidant content.

Healthy Kitchen Tip: Smart Storing for Berries

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Smart Storing

Whether you grow your own or get your berries at a farmer’s market, don’t wash them in advance. It’s very hard to dry them thoroughly enough to prevent excess moisture from encouraging mold or rot, even in the fridge. The University of Maine Extension suggests “dry cleaning” them by shaking, rubbing, or brushing off any garden dirt with either a clean, soft brush or a clean dry paper towel (do this while still outside if you’re harvesting your own). Discard any crushed or spoiled berries. Then place them, with their green tops still on, in a plastic bag or container to prevent contamination of other foods in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to eat, gently rinse them under cool running water.

If you have such a bounty that you want to freeze some, then do wash them carefully in cold water and pat dry as thoroughly as possible without bruising them. Hull them (a grapefruit knife makes fast work of removing the stems) and freeze on a baking sheet—this prevents them from freezing in a clump. As soon as they’re frozen, transfer to a freezer-safe container or bag.

For Your Best Health: Eating Whole Fruits for Health

For Your Best Health

Whole Fruits

Diabetes is a growing global concern, with around half a billion people affected. It happens when your pancreas, which produces insulin in response to high levels of sugar in your blood, can’t produce enough to bring those levels down. We know a healthy lifestyle helps lower diabetes risk, and that includes following a smart diet. Research published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism offers a great step to take in that direction. “We found people who consumed around two servings of fruit per day had a 36 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the next five years than those who consumed less than half a serving of fruit per day,” said study author Nicola Bondonno, PhD, of the Edith Cowan University Institute for Nutrition Research in Perth, Australia. “We did not see the same patterns for fruit juice.”

The researchers noted a link between eating whole fruit and markers of insulin sensitivity—study participants who ate more fruit had to produce less insulin to lower blood glucose levels. “This is important because high levels of circulating insulin can damage blood vessels and are related not only to diabetes, but also to high blood pressure, obesity, and heart disease,” explained Dr. Bondonno.

Fitness Flash: Every Step Counts

Fitness Flash

Every Step Counts

For optimum health, getting 10,000 steps a day has been the holy grail, but new research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference 2021 found that taking just 4,500 daily steps may help you live longer, whether you reach that goal through a concentrated effort or from small increments throughout the day.

Participants involved in the nine-year study wore a step-counting device so that the researchers could compare the effects of uninterrupted bouts of steps, such as walking for 10 minutes or longer, to occasional short spurts, such as climbing stairs and general activities like housework or just walking to or from a car.

“Technological advances made in recent decades have allowed researchers to measure short spurts of activity. Whereas, in the past we were limited to only measuring activities people could recall on a questionnaire,” said lead study author Christopher C. Moore, MS, a PhD student in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “With the help of wearable devices, more research is indicating that any type of movement is better than remaining sedentary.”

Of course, the effects of movement/exercise are cumulative. It’s important to note that there are further benefits gained from getting in 2,000 steps in uninterrupted increments, including for heart health as well as for longevity.

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