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The Olive Oil Hunter News #158

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Ribollita Tuscan Peasant Soup Recipe, Spotlight on Tuscan Kale, Soaking Beans, A Surprising Benefit of Flaxseed and Alternating Cardio with Resistance Exercise is Heart-Healthy

Tuscany is the land of legumes, notably beans, and Tuscans have a centuries-old tradition of cooking simple bean-based soups that make the most of whatever ingredients are on hand. Ribollita is a perfect example. Meaning “reboiled,” it’s a soup that can be reheated and even enhanced by adding in leftovers as your week moves along. Speaking of moving along, there’s interesting research on the role of resistance exercise in heart health. And another study I’m sharing provides food for thought: Flaxseed could play a role in reducing breast cancer risk.

Ribollita

  • Ribollita Ribollita

    While you can make Ribollita your own by adding in other vegetables, three ingredients define this soup: cannellini beans, hearty (and stale) Tuscan bread, and Tuscan kale. If you’ve been saving your Parmigiano-Reggiano rinds, now is the perfect time to use two of them!

    Ingredients

    • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 
    • 2 medium onions, diced 
    • 4 large carrots, diced
    • 3 celery stalks, diced
    • 6 garlic cloves, chopped
    • 1 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
    • 1 large bunch Tuscan kale
    • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
    • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, more to taste
    • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
    • 2 bay leaves
    • 1/4 cup fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
    • 6 cups vegetable stock or water 
    • One 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
    • 2 pieces of Parmigiano-Reggiano rind, if available
    • 3 cups cooked cannellini beans, homemade or two 15-ounce cans, rinsed and drained  
    • 2 or more cups of hand-torn stale Tuscan bread
    • 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

    Directions

    Step 1

    Heat a Dutch oven or stockpot, and when hot, add the olive oil, onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook over medium-low heat to soften but not brown the vegetables. Sprinkle on the salt to help them release their liquid. Add the kale and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes. Add the black and red pepper and the herbs; stir and then add the water or stock, the canned tomatoes with all their liquid, and the cheese rinds if available. Bring to a simmer and add the beans. Simmer for 30 minutes, and then add the bread. Cook for another 10 minutes to break down the bread a bit.

    Step 2

    To serve, ladle into bowls, drizzle on a generous amount of olive oil, and finish with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

    Serves 10

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Kale

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

All Hail (Tuscan) Kale

If you’re not a huge kale fan, it could be that you’ve never tasted Tuscan kale. Also known as lacinato kale, black kale (cavolo nero), and even dinosaur kale, deeply colored Tuscan kale is not as bitter as curly kale, the more common option. So you get all the benefits of dark leafy greens that you don’t have to massage to make tender. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Soaking Beans

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Soaking Beans

It’s hard to beat the convenience of canned beans, but there are many more varieties to choose from when you use dried beans. Even the same variety that’s available canned will be more flavorful when made from scratch. One pound of dried beans will yield about 7 cups when soaked and cooked.

There’s very little active time needed—place your beans in a bowl that can hold at least three times their volume, cover them with cold water, and come back 4 hours later (or overnight). 

You can shorten the soaking time with a quick hack: Rinse the beans and place them in a large pot. Add enough cold water to cover them by 2-3 inches and bring the water to a boil. Cook for 5 minutes, then take the pot off the heat and let it sit for an hour. 

For Ribollita, the beans must be fully cooked before adding to the soup because of its limited cooking time. To do this, rinse your soaked beans, return them to your pot, cover them again with cold water, and bring them to a boil. Simmer for about 2 hours or until the beans are tender but not overly soft and they’re ready to add.

For Your Best Health: A Surprising Benefit of Flaxseed

For Your Best Health

A Surprising Benefit of Flaxseed

A new animal study demonstrated how the gut microbiome could be a factor in breast health. In the study, flaxseed components called lignans were shown to influence the relationship between gut microorganisms and the expression of mammary gland microRNAs or miRNAs (short, noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression). A subset of these miRNAs regulates the genes involved in breast cancer, including genes that control cell proliferation and migration. 

“The gastrointestinal microbiota plays an important role in modifying many components of our diet to impact human health,” said Jennifer Auchtung, PhD, assistant professor in the Food Science and Technology Department at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and the editor who coordinated the review of the paper. “In this study, we found correlations between diets enriched in flaxseed, cecal microbiota composition, and miRNA profiles in the mammary gland that regulate many pathways, including those involved in cancer development. This preliminary study supports further research into the role that the microbiota plays in dietary approaches to reduce risk factors associated with disease.”

For this study, the researchers studied the effects of flaxseed lignans on the microbiota of young female mice. Lignans, fiber-associated compounds found in many foods and particularly plentiful in flaxseed, are associated with reduced breast cancer mortality in postmenopausal women. The researchers found that lignan components generate specific miRNA responses in the mammary gland. 

To determine whether the relationship between the microbiota and mammary gland miRNAs could be manipulated to reduce the risk of breast cancer, the researchers fed flaxseed lignan components to female mice to see whether gut cecal microbiota profiles are related to miRNA expression in the mammary gland. The cecum, the first part of the colon, located in the right lower abdomen near the appendix, is believed to have a role in production of short-chain fatty acids and has been proposed to serve as a reservoir of anaerobic bacteria.

One flaxseed oil lignan requires microbial processing to release bioactive metabolites, small-molecule chemicals produced during metabolism that influence physiology and disease—in this case, having antitumor effects. The researchers found that the microbiota and mammary gland miRNA are related and that flaxseed lignans modify the relationship to be non-cancer-causing.

“If these findings are confirmed, the microbiota becomes a new target to prevent breast cancer through dietary intervention,” said Elena M. Comelli, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, the corresponding author on the paper. The study was published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Fitness Flash

Alternating Cardio with Resistance Exercise is Heart-Healthy

A robust body of evidence shows aerobic exercise can reduce heart disease risks, especially for people who are overweight or obese. But few studies have compared results with resistance exercise, also known as strength or weight training, or with workout regimens that are half aerobic and half resistance. Researchers at Iowa State University led one of the longest and largest supervised exercise trials to help fill this gap.

Their results, published in European Heart Journal, indicate that splitting the recommended amount of physical activity between aerobic and resistance exercise reduces cardiovascular disease risks as much as aerobic-only regimens. However, resistance exercise on its own for the same amount of time did not provide the same heart health benefits.

“If you’re bored with aerobic exercise and want variety or you have joint pain that makes running long distances difficult, our study shows you can replace half of your aerobic workout with strength training to get the same cardiovascular benefits. The combined workout also offers some other unique health benefits, like improving your muscles,” said Duck-chul Lee, PhD, lead author and professor of kinesiology at Iowa State. That’s a huge plus because we tend to lose muscle mass, and consequently mobility and independence, as we age. 

“One of the most common reasons why people don’t exercise is because they have limited time. The combined exercise with both cardio and strength training we’re suggesting is not more time-consuming,” Dr. Lee underscored. Performing a certain number of sets and repetitions with weight machines, free weights, elastic bands, or your own body weight through push-ups or lunges, all count as resistance exercise.

How the study was done: 406 participants between 35 and 70 years of age enrolled in the one-year randomized controlled exercise trial. All met the threshold for being overweight or obese with body mass indexes between 25 and 40 kg/m2 and had elevated blood pressure. The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of four groups: no exercise, aerobic only, resistance only, or aerobic plus resistance. Those who were in one of the three exercise groups worked out under supervision for one hour three times a week for one year.

Every participant in the exercise groups received a tailored workout routine based on their individual fitness levels, health conditions, and progression. Those assigned to resistance training were given a certain number of sets, repetitions, and weights for weight-lifting machines. With aerobic exercises, participants wore a heart rate monitor and inserted a unique exercise program key into a treadmill or stationary bike. Sensing the participant’s heart rate, the machine automatically adjusted the speed and grade to match the prescribed intensity.

All participants wore pedometers to measure daily steps and met every three months with registered dietitians at Iowa State for “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension” education, which is promoted by the National Institutes of Health. On three random days per month, participants were asked to record what they had consumed in the last 24 hours with an online dietary assessment tool developed by the US National Cancer Institute.

At the start of the yearlong clinical trial, six months in, and at the end, the researchers measured each participant’s systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting glucose, and body fat percentage, all well-established cardiovascular disease risk factors. “Many previous studies only looked at one of these four factors, but it’s really multiple factors combined that increase cardiovascular disease risk,” explained Dr. Lee. The researchers used a composite score to fairly quantify changes across all four factors since each uses a different unit of measurement. A lower composite score indicated less risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

At the end of the yearlong trial, the percentage of body fat in all three exercise groups had decreased significantly compared to the no-exercise control group. The authors found that “every -1% body fat reduction is associated with -3%, -4%, and -8% lower risks of developing [cardiovascular disease] risk factors of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and metabolic syndrome.” Taking all four cardiovascular disease risk factors into account, the aerobic and combined exercise groups had lower composite scores than the control group, with results consistent across gender and age.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #155

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

“Spiked” Apples Recipe, Spotlight on Apples, The Paring Knife, Cutting Calories May Boost Longevity, and Do You Have Aging Anxiety? Another Reason to Exercise!

If you’re like me, you love recipes that can be adapted to many dishes—and that’s why spiked apples are part of my winter repertoire. You’ll be tempted to eat them right out of the pan, but you should definitely explore the ways they can enhance other dishes. I’m also sharing two new discoveries—why just a small cut in daily calories can add years to your life and what you can do to quell anxiety over aging.

“Spiked” Apples

  • Spiked Apples “Spiked” Apples

    Calvados, the apple brandy from France’s Normandy region, adds great depth of flavor to apple dishes. Since most of the alcohol burns off, my spiked apples make a great addition to your morning oats or yogurt as well as a delicious filling for a tart or crêpes or the topping for a scoop of ice cream—vanilla and olive oil ice cream, of course! They’re equally delicious served alongside pork chops or a pork roast.

    Ingredients

    • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, cored and sliced into 12 wedges
    • 2 sweet apples, such as Fuji or Honeycrisp, cored and sliced into 12 wedges
    • 1/4 cup calvados
    • 1/4 cup brown sugar or your choice of sweetener
    • Cinnamon to taste
    • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

    Directions

    Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. When very warm, add the olive oil and the apples, arranging the fruit in one layer (do this in batches if your pan can’t hold them all at once). Let the apples cook until the edges brown slightly, then flip them and brown again. Add the calvados to deglaze the pan. After one minute, sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon and toss. The sugar should melt, but don’t let it burn. Add the butter and swirl until it melts, then remove from heat. 

    Yields 4-6 servings

Apples

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Apples Galore

Baked apples with granola and homemade olive oil ice cream

There’s merit to the old adage that an apple a day keeps the doctor away—high in fiber and nutrients, apples are a great way to get you closer to the recommended daily five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables needed for good health. With over 2,000 varieties of apples now available and more being developed at leading agricultural universities, it would take years to try them all! Here are some of the most widely available varieties and how best to enjoy them.

  • Empire: a sweet-tart cross between Red Delicious and McIntosh, ideal for eating raw or baking

  • Fuji: crispy, sweet, and juicy, ideal for all uses

  • Gala: crisp, juicy, and very sweet, ideal for eating raw

  • Golden Delicious: mild, sweet flavor, ideal for eating raw or baking

  • Granny Smith: tart and crisp, ideal for salads or cooking

  • Honeycrisp: sweet and crispy, ideal for eating raw or making applesauce

  • Jonagold: a sweet-tart mix developed from Golden Delicious and Jonathan apples, ideal for baking

  • Macoun: very sweet, juicy, and aromatic, ideal for eating raw or making applesauce

  • McIntosh: tangy and tart, ideal for eating raw or making applesauce

  • Pink Lady: a highly flavorful cross of Golden Delicious and Lady Williams apples, ideal for all uses

  • Red Delicious: sweet, crispy, and juicy, ideal for eating raw

Quick Kitchen Nugget: The Paring Knife

Quick Kitchen Nugget

The Paring Knife

Apples with a paring knife

With all the stunning types of chef’s knives available, the chef’s knife’s sidekick, the paring knife, is often an afterthought in the kitchen. But it’s a very handy knife to have for precision work and when cutting smaller and soft foods, from a garlic clove up to an apple. (You’ll need to stick to your chef’s knife for hard foods like squash, potatoes, carrots, and melons.) A paring knife blade is typically between 3 and 4 inches long, and though the handle is smaller than that of other knives, you should still test it before you buy to make sure it feels comfortable in your hand.  

For Your Best Health: Cutting Calories May Boost Longevity

For Your Best Health

Cutting Calories May Boost Longevity

Calorie restriction—decreasing daily calories—without depriving yourself of essential vitamins and minerals and other key nutrients has long been known to delay the progression of age-related diseases in animal studies. New research, published in the journal Aging Cell, suggests it may do the same for people. 

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and colleagues analyzed data from the Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE), a study supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). For CALERIE participants, the goal was to reduce daily calories by 25%. However, over a two-year span, the best they were able to achieve was a 12% reduction. But it turns out that this was enough to rejuvenate muscle and activate key biological pathways that are important in healthy aging.

“A 12% reduction in calorie intake is very modest,” said corresponding author and NIA Scientific Director Luigi Ferrucci, MD, PhD. “This kind of small reduction in calorie intake is doable and may make a big difference in your health.”

The research team also sought to explain a finding of past studies: People practicing calorie restriction lost muscle mass (along with losing weight in general), but they did not lose all-important muscle strength. To understand this phenomenon, they looked at thigh muscle biopsies from CALERIE participants collected when people joined the study and at one-year and two-year follow-ups. They discovered that during calorie restriction certain genes were upregulated, meaning the cells made more mRNA, and others were downregulated, meaning the cells produced less mRNA. Specifically, a lower caloric intake upregulated genes responsible for energy generation and metabolism and downregulated inflammatory genes, leading to lower inflammation.

“Since inflammation and aging are strongly coupled, calorie restriction represents a powerful approach to preventing the pro-inflammatory state that is developed by many older people,” said Dr. Ferrucci.

Fitness Flash Icon: Do You Have Aging Anxiety? Another Reason to Exercise!

Fitness Flash

Do You Have Aging Anxiety? Another Reason to Exercise!

According to Sarah Francis, PhD, Iowa State University professor and Jane Armstrong Endowed Chair of Food Science and Human Nutrition, many people experience aging anxiety—fears and concerns about losing autonomy and relationships as well as physical and psychological changes and discomfort or lack of enjoyment being around older people. “Previous research has shown that if you have high anxiety about aging, you have poor health outcomes. But if you view it more positively as a life stage, you have better health outcomes. You’re more likely to make lifestyle changes that benefit you in the long run,” said Dr. Francis.

Since 2010, she has been part of a USDA multistate project bringing together experts in physical activity, clinical nutrition, and community health programming to support healthy aging. Part of their research has focused on identifying factors that influence physical activity, such as aging anxiety. One explanation for the negative link between aging anxiety and poor health is that anxiety can get in the way of being physically active, and not being active is often at the root of many health problems. 

To better understand how aging anxiety relates not only to physical activity but also to other factors like gender, marital status, and income, Dr. Francis and the team designed a 142-question online survey and recruited a cross-section of urban, suburban, and rural participants including people as young as 40 to understand how different aspects of aging anxiety shift with age. In total, 1,250 people from Washington, DC, and six states (Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and West Virginia) responded to the survey. 

“One of the most important findings is that higher positivity about physical activity relates to lower anxiety about aging,” said Dr. Francis. “Perhaps this is because the physical, mental, and social benefits of staying active contribute to overall well-being and a more favorable perception of the aging process, ultimately reducing anxiety related to growing older.”

It’s also well known that exercise, especially strength training, helps conserve bone mass and muscle, reduce the risk of dementia, and maintain motor control. But, Dr. Francis pointed out, many middle-aged and older adults face barriers to exercising, from being afraid they’ll get hurt to not having easy access to a gym or greenspaces for walking. For those who can’t overcome these barriers, the team’s next project is developing and testing a virtual program that would include at-home physical activities and an educational component to encourage eating healthy.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #154

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Bountiful Breakfast Quesadillas Recipe, Spotlight on Whole-Grains, The Cake Lifter, and The Mental and Physical Effects of Poor Sleep

Eat more whole grains—it’s at the top of most of our New Year’s health resolutions, yet it’s often so difficult to do. First, there’s the common misconception that whole grains aren’t as tasty as refined ones. Then there’s the problem of confusing package labels that don’t accurately describe what’s inside. This edition of The Olive Oil Hunter Newsletter homes in on the problem with easy fixes, starting with a delicious quesadilla—a great way to start your day! 

Bountiful Breakfast Quesadillas

  • Bountiful Breakfast Quesadillas Bountiful Breakfast Quesadillas

    This take on a quesadilla makes a festive presentation for brunch, and you can customize it with ingredients you love best.

    Ingredients

    • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 onion, finely diced 
    • 1 bell pepper, any color, seeded and finely diced 
    • 1 chile pepper, such as a poblano or a jalapeño, seeded and finely diced 
    • 6 eggs
    • 4 corn or whole-wheat tortillas 
    • 1-1/2 cups grated Manchego, Monterey Jack, or cheddar cheese, or a combination 
    • 1 cup black beans
    • 1 avocado, cut into thin slices
    • Your favorite salsa

    Directions

    Step 1

    Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add two tablespoons of olive oil, the onions, and peppers. Sauté until the onions soften and turn a light brown. Whisk the eggs and add them to the pan; cook to a soft scramble.

    Step 2

    Heat a griddle over medium heat. When hot, drizzle on the remaining olive oil. Place two of the tortillas side by side on the griddle and layer on the ingredients, in this order, divided between the two: half of the cheese, the scrambled eggs, beans, avocado slices, and then the rest of the cheese. Top with the remaining tortillas and press down gently with a large spatula or cake lifter (see Quick Kitchen Nugget in Newsletter #154). 

    Step 3

    When the bottoms of the tortillas brown and the bottom layer of cheese has melted, flip them and continue cooking until the other cheese layer has melted. Transfer the quesadillas back to your cutting board and cut them into quarters. Serve with salsa as desired.

    Yields 4 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Choosing Whole-Grain Tortillas 

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Choosing Whole-Grain Tortillas 

An easy way to get more whole grains and fiber is to use corn or whole-wheat tortillas in place of the traditional white flour kind. But it’s still important to read the list of ingredients to be sure you’re getting 100% of the grain (see For Your Best Health below for more) and choose brands with the least salt and additives. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget: The Cake Lifter

Quick Kitchen Nugget

The Cake Lifter

Picture a spatula the size of a 9-inch or 10-inch round or square cake layer—that’s a cake lifter. And it’s great not only for evenly stacking cake layers and transferring baked goods from pan to serving plate, but also for flipping tortillas and other foods cooked on a griddle. They’re available from well-known cookware companies like Wilton and Nordic Ware for under $20.

For Your Best Health: Are You Really Getting Whole Grains?

For Your Best Health

Are You Really Getting Whole Grains?

We know that whole grains are healthier than refined ones because they contain all parts of the grain, including all-important fiber. But according to research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, unclear or misleading labeling makes it difficult to really know what you’re getting in packaged foods. The researchers pointed out that some manufacturers use deceptive labeling tactics, like putting the words “whole grain” in the product name or listing the amount of whole grains present but not what percentage of total grains that represents. A product with a vague callout, like “made with whole grain,” may contain only minuscule amounts. And there’s no current government policy that requires a complete disclosure. 

What can you do to shop smarter? Look for products with the “100% Whole Grain Stamp” from the Whole Grains Council. This indicates that the food contains a full serving or more of whole grain in each labeled serving and that all the grain is whole grain. Whole-grain products not yet using this symbol may list the grams of whole grain somewhere on the package or use words like “100% whole wheat.” You can also look for the “50%+ Stamp” on products; it means that each serving of the food is at least half whole grain, with a minimum of 8 grams. There’s also the “Basic Stamp”—these products have at least 8 grams of whole grain per serving but overall may contain more refined grains than whole grains.

Fitness Flash Icon: The Mental and Physical Effects of Poor Sleep 

Fitness Flash

The Mental and Physical Effects of Poor Sleep 

Missing out on needed sleep often leaves us dragging through the next day. But it can also take a mental toll that we often fail to appreciate. That’s because a good night’s sleep prepares us for activity and helps us be more productive, while not getting enough sleep affects how well we do at tasks that require attention, memory, and executive functioning, including driving safely. Many people now rely on so-called readiness scores given by their fitness and sleep trackers to let them know how restorative (or not) their sleep was, but they were designed to predict physical performance and may not tell you how you’ll perform cognitively. 

A group of scientists decided to test how well cognitive function tracked with physical function. Professor Michael Chee, MBBS, Assistant Professor Stijn Massar, PhD, and Alyssa Ng, PhD student, of the Centre for Sleep and Cognition at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine of the National University of Singapore, asked 119 university students to report their mood, motivation, and sleepiness after waking and before going to bed daily for between two and six weeks. Sleep was measured with Oura rings and cross-referenced with smartphone app-based self-reports that also captured daytime naps and their duration. 

They found that after nights with longer sleep than a given participant’s average, that person experienced a better mood, higher motivation, and lower sleepiness, and that a good night of sleep following a poor one could be helpful for restoring social functioning. For those who regularly missed out on sleep, taking naps helped ease some of the ill effects. Their findings also reinforce the idea that sleep is highly personalized, with significant differences from person to person in the amount of sleep necessary to maintain mental well-being.

“People say they know all they need about their sleep within a few weeks of using a sleep tracker, but our work suggests there is real value in continuing to measure sleep to help you judge when to push it and when to hold back in work or social settings,” said Dr. Chee, who has been a significant contributor to research evaluating the utility of wearable sleep trackers.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #136

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette Recipe, Spotlight on Scallions, How to Boil Small Potatoes, Imperfect Calorie Counting and Exercising to Burn Fat

Summer may be winding down, but there’s still plenty of time to enjoy outdoor get-togethers with family and friends. Whether you’re hosting or want a great dish to bring for a BBQ, this potato salad, garnished with scallions, will delight. If you’re trying to lose weight—and who isn’t?—no food needs to be off limits, including potato salad! But there are certain tweaks you can make to your plan to improve results. Two new research studies provide details on calorie tracking and fat-burning exercises.

Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette

  • Potato Salad with Scallions Potato Salad with Sweet and Tart Vinaigrette

    This German-style (no mayo) potato salad gets a flavor boost from one of my favorite vinaigrettes, a melding of two vinegars—one more tart, one more sweet. I also love the mix of sautéed shallots and raw scallions or chives, all mild members of the genus allium. This side dish tastes best served warm or at room temperature. Double or triple the ingredients for a large crowd.

    Ingredients

    For the vinaigrette:

    • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
    • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar of Modena
    • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
    • 1 teaspoon honey
    • 1/8 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste
    • 1/2 small garlic clove, peeled and minced 
    • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 
    • Freshly ground black pepper to taste

    For the salad:

    • 2 pounds small red potatoes, unpeeled
    • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
    • 4 ounces best-quality bacon, cut into 1-inch sections
    • 4 shallots, thinly sliced
    • 1/2 cup fresh scallions or chives, sliced on the diagonal  
    • Coarse sea salt, to taste
    • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

    Directions

    Step 1

    Make the vinaigrette: In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the two vinegars, mustard, honey, salt, and garlic. Gradually whisk in the olive oil until the dressing is emulsified. Season to taste with black pepper and more salt, if desired. Set aside while you cook the potatoes.

    Step 2

    Boil the potatoes until the tip of a knife easily pierces one or two, about 10-15 minutes (see “Quick Kitchen Nugget” below). Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a colander to drain and cool slightly while you proceed.

    Step 3

    Heat a heavy skillet or frying pan. When hot, add the olive oil and sauté the bacon. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a dish lined with paper towels. Add the shallots to the hot pan and sauté until they are softened and lightly browned. 

    Step 4

    Cut the potatoes in half and place them in a large serving bowl. Dress with the vinaigrette. Top with the sautéed shallots and the fresh scallions or chives. Toss gently and season to taste with salt and pepper. Just before serving, sprinkle on the bacon bits.

    Yields 6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Burrata

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Scallions

Also called green onions in some parts of the country, scallions offer sweet onion flavor and two textures—the stronger white ends and the mild green tops or leaves. Use the entire scallion after trimming off the roots and snipping the tips (if needed). The ends should feel firm, not mushy, and the tops should be crisp and bright green, not wilted or dark.

A staple in many Asian cuisines, chopped scallions are also delicious when sprinkled on scrambled eggs and folded into cream cheese for a bagel topping. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Rinsing Lettuce

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Boiling Small Potatoes

Small or baby potatoes, whether red, white, or purple, don’t need to be halved or quartered before boiling. In fact, keeping them whole can prevent them from falling apart during the cooking process. Start by placing the whole, unpeeled potatoes in a pot large enough to hold them in a single layer and add enough cold water to cover them by about an inch. Bring the water to a boil, add a teaspoon of sea salt, and let them cook for between 12 and 15 minutes, until the tip of a sharp knife pierces two or three of them. Use a large slotted spoon to transfer them to a colander, then proceed with your recipe. For a quick side dish, smash them with the back of a spoon, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and top with grains of Maldon salt.

For Your Best Health: Imperfect calorie counting may be good enough

For Your Best Health

Imperfect Calorie Counting May Be Good Enough

Successful dieters often credit keeping a food journal or tracking calories as an important habit to have. But how well do these behaviors correlate to weight loss? That’s one of the questions answered in the study “How much food tracking during a digital weight‐management program is enough to produce clinically significant weight loss?” recently published in the journal Obesity.

Over the course of a six-month period, researchers from the University of Connecticut (UConn), the University of Florida, and the University of Pennsylvania tracked 153 weight-loss program participants who used a commercial digital weight-loss program to record their food intake (it was the new Personal Points program developed by WeightWatchers, intended to simplify record-keeping by designating a number of foods as zero-point items, meaning they did not have to be entered). 

UConn assistant professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences Ran Xu, PhD, and PhD student Richard Bannor analyzed the data to see whether there were patterns associated with weight-loss success from a data science perspective. Using a method called receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis, they uncovered how many days people need to track their food to reach clinically significant weight loss. 

“It turns out, you don’t need to track 100% each day to be successful,” says Dr. Xu. “Specifically in this trial, we find that people only need to track around 30% of the days to lose more than 3% weight and 40% of the days to lose more than 5% weight, or almost 70% of days to lose more than 10% weight.” 

“A lot of times people feel like they need to lose 50 pounds to get healthier, but actually we start to see changes in things like blood pressure, lipids, cardiovascular disease risk, and diabetes risk when people lose about 5% to 10% of their weight,” says study co-author and UConn Department of Allied Health Sciences Professor Sherry Pagoto, PhD. “That can be accomplished if participants lose about one to two pounds a week, which is considered a healthy pace of weight loss.

“One thing that is interesting about this data is, oftentimes in the literature, researchers just look at whether there is a correlation between tracking and overall weight loss outcomes. Ran took a data science approach to the data and found there is more to the story,” Dr. Pagoto says. “Now we’re seeing different patterns of tracking. This will help us identify when to provide extra assistance and who will need it the most.”

Future studies will dig deeper into these patterns to understand why they arise and hopefully uncover interventions to improve outcomes. For now, if you use these apps, know that you can still get significant results, even if you miss some entries.

Fitness Flash: Exercise: Exercising to Burn Fat

Fitness Flash

Exercising to Burn Fat

The study “Discrepancy between predicted and measured exercise intensity for eliciting the maximal rate of lipid oxidation,” done by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease found that fat burning during exercise varies widely between people. We don’t all burn fat at the same target heart rate, and reaching a preset exercise machine setting won’t bring the same results for everyone.  

“People with a goal of weight or fat loss may be interested in exercising at the intensity which allows for the maximal rate of fat burning. Most commercial exercise machines offer a ‘fat-burning zone’ option, depending upon age, sex, and heart rate,” says lead author Hannah Kittrell, MS, RD, CDN, director of the Mount Sinai Physiolab, a clinical body composition and exercise physiology laboratory at Mount Sinai Morningside, and a PhD candidate in the Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and Science laboratory. “However, the typically recommended fat-burning zone has not been validated, thus individuals may be exercising at intensities that are not aligned with their personalized weight loss goals.”

Reaching a target heart rate is still great for overall health, but if fat-burning is one of your key fitness goals, the researchers suggest having clinical exercise testing, a diagnostic procedure to measure your physiological response to exercise to get a more personalized exercise prescription. (Talk to your doctor or personal trainer about where to get this evaluation.)

“We hope that this work will inspire more individuals and trainers to utilize clinical exercise testing to prescribe personalized exercise routines tailored to fat loss. It also emphasizes the role that data-driven approaches can have toward precision exercise,” says senior author Girish Nadkarni, MD, MPH, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai, director of The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine, and system chief, Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine, Department of Medicine.

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