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How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food
Plus: the lifestyle changes that can prevent 40% of dementia cases
The 10almonds Team
August 27, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
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⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Our body gets a lot more nutrition from its food if it’s not taken by surprise
Seeing, smelling, and even hearing food prepares and primes our body to receive and digest it
Mindful eating begins with the ingredients, progresses through the cooking process, serving, and dining
See today’s feature for a walkthrough to optimize the experience—and the somatic results!
As we get older, our brains can struggle to keep up with maintaining correct levels of some neurochemicals.
Today’s sponsor, Mindhoney, has potent all-natural nootropics to give your brain a boost of the things it needs to keep it in top health.
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Most Common Exercises Done Incorrectly – Home Edition
There are 6 common exercises many people do at home but with incorrect form. Here’s how to make sure you have a safe and effective exercise routine:
Exercise menu:
🍽️ MAIN FEATURE
How To Get More Out Of What’s On Your Plate
Where does digestion begin? It’s not the stomach. It’s not even the mouth.
It’s when we see and smell our food; maybe even hear it! “Sell the sizzle, not the steak” has a biological underpinning.
At that point, when we begin to salivate, that’s just one of many ways that our body is preparing itself for what we’re about to receive.
When we grab some ready-meal and wolf it down, we undercut that process. In the case of ready-meals, they often didn’t have much nutritional value, but even the most nutritious food isn’t going to do us nearly as much good if it barely touches the sides on the way down.
We’re not kidding about the importance of that initial stage of our external senses, by the way:
So, mindful eating is not just something for Instagrammable “what I eat in a day” aesthetic photos, nor is just for monks atop cold mountains. There is actual science here, and a lot of it.
It starts with ingredients
“Eating the rainbow” (no, Skittles do not count) is great health advice for getting a wide variety of micronutrients, but it’s also simply beneficial for our senses, too. Which, as above-linked, makes a difference to digestion and nutrient absorption.
Enough is enough
That phrase always sounds like an expression of frustration, “Enough is enough!”. But, really:
Don’t overcomplicate your cooking, especially if you’re new to this approach. You can add in more complexities later, but for now, figure out what will be “enough”, and let it be enough.
The kitchen flow
Here we’re talking about flow in the Csikszentmihalyi sense of the word. Get “into the swing of things” and enjoy your time in the kitchen. Schedule more time than you need, and take it casually. Listen to your favourite music. Dance while you cook. Taste things as you go.
There are benefits, by the way, not just to our digestion (in being thusly primed and prepared for eating), but also to our cognition:
Serve
No, not just “put the food on the table”, but serve.
Have a pleasant environment; with sensory pleasures but without too many sensory distractions. Think less “the news on in the background” and more smooth jazz or Mozart or whatever works for you. Use your favourite (small!) plates/bowls, silverware, glasses. Have a candle if you like (unscented!).
Pay attention to presentation on the plate / in the bowl / in any “serve yourself” serving-things. Use a garnish (parsley is great if you want to add a touch of greenery without changing the flavor much). Crack that black pepper at the table. Make any condiments count (less “ketchup bottle” and more “elegant dip”).
Take your time
Say grace if that fits with your religious traditions, and/or take a moment to reflect on gratitude.
In many languages there’s a pre-dinner blessing that most often translates to “good appetite”. This writer is fond of the Norwegian “Velbekommen”, and it means more like “May good come of it for you”, or “May it do you good”.
Then, enjoy the food.
For the most even of blood sugar levels, consider eating fiber, protein/fat, carbs, in that order.
Why? See: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
Chew adequately and mindfully. Put your fork (or spoon, or chopsticks, or whatever) down between bites. Drink water alongside your meal.
Try to take at least 20 minutes to enjoy your meal, and/but any time you go to reach for another helping, take a moment to check in with yourself with regard to whether you are actually still hungry. If you’re not, and are just eating for pleasure, consider deferring that pleasure by saving the food for later.
At this point, people with partners/family may be thinking “But it won’t be there later! Someone else will eat it!”, and… That’s fine! Be happy for them. You can cook again tomorrow. You prepared delicious wholesome food that your partner/family enjoyed, and that’s always a good thing.
Want to know more about the science of mindful eating?
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
A very science-based all-natural nootropic supplement!
An important thing we want to mention immediately about Mindhoney is that it has a dozen very well-studied ingredients—there’s nothing speculative or “based on traditional use” here. For most of these ingredients, there are literally thousands of studies attesting to their benefits.
In fact, many of them are ingredients we’ve featured here before for their many benefits, and others were good reminders that we should be writing about them!
You may be wondering: “All-in-one, though? Isn’t it better to take them separately?” And… no, it is not. This isn’t an all-in-one shower gel we’re talking about here.
Simply put: these ingredients are synergistic and each work on connected systems in different ways, each helping the other to work better. So, by taking them together, you get a Gestalt effect—the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Psst… 10almonds subscribers can use code “STACK15” to enjoy 15% off, and also free shipping! 🤫
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
The key to depression, obesity, alcoholism—and more? Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists
Gut-first theory of Parkinson's disease gains traction
Woman “over the moon” after womb transplant in UK first
Aging with a healthy brain: How lifestyle changes could help prevent up to 40% of dementia cases
Despite benefits, most heart attack survivors don’t take a daily aspirin
The prevalence of clustering of health behaviors and associated physical and mental health outcomes
Doctors and patients shame insurers online to reverse prior authorization denials
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today – by Dr. Hal Herschfield
How do you want to be, one year from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now?
Now, how would you have answered that same question one, five, ten years ago?
The reality, according to Dr. Hal Herschfield, is that often we go blundering into the future blindly, because we lack empathy with our future self. Our past self, we can have strong feelings about. They could range from compassion to shame, pride to frustration, but we'll have feelings. Our future self? A mystery.
What he proposes in this book, therefore, is not merely the obvious "start planning now, little habits that add up", etc, but also to address the underlying behavioral science of why we don't.
Starting with exercises of empathy for our tomorrow-self (literally tomorrow, i.e. the day after this one), and building a mindset of "paying it forward"—to ourself.
By treating our future self like a loved one, we can find ourselves a lot more motivated to actually do the things that future-us will thank us for.
The real value of this book is in the progressive exercises, because it's a "muscle" that most people haven't exercised much. But when we do? What a superpower it becomes!
Bottom line: if you know what you “should” do, but somehow just don’t do it, this book will help connect you to your future self and work as a better team to get there… the way you actually want.
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
Wishing you a wonderfully restorative weekend,
The 10almonds Team