Egyptian food

Our family is learning about Egypt during the second half of June. We have eaten baba ganoush, kushari, pita bread, kofta kebab, fava beans, falafel, and lots of hummus. We found out from a friend who lived in Egypt that the word "hummus" just means garbanzo beans. So the next time you see black bean "hummus" at a store, go ahead and giggle at the silliness of calling it that.

While the food has been quite tasty, it has been unfriendly to weight loss efforts. I think our higher intake of pureed beans are mostly to blame. Breaking apart the cell walls of beans approximately doubles the insulin response after ingestion, per a 1986 study posted at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/9/3/260. So pureeing the garbanzo beans for hummus is not a good idea for those looking to minimize insulin responses. Also, mashing the fava beans in one's ful medames is going to cause an increase in insulin responses.

I wonder if the frequent consumption of mushy ful medames and hummus with tahini helps explain Egypt's unenviable position as one of the most obese countries in the world. (http://www.egyptindependent.com/study-egypt-tops-obesity-rate-among-adults-world/)

I'm never going to look at a bean burrito the same again after seeing that 1986 study. Sigh. I like refried beans.

Violence over the Millennia in Central America: Hypotheses about Nutritional Causes

As the news recently has erupted with stories about the extreme violence in Central America--El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and southern Mexico--I think possible nutrition-related correlations with violence deserve scrutiny. In fact, that is the most productive avenue of research and advocacy I can imagine for those who would like to reduce violence there, for there are only three explanations for the horrific intentional homicide rates in that region of the world: 1) government, 2) culture, 3) genetics and/or nutritional interactions with genetics.

The governments of those countries are different and have varied widely over the past century, but the murders just keep happening. If we look back further at the great Mayan civilizations, despite their high intelligence and accomplishments, they kept devolving due to killing each other. So I don't think government changes are the answer.

Culture? No, we see from the ethnic enclaves of Central Americans in the USA that they do not reproduce the extreme homicide rates of their homelands.

Genetics and/or nutritional interactions with genetics....now that I'm willing to blame. Not just genetics, of course, for as noted before, ethnic enclaves of Central Americans in the USA do not reproduce the extreme homicide rates of their homelands. So I think nutrition, including the way it interacts with genetics, is a significant, overlooked factor in Central American violence. Moreover, I think that poverty-caused restrictions on diet enhance the influence of nutritional differences as a factor in violence.

"Molybdenum: A micronutrient that can help alleviate nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, and migraines"

Here's another segment of the library lecture I gave earlier this week. In this one, I talk about molybdenum. For more information on this topic, please refer to the past 2.5 years of this blog. :)

(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)

"Some Apparent Connections Between Nutrition and Autism Spectrum Disorders"

Here's the second segment of my library presentation. I focus on nutrition and autism spectrum disorders.

For more information, please read my blog series on this topic:

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Conclusion

"About Coming up with Hypotheses"

Earlier this week, I gave a lecture at a local library in which I talked about some of my hypotheses. My daughter helped me record the lecture so that I could post parts of it on YouTube. Here's the first segment of it, in which I introduce my main sources for information when I'm working on a health-related mystery:

A great song about Colorado

We're learning about Colorado right now. Not only is it Rocky Mountain high and the land where the columbines grow, but the state of Colorado inspires many songs of longing. Such as this one: