Smooth muscles with a smoothie

Hello you,

Since I have bought a blender, I am a smoothie addict. Smoothies exist in all different flavors, there are healthy ones, less healthy ones, blue ones, red ones, and even green ones. Really, you can mix everything into a smoothie.  I am not saying it will taste that great, though. 

My new favorite smoothie is a coffee smoothie. Yes, it may sound strange, but it tastes amazing. You probably have to like the coffee taste, for liking the smoothie. (just a small detail) I actually kind of ‘stole’ the recipe from the American Runners World website, and changed some ingredients. This smoothie is a perfect recovery smoothie after a running work-out or race. You want to know it? Here we go! 

Me and my muscles love the following smoothie :)

The ingredients are as follows – of course you can vary with the amount of coffee or milk you want to use.

100 mL chilled coffee
100 mL soy milk (if you’d prefer,  you can also use ordinary milk)
One banana
Two teaspoons natural cacao powder (not a processed one)
About 2 or 3 ice cubes 

What’s the reason for this smoothie to improve your recovery? As I said in one of my earlier blogs, coffee (especially the compound caffeine) can help store your glycogen faster. Especially the combination of glycogen and carbohydrates will help your body restock muscle glycogen stores faster, than carbohydrates alone. 

I used soy milk for this smoothie, instead of regular milk, because it is proven that soy consumption can reduce your LDL (low-density-lipoprotein) cholesterol, also seen as the ‘bad cholesterol’.  Also, soy milk contains less saturated fat compared with cow milk, of course it depends if you choose non-fat or low-fat milk. Soy milk is often enriched with calcium and vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, it is unique because our body can synthesize vitamin D₃ from sun exposure. Vitamin D is important for athletes, because it promotes calcium absorption in the intestine, this is important to maintain the skeletal calcium balance. Weak bones can eventually lead to severe injuries, so it’s important to have an adequate calcium and vitamin D intake. 

Bananas are a good source of carbohydrates, which your body  needs as a fuel to recover from the work-out. Also, bananas are rich in potassium, this electrolyte helps to maintain the fluid balance. Inadequate fluid intake is negative for your performance. It is important to maintain the fluid balance, to maintain a normal body temperature and a normal blood volume. Thanks to the banana and its potassium, your recovery will improve.

Natural cacao powder gives the chocolaty tastes, without adding lots of empty calories. More important, cacao provides antioxidants, which can attack the free radicals in your body. During exercise, you need more oxygen, which leads to an increase in the production of oxidants. Those oxidants contribute to muscular fatigue, it’s an inflammatory response (muscle soreness). As a response, your body starts producing free radicals to remove the damaged tissue. Free radicals can cause damage to your cells, and antioxidants are able to inhibit those oxidation reactions. So, adding cacao to your smoothie provides anti-inflammatory antioxidants, which is  positive for your recovery.

Chosing the right nutrients can make a big difference for your recovery process after a work-out or race. I am not saying this smoothie is the best way to improve your recovery, by eating a banana alone you are doing a good job as well. Just keep in mind your recovery depends on what you eat afterwards. Your body will restock muscle glycogen the best if you eat within an hour or so after a work-out. 

My message for today: eat (or drink in case of this smoothie) something nutrient rich to optimize your recovery! 

Thanks for reading.

Love, Marlou

Limit your liquorice love

Hi everyone, 

It has been a while since the last time I wrote on blogspot.com. Due to holidays and other stuff I almost forgot I had made this food blog. Therefore, time for an update! The universities have started again, which means I get loads of interesting and uninteresting information from the professors. Of course, I won't bore you with the uninteresting parts.

The courses I take this period are Epidemiology & Public Health, General Toxicology and Integrative Human Physiology. The last subject is my favorite of those three. That is also the one which reminded me of my blog. It popped up in my mind right away, when I heard this information about liquorice, so here we go!

First some general information about liquorice. Holland is known for its crazy liquorice (= "drop") consumers - aside from other typical Dutch things - together the Dutch population eats 30.000.000 kg a year, which is about 2 kg liquorice a year a person. Liquorice is made from liquorice extract. The sweet taste of liquorice is caused by the compound glycyrrhizin, which is about 50 times sweeter than sucrose. Especially in the past, people used to chew on those liquorice roots (which look like a plain wooden stick). Nowadays, you can still buy it in some Dutch stores, although people prefer eating candies liquorice, sweet or very salty, to chewing on a stick.

Liquorice stick

 Today, during a lecture from Integrative Human Physiology about stress, the professor told us something about liquorice. In what way is liquorice related to stress? And in what way is hypertension (high blood pressure) related to eating liquorice? Probably none of you knows the correct answer, so let me help you. First some information about stress, our body has two neuron endocrine systems which work together to regulate stress. We have our sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal gland (also known as HPA), the first one produces epinephrine and nor-epinephrine, HPA produces cortisol. Cortisol is a glucocorticoid (steroid hormone), with a permissive role (gluconeogenese - releasing energy) and on the other hand a suppressive role (prevention of overshoot stress). Okay, enough of those physiological terms, back to the liquorice.

As I wrote before, there is the compound glycyrrhizin present in liquorice, due to this compound you can develop hypertension. One addition: you have to eat a crazy high amount of liquorice to develop hypertension. What is the reason for hypertension and eating liquorice? Well, let me explain. There is a enzyme present in our body 11-β-HSD which can convert the active cortisol (one of the stress hormones) to the inactive cortisone.  The compound glycyrrhizin will decrease the conversion of cortisol into cortison, this results in a higher blood pressure. Just because one tiny enzyme, you can raise your bloodpressure by eating liquorice. Our body is so fascinating! 

This was the fun fact about liquorice, I hope it was worth reading it. Remember the message: "limit your  liquorice love" - don't eat kg's a day, if you'd like to have a healthy blood pressure.

Writing about it makes me want to eat liquorice... Considering I do not have a high blood pressure and I am not planning on eating loads of liquorice, I say -  let's do some grocery shopping and buy some delicious liquorice!

Next time when I hear something interesting during one of my lectures, I will post it right away! 

Thanks for reading. Love, Marlou.

The tastiness of salt

Salt on French fries, salt on chips, salty popcorn, salt on your food - it tastes good! What's the reason people like the taste of salt and what are the health risks by over consuming too much salt?

Salt enhances the flavor of food, food without flavor seems pretty boring to me... That's why we like the salty taste. Of course, salt has many more important functions in our body.

So, let me explain the other functions of salt (chemical name: sodium chloride) in the body. Sodium is very important for maintaining the fluid balance in our body, it also regulates the blood volume and blood pressure. Another role of sodium is the muscle contraction and relaxation and the transmission of nerve impulses.

As the body retains more sodium, it will leave our body through the kidneys via the urine. Systems will sense osmotic pressure due to the high concentration of sodium, this will generate a hormone, which causes the body to retain water and helping the body to restore the normal amount of fluid. 

It shouldn't be a surprise that having a lot of salt in your diet, eventually can lead to kidney troubles. The body also retains more water, which can cause problems with the extracellular fluid balance and therefore a high blood pressure. A high blood pressure is a risk factor for developing cardiovascular diseases. Something we don't like to get!

One of the 5 basic tastes is salt (others are sweet, bitter, sour and umami). In the past, researchers thought different areas on the tongue were able to recognize a different taste. But further research concluded we can recognize the tastes everywhere on our tongue. It just depends on which receptor is more present on a specific area.

The tongue and 5 basic taste receptors

The taste of salt is produced by the presence of sodium ions. Some other ions, like potassium and lithium do have a salty taste as well. This is because of the same 'alkali metals group' the ions belong. The salty taste buds exist of ion channels, which generates an action potential.

In Holland there are new, conscious salts on the market, where a part of the sodium is replaced by the alkali ion potassium and magnesium. I'm just familiar with this, because my mom bought it for my dad recently. He is a true salt lover... The use of this conscious salt will lower the daily sodium intake, without losing the salty taste. Still, we can easily reach our upper level (UL) of 2,4 gram sodium a day, because sodium is present in many processed foods. Manufacturers add salt to prolong the perishable date and to enhance the taste of course. 

We can also 'taste' salt by the smell of it, a salty scent enhances the taste. Researchers are trying to add different scents associated with salt to products. In the future we will need less salt, for getting the same taste sensation.

I think it's good to know many people are trying to improve our health status by improving the nutrition. That's a goal I'd like to reach some day too.

"Prevention is better than cure!" 

Hopefully you all agree with this saying, which is a perfect end for my blog today!

© Marlou 

 

Coffee time!

Cappuccino, espresso, latte macchiato or an ordinary cup of coffee. In general, Dutch people love coffee. They can't function properly without their average 3.1 cups of coffee a day.¹ Same for me - I am a coffee addict.

All over the world, the Scandinavian people are the number 1 coffee lovers. Surprisingly, the coffee-producing countries don't drink coffee that much.

Americans and Canadians are used for their large amount of coffee consumption as well. Then again, who wouldn't enjoy their coffee when you've got Starbucks. Poor us, the Dutchies, we just have one Starbucks at the airport Schiphol, one in Amsterdam itself and one in Utrecht. I know, our country is not that big, nevertheless it still takes some time (for me) to travel to those cities. So, no Starbucks for me..

Caffeine

A caffeine molecule

What's the reason people can get addicted to coffee? Well, the 'offender' is: caffeine. Caffeine takes care of the stimulating and addictive effects of coffee. You're less fatigue and more energetic by drinking coffee. This is because caffeine blocks the effect of the molecule adenosine in the brain. Caffeine will bind to the adenosine receptors in the body, as a result one will experience the energetic feeling. Other effects are the raise in blood pressure, pulse rate and stomach acid production. This increased stomach acid production is negative for people who already suffer from heartburn. Coffee with added milk (cappuccino, latte macchiato etc.) is better for those people. The reason for this is milk, this is a base (pH > 7) and it will make the coffee less acidic. Which is positive, considering the heartburn. Also, fat stores are broken down and fatty acids are released into the bloodstream by caffeine. Your metabolic rate speeds up too, which results in an increased usage of carbohydrates, proteins and fat.

By drinking coffee every day, your body will get used to these effects, it develops tolerance, so you'll experience a less increase in blood pressure, pulse rate and so on. 

Sport performance and caffeine

Caffeine is a drug, some people believe it will enhance your performance, especially endurance performances, because of the earlier explanation of masking the fatigue. Caffeine is well absorbed in the stomach and intestine, and the best effect occurs about 45 to 60 minutes after consuming one delicious cup of coffee. So if you'd like to enhance your performance, keep this in mind. 

Caffeine in very large amounts are harmful for your health, only in small amounts there will be a positive effect. That's the reason why caffeine is banned of the drug list a few years ago. The harmful effects could be anxiety, dizziness, headache, insomnia, diuresis and gastrointestinal distress. Athletes should keep the diuretic effect of caffeine in mind, it could cause dehydration, which is not good. There can also be problems with the heartbeat (too slow, too fast or regular and irregular beating).

The positive, performance enhancing effects have to do with glycogen. Glycogen is the fuel for our muscles, carbohydrates are used as glucose. An excess of glucose is stored in the body as glycogen. We can also use fat as a fuel, although glycogen is more effective. Because caffeine delays the usage of glycogen and stimulates the usage as fat, there will be glycogen sparing. This saved glycogen is available later during the performance, and one will be able to exercise longer until they get exhausted.

I like drinking coffee before a running race, maybe it's all psychic... I don't know, but it works for me. So I keep enjoying my coffee. :)

Conclusion: coffee might be performance enhancing, because of the glycogen sparing process and the stimulation effects. Just keep in mind that it can result in dehydration too, which is performance depravation.

Antioxidants and coffee 

Another extraordinary function of coffee (not caffeine) is their role as antioxidants. Antioxidants are substances or nutrients in our foods and also present in coffee. Formation of free radicals takes place in our bodies by metabolic reactions (with the usage of oxygen). Free radicals may hurt our body cells, tissues and organs by oxidative distress. Eventually this may lead to chronicle diseases, like cancer and coronary heart disease.The role of antioxidants is preventing or slowing down the oxidative damage to our body. 

Don't worry, people who don't like coffee, there are a lot of other foods which contain antioxidants, like citruis fruits, tomatoes, nuts and even red wine. 

Anyway, enough about coffee. I like the smell of it, the taste of it and as a plus it has a lot of benefits. I think a coffee addiction is not that bad! 

Btw, my favorite coffee is Caffe Latte, just wondering (if anyone is reading this blog), what's your favorite?? Or do you have an unknown delicious coffee recipe? Let me know!

© Marlou

References:

¹ See Wikipedia: subject “koffie”

The benefits of oatmeal

A lot of people eat oatmeal for breakfast (or for lunch, dessert or in between their meals). I am pretty sure if I'd ask you: "what is oatmeal?" You would have an answer like "just some cereal I buy when I go grocery shopping..." Okay, allright, that is correct. Although, the scientific answer is a little bit different. Oatmeal is prepared from oat grains, after washing, dehusking and heathing they won't be called oat grains any longer. There new name will be oat groats - it's the seed inside the husk. The oat groats may be milled into different sizes (fine, medium, coarse). Afterwards they will be steamed and flattened to produce smaller oats. Rolled oats are better than instant oats. Instant oats have added sugar and salt, which makes it less healthy.

You can mix the oats with water or milk to make some delicious, mouth-watering oatmeal. Yummy. 

In spite of their pleasant taste, oatmeal has many other pleasant benefits, which I'd like to share with you.  

The main reason of the benefits of oatmeal are dietary fibers. There are two types of dietary fibers, insoluble and soluble fibers. 

• As their name explains - insoluble fibers can not be digested by the small intestine. Their role is absorbing water when they move through the GI tract (gastrointestinal tract), because of this function it makes stools heavier. This will ease the bowel movements. Insoluble fibers also bind with certain bile acids, which reduces their toxicity. As a result there will be a lower risk of cancer. 

The good and the bad cholesterol

• Soluble fibers can be digested by the small intestine, during this breakdown they attract water and form a gel that will trap carbohydrates and slow down the absorption of glucose. This may lead to a lower variance in blood sugar level, which benefits people with diabetes.
  People who suffer from hypercholesterolemia (in normal language: high levels of cholesterol) have benefits of eating oatmeal also. Soluble fibers will trap some substances related to high cholesterol as well. There are different types of cholesterol low density lipoproteins (LDL) and high density lipoproteins (HDL). Lipoproteins contain both lipids and proteins and are soluble in water. Because of this characteristic lipoproteins are very important in the transport of lipids. There are many different lipoproteins: chylomicrons, VLDL, IDL, LDL and HDL. Those last two are the ones I'd like to discuss. LDL carries cholesterol from the liver to cells of the body. HDL collects cholesterol from the body's tissues and brings it back to the liver. Everyone knows a high cholesterol level is bad, so a particle who carries cholesterol towards the body cells is also bad. LDL = bad. On the other hand HDL collects cholesterol, so HDL is good.
  Ok, to the point what do LDL and HDL have to do with oatmeal? Well, the soluble fibers in oatmeal may reduce LDL cholesterol, without lowering the HDL cholesterol. Amazing, isn't it?

Oatmeal has a lot of carbohydrates, you need the carbohydrates for energy supply to your body. Just like a car needs fuel to drive, our body need fuel to do ordinary activities. This fuel is not only carbohydrates, also fats and protein are fuel to your body.  Carbohydrates are the most important, considering their ability to store energy in the form of starch and glycogen.

Some people might even lose weight by eathing oatmeal. See, carbs aren't that bad! The fibers (yes, there they are again) in the oatmeal will make your stomach feel full, as a result you're less hungry the rest of the day!

You see, oatmeal is a healthy way to start your day! :) 

© Marlou

We are what we eat

Hello you, 

Today is just like an ordinary day, just one exception: I decided to start this blog. Yayy!

Hopefully you, as a reader, will appreciate my decision and enjoy my information, stories, quotes etc. about my opinion of food and health.

Do you see the title? Don't get mad if I accidently called you a hamburger, a bowl of oatmeal or a delicious piece of chocolate. Yes, we, human beings, "are what we eat". Even your genes will get affected by your certain choices of specific foods. There is a new field of food science, called nutrigenomics, which studies how your genes and diet interact with each other. Thanks to the information from your DNA, researchers might prevent or delay a possible illness, due to your diet. Very interesting, isn't it? 

Anyway, we all know the so called junk food is unhealthy. You’ve a higher  risk of obesity or diabetes. On the contrary fruits & veggies are super healthy. There's no need for our genes to tell... I already can see my DNA whispering: "pssst, hey, you, don't eat those French fries, it's not good for me, which is you!" ;)

The question is, how do we use the knowledge we have about nutrition? Still, a lot of people do have weight problems, they might be obese or they might be anorexic/bulimic. Why not eat a healthy and balanced diet with all the macronutrients (like carbohydrates, proteins and also fats), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and the calories for energy supply? It seems to be very easy. However, there are so many influences which affect your choice for food. 

Everyone has a different preference for food, one likes a salty taste, while the other one likes a sweet taste. Or even umani (taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5'ribonucleotides). Umani is the last flavor added to the category 'taste', which consist of sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness and umani. If you'd like to taste umani, you could eat some fish, cured meat, vegetables or drink a cup of green tea.

Okay, enough about umani. I don't even know how to pronounce it... 

Your food preference also depends on your culture and how you've been raised. For example, Dutch people (like me) are used for eating bread, oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, while American people love their scrambled eggs and bacon. Not very common for Dutch people, so we won't enjoy it as much as the Americans. 

You see, food involves so many things. It's one of the necessaries of life! That's why I really like to learn about it and the reason for my choice of studying Nutrition&Health. Hopefully I can give you all information about healthy and delicious food choices a.k.a FOODALICIOUS NUTRITIOUS!  

 © Marlou