Happy new year!

I have never been a big fan of new years.. I seriously rather sleep because I don't like staying up that late and then be really tired the next day. Last new years, I told myself that next new year, I will go to bed before 12 so I would get a good nights sleep. Christmas is important to me, and so is semlabun-day :D but defently not new years.

Because of that, I actually stayed home tonight and celebrated it with Whitley who just came back from the states this morning! We had sushi (best food in the world) and watched a movie. We are both leaving the house 4.20 am tonight for Rome so we didn't want to stay up late anyways. It would have been nice to go to the church but we were both tired so this turned out good.

I've packed knäck, now I only have to pack everything else. Happy new year everybody!!!

Brown hair again, last day without sugar and Italy tomorrow morning!

The plan was to not dye my hair until I'm done with school so I could save some money. I got so bored of my hair though so I dyed it myself today. That way it isn't as boring and it's cheap. It's also not permanent so it will go away in about 2 months. And as you can see on the picture, my bangs is much longer now so soon I'll be rid of it :D Yay!

I also have to mention that today is the last day of my sugar fast! I started 1st of January last year and to sum it up: I accidently ate a couple of cookies in May but I seriously didn't understand that it was sugar in them before I already ate them! It was when I flew to America and my flight got cancelled and the whole trip took about 40 hours so I was too tired to think and just ate it and then realized afterwards. I also ate a fishermans friend that wasn't sugarfree.
I really don't care about that but I know that if I don't mention it then my coworkers at Arlanda will tell me that it really does count.. haha anyways... Tomorrow the sugar free year is finished and I will celebrate it with a couple of caramels from Harrods and probably a knäck when I'm on the flight to Rome. I'm going with some very dear friends of mine and also a couple of girls that I haven't got to know yet but they seems to be very sweet so I'm really excited!

"Costs" of lifestock production

• Nearly 800 million people could be fed by all the grain currently fed to US livestock Professor David Pimental NY 

• 70% of United States grain goes to feeding farm animals USDA 1991  

• It takes almost 3.5 kg of corn and soy to produce just half a kg of pork.  Cattle-Fax 1989 

• More than half of the water used for all purposes in the United States goes to livestock production L. Beckett & J. W. Oltjen J Animal Science 1992;71:818-8268 

• 2000 lit of water is needed to produce ½ kg of meat cmp to 7 lit to produce one pound of wheat Audubon News Jan 2000 

• Every kg of beef that is avoided can save up to 40 000 liters of water * 

• Every second of every day, one “football field” of tropical rainforest is destroyed in order to produce 257 hamburgers*  

* Boyan S How Our Food Choices can Help Save the Environment.

Ps. I'm not trying to push down americans :) This is just the numbers and facts I happened to have.

Wasting food

A study from Great Britain shows that people throw away 28 % of all the food that they buy.

Swedes throw away about 56 kg (about 120 pounds?) of food every year! For our whole country that equals 1.9 million ton carbon oxid per year which is the same as it would be for 700 000 cars for one year.

Advice:
Use all of the vegetables - for example, use the stemp of the broccoli, use the "leaves" (?) from beets, carrots etc - they contain so much more nutritions than the actuall vegetable! I'll come back more about that later.

I believe this is very important, however I wish my dad doesn't read this post because he takes it to the extreme and would eat anything even tho the food is clearly way too old! :)

Essential fatty acids

The fatty acids omega 3 and omega 6 are essential to us because we can not produce them ourselves in our bodies. When we eat these, they can transfer into other fatty acids that our body also needs, but we need omega 3 and 6 as a starting point for this. The ratio between these are very important for our health and normally we eat too much omega 6 so it is important to eat a lot of omega 3, however you do need both.

Here is a list of benefits of eating the essential fatty acids:

• Reduces inflammation Lowers cholesterol

• Lowers triglyceride levels

• Promotes weight loss

• Promotes healing

 

• Reduces pain

• Improves skin

• Increases joint mobility

• Improves vision

• Reduces soreness after training

• Reduces risk of heart disease

• Provides relief  inflammatory bowel diseases

• May slow tumor growth

• Eases the effects of Alzheimer’s disease

• Improves brain function 

• Stabilizes mood

• Eases depression

A few things...

First I want to let you know that I have not forgotten to read about those hormones in milk products. I looked through them a little today but from what I saw, it didn't say what those hormones do in the body, but more how much and what hormones they found etc.. I will look through them more carefully later on but my mind tells me to give it a break so it will take a little while.

Today I worked my last day for this time at Arlanda. I really really can't understand all those people who can start 4 or 5 am so many days there.. It was still fun to come back but I'm glad it was only 2 days. I will now work at my dads company a few days instead.

I got an article today about why plastic is bad (the chemicals in it etc). It's not an advanced article but I have wanted to write here on the blog about plastic as that topic is getting bigger and bigger here and people are starting to realize that we need other solutions. I will look through that this week and write a summary.

Back again

I thought, or hoped at least that I was done with working at Arlanda this summer. But I was a bit "tempted" to go back a little now to see everyone again and get some shifts done now when there's not much in school.

Let me say it like this, as soon as I started working this morning 5 am, it felt like I had never left which is not a good thing because I couldn't wait to finish last time. It was fun to see some friends I haven't seen in a while and tomorrow I'll meet some more but how could I forget how much I hate going up 3.20 am??? I really hope I find another job for the summer.. I can't stand those hours anymore after doing that for a few years.

A weird thing about today, when I drove to work 4 am, it was 10 degrees outside, which is about 50 fahrenheit. And when I went home in the afternoon it was 5 (40) which it is now but now next night it will be 10 (50) again.. when did it ever happen that it was not only warmer during the night then the day during the winter, but also THAT warm in the end of december in Sweden?? That is just ludicrous but I don't complain because the last 2 winters were so extremly cold and hard and it never wanted to end, so I'm happy that we are getting a mild winter so I could also continue running outside.

I long for the day when I move to a country where its summer and nice weather more than just 3-4 months a year :)

Merry Christmas!

Me and my brother at christmas eve

Updates again

The last weeks has been quite stressful. I had my exam two days ago and I was sooo nervous. I have to wait 2-3 weeks for the result but I'm pretty sure it went really well, but it will depend on how they correct it.

I'm actually going back to Arlanda to work two days next week. I have enough work in my dads company during the christmas break but I thought it would be nice to get out of the house and meet some friends so it will be fun. Going up 3.15 am two days will NOT be fun tho.

9 days left for Italy today. Will be so great to go with only girls! And also to go to a country I haven't been to before, that will be really great! Last years it has been a lot of England and America, which is awesome but I've always wanted to go to Italy so I'm really excited.

Merry christmas everyone!

Books

Two of my books for the spring semester arrived today. Basic microbiology with food applications and Food sience. They seems to be really good books which makes me excited for the next course to start! But first I have to be done with the exam tomorrow.. I feel quite prepared but obviously the day before an exam is never a fun day. Back to the metabolism, calcium, acid-base balance, hydration, vitamin C, antioxidants etc etc etc.....

Balance

Something I have thought about the last weeks.. I believe it is so important to be in balance, and now I'm thinking especially on food/exercise/health. It's so easy to be rather extreme in both ways - not being healthy at all and don't care or never allow yourself to eat anything unhealthy/ get anxiety if one day goes by without working out.

Health can mean many things but for me it means to have a balance with eating the right things, working out to the point it's building up my body and still be able to eat unhealthy things at birthdays/holidays or any other special occasion and don't neglect that food is also something social!

Health is not about appearance. It is not about being super skinny. I read the other day that it's more dangerous to weigh 1 kg to little than tens of kilos too much. I also have a friend whos best friend died a few weeks ago when he was running a marathon. The guy was only 25. I'm guessing it was something wrong with his body because people normally don't die during a marathon but it still made me think; why do people (me included) want to work out to the point that it's being unhealthy? I also read (or heard somewhere, can't remember) the other day that elite athletes live shorter lifes and that they loose about as many years on their lifes as obese people do - that both are really dangerous.

All of this has made me think about the balance in all of this. I really really like to run far, but I know that it's only positive for the body up to 5-10 km, so why do I sometimes run further and why do I want to run a marathon one day? I'm not saying it's bad if you want to run a marathon and I'm also not saying I will never do it (even though I'm considering not to). But I also think that as I want to be a role model in health and teach about it, then maybe it's even more important for me to be in balance and show what real health is without making it extreme?

One of my favourite bibleverses when it comes to this is:
Col 2:20b-23 ... as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. 

It says in my swedish bible that those things are of no value and that it's only there to satisfy the flesh/the mind. So if we choose to run a marathon, then it's only good for our mind as we feel that we have accomplished something, but it's not healthy and it's only breaking down the body.

I have also been thinking about this when it comes to food. One of my biggest passions are baking. Due to health problems and allergies, I can not eat everything as normal people can, but I think I have still given myself too many rules. I stopped eating red meat - something my health problems doesn't restrict. I stopped because it isn't healthy and I still believe that - but at the same time, it won't kill me if I eat meat at christmas (or once in a while) so that's what I'm gonna do.

That's my thoughts, and also my lack of dicipline (as I shouldn't blog but study for the exam right now!!!!!!)

Christmas break for my swedish students!

Me and Whitley made a lingonberry/gingerbread-cake for the swedish class

We had our last swedish class tonight for this semester. I got two more students (but they seems to be pretty good in swedish already :)) and one more new will start when we start again in January. One will go back to the states so this was the last time for him but I think I will still have about 10 students when we start up again. They were so cute and had even bought me a christmas gift!

Now I'm off to bed so I can study as much as I can two more days. I can't wait to wednesday evening when the exam is done! I'm having a few friends over that night so I will cook and hopefully bake - if I have time. I miss cooking and baking so much..

Israel

A few times a year, I go through periods when I think about Israel a lot. I'm in one of those periods now. It is for sure my favourite place on earth and I have a hard time thinking or talking about it without crying. I have never felt such deep love for a place or for a people like Israel and the jews. I pray to God that he will bring me there in the future!

Last time I was there was 2007. Every year I say that I will go there but it never works out. I have talked to my university about doing an exchange year there but unfortunally they are not connected to any of the universities there. So my plan, or my thoughts has then been about maybe going there to write the long paper you have to do the last year, but as I'm still thinking about going to America the whole last year, then that wouldn't work. My other thoughts have been to go a summer course there. I have now emailed a university that I know have summer courses in english to see if this would be possible. We'll see what they say but I really really really really really hope that it could work.

Candy waiting on me since march

I must admit. Candy has been on my mind quite a lot lately... well, at least twice a day. It's not because I want to eat any but more about that it's only 2 weeks + 1½ days left on my sugar fast I've had this year and it feels weird that its almost over.

My friend came to visit us from London in March and she brought us lots of things, including candy from Harrods. It has been waiting for me since then.

From 1st of January I "can" eat sugar again. 4.30 am on that day, I'm leaving for Italy. I am planning to bring one or two pieces of the "harrods-candy" on the trip to eat on the flight - to break the fast. I'm really excited about it haha!

We also have knäck that me and Whitley made last weekend waiting in the freezer. For you who never tried knäck - it's the best candy in the whole world. If you live in another country and I come visit you - tell me to make some for you.

I have learned more about nutrition than ever before this year... and it makes me not want to eat bad food so I will try to continue limiting my sugar consumtion to family birthdays and big holidays after this fast.

Health behavior and mortality

Copied by permission from S.Bengmark

If anyone knows how to change my website so it looks better when I have bigger pictures - please tell me! I try to keep them smaller but it was hard to see the result of this studie when it was small so I kept it big.


This study shows the effect of avoiding these 4 negative points above; eating fruits/vegetables less than 3 times a day, exercise less than 2 hours a week, smoking and last drinking more alcohol then 112 grams for women or 168 grams for men per week. The study also shows the mortality for those who kept for example 1 of these or two etc as you can see. Let me know if it's hard to understand.
For one example, you can see that after 20 years, about 85 % of the people that had been unhealthy in all these 4 points was still alive compared to about 96 % for those who avoided all these 4 points (exercised more than 2 hours per week and so on).
I feel that this explanation is going on to long so I will stop now :)

Perfect student food and a green smoothie

This lentil "soup" might not look that great but it is actually one of my favourite foods. It fulfills all the criterias a student may have. It is nutrious, taste good, is cheap and hardly take any time to make (but a little time for waiting for it to be done). If I remember right, I found the original recipe from Anna Skippers website. I make this several times a week because it taste really great and when I have a lot to study it's perfect as it only takes about 3 min to prepare and then I can continue studying while it's boiling and then its done!

1 dl of red dried lentils

3 dl water

salt, pepper, bouillon powder/broth

Optional:

Onion, garlic, chili, olive oil

Boil all in low heat with a lid covering it for 30 min. If you are adding olive oil, add it when the meal is done so it doesn't get destroyed.

I also tried to make a green smoothie today. And with green, I mean that I had green vegetables in it. It turned out black/brown tho. These are extremly healthy and there is so much you can do. It doesn't taste great but I personally think it's worth it. Today I added kale (grönkål), parsley, spinach, blueberries, raspberries, flax seeds, water and spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and carnation (nejlika).

Filling up with endorphines

Started off the day with an hour long run before breakfast in the dark. Feels great to fill your body with some endorphines before a looong day of studying :) It's less than a week left to my exam and I'm planning to get just as good results as last time.. Gonna do my best and try anyways.

Speaking of endorphines; here is a list of foods that will give you endorphines and make you happy (not saying that all of these are healthy foods):

• Cocoa - Dark chocolate
• Carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes etc
• Cheese
• Meat, fish and legumes with high protein
• Peppers, especially those containing capsaicin - like chilis

Lucia concert

I totally forgot to post pictures from the lucia concert yesterday. Here is a few of them. It was a really great concert and I will defently go again next year.

Trying the cocktail

Here it is, the "cocktail" from my last post today. I skipped the turmeric as I already eat a taplespoon of that every day so I added a half teaspoon cardamom instead. It is really really strong! I had to add water and it's still really strong! Next time, I'll take a bigger glass and add much more water because this is ludicrous.

Stig Bengmarks turmeric and chili cocktail

I found this recipe on Stig's powerpoint that I wanted to share with you. I haven't tried it yet but am planning to do so this evening.

½ glas of fruit juice such as apple, pineapple...
1 heapful tablespoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon chili (cayenne) pepper
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon apple cider vineger
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Mix and drink once or twice a day!

Light treatment

First - I never had time to read through the hormone articles this weekend and now I'm focusing on my exam next week so we'll see when I get time to read them but I'm going to do it hopefully before christmas.

The hospital shirt

The last months, I've been going to light treatment at the hospital three times per week. I burned myself in the sun about 7 years ago which made my skin itch everywhere and it would look like long mosquito bites. I've been taking medicine for it for a few years which makes it go away but as I wanted to get rid of it totally so I wouldn't have to take any medication, I got to try this light treatment. Unfortunally it hasn't really worked. Today was the last time I was going and you have no idea how happy I am it's over! It took so much time to get in to the hospital for this several  times a week. And I don't really care about that it didn't work... at least I've tried that now.

Me and some friends went on a lucia concert at the cathedral yesterday. I will post pictures of that tomorrow. It was a really great concert!

Saturday

It feels pretty good when it comes to the upcoming exam. I have studied quite a lot on it already so I decided that I will NOT study today (even though I'm a few hours short on my goal of 8 hours per day). It feels weird.. a whole saturday without studying! But I think it's a good decision as there is so many other things that needs to get done.

I started off the day with running - with some extra socks it actually works pretty good still even though it's getting colder. The rest of the day will consist of cleaning, fika with a friend, cleaning, cleaning (planning to go through some in the kitchen to prepare for christmas and throw away old foods, something that I've looked forward to for a while) and working on a cookbook I was suppose to be done with in March!

And also - a girl asked me more specific why the hormones in milk products are bad. I think that's a great question and I couldn't answer it as I wanted to. The professor (Stig B) that I got the information about the milk from, has now emailed me a couple of articles concerning this so my plan is to hopefully go through those today and write here on the blog about it.

My life right now...

... contains of reading, reading, reading and reading. My eyes hurt and I feel nauseous. Tomorrow we are having a seminar about B vitamins and I'll tell you, it is not easy to remember what fact belongs to what of the 8 B vitamins. I really just want to be done with it so I can continue focusing on our next exam which is in less than two weeks. But now I'm done with studying for today (finally!!!) and will clean my room - something I have looked forward to since yesterday morning. And cook lunch for tomorrow. Oh yeah, and listen to christmas music obviously! Tomorrow night I will try to be social and have a girl-movie-night and we are going to make falafel.

Walls for an adult

It was about time for me to take down a few things from the walls.... 

Before

After

The effects of a mediterranean diet - study on americans

Taken by permission from S.Bengmark

This food will make you happy and tired

You have probably heard before that you should drink milk if you can't sleep. The reason for that is that it contains a lot of the aminoacid tryptophan which pretty much turns into a hormone called serotonin in the brain.

Serotonin regulates the sleep (make you tired), your ability to concentrate and it will also make you happy, calm and satisfied! If your serotonin levels are too low you can become depressed, get anxiety, aggressive and so on.. You can also get cravings for fast carbs. On the other hand, a high level has an antidepressive effect.

This is one way of effecting your mood from the food you eat!

Here is a list of foods with a lot of tryptophan:

• Free range turkey
• Flaxseed/ flaxseed oil (linfrö)
• Buckweat
• Wild fish and sea food
• Whey protein
• Bananas
• Free range eggs
• Sour cherries
• Dark chocolate

So instead of milk you can maybe eat a banana if you can't sleep.. Speaking about bananas, eat the green ones - they turn into less sugar in your body compared to the yellow ones.

Can wrong diet cause cancer or is it all genes?

Taken by permission from S.Bengmark

I saw dr Oz this morning. It was about obese children and their parents. One parent said that it's in their genes to be fat.. I will show you more studies later on that shows that this is not true but it's about how you play the genes you have. You've got sooo many genes and they can be turned on and turned off. For example, above is one study when it comes to how big part cancer has to do with genes. Under the subtitle, you see the reference to the study if you want to read the whole thing.

As you see, only 5-10 % has to do with genes and 90-95 % has to do with different environmental things.
Diet plays the biggest roll of the environmental causes, 30-35%. Obesity that normally comes from eating bad foods is 10-20 %.

Read this! Why milk and all other dairy products are bad

The national food aministration are telling us that milk is GREAT because of its protein, low fat and vitamins.

Milk also contains a lot of other things that are quite the opposite than great. These negative aspects outweigh the positive. This is why.. 

80 % of the milk you drink are from pregnant cows. That means that they have a lot of hormones (see list below) in their "cow-bodies". Hormones "get stuck" in the fat and therefore get transfered into the milk, yoghurt, butter, cheese, cream etc etc. These hormones will then go to your body if you eat/drink it (obviously). To make cheese, you need 20 liters of milk for 1 kg of cheese - that means that the hormones will get more concentrated and the same with other products like butter.

If we take estrogen for one example. High intake of estrogen increases the risk of cancers. 60-80 % of the estrogen that we get from food is from milk and other dairy products (mjölkprodukter). Here is an example of how much the free estrogen (E1) different products contains:

Whole milk      3,7
Skimmed milk 20,2
Whey             3,6
Cottage cheese 34,9
Butter           539,4

Different studies has shown a risk for a number of diseases when it comes to bovine milk (nötkreatur). They are: allergy, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, chronic constipation, coronary heart disease, diabetes type 1, malabsorption, ovarian cancer, parkinson disease, testicular and prostate cancer...

Our milk has also been heated up so that AGE and ALE has been formed (read past posts about AGE/ALE). Milkpowder is worst - look at the ingrediences on packages and avoid milk and cheese powder.

The dairy consumption for individuals (kg per year) (year 2008) looked like this:

Finland 180
Sweden 138
Denmark 134
Norway 114
UK 102
Germany 92
USA 80
Italy 42
China 10

(I have a list of 24 countries so let me know if you want to know another countries average intake)


So how can something like milk be so dangerous? We have to remember that a long time ago, a cow produces about 1,5 liters of milk per day and today they produce about 30 liters per day. No wonder the milk contains all these hormones today.


Hormones: PRL, GH, TSK, FSH, LH, ACTH, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone (and more steroid hormones), TRH, LHRH, GnRH, GRH and many many more!

So worth going!!!

I'm so glad I went on the health day today even though that meant less study time which I will have to push over till next week. I think my school is great in many aspects and it gives a "good" foundation in many things - but it is not up to date with new studies, or at least not what I've heard this far and therefore I think it gives a narrow perspective on things. That's why I want to go on these other lectures with other professors and researchers outside of school so I can get a broader knowledge and an even stronger foundation to continue building on.

Enough said with that.. For you who haven't read my blog since yesterday, I went away this weekend with dad to listen to Stig Bengmark in Falköping where he was teaching for 4 hours today. Stig is 83 years old, doctor and also working at the university of London. He spends 8-10 hours per day at looking at new research. If someone would know things about food and health - that would be him. Still no one knows everything but I have huge respect for what he says.

The best thing about the whole trip was that I got his whole powerpoint with me home (dad asked him :))!!!! It's over 300 slides and tons and tons of what different research has shown. I will start sharing a lot of that in the future here on the blog, at least once a week but hopefully more.

You have no idea of how excited I am about this because I really believe that people get inspired and wants to change when they know WHY they should. And with that I mean, not only knowing why you should eat for example fish, but also why and what it actually does in your body. I know myself that since I've started to learn more on a deeper level a few months ago exacly what "foods are doing in your body" - it has been easier to make more good changes.

What you eat matters so much. It matters so much for your health but also for the environment. We can therefore take care of both our bodies and our planet in the same time when we choose the right things to eat.

But remember! Changes doesn't come over night so don't give up but take one step at a time and also remember to enjoy the food you eat! It is not only nutrition but so much more.

I know I said I will write a summary of the lectures but because I actually got his powerpoints, it will come some bit by bit in future blogs.
And also, I'm tired now and have to get ready for tomorrow because I'm going to Stockholm with some friends on a christmas market and more. Good night! :)

Stig Bengmarks lectures on youtube!

If you know swedish you can listen to Stig Bengmarks lectures from earlier this year on youtube (links below)

If you know english, you can still watch it and look at the powerpoints as most of them are in english and there's a lot of results from different studies. I really recommend it and it's so interesting!

It is in three parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ibMm4g6hc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F872uRfl_sk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCLRYybx18Q

Falköping today-tomorrow

Dad is going to Falköping which is a city 4,5 hours south from here to listen to the professor Stig Bengmark on a half day thing he is having there tomorrow about health/food. I decided today to join him so we are leaving tonight as it starts tomorrow morning.
I've talked about Stig before and he is one of those I would say I listen most too when it comes to food. I am very excited and I will try to get some time to ask him some questions!
I will post a summary of the lectures hopefully tomorrow evening.

Vitamin B1 - Thiamine

All B vitamins are water soluble which means that the body doesn't have big storages of these but for most of them (everyone except from B12), the body will get rid of the extra intake. This also means that you need to get an intake of these every day.

The B vitamins act as coenzymes in the metabolism. All B vitamins also influence each other in many ways. 

You can find thiamine in (examples) fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, brazil nuts, dried soy beans and pork. Sifted flour are enriched (sweden) with many B vitamins and thiamine is one of them. About 50 % of the vitamin get lost/destroyed while boiling vegetables and up to 40 % whily baking bread. Different factors in coffee and tea will inhibit the vitamins bioavailability.


The vitamin is very important for the metabolism as we've already mentioned. If you have a higher intake of carbs (example if you work out hard and eat extra carbs), then the need for thiamine will also increase. 
The vitamin is also important for the brain and the nerv cells indirect (from the metabolism) as the brain only can use glucose as energy source. Indirect it is also needed for synthesis of DNA and RNA.


Alcoholics often suffer from vitamin B1 deficiency due to several reasons; alcohol inhibits the absorption in the intestines, alcohol is a diuretic (urindrivande) so losses increase, alcohol increases the need for the vitamin and alcoholics usually also eat a more one-sided and inadequate diet.

There are also many people that has a hidden deficiency so this is something that needs to be thought of by many. One reason could be that the food loose so much of the vitamin when we heat up food.

People that has a higher need of vitamin B1 are (more than physical active ppl with increased intake of carbs and alcoholics) older people, pregnant and breastfeeding women. Women that are taking birth controll pills are also having a higher need of vitamin B intake.


Thiamine is not toxic in higher intakes - it has been used as a supplement for many years without any reports of serious side effects.

The metabolism! Yay!

Today I've sent a few hours writing a simplified overview of the metabolism on a big paper that I bought for 16 kr. A thought of putting glitter on it passed through my mind but then I told myself that I should stop being such a nerd so I only used a black and a red pen.

>

Phytochemicals

I've mentioned before that it is good to eat foods (vegetables, berries, fruits) from all different colours. The reason why they are so good is because of its contents of phytochemicals which has a very strong antioxidant effect.

Phytochemicals are micronutrients but still something different then vitamins and minerals, they are instead pigments.

There are several thousands different sorts and the most of them are healthy but a few are not (for example in mushrooms). Most of the phytonutrients are in the peel and it's what's giving the food colours. This means that the stronger colour a vegetable, fruit etc has, the better it is. For example, dark blue/red grapes are much better than green ones. One example is almonds where the shell (right english word?) contains a lot of phytonutrients.

Phytochemicals can prevent cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases etc etc.. the list goes on!

Two major subgroups of phytochemicals are carotenoids and flavonoids and if I don't remember wrong, I think I've already written about carotenoids before? I'll look for it and if not then I'll post about that and also flavonoids.

Normally a lot of vitamins gets destroyed when you heat up your food but when it comes to phytochemicals, many will be more healthier in a way that it will be easier for your body to use. For example, lycopene which is a phytochemical (carotenoid) in tomatoes and if you heat the tomato up a little bit them there will be 13 times as much lycopene then in a raw tomato. However, don't heat up your food too much in high temperatures, low temperature in a short while is enough. Also many phytochemicals are fat soluble which means that for a optimal absorption you need to eat some fat with these foods.

I will post one more post tonight about the metabolism system. I'm a nerd so even though I'm sick and threw up this morning, I went to the store to buy a big paper where I will draw the 3 different metabolism systems on - molecule by molecule.. We'll see if I get done today, I have a feeling it will take a while. But I'm weirdly enough really excited!

Christmas sacrifices

This picture is from christmas last year. This years christmas will be a bit different in the food aspect as I don't eat red meat nor sugar. No christmas ham, meatballs, sausages, glögg, julmust, saffronbuns (or actually I made sugar and glutenfree ones the other day so I will get that, but they taste very different), knäck or gingerbread. And no liqourice-knäck! Instead I will make turkey, "meatballs" made of chickpeas (i guess kind of like falafel, im really excited about those) and pretend that some root vegetable is a ham so i will put mustard and egg on it, hehe I know, it sounds awesome! I don't really care that much but I do miss glögg and meatballs.
GOOD thing christmas is NOT about food but about Jesus being born! 

1 month and 1 day left of my sugar fast, but I don't actually want to start again. I'll go to Italy the 1st of january so I'll eat an ice-cream there.. but more than that, I think I will try to stick to birthdays and graduations..

So excited about christmas!!

ORAC (about antioxidants)

ORAC is one way of measuring the antioxidants power in foods. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbtion Capacity. If a certain type of food has a high ORAC value, then that means that it has a high capacity to make free radicals harmless. 


Studies has shown that if you eat foods with high ORAC - then the protection against free radicals increases with 25 %. You need about 3000-5000 units per day for an optimal healthy intake, but you need different ones, you shouldn't try to eat all of them from only dark chocolate or only blueberries etc.. 


Here is a short list of a few foods and their ORAC. This is for 100 grams:


Prunes - 5770 units
Pomegranate - 3307 units
Blueberries - 2400 units
Oranges - 750 units
Kiwi - 602 units
Kale (grönkål) - 1770 units
Spinach - 1260 units
Onion - 450 units
Dark chocolate (at least 70 % cocoa) - 13 120 units
Broccoli - 890 units
Potatoes - 300 units
Tomatoes - 195 units


And get prepared for some HIGH numbers....

Cinnamon -  267 000 units
Oregano - 200 000 units
Turmeric - 159 000 units

 Remember tho that the ORAC for the spices are per 100 grams, which you would never eat per day but still even a little would be quite a lot! This is one of the reasons why I think spices are so interesting.. One of many positive things with them.
And once more - don't forget that you need to eat from all different colours so you get different types of antioxidants.

Dark chocolate/cocoa

A while ago, I searched the internet for different effects spices may have. I know that cocoa is not a spice, but I searched a little bit about that too. These things are so incredibly interesting and I'm considering writing my essay on my last semester on spices and stuff. It's incredible how many positive effects it may have on our bodies.
I wrote what I found in a document but didn't write any sources so I unfortunately don't remember where I found these things. I would like to write more about spices here on the blog, but we'll take the cocoa first before we take on the spices!

 First of all, as with sooo many other things, cocoa is best to eat raw. When you heat it up, many antioxidants it contains gets destroyed. This also means that it matter what kind of dark chocolate you eat.. Some of them have been heated up too much so it can't give you any good health effects. You can also try to find raw cocoa in the store (normal ones have been heated) and put in smoothies or something else. Just don't heat it up yourself if you buy it raw ;)

As I mentioned, cocoa contains A LOT of antioxidants. Catechins, which are high in the cocoa bean, has both positive and essential qualities. Studies suggest that some of these flavanoids can prevent stroke and have a positive effect in treating cancer as well as HIV. A swedish newspaper asked the French laboratory Eurofins to analyze the levels of the antioxidants/flavanoid which has been proved to be very important for our health. Epikatechin is the most important of these ones. Seven varieties with a cocoa content of about 70 percent were investigated. Most flavonoids per kilogram of these had: 1888 Origin, JD Gross, ICA Selection

Three that had a much lower amount of flavonoids were: Marabou Premium, Lindth Excellent and Änglamark. (Not sure where the 7th went...). For you swedish ppl - as you see, both marabou and lindth, two of our most common brands of dark chocolate, did not get a good result in this study. I have tried to find both 1888 Origin and JD Gross but haven't found them in any store. But ofcourse pretty much every ICA store will have the ICA selection dark chocolate. I have started eating that one.. A tip - the cranberry one is awesome, I think that one has about 72 % cocoa if I don't remember wrong.. They also have one with 74 %.

Preparing for christmas

The glitter has to be on while christmas-decorating

I have way to much stuff on my wall... I tried to decorate it with christmas stuff but I bet it's hard to find...

christmas socks - finally found them today after a few days of searching

Our kitchen last year from when I recorded a "cooking show" and baked swedish christmas things

Can't wait for christmas! - Pictures

Alex is excited to get decorated again

Sanna!

I feel so excited for this years christmas, almost like when I was a child.. I don't know why but it just feels so great! First of advent is now on sunday and then the countdown starts! We will have advent "fika" with the family 1st of advent and then 2nd me and a few of my friends are going to a Lucia concert in Uppsalas cathedral.. We are also going to a christmas market in Stockholm the 3rd of advent.

When I was a teenager I decorated my room as much as I could (or ludicrously much as I would say). The top picture is of some of the christmas decoration I used. Notice the fake snow in the window sills. I haven't done it in a few years but as I'm overflowing with christmas spirit this year, I think it's time to do it again this year! Now on saturday will be the day.

And people, don't forget WHY we celebrate christmas. I was surprised last year when I met so many people that didn't know why we celebrated it. For you who don't know - we celebrate that Jesus was born into this world to save us!

Sidenote.. I was looking through a lot of pictures from past christmas'... I love how my grandma has the same shirt on her every year :) And my dad has food in his mouth on all pictures :)

Calcium

Calcium will be on our next exam and I read through it today and got so excited because it's so interesting, so now I have to blog about it. (Yes, I know I'm a nerd) So here you have an introduction to this mineral.

Most of your calcium in the body is in your bone structure -->1,2-1,3 kg or about 2,5 pounds. You also have a some in your blood (about 1 % of your body weight).

The ratio between calcium and phosphorus is 2:1 in the bones. This means that if you don't have enough calcium or phosphorus, it will effect the levels of the other mineral.

You absorb 15-80 % and is regulated by several different hormones (calcitonin, PTH) from thyroid and the parathyroids (sköldkörtel och bisköldkörtlar) And an ongoing exchange of calcium happens (blood, bones, reabsorption from kidney's etc) directed by these hormones. Two other important factors affecting the level of calcium is vitamin D status and availability, and the kidney's regulation of secretion. 
This means that is is very important to have enough vitamin D - otherwise you won't absorb enough calcium.
The body is very good at regulating all these things though.


Some things inhibits the absorption and they are phytate and oxalate. Phytate are found in whole grains and especially the outer parts of the cereal. Phytate actually inhibits many different vitamins and minerals so it can definitely be something important to remember. If you want to remove the phytate, you can bake sourdough bread, or simply combine your food in that way that you do not eat phytate with food rich in vitamins and minerals. Oxalate can be found in, for example, rhubarb, spinach and soy.
 Large amounts of protein and sodium also makes the kidneys excrete more calcium through the urine - which means greater losses.


Large intake of calcium has shown to be positive for the blood pressure and lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

And then when it comes to bones and bone fractures... Both vitamin D and calcium are important to prevent fractures but don't forget that things like not smoking and exercising are even more important. When you are 20-25 years old, then your bones have reached it's best state, that's why it's important to exercise when you are young so you will get good bones as you can not improve this after this age. However, if you continue to exercise after that, the degradation (nedbrytning) will go slower.
Older women has a much higher risk of getting bone fractures, and one reason could be that they have less estrogen and estrogen inhibits the degradation. It's also important for us swedish people to think about our vitamin D intake (because of the lack of sun where we get most of our vitamin D) as this higher the risk of fractures.


The swedish recommendations on calcium intake is 800 mg per day for adults. You find a lot of calcium in milk, cheese, legumes (baljväxter), green leafy vegetables and nuts. Dried figs and shrimps also contains quite a lot of calcium. If you don't eat milk or products of milk as cheese, then you might need to think an extra thought of what you are eating so your intake will be enough. I have pretty much stopped eating products from cow such as milk, cream and cheese and I have not thought at all about the calcium intake so I know I need to start doing that.
The reason why I (pretty much) stopped eating that is because of that all the hormones they are giving the cow will end up in the fat - which means in the milk/cream/cheese products. It also highers the risk for inflammation in the body. You need 20 kg of milk to produce 1 kg of cheese... that is a lot of hormones concentrated in cheese... That didn't really have much to do with calcium but wanted to through it in there.. I have learned that from Stig Bengmark, the doctor I have mentioned several times before. I will go on another lecture with him hopefully next week and I will ask him more about that then as I think that is an extremly interesting subject!


Other sources are Näringslära för högskolan from 2008.

Another exam result back

And another exam passed :) I'll keep the result to myself but lets just say I'm very happy!

I need a man - preferbly before I need to change the tires on my bike again in spring

I changed the tires on my bike today. It's getting slippery outside and the snow will come soon so I need winter tires on it. Men should do those kind of things. What about the women cook and the men change bike tires? That sounds like a perfect idea to me... After about 50 min, I was finally done with the back tire and dad saw that I had done it wrong. I was not happy at this time and dad had to help me.

It's all done now but I decided during this process that I need a man to do these things for me. I also have two lights in my room that aren't working and the back light on my bike isn't working that good either. Maybe I should bribe someone with a cooked meal in an exchange of getting these things done?

Change of course in school? - a post about my thoughts

I've been thinking about if my education is leading me where I want to be. I want to educate people about nutrition and sometimes it feels like the program I'm going now is not sharp enough or however I could explain it.. I want to go so much deeper in things and learn so much more.
This semester has been really great but when I read about some courses I will have in the future, I don't get too excited because I doubt they will teach me what I need to know. I've been thinking about maybe putting together my own program, with courses I believe will take me where I want to go instead of just taking all these courses in this program to get a "proffesion name". That name won't help me if it's not what I need for what I want to work with.

As a part of our course, we had to interview a person who works with food in different ways in different counties. I was not excited about it because it would be my nightmare to get one of those jobs.. But many people who goes this program that I'm on end up there so our teachers wanted us too see how it could look like.
Today I talked to the person I was going to interview. We talked for about 1 h and 20 minutes, and maybe 15-20 minutes of those were the actual interview. She was amazing and it was like having a personal mentor for an hour. She was really honest and told me that the program I'm taking is not going to lead me where I want to go.. She even didn't think this education was good preparation for the job she has now! She told me about another education that I had actually been thinking about before in Stockholm (but I could do it distance) that is much better and we also talked about that I should maybe create my own program, picking courses that would be more relevant. I would still be done by the time I'm suppose to be done now.
Seriously, the whole phone call was so amazing and I felt so inspired afterwards to rethink my education. I really feel that it was from God that I got to speak with her.

So what will happen now.. I will pray through the whole thing and I will continue on the program I am on now until I figure out what courses would be good to have and then I will probably customize my own program. This means I could read more physiology and other things that I believe are more relevant.
It is to late to apply for other courses for the spring but I will talk to my teacher and see if there's anything we can do because there will be much more time in the kitchen next semester and that really feels like a waste of time as I already have an education as a chef and I have already taken courses in things like gluten-free food etc, (things I'm guessing we will do.) I would so much rather write papers or do something else those days that I could actually learn things from!

Swedish classes - pictures

Today I had 8 students in my swedish class. They are doing so good! Today we started with step 2 which was about animals, buildings, times etc..

Pictures from dads phone

Found some old pictures from dads phone. Mostly on our precious cat.

The siblings.. Sorry Sanna, you were blurry on all of the photos

Alex working

Alex at work again

Alex with his food

Christmas Alex!

gos gos

Me and Sanna planting all the seeds last spring