Category: Food

Food and diet, nutrition science

Decoding digestive discomfort: the science behind FODMAPs

FODMAPs are Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols.

Digestive discomfort – excessive flatulence, “bloating”, loose stool, or constipation – is a prevalent issue for many, and it often finds its roots in a group of fermentable carbohydrates collectively known as FODMAPs. Understanding the science behind FODMAPs could help in establishing a more comfortable and gratifying relationship with food.

In the realm of our digestive system, envision a system akin to an intricate ecosystem, teeming with activity. Various nutrients act as its constituents, powering this internal city. However, certain substances, the FODMAPs, undergo fermentation in the gut, potentially causing imbalances leading to bloating, gas, and changes in bowel habits. It is worth noting that the brain-gut connection is complicated and not entirely understood. Psychological issues and gut issues can each play a part in affecting the other.

For individuals grappling with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), diverticulosis, or other intestinal issues imbalances in the gut or the brain-gut axis can be particularly disruptive, triggering symptoms such as pain, bloating, loose bowel movements or constipation, and perhaps even migraine in some people.

FODMAPs may well play a part in these complex interactions and systems. FODMAPs are present in a range of seemingly innocuous foods. From onions, garlic, and wheat bread to dairy products and certain fruits like apples, lychees, and mangoes. Understanding the different categories of FODMAPs equips individuals to navigate the grocery store and make informed dietary choices with guidance from a professional, qualified dietician (do not seek advice from the quacks known as nutritionists).

Here’s a breakdown of the primary FODMAP families:

Oligosaccharides: Found in wheat, rye, legumes, and some fruits like watermelon and peaches

Lactose: Present in milk, yogurt, and certain cheeses

Fructose: Abundant in certain fruits like apples, pears, and mangoes, as well as honey

Polyols: Blackberries, peaches, cauliflower, and artificial sweeteners such as sorbitol and xylitol.

FODMAP sensitivity varies widely but following advice one might usefully try a low-FODMAP diet for a short time to see whether symptoms lessen. Of course, reintroducing foods one at a time might then seem like a way to discover which particular food was problematic for you, however, there are lots of factors at play and delays in the time between changing one’s diet and the onset or lessening of symptoms. It would be almost impossible to identify specific problem foods this way.

The NHS advice for those with diverticulitis, say, is to eat a well-balanced diet with plenty of fibre, what we used to call roughage. If one begins to suffer symptoms then it might help to quickly switch to a low-FODMAP diet for a short while until symptoms subside and reintroduce those foods from the FODMAP list you enjoy along with fibre. Of course, if symptoms seriously worsen at any point it is sensible to seek medical assistance. This is especially important if one has blood in the stool, a fever, or crippling pain.

THIS ARTICLE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. YOU SHOULD SEEK PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL HELP IF YOU HAVE WORRYING GASTROINTESTINAL SYMPTOMS.

How to cook a delicious and cheap pilchard curry

TL:DR – A delicious but inexpensive recipe for pilchard curry.

When Mrs Sciencebase was a student, she used to make an inexpensive curry: tin of pilchards, tin of tomatoes, chopped onion, crushed clove of garlic, teaspoon each of cumin, coriander, and turmeric powder, salt & pepper, and a half a teaspoon of chili powder. Served on a bed of whole-grain boiled rice.

It sounded a bit grim, but wasn’t too bad. (Brown-bread icecream for pudding or Granny Grape Pudding). It was all certainly a whole lot more adventurous than the boiled noodles and soy sauce I once cooked her because I had nothing else in the cupboard. Don’t know if it compares well with a camping meal we once had together, which amounted to half each of a raw calabrese head, half a bag of Bombay Mix, and half a bottle of red wine. Oh, how the other half live, I hear you exclaim.

Chopping weapons-grade, home-grown Scotch Bonnet chili peppers
Chopping weapons-grade, home-grown Scotch Bonnet chili peppers

Anyway, back to that “curry”. The powder mix works well with other main protein ingredients, but at some point, having taken on the mantle of chief-curry-cook in our house, I wanted to stretch out the recipe a little further. I began adding various other spices, crushed cardamom seeds, cinnamon, grated fresh ginger, cloves, and mustard powder. Over the years, the list grew and grew. At some point, I used to make up a jar of the mix that would last several weeks and it usually contained well over 40 different ingredients. Ludicrous. I think at one point I was even adding garam masala as well as frying and crushing whole seeds of coriander and cumin. The curries I produced always tasted pretty good. I think…

Grinding cumin seeds with a pestle and mortar
Grinding cumin seeds with a pestle and mortar

Time went by, we got busier, there was little time for such lengthy curry powder recipes, we didn’t always have all the ingredients I needed, I simplified the blend. It wasn’t quite the three-chord-trick that Mrs Sciencebase came up with for her pilchard curry, but it was a shadow of its former self, perhaps half a dozen ingredients rather than a couple of score. It always seemed to taste about the same as the more complex blend.

Then one day, around the time covid started, we were on very limited shopping opportunities and Mrs Sciencebase simplified the shopping list to the minimum…and a tub of mild madras curry powder was purchased. It contained maybe half a dozen different ingredients, the ones from the student pilchard curry recipe and a couple of others. The new curries I made with this pre-mixed powder didn’t seem to lack anything, in fact, they were pretty much the same to taste as the original pilchard and anything that I put together with four different spices in the pot. So, we’ve stuck with that. It doesn’t feel quite as Zen to use a pre-mixed powder, so I do often add some extra chili powder and grated coconut, occasionally some lime juice. One thing I don’t ever use these days…and maybe only ever did once, are tinned pilchards.

Supplementing physical and mental health

TL:DR – Anecdote is not evidence, but I feel like I gained some benefit from taking a multivitamin supplement, it probably compensated for poor absorption of iron and perhaps other vitamins caused by one of my prescription medicines.

I’ve always been wary of taking vitamins and other supplements. There are good reasons not to do so, if you have a reasonably balanced diet. Excesses of some vitamins and minerals can lead to problems like kidney and liver damage, kidney stones, and some can interfere with the absorption and activity of prescription medicines.

However.

I have been feeling rather tired in recent months, becoming unaccustomedly exhausted after even light activity. I’m talking after a short walk, but sometimes even just after a shower. Was it long-COVID, was it my medication, was it just me getting older?

Mrs Sciencebase had an iron and vitamin supplement for an unrelated reason and suggested I try it, see if it would help.

Well, I took the recommended dose for a few days, not expecting to experience much improvement. Amazingly though, I felt a remarkable change in what people commonly refer to as “energy levels”. Activities that had started to become a tiring chore became a lot easier, I hopped on my bike and did a decent half an hour’s cycling without breaking a sweat, a couple of days after that I did an hour, at speed, and aside from being thirsty when I got back to base, I was fine.

I know anecdote is not evidence, but honestly, it seems like too much of a coincidence that I felt like I had recovered from apparent chronic exhaustion within three days or so of taking the supplement. Moreover, when I look at the side effects of one of my medications, it does suggest that tiredness and various other side effects are associated with reduced absorption of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). So, I’m sticking with the supplement for a while longer.

Intriguingly, the effects do not seem to have been wholly physical though. Most people have had a tough few years, but there has been significant family loss and stress here that happened in the middle of covid, is ongoing, and I have not been what you might call the happiest bunny in the warren, for a long tim, I must confess. Stuff that I usually really enjoy has not, on too many occasions, brought me much joy in recent months. I shrugged it off as being the grief and worry…but…a few days ago, I felt like the proverbial cloud had lifted, and even though it was a drizzly day, the sun seemed to be shining again.

Could this too have been a supplement fix? Well, there are many, many biochemical pathways that are linked to mental health, disturbance in some of those are known to be connected to depression. These various pathways need various micronutrients to work properly. Might I have been deficient in an essential biochemical component? Have I now replenished my supplies and rebooted those pathwats?

Perhaps the brain, when faced with deficiency, goes into some kind of lockdown to make you mope, reduce motivation, and so activity? And, when that lockdown is prolonged and deep, could it also begin to impinge on other pathways to the detriment of mental health. If so, I wonder if this is exacerbated in the wake of a double-dose of grief accompanied by a lot of not unwarranted stresses and anxieties.

I don’t know. Like I say, anecdote is not evidence. I’d rather not take the supplements for a prolonged period of time, so I will be having a chat with my doc at my annual review about my current medication. I will tell them that what I do know is that I’ve been taking a daily dose of micronutrients and feel physically much fitter than I have for a long time and mentally far brighter.

As a footnote, I shared this post on my Mastodon and a couple of people suggested that my experience may be due to my “taking control” or simply a placebo effect. Well, that is a possibility, of course. However, I’ve had symptoms for a long time that coincide with several mentioned on the documentation accompanying one of my medications and I feel that reversion to the mean/norm (basically, the placebo effect) was so sudden and coincided with taking the supplement that there must have been a physical effect of doing so rather than my spontaneously recovering…but, again, anecdote is not evidence, either way. One cannot do double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on oneself.

Digesting ten unpalatable myths about food

I’ve put together a menu of my favourite food myths #DeceivedWisdom and separated the fact and fiction based on the debunking of nutrition myths in a recent well-referenced feature on examine.com. Myth 10 is my own bonus myth debunked.

Myth 1: Carbs are bad for you

Fact: As long as you do not overindulge, there is nothing inherently harmful about carbohydrates.

Myth 2: Fat is bad for you

Fact: If you eat too much and don’t get enough exercise, and so stay in a caloric surplus, a low-fat diet won’t help you lose weight. You need some omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Saturated fat won’t give you a heart attack, but too much trans fat might.

Myth 3: Protein is bad for your bones and kidneys

Fact: Protein, even in large amounts, isn’t harmful to your bones or kidneys (unless you suffer from a pre-existing condition).

Myth 4: Red meat is bad for you

Fact: The risk of getting cancer from eating red meat has been vastly exaggerated. Healthy lifestyle choices, such as maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, not smoking, and drinking alcohol only in moderation is far more important to overall risk.

Myth 5: Salt is bad for you

Fact: Salt reduction is important for people with salt-sensitive hypertension, and excess salt intake is associated with harm. But drastically lowering salt intake has not shown uniform benefit in clinical trials. See Myth 4 for general comment on health risk reduction.

Myth 6: Fresh is better than frozen

Fact: There are only tiny nutrient differences between truly fresh fruit and veg compared with frozen produce. Choose to suit your taste, budget, and lifestyle, any fruit and veg is better than no fruit and veg. Some supermarkets cold store “fresh” fruit and veg for months, so in that case frozen might even be fresher.

Myth 7: You should do a ‘detox’ regularly

Fact: The concept of a detox is pseudoscience. Nothing dietary you ingest will accelerate significantly the body’s natural processes (in the liver and kidneys) of waste products. Moreover, some supplements add to the burden on the liver and can even interfere with medication, leading to more tox than detox.

Myth 8: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

Fact: You don’t need to eat breakfast to be healthy or lose weight.

Myth 9: You won’t lose weight if you eat before bedtime

Fact: Eating late won’t make you gain fat, unless it drives you to eat more. Also, tasty, high-calorie snacks are very attractive after a long day.

Myth 10: There is a magic formula to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise

Fact: There isn’t. Eat sensibly, don’t overindulge in any one food, get plenty of exercise, preferably in the fresh air where you can hear birdsong away from traffic. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink to excess. Avoid worrying about your health and nutrition.

Weapons grade chilli dressing

UPDATE: I blitzed them in the food processor today and converted the jar of pickled chillis into a lethal cocktail for drizzling into curries and marinades etc. Thought I had better put a hazmat type sign on the bottle.

Turns out these are Scotch Bonnets, up to 400,000 Scoville units in terms of capsaicin concentration. I’ve now chopped, deseeded and blanched half a pound of them to freeze and pickle.

I wore rubber gloves, a facemask and goggles while I did so, but the house is now full of their volatiles and neither Mrs Sciencebase nor myself can stop coughing and sneezing. I just touched my face with a formerly gloved finger that I thought I’d washed thoroughly and the skin there is sizzling gently…why do we use these weapons on mass destruction in food again, remind me?

UPDATE: I was talking chillis in the pub last night with biochemist and brewer friend Mark. He reckons the best thing to do is blend them up with some salt and white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, seeds and all, to make a useful drizzle to add a bit of fire to anything you cook, as and when. He also warned against adding anything fresh and rottable, such as freshly plucked chillis to oil to make a chilli oil, for instance, as there is a significant risk of botulism with such homemade products unless you add the requisite preservatives that defeat Clostridium botulinum.

Apparently, the chilli peppers I have grown are habanero Scotch Bonnet (1000s times hotter than a jalapeno on the Scoville scale). I chopped one without the seeds into scrambled eggs for lunch and almost couldn’t breathe while they were frying…my stomach is still complaining three hours later, my nose is running, and my lips feel like I’ve been chewing wasps. I only ate the tiniest fragment and none of the seeds. Although there is usually very little capsaicin in chilli seeds its highest concentration being found in the pith that attaches them to the interior of the fruit.

My chillis are now destined for homemade chilli pizza oil, I reckon. I daren’t cook with them again. They’re weapons grade.

In case you were wondering: The Scoville scale is a subjective measure of the heat of peppers, or other spicy foods, basically acting as a proxy for capsaicin concentration. Capsaicin is perhaps the most well known of the many related pungent capsaicinoids compounds in chillis. The scale is named for American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, whose invented an organoleptic test for chilli heat in 1912. It is still discussed but high-performance liquid chromatography (HLPC) provides a more objective way of testing capsaicinoid concentration.

Capsaicin has the chemical name 8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) it is a serious irritant to all mammals causing a burning sensation in any tissue with which it comes into contact, particularly sensitive parts of the body such as the eyes and nose, any part of the alimentary tract from top to bottom, and for some unfortunate chilli “chefs” who don’t wash their hands thoroughly after handling, any part of the reproductive tract too…hence the phrase – Chilli Willy – familiar to many waiters in restaurants serving spicy food.

Ironically, capsaicin has been used as a topical painkiller (in shingles for instance) and it has also demonstrated antifungal activity. Indeed, it may well have evolved in the plants for this purpose to protect the seeds, which are dispersed in avian guano (birds don’t feel the burn).

Vitamin D supplements

We need vitamin D, although exactly what you mean by vitamin D is open to debate, there are several different chemicals that come under the umbrella of that term and you won’t always get the most appropriate from a supplement. Indeed, a given product might not even tell you which form you’ve bought over the counter. This beggars the question, what is it exactly that the SACN report commissioned by the UK government is recommending we take? The report suggests that many of us don’t go outside enough to get adequate exposure to sunlight for vitamin D production in our skin (sunscreen blocks the UV necessary to make the stuff, ironically enough). So, we should all be taking vitamin D in the autumn and winter and some of us all year round…

There’s been a massive backlash against taking vitamins, antioxidants and other supplements because it seems that they can sometimes do more harm than good unless you have a specific condition or deficiency. Indeed, there are no good clinical trials that show any benefits to any otherwise healthy person with a half-decent diet of taking any food supplements at all. It’s all marketing hype all that stuff about extracts and essential oils. Pure quackery. So, is it any surprise that this new “research” by a government-commissioned body is now suggesting that we take vitamin D supplements?

Would we be hearing about it in the news this week if the agency’s conclusion had been to not recommend taking extra vitamin D? Doesn’t it just smack a little of industry lobbying to get such studies carried out in the first place, because they’re almost always bound to err on the side of caution and make a positive suggestion with respect to the subject rather than a negative one and pretty much disregard the risks of overdosing on fat-soluble vitamins, which is a real issue?

There is, of course, a case for vitamin D and other supplements and nobody wants the widespread return of rickets, which is caused by a deficiency, but it does feel like more than a coincidence. Other similar suggestions from health bodies will follow, just you watch…

Amygdalin – anticancer “vitamin” B17

Amygdalin the so-called safe and natural anticancer vitamin B17, is none of those things. It is not a vitamin in any sense of the word. It has no anticancer properties. It is poisonous.

The compound, formula C20H27NO11, is a glycoside initially isolated from the seeds of the tree Prunus dulcis in the nineteenth century, also known as bitter almonds. Enzymes (namely glucosidases) found in the gut and in some foods break down amygdalin to release hydrogen cyanide. See also synthetic derivative, laetrile.

“Cochrane Collaboration” had this to say:

“The claims that laetrile or amygdalin have beneficial effects for cancer patients are not currently supported by sound clinical data. There is a considerable risk of serious adverse effects from cyanide poisoning after laetrile or amygdalin, especially after oral ingestion. The risk—benefit balance of laetrile or amygdalin as a treatment for cancer is therefore unambiguously negative.”

Research Blogging IconMilazzo S., Ernst E., Lejeune S., Boehm K., Horneber M. & Milazzo S. (2011). Laetrile treatment for cancer, DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005476.pub3

Five major challenges to avoid food crunch

Growing population and an increasing poverty gap are major challenges for global food security especially when the issue of biofuels produced from crops is introduced. According to Tahereh Alavi Hojjat of DeSales University, in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, USA, governments around the world must address five major challenges if we are not to see an enormous increase in human suffering, disease and starvation:

1 Energy security – This directly affects food prices through fertiliser costs, farm energy use and transportation costs, as well as the use of land for growing biofuel crops, which is meant to circumvent our reliance on putatively dwindling fossil fuel supplies and mitigate against challenge #2, climate change.

2 Climate change – Will increase by tens, perhaps hundreds of millions, the number of undernourished people worldwide as higher average temperatures negatively impact on food crop yields.

3 Water security: is already becoming a major problem as the population grows and consumption rises. Half a billion people live in countries chronically short of water. By 2050, this number could be closer to four billion as a result of climate change and loss of fresh water resources.

4 Competition for land – A growing problem that will likely increase the incidence of civil unrest and international conflict as fertile land area dwindles and urbanisation predominates.

5 Demand for food – This will inevitably rise as the population increases toward 10 billion and a greater percentage of people demand meat.

Driven by these various factors, Hojjat suggests that we are heading for a “food crunch”, which will inevitably hit the poorest hardest. The international community must move quickly and effectively Hojjat urges. Hunger is not caused by scarcity in terms of production capacity, there is plenty of food being produced globally but it doesn’t reach those in most need while obesity levels continue to grow in certain parts of the world. “To solve the world hunger crisis, it is necessary to do more than send emergency food aid to countries facing famine. Leaders must address the globalised system of agricultural production and trade that favours large corporate agriculture and export-oriented crops while discriminating against small-scale farmers and agriculture oriented to local needs,” Hojjat says.

Research Blogging IconHojjat T.A. (2012). Global poverty and biofuel production: food vs. fuel, International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, 8 (3/4/5/6) 209. DOI: 10.1504/IJETP.2012.052109

How nutritious is horse meat?

Just a quick round-up cribbed from NutritionData via KQED to address the issue of how nutritious is horse meat compared to beef in the wake of “StableGate” (horse DNA allegedly present in value burgers sold by UK and Iris supermarkets).

Horse meat is about 120 vs beef’s 130 kilocalories per 100 grams. They have similar cholesterol levels and pretty much the same protein content when comparing lean cuts. Horse meat has twice the iron of beef and more than twice the vitamin B12, but less B6, niacin and folate.

The levels of omega-3 fatty acids – supposedly linked to reduced risk of heart disease stroke and neurodegenerative diseases – are much higher in horse (360 mg/100g); just 21 mg in beef steak.

Numerous cultures are not in the slightest bit squeamish about eating horse meat, although Brits and Americans usually seem not to be among them. Personally, I think meat is meat, if you’re slaughtering one grass-eating mammal and then frying or stewing its rump it could just as easily be the sheep, cow or horse. I do think we could solve many of our climate, poverty and food security issues if we made goat the staple meat product given that it can produce meat and new goats at a high rate even scrabbling around on a few blades in the desert. Goats also have a slightly less cutesy image than horses, frolicking lambs and those ruminants with “cow eyes”…

The Other Red Meat.