Month: December 2022

Herbs and spices are for some integral components of the cooking process and for others potentially undervalued components of a strong dietary pattern.

I am ashamed to be admit I fall in the latter category, so if you’ve been sleeping on herbs/spices too just know that you aren’t alone.

Despite of my shortcomings in this area, I often field questions from clients and acquaintances around which herbs/spices offer the most potent health benefits.

Given that they are all uniquely valuable, I’m going to attempt to respond to this question in a thematic way.

Let’s start by identifying the fact that herbs & spices offer up a unique way to flavour foods in the absence or reduced presence of sodium.

Given that high sodium intake is a primary driver of high blood pressure and that most of us consume too much, this is certainly helpful.

To quote a 2013 British Medical

Last year the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition published a paper based on recently released survey data looking at the eating habits of Canadian adults.

They found that very specific vitamins and minerals were under consumed by large swathes of the population.

One such micronutrient was magnesium, which I discussed last week.

Today my gaze turns to Vitamin A, for which inadequate intakes were reported in nearly HALF of Canadians based on the data analyzed in this paper.

That’s a problem.

Adequate Vitamin A is fundamental to optimizing human health in various areas, including:

• Immune Health
• Skin Health
• Bone Health
• Fertility/Reproductive Health
• Vision
• Much, much more

So now we know its important and that many of us don’t get enough, here’s what can be done about it.

Vitamin A – The Heavy Hitters

Orange Veggies – Like carrots, sweet potato, squash and bell peppers.

Leafy Greens – Especially spinach, collard

Building on my recent series exploring common nutrient inadequacies among the general public, today my gaze turns to potassium & fibre.

I’ve chosen to group them together because, as is often the case, it is a very similar core group of foods that are high in both of them.

If you are a client or regular reader, you will hopefully start to observe very clear trends relating to the fact that the same core families of foods keep reemerging as the candidates most likely to help you, or anyone else, resolve the imbalances in their diet.

With that said, let’s get right into the good stuff.

Potassium & Fibre – The Heavy Hitters

There are 6 key families of foods you need to have on your radar to ensure adequacy in your fibre & potassium intake.

Leafy Greens – Such as spinach, chard, beet greens and KALE.

Legumes –  Such

The Institute Of Medicine (IOM) suggests that male’s consume around 3.7 L of fluid daily and women consume 2.7 L of fluid daily.

Fluid, of course, can be ingested in various forms including water (the most likely candidate) as well as tea, coffee, other beverages as well as modest contributions from the foods we consume regularly – particularly fruits and vegetables.

As you might imagine, these recommendations could vary greatly based on individual factors but at the very least provide a useful reference point.

Which leads me to the the subject of today’s article, the relationship between water intake and various daily mental functioning considerations like mood, focus and energy levels.

Let’s dive right in (pun intended).

Water & Mental Functioning – Insights

“When dehydration reduces body mass by more than 2%, it has been consistently reported that mood is influenced, fatigue is greater, and alertness is