Most of us grow up with the conception that milk is the number one source of calcium and a crucial part of a healthy diet. However, much of this hullabaloo is the result of strategic and clever ad campaigns by the dairy industry. Milk is actually neither the most reliable source of calcium, nor the beacon of health it’s cracked up to be.

Babies Drink Milk

Babies consume milk because it is a customized food that is easily digestible and provides them with the nutrients they need to grow and develop in the early stages of their life. But after they wean off mother’s milk, humans stand alone as the only species on earth that continues to drink milk, let alone from that of another animal!

It takes humans some sixteen years to reach maturity versus cows who do it only one year. And with cow bones three to four times bigger than human bones, just imagine the chemistry of cow milk in relation to that of human milk. Their calcium-protein ratios are geared towards the individual needs of their respective species. When humans consume cow’s milk, they are ingesting something that is not only ill-suited for their body’s needs, but something that also can be conducive to disease.

Over-Processed

Grocery store shelves are lined with pasteurized milk varieties. Pasteurization involves boiling milk to kill all bacteria. Most milk boxes that you see in grocery stores have undergone ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurization, which is when the milk is raised to a temperature of about 285 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to sterilize the milk and kill not only bacteria but also any beneficial enzymes. Homogenization is the process of breaking up fat globules to a smaller size so that they remain suspended evenly in the milk rather than separate and floating on the surface.

Both pasteurization and homogenization add further downsides to milk consumption. Heating milk compromises its nutritional value. Homogenization changes the structure of milk’s proteins and makes it much harder to digest. The body is usually efficient in removing potentially harmful elements of milk, but homogenization enables certain substances to sidestep the protection filter, such as the hormones and steroids that may have been administered to the cows to increase production.

Bone-Building Myth

The food industry has inculcated a deep sense of trust in milk for its bone-building properties. However, these widespread claims are now coming into question. According to a 12-year Harvard University study of some 80,000 women, those who drank milk three times per day broke more bones than those who rarely drank milk. Another study conducted by the Department of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia followed elderly men and women and found that higher dairy product consumption was associated with an increased risk of fracture. Those who had the highest dairy product consumption levels were also those that experienced double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption levels.

Replace Milk

Calcium loss in bones occurs when calcium from bones dissolves in the blood stream, passes through the kidneys, and then leaves your body in urine. Reduce your sodium intake and you can decrease calcium loss in bones. Smoking is also a risk factor. According to a study of identical twins, in which one was a long-term smoker and the other not, the smoker’s risk of a fracture was 40 percent higher.

Lifestyle shifts can make a huge difference, without the false reassurance provided by milk consumption. Sure, dairy products contain calcium, but it is often accompanied by cholesterol, sugar, growth hormones, drugs, and other toxins, ultimately overshadowing the possible benefits. Opt for plant-proteins over animal-proteins, and you can avoid the leaching of calcium from your bones. Consume more beans, grains, and vegetables in place of fish, poultry, red meat, eggs, and dairy products.

A diet rich in easy-to-digest green leaves and vegetables including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, mustard greens, and Swiss chard is a great way to include calcium. They also contain many other important nutrients and minerals that are easily absorbed by the body. Beans are another great source of calcium. They are not only rich in calcium, but they also contain magnesium, which calcium works with to strengthen bones.

If you are looking for the consistency of milk rather than simply the benefits, try your hand at homemade nut milks or purchase them from your local grocery store.

Photo Credit: LollyKnit

The post Better than Milk? Dairy-Free Calcium Sources for Strong Bones appeared first on EcoSalon.

Start the day with a heart-healthy and digestion-friendly snack!

As the fig season is coming to a near end, I’m trying to get the most of my favorite fruit while it lasts. Lately, mornings have involved a makeshift Greek yogurt concoction, with figs, walnuts, and honey. It’s a light, fiber and protein-packed way to start the day.

Figs are a mainstay in the Mediterranean diet and are exceptionally beneficial. They are an excellent source of heart-healthy minerals potassium, magnesium, and calcium, effectively reduce blood pressure, and help to improve your digestive system and regularity. Dried figs concentrate more nutrition in a single serving, but fresh figs are lighter and water-rich.

Fresh Fig Greek Yogurt

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 1 large fig
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon honey

Directions:

Cut off the pointed top of the fig. Place it upright on a plate with the sliced tip at the top. Slice the fig in half, without cutting through the bottom. Leave a little space intact so that the fig will hold together as one piece. Slice across the fig again, perpendicular to the previous cut.

Slightly pull open the edges of the fig so that it resembles a cup-like shape.

Fill the center with yogurt.

Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

And drizzle with honey.

Serve and enjoy!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Recipe: Fresh Fig Greek Yogurt appeared first on EcoSalon.

Big Macs aren’t good for you. You’d think the world would know this by now, but more often than not we witness McDonalds drive-thru traffic jams that our own friends and family are in. It’s one thing to hear, to know better, to understand; and it’s another thing to internalize, accept, and react accordingly. So let me say this again: Big Macs aren’t good for you and here are some reasons why.

An Icon is Born

In 1967, McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti began to serve double-decker cheeseburgers on a double-cut bun in an effort to find a way to structure the messiness caused by the company’s token “special sauce.” Expanding from its humble beginnings in Uniontown, PA to locations across the nation as soon as the next year, the new burger was labeled the “Big Attraction” with its two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and sesame-seed bun. Today, the Big Mac has come to be a symbol of everything stereotypically American – capitalism, commercialism, and gluttony.

The original sales price of the iconic Big Mac was 45 cents, compared to the current $3.00, and today McDonald’s sells as many as 550 million Big Macs per year in the U.S., with a scope of some 120 countries.

The Fat Facts

Let’s talk about the one of the Big Mac’s biggest offenses: fat. A Big Mac is by no means a stranger to it. Each serving packs 550 calories, 260 calories of which come from fat. That’s nearly half of the entire burger’s calories and 45 percent of your daily balance! And of this whopping 29 grams of fat, 10 grams are saturated and 1.5 grams are trans. A Big Mac also contains 75 mg cholesterol, which is 25 percent of your daily allowance. And similarly alarming is the Big Mac’s sodium content. Each serving contains 1,070 milligrams.

Now, if you’ve done some of your own research, don’t be fooled by the Big Mac’s apparent virtuous side. According to the nutritional profile made available by McDonalds itself, each serving contains 3 grams of dietary fiber, 25 grams of protein and offers 6, 2, and 25 percent of our daily vitamin A, C and calcium requirements. Sounds positive, right?

It is important to keep in mind that not all nutrients are the same across the board, and this supposed uplifting aspect to the Big Mac is shadowed by its downsides as well as the quality of its ingredients. For example, the protein you get from animal products differs substantially from the protein you receive from plants, in terms of quality, assimilation, and overall health benefits. The fiber, protein and vitamins in a Big Mac are frankly not that compelling.

If You Can’t Pronounce It, Don’t Eat It

Given the stats, it doesn’t take a wild guess to know the Big Mac is compromising big time in the ingredients department.

Among the many ingredients that make up the Big Mac bun, for example, are high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium silicate, wheat gluten, emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of fatty acids, ethanol, sorbitol, polysorbate 20, potassium propionate), sodium stearoyl lactylate, dough conditioner (corn starch, ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, enzymes), and calcium propionate (preservative).

That’s a mouthful.

Aside from the fact that most of those are nearly impossible to pronounce at first go, many of these ingredients are dangerous. Azodicarbonamide is even banned in some countries around the world because it is a respiratory sensitizer and may harm people with asthma or those prone to allergies – to say nothing of the obvious culprits in the list, such as high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.

The “special sauce” is indeed special – for its creepy add-ins, that is. The sauce includes high fructose corn syrup, sugar, the preservatives propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, and hydrolyzed (corn gluten and wheat) proteins.

And if you knew what any of that actually meant, you’d realize “hydrolyzed proteins” is just a fancy way of spelling out monosodium glutamate, or the infamous MSG. The flavor enhancer, MSG, has been picking up a lot of heat these days, because it is reported to cause headaches, flushing, sweating, numbness, a rapid heart beat, chest pain, nausea, and weakness, among other things. The sauce also contains the fertility-damaging polysorbate 80 and its preservatives are known to inhibit nutrient absorption – if, of course, there were any particularly beneficial nutrients to speak of in the Big Mac to begin with.

Best of the Worst

On a positive note, the only time you should eat a Big Mac is by association. A Whopper contains 760 calories and 47 grams of fat, a Wendy’s quarter-pound single with cheese has 500 calories and 26 grams of fat, a Hardee’s Thickburger comprises 910 calories and 64 grams of fat, a Sonic Cheeseburger with mayo packs 700 calories and 42 grams of fat, and a 10-sack of White Castle sliders has 1,700 calories and 90 grams of fat. But that’s the only health list a Big Mac will top.

So, instead of rolling through the drive-thru, consider making a homemade, “real” version of a burger.

Vegan Chickpea Burger

Serves 5

Ingredients:

• 1 can chickpeas, mashed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large white onion
• 2 hot peppers (or 1 jalapeno)
• 2 scallions
• 2 garlic gloves
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1.5 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 3 tbsp ground oats
• Buns, avocado, tomato, red onion, and lettuce for garnish

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Image: Leo Almighty

The post The Breakdown: Looking at the Nutrional Value of a Big Mac appeared first on EcoSalon.

Until recently, I’d always considered carob nothing more than a lame chocolate substitute after years of feeling cheated out of chocolate chips in healthy trail mixes that substituted carob chips instead. I know better now. Carob stands on its own as a great addition to your diet.

Fiber-rich carob is incredibly nutritious. Vegans take note: carob contains twice as much calcium as milk! It’s also high in protein, potassium, phosphorus, with some iron and magnesium, too. Not bad for a food that’s widely known as a “substitute.”

I use carob powder to add richer flavor to smoothies and deserts, especially those using cacao. Cacao has a cool, bitter taste and a spoonful of carob powder will round that out nicely. It’s also high in natural sugars, so it’ll sweeten your smoothie, too.

Images: carob tree and pods, wikipedia

The post Carob: No Substitutions, Please appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s not quite a parsnip nor a great white carrot, but the daikon is a mild-flavored radish that wintertime locavores are probably quite familiar with. High in fiber, vitamin C, digestive enzymes and magnesium, daikon’s not a bad addition to your wintertime meals. The name daikon comes from a Japanese word simply meaning “great” or “large root,” and some varieties grow up to 3 feet long!

Although daikon is best known as a root crop, the leaves are also delicious and contain more nutrients per serving than the root. You’ll find twice as much potassium and 10 times as much calcium in the leaves, as well as folic acid and vitamin K. So shop for the freshest daikon you can find and use every part of it.

Common in Asian cuisine, daikon root makes a great addition to soups and veggie broth, and can also be grated into salads. The highly nutritious leaves also make a great soup or salad green.

You may have also come across pickled daikon in your Asian food ventures, and you’ll be delighted to know you can make your own daikon pickles with this easy, overnight recipe. If you enjoy making your own sauerkraut, daikon is a great veggie for it.

Although daikon is most heavily consumed in Japan (the majority of Japan’s cultivated land is used to grow this veggie), it actually originated in the Mediterranean and arrived in Japan by way of China a few thousand years ago. And for those of you who like to indulge in sake, take note: a cupful of grated daikon is said to be a great hangover remedy.

If daikon isn’t part of your regular diet, make it so! Low in calories and rich in nutrients, it’s such a versatile veggie and you might as well give it a try. Check back tomorrow for an original daikon recipe from EcoSalon’s very own chef writer, Vanessa Barrington.

Image: exquisitur

The post All About Daikon appeared first on EcoSalon.