It’s been a while

Writing this entry just to check in, as my last post was in 2015. In the time since my last entry, I’ve been fortunate to welcome two kids and achieve a career advancement. Nevertheless, I can’t envision myself adopting a different lifestyle, and I often reflect on various things – especially the positive changes that have occurred, particularly when incorporating more fruit into my diet.

Since then, the only platform I am active on is Instagram. Family duties with two kids keep me busy, but I am still on the lifestyle path. Actually, a couple of years ago, I moved more towards raw food and less cooked. This past year, it’s been mostly raw and with much-reduced salt, including extended periods of no salt at all.

My conclusion is that a fully raw diet works better than raw till 4. I managed to gain weight and experience some health issues with raw till 4, which are resolving with a fully raw diet. Nevertheless, for the past 10 years, I’ve been on a high fruit lifestyle and have eaten lots of fruit. I have my thoughts on mixing fruit with cooked food (not the best idea), but I will leave it for another post.

I’m not sure about the future of this small blog, but we’ll see. I am keeping the domain alive, with hosting running.

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Low fat vegan soups (Borsch)

During winter, I’ve been experimenting with various low fat vegan soups. Particularly I created or adjusted recipes of soups well known in post Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Nordic regions. This time Borsch.

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What greens and herbs Japanese islanders eat?

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Fresh fruits on Ishigaki island, Japan

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Sauerkraut – next health trend?

While listening Rich Roll podcast with I think it was Jason Wachob from Mind Body Green, I heard that one of the trendy things in health movement will be sauerkraut…

I immediately remembered my childhood. I was raised with strong presence of sauerkraut. It’s been fermenting at my house and we would consume it a lot, especially in winter time. Why? Probably the main reason was that it’s cheap! Basically to make it, you need cabbage (which in autumn is very cheap product) and tremendous amounts of salt. It can stay long without of spoiling, therefore it’s easy to store. We can add flavors, such as enriching the taste with caraway seeds and so on. We also can add carrot, which is also very cheap product in autumn when most of sauerkraut buckets are made. Heck… you can even buy juice which is produced from fermentation of cabbage in a regular supermarket these days.

And I can see extensive research is going on for past years on how to prepare sauerkraut with new tastes, reduced salt amount and on health benefits of this product.
I think sauerkraut is catching on if not over passing popularity of kimchi which is famous fermented food that comes from Korea.

But basically sauerkraut is shredded cabbage that has been fermented by different kinds of lactic acid bacteria. I could start bringing extensive amounts of research data to support claims about that it’s a health food and about that it’s not a health food.

However I would like to go with common sense. I would understand people who claim it’s a survival food for times when we don’t have much food to eat. You always have to remember that sauerkraut is very salty food. 1 cup of sauerkraut has almost 1000mg of sodium. Of course there are low salt options, but you still need a lot of salt to prepare it. Basically sauerkraut is rotten cabbage that has salt added. Do we feel mouth watery when we see rotten cabbage on the field? If this food did not have so much salt in it, would it be appealing for humans? I think not.

So final thoughts would be, I believe this food will gain popularity, therefore it’s going to be accessible in a nice packaging, with flavors and labelled as organic health food. But from common sense point, it’s far from being health promoting food.

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Notes from life in a Northern country

Whenever outside temperature hit below zero Celsius and days becoming shorter than nights, I question if this is optimal weather for us as human species to thrive. Survive… sure, but thrive? We wear bunch of clothes, try to block Windows to not let cold air in, searching supplementation of Vitamin D, etc. And besides those things there are multiple other ones that, in my opinion, reduce our possibility to thrive…

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Brands in Japan that use GMO

Since I time by time visit Japan, I noticed that food product business is run by huge companies that produce various products. For example take Meiji. This company produces products starting from candies until dairy products. However Japan is still a unique place where there still exist small companies that focus on producing certain product.

For short insight in companies that operate in Japan and their use of GMO products. We want to inform people that following brands (according to Rainbow Raw Food blog – nice raw vegan restaurant in Tokyo) in Japan use GMO or genetically modified organisms in their products. Maybe the list is incomplete, but at least you can get an insight and next time when reaching their products in Asian market, your local supermarket or traveling around East Asia, think again, if you really want to encourage these companies to continue doing this by purchasing their products?

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What do the Okinawan centenarians ate?

If we check the comparison data between Okinawa and Japanese diet in late 1940-ties, we can see some food intake patterns.

I think the image of comparison by itself speaks a lot. High-carbohydrate diet has always been a Japanese and especially Okinawa people staple.

Consumed carbohydrate amount of Okinawa people reach up to 85% of all calorie intake. Meat was so rare to eat. There could be various reasons for such diet, including limited availability of expensive foods such as meat or fish.

However, now we can eat like kings and queens, you can get pork and fish almost anywhere in Naha (Okinawa capital city). To tell you the truth, it’s even sometimes difficult to escape chunks of pork inside your dish in the restaurants. Where it will lead? Let’s see after 30-50 years.

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Grapefruits with TBZ

While strolling around fruit stands in Japanese supermarkets I noticed sign in Japanese that says that grapefruit is covered with TBZ. As later I found out, Japan has a labeling rule (Source: USDA) that if fruit is covered with TBZ or other post harvesting fungicide, it has to be properly labeled. In Japan, post harvest fungicides (PHF) are classified as food additives (because PHF’s serve as food preservative). This labeling rule is applied to all exporters to Japan. However, I am not sure if it also applies to local producers.

What is TBZ? Well, according to US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report published in 2002 (Source: EPA) thiabendazole (TBZ) is a pesticide that is used to control a variety of fruit and vegetable diseases such as mold, blight, rot and stains caused by various fungi.”

It looks like not only citrus fruits can have TBZ residues, but also other fruits can be covered with this fungicide, including apples, pears and other fruits and greens (Source: What’s on my food).

In Japan following products are allowed to be treated with PHF’s, namely, apples, apricots, bananas, cherries, citrus fruits, Japanese plums, kiwifruits, loquats, nectarines, peaches, pears, pomegranates, and quinces (Source: USDA).

Japan allows following PHF’s:

Diphenyl
Imazalil
Phenylphenol (OPP)
Sodium
Phenylphenate (OPP)
Tiabendazole (TBZ)
Fludioxonil

Few examples of labeling PHF’s in Japan:

Actually TBZ is also used in drug industry for control of parasitic infestations in humans.

Main health concerns:

TBZ mainly impact thyroid and liver function (Source: EPA).
Likely to be carcinogenic (Source: EPA).
Dizziness, Nausea, Vomiting, Anorexia (Source: INCHEM).
Rarer: abdominal pain, headache, drowsiness, weariness, heartburn, diarrhea or constipation, flatulence, blurring of vision, xanthopsia, skin eruption, malodorous urine. (Source: INCHEM)

How to determine if fruit is covered with TBZ, even if it’s not labeled? Well good chance is if the fruit is waxed, it usually has some type of PHF added. If you take citrus in your hand and your hand is covered with small shiny residues, my guess is you just came in contact with some type of PHF.

Otherwise, let’s hope also other countries apply such labeling system.

More info:

EXTOXNET: Extension Toxicology Network: Thiabendazole
Toxicological evaluation of certain veterinary drug residues in food: TIABENDAZOLE

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Wastage

Some insight in behind the scenes of animals for entertainment businesses. Next time we choose to go circus, horse race or see other “animal performance” think what you VOTE for.

“The horse racing industry’s best kept secret…”