Move over, baby carrots. There's a refreshing new pre-dinner munchie in town.

No offense to baby carrots and hummus, but sometimes I get tired of serving them as my default appetizers when guests are around.  Don’t get me wrong: it’s a healthy combo, and a super-convenient one at that.  But inspired it is not.  I used to wonder what people in other countries served to their guests with cocktails during a casual dinner party.  Fortunately, I had occasion to find the answer to my question in January 2008, when I scored an invitation to weekday family dinner at the home of a professor at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) in Puebla, Mexico.

On the coffee table, our hostess had placed a platter of sliced jicama that had been tossed in lime juice and sprinkled with a bright red chile powder.  It was so simple, and so addictive.  It put baby carrots with hummus to shame.  

All about Jicama

Jicama is the tuberous root of a legume plant that has the crunchy, watery texture of a water chestnut, raw potato or Asian pear.  Its mild flavor is tinged with an everso slight sweetness,which is courtesy of our favorite prebiotic fiber friend, inulin.  (To refresh your memory about the health benefits of inulin, check out my previous postings on Jerusalem artichokes and chicory root, other great

Jicama is the large turnip-looking brown thing in your local produce department

 food sources of inulin.)   The crisp, watery texture of raw jicama is so summery and refreshing, which makes it a fantastic addition to salads and slaws.  Nutritionally, 1 cup of sliced jicama has a mere 46 calories, and 11g of carbohydrate (of which 6 huge grams are fiber) and 30% of the daily value for vitamin C.  (This means that 1 cup of jicama actually has 5g of net carbohydrate, in case you are diabetic on a carbohydrate-controlled diet.)  

If you’ve never worked with jicama before, there are only two pointers I can offer.  One: If you’re not using it right away, do not refrigerate it  (Jicamas don’t like the cold).  Just store it at room temperature. Two: the only annoying thing about jicama is having to peel it.  I’ve wrestled a jicama with a vegetable peeler before, but have found that cutting the jicama into quarters and using a sharp knife to shave the stubborn skin off along the silhouette worked way better.  

Recipe: Jicama sticks with lime and chile

1 jicama, peeled

Juice of 2 limes

Sprinkle of your favorite chile powder*

* Note: the most authentic way to season your lime-tossed jicama sticks would be with a Mexican condiment called Tajin, which is a chili-lime-salt powder designed specifically for fruit and jicama seasoning.  (I checked the ingredients and it’s gluten-free.)  You can order it online through the link I’ve provided.  Otherwise, you have a few options.  You can take a dried guajillo chile (or any medium-heat dried chile), stem it and seed it, and grind it up in a food processor or mini coffee-grinder.  If you have a favorite ground chile powder lying around the pantry, like an ancho chile powder, that’d be swell, too.  Personally, I wouldn’t use the American version of chili powder (the stuff we use for actually making chili)… its flavor is a bit too heavy for this.  

All you have to do is cut the jicama into sticks, toss them in a bowl with the lime juice, and sprinkle it all with some chili powder to taste.  Easy!

If you want to take this concept from appetizer to a slightly more substantial summer salad, check out Tyler Florence’s recipe for Jicama and Mango salad with Chile and Lime.

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If your gluten intolerance has ever made you feel like an outcast– like during the Sex and the City-induced cupcake-craze of the early 2000’s–then you’ll be happy to know your moment has finally arrived.  

Gluten-free living has not just gone mainstream: it’s actually gone fashionable.  That’s right: celiac is the new black.

Need proof?

Let’s start with Starbucks Coffee’s latest product launch: the gluten-free Valencia Orange Cake; a nationally-distributed product baked in a dedicated GF facility… presumably aimed at the relatively small proportion of the population that has celiac disease or wheat allergies.

Now, I have come to view my gluten-intolerance as a blessing in disguise for many reasons.  And one of these reasons is that it helps me nip temptation in the bud.  Everytime I would go into Starbucks for a tea and come face to face with that pastry case, there was no decision to be made, since there was gluten-free nothing I could safely eat. Which has been especially helpful, since here in New York, Starbucks is required by law to post the calorie content of all their food. Which has made me aware of the fact that virtually all of their baked goods contain between 400-500 calories, and for the majority of women, that’s between 20%-33% of our daily calorie requirements!  For one silly slice of mediocre pound cake!   Of course now, it’s a whole new world.  Now I must consciously resist the new gluten-free Valencia Orange Cake each time I go in there. Fortunately for me, the company is packaging the cakes in a rather unappetizing plastic wrap that makes the product look more processed and less fresh-baked, despite the fact that it is 100% natural according to the Starbucks website.  (They’re doing it to prevent cross-contamination with the glutinous items.)  So that helps.  But in case I (or any of you) ever succumb, perhaps it would be helpful to share that each cake contains 290 calories, 16g of fat, (of which 2g are saturated), 32g of carbohydrate (of which 4g are fiber–from the almonds) and 40 mg of sodium, so that we can budget accordingly.   Given that this cake clocks in at a full 100-200 calories less than most of Starbucks’ other baked goods, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gains a following beyond the celiac/wheat allergy crowd.  Finally, if you’re on the fence about whether to try it, the clever marketers at Starbucks would like us all to know that each cake contains 30% of the daily value for Vitamin C.  Of course, I would like the aforementioned clever marketers to know that so do 3 medium strawberries, and it’s sort of ridiculous to try to pass off a 290-calorie cake as a smart way to get in your Vitamin C.

Now if only they would start carrying lactose-free milk for their lattes…

So what if Starbucks has acknowledged our existence and thrown us a gluten-free crumb, you may say.  That hardly means GF is officially trendy.

To which I would offer exhibit #2:  the new Babycakes NYC cookbook.  If you’ve ever visited New York’s Greenwich Village and seen the line snaking outside the Magnolia Bakery–home of the famous cupcakes immortalized by Sex and the City–you’d know that cupcakes are still very much en vogue.  But you may not have been aware that a lesser-known bakery snagged NY Magazine’s prized award for “Best Cupcake” in 2006, and it was a place called Babycakes.  Which is a bit of a coup, since Babycakes is known for their vegan cupcakes and vegan/gluten-free cakes, brownies and cookies.  (My favorite is the Cinnamon & Sugar Toastie.)  And now, the bakery has published a cookbook with recipes for many of their famous cakey treats and endorsements from a very high-profile list of vegan or food-allergic celebs, including Pam Anderson, Zooey Deschanel, Natalie Portman and Mary Louise Parker.  Take THAT trendy Magnolia Bakery cupcakes!  Also, the bakery’s website lists nutrition information for all of their products, in case you *really* want to know.  

Now, you may be wondering what on earth a nutritionist is doing musing about cupcakes when schools across the country are banishing cupcakes from their classrooms in an attempt to help curb the childhood obesity epidemic.  So I’ll share my personal opinion, which is this:  if ever there is a time to enjoy cake, it is in celebration of birthdays.  We do our children a service when we teach them that treats like cake are for special occasions–like birthdays or vacations to New York or weddings–rather than for everyday occasions, like a trip to the bookstore or while watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I think that policies which ban cupcakes from the classroom are well-intentioned but misguided attempts to address a bigger problem that–let’s face it–is not the result of kids eating too many birthday cupcakes.  Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!  Let us eat cake!

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Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and at the risk of being the downer who sucks all the fun out of grilling season, I decided to go ahead and offer some thoughts on how to minimize the health risks that can be associated with those (admittedly yummy) charred meats.  (I know, I know, you pity the people who invited me to their barbeque this weekend.  I promise, I’m much better behaved in person…)

The ABCs of HCAs

While we’ve been trained to think of grilling as a healthy way of cooking, there’s always a catch.  In this case, the catch comes with a spiffy acronym: HCAs (Heterocyclic Amines).  HCAs are carcinogenic (cancer-initiating) compounds that are produced from natural amino acids in meat and poultry when they are cooked at high temperatures.  While any form of cooking can produce HCAs, grills can reach such high temperatures compared to, say, ovens, that there’s a greater risk associated with this form of cooking in particular.  While you want to make sure to cook your meat/poultry thoroughly enough so that it’s safe (especially burgers), it’s nevertheless advisable to avoid charring meats.  Now just to put this into perspective, there’s no reason to be overly concerned if you’re eating grilled meats at the occasional ‘cue; your body has natural, built-in mechanisms to neutralize HCAs (and other such toxic compounds).  But there is enough research to suggest that the link between higher consumption of well-done meats and increased incidence of cancer–particularly breast and colon– is real and non-trivial.  So if your diet does routinely include grilled meats more than just once or twice per week–particularly well-done grilled meats– then you may want to consider taking some measures to reduce the levels of HCAs that are created when you cook.  And fortunately, there are plenty of them.

Tips for improving the safety of grilled meats

To learn more about HCAs and to get some simple steps you can take to minimize them as you prep and cook your meats, you can check out this article from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).  In addition, there was a great post on the Healthy Eats blog this week with even more easy tips for reducing the amount of HCAs produced when grilling meats.  Simple things like marinating your meat (particularly with certain ingredients) and turning it often while cooking can reduce the levels of these pesky carcinogens without cramping your style… so be sure to check out the links above to get the full story.

Additionally, there is some research out of Michigan State University that suggests adding antioxidant-rich fruits, like cherries, to your burgers, may reduce the carcinogen load by up to 80-90%!  (If you think this was a strange hypothesis to even come up with to test, perhaps you wont be surprised to hear that the research was sponsored by the Michigan Agricultural Experimental Station–yes, Michigan is a major cherry-growing state.  Still, I read the original study and it appears legit.  Also, there are other studies that show similar effects from both cherries and other antioxidant-rich foods.)  So let’s put our cynicism aside for a moment and declare how serendipitous it was that these (gluten-free) recipes for cherry-and-other-fruit-infused burgers landed in my inbox the other day from Vital Juice Daily!  Apparently, it’s quite a craze. Eating Well magazine featured a different recipe for Cherry Burgers in their March/April issue, but theirs uses breadcrumbs so it’s not gluten-free.  (Unless you use gluten-free breadcrumbs, of course.)  Note that the MSU study showed the benefit in HCA reduction from replacing ~12% of the meat in the burger patty with cherry mush.   Sound odd?  C’mon… is it really any stranger than cherry-flavored cola?  The word is that you don’t even taste the blueberries in the blueberry burger recipe– and the berries add a ton of moisture to boot.  And who’s going to argue with Oprah when she claims the apple-infused Turkey Burger is to-die for?  Try it… you might like it!  

Are some grilled foods safer than others?

HCAs are not much of a concern when grilling seafood, vegetables or other plant-based foods, like veggie burgers.  Of course, most commercial veggie burgers are perilous in their own right: Boca Burgers, Morningstar Farms burgers and Gardenburgers all contain wheat/gluten, which is probably for the better, since it gives us an excuse to steer clear of them.  (They’re so ultra-processed.)  I’m still on a quest for the perfect home-made, gluten-free, soy-free veggie burger recipe (stay tuned for an upcoming post), but until that time, the healthiest store-bought GF, soy-free veggie-burgers I’ve come across are Sunshine Burgers.  These vegan burgers, which can be found in the freezer section of an increasing number of grocery stores, are sunflower seed, rice and bean-based.  You’ll recognize every ingredient listed on the nutrition facts label since they’re 100% natural and are minimally-processed.  Now, don’t panic when you see that each burger has 240 calories–or twice the amount of a processed, gluteny-soy-burger.  Sunflower seeds are naturally high in fat, but it’s almost entirely healthy, monounsaturated fat.  Besides, each burger has a hefty 9g of fiber, or about 1/3 of a woman’s daily need.  And really, 240 calories is very reasonable for an entree, especially when you can’t even eat the bun and you’re having watermelon for dessert.  

And of course, of you get jealous of your cherry-burger eating carnivorous friends, you can always top off your Sunshine Burger with a dollop of homemade Cherry Ketchup…

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Behold, the morel.

I owe my morel education to our good friend Peter, who counts among his many talents an expertise in wild mushroom-hunting.  His prey of choice is the coveted and elusive morel, which is prized by many due to its lovely flavor and stubborn refusal to be reliably cultivated.  As it turns out, morel-hunting season is really short, and it’s happening right now in the Northeast.  Avid mushroomers like Peter are out in droves, visiting their super-secret hunting spots, which here in New York State tend to be near the bases of dead/dying apple trees.  The way he describes it, mushroom hunting is a very zen endeavor: one might stare at the base of a given tree for an hour and not see a thing, and then after being out in the forest for a little while longer and becoming more in tune with its rhythm, you’ll go back to that first tree base and find a six-incher staring you right in the face.

But even if you’re not about to go out searching the forest floor on your own, now is the time to take advantage of the fresh morels available in local specialty groceries.  (During the rest of the year, they’re sold dry for about $30 per ounce.  Thankfully, a little goes a long way.)

Peter with his most ginormous find ever. And yes, ladies, he's single.

Morels are a funny looking mushroom: their spongy textured caps are conical in shape with deep grooves and pits that resemble coral or honeycomb.  They’re also hollow inside. Those creviced caps hold onto rich sauces like champions, which may explain why renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichtin pairs them with an obscenely decadent hollandaise sauce to use as a topping for asparagus in his famous “Asparagus with Morels” recipe.  (For an only-slightly less sinful version of this classic French dish, see Mark Bittman’s version here).

Although fresh morels aren’t cheap (I’m seeing them for about $30/lb in the Northeast this season), we decided to splurge on a 1/4 lb of them last night to make a tasty, seasonal sauce for a special family dinner.  (Rather than compare them to the price of button mushrooms, we chose to compare them to the price of truffles, and all of a sudden, they felt like a bargain!)  My sister chose this simple Bobby Flay recipe for Grilled Salmon with Morel Vinaigrette, and we substituted the 2 oz dried morels it calls for with 1/4 lb of fresh ones.  It was great on the salmon…and also on the grilled asparagus we made…and as a dressing for our dinner salads.  But honestly, morels are also divine simply sauteed in some butter and served as an accompaniment to… well, anything.  One piece of important advice when substituting fresh morels for dried ones: be sure to slice them down the middle, clear out any critters, and soak them in some saltwater for a few minutes to clean them of any undesirable forest-floor residue/inhabitants before going ahead and using them. 

Magically-nutritious Mushrooms

It hardly makes sense to talk about the nutritional value of morels per se, since it’s cost-prohibitive for most of us to eat a full serving of them.  (Besides, the USDA doesn’t track nutrient values for morels specifically, so I’m at a loss).  They’re more of an accent than a dietary staple.  Still, many recipes pair sparing quantities of wild morels (usually dried) with other types of more affordable mushroom varieties.  So in this case, it makes sense to talk about the nutritional value of mushrooms in general.  

Many people have a perception that nutritionally, mushrooms are little more than water and fiber.  But how wrong they are!  Mushrooms are loaded with health-promoting minerals, several B-vitamins and a unique type of fiber that helps lower cholesterol and has been shown to help prevent cancer.  The specific nutritional profile will vary by type of mushroom, of course.  You may recall we talked briefly about the B-vitamins in the context of our discussion on metabolism, and their role as co-factors in efficiently turning the food we eat into usable energy for the body.  Several of these B-vitamins also play a role in maintaining cardiovascular health and reducing the risk of heart attack.  Mushrooms also tend to be good sources of several important minerals, including the antioxidant selenium, immunity-promoting zinc, and even some iron.  Mushrooms contain other types of antioxidants, too, and research shows that the highest levels can be concentrated in the stems, so don’t toss them!  All mushrooms are super low-calorie, with most varieties clocking in somewhere between 20-30 calories per serving.

Of course, mushrooms’ reputation for being high in fiber is well deserved.  In fact, mushrooms contain a specific type of soluble fiber called beta-glucan (also found in oats and barley), which has been widely shown to help lower LDL (”bad”) cholesterol.  But there’s more!  The beta-glucans found in mushrooms also have  been shown to possess an immune-modulating effect, which means they activate the immune cells responsible for killing invading bacteria, viruses and –oh, the irony–fungi.  Lastly, these special mushroom-derived beta-glucans have been shown to inhibit cancerous tumors through multiple mechanisms.  

And finally, you’ll recall that dried shiitake mushrooms in particular are a good source of Vitamin D– a super-important vitamin that’s almost absent from our food supply.  (Refresh your memory about them by clicking here.)

Not too shabby for some humble fungi hiding under decomposing leaf piles on the forest floor, right?

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I realized that time was passing me by way too quickly when I discovered that the farmer’s market is already overflowing with fresh, local rhubarb… before I’ve even put my winter coat in storage for the season.

Not that I’m complaining.  Having never even tasted rhubarb until my 30s (!), I’ve become more than a little bit obsessed with it these past few years, stockpiling it greedily when it shows up for its brief seasonal appearance, and chopping it up to freeze by the ziploc-ful for use on some special occasion later in the year.  Why the obsession, you ask?  Well, to be honest, I was first drawn in by the concept of rhubarb… its name and the quaint associations it has with homey, happy foods like pie, jam and berries.  There was something sort of exciting about the prospect of using a vegetable as you would a fruit; I mean, it’s not like the cookbooks are exactly overflowing with recipes for things like celery pie.  But when I discovered that this vegetable-masquerading- as-fruit was in fact related to buckwheat–a groat-masquerading-as-(gluten-free) grain– this confused/subversive stalk endeared itself to me even more.

While rhubarb does have a special rhubarby flavor of its own, since it’s also so very sour, most recipes pair it with berries and/or call for mounds of sugar to completely neutralize the flavor.  You may ask, as I did, why people would bother growing a fruitvegetable only to drown out its flavor before eating it?  Some cynics claim that rhubarb’s popularity owes solely to the fact that it’s one of the first vegetables to be ready for harvest coming out of the cold winter, and that people were traditionally so desperate for something–anything– fresh by that time of year, that they embraced rhubarb, tart flavor and all.  But I don’t buy that for one second.  There’s just something special about rhubarb that inspires irrational, giddy, devotion.  Try some and you’ll see.

Indeed, I’ve always found it to be a shame that most rhubarb recipes drown out the vegetable’s flavor with overpowering sweetness.  While I’ll admit that most of my rhubarb excursions have been into crumble or compote territory, I find that cutting back on the sugar by at least 1/3 (and up to 1/2 in some cases, especially if mixed with another fruit) still produces a product that’s plenty sweet, and allows more of the delicious, sweet-tart rhubarb flavor to come through.  (The beauty of a crumble or a compote is that you can taste the fruit as it cooks and adjust as appropriate).  In fact, I am a firm believer that few summer desserts rival a homemade rhubarb compote mixed with a modest scoop of vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream.

But rhubarb compote isn’t exactly the kind of food I’d eat every day.  So when faced with the delightful dilemma of how best to start attacking the summer’s rhubarb bounty, I decided to go where most casual rhubarb-dabblers fail to go: to the savory side.

Take a walk on the savory side

Since savory rhubarb recipes were terra incognita for me, I decided to consult the experts.

In her Everyday Food magazine this month, Martha Stewart offers that rhubarb pairs well with ham, duck, trout, salmon and arctic char.  (How do people decide these things?)  She suggests this simple enough recipe for a rhubarb chutney, which you can pair with your choice of these savory main courses above.

More interestingly, Mark Bittman developed this unique recipe for Lentil and Rhubarb Stew with Indian Spices. Unlike Martha’s chutney recipe, this one calls for no sugar whatsoever, so the rhubarb flavor can hold its own in this lovely, savory medley.  Now we’re talking!  Note: while he claims that removing the cardamom pods at the end is optional, I’d suggest you go ahead and do it.  While these aromatic pods lend a wonderful flavor to foods they’re cooking it, it can be quite jarring to accidentally bite into one while you’re eating… they can be quite overpowering.  Alternatively, I just used 1/8 tsp of ground cardamom in lieu of the pods.  

And for dessert?

Since there’s no shortage of recipes for rhubarb pies, tarts, crumbles, cobblers and compotes, I will leave you to your own devices to track down a recipe to your liking should you decide to play Iron Chef: Rhubarb one night and serve it up for dessert, too.  I will, however, point you toward my favorite gluten-free chef for two hot-off-the press recipes: one for a lovely Balsamic Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp, and the other for some Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel Topping.  Yum!

How rhubarb stacks (stalks?) up nutritionally

Rhubarb zealots are quick to advertise that rhubarb contains a lot of calcium.  Now while it’s true that 1 cup of diced rhubarb contains about 10% of the daily value for calcium, it is hardly bioavailable at all, owing to the presence of these pesky natural compounds called oxalates, which bind to the calcium in the vegetable and prevent us from being able to absorb it.  So in fact, rhubarb is NOT actually a good non-dairy source of calcium, and you shouldn’t count on it contributing to your daily goal of 1,000 mg in any meaningful way. (Bummer).  Still, that same serving has a little over 10% of the daily value for vitamin C, 2g of fiber and just 26 calories (or at least, 26 calories BEFORE you add the sugar…), so it’s still bringing something to the table nutritionally.

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If you’re confused by how freely magazines, fitness trainers and marketers of food or supplements throw around the term “metabolism” when trying to convince you that they have the solution to your weight loss problems, then you’re in good company.  When it comes to this mysterious entity called your “metabolism,” it seems that everyone wants to sell you the secret to speeding it up.  Of course, most of these metabolism-boosting claims rest on a basic assumption: that you don’t actually know what your metabolism is and therefore, you don’t really understand how it works.

Meet your metabolism

Your metabolism can be defined as the sum total of all of the biochemical activities that take place in your body: the chemical reactions to break down food into usable energy, the chemical reactions to build new cells and tissues… and all of the chemical reactions in between that you need to facilitate life, like transporting oxygen to cells, removing waste from the body, maintaining adequate body temperature, etc..   You see, every single one of these reactions requires energy.  And the rate of energy expenditure that you need to complete all of these chemical reactions while at rest is called your basal metabolic rate (BMR). It’s this BMR that most people are referring to when they talk broadly about your “metabolism.”

Your metabolism is determined by a number of different variables; for example,  your age, your gender, your height, your body composition, genetics, and your general state of health.  Assuming you were at complete rest, the amount of energy (which we measure in calories) you could eat without gaining or losing any weight would be equal to your metabolic rate.  However, since people are seldom at complete rest, the total number of calories we need to maintain our weights in actuality would equal our BMR + all of the calories we expend in going about our daily activities.  On average, our BMR comprises about 50-70% of the total energy we expend in a given day.  ~10% of the energy we expend comes from the “thermic effect of food”: or, the amount of energy it takes for us to digest, process and store the food we eat.  The remaining 15-30% is from physical activity.

Metabolic myths vs. metabolic facts

So by now it should be clear that there are a few different approaches to losing weight: you can increase your activity level until you burn more calories than you eat (or reduce your calories to achieve the same effect), or you can increase your BMR so that your body automatically burns more calories, even when it’s at rest. Since the BMR comprises the bulk of energy we burn in a day, you can imagine why speeding up the metabolism is the holy grail of diet and fitness gurus alike.

But there are really only a few things that are scientifically proven to SPEED UP your metabolism.  These are:

1. A higher proportion of lean body mass (muscles): Muscle tissue is more “metabolically-active” than fat tissue, meaning that muscle cells use up more energy when they’re just sitting around than fat cells do.  The higher proportion of your total body mass that is composed of muscle tissue, the more energy your body needs to expend while at rest.  Simple.  If your bathroom or gym scale has one of those body fat analysis functions, give it a whirl.  They’re not the most accurate, but if you use the same one over and over again  under the same conditions, you should still be able to track directional trends in your body fat composition to a reasonable degree over time.
2. Get a fever: for each degree farenheit increase in body temperature above normal, your BMR increases by 7%!  OK, so perhaps contracting the flu is not the most practical weight loss strategy, but it does account for why people lose weight so quickly when they get sick.
3. Caffeine (sort of): As far as caffeine goes, the research does seem to show that 300-500mg of caffeine (the equivalent of 2-6 eight-oz cups of normal drip coffee, or just 1 to 1.5 “grande” (16 oz) cups of Starbuck’s Pike Place Roast coffee) will increase BMR by about 1o% for a duration of about 4 hours.  This may explain why so many so-called weight loss pills and beverages contain so much caffeine.  Of course, if you’re getting your caffeine in the form of 300-700 calorie Frappuccinos, you can forget about any net benefit as far as energy-burning goes.  Note also that about 300mg/day of caffeine is an amount that’s considered safe by most health authorities, so while most people can get away with a 2 eight-oz cups a day for a little metabolic ‘boost,’ I wouldn’t push my luck and drink much more than that.  At higher doses, it can cause side effects that range from irritating (sleeplessness, anxiousness, diarrhea, twitching) to, in rare cases, dangerous (heart palpatations or arrythmias, mania/depression, psychosis).

While there are some random, teensy studies (we’re talking along the lines of 10 subjects, in some cases) that suggest certain random foods can have a modest and short-lived impact on increasing your metabolic rate (e.g., hot peppers, green tea), the bottom line is that none of these effects appear to last long enough or are pronounced enough to make a meaningful dent in your overall metabolic rate.  Also, in many studies, even when certain substances (like green tea) were shown to impact metabolic rate test subjects, it didn’t translate into a weight or fat reduction.  So I’d be doing you a disservice to focus on these foods as promising metabolism-boosting solutions.  (Besides, would you *really* want to go on a Jalapeno diet?)  Insofar as green tea does contain caffiene, there may be a subtle effect stemming frm that.

Conversely, these are a few things that are scientifically proven to SLOW your metabolism.  These are:

1. Aging. Starting in your 20′s, your BMR slows by a few percentage points each decade.  According to a 2005 review of the literature on aging and energy expenditure by researchers at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, this decline equates to about 150 daily calories per day LESS burned at rest, per decade. You do the math: by the time you reach age 50, that’s 450 calories PER DAY that you could eat with impunity as a teenager that you will no longer automatically burn. So if you’ve ever wondered why you were able to eat whatever you wanted in college and not gain a pound and now you don’t eat any more than you did then but can’t seem to stop gaining weight, this is likely one of the culprits.  Note that this decline is not inevitable, and can be counteracted by increasing your proportion of total lean body mass (muscle) to help compensate for this age-related travesty.
2. A higher proportion of body fat:  Fat tissue is less “metabolically-active” than muscle tissue, meaning that fat cells use up less energy when they’re just sitting around than muscle cells do.  The higher proportion of your total body mass that is composed of fat tissue, the less energy your body needs to expend while at rest.
3. Starvation/Skipping meals: When you don’t eat, your body uses up stored carbohydrate (called glycogen) from your liver and muscles to keep it running.  But after about a day or two of not eating, these reserves will be used up and your body goes into a ’starvation’ mode to help preserve itself.  This includes breaking down muscle to use the proteins to build essential new cells, enzymes, blood proteins or hormones; breaking down stored fat to use for energy; and slowing down the rate of all non-essential biochemical processes to help conserve energy.  This means slowing down the metabolism.  Research has shown that the BMR will slow down to the tune of 30-40% in cases of actual starvation– as in cases of anorexia, famine or hunger strikes.  That means your body adapts to use at least 30% less energy to keep itself functioning during times of severe stress.  But you don’t need to be fasting for days to have this effect: even going long stretches without eating during the day, like when you skip breakfast or skip lunch, can have a negative impact on your metabolic rate.  (Granted, it won’t be nearly so dramatic, but…) Ideally, spacing your daily intake into smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day will help prevent your metabolism from slowing down unnecessarily.  I tend to prefer eating 4-5 smaller ‘meals’ per day rather than 3 big ones for this reason.  (And also because I get hungry every 3-4 hours, of course).
4. A lower total body weight: When you lose weight, your total body mass is decreased, which means it takes less energy to sustain its basic functions.  This helps account for that plateau effect when you’re dieting.  If you’re successfully losing weight on a specific calorie intake and all of a sudden you get stuck and can’t lose any more, chances are your metabolic rate has caught up (caught down?) with your lower calorie level.  This means you’d have to cut out even more calories (or burn more through increased activity) in order to keep losing.  *Sigh*  No good deed goes unpunished.

Which takes us to our last category.  These are common things I’ve seen people CLAIM will speed your metabolism, but in fact, DO NOT.

1. Eating protein: Eating protein in and of itself will not speed up your total daily energy expenditure in any appreciable way. The claim is likely based on a theoretical extrapolation from the observation that breaking down protein requires a bit more energy than breaking down other nutrients (it is said to have a higher ‘thermic effect’).  In theory then, it is suggested, that people with diets higher in protein should burn a higher amount of total energy.   But I haven’t come across any substantial research that demonstrates that this theory translates into actual practice, since a) the thermic effect of protein is not that much greater than it is for other foods, and because the combined total thermic effect of all our food still only accounts for a small percentage (only about 10%) of our total energy expenditure.  However, if you eat a little bit of protein after doing enough strength-training exercise such that you end up building new muscle tissue, then at the end of the day you will end up with an increased BMR. So all is not lost.
   
2. Drinking water: I have no idea where this claim even comes from, so I can’t comment any further than to say that guzzling water will not speed up the rate at which your body expends energy.
3. B-vitamins:  Several B-vitamins are required as co-factors to break down food and turn it into usable energy, which is indeed one aspect of your metabolism.  However, having sufficient (or extra) B-vitamins does not increase the amount of energy your body actually needs to comple its metabolic tasks.  Therefore, B-vitamins cannot be said to speed up your metabolism.  And on a related note, I have not come across ANY nutritional supplements–vitamins, herbs or minerals– that can speed up your metabolic rate.  Though there is no lack of products that claim they will.

Measuring your metabolism

So now that you know what it is, how do you measure it?

In fact, there are several ways.

One of the most accurate assessments would be to use a machine that measures the exchange of gasses when you breathe– how much carbon dioxide you expire and how much oxygen you inspire.  This process is called indirect calorimetry. As it turns out, this is mathematically related to your metabolic rate and therefore will provide the most accurate estimate of how much energy you consume.  Alas, your best chance to have access to a machine that does this is to be hospitalized in the ICU.  Not worth it.

The next best way, then, would be to use one of many mathematical formulas developed to give general estimates, using variables that you plug in to the equation.  My favorite such equation is called the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation, and it goes a little something like this:

For males: resting energy expenditure= 10 x (weight in kg) + 6.25 x (height in cm) – 5 x (age in yrs) + 5

For females: resting energy expenditure= 10 x (weight in kg) + 6.25 x (height in cm) – 5 x (age in years) – 161

(To get your weight in kg, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.  To get your height in cm, multiply your height in inches by 2.54.)

The answer will give you a pretty good approximation of how much energy your body uses at complete rest.  To figure an estimate of your TOTAL energy expenditure that includes activity, you can multiply the resting expenditure by an “activity factor” as follows:

Multiply by 1.2 if you’re sedentary (little or no exercise)

Multiply by 1.375 if you are lightly active (you do light exercise or sports 1-3x per week)

Multiply by 1.55 if you are moderately active (you do moderate exercise/sports 3-5x per week)

Multiply by 1.725 if you are very active (you do hard exercise/sports 6-7x per week)

Multiply by 1.9 if you’re ‘extra active’ (you do very hard exercise/sports AND you have a physical job)

The answer is a pretty good estimate of how many calories you should budget per day to maintain your weight.  To lose weight at a rate of 1 pound per week, you would subtract 500 calories per day from your total weight maintenance figure.

The mystery of metabolism, exposed!

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Designing your own cereal online is way more fun than internet dating. And it has more fiber, too.

Cereal has always held a special place in my life.  Growing up, my father established “The Empty Bowl Club” to which my sisters and I could only gain admittance if we finished our cereal.  Our pantry always held multiple varieties, which I loved to mix and match in the same bowl.  And during our courtship, my husband tracked down a beloved cereal from my childhood– a hard-to-find box of Quaker Corn Bran– and presented it to me as a gift.  Swoon.

As a nutritionist, I think cereal is a very easy way for most people to get a bunch of nutrients into their daily diets that they often have a hard time fitting in otherwise.  I’m especially referring to fiber here, as the average American only eats 13g of it per day: that’s about 50% of the average woman’s daily requirement and a paltry 30% of the average man’s.  Shame on us! Fiber is key to lowering cholesterol, helping protect our beloved colons from developing cancer, and keeping us feeling full until lunchtime.  Cereal is also an important dietary source of B-vitamins (most cereals are fortified with them, and whole grain cereals contain them naturally) and iron (most cereal is also fortified). For women of childbearing age, breakfast cereal is often an important dietary source of folic acid and iron, both of which are needed to maintain healthy pregnancies; and for strict vegetarians, some cereals can be an important source of iron and vitamins B12–both of which are needed to prevent anemia. As you can see, I’m a big fan of cereal, and will be the first to admit to eating it for dinner when life gets hectic and I don’t have time to cook.  

But the cereal aisle is packed with choices, each box touting its ability to improve our health with whole grains, heart disease, soy protein or fiber.  For those of us with gluten intolerance, our choices are disappointingly few and often lacking in the basics: fiber and vitamins.  (You can read about my favorite supermarket wheat and gluten-free cereal picks here). Despite the multitude of choices, it’s rare that I find a “perfect” cereal that meets my criteria of having at least 5g of fiber per serving and less than 10g of sugar.  Those that have enough fiber often don’t have a very interesting flavor or texture.  Most gluten-free ones lack fiber altogether.  Most all cereals have too much sugar.  

Am I dreaming?  I can really design my own cereal from scratch?

As it turns out, in this age of customized internet everything, we now have the opportunity to build our own organic breakfast cereals and granolas.  The democratization of breakfast cereal has arrived courtesy of a nifty website called Me & Goji.  I will allow you the pleasure of exploring the site on your own, but will point out some of the features I liked the best:

1. Choices!  7 cereal “bases”, 18 base “enhancers”, 15 dried fruits and 15 nut/seed selections from which to choose.
2. The nutrition information panel updates in real-time as you build your own cereal so you can see how each ingredient impacts your cereal’s calories, fat, fiber and more.  This may seem corny to you, but to a nutritionist, it’s more uproarious fun than playing Guitar Hero.  
3. A shout-out to the gluten-free crowd: they have one GF cereal base (which looks to me to be Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise cereal–one of my top GF cereal picks, as it turns out!), and all of the fruits, nuts and seeds are GF as well.
4. A blog that shares the 5 best cereal names each week.  Which is way more entertaining than reading the back of a Wheaties box.

One cylindrical container (called a “cereal capsule”), contains almost twice as much cereal as a standard cereal box, or about 15 standard servings.  Your cost will depend on what you put into it, but the cereal I just designed for my mom as a Mother’s Day gift cost me about $10, not including shipping.  (Hope you’re not reading this, mom.)  True, it’s steep compared to a box of Kashi, but each bowl still comes out to less than the cost of an average daily Starbuck’s habit.  Plus, the container is reusable.  I think of it as a gift-with-purchase.  Am I saying these things to make myself feel better about spending $10 on a box of cereal? Absolutely.  But it doesn’t make them less true.

Food for thought: some morning cereal prescriptions

The fun part about designing your own cereal is letting your tastes guide you.  But if the choices leave you bewildered–or if you’re designing a gift for someone else– here’s some nutrition inspiration for you to consider…

• Cereal Rx to promote heart-health: Start with the whole grain, high fiber base of your choice (the Samurai wheat, perchance?) and enhance it with oat bran to help keep cholesterol in check.  Add some cacao nibs, whose flavonoids help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and top with antioxidant-rich blueberries.
• Cereal Rx for breakfasters with diabetes:   Start with a whole grain cereal base (like the Artisanal one) and spike it with some oat bran: the soluble fiber will help slow the carbohydrates passing through your digestive system and prevent your blood sugar from spiking dramatically.  Enhance the base with two or three servings of cinnamon: in larger doses, it’s been shown in studies to help improve blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.  Stay away from the dried fruits, as they are a concentrated source of sugar (the cereal itself is enough carbohydrate, since presumably we need to leave room for the carbs in your milk, yes?), and opt instead  for a nut or seed selection that’s rich in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, like walnuts, flax or chia seeds.  If you have room in your carb budget to top this masterpiece with a small portion of fresh (not dried), high-fiber berries, though, I’d go for it.
• Cereal Rx for vegans: Aim to include ingredients that can be elusive in a fully plant-based diet: To the base of your choice, add quinoa flakes to provide a complete source of protein, iron-rich pumpkin seeds and some Vitamin C-rich strawberries to help you absorb the iron.  Finish with a sprinkle of walnuts to get in your daily dose of omega-3 fatty acids from a vegetarian source.
• Cereal Rx for sugary-cereal addicted kids: Let them have at the site and make whatever they want.  Between the fun of dragging and dropping (healthy, whole grain) ingredients into a virtual cereal bowl and getting to name their own cereal, there’s no way they won’t partake of their masterful creation when it arrives at your doorstep.  They’ll hardly notice that there’s no option to add sugar or red food coloring to the base. 

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