Saturday, November 12, 2016

Here's How You Open A Can Of Food Using Only A Spoon







If you've ever found yourself overcome with frustration because your can opener broke and you're really jonesing for some SpaghettiOs, this video is for you.



YouTube user Dave Hax posted this instructional clip on how to open a can of food with a spoon on Friday, and it was trending by the next day.



It's unclear whether this strong public interest in opening canned food - you know, the kind of food you'd use to stock your end-of-the-world bunker - has anything to do with the election of Donald Trump.

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Over half of Liverpool schools could have asbestos in them

… are thought to have asbestos containing materials within them … deaths a year. Whilst there is no risk to health if the asbestos … which can cause cancer and other serious lung diseases.
Pupils from … the past year from asbestos exposure.
During the three year …

TV star Ben Miller set to cycle 100km alone this Movember to raise awareness of prostate cancer

… will get yourself checked for prostate cancer .” This year, five years later … add in heart disease, testicular cancer and prostate cancer, these are the four … 70070. PROSTATE CANCER: THE FACTS It's the most common cancer in men …

Scientists develop tissue-engineered model of human lung and trachea

Scientists have developed a tissue-engineered model of lung and trachea which contains the diverse cell types present in the human respiratory tract.

Of Plate, State And The Calculus Of Hope



In my customary purview- nutrition, public health, disease prevention- I have had cause to lament periodically the apparent hegemony of Newton's third law. For every silly action we've taken over recent decades to address the effects of badly constituted diet on weight and health, we have appended an opposing, but comparably misguided reaction. Believe it or not, this pertains to the high drama of our current political situation, too.



Let's start with our plates; the state of the State can wait.



In principle, and famously, we had advice some decades ago to reduce our intake of dietary fat. For purposes here, we need not belabor the relevant provisos: the advice originated with studies showing the advantages of the high-fat Mediterranean diet. So, really, it was advice to reduce our intake of saturated fat from the usual sources. The message got mangled as it was passed along, just like in a game of 'telephone.' The idea that all dietary fat should be cut, while genuinely favored by some, was actually a distortion of the original mainstream message, but took on a life of its own.



Be that as it may, nobody with any actual expertise- not proponents of eating low fat, and not opponents of eating low fat- ever advocated for low-fat junk food. The original idea was to reduce dietary fat intake by swapping out the salient sources in the prevailing diet- fatty meats, processed meats, processed dairy, fried and fast foods, snack foods- for foods naturally low in fat: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and lentils, for instance. And, where that was actually done - rates of heart disease and premature death were slashed, and life expectancy extended dramatically. It just hasn't played out that way in America.



No one worth listening to ever said: just eat Snackwells, and all will be well. But, of course, that- or something much like it- is just what the makers of Snackwells, along with every other version of low-fat junk food, implied. And since they implied it with all of the resources of “Big Food” at their disposal, they implied it to great effect.



How great? Well, intake of all the best, natively low-fat foods changed almost not at all in the U.S. over the past 40 years. For that matter, total dietary fat intake never even went down. Rather, fat only ever went down as a PERCENTAGE of total calories, because total calorie intake has gone up, driven mostly by- you guessed it- low-fat junk, laden with added sugar and refined carbohydrate. Total fat intake, actually has trended up over recent decades, it's just that total calorie intake has gone up even more. That is the legacy of the “low fat” era in America. As they say in the old country: oy, vay.



Then, to make matters worse, Newton's third law kicked in. Apparently, human nature shares an affinity for it with all the rest of nature. Perhaps it's because it is so much easier to say, “I was wrong,” than to admit, “I DID wrong.” What's the difference? 



If the low fat message simply “was wrong,” then we got bad advice, and can scarcely blame ourselves for following it. If we had actually cut fat, and gotten fatter and sicker- we may have been given bad advice, but what we did, we did well. That's the kind of admission we seem inclined to make: I was wrong, but I was misled.



Far harder, it seems, is this: the advice was fine, but I bungled its implementation horribly! This confession, unlike the other, leaves us little space to avoid a self-indictment of gullibility, nincompoopery, and/or fundamental incompetence. That's a very bitter pill to swallow, so apparently, most of us spit it out. 



Instead, we claim: It's not that we implemented advice to cut fat (and, really, saturated fat) moronically; rather- the advice must have been wrong! Much easier to lay the blame there.



But it's just not true. In the U.S., we did, indeed, apply advice about dietary fat as moronically as possible: we conflated saturated fat with total fat; we never reduced our intake of fat anyway, nor even our intake of saturated fat more than trivially; and we added low-fat junk food. If anyone can legitimately claim surprise that THIS formula didn't vanquish obesity and chronic disease, I will give up my day job and become a hula dancer.



So we took the easy way out. We blamed the advice, rather than our monumentally stupid response to it- and then surrendered ourselves to Newton's third law. It was, obviously, time for some equally silly, but opposing reaction, like: cutting carbs. And so we did, bungling it every bit as badly as the “cut fat” message that preceded it. 



Whatever the merits or demerits of Atkins' platform, it's only fair to note that he never advocated for low-carb junk food, any more than Keys ever advocated for Snackwells. But at the Atkins' Diet heyday, low-carb junk food is just what we got- and it has stuck with us ever since. 



Nor were those sequential boondoggles enough to cure us of our Newtonian proclivities. We have since welcomed the advent of non-GMO junk; gluten-free junk food; “no longer made with high-fructose corn syrup” junk food; and probably other varieties I'm overlooking. 



And that brings us, however tangentially, from the state of our plates, to the state of our Union. For, as opposed to Nate Silver, it may be that Isaac Newton correctly predicted the outcome of this election. 



It is rather ironic that a population of allegedly thinking Homo sapiens behaves so much like the native inertia of celestial flotsam. Ironic, but apparently true.



The past eight years represented a remarkably progressive action in American politics. Those personally disappointed, for whatever valid reason, by their trajectory during that span, were presumably invited to express that disappointment with an equal, opposing, and by the reasoning of many of us- regressive- reaction. So here we are.



As with our plates, it is convenient and expedient to blame any personal disappointments on the bluntness of the action, rather than all the subtleties of context and implementation. The Affordable Care Act – like a car with no wheels- was designed to “fail,” by those wanting it to do so. The administration of the past eight years faced relentless obstructionism, and if we are honest- racism, too. And, of course, the Obama era began in the gaping hole of the Great Recession. There is a limit to how “good” getting back to ground level can ever feel, relative to reaching actual heights- no matter how monumental the climb out of the depths actually is.



Whether the topic is the content of plates, or the status of our State, physics itself seems to stipulate that an uninterrupted sequence of forward steps is little less than unnatural. But equal and opposite need not mean equivalent and self-canceling. When you run, you push against the ground, and the ground pushes back; but the ground stays put, while you move. Progress is possible. 



In spite of it all, the objectively measured quality of the typical American diet has improved over recent years, albeit it little, and slowly. But it's progress just the same, and maybe the only kind the third law allows. And perhaps what's true of dinner is true of our democracy.



As for Newton, he bequeathed us other gifts too, like calculus. Conjoining that to the third law, I wind up with the calculus of hope. Progress is possible, even likely, but not likely ever to be linear. In accord with the rest of nature, human nature too is disposed to a meandering path of actions and reactions.



Here's to progress, in all areas, accordingly.



-fin



David L. Katz



Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital



Immediate Past-President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine



Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com



Founder, The True Health Initiative



Follow at: LinkedIN; Twitter; Facebook



Read at: INfluencer Blog; Huffington Post; US News & World Report; Verywell; Forbes

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5 Fall-Inspired Muffins To Bake This Weekend

Cool mornings call for warm muffins -- so light the oven and whip up a batch! From pumpkin to maple, these breakfast treats are all teeming with fall flavors.



1. Pumpkin Pecan Crunch Muffins



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These tender pumpkin muffins with a crispy pecan streusel are a cherished family favorite. The recipe is based on a magazine clipping from over 50 years ago. GET THE RECIPE



2. Apple Spice Muffins



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Made with whole wheat flour, these muffins have a wholesome flavor and texture. They're also chockfull of apples, scented with warm autumn spices, and finished with an irresistible crunchy brown sugar topping. GET THE RECIPE



3. Dried Cherry Muffins with Almond Streusel



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Studded with tart dried cherries and topped with a crisp almond streusel, these are -- quite simply -- the loveliest little muffins you ever met. GET THE RECIPE



4. Oat Muffins with Pecan Streusel



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With their wholesome "oatey" flavor and oat streusel topping, these are hearty, fill-you-up muffins. They dome beautifully in the oven and will make you proud. GET THE RECIPE



5. Maple Muffins



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Adapted from Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours by Sarabeth Levine, these muffins are sweetened entirely with maple syrup -- there's absolutely no sugar in them. As they bake in the oven, they fill your kitchen with the most intoxicating buttery maple scent. GET THE RECIPE

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Your web searches could help doctors detect lung cancer earlier

… found a new symptom of lung cancer - web searches.
In ongoing efforts …  seemed to suggest a recent lung cancer diagnosis, either looking for questions … , “I was just diagnosed with lung cancer.”
Afterwards, they looked at these … stark memories of my first lung cancer patient as a medical student …