Health Benefits of Peanuts

When it comes to the health benefits of nuts, we tend to focus on almonds and walnuts, but the humble peanut has a host of health benefits, too!

While peanuts aren’t actually nuts—they’re technically legumes!—we treat them like nuts in cooking, and they have a similar nutrition profile to nuts. But peanuts don’t get the love they deserve when it comes to nutrition. Let’s look at the health benefits of peanuts and bust an outdated myth about peanuts and our health.

HEALTH BENEFITS OF PEANUTS

A one ounce (about two tablespoons) serving of peanuts contains only 164 calories but delivers seven grams of protein. That’s about 13 percent of your daily protein in just a couple of tablespoons!

Peanuts are a high fat food, with 14 grams of fat in that same serving, but most of that fat is heart-healthy unsaturated fat. Peanuts do contain two grams of saturated fat per serving, but as long as your overall diet is low in saturated fats, that’s nothing to worry about.

Peanuts actually give fruit a run for its money when it comes to antioxidants. A serving of peanuts contains 10 percent of your daily vitamin E, 19 percent of your niacin and 10 percent of your folate needs. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that supports brain health and protects you from bowel cancer. We need niacin, a B vitamin, to regulate hormone function. Niacin is also an anti-inflammatory that improves circulation. Folate supports brain and heart health, and there’s evidence that it also can help fight depression.

Peanuts are also a great source of magnesium (12 percent), phosphorus (10 percent) and manganese (29 percent). Magnesium supports heart and bone health and helps regulate blood sugar, while phosphorus helps your body process waste and supports healthy bones and cell repair. Our bodies need manganese to maintain a healthy metabolism, healthy bones and heal when we are injured.

PEANUT HEALTH MYTH

Unless you have a peanut allergy or sensitivity, peanuts can absolutely be part of a healthy diet, but there is a peanut health myth out there that’s as sticky as peanut butter.

Peanuts, like many other foods, are susceptible to aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxin is a carcinogen, and in the past, eating aflatoxin-contaminated peanuts or peanut butter put people at increased risk for liver cancer. There is also a link between aflatoxin ingestion and cognitive issues.

That sounds pretty scary, but don’t let this keep you from enjoying a handful of peanuts or a bowl of peanut noodles! Peanuts sold in the U.S. are tested for aflatoxin, and are not allowed to exceed 20 parts per billion. Producers also use vastly improved handling and storage techniques to combat aflatoxin. Back in the day, peanuts were stored in big silos, which are a perfect environment for the mold that produces aflatoxin to grow.

Dr. Andrew Weil makes a great point about peanuts and aflatoxin: ”While we don’t know much about the dangers of long-term exposure to low levels of aflatoxin [...] there hasn’t been an outbreak of liver cancer among U.S. kids, who as you know, consume enormous amounts of peanut butter.”

12 Top Vegan Iron Sources

If you are a vegan, what is the first argument you hear from meat-eating advocates? Well the sarcastic ones might say something about plants having feelings too, but the most popular rebuttal usually has something to do with iron. And yes iron is an essential mineral because it contributes to the production of blood cells. The human body needs iron to make the oxygen-carrying proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin. But just because you don’t eat meat doesn’t mean you’re going to wither away with anemia.

However, anemia is not something to be taken lightly. (Although I realize I just did.) The World Health Organization considers iron deficiency the number one nutritional disorder in the world. As many as 80 percent of the world’s population may be iron deficient, while 30 percent may have iron deficiency anemia. The human body stores some iron to replace any that is lost. However, low iron levels over a long period of time can lead to iron deficiency anemia. Symptoms include lack of energy, shortness of breath, headache, irritability, dizziness, or weight loss.

So here’s the 411 on iron: how much you need, where you can get it, and tips to maximize its absorption.

IRON REQUIREMENTS

The Food and Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine recommends the following:

Infants and children
• Younger than 6 months: 0.27 milligrams per day (mg/day)
• 7 months to 1 year: 11 mg/day
• 1 to 3 years: 7 mg/day
• 4 to 8 years: 10 mg/day

Males
• 9 to 13 years: 8 mg/day
• 14 to 18 years: 11 mg/day
• Age 19 and older: 8 mg/day

Females
• 9 to 13 years: 8 mg/day
• 14 to 18 years: 15 mg/day
• 19 to 50 years: 18 mg/day
• 51 and older: 8 mg/day

NON-ANIMAL IRON SOURCES:

Eating red meat and organ meat are the most efficient ways to get iron, but for vegans, obviously, that’s not going to happen. Here are 12 plant-based foods with some of the highest iron levels:

Tofu (1/2 cup): 6.6 mg
Spirulina (1 tsp): 5 mg
Cooked soybeans (1/2 cup): 4.4 mg
Pumpkin seeds (1 ounce): 4.2 mg
Quinoa (4 ounces): 4 mg
Blackstrap molasses (1 tbsp): 4 mg
Tomato paste (4 ounces): 3.9 mg
White beans (1/2 cup) 3.9 mg
Dried apricots (1 cup): 3.5 mg
Cooked spinach (1/2 cup): 3.2 mg
Dried peaches (6 halves): 3.1 mg
Prune juice (8 ounces): 3 mg
Lentils (4 ounces): 3 mg
Peas (1 cup): 2.1 mg

TIPS TO GET THE MOST IRON OUT OF YOUR FOOD:

• Eat iron-rich foods along with foods that contain vitamin C, which helps the body absorb the iron.
• Tea and coffee contains compounds called polyphenols, which can bind with iron making it harder for our bodies to absorb it.
• Calcium also hinders the absorption of iron; avoid high-calcium foods for a half hour before or after eating iron-rich foods.
• Cook in iron pots. The acid in foods seems to pull some of the iron out of the cast-iron pots. Simmering acidic foods, such as tomato sauce, in an iron pot can increase the iron content of the brew more than ten-fold. Cooking foods containing other acids, such as vinegar, red wine, lemon or lime juice, in an iron pot can also increase the iron content of the final mixture.

Do you have iron sources that you depend on not mentioned here? Share them with us in the comment field!

US lawmakers reach deal to repeal transgender bathroom law

 US lawmakers announced an agreement to repeal a controversial North Carolina state law that curbs legal protections for the LGBT people and sets rules that affect transgender access to public bathrooms, the media reported.

Republicans Phil Berger, the Senate leader, and Tim Moore, the House speaker, announced late Wednesday that they had reached the agreement with the state's new Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, the New York Times reported. 

A bill repealing House Bill 2, which the legislature will consider on Thursday, was signed March 2016 by former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican. 

One of the most contentious measures of the bill requires transgender people in public buildings to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

"Compromise requires give and take from all sides, and we are pleased this proposal fully protects bathroom safety and privacy," Berger and Moore said in a joint statement.

"I support the House Bill 2 repeal compromise that will be introduced tomorrow (Thursday)," Cooper said.

"It's not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation," the New York Times quoted the Governor as saying.

However, gay rights advocates raised objections, arguing that the agreement would continue to allow discrimination. 

Chris Sgro, Executive Director of the gay rights group Equality North Carolina, said that the proposal "keeps North Carolina as the only state in the country obsessed with where trans people use the restroom through law."

The announcement on Wednesday came after months of acrimony over the bill and a seeming inability to find middle ground after numerous efforts. 

Conservative legislators, citing safety concerns, have been worried about the idea of men using women's restrooms since the Charlotte city government, in February 2016, passed an ordinance that allowed transgender people to use the restroom of their choice, the daily said. 

Charlotte officials repealed that ordinance in December as part of the efforts to broker a compromise in the state capital, but that effort failed dramatically during a special legislative session.

Donald Trump's funding request for US border wall hits snag among some Republicans

President Donald Trump`s call for $1.5 billion this year to help build a wall along the border with Mexico could be in jeopardy as fellow Republicans in Congress weigh delaying a decision on the request.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of his party`s leadership, told reporters on Tuesday that money for the wall likely would not be coupled with a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid shutting down federal agencies whose funding expires then.

Blunt said the must-do funding "comes together better" without Trump`s additional request for the border wall and military programs and could be considered "at a later time."

Democrats are threatening to block the bill funding federal agencies from April 29 to Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, if money for the border wall is included.

They object to one of Trump`s premier 2016 campaign promises, saying it is poorly planned and that there are other border security measures already constructed or under consideration.

When he ran for president, Trump pledged Mexico would pay to build the wall, designed to keep illegal immigrants and drugs from entering the United States. The Mexican government has said it will not do so.

The initiative has also faced resistance among Republicans, including lawmakers representing some border towns. The federal government would have to purchase land in many locations in order to construct the edifice, which could make construction costs soar.

Reuters reported the wall could end up costing as much as $21.6 billion, far more than the $12 billion Trump cited. 

Representative Mario Diaz-Balart also expressed skepticism about Congress` ability to approve funds for the wall, given the super-majority vote needed in the Senate for most major legislation.

Asked about the wall, Diaz-Balart, a senior member of the House of Representatives` Appropriations Committee and a leading voice on immigration policy, said, "I`m always willing to look at other things we can do to try to get that 60-vote threshold" on border and interior security.
Lawmakers said progress was being made on legislation to keep the government running beyond April 28.

House Speaker Paul Ryan removed another potential land mine on Tuesday when he said a Republican drive to end federal funding for women`s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood would be best accomplished on legislation other than the upcoming funding bill.

Democrats have vowed to stop the must-do money bill if it ended Planned Parenthood`s federal funds.

Interesting Facts About E.T. (10 pics)

Dirt Poster

Dirt Poster is a Design and Graphic-Design work made by Roland Reiner Tiangco, a new graduate of a Design School, living in New York. While handling the poster, your hands starts to get dirty, and this dirt allows you to see what’s the poster is all about.

Big Food is Duping Us Just Like The Tobacco Industry

The processed food industries now use tactics similar to those used by cigarette companies to undermine public health interventions.

“In 1954 the tobacco industry paid to publish the ‘Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers’ in hundreds of U.S. newspapers. It stated that the public’s health was the industry’s concern above all others and promised a variety of good-faith changes….The ‘Frank Statement’ was a charade, the first step in a concerted, half-century-long campaign to mislead Americans about the catastrophic effects of smoking and to avoid public policy that might damage sales.”

As a result, millions of lives were lost during decades of lies and deceptive actions. In the hope that food industry’s history will be written differently, researchers spotlighted important lessons that can be learned from the tobacco experience.

As I discuss in my video below, the “processed food industries use tactics similar to those used by tobacco companies to undermine public health interventions. They do this by distorting research findings, co-opting policy makers and health professionals, and lobbying politicians and public officials.” In his book about his fight with the tobacco industry, former FDA commissioner David Kessler recounted similar strong-arm tactics used by the meat industry to try to squash nutrition regulations. 

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on political ads during election campaigns could make things even worse by working against candidates who support public health positions. 

“Another similarity between tobacco and food companies is the introduction and heavy marketing of ‘safer’ or ‘healthier’ products. When cigarette sales dropped…[due] to health concerns, the industry introduced ‘safer’ [filtered] cigarettes that gave health-conscious smokers an alternative to quitting,” and sales shot back up. Ironically, the filters originally had asbestos in them.

Cigarette ads have proudly proclaimed that the brands they were promoting had “less nicotine, “less tar,” and even “reduced carcinogens”! And, how could anything be bad for you if it is “100% organic,” as another ad promoted?

Today, leaner pork or eggs with less cholesterol may be the food industry’s low-tar cigarettes. Indeed, food industry ads and the messages they tout can be head-scratchers. “A KFC ad campaign depicted an African American family in which the father was told by the mother that ‘KFC has 0 grams of trans fat now.’ The father, in the presence of children, shouts, ‘Yeah baby! Whoooo!!’ and then begins eating the fried chicken” by the bucketful.

A U.S. District Judge overseeing a tobacco industry case put it well: “‘All too often in the choice between the physical health of consumers and the financial well-being of business, concealment is chosen over disclosure, sales over safety, and money over morality. Who are these persons who knowingly and secretly decide to put the buying public at risk solely for the purpose of making profits, and who believe that illness and death of consumers is an apparent cost of their own prosperity?’ Above all, the experience of tobacco shows how powerful profits can be as a motivator, even at the cost of millions of lives and unspeakable suffering.”

I know some people don’t like my “political” videos and wish I’d stick to the science, but it’s impossible to understand the disconnect between the balance of evidence and dietary recommendations without understanding the impact of commercial influence.

In health,