Sunday, April 27, 2014

Hangry, hangry hippo

A while back, my sister introduced me to the idea of being "hangry." Hangry is a slang term for being so hungry, you get mad.

Hungry + Angry = Hangry


Droopy, our first rabbit. His default mood was HANGRY.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, they're probably blessed with never letting their hunger get the best of them. I think everyone gets hangry at least once a week. For me, it normally happens when I'm at work and accidentally missed my clockwork lunch time. If it's past 12:30, I get hangry. This week I've been really hangry, oftentimes snapping at MOH, who poor soul contracted H. pylori. Hangry is a real thing and recently, there's actually been science to back it up.

In a journal article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers noted that couples experienced "hangry" feelings when their blood glucose levels were low. To assess aggression, individuals had to do two tasks:

1. Depending on happiness with spouse, participants were asked to pin anywhere from 0-51 pins into a voodoo doll that was supposed to represent their significant other. The more angry you are with your spouse, the more pins the doll gets.

Voodoo doll (photo courtesy of BeatrixBellibaste)
2. Every night play a video game against their spouse such that the winner is able to blare a sound at the loser. The sound contained mixtures of unpleasant noises (nails on chalkboard, sirens, honks), and could be done at varying intensities, depending on their discretion. Although the participants were instructed that they were playing against their spouses, in reality, the participants were playing against a computer, presumably to prevent the loser from getting too much hearing damage.

Sirens: probably one of the loudest sounds around
What they found wasn't surprising, but confirmed the idea of being "hangry." The lower the blood glucose levels, the more apt the spouse was to stick the dolls with tons of pins, and blast the "loser" with obnoxious sounds.

I can totally relate to these findings. Married or not, no one can deny how much more crazy they can get when they're hungry. When you're on the road and lost, the sense of hopelessness of knowing where you are is only compounded by the raging battle going on in your stomach. Or how much harder it is to concentrate in class when all you can think about is what to eat for dinner. Or how difficult it is to take care of someone and not snap when you're running on low energy AND haven't had your dinner yet (sorry MOH - I should have eaten some rice before taking care of you). It's a neverending battle between our gut and our emotions. 

As common of a problem as hangry is, it can easily be remedied - you just need something filling enough to get you by. Don't opt for some greens, get something hearty. My quick trick to getting rid of being hangry? Chocolate. Good, dark chocolate. Dark chocolate in green yogurt, or dark chocolate with peanut butter. An antioxidant with some good sugary creamy goodness, and you'll feel your hangry get eaten alive.

Bite size pieces of heaven - dark chocolate covered peanut cups from Trader Joes
Until next time, happy eating everything!

References:
Bushman BJ et al., 2014. Low glucose relates to greater aggression in married couples. PNAS. 2014 April 14

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Brussel sprouts - tasty and not feet-like at all

I've just tapped into how great Brussel sprouts are.

I always thought Brussel sprouts tasted nasty, largely basing my opinion of these green minions by an episode from Full House where the father Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) confessed to his mother how much he hated brussel sprouts, claiming they smelled like stinky feet. As a child, Full House was the definitive show for learning "life lessions," so I took everything they said as truth. I never looked at brussel sprouts, nor had any inclination to try them. If I saw them on a menu, I actively avoided them. I think it's probably akin to when most people see the word "durian." (sidenote: I love durian, too!) It wasn't until I was on one of my weekly runs with a friend that we got on the usual topic of "what was the best thing you ate this week?" He mentioned sauteing brussel sprouts in a pan and tossing in a light vinaigrette. I asked him, "don't they taste like feet?" When he told me how delicious they could be, if cooked right, I decided to give them a try.

Image courtesy of ThorPorre
Maybe seen as physically offputting, brussel sprouts are quote the opposite in health benefits. It's in the same family as kale and broccoli, the cruciferous vegetables. Its health benefits include having the ability to prevent DNA damage that happens to our bodies, lower cholesterol levels, and possess anti-cancer properties. Loaded with tons of nutrients, it's definitely an underdog vegetable that deserves more attention.


I think one reason counting against brussel sprouts is their slight bitter taste, paralleling its sibling kale.Most recipes for these lovely greens calls for steaming, but I personally love to roast brussel sprouts with a light coating of olive oil and salt and pepper. It's really simple, but if you roast until they're lightly brown, they taste delicious. Simply toss in olive oil, sprinkle on seasoning, and roast for 15 minutes at 400 degrees F in the oven. So tasty. If into cheese, try these with a light coating of parmesan cheese.

Some more news this weekend: I attended my first WonderCon in Anaheim. Similar to Comic-Con, WonderCon is a meeting of all things comics, film, art, and was lots of fun.




MOH and I took a break from our studies to check out this annual meeting, and we picked up some great art commission pieces. One piece that I'm pretty excited about is this zombie runner, done by Joel Gomez. I asked for a piece of a zombie running toward a finishing line with parts flying to and fro, and couldn't be happier with the results.


Until next time, happy eating all!

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Take it all with a grain of salt

It's feeling like a lazy Sunday, but I know I have work to do.

I'm trying to advance to candidacy soon, so I apologize if the future posts sound a bit scattered. "Advancing to candidacy" means different things for different graduate programs, but usually entails a qualifying exam to see if a project is worthy of getting a PhD. For my department, five professors sit around a round table, listen to my summation of four years of work, critique the inner workings my project, and then deem whether I am worthy of becoming a PhD candidate.

Astrocytes - one of my research interests
That said, I'm trying to brush up on my reading and am heavy in hermit crab mode. Reading scientific papers critically is an art that you hone over time. For me, I don't know if I'll ever fully grasp this skill. You need to consider how good controls are, how sound the experiments are, and if you believe the central theme of each finding. Sometimes you'll come across really great papers that provide findings that really speak to you; other times, you're left feeling more questionable rather than satisfied.

I dealt with this dilemma a little when I came across this paper through a news report that I found through a friend's Facebook - the headline was "Vegetarians are less healthy and have a lower quality of life than meat eaters." The title itself was very provocative - considering the many sources (anecdotal or scientific) regarding how plant based diets tend to yield healthier results, I was very curious about what the scientific source was.


The article, published in PLOS ONE, reported that vegetarians are at higher risk of being unhealthy, more prone to certain diseases, higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life. In addition to their findings, they also reported vegetarians as having lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption.

HOLD THE PHONE. Vegetarians have lower BMIs (a crude measurement of physical healthy that can be used to make cut offs between healthy and unhealthy weight range), but are more prone to diseases? Normally both low BMI and alcohol intake has been indicators for better health, not worse. Strange as it sounds, I looked further into this paper and found that some things were worth noting before taking into consideration the findings:

1. Of the "vegetarian" group, only 0.2% were vegetarians that ate ONLY fruits and vegetables. They had to pool together vegetarians, vegetarians that ate eggs and milk, and vegetarians that eat fish.

2. Vegetarians are considered less healthy because more of them were reported as having allergies, cancer and mental illness. While the numbers may be different between the vegetarians and meat diet groups, you cannot link this directly to diet. Correlation does not imply causation and another factor may be confounding your findings. What does this exactly mean? Think about survey findings of a large city like New York  as having more firefighters and more fires than any other city. Does that mean that the firefighters caused the increase in fires? Not necessarily - because the city is large, has many buildings, there is a higher probability for fires happening, hence a larger need for hiring more firefighters.

3. Vegetarians "required" more health care because this group had people who were vaccinated less and visited the doctor less often than other diet groups. Again, not necessarily linked, and not the best choice for looking at health care.

Overall, there are definite merits to doing large scale epidemiology studies like this mentioned study - you just need to take everything with a grain of salt and look critically at the actual findings. Needless to say, whenever you see an eye-popping article proclaiming to find the newest cure for disease, or a solution for curing memory loss, be sure to keep an open mind!

With that, hope everyone's weekend winds down well.

Happy eating all!

PS. A recent study actually concluded that the best diet for someone is a diet favored heavily towards vegetables and fruits, with lean meats included. Not a big surprise, but good to know!




Sunday, April 6, 2014

Art for thought

Hello everyone,

From previous posts, I had mentioned revisting an old hobby of mine - art!

For my birthday, I received some pastels, art paper, and sketch pencils, and have been having the time of my life. Art has been a great release for me and often helps me clear my head.


I've been focusing mainly on landscapes, but occasionally I do some abstract strange pieces.


The piece above is an abstract rendition of a terrarium with marimo balls. These moss balls are normally found in the bottom of Japanese lakes and are supposed to bring everlasting luck in Japanese tradition.


My art pieces have consisted mainly of things I enjoy taking photographs of (sunsets, nighttime views), as well as my own musings. Working with pastels has definitely been a fun journey. I'm naturally a messy person, so working with pastels works perfectly with my personality. You work with various color palettes, mixing in colors onto a blank canvas. I usually use my fingers to mix in the colors, so by every finished session, my fingers are varying shades of blue, purple, green.

Please stay tuned for the occasional posts on new artwork!

Until next time, happy eating all!