The Hemp Connection:
cancer

And what the heck is smoke point in the first place? If you're a well-intended but not always great chef like me, you've heated oil in the pan to the point where it starts to create a smoke that really excites your smoke alarm. This is the point where the oil has started to break down nutritionally. It is also thought that at this point, more free radicals are present in the oil, and the cancer-causing potential of that oil increases.

When you're using oil to fry a food, it's best to use oils with higher smoke points. You can get a nice flavor on the outside, more quickly, with a higher temperature, while the oil is hot but not past its prime.

Here is a list of smoke points for oils, from least desirable for frying to most desirable. (e.g., the ones least likely to drive your downstairs neighbor batty when you're making dinner.) Note that two of the best 3 oils for frying, soybean and safflower oil, are also two of the oils we encourage you to decrease your intake of because they are pro-inflammatory and high in omega-6 fatty acids. Oils with lower smoke points are good choices for preparation methods not requiring heating.

All of these numbers, except for camellia oil, were obtained from the website, Cooking for Engineers. Camellia oil information was provided by Steven Frenzl of Bien Padre Foods.

So when you fry, consider avocado and camellia oil. I've started to see more avocado oil in stores and markets, so keep your eye out. Camellia oil is relatively new to the market and for now a little challenging to find. If you'd like to try it for yourself, here's a website where you can order it.

Unrefined canola oil 225°F
Unrefined flaxseed oil 225°F
Unrefined safflower oil 225°F
Unrefined sunflower oil 225°F
Unrefined corn oil 320°F
Unrefined high-oleic sunflower oil 320°F
Extra virgin olive oil 320°F
Unrefined peanut oil 320°F
Semirefined safflower oil 320°F
Unrefined soy oil 320°F
Unrefined walnut oil 320°F
Hemp seed oil 330°F
Butter 350°F
Semirefined canola oil 350°F
Coconut oil 350°F
Unrefined sesame oil 350°F
Semirefined soy oil 350°F
Vegetable shortening 360°F
Lard 370°F
Macadamia nut oil 390°F
Refined canola oil 400°F
Semirefined walnut oil 400°F
High quality (low acidity) extra virgin olive oil 405°F
Sesame oil 410°F
Cottonseed oil 420°F
Grapeseed oil 420°F
Virgin olive oil 420°F
Almond oil 420°F
Hazelnut oil 430°F
Peanut oil 440°F
Sunflower oil 440°F
Refined corn oil 450°F
Refined high-oleic sunflower oil 450°F
Refined peanut oil 450°F 232°C
Refined Safflower oil 450°F
Semirefined sesame oil 450°F
Refined soy oil 450°F
Semirefined sunflower oil 450°F
Olive pomace oil 460°F
Extra light olive oil 468°F
Camellia (green tea) oil 485°F
Soybean oil 495°F
Safflower oil 510°F
Avocado oil 520°F

I'm supposed to be getting all of you excited about food…how in the world does cabbage fit into that idea?

I think cabbage is one of those overlooked foods that is easy to include in your diet. And I like it because as a vegetable, it's pretty inexpensive.

Plus, cabbage belongs to the Brassicaceae family, which you may know as the cruciferous vegetables. These include: broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, bok choy, mustard, radish, horseradish, and watercress. These vegetables are superstar cancer fighters. In fact, they have even been shown to stop tumor cell growth in breast and endometrial tissue, especially important for women with PCOS.

So now that I hopefully have your attention, what the heck are you going to do with cabbage?

First of all, don't overcook it. All cruciferous vegetables tend to get a strong flavor if overdone, which may be why many people think they don't like them. They never had a chance to try them at their best. I made cabbage rolls this week, which requires you to steam the leaves until they're soft enough to roll. It was a great make-ahead meal for a busy work week.

Think slow cooker! I love mine, and I use it to make soups and casseroles. It's easy to add some chopped cabbage just a few minutes before serving.

Stir-frying is another way to use cabbage.

In other words, keep a head in the fridge and add it to some of your many favorite meals.

If you've got German blood, like me, you may want to think of sauerkraut. If that's a little bit extreme, try this red cabbage and apple recipe. Even the world's most notorius veggie hater might think cabbage is (at least an occasional) possibility with this treat. Be sure to use canola oil for the best omega-3 source.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_13395,00.html

1 cup brown rice cooked
1 and 1/2 cup spinach
handful of basil
l1-2 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 Tbsp flax seed oil
1/3-1/2 cup water
chop garlic. Place all ingredients except for the rice in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over 2 cups of rice and mis until evenly spread on the rice

Organic Beet Salad Ingredients:
One large Beet or 2 small
Walnuts-handful
fresh dill-2 -3 sprigs
1 lemon
Wash beets and scrub with brush over running water
Peel the beet and chop into small evenly cut cubes. Place in a steamer and boil for 7-10 minutes. Place beets in a bowl of ice water to cool. When cool remove and place in bowl. Add chopped walnuts,chopped dill and juice of one lemon, refrigerate until cold and eat when read

Anyone living out West has had a week of comfort food weather! Here in Phoenix we had as much rain in a week as we normally get in a year. I haven't felt like venturing out, and I want foods that warm me from the inside out.

And that has had me thinking about leeks.

Leeks are the onion's, unfortunately less popular and often forgotten, cousin. I say that because leeks are milder than onions, with a lot of the same health benefits. Many of those benefits are related to PCOS health risks.

Vegetables in the onion/leek/garlic family help to:
--reduce LDL cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol
--lower blood pressure
--reduce risk of ovarian cancer
--stabilize blood glucose

Most of you probably think of leeks in leek potato soup…but there are so many more ways to cook them! Here's a great feature from Cooking Light to get you started.

So comfort food and PCOS help, unite!

I am willing to bet you wrinkled your nose when you saw this week's choice. Most people will. That's unfortunate, since this kissin' cabbage cousin is a nutritional powerhouse. It's especially high in vitamin C and vitamin K, it's got folate (which all of you ladies need as much as you can get of), and it contains that anti-Alzheimer's compound I've been writing about a lot lately…choline. It's one of those vegetables like cabbage and broccoli that has some powerful anticancer properties as well. They're low glycemic, and each one only contains 10 calories!

Most people have never eaten a properly cooked Brussels sprout, which is why they think they don't like them. They can taste sulfurous if cooked too long. It's best to cook them until they just turn a bright green. Here's a video on cooking them that may be helpful.

If you're really adventurous, and willing to reconsider, here are some interesting ways to cook them:

Roasted brussels sprouts

Caramelized brussels sprouts (You will need some sugar to do the caramelizing, but you can experiment with how little you really need.)

Brussels sprout stir fry

Browned Brussels sprouts with orange and walnuts

Brussels sprouts with grapes

Grilled Brussels sprouts

And my personal favorite, pictured above, Brussels sprout salad

Bon Appetit!

I love to promote kale in my Whole Foods classes. It has omega-3's, trytophan (building block for serotonin), magnesium, iron, calcium, copper, and zinc, to name a few. It's also a member of the Brassica family, that cancer-fighting clan with more popular cousins named garlic, broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts.

But I always get the same response (see deer in the headlights graphic). I know what's pumping through those brains…"Kale? Isn't that the pretty curly stuff lining the fruit and veggie platter? You can eat that?"

Yes, you can…and should…eat kale.

Here's a trick for you kale virgins, if you're not quite up to the task. Next time you make a smoothie, of any flavor, throw in a handful of kale. You won't even taste it. You can also throw it into your juicer.

If you want to actually taste kale, your next best step is to head to your nearest Whole Foods and try the kale salad which is a staple in their ready-to-eat case. That's how kale is supposed to taste, and according to those who have been on my Whole Foods tours who are encouraged to try the salad, it's pretty good!

Here are some kale recipes for those of you who did so well with steps one and two that you're ready to strike out into the Adventurous World of Kale.

A friend of mine is a two-time survivor of breast cancer. She is a single woman, diagnosed at age 40, who chose a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Along the way, she’s had a lot of challenging medical procedures, fears, and unpleasant side effects. After dealing with the immediate medical issues, she realized she was depressed, and turned to the internet for help.

She found numerous online resources for cancer, and breast cancer specifically. She was steeped in depression, lethargic at best, but that’s when she got angry! Her anger pleased me as a therapist, by the way, because getting angry often leads to action, and she needed to take some serious action to get out of her depression. She found that there were a lot of people saying “Why me?” about cancer. (As an aside, there are two very helpful organizations online called www.whyme.org for pediatric cancer and www.y-me.org for breast cancer.). But what she said to me is “Why NOT me?! Who am I to be so special that I escape a very common disease?” She found “why-ing” to be pointless and actually an impediment to her getting well. And here I’d been thinking that it was a perfectly reasonable question!

I’d venture a guess that you’ve said “Why me?” more than a few times when it comes to your PCOS. I know I have. There are many questions and thoughts that come along with that first thought, and all of them have the underlying subtext of “THIS IS SO UNFAIR”:

• Why do other women get to go on a diet and lose weight with relative ease?
• Why do other women get pregnant by accident, and I tried for a decade and it never happened?
• Why do I have to shave my face every day (or spend thousands of dollars on laser hair removal and electrolysis)?
• Who is ever going to love me/want to have sex with me when I look like this?
• Why do I have to take all these supplements?
• Why can’t I eat carbs like normal people?
• WHAT is happening with my hair?
• Why do I need an endocrinologist? And a cardiologist? And, and, and…

It IS unfair. It’s expensive, inconvenient, awkward, uncomfortable, scary, humiliating, enraging, and a whole lot of other things. And yet, the reality is, 10 – 20% of women have PCOS. You are fortunate enough to know that you’ve got it, so you can start dealing with it proactively. You found this blog, and hopefully some other resources. As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt says, “How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.”

So your fate is PCOS. I know it’s a hard thing to accept. But once you can move to acceptance you can take action. Mastery of your fate means taking control, and making choices that support your good health. It means understanding that, although genetics dealt you a bad hand, there are many things you can do to positively affect the daily quality of your life, and your long-term health, well-being, and longevity.

Instead of saying “Why Me?” (and really, it IS okay to say it every now and then – you’re not perfect, you’re human, and a little self-pity may be a necessary step along the road to further and fuller acceptance), see if you can feel a shift in your mental landscape by saying “Why not me? Yeah, why not me?” Then move forward from there with something more productive.

Gretchen Kubacky, Psy.D. is a Health Psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, California. She specializes in counseling women and couples who are coping with infertility, PCOS, and related endocrine disorders and chronic illnesses.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. HOUSE or her practice, or obtain referrals in the Los Angeles area, please visit her website at www.drhousemd.com, or e-mail her at Gretchen@drhousemd.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askdrhousemd.

I got started on a series recently about agave nectar, and then had to put it down to attend to other business projects. Today I wanted to focus on an aspect of agave nectar that may be one of its most important nutritional contributions.

A disclaimer must be included before I continue. This information is only going to be helpful if the agave is consumed in conjunction with the guidelines as described in my earlier post. If your diet is high in sugar, it is NOT a license to simply switch to a different sweetener and use ad libitum.

Agave contains compounds known as fructans, which researchers in Mexico recently reported may help prevent osteoporosis by increasing intestinal calcium absorption. These same researchers, based at the National Polytechnic Institute, Guanajuato, Mexico, have suggested that these same fructans"may be beneficial in diabetes, obesity, stimulating the immune system of the body, decreasing levels of disease-causing bacteria in the intestine, relieving constipation, and reducing the risk of colon cancer".

Fructans do their job by functioning as"prebiotics"--they provide nutrition for the healthy bacteria in the colon.

These bacteria have been reported to change the way fat is absorbed, leading some researchers to suggest that agave may have some weight loss-enhancing qualities (again, when used according to the guidelines for upper limit of intake. A calorie is a calorie, regardless of where it comes from).

Fructans are simply long, non-digestible chains of fructose. It explains why the fructose content of agave nectar is so high. However, it appears to be in a different chemical form than that of simple fructose. If you're familiar with the differences between simple sugar, complex carbohydrate, and fiber…fructans, the way fructose is packaged in agave, is a soluble fiber. It's not digested or absorbed, and because it stays in the large intestine, it promotes the growth of beneficial, disease-fighting bacteria.

If you are still skeptical, and I don't blame you, given the plethora of conflicting information on the Internet, I would recommend measuring your own triglycerides before using any agave nectar. Then re-check those levels 3 months later to see if there is a difference.

It is important on this blog that we get it right…so if you take the challenge and you DO experience elevated triglycerides, I'd love to hear from you. That is important information to share.