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Aldi is probably best known for its award-winning wines and rock-bottom prices, but the German grocery chain is also a very good place to put together a holiday stocking. They have traditional German Christmas cookies, socks, and all the nuts and chocolates a person could eat — all at extremely low prices.
Check out the 12 best stocking stuffers to buy at Aldi.
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If you’ve never tried Cotton Candy grapes, the super-sweet fruit that totally rocked our world two years ago, then you’re truly missing out. The produce hybrid, only available in August and September, tastes exactly like the pink-and-blue carnival treat, sending grocery shoppers everywhere into a frenzy to snatch them up from stores across the country.
But now there’s another new (and possibly even better!) exciting grape on the market that you absolutely need to try: the Rock-It grape.
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For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions. First, since glycine is often cited as the main reason to consume gelatinous meats and take collagen hydrolysate supplements, couldn’t we just take supplementary glycine? Are we missing anything if we go that route? And second, I riff off a great comment from last week’s post on financial security.
Let’s go:
Daniel asked:
Any thoughts on isolated glycine vs collagen/gelatin for supplementation? You can get a kilo of glycine from BulkSupplements.com for about $20, so in terms of grams of glycine per dollar it’s much cheaper than collagen. Glycine is also very sweet, almost as sweet as sucrose, so it would seem to be an excellent healthy sweetener.
That’s a good compromise, though. If I were really strapped for cash, I’d take glycine in a heartbeat.
Pure glycine is great for things like balancing your intake of methionine. In case you’re not aware, muscle meat is high in an amino acid called methionine. Methionine metabolism depletes glycine, so the more meat you eat, the more glycine-rich connective tissue, bone broth, and collagen supplements you should be eating to balance out the amino acids.
But balancing methionine for longevity and health isn’t the only reason we’re eating collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body, providing tensile strength to our bones, teeth, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. It’s an important structural component of the skin, lungs, intestines, and heart. And as far as the evidence so far available suggests, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix.
One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact.
In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.
Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.
The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.
All that said, pure glycine can be a helpful supplement. It’s great for balancing out methionine intake from muscle meat consumption. It’s also been used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Those aren’t minor results. They’re big.
Collagen is ideal, but glycine isn’t a bad option. In fact, I’d argue that perhaps collagen plus supplementary glycine could offer the best bang for your buck.
Ryan Parnham mentioned:
Great article full of truth! Financial debt is definitely not a Primal thing, I mean, I doubt Grok was borrowing money for some rare fur loin cloth or whatever!
That’s a great point, Ryan, one that I didn’t explicitly mention in the post. Financial debt is one of the great diseases of civilization. Before money and credit, it just didn’t exist.
People were indebted to each other, sure. You come up short hunting one season and your pal spots you and your kin some meat, you’d feel like you owed him. The sensation of owing something to another person for services rendered is universal, requires no formal currency system, and spans all of human history and prehistory. It’s about the give and take of personal relationship—and community. It promotes cooperation and is probably part of what made us so successful. That’s foundational human psychology.
But that isn’t same as crushing debt hanging over your head. Being indebted to someone is based on material reality. Debt is more abstract. It follows you. It’s in your head, all the time. It’s almost like a deity, an entity that exists outside of normal temporal reality. It isn’t bound by physics or cold hard material existence. Debt looms. The debt resides.
What this means is that we don’t have a lot of psychological or physiological tools to deal with the stress of debt in a healthy manner. Just like sleep deprivation, excessive omega-6 seed oils, too many refined carbs, a lack of social contact, and being sedentary are all evolutionarily novel inputs that we simply can’t deal with and result in a ton of health issues, financial debt is an aberration to the human psyche. We’re better off avoiding it altogether, as I recommended last week.
Hopefully today’s riff has emphasized the importance of the message.
Okay, that’s it for today, folks. Now let’s hear from you. Ever try glycine by itself? How’d it compare to collagen? And I’m curious to get your take on the idea of financial debt as a condition of civilization.
Thanks for reading.
The post Dear Mark: Glycine as Collagen Replacement; Debt as Disease of Civilization appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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I was a college sophomore when I met my hairdresser. He was an up-and-coming salon superstar, a hair-show headliner with a nationwide fan base. I was a 19-year-old whose unfortunate interpretation of ‘The Rachel’ made her look like your least stylish aunt. He changed that, and he’s the only reason why I no longer share a hairstyle with someone who could tell you where to buy a nice pair of slacks.
Since I never escaped the mid-sized Southern city where I attended school, my relationship with him has lasted well into my 30s, outliving the relationships I’ve had with everyone except my immediate family and Law & Order: SVU. It’s an understatement to say that we’ve gotten to know each other well, so at my last appointment, when he spun my chair around and said “I have a serious question for you,” I was concerned.
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We all have one of those friends — the college roommate who’d eat candy for every meal if she could, the neighbor who throws dip-only dinner parties (you know who we’re talking about here!) This year, get your quirkiest friend a holiday gift that’s just as wacky as she is.
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You can spend years perfecting your skills in the kitchen and amassing an arsenal of supplies, but what good are they if you lose the most important tool of all?
It was last December and, although the holiday season’s inevitable craziness was getting to me, I was the good kind of exhausted. I was the baker for a small, beloved cafe and my calendar for the next year was already filled with cooking classes and workshops I was going to teach, exciting collaborations with local artists, and even a trip to my homeland of Georgia.
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If you’re anything like us, your kitchen is also your karaoke practice room and your dance stage. Playing music (or, if you’re feeling less dance-y, a podcast) while you cook makes a fun activity even more fun. And it makes washing dishes not so terrible.
That’s why we’re so excited to see the Echo Dot on sale today for just $30 (it’s usually $50), plus it qualifies for Prime shipping. It’s oh-so-handy in the kitchen.
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It’s no secret that we’re big fans of cloth napkins around here. Not only do they look nicer on the table (or on your desk for an office lunch), but they also cut back on waste and make a typical meal feel just a little more special.
We have a million and one cloth napkins in the Kitchn studios. Our editors use them, our photo team scatters them around during shoots, our video crews pull them out — we have a lot of people using them. That’s all to say that, despite our best efforts, the piles can get a little messy. So when Marie Kondo volunteered to come to our office, we had just the project for her: Fold some of our cloth napkin stacks in a way that makes sense (and won’t get all messed up again in two seconds).
Watching her work was mesmerizing — and educational, as we took away three super smart tips.
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Every Christmas day, my small family of four shares a special holiday roast: a salt-crusted beef tenderloin. The night before, we exchange gifts with my husband’s family — a gaggle of nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles — and eat a smorgasbord of appetizers. But Christmas day dinner is an intimate affair that my husband and I created as newlyweds. A beef tenderloin was a huge expense that first Christmas and I didn’t want to mess it up, so I leaned on a technique I’d learned as an intern on Good Eats: the salt crust.
Whether you know this technique as a salt dome or a salt crust, covering a tender cut of meat or fish with a paste of egg whites and kosher salt does two things. Its primary function is to perfectly season the meat, and the second is to guarantee your success — a hefty promise for two humble ingredients. Seven Christmas dinners later, this is my tried-and-true technique for cooking a juicy, flavorful beef tenderloin in a salt crust.
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I had the most embarrassing incident two years ago when I was presenting at a fitness workshop in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
I peed my pants.
Worse than that: I was photographed with other industry leaders, there was a visible a wet patch on my leggings on the published photo — a photo which was posted all over social media. There I was, with my muscles all buffed, wearing my cool workout clothes, and with a wet patch right at my crotch.
I was horrified.
I couldn’t work out what the heck was happening to me, but I needed to understand why I had started leaking so unexpectedly and almost 10 years after having kids, when I previously had no incontinence issues.
My first port of call was to a pelvic health physiotherapist. I feel that we are very lucky that some physiotherapists are specializing in this field, and consequently changing the lives to so many women, who might have experienced unwanted dribbles in their knickers for years before consulting.
My physiotherapist identified some issues that might be causing my incontinence, by performing an internal examination on me and getting me to perform Kegels. That tactile feedback made me understand what a Kegel should feel like, where I should be feeling it, and why I might not be activating my pelvic floor muscles correctly — mind blown! I had previously being doing Kegels completely wrong, yet with these physical cues I was able to fully understand what I needed to work on.
Curious to know if you’re doing them correctly? Read the article here: How to Do a Kegel the Right Way
I reached out to my female clients and asked them if any of them had incontinence issues. The answer was a resounding YES! Most found it too embarrassing to discuss with friends and partners, nevermind their gym trainers, and some even resigned themselves to just putting up with the issues. I believe that somewhere along the line there is an assumption that, as we age, we should expect some kind of urinary incontinence. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth.
In order to get more answers, I turned to the expertise of Dr. Meryl Alappattu, a physical therapist, assistant professor, expert on pelvic floor dysfunction, and contributor to the Coaching & Training Women Academy Pre- & Postnatal Coaching Certification.
AMANDA THEBE: Firstly, can you please explain the difference between stress urinary incontinence and urge urinary incontinence?
MERYL ALAPPATTU: In the case of stress urinary incontinence (SUI), leakage will occur when there is an increase of intra-abdominal pressure. This could be for example when you cough, sneeze, laugh, run or jump.
Urge urinary incontinence (UUI) happens when involuntary leakage is associated with urgency — if you don’t act quickly you risk leaking, and the urgency can be triggered by external factors: starting to pull your pants down, putting your key in the door, or hearing running water. Another typical behavior associated with UUI is referred to as “toilet mapping”, i.e. systematically locating the nearest toilet before doing anything else.
Stress and urge incontinence may also occur together. This is known as mixed urinary incontinence.
AT: If a person identifies with either SUI or UUI, what are the therapies available to them?
MA: A common conservative treatment option is individualized care provided by a pelvic health physiotherapist. A clinical exam performed by a physiotherapist may include assessing the hips, lower back and pelvic floor area to identify dysfunction that may be contributing to incontinence.
With UUI, we can intervene behaviorally by teaching people to recognize the triggers that cause their incontinence, and to retrain themselves to recognize what is a normal schedule for urinating. If you have just urinated 30 minutes ago, for example, and not consumed any more water, you probably shouldn’t need to go for another two to four hours. For people with SUI, we identify what specific activities or behaviors (e.g. coughing, lifting, laughing, etc.) are associated with their leakage and build a treatment plan targeted at decreasing leakage with these behaviors.
AT: I have heard that it is not a good idea to stop your pee mid-flow because it can confuse the pelvic floor muscles, is this correct?
MA: Correct. We use this method clinically as a way assess an individual’s ability to use their pelvic floor muscles to stop urine flow (i.e. a rough measure of pelvic floor muscle strength and coordination) and to give patients an idea of how to contract their muscles for a specific function ie stopping urine flow. Keep in mind that this is a baseline assessment and NOT something that people should be doing regularly as a way of exercising the pelvic floor muscles. Pelvic floor muscle exercises should be done away from the toilet.
How to do a baseline test
While you are sitting on the toilet, stop your pee mid-cycle — this is called the stop urine test. This is also used with patients initially to help them to recognize how to do the stop the action mid-stream. You will get one of the following results:
AT: Does perimenopause impact urinary incontinence due to hormonal disruption?
MA: We don’t completely understand the extent of the relationship between menopause and incontinence. A recent longitudinal study examined factors associated with developing urinary incontinence across the stages of menopause. These authors found that weight gain, anxiety, and diabetes — rather than estradiol levels — were associated with more frequent urinary leakage. We also need to look at a lifestyle fix, as everything is connected. Increased BMI through weight gain and obesity, and increased stress and anxiety are both associated with the development of incontinence, but each patient should be have their unique issues identified.
AT: What do you think of Kegel weights and the jade egg for incontinence therapy?
MA: I do not recommend putting jade eggs in the vagina. Certain celebrities and media have popularized the jade egg to help detox and cleanse the vagina and vulva. There is no evidence that jade does any of this and more importantly, vaginas and vulvas don’t require detox and cleansing.
If pelvic floor muscle strength is an issue, there are several medical-grade vaginal weights that may be used under the supervision and direction of a licensed physical therapist who specializes in urinary incontinence management. Kegel exercises are not necessarily the answer to all incontinence issues Using vaginal weights doesn’t make sense if you can’t perform a pelvic floor contraction on your own. A patient would need to be trained specifically by a professional how to use the weights properly to be effective.
AT: What do you think of surgery to prevent leakage?
MA: For people who have failed conservative treatment for leakage, surgery may be a good option. This is where your pelvic health physiotherapist should have a strong collaborative relationship with your OB-GYN, urologist, and other members of your health care team. If you’re considering surgery for issues with leakage, your surgeon may want you to first try conservative treatment for incontinence, and treatment by a pelvic health physiotherapist is one such option. If you decide to move forward with surgery, some surgeons may also recommend treatment by a pelvic health physiotherapist for strengthening of the pelvic floor and surrounding musculature prior to surgery. Incontinence can have a huge impact on both men and women’s quality of life; the decision to have surgery is a personal one.
You may use one of the resources below to find a pelvic floor physiotherapist in your area:
If incontinence is an issue for you, you need to find a team of professionals who will work together to support you. This team might include your OB-GYN, urologist, primary care physician, and pelvic floor physiotherapist, as well as a fitness professional who’s knowledgeable about pelvic floor issues, and can tailor your exercise program accordingly.
Remember that it is important that you keep advocating for yourself: what you are experiencing should not impact your quality of life, should not stop you living your days to their fullest, and is not considered normal. There are professionals who can help you and you deserve their help.
The post What’s the Deal With Incontinence? appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.
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