Impress your guests with these easy, elegant herb-filled salmon pockets served in a grilled zucchini weave.
In this festive appetizer, grilled zucchini slices are interwoven to form delicious bundles of spicy salmon, red bell pepper, parsley, chives and spices. Salmon is a great, versatile fish to work with in the kitchen. Plus, this heart-healthy protein is filled with omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals!
These zucchini salmon pockets may look like something you’d order at a fancy restaurant, but they are surprisingly easy to throw together. Simply use a vegetable peeler to peel zucchini into ⅛-inch slices lengthwise, flipping it when you reach the seeds in the middle, and repeat on the other side.
Don’t use the first couple of slices from either side, as they’ll be mostly skin and tough to bend (save the middles and skin as a snack for later).
Brush the slices with olive oil and add to a hot grill for just few seconds to give them those beautiful grill marks and a nice smoky taste.
Next, process the ingredients for the salmon filling until a paste forms.
Arrange two zucchini slices vertically and two horizontally, interlacing them in a simple weave.
Place a tablespoon of the salmon mixture in the middle, then wrap the zucchini into a bundle and bake for 15 minutes.
You can serve them hot or cold – it’ll be delicious either way!
Tips:
Fresh cod or tuna fillets can be used in place of the salmon.
For extra protein and flavor, place a small piece of smoked salmon in the zucchini weave before adding the salmon mixture.
These wraps are best served fresh.
Low Carb Zucchini Salmon Pockets
Recipe by Dina Hassan
Impress your guests with these easy, elegant zucchini bundles filled with savory herbs and salmon
Tools:
Grill
Baking sheet
Vegetable peeler
Blender or food processor
Ingredients:
2 zucchini
1 T olive oil
½ lb salmon fillets
½ red bell pepper
½ t chili flakes
1 t garlic powder
½ t salt
½ t black pepper
Handful of fresh parsley leaves
Handful of fresh chives
Instructions:
Preheat a grill, then preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a baking sheet with extra virgin olive oil.
Using a vegetable peeler, peel the zucchini into thick slices lengthwise. Start on one side, stop before you get to the seeds in the middle, then flip and repeat on the other side.
Brush the zucchini strips with olive oil, then grill for few seconds until they are tender and slightly browned with grill marks. Remove from grill and set aside.
Place the salmon, parsley, chives, red bell pepper, chili flakes, garlic powder, salt and pepper in the blender; blend until a paste forms.
Place two zucchini strips vertically and two horizontally, interlacing them. Place a tablespoon of the salmon mixture in the middle, then close the zucchini strips over the mix to make a bundle.
Line the zucchini wraps on the prepared baking sheet; bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.
Dina Hassan is a recipe developer, food photographer and food stylist. She believes that the key to a happy life is eating natural food, and when she’s not behind the camera, you can find her cooking up a new healthy recipe.
A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.
Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.
Over 41% of people in the United States are vitamin D deficient. So clearly, it’s not fatal in most cases, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal.
Vitamin D, the “sunshine vitamin”, is crucial for good mental health, bone health, immune function, and more.
In this guide, I’m going to break down:
How vitamin D affects your health
How much you need
How you should get it
What Does Vitamin D Do?
Before we get to the less than thrilling science of vitamin D formation and metabolism, I think it’s important to highlight why it’s so important for your health.
Here are 4 of the most important and most studied benefits of having a sufficient amount of vitamin D. There are other potential benefits like a lower risk of diabetes, among others, that will be studied more extensively in the future.
1. Bone Health
Strong bones depend on many things, including vitamin D.
You probably already know that calcium is crucial for developing and maintaining dense, strong bones.
What you probably didn’t know, was that vitamin D is needed to stimulate movement of molecules like calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D is needed to absorb both calcium and phosphorus efficiently.
A severe lack of vitamin D can cause rickets, a bone disease in children that results in frail, painful bones throughout the body. There’s also a similar adult equivalent, osteomalacia.
2. Healthy Immune System Function
You immune system is responsible for fighting all sorts of unwanted guests in your body and protecting you from illnesses ranging from the common cold to cancer.
School children were split into 2 groups during one study. One group was given vitamin D supplements, while the other wasn’t. The group with the supplements had about a 42% lower chance of getting the flu.
Similar studies have also shown that vitamin D helps lower the rate at which children develop respiratory infections.
Furthermore, it’s clear that vitamin D plays a fairly major role in the overall immune system, and it will continue to be studied in this aspect.
3. Cancer Protection
Vitamin D can significantly reduce your risk of developing many types of cancer, including breast, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, and more.
While the mechanism is still not fully known, current theories are that it interrupts one of the key 7 phases of cancer development.
Based on their results, they found that raising the minimum recommended level of vitamin D by 50% would prevent about 58,000 cases of breast cancer and 49,000 cases of colorectal cancer per year.
But what about vitamin D and skin cancer? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that soon.
4. Overall Decreased Risk of Death
There are many theories about how vitamin D helps you stay healthy.
It’s often hard to isolate effects due to interactions and dependencies on other vitamins, especially for fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin D.
However, we can still look at overall trends to see if vitamin D plays a significant role in decreasing mortality, and it appears that it does.
Time and time again, large meta-analysis studies have shown that a healthy vitamin D intake is associated with a longer lifespan. It is a remarkably consistent finding.
The Risks of Vitamin D Deficiency
Those benefits we just looked at are just one side of the coin.
The other half consists of the serious consequences of being chronically deficient in vitamin D. You’re not just risking the flu if you’re not getting enough sun, it could turn out much worse.
1. Rickets
Rickets is a disease that occurs exclusively in children.
If a child doesn’t have enough vitamin D, they can’t absorb calcium effectively from food, as we talked about, which leads to bone issues.
Once you’re an adult, a lack of vitamin D will still cause calcium absorption problems, but you’re obviously fully grown already.
With osteomalacia, your bones get softer.
The symptoms are often not apparent right away, but over time, bone pain and muscle weakness is common. This pain can occur in pretty much any bone, but is most commonly in the hip region, ribs, or legs.
Due to the range in pain felt, it may be difficult to diagnose.
3. Depression
We naturally associate the sun with cheeriness, so it kind of works out well that we believe a vitamin D deficiency can cause depression.
A meta-analysis of studies in 2014 showed that for most people with depression, vitamin D supplementation had no significant effect. However, for those with clinical depression, it did have a statistically significant benefit.
This is still far from conclusive either way. Different doses and situations should be studied in order to more fully understand the link between vitamin D and depression.
Bottom line: while it’s possible that depression can be caused by vitamin D deficiency, it can also be caused by many other things. Don’t automatically assume a vitamin D deficiency when you’re feeling down.
How You Get Vitamin D
So this vitamin D stuff, kind of important, right?
So how do you get it?
Well, there are 3 main sources from which you can get vitamin D.
Before we get to those, there’s one more thing you need to know. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, which means we can store it in our bodies for months, and even years in certain situations. When we talk about daily values, think of this more as an average over the long-term. You don’t necessarily need it every day.
Food
Many people are under the impression that there’s no vitamin D in food – not quite.
Food is not a great source, but you can get a significant amount from it.
Excluding the fortified products (essentially supplements added to food), fish is by far the best source of vitamin D.
If you eat a lot of fish, or consume cod liver oil regularly, you probably get a decent chunk of your needed amount from that alone, which is great.
Keep in mind that when you cook food that contains vitamin D, anywhere from 10-50% of it is lost, which means those numbers in the table are more than you’ll actually get.
2. Sun
The sun is by far the best (and cheapest!) source of vitamin D.
You don’t need to know all the little steps. What you do need to know is that UVB radiation from sunlight is absorbed in the skin, which then reacts with cholesterol to form vitamin D.
However, we can’t actually use this form of vitamin D. Instead, it goes through a few conversions until it finally is turned into calcidiol, the active form of vitamin D that cells can use.
Note that skin needs to be actually exposed to sunlight in order for vitamin D production to occur. This is why it’s more common to become vitamin D deficient during winter months when you’re all covered up.
3. Supplements
Food alone usually isn’t enough.
So what if you live somewhere where you can’t get enough sun, either?
That’s when supplements are necessary. You can find them on the shelf at most pharmacies, drug stores, or online.
Vitamin D2 and D3
There are 2 common types of vitamin D. Vitamin D2 is found in certain plants, while D3 is found in animal products/fish.
Vitamin D3 is about twice as good at being converted to the active form of vitamin D. While most supplements are vitamin D3, double check the ingredient label before you buy them.
How Much Vitamin D Do You Need?
The last main part of this guide is to determine how much vitamin D you actually need to not be deficient.
Here is a table of the current recommendations in Canada, which are very similar to the U.S. and Europe:
However, many recent studies have called these recommendations into question.
They assert that the recommended intakes should be higher for all age groups, closer to the current upper limits. The current maximum safe dosage is 10,000 IU per day for an adult.
I wouldn’t recommend hopping straight to that amount until more research has been done on it. However, you might benefit from getting more vitamin D if you’re hovering around or below the current recommended amounts.
For reference, most studies I’ve linked to in this guide have adult patients on 4,000-5,000 IU per day.
How Much Vitamin D Do You Get From The Sun?
The actual amount you get from the sun will vary depending on a lot of factors, not all of which are in your control (like UV index).
There’s no easy way to calculate it. Here’s what I found:
“If you’re fair skinned, experts say going outside for 10 minutes in the midday sun – in shorts and a tank top with no sunscreen – will give you enough radiation to produce about 10,000 IU.”
So it’s not too difficult to get a good amount of vitamin D.
Note that it said “if you’re fair skinned.” The darker your skin is, the less UVB you will absorb, and the less vitamin D you will produce. I’m not sure exactly how much extra time you need in the sun if you have dark skin, but be aware that you’ll need a bit more.
Can You Overdose? It’s possible, but very unlikely. You would need to have an incredibly high vitamin D intake for an extended period of time.
There is one final thing I need to address to wrap up this guide: skin cancer. I am by no means telling you to lie out in the sun all day. Get some sun, but don’t get burned.
Any sunburn will accelerate aging, and even worse, it will elevate your risk of skin cancer.
There you have it, everything you need to know about vitamin D. Enjoy the sun and your good health!
Dale is a nutrition writer, chemical engineer & professional soccer player who sees the results of proper nutrition every day in training and games. Connect with him at DaleCudmore.com
A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.
Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook
Cholesterol plays a vital role in our health, and is often confused as the enemy. Here’s how cholesterol works and what really causes heart disease.
Recent research has shown that cholesterol isn’t the big bad dietary wolf that everyone fears. In fact, there’s something worse than cholesterol that we should all be mindful of – and most of us eat it every single day.
What Is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a sterol, or modified steroid, that is an essential structural component of cell membranes. It is necessary for making sure that membranes are permeable so that fluids and fatty compounds can properly be transported into the blood plasma.
Cholesterol mainly builds and maintains cell membranes, but it’s also responsible for:
Producing reproductive and stress hormones
Creating bile
Converting sun exposure to vitamin D
Metabolizing fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K)
Insulating nerve fibers
Cholesterol is so necessary for these critical body processes that our bodies make 85 percent of it. That’s right – contrary to popular beliefs, cholesterol isn’t a dietary opponent – it’s a critical element of wellness that the body creates.
Even if you don’t eat a speck of cholesterol, you’ll have a significant amount in your body because you need it to survive.
The liver produces approximately 800 to 1,000 milligrams of cholesterol per day. The rest of it, about 15 to 20 percent, comes from dietary sources like beef, pork, chicken, fish, shellfish, egg yolks, and dairy products (like milk and cheese).
The cholesterol that we eat isn’t as efficiently put to use as the cholesterol produced by the liver. When what we eat does raise our levels, the liver produces less. So dietary cholesterol has little effect on the actual circulating levels of cholesterol – the ones that get blamed for heart disease risk.
This is where people start to get confused, because many medical professionals have implicated cholesterol in heart disease problems for decades.
While heart disease is a real health problem, cholesterol isn’t necessarily to blame.
Let’s correct these myths, and explore the real culprits in heart disease risk and cardiovascular problems.
1. Cholesterol is dangerous to your health
As discussed above, cholesterol is essential for wellness. Your hormones would be a wreck without enough cholesterol. Your fat-soluble vitamin levels would be insufficient. Your cells would also be starved of proper nutrients and fluid levels.
The general culture talks about cholesterol as if it’s a fat-food monster that clogs your arteries and tries to kill you. Which brings us to:
2. Cholesterol causes heart disease
Cholesterol does not cause heart disease. There are too many factors in heart disease risk to blame one thing, and cholesterol has taken the blame long enough. In the age of low-cholesterol diets, heart disease has only risen, not dropped. Heart disease now accounts for one in every three deaths, up from one in every four.
3. Lowering cholesterol with drugs or diet makes you healthier
Again, we’ve only seen a rise in heart disease deaths since low-cholesterol diets and cholesterol-fighting medication have become popular.
Recent research even shows that older folks with higher levels of cholesterol live as long or longer than those with low levels. So, if cholesterol is the great killer that we’ve believed it to be, then why isn’t research agreeing?
Understanding the Different Types of Cholesterol
There are two kinds of cholesterol: the “good” (HDL) and “bad” cholesterol (LDL). In reality, there isn’t anything inherently good or bad about either.
HDL cholesterol, or the “good” kind, is short for “high-density lipoprotein.” It collects cholesterol from the bloodstream and returns it to the liver to be broken down. It got a reputation for being good by sending cholesterol away, but keep in mind that it’s the liver that synthesizes this cholesterol in this first place – so it can’t be all bad.
LDL cholesterol, which stands for “low-density lipoprotein,” is referred to as the “bad” kind because it transports cholesterol to tissues. However, remember that cholesterol is required for hormones and numerous other body processes, and the only way that these can happen is if cells have access to it.
While dietary intake of cholesterol can slightly influence LDL and HDL levels, this is primarily influenced by lifestyle and genetics.
But cholesterol isn’t the marker that should be associated with heart disease. In fact, there are several markers that are legitimately more tied to heart disease risk than cholesterol, and the one thing they all have in common is inflammation.
Inflammatory Markers Are the New “Bad” Cholesterol
LDL got its bad rap because oxidized LDL can lead to plaque build-up in the arteries.
Oxidation happens when inflammation damages cells, and they start functioning abnormally.
Inflammation is the body’s response to injury, but not always in the obvious sense. Injury can happen on the inside of the body as a result of a rogue immune system, poor dietary choices, and chronic conditions.
Doctors use certain blood markers to track inflammation in the body. While genetics can certainly make someone more prone to inflammatory problems, lifestyle factors also have a major role. It’s just that cholesterol is no longer the ultimate problem.
From a dietary standpoint, trans fats and refined sugars ramp up inflammation much faster than foods that contain cholesterol.
Unlike cholesterol, which the body produces, trans fats and refined sugars won’t be synthesized in the body if we don’t eat enough. In fact, they aren’t needed at all, and can be quite damaging in a number of ways.
Trans fats are damaged fats that occur as a result of overprocessing foods, and are not the heart-healthy fats that are found in nature. Trans fats are often considered bad because they’re linked with raising “bad” cholesterol, but it isn’t that they raise LDL so much as they damage the existing LDL cells, resulting in plaque deposits that can cause problems.
LDL got its bad rap because oxidized LDL can lead to plaque build-up in the arteries. Oxidation happens when inflammation damages cells, and they start functioning abnormally.
So how do you know if inflammation is your problem? These two tests should be considered alongside the standard cholesterol and triglycerides measurements to determine actual heart disease or chronic disease risk:
C-reactive protein test
Homocysteine test
C-reactive protein measures specific inflammatory markers in the body that can help to determine inflammation levels as well as the potential for narrowing of arteries.
While the American Heart Association (which still blames cholesterol for problems) doesn’t think it’s necessary, numerous integrative practitioners use this as a gold standard for determining problematic inflammatory risk.
Homocysteine, a chemical found in the blood, is produced in response to methionine, an amino acid. While everyone needs a certain amount of homocysteine in their blood, elevated levels can be indicative of inflammation and can be irritating for blood vessels, leading to arterial hardening and risk for heart attack.
Homocysteine can become elevated in response to poor dietary choices, but it can also be higher in individuals with certain genetic mutations that require harder-to-get nutrients to keep it in check.
Specifically, the genetic mutation called MTHFR indicates difficulty absorbing critical vitamins. When homocysteine is elevated in individuals who have MTHFR mutations, it’s often because they can’t properly metabolize the B vitamins that keep methionine and other body processes in check.
4 Ways to Reduce Inflammation with Diet and Lifestyle
Since heart disease is much more complex than just using cholesterol as a scapegoat, understanding the root causes of heart (and most other) disease can lead to an overall preventive lifestyle.
Inflammation is more dangerous to heart health than cholesterol, so it’s important to understand that it can be dramatically impacted with dietary and other lifestyle choices.
1. Eat Anti-Inflammatory Green Vegetables
Green vegetables are rich in folate, antioxidants, and fiber, giving them a trifecta of healthful benefits that not only help to prevent inflammation, but can also help to reverse chronic health problems after they’ve started.
2. Eat More Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Omega-3 fatty acids – like those found in salmon, mackerel, and cod liver oil – differ from other types of fats in that they’re potently anti-inflammatory. Omega-6 fatty acids, commonly found in nuts and seeds, are more pro-inflammatory, but are often eaten in far greater amounts than omega-3s.
Eating omega-3s on a daily basis and limiting intake of omega-6 fatty acids can help to restore balance to this fat ratio, leading to decreased inflammation and improved heart health.
3. Skip Trans Fats, Refined Sugars, and Processed Foods
Trans fats, refined sugars and processed foods can be especially harmful if you have existing inflammatory conditions, known MTHFR mutations, or a family history of heart disease.
Not only do these foods lead to inflammation, they can also wreak havoc on the digestive system as well as contribute to weight problems and hormone imbalance.
4. Manage Stress and Sleep
You can eat all the right foods, exercise, and skip detrimental habits like smoking, but if you’re stressed to the max and sleeping poorly, then you could still have inflammatory markers that are high.
Aimee McNew is a Certified Nutritionist who specializes in women’s health, thyroid problems, infertility, and digestive wellness. She ate her way back to health using a Paleo diet, lost 80 pounds, and had a healthy baby after numerous miscarriages. She focuses on simple nutrition practices that promote long-lasting results.
A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.
Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.
