Thai Massage Greenock

Research of the Week

in patients with depression.

More sleep, .

A group of mummies found in China were , the same root population from which Native Americans and many Europeans sprang.

.

6 year olds at using multiple sources of information than both younger kids and adults.

New Primal Kitchen Podcasts

I chat with Morgan about my origin story as an entrepreneur.

: Connie Vanderzanden wonders if you know your money mindset.

Media, Schmedia

The bison reintroduction into Romania is .

a shame.

Interesting Blog Posts

?

Healthy soil . For all intents and purposes, it’s an infinite sink—which is why regenerative animal-involved agriculture is so important.

Social Notes

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.

Everything Else

The NIH is .

Facebook shifts toward the “.”

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

Love it: .

Well deserved: .

Important concept: .

Interesting idea: I’m bearish on vertical farms, but this looks more promising.

Not surprised: Taxes and regulations mean the .

Question I’m Asking

What are your favorite fall recipes?

Recipe Corner

• . Using tahini in Asian recipes is a nice little secret hack.
• is simple and reliable and endlessly adaptable.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 23 – Oct 29)

• — It usually is.
• — Why it’s a good idea.

Comment of the Week

“Well sir, I’ve had quite enough of your flagrant fruit-baking bias.”

-Good day to you, .

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Who is eligible for a booster shot?

According to CDC recommendations, recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are eligible for a booster shot 6 months or more after their second dose of the two-dose regimen AND they meet one of the following criteria:

65 years and olderAge 18+ and live in long-term care settingsAge 18+ and have underlying medical conditionsAge 18+ and work or live in high-risk settings

For those who received a single-dose Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, a booster shot is recommended for everyone, two or more months following the original inoculation regimen, as long as they are age 18 or older.

Do I have to get the same type of booster shot as my original vaccine?

Nope! The FDA and CDC have both concluded that mixing and matching of vaccine types is perfectly fine.

On October 20, 2021, the FDA authorized the use of a heterologous (or “mix and match”) booster dose for currently available COVID-19 vaccines. That means regardless of which vaccine you originally received—Pfizer, Moderna, or Janssen—you can get a booster dose of any of them.

If you’re wondering about potential benefits to mixing and matching, the CDC has not taken a position on this, though they seem to be leaving the door open to relevant research. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted “The CDC now will allow new recommendations to mix and match [but] we do not indicate a preference.”

Some early data does indicate a stronger antibody response from heterologous vaccine and booster varieties, but it’s too early to derive actionable analysis from it. According to NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar,

“If you do get a different booster from the original that you got…the likelihood of you getting the same or a greater antibody response two weeks later is greater.” 

“What we don’t know,” she continued, “is whether or not those antibodies actually translate into better protection or more vaccine effectiveness.”

Are booster shots safe?

Yes—and about 11 million people have already gotten one! Booster shots contain the exact same clinical formulation as the primary vaccine shots, so there’s nothing new or different in them. In a CDC study of over 10,000 people who received a third shot, mild side-effects like headaches and joint pain were reported at a similar rate as in the first two doses. 

While data on mix-and-match shots is more limited compared to the primary shots, a CDC panel convened on October 20th reviewed data from roughly 3,000 people who had received the Janssen vaccine and an mRNA booster and found only two had reported a serious adverse event. It’s not clear if either was actually related to the vaccine—only that the event took place within the study window.

While risks should always be taken seriously, they’ve so far proven to be extremely low—and far outweighed by the personal and communal benefits. Plus, the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is extremely powerful, and is able to track reports of adverse reactions practically in real time. So although all three vaccines and boosters have been thoroughly studied and tested, these evaluations are continually supported by an ever-expanding body of nationwide safety data.

Does a booster shot contain the same amount of inoculant as my original dose?

It depends on the type. A Moderna booster contains the equivalent of half a dose (.25mL) of the vaccine version, which contains 0.5mL in each of the two shots. The Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer boosters, however, each contain the same dosage as their vaccine counterparts.

I’ve heard about a vaccine “third dose”—how does that differ from a booster shot?

A third dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna) is indeed identical informula to the first two doses, though it differs in application and eligibility. Third doses are meant to protect those who are moderately or severely immunosuppressed and may not have a strong enough response to the first two doses of vaccine. 

Third dose candidates include (but are not limited to) those in treatment for certain cancers, recent recipients of stem cell or organ transplants, patients on medications that suppress the immune system, and some HIV patients. Third mRNA doses can be administered to such patients as soon as 28 days after a second dose. The CDC recommends (with FDA authorization), that those who require a third dose of vaccine get the same type (Moderna or Pfizer) they received in their first two doses.

I’ve received a third dose mRNA vaccine—should I still get a booster shot?

The CDC has indicated that patients aged 18 or older who are moderately or severely immunosuppressed and received a three-dose primary series of mRNA vaccine may receive a booster shot. If the patient has already received three doses of mRNA vaccine, the booster should be delivered no sooner than 6 months after completing their original regimen. 

Immunosuppressed people who received a single-dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccine as their primary series are encouraged by the CDC to get a single booster vaccine—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen—as soon as 2 months after receiving their initial Janssen primary dose.

It is important to note, however, that each patient’s own clinical team is best positioned to determine the appropriate timing of vaccination and boosters for each individual patient.

I got COVID-19 after getting vaccinated! Does that impact my booster eligibility?

While you may have earned a slightly elevated degree of protection against subsequent infection (congratulations!), you are still eligible for—and should still get—a booster shot. You may have some special considerations around the timing of your booster shot. If you were very recently infected with COVID-19, naturally you should wait until your symptoms are gone and you’ve cleared quarantine before seeking out a booster. Additionally, if you received monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma as a treatment for your infection, the CDC recommends waiting 90 days after that treatment is over before getting a booster.

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Nuts have gotten a surprising amount of flack as of late. Many nuts have a fairly high content, and most of that PUFA is omega-6 linoleic acid, the same one we try to avoid by avoiding seed oils. Linoleic acid is easily oxidized, accumulates in our tissues and determines our inflammatory response, is highly for cooking, usually rancid on the shelf, and, thanks to government farm subsidies and public hysteria over , it’s in absolutely everything nowadays. We Primal types generally avoid it for good reason, and that tends to influence how we perceive the O6 content of .

Is there a place for nuts in the ? Should we worry about nuts and omega-6 fats? Let’s take a closer look.

How Much Omega-6 Do Nuts Contain?

In a typical serving of each:

• Walnuts – 9.5 g
• Almonds – 4.36 g
• Cashews – 2.6 g
• Macadamias – 0.5 g
• Brazil nuts – 7.2 g
• Hazelnuts – 2.7 g
• Pistachio – 4.1 g
• Pine nuts – 11.6 g
• Pecans – 5.8 g

A diet high in most nuts, then, would presumably skew the vaunted tissue ratio toward pro-inflammatory bodily processes… right? I mean, if you were to eat food fried in high-O6 vegetable oil at some restaurant, that would be pro-inflammatory. If you were to eat cheap Chinese food stir-fried in cheap, high-O6 every day for lunch, you’d expect a good amount of oxidized LDL at your next . And if you were to supplement your diet with a few daily tablespoons of unheated corn oil, there would be markedly negative effects (besides gagging and/or vomiting) on your body. How are nuts any different?

Nuts are Whole Foods

For one, nuts aren’t just “bags of linoleic acid.” A nut is a pretty complete nutritional source. After all, it’s the seed of a tree, a sort of arboreal egg. Contained within is everything that tree needs to start growing from scratch—, , even , plus natural antioxidants like Vitamin E and plenty of minerals.

Consider 160 calories worth of raw almonds, which has 3.5 grams of omega-6 linoleic acid. What else do you get along with those PUFAs?

• 76 mg of calcium
• 76 mg of magnesium
• 207 mg of potassium
• 0.3 mg of copper (a third of your RDI)
• 0.9 mg of zinc
• 25% of your daily riboflavin
• 45% of your daily vitamin E
• Prebiotic fiber to feed your gut

Not bad, right? Nuts aren’t just defined by their omega-6 content.

Compare that to 160 calories worth of soybean oil, which has almost 10 grams of linoleic acid. What else do you get along with those PUFAs?

• Nothing
• Nothing
• Still nothing

You don’t get any vitamins or minerals to contribute toward your micronutrient status. You don’t get any vitamin E to protect the fragile omega-6 fats from breaking down. You get absolutely nothing.

Even if the omega-6 fats in nuts are bad taken in isolation, the positives of the nut seem to outweigh them. Whole nut seems to reduce markers of systemic inflammation, and inflammation is linked with a wide range of ailments and afflictions (obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, excess cortisol, etc.). To isolate and praise or malign a single component of nuts is wrong without considering them as complex food matrices containing diverse nutrients and other chemical constituents. In other words, nuts are food, not single nutrients.

Pick a nut, any nut, and you’ll find research showing benefits from its consumption.

Nutritional Value of Nuts

If the high omega-6 content of nuts was such an issue, you’d probably see an indication in the literature. Instead, the vast majority of studies find only benefits to nut consumption.

• Walnuts improve lipid profile, lower oxidative stress, increase cholesterol efflux, and improve cardiovascular disease risk.
• Pistachios attenuate the glucose response to carb-rich meals.
• Pecans acutely increase antioxidant capacity and lower LDL oxidation.
• Hazelnuts reduce the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation.
• Brazil nuts improve selenium status, glutathione activity, and lower inflammation.

When the Omega-6 in Nuts Can be Too Much

Problems arise with steady year-round access to foods whose historical availability was . If you were a hunter-gatherer, you probably weren’t gathering bushels of nuts on a daily basis – at least, you weren’t finding enough nuts in the wild to eat eight ounces a day. Nuts are seasonal in the wild. Perhaps the best example of a traditional hunter-gatherer population eating significant amounts of nuts are the Hadza of Tanzania, who eat large amounts of mongongo nuts only when they’re in season. They can’t go down to the corner store for a sack of out-of-season nuts, and nor could any human for most of our history.

Model your nut consumption after biologically-appropriate, evolutionarily-congruent availability patterns and you will be fine.

Eating a handful of almonds and Brazil nuts won’t give you too many omega-6 fats.

Eating half a bag of almonds and Brazil nuts will.

It’s all about the quantity.

Nuts should never comprise the bulk of your diet, anyway. A quarter cup as a snack every now and then isn’t going to kill you. It’s not even going to compromise your progress. I mean, they’re nuts. They aren’t meals, and they’re not meant to be. They’re snacks, basic supplements to an already nutritious diet replete in animal fat, protein, and vegetables. And in a diet like the that provides plenty of omega-3s through seafood to balance out the omega-6, nuts definitely have a place.

Just make sure you treat your nuts as delicious treats, rather than staple cornerstones of a meal. Don’t burn your nuts, and don’t cook with the oil. The safest bet is to buy them or roast them yourself. That way, you control the heat and you can mediate the oxidation.

Overanalyzing your food intake is a good way to stress yourself out and make every little dietary choice an internal struggle. . Be vigilant of your food choices, but wisely. Making sure you ask the waiter to cook your omelet in butter rather than vegetable oil is worth the trouble; stressing over the Omega-6 content of the twenty walnuts in front of you is decidedly not.

Care to weigh in with your thoughts on nuts? I know a lot of forum members have reservations about them, so I’d love to hear in the comments section.

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One of the core pillars of health is eating the best quality food possible. Realistically, though, few of us can fill our shopping carts with nothing but local, organic, pesticide-free, grass-fed, pasture-raised, wild-caught, non-GMO food. Top-tier options may not be available year-round where you live, and even if they are, they might not fit your budget.

Most people have to decide where it’s worthwhile to invest in organic and where it’s okay to choose less-than-perfect-but-still-perfectly-good conventional options. I’ve previously covered the . Today, I’ll try to make things a little easier by providing a list of the foods which are fine in their conventional form.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t buy these items organic if you can access and afford them. Some would argue that even if the following conventional foods are relatively safe, you should still buy organic in order to support organic growers and protect the environment from exposure to agricultural chemicals. That’s totally valid and part of the reason why I try to buy organic, but it’s also a topic for another time. The goal today is to help you prioritize where to spend your hard-earned money while maximizing your and your family’s health.

So, what everyday Primal staples can you buy conventional?

Coconut and Coconut Products

Primal folks love our . We sauté with and slather it onto vegetables, sweet potatoes, hair, skin, and armpits. We make smoothies and with coconut milk and cream. We obsess over coconut butter, paying tribute to its glory with a greasy spoon. And when we’ve been running or training particularly hard, provides much-needed electrolytes.

Luckily for us, it doesn’t look like organic versus conventional coconut makes a big difference. Several studies have looked for pesticide residues in coconut products and come up virtually empty-handed. There’s this 2010 study, which was unable to detect any pesticide residues in crude coconut oil. Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, which are generated during the coconut flesh quick drying process and are carcinogenic, were detected in crude coconut oil but were removed in the refining process. Virgin unrefined coconut oil may still contain these hydrocarbons unless it’s wet-milled and processed without quick-drying the flesh. However, that goes for both organic and conventional coconut oil.

Other studies have found low or undetectable levels of pesticides in coconut pulp, crude and refined coconut oil, and coconut water.

Coconut milk is also going to be as free from pesticides as any other coconut product. Since it comes from fresh flesh, not the dried, heat-treated stuff, coconut milk should also be free of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons.

Onions Don’t Need to Be Organic

don’t just make you cry for cutting them, they make pests weep at the thought of eating them. Onions are naturally resistant to pests, so there’s no need to douse them with tons of pesticides. Big Agra may cut corners and prioritize profit over quality or consumer health, but that just means they won’t fork out the money for chemicals if they don’t have to. They’re not comic book villains, dumping drums of noxious endocrine disruptors and carcinogens onto their crops to punish us.

Onions are consistently near the top of the EWG’s Clean 15 list. Most of the 333 chemicals the USDA tests as part of their Pesticide Data Program (PDP) are undetectable on onions year after year. The small minority that do show up on tests all come in well under EPA Tolerance Levels.

There is also very little, if any, advantage to organic onions from a health perspective. Unlike many other fruits and vegetables, conventionally grown onions have the same level of polyphenols as organically grown onions. So, feel free to go wild with conventional onions.

Avocados

Avocados are another safe food that ends up with some of the lowest pesticide residues around. Maybe it’s the scaly skin and the way they just kinda “lurk” there up in tree tricking pests into thinking they’re up against alligators. Maybe it’s the fact that a bug got burned one too many times with a beautiful-looking avocado that turned out to be stringy and brown on the inside. Maybe pests just hate waiting for an avocado to ripen (who doesn’t?) and give up.

Actually, even though growers sometimes apply a significant amount of chemicals on avocado orchards, they don’t make it into the fatty, delicious flesh we crave and consume. Much like our friend the coconut, the hard outer shell offers pretty good defense. However, avocado farmers, both organic and conventional, do use extensive amounts of copper as a fungicide. Copper is an essential nutrient, but too much can be harmful. A single Florida avocado contains 0.9 mg, which is about 100% of the RDI, so don’t go around eating several a day.

Can Honey Even Be Organic?

The idea of organic is fantastic. Who wouldn’t want to eat honey produced by bees who dined exclusively on organic, wild, untouched, pure flowers? I sure would.

But the reality is that bees will be bees. They’re going to buzz around freely, and they’re not going to distinguish between organic and conventionally-grown plants. I suppose you could surround your hives with only organic plant life, but considering bees have an average range of five kilometers (and twice that when food is scarce), you’d have to control a lot of land to do it. Plus, you know how bees have those cute furry bodies? Yeah, that fur picks up all sorts of stuff from the air. Not only do you have to worry about non-organic pollen, you also have to contend with every non-organic airborne particle in the area.

Buy honey. Buy raw honey. Buy honey from someone who raised the bees and (at least kinda sorta) knows where they spend their time. But don’t shell out extra money for organic honey unless you happen to really like that particular honey. Those first two characteristics—”local” and “raw”—should come before organic.

Is Organic Asparagus Worth the Price?

I love asparagus, but even I balk at the astronomical price of organic asparagus. I once saw organic asparagus for sale at my local grocery store for $17.99 per pound!

Luckily, asparagus is one of the cleanest vegetables around. Checking in once again with the USDA (PDP) database, the vast majority of samples test free of residue. Organic might eliminate the small probability of pesticides showing up on your asparagus, but I don’t think it’s worth the price tag. Conventional should be just fine. If you’re really worried, domestic conventional (referring to the United States) is far better than imported conventional.

Sweet Potatoes

Low-carb is cool, but the athletes, lifters, highly active folks among us sometimes need a bit of dietary starch to fuel their efforts. Conventional sweet potatoes are a fine choice. Their leaves sometimes get eaten by bugs, but since that rarely affects the viability of the underground tubers that people actually eat, farmers generally don’t feel the need to protect the leaves with agrochemicals.

However, sweet potatoes do sometimes have a problem with fungal growth after harvesting. To deter this, processors sometimes dunk the tubers in a dicloran bath before packing and shipping. Dicloran (a fungicide not to be confused with the flame retardant known as dichloran) is the only chemical to show up consistently in conventional sweet potatoes. Though dicloran is sometimes listed as a possible carcinogen, the European Food Safety Authority has concluded that “Dicloran has no genotoxic or carcinogenic potential relevant to humans.” Still, if you’re concerned, peel your sweet potatoes.

Farmed Bivalves (Clams, Mussels, Oysters, Scallops)

I’ve mentioned this before in a on farmed seafood, but farmed bivalves are essentially “wild.” They’re not kept in ponds, nor are they given pesticide-rich soy and corn topped off with unsustainable fishmeal. Instead, they hang out attached to their moorings in actual ocean water acting like the filter-feeders they are. For all intents and purposes, the farmed bivalves you eat are identical to wild ones. As such, there would be little point to eating “organic” shellfish.

In 2002, Greenpeace did an exhaustive survey of all the chemicals used in aquaculture to find out whether consumers eating the end product had anything to worry about. While they found extensive usage of parasiticides, anesthetics, spawning hormones, oxidants, disinfectants, and herbicides in fish and shrimp farming, there was only one instance of chemical usage in bivalve farming: Northwest U.S. oyster farming sometimes used carbaryl, an organophosphate that inhibits acetylcholine esterase and increases the levels of acetylcholine in the brain (which kills parasites but can actually enhance human brain function, provided you eat or make enough ).

Long story short, tegular old farmed are perfectly fine—and I recommend you eat them regularly.

How to Choose Between Organic and Conventional Produce

These are my top suggestions for foods that are fine to buy conventional, but what about when you’re standing in the supermarket and have to make a decision on the fly? Here are some guidelines to follow:

• Check out the , which they update annually (though they stay pretty consistent). Whenever possible, get organic for the Dirty Dozen. Otherwise, get what’s available.
• Prioritize organic for leafy greens and produce with thin, edible skins. Anything you peel will take most of the residue into the compost pile with the food scraps.
• When shopping at a local farmer’s market, ask the growers about their farming methods. Many small farms can’t afford the organic certification but nevertheless avoid inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides. You can feel great about eating what they grow.
• Finally, remember that frozen fruits and vegetables are as fresh. If you can’t find what you want in the produce section, check the freezer.

That’s what I’ve got, folks. I hope some of you are pleasantly surprised and feel a little more empowered to make educated decisions on whether to buy organic or not. Remember: you have to eat something, and conventional fruits, vegetables, and animals are way better than not eating fruits, vegetables, and animals at all.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to let me know if I missed any foods in the comment section!

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Once fall hits, grocery stores and farmer’s markets turn into a harvest festival, and we’re always looking into new ways to use the gorgeous root vegetables and squashes that line the produce aisle. Here, we’re making a one-pot braised pork roast with butternut squash and root vegetables that takes comfort food to the next level. Enjoy a hearty meal that warms your bones, then wrap up in a blanket and enjoy an evening of autumn bliss.

Here’s how to make it.

One-pot Braised Pork with Root Vegetables

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 lb. bone-in pork butt or shoulder
• 1/4 cup
• 2 Tbsp.
• 2.5 Tbsp. , divided
• 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. chopped sage
• 1 Tbsp. chopped rosemary
• 2 tsp. thyme leaves
• 4 cloves garlic (minced) plus 6-8 whole cloves
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1 apple
• 1 small onion
• 1/2 cup broth
• 4+ cups of your favorite root vegetables, cut into 1” cubes

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rub your pork with a tablespoon of avocado oil. In a small bowl, combine the spicy mustard, dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, sage, rosemary, thyme, minced garlic, salt and pepper.

Rub the mustard mixture all over the pork.

Make slits all over the pork with a knife and place the whole garlic cloves in the slits.

Pour ½ tablespoon of avocado oil in a round dutch oven or braising pan and place the pork in the center.

If the pork has a side with more fat on it, place that side facing up. Cut the apple and onion in quarters and place it around the pork.

Place the pork in the oven uncovered at 425 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

Take the dutch oven out of the oven and flip the pork over.

Add the chicken broth and cover the dutch oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Allow the pork to cook for around 2 hours, depending on the size and shape of the cut of meat. Ideally, use a meat thermometer and cook until the pork is around 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Check the meat after an hour or so and remove any remaining apple and onion pieces that haven’t broken down. At this time you can add additional broth if you notice too much is evaporating.

Remove the pot from the oven and uncover it. Toss your chopped vegetables in the remaining avocado oil and sprinkle them with salt. Arrange them around the pork in your dutch oven and toss them gently in any of the juices in the pot.

Cover the pot and place it back in the oven for ~40 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the pork has an internal temperature of 195-200 degrees. If the vegetables are tender but the pork is still not tender, you can remove the vegetables and place the pork back in the oven.

Slice or shred your pork and serve with the vegetables and pan juices.

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