West Saint Paul Antiques

Eat more fish like Salmon, Tuna, and Sardines to make your body more sensitive to a fat-burning hormone called Leptin (Leptin means "thin" in Greek).

Leptin suppresses your appetite and Leptin determines whether you store the calories you eat as fat or if you burn the calories you eat for energy

Organic Beef contains lots of CLA (or conjugated linoleic acid) which is basically a healthy fat that helps you burn fatand…

According to The International Journal of Obesity… People who took CLA lost belly fat by reducing their waistlines by 1.2 inches without making any diet or lifestyle changes.

Orange Juice is Just as Bad as Cola. Really?

Orange juice is no better for you than soda pop. So say a growing number of health professionals, who are trying to undo more than half a century of consumer mindshare captured by the citrus industry. A fascinating article in the LA Times brings us the “juicy” details:

“It’s pretty much the same as sugar water,” said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, “there’s no need for any juice at all.”

A glass of juice concentrates all the sugar from several pieces of fruit. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100. 

According to these numbers, people should be drinking less juice and more soda. But that’s not the whole picture. Fruit juice has lots of benefits such as vitamins and minerals, doesn’t it?

The answer is not so simple. Vitamin C, for example is totally lost through the processing of oranges, but is then added again before packaging. But fiber, which can be found in abundance if you eat the actual fruit, is all but gone from the resulting juice. Also, many juices are fortified, for example with calcium.

The correct answer is that people should be drinking lots more water and a lot less of everything else. Most of a person’s calories should come from food, not liquids. It is very hard to get satiated from liquids, but very easy to gulp down three, four, even five hundred calories, mostly from the fructose in juice, all in a single sitting.

What to do at the supermarket:

Opting for juice instead of pop is a first and important step for parents. More than anything it is an acknowledgment that sugary soft drinks are unhealthy and an alternative is needed.

But the next step should be encouraging children to drink more water and eat real fruit. If your kids love juice and guzzle down more than a cup or two a day, consider watering it down in order to reduce both the calorie count and the sweetness. You can start with just a bit of water and then work your way to half n half.

I am still confused over the age-old controversy "butter vs. margarine." Which is better for me to eat?

I can certainly understand your frustration, especially when you are trying your best to follow a heart-healthy diet. Let's look at why butter and margarine both get a bad rap. First let's look at butter. The problem with butter is that it contains two cholesterol-raising ingredients: dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products so you won't find any cholesterol in a plant-based food or food product (such as margarine). Some of us are more affected by cholesterol in the diet than others, meaning some people can consume a diet high in cholesterol without blood cholesterol levels being affected; but others need only eat a little dietary cholesterol and their cholesterol levels soar. Overall, it is recommended that healthy persons consume no more than 200 milligrams cholesterol each day. Butter has 33 milligrams of cholesterol in one tablespoon alone!

Cholesterol aside, butter's biggest trouble is its saturated fat content. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are found largely in red meat, high-fat dairy products (like butter) as well as coconut and palm oils. When eaten in excess, saturated fats increase the "bad" cholesterol (LDL) as well as the "good" cholesterol (HDL). Despite the fact that saturated fats raise good cholesterol, they don't raise it enough for us to warrant you eating it. Saturated fat intakes are associated with increases in heart-disease risk. A healthy range of saturated fat is 10 – 15 grams each day. Just one tablespoon of butter contains over 7 grams of saturated fat!

Margarine is by no means void of artery clogging fat. The controversy with margarine lies with its level of trans fat, largely a man-made fat. Trans fats are formed when hydrogen is added to vegetable oils, making the oil more solid and less likely to spoil. This process is called hydrogenation or partial hydrogenation and allows stick margarine to be firm at room temperature. Trans fats have been shown to increase the "bad" cholesterol (LDL) similarly to saturated fats, and they tend to lower the "healthy" (HDL) cholesterol when eaten in large amounts. What's more – trans fats may make our blood platelets stickier. While no standard intakes of trans fat have been set, one tablespoon of stick margarine packs a whopping 3 grams of trans fat and 2 grams saturated fat.

But a little margarine "know-how" will help you reduce the amount of trans fat you eat. The more solid a margarine is at room temperature, the more trans fat it contains. For example, stick margarine contains the most trans fat, 3 grams in one tablespoon. Switch to tub or liquid margarine and you've cut that by almost 2/3, from 1–2 grams trans fat. And the good news is margarine manufacturers are now cutting their trans fat levels even further, to less than 0.5 grams per serving! This low level is allowed to carry the claim "trans fat free or zero-trans fat". How do they do it? They switched their first ingredient from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to water or liquid vegetable oil. It's best to keep the total trans fat as close to zero as possible and saturated fat under 2 grams per serving.

Now you have some choices and your answer: margarine (the trans-free tub or liquid kinds) is still recommended over butter. For those of you who choose to have a "little" butter once in a while (for example, 1 teaspoon a couple times a month) you shouldn't have to worry, but it's better to be safe than sorry. On a regular basis, aim for the growing number of tub and liquid trans-free margarines available on the market today and rest-assured that you are eating in a more heart-healthy manner. Keep in mind, margarines contain greater amounts of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils which helps reduce bad cholesterol when used to replace saturated and trans fats.

On average, a cup of Campbell’s Condensed soup has 760 mg of sodium. That’s half a day’s worth … assuming you eat only one of the 2½ servings that the label says the can makes. Campbell’s Healthy Request and Select Harvest, Progresso Reduced Sodium, and Healthy Choice slash the sodium to the 400s. Look for lower sodium lines in the 100s to 300s by Amy’s, Imagine Foods, Pacific Natural Foods, and Tabatchnick.

Let’s start with the most obvious here: the salt content. The average cup of soup (and lets be honest here, who actually measures out one cup and, more to the point, is satisfied by one cup?) packs in a whopping 1,000 milligrams of salt. Need to put it into perspective? Current dietary guidelines recommend consuming no more than 2,400 milligrams for the entire day (and actually recommend that you keep it to between 500 and 600 milligrams). But what’s the harm in salt? Well, beyond the obvious fluid retention (and believe us, a couple of pounds of fluid retention is not going to feel great), salt directly impacts blood pressure and has also been linked to osteoporosis, asthma, kidney disease and stomach cancer. Furthermore, a recent study from researchers at St. George’s University of London in England suggested that reducing children’s salt intake could help decrease childhood obesity because children would reduce their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

But that’s not even the worst of it. Most soups contain artificial preservatives such as MSG (Monosodium glutamate), a flavor enhancer that is added to food to accentuate its “meatiness.” Beyond the ick factor associated with jazzing up meat, MSG, when in its purest form, is thought to act as a potent neurotoxin that can cause damage to the cells of the nervous system. Although the FDA has previously classified MSG as a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) substance, reports of reactions to MSG – a condition characterized by headaches, tightness in the chest, nausea, rapid heartbeat, drowsiness and several other symptoms – have led them in recent years to issue tougher label requirements for foods that contain MSG. The debate over MSG is long and varied, and has been covered by us in the past.

The good news is, however, that there are some relatively healthy soups on the market, particularly those that are natural, organic brands (although you should still read the label!). Some good soups that are worth a shot include ShariAnn’s Organics and Healthy Valley’s Organic soup lines (just watch the carbs on some of these as they can skew high!).

But let’s not overlook the benefits of making your own soup. Although sometimes a little time consuming (despite being relatively hands off!), making a pot of soup can put that left over pot-roast to work or salvage the vegetables at the bottom of the crisper! In addition, making your own soup at home (particularly if you use your own stock recipes) can allow you to control the salt content and eliminate altogether the need for preservatives!

The following are a few quick (and healthy) soup recipes:

Easy Chicken Stock:
We offer this one up simply because knowing how to make a good stock can be half the battle when making soup from scratch!

4 to 5.5 pounds of chicken pieces (backs, necks, wings, legs, thighs), or one whole roasting chicken
16 cups cold water (or enough to cover chicken pieces)
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 stalk of celery, coarsely chopped

Put chicken and water in a large stockpot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer, uncovered, for roughly 3 hours, adding water as needed to keep ingredients submerged. Strain into a clean pot or heatproof plastic container. Refrigerate until ready to use. Makes about 12 cups.

Creamy Mexican Avocado soup with Chicken:
Bored of the ol’ tried and true soup recipes? Spice this up with this Mexican-twist on hearty chicken soup!

2 medium-sized chicken breasts, poached or grilled
3 ripe avocados
Juice of one lime
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (extra credit if you use the above recipe!)
1/4 tsp hot chili flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and pit avocados. Place all ingredients (excluding the chicken), in blender and blend till smooth. Pour into pan and heat until just bubbling. Chop chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and add to soup. Allow to simmer for 15-30 minutes. Serve either as is, or top with shredded cheese and toasted pumpkin seeds. Makes about 4 hearty servings.

Seinfeld’s Crab Bisque:
The Soup Nazi probably wouldn’t object to this healthy spin on his famed crab bisque!

4 pounds snow crab clusters (legs)
16 cups water
1 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, quartered
2 small turnips, peeled, chopped
1/4 cup fresh chopped Italian parsley
2 tsp mustard seed
1 tbsp chopped pimento
1/2 tsp coarse ground pepper
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup sugar-free tomato sauce
2 tbsp half and half
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp basil
1/8 tsp marjoram