Category Archives: Diet And Food

DROPPING a dress size after enduring a week of misery on a juice diet may seem worth it.

But crash dieters are being warned that such extreme measures simply do not work in the long run.

A study of 183 dieters shows it is better to adopt a tortoise-like strategy than to be like the hare and try to slim down too fast.

After two years, those content to patiently shed a pound a week were found to have lost significantly more weight than yo-yo dieters.

The studys lead researcher Dr Emily Feig, from Drexel University in Philadelphia, said: It seems developing stable, repeatable behaviours related to food intake and weight loss early on in a weight control programme is really important for maintaining changes over the long term. In the study, obese and overweight people were enrolled into a year-long weight loss programme using meal replacements and were told to cut their calories, exercise and eat more healthily.

Some lost a consistent amount in regular weigh-ins over the first six to 12 weeks, while others fluctuated.

The yo-yo dieters may have seen more exciting and dramatic results early on, but after a year they had lost less weight than those who were consistent. The difference was seen particularly in men.

The study found that dieting too strictly, in people with an all-or-nothing approach to eating, often leads them to lose their willpower and regain weight. It adds: Strict restraint has been associated with poorer long-term weight control.

The study, published in the journal Obesity, supports other research that a large majority of people who lose 5 to 10% of their body weight typically regain it. - Daily Mail

See more here:
It's been proven by experts: crash diets really don't work - Independent Online

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. So, what does that have to do with fatty liver?

There is something called Metabolic Syndrome where, to simply put it, patients with hypertension may also have issues with sugar metabolism, high triglycerides, low HDL (good cholesterol), and/or high LDL (bad cholesterol). So, it makes sense to see if someone who is on the DASH diet for hypertension might also help these parameters. Many of these patients with metabolic syndrome may also be overweight and possibly have fatty liver as well, so could the DASH diet help with all of this?

As my patients know, I am a big fan of using food/diet to help diseases. When I saw this study about a diet that could help with many of these metabolic parameters, I was immediately drawn to it. I cant tell you how many people have fatty liver and they dont even know it.

Liver ultrasounds are an easy non-invasive way of doing this. Ask your doctor about it!

And if you have it, this diet apparently helps with not just hypertension, but also weight and fatty liver as well.

In a randomized controlled clinical trial, 60 overweight and obese patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease were randomly allocated to either the control diet or the DASH diet for 8 weeks. Both diets restricted calories and both diets consisted of 52-55% carbohydrates, 16-18% proteins, and 30% total fats. However, the DASH diet was high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, and were low in saturated fats, cholesterol, and refined grains.

After 8 weeks, the DASH diet group had significant improvements in liver function test results, weight, body mass index, insulin resistance issues, insulin sensitivity, triglyceride levels, total/HDL cholesterol ratio and hs-CRP. Some of the markers that show liver stress were also improved in the DASH diet group.

If you are someone who is worried about doing a lifelong diet, I recommend trying this diet for 8 weeks. If possible, a lifestyle change into a diet that is mostly vegetable-based and whole-food based that is not processed or sugary or full of saturated fat is ideal. However, if you find that you need a shorter time limit plan where you dont feel as overwhelmed, just try this for 8 weeks and once you start feeling better, you might just want to keep going.

As with any major changes, I highly recommend checking with your doctor before implementing diet or supplement changes to make sure its safe for you. The best part about the DASH diet is that most, if not all doctors, know about it. So, the conversation about whether you should try it or not should be a relatively easy conversation to have with your primary doctor.

Once youve got the go-aheadjust know that Ill be rooting for you.

If there is one thing that helps the most for your overall healthits a healthy diet!

Zade, MR, et al. The effects of DASH diet on weight loss and metabolic status in adults with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a randomized clinical trial. April 2016. 36(4): 563-571.

Read more from the original source:
DASH Diet for Your Fatty Liver: More Than Just Hypertension Benefits - HuffPost

LEKET ISRAEL volunteers pick produce for the needy..(photo credit:COURTESY LEKET ISRAEL)

The good news is that if you look at the world population who lives with chronic hunger [people who dont consume enough calories in their daily diets], that has dramatically decreased over the past 20 years. There are still about 800 million people in the world who go to bed hungry, Lisa Moon told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview on Monday, adding that they mainly reside in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.

For the past 18 months, Moon has been president and CEO of the Global Food-Banking Network (GFN), an international nonprofit organization working in 32 countries, dedicated to alleviating world hunger by creating, supporting and strengthening food banks around the world that currently serve 57 million people annually.

On her first trip to Israel, Moon is primarily visiting the Leket Israel facilities outside of Raanana, meeting with the staff and observing practices that Leket is using in Israel that can be applied throughout the world to combat hunger.

Leket, Israels national food bank, has rescued some 15,000 tons of produce for the needy which mainly comes from farms throughout Israel.

So far, the biggest takeaway for me is that Lekets approach is really unique, because they focus on fresh fruits and vegetables and working with local producers and focusing on nutrition with the people they are serving and people in food banks all over the world, Moon said.

Moon, an expert on global international policy and food waste, who has been involved with GFN since 2015, explained the shift in world hunger from chronic hunger to hidden hunger.

When people who may have enough to eat on a fairly regular basis but may have to miss meals, and they also dont have access to nutritious foods, and, regrettably, about one in four people globally has micronutrient deficiencies and is subject to hidden hunger thats really the hunger that food banks are working to address, she said.

Moon noted that we are living in a time when there is enough food for everyone, yet the statistics show that one in nine people in the world go to bed hungry.

It doesnt matter how much food we produce; if we dont have a way to distribute it to the people who are in need, we are still going to have a hunger issue, she said. So its an honor for me to work with food banks, because they really work with distribution.

Advocating the need for food banks throughout the world, Moon believes that this is the key element in reducing the number of hungry and malnourished people.

Right now, hunger is not about food production, she said, because, right now, we produce enough food for everyone to have enough. Its a distribution challenge and a logistics problem. And so what is so challenging about that is that a third of all the food that is produced goes to waste.

Explaining the need to provide impoverished communities with food banks, Moon said the challenge facing these organizations is getting this food directly to those in need efficiently and, of course, cheaply.

And so we need a mechanism to take that surplus food which is edible, she said. We need a way to capture that surplus food and redistribute it to those who cant access this at the store maybe the price is too high, maybe theyre too sick. Thats really the role of food banks. And thats why GFN is so passionate about promoting this model to communities around the world.

Moon credits Leket Israel for its unique method of collecting fresh, rescued food from the top of the food chain at the level of agricultural production.

Hoping to apply Lekets model on a global level, Moon said: We must focus on scaling food rescue around the world in order to meet growing demands and enter emerging markets.

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Produce 'rescue': Looking to Israeli initiatives to combat world hunger - The Jerusalem Post

Piper Altman, Claire Paetzel and Jennifer Olsen carefully held 26 newborn bobwhite quail Monday, fawning over the birds theyd grown to love after watching the eggs closely, waiting for them to hatch.

Seeing the quail hatch this weekend was an exciting milestone in the project the girls, all 11, along with 12-year-old Violet Johnson, have been working on to earn their Girl Scouts Silver Award.

It was interesting to watch them hatch and see the way of life. Not all of them hatch; some are strong, some are weak and you can see them grow and get all fluffy, Piper said.

The girls, all Girl Scout cadettes from Mattituck Troop 1971, ordered more than 100 quail eggs and spent weeks raising them in an incubator at Feisty Acres Farm in Jamesport. They checked the temperature and humidity of the incubator daily it must be between 98.5 and 100 degrees with about 60 percent humidity, which is raised to 70 percent for the three days before hatching and said nice words to the eggs in order to spread kindness and encourage them to grow.

Thirty-three of the eggs had hatched by Wednesday morning.

We named the ones that had the most personality, Piper said.

Two of the newborn bobwhite quail the Quail Scouts are helping to raise atFeisty Acres Farm in Jamesport.

The first chick to hatch was named Elvis, and one that had feathers sticking out of his shell while hatching was named Hairy. A third, which was born weak but grew stronger, was named Hercules.

The Girl Scouts said they chose bobwhite quail for two reasons: They are native to Long Island and their diet consists mainly of insects, especially ticks. The hope is that these quail will eat lots of ticks in the area, thereby helping to prevent the spread of Lyme disease.

Related story:Bobwhite to the rescue? Southold Town considers importing quail

Aware that Lyme disease is prevalent locally each of them knows someone personally who has been affected the girls chose that as the community problem they wanted to tackle in their Silver Award project.

The girls also created a social media video in an effort to raise awareness about Lyme disease.

We also did the Lyme Challenge, Piper said. Its take a bite out of lime. Its when you get an actual lime and bite into it and make a video and post it on social media.

You try to challenge others to do the same to raise awareness, Claire said, adding that it mimics the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that gained popularity a few summers back.

Girl Scout Cadettes Jennifer Olsen (clockwise from left), Claire Paetzel, Violet Johnson and Piper Altman work on part of their Silver Award project, which focuses on raising bobwhite quail as a way to prevent Lyme disease.

On Monday afternoon, with help from Feisty Acres owner Abra Morawiec, the girls mentor, Piper, Claire and Jennifer each took a baby bird out of an incubator and placed it in a quail surrogator a self-contained unit that allows the quail to adapt to their new environment safely way by providing food, water, warmth and protection.

We didnt even go online, the girls said. We learned everything from Abra.

To help the birds adapt to their home, where theyll spend the next four to five weeks, the Mattituck seventh-graders giggled as they guided each individual quail to the water source inside, called a nipple feeder, and then placed them under a heater by their food.

All four girls will visit Feisty Acres once a week to check on the birds, adjust the heat and document their progress before releasing them into the wild.

You can follow the rest of the girls Silver Award project on Instagram @QuailScouts. The project will culminate with the release of the quail at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, at Feisty Acres Farm.

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Top photo:Piper Altman (from left), Claire Paetzel and Jennifer Olsen, all 11, hold a quail that hatched over the weekend. The girls, along with 12-year-old Violet Johnson, are helping to raise bobwhite quail as part of their Girl Scout Cadettes Silver Award project, which focuses on eradicating Lyme disease.

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Originally posted here:
Girl Scouts raise bobwhite quail to help prevent Lyme disease - Suffolk Times

Challenging, tough, hard, impossible these are words that can be used to describe dieting. While some diet plans are verysimple, others have complex rulesregarding what you can and cant eat. When going on a diet, it'simportant to follow therules as best you can for the most promising results. From fasting to vegan diets,here are 10options you can choose to conquer the challenge of healthy eating.

Adding apple cider vinegar (ACV) to a glass of water can help suppress your hunger during a diet. Research has shown that drinkingACV is related to a lower body weight and body mass index (BMI) and obese adults consuming two tablespoons of vinegar per day via a drink lost two to four pounds over the course of 12 weeks.

Rebecca Lee, a registered nurse in New York and founder of the natural health resource, RemediesForMe.com, recommends starting with 1 teaspoon of ACV in 8 to 10 ounces of water and slowly working your way up to 2 teaspoons. Lee warns those who are considering the ACV diet to not drink more than 2 to 4 tablespoons of ACV per day.

No, you wont be dealing with protein deficiency if you suddenly switch to a vegetarian diet. There are plenty of alternatives such as tofu, beans, lentils and nuts. Tofu can be substituted for the same amount of meat, poultry or fish in almost any recipe, Cynthia Sass. RD,a vegan and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, told Vegetarian Times.

Sticking to a vegetarian diet can improve the health of your heart, help you lose weight and helps support animal rights. Individuals who choose plant-based diets often experience a decrease in blood cholesterol levels, which, according to studies, could drop by up to 35 percent, Medical Daily previously reported.

Standing for dietary approaches to stop hypertension, the DASH diet was originally created to help people lower their blood pressure by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Rather than following any specific rules or restrictions, the DASH diet recommends eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, including some low-fat dairy products, animal proteins, legumes, beans, and vegetable oil. Dieters are recommended they limit foods high in saturated fat, as well as sugar-sweetened drinks and candies all standard rules for healthy eating, Medical Daily previously reported.

In 2016, the DASH Diet was declared the best overall diet for the 6th straight year by the U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, this diet was recognized in the categories for Easiest Diets to Follow; Best Diet for Healthy Eating; and Best Heart-Healthy Diets.

Consisting of mainly fish, fruits and vegetables, portions of whole grains and small amounts of meat, the Mediterranean diet is healthy for your heart, and scientists believe it may protect against mental aging. A recent study consisting of 15,000 people diagnosed with heart disease showed those who maintained a Mediterranean diet hada decreased risk for heart attack and stroke.

The researchers gave the participants, who lived in 39 different countries, questionnaires about their diet and gave them points based on their answers in either the Mediterranean diet or Western Diet category. Over nearly four years, 1,588 (about 10 percent) of the study participants suffered either a heart attack or stroke, or died. Those who ate more foods in the Mediterranean diet category were 3.5 times less likely to experience one of these three events than people whose diets more closely resembled the Western standard, Medical Daily previously reported.

One of the top countries for the longest life expectancy is Japan, but why? It may relate to how much they adhere to the Japanese food guide. The guide recommends that every day people should consume 5 to 7 servings of grain dishes, 5 to 6 servings of vegetable dishes, 3 to 5 servings of fish and meat dishes, 2 servings of fruits and 2 servings of milk as well as some form of physical activity and water and tea, Medical Daily previously reported.

A recent study seeking to discover how the Japanese diet relates to longevity has found that balanced meals consisting of grains, vegetables, fruits, fish and meat contributed to a decrease in the risk of death and cardiovascular disease, Medical Daily previously reported. The study consisted of 36,624 men and 42,920 women between the ages of 45 and 75 over the course of 15 years. Participants who followed the Japanese food guide more closely had a 15 percent lower mortality rate over the 15 year period. The researchers determined the reduction in cardiovascular disease helped reduce the mortality risk.

A vegan diet consists of cutting all animal products out of your diet. It should be noted that vegan diets are not right for everyone; cutting meat out of your life can brings several health risks such as not getting enough protein, B12, calcium, vitamin D, iron and zinc among others. Researching alternative sources of nutrients and taking multivitamins are a good way of counteracting these deficiencies. Similar to the vegetarian diet, a vegan diet can also help you improve your hearth health and lose weight, Medical Daily previously reported.

Kendrick Farris, a competitor at the 2016 Rio Olympics in mens weightlifting, switched to a vegan diet in 2014. He consumes a combination of black beans, avocado and vanilla, chocolate flavored plant-based protein shakes, soy foods, seeds, tofu, lentils, quinoa and nuts.

Normally, those who suffer from celiac disease are the only ones who go on a gluten-free diet because they have to. However there are some benefits for those who are not sensitive to gluten or have celiac disease. "Yes, it's a popular diet of the moment, but it really does seem to provide some improvement in gastrointestinal problems for a segment of the population," celiac disease expert Dr. Daniel Leffler, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Harvard Health Publications. "It takes a long time to learn how to live gluten-free. You'll have to become a gluten detective, scouring food labels and looking for hidden gluten.

This diet has been debated about whether going gluten-free is healthy or can cause unintentional health problems for those who arent required to go on a gluten-free diet, Medical Daily previously reported. Because of this, you should consult a medical professional before starting.

In a recent study, 220 men and women were divided into two groups. One group was told to cut 25 percent of their daily calories over the course of two years, while the second group could cut as many calories as they desired each day. The results showed the group who cut 25 percent of their daily calories lost an average of nearly 17 pounds and the other group lost less than a pound, Medical Daily previously reported. Participants were a normal, healthy weight at the conclusion of the study.

"Calorie restriction among primarily overweight and obese persons has been found to improve quality of life, sleep, and sexual function, the researchers wrote. The results of the present study indicate that two years of calorie restriction is unlikely to negatively affect healthy adults. Rather, calorie restriction is likely to provide some improvement."

Celebrity and nutrition expert JJ Virgin has created a diet claiming users will lose weight in as quicklyas a week by cutting our seven foods. She formulated the plan after seeing her own patients losing weight by dropping certain foods from their diets. The key of this diet is the avoidance of food intolerances known to stress peoples bodies. Every day, you cut out a new food until you reach day seven via three cycles: elimination, reintroduction and sustaining.

Day by day you cut out gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, corns, peanuts, and sugar and artificial sweeteners. Following this, dieters are told to gradually add them back into their diet with the end goal to be finding a long-term balance to keep your body healthy and energized. Taking away each of these one at a time helps people lose weight, Medical Daily previously reported.

Similar to the Virgin Diet, the Atkins Induction Diet consists of several phases, gradually increasing the amount of carbohydrates the dieter can consume during the four phases. During the first phase (induction) people musteatless than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day for two weeks and are encouraged to eat high-protein,high-fat foods that are alsolow on carbohydrates. Ideally stay in this phase until you are 15 pounds from your weight goal because the longer you are in this stage, the more fat you burn.

In phase two (balancing) increase your carbohydrates to 25 grams per day and reintroduce nuts and seeds to your diet. Gradually increase this to 30 grams per day while reintroducing dairy products. Phase three (fine-tuning) occurs when you are close to your weight goal. Simply add more carbohydrates to your diet until the weight loss slows down. Finally, in phase four (maintenance) you are allows to eat as much carbohydrates as you want while keeping your weight goal, Medical Daily previously reported.

Read More:Weight Loss Health Benefits: Drinking Water Instead Of Diet Beverages May Help Diabetes Patients

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Best Diets 2016: 10 Weight Loss Programs That Work

Through the use of nutritional programming, livestock animals can be conditioned to be healthier or more productive. Vaughn Holder from Alltech clarifies this new, but somewhat complex, way of looking at feeding our farm animals.

With new tools and techniques, such as genomics, we enter a new era of diet formulation for farm animals. But there are different terms circulating in the animal feed industry. Think of nutritional programming, nutrigenomics, epigenetics, blueprinting and conditioning. Are they all related? Yes, says Vaughn Holder, research project manager at animal nutrition company Alltech. These concepts are all related, and quite frankly can be confusing at the same time.

Gene expression can be modified at any point in the animals lifecycle. The EPNIX beef programme is a good example of this where the intervention is only put in place after the animals are weaned. Photo: Penn Communicatie / Marten Sandburg

Epigenetics refers to changes in gene expression that are not related to the actual gene code, but rather to factors that affect what genes are expressed and to what degree. Epigenetics is what we take advantage of to put together these programmes. Nutrigenomics refers to the effect of nutrition on these epigenetic processes, or the expression pattern of genes. Nutritional programming and conditioning are somewhat synonymous, except that nutritional programming is specific to the use of nutrition to condition gene expression, whereas conditioning could refer to other factors. An example of non-nutritional programming or conditioning would be exercise and fitness gene expression is changing in response to exercise rather than diet. Finally, blueprinting is simply a brand that we use to describe this process that is using nutritional strategies to modify the expression of genes in our favour.

Alltech is conducting several studies in the field of nutritional programming, and presented some of these results at the latest Alltech annual conference. One of the studies refers to chickens. Trials were done to condition the birds. According to Mr Holder, conditioning is preferred as early as possible. Usually the earlier in life that you can intervene, the more powerful those effects can be. In this case, the nutrient concentration of the diet is modified in the first 90 hours of life. This essentially changes the efficiency with which birds can use these nutrients and allows you to get more out of subsequent diets. That then allows you to use lower nutrient content diets throughout the life of the animal without affecting performance, explains Mr Holder.

Vaughn Holder: When we talk about changing the nutrient requirements for animals and feeding less nutrients than the nutritional model tell us to, it can make people uncomfortable. Photo: Alltech

Timing is important. In most cases, the intervention has to be timed correctly to achieve the desired outcome. In the poultry trial, the first 90 hours after hatch are where the chick senses what kind of environment they are going to live in, and gene expression changes accordingly to make these birds more efficient. If we started these chicks on a regular diet, then stepped down to a low nutrient diet, you would likely have a train wreck as the birds are conditioned to use a higher spec diet. I dont believe we have all the answers on timing yet, he explained. He further addressed that gene expression can be modified at any point in the animals lifecycle. The Alltech EPNIX beef programme is a good example of this where the intervention is only put in place after the animals are weaned and received at the feed yard. These interventions can also be applied before the animal is born. Holder: We have shown interventions in the egg, in utero and even interventions in the previous generation resulting in lasting changes in the gene expression of offspring.

The increased knowledge of interaction between nutrition and gene expression raises the question if nutritionists should intensify their relationships with breeding companies. Breeding companies develop animals with a certain genetic make-up, but genetics can obviously be modified/adjusted throughout the animals production life. Mr Holder agrees and believes that there is certainly a case to be made for having nutritional practices keep up with genetic improvement progress. However, much of the work that we do affects basal metabolic processes that will be present in all breeds and lines and so much of the interpretation of these data will not change depending on breed and genetic change. But he is clear when it comes to a mind shift that needs to happen. When we talk about changing the nutrient requirements for animals and feeding less nutrients than the nutritional model tell us to, it can make people uncomfortable. However, usually no path worth travelling is and easy one and I believe that these programmes will be adopted broadly as long as they are backed by sound data and there are good reasons to put these programmes in place, Mr Holder explained.

Nutritional programming is also relevant towards antibiotic and hormone free livestock production on a global level. Holder: The genetics of the animal contains the code to achieve all the things that we achieve with antibiotics and hormones. When we start to look at things like nutritional interventions that improve immune function and others that modify growth hormone receptor (both of which we have shown) you can start to see how we can start to achieve these types of responses. That being said, it is perhaps just as important that these interventions work alongside the current technologies that we use in livestock production.

From the trials so far, Alltech sees great results, primarily in the area of feed efficiency. The poultry work that we presented is perhaps the best example. By modifying early life nutrition, we have essentially changed the nutrient requirements for that animal and rewritten the book on how that animal can be most efficiently fed. We also have barely scratched the surface on the types of things that we can do with this type of technology. Do diets become cheaper then? It can be yes. In the poultry example that was given, it was due to the fact that less expensive ingredients and lower nutrient concentration in the diet could be used without compromising performance. The answer to this will be specific to each application. Alltech has done work in multiple species and research continues in all agriculturally important species.

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Conditioning: A new way of feeding animals - All about feed

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Kansas State University graduate student Tyler Spore conducted a series of feeding trials to study high-energy receiving diets. He found that high-energy diets up to 60 NEg had no effect on the health of lightweight calves. (Journal photo by Doug Rich.)

Limit feeding has been around forever. As long as it has been around it was believed that feeding a high-energy diet was a no-no. New research at the Kansas State University Stocker Unit could prove that high-energy diets have a place in the stocker business.

We wanted to push the frontier on energy content in the diet and do so using soluble fiber rather than starch, said Dale Blasi, manager and director of the KSU Beef Stocker Unit.

Feeding a high-energy diet using soluble fiber rather than starch from cereal grains was the subject of a feeding trial at the K-State Stocker Unit. The energy dense diet was very efficient and caused no health problems when used in a receiving ration. (Journal photo by Doug Rich.)

Tyler Spore, a graduate student at Kansas State University, conducted a series of feeding trials at the stocker unit to answer some basic questions about feeding a high-energy diet to stocker calves. Although energy dense diets had been studied in the past, Spore found that one of the things not tested with limit feeding was using soluble fiber rather than starch from cereal grains to increase the energy density in the diet.

The core of the research is how much gain animals can get while limit feeding, Spore said. What we are trying to do is target a specific gain while offering less feed. One of the main issues with targeting gain is a free choice diet.

In a free choice situation, cattle that only want to eat the wet distillers grains or the corn gluten do a good job of sorting those out of the bunk. Less aggressive cattle come to the bunk too late to get the benefit of those energy dense components.

By limiting feeding you can better estimate each bite of feed, Spore explained.

Historical research

Research done in the 1970s linked an increase in energy in the receiving diet with increased morbidity. As a result producers, were cautioned not to increase energy in receiving diets above a certain level.

The standard growing ration on most stocker operations is a 50 to 52 NEg (net energy gain) diet. Producers dont go much higher than that because they think the cattle might develop acidosis and go off feed, according to Blasi.

Chad Cargill, a stocker operator from Isabel, Kansas, limit feeds lightweight high risk calves. He starts them on a 48 NEg ration and then moves them up to a 50 NEg diet.

My work is not to argue the fact that increasing energy in diets based on cereal grains might cause those issues, but we are not seeing it when we use 40 percent byproduct in the diet, Spore said.

The first KSU trial used a range of energy concentrations including 45, 50, 55 and 60 NEg diets. The 45 NEg diet was fed free choice while the others were limit fed. The amount of hay in the diets decreased from 45 percent in the 45 NEg diet to 13 percent in the 60 NEg diet.

That first study featured a set of mixed breed heifer calves from an auction market in southeast Tennessee. They weighed 470 pounds on arrival.

At regular intervals during the trial the cattle were bled and tested for haptoglobin, a marker for inflammation that is an indicator for digestive upsets. Spore also tested the blood for Titers to see if the immune system would be affected by the dietary treatments.

Long story short, the dietary treatments had no effect on any of those health parameters, Spore said.

They also found that the 60 NEg diet was 27 percent more efficient than the high roughage 45 NEg diet.

Those were the two big breakthroughs from this study, Spore said. You can feed this high energy diet that is 40 percent byproduct based and not see any difference in health and be 27 percent more efficient.

A side benefit of the low roughage-energy dense diet is less manure. In a feedlot situation this means less time spent cleaning pens and less manure to remove.

Healthier calves

Cargill said he is more concerned with health than with gain in his feeding operation. He handles 30,000 high-risk calves a year that come in from the southeastern United States weighing 350 to 650 pounds. Limit feeding is a good way for him to monitor the health of these lightweight calves.

Limit feeding really aids in evaluating the health of the cattle, Cargill said. If you are limit feeding a high nutrient feed and they dont come up and eat there is something wrong with them.

In trial No. 2 Spore fed the 50 NEg diet and 60 NEg diet at 2.4 percent of body weight and 2.2 percent of body weight, respectively. Cattle for this trial were single source cattle from a ranch in Florida and came in weighing 480 pounds on average.

There were no health problems from the high-energy diet and the efficiency was identical to the first trial. Three calves were pulled in the first three weeks but other than that no sick calves were pulled during the 56-day trial.

In trial No. 3 Spore wanted to see if feed intake affected feed efficiency. The cattle used in this trial were single source fancy black calves from a ranch in Montana weighing 460 pounds on arrival. These calves were fed the 60 NEg diet at 1.9, 2.2, 2.5 and 2.8 percent of body weight.

I thought efficiency would fall off at 2.8 percent of body weight and that would be our ceiling, Blasi said.

That did not happen. Feed to gain stayed the same for all treatments. In fact, it was numerically the same for all treatments. It should be noted that the cattle were fed hay on arrival and the next morning they went right on the 60 NEg diet without a step-up phase. Again, health was not an issue.

If you know how many days you need to feed cattle before they go to grass or are looking at the market you can dial this diet in accordingly, Spore said.

Cattle used in trial No. 4 came in a little heavier at 550 pounds and were steers only. Spore was interested in predicting growth with this 70-day trial. A 60 NEg diet was fed at 2 percent of body weight but one ration contained wet corn gluten and one used wet distillers grains also one ration used whole corn and one used dry rolled corn.

At the end of this trial there were no differences in weight gain or health. All of the cattle gained 2 pounds and again health was not an issue. However there was a drop in efficiency. Feeding at 2 percent of body weight is just a maintenance diet.

Limit feeding a high-energy diet based on byproducts could be a useful strategy for stocker calves going to grass or to the feedlot without affecting their health.

Doug Rich can be reached at 785-749-5304 or drich@hpj.com.

Excerpt from:
A new playbook for limit feeding - High Plains Journal

September 4 marks the day that Beyonc was born -- 36 years ago.

The pop superstar is likely somewhere opening gifts from her rapper husband, JAY-Z, and her singer sister, Solange. As she should! Beyonc has been giving all of us regular gifts of her own from the very first day she busted onto the music scene in 1997 with her girl group, Destiny's Child.

From words and phrases that seemingly describe everything we're going through, to weight loss regimens that actually work, Queen Bey has blessed us.

On her 36th birthday, we've listed the nine (3 + 6 = 9!) best pop culture gifts Beyonc has given the world, in no particular order:

1. "Boy Bye"

Admit it. You've likely uttered the coupled words, "boy bye," ever since Beyonc defiantly said them in her recent single, "Sorry." The song is from her latest surprise visual album, "Lemonade," which made headlines around the world for the deeply personal topics it explores. It also helps that in the music video for Sorry, Bey was seen with her friend, tennis superstar Serena Williams, dancing to the song, which is centered on a woman moving on after being cheated on.

2. Speaking of Surprise

Bey is the queen of the unexpected. She made "surprise albums" a regular part of the music industry zeitgeist ever since she released her first visual album, "Beyonc," on Dec. 13, 2013 without advanced notice. This was during a time when singers would embark on a worldwide press tour before letting fans hear new music. Since then, Beyonc has continuously surprised fans with her music offerings, including "Lemonade." The move even influenced her husband, JAY-Z, who surprised his fans with his latest album, "4:44," on June 30.

3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

OK, so to be fair, Beyonc didn't really gift us Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Literary insiders and booklovers had long heard the name before Beyonc took the writer's TED Talk and placed in the middle of her hit song, "Flawless." But the majority of us were introduced to the Nigerian-born feminist thought leader thanks to Bey. In "Flawless," you can hear Ngozi Adichie say: "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: 'You can have ambition, but not too much.The speech hit a nerve with many fans.

4. Yellow

It's clear that yellow is Beyonc's color of the moment. Not only did she name her most recent album, "Lemonade," but in one of the most striking visuals from her album, she's seen floating through the streets wearing a bright yellow dress, while swinging a baseball bat no less. It's prompted many fast fashion retailers to stock up on yellow clothes, and even lemon-printed dresses.

5. Embrace Your Belly

Beyonc loves a maternity photo shoot. Fans suspect that she's particularly fond of showing off her pregnancy through photography after a hurtful rumor spread that she faked her pregnancy with 5-year-old daughter Blue Ivy. "That was crazy," Bey told People magazine in 2012 of the fake pregnancy rumors. "It wasnt hurtful, it was just crazy. [I thought] 'Where did they come up with this?'"

6. Double Tap Your Love

The notoriously private singer doesn't do much social media. She's largely mum on Twitter. (Beyonc hasn't tweeted since June 30, and before that she hadn't tweeted since April 2016.) And her Facebook feed appears to be run by a professional, and not the woman herself. Still, Instagram is a platform where Beyonc seemingly gets personal. She definitely uses the photo-sharing social media network more often than any other, often showcasing her fashion choices and behind the scenes photos of her family. It's also the place where Bey announced her pregnancy with twins, Rumi and Sir Carter, who she welcomed to the world back in June.

7. The 22-Day Revolution

Thanks to Beyonc, many slimmed down a bit after she introduced her plant-based diet, "The 22-Day Revolution," which was detailed in exercise physiologist Marco Borges' book. "I am not naturally the thinnest woman," she said on "Good Morning America. "And I have struggled since a young age with diets. And finding something that actually works and actually keeps the weight off has been difficult for me. The plan is based on the theory that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. It advises people to go vegan and avoid gluten, alcohol and soy for 22 days.

8. Youngest Rapper Alive

Beyonc and JAY-Z are also responsible for bringing us the youngest rapper alive -- their 5-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy. The tot debuted her first song, "Blue's Freestyle/We Family," on her father's latest album, "4:44." It's a no brainer that a love of music runs in this family.

9. "Put A Ring On It"

To be fair, the phrase "put a ring on it" definitely existed before Beyonc. But thanks to her 2008 hit, "Single Ladies," it returned in full force to pop culture, reminding men (and women) that if they "like it" they should go ahead and "put a ring on it." The song and it's subsequent Bob Fosse-inspired music video not only prompted many Halloween costumes, but also became a staple at any wedding that year, and still today. Not to mention, the song was covered by many, including "The Chipettes."

Read more:
Beyonce turns 36: 9 pop culture gifts she's given us - ABC News

The last time any food passed Phil Libins lips was a day ago, when he ate yakitori at a restaurant in San Franciscos Mission district. Hell next eat in three days time on Thursday evening, when he has a reservation at one of the fanciest sushi restaurants in town. In the intervening four days its just water, coffee and black tea.

Over the last eight months the former CEO of Evernote and current CEO of AI studio All Turtles has shunned food for stretches of between two and eight days, interspersed with similar periods of eating. Hes lost almost 90lbs and describes getting into fasting as transformative.

Theres a mild euphoria. Im in a much better mood, my focus is better, and theres a constant supply of energy. I just feel a lot healthier. Its helping me be a better CEO, he said over a cup of black coffee one of many that day at All Turtles Soma office. Getting into fasting is definitely one of the top two or three most important things Ive done in my life.

Libin is one of a growing number of Silicon Valley types experimenting with extended periods of fasting, claiming benefits including weight loss, fewer mood swings and improved productivity.

Intermittent fasting gained popularity with the 5:2 diet, where people eat normally for five days a week and eat a dramatically reduced number of calories (around 500) on the remaining two days. However, Libin and others like him are pushing that idea further and with a focus on performance over weight loss.

Proponents combine fasting with obsessive tracking of vitals including body composition, blood glucose and and ketones compounds produced when the body raids its own fat stores, rather than relying on ingested carbohydrates, for energy.

This, they insist, is not dieting. Its biohacking.

Getting into fasting is definitely one of the top two or three most important things Ive done in my life

Geoffrey Woo, CEO of biohacking and nootropics company HVMN (pronounced human), led a seven-day fast at his company at the start of 2017, along with more than 100 members of WeFast, a community he founded dedicated to intermittent fasting.

Some participants wore continuous glucose monitors, usually worn by diabetics, to check blood glucose levels in realtime using pinprick probes inserted into the skin. They also measured blood elevated ketones, to check that their body was indeed using fat as fuel, a metabolic state known as ketosis.

Ketones are a super-fuel for the brain, said Woo. So a lot of the subjective benefits to fasting, including mental clarity, are down to the rise in ketones in the system.

Woo and others in the company wanted to quantify the impact of fasting on productivity, so they combined the physiological tracking (of ketones and blood sugar) with a piece of software called Rescue Time that measures how productive individuals are at work.

You would think that after seven days of not eating you would be totally distracted and hunting for food, but at around the two or three day mark hunger tapers off as ketone levels are elevating. You are feeding your brain and body with an alternative fuel source. Woo said.

At 511 and 165lbs, Woo doesnt need to lose weight, although he did drop 12lbs over the week. Im focused on longevity and cognitive performance.

Woo now does a weekly 36-hour fast and a quarterly three-day fast. Its given him a better grasp of his own sense of hunger.

We conflate the need to eat with the need to socialize, walk around, take a break and mull on things, he said.

Libin shares his experiences with a WhatsApp group, called Fast Club, made up of around 20 other CEOs and investors in the Bay Area. He would only mention members who had already outed themselves as fasters: Startup investor Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross and Loic Le Meur, cofounder of LeWeb tech conference and founder of Leade.rs, a startup that connects conference organisers with speakers.

It was Le Meur who introduced Libin to fasting over coffee in December 2016. At the time Libin weighed around 260lbs, the heaviest hed ever been, and Le Meur was two-and-a-half days into a fast.

It sounded crazy, said Libin. So I went home and Googled and read a bunch about it because I wanted to prove to him why he was wrong. But I did the research and it seemed plausible.

So he gave it a try.

The first day I felt so hungry I was going to die. The second day I was starving. But I woke up on the third day feeling better than I had in 20 years, he said.

There is a mounting body of scientific research exploring the effects of fasting on the body. Each year dozens of papers are published showing how fasting can help boost the immune system, fight prediabetes and even, at least in mice, slow aging.

However there is also evidence that fasting can be dangerous if not carefully supervised, risking heart failure if supplements of essential minerals like sodium, magnesium and potassium arent ingested. Extended fasting can also increase peoples susceptibility to infection and worsen already damaged kidneys.

San Francisco-based eating disorder specialist Shrein Bahrami was concerned that extended fasting was another fad that could be used as a cover for not eating.

The hyper focus on tracking vital signs and food has become normalized, so its difficult to know when its become obsessive, she said, but people with eating disorders typically feel a lot of shame and other negative emotions around food and body image, which doesnt tally with the experience of people like Libin and Woo.

If you are going to do an extended fast, which I recommend against, then consult a doctor, she added.

Eight months in and Libin finds fasting easy and frequently attends nice dinners with friends where he will only drink water.

We conflate the need to eat with the need to socialize, walk around, take a break and mull on things

People think its torture but its actually really pleasant. I get the social interaction, I can see the food and smell it. All of those things are pleasant, he said. I usually leave a dinner where I eat nothing feeling kind of full.

Does he still have to split the bill? I have done that, yes.

Woos WeFast community now has more than 6,000 members across a Facebook page and Slack channel. Participants discuss the latest research on fasting and share tips and results. WeFast also convenes offline: theres a monthly meet-up in San Francisco where members break fast at a restaurant.

The membership skews, said Woo, towards Silicon Valley engineering types in their twenties and thirties.

In Silicon Valley and other competitive global markets more people are looking at any technique to gain productivity, he added.

We all know that eating a big unhealthy lunch can lead to an afternoon productivity slump, but when people with an engineering mindset start digging into the science of why such carb comas happen they can start to control it.

Instead of hacking computer chips, they can hack their own bodies, he said.

For Libin, fasting is another Silicon Valley trend in the same vein as meditation, which gained popularity a few years ago with the creation of apps such as Headspace.

Theres a general culture here where people believe all problems are solvable, said Libin. You want less stress and anxiety? Theres meditation. You want to live 40 years longer? You can probably do that with fasting.

Around 80% of what people do here turns out to be nonsense but theres a lot of willingness to try.

Now the self-described foodie saves himself for gourmet dining rather than swiftly snaffled sandwiches. I dont have any boring meals any more. Every time I put food in my mouth its unique and special.

So hell eat processed carbohydrates like bagels, but only in New York (the bagels in San Francisco suck) and ramen when hes in Tokyo.

Since coming out as a faster earlier this year, Libin has been inundated with requests from people seeking his advice on how to get started, but he doesnt think it will ever be mainstream in the way meditation has become.

It seems way too extreme, he said. No-one grew up being told that meditation was super bad for you. Everyone grew up hearing fasting was dangerous and super-difficult.

Furthermore, no one makes money when people dont eat.

In this society usually things that work against every entrenched economic interest are hard to take off. said Libin.

You need to be a weirdo like me to get into this.

Read more:
The Silicon Valley execs who don't eat for days: 'It's not dieting, it's biohacking' - The Guardian

VERONA When Samantha Willcutt was an undergrad student at Mississippi State University, she waited tables at an upscale restaurant called The Veranda, eventually working her way up to manager.

She saw how really good food made people happy, but she wanted a more intimate setting, so after graduation, she went to work for Zoes Kitchen, which specialized in made-from-scratch, fresh, healthy Mediterranean-type fare.

I traveled around the country, opening new restaurants and managing them for a while, said Willcutt, 37. I was reading about nutrition all the time and what food was doing to my body and other peoples bodies. I wanted to push myself to learn more.

So, after 10 years in the restaurant business, Willcutt headed back to MSU and earned a masters degree in nutrition in 2016.

While I was getting my masters, I did a graduate assistantship in the Office of Nutrition Education at MSU Extension, she said. It was a nice combination of learning about nutrition and helping people. Thats when I said, Yep, this is for me.

In October 2016, Willcutt became one of three regional dietitians Extension hired to help in the fight against obesity and chronic disease in Mississippi.

The state has the second highest adult obesity rate in the nation, according to "The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America" released in August 2017. Mississippi's adult obesity rate is currently 37.3 percent, up from 23.7 percent in 2000 and from 15 percent in 1990.

Willcutt oversees the northeast region of the state. Two others came on board this summer: Kaitlin DeWitt oversees the southeast region and Juaqula Madkin manages the southwest region. The northwest position hasnt been filled yet.

Through the Office of Nutrition Education, they oversee Extensions Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, or SNAP-Ed. They work with SNAP-Ed nutrition educators in county offices to help coordinate efforts to teach low-resource families ways to improve their diets, increase physical activity and manage their food resources.

When Sylvia Byrd was hired as the director in 2015, she brought a new attitude to the SNAP-Ed program, said Willcutt, a Starkville native. She didnt just want us focused on education. She wanted to expand the efforts and implemented PSE policy, systems and environment all moving parts that work together. Policy influences the system, which changes the environment.

For example, Willcutt said, if a school has a rule that says students cant bring sugary treats to school for parties, thats a policy. So the school has to have a plan to implement the policy, which affects the system. In turn, the students are offered healthier snacks at parties, which makes a healthier environment.

Fighting obesity is probably the hardest thing this state is going to have to do, Willcutt said. The problem isnt going to be solved tomorrow, or next year or even five years from now. In my opinion, it may be 20 years away. In the South, food is how you show love, and thats usually high-fat, high-calorie comfort food. That mindset is hard to change.

One way SNAP-Ed is hoping to make a difference is by partnering with the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, which uses strategies to increase school lunch participation, improve consumption of healthy food and reduce food waste.

It uses behavioral economics, Willcutt said. You take the healthiest food and put it at the front of the lunch line, make it first, front and center. You make it appealing. You have posters in the lunchroom with pictures of fruits and vegetables. Children still get to make choices, but youre just nudging them toward a healthier choice.

This fall, SNAP-Ed hopes to offer a free six-week program for adults called Cooking Matters, where limited-resource participants will learn to navigate a grocery store and to cook easy, healthful, low-cost meals.

This is a full-on fight at every corner at every level, Willcutt said. Our logic model is to get the kids when theyre young mostly in elementary schools but we hope to expand and work with them as they grow. Were not just going after elementary students, but their parents and caregivers, too. It wont work if the adults dont buy in.

Continued here:
Dietitian hopes to help lower state's obesity rate - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal