Quick Bites Nutrition • Issue 1
Welcome to the 1st issue of Quick Bites, my New Nutrition Newsletter! Today I will give you a couple tools to make healthier food choices. Let’s dig in! - Trilety
Feel free to read the whole thing, click on the links, or just read this summary:
1. Eat your grapes, they won't generally cause your appendix to explode
2. Eat your fiber, it's like strength training for your insides, and
3. Demand more people of color, elderly, and overweight figures in your medical textbooks and lectures!
1. Grapes & Appendicitis!?During this week's lecture, there was a comment about how if you're unlucky, a grape seed can move into your appendix, causing appendicitis. I almost immediately cleared the house of grapes, one of Jim's favorite snacks. But then I decided to research this comment a bit further. Long story short, grapes don't generally cause appendicitis, but it's always good to chew your food thoroughly before swallowing.
It's rare to have grape seeds cause appendicitis, but it's been a problematic and exaggerated belief since 1896! Trying to dispel this belief, a doctor in Chicago surveyed the rates of appendicitis during the grape months (in the 19th century, year round access to fresh fruits wasn't available) of August, September, October, and November. There was no increase in appendectomies during those months, leading Dr. Edmund Andrews to say in his 1896 article, "It is a pity that this popular delusion about the danger of grape seeds has gotten possession of so many minds in Chicago, for it causes large numbers of our citizens to deprive themselves of the healthiest and most agreeable of all our fruits."
2. Fiber is Strength Training for your Intestines! The best thing I learned this week was that fiber is not absorbed, “instead they continue through the digestive tract carrying some minerals, bile acids, additives, and contaminates out of the body. This semisolid mass helps exercise the GI muscles and keeps them strong enough to perform peristalsis efficiently." Peristalsis is "the involuntary constriction and relaxation of the muscles of the intestine or another canal, creating wave-like movements that push the contents of the canal forward."
This means that fiber keeps your intestines STRONG, thereby preventing a weakening of the intestine that can lead to diverticulitis. Get 25 to 28 grams of fiber on the daily - it'll be like taking your intestines to the gym!
3. Diversity and Medical illustrations This week I noticed that all the medical diagrams of the body's digestive system were of young, fit, white, women. When 40% of Americans are obese, 18% are Hispanic or Latino, 13+% are Black/African American, and 16% are over 65 years of age, it seems that at least one of the 5+ slides in the lecture could have shown someone other than a fit, young, white woman.
In May of 2019, Vice published an article titled "Medical Textbooks Overwhelmingly Use Pictures of Young White Men," that explains how white bodies dominate medical education, and how that can pose a problem for patients and doctors. Never seeing people of color, or the obese and elderly, could exacerbate implicit biases in the medical community. The article says it's up to publishers and illustrators to change this, until then, I asked my professor if she might find more diverse illustrations to use in her future lectures.
Until next week, eat your high fiber foods! 1 oz of chia seeds = 10 grams of fiber1 cup of black beans = 15 grams of fiber 1 cup of raspberries = 8 grams of fiber
Thanks so much for reading, and send in your recipes!
~ Trilety, the Aspiring Nutritionist