Dehydrators: 201

Homemade Fruit Roll-ups

These are super easy to make, you just need ripe fruit and a blender.... and your dehydrator of course! They are so great if you have left over fruit that you're not going to get to in time or some that is too soft for eating, but perfect for fruit-rolling! Simply spray your fruit roll-up tray (that comes with your dehydrator) with a non-stick spray and blend your fruit until it's completely pureed. Pour the pureed mixture on the fruit roll-up trays and smooth it out until it's even all over the tray. Put in the dehydrator- see manual for time amount (mine was about 6-7 hours depending on how thick you layer your tray).Here are some sample fruit concoctions:

• 4 strawberries
• 1 peach
• handful of black berries
• 1 plum
• 1 cup unsweetened organic applesauce

Another one:

• 2 cups strawberries
• 2 cups applesauce

Another one:

• 1 apple, cored not peeled
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 peach
• 1 nectarine
• 3 strawberries

** After it's done drying, they peel up really easily from the tray and I just tear mine into pieces and keep them in an air tight container... but they don't last long!

Dehydrators:101

So, I had some crazy idea that I would start dehydrating fruit and herbs and whatever else I could think of, so I saved up my $$ and I bought one online for about $60. It's been fun to learn how to use it and try to get creative, but I haven't branched out too much, just stayed basic- here's what I've done so far:

Dried Apples.... A HUGE hit with my toddler!

I buy a big box of apples from Costco (when in season) or pick up a sack of them at a fruit stand or farmers market. Peel them, core them, and slice them. Place them on your tray and cook per dehydrators instructions. They are fabulous and the pectin in them really aid in digestion! If you or your little ones struggle with constipation, this is a great thing to keep on hand (as is FRESH apple & spinach juice made in a Juicer- I've made & recommended that many a times for family or friends after they have surgery, or are on antibiotics or have just had a baby- it's a great way to get things "going again!" Want more tips on the topic- email me I have lots of them up my sleeve!).

I also tried Kiwi & bananas- which were also a big hit! Sometimes I get a ton of one fruit (in this instance, kiwis) in my Abundant Harvest Organic Box for the week and we don't get to them all before they over-ripen, so we turn them into fruit snacks!

I also tried blueberries and grapes, but in my opinion they weren't worth the time or cost to make them, it's easier to buy your own raisins, you need to have TONS of grapes to even make a dent in this project! I have also done strawberries and they are awesome!! Highly recommend those, as well as herbs like Bay Leaves, Marjoram, Basil, and Parsley (when I have left over herbs that I am not going to use, I pop them in the dehydrator so they don't go to waste!)
So what I am learning is what thickness we like, how long to dehydrate them, and which ones we like soft and others we prefer crunchy. It's my goal to do a few big batches at the end of a season to save some yummy fruit for us when they are no longer in season... we'll see if I get it done with all of the stone fruits at the end of this summer season! If you ever want to try this and have fruit to use, please feel to borrow mine if you want to take it for a "taste spin" before purchasing your own!

Next Update: How to make Homemade Fruit Roll-ups

Cortisol, surprise-enhanced cognition, and flashbulb memories: Scaring people with a snake screen and getting a PhD for it!

Cortisol is a hormone that has a number of important functions. It gets us out of bed in the morning, it cranks up our metabolism in preparation for intense exercise, and it also helps us memorize things and even learn. Yes, it helps us learn. Memorization in particular, and cognition in general, would be significantly impaired without cortisol. When you are surprised, particularly with something unpleasant, cortisol levels increase and enhance cognition. This is in part what an interesting study suggests; a study in which I was involved. The study was properly “sanctified” by the academic peer-review process (Kock et al., 2009; full reference and link at the end of this post).

The main hypothesis tested through this study is also known as the “flashbulb memorization” hypothesis. Interestingly, up until this study was conducted no one seemed to have used evolution to provide a basis on which flashbulb memorization can be explained. The basic idea here is that enhanced cognition within the temporal vicinity of animal attacks (i.e., a few minutes before and after) allowed our hominid ancestors to better build and associate memories related to the animals and their typical habitat markers (e.g., vegetation, terrain, rock formations), which in turn increased their survival chances. Their survival chances increased because the memories helped them avoid a second encounter; if they survived the first, of course. And so flashbulb memorization evolved. (In fact, it might have evolved earlier than at the hominid stage, and it may also have evolved in other species.)

The study involved 186 student participants. The participants were asked to review web-based learning modules and subsequently take a test on what they had learned. Data from 6 learning modules in 2 experimental conditions were contrasted. In the treatment condition a web-based screen with a snake in attack position was used to surprise the participants; the snake screen was absent in the control condition. See schematic figure below (click on it to enlarge). The “surprise zone” in the figure comprises the modules immediately before and after the snake screen (modules 3 and 4); those are the modules in which higher scores were predicted.

The figure below (click on it to enlarge) shows a summary of the results. The top part of the figure shows the percentage differences between average scores obtained by participants in the treatment and control conditions. The bottom part of the figure shows the average scores obtained by participants in both conditions, as well as the scores that the participants would have obtained by chance. The chance scores would likely have been the ones obtained by the participants if their learning had been significantly impaired for any of the modules; this could have happened due to distraction, for example. As you can see, the scores for all modules are significantly higher than chance.

In summary, the participants who were surprised with the snake screen obtained significantly higher scores for the two modules immediately before (about 20 percent higher) and after (about 40 percent higher) the snake screen. The reason is that the surprise elicited by the snake screen increased cortisol levels, which in turn improved learning for modules 3 and 4. Adrenaline and noradrenaline (epinephrine and norepinephrine) may also be involved. This phenomenon is so odd that it seems to defy the laws of physics; note that Module 3 was reviewed before the snake screen. And, depending on the size of a test, this could have turned a “C” into an “A” grade!

Similarly, it is because of this action of cortisol that Americans reading this post, especially those who lived in the East Coast in 2001, remember vividly where they were, what they were doing, and who they were with, when they first heard about the September 11, 2001 Attacks. I was living in Philadelphia at the time, and I remember those details very vividly, even though the Attacks happened almost 10 years ago. That is one of the fascinating things that cortisol does; it instantaneously turns short-term contextual memories temporally associated with a surprise event (i.e., a few minutes before and after the event) into vivid long-term memories.

This study was part of the PhD research project of one of my former doctoral students, and now Dr. Ruth Chatelain-Jardon. Her PhD was granted in May 2010. She expanded the study through data collection in two different countries, and a wide range of analyses. (It is not that easy to get a PhD!) Her research provides solid evidence that flashbulb memorization is a real phenomenon, and also that it is a human universal. Thanks are also due to Dr. Jesus Carmona, another former doctoral student of mine who worked on a different PhD research project, but who also helped a lot with this project.

Reference:

Kock, N., Chatelain-Jardón, R., & Carmona, J. (2009). Scaring them into learning!? Using a snake screen to enhance the knowledge transfer effectiveness of a web interface. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 7(2), 359-375.

HEALTHY SPIRITS: THE NEW STUFF

1. Fifty Fifty Brewing Company-Concentrated Evil-Belgian Dark Strong Ale brewed with raisins and brown sugar.

2. Alesmith Speedway Stout

cheers,

dave hauslein

beer manager

415-255-0610

End of the Week Pasta

My sister came up with this little recipe a long time ago- it's simple and easy, yet so tasty and light. We call it the "End-of-the-Week Pasta" because we usually make it at the end of the week with whatever leftover veggies we haven't used up. There is no "must have" veggies that must be included, I just use any thing that's going to go to waste... here are some ideas that I used in my dish, feel free to vary it up! For those of you who like specifics, this recipe might drive you a little batty- bare with me!

Ingredients:

1 bell pepper (I had 1/2 orange and 1/2 red)

3 squash (I had 3 small yellow ones)

1/4 red onion (again, it's what was left over)

a large handful of green beans, chopped

a handful of mushrooms, sliced

MUST HAVES:

2 TBSP butter

3 cloves garlic

sundried tomatoes (I used about 1/4 of an 8 oz jar), sliced

1 TBSP grapeseed oil

1 lb. chicken, browned and diced

approximately 1/2 cup of shredded parmesan cheese (again, it's.... what I had left!)

1/2 cup white wine (I used sherry because it was already open!)

s & p

Directions:

Boil water for your pasta (I use brown rice cork screw pasta from Trader Joe's). Then, in a large skillet, add your 3 cloves garlic, 2 TBSP butter and chopped onion and let it saute until it starts turning brown. Add all of your chopped veggies & your 1/2 cup white wine and let them saute for a 4-5 minutes, sprinkling them with a little s & p. Remove them from the heat and add them to you serving bowl, sprinkling your parmesan over top so they melt together. Then in your same large skillet, add your TBSP of oil and your washed chicken (I used whole tenders, if you use breasts, chop it up before hand for quicker cooking). Season your chicken with some s & p and let them brown on one side before flipping them over. Once you flip them over, add another splash of white wine (mine was a BIG splash!) and let them finish cooking. Remove them from the pan and let them cool for a quick minute before cutting them into bite size pieces. Add your sundried tomatoes to your serving bowl, then your diced chicken, maybe a little more parmesan and toss well. Serve as the entree... you will enjoy it's light and crispy flavor from all the veggies and the zest from the wine!

The baffling rise in seasonal allergies: Global warming or obesity?

The July 26, 2010 issue of Fortune has an interesting set of graphs on page 14. It shows the rise of allergies in the USA, together with figures on lost productivity, doctor visits, and medical expenditures. (What would you expect? This is Fortune, and money matters.) It also shows some cool maps with allergen concentrations, and how they are likely to increase with global warming. (See below; click on it to enlarge; use the "CRTL" and "+" keys to zoom in, and CRTL" and "-" to zoom out.)

The implication: A rise in global temperatures is causing an increase in allergy cases. Supposedly the spring season starts earlier, with more pollen being produced overall, and thus more allergy cases.

Really!?

I checked their numbers against population growth, because as the population of a country increases, so will the absolute number of allergy cases (as well as cancer cases, and cases of almost any disease). What is important is whether there has been an increase in allergy rates, or the percentage of the population suffering from allergies. Well, indeed, allergy rates have been increasing.

Now, I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but temperatures have been unusually low this year in South Texas. Global warming may be happening, but given recent fluctuations in temperature, I am not sure global warming explains the increases in allergy rates. Particularly the spike in allergy rates in 2010; this seems to be very unlikely to be caused by global warming.

And I have my own experience of going from looking like a seal to looking more like a human being. When I was a seal (i.e., looked like one), I used to have horrible seasonal pollen allergies. Then I lost 60 lbs, and my allergies diminished dramatically. Why? Body fat secretes a number of pro-inflammatory hormones (see, e.g., this post, and also this one), and allergies are essentially exaggerated inflammatory responses.

So I added obesity rates to the mix, and came up with the table and graph below (click on it to enlarge).

Obesity rates and allergies do seem to go hand in hand, don’t you think? The correlation between obesity and allergy rates is a high 0.87!

Assuming that this correlation reflects reasonably well the relationship between obesity and allergy rates (something that is not entirely clear given the small sample), obesity would still explain only 75.7 percent of the variance in allergy rates (this number is the correlation squared). That is, about 24.3 percent of the variance in allergy rates would be due to other missing factors.

A strong candidate for missing factor is something that makes people obese in the first place, namely consumption of foods rich in refined grains, seeds, and sugars. Again, in my experience, removing these foods from my diet reduced the intensity of allergic reactions, but not as much as losing a significant amount of body fat. We are talking about things like cereals, white bread, doughnuts, pasta, pancakes covered with syrup, regular sodas, and fruit juices. Why? These foods also seem to increase serum concentrations of pro-inflammatory hormones within hours of their consumption.

Other candidates are vitamin D levels, and lack of exposure to natural environments during childhood, just to name a few. People seem to avoid the sun like the plague these days, which can lower their vitamin D levels. This is a problem because vitamin D modulates immune responses; so it is important in the spring, as well as in the winter. The lack of exposure to natural environments during childhood may make people more sensitive to natural allergens, like pollen.

Banana (or Blueberry) Crumb Muffins....

So if you haven't noticed yet from my previous posts, I LOVE to bake! Maybe because it seems more fun to share baked goods, everyone enjoys a little plate of homemade, warm baked goodies and I love to deliver them :) Here's one that never left my house, but instead was eaten and enjoyed by many who have passed through in the past 2 days... they are DE-LICIOUS and I would recommend them for any occasion or ordinary day! You can make them with bananas or blueberries...

My little chef in training... mashing bananas all by herself!

Ingredients

1.5 cup flour ( experiment with different flour types and measurements)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar or raw coconut crystals

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup coconut oil

Crumb Topping

Crumb Topping

2 TBSP whole wheat flour

1 TBSP butter, soften or melted

1/4 cup sugar or raw coconut crystals

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Preheat your oven to 375. Mix your dry ingredients in a large bowl and sift well. Add to it your beaten egg, mashed bananas, a coconut oil (in liquid form), mix thoroughly and scoop into lined cupcake tins. Mix all your ingredients in a small bowl until it becomes crumbly in texture. You have two options for the topping,#1: spoon it on before they go in the oven and it will melt into the muffin OR #2 you can bake them for 10 minutes, pull them out and spoon it on top, immediately placing them back in the oven for another 10 minutes- this option will leave it more crumbly and loose like the ones in the pictures. You choose! ** Baking time is 18-20 minutes.**

Blueberry Variation:

Instead of using bananas, substitute the 3 mashed bananas for 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries and 3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce. They are equally delicious!** Just a note, when I made the blueberry ones, I put the crumbs on BEFORE they went in the oven, you can see the difference in the two pictures of how the toppings turn out.***