Beauty Health for Life

If youve ever tried to eat healthy, and if youre reading this you probably have, then youve noticed the gaping hole in your wallet.  Real food can be expensive; naturally raised meat, fresh organic produce, extra virgin olive oil, nuts... healthy food aint cheap.  The cost has been one of the main obstacles for me in eating a real food, paleo-style diet.  Even though I make food a high priority in my life, Im still a poor college student.  I cant always afford top-quality food.

But luckily, there are healthy, dirt-cheap foods out there that even I can afford.  Sure, youve gotta make some compromises; you just cant eat optimally on a budget.  But you can make a damn good stab at it. Not poor you say?  Just looking to save some money on food to keep fueling your hookers and cocaine habit?  No problem.  Im here to help.  Here are 5 healthy, inexpensive foods that you can base your diet around.

1. Kale
$0.99/lb
$0.25/serving
Kale is everyones darling health food.  Some say its even the most nutrient-dense food on the planet.  I wouldnt go that far, but its a great food nonetheless.  Fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, lutein, zeaxanthin, calcium... Kale covers all of your vegetable needs in one little package, and at a great price.  Its versatile too.  You can steam it and eat it on its own, put it in your eggs, add it to a smoothie, or use it in a stir fry.  It works in everything.  You can even eat it raw in a salad if youre up to it, although I personally dont like the taste unless its cooked.  But maybe thats just me.  Give it a try!  (If you really hate kale, substitute it with another green like swiss chard or collard greens, the difference is negligible.)


White potatoes have been getting a bad rap lately, but its completely unfounded.  Just because theyre white doesnt make them bad; its a case of nutritional racism I say.  In fact, according to Mat Lalondes nutrient density scale, theyre even more nutrient dense than sweet potatoes!  And they come in many varieties...  Russet, Yukon gold, red, theyre all good. You can mash them, roast them, bake them, or just stick one in the microwave for a quick meal.  Throw some butter on it and youre all set.  Theyre full of a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, especially potassium... screw bananas, potatoes are an even better source of potassium.  And if all that isnt enough, research shows that theyre one of the most satiating foods around, meaning theyll fill you up with fewer calories.  Perfect budget weight loss food?  Perhaps.


3. Bananas
$0.69/lb
$0.20/serving
Okay I know I just said screw bananas.  Dont take that literally.  But really, you shouldnt shun them completely, because they too are a cheap source of good calories.  At just $0.20 for the average banana, they make a great snack, or even a simple addition to your breakfast.  Bananas are surprisingly nutrient-dense as well, chock full of vitamin C, B vitamins, potassium, and manganese.  You dont even have to worry about buying them organic, since we dont eat the peel. No pesticide concerns there.  Have at it, hoss.



4. Eggs
$1.99/dozen
$0.17/egg
Gotta get your animal foods in on this Poor Man Diet.  Animal foods are typically more expensive, so that leaves our options few and far between.  But eggs provide far and away the most nutritional bang for your buck.  Weve got healthy fats, vitamin A, choline, selenium, and much more. Theyre a little low on B12 and iron for an animal food, but we can get that from the occasional red meat.  Were poor here, remember?  Oh, and remember back when eggs killed you?  Well dont worry about that anymore.  If theres one high cholesterol, high saturated fat food that we can all agree is healthy, its eggs.  Even WebMD agrees, eggs are no longer a nutritional no-no.  Have no fear, the egg is here.  Hard-boil em, scramble em, whatever you want to do.  Just eat them.


5. White Rice
$8.99/20 lb bag
$0.04/serving
Yes, white rice.  I choose white, not brown.  Brown rice may be posh right now, but dont let the hype fool you... brown rice contains higher amounts of arsenic, and it depletes the body of minerals.  Let go of your brown rice bias, just do it.  Is white rice high a nutrient-dense food?  No, of course not.  But therere a few minerals in there, and the white rice of today is fortified with B vitamins.  But thats not why Im recommending it.  Would you look at the price??  Its 4 cents per serving for crying out loud!  This is by far the number one budget food... not even close.  It may not be nutrient-dense, but its a good source of calories for your Poor Man Diet. You do have to eat something after all.  On top of that, its incredibly versatile.  You can eat it on its own as a side dish, incorporate it into a stir fry, use it as a stuffing.  Just use your imagination, you can do it.  Oh wait, we dont use imaginations anymore, we use Google instead.  So Google it.  Or ask your resident Asian.


There you have it.  Five inexpensive foods you can base your healthy diet on.  Now you have no excuse.  

Coming up next week, look out for the next step... 10 cheap supplemental foods for your Poor Man Diet. These will fill in the nutritional holes of the base foods, although I have to say these do a pretty decent job of covering everything considering the circumstances.  Stay tuned!

New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells "superpower" to escape death.

By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled.

One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming. This study in cells, led by Ohio State University researchers, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could stop breast cancer cells from inhibiting their own death.

Much of what is known about the health benefits of nutrients is based on epidemiological studies that show strong positive relationships between eating specific foods and better health outcomes, especially reduced heart disease. But how the actual molecules within these healthful foods work in the body is still a mystery in many cases, and particularly with foods linked to lower risk for cancer.

Parsley, celery and chamomile tea are the most common sources of apigenin, but it is found in many fruits and vegetables.

The researchers also showed in this work that apigenin binds with an estimated 160 proteins in the human body, suggesting that other nutrients linked to health benefits – called "nutraceuticals" – might have similar far-reaching effects. In contrast, most pharmaceutical drugs target a single molecule.

"We know we need to eat healthfully, but in most cases we dont know the actual mechanistic reasons for why we need to do that," said Andrea Doseff, associate professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics at Ohio State and a co-lead author of the study. "We see here that the beneficial effect on health is attributed to this dietary nutrient affecting many proteins. In its relationship with a set of specific proteins, apigenin re-establishes the normal profile in cancer cells. We think this can have great value clinically as a potential cancer-prevention strategy."

Doseff oversaw this work with co-lead author Erich Grotewold, professor of molecular genetics and director of Ohio States Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS). The two collaborate on studying the genomics of apigenin and other flavonoids, a family of plant compounds that are believed to prevent disease.

The research appears this week in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Though finding that apigenin can influence cancer cell behavior was an important outcome of the work, Grotewold and Doseff point to their new biomedical research technique as a transformative contribution to nutraceutical research.

They likened the technique to "fishing" for the human proteins in cells that interact with small molecules available in the diet.

"You can imagine all the potentially affected proteins as tiny fishes in a big bowl. We introduce this molecule to the bowl and effectively lure only the truly affected proteins based on structural characteristics that form an attraction," Doseff said. "We know this is a real partnership because we can see that the proteins and apigenin bind to each other."

Through additional experimentation, the team established that apigenin had relationships with proteins that have three specific functions. Among the most important was a protein called hnRNPA2.

This protein influences the activity of messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains the instructions needed to produce a specific protein. The production of mRNA results from the splicing, or modification, of RNA that occurs as part of gene activation. The nature of the splice ultimately influences which protein instructions the mRNA contains.

Doseff noted that abnormal splicing is the culprit in an estimated 80 percent of all cancers. In cancer cells, two types of splicing occur when only one would take place in a normal cell – a trick on the cancer cells part to keep them alive and reproducing.

In this study, the researchers observed that apigenins connection to the hnRNPA2 protein restored this single-splice characteristic to breast cancer cells, suggesting that when splicing is normal, cells die in a programmed way, or become more sensitive to chemotherapeutic drugs.

"So by applying this nutrient, we can activate that killing machinery. The nutrient eliminated the splicing form that inhibited cell death," said Doseff, also an investigator in Ohio States Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute. "Thus, this suggests that when we eat healthfully, we are actually promoting more normal splice forms inside the cells in our bodies."

The beneficial effects of nutraceuticals are not limited to cancer, as the investigators previously showed that apigenin has anti-inflammatory activities.

The scientists noted that with its multiple cellular targets, apigenin potentially offers a variety of additional benefits that may even occur over time. "The nutrient is targeting many players, and by doing that, you get an overall synergy of the effect," Grotewold explained.

Doseff is leading a study in mice, testing whether food modified to contain proper doses of this nutrient can change splicing forms in the animals cells and produce an anti-cancer effect.