C8 Tuesday, February 11, 2014
FITNESS & WELL-BEING HEALTH BITES ............................................ Jeanette Wang jeanette.wang@scmp.com For athletes, there’s no place like home Home field advantage isn’t just a theory: with the Winter Olympics in Sochi under way, psychological scientists in Britain say it’s backed by scientific support. Reviewing existing research on sports competition, they found that home crowds or travel fatigue can influence the psychological states of competitors, coaches, and officials, ultimately affecting their behaviour in ways that tend to favour home athletes. Players also have a natural tendency to defend their home turf. However, cortisol, a stress hormone, is higher on home turf, which could lead to worse performance.
Cauliflower
power The vegetable is gluten-free and diabetic-friendly, with a low glycaemic index. So why don’t we eat more of it, asks Jeanette Wang
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magine eating bangers without mash or curry without rice: palatable, but tough. As popular and effective low-carb diets are, the truth is a meal without a starchy carb – rice, noodles or potatoes – often doesn’t satisfy. Serene Loong, who describes herself as “in my late 30s with middle-aged metabolism”, knows the feeling well. Tired of not fitting into her clothes, in 2010 she embarked on a low-carb diet and lost 10kg in three months. But once she reintroduced carbs to her plate, “the weight came back with a vengeance” and the scale returned to 58kg.
Cauliflower is very versatile and can be treated like a piece of protein MATT ABERGEL, OWNER OF YARDBIRD
“To restrict certain foods like mashed potatoes or rice serves to make us want it more,” says Loong. “So I thought, why not make mash or rice from the stuff you’re supposed to eat more of anyway, such as vegetables?” Scouring the internet for recipes, she eventually found an alternative: cauliflower. Chopped, cooked and blended with a bit of cream cheese or butter, the cruciferous vegetable resembles and tastes like mashed potatoes – but with fewer calories and fat, and about a third less carbs. The only trouble was preparing and cooking the cauliflower mash took at least 20 minutes. Taking inspiration from instant mashed potatoes, Loong Cauliflower Mash by Zero Cuisine.
decided to develop a similar product using cauliflower. After a year of research and development with a food technician in Singapore, Zero Cuisine was born. Loong says each serving of her instant cauliflower mash – just add water – is made from 300 grams of fresh cauliflower and contains 60 calories, 15 grams of carbs, one gram of fat and five grams of fibre. That’s 63 per cent fewer calories, 38 per cent fewer carbs, 92 per cent less fat and 150 per cent more fibre than traditional mashed potatoes made with cream and butter. Zero Cuisine is scheduled to hit grocery stores next month. In the meantime, Loong is selling samples via international crowdfunding site Indiegogo (igg.me/at/ZeroCuisine) in a bid to raise US$10,000 to keep her business going. It’s certainly a good time to be dealing with cauliflower. Food trend experts have named it a hot commodity for 2014: the Canadian Press last month crowned it “the new kale” (last year’s veggie superstar) and Baum+Whiteman, a US-based food and restaurant consultancy, identified cauliflower as one of 30 buzzwords in food this year. “Cauliflower is extremely versatile and, in many ways, can be treated like a piece of protein,” says chef Matt Abergel, owner of Yardbird, a bustling yakitori outlet in SoHo that serves up sweet and spicy Korean fried cauliflower. “It’s not difficult to find good quality cauliflower and it’s relatively inexpensive.” Gluten-free and diabetic-friendly with a low glycaemic index, the vegetable is a good substitute in dishes that call for traditional carbs or protein. At Washington’s downtown Cedar Restaurant, cauliflower is grated into ricesized pieces and cooked in a similar way to risotto. In California’s Superba Snack Bar, a thick slab of grilled cauliflower is served – and said to be as satisfying – as a T-bone steak. Still other chefs have used cauliflower to make pizza crust, hash browns and
popcorn, giving the pale, pungent and unpopular vegetable a new lease on life. “I grew up with a lot of vegetables and cauliflower was one of them, so I have no prejudice on its flavour profile or its smell,” says Richard Ekkebus, culinary director of the The Landmark Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong, whose signature dish is sea urchin in lobster jello with cauliflower, caviar and crispy seaweed waffle. “In a lot of food cultures, smelly ingredients such as cheese or stinky tofu are seen as absolute delicacies. “What I like about cauliflower is its versatility in utilisation: raw, finely chopped and then just blanched for a couscous-like texture, caramelised in a skillet and roasted till fondant, or cooked thoroughly as a purée. They’re all worthy preparations.” In spite of its recent rise in the culinary world, cauliflower has always ranked highly in health and nutrition. It’s a good source of vitamin C, folate, potassium and fibre. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database, 100 grams of raw cauliflower – about one cup of chopped pieces – contains just 25 calories, two grams of protein, 0.3 grams of fat, five grams of carbohydrate, two grams of dietary fibre and two grams of sugars. Cauliflower is part of a family of cruciferous vegetables – including broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage and kale – that are rich in organic compounds called indoles, which have a positive impact on cellular health. Diindolylmethane (DIM) is one such compound that has shown to support the immune system and help keep hormones, especially oestrogen, in balance. Breast, prostate and other areas of hormone-related cellular health rely on this balance. DIM has been proven to increase the good kind of hormone metabolites and decrease the kind that can derail health. DIM may also protect normal tissues in cancer patients during radiation therapy and may prevent or mitigate sickness caused by radiation exposure in healthy people, according to a study on mice by Georgetown University published in October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cruciferous vegetables are also rich in another compound,
sulforaphane, which has shown in tests on rodents to inhibit some cancers either induced by carcinogens or arising from genetic make-up. Johns Hopkins researchers have also found that the compound helps prevent the severe blistering and skin breakage brought on by the rare and potentially fatal genetic disease epidermolysis bullosa simplex. Many people shy away from cauliflower, however, because of its smell. Playing around with cooking methods can help you enjoy the vegetable. “Cauliflower is very dense and has a low water content, so cooking it over high heat with a good amount of fat is best,” says Abergel. “Cauliflower also takes well to strong flavours, like spice and vinegar. Personally, I like to deep fry or caramelise cauliflower.” Try seasoning cauliflower with the curry spice turmeric: the combination has shown potential for the treatment and prevention of prostate cancer, say researchers at Rutgers University. Google “cauliflower recipes” and you won’t be short on ideas. The 10 best cauliflower recipes named by The Guardian in an article last year include cauliflower and pear bake, cauliflower omelette, a French cauliflower gratin, and roasted cauliflower tart with oat-walnut crust and lemon herb filling. The worst way to cook cauliflower is boiling, say University of Warwick scientists. In their 2007 study, boiling appeared to have a serious impact on the retention of cancer-protective substances called glucosinolates found in cruciferous vegetables. After boiling for 30 minutes, cauliflower lost 75 per cent of the phytochemical. Steaming for up to 20 minutes, microwaving for up to three minutes and stir-frying for up to five minutes showed no significant loss of the compound. The bottom line to reap the health benefits of cauliflower and its cruciferous cousins: eat the real thing. A 2011 study by Oregon State University found that an enzyme called myrosinase, which helps with the absorption of glucosinolates, is missing from most of the supplement forms of the compound. jeanette.wang@scmp.com
Adolescents’ salt intake linked to obesity, inflammation Most adolescents consume too much salt, and this is linked with fatness and inflammation, regardless of how much food they eat, according to a study in the journal Paediatrics. In the study of 766 healthy teens in the US state of Georgia, 97 per cent self-reported exceeding the 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily maximum recommended by the American Heart Association. These adolescents had high levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha, which is secreted by immune cells and contributes to chronic inflammation as well as auto-immune diseases like lupus and arthritis. They also had high levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that normally suppresses appetite and burns fat, but at chronically high levels can have the opposite effects.
Colds during pregnancy may lead to childhood asthma Women who have more common colds and viral infections during pregnancy are more likely to have a baby who develops asthma or allergies in childhood, finds a study in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Researchers studied 513 pregnant women in Germany, and their 526 children. Questionnaires were done during pregnancy and regularly till the children were age five. Three in five families had a parent with asthma, hay fever or atopic dermatitis. If both parents have allergies, the child has a 75 per cent chance of being allergic; it’s 10 to 15 per cent if neither parent has an allergy.
WE RUN HK ................................................ Rachel Jacqueline life@scmp.com The Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, which started in 1997 with a humble 1,000 runners, has grown into a running festival for the city, with 73,000 racers expected to take part in this year’s race this Sunday. To celebrate the city’s passion for the sport, we’ve been featuring one inspirational local runner each week for the past 15 weeks. This is the final column. At 71, Mabel Chau is not your typical sports junkie. Apart from being a masters swimming champion, she practises yoga, skis, sky dives, scuba dives and, as of a few months ago, runs. Convinced that anything can be achieved at any age, Chau has taken up a new sport each decade since she turned 40. But
running had eluded her, as her natural inclination was always to opt for water. Last year she stumbled across 80-year-old marathon runner Kor Hong Fatt from Singapore in a Post article about age-defying athletes (in which Chau was also featured). So when she became a septuagenarian, Chau made a decision to lace up. It definitely wasn’t too late. “Being 71 doesn’t mean you’re over the hill,” says Chau. This weekend, she will be entering her first ever foot race: the Hong Kong Marathon 10kilometre event. She will take her place at the start alongside students from Wah Yan College, raising funds for sports training.
hamstring doing yoga. But because of these challenges, I learned to be more cautious. My philosophy in life is that for every negative there is a positive. It all depends on your outlook.
I suffered many setbacks before I had the chance to start training. In July last year, I ripped off my big toenail while hiking, and in September I pulled my
I still swim every day. But on Jerry’s schedule, I do weights in the gym twice a week, and run four times a week, including intervals. I’m struggling to find
The first kilometre that I ran was gruelling. I was like a robot. It felt unnatural, which made me realise I needed a trainer to teach me to run. Of course, everyone can run, but with the help of my trainer Jerry Au, I’ve learned to be more efficient, and learned how to prevent injuries. Only two months after I started running, I ran 10 kilometres on the Happy Valley Race Track. What a nice way to start 2014.
Mabel Chau, 71, trains to run the 10-kilometre event at the Hong Kong Marathon. Photo: Jonathan Wong
the time to do yoga, but I’m still practising at least once a month. I’m enjoying running, it creates endorphins. I still love my swimming, but through running, I’ve lost almost 4 kg. I can’t believe it. Exercise rejuvenates me. There’s a Chinese saying – anything that you burn off you have to create again – so you create a stronger heart and lungs. My target is just to finish. But I think I can do it in 90 minutes. What’s next? I’m thinking about an aquathlon to combine my swimming and running. But a half marathon? Let me finish the 10 kilometres first. My first thought as I cross the finish line will be “I did it – nothing is impossible”.