They are getting a lot of attention and may even be good for you

By Maureen Callahan for Next Avenue





Credit: Thinkstock



In the never-ending parade of new food products that make headlines every year, there are always a few that catch on and become trendy, almost fashionable. They are options that beg to be included in any healthy diet.

The question is: Are they worth bringing to the table? Put another way, will they help you age more gracefully and do they have unique nutritional benefits?



Here’s a look at seven of the trendiest edible offerings that people are talking about around the water cooler, at book clubs and in the coffee shop, along with details on what they do and don’t offer when it comes to health, nutrition and disease prevention:

1. Lollipop Kale

The new “it” veggie of the produce bin might be labeled lollipops, or kale sprouts or Kalettes^TM, depending on where you shop. Whatever the moniker, nutritionists agree that crossing two superstars of the vegetable world — Russian Red Kale and Brussels sprouts — is definitely a win-win when it comes to health.



What you’ll get in 1.5 cups: Just 45 calories, but a full day’s supply of Vitamin K, almost half the required vitamin C and a good dose of vitamin B6.



What they taste like: A little bit sweet, a little bit peppery, a little bit nutty, with mild notes of that distinctive brassica (Brussels sprouts) vegetable flavor.



How to eat them: The beautiful red-green mini leaves look nice in a salad

f. The savory “lollipops” are also good sautéed or roasted.

2. Grass-Fed Beef

Rich in heart-healthy omega 3 fats and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a type of fat that is showing promise in the prevention of cancer, grass-fed beef is also lower in fat and saturated fat than its grain-fed cousin.



According to the American Grassfed Beef Association (AGBA), a sirloin steak from a grass-fed steer has about one-half to one-third the amount of fat as one raised on grain. And that adds up, says AGBA: “If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to grass-fed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year — without requiring any willpower or change in eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you’ll lose about six pounds a year.”



If that sounds good but you’re put off by the higher price tag of grass-fed beef, not to worry. “Lean beef that’s 10 percent fat or less — whether it’s grass-fed beef or another type of beef — can be part of a heart-healthy diet,” says Dr. Rekha Mankad, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist.

3. Bone Broth

While long, slow-simmered stovetop stocks made with roasted bones and vegetables have always been around, paleo and detox diet proponents are making them trendy again by calling them bone broths. Nourishing bone broths. The name, they say, is meant to separate these homemade elixirs from mass-produced broths cluttered with additives and devoid of gelatin and other good nutrients that leech from meat bones that are slow simmered. (Ironically, the trend is so hot that big soup companies are now mass-producing boxed “bone broths.”)



Is bone broth nourishing? Yes. Is it lower in sodium that boxed varieties? Most of the time. Is it a superfood that tames inflammation? Not really. It’s just one food, one healthy diet choice.



With soup weather here, try this homemade beef bone broth recipe or homemade chicken stock. Called bone broth or stock, they’re both the same, and both good for you.

4. Coconut Sugar

As the “all things coconut” craze heats up, the caramel-colored sugar made from the sap of the coconut palm is riding a wave of popularity. It’s not really a new sweetener, just new to Westerners. Used in South Asia for thousands of years, coconut sugar has a flavor similar to brown sugar. But that’s not all that’s similar. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) says coconut palm sugar provides just as many calories and carbohydrates as regular sugar: about 15 calories and 4 grams of carbohydrate per teaspoon.



“It is OK for people with diabetes to use coconut palm sugar as a sweetener, but they should not treat it any differently than regular sugar,” the ADA says.



What about those health claims that say coconut sugar is low on the glycemic index (a scale that measures how blood sugar levels react to carbohydrates)? Holistic medicine specialist Dr. Andrew Weil takes issue. “This is irrelevant,” says Weil. “The glycemic index does not directly apply to sweeteners.” Weil’s bottom line: Sugar is sugar, whether it’s from a natural source or not. Go easy on it if you want to stay healthy.

5. Raw Sauerkraut

Hot dog topper and traditional side dish for pork chops, fermented white cabbage has long been recognized for potential cancer-fighting benefits. But who knew? This German staple is now getting a second health look, not for its cabbage content but for the good-for-you (or your immune system and digestive tract) probiotic bacteria produced during fermentation. (Here’s a good review of probiotics from WebMD if you need it.)



Why raw sauerkraut? Canned and bottled sauerkrauts are typically heat treated, which destroys probiotic bacteria. So the only way to nab the beneficial bugs is with unpasteurized or raw cultured sauerkraut, the kind usually found in whole food or health food supermarkets.



More good news for raw sauerkraut: A preliminary study finds the probiotic strains it harbors, called lactobacilli, might help prevent the body’s absorption of some pesticides.

6. Matcha Green Tea

In Manhattan, matcha is the “new java,” a hipper caffeinated brew and an ingredient chefs are using to create all kinds of sweet and savory treats. It’s also the tea of choice in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. But among “food as medicine” proponents, the star feature of matcha is that it contains three times as many as catechins (substances that studies show might do everything from fighting cancer to preventing heart disease, to helping with weight loss) as regular green teas. The reason: This tea isn’t steeped from green tea leaves, but is actually ground up tea leaves. When Matcha is harvested, the leaves are ground into a beautiful bright green powder that is then whisked into water. Make it at home.



But if you’re hitting the local tea or coffee shop for your fix, be aware. “Sweetened tea beverages introduce calories, fat and other ingredients that get away from the basic premise that the tea leaf may be responsible for any health benefits,” Dr. Howard Sesso tells Harvard Health Publications. Sesso is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

7. Natto

Heralded as “the breakfast of champions” by many Japanese, paleo diet enthusiasts are singing the praises of the fermented soybean mixture called natto. For starters, it’s healthy for the heart. It’s a natural blood thinner, it lowers blood pressure and it’s super-rich in vitamin K2, a hard-to-get nutrient that helps prevent osteoporosis and keep bones strong. In other words, natto might offer multiple benefits for many of the common lifestyle ills that plague a fiftysomething body.



There’s just one hitch. While Japanese diners are in love with all forms of natto — there’s natto ice cream, natto toast, natto sushi — the slippery texture and stinky aroma are not an easy sell to Westerners, says one Japanese fan.



If natto is a no-go for you, Weil says there might be some other options. “I think all of these fermented soy foods are healthy — miso, natto, tempeh,” he says. “Adding fermented foods in general to the diet is good.”



© Twin Cities Public Television – 2016. All rights reserved.

 

Follow these six rules to protect yourself and your relationships

By Stephen L. Antczak for Next Avenue



Credit: Thinkstock

Some personal finance gurus like Suze Orman say you should never lend money to family or friends. Others, like Clark Howard, caution against it but acknowledge it’s not so easy to just say no.



If you decide to become a lender to loved ones, because you feel you must, follow these six rules to make the transaction best for all concerned:



1. Only lend money you can afford to lose. This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s worth remembering. Think of it like gambling: Only lend up to the amount of money you’d feel comfortable placing on the table in a game of roulette or craps. Either way, maybe you’ll collect; maybe you won’t.



2. Get it in writing. Draft a loan agreement that’s signed by both parties. If adjustments need to be made later, you can then amend the agreement.



Seem too business-like for helping out a friend or relative? It’s not. If you were going to share a condo by the beach, you’d enter into a time-share agreement with the other party to avoid future misunderstandings. The same logic applies to a loan.



Putting everything in writing goes a long way towards preserving your relationship because it’ll prevent misunderstandings and clearly lay out each party’s responsibilities and benefits.



3. Set a repayment schedule and amount, but be flexible about the terms. If the repayment amount is $200 per month, prepare for the possibility that your borrower will pay you just $50 or $100 in a given month due to tight times. If you continue receiving less than expected, you and your borrower may want to adjust the repayment schedule to lower monthly amounts.



Just insist you get paid something every month. Otherwise, you might find the person owing you money will choose to make no payment because he or she can’t make the full payment.



4. Consider charging a small interest rate. This will help compensate you for taking the risk, let the borrower feel like you’ve received something for your generosity and help you avoid tax problems.



The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has rules about person-to-person lending, even among family members. If you charge interest, the IRS expects the rate to be at least what it calls the Applicable Federal Rate (AFR); currently that’s 0.48 percent for loans of up to three years; 1.82 percent for loans of three to nine years and 2.82 percent for loans over nine years.



If you make an interest-free loan, you may then be subject to tricky tax rules requiring you to pay taxes on interest you should’ve charged. (See this MarketWatch article for details.)



5. Keep track of the balance on a spreadsheet. And be sure your borrower does, too. This is crucial because losing track of payments made — or not made — means somebody may believe they’ve been screwed.

The spreadsheets should note not just how much was paid, but how the payments were made: cash, check, money transfer, etc. If you’re getting paid by check, you might even want to provide a receipt with a copy for yourself, noting the date, the amount paid and the balance due.



6. Don’t let money get in the way of your relationship. This is, far and away, the most difficult rule to follow. In fact, you may want to put into the written agreement that the financial arrangement is separate from your relationship and will have no bearing on it. Good luck with that one.



© Twin Cities Public Television – 2016. All rights reserved.

Our relationship is different from our parents' but just as lasting

By Candy Schulman for Next Avenue



Credit: Getty Images

When I mention I recently celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary, friends stare incredulously as if to say, “How is that possible?” I joke that I was a child bride in an arranged marriage, sold with a dowry to the highest bidder. The truth is I did vow “I do” at 23.



My husband, Steve, and I married young and had a child late.



When I met Steve,  I was still grieving over my college sweetheart, who’d left me for medical school and a fear of commitment. Dubiously, I agreed to a blind date. Steve was 26 and still wearing a retainer, a remnant of braces he’d put on to avoid Vietnam.



I moved in with him six months later. My mother refused to visit us and warned, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”



Then one night, an “old” married friend, tired of watching us smooch, asked, “When are you two getting married already?” Back in our living-in-sin apartment, Steve asked, “Do you think we should get married?” He didn’t get down on one knee. “Yes, do you?” I asked back.



Products of the Great Depression, my parents wanted me to marry “up” the economic ladder. Mom still hid cash under her mattress. At first, she was disappointed in my husband. Her mantra: “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.”



Instead, she got a son-in-law who doted on her more than her own son. Steve drove her to doctors’ appointments, changed light bulbs when she could no longer balance herself without a walker, patiently listened to her stories I’d heard too many times before, never bored.



Mom froze the top layer of our wedding cake and served it to us on our first anniversary; I wished she was still around to bore me with her same-old stories on my 40th.

For Better or Worse

As newlyweds devoted to our careers, Steve and I swam laps after work and grabbed a burrito at 10 p.m. He was a businessman, working long hours. He encouraged me to leave my teaching job and write full-time, in spite of reducing our income.



His parents, the only ones in their social circle unable to wear cute baby charms necklaces, pressured us to reproduce. My mother, who already had grandchildren, advised us, “Why have kids? You’re enjoying your life.”

Our life was full of ambition, foreign films, lazy Sunday afternoons in bed. We strayed from our friends who had kids, moved to the suburbs and talked about garage door openers. They seemed envious of our carefree existence, and we were afraid of becoming them.



I stood by my husband during a year of unemployment and what-do-I-want-to-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life? I had back surgery (successful) and he had his first colonoscopy (polyps gone!). I took dance classes and he studied karate. We sojourned to romantic inns in New England. We went to our grandparents’ funerals. I had a miscarriage.



I was 39. We were ready to settle down. We were terrified of settling down.



“I don’t want our relationship to change,” I told him.



“You’re the most important person in the world to me,” he said. “Nothing will change.”



“And no garage door openers.”



“We live in a twenty-one story high-rise,” he said, laughing.



I delivered our daughter, Amy, at the age of 41. We were naïve to think our relationship wouldn’t change. Google “ruin a marriage by having children,” and 79.9 million results pop up.



Our romance shifted to the cute baby, the toddler who exhausted us, the preschooler in blatant Oedipal phase, showering Steve with neon-colored hearts: I LOVE YOU DADDY!!!!!



We evolved into soccer parents and chefs de cuisine, nursemaids cleaning up vomit, neurotic parents surviving an overnight hospitalization when our 3-year-old became dehydrated. All the while managing my mother’s care as she disappeared into Lewy body dementia. Watching a parent die adds no romance to a marriage.



No wonder we were spent the first time we dropped Amy off at college. We drove home dazed. Wandered around the streets like jet-lagged tourists, looking for a quick dinner. Neither one of us could speak. Finally: “Want another slice, or are you done?” my husband asked. “I’m done,” I replied. Everyone around us looked under 30. Why were they eating dinner so late? We’d become accustomed to six o’clock meals to feed a cranky child. We liked our new habit — in spite of having made fun of our parents for insisting on all those early-bird specials.

The City of Love

A few months earlier, we’d taken Amy to Paris as a graduation trip. The city of love we’d explored three decades ago. Strolling by the Seine at sunset, we passed couples dangling their feet over the river’s edge. We had an argument that brought me to tears, one of those marital tiffs where, later, neither one of us could remember why it had started.



Amy wondered if we’d ever been in love like these couples on the Seine? Yes we had, and still were. It’s impossible to explain the evolution of a long marriage to an 18-year-old. I vowed to never turn into the marriage of my parents. I remember the shock when my mother told me, “Daddy and I still make love.” She was in her seventies.



After my father died, a man romanced her as if he were 20, rather than 82. I saw my mother smitten, the way she must have been with my father when he first courted her. By the time children grow up, we view our parents in a different phase of their marriage and can’t imagine they’d once been youthful lovers.



Steve and I have seen each other naked in lust, and we’ve bathed each other when surgery scars were raw. We’ve watched a baby come into the world, created from love. We’ve morphed from lovers to parents to empty nesters, filling up the empty space with books, hobbies, naps. Discovering conversations to share about politics. Sharing dreams of retirement. Together, but not knowing what this next phase will be like.

Till Death Do Us Part

Our grandparents’ unions ended in widowhood, marriages shortened by tuberculosis and heart attacks. Our parents’ generation stayed married because they were supposed to. My own parents’ marriage almost made it to 50 years, until my father’s death cut it short.



Our divorced friends have been traumatized, regretful, but never ostracized. When my daughter was in preschool, her teacher glanced around during a parent visiting day and whispered, “By kindergarten, half will be divorced.”



This is the 40th time my husband and I have exchanged anniversary cards. We’re not big on gifts, but cards are an unwritten agreement in our marriage contract. I try to think of something profound to write. Our marriage has been ordinary and extraordinary. What is new to express? Maybe “we’re still married” is enough. Not out of duty, sentimentality or societal norm. Out of love, a lot of perseverance, a bit of luck and the courage to open a slammed door after an argument and say “sorry.”



Perhaps I should use someone else’s words on my husband’s card. A humorous message? “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret,” Henny Youngman. A philosophical one from Nietzshe? “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” Or something literary, from Simone Signoret: “Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.” Or a song from Sondheim: “Good times and bum times, I’ve seen ’em all/And, my dear, I’m still here.”



When I met Steve, I never imagined what we’d look like four decades later. The only images that came to mind were from previous generations: cranky women in housedresses, distant men in golf shirts, wives making roast beef dinners for husbands who’d arrive home loosening their ties after a tiring commute. Saturday-night bridge games, blaming each other for making the wrong bid.



Splurging on an elegant French dinner, I see an older version of the man who talked to me for hours before we first saw each other’s faces, conversing as if we’d always known each other. Now we run out of things to say. His habits can be annoying. Sometimes he’s inflexible. So am I. He’s also kind, empathetic, always there in a crisis. I hope I am, too.



We play a game in restaurants, predicting what each other will order. Our accuracy rate is 95 percent.

With This Ring

Our fingers have sagged and spread, even though neither of us is overweight. It’s been years since we wore the gold bands we exchanged long ago, announcing our status.



On the eve of this anniversary, I enlist a friend in the jewelry business to see if I can get my ring resized. He measures my finger, examines the inside of the ring.



“I have to warn you,” he says, “the inscription might get ruined if the ring is stretched.”



I love you, U-Bet, Steve had inscribed. I taught him how to make egg creams when everything about each other was still so new. The key to the recipe is U-Bet, the champagne of chocolate syrups manufactured where I grew up, Brooklyn’s nectar of the gods.



My jeweler friend returns with bad news. My ring has a hairline crack and might break if stretched. It is beyond repair.



“She can wear it on a chain around her neck,” Steve suggests.



“That’s what we did in high school,” the jeweler says, laughing.



I once removed it before knee surgery. I used soap to force the ring to part with my fourth finger. Now I return the ring to my dresser, nestling it on a velvet cushion. I feel sad, but the mood lifts when I realize and hope this will be the worst news I ever receive about our 40 years together. We have outgrown our wedding rings, but not our marriage.



© Twin Cities Public Television – 2016. All rights reserved.

By Harry Glazer







Volunteer opportunities come in all shapes and sizes. And as anyone who has pitched in for a good cause can tell you, some volunteer roles are more fulfilling than others.

 

Some of the very best volunteer experiences result when you match a volunteer’s interests and skills with the needs of the organization.

 

Such was the case for Kiran and Kalyani Balkaran, from Plainfield. Kiran, aged 17, and Kalyani,15, are brother and sister and both are students at Union County T.E.A.M.S. Charter School for Technology, Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics, and Science and High School/College Leadership Academy.

 

As modern teenagers, Kiran and Kalyani are ‘digital natives’ – fully immersed in and easily adept at learning and using different technology. They also love music. Their mother Cynthia Purnell Balkaran, a driver for Parker’s Adult Day Program, inquired in May if there was a summer volunteer opportunity for them at Parker. Senior Manager of Volunteer Services Catherine Martino found the perfect match.

 

Parker has started a new Music and Memory program, to provide iPods to our Elders with playlists customized to their musical preferences. The program was inspired by academic research, and a growing body of anecdotal evidence, which shows that when provided with music that matches their interests Elders become far more animated and engaged.

 

Parker has been collecting donated IPods and music CDs for the Music and Memory program for months but needed the person-power to digitize the music and create the playlists. When Kiran and Kalyani stepped in, the work quickly got underway.

 

For five and a half hours each workday, from June through August, Kiran and Kalyani worked to digitize over 300 music CDs and create playlights for the different Elders who are test piloting the Music and Memory program. The resulting collection of digital music files can be mixed and matched for different elders and used repeatedly in the years ahead.

 

“We are delighted with Kiran and Kalyani's efforts,” said Catherine Martino. “They moved the Music and Memory program ahead by leaps and bounds and have gotten us to the finish line. We simply could not have gotten this program started without them and we are very grateful for their work.”

 

Kiran and Kalyani were very pleased with how they spent their summer. “I had a fun time with the work I did here at Parker,” said Kalyani. “I enjoyed doing this project because I know that it will be a nice thing for the residents.” Kiran agreed, adding that “It’s always good to help out the elderly and do things to help them be happy.”

 

We thank Kalyani and Kiran for their wonderful contribution to our homes.

Bennett and Dick Van Dyke are going strong and happy

By Liz Fedor for Next Avenue





Tony with his son Danny, 2007 Grammy Awards



Singer Tony Bennett, at 89, isn’t resting on his laurels.



He recently released a new album, The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern. In an interview with NPR, he recalled how much he loved singing for his relatives as a boy. “It created a passion in my life that exists to this moment as I speak to you, that is stronger now at 89 than in my whole life,” Bennett said. “I still feel that I can get better somehow. And I search for it all of the time.”



Bennett’s not the only 89-year-old who is defying stereotypes of older age.  Actor Dick Van Dyke just wrote a memoir titled Keep Moving: And Other Tips and Truths About Aging.  Queen Elizabeth continues to carry out the royal responsibilities she inherited in 1952. And Marilyn Hagerty, my friend and former colleague, continues to write regularly for the Grand Forks, N.D., Herald.



Their daily lives offer four lessons for all people of all ages:

Lesson 1: Spend Time with People of Different Generations

With her sky-high shoes, infamous meat dress and outlandish theatrics, Lady Gaga stands opposite Bennett on the pop star spectrum. Yet Bennett saw an opportunity for an interesting collaboration, so he reached across their 60-year age gap and created a hit album of jazz standards and toured the country with the artist he calls ‘Lady.’



By working with artists who are younger than he is, Bennett is living in the present and learning how younger people interact with each other.

Lesson 2: Don’t Bow to Pressures to Retire

Actors, writers and professors are among the professionals who are leading the way to prove that there isn’t one right age for people to retire.



Like Queen Elizabeth, who hasn’t bothered to respond to speculation about her retirement, so are a slew of women in the public sector. Janet Yellen, 69, plays a key role in guiding the nation’s economy in her post as chair of the Federal Reserve System. Following deadly ISIS attacks in Paris, two American women have important roles in proposing U.S. policy to combat terrorism at home and around the globe: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, is 68, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is 82.

Lesson 3: Look for the Silver Lining

On his new album, Bennett sings, “A heart full of joy and gladness will always banish sadness and strife. So always look for the silver lining.”



During the many years I’ve known Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty (you may recall reading about her Olive Garden restaurant review), she has always exemplified this attitude. I’ve watched her lose her husband and daughter, overcome breast cancer and pick up the pieces after her home was flooded. Despite her sorrow, she perseveres by being out and about in the world and moving forward. She enjoys her grandchildren, regularly plays bridge, cheers at college games and volunteers at her church. But Hagerty has loved being a journalist her entire life, so she makes time to report and write informative and wry columns laced with her self-deprecating humor.



People like Hagerty and Bennett focus on what they physically can do; they don’t dwell on what they can’t do.

Lesson 4: Indulge Your Passion

In his new book, Keep Moving, Van Dyke writes about how he danced in celebration of his 89^th birthday: “I shimmied and shook, my hips going right and then left, my arms and wrists undulating like long snakes.”

When someone told him, “You don’t act your age at all,” Van Dyke concluded that “old age is part fact, part state of mind, part luck.”



He loves to dance, so he indulges that passion. And to ensure that he can keep dancing, he works out daily by walking on a treadmill and lifting weights.



Van Dyke has another wise piece of advice for people of all ages: Don’t worry. “The less you worry, the better your attitude is, and a positive, worry-free, guilt-free attitude is key to enjoying life at any age — especially old age.”



© Twin Cities Public Television – 2016. All rights reserved.