Gleanings of the Week Ending August 24, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Restricting Food and Fluids during Labor Is Unwarranted, Study Suggests - I can remember being very thirsty with only rationed ice chips when I had my daughter years ago. And I was ravenous by the time she was born (and only offered a rather stale boxed lunch since it was out of the normal food service hours in the hospital). Hopefully this study will be a starting point to change the food and liquid restriction rules.

These alien-looking ice sculptures formed all on their own - A collection of images from some very cold places. What a cooling post for August!

Astronomers Take Sharpest Photos Ever of the Night Sky - Using adaptive optics that have been developed over the past 20 years at University of Arizona.

Creative Fashion Illustrations Made with Leaves - Sparse lines - and then leaves. They work together to create appealing images. My favorite is the first one.

Fascinating Friday: 80 Maps That Explain Everything - Pointers to collections of maps from Buzzfeed and The Washington Post. It turns out that maps are good ways to display lots of data in an intuitive way.

State of Flux Images of Change - Pictures of the changes in the earth over day, months or years from NASA.

Iron Is at Core of Alzheimer's Disease, Study Suggests - Yet another reason why we shouldn’t get higher doses of iron. The foods I normally consume easily get me to 100% of the iron requirements - so fortified cereals and iron-contain multi-vitamins are of my grocery list completely.

Fall in the National Parks: Some Great Activities to Put On Your Calendar - Includes the following national parks: Voyagers, San Francisco Maritime, Acadia, Capitol Reef and Grant-Kohrs Ranch.

Amaranth: Another Ancient Wonder Food, But Who Will Eat It? - Chia - quinoa - amaranth - nutritious options abound.

The Common Cook's How-Many Guide to Kitchen Conversions - Very handy for the kitchen!

by ShannonLattin.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Gluten Lite Diet

One of the ideas I’ve been applying to my diet this year is to reduce gluten. My goal is not to be ‘gluten free’ but to dramatically reduce the amount of gluten by  

• Almost eliminating packaged wheat bread and crackers
• When I bake - replacing half or more of the wheat flour with teff or buckwheat. This does not always work but the more highly flavored the recipe is, the more likely I will still enjoy it. Pumpkin or spice muffins and pancakes are my favorites.
• Replacing pasta with grains that do not include grain - like brown rice or quinoa or amaranth
• Replacing packaged breakfast cereals with oatmeal or quinoa or a mixed grain that does not include wheat.
  

I tried some gluten free pasta (it was made with corn instead of wheat). The flavor was fine but I decided that the other grains had more nutritional value and served the same role in my meal as the pasta. And it appealed to me to migrate to the less processed grains.

The results have been reasonably good so far. I’ve been staying on course toward my goal to take off some weight. An added benefit seems to be improved digestion of other foods that previously caused me some issues (beans and broccoli/cauliflower); it could be purely circumstantial but I am enjoying those foods more than I have in years.