Endocrine disrupters and the feminization of the human species?

According to an article published in the Independent (London) on December 7, 2008, entitled “It’s Official: Men really are the weaker sex“, the author, Geoffrey Lean writes: The male gender is in danger…and a host of common chemicals are to blame.

Men, if its one reason to eat organic food, it should be preserving your penis and your masculinity! Read on…

The chemicals are known as “endocrine disrupters” or quite literally “gender benders” because these chemicals will interfere with hormones. The chemicals include: “phthalates” which are used in food wrapping (think shrink wrap on your meat! and other packaged food – especially vaccuum sealed food like cold cuts!), flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods and many pesticides.  Now more than ever, eat organic! And, organic local food from the United States (anything that is “organic” but that is grown in a foreign country and imported gets sprayed as soon as it enters the United States! and its probably sprayed with something pretty strong given the xenophobia of our government and foreign dirt and farming! – ever tell a custom agent you’ve been on a farm in a foreign country and you’ll be quarantined for weeks)

A report released by CHEMTrust, a British organization that studies chemicals independently, demonstrated that male fish exposed to these chemicals actually developed eggs in their testicles.  The female hormones that end up in the sewage that contaminate these waters from overuse of oral contraceptive pills has also affected the fish in this way. In addition other chemicals are to blame for feminizing properties. There are actual centers of excellence at various universities now dedicated to this gender bender study of endocrine disrupters. It is very scary stuff because the future of our species depends upon this.

As a nutritionist I am especially interested in this and many of my clients, both male and female have complained to me of the inability to get pregnant (females) and trouble with pregnancy with their wives (for my male clients). They all want to know, what can I eat to help and now its more, what shouldn’t you eat! What shouldn’t you expose yourself to, but it may be beyond your control. That is the scary part, that this is no longer a problem of what one person can do, but an entire ecosystem, an entire planet is showing signs that our collective industrialization and the chemicals overflowing in our environment in our drinking water (despite purification folks! even if you are getting your water from Fiji! and I don’t even want to begin to tell you what kind of CO2 damage you are doing by getting water from Fiji not to mention what you are doing to the local economy and water supply in Fiji, but I digress!)

So what’s happening, what is the outcome in humans, because seriously, do we really care about Fish in British waters (we should!!! 1) we eat that fish – and you are what you eat, hate to tell you 2) fish are smaller and show signs of what is happening first before it happens to us, but shows the damage that is coming!)? Well, what is happening is a feminization of the human species. More women are being born than men. Global ratios of women to men are shifting. I know being single and living in a big city, I wonder, where are all the single men, I think sometimes I’m just crazy, but really, there are more women and certainly more women being born. The article in the independent cites how communities where the waters are heavily polluted with phtalates and other gender bender chemicals many more girls are born and in the US and Japan, more than 250,000 babies that should have been born male, have been born female. But somehow the evidence seems weak as a scientist, I wonder, where’s the proof?

The article cites sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Hamsters apparently produce nearly three times the amount of sperm than humans do these days…where they used to produce 150 million per milimeter of sperm fluid, now they produce 60 million over 50 years. The hamsters are still producing 160 million.

While there are always outliers as my good friend Malcolm Gladwell loves to write about, what is more the norm is that people are having trouble reproducing. We are also having less interest in sex, it could be what we are eating through the chemicals in our food, but also what we are drinking, breathing, putting on our skin and putting on our heads at night when we sleep. It is wise to take a look at the composition of your pillow and perhaps eat an organic apple or two if you want to retain your masculinity. Think of your penis!

Julia Child’s Legacy and Chocolate torte – healthy in small doses

Hi my loyal readers!

I’ve been away for sometime, mostly because I’ve been writing for another blog on examiner.com.  http://www.examiner.com/x-10896-Manhattan-Healthy-Food-Examiner Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia I wanted to revive this blog and have something out in cyberspace that was purely my own. I’m cross posting my reaction to the movie and one of my favorite torte recipes.

Every day is a food experiment for me and I always test my recipes for changes in my energy and passion levels! In this post is an original recipe altered and changed many times from a recipe I learned while at the Institute for Culinary education. Like Julia I never finished cooking school, but I learned many wonderful things and have developed my own unique style. Julia has always been a great inspiration to me – from about the age of 11 when I watched Julia on PBS with my Aunt Ida and tried to make chicken breasts in butter and cream sauce on my own. How my mother let me do such things I will never know. By age 12 I was stir frying shrimp and by high school I was coming home for lunch with my friends and preparing “gourmet” meals for them. It all started with Julia.

Now of course, my interests have shifted toward the health value of food. But I will never sacrifice taste for health value. I believe they can be linked! Healthy food is always thought of as boring, plain and lacking butter. Perhaps, but what if it was just small amounts of truly delicious food with natural sugars and enough butter to fill you up. The truly two bite dessert. Jeff Goldblum apparently orders desserts, savors one truly decadent bite and sends it back. Not all of us have this kind of self control, but I was inspired enough by Julia Child to write this post. But first, I want to talk about the inspiration.

I am not a woman who cries often. Since Saturday night I have cried twice…from movies no less. The first: the time traveler’s wife. A story of love that overcame the test of time…literally and tonight from Julie and Julia, a story of love, sex, food and writing…and of course, success, money and everything else! But first came, the love, the sex…and of course the food…and the writing! Two stories that are ever so vivid, real, whole and round. Stories that rip through you to the very core and remind you why we live. Ah, to think, the power of a boeuf bourgonuine to transform the senses and the miracle of tricking your own husband who had just gotten a vasectomy into getting you pregnant by cheating with a younger version of your time traveling husband before he got the procedure done.
I am dreaming of cassoulet, duck steak and tarte tatin. The first time I had duck steak, which is some part of the duck (I’m going to go with the breast) without a drop of fat on it – just the meat – its simply seared and its nearly raw inside – but its so delicious I can’t even explain it! When I was at the Institute for Culinary education and also again at Tocqueville I concentrated on pastry, which was so strange considering I am by all means a food chef. I did excel at pastry and I do enjoy making desserts. I’ve made a few tarte tatins in my lifetime and even bought a special pot to make it in because you need to be able to make the apples on the stove, cover it with the pastry and then pop the thing in the oven. You need a pan that has an oven safe handle, which is hard to find these days. An ex-boyfriend once made eggs in the pan without using butter and to this day despite several cleanings and soakings there are still scrapes of egg in the pan. The pan lasted longer than that relationship! Damn though, I was very much in love with the pan. Will have to butter it up but good the next time I want to make a tart.
But the piece de resistance in my culinary abilities and one of my all time favorite desserts is a dark chocolate torte I learned to make in a French cooking class at ICE. The cake is made with grand Marnier and two sticks of butter. Julia would be proud. Somewhere I have the original recipe, but I’ve altered it over the years to make it completely my own.
Ingredients:
10 ounces of the darkest chocolate I can find (my favorite is Valhrona 85%)
4 eggs
2 tablespoons grand mariner
1/3 cup of agave nectar
Waxed parchment paper
8 inch round cake pan

Cut a round in parchment to line bottom and sides of cake pan. Set aside with a weight. Preheat oven to 350.
Whisk eggs together with grand mariner in a large bowl. Don’t beat, just whisk them with the liquer until it is combined and the eggs turn yellow. Chop chocolate into chunks on an angle with a chef’s knife. Gently melt it in a double boiler with a little bit of agave nectar (maybe 1/3 of a cup). When the chocolate has just melted, remove from heat and stir to make creamy. Add two sticks of butter. Cover and let the butter melt completely. When melted, remove cover and stir. While whisking, add the chocolate mixture in a stream (almost like you’d add oil to egg yolks to make mayonnaise) to the egg mixture and continue whisking lightly just until all the chocolate combines.
Remove weight from pan and pour in batter. Place cake pan in a larger pan filled with two inches of water so cake pan floats in other pan (bain maire).
Cook 40 minutes until top has set. Cool for 10 min or so and pop in refrigerator at least 12 hours. This piece is crucial!!! The next day, turn cake over onto a plate and unmold by removing parchment. Decorate cake with either powdered sugar or my favorite – sifted raw cacao powder (not Dutch processed cocoa, please!) and raspberries. Serve slices with real whipped cream that has not been ultra pasteurized (just regular pasteurized is fine, it whips better, usually comes in a glass bottle) if you can find it.

Sobel Wellness featured in world bride magazine

Read about some winter motivations and see some great recipes in world bride magazine. Read more about it here:

http://www.worldbridemagazine.com/health_and_welness/Health.htm

Some great inspirational stories, recipes and good stuff await.

Emotional Junk Food

I just returned from a glorious few days at a conference in Miami.  While I was there I encountered many deep spiritual people at the conference and had some really wonderful conversations. One of them was on the topic of love and relationships…one of my favorite topics. In the conversation I had with one of my wonderful platonic male friends we discussed the concept of casual sex and what we both collectively termed “emotional” junk food.

So often with my female clients (and myself who am I kidding) I find that we make choices based on our emotions. What to eat, what to wear, where to go, what to drink, who to see, who to sleep with. Yes, its not this black and white, but there is this concept of I feel like eating this or I do this because I feel blue. Often times I know when I am stressed out a bowl of popcorn in coconut oil is great, but three yummy chocolate chip cookies are better. I love my kale and quinoa, I really do, but faced with a break up or a bad date – red wine and chocolate are going to win out and when I am about to get my period – forget it…the chocolate is definitely going to factor into the equation.

At the end of the day however, I love and respect myself.  I always remember that with every action I perform at the core of my being is self respect. I eat, but I know that I am going to have to face myself in the morning. I am going to have to face myself every step of the way and answer – do I love myself when I make this choice to eat chocolate cake because it tastes good?  Don’t I deserve first to be healthy? Don’t I deserve a lifetime without back pain and suffering from asthma because of my weight? Don’t I want to be able to climb the six flights of stairs to visit my friend on the East Side without huffing and puffing?  Don’t I want to be able to row for two hours tomorrow morning? Yes, I want to do all of these things…but sometimes I want chocolate cake too, but I need to really think about it consciously and consider whether I want the junk food for an emotional reason or not.

But what really is this concept of emotional junk food? People are often our emotional junk food. As often as we make choices out of a lack of self respect and self esteem, we choose to be in inappropriate relationships for the same reason. Sometimes they can be draining friendships. Sometimes this can take form in romantic relationships. I have a major crush about every few weeks. I don’t even know the man, but I crush anyway. I think I just love the idea of being in love.  Something about the way he smells or smiles or a quality I think represents goodness in him. I, like most women, love to try to fix a man or save him. We love the dark brooding types. The types who never really let us get to know them. Just last night I was chatting with one of my crushes and it turns out that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship. Ladies (and men!) – how many times do we hear these words and yet we continue to pursue these amorphous friendships where we have unrequited feelings. Emily Dickinson became a very famous poet due to emotional junk food – but where did it lead her? Nowhere good.

I implore you all to examine your emotional junk food. How does it reflect on your self respect? In my line of work, I’m very cognizant of what people say. I listen with my ears, but also my eyes and my heart. Sometimes, we so want to hear things that simply aren’t there. When a man says, he does not want a relationship, listen to him, don’t just hear him. If its possible to be his friend, do so. If not, trust your heart and let him know. I know in my communication I have power. I am not afraid to be direct. Often this reduces the amount of emotional junk food I allow in my life.  It also reduces the amount of emotional junk food that will enter my life.

Health is a state of being. Emotional and physical health are inextricably intertwined. I wonder how many Doctors are affected by bad marriages. In a recent seminar I completed in early March, I knew a doctor who was estranged from his wife and son, who suffered from Autism. I grew very close to this man and always wondered what it must have been like for him, what it is like for any parent who has a child that does not meet their definition of perfect. Nothing in life is perfect and we cannot beat ourselves up or feel that we are failures if our children are less than perfect. We need to look deep within ourselves and love our children as well as ourselves. We need to bring love into every choice we make.

I once said at a BNI meeting – who doesn’t want a better love life. People laughed at me and thought me to be silly. How could I mention love at a business meeting. But love is an essential component of my business and of life. Without it, love and passion who are we. Nothing really.  Aristotle once said, “All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.” Regardless what our actions are, business or otherwise, we will be driven by some cause. We are human after all. Leave logic for Dr. Spock. I’m a huge fan of passion.  We feel. However, in feeling, we need to make sure what we feel comes from a place of respecting ourselves. We want to radiate self respect and self love. In doing so, we attract love and respect from others in our business dealings and in our friendships, familial and romantic relationships.

Sunday’s event – A delicious affair in the afternoon

Check out this week’s time out page 38. An advertisement for my event appears.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/events/own-this-city/270100/an-afternoon-to-spread-the-love – explains it far better than I can.

Expect to be dazzled by controversial conversation, food, drink, laughter, new friends and all you’ve ever wanted to know about food and sex. Too bad there’s no lab. But feel free to take what you learn off to your new adventures

this week’s greenmarket finds – blue potatoes

I’ve never before seen a blue potato. A few weeks back I saw them at the union square greenmarket. I fell in love with them. First of all they taste nothing like a potato. Not a white potato or a sweet potato. They are unique in flavor, like nothing I can describe. They are also blue. Incredibly blue. I guess I’ve seen blue potato chips, so they can’t be a complete mystery to me, but these potatoes – small in size and decadent to nibble are quite different than even the chips I’ve sampled so many years ago.

In my love affair with color I got some yellow and orange carrots (I was hoping for purple ones, but alas could not find any), burdock root – which is wonderfully cleansing for the liver, salsify (which is black, but white on the inside), celeraic and some chicken pieces. On my stove now simmers: the roots, chicken pieces, some lamb stock from a previous night’s dinner, dried figs and a melange of spices. I can’t wait for it to be done. I’m sure its going to be delish.

Your mouth watering yet? A recipe you demand?

Here’s the best I can do:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 white onion – local if possible, chopped

1 large orange carrot, chopped

2 stalks of local celery (hard to find in these rough NY winters – can skip), chopped

about 1 pound of chicken parts (I used breast and thigh meat, just a personal preference)

1 cup stock (chicken, beef, lamb, whatever tickles your fancy – I used half chicken (boxed) and half lamb – homemade)

1 yellow carrot

2 blue potatoes (small, the size of fingerlings, each quartered)

1 white turnip (quartered)

6-8 Brussels Sprouts, halved – little stem chopped off

2-3 tablespoons of fresh dill

black pepper

curry powder about 1 tsp

lots of love

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a cast iron stock pot. When smoking add mire poix (carrots, onion and celery) and stir 5 minutes until softened. Add chicken and sear on both sides until slightly browned (2-3 minutes). Add stock, root veggies, spices and other ingredients. Cover and cook 45 minutes to one hour until cooked through, roots are soft and your kitchen smells unbelievable. You will just know. I don’t cook with salt, but if you like salt, you can add some when you add the pepper. If you need a bit more spice – add some more curry powder. The dill and the black pepper and the taste of fresh vegetables in the stocks usually do it for me. I also added just a touch of butter when I put the vegetables in before I set the simmer.

Enjoy with someone you love!

visit www.sobelwellness.com to learn how you too could have meals prepared like these in your kitchen!

I am on the happy diet blog

read a q&a interview with me on the happy diet blog:

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/dgroups/persona.jsp?plckPersonaPage=PersonaBlog&plckUserId=f6d781c5cd29b26c1a89b214839d85d3&userId=f6d781c5cd29b26c1a89b214839d85d3&ordersrc=rdfit0186

goji berries – get in the mood for love :)

I had two questions tonight for fun organic items that people don’t know much about. For any kind of female reproductive issue – I recommend Maca. It does wonders for hot flashes and regulating periods. But for all you guys out there, if you ever have that feeling where you just don’t want to give any more love to your wife, your partner or anyone else, try a goji berry. You can get them in a health food store or in chinatown for much cheaper than your average health food store or whole foods. Buy them in bulk at a health food store. I saw them for $3 a box in a random store in chinatown.

So what’s the deal with goji berries? They are organic, fun to eat and have large amounts of protein, essential fatty acids and they do wonders for enlivening passion – think natural viagra, without the side affects And you just thought oysters were an aphrodisiac, try a berry. Ladies, you will feel more in the mood as well.