I tweeted recently about making a new personal record as I ate altogether 7 boiled eggs in one day; three for breakfast and four with dinner consisting of salad, lentils, and salmon. Apparently this raised some questions about my cholesterol levels, and since it's been a while since I wrote anything about nutrition and health, I thought it would be a good time to clear some confusion surrounding this topic.

Coincidentally, I'm also reading Gary Taubes's Good Calories, Bad Calories and just finished a section about cholesterol. If you've read my earlier posts about nutrition and weight loss but doubt the science behind them, I really recommend getting a copy of this book. It's rather heavy to read, but gives a thorough overview about the science and research in the field of nutrition over the past 100 years. Things are not as black and white as we've been led to believe.

Most people think that cholesterol is the stuff that clogs arteries, causing heart attacks and stroke. Due to this it's also commonly believed that avoiding cholesterol rich foods such as eggs will keep you healthier. However, the truth is far more complex than that.

First of all, cholesterol is absolutely vital for life. Cholesterol molecules are the building blocks of cell membranes. Without cholesterol our cells would not be able to maintain their form. The cells in our bodies are continuously dying and born again in a cycle of life, but if we would somehow remove cholesterol the cycle would end, and so would our own existence.

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If you're trying to search for information about weight loss and healthy eating it's nearly impossible to find good advice about what actually works and what doesn't. Contradictory information is everywhere; low-fat vs. high-fat, meat eating vs. vegetarianism, soy vs. dairy etc. On top of that, many diet and weight loss websites have their own agenda of selling information products or dietary supplements. Not to mention the huge number of fad diets which are supposed to make you look like a Calvin Klein model in four to eight weeks.

And here I am talking about low-carb diet, which was pretty much categorized as a fad some years ago, but now an ever-growing body of research is starting to prove otherwise. The principles behind low-carb way of eating are sound and result in better health. There is a lot of evidence that low-carb is not just another passing thing, but actually might prove to be the optimal diet plan that anyone can follow.

I have discussed the mechanics of low-carb diet in detail previously, so please refer to The how and why of weight loss article if you're interested in knowing more about what it actually is, and how and why it works. In this post I want to focus more on some of the logic and reasons of why low-carb simply makes sense.

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This calls for celebration! My first ever guest posts can now be found at Balancing Tenderfoot, which is a health and lifestyle blog written by my friend Karla :)

What started as a post about why everyone should do resistance training grew into two separate pieces; one about the health benefits of human growth hormone, and the other about how to do resistance training efficiently in order to stimulate its production, without spending a ton of time in the gym.

While at it, I'd also recommend checking this great post about how self-image can be a burden, and how to improve it. Another one of my favorites on Balancing Tenderfoot is about the physiological effects of being criticized, and what to do in order to lessen the tension caused by negative feedback.

I think this is a good opportunity to also highlight some other blogs that I subscribe to, or otherwise follow regularly. I'll give a brief description about the blog itself and couple of my favorite articles as an example of what you might expect from reading that blog. I tried to pick ones that I feel would be the most interesting to my readers.

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Still a few months ago I had the impression, that soy is healthy and good for you. After all, in my reality it's the food that health-conscious vegetarians eat in vast quantities as a replacement for animal protein. As we know, soy is being used to create all kinds of alternatives to animal products; there are soy burgers, hot dogs, milk etc. Soy protein is also used in many different supplements.

Like so many other assumptions I've had, this one went down the drain after I became more interested in nutrition and health, and started to actually read about stuff. So here are 10 things you probably don't know about soy, and after reading this I hope you'll at least consider twice whether or not to feed a soy-based infant formula to your child.

1) Soy contains numerous chemical toxins

High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of multiple micronutrients, and is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion, cause pancreatic disorders, and is known to have caused stunted growth in test animals. This is also the reason why eating soy may cause gas, bloating, pain and diarrhea.

Soy phytoestrogens disrupt the endoctrine function and may cause infertility and breast cancer. 

Thyroid hormone is one of the key metabolic controllers in human body, and the soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism (meaning, that the body is unable to produce sufficient amounts of thyroid hormone) and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.

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This is the holy trinity around which Lierre Keith's new book The Vegetarian Myth revolves. I have to say, that I have read a dozen incredibly good books this year alone, but none of them matches the importance of this one. The Vegetarian Myth is not only a joy to read, but its message should be heard by anyone who eats.

Keith was a vegan for 20 years, driven by compassion and her drive for kindness and justice towards all living creatures. In the process, however, the vegan diet destroyed her health: Six weeks from becoming one, she had hypoglycemia. Three months into it and she stopped menstruating, was constantly exhausted and cold. Her "skin was so dry it flaked, and in the winter it itched so badly it kept [her] up at night." In two years she developed a degenerative joint disease which eventually reached her spine, and later gastroparesis which lead to fourteen years of constant nausea. On top of the physical ailments there was also depression and anxiety, for which she puts most of the blame on the vegan diet.

You would think, that the book is about what the vegetarians eat, but I would say its main focus is on how to grow food that is rich in nutrients, sustainable and with compassion towards other living creatures. And, as Keith constructs piece by piece, that the vegetarian assumption that agriculture can feed the world is a misconception.

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