Any Way You Slice It

At the end of a night out with friends, usually the best looking thing to me is the pizza across the street. No matter how much I ate at dinner, or how recently I ate, I usually want to go home with some greasy slice, or a bacon wrapped hot dog. Seeing as how this is detrimental to my waist-line and a habit I'm trying to break, I wonder if it's psychological (I've conditioned to 'treating' myself to this gastro-fiasco at the end of the night), or if it's truly biological. Something beyond my control and who am I to fight it?

Although there doesn't seem to yet be definitive answers to this question. There are quite a few hypothesis out there, all which sound pretty legit to me. The most basic one, is that alcohol contains a lot of sugar. And usually, before we know we're going on a big binge, we tend to stock up on carbs, to 'absorb' the alcohol. That means that we're consuming high quantities of sugar and once our body digests that and breaks it all down, our blood sugar eventually drops, leaving us hungry. Now, this is the most basic idea that I read. The other one gets much more complicated and scientific but I'll try to simplify it as best as I can.

In conjunction with the theory that eating so many foods with sugar in them, and thereby temporarily raising our blood sugar, the body must prepare for this rise in blood sugar by increasing the production of insulin. This spike in insulin production interferes with the function of leptin, a protein hormone that affects our appetite. Leptin is involved with regulating how the body takes in and expends energy, which we get from food. Low levels of leptin, or preventing leptin from properly interacting with the brain, increases appetite.

Ghrelin is another hormone that also affects our appetites. It is a hormone found mostly in the stomach but can also be found in the hypothalamic region. There is an increase in ghrelin before we eat, and a reduction of it after our meal. When ghrelin is activated it increases our appetites and fat mass; it is sensitive to leptin as well as insulin levels.

And finally, when we drink, our brain releases an amino acid peptide neurotransmitter, called neuropeptide Y (NPY). NPY is secreted by the hypothalamus and tends to increase our desire for food intake as well as affecting the way energy is stored as fat. Fat now tends to be stored more in the abdominal area (not sexy on men or women, just an fyi). NPY also works together with ghrelin and leptin in your body to contribute to hunger when you've been drinking, I just can't totally figure it all out from all the scientific talk, but I know that it says it somewhere.

All three of these work together to make us hungrier when we've been drinking, and needless to say, when we've been drinking it's harder for us to resist what our bodies want. Now that I know it is biological, I won't feel so bad having that last slice at the end of the night, cause if it tastes so good, how can it be wrong?

Kombucha with Me

Kombucha tea seems to be all the rage these days and is the new 'it' drink. I see it being sold in all the high end super markets now, and 'organic' cafes. Now, one of my closest friends raves about how much she like the tea, but what is it really? My own first personal experience was picking it up at the mushroom shop down at the ferry building. It's marketed as a drink made from mushrooms and my friend comments on how there's 'floaties' in the tea. Clearly some research was needed.

Unlike my friend, I'm not a fan of Kombucha. It has an odd tart taste to it, a strange combination of it tasting somewhat refreshing (I think partly due to the carbonation) but at the same time slightly fermented. People have said that it can taste a bit like apple cider, while others say it's like a light wine. As I had mentioned earlier, it's been marketed as a tea made of mushrooms, but this isn't actually true, it's brewed form a colony of bacteria and yeast. Brewers add sugar to the colony and steep it in black or green tea. The resultant 'tea' now has a combination of vinegar, B vitamins and other chemical compounds.

Because of these elements, some people believe that Kombucha tea is a 'fountain of youth elixir,' and has been used for thousands of years in places such as China. It's believed to have many restorative powers and can help with such things as: lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, losing weight, headaches and insomnia among many other things. However, there have been numerous studies done with conflicting results. Although, some do believe that Kombucha is this magical elixir, others believe that there is no real evidence of these healing qualities. Below are a couple of websites that speak to both sides of the Kombucha argument.

http://www.anahatabalance.com/teakombucha2.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/kombucha-tea/AN01658

http://www.nutrition4health.org/nohanews/NNW97KombuchaTea.htm

You can also brew Kombucha at home yourself. Just be sure to do your homework and read the vast material out there that guides you through the steps. Many of the sites that guide you through the home-brewing process also have your own bacteria colony which you can purchase online. One of the main points they seemed to make, were to be careful of contamination. If there is any hint of that, either through a strange odor or mold growing, be sure to throw the brew out and start over. Whatever you decide to do though, cheers to your health!