N=26. No control group eating, say, lots of low-inulin vegetables. Highlighting studies such as this one is not the right way to popularize science. This study should be of interest to other researchers. Once N is several orders of magnitude higher and lots of comparison groups have been included, then tell a general audience what's going on.
they already state those in the paper: "Our trial had some limitations, including the absence of a control group (each individual being their own control in our study), the limited number of subjects, their young age (leading to extrapolation to the aging population), and the decision to focus on hydrogen-producing individuals as an inclusion criterion. However, we can clearly conclude that, by increasing the consumption of selected vegetables, it is possible to boost the intake of fructans and thereby create a shift in the gut microbiota composition. "
I think spenrose is saying “We shouldn’t be upvoting this” or maybe “I hope newspapers don’t report on this like it’s a clear, solid answer”, not “This paper is flawed in ways that the authors didn’t recognize”.
Personally I’m fine with this being on HN because I think this audience understands issues around low N (and commentators do a good job of pointing them out), but I agree that it would be problematic if this were picked up by the New York Times or something.
"this audience understands ...": 1. I think a quick scan of their responses will refute that, but in any case 2. my point is that there is no value to this study for non-researchers. General sophistication doesn't matter.
One of the easiest ways to add inulin to your diet is to make heavy use of garlic to your regular meals. Garlic contains one of the highest concentrations of inulin of any common vegetable. It also has a flavor that enhances nearly all savory dishes.
Before cooking anything dice up a lot of garlic ahead of time. Then heat up a little bit of oil in the pan, add in the garlic and let it sauté until it just starts to brown. Then add in whatever you were planning on cooking.
Don't be afraid to add more garlic. More garlic almost always equals more flavor. This is a big reason why Italian cuisine is so consistently delicious. It's not unusual for me to use 15-20 cloves of diced garlic when making dinner for two.
> Don't be afraid to add more garlic. More garlic almost always equals more flavor. This is a big reason why Italian cuisine is so consistently delicious. It's not unusual for me to use 15-20 cloves of diced garlic when making dinner for two.
As an Italian with a passion for cooking, I'd like to say that too much of every ingredient is just too much. A plate is a balance of different flavors, and while garlic does enhance the flavour of a dish, I believe that a dish for two with 15-20 cloves of garlic will taste mostly... of garlic! Garlic is not just a neutral enhancer of taste (or otherwise it could be used with everything, while there are some recipes in which garlic is not an ingredient), but it's presence is quite felt.
While garlic does play a big part in Italian cuisine, I think one of the reasons Italian cuisine is so delicious is that, through its simplicity, it manages to balance a few ingredients very well, allowing them all to appear and compensate each other. Adding a ton of garlic upon everything does not play well with this and probably makes every dish taste like garlic.
Korean American here. Garlic is important in many Korean dishes as well, to the point that there are apocryphal stories of soldiers during the Korean War being located by the smell of garlic. (Which I accord as much likelihood as the same happening from the ping of M1 Garand clips. Which is to say, probably a myth.) Korean cuisine has many similarities to Italian cuisine, in that many dishes are a balance of complimentary flavors between relatively few ingredients, with certain ingredients (red chili paste, garlic, scallions, sesame oil) being prevalent in many dishes -- but not all dishes. Korean cuisine is also prone to being presented as a stereotype of its traditional self, due to these factors.
I've noticed a pattern in the United States, where something very strong or particular is deemed good, and people start using it to excess. This has been true of Garlic for several decades now. (I've been guilty of it too.) I think the same phenomenon is behind things like the so-ubiquitous-it's-obligatory highly bitter IPA, and extremely potent hot sauce. It's like people gravitate towards particular highly salient markers, then apply those or buy those to excess. People like something because it produces a good effect when it's well applied in balance, then other people gravitate towards the marker, not the well-balanced effect. The easy recognition of something salient becomes a substitute for taste.
I think there's lessons here for how people evaluate other people, and for how fads in software develop over time as well.
I really like garlic, I'll even chew up a clove raw occasionally. But good god man, 15-20 is wayyy too much, you can't eat that and be allowed in any social scene outside of north jersey.
When I was living in a tent on a beach in Alaska in the 90's (summer) I used to chew cloves of Garlic as an over the counter medicine. I think it worked like this. I would start chewing cloves of garlic, then I would stop. Then I would immediately start feeling better. It would've worked the same way with hitting myself over the head with a hammer, then stopping, but the garlic had fewer potentially severe long term side effects.
I always use 3-4x as much garlic as recipes ask for and add some onion powder. Then I don't need to add any extra salt above the stock cube (4g salt for one evening meal for four people).
That's still quite a lot of salt unless you're eating 1000 Calorie portions.
(Quick rule of thumb - to maintain a 2000mg sodium per day diet when eating 2000 Calories per day, you need to average a 1:1 ratio between mg sodium and Calories.)
First, preparing 20 cloves of garlic every night sounds pretty arduous. Second, I bought garlic once in the French Riviera, and the cloves were huge...
Protip: if you don't peel the garlic cloves, you can just put them straight into the garlic press, squeeze out the good stuff, and then when you open the press and remove the peel, 99% of the debris comes out with it. Then you can just briefly rinse the press under hot water, and it's clean and can go back in the drawer.
I picked this up from some cooking show (maybe Heston Blumenthal?) and after adopting it, adding two cloves of garlic to a dish is now a 45-second operation including cleanup.
These are usually from PRC, so I avoid them and just use fresh local garlic that you lightly crush with the broadside of a knife and the peel just falls off negating the need for prepeeled.
For inulin there's the research site 'American Gut' also geneticist Tim Spector's book about foods rich in inulin like sun chokes, leeks, onions, etc.
Spector and the American reseacher guy have a documentary on YouTube about a Tanzanian hunter gatherer tribe with the world's most diverse gut microbes who basically only eat meat, berries and tube roots they dig up if anybody is interested.
fresh local garlic that you lightly crush with the broadside of a knife and the peel just falls off negating the need for prepeeled.
That's what I do as well but I have never eaten a meal with a double-digit number of cloves of garlic. The most I've ever used in a meal was 6 and that gave me a ton of gas; never again!
Garlic powder is usually very one dimensional compared to fresh garlic. It might not matter much in a braised dish or if you use it to marinade a piece of meat but it would matter if you were to try a potato dish cooked for less than a couple hours.
My instinct tells me that everything that comes prepacked is of lower quality. There are ways to peel off garlic without even touching it, just hit it a couple of times with something and then the peel comes off. Then pass it through a presser if you don't want to slice it and you're done.
It was kind of funny that one of the results was reported as "a trend to increase hedonic attitudes towards some inulin-rich vegetables." Let's look at just a representative handful of the way said vegetables were cooked and presented: mashed Jerusalem artichoke, spinach, pumpkin cream, stuffed artichoke bottoms, tomato coulis, gratin dauphinois, green beans, shallot sauce. I would develop a "hedonic attitude" toward those if I had all the time in the world to cook like that.
> The volunteers showed greater satiety, a reduced desire to eat sweet, salty, and fatty food, and a trend to increase hedonic attitudes towards some inulin-rich vegetables.
This is odd, because whenever I eat garlic or onion I start craving sweets for hours afterwards.
Do you have issues with fructose? Because carving for sweets is a typical symptom and garlic and onion can be problematic if you have a fructose intolerance.
I don't think so, I eat (and like) fruit fine? I'm not sure what the symptoms would be, but I generally like fruit (and they satisfy for my sweet cravings very well).
EDIT: I misread your comment, I thought you meant craving sweets after onion/garlic is a symptom of fructose intolerance.
EDIT 2: I read it again and I'm now not sure if you mean that or not :P
They may be indicating a possible digestive intolerance. Raw onion and garlic is difficult for me to digest (allium intolerance?), cooking helps but still can be difficult in high quantities.
As opposed to episodes of something else?
Was something reported before or after the intervention?
Is that all they were told to report?
Is it good?
What???
My wife recently developed a sensitivity to garlic and onion. Fresh garlic and onion are problematic as she feels very lethargic but dehydrated powders and granules are a no-go if she wants to sleep well at all and not feel like she woke up after a night of very heavy drinking (dehydration and headache).
Interestingly if she has a glass of wine—especially a red—the effects are amplified.
It’s a very strange change and makes eating out quite challenging given how ubiquitous both are in food preparation and seasonings.
"chicory root contains the highest concentration of inulin ... Vegetables such as sugar beets, leeks and asparagus all contain adequate concentrations of inulin. Onions and garlic are also home to a healthy supply of inulin, as are dandelion root, elecampane root and a variety of herbs. Bananas and wheat contain inulin, too."
“ITFs mostly occur in plant roots, such as Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, or salsify, where they act as a storage and stress-preservative polymer”
More details:
“..subjects were instructed to consume a hot meal for lunch and a soup for dinner, prepared with ITF-rich vegetables to ensure an uptake of at least 9 g of fructans per day (mean intake of 15 g/d)“
The entire dietary schedule is at the end of the paper... but:
'ITFs mostly occur in plant roots, such as Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, or salsify'
I also saw garlic, celery, and scallions in there, but artichokes are definitely an odd one (not a root), while the apparently similar asparagus is missing.
They're not closely related to globe artichokes, which is perhaps what you were thinking of. Jerusalem artichokes are a kind of sunflower, and globe artichokes are a kind of thistle.
PS related to "inulin-rich" is "high FODMAP".