Your Gut Talks to Your Brain

I've been reading through some papers on a gut-brain connection that regulates food intake and blood nutrient balance. I've learned some interesting things.

First of all, when fat hits your small intestine (especially long-chain fatty acids), it sends a message to the brainstem via the vagus nerve. This rapidly inhibits eating behavior.

The hypothalamus can also inhibit glucose production by the liver in response to fat in the bloodstream, by sending it signals via the vagus nerve.

A recent paper that got me interested in all this showed that when you put fatty acids on the upper small intestine, it sends a signal to the brain, which then sends a signal to the liver, increasing insulin sensitivity and decreasing glucose production.

The upper small intestine is not just a passive nutrient sponge. It's a very active player in the body's response to food, coordinating changes in food intake and nutrient disposal.

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Dual Puffy Braids

This is your basic puffy braid made cute by coordinating elastics. I just parted her hair down the middle and pulled it back.

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Peach Marshmallow Cake

I have not been baking anything for the past week as I was busy coaching my two kids for their school's mid-year exams. We were so glad when it was finally over! Instead of taking out the oven to bake something, I chose to make a chill cake as I thought it would be good to have something nice and cold as dessert.


The recipe is taken from Baking Mum's Strawberry Marshmallow Cake...I always admire her great cooking and baking skills, and she has shared many wonderful recipes in her blog. I did a peach version as I didn't have any strawberries in the fridge. The base of the cake was a layer of crushed digestive biscuits. The filling was made by melting marshmallows, milk, gelatin and cream, before topping off with fruits and a layer of jelly. Don't you think it is a rather interesting combination? This is in fact my second attempt. The first time round I didn't have a chance to take any photos to blog about it as I brought it to a friend's gathering. The cake was well received by both adults and kids.


I have come across many photos of cakes and tarts decorated beautifully with fruits. Although most cookbooks will show you how to go about making the cakes, so far I have not come across any, that clearly spells out how to go about arranging the fruits on top. So it took me a good few minutes of thinking to figure out how to arrange the peach slices on this cake.

I first tried out the arrangement on a plate, about the size of the finished cake, before attempting to arrange them on the actual cake. By doing so, I found out that in order to have a 'rosette' in the centre, it was easier to first arrange the outer ring of peach slices. This way the peach slices would be able to 'support' the rosette. As for the rosette, I worked from the outer 'petals' inwards...over lapping the slices one after another...and you need to use fairly thin slices, especially for the inner most piece, as you need to be able to bend and curl them a little. (Slice the peaches if the ready sliced ones are too thick.)


According to the recipe, this chill cake seems pretty easy to make. However, I thought it can get rather tricky when it comes to finding the right time to arrange the fruits and pouring in the jelly layer. If the fillings was chilled for too long, the jelly layer may not adhere to the filling...so, once you slice the cake, the jelly layer may separate from the fillings. The jelly has to be cool off completely before pouring it over the filling, otherwise there would be bits of fillings melted away and the jelly layer would not be 'crystal clear'! I also discovered, to my surprise, that melting the marshmallow was not that easy either! They didn't melt that quickly as I would expect. I had to keep stirring the mixture to prevent it from getting burnt at the bottom. I would suggest using a big enough saucepan to boil the ingredients for the fillings...the first time I made this, I used a small saucepan and had to change to a bigger pot halfway! I hope this will be helpful for those who are keen to give this cake a try.

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Diabetes and Your Small Intestine

In the last post, I introduced you to the remarkable antidiabetic effect of gastric bypass surgery. It rapidly reverses diabetes in 83% of patients, and it seems to be due to bypassing the upper small intestine specifically, rather than caloric restriction. This points to a special role of the upper small intestine in regulating food metabolism. I told you I was going to look into the mechanism of why this effect happens, and here's the short answer:

It's complicated and no one understands it completely.

Now for the long answer. Nutrient homeostasis is very important and we have sophisticated ways of coordinating it among different tissues. Part of the small intestine's job is telling the body that nutrients are on their way into the bloodstream. Two ways it conveys this signal are by secreting hormones into the bloodstream, and by sending signals to the brain and liver via parasympathetic nerves.

The small intestine secretes dozens of hormones, one category of which is called the incretins. Incretins by definition increase the secretion of insulin by the pancreas, among other things. They were discovered when researchers realized that oral glucose elicits more of an insulin response than intravenous glucose. The reason is that cells in the upper small intestine secrete incretins when they detect glucose.

There are two known major incretin hormones that are secreted by the small intestine, GIP and GLP-1. There was a recent study by the lab of Blanca Olivan which looked into the levels of incretins in patients who had undergone Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, a common type in which 95% of the stomach and part of the upper small intestine is bypassed.

Their results are very interesting! Compared to controls losing an equivalent amount of weight on a low-calorie diet, the bypass patients saw a HUGE increase in their oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) GLP-1 secretion (9.8 vs 112.5 pmol/L), a large increase in GIP secretion, and a corresponding increase in insulin secretion (575 vs 769 pmol/L). Two-hour OGTT blood glucose levels went from borderline diabetic to "normal", by American Diabetes Association standards. Fasting glucose and insulin dropped substantially. The bypass group gained considerable glucose control, better than the matched controls on a low-calorie diet.

It looks like part of the mechanism involves whipping the pancreas to produce more insulin in response to glucose. It also affected fasting insulin, although that could simply be due to calorie restriction because it went down in both groups. Interestingly, non-diabetic patients who get a Roux-en-Y bypass often get reactive hypoglycemia, where their pancreas overproduces insulin after a meal and they get dangerously low blood sugar. Dr Mary-Elizabeth Patti calls it "diabetes reversal in people who don't have diabetes". So the effect doesn't seem to be specific to people with diabetes.

There is some suggestion that the effect on incretins is due to bypassing the duodenum, which is part of the upper small intestine. Here's how the (very sophisticated) reasoning goes: when the duodenum doesn't get glucose dumped on it, that somehow increases release of incretins by the small intestine further along the line.

There's actually an antidiabetic drug that mimics GLP-1; it's called Byetta. There's another that inhibits the breakdown of GLP-1 called Januvia. A second effect of GLP-1 is to delay stomach emptying, which both drugs do. They have been effective for some diabetics.

Well this turned into a long post, so I'll follow up on the parasympathetic (nerve) signaling of the small intestine next time.

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MATCHA CUPCAKE SURPRISES FOR MOTHER'S DAY & CUP-A-CAKE HOLDERS

organic matcha cupcakes for mother's day: these have hunks of cream cheese filling and are topped with matcha buttercream and buttercream or icing flowers

It's high time I made some cupcakes. I've been experimenting with recipes and today I decided to make some floral cupcakes (using my tried and true Wilton techniques). Instead of relying on fakey food colouring for dying my cupcake batter, I used high grade organic matcha. Oops, that's only because it was the only kind I had at home; I don't bother drinking the icky cheap stuff because it's too bitter--kind of pricey and a bit of a waste for baking...but hey, it's mother's day.

daisy: not my favourite looking flower. i think the petals suck. next time, i'll use a 140 tip

a wilton flower (okay, a reasonable facsimile of one because I fudged the number of petals)

a pink wild rose. not as pretty as the wilton rose

The colour of my organic matcha is way more vibrant and bright green than the cheap matcha. The surprise I hid in each cupcake is a chunk of cream cheese. I was trying to figure out how to maximize the filling in my cupcakes with the piping bag--a real pain in the you-know-what--but decided to throw in a cold cube of cream cheese instead. It was way easier than trying to pipe stuff in after baking. Besides, having tried the matcha cream cheese combination before in a brownie recipe, I was smitten.

gerbera: use a Wilton#104 piping tip with the wide side of the tip facing away from you, pipe the petals drawing the tip towards the centre.
a royal icing lily: no, the stamens are not edible
buttercream violet drop flowersHere's my original recipe for these matcha cupcakes. Decorate with a matcha buttercream base for a grassy look and top with piped buttercream flowers.

The cupcakes stay moist because of the veggie oil. You can freeze these cupcakes (frosted) up to a month.

MATCHA CUPCAKE SURPRISES (makes 12 cupcakes)

1 cup & 2 T sifted cake flour

1/2 plus 2T sugar

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 T organic matcha
4 T cold cream cheese, cubed

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line 12 muffin pans with paper cups
• In your mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and matcha until thoroughly combined
• Whisk together the oil and milk and add to the dry ingredients. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed
• Add the egg, vanilla and almond extract and beat again for 2 minutes on medium speed
• Divide the cold cubed cream cheese evenly between the 12 lined muffin pans. Pour the batter over the cubed cream cheese, filling at least halfway.
• Bake for approx. 20 minutes, until the cakes test done
• Remove the cupcakes from the pan and allow to cool on a rack.
• Decorate with Matcha Buttercream

the matcha crumb is tender and the cube of cream cheese a pleasant surprise

MATCHA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

6 oz (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups confectioners' sugar

2 T milk

a few drops almond extract

1/2 t organic matcha, or to taste.

nb: You can divide your buttercream, setting aside some for the matcha flavouring and colour the rest of the buttercream for flowers.

• Place the softened butter in a large mixing bowl
• gradually add the confectioners' sugar a little at a time to the butter, beating continuously. continue until all the sugar is blended in
• Beat with the mixer until the icing is pale and fluffy
• Beat in the milk until well combined
• At this point, you can divide your buttercream for your green matcha base and buttercream flowers. Leave what you need for the green coloured buttercream in the mixing bowl. Add the matcha and beat until well combined.
• Use gel food colouring to colour the rest of the buttercream for the flowers.
• Decorate with drop flowers, polka dots, vines, daisies, etc.

ANY LEFTOVERS?

a cupcake in my favourite cupcake holder

there's no danger of smushed cupcakes while you're travelling

Bring cupcakes to work in these nifty Cup-A-Cake holders. Make sure you fit the cupcake against the plastic prongs instead of simply plopping the cupcake on the base of the holder. I made that mistake initially and squished the top of the cupcake. The cupcake is supposed to "float" in mid-air, held by the prongs. I used large cupcake liners and there was plenty of room between the cupcake and the base.
I purchased these at Williams Sonoma in Vancouver.

Williams-Sonoma

2903 Granville Street

Vancouver, BC(778) 330-2581

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Smocking

Smocking is one of those things that can vary from day-to-day and person-to-person.

This was a fun one. I had originally started out with a triangle in the front of her head. It was a one-ponytail kind of day. She said I wasn't done, so I went to town.

I parted straight over from the back of the triangle on either side and pulled them into elastics.

Then I separated each of the three ponytails in half.

I pulled the inside part of the left ponytail to the left side of the center ponytail.

Then I did the same to the right side.

I left the outmost halves of the ponytails out and curled them slightly at the ends.

I curled the other two ponytails.

And then curled the ends of the hair under.

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The Miracle Diabetes Cure You Don't Know About

What would you say if I told you there's a cure for type II diabetes that's effective in 83% of people, extremely rapid, and requires no lifestyle changes? Would you think I was crazy? Well maybe I am, but the cure exists nevertheless.

All it requires is a little intestinal mutilation. It's called gastric bypass surgery. It's an anti-obesity surgery where the digestive tract is re-routed, bypassing 95% of the stomach as well as the duodenum and jejunum, which are parts of the upper small intestine.

The effect was first reported in 1995 by Dr. Walter Pories. Initially, researchers thought the cure was simply from caloric restriction due to a smaller stomach volume, but since then the story has become much more interesting. The key finding was published in 2004 by Dr. Francesco Rubino, who showed that bypassing the duodenum and jejunum but not the stomach of type II diabetic rats was enough to cure their diabetes. The effect wasn't due to caloric restriction, since both groups ate the same amount of food.

What this suggests is that there's some kind of feedback coming from the upper small intestine that affects glucose control and insulin sensitivity. What could be causing it? It just so happens there are some pretty good candidates: hormones called GLP-1 and ghrelin.

I'm going to dive into this and see if I can figure out what's going on.

Sorry for the cheesy post title, I'm practicing for my best-seller. Maybe I should add the word "secret"? How about this: "101 Secret Diabetes Cures THEY Don't Want You to Know About".

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