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Harnessing potassium is key for staying strong
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Lima beans are a great source for potassium. - photo by Photo provided.

Science long has known that potassium is needed for muscle control.
In recent studies done at Tufts University’s Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center, researchers found that including potassium-rich fruits and vegetables in our diets has beneficial effects on muscle. More specifically, older adults need potassium-rich fruits and vegetables that produce an alkaline rather than an acidic residue. Many of the foods we eat produce acidic residues in our bodies. With aging, many Americans slowly build up these small acid residues, resulting in mild acidosis. This condition seems to “trigger a muscle-wasting response,” according to the researchers.
But the process, they say, might be counteracted by eating alkaline-producing plant foods high in potassium. Their research showed that subjects “whose diets were rich in potassium averaged 3.6 more pounds of lean tissue mass (or muscle) than those with only half the potassium intake. That almost offsets the 4.4 pounds of lean tissue typically lost in a decade in healthy men and women age 65 and above.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that older adults get at least 4,700 milligrams of potassium daily.
Try this recipe to add a healthy and tasty punch of potassium to your diet.  

Creole lima beans with sausage
Feel free to try other types of link sausage in this recipe, including chicken, Italian or beef, or leave out the meat for a vegetarian side dish.   
1 (16-ounce) package Andouille sausage, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can (14.5 ounces) stewed tomatoes, with juice, crushed
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 rib celery, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar or honey
1 (16-ounce) package frozen baby lima beans
1/2 cup water or chicken broth
Using a large skillet over medium heat, add olive oil. Saute onion for two to three minutes to soften. Add in the tomatoes and any juices. Use a potato masher or fork to break the tomatoes into large pieces. Add in the sausage, garlic, celery, salt, black pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper and brown sugar or honey. Cook, stirring occasionally, for four to five minutes.  Add lima beans and water or broth to skillet. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for eight to 10 minutes, until beans are tender. Serves six.  
(Additional information provided by Janet Hackert, nutrition and health education specialist in Harrison County, University of Missouri Extension.)  

Medearis is an author of seven cookbooks. Her website is www.divapro.com.
Recipes may not be reprinted without permission from Angela Shelf Medearis.

To see how-to videos, recipes and much, much more, Like Angela Shelf Medearis, The Kitchen Diva!, on Facebook and go to Hulu.com.

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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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