Elena Shekhova

@lumipie

Exploring & visualizing data on nutrition, health, and sustainability: lumipie.com Interests: biology, charts, science communication, coding, fungi, permaculture, foraging Previously: University of Copenhagen, MRC for Medical Mycology, Leibniz:HKI 📍🇩🇰

1.580 Folgt3.024 Follower406 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir lumipie.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jun 15

From a summer forest in Denmark: 🍄 Big boy (a family of dryad's saddle mushrooms) 🍄 Odd-looking boy (possibly a young stinkhorn) #FungiFriends #mycology #MushroomMonday

Dryad's Saddle (Cerioporus squamosus). Several clusters of large, scaly bracket mushrooms found on dead hardwood trees

Person in a forest taking a photo of large shelf mushrooms growing on a fallen tree trunk.

A close-up image of a capped mushroom with a dark reddish stem growing from a decaying tree stump in a green forest.

Another angle of of a capped mushroom with a dark reddish stem growing from a decaying tree stump in a green forest.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· May 8

Yes, likely a cup fungus. Found a similar one in my garden 😊

Raised garden bed mulched with seaweed, under which a cup fungus started growing

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Mar 15

🧪🍎📃 Nice article discussing ways to visualize both health and environmental impacts of various food groups. The authors propose a matrix chart showing health effects and carbon footprints for 30 food. The dataset is freely available in Supplementary Materials. www.frontiersin.org/journals/nut...

Figure 1 from doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2025.1572297: A matrix visualization displaying health effects and carbon footprints for 30 food groups. Groups are arranged in the matrix from top (favorable) to bottom (unfavorable) and from left (low carbon) to right (high carbon). Beef is split vertically in the bottom-right to show its exceptionally high carbon footprint. Cell colors utilize a traffic light scheme to correspond to intensity of environmental and health impacts.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Feb 19

This is so true and important to remember. I found a relevant table about this in the Old Farmer’s Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook:

A table from the Old Farmer’s Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook showing which plant are compatible with each other and which are not

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Feb 19

My late submission to #TidyTuesday, week 5. I couldn’t resist making this 📊, as I’m planning my first garden this year. And since I’m ambitious (or delusional?), my plan is to grow more than 20 plants! I summarized the requirements for some of them. #vegetablegarden #greenheart #gardening

Chart titled “What do my garden plants need?”. A dot-matrix comparison of growing requirements for 20 edible plants, ordered vertically from high to low overall needs. Plants listed: aubergine, Chinese cabbage, cucumber, regular tomato, runner beans, bell pepper, basil, soybean, headed lettuce, borlotti beans, beetroot, dill, cress, onion, radish, rocket, thyme, rosemary, chives, and mint.

Each row shows four colored dot groups representing requirements for sun (yellow), water (gray/blue), nutrients (green), and temperature sensitivity (red). More dots indicate higher needs.

Aubergine appears among the most demanding, with many dots across categories. Mint appears among the least demanding.

Annotations note: “Aubergine = DIVA – Prefers full sun; requires high water and nutrients. Temperature class: tender.” and “Mint = (should be) EASY – Prefers full sun, but requires low water and nutrients. Temperature class: very hardy.”

Data source: The Edible Plant Database, GROW Observatory, a European Citizen Science project. Chart was designed and created by Elena Shekhova. The tool for data analysis is R. The tool for data viz is React.js.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jan 29

🧪🍎📃 Nutrition discourse often focuses on protein. Fiber is important too, but rarely talked about. Here is an “oldish” paper showing a dose-dependent association between fiber intake (from cereals, fruits, and vegetables) and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. 🔗 www.bmj.com/content/347/...

Risk of cardiovascular disease across increasing levels of total fibre intake. RR=risk ratio

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Dec 30

Are they hard to grow? Pollinators are very important. I am designing my first vegetable garden now, ahead of spring, and planning what I want to plant. It seems there are some sweet, low-alkaloid varieties of lupines. From the article:

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Dec 30

🧪🍎📃 I stumbled across this article about alternative protein sources. Many of them I had never heard of before. It mentioned: -winged beans -grasspea -lupins -Bambara groundnut Also, duckweed species can have protein contents of up to 43% (dry matter) and provide all essential amino acids.

From paper "Alternative Protein Sources and Novel Foods: Benefits, Food Applications and Safety Issues": Figure 1. Underutilized legumes: (a) Winged beans (b) Grasspea (c) Lupins (d) Bambara groundnut.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Dec 26

🍄📸🧪 I was cloning a wood ear mushroom that I foraged recently. One of my plates was contaminated, so I let it grow. Then I thought I should definitely photograph it against a lamp and share it here. Perfect for @contamclub.bsky.social The red/pink pigment is likely produced by Fusarium mold.

Agar plate with wood ear mushroom tissues. The red/pink pigment diffusing into the agar is likely metabolites produced by Fusarium mold. Bacterial growth is also visible. Petri dish is photographed against a lamp.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Dec 7

🧪🍎📃 In this US study, people with a college degree were more likely to consider or choose plant-based burgers than those without a degree. But when the prices of plant-based options were lowered, consumers without a college degree became more inclined to buy them. www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Figure 2:
Price Effect Simulations for Meat and PBMA Burgers (Study 2). Note: Consideration and choice probabilities are shown for the meat burger and PBMAs (aggregated) given a PBMA price range between $12.50 and $5, along with 95% credible intervals. Across PBMA price scenarios, the price of the meat burger was kept constant at $10. A PBMA price of $10 thus corresponds to price parity. The gray dashed lines display the population mean (representative of the United States). Education = high: college degree or higher; No Prior PBMAs = yes: self-report to never eat PBMAs.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Dec 1

🧪🍎📃 Very cool new study & great datasets. The authors compared the nutritional composition and density of plant-based meat alternatives vs. meat. They write: plant-based meat is equally nutrient-dense as animal meat and legumes. Heatmap with more details ⤵️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Figure 1 from the publication: Heatmap showing the weighted average nutrient levels per protein source (plant-based meat or animal meat) against the nutrition claim criteria to assess the contribution of the different products to the daily requirement. Data on levels of micronutrients from fortification were excluded. The different shades of green represent to what extend the nutrient levels meet nutrient claim criteria (appendix 2). For the minerals and vitamins these are related to a percentage of the NRV (for iron, zinc and vitamin D the lowest NRV was chosen). Grey colors represent the nutrient levels which do not meet any claim/limit criteria or are lower than one-third of the claim criteria. Shades of blue are given to nutrients to limit and represent whether the level is low or too high and exceeds the criteria for nutrients to limit or the level is somewhere in between those two values (appendix 2).

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Oct 25

While non-animal foods can deliver some B12, they are still not considered reliable sources. That is why industry relies on bacterial fermentation to produce B12 at scale. The vitamin is then purified and used for food fortification. Milk alternatives often have B12 added to them 🥛

Nutritional content of alternative milk called DO NOT CALL ME M_LK, per 100 g

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Oct 25

This distinction is very important, because what researchers have found makes perfect sense: 🟢Chlorella commercial products contained active B12 🟢Spirulina supplements were dominated by pseudo-vitamin B12 analogues. Spirulina’s B12 works perfectly well for Spirulina, just not for us.

Figure from doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2022.104464: Fig. 1. UHPLC-PDA chromatograms of three selected algae-derived nutritional supplements showing different ratios of cobalamin to pseudo-cobalamin in Chlorella No 41 (a), Spirulina No 54 (b), and Chlorella No 18 (c). It shows how scientists distinguish between pseudo and real B12 (cobalamin).

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Oct 25

There is another non-animal B12 source: algae. Certain edible macroalgae, such as dried purple laver (nori), can contain substantial amounts of bioactive B12.

Figure from PMID: 24803097:Various types of dried green and purple lavers are Vitamin B12 sources: (1) a Japanese green laver, (Suji-aonori, Entromopha prolifera); (2) ordinary purple lavers (Porphyra sp.; nori, which has been formed into a sheet and dried); (3) Taiwan purple laver (Hong-mao-tai, Bangia atropurpurea); and (4) New Zealand purple laver (Karengo, a mixture of Porphyra cinnamomea and Porphyra virididentata).

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Oct 15

🍄📸 Having a fun(gi) time here in Denmark! 🍄📸 Spotted some interesting fellas in a local forest 😍 #mycology #mushrooms #fungifriends #nature

A cluster of small mushrooms growing on decaying wood in a damp forest, featuring one delicate grayish mushroom with a finely pleated cap standing out in the foreground among paler, dome-shaped fungi. Likely trooping crumble cap

Small, bright orange-red mushrooms growing amongst dense green grass and moss. Likely Hygrocybe or "waxcap" species

Several pinkish-brown, ear-shaped fungi growing along a fallen tree trunk. Wood ear fungus

Small, blue-green mushrooms with glossy, rounded caps growing among damp grass, twigs, and fallen leaves on the forest floor. Possibly Verdigris Agaric

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 30

🧪🍎📃 It only took me 500 years to finish this 📊, but here it is 🎉 Grocery shops in many wealthy countries are oversupplied with animal-based foods. They stock far more meat and dairy than we need for human and planetary health. 🔗 www.lumipie.com/data-vis/pla...

Data visualization comparing national food supplies in high-income countries (based on GDP per capita) with planetary health intake targets. Radial charts for 12 countries (including Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg, United States, Australia, Norway, Qatar, Kuwait, Emirates, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia) show that supplies of animal-based foods, especially meat and dairy, consistently exceed recommended levels of intake. Bars below each chart compare grams of plant-based, animal-based, and fats & oils in total daily supply per person. Data is from FAOSTAT (2022)

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 29

🧪🍎📃 In South Africa, when people move to cities, their diets become similar to a “Western” one, with more energy-dense foods, animal protein, and fat. This shift changes the diversity of gut microbes, increasing bacteria previously linked to higher colorectal cancer risk. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Figure 1a from the study (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46265-0): Analysis of fecal microbiota by 16 S rRNA gene sequencing from healthy rural and urban Xhosa individuals showing A bacterial community richness or Shannon Effective as indices for α-diversity,

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 20

🧪🍎📃 Important new study: Animal products, especially beef, pose much higher extinction risks for wildlife than grains, legumes, or vegetables. This means shifting land use toward more plant-based diets can give greater opportunities to restore biodiversity and help save species from extinction.

Figure 4 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01224-w: The extinction impacts of average daily per capita food consumption in the United States for consumption in 2021, the EAT–Lancet planetary health diet and hypothetical vegetarian and vegan diets. Baseline intake values are taken from FAO data27. The intake of spices, coffee, cocoa, tea and maté remains constant across diets. The EAT–Lancet diet is the ‘Planetary Health Diet’, designed to be consistent with health requirements and planetary boundaries51. The vegetarian and vegan diets are based on ‘Eatwell’ plates, with constituent commodities consumed in the same ratios that they currently are within each group53,54,55,56. Each reference diet is scaled to have the same number of calories as the baseline, which in theory accounts for food waste and overconsumption, probably overestimating their impacts.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 18

This has something to do with blood metabolites. The diet may promote more metabolites with protective effect on brain health ⤵️

Fig 5:a Schematic of the two-sample MR and colocalization analyses. Genetic instruments were selected for 657 metabolites and 133 metabolite ratios from a published GWAS. Summary statistics for overall dementia, AD, vascular dementia and cognitive performance were also obtained from published GWASs (Methods). Two-sample MR was performed to identify putative causal relationships between metabolites or ratios and cognitive outcomes, followed by colocalization analysis for the causal associations with an FDR < 0.05. b, Identification of numerous putative causal interrelationships of various metabolites, metabolite ratios and cognitive outcome using genetic instruments. The chord diagram displays causal relationships with an FDR < 0.05 from MR analyses using Wald ratio, inverse variance-weighted or MR Egger methods, where each arc represents an identified link between a metabolite or ratio and a cognitive outcome. Arcs and nodes are color coded by the HMDB superclasses. c, Colocalization analyses strengthening evidence of causality, suggesting that the identified putative causal relationships between metabolites or ratios and cognitive outcomes have potential shared causal variants and biology. Putative causal relationships, represented by the odds ratios (ORs) or β coefficients with 95% CIs, are shown for associations with FDR < 0.05 and colocalization signals. Bayesian colocalization analysis was performed within the ±500-kb region around a genetic instrument (Methods). If multiple instruments were used, a causal association was reported if the metabolite or ratio and cognitive outcomes colocalized at least one genetic locus. Colocalization signals were reported for a locus if the conditional probability of colocalization, PP.H4/(PP.H3 + PP.H4), was >70%, where PP.H3 is posterior probability that the two traits have independent causal variants and PP.H4 is the posterior probability that the two traits share a single causal variant.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 18

🧪🍎📃 Even with a genetic predisposition, not everyone will develop dementia. Various factors play a role. This study suggests that people who are APOE4 homozygotes, the group at highest genetic risk, may benefit the most from following a Mediterranean diet. doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03891-5

Figure 3b from the publication "Interplay of genetic predisposition, plasma metabolome and Mediterranean diet in dementia risk and cognitive function": The protective association between adherence to the MedDiet and risk of dementia most pronounced among APOE4 homozygotes. Stratified HR and 95% CIs for dementia risk per a 1-unit increment in the MedDiet index score, categorized by the APOE4 genotype, were estimated from Cox PH models, with stratified P values annotated (unadjusted for multiple comparisons in the hypothesis-driven analysis). The analyses were conducted among NHS participants with genetic, dietary and dementia outcome data (n = 16,497).

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 5

Agree, combining different cancers into one outcome is problematic. And lumping different food groups together isn’t ideal either. Classic example: UPFs and multimorbidity -- the overall risk was mainly driven by a few UPF types, while others showed no association.

Forest plot entitled "Associations between subgroups of ultra-processed food consumption and risk of cancer-cardiometabolic multimorbidity." From DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100771

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Sep 2

New #dataviz art in my home office! Furry colleagues seem pleased. Or maybe not? 😀 #map #DogsOfBluesky #corgi #art

Canvas poster titled Dogs of All Nations Map

Two dogs resting together on a mat: a tricolored Cardigan Welsh Corgi and a black mixed-breed, likely a Border Collie–Labrador mix.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Aug 10

🧪🍎📃 Plant vs. animal protein for muscle health: ✔️ Slightly lower muscle mass with non-soy plant protein compared to milk protein, but not with soy ✔️ No difference in muscular strength or physical performance No wonder there are elite athletes who are vegan. 🔗doi: 10.1093/nutrit/nuae200

Meta-analysis of Change in Absolute Muscle Mass in Response to Plant vs Animal Protein Intervention, Overall and in Younger (<60 y) and Older (≥60 y) Adults. Forest plot from the publication "Effect of Plant Versus Animal Protein on Muscle Mass, Strength, Physical Performance, and Sarcopenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials"

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Aug 6

🧪🍎📃 Short-chain fatty acids are not the only metabolites produced by gut microbes fermenting dietary fiber. Other bioactive molecules such as amino acids and B vitamins can be produced too. Understanding their effects may help explain why people respond differently to fiber. PMID: 38991905

Key figure. Overview of non-short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) microbial metabolites altered upon dietary fiber supplementation. As a result of dietary fiber supplementation, microbially produced metabolites such as neurotransmitters , secondary bile acids (2°BAs) , aromatic amino acids , and B vitamins may be altered, with diverse impacts on host health. The panels depict simplified representations of their interactions with various host cells in the colon, liver, and central nervous system.

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Aug 4

Source table:

Table 1 from the publication with a title Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. It describes a healthy reference diet with possible ranges for an intake of 2500 kcal/day https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30660336/

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Aug 4

🧪🍎📃 My recent work: I transformed a table from a publication into an interactive chart on the web. This 📊 illustrates the Planetary Health Diet designed by the EAT-Lancet Commission (PMID: 30660336). 🔗chart: lumipie.com/data-vis/pla...

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jul 30

🧪🍎📃 Would making healthy foods a bit cheaper and placing them in better spots in supermarkets help people buy fewer ultra-processed foods? This study showed that it didn’t. Perhaps limiting the promotion of ultra-processed foods is a better strategy? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107599

Title page of the publication "The effects of nudging and pricing strategies on the availability and purchases of ultra-processed foods: A secondary analysis of the Supreme Nudge trial"

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jul 27

🧪🍎📃 From a recent meta-analysis: Plant-based diets do not compromise muscular strength. So no disadvantage vs omnivores. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-025-00852-7 Based on 7 randomized controlled trials:

The figure from the publication entitled "Are Plant-Based Diets Detrimental to Muscular Strength? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials". Random effects model meta-analysis for changes in muscular strength comparing plant-based diet interventions and omnivorous diets. g, Hedges’g; CI, confidence interval; I2, inconsistency index

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jul 12

🧪🍎📃 I’ve been learning React.js lately and made this 📊. It shows the protein & fiber content of processed foods commonly found in grocery stores. These nutrients are great for promoting satiety and may help reduce the risk of overeating (PMID: 35592279). Chart 🔗: www.lumipie.com/data-vis/fib...

Scatter plot titled "Fiber and Protein Content in Processed Foods, per 100 calories (100 grams)." The x-axis shows fiber content in grams per 100 calories (with an option to switch to per 100 grams), ranging from 0 to 25. Two toggle buttons at the top allow switching between viewing fiber and protein content. The current view is set to "Fiber." Each dot represents a processed food item, with dot size indicating sugar content and color intensity representing salt content (ranging from 0 to 19 grams). Most foods cluster near 0–5 grams of fiber, with a few outliers like canned asparagus, artichoke hearts, and bamboo shoots reaching 15–20+ grams. Labeled foods include scone, muffin, pizza, tomato puree, and yeast spread. Users are instructed to hover over dots for more info (desktop only). The table and a search function is added too and recommended for exploration on mobile (not shown on the current screen shot).

Scatter plot titled "Fiber and Protein Content in Processed Foods, per 100 calories (100 grams)." The x-axis shows protein content in grams per 100 calories (with an option to switch to per 100 grams), ranging from 0 to 25. The view is set to "Protein" (highlighted in yellow). Each dot represents a processed food item, with dot size indicating sugar content and color intensity representing salt content (0–19 grams). Most foods cluster below 5 grams of protein per 100 calories, with notable outliers like tofu, canned tuna, and canned asparagus containing 10–20+ grams of protein. Foods like carrot cake, juice apple, and coconut cream appear low in protein. Users are prompted to hover over dots for more info (desktop only). The table and a search function is added too and recommended for exploration on mobile (not shown on the current screen shot).

Elena Shekhova@lumipie· Jun 16

Then, according to this doctor's logic, why do whales have menopause? 🧪