Nurture Your Own

Chocolate could have an influence on women herpes symptoms. Several articles published recently claim that chocolate is a health food superior even to green tea. A study in 2003 suggested that eating chocolate regularly could prolong your life span, and other studies suggest that it protects blood vessels.

Chocolate may be an antioxidant and contain lots of polyphenols, but for people with herpes, chocolate is often a trigger. For more information, click this article entitled Herpes, Women and Chocolate.

Jeffrey Blumberg, a director of the antioxidants research laboratory at Tufts University, told “MindYourBody” in March 2008 that:

You may be doing ok if you have adequate nutrient intake. But recent research has shown that if you take in more nutrients, above the level of your RDA, it could have positive effects on your physical fitness, bone density and cognitive function, which are all affected by nutrition.

As we grow older, our nutrient requirements will increase. Since old folks are susceptible to chronic diseases, they need to heighten the amount of nutrient even more.

The elderly are also the age group that take the most medication frequently, and on a ling term basis. Many of these drugs interfere with the adsorption, utilization or distribution of nutrients.

Almost nobody fulfills all the nutrient requirements and since it is difficult to change a person’s eating habit, one way to boost nutrients intake would be to take dietary supplement.

… taking a supplement every day is simple, and can help people to meet their minimum requirement.

What about vitamin overdose? The good doctor said:

While it is possible to overdose on a vitamin, it is hard to do so. There is something called the tolerable upper level (TUL), or the highest amount that scientific studies show that you can consume without harm. For vitamin B12, no one has found a TUL yet. For others, it is mostly 20,30 times above the RDA”.

Source: MindYourBody by Singapore Press Holding, 16 April 2008

The following is an extract from an interview conducted by MSN’s Ashley Ball with Michael Pollan to find out how we can translate his seemingly esoteric idea of eating well to our busy, budget-driven realities. Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”. The full interview entitled “Real Food”, can be read here.

I extracted one particular question and answer to publish here because it is important to all of us - no matter where’s our consciousness level on healthy eating.

Ashley Ball: Real food takes more time to prepare than packaged, and lots of people say they don’t have enough time to cook. What’s your response to that?

Michael Pollan: I think it’s very hard to eat well without cooking, and that that is something we need to face up to as a culture. If you’re concerned about your health, probably the single best thing you can do is start cooking … you’ll be salting your food yourself, you’ll be deciding how sweet it is … you’re not going to put high-fructose corn syrup in it—nobody does that at home—and you’ll be starting with real ingredients. A lot of us don’t think we have time to cook, but before you say that to yourself, I think you really have to say, “Well, OK, I do have two hours a day for the Internet. I do have four hours a day for television”—these are typical American numbers—“and I don’t have time for 20 minutes to actually put a meal on the table for my family?” It’s not that hard. It’s really not that hard. I think we’ve mystified cooking. I think we watch these shows, you know, these heroic, athletic cooking shows on television, and it makes it look really daunting. But you can put a really good meal on the table in 20 minutes. It doesn’t take that much work, and there are few things as satisfying. Even if we would just take some of the time we spend looking at cooking shows and use that time to actually cook, we would be a lot better off.

The full interview might be a bit long for those of us who like quick reading but it’s worth your time, and health.

Technorati Tags: Real Food interview by Ashley Ball with Michael Pollen

I read about this in “MindYourBody” tabloid on my way to work. The short article is said to be reproduced from The Los Angeles Times.

According to the British researcher a Leatherhead Food International, a food and beverage research and consulting company, rinsing or soaking raw french fries in water before frying may reduce levels of acrylamide, a cancer-causing chemical.

Acrylamide is created in small amount during the production of french fries and potato chips. Acrylamide is linked to cancer in rodents which leads researchers to believe that it many be carcinogenic to human beings too.

The Brit researchers found that soaking for 2 hours helped in the reduction of acrylamide by 48%. Simply washing or soaking them for 30 minutes, will see to a 23% and 38% reduction respectively.

The question that came to my head was: WHY? (more…)

I learned from Vivienne that her friend in Malaysia is drinking distilled water, and I immediately went on the computer to write this post. I cannot procrastinate anymore on sharing this information which has affected my health and well being.

Did you know that distilled water can endanger your health?

I did not know that until I became a VICTIM.

I changed my water dispenser from mineral water to distilled water in my office a few years ago. Months later, I could not walk. The pain was so severe I was limping to work everyday. Then fortunately, I lost my job and stopped drinking the water. The pain went away but I did not get the connection until I was introduced to a water system that has changed my life around.

I learned that distilled water is free of dissolved minerals and because of this, it has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. This is good only for a short period of time but over time it can become potentially dangerous.

Distilled Water causes infection, inflammation and CANCER.

When distilled water comes into contact with air, it absorbs (more…)

I got the following from an email sent by a friend. You might have too as this email was supposedly to have been in circulation since 1999.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW… The difference between margarine and butter?

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of! Butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Butter…

• Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
• Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added!
• Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
• Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

Margarine…

• Very high in Trans fatty acids.
• Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
• Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
• Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold.
• Lowers quality of breast milk.
• Decreases immune response.
• Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact …

THIS IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING! (more…)

I was reading newspaper over breakfast this morning and decided not to reach out for the salt shaker for my sunny-side up egg.

According to Dr Myron Weinberger, a professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, “Most people think that sodium comes from the salt shaker. The salt shaker contributes less than 10 to 15 per cent”.

So where did we built up all that high sodium in our system? How did some of our eating habits contribute to weight problems?

We are fighting for time so meal-on-the-go is fast getting to be the way of life for many working folks. In general, process food and those heat-up-and-ready-to-eat food contained high sodium to promote a longer shelf life and excite your taste buds.

When we load up on too many salty meals and snacks, the sodium in such processed food made us thirsty. Instead of reaching out for a glass of water, we further load ourselves with empty calories by consuming sodas, colas, coffees, teas etc. These drinks and beverages are heavy with sugar. So one fastest way to cut back calories is to cut back on salt.

Reducing salt in manufactured food can be done but it is an initiative that must be taken by the food industry. Unless there is serious health complication, no government authorities will intervene and insist on low salt. According to a study based on the 1997 diet data from Great Britain’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey, researchers suggested that cutting in half the amount of salt British children consume - a decrease of about half a teaspoon a day - would lead to an average reduction of about 510g of sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week.

Salt leads to thirst, thirst leads to soft drinks and soft drinks lead to fat abs, poor health and a big hole in our pockets. Don’t believe? Just ask those folks above 40 years old if they have started to spend more on medical, gym, slimming and insurance either for themselves or their parents.

Technorati Tags: salt, sodium, obesity

Well, I learned something new. There’s a connection between chewing and eczema! If an eczema sufferer like me who read extensively on the subject is still ignorance on this, there must be thousands out there who are ignorant. So now, I’m sharing what I’ve read.

Is it possible that you have eczema because of poor or insufficient nutrient in your system? Definitely. What we eat, drink and breath will affect our health so there is always such a possibility. However, whether you are eating right or wrong is not the only concern. The other question you need to ask is whether you are chewing your food sufficiently. According to nutritionists, you got to chew your food properly before you swallow. So if you are one of those stressed ones who chomped the food on the go, chances are you don’t chew long enough and thereby losing vital nutrients is very high.

The digestion of all food (especially carbohydrates) starts from our mouth. That’s because of an enzyme called ptyalin found in our saliva. Ptyalin starts the complex process of digestion. When you chew your foods properly, the ptyalin has more opportunities to break down any tough outer layers of your food. Only when that is broken down will nutrients be absorbed by your system.

According to health reporter, Janet Simpson:

If your food is not chewed sufficiently and is swallowed too quickly the pancreatic enzymes in your stomach have a hard time continuing the digestion process. Undigested food particles will then moves to the large intestines where it sits and ferments.

Fermentation produces gas and bloating. Fermentation also results in additional waste and toxins. If you do not chew your foods sufficiently it can lead to your feeling heavy, uncomfortable, sluggish, irritable and moody.

Chew every mouthful of food between 35 and 40 times this will ensure proper digestion.

Other benefits you will receive from chewing your food thoroughly include the following:

Tip #1: Thoroughly chewing your food will create an alkaline condition in your system. When you achieve an alkaline state as opposed to an acidic one your body is healthy and will fight off eczema and allergies more readily. (more…)

Finally I took the plunge.. YiPpIe! So far I have been enjoying fresh raw sprouts mostly with other cooked dishes like brown-rice & mashed potatoes (in order to beef up my calories). All the while I was eerily aware of the enzyme-less-ness of the cooked carbos. Now, sprouts are the richest sources of all nutrients EXCEPT carbohydrates.

This may be the manna from heaven for weight-loss enthusiasts but for weight-gain wanna-bes like me - I must confess, I felt a bit stuck with cooked foods STILL un-avoidable in my plate. This was largely because I had no time to learn about how to methodically transition to a complete raw living foods diet. But then destiny intervened & recently I happened to come across this bare comment by a newbie raw-foodist (in some forum) expressing surprise that he never thought potatoes can be eaten RAW!

And that ‘revelation’ kept ringing in the back of my head on & off for a few days untill I gathered enough courage to give it a shot myself. What motivated me further was the fact that I felt so sleepy after almost every lunch; & caffeine is more of a problem than a solution we all know. So one fateful afternoon, too lazy to cook or to go out for eating, & too wary of falling asleep again after a cooked meal, I finally cajoled myself to make the move. After more than an hour of dilly-dallying I finally brought myself before the kitchen counter all set to “bite the bullet”… errr… a mere potato in this case… But yeah, Virgin RAW. (more…)

Breaking News :
“Health, fitness, weight-loss constitute the biggest chunk of all new year resolutions.”
And what’s the story of the weight-loss scene? :-
“… Amongst the ‘busy’ over-worked masses ‘fad diets’ continue to rule the roost.”

It’s possible these fancy diets may have something useful in them “backed by scientific evidence & latest research” and promoted by professionally qualified authors. But based on what I see around, many are akin to the get-rich-quick scams : long on dreams, short on results. What do you want?

Why is it so difficult to believe that - best things in life are indeed free.

I suppose… (more…)

My dad unfortunately had to go through an emergency heart bypass surgery recently. He had mostly followed an average dietary lifestyle all along. In a general medical check-up 1 of the major arteries was found to be 90% clogged.

(photo courtesy : buffalo.edu)

The operation was successful & he recoverd remarkably well, thanks to my mother’s support. But his appetite levels were low, prompting me to advice him certain sprouts beneficial for his situation. Raw sprouts are rich with enzymes and don’t need any digestion. They provide all the nutrients with minimal calories so even with low food intake he can be assured of his body getting all the essential micro nutrients. I was pleased to find him game for them . Here are my 3 recommendations for everyone’s benefit: (more…)