Hillbilly Housewife Club

If you’ve been a fan of The Hillbilly Housewife then you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve never had the pleasure, then let me be the first one to tell you about the frugal & nutritious goodness of the things that are shared on the site.

But now~ Susanne Myers, The Hillbilly Housewife has just opened the doors to a new part of the Hillbilly Housewife family.

The Hillbilly Housewife Club

The Hillbilly Housewife Club is a paid membership but, more than that it’s a place to find like-minded friends that share the same goals & values of frugal and simple living. “Low Cost Cooking From Scratch” is more than just a slogan. Susanne’s heart-felt mission is to share the nutritious, low cost recipes as well as money & time saving tips.

If you’ve ever wanted a place to go where you could find caring women on the same road as you and get step-by-step action plans, each month, that will help you toward your goals, then you owe it to yourself to take a look at the Hillbilly Housewife Club.

For more information? Visit http://tinyurl.com/q8lxds and sign up today. I’ll see you on the inside.

http://tinyurl.com/q8lxds

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09.37 | 0 comments

My Favorite Quick and Healthy Meal - Video

About the author:

Scott Tousignant, BHK, CFC is the creator of Unstoppable Fat Loss, "What separates the people who achieve fat loss success, from those who struggle to lose weight.”  http://ufl.rxsportz.com

Scott has also authored 2 books that are transforming the bodies of people around the world.  "The Fit Chic" and "The Fit Bastard" not only contain a FULL YEAR of workouts, they provide intense motivation to drive you to fat loss success.

You can grab a free month of workouts at the following sites:

Gals - http://fitchic.rxsportz.com

Guys - http://tfb.rxsportz.com

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09.16 | 0 comments

Excess Omega-6 Fat Damages Infants' Livers

A nurse friend of mine sent me an e-mail a few weeks ago with a very interesting observation:

On the unit I work on we get lots of babies who have "short gut syndrome" due to a variety of causes who have to be on parenteral nutrition to supplement their nutrition while their GI system grows and hopefully heals fast enough. The big problem (among many) with TPN (total parenteral nutrition) is that it destroys the liver and kids get horribly jaundiced (which also causes brain damage) and often they die of liver failure or need a liver transplant before their GI system grows enough to take them off TPN.

Boston Children's has done some amazing work showing that this is largely due to the fact that the lipids part of the TPN was a soybean based oil so they started using Omegaven instead which is a fish oil based IV lipid solution. So far the results have been amazing and reversed the damage in lots of kids livers and prevented it in those started on Omegaven at birth.

Babies born with short gut syndrome can't absorb nutrients properly due to their unusually short small intestine. They're temporarily fed intravenously (total parenteral nutrition; TPN), until their intestines can develop enough to digest food normally.

The typical TPN formula contains soybean and safflower oils as the fat, both of which are over 50% omega-6 linoleic acid. Soybean oil also contains 7% omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid. You can't get the kids started too early on a "heart-healthy" diet!

The solution was to replace the vegetable oil with fish oil, which prevents or rapidly reverses the severe liver damage caused by TPN rich in omega-6 vegetable oils. I don't think this is a great solution, but it certainly beats vegetable oil. The ideal solution would be to replace the vegetable oil with a fat that approximates the composition of breast milk: mostly monounsaturated and saturated fat, with a little bit of linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid and long-chain fats such as AA and DHA. You could do this pretty easily with a mix of lard and fish oil; or palm oil and fish oil; or coconut oil, olive oil and fish oil. Breast milk composition varies with diet, and the amount of linoleic acid in the breast milk of Western populations is unusually high.

Excess linoleic acid, particularly when combined with excess fructose and insufficient omega-3 fat, is toxic to the liver. Modern Western nations are experiencing an epidemic of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which animal studies indicate is probably the result of replacing animal fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils and increasing sugar intake (see links below for more detail). Fatty liver was seen primarily in alcoholics three decades ago. An estimated 1/4 of Americans now have NAFLD. It's the number one cause of liver damage in the U.S.

Where the liver goes, the rest of the body follows.

How to Fatten Your Liver
Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
The Liver: Your Metabolic Gatekeeper
More Liver Functions

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21.49 | 0 comments

The Real Way to Stop Eating Fast Food

By Tom Venuto

“How could you eat that junk? It’s so bad for you!” (nag, nag). “Don’t you know those fries will give you a heart attack?” (nag, nag). “You have to stop eating all that fast food, it’s going to make you fat!” (nag nag). “You have to eat more healthy food like fruits and vegetables - they’re good for you!” (nag, nag). Your friends nag you, your family nags you, your doctor nags you, the health newsletters, websites and magazines - they all nag you, and of course, your personal trainer nags the heck out of you, to stop eating all those BAD FAST FOODS. But does all that nagging you and bad-mouthing the fast food industry really help anyone stop?

It doesn’t look that way. The fast food industry is thriving, even in the bad economy. The Chicago Tribune recently said that McDonalds is “recession proof.”

As one of only two companies to turn a major profit over the last year (the other being Wal Mart), McDonald’s is laughing its way to the bank. In fact, McDonalds plans to open 1,000 new stores this year.

I was driving down Route 95 a few weeks ago and pulled over to use the rest room at McDonalds on a Saturday morning (there’s a McDonalds conveniently located immediately off almost every exit up and down the full length of Interstate 95).

The parking lot was full, it was standing-room only inside and the lines snaked around into the seating area! You’d think Brad and Angelina were there signing autographs or something. Nope. Just a regular weekend at breakfast-time.

I was shopping in Wal Mart the same week and I almost passed out when I saw (smelled, actually) a McDonalds… INSIDE THE WAL- MART! Also, with lines.

Yep. It looks like your friends and family’s nagging you to stop eating fast food, and all the messages of the health and fitness industry to get people eating more “health food” are not working!

So what does work?

The results of a new survey from the behavior and psychology section of the journal, OBESITY (Feb 2009) provide some answers:

Researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public health surveyed 530 adults about their attitudes towards fast foods.

They found that people already know fast food is unhealthy. (like, no kidding!)

The primary reasons they eat it anyway are because of the perceived convenience and a dislike for cooking! (I’d add another: they think fast food is always cheaper than healthy food).

So, said the authors of this research paper, nagging people to eat more healthy food and warning them that “fast food is going to make us fat and kill us” is not the best approach.

What’s the right approach?

Focus on teaching people how to make healthy eating fast, convenient and easy, because those are the reasons people are choosing fast food in the first place.

So what’s holding us back from implementing or taking this advice?

Well, I think that most people can’t get over the ideas that they “just can’t cook” or that cooking is “too time consuming” or that healthy food “tastes like dirt” (as if McDonalds is gourmet food!)

That said, I’m not going to nag you, scold you or try to scare you out of eating fast food. I’m not going to lecture you about health food (not today, anyway). Nor am I going to bad-mouth the fast food restaurants.

I’m going to lead the new charge by showing you just how easy and convenient it is to eat healthy and nutritious food and make it delicious.

Here’s a few meal ideas (for starters) to prove my point.

3-MINUTE APPLE CINNAMON OATMEAL

* natural oatmeal (like Quaker old fashioned rolled oats)
* natural (unsweetened) applesauce
* cinnamon
* for protein, serve with scrambled eggs or egg whites on side or stir 1-2 scoops of vanilla protein powder into the oats

I eat this almost every morning. It’s faster, easier and cheaper than going to the donut place or getting sausage, cheese, bacon breakfast muffins at the fast food joint! (you don’t have to wait in line, either!)

10-MINUTE LAZY PERSON’S CHINESE STIR FRY

* Brown rice (I like basmati)
* frozen oriental vegetables
* chicken breast, grilled (try foreman grill)
* bragg’s “liquid aminos” (or light/lo-sodium soy sauce)

This takes 30 minutes, however, if you get a rice cooker and make a giant batch, you can have your rice on standby for instant eats and this will take less than 10 minutes.

It doesn’t get much easier than that. (I like those Chinese veggies that come with the little mini-corn-on-the-cobs… reminds me of that Tom Hanks Movie, BIG)

2-MINUTE BLACK BEANS AND SPICY SALSA

* black beans (15 oz can)
* Medium or hot salsa
* 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic or chopped garlic to taste
* salt and pepper to taste

This one takes you all of 2 minutes to make. No cooking required! And it’s good! It’s vegetarian as listed above, but if you’re a high-protein muscle-head like me, just add chicken breast or lean ground turkey.

Best part: this is all inexpensive food! Oats, rice, beans… doesn’t get much cheaper than that - buy your healthy staples in bulk and the cost per serving is probably less than mickey D’s! (yes, even the “Value” meals)

Every one of these recipes is compatible with my Burn The Fat program

This means that my way of eating makes you more muscular and leaner… so you can look hot wearing very little clothes this summer… and be healthier… and save money too.

Train Hard, Eat Right, and Expect Success!

Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: http://burnthefat.rxsportz.com

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05.24 | 0 comments

Nutrition and Infectious Disease

Dr. Edward Mellanby's book Nutrition and Disease contains a chapter titled "Nutrition and Infection". It begins:

There is general agreement among medical men that the susceptibility of mankind to many types of infection is closely related to the state of nutrition. The difficulty arises, when closer examination is given to this general proposition, as to what constitutes good and bad nutrition, and the problem is not rendered easier by recent advances in nutritional science.

Dr. Mellanby was primarily concerned with the effect of fat-soluble vitamins on infectious disease, particularly vitamins A and D. One of his earliest observations was that butter protected against pneumonia in his laboratory dogs. He eventually identified vitamin A as the primary protective factor. He found that by placing rats on a diet deficient in vitamin A, they developed numerous infectious lesions, most often in the urogenital tract, the eyes, the intestine, the middle ear and the lungs. This was prevented by adding vitamin A or cabbage (a source of beta-carotene, which the rats converted to vitamin A) to the diet. Mellanby and his colleagues subsequently dubbed vitamin A the "anti-infective vitamin".

Dr. Mellanby was unsure whether the animal results would apply to humans, due to "the difficulty in believing that diets even of poor people were as deficient in vitamin A and carotene as the experimental diets." However, their colleagues had previously noted marked differences in the infection rate of largely vegetarian African tribes versus their carnivorous counterparts. The following quote from Nutrition and Disease refers to two tribes which, by coincidence, Dr. Weston Price also described in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

The high incidence of bronchitis, pneumonia, tropical ulcers and phthisis among the Kikuyu tribe who live on a diet mainly of cereals as compared with the low incidence of these diseases among their neighbours the Masai who live on meat, milk and raw blood (Orr and Gilks), probably has a similar or related nutritional explanation. The differences in distribution of infective disease found by these workers in the two tribes are most impressive. Thus in the cereal-eating tribe, bronchitis and pneumonia accounted for 31 per cent of all cases of sickness, tropical ulcers for 33 per cent, and phthisis for 6 per cent. The corresponding figures for the meat, milk and raw blood tribe were 4 per cent, 3 per cent and 1 per cent.

So they set out to test the theory under controlled conditions. Their first target: puerperal sepsis. This is an infection of the uterus that occurs after childbirth. They divided 550 women into two groups: one received vitamins A and D during the last month of pregnancy, and the other received nothing. Neither group was given instructions to change diet, and neither group was given vitamins during their hospital stay. The result, quoted from Nutrition and Disease:

The morbidity rate in the puerperium using the [British Medical Association] standard was 1.1 per cent in the vitamin group and 4.7 in the control group, a difference of 3.6 per cent which is twice the standard error (1.4), and therefore statistically significant.

This experiment didn't differentiate between the effects of vitamin A and D, but it did establish that fat-soluble vitamins are important for resistance to bacterial infection. The next experiment Dr. Mellanby undertook was a more difficult one. This time, he targeted puerperal septicemia. This is a more advanced stage of puerperal sepsis, in which the infection spreads into the bloodstream. In this experiment, he treated women who had already contracted the infection. This trial was not as tightly controlled as the previous one. Here's a description of the intervention, from Nutrition and Disease:

...all patients received when possible a diet rich not only in vitamin A but also of high biological quality. This diet included much milk, eggs, green vegetables, etc., as well as the vitamin A supplement. For controls we had to use the cases treated in previous years by the same obstetricians and gynecologists as the test cases.

In the two years prior to this investigation, the mortality rate for puerperal septicemia in 18 patients was 92%. In 1929, Dr. Mellanby fed 18 patients in the same hospital his special diet, and the mortality rate was 22%. This is a remarkable treatment for an infection that was almost invariably fatal at the time.

Dr. Mellanby was a man with a lot of perspective. He was not a reductionist; he knew that a good diet is more than the sum of its parts. Here's another quote from Nutrition and Disease:

It is probable that, as in the case of vitamin D and rickets, the question is not simple and that it will ultimately be found that vitamin A works in harmony with some dietetic factors, such as milk proteins and other proteins of high biological value, to promote resistance of mucous membranes and epithelial cells to invasion by micro-organisms, while other factors such as cereals, antagonise its influence. The effect of increasing the green vegetable and reducing the cereal intake on the resistance of herbivorous animals to infection is undoubted (Glenny and Allen, Boock and Trevan) and may well indicate a reaction in which the increased carotene of the vegetable plays only a part, but an important part.

And finally, let's not forget the effect of vitamin D on infection resistance. Low vitamin D is consistently associated with a higher frequency of respiratory infections, and a controlled trial showed that vitamin D supplements significantly reduce the occurrence of flu symptoms in wintertime. Vitamins A and D are best taken together. Did someone say high-vitamin cod liver oil??

P.S.- I have to apologize, I forgot to copy down the primary literature references for this post before returning the book to the library. So for the skeptics out there, you'll either have to take my word for it, or find a copy of the book yourself.

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21.30 | 0 comments

Types Of Vegetables

You can eat as much as you want and not gain a pound with the right vegetables and however, choose the right types of vegetables, not all can make you slim. This is because the vegetables are high in calories while there are also those who are low calorie. Whether this low-calorie vegetables?

The following are the types of vegetables are considered to have low calorie food and great if you are in a diet or want to lose weight. Including carrots, cucumbers, radishes, fresh green beans, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and lettuce.

There is also a low vegetable and high in carbohydrate. But do not generalize that just because their low-carbohydrate vegetables immediately. Types of vegetables to a low carbohydrate, including but not limited to the sprouts, leafy, golf, golf fertile, plants, sea vegetables, broccoli, mushrooms, avocado, peppers, summer squash, scallions, asparagus, bamboo shoots, leeks, eggplants, artichoke hearts, okra and more. Of course, vegetables are also low calorie in carbohydrate, so you can take your choose.

Types of vegetables that contain starch and high carbohydrate. Including beets, corn, parsnips, peas, all kinds of potatoes, and winter squashes. If you want to experiment on the type of vegetables, such as that available in many parts of production, you can check the calorie and carbohydrate count on the internet, to help you on the diet.

Types of vegetables that should be included in the list of foods they are full of fiber. Although the general vegetables are good sources of fiber, there are several types of vegetables that contain more fiber than the other. Examples of this fiber-rich vegetables including Brussels sprouts, carrots, beans and cooked peas, and spinach. Cruciferous vegetables are also a good source of fiber, such as cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. These vegetables are good sources of soluble fiber.

While vegetables are generally not harmful if you are on a diet, the right serving sizes will help accelerate the results that you want to see. National Cancer Institute has recommended serving size for a particular variety of vegetables. The recommended serving size if you eat vegetables raw non-leafy vegetables or half a cup cooked. If you eat vegetables raw leafy, the recommended serving size is one cup. If you can not obtain organic products grown so exercise caution by washing your vegetables thoroughly. Vegetables do not grow organic pesticides which contain hazardous to your health.

When you select out vegetables, freshest choose among many. In-season vegetables are guaranteed to buy the fresh vegetables that they grow in the season is a good idea. You do not need to plan to save the vegetables too long. Only buy the types of vegetables you plan to eat in a few days. In addition, you must discard thetypes of vegetables that have been stored too long. Skin on vegetables contain nutrients that they can benefit your health

Types of Vegetables

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18.25 | 0 comments

Still stressing? There’s really no need…

A few days ago, I mentioned the lifesaving resource at Dine Without Whine. Have you had a chance to check it out yet?

I know what it can be like – trips through the drive-through more than we like to admit, not being able to get everyone to sit down at the dinner table and pure chaos all around. It’s no fun at all.

Seriously, it really doesn’t have to be like that when you’ve got a plan. But of course, who’s got time to plan? Well, you don’t have to – the folks at Dine Without Whine do it for you. They give you a weekly dinner menu, weekend brunch ideas and a couple of dessert recipes (don’t want to overdo it!) with a categorized grocery list. It’s a huge load off of a busy parent’s mind.

It’s important to keep the lines of communication open with our kids and mealtime is one of the easiest ways to do it…especially as kids get older and the last thing they want to do is hang out with their parents. Make getting the meal to your table a whole lot easier, so you can enjoy that precious time with your family.

Trying their service out will only cost you a penny. Now you can’t beat that deal. Have a look at: http://www.healthybiz2000.com/dinewithoutwhine.htm

No more wondering what’s for dinner – it’s taken care of.

To Healthy & Happy Families,
Arthur M.

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05.45 | 0 comments

Dinnertime got you stressed?

So what’s your day like? If it’s anything like my daughter’s, it’s always rush, rush, rush and there are more things to do in a day than there is possibly time for. Then dinnertime rolls around and you think, “Oh no…what are we going to have?”

The drive-thru is tempting. It’s fast and easy, but it’s also expensive and downright unhealthy. And although it’s a nice treat once in a while, we can’t do this every single
day…or at least we shouldn’t.

And here’s the thing. Mealtime IS important. It’s not only important for adequate nutrition, but it allows our families to bond, is good for our children’s development and allows us to keep up-to-date on what’s happening in our their lives. In fact, there are studies that show having frequent meals together is one of the biggest factors of vocabulary development in young children. And for older kids, it can actually help reduce the risk of smoking, drinking alcohol and other things we’d really like our kids to stay away from. But still, what do you do? Deciding to get the family together for dinners every day is often easier said than done. But there is help out there…thank goodness!

Make dinnertime easier, more enjoyable, healthier and save plenty of money with a unique menu planning service called “Dine Without Whine”. You receive a weekly menu with your kid-approved dinners planned for you and a categorized grocery shopping list to make it easy to zoom through the store. It even includes brunch ideas for the weekend and 2 weekly desert recipes. Take all the guesswork out of your weekly meal planning and grocery shopping by signing up. Everything is delivered directly to your email inbox each and every week. Just print and go!

All the details are here (including more information on the family mealtime studies I mentioned): http://www.healthybiz2000.com/dinewithoutwhine.htm

You can try the first week for only 1 cent…or choose a 3, 6, 12 or lifetime option to save tons of money on your membership. Forget the stress of getting dinner together and enjoy your time with your family instead.

To Healthy & Happy Families,

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05.46 | 0 comments

Fructose vs. Glucose Showdown

As you've probably noticed, I believe sugar is one of the primary players in the diseases of civilization. It's one of the "big three" that I focus on: sugar, industrial vegetable oil and white flour. It's becoming increasingly clear that fructose, which constitutes half of table sugar and typically 55% of high-fructose corn syrup, is the problem. A reader pointed me to a brand new study (free full text!), published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, comparing the effect of ingesting glucose vs. fructose.

The investigators divided 32 overweight men and women into two groups, and instructed each group to drink a sweetened beverage three times per day. They were told not to eat any other sugar. The drinks were designed to provide 25% of the participants' caloric intake. That might sound like a lot, but the average American actually gets about 25% of her calories from sugar! That's the average, so there are people who get a third or more of their calories from sugar. In one group, the drinks were sweetened with glucose, while in the other group they were sweetened with fructose.

After ten weeks, both groups had gained about three pounds. But they didn't gain it in the same place. The fructose group gained a disproportionate amount of visceral fat, which increased by 14%! Visceral fat is the most dangerous type; it's associated with and contributes to chronic disease, particularly metabolic syndrome, the quintessential modern metabolic disorder (see the end of the post for more information and references). You can bet their livers were fattening up too.

The good news doesn't end there. The fructose group saw a worsening of blood glucose control and insulin sensitivity. They also saw an increase in small, dense LDL particles and oxidized LDL, both factors that associate strongly with the risk of heart attack and may in fact contribute to it. Liver synthesis of fat after meals increased by 75%. If you look at table 4, it's clear that the fructose group experienced a major metabolic shift, and the glucose group didn't. Practically every parameter they measured in the fructose group changed significantly over the course of the 9 weeks. It's incredible.

25% of calories from fructose is a lot. The average American gets about 13%. But plenty of people exceed that, perhaps going up to 20% or more. Furthermore, the intervention was only 10 weeks. What would a lower intake of fructose, say 10% of calories, do to a person over a lifetime? Nothing good, in my opinion. Avoiding refined sugar is one of the best things you can do for your health.

U.S. Fructose Consumption Trends
Peripheral vs. Ectopic Fat
Visceral Fat
Visceral Fat and Dementia
How to Give a Rat Metabolic Syndrome
How to Fatten Your Liver

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21.21 | 0 comments

Cordain on Saturated Fat

I recently signed up for Dr. Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet newsletter, and I just received my first update. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. Cordain is a researcher at Colorado State University who studies the effects of hunter-gatherer and modern diets on health. He's made a number of important contributions to our understanding of nutrition and health. He's in my "Nutrition Hall of Fame" on the right sidebar.

His update was about saturated fat. In the past, I've disagreed with Dr. Cordain on this issue, because I thought he felt that saturated fat contributes to the risk of heart attack (although he never described it as a dominant factor). He has recommended trimming the fat off meats and using canola oil rather than just eating the fat. I don't know if I had misunderstood his stance, or if he's had a change of heart, but his current position seems quite reasonable to me. Here are a few brief quotes:

By examining the amounts of saturated fats in pre-agricultural hominin diets, an evolutionary baseline can be established for the normal range and limits of saturated fats that would have conditioned the human genome. While these diets varied due to geography, climate, etc., there is evidence that all hominin species were omnivorous. Thus, dietary saturated fats would have always been present in hominin diets.

There is also evidence that the hominin species that eventually led to Homo began to include more animal food in their diet approximately 2.6 million years ago. Clear evidence shows tool usage to butcher and disarticulate carcasses...

This data suggests that the normal dietary intake of saturated fatty acids that conditioned our species genome likely fell between 10 to 15% of total energy, and that values lower than 10% or higher than 15% would have been the exception.

And the conclusion:

Consequently, population-wide recommendations to lower dietary saturated fats below 10% to reduce the risk of CAD have little or no evolutionary foundation in pre-agricultural Homo sapiens... So we do not need to restrict ourselves to only tuna and turkey breast, avoiding every last gram of saturated fat.

AMEN, brother. I'd like to point out that the average American eats about 11% of his calories as saturated fat (down from 13% in the 1970s), on the low side of what Cordain considers normal for Homo sapiens. This is from the NHANES nutrition surveys.

The effect of a food on an animal's health has everything to do with what that animal is adapted to eating. Feeding a rabbit cholesterol gives it high blood cholesterol and atherosclerosis, but you can't give a dog high cholesterol or atherosclerosis by feeding it cholesterol, unless you kill its thyroid first. Feeding studies in Masai men showed that replacing their fatty, cholesterol-rich milk and blood diet with a cholesterol-free refined diet low in saturated fat caused their total cholesterol and body weight to increase rapidly. Adding purified cholesterol to the cholesterol-free diet did not affect their blood cholesterol concentration. Feeding cholesterol-rich eggs also has a negligible effect on blood cholesterol in most people.

I do still have a slight difference of opinion with Cordain on the saturated fat issue. While I think his numbers for pre-agricultural saturated fat intake are reasonable, his range is probably too narrow. Non-agricultural diets are so variable, I would expect the range to be more like 5 to 30% saturated fat. 5% would represent diets low in fat such as certain Australian Aboriginal diets, and 30% would represent the intake of Northern hunter-gatherers relying heavily on ruminants in fall and winter. During this time, ruminants store most of their fat subcutaneously, and their subcutaneous fat is roughly half saturated. Given that such a wide range of saturated fat intakes are part of our species' ecological niche, it follows that saturated fat is unlikely to be an important determinant of health in the context of an otherwise healthy lifestyle.

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21.00 | 0 comments

A Testament to the Flexibility of the Human Mind

I'm sure you've heard that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. But we actually have far more senses than that. The canonical list doesn't include equilibrioception-- our sense of balance-- the result of fluid sloshing around in the inner ear. It also doesn't include proprioception, the ability to detect the position of our limbs using nerve endings in our tendons and muscles.

Furthermore, the sense of touch is actually several different senses, each detected and transmitted by its own special type of neuron. The sense of touch includes vibration sense, pressure sense, heat sense, cold sense and pain sense. The sense of smell can be divided into roughly 400 senses in humans, each one tuned in to a different class of airborne molecules. Vision can be divided into cells maximally responsive to four different wavelengths of light. I could go on but the rest are less exciting.

This brings me to what I really want to write about, the development (or perhaps refinement) of a new human sense: echolocation. Echolocation is the ability to gather sensory information about your surroundings by bouncing sounds off of objects and listening to the echo that returns. It's what bats use to hunt in the dark, and dolphins use to navigate muddy water and find food under the sand. There are a number of blind people who have developed the ability to use clicking sounds to "see" their surroundings, and it's remarkably effective. This represents a new use of the human mind, or at least a refinement of a rudimentary sense. Here are a few links if you'd like to watch/read more about it:

Human echolocation- Wikipedia
Daniel Kish- You Tube
The boy who sees without eyes- You Tube

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21.46 | 0 comments

Benefits Coconut Oil

Coconut butter, which is also commonly referred to as coconut oil, is fat that consists of more than 90% saturated fat. Because of its name, this is obtained from coconut oil and has many health benefits, and some of the benefits coconut oil used for cosmetics, baking ingredients, soap, skin care, fuel, cooking oil, and more

Coconut oil is rich in fatty acid and more stable among all vegetable oils. Many consider it to be a healthy product, which can increase body metabolism and improve the ability to fight disease by strengthening the immune system. The presence of antiseptic fatty acids to provide the benefits coconut oil to prevent bacterial and fungal infections. Some of these infections continue to fight for a regular acne, ringworm, herpes, boils, athlete's foot and warts.

Coconut oil contains a channel-connect triglycerides (MCT), which provides other benefits coconut oil, which is the pain of fuel for the body to burn, without the fat to twirl. Most other cooking oils and Fats long series including triglycerides (LCT). LCT's stored as fat on a regular basis. Since coconut oil is a MCT, it is certainly absorbed and converted into energy quickly. Coconut oil also helps the body absorb nutrients more effectively, such as Vitamin E.

Benefits coconut oil in the traditional medicine is considered the universal healer. Used to treat various health problems such as abscesses, asthma, bronchitis, colds, constipation, coughing, gingivitis, bleeding or unusual pain, kidney stones, skin infections, sore throat, toothache, tuberculosis, tumors, typhoid, ulcers, wounds and more. It is definitely a remarkable food and medicine.

Benefits coconut oil for health is very good indeed. Coconut oil as a healthy oil that can be consumed by rich fiber, vitamins, and minerals, coconut oil is also classified as functional food because it provides many health benefits and nutrition

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08.25 | 0 comments

Images of Tooth Decay Healing due to an Improved Diet

This one's for the skeptics out there. As I mentioned in my previous post, Drs. Edward and May Mellanby and Dr. Weston Price reported that under the right circumstances, tooth decay can be reversed by proper nutrition. Here are images taken from the book Nutrition and Disease, by Dr. Mellanby, showing the re-calcification of decayed human teeth due to the growth of tertiary dentin (formerly known as secondary dentin). These are sections (slices) of teeth that have been treated with a chemical that darkens decayed areas. They represent four different teeth at different stages of decay reversal. Click on the image for a larger view:


Here's the text that accompanies the figure:

The hardening of carious areas that takes place in the teeth of children fed on diets of high calcifying value indicates the arrest of the active process and may result in “healing” of the infected area. As might be surmised, this phenomenon is accompanied by a laying down of a thick barrier of well-formed secondary denture. Illustrations of this healing process can be seen in Figs. 21 (b), (c) and (d). Summing up these results it will be clear that the clinical deductions made on the basis of the animal experiments have been justified, and that it is now known how to diminish the spread of caries and even to stop the active carious process in many affected teeth.

The following reference contains a summary of Dr. May Mellanby's experiments on healing tooth decay in children using diet: Mellanby, M. et al. British Medical Journal. Issue 1, page 507. 1932. The diet they used was typically a combination of some source of vitamin D (cod liver oil or irradiated ergosterol), plus liberal full-fat dairy, meats, eggs, vegetables, potatoes and grains low in phytic acid such as white bread. The most effective version of his diet, however, did not include grains.

In the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price provides X-rays showing the re-calcification of a mouth full of cavities using a similar diet.

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15.16 | 0 comments

10 Reasons to Have Family Meals More Often

When was the last time your family had a meal together? I don't mean sitting in the car munching on burgers from the drive-through. I mean sitting down at the table and sharing a home-cooked meal.

If you can't remember when you last enjoyed a family dinner, make plans to have them more often. Experts have found – and continue to discover - plenty of benefits for both children and adults when families have dinner together at least three times a week.

I know...I know, it's not always easy, so click here if you need help with meal planning and grocery shopping.

Here are 10 reasons why you should have family meals more often:

Good For The Body

1. When families eat together, everyone tends to eat healthier. People who have frequent family meals consume more calcium, fiber, iron, and vitamins B6, B12, C and E. It could be because home-cooked meals are healthier than fast food and restaurant meals. (Source: Archives of Family Medicine)

2. Children tend to eat more fruits and vegetables when they frequently have dinner with their families. They also tend to eat fewer snack foods. (Source: American Dietetic Association)

3. Children in families who eat dinner together are less likely to be overweight (Source: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine). This makes sense, given the findings
in #1 and #2 above.

Good For The Brain

4. Children from families who eat meals together get better grades than their peers who don't have lots of family meal times (Source: Lou Harris-Reader's Digest National Poll). So family dinners are not only good for the body; they're also good for the brain.

5. When families eat together frequently, children have better language skills compared to kids from families who don't have family mealtimes often. (Source: Harvard
University)

Good For Emotional Health

6. Children of families who eat together report feeling happier and are more optimistic about the future, than their peers who have infrequent family meals. (Source: Lou Harris-Reader's Digest National Poll)

7. Teenagers are less likely to use drugs, smoke, and drink alcoholic drinks, when their families eat together regularly. (Source: Columbia University)

8. It may come as a surprise, but among Moms who work outside the home, those who have family mealtimes reported feeling less stress than those who had family dinners less often. (Source: Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal)

9. The more often teen girls had meals with their families, the less likely they were to have symptoms of depression and suicidal behaviors. (Source: University of Minnesota)

Good For Family Bonding

10. Eating together gives family members the chance to communicate and build relationships, something that both adults and children appreciate very much. (Source: Nutrition Education Network of Washington & Oprah Winfrey's "Family Dinner Experiment")

I hope these reasons motivate you and your family to try and eat together more often. We're all busy - even children have plenty of after-school activities. But as the list above shows, family meals are worth every effort we put into them. It helps to plan ahead so that we're not scrambling to get dinner ready or panicking because we don't have all the ingredients we need.

To make it easier to get the family around the table with a home-cooked meal, check out Dine Without Whine's menu planning service. It cost just a penny to try it out!

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15.02 | 0 comments

Cleanse the body of stubborn fat and cellulite

(Written by a Fat Loss & Women's Transformation Expert, Alex Eatly, NASM CPT)

http://complete.rxsportz.com

One of the things a majority of women find most challenging is understanding which foods should be eaten to cleanse the body of stubborn fat and cellulite.

To truly fight cellulite you should aim to include in your diet, foods that help power up your fat burning mechanisms.

These foods include:-

Fruits & Vegetables (complex carbohydrates)

Lean sources of protein

Essential Fatty Acids

Fruit & Vegetables

Organic fruits and vegetables are excellent foods for cleansing your body and helping eliminate stored toxins. Fresh fruits and vegetables contain multiple compounds like fiber, phytochemicals and minerals that help reduce the damage inflicted on our bodies by those free radicals (like those in smoke and alcohol).

Aim to eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

o Avocado: also vital for healthy skin – plus essential fats help you burn more body fat

o Blueberries, blackcurrants , raspberries, cranberries & strawberries: Among the highest sources of antioxidants out there

o Watermelon, cucumber, celery and asparagus: Diuretic foods that fight fluid retention

o Citrus fruit, pineapple, papaya: All high in vitamin C, vital for creating healthy collagen

o Bananas: Circulation boosting and good fluid-retention fighters

o Grapefruit, apples, Spinach, Tomatoes, Bell peppers, Carrots

Protein

Every tissue in your body is made up of protein. Proteins are the building blocks of lean muscle tissue. Without it, building muscle and burning fat efficiently would be impossible.

Additionally, protein has the greatest thermic effect of feeding (TEF) compared to fats and carbohydrates combined, which translates to more calories being burned during digestion. simply put, the body will burn more calories (upwards of 30%) assimilating and digesting protein than carbs (6%) and fats (3%). So, for every 100 calories of protein ingested, the body will burn 30 calories just digesting it. That means that eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain. Protein also takes longer to digest which will give you a greater feeling of satiety and prevent hunger pangs.

The best sources of protein are listed below:-

o White fish

o Chicken & Turkey

o Beans and pulses: these contain amino acids that fight fluid retention

o Oily fish: As well as being a good source of protein, this also contains essential fats that hydrate the skin (making cellulite less noticeable).

o Eggs: Incredibly high in detoxifying agents

o Low-fat dairy products: calcium in these increases the amount of body fat you lose while dieting

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are your main source of fuel or energy, and are the exclusive fuel source for the brain and nervous system. Carbohydrates are a very important part of a long-term fat loss plan. If you stick to whole, natural sources of carbohydrates you will keep your blood sugar levels more stable. These sources include vegetables, whole grains and fruit.Including such things as Bran or oat cereals can be very beneficial.Breakfast stokes the metabolism leading to easier weight loss – plus cereals contain high levels of antioxidants.

Essential Fatty Acids

People associate dietary fat intake with body fat, but certain fats are very important. A fat-free diet is not optimal in normal individuals.

According to nutrition experts, "eating a reasonable amount of fat in your diet promotes good health and physical performance, especially if the majority of your fat sources contain high amounts of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are commonly referred to as "essential fats".

There are at least eleven important functions of EFA's in your diet:

• improved insulin sensitivity
• required for absorption of fat soluble vitamins
• essential for joint health
• required for energy production
• required for Oxygen transfer
• maintain cell membrane integrity
• suppress cortisol production (fat storage hormone)
• improve skin texture (dry skin is a classic symptom of EFA deficiency)
• growth promoting
• increase metabolic rate
• help burn fat

Good Sources of fat include:-

o Fish Oil

o Flax Oil

o Extra Virgin Olive Oil

o Natural Peanut Butter

Water

You all know the benefits of water but did you know water actually fights fluid retention. Areas of cellulite contain higher than average amounts of water-attracting cells: if you have excess fluid in the body this will gravitate to these cells swelling the boxes (a major cause of cellulite in thinner women). Cutting down on salt and drinking at least eight glasses of water a day helps fight this.

Foods that make it worse

Know I've shown you the foods that will help you, I think I should point out the foods that you want to avoid at all costs. Some foods may make cellulite appear worse. None of you want that so it's best you limit your intake of these foods or avoid them all together. The worst offenders include alcohol (which dehydrates your body), refined foods (including foods high in artificial additives and sweeteners) & calorie dense drinks.

o Anything high in saturated fat – high in calories and free-radical producing

o High sugar foods – sugar actually produces more free radicals than fat

o High GI carbohydrates (like white bread, rice and baked potatoes). Raise levels of fat storing insulin

o Coffee and other caffeinated beverages: These pressurise the lymphatic system

o Alcohol: increases free radicals and may boost fat storage

o High salt foods like peanuts, crisps, ready meals, canned soups etc

  ---------------------------------------------

Get your FREE report "Cellulite Reduction Plan" from Alex Eatly at

http://complete.rxsportz.com

Alex Eatly is a Certified Personal Fitness Coach and works with women just like you day in and day out and has mastered the art of fat loss and body transformations for women with extreme success.

Alex has developed an explosive new fat loss system called Look Great Naked: The Complete Body Makeover for Women, which was designed specifically to help busy women such as students, executives and parents with young children to get the most results in the least amount of time. For more info visit:
http://complete.rxsportz.com

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07.58 | 0 comments

Watermelon Fruit

Watermelon fruit (citrullus lanatus) also called tembikai, and semangka is both fruit and vine plant that came from the dry tropical and subtropical Africa, and developed rapidly to many countries such as South Africa, China, Japan, and Indonesia.

Watermelon in the family, including pumpkin-Labuan (Cucurbitaceae) on the local origin is preferred by the human / animal on the continent, because many contain water, so that a fast spreading.

Watermelon fruit is usually eaten fresh or made watermelon juice, and dried watermelon seeds, content of watermelon seeds can be eaten, usually called kuwaci, while the Skin can also be made watermelon pickle such as cucumber pickle or squash-type Labuan others.

Watermelon skin has a hard, dense green or light green, fleshy fruit and meat is red or yellow . Watermelon fruit, in general, globe-shaped large, but have also oval, square, and triangle, with general weight between 2 kg to 4 kg

Benefits of watermelon fruit

The combination with water and potassium content of the watermelon can be relied on as a food diuretika, to stimulate secretion in urine more downpours. Very well to help make it difficult for interference and prevent interference in the bladder, such as urine stones. Eating watermelon is also good for lowering fever.

Watermelon red marks on the high degree likopen, one of the components karotenoid as betakaroten. Therefore, eating watermelon red more than the recommended yellow watermelon. compound other antioxidants, especially vitamin C and vitamin E, the strength to fight radical likopen watermelon is much more powerful. Each one molecule of likopen able to spend some free radical molecules. Likopen watermelon seeds are also able to destroy cancer. likopen assisted substances other antioxidants in watermelon, betakaroten is able to re-invigorate cells that have faded already damaged by free radicals

Eating watermelon fruit regularly in addition to creating a healthy body we can also create a luminous face, looks fresh and younger. For those who are old, watermelon is not only to help restore health faster interference, but also help improve mental sharpness and power remember

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06.52 | 0 comments

Modern Diet-Health Epidemiology: a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? Part II

Certain ideas about diet and health, for better or for worse, have worked their way deeply into the American psyche in the last few decades. We're constantly advised by health authorities, the news media, food advertisements, our doctors and our friends to eat less saturated fat, red meat and sugar, and more fruit, vegetables and whole grains. There is some dissent of course, but this has been the mainstream message for roughly four decades. And people are listening. We've replaced animal fats with unsaturated vegetable oils, red meat with poultry, whole milk with low-fat milk, and we're eating more fruit and vegetables than ever before. Here are two graphs of U.S. Department of Agriculture data to illustrate the point:
Whole grains are a very instructive case. Dr. Dennis Burkitt popularized the idea that fiber is good for health. He spent a number of years in eastern Africa, where he observed that natives on their traditional high-grain-fiber diets were free of many modern degenerative conditions, particularly those involving the digestive system. He found that as these cultures began to rely on Western foods such as white flour and sugar, their health declined dramatically. This is the same observation Dr. Weston Price made, however the two men interpreted their findings differently. Price attributed the effect to a loss of micronutrients, while Burkitt attributed it to the loss of a more or less inert substance: fiber.

There are a number of observational studies that have examined the relationship between whole grain intake and health. The massive Iowa Women's Health Study, for example, showed that women with a high intake of grain fiber had a 17% lower risk of death from all causes combined. In the same group, women in the top quintile (top 20%) of whole grain consumption had a 30% lower risk of heart attack than women in the lowest quintile. These two papers were published in 2000 and 1998. Here's where it starts to get interesting. From the second paper:

Higher whole-grain intake was associated with having more education, a lower body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio [and] being a non-smoker, doing more regular physical activity, and using vitamin supplements and hormone replacement therapy.

Do whole grains prevent smoking too? An alternative explanation is that the women who were eating whole grains were all-around more conscientious and concerned about their health than those eating refined grains. And why not? They "knew" from mainstream diet advice that whole grains are healthier than refined grains. When is the last time you saw someone smoking a cigarette while eating whole grain muesli with skim milk and half a grapefruit for breakfast? Is it easier to imagine someone smoking while eating a donut and sweetened coffee? Women who eat whole grains, on average, are those that care about their health and adopt patterns that they perceive as healthy throughout their lives. This includes behaviors large and small, both measurable and unmeasurable. The investigators factored smoking into their model, but you can't factor in things you didn't measure or don't understand.

Maybe it will come as no surprise, then, that the only controlled trial that has ever evaluated the effect of increasing grain fiber on all-cause mortality showed a strong (but not statistically significant) trend toward increased mortality in the group that doubled its grain fiber intake. Here's the graph of survival in the two groups. You can see that the trend is very consistent and the difference widens over time. This was the Diet and Reinfarction Trial. It's important to mention that the fiber group probably increased its grain fiber haphazardly, using bran and unfermented grains, rather than the traditional processing techniques of healthy grain-based cultures Burkitt described.

Here's the theory. When the public decides that a particular behavior is healthy, at that point it becomes difficult to accurately measure its impact on health using observational studies. This is due to the fact that healthy, conscientious people tend to gravitate toward the recommendation. If a theory manages to become implanted early on, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy as healthy, conscientious people adopt the behavior and are detected by subsequent observational studies. People who don't care about their health or aren't motivated enough to make a change will keep living how they used to, and that will also be detected.

You can adjust for some of these factors if you measure them. Researchers commonly adjust for age, gender, smoking, exercise and sometimes other factors when they're trying to nail down the effect of a particular factor on health. But you can't measure all the little things that accompany a health-conscious lifestyle. Do the participants take the stairs or the elevator? Do they take supplements, and if so, which ones? How much sunlight do they get? Do they have positive relationships with their friends and family? How often do they shave (kidding)? What is the quality of the foods they buy? How often do they visit the doctor, and how often do they follow her advice? I believe there are too many confounds to measure and correct for. In my opinion, this means that observational data gathered from populations that already have opinions about the factor you're trying to study are unreliable and will tend to reinforce prevailing notions.

This brings us to the recent study on meat intake and mortality. It was a massive observational study that followed the diet and health of 617,119 elderly Americans for 10 years. Researchers found that the highest quintile of red meat intake was at an elevated risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease, and had an overall risk of dying about 1/3 greater than those in the lowest quintile. That's a pretty somber finding for those of us who love a juicy steak. But let's look at a few of the things that came along with red meat intake. I'm going to post a few graphs of factors that associated with red meat. They're organized by ascending quintiles of red meat intake; in other words, the people eating the least (left) through the most (right) red meat.

As compared to men eating the least red meat, men eating the most were three times more likely to smoke, half as likely to exercise regularly, and 22% less likely to take vitamin supplements! These are clearly people who are less concerned about their health in general. The investigators adjusted their model for a number of confounds: education, marital status, family history of cancer, race, body mass index, smoking history, exercise, alcohol intake, vitamin supplementation, fruit and vegetable intake, and hormone replacement therapy. This adjustment weakened but did not eliminate the association between red meat intake and mortality.

But again, you can't adjust for variables you don't measure. How about vitamin D status? Sugar intake? Quality and frequency of doctor's visits? Mental health? Dental health? Quality of food? There's no way to measure all the little things a health-conscious person will do to take care of himself. These unmeasured (and sometimes unmeasurable) factors can add up to have a major impact on health. So in the end, what are these studies really measuring? The association between diet and health, or the association between a health-conscious lifestyle and health? There's no way to know without a controlled trial. I rest my case, ladies and gents.

Here are a few other critiques of the study that are worth reading. Chris Masterjohn points out that the investigators' method of measuring meat intake was stunningly inaccurate, and they may have been measuring wishful thinking more than meat itself. Dr. Michael Eades points out that two other studies appeared at the same time, without fanfare, that contradicted the study's findings. And Jenny Ruhl discusses the implications of the bizarre finding that red meat intake also associates with the risk of accidental death.

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18.43 | 0 comments

It’s Mother’s Day – Where Ya Gonna Eat?

Your mother loves to eat and would like to have a special meal. There are many options available to you for your Mother’s Day meal and cooking for your mother is only one of the options. If you dread the cooking and clean up associated with well, cooking and cleaning up a meal then you might enjoy taking mom out to eat. The restaurants might be crowded but should be able to find somewhere to enjoy a good meal with a little planning.

If you have decided that this year you are going to take your mother out to eat for Mother’s Day then your next step is to find out which of your mom’s favorite restaurants in your area are open and if you need reservations. Mother’s Day is one of the most popular days of the year to eat out so make your reservations well in advance. The closer you get to Mother’s Day the harder it will be to get a reservation. Make them early your mom is not disappointed when you arrive at the restaurant. Websites like OpenTable.com or Gayot.com can help you with restaurant reservations in some of the bigger cities across the United States.

If you are going to try to get a table at a restaurant that doesn’t accept reservations think about having brunch –a popular choice- or eating during the off hours between lunch and dinner – usually 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to avoid larger crowds.

Of course, deciding on what type of restaurant to visit in another choice to be made. Do you think your mother would enjoy a buffet style restaurant, one with a limited menu or a restaurant serving their full menu for the day? Once you have figured that out you can move on to the cuisine your mom would like. Is she a fan of Mexican, Italian, German or French cooking? Perhaps she would prefer steak, seafood or sushi instead. When you have the answers to these questions then you can take steps to deciding where and when you will take your mother to her special Mother’s Day meal.

Of course, if your mother would really rather have a quiet meal at home with her family then it is possible that you just might have to go ahead and cook this Mother’s Day anyway.

--------------------------
Visit www.ebotek.com/recipes/MothersDay to find Mother’s Day Recipes and articles that will help you Celebrate Mother’s Day

 

Let's Get Ready For Mother's Day (Free PDF Download eBook)

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04.57 | 0 comments

30 Power Foods for More Fat Loss

by Mike Roussell PhD(c)

Good food is an extremely important part of any fat loss diet. The food you eat is actually going to drive (or inhibit) your fat loss. I have put together a list o 30 Powerfoods are the kings of 'healthy foods'. They will get your body primed not only for rapid weight loss but greatly improved health.

These 30 Foods (if not all then most) should be the center pieces of your nutrition as they are loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, essential fatty acids, fiber, essential amino acids, and all kinds of other good stuff that we don’t fully understand (we just know it is good for you).

I wanted to use this list to supercharge your nutrition - hopefully you’re eating lots of these already. They are chunked into 5 groups: Starches (faster acting carbs), Fruits & Vegetables (and non starch carbohydrates), Proteins, Fats, and the Powerfood Outsiders (these don’t really fit into any of the previous categories but that doesn’t take away from their nutritional power).

Starches
    * Amaranth
    * Quinoa
    * Oats
    * Yams

Fruits & Vegetables
    * Apples
    * Blueberries
    * Broccoli
    * Onions
    * Oranges
    * Pomegranates
    * Pumpkin
    * Raspberries
    * Spinach
    * Tomatoes
    * Beans

Fats
    * Avocado
    * Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    * Flaxseed/flaxseed oil
    * Walnuts

Proteins
    * Lean Poultry
    * Salmon
    * Lean red meat
    * Omega-3 Eggs
    * Cottage Cheese (with Live Cultures)
    * Milk Protein Powder Blend

Power Foods Outsiders
    * Green Tea
    * Cinnamon
    * Garlic
    * Hot peppers

Which ones are you eating? Which ones aren't you eating? Make note of the ones you aren't eating and make sure you pick them up next time you go shopping.

About the Author/More Info:
Warp Speed Fat Loss is a complete 28 day diet and training system crafted to help you lose 10,15, or 20lbs of body fat in just 28 day. To start losing weight fast visit Warp Speed Fat Loss. Mike Roussell is a nutrition doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University. Mike's writings can be found in magazines such as Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Testosterone Nation. Mike specializes in fat loss nutrition and diets for busy men and women who need to lose weight fast without it interfering with their lives. Warp Speed Fat Loss  is a complete Done-for-You A-Z Fat Loss Blueprint that gives you exactly everything you need to eat to lose weight in record time.

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05.05 | 0 comments

Modern Diet-Health Epidemiology: a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? Part I

Epidemiology is the study of population statistics to learn about health. It can provide simple information such as the prevalence of hepatitis C in a particular region, or it can provide more complex information such as the association between dietary patterns and gout. It has brought us many great things, from its roots in understanding the transmission of communicable diseases, to the identification of smoking as the probable cause of lung cancer.

Observational studies are a mainstay of epidemiology. In observational studies, investigators gather data passively rather than manipulating variables. For example, if you want to know if people who wear tight shoes develop bunions, you would find a group of people who wear tight shoes and one that doesn't. You would try your best to make sure the groups are the same in every way besides shoe tightness: age, gender, weight, etc. Then you would follow them for 10 years to see how many people in each group develop bunions. You would then know whether or not wearing tight shoes is associated with bunions.

Observational data can never tell us that one thing caused another, only that the two are associated. The tight shoes may not have caused the bunions; they may simply have been associated with a third factor that was the true cause. For example, maybe people who wear tight shoes also tend to eat corn flakes, and corn flakes are the real cause of bunions. Or perhaps bunions actually cause people to wear tight shoes, rather than the reverse. Observational data can't resolve these questions definitively.

To establish causality, you have to do a controlled trial. In the case of our example, we would select 2,000 people and assign them randomly to two groups of 1,000. One group would wear tight shoes while the other would wear roomy shoes. After 10 years, we would see how many people developed bunions in each group. If the tight shoe group had more bunions, we could rightly say that tight shoes cause bunions. The reason this works is the randomization process (ideally) eliminates all differences between the groups except for the one you're trying to study. You should have the same number of corn flake eaters in each group if the randomization process worked correctly.

A less convincing but still worthwhile alternative would be to put tight and loose shoes on mice to see if they develop bunions. That's what researchers did in the case of the tobacco-lung cancer link. Controlled studies in animals reinforced the strong suggestion from epidemiological studies that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer.

Finally, another factor in determining the likelihood of associations representing causation is plausibility. In other words, can you imagine a way in which one factor might cause another or is the idea ridiculous? For example, did you know that shaving infrequently is associated with a 30% increase in cardiovascular mortality and a 68% increase in stroke incidence in British men? That's a better association than you get with some blood lipid markers and most dietary factors! It turns out:

The one fifth (n = 521, 21.4%) of men who shaved less frequently than daily were shorter, were less likely to be married, had a lower frequency of orgasm, and were more likely to smoke, to have angina, and to work in manual occupations than other men.

So what actually caused the increase in disease incidence? That's where plausibility comes in. I think we can rule out a direct effect of shaving on heart attacks and stroke. The authors agree:

The association between infrequent shaving and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality is probably due to confounding by smoking and social factors, but a small hormonal effect may exist. The relation with stroke events remains unexplained by smoking or social factors.

In other words, they don't believe shaving influences heart attack and stroke directly, but none of the factors they measured explain the association. This implies that there are other factors they didn't measure that are the real cause of the increase. This is a critical point! You can't determine the impact of factors you didn't measure! And you can't measure everything. You just measure the factors you think are most likely to be important and hope the data make sense.

This leads us to another important point. Investigators can use math to estimate the relative contribution of different factors to an association. For example, imagine the real cause of the increased stroke incidence in the example above was donut intake, and it just so happens that donut lovers also tend to shave less often. Now imagine the investigators measured donut intake. They can then mathematically adjust the association between shaving and stroke to subtract out the contribution of donuts. If no association remains, then this suggests (but does not prove) that the association between shaving and stroke was entirely due to shaving's association with donuts. But the more math you apply, the further you get from the original data. This type of mathematical manipulation requires certain assumptions, and in my opinion generally renders the data progressively less meaningful.

Of course, you can't adjust for things you didn't measure, as the study I cited above demonstrates. If factors you didn't measure are influencing your association, you may be left thinking you're looking at a causal relationship when in fact your association is just a proxy for something else. This is a major pitfall when you're doing studies in the diet-health field, because so many lifestyle factors travel together. For example, shaving less travels with being unmarried and smoking more. Judging by the pattern, it also probably associates with lower income, a poorer diet, less frequent doctor visits, and many other potentially negative things.

If the investigators had been dense, they may have decided that shaving frequently actually prevents stroke, simply because none of the other factors they measured could account for the association. Then they would be puzzled when controlled trials show that shaving doesn't actually influence the risk of stroke, and shaving mice doesn't either. They would have to admit at that point that they had been tricked by a spurious association. Or stubbornly cling to their theory and defend it with tortuous logic and by selectively citing the evidence. I think this happens a lot.

These are the pitfalls we have to keep in mind when interpreting epidemiology, especially as it pertains to something as complex as the relationship between diet and health. In the next post, I'll get to the meat of my argument: that modern diet-health epidemiology is a self-fulfilling prophecy and a rather unreliable way to detect causal relationships.

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21.36 | 0 comments

Things to Remember When Cooking

By : Christine Steendahl

The difference between a good cook and a great cook can generally be as simple as a couple good cooking tips. Cooking ideas can help us make cooking dishes much simpler and avoid the many obstacles in food preparation. While it is true that experience, patience and knowledge are key when cooking, a few practical cooking ideas can definitely make many good cooks look like master chefs. Following are just a few cooking ideas that will ultimately help you in the kitchen.

Food Safety Tips
First off, the best way to make sure that your food tastes the very best that it can is to use fresh ingredients. When shopping in the grocery store or produce market make sure you view each item that you purchase, checking it for freshness or ripeness. While most packaged foods include an expiration date located on the container, most foods such as fresh produce must be looked over individually. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with general produce and the art of spotting top quality produce in your local supermarket.

As far as meats go, make sure that the meats (beef, poultry and fish) you purchase are fresh. In addition, when using meat for a meal keep all meats refrigerated until using, any utensils you use with the meat or that come into contact with the meat should be cleaned with soap and water. Regarding serving, make sure that meats are cooked thoroughly and reach a safe temperature. Cooked foods should reach at least 140 degrees F. Use a cooking thermometer to measure the temperature. It should be noted that while cooked foods should reach 140 degrees F., foods that are chilled such as dairy products should always be stored refrigerated less than 40 degrees F.

Tools of the Trade
Just like a good car mechanic has the proper tools to fix a car, make sure your kitchen is stocked with items that will help you create dishes easily and properly. This includes a good set of knives, pots, pans and measuring cups. You might also want to have on hand a good blender and food processor.

Low Fat Cooking
Many people make the mistake of associating low fat cooking with bland, tasteless cooking. This is absolutely false. In fact, low fat cooking can be colorful, vibrant and extremely flavorful. The key is to incorporate a variety of fresh spices, herbs, olive oil and put some thought into the dishes you select. For instance, you can make almost any dish a low fact dish just by ensuring the least amount of oil is used, and opting for lean cuts of beef and pork. In general, chicken and turkey are almost always low in fat and fish is also a great choice for any reduced fat dish.

Beverage Selection
Keep in mind that a meal includes not only the food, but the beverage as well. You can enhance a meal by pairing it with a quality beverage. Whether it is a nice wine, flavorful sparkling mineral water or a top notch cocktail, a beverage can easily make a ho hum meal outstanding. 

Author Resource - For more great cooking tips and family friendly recipes visit http://www.healthybiz2000.com/dinewithoutwhine.htm

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05.32 | 0 comments