Green Tea Herbs Or Black Tea?

By N Young

At first glance it will seem to you that the differences between green tea herbs and black tea appear to be numerous, but you will find that there are a number of similarities too that you may never imagined.

For example; maybe you didn't know it, but black and green tea herbs come from the same plant, this is the Camellia Sinensis found in a number of Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. However, the final beverage that you take will depend on how the leaves are processed and brewed. This is the reason why green tea has a very high concentration of antioxidants compared to its cousin the black tea, which has a stronger flavor due to its further processing compared to the green one that is never allowed to ferment or oxidize. Thanks to this precaution taken with green tea herbs the phytochemical components known as catechins are not lost.

Though black tea still conserves part of its antioxidant components and will also have beneficial effects for your health, it may be not as great as the green tea but you will not regret having a cup of black tea if that's what there is.

Additionally there are other differences between the two famous teas. That's the flavor. Green tea has a more fresh, light flavor due to its low processing compared with the strong flavor of black tea resulting from the oxidation of its components during the fermentation process. Also black tea, compared to green, will give you an energy boost due to the caffeine found in its fully fermented leaves. Though its effects are much milder and friendly than those of coffee.

Now you know some differences and similarities between the green tea herbs and black tea. One thing is sure. Both will make you good.

If you want to taste the great benefits of Green Tea, specially for your figure, guided by a professional that will open all the secrets of Green Tea to you, don't hesitate and visit my website. I'm sure you will be glad you did.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=N_Young

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Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization, Part VIII

Three Case Studies in Occlusion

In this post, I'll review three cultures with different degrees of malocclusion over time, and try to explain how the factors I've discussed may have played a role.

The Xavante of Simoes Lopes

In 1966, Dr. Jerry D. Niswander published a paper titled "The Oral Status of the Xavantes of Simoes Lopes", describing the dental health and occlusion of 166 Brazilian hunter-gatherers from the Xavante tribe (free full text). This tribe was living predominantly according to tradition, although they had begun trading with the post at Simoes Lopes for some foods. They made little effort to clean their teeth. They were mostly but not entirely free of dental cavities:

Approximately 33% of the Xavantes at Simoes Lopes were caries free. Neel et al. (1964) noted almost complete absence of dental caries in the Xavante village at Sao Domingos. The difference in the two villages may at least in part be accounted for by the fact that, for some five years, the Simoes Lopes Xavante have had access to sugar cane, whereas none was grown at Sao Domingos. It would appear that, although these Xavantes still enjoy relative freedom from dental caries, this advantage is disappearing after only six years of permanent contact with a post of the Indian Protective Service.

The most striking thing about these data is the occlusion of the Xavante. 95 percent had ideal occlusion. The remaining 5 percent had nothing more than a mild crowding of the incisors (front teeth). Niswander didn't observe a single case of underbite or overbite. This would have been truly exceptional in an industrial population. Niswander continues:

Characteristically, the Xavante adults exhibited broad dental arches, almost perfectly aligned teeth, end-to-end bite, and extensive dental attrition. At 18-20 years of age, the teeth were so worn as to almost totally obliterate the cusp patterns, leaving flat chewing surfaces.

The Xavante were clearly hard on their teeth, and their predominantly hunter-gatherer lifestyle demanded it. They practiced a bit of "rudimentary agriculture" of corn, beans and squash, which would sustain them for a short period of the year devoted to ceremonies. Dr. James V. Neel describes their diet (free full text):

Despite a rudimentary agriculture, the Xavante depend very heavily on the wild products which they gather. They eat numerous varieties of roots in large quantities, which provide a nourishing, if starchy, diet. These roots are available all year but are particularly important in the Xavante diet from April to June in the first half of the dry season when there are no more fruits. The maize harvest does not last long and is usually saved for a period of ceremonies. Until the second harvest of beans and pumpkins, the Xavante subsist largely on roots and palmito (Chamacrops sp.), their year-round staples.

From late August until mid-February, there are also plenty of nuts and fruits available. The earliest and most important in their diet is the carob or ceretona (Ceretona sp.), sometimes known as St. John's bread. Later come the fruits of the buriti palm (Mauritia sp.) and the piqui (Caryocar sp.). These are the basis of the food supply throughout the rainy season. Other fruits, such as mangoes, genipapo (Genipa americana), and a number of still unidentified varieties are also available.

The casual observer could easily be misled into thinking that the Xavante "live on meat." Certainly they talk a great deal about meat, which is the most highly esteemed food among them, in some respects the only commodity which they really consider "food" at all... They do not eat meat every day and may go without meat for several days at a stretch, but the gathered products of the region are always available for consumption in the community.

Recently, the Xavante have begun to eat large quantities of fish.

The Xavante are an example of humans living an ancestral lifestyle, and their occlusion shows it. They have the best occlusion of any living population I've encountered so far. Here's why I think that's the case:

• A nutrient-rich, whole foods diet, presumably including organs.
  
• On-demand breast feeding for two or more years.
• No bottle-feeding or modern pacifiers.
• Tough foods on a regular basis.
  

I don't have any information on how the Xavante have changed over time, but Niswander did present data on another nearby (and genetically similar) tribe called the Bakairi that had been using a substantial amount of modern foods for some time. The Bakairi, living right next to the Xavante but eating modern foods from the trading post, had 9 times more malocclusion and nearly 10 times more cavities than the Xavante. Here's what Niswander had to say:

Severe abrasion was not apparent among the Bakairi, and the dental arches did not appear as broad and massive as in the Xavantes. Dental caries and malocclusion were strikingly more prevalent; and, although not recorded systematically, the Bakairi also showed considerably more periodontal disease. If it can be assumed that the Bakairi once enjoyed a freedom from dental disease and malocclusion equal to that now exhibited by the Xavantes, the available data suggest that the changes in occlusal patterns as well as caries and periodontal disease have been too rapid to be accounted for by an hypothesis involving relaxed [genetic] selection.

The Masai of Kenya

The Masai are traditionally a pastoral people who live almost exclusively from their cattle. In 1945, and again in 1952, Dr. J. Schwartz examined the teeth of 408 and 273 Masai, respectively (#1 free full text; #2 ref). In the first study, he found that 8 percent of Masai showed some form of malocclusion, while in the second study, only 0.4 percent of Masai were maloccluded. Although we don't know what his precise criteria were for diagnosing malocclusion, these are still very low numbers.

In both studies, 4 percent of Masai had cavities. Between the two studies, Schwartz found 67 cavities in 21,792 teeth, or 0.3 percent of teeth affected. This is almost exactly what Dr. Weston Price found when he visited them in 1935. From Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, page 138:

In the Masai tribe, a study of 2,516 teeth in eighty-eight individuals distributed through several widely separated manyatas showed only four individuals with caries. These had a total of ten carious teeth, or only 0.4 per cent of the teeth attacked by tooth decay.

Dr. Schwartz describes their diet:

The principal food of the Masai is milk, meat and blood, the latter obtained by bleeding their cattle... The Masai have ample means with which to get maize meal and fresh vegetables but these foodstuffs are known only to those who work in town. It is impossible to induce a Masai to plant their own maize or vegetables near their huts.

This is essentially the same description Price gave during his visit. The Masai were not hunter-gatherers, but their traditional lifestyle was close enough to allow good occlusion. Here's why I think the Masai had good occlusion:

• A nutrient-dense diet rich in protein and fat-soluble vitamins from pastured dairy.
• On-demand breast feeding for two or more years.
• No bottle feeding or modern pacifiers.
  

The one factor they lack is tough food. Their diet, composed mainly of milk and blood, is predominantly liquid. Although I think food toughness is a factor, this shows that good occlusion is not entirely dependent on tough food.

Sadly, the lifestyle and occlusion of the Masai has changed in the intervening decades. A paper from 1992 described their modern diet:

The main articles of diet were white maize, [presumably heavily sweetened] tea, milk, [white] rice, and beans. Traditional items were rarely eaten... Milk... was not mentioned by 30% of mothers.

A paper from 1993 described the occlusion of 235 young Masai attending rural and peri-urban schools. Nearly all showed some degree of malocclusion, with open bite alone affecting 18 percent.

Rural Caucasians in Kentucky

It's always difficult to find examples of Caucasian populations living traditional lifestyles, because most Caucasian populations adopted the industrial lifestyle long ago. That's why I was grateful to find a study by Dr. Robert S. Corruccini, published in 1981, titled "Occlusal Variation in a Rural Kentucky Community" (ref).

This study examined a group of isolated Caucasians living in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky, USA. Corruccini arrived during a time of transition between traditional and modern foodways. He describes the traditional lifestyle as follows:

Much of the traditional way of life of these people (all white) has been maintained, but two major changes have been the movement of industry and mechanized farming into the area in the last 25 years. Traditionally, tobacco (the only cash crop), gardens, and orchards were grown by each family. Apples, pears, cherries, plums, peaches, potatoes, corn, green beans, peas, squash, peppers, cucumbers, and onions were grown for consumption, and fruits and nuts, grapes, and teas were gathered by individuals. In the diet of these people, dried pork and fried [presumably in lard], thick-crust cornbread (which were important winter staples) provided consistently stressful chewing. Hunting is still very common in the area.

Although it isn't mentioned in the paper, this group, like nearly all traditionally-living populations, probably did not waste the organs or bones of the animals it ate. Altogether, it appears to be an excellent and varied diet, based on whole foods, and containing all the elements necessary for good occlusion and overall health.

The older generation of this population has the best occlusion of any Caucasian population I've ever seen, rivaling some hunter-gatherer groups. This shows that Caucasians are not genetically doomed to malocclusion. The younger generation, living on more modern foods, shows very poor occlusion, among the worst I've seen. They also show narrowed arches, a characteristic feature of deteriorating occlusion. One generation is all it takes. Corruccini found that a higher malocclusion score was associated with softer, more industrial foods.

Here are the reasons I believe this group of Caucasians in Kentucky had good occlusion:

• A nutrient-rich, whole foods diet, presumably including organs.
  
• Prolonged breast feeding.
• No bottle-feeding or modern pacifiers.
• Tough foods on a regular basis.
  

Common Ground

I hope you can see that populations with excellent teeth do certain things in common, and that straying from those principles puts the next generation at a high risk of malocclusion. Malocclusion is a serious problem that has major implications for health, well-being and finances. In the next post, I'll give a simplified summary of everything I've covered in this series. Then it's back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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Will Fruit Make You Fat?

By Nick Nilsson

Learn the truth about fruit...is it the diabolical diet-killer it's sometimes made out to be or is it just fruit and actually pretty good for you?!

The answer to the question of whether fruit can or will make you fat isn't as simple as yes OR no...because the answer is yes AND no.

Sound confusing? It's not so bad!

There have been studies done on fruit sugar (fructose) and how it's metabolized in the body and liver, which I'll get into in a bit, but I'm also going to talk about fruit from a practical standpoint.

First, here is why it WON'T make you fat...

Fruit is a fat-free (with rare exception, like avocados) and fairly low-calorie, high-fiber food. It's going to be hard to eat ENOUGH fruit to result in an excess of calories, resulting in noticeable fat gain...hard, but not impossible.

You would have to look long and hard to find somebody who ate a lot of fruit and had gained a lot of fat because of all the fruit they ate. Fruit roll-ups, fruit juice (with 10% real juice), Fruity Pebbles and Froot Loops...maybe not so hard, though I do have to say high fructose corn syrup is NOT a fruit just because it has the word "fructose" in it, so that doesn't count.

And I don't know about you, but I have yet to hear of somebody sitting down in front of the television and not realizing they ate an entire bag of apples or saying their doctor told them they need to lay off the bananas!

"Real" fruit actually contains a lot of water, nutrients, fiber, etc...healthy stuff...stuff your body NEEDS. It's generally when we start mucking around with fruit that we start to run into problems.

In the words of Homer Simpson..."This jelly donut has purple stuff in it. Purple is a fruit."

That being said, there ARE metabolic issues with fruit and fat.

Yes, it IS true that the body has certain limitations processing fructose (the type of sugar found in fruit).

Fructose can only be stored as glycogen (glycogen is the carbohydrate storage molecule in the body) in the liver, not in the muscles. Muscle cells lack the proper enzymes to convert fructose into this storage molecule.

So that leaves the liver for storage...

When liver glycogen levels are full and your body can't store any more carbs in the liver, fructose IS easier for the body to convert into fat than other carbs because of its molecular structure.

This fat is NOT immediately converted into bodyfat, however. It becomes free fatty acids circulating in the bloodstream. If they're not burned, they CAN be stored as bodyfat.

But the OTHER good stuff you find in fruit, notably the fiber and vitamins and minerals, outweigh the "dangers" of storing a little extra fat.

And here's the point that a lot of people miss, especially when they hear that fruit has the potential to work against fat loss when on a diet...

If you're dieting, you should be in a caloric deficit. This means that your liver glycogen levels should very RARELY be full. You're in a deficit after all!

Therefore...

1. The fructose should have little chance of being converted into fat.

2. If some excess fructose IS converted to fat, chances are good it'll be USED by the body soon after being converted to fat because you're in a caloric deficit.

Granted, just like ANY other carbohydrate, if you eat too much of it, it can be stored as fat. If you're a competitive bodybuilder peaking for a competition, you MAY have to watch your fruit intake to be sure you come in at your leanest.

But for the average person looking to drop bodyfat, fruit is not something I would be too worried about (unless you're on a low-carb diet, in which case you're watching ALL carbs anyway).

I would be FAR more concerned about a person drinking too much of that diet soda garbage while dieting before I'd even be slightly concerned about them eating an apple.

Bottom line, my stance is this...DO NOT feel guilty about eating fruit, even while dieting. Treat it as you would any other food with calories in it and simply be aware of your intake because ANY food has the potential to make you fat, especially if you eat it when your body doesn't need any more calories for that day.

If you want to minimize the impact of fruit on your fat-loss diet, eat it in the morning when liver glycogen levels are naturally at their lowest point. This will help ensure fructose won't be converted into fat.

Honestly, there are MUCH more important things to worry about when it comes to fat loss...your training and overall nutrition are much more important than worrying about eating too much fruit.

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

Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of the online personal training company BetterU, Inc. He has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been inventing new training techniques for more than 18 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding eBooks including "Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss," "The Best Exercises You've Never Heard Of," "Gluteus to the Maximus - Build a Bigger Butt NOW!" and "The Best Abdominal Exercises You've Never Heard Of" all available at http://fitness-ebooks.rxsportz.com. He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com.

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Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization, Part VII

Jaw Development During Adolescence

Beginning at about age 11, the skull undergoes a growth spurt. This corresponds roughly with the growth spurt in the rest of the body, with the precise timing depending on gender and other factors. Growth continues until about age 17, when the last skull sutures cease growing and slowly fuse. One of these sutures runs along the center of the maxillary arch (the arch in the upper jaw), and contributes to the widening of the upper arch*:

This growth process involves MGP and osteocalcin, both vitamin K-dependent proteins. At the end of adolescence, the jaws have reached their final size and shape, and should be large enough to accommodate all teeth without crowding. This includes the third molars, or wisdom teeth, which will erupt shortly after this period.

Reduced Food Toughness Correlates with Malocclusion in Humans

When Dr. Robert Corruccini published his seminal paper in 1984 documenting rapid changes in occlusion in cultures around the world adopting modern foodways and lifestyles (see this post), he presented the theory that occlusion is influenced by chewing stress. In other words, the jaws require good exercise on a regular basis during growth to develop normal-sized bones and muscles. Although Dr. Corruccini wasn't the first to come up with the idea, he has probably done more than anyone else to advance it over the years.

Dr. Corruccini's paper is based on years of research in transitioning cultures, much of which he conducted personally. In 1981, he published a study of a rural Kentucky community in the process of adopting the modern diet and lifestyle. Their traditional diet was predominantly dried pork, cornbread fried in lard, game meat and home-grown fruit, vegetables and nuts. The older generation, raised on traditional foods, had much better occlusion than the younger generation, which had transitioned to softer and less nutritious modern foods. Dr. Corruccini found that food toughness correlated with proper occlusion in this population.

In another study published in 1985, Dr. Corruccini studied rural and urban Bengali youths. After collecting a variety of diet and socioeconomic information, he found that food toughness was the single best predictor of occlusion. Individuals who ate the toughest food had the best teeth. The second strongest association was a history of thumb sucking, which was associated with a higher prevalence of malocclusion**. Interestingly, twice as many urban youths had a history of thumb sucking as rural youths.

Not only do hunter-gatherers eat tough foods on a regular basis, they also often use their jaws as tools. For example, the anthropologist and arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson described how the Inuit chewed their leather boots and jackets nearly every day to soften them or prepare them for sewing. This is reflected in the extreme tooth wear of traditional Inuit and other hunter-gatherers.

Soft Food Causes Malocclusion in Animals

Now we have a bunch of associations that may or may not represent a cause-effect relationship. However, Dr. Corruccini and others have shown in a variety of animal models that soft food can produce malocclusion, independent of nutrition.

The first study was conducted in 1951. Investigators fed rats typical dry chow pellets, or the same pellets that had been crushed and softened in water. Rats fed the softened food during growth developed narrow arches and small mandibles (lower jaws) relative to rats fed dry pellets.

Other research groups have since repeated the findings in rodents, pigs and several species of primates (squirrel monkeys, baboons, and macaques). Animals typically developed narrow arches, a central aspect of malocclusion in modern humans. Some of the primates fed soft foods showed other malocclusions highly reminiscent of modern humans as well, such as crowded incisors and impacted third molars. These traits are exceptionally rare in wild primates.

One criticism of these studies is that they used extremely soft foods that are softer than the typical modern diet. This is how science works: you go for the extreme effects first. Then, if you see something, you refine your experiments. One of the most refined experiments I've seen so far was published by Dr. Daniel E. Leiberman of Harvard's anthropology department. They used the rock hyrax, an animal with a skull that bears some similarities to the human skull***.

Instead of feeding the animals hard food vs. mush, they fed them raw and dried food vs. cooked. This is closer to the situation in humans, where food is soft but still has some consistency. Hyrax fed cooked food showed a mild jaw underdevelopment reminiscent of modern humans. The underdeveloped areas were precisely those that received less strain during chewing.

Implications and Practical Considerations

Besides the direct implications for the developing jaws and face, I think this also suggests that physical stress may influence the development of other parts of the skeleton. Hunter-gatherers generally have thicker bones, larger joints, and more consistently well-developed shoulders and hips than modern humans. Physical stress is part of the human evolutionary template, and is probably critical for the normal development of the skeleton.

I think it's likely that food consistency influences occlusion in humans. In my opinion, it's a good idea to regularly include tough foods in a child's diet as soon as she is able to chew them properly and safely. This probably means waiting at least until the deciduous (baby) molars have erupted fully. Jerky, raw vegetables and fruit, tough cuts of meat, nuts, dry sausages, dried fruit, chicken bones and roasted corn are a few things that should stress the muscles and bones of the jaws and face enough to encourage normal development.


* These data represent many years of measurements collected by Dr. Arne Bjork, who used metallic implants in the maxilla to make precise measurements of arch growth over time in Danish youths. The graph is reproduced from the book A Synopsis of Craniofacial Growth, by Dr. Don M. Ranly. Data come from Dr. Bjork's findings published in the book Postnatal Growth and Development of the Maxillary Complex. You can see some of Dr. Bjork's data in the paper "Sutural Growth of the Upper Face Studied by the Implant Method" (free full text).

** I don't know if this was statistically significant at p less than 0.05. Dr. Corruccini uses a cutoff point of p less than 0.01 throughout the paper. He's a tough guy when it comes to statistics!

*** Retrognathic.

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20 Vegan Holiday Recipes

With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, a lot of vegetarians are getting a little anxious, because they don't know what to eat over these holidays.

Fortunately, I just received an email from vegetarian recipe expert, Kardena Pauza, and here's what she has planned:

"For Thanksgiving, we are going to be at my good friend's house so we will bring some dishes over to contribute to the dinner.

The dishes I am going to make are in the new Vegan holiday recipe book that I just prepared for you.

So on Thursday, I'll be "cooking" up a storm, preparing...

1. Cauliflower mashed potatoes and vegan gravy
2. Healthy Vegan green bean casserole
3. Raw chocolate truffles - my specialty!    
4. Fresh, homemade cranberry sauce

And my vegan friends will surprise me with their awesome holiday dishes. I cant wait to have pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes! Two of my favorites!

If you want to try those out, plus 16 more of the best holiday Vegan recipes to help you eat healthy and veggie over the holidays, then I have great news for you.

You'll even discover a substitute for Thanksgiving Turkey, Beef Wellington, and more yummy chocolate desserts."

And to celebrate Thanks-Veganing (and November's World Vegan Month), Kardena is including her 20 Vegan Holiday Recipes book along with a $30 discount on the Easy Veggie Meal Plans System.

But hurry...the $30 off Easy Veggie Meal Plans celebration discount is only available until American Thanksgiving Thursday, November 26th at 11:59pm. As soon as "Black Friday" morning comes, the bonus is removed and the price goes back up.

Click here for the veggie holiday recipes bonus & $30 off holiday sale:

=> http://bit.ly/8tqp1e

I look forward to hearing about your success with the Easy Veggie Meal Plans program today!

Happy Thanksgiving (and Happy Vegan Month to EVERYONE in the world),

Arthur M.

PS - Be a FAST ACTION taker and start celebrating vegetarian eating and Thanks-Veganing by improving your health, boosting your energy, clearing your complexion, and dramatically transforming your body with these special holiday recipes and the Easy Veggie Meal Plans today!

=> http://bit.ly/8tqp1e

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05.21 | 0 comments

4 Less Known Benefits of Aloe Vera, Beside Shampoo and Skin Care

By Andrea Scarpetta

Aloe Vera nutrients bring balance to bodily fluids and organs

The need to get back to "nature" is a strong one, at all levels. For example Celebrities have to look beautiful but new trend is focusing on becoming beautiful from the inside out. Celebs and others have been congregating en masse to green spas in a quest to eliminate toxins and repair cells that have been damaged from pollution and stress.

Aloe Vera for athletes

People need to train constantly in order to get the best of their life (be it work, sport or sex). So people obsessed with this kind of behaviour may risk a condition called "over-training": their adrenal glands must cope with the stressing requirements of a constant training condition. In the end the glands are depleted and they fail to regulate hormonal levels, causing serious problems. People over-trained tend to exhibit low hemoglobin, scarce hematocrit and even anemia!

Aloe vera antioxidants are know to help combat this condition, even thought nothing beat some rest and a balanced food diet.

Aloe Vera for your hearth wellness

Eat, eat, eat! That's the boring song of food marketing during the last years. The indiscriminate abuse of fats has lead to an increasing rate of Arteriosclerosis on the general populace. it's not that hard to imagine what happens when your blood vessels are damaged: you risk a stroke!

Aloe has been shown in clinical studies to lower triglycerides and the 'bad cholesterol', LDL. These intensive studies suggest that when aloe is added to the daily diet, symptoms and signs of coronary artery disease disappear or are vastly reversed.

Aloe Vera help teeth health

Our mouth is a melting pot of germs and bacteria, so it's quite obvious that in order to keep it perfectly health you need to consume healthy foods, brush regularly and floss with care. only give you superficial protection against plaque, germs, and bacteria. Most of us lead such busy lives, however, that it is hard to get a regular intake of healthy foods.

Aloe vera is a natural anti-fungal as well as a natural anti-bacterial plant. Aloe vera works wonders for dental health and protects the sensitive and fragile tissues of the mouth when consumed internally.

Andrea Scarpetta
Aloe Vera Benefits
http://www.aloeverabenefits.me

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrea_Scarpetta

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Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization, Part VI

Early Postnatal Face and Jaw Development

The face and jaws change more from birth to age four than at any other period of development after birth. At birth, infants have no teeth and their skull bones have not yet fused, allowing rapid growth. This period has a strong influence on the development of the jaws and face. The majority of malocclusions are established by the end this stage of development. Birth is the point at which the infant begins using its jaws and facial musculature in earnest.

The development of the jaws and face is very plastic, particularly during this period. Genes do not determine the absolute size or shape of any body structure. Genes carry the blueprint for all structures, and influence their size and shape, but structures develop relative to one another and in response to the forces applied to them during growth. This is how orthodontists can change tooth alignment and occlusion by applying force to the teeth and jaws.

Influences on Early Postnatal Face and Jaw Development

In 1987, Miriam H. Labbok and colleagues published a subset of the results of the National Health Interview survey (now called NHANES) in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Their article was provocatively titled "Does Breast-feeding Protect Against Malocclusion"? The study examined the occlusion of nearly 10,000 children, and interviewed the parents to determine the duration of breast feeding. Here's what they found:

The longer the infants were breastfed, the lower their likelihood of major malocclusion. The longest category was "greater than 12 months", in which the prevalence of malocclusion was less than half that of infants who were breastfed for three months or less. Hunter-gatherers and other non-industrial populations typically breastfeed for 2-4 years, but this is rare in affluent nations. Only two percent of the mothers in this study breastfed for longer than one year.

The prevalence and duration of breastfeeding have increased dramatically in the US since the 1970s, with the prevalence doubling between 1970 and 1980 (NHANES). The prevalence of malocclusion in the US has decreased somewhat in the last half-century, but is still very common (NHANES).

Several, but not all studies have found that infants who were breastfed have a smaller risk of malocclusion later in life (1, 2, 3). However, what has been more consistent is the association between non-nutritive sucking and malocclusion. Non-nutritive sucking (NNS) is when a child sucks on an object without getting calories out of it. This includes pacifier sucking, which is strongly associated with malocclusion*, and finger sucking, which is also associated to a lesser degree.

The longer a child engages in NNS, the higher his or her risk of malocclusion. The following graph is based on data from a study of nearly 700 children in Iowa (free full text). It charts the prevalence of three types of malocclusion (anterior open bite, posterior crossbite and excessive overjet) broken down by the duration of the NNS habit:

As you can see, there's a massive association. Children who sucked pacifiers or their fingers for more than four years had a 71 percent chance of having one of these three specific types of malocclusion, compared with 14 percent of children who sucked for less than a year. The association between NNS and malocclusion appeared after two years of NNS. Other studies have come to similar conclusions, including a 2006 literature review (1, 2, 3).

Bottle feeding, as opposed to direct breast feeding, is also associated with a higher risk of malocclusion (1, 2). One of the most important functions of breast feeding may be to displace NNS and bottle feeding. Hunter-gatherers and non-industrial cultures breast fed their children on demand, typically for 2-4 years, in addition to giving them solid food.

In my opinion, it's likely that NNS beyond two years of age, and bottle feeding to a lesser extent, cause a large proportion of the malocclusions in modern societies. Pacifier use seems to be particularly problematic, and finger sucking to a lesser degree.

How Do Breastfeeding, Bottle Feeding and NNS Affect Occlusion?

Since jaw development is influenced by the forces applied to them, it makes sense that the type of feeding during this period could have a major impact on occlusion. Children who have a prolonged pacifier habit are at high risk for open bite, a type of malocclusion in which the incisors don't come together when the jaws are closed. You can see a picture here. The teeth and jaws mold to the shape of the pacifier over time. This is because the growth patterns of bones respond to the forces that are applied to them. I suspect this is true for other parts of the skeleton as well.

Any force applied to the jaws that does not approximate the natural forces of breastfeeding or chewing and swallowing food, will put a child at risk of malocclusion during this period of his or her life. This includes NNS and bottle feeding. Pacifier sucking, finger sucking and bottle feeding promote patterns of muscular activity that result in weak jaw muscles and abnormal development of bony structures, whereas breastfeeding, chewing and swallowing strengthen jaw muscles and promote normal development (review article). This makes sense, because our species evolved in an environment where the breast and solid foods were the predominant objects that entered a child's mouth.

What Can We do About it?

In an ideal world (ideal for occlusion), mothers would breast feed on demand for 2-4 years, and introduce solid food about halfway through the first year, as our species has done since the beginning of time. For better or worse, we live in a different world than our ancestors, so this strategy will be difficult or impossible for many people. Are there any alternatives?

Parents like bottle feeding because it's convenient. Milk can be prepared in advance, the mother doesn't have to be present, feeding takes less time, and the parents can see exactly how much milk the child has consumed. One alternative to bottle feeding that's just as convenient is cup feeding. Cup feeding, as opposed to bottle feeding, promotes natural swallowing motions, which are important for correct development. The only study I found that examined the effect of cup feeding on occlusion found that cup-fed children developed fewer malocclusion and breathing problems than bottle-fed children.

Cup feeding has a long history of use. Several studies have found it to be safe and effective. It appears to be a good alternative to bottle feeding, that should not require any more time or effort.

What about pacifiers? Parents know that pacifiers make babies easier to manage, so they will be reluctant to give them up. Certain pacifier designs may be more detrimental than others. I came across the abstract of a study evaluating an "orthodontic pacifier" called the Dentistar, made by Novatex. The frequency of malocclusion was much lower in children who did not use a pacifier or used the Dentistar, than in those who used a more conventional pacifier. This study was funded by Novatex, but was conducted at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany**. The pacifier has a spoon-like shape that allows normal tongue movement and exerts minimal pressure on the incisors. There may be other brands with a similar design.

The ideal is to avoid bottle feeding and pacifiers entirely. However, cup feeding and orthodontic pacifiers appear to be acceptable alternatives that minimize the risk of malocclusion during this critical developmental window.


* Particularly anterior open bite and posterior crossbite.

** I have no connection whatsoever to this company. I think the results of the trial are probably valid, but should be replicated.

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20.00 | 0 comments

Heart Healthy Cooking Tips

By Dhiraj Bandurkar

Taking care of the old ticker requires exercise and a decent diet. There's simply no substitute for either. We'll leave the aerobic concerns to more informed minds and stick to the stuff that goes in the gut, namely the heart healthy foods everyone needs to stay fit, and the heart healthy cooking techniques that keep them that way. There's no substitute for either of those either.

Low saturated fat, low cholesterol dishes are what we're after here, and hold the butter and other added fats. The unhappy fact is that certain ingredients and preparation methods can add unwanted saturated fat and cholesterol to your food.

One can bake without fear, broil to the heart's content and microwave all day (just don't stand too close). Poaching is cool and steaming is even better. Seafood, chicken and vegetables are all good candidates for grilling. Lightly stir-frying or sautéing foods in cooking spray, small mounts of vegetable oil or reduced sodium broth are other healthy options. When roasting even skinless meats it's wise to place meats on a rack so fat can drip away.

There are lots of ways to cut out unwanted saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet that don't take the fun and flavor out of meal time. Butter is not your friend, what with its 8 grams of saturated fat and 11 grams of fat per tablespoon. Salsa is your good buddy though, with 0 grams of saturated fat and 0 cholesterol found in 1/4 of a cup. Creamy salad dressings are notoriously loaded with the bad stuff, while a reduced fat Italian sports only 2 grams of fat and tastes just as good.

There are many fine and tasty herbs, spices and condiments that can add zest to some of the more bland heart health dishes. Herbs include oregano, basil, cilantro, thyme, parsley, sage, rosemary. Cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper and paprika are all acceptable spices. Along with the reduced fat or nonfat salad dressing and salsa there are old standbys like mustard, catsup, horseradish, reduced fat or nonfat mayonnaise, reduced fat or nonfat sour cream, reduced fat or nonfat yogurt and reduced sodium soy sauce. That's to say nothing of Parmesan cheese, fruit preserves and simple red pepper flakes, none of which will harm you heart.

And there you have it. With a little planning, a bit of knowledge and a smidge of extra effort anyone, can eat right for their heart without giving up a healthy enjoyment of food.
Looking for more information on Discount cappuccino makers check out http://www.bread-maker.net your guide to bread and coffee makers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dhiraj_Bandurkar

Heart healthy cooking

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23.38 | 0 comments

Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization, Part V

Prenatal Development of the Face and Jaws

The structures of the face and jaws take shape during the first trimester of pregnancy. The 5th to 11th weeks of pregnancy are particularly crucial for occlusion, because this is when the jaws, nasal septum and other cranial structures form. The nasal septum is the piece of cartilage that forms the structure of the nose and separates the two air passages as they enter the nostrils.

Maternal Nutritional Status Affects Fetal Development

Abnormal nutrient status can lead to several types of birth defects. Vitamin A is an essential signaling molecule during development. Both deficiency and excess can cause birth defects, with the effects predominantly targeting the cranium and nervous system, respectively. Folic acid deficiency causes birth defects of the brain and spine. Other nutrients such as vitamin B12 may influence the risk of birth defects as well*.

The Role of Vitamin K

As early as the 1970s, physicians began noting characteristic developmental abnormalities in infants whose mothers took the blood-thinning drug warfarin (coumadin) during the first trimester of pregnancy. These infants showed an underdevelopment of the nasal septum, the maxilla (upper jaw), small or absent sinuses, and a characteristic "dished" face. This eventually resulted in narrow dental arches, severe malocclusion and tooth crowding**. The whole spectrum was called Binder's syndrome, or warfarin embryopathy.

Warfarin works by inhibiting vitamin K recycling, thus depleting a nutrient necessary for normal blood clotting. It's now clear that Binder's syndrome can result from anything that interferes with vitamin K status during the first trimester of pregnancy. This includes warfarin, certain anti-epilepsy drugs, certain antibiotics, genetic mutations that interfere with vitamin K status, and celiac disease (intestinal damage due to gluten).

Why is vitamin K important for the development of the jaws and face of the fetus? Vitamin K is required to activate a protein called matrix gla protein (MGP), which prevents unwanted calcification of the nasal septum in the developing fetus (among other things). If this protein isn't activated by vitamin K during the critical developmental window, calcium deposits form in the nasal septum, stunting its growth and also stunting the growth of the maxilla and sinuses. Low activity of MGP appears to be largely responsible for Binder's syndrome, since the syndrome can be caused by genetic mutations in MGP in humans. Small or absent sinuses are common in the general population.

One of the interesting things about MGP is its apparent preference for vitamin K2 over vitamin K1. Vitamin K1 is found predominantly in green vegetables, and is sufficient to activate blood clotting factors and probably some other vitamin K-dependent proteins. "Vitamin K2" refers to a collection of molecules known as menaquinones. These are denoted as "MK", followed by a number indicating the length of the side chain attached to the quinone ring.

Biologically important menaquinones are MK-4 through MK-12 or so. MK-4 is the form that animals synthesize from vitamin K1 for their own use. Certain organs (brain, pancreas, salivary gland, arteries) preferentially accumulate K2 MK-4, and certain cellular processes are also selective for K2 MK-4 (MGP activation, PKA-dependent transcriptional effects). Vitamin K2 MK-4 is found almost exclusively in animal foods, particularly pastured butter, organs and eggs. It is always found in foods designed to nourish growing animals, such as eggs and milk.

Humans have the ability to convert K1 to K2 when K1 is ingested in artificially large amounts. However, due to the limited absorption of normal dietary sources of K1 and the unknown conversion efficiency, it's unclear how much green vegetables contribute to K2 status. Serum vitamin K1 reaches a plateau at about 200 micrograms per day of dietary K1 intake, the equivalent of 1/4 cup of cooked spinach (see figure 1 of this paper). Still, I think eating green vegetables regularly is a good idea, and may contribute to K2 status. Other menaquinones such as MK-7 (found in natto) may contribute to K2 status as well, but this question has not been resolved.

Severe vitamin K deficiency clearly impacts occlusion. Could more subtle deficiency lead to a less pronounced form of the same developmental syndrome? Here are a few facts about vitamin K relevant to this question:

• In industrial societies, newborns are typically vitamin K deficient. This is reflected by the fact that in the US, nearly all newborns are given vitamin K1 at birth to prevent potentially fatal hemorrhage. In Japan, infants are given vitamin K2 MK-4, which is equally effective at preventing hemmorhage.
• Fetuses generally have low vitamin K status, as measured by the activity of their clotting factors.
  
• The human placenta transports vitamin K across the placental barrier and accumulates it. This transport mechanism is highly selective for vitamin K2 MK-4 over K1.
• The concentration of K1 in maternal blood is much higher than its concentration in umbilical cord blood, whereas the concentration of K2 in maternal blood is similar to the concentration in cord blood. Vitamin K2 MK-7 is undetectable in cord blood, even when supplemented, suggesting that MK-7 is not an adequate substitute for MK-4 during pregnancy.
  
• In rat experiments, arterial calcification due to warfarin was inhibited by vitamin K2 MK-4, but not vitamin K1. This is probably due to K2's ability to activate MGP, the same protein required for the normal development of the human face and jaws.
  
• The human mammary gland appears to be the most capable organ at converting vitamin K1 to K2 MK-4.
  

Together, this suggests that in industrial societies, fetuses and infants are vitamin K deficient, to the point of being susceptible to fatal hemorrhage. It also suggests that vitamin K2 MK-4 plays a critical role in fetal and early postnatal development. Could subclinical vitamin K2 deficiency be contributing to the high prevalence of malocclusion in modern societies?

An Ounce of Prevention

Vitamin A, folic acid, vitamin D and vitamin K2 are all nutrients with a long turnover time. Body stores of these nutrients depend on long-term intake. Thus, the nutritional status of the fetus during the first trimester reflects what the mother has been eating for several months before conception.

Dr. Weston Price noted that a number of the traditional societies he visited prepared women of childbearing age for healthy pregnancies by giving them special foods rich in fat-soluble vitamins. This allowed them to gestate and rear healthy, well-formed children. Nutrient-dense animal foods and green vegetables are a good idea before, during and after pregnancy.


* Liver is the richest source of vitamin A, folic acid and B12.

** Affected individuals may show class I, II, or III malocclusion.

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20.00 | 0 comments

The Best Nutritional Vitamins and Herb Supplements Revealed

By Ric Hawkins

When it comes to nutritional vitamins and herb supplements, there is much to choose from so what distinguishes a high quality supplement from a poorer one? Here are some tips to help guide you.

Experts agree the best way is to take a combined product of different vitamins, minerals, herb extracts, antioxidants and more to reap the health rewards. When expertly combined they form a powerful synergistic mix.

Nutritional vitamins and herb supplements blended this way enable you to get not only the benefits of each individual ingredient, but also the benefit from their interaction with each other.

Piperine from black pepper is a good example of this as when combined with curcumin extract from turmeric it helps the absorption rate by the body of curcumin increase by 2000%! This means there is no need for expensive large doses and the potential side effects of these.

To get the maximum rewards it is also necessary for the supplement of choice to have an enteric coating. This is more expensive than the usual veggie caps, and prevents the contents and impact being lost to the stomach acid. Instead it is released in the upper intestine along with the full benefits.

When nutritional vitamins and herb supplements have this coating, it also shows that the manufacturer cares about its product and wants you to get the most from it, often absorbing the considerable extra cost themselves.

You may also find, like I did, that the best place to find these types of supplements is online, as with lower overheads, more resources can be put into the ingredients and a better product results. Due diligence is always necessary online, but if you follow the tips here you will find the best ones.

It is only now here in the West we are waking up to the immense power and preventative nature of nutritional vitamins and herb supplements, whereas they have been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine, but better late than never!

If you would like to learn more about the high quality synergistic nutritional supplements which I personally take, visit my website today.

Discover the best nutritional vitamins and herb supplements today.

Ric Hawkins is a dedicated researcher of nutrition, diet and quality health supplements Discover the very latest and effective nutritional health supplements Ric recommends after extensive research.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ric_Hawkins

Herb supplements

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19.53 | 0 comments

Orthorexia and the New Rules of Clean Eating (Part 2)

By Tom Venuto

In part one, I described the growing obsession many people have with eating only the purest, healthiest foods, aka “clean eating.” You’d think that nothing but good would come from that, but some experts today dislike the concept of clean foods because it implies a dichotomy where other foods, by default, are “dirty” or forbidden - as in, you can never, ever eat them again (imagine life without chocolate, or pizza… or beer! you guys). Some physicians and psychologists even believe that if taken to an extreme, a fixation on healthy food qualifies as a new eating disorder called orthorexia.

Personally, I have no issues with the phrase “clean eating.” Even if you choose to eat clean nearly 100% of the time, I don’t see how that qualifies as a psychological disorder of any kind (I reckon people who eat at McDonalds every day are the ones who need a shrink).

However, I also think you would agree that any behavior - washing your hands, cleaning your house, or even exercise or eating health food - can become obsessive-compulsive and dysfunctional if it takes over your life or is taken to an extreme. In the case of diet and exercise, it could also lead to or overlap with anorexia.

It’s debatable whether orthorexia is a distinct eating disorder, but I’m not against using the word to help classify a specific type of obsessive-compulsive behavior. I think it’s real.

The truth is that many people are quite “enthusiastic” in defending – or preaching about - their dietary beliefs: no meat, no grains, no dairy, only organic, only raw, only what God made, and on and on the rigid all-or-nothing rules go.

What people choose to eat is often so sacred to them, it makes for tricky business when you’re a nutrition educator. Sometimes I don’t feel like telling anyone what to eat, but simply setting a personal example and showing people how I do it, like, “Hey guys, here is how natural bodybuilders eat to get so ripped and muscular. It may not suit you, but it works for us. Take it or leave it.”

On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that there’s got to be a way to better help the countless individuals who haven’t yet formulated their own philosophies, and who find nutrition overwhelmingly confusing. For many people, even a simple walk down the aisles of a grocery store, and trying to decipher the food labels and nutrition claims is enough to trigger an anxiety attack.

That’s where I hope this is useful. I can’t draw the line for you, or tell you what to eat, but I can suggest a list of “new rules” for clean eating which simplifies nutrition and clears up confusion, while giving you more freedom, balance, life enjoyment and better results at the same time.

New Rule #1: Define what clean eating means to you

Obviously, clean eating is not a scientific term. Most people define clean eating as avoiding processed foods, chemicals and artificial ingredients and choosing natural foods, the way they came out of the ground or as close to their natural form as possible. If that works for you, then use it. However, the possible definitions are endless. I’ve seen forum arguments about whether protein powder is “clean.” Arguments are a waste of time. Ultimately, what clean eating means is up to you to define. Whether your beliefs and values have you restrict or expand on the general definition, define it you must, keeping in mind that your definition may be different than other’s.

New Rule #2: Always obey the law of energy balance

There’s one widely held belief about food that hurts people and perpetuates the obesity problem because it’s simply not true. It’s the idea that calories don’t matter for weight loss, as long as you eat certain foods or avoid certain foods. Some people think that if you eat only clean foods, you’re guaranteed to lose weight and stay lean. The truth is that eating too much of anything gets stored as fat. Yes, you can become obese eating 100% clean, natural foods. There’s more to good nutrition than calories in versus calories out, but the energy balance equation is always there.

New Rule #3: Remember that “foods” are not fattening, “excess calories” are

There’s a widespread fear today that certain foods will automatically turn into fat. Carbohydrates – particularly refined carbohydrates and sugars - are still high on the hit list of feared foods, and so are fatty foods, owing to their high caloric density (9 calories per gram). Foods that contain fat and sugar (think donuts) are considered the most fattening of all. But what if you ate only one small donut and stayed in a calorie deficit for the day – would you still say that donut was fattening?

If you want to say certain foods are fattening, you certainly can, but what you really mean is that some foods are calorie dense, highly palatable, not very satiating and eating them might even stimulate your appetite for more (betcha can’t eat just one!). Therefore, they’re likely to cause you to eat more calories than you need. Conversely, “non-fattening” foods have no magical properties, they’re simply low in caloric density, highly filling and non-appetite stimulating.

New Rule #4: Understand the health-bodyfat paradox

Two of the biggest reasons people choose to eat clean are health and weight loss. Health and body composition are intertwined, but dietary rules for health and weight loss are not one in the same. Weight gains or losses are dictated primarily by calorie quantity. Health is dictated primarily by calorie quality. That’s the paradox: You can lose weight on a 100% junk food diet, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be healthy. You can get healthier on an all natural clean food diet, but that doesn’t mean you won’t gain weight… and if you gain too much weight, then you start getting unhealthy. To be healthy and lean requires the right combination of calorie quantity and quality, not one or the other.

New Rule #5: Forbidden foods are forbidden.

Think of you on a diet like a pressure cooker on a burner. The longer you keep that pot on the heat, the more the steam builds up inside. If there’s no outlet or release valve, eventually the pressure builds up so much that even if it’s made of steel and the lid is bolted down, she’s gonna blow, sooner or later. But if you let off a little steam by occasionally having that slice of pizza or whatever is your favorite food, that relieves the pressure.

Alas, you never even felt the urge to binge… because you already had your pizza and the urge was satisfied. Since the “cheat meal” was planned and you obeyed the law of calorie balance, you stayed in control and it had little or no effect on your fat loss results. Ironically, you overcome your cravings by giving in to them, with two caveats: not too often and not too much.

New Rule #6: Set your own compliance rule

Many health and nutrition professionals suggest a 90% compliance rule because if you choose clean foods 90% of the time, it’s easy to control your calories, you consume enough nutrients for good health, and what you eat the other 10% of the time doesn’t seem to matter much. Suppose you eat 3 meals and 2 snacks every day, a total of 35 feedings per week. 90% compliance would mean following your clean eating plan for about 31 or 32 of those weekly feedings. The other 3 or 4 times per week, you eat whatever you want (as long as you obey rule #2 and keep the calories in check)

You’ll need to decide for yourself where to set your own rule. A 90% compliance rule is a popular, albeit arbitrary number – a best guess at how much “clean eating” will give you optimal health. Some folks stay lean and healthy with 80%. Others say they don’t even desire junk food and they eat 99% clean, indulging perhaps only once or twice a month.

One thing is for certain – the majority of your calories should come from natural nutrient-dense foods – not only for good health, but also because what you eat most of the time becomes your habitual pattern. Habit patterns are tough to break and what you do every day over the long term is what really counts the most.

New Rule #7: Have “free” meals, not “cheat” meals

Cheating presupposes that you’re doing something you’re not supposed to be doing. That’s why you feel guilty when you cheat. Guilt can be one of the biggest diet destroyers. Consider referring to these meals that are off your regular plan as “free meals” instead of “cheat meals.” If having free meals is part of your plan right from the start, then you’re not cheating are you? So don’t call it that. What can you eat for your free meals? Anything you want. Otherwise, it wouldn’t truly be a free meal, would it?

People sometimes tell me that my bodybuilding diet and lifestyle are “too strict.” I find that amusing because I love eating clean 95-99% of the time and I consider it easy. I had a butter-drizzled steak, a glass of wine, and chocolate sin cake for dessert to celebrate my last birthday. I had a couple slices of pizza just four weeks before my last competition (and still stepped on stage at 4.5% body fat). Oh, and I’m really looking forward to my mom’s pumpkin pie and Christmas cake too. Why? How? Because as strict as my lifestyle might appear to some people, I’ve learned how to enjoy free meals and I will eat ANYTHING I want - with no guilt. Meanwhile, my critics are often people with rules that NEVER allow those foods to ever cross their lips.

New Rule #8: For successful weight control, focus on compliance to a calorie deficit, not just compliance to a food list

Dietary compliance doesn’t just mean eating the right foods, it means eating the right amount of food. You might be doing a terrific job at eating only the foods “authorized” by your nutrition program, but if you eat too many “clean” foods, you will still get fat. On the fat loss side of health-bodyfat paradox, the quantity of food is the pivotal factor, not the quality of food. If fat loss is your goal and you’re stubbornly determined to be 100% strict about your nutrition, then be 100% strict about maintaining your calorie deficit.

Lesson #9: Avoid all or none attitudes and dichotomous thinking

If you make a mistake, it doesn’t ruin an entire 12 week program, a whole week and not even an entire day. What ruins a program is thinking that you must either be on or off your diet and allowing one meal off your program to completely derail you. All or nothing thinking is the great killer of diet programs.

Even if they don’t believe that one meal will set them back physically, many “clean eaters” feel like a single cheat is a moral failure. They are terrified to eat any processed foods because they look at foods as good or bad rather than looking at the degree of processing or the frequency of consuming them.

Rest assured, a single meal of ANYTHING, if the calories don’t exceed your energy needs, will have virtually no impact on your condition. It’s not what you do occasionally, it’s what you do most of the time, day after day, that determines your long term results.

New Rule #10: Focus more on results, less on methods

I’m not sure whether it’s sad or laughable that most people get so married to their methods that they stop paying attention to results. Overweight people often praise their diet program and the guru that created it, even though they’ve plateaud and haven’t lost any weight in months, or the weight they lost has begun to creep back on. Health food fanatics keep eating the same, even when they’re sick and weak and not getting any stronger or healthier.

Why would someone continue doing more of the same even when it’s not working? One word: habit! Beliefs and behavior patterns are so ingrained at the unconscious level, you repeat the same behaviors every day virtually on automatic pilot. Defending existing beliefs and doing it the way you’ve always done it is a lot easier than changing.

In the final analysis, results are what counts: weight, body composition, lean muscle, performance, strength, blood pressure, blood lipids, and everything else you want to improve. Are they improving or not? If not, perhaps it’s time for a change.

Concluding words of wisdom

We need rules. Trying to eat “intuitively” or just “wing it” from the start is a recipe for failure. Ironically, intuitive eating does not come intuitively. Whether you use my Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle program or a different program that suits your lifestyle better, you must have a plan.

After following your plan for a while, your constructive new behaviors eventually turn over to unconscious control (a process commonly known as developing habits). But you’ll never reach that hallowed place of “unconscious competence” unless you start with planning, structure, discipline and rules.

Creating nutritional rules does NOT create more rule breakers. Only unrealistic or unnecessary rules create rule breakers. That’s why these new rules of clean eating are based on a neat combination of structure and flexibility. If you have too much flexibility and not enough structure, you no longer have a plan. If you have too much structure and not enough flexibility, you have a plan you can’t stick with.

To quickly sum it all up: Relax your diet a bit! But not too much!

Tom Venuto, author of:
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

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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04.41 | 0 comments

Orthorexia and the New Rules of Clean Eating (Part 1)

By Tom Venuto

Clean eating has no official definition, but it’s usually described as avoiding processed foods, chemicals, preservatives and artificial ingredients. Instead, clean eaters choose natural foods, the way they came out of the ground or as close to their natural form as possible. Vegetables, fruits, legumes, 100% whole grains, egg whites, fish, and chicken breast are clean eating staples. Clean eating appears to be a desirable, sensible, even noble goal. Eating clean is what we should all strive to do to achieve optimum health and body composition isn’t it? Arguably the answer is mostly yes, but more and more people today are asking, “is it possible to take clean eating too far?”

Physician Steven Bratman thinks so. In 1997, Bratman was the first to put a name to an obsession with healthy eating, calling it orthorexia nervosa. In his book, Health Food Junkies, Bratman said that whether they are trying to lose weight or not, orthorexics are preoccupied with eating healthy food and avoiding anything artificial or “toxic.”

Orthorexics are not only fanatical about eating the purest, healthiest, most nutritious (aka “clean”) foods available, says Bratman, they often feel a sense of righteousness in doing so.

Whether orthorexia should be officially classified as an eating disorder is controversial. The term appears in pub med indexed scientific journals, but it’s not listed in the DSM-IV as are anorexia and bulimia. Opponents wonder, “Since when did choosing a lifestyle that eliminates junk food become a disease?”

Media coverage and internet discussions about orthorexia have increased in the past year. Websites such as the Mayo Clinic, the Huffington Post and the UK-based Guardian added their editorials into the mix in recent months, alongside dozens of individual bloggers.

In most cases, mainstream media discussions of orthorexia have focused on far extremes of health food practices such as raw foodism, detox dieting or 100% pure organic eating, where some folks would rather starve to death than eat a cooked or pesticide-exposed vegetable.

But closer to my home, what about the bodybuilding, fitness, figure and physique crowd? Should we be included in this discussion?

In their quest for adding muscle mass and burning fat, many fitness and physique enthusiasts become obsessed with eating only the “cleanest” foods possible. Like the natural health enthusiasts, physique athletes usually avoid all processed foods and put entire food groups on the “forbidden” list. Oddly, that sometimes includes rules such as “you must cut out fruit on precontest diets” because “fruit is high in sugar” or “fructose turns to fat”.

According to Bratman’s criteria, one could argue that almost every competitive bodybuilder or physique athlete is automatically orthorexic, and they might add obsessive-compulsive and neurotic for good measure.

As you can imagine, I have mixed feelings about that (being a bodybuilder).

If I choose to set a rule for myself that I’ll limit my junk food to only 10% of my meals, does that make me orthorexic or is that a prudent health decision?

If I plan my menus on a spreadsheet, am I a macronutrient micromanager or am I detail-oriented?

If I make my meals in advance for the day ahead, does that mean I’m obsessive compulsive, or am I prepared?

If I make one of my high protein vanilla apple cinnamon oatmeal pancakes (one of my favorite portable clean food recipes) and take it with me on a flight because I don’t want to eat airline food, am I neurotic? Or am I perhaps, the smartest guy on the plane?

Some folks are probably shaking their heads and saying, “you bodybuilders are definitely OCD.” I prefer to call it dedicated, thank you, but perhaps we are obsessive, at least a wee bit before competitions. But aren’t all competitive athletes, to some degree, at the upper levels of most sports?

Athletes of all kinds – not just bodybuilders - take their nutrition and training regimens far beyond what the “average Joe” or “average soccer mom” would require to stay healthy and fit.

What if you don’t want to be average – what if you want to be world class? What then? Is putting hours of practice a day into developing a skill or discipline an obsessive-compulsive disorder too?

Okay, now that I’ve defended the strict lifestyle habits of the muscle-head brother and sisterhood, let me address the flipside: being too strict.

Where does the average health and bodyweight-concerned fitness enthusiast draw the line? How clean should you eat? Do you need lots of structure and planning in your eating habits, or as Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher said, does making too many rules only create more rule-breakers?

Debates have started flaring up over these questions and as inconceivable as it seems, there has actually been somewhat of a backlash against “clean eating.” Why would THAT possibly happen? Eating “clean” is eating healthy, right? Eating clean is a good thing, right?

Well, almost everyone agrees that it’s ok to have a “cheat meal” occasionally, but some experts - after watching how many people are becoming neurotic about food - are now clamoring to point out that it’s not necessary to be so strict.

The diet pendulum has apparently swung from:

“Eat a balanced diet with a wide variety of foods you enjoy.”

To:

“You MUST eat clean!”

To:

“Go ahead and eat as much junk as you want, as long as you watch your calories and get your essential nutrients like protein, essential fats, vitamins and minerals.”

Talk about confusion! Now we’ve got people who gain great pride and a sense of dedication and accomplishment for taking up a healthy, clean-eating lifestyle and we’ve got people who thumb their nose at clean eating and say, “Chill out bro! Live a little!”

The current debate about how clean you should eat (or how much you should “cheat”) reminds me of the recent arguments over training methods such as steady state versus HIIT cardio. Whatever the debate of the day, most people seem to have a really difficult time acknowledging that there’s a middle ground.

Most dieters, when they don’t like a certain philosophy, reject it entirely and flip to its polar opposite. Most dieters are dichotomous thinkers, always viewing their endeavors as all or nothing. Most dieters are also joiners, plugging into one of the various diet tribes and gaining their sense of identity by belonging. In some cases, I think these tribes are more like cults, as people follow guru-like leaders who pass down health and nutrition commandments that are followed with religious conviction. Seriously, the parallels of diet groups to religious groups can be downright scary sometimes.

Whether the goal is to optimize health, to build muscle or to burn fat, there’s little doubt that many individuals with all kinds of different motivations sometimes take their dietary restrictions to extremes. Obviously, an overly restrictive diet can lead to nutrient deficiencies and can adversely affect health, energy and performance.

In some cases, I can also see how swinging to any extreme, even a “healthy obsession” with pure food could lead to distorted views and behaviors that border on eating disorders. If you don’t believe it’s a real clinical psychological problem, then at the very least, you might agree that nutritional extremes could mean restricting social activities, creating inconvenience or making lifestyle sacrifices that are just not necessary.

I believe there’s a middle ground - a place where we can balance health and physique with a lifestyle and food plan we love and enjoy. Even more important, I believe that your middle ground may not be the same as mine. We all must find our own balance.

I believe that going back to BALANCE, but this time with a better definition of what balance means, is the approach of the future.

I also believe that some new rules would help us find that balance.

If you'd like to learn the rules that bodybuilders and fitness models follow to "eat clean" and stay lean, then visit http://burnthefat.rxsportz.com.

Tom Venuto, author of:
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

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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