Nutrition and Health Care

Archive for April, 2010

It is very important for everyone in your family to have good eating habits, since this will make you healthier and improve your lifestyle and longevity. Learning good eating habits as a family will help your kids develop a healthy relationship with food that they will keep for their whole lives.

Nowadays, there are so many unhealthy and popular foods available on the market. The fast food industry is more booming than ever, and with people getting busier and busier they give in to temptation and buy these foods. They are alright on occasion, but if eaten often they will deteriorate your health and add junk to your system.

One of the best ways to improve eating habits is to have family meals. During family meals, you can enjoy the food with company and it will help you talk to your kids about eating healthy foods. This will also help your child get used to eating a whole meal rather than just snacks, and it is also a great family bonding experience. Dinner and breakfast are good times for family meals, so try to set a time for the whole family to sit together and eat. Try new foods together, since children learn best from their parents and watching them eat healthy will influence them to do the same

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Home cooked meals are usually thought to be the tastiest and the healthiest. Cooking at home will help your child realize how food is important and how to make it at home. Home cooked meals made from scratch are better than meals from restaurants since they are natural and have less added fat and sugar. Made from scratch is usually healthier when the homemade alternative has fewer preservatives or unnecessary added starches. It is often more economical, too.

Children learn better if they are doing something as well as watching. Take your children with you when you go grocery shopping and show them what foods are good and what they should eat. Also, you can talk to them about junk foods with so many examples available in the grocery. Let them choose foods that they like to eat and if they are unhealthy, suggest healthy alternatives for them to try. When cooking at home, you can let your children do simple tasks to make them feel more appreciated and involved in making their food.

Avoid giving in to temptation by buying junk foods and instead fill your fridge with foods that are healthy. Buy lots of fruits and vegetables for your kids to snack on, as well as whole grain snacks. This way, if your children get hungry at home, they will eat healthy snacks instead of junk foods. Try to limit snacking so that children will have a good appetite to eat full meals at the table. If they must grab something to eat then having a dish of peeled and cut up fruits or raw vegetables available in the refrigerator will ensure they make the best choice for a snack.

If you have children who do not like eating healthy foods, then don’t despair. Continue to expose them to good food and let them see how nutritious they are. Don’t force them to eat the food though, if they don’t like it then give them something that they will eat but not something that is unhealthy. After showing a healthy dish to a child several times, they will start to accept it and eat it willingly.

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About the Author:
Gabriella Gometra builds sites on diverse topics, such as http://washablearearugs.net, which has information about washable area rugs and oval area rugs.
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Pesticides. What are they exactly? Is it necessary to use pesticides to keep our crops free from infestation? How do organic farmers keep their crops safe from bugs and insects without the use of pesticides? We know that pesticides are harmful but we still have many detailed questions because the actual risks of consuming pesticides aren’t necessarily advertised at your local grocery store. Many people don’t have thoughts of pesticides running through their heads when they are shopping at the store. We often shop on an empty stomach and don’t really stop to think about the risk we would take if we chose to eat a pint of delicious, super-red strawberries that happen to be on sale for half the price! No. We think, this is cheap, it’s fast, it’s a desert and a snack and the beautiful bright red color makes it look so fresh. We don’t take into account that those pretty little berries could very well be toxic.

Let’s start with a brief explanation of what pesticides are and why they are used. Pesticides can contain one or more of the following: chemicals, bacterium and disinfectants. They are used to rid of pests as well as weeds and fish. Farmers save money when they use pesticides to protect their crops from deteriorating or being consumed as they save approximately 10% of their product. Studies claim that the omission of pesticides would lead to job loss and hunger, yet at the same time, there are millions of dollars spent on the constant testing of these substances.

We all know that pesticides were invented to kill bugs and in small doses aren’t thought to “kill” humans. The fact is, 18,000 workers in the field of agriculture die each year of poisoning from pesticides. Many workers who are exposed to pesticides put themselves at risk for many types of cancer as well as neurological problems. Pesticides can harm those who work with or nearby the substances. Why do we assume that they won’t have the same effect on us? We should assume that they do, slowly at least. Can pesticides harm us one bite at a time along with our daily servings of fruits and vegetables?

Washing or peeling your food does not get rid of pesticides but does reduce the amount you would otherwise consume. The even bigger problem is the fact that you can’t “wash” your juice, apple sauce, sugar, soybean oil and many of the other products that contain pesticides. Soy Lecithin is found in chocolate bars and many other foods and consists of the left over trash of a soybean as well as their pesticides. Organophosphates are common pesticides found in our food that can also be found in nerve gas, yummy.

Organophosphates as well as other pesticides are known to affect children the most and can cause birth defects, cognitive impairment and behavioral problems (such as A.D.D.) and possibly even leukemia. There is also talk that pesticides may be contributing to the higher rates of autism over the past few years. Human exposure to pesticides can also lead to liver damage, Parkinson’s Disease, prostate cancer, breast cancer, infertility, immune deficiencies and more.

Is exposure to harmful pesticides beyond our control? Folks living in agricultural areas where pesticides are sprayed over crops are probably at greater risk than anyone else. The pesticides that are sprayed from planes can easily travel through the air and into neighborhoods. The chemicals can also pollute bodies of water and soil beyond the farms. This is one of the many reasons that the use of pesticides should be prohibited. Farmers would be disappointed assuming that they would be losing money. If a farmer is presented with the choice of having 10% more crops or a child with leukemia, which do you think he/she would choose? I would say losing a few crops here and there would be nothing compared to losing a child. This type of thinking needs to be more common. The risks of being exposed to pesticides needs to be advertised and people need to stop rationalizing when it comes to public safety. There is a clear choice here.

Those of us who have control over whether or not we’re exposed to pesticides need to make responsible choices for our safety and the health of our children. It is our conscious decision from here on in and our responsibility to take care of ourselves. Suddenly, those strawberries you bought at the grocery store don’t seem so appealing. Next time you’ll know to buy the organic ones in the next isle. Yes, they are not on sale, and yes, they do cost a little more than the average bunch, but you will be surprised when you eat a few and actually feel full. You will be reminded of what a real strawberry tasted like when you were a kid. You will be full, satisfied and that much healthier.

Organic food is free of pesticides and there is an organic version of just about everything out there. This is not a fad people; it’s a necessity at this point. Eating organic is the only way you will receive the vitamins and minerals that are found naturally in food. When you don’t eat organic, you might as well be eating plastic. Today’s food is so polluted and over-processed that it is no longer food once it hits the grocery store shelves. You will eat less food when you eat organic because the food is whole and pure, filling you comfortably. Organic food makes you less gassy, does not give you that bogged down, guilty feeling when you’re done eating, and does not contain chemicals that block the absorption of the essential nutrients your body needs to build immunity and keep you healthy and happy. Say no to pesticides.

Check out DISH Network satellite television and get the latest scoop on health topics with networks like CNN and BBC America.

By: Frank Bilotta

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About the Author:
Frank helps people learn about Dish Network Satellite TV, and how they can save money every month with popular Dish Network Packages. There is a lot of good news to share and also help people determine Dish TV or DirecTV
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The arrival of long sunny days is a sure sign that summer festival time is on our door step.

Even if its very agreeable to profit from the summer heat and roasting our skin under the sun, we must avoid overexposure to sun rays if we don’t want to develop skin cancer. Combine with good suntan lotions scientific studies indicate that what we eat may reduce our risks of skin cancers. Just recently its been discovered and also tested on many patients, that the vaccination products for herpes are also a cure for skin cancer. Its applied directly on the cancer, after 24 such treatments the skin cancer is usually completely gone even on advanced cancers. A follow up of those cancer patients as shown that their skin cancer didn’t come back even after two years. This is very positive news for people who suffer from skin cancer, and for the future. The problem is that I don’t know when this new treatment for cancer will be available to the general public. I hope as soon as possible! But its also been scientifically proven that certain type of food do help to prevent skin cancer.

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is the main cause of skin cancer. Energy from the sun actually is a form of radiation. It consists of visible light and other rays that people can’t see. Invisible infrared radiation, for instance, makes sunlight feel hot. UV also is invisible, and causes sunburn and sun tan.

UV rays damage DNA, the genetic material that makes up genes.

Genes control the growth and overall health of skin cells. If the genetic damage is severe, a normal skin cell may begin to grow in the uncontrolled, disorderly way of cancer cells. UV also can cause sunburn, and other damage that makes the skin look prematurely old and wrinkled.

Two kinds of rays exist in ultraviolet radiation:

Ultraviolet A (UVA)

Ultraviolet B (UVB)

Scientists once thought that excessive exposure to UVB rays was the main cause of skin cancer.

Now they think that UVA also is involved. That’s why it is important to use a sunscreen product that protects against both UVA and UVB rays. Some cases of skin cancer, however, may be hereditary and run in families.

In those cases, skin cancer is caused by abnormal genes that children inherit from their parents. Genes make parents and children look somewhat alike. They also make them likely to get some of the same diseases.

Anti-sun food.

Since skin cancers are nourished by the same mechanisms as those at work inside our body, its not a surprised that the known anti cancer elements contain in certain food will also be active against skin cancer. Some scientist have tested the anti cancer effects of green tea on certain animals. Green tea prevented those animals from developing skin cancer even when exposed to cancer provoking products. Also the high content of anti oxidants contains in certain raisins actually prevent skin cancer from developing by blocking inflammations caused on the skin by UVB at the cellular level of the skin. Certain classes of molecules which are found in great quantities in vegetables have the propriety to reduce free radicals produced by UVB. The best characterized example of this is carotene, the known pigments responsible for the red,orange and yellow colors of certain vegetables is a strong player in the reduction of skin cancers by interfering on a molecular level against the inflammatory action of UVB, by reducing at the same time the size of the cancerous tumor. Even though the ideal protective weapon is still sun lotions, what we

eat while exposing our skin to the sunlight is very important for helping us in the prevention of skin cancer.

Anti cancer recipe:

Green tea crusted chicken.

This recipe can be kept for as long as three weeks inside a hermetic container stored inside a refrigerator. Sencha tea is a green tea from Japan which is becoming more and more appreciated all across the world. After picking the leaf are pass through vapor then rolled.

4 white meat entire chicken breast each 150g (5 once) without any skin or fat

2 tea spoon of Sencha green tea from Japan.

2 tea spoon of fresh menthol

60 g (2 oz) or ¼ cup of ground citronella

3/4 tea spoon of salt

3/4 tea spoon of brown sugar

2 tea spoon of orange peel zest

2 tea spoon of lemon peal zest

2 tea spoon of fresh ground ginger

½ table spoon of fresh ground cumin

1. Mix all the crust ingredients inside a bowl.

2. Spread crust ingredients evenly all over each chicken breast.

3. Heat the whole content in oil into a big fry pan for 2 minutes on each side.

4. Put the whole thing into a cooking container and cook in the oven at 180 degree C (350 degree F) for at least 15 minutes or more depending on the thickness.

Enough for four portions with a total preparation time of about forty minutes.

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About the Author:
I was born and raised in a rural area in Grand Falls NB. It was a great life on the farm, Animals were always part of our life. I have dozen of great stories about animals and how helpful they are on a farm. I even have seen the elusive and legendary Black Panther of the east many times. It used to sit on a rock pile watching us going back and forth with the tractor while plowing the land. After a while we just decided to leave the feline alone. It had no intentions of harming anyone. So even though people say the Black Panther of the east doesn’t exist! I know for a fact that it does. You are invited to visit My Website.
 
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