August 1st, 2009 cate

You probably already know this but I thought I’d post this list of the 10 Unhealthiest Restaurants in America. Sadly, I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg…
1. Denny’s
2. Chili’s
3. Baskin-Robbins
4. Carl’s Jr.
5. Continue Reading
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July 22nd, 2009 cate
From eatdrinkbetter:
“If you’re a Whole Foods shopper who occasionally peruses the market’s free pamphlets and brochures, you might know a thing or two about the dangers of irradiated food–at least, that’s where I learned about it. We hear a lot of talk about harmful ingredients: dyes, preservatives, trans fats, and HFCS, for instance, but little is mentioned about this equally harmful process that can alter the molecular composition of the food you eat, damaging valuable vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, all in the name of making said food safer.
During irradiation, food is exposed to ionizing radiation in an effort to destroy microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, or insects that could be dangerous if consumed by people. In addition to sanitizing our food, irradiation can also be used to prevent sprouting, delay ripening, or increase juice yield–in other words, messing with a fruit or vegetable’s natural life process or progression. How exactly does irradiation achieve all these things? By damaging the DNA of the food in question, basically stunting any growth.
Considering how much time and effort is spent attempting to halt or reverse DNA damage to our own cells, then, it’s ironic that … ”
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July 16th, 2009 cate
From lowcarbdietsecret:
1. Water. Filling up with water can suppress hunger and the more water you drink, the less you retain. I’m not recommending eight 8-ounce servings, I’m talking about a gallon a day! Drink that water!
2. Green Tea. You can drink it hot or iced, flavored or unflavored, caffeinated or decaffeinated. You can get little packets to add to your water bottle or you can get it in capsule form. No matter how you take it, green tea works! Green tea helps your body use more fat for energy. It isn’t a miracle drug, but a little weight loss along with the anti-cancer and heart disease prevention properties of green tea sure can do wonders for a person’s health!
3. Soup. This is a no-brainer. Eight ounces of soup vs. eight ounces of lasagna. Both will fill you up but that soup is guaranteed to have far fewer calories than the lasagna. Whether you start your meal with two glasses of water or a bowl of soup, you get the same result. You’ll feel full quickly and take in a whole lot fewer calories.
4. Grapefruit. Grapefruit has been shown to reduce insulin levels. If you are one of the many in the world today who are insulin resistant and your body is overloaded with insulin, try having half a grapefruit before each meal (halving a grapefruit!). As with green tea, you may not notice a miracle but the combination of the grapefruit and a healthy, low fat, lower calorie diet just might net some results.
5. Apples. Apples have plenty of fiber and that is just plain good for you. Nobody has proven why but the scent of apples has been said to have an appetite suppressing quality.
6. Broccoli. Broccoli is loaded with fiber and bodybuilders love it for its estrogen fighting properties. Estrogen, while being a very important hormone can just be a drag if we have too much of it. Estrogen helps us store fat for the next baby.
7. Low-Fat Yogurt. A low calorie diet with low fat dairy included seems to produce more weight loss than a low calorie diet without dairy. If you can’t have ice cream when you’re dieting, why not allow yourself some low fat yogurt as a treat?
8. Low-Fat Protein. Chicken breasts, turkey breasts, and lean cuts of beef and pork not only satisfy hunger but they can be readily used by your body to create more muscle or maintain the muscle you have. Muscle is a good thing in that it requires more calories per hour to maintain than fat (it burns fat) and it makes us look slimmer.
9. Oatmeal. Got fiber? Oatmeal will fill you up, stick to your ribs and give you body a much needed dose of fiber. Just stay away from the flavored instant oatmeal that is usually loaded with sugar. Buy the tub of Quaker Oats (it is much cheaper than packaged instant oatmeal) and try adding a fresh, chopped apple, some cinnamon and a bit of Splenda to it.
10. Jalapeno Peppers. Capsaicin is a chemical found in Jalapeno and cayenne peppers that causes the human body to release stress hormones and thereby boost metabolism. If a food makes you sweat, it is burning calories.
Incorporate any of these items into your daily nutrition plan and you’ll likely notice a difference in your weight loss efforts. After all, every little bit helps!
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May 11th, 2009 cate
From naturalnews:
“A higher intake of vitamin E can cut the risk of lung cancer by more than half, researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has found.
In a new study published in the International Journal of Cancer, researchers used the National Cancer Institute’s Health Habits and History Questionnaire and Food Frequency Questionnaire to assess the dietary intakes of 1,088 lung cancer patients and 1,414 healthy participants. Participants were further surveyed about various lifestyle factors, including smoking.
The average age of the healthy participants was 60.8, while the average age of the lung cancer participants was 61.7.
Vitamin E occurs in two main groups, the tocopherols and tocotrienols. Each of these groups, in turn, contains four varieties, named alpha, beta, gamma and delta. For the current study, the researchers analyzed participants’ dietary tocopherol intake, dividing it up based on which form it occurred in.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to compare dietary intakes of the different forms of tocopherols (alpha-, beta-, gamma and delta-tocopherol) and lung cancer risk,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers divided participants into groups based on intake of tocopherols in general and the four different varieties individually, then compared the rate of lung cancer between the groups.
Participants with the highest tocopherol intake were found to have a 55 percent lower risk of lung cancer than participants with the lowest intakes. The average intakes of the two groups were more than 12.95 milligrams per day and less than 6.68 milligrams per day, respectively.
A powerful protective correlation also showed up for alpha-tocopherol, with those consuming the most having a 53 percent lower risk of lung cancer than those with the lowest intake. The highest alpha-tocopherol intake averaged more than 7.73 milligrams per day, while the lowest averaged less than 4.13 milligrams per day.
Higher consumption of beta-, gamma- or delta-tocopherol alone, however, appeared to have no influence on cancer risk.
“We found consistent independent associations for increased dietary alpha-tocopherol intake and risk reduction but did not find independent associations for gamma-, beta- and delta-tocopherol in lung cancer risk,” the researchers wrote.
The European diet typically contains vitamin E in the form of alpha-tocopherol, while the U.S. diet tends to contain it in the form of gamma-tocopherol. Vitamin pills contain mostly alpha-tocopherol.
The study was not designed to analyze by what mechanism tocopherols in general or alpha-tocopherol in particular might act to reduce cancer risk.
“Our data should be useful in stimulating additional epidemiologic and basic science research in the relationship of different forms of vitamin E and cancer,” the researchers wrote.
Foods high in vitamin E include asparagus, avocado, green leafy vegetables, nuts, olives, seeds and wheat germ. A variety of vegetable oils, including canola, corn, cottonseed, red palm, sunflower and soybean are also high in the vitamin.
The new study is not the first to link vitamin E with cancer protection. The vitamin is well known to function as an antioxidant, meaning that it plays an important role in removing particles known as free radicals from the body. These electrically charged molecules are believed to be responsible for some of the cell damage that leads to cancer, other diseases, and the symptoms of aging.”
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May 9th, 2009 cate
From scientificblogging:
“New research that uses an innovative approach to study, for the first time, the relative contributions of food and exercise habits to the development of the obesity epidemic has concluded that the rise in obesity in the United States since the 1970s was virtually all due to increased energy intake.
How much of the obesity epidemic has been caused by excess calorie intake and how much by reductions in physical activity has been long debated and while experts agree that making it easier for people to eat less and exercise more are both important for combating it, they debate where the public health focus should be.
A study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity is the first to examine the question of the proportional contributions to the obesity epidemic by combining metabolic relationships, the laws of thermodynamics, epidemiological data and agricultural data.
“There have been a lot of assumptions that both reduced physical activity and increased energy intake have been major drivers of the obesity epidemic. Until now, nobody has proposed how to quantify their relative contributions to the rise in obesity since the 1970s. This study demonstrates that the weight gain in the American population seems to be virtually all explained by eating more calories. It appears that changes in physical activity played a minimal role,” said the study’s leader, Professor Boyd Swinburn, chair of population health and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Australia….”
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