Do you know that people everywhere are sitting on you know what… gathering together on many  forums and social sites seeking the latest tips on how to loose weight off the already mentioned. Now today, it seems the world has gone Bananas, but can that same craze affect the way we eat?   

Yes, eating Bananas and loosing weight, came about by this same course.You just have to have a social network, with a large following,  a person of some fame, and like Bananas. Overnight the idea became instant success, due to a statement related to the amount of weight loss by this person.

Since that revealing moment, books have been written and marketed. You can find several articles written on the Internet as well. I hope this one finds its way there as well.  Has the need for weight loss become such an act of Desperation… that we are down to thinking,  that one food… Bananas, could be  that miracle  food?

You may be asking… OK, what is the so called Asa Banana Diet? 

A registered dietician and Early Show contributor Kerri Glassman , she explained, “You start with a banana, as many as you want, for breakfast, with warm water. You don’t have anything until lunch. You have a basic lunch, which can be anything you want, even pizza and fries. Then (in mid-afternoon), you can have a snack, which can even be a sweet. Then dinner, which can be anything you want. It has to be before 8 p.m. Nothing after dinner, including sweets. Then, you have to go to bed before midnight.”

Now you have to understand this Banana Diet originated in Japan. The general opinion in their country is amazingly different from most.  Obesity to them is 20 to 50 lbs being over weight… not like  the US where by the more popular TV show  “The Biggest Loser” where you  may be needing to loose hundreds of pounds.

The Asa Banana Diet is promoted that it’s Simple, Cheap, and Stress free. The Banana  diet is for people who don’t want to bother with a diet.  People who don’t want to take the time to read a book and feel they are still in control of their health.

 Today’s Health believes “That some people may actually loose some weight because Bananas have many health benefits. See link below. For those eating breakfast who had not before, may eat less for lunch and perhaps dinner, less sweets and no late snacks may also prevent wait gain, and encourage weight loss. These tips are just common sense, but the person eating heavy calorie dinners and poor choices of snacks, these people may find themselves gaining weight.”

For those serious about losing weight, Bananas surely can be included in their diet, but we still need our whole grains , vegetables, and fruits to maintain a healthy body. Research indicates that so many diets just become fads and are forgotten quickly when the results become less than expectations. Here is a link for further nutritional values for Bananas.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2

Here is Why!

We all know that one of the biggest benefits of cooking with spices,  they bring  and offer delicious flavors to our favorite dishes or foods. Those who do the cooking at your household, may have several of these spices in your in the spice cabinet. Those same people may use them  in their favorite dishes and have a general knowledge of what they are best used in.  We are also willing to say, most people would have no clue as to their health benefits might be.

Those who are seeking to eat healthy, may very well know that almost all spices are low in fat,  cholesterol, sugar and sodium.You will find little calories that would matter,  yet they can be concentrated with essential ingredients that can lead you to a healthier life.

Todays Health Site chooses the following spices… they  may be familiar to many of you.  We wanted to provide the health knowledge for each one.

Did you know that Chili Pepper is a good resource of Vitamin A, Vitamin D,  Potassium, Iron, and Fiber. It also provides anti inflammatory benefits… so cook up that bowel of chili.

Everyone loves the smell of homemade apple pie baking in the oven, due to the Cinnamon  in the pie. You also might find it flavorful on cereal or applesauce. Cinnamon contains vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Iron and Manganese. It’s medical benefits allows the control of blood sugars  and promotes anti clotting.

If you want a little zest to that favorite dish or it can be found regularly on your favorite steak, Black Pepper is the spice. This spice also provides Calcium, Copper, Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Iron, Potassium, Manganese, and Magnesium.

This spice may be best known for flavoring that vegetable dish, chicken dishes or gingerbread, Ginger would be the spice. This spice known for its medical benefits when you have that upset stomach or motion sickness. The vitamins found in Ginger are Vitamin D and minerals are Copper, Manganese,  and Potassium.

The actual Mustard Seeds  or ground up mustard may be used  in your potato salad, chicken dish, or your favorite dressing.   This spice  contains Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and a source of protein and calcium. Mustard seed is also a great source of Selenium… considered to have cancer preventive qualities.  

Tumeric is a ingredient found in Curry powder, used to season vegetable dishes and it’s mighty tasty with Lentils. Tumeric is one of the healthiest because of it anti-inflamatory  qualities, it aids in the digestion of your foods, and enables the healing of wounds. It also provides Fiber, Iron, Magnesium, Vitamin B6, Manganese, Vitamin C and Potassium. 

Todays Health Site provides this information to enhance your health needs. So in conclusion a healthier life might be found by adding a little spice in our life.                          

Todays Health

After several articles, we have put together three articles covering some of our  healthy beverages, healthy fruits and nuts, and healthy foods that perhaps have stood out for their health benefits.

If you search through this site and my blogroll sites, you will find some of these foods and drinks covered in more detail.

This first segment is going to list… “Drinks Good For You”

WATER

MILK

CHOCOLATE MILK

GREEN TEA

MINT TEA

 TOMATO JUICE

 ORANGE JUICE

Most people think of  “WATER” as the most needed for a healthy body. Water is crucial for survival — it’s the foundation for your body fluids such as your  blood and digestive juices.

Water helps nutrients get absorbed and be transported, and it helps eliminate waste. If you should lose as little as 1 percent to 2 percent of your body weight, it can seriously impact your body’s ability to function. It’s commonly said that you should drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day to stay healthy. This is just a common rule, as so many factors can affect how much water your body needs.

CAUTION: not all water is EQUAL, or even good for you.  Some Tap water can be potentially contaminated with chemicals, pesticides or even pharmaceutical drugs.

 And bottled water, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has weaker regulations than the Environmental Protection Agency requires for tap water.Purifing your water through various processes, sometimes the need to boiling your water, or filtration of water may provide a healthier water.

This comes down to reading the fine print.

Milk curbs food cravings, helps protect against osteoporosis, stabilizes blood sugar,  is the ideal source of calcium,  it contains vitamin D, which is needed for maximum calcium absorption. ‘The calcium causes your body’s cells to burn the fat,allowing  those who are seeking to loose weight, to  choose this drink.   See also our Past article on Chocalate Milk.

Mint Tea eases cramps and helps ward off indigestion. “Mint is an antispasmodic, so it can relax muscles, which combats stiffness and aches.

Soy Milk lowers risk of heart disease, contains soluble fiber and soy protein, which lowers LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and triglycerides, reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, but Soy contains phytoestrogens, which may be linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. 

 Tomato Juice may protect against several cancers. Tomato products are the richest source of the antioxidant lycopene, reducing the risk of lung and stomach cancer, as well as pancreatic, colorectal, esophageal, oral, breast and cervical cancers. Lycopene also appears to protect the lungs and heart against oxidative damage.

Cranberry Juice helps prevent gum disease. Research suggests that the same anti-bacterial properties present in cranberry juice that fight off urinary tract infections may also protect against periodontal disease. Experts theorize that a component of the juice called nondialysable material (NDM) inhibits bacteria from sticking to the gums.

Orange Juice is an excellent source of vitamin C, may also ward off cataracts, cancers and birth defects. It can boost your immunity.  Orange juice is also a potent antioxidant that may protect you against a variety of diseases. Vitamin C  improves immune-cell functioning, enabling your body to fight off infections more efficiently. It’s a good source of folate, which protects against neural-tube defects in fetuses. 

There are many nutritionists who continue to debate whether  fruit juices, because of their sugar content, are really healthy. Most would agree that eating whole fruit is always better for you than drinking their juice.You may want to limit your intake to no more than one glass (six to eight ounces) daily. “Make sure the label says 100 percent juice, not ‘juice drink’ or ‘cocktail.”‘

However drinking fruit juice, certain types of juice do have their benefits.

A Study by the University of California, Los Angeles, ranked 10 beverages according to their levels of disease-fighting antioxidants. The conclusion was that the 10 best antioxidant-rich beverages  were mostly fruit juices.

1. Pomegranate juice

2. Red wine

3. Concord grape juice

4. Blueberry juice

5. Black cherry juice

6. Açaí juice

7. Cranberry juice

8. Orange juice

9. Tea

10. Apple juice

Todays Health Suggests… if you choose to drink juice, to do so so in moderation. Further, ”Read the Fine Print”, as there are major differences in juice quality out there.

Always remember, if you get dehydrated, it will make you feel sluggish and can lead to a host of health problems. So be sure to drink up and drink healthy! ]]> http://todayshealthsite.com/todays-health-shares-healthy-choices.html/feed 0 http://todayshealthsite.com/naughty-foods-taste-so-good.html http://todayshealthsite.com/naughty-foods-taste-so-good.html#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:33:16 +0000 d68452s http://todayshealthsite.com/?p=775 Everywhere  you turn, thru someone, a  magazine, TV, or  the many other media these days, you are bound to be exposed with the same old story: The startling and ever-growing worldwide problem of obesity.

WHY?

The fact is… More and more people are unhealthily overweight! “It is to the very  point where eating can and is actually endangering our lives.”

 There has always been some individuals that have eaten unhealthily, mainly because, “Naughty Foods Taste So Good”!  Now the population as a whole,  considering how we eat these days, are we are getting the right amounts of nutrients.

Is it our conscious thought about what we put into our bodies … essential?

Why another article on  a subject that  everybody claims to know but doesn’t want to listen! The answer is, if this just reaches just one persons conscious thought and  results in taking action , than it was all worth it.

Perhaps before our intake of all those naughty foods, which are loaded with all those calories and sugars, you know the ones I am talking about, the ones some people would die for (literally), a bell would go off in our heads, saying “What I am about to eat is hazardous  to my health”!

For some people, warning labels…are just another part of the lable or the fine print that doesn’ t get read anyway, let alone it’s grams of sugar or it’s calorie count. Our consensus is most people eat by what may make them feel good, or by how sweet it is, or how good it taste going down, or just how much I can eat, based on my emotion at the time.

If some one has come up as to why obesity is becoming  a major concern…is because food is readily available  in most countries, unlike the underdeveloped countries where many face starvation. Those countries who proclaim to live in the land of plenty…eat with same mentality…plenty.

As we get older, our metabolism slows down and we can no longer burn calories at the same rate as we used to. Fact, it makes it easier for us to put on weight but harder for us to shed it. Having said that, our elderly group face the greatest effect of being over weight. Being overweight can put unnecessary stress on the joints and thus accelerate the affects of arthritis, osteoporosis and other bone and muscle disorders and illnesses. It can also bring about the onset of diabetes, which is more common in seniors than in any other age group as it is.

While a  little of what he or she loves to eat, no matter how unhealthy it may be, a regular balanced nutritious diet is just what the doctor orders!

A well balanced diet can boost your health, but a poor diet that does not fulfil all bodily nutritional requirements can actually cause it to deteriorate.

All should enjoy life to the fullest extent, but eating healthily on a regular basis can actively extend the amount of time you have left to enjoy it! Make the most of  life. Revolutionize your diet and reap the rewards

 Todays Health Articles  or links on Related info.

Enjoy A Happy and Healthy Life”

Todays Health Drinks

The  search button is also availble, for past information, the page directory, and  the archieves to help you out. I hope you will find this helpful for your search as well be beneficial for your health.

Mindset, what is it?

Mindset Definition | Definition of Mindset at Dictionary.com

Mindset may become a important aspect to the success or failure of a individuals diet, and ongoing health conditions. By reference to the definition, fixed mental attitude, attitude may have been  developed by  past conditions, elements, and many other successes or failures before ”THE DIET”  is to be considered as part of your life. Otherwords, this individual may have the attitude, this task (dieting) that I am about to set before me,  may be inturpted as just another task that I can be successful at or fail miserably, because of  this fixed attitude.

This site  might add additional light  to this discussion.MindSet: A Book writen by Carol Dweck. Teaching a growth mindset …Mindsetis a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement mindsetonline.com/

 Another example may be viewed on the TV show  “The Biggest Looser”. I have followed this show since its beginning.  Bob and Jillian, the trainers, their objectives, basically is to teach, train physically in the gym, motivate and be a support mechanism, and through all of this excitement, a lot of psychology comes between the trainers and the contestants..

Their mindset, their fixed mental attitude. is that they have a past life that just is not going to allow them to loose weight. While  at the ranch, the revealing of each others past, the contestants, through layers of emotions and communications, see success through their eyes. Many have come to influence millions of veiewers that they to can move forward and loose weight. It is their mindset, set forth by each individual, that has predeterminrd each of their outcomes.

Check this guide made availailabe    The advance guide to weight loss  This allowed 2 contestant to become the biggest loosers.

Today’s health finds that having  a strong mindset can lead to success or failure of the diet chosen, as well as the outcome of your health.

Today’s Health Article…

                                                                 YOU must dig deep into your inner soul!

 Deep into where you have been storing everything that has happened to you up til now, the conditions, circumstances, the failures, the emotions, your basic psychological make up, and all the analysis that goes along with our very being.

WE  HUMANS ARE VERY COMPLICATED, and unless we come to understand ourselves,  look at what makes us do the the things we do, dieting will not only not work for the long haul, but be only  a short term fix or just the craziest thing ,we might think we can do.

During  our life times,  most all of us can associate, to those who just continue to struggle loosing weight, they seem to be  on a different program every few weeks, seeking instant gratification, and when the results do not meet their expectations, they are on to the next. The frustrations continue to grow and grow til failure seems to be  their conclusion. Now these same people are now just piling on the weight due , perhaps not realizing  they have just condition themselves to a mindset, that may not be healthy at all.

Why is it that some folks do not need any counselling or a trainer, and immediately declare a mindset that they are going to change their eating habits, and exercise accordingly to their goals , and AL la they loose weight.

Some folks just have this ability, some may call it Will Power, Mind Control, or a determined Mindset  Once this person makes a decision, it is like written in concrete and its here to stay. Unfortunately, those folks are not the ones that need help.

How can we acquire this same mindset…Today’s Health Article Coming.

Coming soon… Almost everyone knows that diets continue to flood our market place  Every one provides testimonials of how fantastic the latest diet is going to save our world of obesity. The ads play on our emotions, and we continue to be led by those same emotions, that we can loose tremendous amounts of weight overnight. We see  that such claims come and go. Why, because if  just half of all the claims were substantially true, we would have no weight problem in this world.

Why this article than, it is not to criticize all those claims, because  most who have tried all of them, know the truths, they just do not work for them.

Should we just throw up our hands…and quit!

Stay close to this Site… for answers!

Trehalose Sugar seems to be virtually unknown unless you are closely associated with the Sugar industry.

 The product, Trehalose, it is pronounced trē’hu-lōs”.

 TECHNICAL DATA

Trehalose, also known as mycose or tremalose, a natural alpha-linked disaccharide, synthesised by fungi, plants, and invertebrate animal, implicated in anhydrobiosis the ability of plants and  animals to withstand prolonged periods of desiccation. It has high water retention capabilities and rehydration then allows normal cellular activity to be resumed without the major damage that normally follows a dehydration/rehydration cycle.  Trehalose also has the added advantage of being an antioxidant.

In nature, trehalose can be found in animals, plants, and microorganisms. In animals, trehalose is prevalent in shrimp, and also in insects, including grasshoppers, locusts, butterflies, and bees, in which blood-sugar is trehalose. The trehalose is then broken down into glucose by the catabolic enzyme trehalase for use. Trehalose is also present in the nutrition exchange liquid of hornets and their larvae.

Production                                   

Trehalose was previously being manufactured through an extraction process from cultured yeast. But production costs were prohibitive, and use was limited to only certain cosmetics and chemicals.

In 1994, Hayashibara, a saccharified starch maker in Okayama prefecture, Japan, discovered a method of inexpensively mass-producing trehalose from starch. The following year, Hayashibara started marketing trehalose by activating two enzymes, the glucosyltrehalose-producing enzyme that changes the reducing terminal of starch into a trehalose structure, and the trehalose free enzyme that detaches this trehalose structure. As a result, a high-purity trehalose from starch can be mass-produced for a very low price.

 Uses

 Since Trehalose has been accepted as a novel food ingredient under the GRAS terms in the U.S. and the EU….

Trehalose has also found commercial application as a food ingredient. It’s primary one being its use in the processing of foods.

Trehalose being used in a variety of processed foods such as dinners, western and Japanese confectionery, bread, vegetables side dishes, animal-derived deli foods, pouch-packed foods, frozen foods, and beverages, as well as foods for lunches, eating out, or prepared at home.

This is due to the multi-faceted effects of trehalose’s properties,  its inherently mild, sweet flavor; its preservative properties, which maintain the quality of the three main nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats);

Its powerful water-retention properties,  preserves  the texture of foods by protecting them from drying out or freezing. Also its ability to suppress bitterness, stringency, harsh flavors, and the odor of raw foods, meats, and packaged foods.

Cosmetics: Capitalizing on trehalose’s moisture-retaining capacity, it is used as a moisturizer in many basic toiletries, such as bath oils and hair growth tonics.

Pharmaceuticals: Using trehalose’s properties to preserve tissue and protein to full advantage, it is used in organ protection solutions for organ transplants.

 Other fields of use

Trehalose  has a broad spectrum including fabrics,  that have deodorization qualities, plant activation, antibacterial sheets, and nutrients for larvae. 

 Research is bein g conducted, especially in the field of medicine, to achieve uses for trehalose in post-surgery adhesion suppressants, dry-eye treatments and the manufacturing of dry blood.

It is rumored in the biomedical research community that trehalose, when eaten over a length of time in sufficient quantities, may sometimes provide a partial cure to Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. A lot of research into brain-based illness has focused on proteins in the human brain, but it may be important in research to look at sugars that the brain uses, such as trehalose.

Today’s Article…

Unknown Sugar, Why?

This article will discuss two virtually unknown sugars.  

 Questions should certianly be asked….    

* How come nobody is marketing these sugars in our world, where every thing has sugar in it?                              

 Palatinose Sugar

The Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) registration was granted in 2006 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In its consideration of Palatinose, also known under the generic name isomaltulose. Palatinose,  is disaccharide derived from sucrose. The product claims to have a sweetness profile similar to that of sugar, but it has “more scope for flavor development.”

I found that in July of  2005 the product had received the novel food status,which is the European equivalent of GRAS.

With a little research, Japan it has been used as a food ingredient since 1985.

“The FDA’s ‘letter of no objection’ paves the way for Palatinose to be used in a wide range of food and beverage products, including ready-to-drink and instant beverages, snack bars, dairy products as well as energy-reduced, wellness and sports foods and meal replacements,”said Palatinit, a subsidiary of leading global sugar producer Südzucker AG.