Nutritional Value of Fruits and Vegetables is Declining
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Carrots
Studies have shown that the push to grow fruits and vegetables faster and bigger has resulted in a large decline in their nutritional value. I think you also notice it in the taste. Naturally grown products are much higher in vitamins, minerals and all of the other beneficial elements. So look for a farmers market where things are locally grown. That doesn’t guarantee they are natural, but they are probably better than the stuff that is shipped in from hundreds of miles away that weren’t even ripe when picked. Best idea yet… plant your own garden and take control of what fertilizers and pesticides are used. You can read the whole article here-
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It’s happening to crops in the United States, too. In 2004, Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, led a team that analyzed 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999 and reported reductions in vitamins, minerals, and protein. Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg. What’s going on? Davis believes it’s due to the farming industry’s desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce’s ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.
…Bigger isn’t better, so skip the huge tomatoes and giant peppers. “Plants have a finite amount of nutrients they can pass on to their fruit, so if the produce is smaller, then its level of nutrients will be more concentrated,” says Davis.
Seek out heirloom varieties like Brandywine tomatoes, Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage, Golden Bantam corn, or Jenny Lind melon. Plants that were bred prior to World War II are naturally hardier because they were established — and thrived — before the development of modern fertilizers and pesticides.
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment
This is a really good video clip that helps us understand just exactly what goes into the development of new food products. That bag of chips has been tested, tweaked and re-tested so that you will like it and buy it- but as you know, what we like is not always good for us. That is how business works- for good or bad. The reality is that the business is so competitive that billions of dollars are spent every year to determine exactly what you like and what you will buy. This is usually not good because most people like fat, sugar and salt. Reading the labels and eating fresh whole foods can go a long way towards healthy eating. So, buyer beware…
Foods that help prevent skin cancer and sun damage
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Grilled fish
There is a good article by SELF magazine over at MSNBC which lists several foods that have natural anti-cancer and sun damaging compounds. They list them by meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and give a variety of choices that help the body fight of the damage from the sun’s rays. But basically, the secret is anti-oxidants which are found in fruits and vegetables and Omega 3’s which are most abundant in fish. So, eating a diet that is heavy in fruits, vegetables and fish can have a very positive effect on your body. But you already knew that didn’t you?
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A Mediterranean diet that includes fish packed with inflammation-fighting omega-3 fatty acids — as well as citrus, fresh herbs and veggies rife with polyphenols — may slash your melanoma risk in half, the International Journal of Epidemiology reports. These compounds scour the body for potentially cancerous cells and help reverse some DNA defects early on.
Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | Add Comment
Most people know this from experience, but a new study confirms that teenage boys can really pack it away. Given the chance to eat as much as they wanted for lunch, they averaged about 2000 calories. That is the recommended intake for a whole day for older adults. I do wonder if there are other variables such as whether they ate breakfast that morning and how much exercise they got. Still, 2000 calories is a lot of food at one sitting. But then again, I remember my teenage years and even as a skinny 135 lb boy, I could eat huge quantities. The authors did note that boys that are overweight should cut back on their diet since bad eating habits generally follow us into adulthood and it is very obvious that we have a severe weight problem in our culture.
So if you have boys, let them eat as long as they are not overweight but try to guide their eating habits as much as you can since a diet of fast food will come back to haunt them…
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But in a lunch-buffet experiment involving 204 kids ages 8 to 17, researchers found boys routinely ate more compared than girls their own age and boys in their mid-teens were the most ravenous — downing an average of nearly 2,000 lunch calories.
Researcher Dr. Jack A. Yanovski said the pattern made sense, given that boys usually hit their growth spurt — putting on height and muscle mass — in late puberty.
“There’s a lot of folk wisdom that says boys can eat prodigious amounts, but we haven’t had much data,” Yanovski told Reuters Health as his study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2010.29383v1).
Calcium Intake is Crucial to Good Health
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Got Calcium?
A study done in Sweden shows that Calcium is a very important mineral for many things- not just strong bones. Making sure you get enough calcium is really pretty easy. All foods list calcium on the nutrition label so you just keep track for a few days as you eat. If you are not getting enough, adjust your diet to include more calcium rich foods. Of course, the best natural source is dairy products but if you have problems with diary, you can always take a supplement. But I would try to stick to natural sources if possible since they are generally absorbed better by your body.
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Swedish researchers found that men who consumed the most calcium in food were 25 percent less likely to die over the next decade than their peers who took in the least calcium from food. None of the men took calcium supplements.
The top calcium consumers had a 25 percent lower risk of dying from any cause and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease during follow-up relative to men that had the least amount of calcium in their diet. Calcium intake didn’t significantly influence the risk of dying from cancer.
Men in the top third based on their calcium intake were getting nearly 2,000 milligrams a day, on average, compared to about 1,000 milligrams for men in the bottom third. The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for calcium intake is 1,000 milligrams for men 19 to 50 years old and 1,200 milligrams for men 50 and over.
Calcium could influence mortality risk in many ways, they note, for example by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, or blood sugar levels. For the men in the study, the main sources of calcium in the diet were milk and milk products and cereal products.
Groin Injuries on the Rise in Teenage Boys
Posted by: Curt | Under: Children/fit, General Fitness, Health, Sports, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Most groin and testicular injuries to boys and men are a result of sports injuries. But, as crazy as this sounds, there is a game among teenage boys called “sack-tapping” where boys hit each other in the groin as a sort of test of manhood- as in “how much pain can you endure”. Some of it is just plain bullying and all of it is stupid and dangerous. MSNBC has an article describing the new “cultural phenomenon” and it is pretty disturbing. As the author points out, with the growth of viral communications like YouTube, this sort of thing can spread very quickly and really points to how cruel and mean our society is becoming.
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Though most won’t admit it unless they have to, more teen boys are being treated after cringe-worthy attacks in which they’re slapped or punched in the groin, sometimes causing serious harm requiring surgery, doctors say.
An msnbc.com poll of 100 urologists, conducted by Truth On Call, showed that 30 percent of the doctors had seen or treated pre-teen and teen boys for testicular trauma in the past year, including severe injuries caused by so-called “sack-tapping,†in which boys ambush others at school and elsewhere.
“There definitely has been a rise in the number of cases,†said Dr. Anthony Atala, a pediatric urologist and department chairman at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and spokesman for the American Urological Association. “We know it is going up.â€
Best Sunscreen is also one of the Cheapest
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sunscreen needed!
Consumer Reports just came out with their review of sunscreen and it turns out that the best product tested was also one of the cheapest. Sunscreen is extremely important if you are going to be out in the sun for any continuous amount of time. While we do need 15-20 minutes of sun per day for our bodies to make vitamin D (Vitamin D is made in the skin when exposed to sunlight) anything more than that can be risky. With skin cancer rate climbing every year, it is very important to protect yourself. Using sunscreen when you are at the beach, ball game or working in the yard will protect you not only from skin cancer, but also slow the aging of your skin.From MSNBC-
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Up & Up Sport Continuous, which sells at Target for less than $10 for two 6-ounce containers, won top honors for being the “Best Buy” sunscreen.
The magazine tested 12 leading sunscreens to see how effective they were at blocking both ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B radiation. The products were then reevaluated after volunteers wore the screens in water for 80 minutes. In addition to the Target brand, many of the other leading sunscreens ranked by Consumer Reports offered very good protection against UVA and excellent protection against UVB at a reasonable price, the agency said.
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One of the things to remember is that name and price have very little to do with effectiveness- the 2 top rated products were both house brands, one from Target and the other from Walgreens. Some of the lowest rated products were very expensive name brands like Avon and Burt’s Bees. Here are the top 4 and worst 4.
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The top 4 sunscreens rated by Consumer Reports, based on how well they protected against UVA and UVB rays while worn on volunteers who soaked in water for 40 or 80 minutes.
— Up & Up Sport Continuous (Target) spray SPF 30
— Walgreens Sport Continous spray SPF 50
— Banana Boat Sport Performance Continuous spray SPF 30
— Aveeno Continuous Protection spray SPF 50
And the lowest scoring sunscreens:
— La Roche-Posay Anthelios 40 with Mexoryl SX crea SPF 40 ($18.82 per ounce)
— Avon Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard Plus IR3535 Expedition pump spray SPF 30 (Doesn’t block UVA rays)
— Burt’s Bees Chemical-Free with Hemp Seed Oil lotion SPF 30 (Doesn’t block entire UVA spectrum)
Source: Consumer Reports
Got Milk? You are probably not lactose intolerant…
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Got Milk?
A new study has shown that many people who think they are lactose intolerant really aren’t. There isn’t any definitive answer as to why people seem to have symptoms when they can absorb lactose normally, but some researchers think that it is mostly psychological or perhaps irritable bowl syndrome.
For years I thought I was lactose intolerant- then I started drinking small portions of milk, cheese and yogurt with no problems. So one thing that I recommend is that you not drink large amounts of milk at one time, but instead drink less than 1/2 cup a couple of times a day. I think you will find that in smaller amounts, you are fine.
This is important since milk is a great source of nutrition and nutrients such as protein and calcium. So try adding dairy products back into your diet in small amount and you will probably find that you can handle it without problems.
Diabetes linked to lack of sleep
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A new study has shown that insulin sensitivity decreases markedly (19-25%) in people who do not get enough sleep the night before. The real importance of this study is that Type 2 diabetes might be slowed in some people if they simply got enough sleep. The human body is a remarkable and finely tuned machine that is amazingly adaptable but also needs certain things to function properly. Sleep is one of those things! Of course, diet and exercise are the primary reasons for most cases of diabetes, but for people who do watch their diet and do get enough exercise, getting enough sleep is a relatively easy way to decrease their chance of getting diabetes. Shoot for 7-9 hours if you are and adult and more for children.
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Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to adequately use insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, to control glucose sugar produced from food. Sugar levels rise and can damage the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and major arteries.
The disease, linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, is reaching epidemic levels. An estimated 180 million people now suffer from diabetes around the world.
Previous studies have found that several nights of poor sleep can result in impaired use of insulin, but Donga said this was the first study to examine the effects of only a single bad night’s sleep.
The Dutch scientists examined nine healthy people — once after a night of eight hours sleep and once after a night of just four hours.
The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), showed that partial sleep restriction during a single night reduced some types of insulin sensitivity by 19 to 25 percent.
“Our data indicate that insulin sensitivity is not fixed in healthy (people), but depends on the duration of sleep in the preceding night,” Donga wrote in the study.
Back Pain relief- my new inversion table
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports | Add Comment
Inversion Table
After years of chronic lower back pain due to injuries when I was younger, I started searching for some remedies that would help without resorting to painkillers and drugs. I usually take a couple of Aleve each day to keep myself functional, but I’ve avoided anything stronger. So when a friend of mine suggested I try getting an inversion table, I thought “what the heck, it can’t hurt and it might help”. Sure enough, after 3 days of use (about 5 minutes, twice a day) there is already some improvement. I also hang from the pull up bar at the gym to stretch but the limit there is a minute or so because you eventually lose your grip. So, if you are fighting back pain like I am, I can give a thumbs up to the inversion table. You can find them pretty much everywhere- Sams, Costco, Amazon, etc. Mine is a basic model that cost slightly over 100.00 and works very well, so you don’t need to spend a lot of money.
