Keep Your Health Tips

It is possible to eat a healthy, balanced diet without breaking the bank! Here are some suggestions:

-Eliminate junk food. You may have to do your grocery shopping alone, since children (and sometimes spouses!) are often the ones who request the junk foods. A trip to my local supermarket showed these prices for typical junk foods and beverages:

-Case of name brand soft drinks - $5.99
-20 ounce bag of potato chips - $4.19
-Box of snack cakes - $1.99
-Package of 8 toaster-tarts $2.39 (each one contains 20 grams of sugar)
-Package of chocolate chip cookies - $3.59
-Half-gallon of ice cream - $3.99
-Box of pre-sweetened cereal - $3.19
-8 juice boxes - $2.94 (each contains 26 grams of sugar)
-1 box of 12 glazed doughnuts - $3.99

The total amount for the above items was $ 32.26

Replace the items above with:

-Water or skim milk instead of soft drinks. (You can still enjoy your favorite beverage when you go out to a sporting event, movie, etc. Just stick with the smallest size to save money AND calories! ) Children AND adults need milk or milk products every day. Milk also helps fill you up and provides needed calcium for strong bones and healthy teeth.

-Buy whole fruit instead of potato chips, cookies, doughnuts or snack cakes. One large banana equals 2 servings; 1 pound of grapes equals several servings; other fruit should be purchased in season in your area. Apples are less expensive in the fall. If you live in the south, oranges, lemons and grapefruit may be plentiful in your area, so use lots of them. Melons are usually less expensive in the summer months.

-Limit fruit juice to

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Here are 3 easy ways to reduce your risk of serious illness. 5 of the biggest nasties in the UK and USA are Coronary Heart Disease, cancers, stroke, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease, but research suggests that all of these terrible diseases can be helped or avoided to a certain extent by upping our intake of antioxidants. Source your antioxidants from brightly coloured fresh fruit and vegetables. Here are 3 to try this week;

Lower your blood pressure by drinking pomegranate juice; an Israeli study by Dr Aviram showed a 20% decrease in blood pressure by a group drinking pomegranate juice daily. The group also experienced lowering of their unhealthy blood cholesterol and an improvement in the arteries of their heart. Healthy blood pressure reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke and other heart complaints. Team drinking and eating pomegranate with healthy activity and you will protect your heart and circulation. Pomegranates with dark skins and flesh are richer in fruit-chemicals. Make your own juice by rolling the fruit along your chopping board before slicing in two and using an orange juicer. Tesco now sell Pomegreat which also comes with added blueberries for an extra potent punch of antioxidants (see below).

Eating citrus fruits can lower your chances of stroke, cardiovascular disease, cataracts and cancers. Eat Oranges as a snack, drink freshly squeezed juice, keep some tangerines in your bag, juice pink grapefruit or add them to a salad, and squeeze lime and lemon juice over salads and into sparkling water. These fruits contain vitamin C, Folates, fiber, antioxidants, and other chemical goodies. Make sure you eat some citrus every day to reap their health benefits, but don’t be too fussy about the white bits and the rind; these are also packed with goodness. Try not to pick all of the white stuff off your tangerine, or buy some Kumquats which you eat with the skin on. Cook fish with grated lemon and lime rind, or add grated rinds to cakes, salad dressings and marinades.

Blueberries may fight Alzheimer’s disease; lab tests on rats at Tufts University Boston, showed that eating blueberries improved age-related brain degeneration, with aging ‘blueberry rats’ outperforming their younger counterparts who didn’t eat blueberries. Further research suggests that rats with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s, maintained memory function despite developing the disease; it seemed that the blueberries prevented expected memory loss. Many other tests on humans show many beneficial effects of eating blueberries and other dark coloured foods; maintain healthy youthful skin, and guard against heart disease, cancers, cataracts and macular degeneration (age-related sight loss). Buy fresh, frozen and dried blueberries and add them to juices, pies, crumbles, breakfast cereal, fruit puree to eat with yoghurt, and blueberry jam on whole meal toast, snack on a punnet for an ultra-low calorie mega-healthy. Buy a blueberry bush on-line at www.dorset-blueberry.com (in the UK) and grow them yourself!

So these are 3 fruity ways to a long and healthy life. Make sure that you try one of these wonder fruits this week, even the most reluctant fruit-eater must be able to force some blueberry jam down!

Happy eating,
Vikki

Do you have any friends and family who could benefit from getting fitter and feeling better? E-mail getfitter@yahoo.co.uk subject: newsletter request.

Vikki Scovell BA(hons) PG DIP is a fully qualified Personal Trainer and Fitness Coach. She is a qualified Nutrition Adviser and runs successful Community Exercise classes. Vikki is a consultant in Healthy Eating and Exercise initiatives to schools in the independent sector and publishes School and General Healthy Living newsletters.

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Health food supplements are one of the hottest selling products in the market these days. Their total consumption values billions of dollars in the U.S. alone. Recent surveys show that more than half of the adults in the U.S. consume health food supplements in different forms, such as tablets, capsules, powders, soft gels, gel caps and liquids.

The increased consumption of health food supplements can be attributed to public awareness of health issues and improved standard of living in our society. Many studies have shown that there is a close correlation between health and nutrition. Insufficient supply of nutrients can weaken our body defense mechanism, causing medical problems from common ailments to more severe illnesses in the long term.

There are different types of health food supplements, including macronutrients (amino acids, proteins, essential fatty acids), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), enzymes (digestive enzymes and antioxidant enzymes), probiotics (beneficial bacteria in the gut), and herbal supplements. These supplements have unique functions in our body. They are either essential for life and good health, modulate our immune system or help with liver detoxification, digestion, mental clarity, etc.

Many people argue that there is no need to consume health food supplements as long as you have a healthy lifestyle and eat a balanced diet. While this may be true, the fact is maintaining a healthy lifestyle and proper diet is difficult to achieve by many people.

Over the past few decades, the green revolution has changed the farming practices over the world. We use more chemical fertilizers, more pesticides to grow the food produce in order to increase harvest and shorten the growth period. As a result, soil nutrients and the population of beneficial soil bacteria are depleted rapidly, and the produce we grow today contain less micronutrient than before.

A stressful lifestyle, improper eating habits, imbalanced diet and increased exposure to chemicals such as environmental pollutants (air, water) and pesticides, drugs, hormones, heavy metals in foods also weaken our body gradually.

Although health food supplements can be beneficial to our health, consumers should still choose the products carefully. Currently, there is little regulation on the quality of health food supplements. Composition of some health food products may not match the label claims and the quality of raw materials and finished products is not guaranteed. Therefore, consumers should only buy from reputable health food manufacturers, read the labels carefully and read more related literatures.

Here are some general rules for buying health food supplements:

1) Supplements made from whole foods, natural sources are better than the synthetic ones. They are more bioactive, can be absorbed readily, and less likely to be contaminated by chemicals such as coal tars used in chemical synthesis.

2) Protein-bonded vitamins and minerals (vitamins and minerals in organic form, binding to amino acids) are more bioactive than the inorganic forms.

3) Buy supplements using safe extraction methods, such as cold pressed extraction or supercritical extraction. This can avoid the harmful residue from chemical extraction.

4) Herbal concentrate and extract are usually more effective than the raw herbs.

5) Organically grown or wild crafted herbs are less likely to be contaminated by heavy metals, pesticides and other chemicals.

6) Read the labels, do not consume more than the recommended dose.

7) Be careful when consuming certain herbal supplements, such as Ma Huang / ephedra, Kava Kava, comfrey, etc. Some studies have shown that these herbs may cause severe side effects to some people. Stop use if unusual signs appear after consumption.

Some health food supplements may interact with drugs, either by decreasing or increasing their effects. Consult your doctor if you are currently taking medications.

9) Pregnant and nursing women, people with specific medical conditions such consult the doctors when consuming health food supplements.

10) If in doubt, contact the supplement manufacturers or distributors for more information of their products.

11) Health food supplements are available in many places, such as grocery stores, health food stores, drug stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, department stores, online stores, etc. Be a smart consumer, compare the price and service before purchase.

To learn more about health food supplements, please visit http://vitaminstores.4reviews.net.

Kwan Lo holds a Ph.D. in Biology and is the owner of http://vitaminstores.4reviews.net, a review site providing information on discount health food supplements, common ailments and online vitamin stores.

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