Keep Your Health Tips

Many gastric bypass patients report melon to be one of the easiest of fruits to enjoy after surgery. Melons are generally low in natural sugar, ripe on flavor and easily digestible. They are rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, Vitamin B6, folate and dietary fiber.

How to Select and Store

The key to purchasing a quality melon is to find one that is ripe. If you tap the melon with the palm of your hand and hear a hollow sound, the melon has passed is ripe. Choose a melon that seems heavy for its size, and one that does not have bruises or overly soft spots.

Melons & Food Borne Illness

Because of heightened sensitivity to foods and food borne illness gastric bypass patients must exercise extreme food safety precautions. Follow these simple guidelines to help keep your fruit fresh as well as safe.

When you buy cut melons, be sure they have been buried in ice or displayed in a refrigerated case, not just displayed on top of ice. Uncut melon does not need to be refrigerated.

Before cutting, the outer surface of the melon should be washed with drinking water to remove surface dirt.

Hands and all equipment and utensils (cutting boards, knives, etc.) need to be washed thoroughly with hot soapy water, and rinsed.

Cut melons must be refrigerated at 41

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Fat has had a lot of bad press and for many people, just a mention of the word can evoke misery. You can try to lose it, try to hide it, try to avoid it, but your body still needs it! Did you know that fat helps to insulate our nerve cells, keeps us warm, balances our hormones, keeps skin and arteries supple, lubricates joints and is a component in every cell?

The key issue here is recognizing which type of fat your body needs, how much your body requires and which type is your enemy. Armed with the right information, you can focus on getting more of the good fats and less of the bad fats into your daily diet.

There are two types of fat to be aware of. Saturated fats - let’s call them “the enemy” and unsaturated fats - “the good guys”! It is easy to tell the difference because saturated fats are hard at room temperature. Saturated fats are not essential to your health. They come from animals and are found in meat, eggs and cheese. They are harder to digest and full of cholesterol.

Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and have been divided into two groups. Monounsaturated fats such as olive oil, and polyunsaturated fats such as sunflower oil.
Polyunsaturated fats are split into Omega 3 fatty acids and Omega 6 fatty acids. Monounsaturated fat (Omega 9) although not essential, is not harmful in moderation - a good quality (extra virgin first cold pressed) olive oil is a healthier alternative to the usual vegetable oil.
Good sources of Omega 6: safflower oil, sunflower oil, evening primrose oil, walnut oil, pumpkin oil, sesame oil.
Good sources of Omega 3 are mackerel, herring, salmon, pilchards, sardines, tuna and flax seed oil.
Here are some important facts about fat in our diet.

1. Fat is the ‘energy reserve’ of animals, plants and humans.

2. The ideal body-fat ratio should be approximately 19-26% of a woman’s body weight, and 12-18% of a man’s body weight.

3. There are two different types of body fat - brown and yellow. Brown fat is situated inside the body and is ‘active’, containing mitochondria that produce heat (thermogenesis) and as a result burn energy. Yellow fat is found nearer the surface, is less active and more likely to accumulate. Women tend to have a higher ratio of yellow fat than men.

4. Women need higher levels of fat because it is essential for reproduction and so the body stores it ‘just in case’.

5. An average healthy intake of good fats in the diet should be approximately 30-40 grams a day. The fat content of diets in affluent populations can be nearly four times this amount!

6. Most foods containing fat combine saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat in varying quantities. For instance, butter’s fat content is almost 100%, of which 60% is saturated, 30% monounsaturated and 10% polyunsaturated, compared with sunflower seeds’ fat content of 73%, of which just 12% is saturated and 21% monounsaturated and 67% is polyunsaturated.

7. Heat, light and oxygen destroy essential fatty acids, which is why it is best to keep oils in dark containers.

8. Essential fats must come from the diet because your body cannot produce them. The essential healthy fats are Omega 3 and Omega 6 (known as essential fatty acids).

9. Weight for weight, fat provides more than twice the amount of usable energy than carbohydrates or protein (you’ll find 9 calories in every gram of fat).

10. Fat contributes to the palatability, texture and the smell of many foods, it also slows down the process of digestion providing an extended period of satiation after a meal.

When you know the good from the bad, fat is fabulous!

(c) Copyright Kim Beardsmore

Kim Beardsmore is a weight loss consultant whose business operates across 60 countries. Tons of recipes, articles, resources, free newsletter and more to help you lose weight and keep it off forever. Estimate your healthy body weight or receive a free weight loss consultation at http://www.weight-loss-health.com.au

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So here you are, a typical urban or suburban couple on a typical evening. The conversation goes something like this:

“What do you want to eat?”

“I dunno. What’s in the fridge? We have any leftovers?”

“I want some good food for a change. Let’s go out!”

And so away you go, and with tax and tip you end up laying out $40 or $50 for a meal that, while it is satisfying, is nothing you couldn’t create at home for less than half the price if you just did a little preparation on your own. The secrets to good food aren’t having tons of cooking knowledge or restaurant experience, they are preparation and the willingness to experiment and learn.

Say you love steak, but you’re sure that the only way you’ll get that steakhouse taste is to go to Ruth’s Chris and lay out $60 or $80 per person for dinner. Would you believe you can get a steak just as good at home? It’s true!

The first thing is to get the best piece of beef you can find. Steakhouses in general use USDA Prime beef, the best quality available. You’ll pay up to $20 a pound for it, but that will be your only real expense for the adventure.

Next, you’ll want to age it, unless the place where you buy it already does so for you. A lot of high-end butcher shops dry-age their beef, but if you can’t find one that does, you can do it yourself in your refrigerator. Just put the steak on a rack over a plate or pan, cover it with a porous lid of some sort and place it in the back of your refrigerator for a couple of days. You’ll end up with great aged beef!

Don’t over season the beef, either. A little cracked pepper and kosher or sea salt put on a few minutes before grilling is all you need. Let the steak come to room temperature, then cook either over a hot grill or in a cast-iron skillet heated to 500 degrees in your oven. A couple of minutes on each side and you’ve got good food, as good as any restaurant, in your own home! it’s easy to make good food.

Andrew Krause is a Chef and Pastry Chef for over 30 years, at persent I own a Gourmet Bakery called The Cheese Confectioner.You can visit my site at http://www.andies.cashhosters2.com.

NOTE: You are welcome to reprint this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the about the author info at the end).

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