www.greensmoothiegirl.com Learn to use natural sweeteners as part of a whole foods diet with Robyn from GreenSmoothieGirl.com. In this video, Robyn explains the dangers of artificial sweeteners and processed sweeteners. She then explores the benefits of using natural sweeteners like sucanat, honey, agave, and fruit as part of a whole foods diet.

Drinking This “Popular Poison” is Worse than Smoking

Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 21 2011 | 206,111views | Disponible en Español

Story at-a-glance

• The soda industry engages in many of the same marketing tactics as Big Tobacco, including forming “independent” front groups, funding research to discredit links to health problems, and making large donations to health organizations
• Soda is linked to numerous health problems among children and adults, including obesity, liver disease and even violent behavior; frequent soft drink consumption is associated with a 9-15% increase in aggressive behavior, according to new research
• Processed foods and junk foods are heavily marketed to kids and promoted to schools; manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay “rebates” (aka “kickbacks”) to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States
• You can fight back against soda and junk-food giants by purchasing healthy, locally grown organic foods instead of processed foods and beverages

By Dr. Mercola

Soda, which is loaded with sugar primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is a leading contributor to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases facing Americans.

So when I say that drinking a can of soda is just as bad for you as smoking a cigarette (and maybe even worse) it is not an exaggeration.

Drinking soda is in many ways worse for you than smoking, and it is only because of massive marketing campaigns from the industry that these sugary beverages are deemed acceptable for our most vulnerable members of society – our kids.

In the 21st century there would indeed be an uproar if tobacco companies attempted to target our kids, but the soda companies do it everyday.

It’s time to wake up and face the facts: the soda industry is out for your children, and the message they send is every bit as damaging (and manipulative) as the one spewed by Big Tobacco.

Striking Similarities Between the Soda Industry and Big Tobacco

If I asked you to quickly recall a commercial or slogan from leading soda companies, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, could you do it?

Chances are you’d have no trouble recalling the friendly polar bear commercials or “the real thing” logo, and if you asked your kids, they’d probably come up with a few too.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for how beverage big-wigs have gotten their products firmly embedded into the homes of millions of Americans and others worldwide. Coca-Cola, for instance, spends close to $3 billion a year on advertising. With that amount of money it’s no wonder the company has managed to hold on to its wholesome reputation.

They, and other beverage giants, are also in the habit of forming strategic alliances with health organizations that make it appear as though they are looking out for your health, which is about as laughable as Big Tobacco sponsoring a marathon. And like Big Tobacco, they also create front groups to fight anti-soda legislation and science.

For instance, as Time magazine reported:

• The American Beverage Association, which represents Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drink producers, has attacked suggestions to tax soda as “discriminatory.” Their organization is touted as a “neutral forum,” but in reality is devoted to discrediting negative press against soft drinks. For instance, in relation to obesity, ABA states, “All of our industry’s beverages can be enjoyed as part of a balanced lifestlye.”
• The soda industry has created the front group Americans Against Food Taxes, which runs anti-tax campaigns. As Kelly Brownell wrote in Time:
  

  “The name of the group implies a patriotic, grass roots movement, not a highly financed entity initiated and organized by industry.”

• Another industry-created front group, Foundation for a Healthy America, recently donated $10 million to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to research and prevent childhood obesity! Diet Coke has also teamed up with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to raise awareness for women’s heart health programs and was the official “Beverage of Choice” for the 2010 winter Olympics.
• The soda industry funds research to discredit links between soda drinking and health problems. Brownwell writes:
  

  “The tobacco industry paid scientists who did research disputing links between smoking and lung cancer, the addictive nature of nicotine, and the dangers of second-hand smoke. The soda industry funds scientists who reliably produce research showing no link between SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption and health. The tobacco industry bought favor from community and national organizations by giving large donations. In an ironic twist, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Association.”

The Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (isn’t that name an oxymoron?) even creates continuing education courses for registered dietitians!

The Top Reason to Give Soda the Boot …

Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, how bad could soda really be? From my perspective, there is absolutely NO REASON you or your kids should ever drink soda. If you were stranded in the middle of a desert with no other fluid available, then maybe, but other than that … none, nada, zip, zero. No excuses.

From a health perspective, drinking Coke or any soft drink is a disaster. Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year, not to mention increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent. The primary reason why soda is so dangerous to your health?

Fructose.

The fructose content of the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used in many popular soda brands has been sorely underestimated. Around 100 years ago the average American consumed a mere 15 grams of fructose a day, primarily in the form of fruit. One hundred years later, one fourth of Americans are consuming more than 135 grams per day, largely in the form of soda.

Fructose at 15 grams a day is harmless (unless you suffer from high uric acid levels). However, at nearly 10 times that amount it becomes a major cause of obesity and nearly all chronic degenerative diseases. Instead of consisting of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, many soda brands, including Coke, Pepsi and Sprite, contain as much as 65 percent fructose, nearly 20 percent higher than originally believed.

According to one study, the mean fructose content of all 23 sodas tested was 59 percent — higher than claimed by the industry. When you consider that Americans drink an average of 53 to 57 gallons of soda per year (depending on the source of your statistics), this difference in actual fructose content could make a huge difference in your health.

The Down and Dirty About Fructose

The American Beverage Association and other front groups will try to persuade you that fructose in high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar, but this is not true. ABA also claims there is “no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity,” but a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise.

For example:

• Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital did a study of the effects of sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children. He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased.
• The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year. In the schools where the machines were removed, obesity stayed constant. In the schools where soda machines remained, obesity rates continued to rise.
• In a 2009 study, 16 volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

Fructose is also a likely culprit behind the millions of U.S. children struggling with non-alcoholic liver disease, which is caused by a build-up of fat within liver cells. Fructose is very hard on your liver, in much the same way as drinking alcohol.

• Liver burden number one: After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver—ONLY your liver can break it down. This is much different than consuming glucose, in which your liver has to break down only 20 percent, and the remaining 80 percent is immediately metabolized and used by the rest of the cells in your body.
• Liver burden number two: Fructose is converted into fat that gets stored in your liver and other tissues as body fat. Part of what makes fructose so bad for your health is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar. For example, if you eat 120 calories of fructose, 40 calories are stored as fat. But if you eat the same amount of glucose, less than one calorie gets stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!

Fructose metabolism is very similar to the way alcohol is metabolized, which has a multitude of toxic metabolites that, if consumed in excess, can lead to non-alcoholic liver disease. For a complete discussion of fructose metabolism, see my comprehensive article about this.

Diet Soda is NOT a Safe Alternative to Regular Soda

If you think you’re better off drinking diet soda, think again. In fact, if I had to choose between the two, I’d take regular soda over diet. Instead of fructose, diet soda contains artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame or sucralose (Splenda). With all the research now available on aspartame and its various ingredients, it’s hard to believe such a chemical would even be allowed into the food supply, but it is, and it’s been silently wreaking havoc with people’s health for the past 30 years.

Just to refresh your memory, aspartame has been linked to the following health concerns, and Splenda is associated with many similar problems:

Lymphomas, leukemias, and brain cancer
Asthma

Neurological symptoms including headaches, depressed and anxious mood, seizures, memory loss, hallucinations, and dizziness
Visual changes

Weakness and fatigue
Joint pain

Sleep disorders
Weight gain and diabetes

Abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
Rashes and hives

Does Soda Actually Cause Violence?

It’s a well-known fact that poor diet, particularly one high in sugar, exacts a toll on your emotional health.

For example, one recent study published in the journal Psychology Today found a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. It’s also a well-known fact that chronic inflammation plays a major role in heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. So consuming excessive amounts of sugary beverages can truly set off an avalanche of negative health events — both mental and physical.

A diet high in sugar, fructose and sweetened beverages like soda also causes excessive insulin release, which can lead to falling blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, in turn, causes your brain to secrete glutamate in levels that can cause agitation, depression, anger, anxiety and panic attacks.

One 1985 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that reducing sugar intake had a positive impact on emotions. And another, the Los Angeles Probation Department Diet-Behavior Program: An Empirical Analysis of Six Institutional Settings, published in 1983, documented the results when juvenile delinquents were given a reduced-sugar diet. They saw a 44 percent reduction in the incidence of antisocial behavior during the subsequent 3 months, after the implementation of the revised diet.

So can drinking soda affect your child’s behavior?

Yes, it can.

A new study further supported this point, and revealed that frequent soft drink consumption was associated with a 9-15% point increase in the probability of engaging in aggressive actions, even after controlling for gender, age, race, body mass index, typical sleep patterns, tobacco use, alcohol use and having family dinners.

Researchers concluded:

“There was a significant and strong association between soft drinks and violence. There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression.”

The effect is not a new finding, as in 1979 the now notorious “Twinkie Defense” was used in a murder trial for the first time.

As Discovery News reported:

“In a notorious 1979 San Francisco murder trial, lawyers blamed the killer’s actions on his recent switch from a health-food diet to one filled with Coca-Cola and other junk food. Their argument worked. Instead of a homicide ruling, the defendant was convicted of a lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. The legal strategy became known as the “Twinkie Defense,” and the precedent raised a number of questions that persist, despite years of research on the subject.”

Processed Food “Rebates” Dominate School Cafeterias

Soda manufacturers are not the only ones scheming for a permanent share of your child’s diet. In an article published on La Vida Locavore, Ed Bruske revealed, possibly for the first time, that manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay “rebates” (aka “kickbacks”) to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States.

Bruske obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that revealed more than 100 companies paid rebates to Chartwells, a food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools. As you might suspect, the “rebates” present a conflict of interest that could prompt Chartwells to order food for your children based on the amount of rebate it will receive, versus the food’s nutritional value.

The end result?

School lunches that contain heavily processed foods like muffins, pizza, tator tots and flavored milk in lieu of fresh produce.

According to Bruske:

“Manufacturers pay rebates based on large volume purchases — literally, cash for placing an order. Rebates are said to be worth billions of dollars to the nation’s food industry, although manufacturers as well as the food service companies who feed millions of the nation’s school children every day — Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark — treat them as a closely-guarded secret.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that food service companies engaged in “cost reimbursable” contracts with schools credit any rebates they receive to their school clients. For more than a year, attorneys for D.C. Public Schools refused to make public an itemized list of rebates collected by Chartwells, claiming the information constituted “trade secrets.” The schools were overruled by Mayor Vincent Gray’s legal counsel after I filed an administrative appeal.

John Carroll, an assistant New York State attorney general investigating rebating practices there, has said rebates pose “an inherent conflict of interest” in school feeding programs because they favor highly processed industrial foods. In cases where schools pay a food service company a flat rate to provide meals, the companies are not required to disclose the rebates they collect. In those cases, Carroll recently told a U.S. Senate Panel, rebates tend to drive up the cost of food, cheating children out of nutrition they might otherwise have on their lunch trays.

Carroll also described cases where rebates discouraged the use of local farm products in school meals. Produce vendors can’t afford to pay a rebate for local apples. But in at least one case, a produce distributor raised the prices of his goods so that he could pay a rebate to a food service company. A Homeland Security sub-committee in the U.S. Senate is investigating possible rebate fraud in contracts across the entire federal government.”

The top contributors to Chatwells’ rebate dollars included Performance Food Group, which paid more than $400,000 over the last three years, followed by General Mills, Kraft Foods, Country Pure Foods and Jenny-O Turkey. Other companies who made the list include:

ConAgra
Otis Spunkmeyer
Kellog’s

Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up
FritoLay
Tyson

Nestle
Cargill Meat Solutions
Campbell’s Foodservice

Raising a Life-Long Healthy Eater

Food and beverage companies spend $2 billion a year promoting unhealthy foods to kids, and while ultimately it’s the parents’ responsibility to feed their children healthy foods, junk food ads make this much more difficult than it should be. As a result, the state of most kids’ diets in the United States is not easy to swallow.

As The Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) reported:

• Nearly 40% of children’s diets come from added sugars and unhealthy fats
• Only 21% of youth age 6-19 eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day

This is a veritable recipe for disease, and is a primary reason why today’s kids are arguably less healthy than many prior generations. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure — these are diseases that once appeared only in middle-age and beyond, but are now impacting children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that by 2050, one in three U.S. adults will have diabetes — one of them could be your child if you do not take steps to cancel out the messages junk-food marketers are sending and instead teach them healthy eating habits.

Make no mistake, the advertisers are doing all they can to lure your child in, just as Big Tobacco did generations ago.

So you need to first educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example. Children will simply not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them first.

My nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now to learn how to make healthy eating decisions for you and your children.

If you want to get involved on a larger scale, the Prevention Institute’s “We’re Not Buying It” campaign is petitioning President Obama to put voluntary, science-based nutrition guidelines into place for companies that market foods to kids. You can sign this petition now. I also urge you to go a step further and stop supporting the companies that are marketing junk foods and beverages to your children today.

Ideally, you and your family will want to vote with your pocketbook and avoid processed food and sugary sodas while instead choosing unprocessed raw, organic and/or locally grown foods as much as possible. These are the foods your child will thrive on, and it’s important they learn what real, healthy food is right from the get-go.

This way, when they become tweens and teenagers, they may eat junk food here and there at a friend’s house, but they will return to real food as the foundation of their diet — and that habit will continue on with them for a lifetime.

 

Source: Dr. Mercola, Organic Consumers Association (OCA)

What’s In Your Fridge?? This Is How I Shop For Health

GET YOUR KIDS INTO THE KITCHEN!

Source: Uploaded by PaulChekLive on Jul 25, 2008 to YouTube

Sean from http://www.undergroundwellness.com lets us into his pantry for a little show and tell. If you care about your meat suit then choose your meat carefully. Go against the grain and eat the best you can obtain cause disease is born of bodies carelessly maintained.

Children of the Corn Syrup: lecture by Dr. Stephen W. Ponder

Source: Uploaded by delmarcollege on Jun 24, 2009 to YouTube

Dr. Stephen W. Ponder , MD, FAAP, CDE is the director of the Childrens Diabetes and Endocrine Center of South Texas at Driscoll Children‘s Hospital. Dr. Ponder delivered his presentation on children and obesity, “Children of the Corn Syrup,” as part of the Friday Science Lecture Series at Del Mar College on March 7, 2008

HCG Drops: When Nothing Else Works

By: Rammoon Carrasiel

HCG drops are used when a simple diet is not enough to help you lose your undesired weight. Lots of people use HCG drops to lose fat and never gain back the weight.
HCG drops are based on a natural human hormone that helps mothers lose weight and metabolize during pregnancy. When combined with a low calorie diet HCG drops allow quick weight loss, helping you lose pounds of fat and improve your health.

HCG drops are a good alternative to other HCG methods, like injections. Since most people want to lost weight but don’t like shots HCG drops are a good idea.
Homeopathic HCG drops are easy and painless to use. You don’t need a prescription for HCG drops, and you don’t need supplies to go with the diet drops. Losing weight is as simple as taking the HCG drops and following a low calorie diet, like the HCG diet plan.

HCG drops contain a hormone that signals the body to release pounds of stored fat, helping you lose weight. Since HCG drops are paired with a low calorie diet you get double the fat loss effects. Using HCG drops and a diet also helps the metabolism adjust to burn calories and lose weight faster.

Using HCG drops comes with the HCG diet plan you must follow. The first few days involve a high fat diet with the HCG drops. This step fills the cells with fat and prepares your body to drop pounds. This HCG phase last until you start the low calorie diet.
Next the HCG drops are taken with a low calorie diet. The length of the low calorie phase depends on the amount of weight you want to drop. The HCG diet plan is specific on the foods and amounts that you eat. The HCG drops aid your body in losing the weight while you consume the HCG diet recipes.

During the next phase you continue the low calorie diet but stop using the HCG drops. The HCG drops need to be flushed out of your system. During this phase the low calorie diet centers on foods that help you lose weight but preserve your health. You may have extra HCG drops, but it is essential that you don’t take them during this phase. You have to rely on the HCG diet. You will see the pounds drop off every day.

Once you stop using the HCG drops you have to watch and insure that your weight begins to stabilize. You want to lose the fat, but you need to maintain your health. The HCG diet advises to stay away from carbohydrates for the weight loss diet. If the diet phase isn’t working you don’t need more HCG drops. There are HCG diet plan guidelines for that problem.

HCG drops help your body lose weight, but they don’t make you drop the pounds so fast that you lose your health. When you use the low calorie diet and HCG drops you are also unlikely to gain back the weight you lose. HCG drops are designed to keep you feeling full while you are on the diet. Because of the HCG drops it is much easier to lose weight than if you were just doing a low calorie diet.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

East Indian Plant Helps Diabetics Lower Blood Sugar, Weight

by: Robert P. Tracy

Type 2 diabetics in the United States have become wary of pharmaceutical companies.

When heavily researched and touted products, such as Avandia, are found to have serious and sometimes fatal side effects, a growing number of suffering diabetics have sought out alternative or holistic remedies.

Even the pharmaceutical companies themselves are considering natural foods and ingredients as remedies for serious illnesses such as diabetes.
 
In addition to pharma companies, if you Google the Internet, you’re sure to find numerous companies hawking the latest sure-cure, snake oil, promising to eliminate Type 2 diabetes and give you a happy life.
 
Unfortunately, few of these alternative remedies work. Some are even harmful. Which gives natural products that truly help a bad name. One such product is garcinia cambogia.
 
Drawing on ancient folk wisdom from India, a natural, wild-growing food garcinia cambogia, has been found by local Indians and American scientists to be highly effective in countering Type 2 diabetes conditions.
 
Dr. Harry Preuss, a professor at the prestigious Georgetown University Medical Center, has conducted multiple, double-blind placebo studies on this product and found it to be highly effective for restoring diabetic health.
 
Based on this research in which participants were given a supplement form of garcinia cambogia, Dr. Preuss found that it helped participants to lose weight (not muscle mass), lower blood sugar levels, reduce cholesterol and blood pressure.
 
In his book, The Natural Fat-Loss Pharmacy, Dr. Preuss notes the benefits of this natural food (its active ingredient, HCA, is found in the dried rind) and recommends its use for both healthy individuals and Type 2 sufferers.
 
Dr. Preuss also strongly recommends that any natural food or supplement be accompanied by a healthy diet and exercise regimen.
 
The plant and it history
 
The dried fruit rind of Garcinia cambogia is a rich source of HCA, and has been used for centuries as a spice, flavor-enhancer, preservative and digestive aid throughout Southeast Asia.
 
Thus, it has a long history of consumption in countries where the plant is native. Structurally, HCA is similar to the common food additive citric acid, which also occurs naturally in citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons. A high bioavailability form of HCA has been produced and studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in humans.
 
A primary mode of HCA action appears to be its ability to inhibit ATP-citrate lyase, an enzyme that helps to form the building blocks of fatty acids and cholesterol.
 
The dried fruit rind of Garcinia cambogia is a rich source of HCA, and has been used for centuries as a spice, flavor-enhancer, preservative and digestive aid throughout Southeast Asia.
 
Thus, it has a long history of consumption in countries where the plant is native. Structurally, HCA is similar to the common food additive citric acid, which also occurs naturally in citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons. But it is far more reaching in it benefits.

For more information visit us below.
 

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Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com
 

About the Author:
Diab-X, ProvenReusltshealth.com

Please visit us at:
 http://www.provenresultshealth.com/diab-x/diabetes/natural/supplement/studies.html

Helping diabetics and pre-diabetics discover healthier living through natural, herbal remedies. Key ingredients in Diab-X help by promoting normal blood sugar levels, healthy body weight BMI, proper insulin function, healthy cholesterol, and normal blood pressure.

For personal service call Toll Free: 888-600-6856.

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC – All Rights Reserved.

African American Women and Weight

 by Ilana Diallo

Here she comes walking down the street. That beautiful, dark, shapely black woman. Shapely has become a term that describes the African American woman. However, statistics state that the highest percentage of overweight groups of people are African American women. Nearly 66 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and of that 78 percent are African American women.

We have to face that fact that America is getting fatter each year. The dieting has caused a very pronounced dependency on their products that if aren’t used the individual regains the weight lost. Americans are on an overweight rollercoaster that pauses when it reaches the top and down she goes again.

What Makes the African American Woman Overweight?

African American women are becoming overweight for the same reason most Americans are. African American women are eating fast food, unhealthy cooking, with little or no exercise routine. These lifestyle habits have created a large problem literally. Women tend to have more body fat on them than men.

She is still beautiful as she walks down the street but she pauses every few feet to catch her breath. Being overweight can cause many different health issues such as; diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthmatic issues, and heart disease. These health induced illnesses can be crippling and even lead to untimely deaths.

Taking care of the body through better nutrition adds vitality to a person’s health and life. Illnesses like diabetes is on the rise amongst overweight and obese individuals. These individuals are primarily African American women as they are the leading population that is overweight.

Nutrition Tips

Many times the home cooked meal is the most unhealthy meal of the day. Here are some tips to gradually change the eating habits and still enjoy the food you cook.

Start each morning with a healthy breakfast. Eat healthy multi grain breakfast bars, oatmeal with a little brown sugar, low fat yogurt, a multi grain cereal with little milk (non dairy is the best).

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables throughout the day. Consume more whole grains such as; oatmeal, brown rice, and whole grain breads.

Try ordering the healthier options such as; grilled chicken instead of crispy chicken, plain hamburger with veggies only (no sauce), and ask for the salad on the side instead of the french fries.

Make it light when using mayonnaise, butter and other condiment products.

Eliminate sweets in the house. If sweets aren’t in the house it makes it harder to consume them.

Change cooking styles; bake chicken instead fried, use more herbs and less butter, and less salt always.

Adding Fitness to the Routine

Fitness is just as important as nutrition. Do little things to get fitness into your daily schedule.

Park further away from the door when going to the store or from the entrance to work.

Go window shopping at the mall and walk the entire mall.

Take the stairs when optional.

Begin to schedule in exercise into daily schedule. Walk around a local school track.

To look at alternative weight loss methods, take the time to visithttp://www.weightlosstriumph.com/does-medifast-work-find-out-what-medifast-customers-say.html

Even though African American women have been the most overweight population with lifestyle changes that can change. Taking the time to find small things to eliminate and others to add will increase your overall health.

Here she comes through the door and she is still beautiful, dark, shapely, and two sizes smaller and all she did was change her lifestyle one day at a time.

About the Author

Ilana began her career as a public speaker and motivational speaker in communities and schools. She has continued to educate and inspire those around her and in her community. Ilana is a professional freelance writer whom has been writing for 15 years.

Source: GoArticles.com © 2011, All Rights Reserved

Nutrition Facts Labels: How to Read, FAQ Parts 1 & 2

Part 1 of 2

Understanding Nutrition Facts Labels

Uploaded by psychetruth on Dec 19, 2007 to YouTube

Natalie explains;

Ingredient list, serving Size, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, fiver, sugars, proteins, vitamins and minerals and daily percents on a nutrition facts label placed on food. Know what you buy at the grocery store.

This helps you understand what you eat and make healthy choices for health and weight loss and fitness.

Part 2

Healthy Foods And Cacao: Part Two

By: Marilyn Reid

As was discussed in Healthy Foods and Cacao: Part One, our bodies need raw materials to fight off the side effects of living. Our bodies are, literally, under attack, either by the normal processes of living (oxygen) or the other things we encounter on a daily basis that leave our bodies open to attack (H1N1). What we feed our bodies will either help in the fight or tear it down further. There are other minerals and nutrients our bodies need to do that work effectively.

It is the sweet potato, not the carrot, that will have the greatest impact on your vision. Sweet potatoes outpower carrots. One carrot contains 203% of the daily recommended vitamin a, but a sweet potato weighs in with 262.2% of the daily recommended dose. Sweet potatoes also contain vitamin C and B6 are known to help the body fight off inflammation.

Tomatoes contain vitamin C and vitamin A, but they also contain potassium (8% of the RDA). Tomatoes real punch comes from lycopene, which is present when tomatoes are cooked. Lycopene made headlines because of its impact on prostate cancer, but research has indicated that it may also be beneficial in warding of stomach, colon, breast, and lung cancers. Regardless, tomatoes are incredibly high in antioxidants and should be part of everyone’s diet.

Mom was right about eating your broccoli. As with all the superfoods so far reviewed, broccoli is high in antioxidant vitamins, like A and C, but it is also high in fiber, folic acid and even calcium. Broccoli contains 178 milligrams in one cup. (Milk has 300 in one cup, but also the fat that goes with it and no fiber.) A diet high in good fiber has been shown to ward off rectal and colon cancers.

Dense in antioxidants, cacao nibs are packed with a whole host of nutrients, making it a great choice for brain health. As discussed in the article Organic Cacao, the Department of Metabolism and Nutrition, in Madrid, Spain, reported that cacaos the glucose retardation index of cocoa . . . were similar to other natural commercial insoluble fibres. In other words, the good fiber in cacao helped keep glucose levels down. The chromium in cacao nips is known to reduce ones cravings for sugary foods (http://healthyfoodrawdiet.com/cacao/cacao-nibs). It has also been shown to reduce the platelet levels in the bloodstream, inhibiting the formation of clogged arteries and reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems. While cacao nibs do contain fat, it is important to remember that our bodies need fat to process nutrients.

Salmon is more evidence that not all fats are created equally. The fat in salmon is essential for our bodies, but more so our brains. The omega 3 fatty acids in salmon have no equal. It must be noted that for salmons benefits to be maximized, it is critical that one consumes wild catch salmon, as farm raised salmon omega 3 are significantly lower. It is believed that farm-raised salmon does not enjoy the normal diet as salmon out in the wild and does therefore not contain the same benefits. The quality of the meat suffers and the salmon can in fact suffer from more infections and must therefore be treated with antibiotics, leading to a whole host of other issues.

You are what you eat. If you fuel your body with superfoods that are rich in nutrients and good fats, your body will be better able to ward off infection and perform the way in which it was intended. Salmon, cacao nibs, tomatoes, broccoli, sweet potatoes are some of the best foods for fueling our body to fight off expected invaders, like free radicals that lead to oxidization, and unexpected invaders, like cancer cells.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Flavonoids are a type of antioxidants, a superfood (http://www.healthyfoodrawdiet.com/cacao)

The Truth About Fruit! – Food or Candy?

Source: Uploaded by psychetruth on Apr 9, 2008 to YouTube

Nutrition by Natalie

The Truth About Fruit! Health Food or Candy?
Will the fruits basket make you fat or help you lose weight? Natalie, gives tips why fruit should be in your diet.

Healthy Foods And Cacao: Part One

By: Marilyn Reid

What makes a food a healthy food? What properties does it have to make it a nutritional super food? We age because our bodies break down and wear out. Why? From the moment we draw our first breath, we begin the, usually, slow process of dying. Every breath gets us a step closer. The unfair part is that the process of aging is initiated with breath. Oxygen, so vital for our living, brings us daily closer to death. Think of the aging process as rusting. That is why antioxidants are so essential. They help the body deal with the process of rusting and thereby help stave off aging and help the body function optimally.

Green tea is quite a powerhouse. In the last couple of years, dentists have been recommending green tea because it has been shown to kill the bacteria causing plaque. As we know, dental plaque is, indeed, related to cardiovascular plaque and those with oral issues often also have heart issues. Further, studies have shown that green tea is beneficial in treating mouth and throat infections, which might explain its connection to a decrease in esophageal cancers. Green tea has been linked in several studies with a reduction of cancer proclivities, probably because of its high levels of antioxidants.

Usually, when we think of cacao, we think of hot cocoa. Cacao, even cacao tea http://healthyfoodrawdiet.com/cacao/cacao-tea), however, has often been recommended as a substitute for other, more harmful drinks. While cacao does contain some caffeine, it tends to be less acidic than coffee or black tea and therefore tolerated more easily. Furthermore, cacao, especially unprocessed and unsugared, has loads of other health benefits. Containing such properties as Phenylethylamine, it is able to induce both a sense of calmness and alertness. Cacaos levels of flavonoids are unsurpassed by most foods and contain other minerals like magnesium and chromium provide the body with nutrients that will stave off sugar cravings.

Blueberries, like green tea, are loaded with antioxidant vitamins. Blueberries, cousins to cranberries and bilberries, have been shown to promote urinary tract health. Interestingly, the tartness associated with wild blueberries is one of the reasons blueberries are so potent. That tartness leads to helping the body in becoming more alkaline (and less acidic). Acidity, we know, makes our system work harder. Our body has to strip magnesium and calcium from our bones to reduce the bodys acidity and make it more alkaline. Over time, a high level of acid in the body will affect the kidneys that are under load from the acidity and are working overtime to neutralize it. Blueberries, on the other hand, help restore and maintain a good level of alkalinity.

It has been suggested by numerous studies that cancer itself may be the body’s reaction to being under the load of inflammation over time. Any time we force our bodies to work overtime and we do not give our bodies the raw materials it needs to deal with that level of stress, we invite a whole host of other issues. Superfoods, like cacao, green tea, and blueberries are generally high in antioxidants and help the body fight inflammation, while providing it with the nutrients it needs to function optimally.

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Flavonoids are a type of antioxidants, a superfood (http://www.healthyfoodrawdiet.com/cacao)

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