Encouraging Health

Even if you know everything there is to know about fat, it could be hard to put that knowledge into practice. Fortunately, there are lots of healthy options to help you eat fat-sensibly whether you’re shopping for groceries, cooking at home or eating out. This section features some of the best advice we’ve collected to help you make good decisions.

A healthy diet balances the number of calories you eat with the number of calories you burn. It emphasizes eating vegetables, fruits, whole-grain/high-fiber foods, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, lean meats, poultry, fish (at least twice a week) and limiting your saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol. Also, drink fewer beverages and eat fewer foods with added sugars; choose and prepare foods with little or no salt.

As you begin making healthier choices, remember that old eating patterns can be hard to break, so you may not be able to change overnight. Introduce improvements to your diet gradually. Before you know it, your new choices will become as routine as your old ones.

Pass on “value-size” servings that enable you to choose greater portions of food for a slightly greater price. “Super-sizing” a food item inevitably increases the amount of fat, added sugars, sodium and calories you consume.

Skip the sides, which are usually deep-fried. For a healthier side dish, order a side salad or fruit cup.

Choose a baked potato over French fries, but have it with vegetables or fat-free or low-fat sour cream or margarine instead of butter, full-fat sour cream or cheese.

Choose grilled chicken sandwiches often – they’re a much healthier option than breaded, fried-chicken sandwiches and usually significantly leaner than the meats used in most burgers.

The effects of the widespread peanut butter recall could cost rural America’s peanut producers $1 billion in lost production and sales, according to testimony set to be heard Wednesday at a House subcommittee hearing.

If it really is a $1B loss, as they say, could this be the end of peanut butter and peanut product production?

That could be just the beginning, the head of the Georgia Peanut Commission will tell a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business, according to prepared testimony obtained by The Associated Press. In his testimony, Don Koehler plans to say that the recalls, prompted by a salmonella outbreak tied to peanut butter, have severely hurt the nation’s peanut producers, weakening pricing and limiting their ability to sell their products.

Koehler said the recall goes far beyond the source of the outbreak, Peanut Corp. of America, and that the companies that used its peanut butter and peanut paste in their products have had to remove their products from the marketplace. The true cost won’t be known until the outbreak is over and the recall complete, he said.

According to research done by the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness at the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture, Koehler said it was unlikely peanut farmers would generate enough cash flow this year given expected pricing and production acreage. Growers anticipate reducing their acreage by at least one-third, which all when taken together could mean economic losses of $1 billion in rural America due to the recall, he said.

Eric Bailey outdoes himself in “Food Choice and Obesity in Black America: Creating a New Cultural Diet”, 150 pgs, Greenwood ebooks.

If Doctors, Healthcare and the Fitness industries ever wondered why African Americans are not coming in droves, this book is a Must Read!

By simply overlaying Eurpean Ethnic ideals onto Black Americans, a disservice is being done to both ethnicities. Eric Bailey has a catch-phrase that should be on the tip of everyone’s tongue in the aformentioned industries: “Culturally Appropriate”.

In “Food Choice and Obesity in Black America”, the author covers relevant background material to the growing obesity problem in the African American communities. Citing historical, familial, religous, peer and cultural reasons, there is evidence that a different approach should be taken with discussing weight loss, eating habits, exercise routines and social interactions between African Americans.

Bailey doesn’t just lecture to White Doctors and African Americans in this timely book. He takes the time to explain why African Americans view Obesity and Food differently than European Americans. He also explains why African Americans should open up to their doctors, take the time to explain their cultural viewpoints in regards to body type, culture, food preparation.

Never once did I feel talked down to in reading this book, and I’m certain no one who will read “Food Choice and Obesity in Black America” will feel offended.

Bailey takes us on a cultural train ride through the eyes of African Amercians in regards to how they view weight loss and food through their community and how it differs from what is called ‘mainstream america’. The last chapter is about what Eric Bailey terms “THE NEW BLACK CULTURAL DIET AND LIFESTYLE”. He asks that each African American ask themselves six timely questions, honestly and openly about themselves, their culture, their family, their food, their reality and their body.

A sure winner in the fight against obesity for Eric Bailey.

Great tips from Real Age: One of the best things you can do for your digestion and your weight is to slow down the speed at which your digestive system works.

Why? Because it can mean feeling fuller longer — so you eat less. Here’s how to take things nice and easy.

3 Keys to Better Digestion

1. Eat often. By never allowing yourself to get too hungry, you help turn off appetite-inducing hormones, write YOU Docs Mehmet Oz, MD, and Michael Roizen, MD, in their updated and expanded YOU: The Owner’s Manual.

2. Have a healthy-fat appetizer. Eating a little healthy fat before a meal — like a handful of nuts — slows the rate at which your stomach empties, so you’ll feel full faster from the meal.

3. Feast on fiber. Fiber takes a long time to digest, which means your stomach empties more slowly — and the time until your next meal won’t seem so far away!

Here are some healthy snack ideas from the FDA’s Food Pyramid:

Snack Ideas from the MyPyramid Food Groups

Grains dry cereal, whole grain crackers, mini rice cakes, sliced bread, mini bagels, graham crackers, whole wheat tortillas
Vegetables veggie “matchsticks” (thin sticks) made from carrots* or zucchini,* bell pepper rings, cherry tomatoes*, steamed broccoli, green beans, sugar peas, avocadoes
Fruits apple slices*, tangerine sections, strawberry halves, bananas, pineapple, kiwi, peach, mango, nectarine, or melon, grapes*, berries, dried apricots*
Milk low-fat cheese slices or string cheese, mini yogurt cups, fat-free or low-fat milk, low-fat cottage cheese
Meat and Beans egg slices or wedges, peanut butter*, bean dip, hummus, slices of lean turkey* or chicken*, shelled pumpkin seeds

This article about the cookbook “The Joy of Cooking” testing recipes’ fat content is intriguing.

Is it possible to cook at home with low-fat, low-cholesterol and low carbohydrate recipes?

The answer is yes. I’ve been cooking mostly low-fat and semi-vegetarian for six years. Gone are processed foods, sugar, processed flour, high carb breads (any over 5 grams of carbs per slice). Also gone are high starch content foods, such as potoatoes, peas and corn. My middle doesn’t need help gaining weight.

There are a bundle of low-fat and vegetarian cookbooks out there these days. You will see about ten of them on my shelves that I am constantly going to for ideas.

What about cooking? You ask. Learn about vegetables; it will require you to re-learn how to cook, how to prepare, when to add vegetables to a pan, pot or baking dish. Hard vegetables, like parsnips, carrots, beets are added in the beginning of a recipe, for they take longer to cook. Soft vegetables, like eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash are added towards the end of a recipe, they don’t take as long, and you want their crunchiness and flavor intact (not to mention all their good vitamins and minerals).

Using oils will require a new lesson as well. There are different oils for different uses. Some are heathier than others. Canola, vegetable and olive oils are best to use. Canola and vegetable are good for sauteeing, frying and baking. Olive oil is good for lightly frying, sauteeing, dressings and flavorings.

Cooking at home can be healthy and flavorful. It just takes learning.

Whole grains offer protection, but go easy on the eggs and dairy

Each serving of whole grains may lessen heart failure risk by 7 percent among middle-aged African-American and white men and women, according to findings from a long-term study.

Conversely, each serving of high-fat dairy and egg appear to increase heart failure risk by 8 and 23 percent, respectively, Dr. Jennifer A. Nettleton, of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and colleagues found.

“A refined grain here, a full-fat yogurt there, and the occasional egg aren’t going to result in heart failure, but a continued pattern of such behaviors could,” Nettleton told Reuters Health.

Heart failure is a chronic disease in which the heart gradually loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, leaving organs starved for oxygen.

On 3 occasions over the 13-year study, Nettleton’s group assessed the dietary intake of 14,153 adults, aged 45 to 64 years, who did not have heart failure in 1987 when the study began. About half the participants were women and a quarter were African-American,

Overall, 1,140 of the participants were hospitalized for heart failure during the study period, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

After accounting for factors that impact heart failure risk such as calorie intake, lifestyle, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood, the researchers found lower heart failure risk associated with greater intake of whole grains, and higher risk associated with greater amounts of eggs and high fat dairy.

The associations held independently of intake of red meat, fruits and vegetables, fish, and nuts. In this study these foods showed no association with heart failure risk likely because there were too few heart failure cases to detect the heart benefits previously linked with eating fish, fruit and vegetables, and nuts, Nettleton said.

Whether you sprinkle it on hot drinks or mix it into your favorite muffins, you’re giving yourself the gift of good health with this seasoning: cinnamon.

Ground or stick, sprinkled or stirred — cinnamon packs an antioxidant wallop. It tested near the top when 20 spice extracts were recently analyzed for their antioxidant capacity. Cinnamon is great in coffee (with some real vanilla extract), maybe some sweetener of your choice. Plus, it has so many great properties!

Phenol Power
Cinnamon and cinnamon sticks were clear standouts during the test, not only because of their total antioxidant ranking but also because they scored high marks for phenolics — health-protective compounds credited with thwarting cell-damaging processes in the body. Bonus: Cinnamon phenols in particular may also help bring down blood sugar.

Hot ChocolateThis spiced hot chocolate warms you from within.

Ingredients
4 cups prepared hot cocoa with 1% milk
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
4 cinnamon sticks

Directions
1. Combine cocoa, nutmeg and chili powder. Pour into mugs and serve with a cinnamon stick.

The Tastiest Way to Drop Blood Sugar
It’s great on french toast. It’s lovely in apple pies, oatmeal, and eggnog. And now, cinnamon may be good for your blood sugar, too. One study found that people with diabetes who ate three-eighths of a teaspoon of the spice a day had better blood sugar levels after a little more than a month.

Cinnamon is well known as a stellar antioxidant and a potent germ-killer, and there’s a growing — but not perfectly consistent — body of evidence that suggests that a substance in the spice turns on insulin receptors to help your body use glucose. That’s a good thing, because too much glucose in your bloodstream is tough on your organs and is a marker of diabetes. If you currently measure your blood sugar, you can test how cinnamon works for you by checking your blood sugar levels at a time (but not right after eating) when they are near stable. Then, try some nonsugary thing with the cinnamon; wait 1 to 2 hours, and then measure your blood sugar again. Do this for 3 days, then follow it with 3 days when you do and eat the exact same things, but leave the cinnamon out.

A little fresh-fruit snack may put you on the fast track to better blood flow.

People in a study experienced better blood flow in their brachial arteries just 3 hours after eating the equivalent of one and a quarter cups of grapes. At 60 calories a delicious cup, that’s a pretty juicy deal.

Boundless Benefits
The blood flow benefits were even better after 3 weeks of consistent eating. Researchers think it may be the antioxidants in grapes that help keep blood vessels relaxed and blood flowing freely. In fact, grapes may even help protect your blood vessels from fatty meals — something that normally does immediate, transient damage. And early animal research suggests that something in grapes may help protect your blood pressure from salty foods, too.

Reality Check
Of course, no single food will make your heart and arteries impervious to the perils of a bad diet. So in addition to fresh fruit like antioxidant-rich grapes, feed your heart what it really wants, including:

Garlic, olive oil, and dark chocolate.

Oatmeal with strawberries.

A couple of shakes of cinnamon each day.

I put cinnamon in my morning coffee, great antioxidants, cancer fighting properties.

Heart-Warming Seasoning

Swirl some cinnamon into your favorite hot beverage to make your heart happy.

Cinnamon, researchers have discovered, has potent antioxidant properties, most likely due to the heart-healthy phenols in the spice. To help protect yourself against heart disease, occasionally indulge in a cup of hot cocoa, latte, or mulled cider with ground cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Antioxidants offer powerful protection against disease and aging. They help to mop up free radicals that are left over from natural metabolic processes. These free radicals can damage cells and DNA, but antioxidants help to neutralize them. To ensure you are getting the right quantity and variety of antioxidants, eat a diet that is varied and colorful with many different kinds of fruits, vegetables, spices, and nuts. Fresh isn’t your only option; frozen, dried, and canned versions of these items can provide antioxidant nutrition as well.

Want to avoid that “thing” that’s been going around? Your mood may have something to do with it.

People who are carefree and calm seem to have extra armor against winter bugs. They get sick less often — and even if they do pick up a bug, they tend to have fewer symptoms. Yep, putting on a smile could be just the ticket.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy
Researchers recently asked healthy volunteers to describe their moods and then exposed them to a cold or flu virus. People who described themselves as happy, full of pep, and at ease — versus depressed, anxious, or hostile — had fewer symptoms like coughing, achy joints, and sinus pain. The researchers concluded that positive emotions may strongly influence the human immune system.

How to Get There
Everyone wants to be happy, but what makes one person light up may do little to lift another. Step one is figuring out what makes you happy. Try these other tips and tricks for boosting your emotional well-being:

Do a plate check. Certain foods — like those rich in healthy omega-3 fats — can be good for the spirit.

Grab your trainers. A simple walk or light workout is a surefire way to elevate your body’s natural “happy” chemicals.

Phone a friend. There’s a reason why social butterflies seem so chipper.

Don’t Worry, Eat Happy

Ever wish there were a happy pill to spritz up your spirits when you’re out of sorts? To make you laugh when you’re feeling down? Or to calm your nerves when you’re about to bite someone’s head off? Well, get this: There are several things in your kitchen that might just do the trick, and they taste a lot better than any pill.

A Little Dessert: Sugar soothes us when we’re stressed — or at least it soothes stressed-out rats — which are remarkably good models for stress in people. But before you race to the vending machine with a license to binge, know that while a little sugar may soothe rattled nerves, too much will re-rattle them by causing havoc with your blood sugar. Here are some treats that’ll give you just enough:

• A small slice of angel food cake with 1/2 cup of strawberries
• 2 Fig Newman cookies and a 6-ounce glass of juice
• Fast Fruit-and-Chocolate Fondue:

· 1 cup fresh strawberries
· 1 peeled, sliced kiwi
· 1/4 cup fat-free chocolate syrup

Dunk fruit into syrup, lean back, and smile!

Toast and Jam: “Carbs raise levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin, which lifts our spirits,” says Elizabeth Somer, RD, author of Food & Mood. That’s why we crave bread and other carbohydrates when we’re down. Opt for whole-wheat bread and other whole-grain carbs, because they also help stabilize blood sugar levels — unlike refined grains (white bread, pasta, rice), which send blood sugar on a roller-coaster ride, leaving you jittery, grumpy, and hungry. Get a happy serotonin boost from these snacks:

• Half a toasted whole-wheat English muffin or bagel with jam or honey
• A small bowl of oatmeal with some dried cranberries and a bit of brown sugar
• A comforting, creamy open-faced peach sandwich:

· 2 tablespoons fat-free cream cheese
· 1 teaspoon honey
· 1 peach, peeled and chopped
· 1 slice 100% whole-grain bread
· 1/2 teaspoon chopped walnuts
· 2 tablespoons fat-free cream cheese
· 1 teaspoon honey
· 1 peach, peeled and chopped
· 1 slice 100% whole-grain bread
· 1/2 teaspoon chopped walnuts

Blend cheese, honey, and chopped peaches; spread mixture on bread, and sprinkle with nuts. Yum!

Here’s a reason to raise a pint; scientists at Rice University have created beer that could extend your life.

BioBeer, as it’s called, has three genes spliced into special brewer’s yeast that produce resveratrol, the chemical in red wine that is thought to protect against diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other age-related conditions.

The only problem, from the students’ perspective, is that many of them aren’t old enough to legally consume their creation.

The eight graduate and undergraduate students created BioBeer as part of the upcoming International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The iGEM Jamboree, as the annual meeting is called, took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology November 8th and 9th. This year 85 teams from around the world signed up to bring the tools of the nascent field of synthetic biology to bear on a variety of problems large and small, including a bacterial vacuum cleaner or “bacuum cleaner” that can seek out and degrade harmful hydrocarbons in ground water and devices to remove arsenic from drinking water.
BioBeer, and the other iGEM projects, are “just the tip of the iceberg,” says Randy Rettburg, iGEM Director. Rettburg compares the development of synthetic biology to the creation of the computer. The value of the technology used to create BioBeer isn’t in creating specific applications; it’s the beginning of an entirely new kind of technology.

Extending human life
But don’t expect to swill this brew soon. The team would need to remove certain genetic markers in the yeast cells first. FDA approval might then be necessary as well, since the yeast could be classified as a genetically modified organism.

Filtering the beer would eliminate the yeast but remove the medical benefits as well. The yeast cells produce resverstrol inside the cells. The cells have to burst for the human body to access the resverstrol. The easiest way is to let the stomach do what it does best.

Once resverstrol enters the body it binds to the SIRT1 receptors, which are located inside mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. SIRT1 activity has been linked to combatting a variety of medical conditions, including diabetes and cancer. It may also play a role in the way calorie restriction diets have been shown to extend life in animal models.

Several drugs, including resverstrol itself and synthetic versions, like SRT1720, which is 1,000 times more powerful than resverstrol, are currently seeking FDA approval to treat diabetes by limiting weight gain and levels of cholesterol and insulin.