Archive for May, 2010
May 31st, 2010 -- Posted in Fitness, Green Living, Healthy Eating, Natural Remedies, Weight Loss |
Is it possible that weight loss could result from eating carrots? Yes! Chalmers in “The Great Food Almanac” said eating a carrot a day is “like signing a life insurance policy,”.
The basic rule of this diet is to add a carrot (varied with other low calorie “rabbit-food”) at or near the beginning of every meal. Why should this work?
This works because a bulky carrot at or near the meal’s beginning leaves no room in the stomach at the meal’s end for the extra ice-cream or cheesecake.
That saves perhaps 500 calories a day, which translates to a weight loss of about a pound a week.
Carrots are incredibly high in fiber. Fiber is one of the most important substances to lose weight. Fiber cannot be digested by the body; it simply passes through the body, with other food attached.
This, however, doesn’t stop your digestive system from trying to digest it. It sends out more digestive enzymes to try and break down the fiber. This causes the digestive system to more fully digest the food in your stomach. This helps use all of the foods energy and helps speed your metabolism.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that fiber intake predicted weight gain in young adults. The more fiber they ate, the less likely they were to gain weight.
Carrots are also incredibly low in fat and calories. They are so low, in fact, that carrots can be considered a thermogenic food, which is a food that takes more calories to digest it than is actually in the food. continue reading »
May 28th, 2010 -- Posted in Green Living, Healthy Eating |
Baby carrots have no flavor. As someone who had been eating baby carrots for a long time, I had honestly forgotten what a carrot tastes like.
Baby carrots are nice – they are usually crispy and sweet, but they are largely flavorless. They don’t have that carrot-y taste and smell. It’s a tough taste to describe, but it’s very distinct.
There are many varieties of carrots of course, but most carrots that you can buy in a supermarket, the kind with a top of green leaves and visible roots, taste and smell distinctly different than a baby carrot, which doesn’t taste or smell like much of anything.
That baby carrot isn’t so cute. Bigger is definitely better in the land of Carotenoids and Carrot Cake. The “baby carrots” everyone loves have up to 70 percent less beta carotene than regular carrots.
Carrots are one of the best ways for the body to get vitamin A. Our bodies change the beta carotene that is in carrots into vitamin A. Vitamin A affects the formation and maintenance of skin, mucous membranes, bones, and teeth, vision and reproduction.
Besides, baby carrots aren’t babies at all. They’re grown-up carrots cut into 2-inch sections, pumped through water-filled pipes into whirling cement-mixer-size peelers and whittled down to the niblets Americans know, love and scarf down by the bagful.
Baby carrots are not young carrots, but rather small pieces of carrots that are chopped and whittled down to look like small carrots. They are peeled, and washed, and insanely convenient. Much of the nutritional value of the carrot is in the skin and just below that area. This part is peeled away in the process of making a baby carrot.
A fresh picked carrot will naturally whiten with air exposure and age. A picked banana will spot brown and turn soft. These are all natural aging processes of fruits and veggies.
Ever notice that your baby carrots seem to spend an awful long time hangin’ out in your fridge without even a hint of decay? continue reading »
May 23rd, 2010 -- Posted in Fitness, Green Living, Healthy Eating, Natural Beauty, Natural Remedies, Weight Loss |
If you want a clean, healthy boost, the answer is a beet juice. According to a recent study conducted by Exeter University, in addition to combating high blood pressure, beet juice can increase the amount of time you’re able to exercise by causing a reduction in oxygen uptake
Drinking beetroot juice boosts stamina and could help people exercise for up to 16% longer, a UK study suggests.
The University of Exeter team found a nitrate contained in beetroot leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake. This makes exercise less tiring and thus the men in the study could cycle for longer.
Beets pack a crimson punch like no other veggie because they contain powerful compounds that may reduce blood pressure, promote bile flow, ease digestive disorders, improve heart disease, lower cholesterol and prevent cancer.
I can’t name one drug from my pharmacy with a bio like that. And a bunch of beets is only $4!
In our heavily medicated country, it’s considered bizarre to tell a person to drink beet juice for blood pressure.We have become programmed to take super drugs, not super foods.
Beet juice is best if it is organic. Growing your own beets will assure you that the beets are organic. Then you can make your own beet juice with your own beets.
The juice can be a little strong in flavor and if you are not a person who likes beets you may find that beet juice is very hard to swallow.
You can help to cover up the flavor of the beet juice by mixing the beet juice with some pineapple juice or apple juice. You can also mix beet juice with grape or a vegetable juice.
How to Make a Beetroot Smoothie? continue reading »
May 23rd, 2010 -- Posted in Fitness, Green Living, Healthy Eating, Natural Beauty, Natural Remedies, Weight Loss |
If you want a clean, healthy boost, the answer is a beet juice. According to a recent study conducted by Exeter University, in addition to combating high blood pressure, beet juice can increase the amount of time you’re able to exercise by causing a reduction in oxygen uptake
Drinking beetroot juice boosts stamina and could help people exercise for up to 16% longer, a UK study suggests.
The University of Exeter team found a nitrate contained in beetroot leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake. This makes exercise less tiring and thus the men in the study could cycle for longer.
Beets pack a crimson punch like no other veggie because they contain powerful compounds that may reduce blood pressure, promote bile flow, ease digestive disorders, improve heart disease, lower cholesterol and prevent cancer.
I can’t name one drug from my pharmacy with a bio like that. And a bunch of beets is only $4!
In our heavily medicated country, it’s considered bizarre to tell a person to drink beet juice for blood pressure.We have become programmed to take super drugs, not super foods.
Beet juice is best if it is organic. Growing your own beets will assure you that the beets are organic. Then you can make your own beet juice with your own beets.
The juice can be a little strong in flavor and if you are not a person who likes beets you may find that beet juice is very hard to swallow.
You can help to cover up the flavor of the beet juice by mixing the beet juice with some pineapple juice or apple juice. You can also mix beet juice with grape or a vegetable juice.
How to Make a Beetroot Smoothie? continue reading »
May 20th, 2010 -- Posted in Green Living, Healthy Eating, Weight Loss |
Veggie burgers are nutrient dense food that increases your energy with protein, complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and minerals.
They are very low in total and saturated fats while providing small amounts of good fats such as polyunsaturated and mono-saturated oils as well as being an excellent source of Omega 3’s.Unrefined plant foods found in veggie burgers release their energy to the blood stream slowly over time.
But, it turns out that there are good veggie burgers and bad veggie burgers. A study by the Cornucopia Institute says that non-organic veggie burgers often contain the neurotoxin hexane, a petroleum byproduct that is bad for those who work with it and can cause explosions in wastewater and is an air pollutant.
A neurotoxin hexane is used to pull the fat out of soybeans to make many veggie burgers and it doesn’t seem healthy to the vegetarians.That’s probably not what the veggie-burger buyer is bargaining for. A lot of people who eat veggie burgers are doing so because they’re conscious of their food choices and the impact on the environment.
The Cornucopia Institute also revealed some popular veggie burger brands that absolutely do use hexane: Amy’s Kitchen, Boca Burger, Franklin Farms, Garden Burger, It’s All Good, Lightlife, Morningstar Farms, President’s Choice, Soy Boy, Taste Above, Trader Joe’s and Yves Veggie Cuisine.
Brands that do not use any hexane in their veggie burgers are: Helen’s Kitchen, Superburgers by Turtle Island, Tofurky, Wildwood and Morningstar “Made with organic”. And, continue reading »
Next »
