Fizzy drinks, sweetened drinks, commercially produced juices and sodas are a curse of our times. How often we use these drinks even though we know how harmful they are to our health. We can give up eating cakes and cookies, fries and fast food, other unhealthy foods, but for most of us it can be really hard to give up using bottled juices or even the light but slightly sweetened soda. We are craving to drinking something good, something sweet, something we truly enjoy. Moreover, we all know how much little kids and teenagers love Cola and other fizzy drinks! Unfortunately, there are really plenty of health risks behind fizzy or sweetened drinks. It was believed that most of those are centered around getting extra calories, increasing our risks of obesity, serious cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and so on. However, the risks actually go far beyond just that. Read the rest of this entry »

Increasing risks of Alzheimer’s disease have become one of the great concerns of modern time’s health care specialists. It is a known fact that in the era of technological breakthroughs and amazing technical decisions most of us started complaining about decreased memory function, reduced ability to focus and impaired brain function. Caused by reduced necessity to use our brain even in easy daily functions (calculating, making plans, using logic for making decisions, etc.), the mentioned factors are the strongest prediction for mass epidemic of brain function decline, leading to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia like brain disorders becoming absolutely normal condition for aging and even middle aged people. This tendency is a very serious threat to healthy development of modern society, that is why there are plenty of discussions and scientific works are going in order to find effective solutions to prevent public brain function decline. Read the rest of this entry »

Potassium is an essential mineral for our overall health. It plays a role as a key element to keep our blood pressure under control and prevent hypertension, the condition which very often is a warning sign for such serious cardiovascular diseases as heart disease, heart attack, stroke, or others. A proper potassium intake is linked to great kidney function and excellent muscle strength. Potassium is a mineral which supports our brain function (it assists in carrying oxygen to our brain) and helps us in maximizing the effectiveness of fighting against stresses and anxiety. Finally, potassium ensures proper utilization of energy and plays a role in speeding up metabolism. That is why it is very important to add natural sources of this mineral to our daily diet. Those include bananas, peaches, potatoes, cantaloupe, red snapper, oranges, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, pineapples, spinach, pecans, almonds, prunes, acorn squash, and many others. Read the rest of this entry »

In our times, it is not easy to find a housewife or a housekeeper who does not use ready to eat foods. Very often we buy frozen vegetables, cut or sliced vegetables, mushrooms or fruits, and so on for cooking our meals. Those who are trying to eat healthy usually use some healthy ways of cooking for such kinds of foods (like baking, grilling, etc.). But what about the products like cut and ready to eat greens: salads, chopped greens, and others? It is not always possible to use heating when cooking those and this way kill all dangerous bacteria. The scientists got interested in this issue and took some samples from pre-cut salad leaves. The findings they’ve received after analyzing the samples were more than shocking: the number of bacteria in per-cut salad turned out to be really huge, making this ready to eat food more dangerous than ready to eat beefburgers. Read the rest of this entry »

In our times, the issues of healthy and unhealthy eating are being very vividly discussed in our media, that is why overwhelming majority of modern people are aware what kind of foods are considered unhealthy and  linked to increased health risks, or what foods are supposed to be healthy and provide our body with great natural health benefits. Thus, we are trying to avoid consuming sweet foods, fried foods, the food high in glycemic index, all high calorie foods, and other types of foods which can cause weight gain or other unwanted effects. At the same time, not many people are aware about the fact that not only foods we eat, but also the drinks we consume can be very unhealthy and possibly even more dangerous to our health than some foods. Certainly, I am talking about sugary drinks, carbonated drinks, and all other sweetened drinks which most of us like so much. Read the rest of this entry »

Many modern nutritionists and health care specialists are talking about the benefits of consuming whole grain foods, or the foods with the bran, germ, and endosperm. The most popular whole grains include whole grain barley, whole grain oats, whole grain corn and pop corn, wold and brown rice, buckwheat, cracked wheat (bulgur), buckwheat flour, millet, sorghum, quinoa, and others. It is supposed that by consuming this kind of foods instead of processed grains or starch-based products can be a great solution for improving our body’s glucose management abilities and reducing the risks of diabetes, assisting weight management and lowering all the risks for developing serious diseases related to being overweight. Besides, whole grains are very rich in many of vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytochemicals, and other nutrients essential for our excellent health and longevity. Read the rest of this entry »