Nutrition Frenzy

Next time you’re making Spaghetti or Lasagna, try substituting Mushrooms for Meat.

Mushrooms are an easy meat substitute, with their earthy taste and chock full of vitamins and nutrients. They are a good source of B vitamins, especially niacin and riboflavin, and rank the highest among vegetables for protein content. But because they are low in fat and calories, Western nutritionists mistakenly considered them of no food value (a fresh pound has only about 125 calories). Yet in dried form, mushrooms have almost as much protein as veal and a significant amount of complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides. Shiitake mushrooms are among the most delicious & very nutritious.

Mushrooms have to be one of my favorite vegetables. Being so versatile, it’s no wonder that many people love the little fungi. They can be put in most anything, from pastries, pastas to potatos.

Mushrooms are also a dieters best friend. People in the study also said the mushroom makeovers tasted just as good and kept them feeling full just as long as the beef versions did. And not only did the mushroom-based dishes mean a lower-calorie meal, but the mushroom eaters also ate fewer calories and less fat throughout the day than the beef eaters did.

Try this savory Mushroom Stroganoff:

8 ounces portobello mushrooms, sliced
8 ounces whole-wheat noodles, cooked
1 1/2 cups reduced-sodium broth, chicken or vegetable
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups fat-free sour cream
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make this dish:

Mix the sour cream and flour together in a small bowl until smooth. Set aside. In a large skillet, sauté the onion in the olive oil over low heat until soft. Turn the heat up to medium-high and add the mushrooms. Sauté until the mushrooms brown. Transfer the mushroom mixture to a large bowl. Turn the heat up to high and add the broth to the skillet. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid by 30%. Set the heat to low and add the mushrooms and onions. Add sour cream and flour mixture to skillet, stirring well. Add parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over noodles.

Newsweek posted an article on the six worst diets of 2009 so far.

As we all know, and say it with me, there’s no such thing as a diet! Newsweek has taken the trouble to research and find the worst of the worst. Without further ado:

1. The Fat-Free Diet
The theory: Eat whatever you want as long as it has no fat. If your diet contains no fat, you won’t get fat.
Reality check: While it’s true that extra fat in your diet adds calories, just sticking to foods touted as fat free doesn’t necessarily help. Supermarket shelves are crammed with products advertised as fat free that are loaded with sugar and empty calories and that offer little in the way of fiber, vitamins or minerals. Check product labels before you buy.

2. The Snack-Pack Diet
The theory: Cookies and chips sorted into 100-calorie packs help limit the damage from an attack of the munchies.
Reality check: The dozens of 100-calorie snack pack foods on the market now may offer a lower-calorie alternative, but few of them are truly healthy choices, and they aren’t likely to be very filling or fiber rich, which can send you running for another bag or something less healthy.

3. The Couch-Potato Diet
The theory: Who needs exercise? You can lose weight without working out! Cutting back on calories is enough.
Reality check: Who needs exercise? You do. Studies have shown that dieters who change what they eat and increase their regular activity are more likely to lose and keep weight off. Increasing activity has other health benefits as well, such as lowering your risk of heart disease, the leading killer of women. Even a brisk 20- to 30-minute walk most days of the week can make a big difference.

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It is if you’re ingesting more than seven cups of instant!

If you’re drinking more than seven cups of coffee, hallucinations aren’t your only issue. Besides lack of sleep and hallucinations, ingesting that much coffee isn’t good for your body. Your organs have to work overtime, over time, to process it. Your liver, kidneys, for starters, have to filter all that coffee out; your heart will race and beat faster. The jolt that much instant coffee gives you just lasts a short time, then you crash, and your body demands more.

Your doctor or health care provider will have bette options than instant coffee if you are having hallucinations. They may order more physical and psychological testing, to determine of there are other organic reason behind the issue.

According to the article, those who had a high caffeine intake were three times more likely to have the heard voice of someone non-existent than “low” users who consumed less than one cup of instant coffee or its equivalent.

Seeing things that were not there, hearing voices and sensing the presence of dead people were among the experiences reported. Researchers also found that people drinking as few as three cups of brewed coffee each day may experience mild hallucinations, such as hearing voices that aren’t there.

Each day I drink about 24 ounces of drip coffee. If I don’t feel like making a pot, i’ll have the same amount in Instant coffee, but, thankfully, I’ve never had hallucinations.

Have you had hallucinations brought on by too much Instant Coffee?

Various reasons, mostly internet surfing, are the reasons for more kids turning to Vegetarianism.

While surfing the internet, more impressionable kids and teenagers are finding animal slaughter videos on YouTube (R), courtesy of organizations like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Thus, causing kids and teenagers to avoid eating meat from that point forward.

Some parents and Doctors worry that growing kids are not meeting their protein, vitamins B12 and D, iron, calcium and other important nutrients that most people get from meat, eggs and dairy.

Also, vegetarian diets are not necessarily slimming. Some vegetarian kids cut out meat but fill up on doughnuts, french fries, soda or potato chips, experts said.

Multivitamin and supplements must be taken, and extra care to keep sugary, high-fat and cholesterol and high carb snacks, foods and drinks away from kids and teenagers who choose Vegetarianism. It is all too easy to fall into the trap that ‘as long as I don’t eat meat, i’ll be healthy and save the lives of animals’.

Most people are semi-vegetarian, which is what I consider myself. What it should be called is the normal American diet: 8 oz meat or protein a day, with the rest filled with fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, dairy products and low-carb, low-cholesterol breads and grains (I eat Dreamfieds Pasta–diabetic friendly).

If your child or teenager comes to you expressing interest in becoming a Vegetarian, applaud their desire to eat and live a more healthy lifestyle and educate yourselves about proper nutrition. It is possible to meet the FDA’s dietary guildelines for kids and teenagers.

Check out Living Without Meat for more information about Vegetarianism. Tell Sally that Brick sent you.

A new study shows eating half a grapefruit before meals helps dieters lose more weight.

The crux of the study is this: Go Whole. Although grapefruit juice and grapefruit capsules also may have pound-shedding potential, whole fruit was clearly the winner in the study — probably because the whole fruit has appetite-controlling fiber as well.

Back in the 70s and 80s, I remember my mom buying crates of Grapefruit. She’d eat one a day to help lose weight and control her appetite. (What she didn’t do was change her eating habits overall and exercise at that time). The study followed a group of people over twelve weeks who ate 1/2 a grapefruit before meals, ate sensibly and walked for 30 minutes a day. They lost more weight than the other group who didn’t eat 1/2 a grapefruit.

Although I love the aroma of grapefruit, the immunosuppressants I take due to the kidney transplant I have bar me from eating it. It’s thought even the smell of grapefruit may have weight loss benefits. Do they make grapefruit-scented air misters?

That’s an awful lot of grapefruit though. One-half before each meal every single day? Don’t know if I could do it, but there are alot of people who swear by it. Do you or would you try this meal plan? It’s important to remember you still have to eat sensibly (low-fat, low-cholesterol and low-carbohydrate) and exercise (at least walk 30 minutes per day).

Vitaimin A? Calcium? Vitamin D? Which health supplement are you taking?

For a few years now, I’ve been taking Vitamin D as a prescription, ‘doctor approved’. The health supplement market is booming! Never before have people been taking vitamins, minerals and herbs to enhance their health to try to make up for their diet. Or, maybe people are just wanting to get the most for their health. Either way, we are spending millions and millions for our optimal health. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, There are a few dietary supplements that show some benefits: calcium supplements and vitamin D (to reduce the risk of osteoporosis), omega 3 supplements (to reduce the risk of heart disease) and folic acid supplements (to prevent major birth defects).

Be careful, as the article suggests, on what quality you are buying. Consumer reports found that nearly half of the brands failed to contain the labeled amount of the nutrient. They also didn’t dissolve as well as the name-brand types. So if you are going to invest in a supplement, based on this study, a name-brand kind might be the way to go. One thing people don’t really need to be concerned about is taking too much or too high of a dose.

Even though pharmaceutical companies and science has so-called ‘debunked some supplements, some are worth taking, even my dr. has said they’re not harming me. Echinacea doesn’t cure my colds, but it sure lessons the symptoms for me. Someone told me that Cinnamon and Apple Cider Vinegar tablets will reduce glucose levels, so I’ve started takng Cinnamon tablets (ACV tablets are hard to find). Every little bit helps, and it’s not hurting me.

What supplements are you taking?

Study shows 34% are obese and 32% overweight, per the numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics .

As science has proven, being overweight or obese raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, arthritis and other conditions, more and more Americans are growing around the middle. Alarmingly, the CDC reported that 32 percent of U.S. children fit the definition of being overweight, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese. Want tosee of you fit the category of health? Find out your Body Mass Index here.

This makes me wonder if the figures (statistically) would be shown that as more and more Americans are losing their jobs, homes and way of life, that all they can afford to eat are the cheaper, high carb, high fat foods. The Government and the Food and Drug Administration spout that Americans should be buying and eating healthy, nutritious, low-fat, low-carb, high-fiber foods daily. That is an admiriable goal. From the FDA’s website, eating their recommended meal planwould cost between $200-300 per person per month. Who can afford to eat like that in this economy?

If the Government is truly concerned about the health of Americans, I propose that they start a reality check: Americans cannot afford healthy, nutritious foods. Start subsidizing each American’s monthly food bill at $200 per person per month. This would be cheaper in the long run than treating heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, organ failure, gastric bypass surgeries and the myriad other health problems and issues stemming from obesity.

In my article, “How I lost 41 Pounds”, I discuss how I mentally prepared to lose weight and how I went about eating and exercising.

I firmly believe that one must deal with losing weight, exercising in their minds first, or they will ultimatley fail. The year before I lost weight but gained it back. Why? Because I hadn’t wrapped my mind around wanting to lose weight first. Sure, the prospect of losing unwanted fat was appealing, but there was no long-term plan to keep the weight off.

Losing weight is a lifetime committment. No pillls, liquids or strange diets will ever work unless you’re totally and 100% committed to sticking with them for the rest of your natural born life. That would get old, at least for me.

What did work for me, was eating sensibly: A variety of fruits and vegetables, fixed in appetizing looking and tasting ways. I knew I wouldn’t stick to eating steaming lumps of goo twice a day for the next thirty or forty years. So, I began buying vegetarian and low-fat cookbooks. I still eat meat (afterall, i’m a midwestern-meat-and-potatoes boy from the midwest). Over the past few years, I have definately opened my palate to new foods and experiencing new and interesting tastes.

Exercise was a four letter word. But, I knew I had to do something or i’d die of a heart attack or stroke. I lost 41 pounds by walking. It took a year, and I followed the FDA’s recommended guidelines of losing a pound a week. No, it wasn’t exacty a pound a week. The first few weeks I lost ten to twelve pounds, then nothing for weeks and weeks. Then five or six more came off. That’s how weight loss worked for me. It came off in spurts. There was plateaus when I felt like giving up, but I kept picturing myself at my previous weight.

What do I suggest? Start small, make acheivable goals, expand your palate.

Keep your mind in mind when dieting, say Nutrition professionals.

Losing weight is a common resolution each New Year and a fantastic one. What better way to start the New Year than to promise ourselves to take care of our bodies. Many think starving themselves is the best way to losing weight. When you starve yourself or drastically cut out carbs, you may be putting your mind and cognitive skills at risk. Robin Nixon on Live Science came up with these five pittfalls to avoid:

1. The Brain constitutes less than two percent of our body’s weight, yet it is responsible for taking twenty percent of the nutrients we ingest. Plus, it’s a picky eater (much like that 2 year old you used to be–but it never grew up). The brain prefers carbs, but only heatlhy carbs: fruits, grains, vegetables. The frontal cortex is prone to confused thinking when your glucose levels drop, where as high glucose levels slowly but surely damage cells everywhere in the body, including those in the brain, said Marc Montminy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California.

2. Eat many small meals throughout the day. There have been studies that show eating six small, well balanced meals throughout the day is healthier and better on the body than three big meals. The brain works best with about 25 grams of glucose circulating in the blood stream — about the amount found in a banana. Hate the thought of eating so many times during the day? There’s more.

3. A lower glycemic index (GI) may be the meal plan for you. The glycemic index ranks foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels. Carbs, by and large, are higher GI foods, whereas vegetables, high in fiber content, are lower GI foods. Have a sandwich consisting of High Fiber whole wheat bread, with some meat or other protein, slather a little olive oil, and you have a lunch that is brain-friendly.

4. Fat is where it’s at: Trans fats, common in fast food, are the worst. Saturated fats are not great. Unsaturated fat is the healthiest. Saturated Fats are unhealthy for your brains. If saturated fats (think fast food, fried-anything) are bad for your heart, think of what they’r doing for your brain.
Speaking of fat for brains, essential fatty acids, such as Omega-3s, are proving valuable in treating depression and other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, as well as benefiting infant brain development, Green said.

5. Finally, you know your brain and body and how it best responds to fats. Do you want to nap after a heavy-fat-and-cholesterol-laden lunch? Are you grumpy or faint? It may be time to take a second look at what you’re feeding your brain.

Neither my stove nor my table has seen salt or any form of sodium in over tweny years. According to the American Heart Association, the average american should only eat less than 2300 mgs/day.

When I started college way back when, my doctor told me to stop eating all forms of salt, from my cooking to my table, due to high blood pressure. Maybe you’ve heard the same thing and think your food will be bland, or you’re mourning salting your evening potatoes or morning eggs. Instead of adding salt, try adding some spices and herbs. Thyme and basil are two easy spices to use. Or, you can buy or creat your own sodium or salt-free spice/herb blend. Look on your grocers spice aisle. You’ll be surprised how tasty they are. Just remember each shake of salt is another shake towards heart failure.

Harsh to hear, but you should be aware of all the damage salt can do to your heart and how many foods naturally have salt in them. Yes, nature has already added salt to your foods, along with nutrients, vitamins and minerals. If you already have health issues, don’t add to your body’s fight to help keep you healthy.

When you stop adding salt to your foods, you will begin to actually taste your food. Then you will have a greater appreciation for what you are eating. You’ll begin to wonder why you even salted your food to begin with.

Here’s a snack that ought to stop you from, well, snacking: whole-grain bread dipped in olive oil.

Restaurants have the right idea. Some serve a plate of aromatic, fruity olive oil with whole grain bread with cracked pepper. Delicious, wholesome and good for you!

That’s because olive oil is rich in a special appetite-controlling kind of fat. Wow, a fat that may help with weight control! That’s something to write home about.

Getting the Message
Olive oil contains oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat. Upon reaching the small intestine, oleic acid triggers the production of oleoylethanolamide (OEA), another fatty substance. OEA then finds its way to nerve endings that carry a hunger-curbing message to the brain. And that message is loud and clear: “Hey. Stop eating! You’re full!!” Researchers are hoping that new appetite-suppressing drugs using OEA will be developed to reduce obesity.

Learn about belly fat and how to lose it:

Three Kinds of Fat
See, fat is like real estate: It’s all about location, location, location. We all have three kinds of fat: fat in our bloodstream (called triglycerides), subcutaneous fat (which lies just beneath the skin’s surface), and omentum fat. The omentum is a fatty layer of tissue located inside the belly, where it hangs underneath the muscles in your stomach (which is why some men with beer guts have hard-as-a-keg bellies — their fat is under the muscle). You may hear people on the street refer to it not only as a beer gut but also as belly fat, love handles, a beach-ball belly, or a spare tire. Doctors refer to it as visceral fat or intra-abdominal adiposity (IAA).

Because this omentum fat is so close to your organs, it’s their best energy source. (Why go to the gas station on the other side of town when there’s a station at the next corner?)

What Belly Fat Does

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Calorie Cutback Cuts Women’s Odds of Middle-Age Weight Gain

Women who don’t try to eat less more than double their risk of substantial weight gain in middle age, a three-year study shows.

If you’re a 40-something woman, it doesn’t matter whether you’re thin or overweight — odds are, you’ll gain weight over time if you don’t make an effort to cut back on what you eat.

The finding comes from a study of 192 women with an average age of 40 by Brigham Young University researchers Larry A. Tucker, PhD, and Laura Bates. The women were not obese, had not yet reached menopause, and did not smoke.

At the start of the study the women underwent detailed physical exams, including measures of weight and body fat. They also underwent a seven-day analysis of the food they ate, in which they weighed and recorded every bit of food they put into their mouths.

Three years later, the women underwent another round of physical exams and food-intake analysis. The bottom line was no surprise: Women tend to gain weight and body fat as they age and become less physically active.

But not all women gained weight. Even if they didn’t exercise more, women who made an effort to eat less were 69% less likely to gain more than 2.2 pounds and were 2.4 times less likely to gain 6.6 pounds or more.

It’s never too soon, or too late, to watch what you eat, Tucker and Bates suggest.

Apologies for no new posts the past two days, the 451 Press Servers were offline due to a glitch. The little hamsters that power the wheels took a rest and are now fully charged and ready to go.

This time has given me pause to thank all my readers during 2008 and promise to continue to post quality information each day. Bringing you quality information has been a pleasure and will continue to be. There is a dearth of great information out in the great world wide web and it is my pleasure to bring it to you. I try to bring you information I think that is relevant to you and that you can use in your everyday lives. During this time, and ongoing, I hope you will search the archives for timely information that will help you.

Let me know what areas you would like to see covered here, either in the comments or by shooting me an email. Any posts you like and would love to see again or more? Any posts that outraged you or thought irrelevant? Would you like to see this site on a social network, like facebook, twitter, linkedin, digg, and/or newsvine?

Thank you again, for sticking with me during 2008 and 2009 promises to be even better.

Personal trainer says even a 10-minute workout gets you closer to fitness goals

NUTRITION

Dr. Melina Jampolis, a San Francisco, California, physician nutrition specialist, is the diet and fitness expert for CNNhealth.com. She focuses exclusively on nutrition for weight loss and disease prevention and treatment.

1. Go for very specific goals.

Make an actual list. Don’t be vague. Instead if “looking better,” write down specifics, such as being able to run around with kids at the park or not wearing a baggy T-shirt to the beach. It’s an internal motivator.

2. Volunteer.

Good karma could be good fitness. Volunteer activities such as coaching a youth soccer game, walking shelter dogs or cleaning up a beach encourages movement and exercise, Jampolis said. When it comes to burning calories, think outside the gym.

“Look for active volunteer opportunities with any form of movement,” she said.

Cheryl Forberg is a behind-the-scenes nutritionist for NBC’s show, “The Biggest Loser.” She is a registered dietitian and chef. She has a weekly blog and is the author of the book “Positively Ageless.”

1. Make over your kitchen.

Get rid of foods that have lower nutritional values, such as white sugar, bread and pasta. If junk food isn’t in your kitchen, you can’t be tempted, Forberg said.

2. Healthy snacking helps.

Having a snack sustains healthy blood sugar levels and energy. This way you don’t feel famished and end up overeating. She recommends a piece of fruit with a protein or healthy fat — perhaps a few nuts with an apple, a cheese stick or a carton of yogurt for a snack.

“Combining protein and carbohydrates keeps you full longer and sustains blood sugar longer and keeps your energy levels,” she said.

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