Eat, Live, Feel Good!

Healthy eating tip 1: Set yourself up for success

To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.

Manageable portions of meats, People do not over consume meat!

·       Simplify. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your diet will become healthier and more delicious.

·       Start slow and make changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking. As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more healthy choices to your diet.

·       Focus on how you feel after eating. This will help foster healthy new habits and tastes. The more healthy food you eat, the better you’ll feel after a meal. The more junk food you eat, the more likely you are to feel uncomfortable, nauseous, or drained of energy.

·        Every change you make to improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts. 

·       Think of water and exercise as food groups in your diet.

·       Water. Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated—causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.

·        

·       Exercise. Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries, or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

Start on tip one; tip two will follow in 48 hours!

Sugar molecule links red meat consumption and elevated cancer risk in mice

While people who eat a lot of red meat are known to be at higher risk for certain cancers, other carnivores are not, prompting researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine to investigate the possible tumor-forming role of a sugar called Neu5Gc, which is naturally found in most mammals but not in humans.

In a study published in the Dec. 29 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found that feeding Neu5Gc to mice engineered to be deficient in the sugar (like humans) significantly promoted spontaneous cancers. The study did not involve exposure to carcinogens or artificially inducing cancers, further implicating Neu5Gc as a key link between red meat consumption and cancer.

"Until now, all of our evidence linking Neu5Gc to cancer was circumstantial or indirectly predicted from somewhat artificial experimental setups," said principal investigator Ajit Varki, MD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and member of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "This is the first time we have directly shown that mimicking the exact situation in humans -- feeding non-human Neu5Gc and inducing anti-Neu5Gc antibodies -- increases spontaneous cancers in mice." 

Varki's team first conducted a systematic survey of common foods. They found that red meats (beef, pork and lamb) are rich in Neu5Gc, affirming that foods of mammalian origin such as these are the primary sources of Neu5Gc in the human diet. The molecule was found to be bio-available, too, meaning it can be distributed to tissues throughout the body via the bloodstream.

The researchers had previously discovered that animal Neu5Gc can be absorbed into human tissues. In this study, they hypothesized that eating red meat could lead to inflammation if the body's immune system is constantly generating antibodies against consumed animal Neu5Gc, a foreign molecule. Chronic inflammation is known to promote tumor formation.

To test this hypothesis, the team engineered mice to mimic humans in that they lacked their own Neu5Gc and produced antibodies against it. When these mice were fed Neu5Gc, they developed systemic inflammation. Spontaneous tumor formation increased fivefold and Neu5Gc accumulated in the tumors.

"The final proof in humans will be much harder to come by," Varki said. "But on a more general note, this work may also help explain potential connections of red meat consumption to other diseases exacerbated by chronic inflammation, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes.

"Of course, moderate amounts of red meat can be a source of good nutrition for young people. We hope that our work will eventually lead the way to practical solutions for this catch-22."

Four foods that truly deserve the title of 'superfood'

(NaturalNews) Let's face it: The word superfood has become overused. This title, which was originally intended for foods whose nutritional value considerably exceeded that of the average fruit or vegetable, seems to be attached to almost any natural food these days. Mainstream health magazines are particularly guilty of this abuse, often preferring to use superfood as a marketing term rather than an objective declaration of nutritiousness.

That said, there are a small number of foods that truly deserve to be called superfoods. These tend to be exotic foods that are seldom found in the average Westerner's home, but which are packed with so many naturally occurring, bioavailable nutrients that they put most multivitamin supplements to shame. This article lists four of the best of them.

Moringa oleifera

Arguably the king of superfoods is Moringa oleifera, a fast-growing Himalayan tree whose leaves are bursting with so much goodness that researchers have nicknamed it "The Miracle Tree" and "The Tree of Immortality." Moringa leaves contain over 90 different types of nutrients in high quantities, including seven times the vitamin C of oranges, four times the vitamin A of carrots, four times the calcium of milk and three times the potassium of bananas. The leaves are also a complete protein source, since they contain all eight essential amino acids. (1) Given this nutritiousness, it's unsurprising that studies have linked Moringa consumption to the treatment of diabetes, anti-inflammatory diseases, cancer and much more.

Moringa powder is easy to purchase online, and makes an excellent natural vitamin and mineral supplement. You might also like to try Ben oil, a sweet-tasting oil made from the tree's pods that is rich in disease-fighting antioxidants.

Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass is a gluten-free food prepared from the young shoots of the wheat plant. It was popularized in the 1930s by the American chemist Charles L. Schnabel, who claimed that 15 pounds of wheatgrass is equal in nutritional value to 350 pounds of regular garden vegetables! (2) While this claim is now considered to be exaggerated, it is true that wheatgrass is one of the most nutrient-dense foods known to science.

According to spectral analysis, a mere 4 grams of wheatgrass powder supplies us with 1,600 percent of our recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin E, 7,000 percent of our RDA of manganese, 15,293 percent of our RDA of riboflavin, 413 percent of our RDA of zinc and similarly astounding concentrations of other essential nutrients. (3) It is also one of the world's finest sources of chlorophyll, a powerful blood builder and cleaner. This makes wheatgrass a potent detox food as well as a superb nutrient supplement.

Chlorella and spirulina

Chlorella and spirulina are two single-celled algae that thrive in the sunniest parts of freshwater bodies. Though both of them probably qualify as superfoods individually, they become something truly special when consumed together. This is because chlorella and spirulina possess complementary rather than identical nutrient profiles. For example, chlorella tends to contain more chlorophyll and iron than spirulina. Chlorella is also better at chelating heavy metals from the body than spirulina and at repairing cell damage due to its unique growth factor. Spirulina, on the other hand, contains more protein, gamma-linoleic acid (a beneficial fat that is essential for brain function) and cancer-fighting phycocyanin than chlorella. (4) Consequently, consuming these two foods together supplies our bodies with an extremely well-rounded infusion of nutrients -- far more than the average fruit or vegetable could possibly provide!

Sources for this article include:

(1) http://www.villagevolunteers.org

(2) http://www.wheatgrasscan.com

(3) http://nutritiondata.self.com

(4) http://www.detoxyourworld.com

Completely Black Chickens Go for $2,500 Each

Black-Chicken-Rare

In Indonesia, there's a rare species of chicken called the Ayam Cemani. The chicken is covered head to claw in black, even down to its bones. Pretty metal, right? The bird is probably the closest thing to the fabled Black Chocobo outside your PlayStation, except this one you can deep-fry.

The Ayam Cemani features black plumage, legs, tongue, beak, meat, bones and even organs. Talk about consistency. While the chicken's blood is about the only thing that isn't black, it is a darker shade than most poultry species. The chicken's noir pigmentation is thanks to a genetic trait called fibromelanosis.

If you have the stomach to try one and can get past the complete deafening darkness of its flesh and bones, an Ayam Cemani is worth $2,500.

I wonder how they tell when it's fully cooked.

By: Peter Pham

An apple a day could keep obesity away

Scientists at Washington State University have concluded that nondigestible compounds in apples -- specifically, Granny Smith apples -- may help prevent disorders associated with obesity. The study, thought to be the first to assess these compounds in apple cultivars grown in the Pacific Northwest, appears in October's print edition of the journal Food Chemistry.

"We know that, in general, apples are a good source of these nondigestible compounds but there are differences in varieties," said food scientist Giuliana Noratto, the study's lead researcher. "Results from this study will help consumers to discriminate between apple varieties that can aid in the fight against obesity."

The tart green Granny Smith apples benefit the growth of friendly bacteria in the colon due to their high content of non-digestible compounds, including dietary fiber and polyphenols, and low content of available carbohydrates. Despite being subjected to chewing, stomach acid and digestive enzymes, these compounds remain intact when they reach the colon. Once there, they are fermented by bacteria in the colon, which benefits the growth of friendly bacteria in the gut.

The study showed that Granny Smith apples surpass Braeburn, Fuji, Gala, Golden Delicious, McIntosh and Red Delicious in the amount of nondigestible compounds they contain.

"The nondigestible compounds in the Granny Smith apples actually changed the proportions of fecal bacteria from obese mice to be similar to that of lean mice," Noratto said.

The discovery could help prevent some of the disorders associated with obesity such as low-grade, chronic inflammation that can lead to diabetes. The balance of bacterial communities in the colon of obese people is disturbed. This results in microbial byproducts that lead to inflammation and influence metabolic disorders associated with obesity, Noratto said.

"What determines the balance of bacteria in our colon is the food we consume," she said.

Re-establishing a healthy balance of bacteria in the colon stabilizes metabolic processes that influence inflammation and the sensation of feeling satisfied, or satiety, she said.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Washington State University. The original article was written by Sylvia Kantor. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.