Saturday, February 18, 2012

By 2606, the US Diet will be 100 Percent Sugar

The US diet has changed dramatically in the last 200 years. Many of these changes stem from a single factor: the industrialization and commercialization of the American food system. We've outsourced most of our food preparation, placing it into the hands of professionals whose interests aren't always well aligned with ours.

It's hard to appreciate just how much things have changed, because none of us were alive 200 years ago. To help illustrate some of these changes, I've been collecting statistics on US diet trends. Since sugar is the most refined food we eat in quantity, and it's a good marker of processed food consumption, naturally I wanted to get my hands on sugar intake statistics-- but solid numbers going back to the early 19th century are hard to come by! Of all the diet-related books I've read, I've never seen a graph of year-by-year sugar intake going back more than 100 years.

A gentleman by the name of Jeremy Landen and I eventually tracked down some outstanding statistics from old US Department of Commerce reports and the USDA: continuous yearly sweetener sales from 1822 to 2005, which have appeared in two of my talks but I have never seen graphed anywhere else*. These numbers represent added sweeteners such as cane sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and maple syrup, but not naturally occurring sugars in fruit and vegetables. Behold:

Read more �

How To Beauty Take Care with Coffee

In addition to being a 'friend' who can warm you in the morning, it turns out coffee has its own benefits for body and beauty of your hair. Coffee not only contain caffeine which can make the body more concentrated, but the black beans were also contains fruit acids and organic acids, fats, alkaloids, mineral, potassium, magnesium and iron that are useful for many skin beauty.

In addition to the contents, the coffee is also rich in linoleic acid can prevent wrinkles. As summarized Ourvanity, here's some other benefits of coffee.

1. Refreshing Skin Lotion for Face
Make a cup of coffee and put into ice-cube, then freeze in the freezer until frozen. Then, pulaskan pieces of ice from the coffee into your face like a lotion. The face will return refreshed, after a day of activities.

2. Lotion to the Skin
In the morning, wipe the skin with cotton wool moistened with a solution that has been brewed coffee. Not only to tighten the face, the solution is used as a lotion that coffee can give the impression of smooth brown skin on your face.

3. Anti-wrinkle mask
Dilute a tablespoon of wheat flour with the coffee, mix the egg yolks into it, and stir until thick. Apply the mask to your face, let sit for 15 minutes, then rinse. If the diligent use of this wrinkle mask, then twice a week can seem to fade skin wrinkles.

4. Diminish Cellulite
spread the coffee grounds in the area of ??your body that have cellulite. Then, using the plastic wrap and let stand for 15 to 20 minutes, then rinse with warm water. Do this twice a week, to diminish the appearance of cellulite. In addition, you can also add coffee powder into a liquid soap, and do gentle massage every time you shower.

5. The Black Mask for Hair
Combine two egg yolks, one tablespoon of rum, and two tablespoons of warm water, then add one tablespoon of coffee powder and vegetable oil and stir. Apply the mask to your hair, leave on up to 5 minutes, then rinse with warm water. Darkness of your hair will be more concentrated mixture.

6. Hair Spray Hair To The Shine
Jennifer Love Hewitt also believe in the beauty benefits of coffee as an ingredient. Cast film 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' that use coffee to make the hair more shine. Jennifer gives tips; brewed coffee, then set aside some time, then put the coffee into a tube spray, spray into your hair and comb to tidy.

Source : http://giant41.blogspot.com/

Friday, February 17, 2012

6 Step How to Increase Your Memory


Forget and remember are two things that most often experienced by men all her life. By considering all the important things we can certainly make things easier, otherwise if a little forget and forget again, so beware of people who go senile.


There are 6 ways you can help us increase the ability to remember. Hopefully the following therapies can help.


1. Wake up and smell the rosemary.
In a study of 2003, the psychologists asked 144 volunteers to conduct a series of trials of long-term memory, working memory means, and test the reaction and attention. Some people do the test in an odor-free room, some in the room with the smell of rosemary essential oil, and the rest worked with husband smells of lavender.
blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com
The result, those working in the room by having great results in long-term memory and working memory compared with working in a room without smells, while working in the lavender-scented room worse in terms of working memory. Furthermore, those working in the rosemary-scented room feel more awake than those who work in the control room (no smell). Well, who worked in the lavender-scented room was more to feel sleepy.


Well, apparently it's good lavender to repel mosquitoes. But side effects can make us prefer to sleep.





2. Food Boost Your Memory
To keep the memories remain young despite the aging brain, researchers suggest that eating foods rich in antioxidants like blueberries, apples, bananas, dark green vegetables, onions, and carrots.


blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com
Antioxidants are molecules that bind and neutralize easily electrons are called "free radicals" that roam freely in the bloodstream. These free radicals increases with age and can kill brain.


Secondly, most of the brain is made of healthy fats, including the most important are the omega-3. So that the brain can repair itself and become neurons are connected properly, we must provide appropriate food for the brain. Well, omega-3 found in many species of fish and nuts.





3. Chewing gum
Research conducted in 2002 in England found that chewing gum providing better results in long-term memory test and short-term than those who did not chew anything.
blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com


The scientists suspect, the act of chewing gum will produce saliva, which increases heart rate, or it affects the functioning of the brain region called the hippocampus that causes the body to release insulin in preparation for the metabolism of food.





4. Brain Game
A program called Lumosity, developed with the help of neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists from Stanford University and the University of California at San Francisco, is specifically designed for parents who want to improve memory, concentration, waking, and even their mood.
blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com
Of course, there's always sports a classic brain and cheap, such as Sudoku and crossword puzzles that can be found anywhere. Exercises that will inspire knowledge and help the nerves in the brain interconnected.



5. Sleep.
In a study on lab scale using rats, while rats slept, two areas in the brain - the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with memory retrieval of the past (either in human or rat) - rotating display events throughout the day. This process is believed essential to consolidate and tidy up the files of new memories are formed.
blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com



6. Walk
Research shows that the memory center in the brain called the hippocampus shrinks with age. But research in 2011 to give good news: people grow older adults who regularly walk to maintain the volume of the hippocampus.
blog-apa-aja.blogspot.com


The study, led by Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana that involved 60 adults aged 55 to 80 years. They did walk three times a week each for 40 minutes.


Enough activity to increase their heart rate. Other participants are the same number of muscle toning exercises weight training, yoga, and stretching, the same intensity.


After a year of tightening, the anterior hippocampus of participants lost a little over 1 percent of its volume, on average. In contrast, aerobic exercise a year makes about 2 percent increase in volume of the anterior hippocampus, reversing the natural aging hippocampus for about two years.


Scientists believe that it is caused by exercise-induced mild stress that triggers the production of growth factors in the brain. Possibly also due to greater blood flow to the brain so that more nutrients and oxygen are produced.

Source : http://giant41.blogspot.com/

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Cigarette Smoking-- Another Factor in the Obesity Epidemic

Obesity rates in the US have more than doubled in the last 30 years, and rates of childhood obesity and extreme adult obesity have tripled. One third of US adults are considered obese, and another third overweight. This is the "obesity epidemic".

The obesity epidemic has coincided with significant changes in the US diet, which are clearly involved. However, there's another probable contributor that's often overlooked: declining smoking rates.

Here's a graph of cigarette consumption over the last century in the US (1):
Read more �

Monday, February 6, 2012

My TEDx Talk, "The American Diet: a Historical Perspective"

On October 21st, I spoke at the Harvard Food Law Society's TEDx conference, Forum on Food Policy. The conference kicked off with three talks on nutrition, by Drs. Walter Willett, David Ludwig and myself. My talk is only 17 minutes long as per TED format, but it's packed with research on both quantitative and qualitative changes in the US diet over the last two centuries. It contains surprises for almost anyone, and I can guarantee you've never learned this much about the history of the US diet in 17 minutes. The talk was titled "The American Diet: a Historical Perspective"; you can access it by following that link.

Read more �

Saturday, February 4, 2012

An Interview with Dr. C. Vicky Beer, Paleo-friendly MD

As I was preparing my recent article on the Paleo diet (1), I interviewed a local Paleo-friendly MD named C. Vicky Beer. I was only able to include a snippet of the interview in the article, but I thought WHS readers would be interested to read the rest of the interview with Dr. Beer:

Read more �

Monday, January 30, 2012

Paleo Diet Article in Sound Consumer

I recently wrote an article for my local natural foods grocery store, PCC, about the "Paleolithic" diet. You can read it online here. I explain the basic rationale for Paleo diets, some of the scientific support behind it, and how it can be helpful for people with certain health problems. I focused in particular on the research of Dr. Staffan Lindeberg at the University of Lund, who has studied non-industrial populations using modern medical techniques and also conducted clinical diet trials using the Paleo diet.
Read more �