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Read more at the source: Adventist University Shares Health Message Through Puppets
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Adventist Review Updates.
Eating plants saves lives
It turns out you can never have too much fruit and vegetables.
Read more at the source: Eating plants saves lives
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Adventist Record.
Healthy Eating Tips
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Not too long ago, nutritionists used the Food Guide Pyramid to help us understand how to eat a healthy diet. Although it was an effective tool, sometimes it required a little explanation to make sense of it. Now we have a new guide that is easy to look at and understand what we must do. My Plate Food Guide is a simple illustration that teaches us to:
• Eat from the five food groups. Here’s the breakdown: Red is for fruits, green is for vegetables, orange is for grains, purple is for proteins and blue is for dairy and other products that provide calcium. By eating from these groups, we can get vitamins, minerals, fats, fiber, protein and phytochemicals or plant chemicals that keep us healthy.
• Control our portion sizes. Instead of a plate piled with rice, 12-ounce steak and a slice of tomato, we can have a cup of vegetables, a cup of fruit, a cup of rice and four ounces of protein such as fish or tofu. The latter meal will give you the array of nutrients needed.
• Make half our plate fruits and veggies. What a visual! Traditional eating these days may leave a small corner for veggies and perhaps a couple slices of apple on the plate. But My Plate shows us that half of our plate should come from the garden. Why is this important? Produce gives us a steady supply of the nutrients we need with a healthy supply of fiber and healthy fats. They are also low to moderate in calories and supply plant chemicals such as lycopene that is thought to lower the risk of prostate cancer.
Other messages such as eating whole grains, sometimes choosing vegetable proteins such as beans and tofu, and getting enough calcium in our diets also keep us on the healthy track. Couple these messages with a good physical activity program and a good supply of water and we’re on our way to keeping chronic diseases at bay.
If you would like to learn more about how to make your plate healthy, visit ChooseMyPlate and healthy eating to you!
Basic Sample Menu*
Breakfast
Bowl of oatmeal with raisins
Glass of lowfat milk
1 fruit – peach, pear, etc.
Lunch
Sandwich made with whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, sliced cucumbers and 3 ounces of protein such as turkey or a vegetarian patty
Yogurt made with fresh berries
Dinner
Carrots
Broccoli
Lasagna made with protein, cheese & zucchini and whole grain pasta
Glass of lowfat milk
Peanut butter cookie
*Peanut butter and bread, nuts & fruit, hummus and crackers make great snacks in between meals if needed.
Pamela A. Williams writes from Southern California.
Read more at the source: Healthy Eating Tips
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Healthy Living.
Mediterranean diet improves mood
How the Mediterranean diet affects your mental health.
Read more at the source: Mediterranean diet improves mood
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Adventist Record.
How Sweet It Is!
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Honey is one of the earliest sweeteners used by humans and preceded the use of sugarcane by many centuries. Beekeeping to obtain honey probably goes back to the early Egyptians who used honey in embalming, in medicine, and for food. Honey has long been a staple of the kitchen.
In Bible times, wild honey was collected from tree hollows and the clefts of rocks. John the Baptist had wild honey as a mainstay of his diet. The numerous references to honey in scripture indicates that honey must have been fairly abundant and popular in Palestine. Wisdom literature likens pleasant words and wisdom to honey.
Honeybees collect nectar to make honey to use as a food. A good colony of about 50,000 worker bees can put away about 2 lbs of honey in a day. To produce a pound of honey, bees may travel as far as 40,000 miles and visit more than 2 million flowers. Over 200 million pounds of honey are produced in the US annually. Honey bees collect nectar from different floral sources. There are over 300 varieties of honey, with clover and alfalfa providing the major sources of nectar.
Nectar commonly contains about 20 to 40 percent sugar. The bees in the hive concentrate the honey in the honeycomb to about 83% solids. Bees add the enzyme invertase to convert sucrose to the simple sugars glucose and fructose. After collection, most honey is heat treated to prevent unwanted fermentation by osmophilic yeasts and to delay crystallization. Honey is also filtered to remove air bubbles, solids and pollen grains.
The 3 major components of honey are fructose (38%), glucose (31%) and water (17%). The remaining 14% consists of disaccharides, trisaccharides, oligosaccharides, enzymes, and small amounts of minerals (such as selenium, magnesium, chromium, and potassium). The level of minerals in honey, however, does not compare with the level found in molasses.
Benefits of Honey
Honey has some unique properties that provide health benefits beyond its delicious taste and sweetening capacity. The oligosaccharides in honey have been suggested to promote the growth of beneficial bifidobacteria in the colon. This colonization may be useful following diarrhea or an extended use of antibiotics. Honey is also rich in health-promoting antioxidants such as pinocembrin and pinobanksin. The antioxidant content does vary depending upon the floral source and correlates with color. Honey from buckwheat, the darkest honey, was found to have the highest antioxidant content.
Of interest to the person with type II diabetes, the use of honey produces a smaller blood glucose and insulin response than similar amounts of carbohydrate from sucrose. Since honey contains large amounts of fructose it tends to be sweeter (depending upon the temperature) than regular sugar, so that less may be used. However, a tablespoon of honey contains 64 calories from the 17 grams of carbohydrate, while a tablespoon of table sugar contains 45 calories and 12 grams of carbohydrate.
Honey has been used in ancient and recent times as a remedy for burns, ulcers and wound dressings. Some have suggested that honey may help to prevent bacterial colonization of a wound and help in the healing process. Due to its osmotic properties, honey creates a moist wound-healing environment in the form of a solution that does not stick to wound tissues. Honey can reduce inflammation and reduce exudate formation more promptly than standard treatments.
Honey is not recommended for infants under one year of age since honey may contain Clostridium botulinum spores which can germinate, grow and produce a toxin in the colon of infants who do not have a fully developed intestinal microflora, resulting in infant botulism.
The food guide pyramid reminds us that table sugar (sucrose) is a highly refined carbohydrate and should be used sparingly. Likewise, honey is a concentrated sweetening agent composed essentially of sugars. We should not view honey as a vastly superior sweetening agent to be used without restriction.
Read more at the source: How Sweet It Is!
Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Healthy Living.
