Goal: Return as quickly as possible to 148 lbs. which was my weight on the last day of the year 2018.
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1.25.2019 Weight 155 lbs.
Tag: fat-free chef
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WISHING ON A WEED
FOR ME
Eating protein doesn’t make me want to eat more and more of it.
Eating carbs doesn’t make me want to eat more and more of them. Simple, complex, doesn’t matter. They don’t push the addiction button – for me.
For me it’s fat. Fat with anything. Alone too. But I don’t usually eat fat alone. Something about not much nutritional value that keeps me in line – most the time. But pair fat with anything else and I’m all in. Still, I don’t have to go overboard – at least not way overboard. I do have some control. I recognize my fat in the mirror.
The guilt of poor nutrition, not feeling good and being fat.
Good nutrition, feeling good and not being fat, as well as being fit are all status symbols that elevate one’s perception of themselves. And they’re all free. So why not eat right, feel good and not be fat? Fat has all kinds of negative connotations attached to it.
And the connotations are all bad. Sure there’s a person, a human, underneath it all, but if you can’t even find that person, why would you think anybody else should take the time to conduct a search for the real you? That’s your job not mine.
If everybody sees only the fat when they look at you, then you’re too fat.
Don’t say, ‘look at me’ by getting all that huge-body attention, then scream and cry when no one sees the smaller you that’s hidden. You put your best foot forward by putting all your fat out there, so everybody could see only that.
If you’re suffering don’t blame me when you sit beside me on a bus, and I don’t like your fat rubbing and jiggling all over the side of my body. I don’t want your fat rubbing on me when I ride the bus. It’s an invasion. It’s an assault. I don’t even know you and you’re getting that intimate with me? And you’re mad at me because I should like it, and understand the pain you’re in and be more supportive? What?
If you’re fat, it’s all on you. Not me. Unless I’m fat, then it’s on me.
The purpose of this small satellite of a site is to develop recipes with no fat, no oil.
I’m not taking the fat out of a recipe, same as I don’t take the animal out of an animal-free recipe. I’m not adding it in the first place. I’m engineering the recipe without it.
Beyond that, I’m not going to talk to you about anything regarding you or why you’re fat. I don’t care why you’re fat. I care why I’m fat – or at least too fat for my own comfort, and it’s my comfort that matters. You take care of your comfort, I take care of mine. That’s how it works.
I want to weigh less. I’ve tried lots of ways. I’m pretty much convinced that the fat is the main culprit.
Years ago companies|manufacturers tried to take out the fat from prepared foods and replace it with a bunch of sugar. When it failed to make people lose weight or become more healthy, they went back to the fat. Of course they were putting a lot of responsibility for your weight and health all on the shoulders of their snack foods, which was unrealistic to begin with.
That’s them. That’s not me. They didn’t try hard enough, or maybe weren’t talented enough, or motivated enough, of maybe the fat|oil businesses got ticked off because sales dropped. Manufacturers use a lot of fat when you consider the huge orders they get for any one product. Their will weakened is how I see it.
Now I get a try. Yeah, the animal-free chef is going to see what she can do without fat. Yeah, that’s me. I already gave it up – today. Easy.
I’m looking at it like an addiction.
If I eat a steak or a cup of pinto beans or fresh fruit or steamed veggies or plain cooked pasta or a piece of dry toast it doesn’t make me want to keep eating it and ordering more. It’s not the potato part of the French fry that I really want, it’s the grease it’s cooked in. It’s the fat on the steak, the fat in the beans (pork and beans?), the whipped cream or brûlée with the fresh fruit, and the melted margarine on the veggies, the cheese on the pasta dishes, fatty dressings on my salads, lots of margarine and nut butters on my toast.
For me. That’s it for me.
If I have fat for breakfast (and every expert tells us peanut butter on whole grain toast with a banana and orange juice is the best breakfast), I’ll be eating some kind of food with fat all day.
So no fat. Fat is an addiction. I’m going to handle it like people handle addictions. It’s easy as long as I don’t take that first drink or smoke that first cigarette.
I won’t eat sugar plain – except every now and then a teaspoon of brown sugar or a tablespoon of maple syrup. I want my sugar with fat on it. I want my fat sweet and savory and everywhere in-between.
Now the giving up part has a few exceptions.
Fat in nut and plant milks not a problem. Fat in tofu and plant meats not a problem. No spraying oil on the skillet though. Find a way to saute without oil. I will. That’s what I’m good at.
Fat in store bought bread not a problem. Fat in veg dairy sour cream, cream cheese and other cheeses a problem. No veg dairy unless I make it myself fat-free. No nuts for now. A few seeds as a garnish is okay. No avocado for now – maybe a little. A few olives are okay, just because I don’t eat them often, except as a small addition to a recipe.
No more margarine. No extra virgin olive oil, no coconut oil, no flax seed oil or any oil. How many seeds or olives or corn kernels does it take to press enough oil to measure one quarter cup (an amount you might use for a salad dressing or in a cooked dish)? A lot. I don’t think nature meant for us to be eating oil in the large amounts that we eat it.
In-between, since I still develop recipes for chefdavies-tight.com, theanimal-freechef.com, and animal-freesous-chef.com I will have to taste as I proceed – but not eat the whole dish just because I don’t want to waste food, especially great tasting food. I’ve already started giving food to people I know around town so I’m good there.
Most chefs don’t eat their own food. That’s because they cook in restaurants and make the same recipe over and over again. They don’t need to eat an entire portion to see if it’s worthy of inclusion on a website, like I do. My situation is different being that I’m continually creating, engineering, testing, experimenting. Tasting|eating is a big part of that process.
So I’m going to lose some weight by dropping the fat. Nothing else needs to be said – except that there won’t be any animals in any of the recipes I engineer. Just like in chefdavies-tight.com only no added fat.
Don’t worry I’m not going to make a career out of dropping the fat. It’s not going to take over my life. No calculating, measuring beyond the ingredients in a recipe, predicting, counting, keeping journals, or tearing myself down so I can build myself up in another likeness either. Just drop the fat is what I’m going to do. Easy.
Sounds easy, but I feel I might have a fight on my hands – especially if it really is an addiction.
The fat might not want to go. In that case there will be a fight. Hey, I don’t want the fat, I don’t need the fat, your outta here!
Now we’ve been together a long time, I know. I never needed, wanted or liked you though. And if you don’t want to go on your own, then I’m going to have to push you out the door.
Maybe I shouldn’t go in with a fighting attitude. Maybe the fat will dig its heels in. Hmm.
Maybe coax the fat. Who does that? Not me. Melt the fat sounds too manipulative. I’m not the melting type. I’m going to freakin’ bomb it. Bomb the freakin’ fat. I’ll bomb it off the freakin’ planet. Now I’m ticked. I can’t even think of a name for it.
It’s got its hooks in me already. It knows my plan. Yeah, I can’t name it. You can’t get rid of what you can’t name. Wow. Good one. That fat’s pretty smart. Jeeze. Just what I didn’t need – smart fat! My fat’s got a freakin’ brain. Jeeze. How did THAT happen? I’m gonna char the wits right out of it. I’m gonna burn it to a crisp. Bacon? Who said anything about bacon? I’m no bacon.
Char the fat. Oh my God, I am bacon. Kill the fat. Burn it till it disappears. Char the hell out of it. Chew the fat? No, I’m not going to chew any fat. Chew it and spit it out. Nice trick. Chew it and spit it out!! Nice try. Chew it and swallow it you jerk. I’m not chewing it. I’m charring it. Liquid smoke baby. Charcoal.
I’m sounding like a torturer of my own fat. Jeeze. Ease up. Okay, okay.
I’m animal-free. I’m fat-free. I’m free. I like free. Fat-free animal-free chef. Too long. Fat-free chef. That’s it. That’s me.
It fits. I’m going to prove that I can engineer chef-grade material while being animal-free and fat-free.
BIG ORDER. Better get movin’.
The war on drugs didn’t work. The war on fat won’t either.
Gotta find another, better way. Lots of vegans are fat you know. Not eating animals doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get fat.
For me. This is for me. I must remember that.
You do what you want – what works for you. Or, come along for the ride or to watch the fight or the melt or the charring of the fat.
Whatever way – my bacon is history.
WISHING ON A WEED ARE WE?
We’ll see.
WATCH YOUR WEIGHT | BE A WORK IN PROGRESS
Too often we set unrealistic short-term goals that should be in the long-term category. We’re always going to start tomorrow or next week and those weeks turn into years, because the job of reaching the goal is overwhelming.
Your weight doesn’t begin and end with a weight goal. Look at yourself like you look at everything else. This needs improvement, something else does, then set about changing what you don’t like by tweaking, instead of overhauling.
Eat a little less to begin.
Start thinking about what your body needs rather than what you think it wants.
Stop thinking that you can never lose that excess weight. You can and will, understanding that you’re the one who controls what you put into your gut.
If you raise children, you don’t start out being the perfect parent. It’s a work in progress as you make adjustments in your approach from day to day.
When you go to work, same thing. You adjust to new information, new duties, changes in the job description, new bosses etc.
Do the same with how you approach what’s best for your body. Allow yourself to be that work in progress.
Remember, goals without a plan won’t work. Saying that you’ll do something tomorrow or next week won’t work. Declining the candy bar or super-sized soda pop or second or third helpings of food works in the moment. That’s when you’re plan goes into effect–when you’re faced with a decision to do, or not to do.
Feeding your body the same huge volume even when it’s all good food is not the solution.
Over-stuffing your gut is dangerous no matter what you over-stuff it with. Remember, the gut pushes up against the heart. Push too hard and it restricts the heart’s ability to beat unencumbered. Think of it as blowing up a balloon beyond capacity.
People often end up in the emergency room thinking they’re having a heart attack after they’ve eaten a large meal. The doctor says it’s indigestion, which translates to the lay person as ‘what’ they ate, not that they ate too much. ‘Get rid of the gas’ is the usual prescribed remedy, when actually ‘put your fork down’ should be the primary prescription. Eat less food and you’ll create less gas.
Give your heart a fighting chance. Keep smothering it and eventually when you climb that flight of stairs, when your heart needs to pump harder, your bloated gut will block your heart’s effort to get up those stairs. The heart will circumvent by beating a lot of short beats quickly in order to compensate, then because it’s beating so fast will flip into arrhythmias. Next thing you know you’re in the hospital.
Sure it takes discipline. But you get up everyday don’t you? You shower and dress and go to work and come home and watch T.V. or go back to work a second job. That all takes discipline. So it isn’t that you’re lacking in the discipline department. Eating a mammoth amount of food takes discipline too.
Stop asking other people why you do it. It tastes good, it feels good. No it doesn’t. You feel like hell. Then why do I do it? Ask yourself that question. Nobody knows you like you know yourself. Why do you go to work everyday? Because I have to. Why do you get up everyday? Because I have to. Why do you eat so much? Because I have to. No you don’t. That’s one thing you don’t have to do. Yeah, but I do it anyway. Try doing something you don’t have to do. You just might like that feeling of freedom. Just because you feel enslaved by everything else in your life, doesn’t mean you have to enslave yourself in areas that you have total power over.
Try power on for size. I’ll bet it fits like a glove!
Chef Davies-Tight
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NO SHAME HERE
Fat or skinny you are accepted the way you are.
Some people eat too much. Some people eat too little.
Some people eat mostly healthy. Some people eat mostly unhealthy.
Some people are in the middle on some counts and not others. Some manage their weight at great effort, others with hardly a thought to it.
Doesn’t matter where you are. What matters is if you’re on this site, you’re searching for solutions.
There are no solutions here. So, either continue your search or accept that you are the solution.
Now continue your research to find ideas that might be of benefit to you. I hope you find a few while here. The point is to enjoy browsing.
Thanks for stopping by. Come back every now and then. This is a work in progress.
Sharon Lee Davies-Tight,
the animal-free chef changing the form of fat
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MY NEW THING
I’M HAVING A FAT-FREE FOOD FLING!
I’m stepping outside the box, testing boundaries, going beyond the familiar on this site.
Always with a history though – the history of eating animals, the history of original sin – the ugliest of sins that made me and makes the world ugly.
I’m looking for the beautiful in everything. There’s no beauty in enslavement, torture and slaughter.
The world needs to remember that.
This site is about experimentation.
I’m not sure where it’s going or how successful I’ll be in developing new tastes, new textures, different ways of experiencing food, beyond the ‘tried and liked’ and ‘lets make that even more special’ type of fare we’ve all become accustomed to.
Look, if you don’t eat steak, meaning the cooked muscle and fat of one who once lived and breathed with all the systems we animals have, then you can’t expect that you’re going to achieve the same experience by eating something totally different. You can’t eat an apple and expect it to taste and texture like a cow.
Fat is something we use in food preparation to help ease the food into the gut. It’s a lubricant. We put it in everything – just about. Even when I ate steak, Delmonico being my favorite and Prime rib my second favorite, I never ate the center piece. It was too dry. The fatty part is what I went for every time. Who can eat meat without some kind of fat, or fatty sauce to help get it down the throat and into the stomach?
Well, we’re not cooking with nor eating animals, but since we eat too much fat from plant sources, we have to learn ways to lubricate our food absent the fat. Not always, but mostly always.
You can caramelize peppers and onions with animal fat or plant fat and do a great job with both. But if you use neither – the animal nor the plant – for your fat source, then the result is going to be different.
With plants we have a fat source, so the transition between animal and plant isn’t all that difficult.
Without the fat from any source, the foods we usually team the fat up with are not going to taste and texture the same. For the process to be the same – absent a fat source – either animal or vegetable, then someone needs to invent (or discover) a fat-free oil that behaves like a fatty oil behaves under similar conditions. I’m not there yet. Nobody is.
In the meanwhile and along the discovery path I’m looking for agreeable.
In order to be agreeable absent a fat source, then I need to open up to new flavors and textures. Not the flavors and textures and colors of insects, like so many food experimentalists are doing these days.
Stay out of the creature’s way, is my way. The plants have it all. It’s the way we’re using the plants that needs to be explored. Stop exploring the use of living creatures and get to the business of the plant.
I’m just beginning. That I have been experimenting with food absent some form of the animal (meaning absent something) since 1972 has laid a foundation of familiarity for me in seeking an alternative process.
We can’t make everything the same way and just leave out the fat. We can’t load it up with sugar to trick the brain into thinking we’re eating fat either, since everything we eat gets converted to sugar anyway (nice try though). Too much sugar clogs the arteries and too much fat clogs our electrical systems, transmissions, nerve impulses, our main computer, our brain and all that is physical that emanates from it. Nerves contain blood. Keep the blood as clean as possible, so all our organs can do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Still, our food has to taste good, or we won’t eat it. It must be prepared in a way that we find appealing – from start to finish.
I’m up for the task, I enjoy the experimental process, I like and accept the challenge of moving forward the planet in the realm of cookery.
Join me and let us experience it together.
Chef Davies-Tight, the animal-free chef, at your service
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From One Year To The Next
The main goal, maybe the only goal, is to lose weight. Too often, having too many satellite goals clog up the process. Sure, eating more healthy, abstaining from animal products, lowering the fat, exercising more, stress management, fatigue management are all important. With me however, by focusing on all the peripherals, the losing of the fat gets sidelined. All the experts tell you that the slow boat to weight reduction is best, since you incorporate new, better habits into the process and by the time you meet the goal, you’ll be in good shape with everything else.
Okay, on paper it sounds good; in a laboratory setting it probably works, but for someone doing the day-to-day living plus wanting to lose weight, the slow boat to China isn’t very rewarding. How many people are good at delaying gratification?
It’s easy to say a five-pound a year weight loss times ten years will net you a fifty pound loss. Ten years though?? It sounds like such a long time. It is and it isn’t – depending how you look at it. Ten pounds a year sounds better, but only fifty pounds in five years? Anybody can do ten pounds a year right?
It’s not so easy when you go so slow. What’s that theory, a body in motion wants to stay in motion, a body at rest wants to stay at rest? Well, the slow-fat-loss train wants to stay slow, so much so that the struggle to stay slow becomes overwhelming in the mind that keeps saying it isn’t fast enough and naturally speeds up the process – only it’s not the predicted process. The body starts eating more to counter the slow effect, to jolt it, and the next thing the body knows it has a fat gain rather than a fat loss. These bodies the law of inertia refers to in physics don’t have minds or emotions.
I didn’t set too many hard and fast goals last year except to try a lot of different methods to see which one worked for me, taking all kinds of stuff into consideration, that now looking back, I see I over-thought everything. It was like what molecule do I put into my tank today?
Every method works short-term, just because it’s a change your body isn’t accustomed to and you’re motivated. The motivation part is the biggest factor – for me.
My yearly weigh-in (Aug. 10th 2018) was 152 lbs. I lost 5 lbs. from the year before which was 157 lbs. (Aug. 8th 2017). The year before that (Aug 12th 2016) I weighed in at 165.6 lbs., losing 8.6 lbs.
One way I motivated myself in the past to lose fat was by thinking of it in terms of decades. For instance if I was in the 160 pound range (from 160-169), I’d shoot for being out of the 60s as if it were a decade – even if it was 1/2 pound into the 50s.
So, as I’m nearing the end of the year and remembering my out of the 50s goal for the year, I decide to weigh-in after the Thanksgiving holidays. I weighed 154 lbs. gaining 2 lbs. since my August weigh-in. Christmas and New Years are coming up, I still have lots of cooking – and eating – to do, so I commit again to being out of the 50s by the last day of the year.
I made it. On 31 December 2018 I weighed 148 lbs. I’m outta the 50s. Hoorah for me – just where I want to be. Now I focus on getting out of the 40s.
How did I lose six pounds from 5 Dec. – 31 Dec. (in 26 days) during the holidays? Almost a quarter pound a day? By eating less of everything – in the animal-free category. As I’ve said before, eating animal-free won’t guarantee you weight loss beyond a certain point. That point is usually still more than you want to weigh.
I ate all the holiday foods, some high, medium and low in fat and carbs. I just ate less, and wasn’t afraid to throw delicious-tasting leftovers away. Well, I felt a little weird about it.
So, eat less and dump the leftovers so they don’t tempt me the next day. That dumping part is not easy. I found that the less I thought about it the better. I didn’t want to feel compelled to start another website on ‘what to do with leftovers’ besides eating them. That helped me to discharge them quicker.
In the new year I started thinking about that Atkins diet – all protein and fat with no calorie-significant carbs. That diet was developed back in my day by Dr. Atkins. I didn’t think it a good idea then, so I don’t know why I was wondering if there was a vegan equivalent. When you eat animal-free you really can’t get too much protein, but fat, yes. So I wondered if that diet is effective if one eats a lot of fat and a medium amount of protein, okay and a few carbs.
My mind was lighting up with fat, fat and more fat. So I just get off a train that curbed my appetite for fats, and I’m so quickly, without much thought, going to jump back on it?
Well, I have till August 2019 for my next weigh-in, though I considered early March around my birthday. Still why not give it a try? Can eating lots of fat make me lose fat? It’s the calories; it’s the calories, not the fat. Yeah but what about those people losing lots of weight on high protein and high fat? They don’t regard calories as an indication of how much fat they’ll burn or store? I mean if it’s about calories and they’re eating all fat and protein, aren’t they consuming too many calories to lose weight?
I don’t know. But from the first day of the year, I ate a lot of fat. Lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hold the bread. Lots of veggie meats with no sides, except low calorie veggies. I don’t know if fruit is allowed, but I ate lots of raw fruit.
I weighed myself today 17 January 2019. I won’t show a picture of the scale, because I didn’t take one. It’s not official, though it’s true. I gained 10 lbs. Ten pounds of fat, not muscle.
That fat on me is visible. It’s not like the old fat of being evenly distributed throughout my body. It looked like animal fat. Maybe it was the rapid gain that caused it to look localized.
I know I didn’t do it the Atkins way – the real way. Instead I estimated what an animal-free diet high in fat and protein would look like.
It’s too much for me to think about right now – the result. I purposely put myself into that position, now I’m purposely going to get myself out of it.
Next weigh-in 2 March 2019.
Just to get back to where I was, I’d have to lose 10 pounds in about 6 weeks.
I think I’m sabotaging myself with all this experimentation.
The localized fat deposits are new for me. And I don’t like them.
It seems everywhere I look on the internet people are saying fats are good, fats are beneficial, good fats vs bad fats. It’s like the more good fats I eat the more weight I should lose according to all these experts. Certainly, I’ll be healthier. I ate a lot of nuts by the way – not just peanut butter. And loads of seeds which I loathe for the most part.
I’m still in the planning stages of my next move, but it better be quick, since six weeks goes by fast.
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Gain Reduce Or Stabilize
Cannabilizing other animals is not a smart weight reduction method – short or long-term.
It isn’t healthy; it isn’t kind and neither is it efficient.
Plants are the only wise choice to make when looking to gain, reduce or stabilize weight.
FAT-FREE CREAMY CAULIFLOWER DRESSING
Sometimes fat-free gets complicated – till the cauliflower appears from out of nowhere and shows us how to do it! This is one version. Try your own and see how it develops! Then share it here!
Makes 4-1/2 cups
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Old Habits Never Die?
Old habits die hard?
Not so fast.
Old habits can die and they can die easy.
I go to bed earlier than I used to. I feel more refreshed in the morning, and feel better about the day I’m in.
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Ginger Root for Migraines
Ginger Root for Migraines
Many successful herbal treatments start like this: Some doctor learns that some plant has been used in some ancient medical tradition, like ginger for headaches. Well, the physician has patients with headaches and so tries advising one with migraines to give it a try since it’s just some safe, common spice. At the first sign of a migraine coming on, the patient mixed a quarter teaspoon of powdered ginger in some water, drank it down, and poof! Within a half-hour, the migraine went away. It worked every time for them with no side effects. That’s what’s called a case report.
In my video, Ginger for Migraines, I show the remarkable case report, but case reports are really just glorified anecdotes. Case reports have played an important role in the history of medicine, though. AIDS was first discovered as a series of case reports. Some young guy walks into a clinic in Los Angeles with a bad case of thrush, and the rest is history. Reports of an unusual side effect of a failed chest pain drug led to the billion-dollar blockbuster, Viagra. Case reports may represent the weakest level of evidence, but they are often the first line of evidence, where everything starts. The ginger and migraine report isn’t helpful in itself, but it can inspire researchers to put the treatment to the test.
The problem is, who’s going to fund it? The market for migraine drugs is worth billions of dollars. A quarter teaspoon of powdered ginger costs about a penny. Who would fund a study pitting ginger versus the leading migraine drug?…
Finish reading: Ginger Root for Migraines | NutritionFacts.org
Benefits of horseradish include its ability to aid weight loss, lower blood pressure, build strong bones, boost the immune system, and stimulate healthy digestion.
Horseradish is a powerful and pungent plant that is connected to a wide variety of health benefits, including its ability to aid weight loss, lower blood pressure, alleviate respiratory conditions, build strong bones, improve immune system health, stimulate healthy digestion, promote heart health, and lower the chances of neural tube defects in infants. Perhaps most notably, horseradish can prevent cancer due to its extremely high levels of glucosinolates.
Horseradish is actually a member of the Brassicaceae family, meaning that it is closely related to wasabi, mustard, cabbage, and broccoli. It is closer in application wasabi and mustard, because when the thick, white root (the active ingredient) is sliced, the breakdown of those plant cells release enzymes that break down the sinigrin found in the root. This releases mustard oil, which is a pungent and irritating chemical that affects the sinuses and eyes of those who smell it. This is why horseradish is so popularly used as a spicy burst of flavor in a number of dishes, or a lightly applied condiment to certain types of steak.
Horseradish originated in Southern Europe and Western Asia, where it has been referenced throughout history. The power and importance of this root has been known for thousands of years, and it is now available all across the world. It is used mainly in culinary practices in the western world, but it has medicinal applications in the East, and some of those health benefits are urging more people to consume it around the world. Ironically enough, horseradish is actually poisonous to horses!…
Finish reading: 11 Impressive Benefits of Horseradish | Organic Facts
| LONDON
Drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol is linked to changes in brain structure and an increased risk of worsening brain function, scientists said on Tuesday.
In a 30-year study that looked at the brains of 550 middle-aged heavy drinkers, moderate drinkers and teetotallers, the researchers found people drank more alcohol had a greater risk of hippocampal atrophy – a form of brain damage that affects memory and spatial navigation.
People who drank more than 30 units a week on average had the highest risk, but even those who drank moderately – between 14 and 21 units a week – were far more likely than abstainers to have hippocampal atrophy, the scientists said.
“And we found no support for a protective effect of light consumption on brain structure,” they added.
The research team – from the University of Oxford and University College London – said their results supported a recent lowering of drinking limit guidelines in Britain, but posed questions about limits recommended in the United States.
U.S. guidelines suggest that up to 24.5 units of alcohol a week is safe for men, but the study found increased risk of brain structure changes at just 14 to 21 units a week.
A unit is defined as 10 milliliters (ml) of pure alcohol. There are roughly two in a large beer, nine in a bottle of wine and one in a 25 ml spirit shot.
Killian Welch, a Royal Edinburgh Hospital neuropsychiatrist who was not directly involved in the study, said the results, published in the BMJ British Medical Journal, underlined “the argument that drinking habits many regard as normal have adverse consequences for health”.
“We all use rationalizations to justify persistence with behaviors not in our long term interest. With (these results) justification of ‘moderate’ drinking on the grounds of brain health becomes a little harder,” he said…
Finish reading: Even moderate drinking linked to changes in brain structure, study finds | Reuters
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13 Amazing Benefits of Manganese
13 Amazing Benefits Of Manganese
Some of the health benefits of manganese include a benefit to healthy bone structure, bone metabolism, and helping to create essential enzymes for building bones. It also acts as a co-enzyme to assist metabolic activity in the human body. Apart from these, there are other health benefits of manganese including the formation of connective tissues, absorption of calcium, proper functioning of the thyroid gland and sexhormones, regulation of blood sugar level, and metabolism of fats and carbohydrates.
Manganese is a mineral naturally occurring in our bodies in very small amounts. Manganese is an actual component of manganese super oxide dismutase enzyme. It is a powerful antioxidant that seeks out the free radicals in the human body and neutralizes these damaging particles, thereby preventing many of the potential dangers they cause.
The body may contain, at most, 20 mg of manganese, which is concentrated in our kidneys, pancreas, liver and bones. Manganese is very important for the normal functioning of the brain and proper activity of our nervous system throughout the body. As far as research can tell, it is an essential trace mineral for every form of life.
Deficiency Symptoms Of Manganese
The symptoms of manganese deficiency include high blood pressure, heart ailments, muscular contraction, bone malformation, high cholesterol, poor eyesight, hearing trouble, severe memory loss, shivers and tremors. Even though some medical experts argue that manganese deficiency is quite rare, more than 35 % of the world population is thought to be deficient. Poor dietary habits are the leading cause of such deficiencies.
In some cases, calcium and iron are believed to interfere with the appropriate use of manganese in the human body. Eye problems, sweating, fast heartbeats, weakness, and severe cramps may be some of the deficiency symptoms. Severe deficiency may cause infertility in women, pancreatic damage, heart ailments and osteoporosis…
Finish reading: 13 Amazing Benefits of Manganese | Organic Facts
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Best Foods for Acid Reflux
Best Foods for Acid Reflux
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common disorders of the digestive tract. The two most typical symptoms are heartburn and regurgitation of stomach contents into the back of the throat, but GERD is not just burning pain and a sour taste in your mouth. It causesmillions of doctor visits and hospitalizations every year in the United States. The most feared complication is cancer.
You start out with a normal esophagus. If the acid keeps creeping up, your esophagus can get inflamed and result in esophagitis. Esophagitis can transform into Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition which can then turn into adenocarcinoma (a type of cancer). To prevent all that, we need to prevent the acid reflux in the first place.
In the last three decades, the incidence of this cancer in the US has increased six-fold, an increase greater than that of melanoma, breast, or prostate cancer. This is because acid reflux is on the rise. In the United States, we’re up to about 1 in 4 people suffering at least weekly heartburn and/or acid regurgitation, compared to around 5% in Asia. This suggests that dietary factors may play a role.
In general, high fat intake is associated with increased risk, whereas high fiber foods appear to be protective. The reason fat intake may be associated with GERD symptoms and erosive esophagitis is because when we eat fatty foods, the sphincter at the top of the stomach that’s supposed to keep the food down becomes relaxed; so, more acid can creep up into the esophagus. In my video Diet & GERD Acid Reflux Heartburn, you can see a study in which researchers fed volunteers a high-fat meal—a McDonald’s sausage and egg McMuffin—compared to a low-fat meal (McDonald’s hot cakes), and there was significantly more acid squirted up in the esophagus after the high-fat meal.
In terms of later stages of disease progression, over the last twenty years, 45 studies have been published on the association between diet and Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. In general, they found that meat and high-fat meals appeared to increase cancer risk. Different meats were associated with cancers in different locations, though. Red meat was more associated with cancer in the esophagus, whereas poultry was more associated with cancer at the top of the stomach. Plant-based sources of protein, such as beans and nuts, were associated with a significantly decreased risk of cancer…
Finish reading: Best Foods for Acid Reflux | NutritionFacts.org
How Much Water Should We Drink Every Day?
More than 2000 years ago Hippocrates (460–377 BCE) said, “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” What does that mean when it comes to water? Water has been described as a neglected, unappreciated, and under-researched subject, and further complicating the issue, a lot of the papers extolling the need for proper hydration are funded by the bottled water industry.
It turns out the often quoted “drink at least eight glasses of water a day” dictum has little underpinning scientific evidence . Where did that idea come from? The recommendation was traced to a 1921 paper, in which the author measured his own pee and sweat and determined we lose about 3% of our body weight in water a day, or about 8 cups (see How Many Glasses of Water Should We Drink in a Day?). Consequently, for the longest time, water requirement guidelines for humanity were based on just one person.
There is evidence that not drinking enough may be associated with falls and fractures, heat stroke, heart disease, lung disorders, kidney disease, kidney stones, bladder and colon cancer, urinary tract infections, constipation, dry mouth, cavities, decreased immune function and cataract formation. The problem with many of these studies is that low water intake is associated with several unhealthy behaviors, such as low fruit and vegetable intake, more fast-food, less shopping at farmers markets. And who drinks lots of water? People who exercise a lot. No wonder they tend to have lower disease rates!…
Finish reading: How Much Water Should We Drink Every Day? | NutritionFacts.org
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Weight Loss Aids
Weight loss aids are not meant to allow you all you can eat whenever you want to eat it, while losing all you want to lose.
Weight loss aids assist you in your goal to eat less. That’s it. That’s what they do, when they’re actually being effective in doing it – and like all substances, they’re not always effective.
Your body/brain gets accustomed to the method, makes an adjustment to it, then out of the blue, it no longer works as it once did, so you have to search for something else. And you do that. We all do it. Keeping weight off is a complex process when you like to eat – and most of us do.
I used to worry about using some weight loss aids long-term and their possible harmful side effects, but that isn’t a concern any longer, since the aids stop working before that harm is even close to becoming harmful. For instance by blocking the absorption of some vital nutrients.
So, what I’m slowly finding is that those aids, once given up by me, need not be given up forever. Go back to what once worked every now and then and it will work again short-term.
That’s what we need to look for in any aid. Short term. Long term always leads to dependency and we don’t want that additional burden.
Go easy on yourself during the discovery process of what works for you and doesn’t. It’s upsetting, I know, to find something that works, only to wake up one morning and it no longer does the same job the same way. That’s nature taking care of its birds. YOUR LIFE MATTERS.
