The Importance of Fiber for Health & Well-Being

Fiber rich foods

When most people hear the word “fiber” they think of bowel health; they imagine something that can alleviate constipation and prevent colon cancer. … Which is partially true. However, fiber is also beneficial for preventing heart disease and diabetes, helping you maintain a healthy weight, and even protecting the brain and improving mood.

There are two kinds of Dietary Fiber

Soluble Fiber – which dissolves in water, is useful for lowering LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and blood glucose levels, by interfering with cholesterol absorption and increasing insulin sensitivity. It also helps with weight loss, because it slows digestion, making you feel fuller longer.

Insoluble Fiber – which does not dissolve in water, is best for cleansing the bowels. It remains intact and adds bulk to your stools, by binding together the bits of digested food in your small intestines as they move along to the colon, while also drawing water to the stool to make it softer and easier to pass.

The Health Benefits of Eating Raw Squash | Skinny Limits

When most people think of Squash they tend to think of something that is eaten during the cold months, either oven roasted or added to hot soups and stews; but squash, including the “Winter” (gourd) varieties, make outstanding warm weather cold dishes as well. And the best cold dishes are served raw. …

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5 Healthy And Easy Ways To Prepare Vegetables

By Yuki Shoji

It is a scientific fact that vegetables are good for you. However, people don’t eat them enough because they don’t realize that there are many ways in which to prepare them. People are often asking what is the absolute best way to prepare vegetables so that they get the full health benefits from them. The answer to this is that there is no best way, that preparing vegetables is ultimately a matter of preference for some, or a way to provide variety for others. Let’s look at the options available to healthy eaters when it comes to preparing vegetables.

Healthy and Easy Way to Prepare Vegetables #1 Raw

Vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, celery, onions, and carrots are an excellent choice here. However, in order to keep them healthy, avoid eating them with dips, such as ranch dressing. Try to eat them without extra. However, if you need more flavor then you can use salt, or non fat or sugar free peanut butter. But just make sure to use it sparingly.

Healthy and Easy Way to Prepare Vegetables #2 Steamed

Steamed vegetables are a great side dish to almost any meal and are highly popular. They they are softer in texture, and it’s an appeal for those people who don’t like to eat their vegetables raw. If you add a little splash of pepper to them and maybe a small portion of butter you will have quite a tasty meal.

The Many Health & Beauty Benefits of Apples

Would it surprise you to hear that apples really can keep the doctor away? And not just the cardiologist. The gastroenterologist, trichologist and dermatologist may also see less of their patients. Modern research has proven that apples really can maintain a healthy heart and colon, give one a fuller head of hair, as well as smoother skin. …

The Many Health & Beauty Benefits of Apples.

Selenium: Why Too Little or Too Much Can be Deadly

Selenium is a trace mineral essential to your body’s ability to function normally, and relatively little is needed. Failure to consume that minuscule quantity can lead to serious, even life threatening, health problems. And the same holds true for consuming too much.

We’ll start by examining the symptoms and consequences of failing to consume an adequate amount of Selenium.

Symptoms of Selenium Deficiency

• Fatigue

• Muscle weakness

• Muscle wasting

• Heart problems

• Catching cold often and easily, despite taking care to avoid it

• Longer healing / recovery periods

These signs are quite subtle, in that all of these things can be explained away or attributed to something else. And, sometimes, there are no obvious symptoms. Nothing that you can definitively point to and say, “This must be why!”

Eat Raw and Boost Your Immunity | Skinny Limits

Health researchers have long realized that eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables speeds up the rate at which Humans fight off infections like colds and flu, and even decreases one’s risk of becoming ill in the first place. Now, they have undeniable proof that this is because such foods are loaded with antioxidants – vitamins, minerals and enzymes that protect and repair cells from damage caused by free radicals – as well as other nutrients that increase immunity and boost overall good health. …

Finish reading at Eat Raw and Boost Your Immunity | Skinny Limits.

A Look At The Analgesic, Anti-Inflammatory Properties Of Essential Oils And Aromatherapy

By Jennifer Goodwin

For much of mankind’s history, people have made use of herbal solutions to reduce pain and treat inflamed muscles, joints, and connective tissues. A tree had been the source of aspirin to alleviate pain, due in-fact to its inflammation-reducing action. Now, many expert natural health therapists and lay-practitioners are instead making use of aromatic oils for their anti-inflammatory properties, and addressing the painful symptoms of inflammation.

The oils used in aromatherapy give an easy means of reaping the anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties that holistic treatments can provide. All you have to do is mix a few a little essential oil in with a carrier or “base” oil and massage in to get nearly instant, sometimes long-lasting, pain alleviating results.

A look at the latest data uncovers a long list of abstracts where researchers have confirmed the anti-inflammatory effects of therapeutic essential oils. The oils used in therapies have been meticulously extracted to keep their medicinal potential. There’s a wide difference in aromatic oils in terms of their medicinal action, and one need to find therapeutic quality essential oils to realize this property.

The essential oils that comprise aroma therapeutic practices are really quite diverse natural chemical structures. Based on the plant from which they’re distilled, may provide a potent inflammation-reducing action which puts a halt to the formation of pro-inflammatory molecules in joints and muscles. There are a few oils where their activity might even be guessed, being extracted from herbs which have always been used for this particular purpose. Ginger and turmeric are two excellent examples.

Carbon-dioxide distillations (the latest, cold-process method of making essential oils) of both these plants are found in patented inflammation-reducing recipes. These CO2 distillations are readily available for any practitioner to utilize their profound therapeutic properties in their own formulations.

Just released are the data from a study done in Japan which confirm the anti-inflammation properties of a number of aromatherapy oils. These results affirms the inclusion of authentic essential oils in pain and inflammation relief formulas. The therapeutic essential oils proven to lessen the inflammatory response from occurring work by means of stopping production of the COX-2 pro-inflammatory enzyme. The essential oils examined in the research included oils from edible herbs like oregano and fennel, and a wide array of others such as oils from flowers, fruits, and tree leaves.

Certain oils considered by natural health practitioners to provide the most potent inflammation reducing actions employed in aromatherapy practice were not even examined. The implication is that there are naturally several of compounds present in aromatic plant oils which have inflammation reducing activity.

The greatest inflammation relief in the research was imparted by the the pure oil distilled from the aromatic herb “Thymus vulgaris“. The research continued using individual constituents of the oil, and it was learned that carvacrol demonstrated the most profound effect. This molecule is found in many other plant oils as well.

And that’s just a quick take on the subject, divulging anti-inflammation activity of essential oils. The important thing to note is that essential oils can offer a very effective, inexpensive means of treating inflammation, especially the ones which result from rheumatism and other physical pain related to aging. One of the most important aspects, too, of real essential oils is that they usually aren’t simply relieving the pain, but are often actually treating the illness, so that the symptoms might be eliminated even without their use.

About the Author:

You can learn a great deal more of helpful information regarding the uses of essential oils as medicines. You’ll find an incredible amount of helpful information found at the index of over one hundred oils at The Ananda Apothecary (anandaapothecary.com). And if youre interested, you can learn about individual oils such as pine needle oil (anandaapothecary.com/aromatherapy-essential-oils/pine-essential-oil.html).

Reversing Alzheimer's

Reblogged from Energy Medicine and Health:

• 

According to research Alzheimer's is now to be looked upon as a form of Diabetes of the brain. They are now beginning to classify it as Type III Diabetes.

• Type I diabetes is a condition in which the insulin producing cells of the pancreas are damaged and do not produce enough or any insulin whatsoever(usually people are born this way and so it is by default called Juvenile Diabetes).

Read more… 1,158 more words

The Art Of Eating Healthy

By Charles Kassotis

Thousands of people suffer with some sort of eating disorder, and the majority of them are using food as a way of coping with life. Even those with anorexia and bulimia are often using their eating habits as a way to deal with the problems they see themselves facing. So how do you go about coping without going overboard? Start by evaluating your eating habits and goals.

People tend to eat too much. That’s the bottom line and the focus on those people is one reason other people tend to eat too little. If you’re in one category or the other, start by putting a number on your eating habits. It’s a lot of work but it will give you a very solid starting place.

Count calories for a week. Log everything you eat, but the key to establishing this starting point is to eat as you normally would. Don’t scrimp on meals just because you know you’re counting the calories. Start your diet next week. For the first seven days, simply keep a log of everything you eat.

That number may surprise you. You may discover that you don’t need to eat any less, but only that you need to eat a bit differently. Instead of the twenty-eight malted milk balls you had as a mid-afternoon snack, you may need to search out some healthier options for the snack times.

Another key to evaluating your eating habits is to divide the caloric intake up over the entire day. One problem many people face is the tendency to eat nothing for breakfast, nothing at lunchtime, and then to gorge themselves at supper – the worst meal of the day to overeat because the inactivity overnight won’t work off any of the calories. If this sounds familiar, look for some ways to spread out your food consumption during the day. Don’t like breakfast food? It doesn’t matter. A salad is a perfectly acceptable breakfast, as is a donut as long as you’re not overeating!

Pay attention to the myriad of dieting tips that make sense.

• Drink water instead of soft drinks – not only will this help keep your weight under control, it’s excellent for keeping skin toned.
• Talk to your doctor before you make dramatic changes in your diet.
• Remember that diet alone won’t solve nearly as much as diet combined with an exercise regimen.
• Start by cutting the junk food and those less-than-healthy snacks.
• Before you drastically alter your diet, remember that your body has some specific needs. Not eating enough will do you as much harm as overeating.

Finally, the one rule that is probably part of every successful healthy eating routine – It’s okay to cheat now and then. You should occasionally ditch the cucumbers and carrot sticks in favor of malted milk balls. Life is more than careful attention to diet and if you lose sight of the joys, you’re also going to lose sight of your goals for eating healthy.

About the Author:

For more information about anorexia and bulimia, visit Anorexia and Bulimia Info (That site is no longer available).

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• Becoming Vegan with a Binge Eating Problem (lost1nlove1227.wordpress.com)
• The Binge-Purge Cycle of Bulimia (everydayhealth.com)
• My Child is Searching About Anorexia, What Do I Do? (webroot.com)

 

Healing Your Right Ovary Pain With Homeopathy

By Madeleine Innocent

If you suffer from pain in the right ovary, then you may be more than half way to resolving your problem.

Why?

Because you are quite specific. It’s not just any ovary pain. It’s right sided.

The more specific you can be about any condition, the better the match for an effective homeopathic medicine. It’s not sufficient to have a general symptom. Pain isn’t enough information. Ovary pain is a bit better. But right ovary pain is excellent, because there are not many medicines which fit that description.

But there’s more. You still need to be able to see other symptoms in a medicine for it to work well. So list all the other symptoms that occur with the pain. Many of these will be subtle. Such as when the pain is worse, what makes it better or worse, what is the character of the pain, what is its sensation, when did it start and so on.

This may be too hard for you to do, so your best course of action may be to consult with a professional homeopath.

But if you want to help yourself, then see if your symptoms match those of Belladonna, an excellent ‘hormonal’ medicine. They include:

• ovarian pain, especially right sided
• pain is normally violent, severe, throbbing in nature
• generally you have heat of the affected part
• problems around your period, such as headaches, migraines, abdominal pain (dysmenorrhea)
• ailments that started after hormonal imbalance, such as abortion, miscarriage, birth, menopause, D & C, etc
• the pain is worse for motion, jarring and around mid afternoon

So you need at least three of the above symptoms, for Belladonna to work well for you. You already have one, the right sided ovarian pain. Now you just need two more.

About the Author:

Written by Madeleine Innocent.
Do you want to learn more about natural health, in particular homeopathy? Check out my free ebook An Introduction to Some Common Homeopathic Remedies, by clicking on the website link below.
Good Health Naturally http://twolegsandfour.com.au