When should I discard these condiments?

It can be tricky to decide when to discard those condiments in our fridge. All items have expiry dates for when to throw them unused and unopened. The confusion is when they are opened, being used and being refrigerated, how long can we keep them and use them then?
Click on the following link to find a very simple list on the WebMD site of how long common condiments and other items in our refrigerators can be safely used;
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/healthtool-condiments-table

School children need more physical activity!

Every child needs plenty of physically activity both for healthy growth and maintenance of good physical and mental health. Unfortunately it is being seen that our children are getting less and less physically active. In addition to the overuse of TVs, computers, Nintendos, Playstations and X boxes as a major cause of reduced outdoor activities in children, there is also a significant dearth of physical education in school all over the country. Less then half even have a PE more then once of twice a week. But now concerned schools are coming up with new ways to keep children active.

Maanvi Singh writes on the subject on NPR Public Health page;

    To Get Kids Exercising, Schools Are Becoming Creative

Avery Stackhouse, age 7, of Lafayette, Calif., says he wishes he had more time for phys ed.

"We just have it one day a week — on Monday." There's always lunch and recess, he says. "We play a couple of games, like football and soccer," he tells Shots.

But at Happy Valley Elementary, where he goes to school, recess last only 15 minutes and lunch is 45. Between eating and mingling, he says, "there's only a few minutes left where we play games and all that."

Fifty-six percent of parents say their elementary school kids are getting just one or two days of physical education a week, according to a poll NPR conducted in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Fewer than 1 in 5 parents with children in kindergarten through fifth grade said their kids were getting physical education daily.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that K-5 students get at least 150 minutes a week. Physical activity has a lot of benefits, from reducing obesity to helping kids do better academically.

Louisiana State University's Russ Carson, an exercise researcher, tells Shots the poll results don't surprise him. "This has been going on for years, unfortunately," he says. School administrators can only fit so many things into a day, and often, he says, "testing and other aspects of education take precedence over physical education."

(Continue Reading)

Exercise is good.....at any age!

Many who never exercise when young think it futile to try starting in senior years of life. But a recent study has proven that multiple benefits of regular exercise can be gained even if after being inactive for decades a person took up exercising.

Here is a Reuters Health report on the study:

Exercise later in life tied to healthy aging

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - It's never too late to start exercising, according to a new study that found formerly inactive seniors who took up exercise still experienced health benefits.

The study sheds light on the question of whether the slower mental and physical decline seen among active seniors extends to former couch potatoes who begin exercising later in life.

"Regular physical activity in older age is important to remain healthy. However, taking up physical activity at old age is also beneficial," Mark Hamer told Reuters Health in an email. He led the study at University College London.

These findings "underscore the importance of prevention as well as rehabilitation," said Ursula M. Staudinger, who directs the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center in New York City.

"When you start later in life you can still get gains," Staudinger, who was not part of the research team, said.

For their study, Hamer and his coauthors analyzed information on 3,454 healthy seniors involved in the ongoing English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Participants reported how much they exercised at the start of the study, in 2002 to 2003. Researchers then followed them through regular health surveys for the next eight years.

At follow-up, 19 percent of the seniors were considered to be aging healthily. That is, they had not developed any major chronic diseases or depression and had not experienced any deterioration in their physical or mental status during the study period.

Seniors who were active at least once a week at the start of the study and remained active were the most likely to experience healthy aging. But those who started exercising during the study period benefited as well, Hamer and his colleagues reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

People who remained active during all eight years were over seven times more likely to experience healthy aging than inactive seniors. Those who became active after the study started were three times more likely than inactive adults to age well.

(Complete Report)

Time to regulate energy drinks with high caffeine content.

This fad and hype of energy drinks has made everyone including responsible adults overlook what really these energy drink really have in them. Most of them have caffeine in them and some have extremely high amounts of it. These are sold without any regulation to both adults and kids.
But now a major supermarket chain Morrisons has taken notice and decided to take steps the UK's govt. hasn't. They have announced that they will not sell highly caffeinated drinks such as Monster, Relentless and Red Bull to children under 16 years of age. Bravo!! I just hope someone in the US will also wake up and follow suit. Here is the news piece about it on BCC World News by Emma Brant;

Supermarket energy drink ban for under 16s

Morrisons supermarket has banned children under the age of 16 from buying high caffeine energy drinks.

The staff at some of the supermarket branches will challenge customers to prove their age.

The ban has been brought in because of health fears about extreme-caffeine intake by children with energy drinks.

The restrictions apply to certain brands with more than 150mg of caffeine per litre.

It will affect Red Bull which has 320mg, Monster (338mg) and Relentless (320mg).

Morrisons is the first major UK retailer to ban the drinks.

Spokeswoman Claire Johnson said: "We understand the concern over the potential impact of high-caffeine energy drinks on young people and are taking steps to address this."

The supermarket is trialling the ban in stores in Glasgow, Dorset, Leeds, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Suffolk with a view to rolling it out further.

Earlier this month, a campaign to encourage major retailers to crack down on the sales of energy drinks to children was launched in Edinburgh.

The sale and promotion of high caffeine drinks such as Red Bull is already banned in schools there, under the Schools: Health Promotion and ­Nutrition Act Scotland 2007.

But children can still ­easily purchase them from retailers despite warnings on the cans stating that they are not advised for children. (Complete News Report)

P.S: Want to know how much Caffeine is in your drink? Check here

There is more to fiber then you would know..

All physicians as a matter of habit suggest eating high fiber diets, whether to lose weight, lower cholesterol, improve digestion, have a healthy heart, name it and high fiber diet will be recommended. So what is so special about fiber?

Lisa Collier Cool has written a very informative piece on Yahoo Health on the subject and discusses a recent study on the link between fiber in the diet and heart disease.. Here are excerpts;

' If a miracle ingredient found in many tasty, inexpensive foods helped you lose weight, live longer, and avoid dangerous diseases, wouldn’t you eat it every day?

Actually, there is such a food ingredient—dietary fiber—and most of us eat too little of it, putting ourselves at increased risk for heart problems and other health woes, according to a new study published in the December issue of The American Journal of Medicine (AJM).

What’s the link between fiber and heart disease risk?

The researchers reported that previous studies suggest that dietary fiber protects against heart disease by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, and biomarkers of inflammation, all of which play a major role in the development of heart disease, the leading killer of Americans. 

What are the other health benefits of fiber?

In a 2011 study of nearly 400,000 older adults, conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and American Association of Retired People (AARP), those who ate a fiber-rich diet had the lowest death rates during the 9-year study.

The study found that men ages 50 or older who ate the most fiber had an up to 56 percent lower risk for dying from cardiovascular disease, respiratory illnesses, or infectious diseases, compared to men who ate the least fiber. In women ages 50 and up, a high-fiber diet reduced fatalities from those conditions by up to 59 percent. ' (Complete Article)

P.S: Here are links to studies mentioned above;

Dietary Fiber Intake and Mortality in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

Dietary Fiber Intake and Cardiometabolic Risks among US Adults, NHANES 1999-2010

To be overweight or not to be overweight should not even be a question!

After reading the conflicting news on Obesity in 2013 alone, I am mystified and dumbfounded. Why are we even asking if obesity is healthy or not? If you have ever seen a real human heart or a real human liver or spleen, you would know they were never meant to support gigantic amounts of fat. It is is clearly another attempt by the processed food industry and the GMO industry to avoid being looked at as a potential source of all the weight woes.

On January 2, 2013 CNN actually reported that if you are overweight you will live longer, the headline was 'Being overweight linked to lower risk of mortality' Then the next day read another shocking CNN headline  'Big deal: You can be fat and fit'. Really??!!

If we start justifying being fat and deceive ourselves into believing we can be fat and fit, then we probably will end up like the morbidly obese people from that animated movie "Wall-E (2008)", who are shown to be totally dependent on automated systems from feeding themselves to washing themselves, they actually never get off their high-tech seats that not only take them everywhere but also convert into beds at night. As a result the individuals never do much muscular movement, and hence don't develop the muscle strength to even walk.

The scary part is we already have people in the US who are so morbidly obese that they can't carry their own weight anymore and need motorized chairs to move around a grocery store or a mall. Some might have valid medical reasons for the weight gain but a huge majority do not. The major reason for them being overweight is poor food choices and too big portions. The fact that every American restaurant and specially fast food restaurant serves unhealthily large servings of unhealthy foods does not help.

There is also a huge lobby promoting the use of synthetic ingredients in our foods, such as trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, etc.... Whereas the Agriculture industry is pushing the use on GMOs on farmers everywhere and growing more and more bioengineered foods. Unfortunately very little legislation controls or oversees the use of these genetically manufactured seeds. And then the media furthers the public ignorance of what is really making them obese and sick by spreading news such as "Fat is fun and healthy".

Amongst this media madness it was a relief to see reports of the latest study on obesity that dispelled the myth that you can be fat and healthy. Here is an excerpt from the story on BBC World (Dec.3rd, 2013);

The idea of "healthy obesity" is a myth, research suggests.

Excess fat still carries health risks even when cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar levels are normal, according to a study of more than 60,000 people.

It has been argued that being overweight does not necessarily imply health risks if individuals remain healthy in other ways.

The research, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, contradicts this idea.

The study looked at findings from published studies tracking heart health and weight in more than 60,000 adults.

Researchers from the Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, found there was no healthy pattern of increased weight when heart health was monitored for more than 10 years.

They argue that people who are metabolically healthy but overweight probably have underlying risk factors that worsen over time.

Study leader Dr Ravi Retnakaran told BBC News: "This really casts doubt on the existence of healthy obesity.

"This data is suggesting that both patients who are obese who are metabolically unhealthy and patients who are obese who are metabolically healthy are both at increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease, such that benign obesity may indeed be a myth."

(Complete Story)

I do realize some individuals will find my point of view mean and unsympathetic, but often the truth hurts and isn't well received even if coming from our well-wishers. I write about this only to remind us that our bodies are not meant to be obese, and expecting them to keep functioning normally when overworked and overburdened is unreasonable. Most of the reasons besides actual medical and physiological causes of being morbidly overweight, have a solution. Trying to make being fat fun isn't one of them!

We need to address this problem head on as a nation and refuse to feed ourselves and our children these man made artificial items they like to sell as food. We have to look at what we eat and how much we eat. We need to regulate what the Food and Beverage Industry can put into our foods and drinks. We need to regulate the unnecessary use of GMOs, bioengineering and chemical fertilizers by the Agriculture Industry.
And last but not least we need to stop finding excuses for our own neglect. We alone are guilty of reckless behavior when it comes to benign obesity and therefore we need to accept responsibility for our own health.

Moms, we've got to get moving!

I am guilty of this too, I watch far too much TV. Yes, and that automatically reduced the amount of physical activity I get. That in turn plays an important role in leading to unwanted weight gain.
Not only is this lack of physical activity bad for the moms, it is setting a poor example for our kids, who too spend far too much time in front of TVs and Computer screens. If not for ourselves, let us change that for our sons and daughters and lets get moving!!

Here is the report on the subject on MedicineNet.com;

Less Physical Activity, More TV for Today's Moms, Study Finds
American mothers watch more TV and get less physical activity today than mothers did four decades ago, a new study finds.
"With each passing generation, mothers have become increasingly physically inactive, sedentary and obese, thereby potentially predisposing children to an increased risk of inactivity, adiposity [body fat] and chronic non-communicable diseases," said study leader Edward Archer, an exercise scientist and epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina.

"Given that physical activity is an absolute prerequisite for health and wellness, it is not surprising that inactivity is now a leading cause of death and disease in developed nations," Archer noted in a university news release. The analysis of 45 years of national data focused on two groups of mothers: those with children 5 years or younger, and those with children aged 6 to 18. The researchers assessed physical activity related to cooking, cleaning and exercising. (Continued)