Curiously Awesome

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Tip #5: Bring a gravity-fed countertop water filter (Brita, Pur, etc.)

A gravity-fed countertop water filter will let you create clean water just about anywhere. Just fill it up with your hotel’s tap water and wait for filtered water to appear in the container.

Obviously, it’s not the best water in the world. But when you are traveling a countertop Brita filter will remove chlorine and other pollutants and give you safe water to drink without forcing you to buy bottled water.

These water filters are very light, too. No added weight!

Vitamin D and Brain Function

There are many vitamin D receptors in the brain. It has been discovered that vitamin D plays a very important role in maintaining and achieving what may be considered a healthy mind. There is more research necessary in this particular area of vitamin D functions, but it is worth mentioning because vitamin D levels have been noted in children with brain dysfunction.

Behavioral and cognitive difficulties and how they are associated with low vitamin D levels is still unclear, but what is known is that low vitamin D levels create depression in the elderly. Often accompanied by an overactive parathyroid, low vitamin D levels have been noted to increase depression in older adults, and in other mental disorders.

This information is important because instead of treating patients with dangerous psychotropic medications (many of which have hazardous side effects) depression could be treated with a higher intake of vitamin D or more calcium and exposure to sunlight.

A non-profit organization has announced its intention to sue Sara Lee for alleged “misleading” claims about the whole grain nature of some of its products.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sent a letter to Sara Lee announcing their intention to file a lawsuit over marketing claims such as “made with whole grain,” “good source of whole grain” and “now with 25 percent more whole grain.” According to CSPI, these statements are “intended to deceive the consumer into thinking the bread is a whole-grain bread, when in fact it is not.”

Sara Lee claims that it sells not only white and 100 percent whole grain breads, but also some intermediate products that it calls “nutritionally transitional.” These products are made with a mix of refined and whole wheat flour and are designed to help consumers eat more whole grains without being subjected to a radical change from the taste and texture of the refined grains they are used to.

In marketing claims, Sara Lee says that the Soft & Smooth products combine “the taste and texture of white bread with the goodness of whole grain.”

CSPI is seeking an injunction that would bar Sara Lee from saying that its products contain “the goodness or whole grain” or even that they are “made with whole grain” unless they explicitly state on the label what percentage of the product is whole grain.

So, what happens when you eat a piece of chocolate cake?

First, your teeth come into contact with sugary foods. Tooth decay affects almost every person in the U.S. Sugar in the diet influences the sort of organisms that can colonize and grow on tooth surfaces. Everyone has some of these organisms, but people who consume a high-sugar diet have much more dental plaque.

When your chocolate cake reaches the small intestine, the sugar content of the cake passes quickly through the intestinal walls. This causes a fast and dramatic rise in the body’s blood glucose levels… your blood sugar level. Glucose is blood sugar and is the energy source for each cell in our bodies. Every move of our muscles burns glucose and the brain needs glucose for all of its activities.

When this is working properly, we have a constant and even amount of glucose circulating in the bloodstream. Want to hear something amazing? This amount is only approximately 2 teaspoons! Your chocolate cake contains 10 teaspoons. Far too much for your bloodstream to absorb and use. Insulin, which controls the amount of glucose in your blood, is secreted from the pancreas. As it attempts to regulate this excessive amount of sugar, more insulin is issued. The insulin does its job, but frequently does it too well. Your blood glucose level will drop back to normal and will actually continue to drop until too much glucose has been removed from the blood stream. This means that now our muscles, tissues, brain, and other vital organs will not have enough glucose available to perform the necessary functions that they need to accomplish.

Your piece of chocolate cake disrupts the normal blood glucose levels and actually leaves you hungrier in the long run.

Over consumption of sugar has been directly linked to the following conditions:

Anemia, kidney lesions, fat deposits in the kidney, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, duodenal ulcers, asthma, common cold, obesity, gout, gall stones, inflamed gall bladder, allergies, tooth decay, pyorrhea, infectious diseases, indigestion, hypoglycemia, dermatitis, heart disease, and diabetes.

Scientists theorize that humans are born with a preference for sweet foods. This preference likely remains with us for our entire lives. However, there are healthy alternatives that do not wreak the havoc that sucrose does on the human body. The two most readily available and healthy alternatives to processed sugar are raw honey and pure maple syrup. Give your body a chance to wean itself off the drug of processed sugar and give either honey or maple syrup a chance in your diet. You will be thankful both in the short and long term!

photo credit: Mel B.We are encouraged to think of sugary foods as wholesome and desirable. Our children’s fairy tales and stories are filled with sugary references, Hansel and Gretel for example. Every special occasion and holiday has its own sugar icon. Birthday cakes for birthdays, candy for Valentine’s Day, Easter baskets for Easter, candy canes for Christmas.

Cookbooks call for cups of sugar for dessert recipes. Coffee breaks would hardly be breaks without sugared coffee and doughnuts. Bake sales are huge ways to raise money and Girl Scout cookies are a much-anticipated annual event.

We even equate sugar with goodness. Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. They then grow up to be someone’s “honey” or “sugarplum”.

Question: Is America committing gastronomic suicide with our current rate of sugar consumption?
Sugar (or sucrose as it is technically called) is more a drug than a food. Foods are supposed to have vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, trace minerals and elements. Sugar has none of these elements that are essential for life.

Most people don’t know how much sugar they eat. Why? It’s not a matter of just keeping track of how many teaspoons you sprinkle on your cereal or pour into your coffee. 75% of the sugar we eat is already present in the prepared and packaged foods and beverages we buy.

Sugar is virtually invisible. Very few food items are sugar-free and sugar is the largest single ingredient in the American diet.

Part II - What Happens When You Eat a Piece of Chocolate Cake?

CT scans are now being shown to expose patients to a massive and cancer-promoting blast of radiation.

Full-body CT scans expose patients to approximately 100 times the radiation of a standard chest X-ray. Any radiation exposure is known to increase the risk of cancer, in particular, radiation in high doses. The report says that for every 2,000 people getting a full-body CT scan twice a year, one person can be expected to contract a fatal form of cancer.

A new report is recommending that patients who are exhibiting symptoms that they want diagnosed with a CT scan should instead be referred back to their general practitioner for treatment.

Don’t be misled into believing that the typical chocolate bar is good for heart health. Most processed chocolate bars contain very low amounts of the nutrient that makes chocolate good for you.

There has been a series of recent studies that suggest that the flavanols contained in dark chocolate are good for the heart.

The flavanols that make chocolate healthy also make it bitter. For this reason, this is removed by many commercial chocolate manufacturers. I addition, there is no requirement for manufacturers to state on the label whether flavanols have been removed or not.

Flavanols are naturally occurring plant chemicals in the flavonoid family. They are powerful antioxidants that have been shown to have a number of health benefits, including for the heart. Flavonoids are also found in tea, red wine and a number of fruits and vegetables.

If you wish to benefit from chocolate’s heart health effects, it is recommended that you eat dark chocolate. This contains an average of 53.5 milligrams of flavonoids per bar. The average bar of milk chocolate contains less than 14 milligrams and white chocolate contains none.

Seattle-area store PCC Natural Markets has stopped selling all products containing high-fructose corn syrup. They have announced that they will no longer carry any product sweetened with corn syrup.

High-fructose corn syrup has drawn criticism both as a sweetener in general and also due to its specific biochemical properties. Studies have indicated that high-fructose corn syrup may be worse for the body than similar sweeteners, and that it may interfere with the brain’s ability to tell when it is full.

Food manufacturers have long been attracted to corn syrup because it is so cheap to produce. This has enabled them to add sweetness to just about anything very inexpensively.

PCC has also banned trans fats and milk produced from cows treated with growth hormones and does not provide plastic bags for shoppers.

To lose weight, try not counting calories and start counting nutrients or super foods instead.

Companies like Weight Watchers come out with these low calorie bars and ready made meals… but how many nutrients do they have? Are they really going to help people lose weight? And how long will this weight stay off? As soon as they stop counting the calories the weight will return.

The secret to losing weight and truly experiencing optimum health is to count the nutrients in the food you are eating. Love the food you eat because you know it will nourish your body and in turn make you look and feel gorgeous.

Imagine how effective forgetting the calories might be. Enjoy a healthy smoothie for breakfast. Who knows how many calories it has… and who cares? Every ingredient is nourishing the body and mind. It is literally filling the body with the fuel it needs to do its job.

Vow to never count a calorie again!

We eat a huge amount of wheat. Unfortunately, the majority of the wheat products that we consume are highly refined and processed to the point where they are worthless and actually harmful to our bodies.

Vegan, Vegetarian & Raw Foods products are something worth researching.

Did you know that the nutritional powerhouse of the wheat product is in the seed (or berry) itself…NOT in the refined flour products? If you were to sow wheat berries, in approximately two weeks you would have access to wheatgrass, which contains all of the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and nutrients that your body needs every day.

The health benefits of wheatgrass are numerous and amazing, as is the list of foods you can create with this unique ingredient. From breads to cookies to pizza to desserts…you can even use wheatgrass to treat a variety of physical ailments!

I have just convinced myself that I need a wheatgrass kit. Not only will this be very beneficial for my family’s health, a growing kit like this will be an activity my whole family will enjoy.