The liver and Christmas parties...

The importance of liver

The liver is quite often forgotten by people or not thought about at all. Even though the liver is the only organs that can regenerate, when it cannot cope with too much work, you can start feeling it by having spots on your face or forehead, feeling sluggish, having headaches and feeling tired and having the feeling of being spaced out. Even if you are eating healthy but loosing weight for any reason the liver is the one that will have to do a lot of the work by eliminating all the toxins freed by the fat cells or any cell. The liver also is the one that makes protein that you need for repair of cells as well as transforming excess sugar into fat for storage. It is the major detox organ for drugs, hormones, as well as being the organ where vitamin D is activated. The liver is also a storage place for some of the vitamins such as vitamin A, D, E, K, and B12. Now it is Christmas time again and time for Christmas parties and overindulgence of alcohol based drinks and overeating time. It is good to have fun but think of your liver as well. So even though you do not want to miss out on a Christmas party, take few steps to help your liver to cope with the extra work. Take some extra vitamin B, vitamin C, as well as milk thistle, dandelion root tea or tincture. Drink water between alcoholic drinks, fruits such as mandarins, and other seasonal fruits, as well as vegetables such as chicory salad, fennel, beetroots, artichokes, rockets, watercress, cabbage family and radicchio. If you drink water between the alcohol you will not drink as much and you will still have plenty of fun. Eat some food with your alcohol, which helps with reducing the effect of the alcohol. By taking the few steps above you can still have fun without the feeling that you need a month to feel good again after your parties. And most of all enjoy yourself……..

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Simple recipe and its nutritional value

Here is one of the many symple recipes with its nutritional value:

Mediterranean salmon (taken from good housekeeping booklet, modified)

Hands on time 15 min – plus marinating. Cooking time 12 min. – serves 2 –

Ingredients

2 x 125g salmon fillets, skinned

1 tbsp pesto

10 g sun dried tomatoes, chopped

40 g black olive

Organic lemon (as the zest need to be used is better to use an organic lemon)

Preparation and cooking

- Mix the salmon, pesto, olives and sun-dried tomatoes in a bow. Sprinkle over the zest of ½ lemon. Cover and chill for 30 min. You can set up this part the night before or two days before.

- Preheat oven to 200 degree C (180 with fan) mark 6. Arrange the salmon in ovenproof serving dish, spooning over the marinade.

- Cut the lemon into 3 wedges and put around the salmon. Cook for 10-12 min or until the fish flakes when pushed with a knife.

Health benefits of the ingredients:

Salmon = source of omega 3 essential oil, proteins, potassium, selenium, vitamin B12, wild Alaskan salmon has got a higher content of omega 3 and less heavy metals and pesticides residue.

Pesto = contains mainly basil benefits includes helping the digestive system, is a mild sedative for relaxation, has been used for kidney support and slow circulation.

Pine nuts: (this is another ingredient of pesto, as well as the garlic and the parmisan cheese or pecorino cheese) contain more protein than any other nuts and in 100g of nuts it contains about 24g of protein, is a source of goo fiber, and some fat which is mostly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which are the good fats, only 10 percent is saturated. Pine nuts also contain b vitamins, vitamin E, zinc and potassium.

Garlic: Garlic nutritional values are amazing. Garlic is an anti-fungal, anti-microbial activity, it has been researched into his lowering of cholesterol, and it seems to increase the immune system activity and therefore helping with fighting colds and flue. The sulphur compound are the main active ingredients such as allicin, diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide, which are released when garlic is crashed. Garlic also contain a good amount of vitamin B6, manganese, selenium, vitamin C, phosphorous, calcium potassium, iron and copper.

Cheese: Parmesan cheese and pecorino cheese are a good source of protein, calcium and other minerals but the amount that would be in pesto would not count as much for their real benefit.

Sun dried tomatoes = Tomatoes are low calories food, and the main benefit of the tomatoes is its content of antioxidants such as beta-carotene and lycopene. Tomatoes also contain biotin, vitamin C (if fresh not sun-dried), vitamin K, B6, B5, niacin, folic acid and fiber.

Black olive = Olives like the tomatoes and cucumber are fruits, and not vegetables. But they are the source of monosaturated fats which are one of the good oils or fats. The black olives are the same as green but at different degree of ripeness. Usually black olives that are less bitter are soaked in brine straight away and for longer. Olives are a good source of omega 9 which is one of the monosaturated fatty acids and vitamin E.

Lemons = Lemons are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium folic acid, flavonoids and the phytochemical limonene (this can help the liver for some parts of detoxification)

Enjoy the cooking and eating. This can be done when you have little time or it can be taken for the next day lunch.

http://www.nutritionhealth.net/



Jamie's Oliver revolution

Well, watching  the programme last night, again I was amazed at the problem that Jamie faced. Again they still had rubbish food in the freezer and the dilemma is 'what to do with it'. Sincerely I would say gave it to the dogs, but I think that would be very cruel. I would not give that food to the dogs or homeless as that would be animal and human cruelty. I cannot believe that the US government still does not get it, how can you feed that rubbish food to the children? how can you let your kids eat the rubbish in the brown bag that I saw. What are the parents thinking? that their child will grow healthy with sweets and bright colorant??? I think parents and teachers as well as the kids should try to get that any, any junk food is bad for you. How can you go back to have your child not eat the healthy food and compare the junk food such as chocolate milk to real milk?? The children will adjust to anything, is the parents that don't and I have seen it with some of my clients. So parents and adults please think of what you eat. Because what you eat is how your body function. All the vitamins, minerals, good fats, carbohydrates, proteins are the ones that makes your body function well or bad (if you eat junk food or sugary foods).  And the healthier and nutritious your food is the better your child is going to grow, which should be healthy, not tired, not too hyper and not overweight and obese..
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Jamie's Oliver USA

Well, watching Jamie's Oliver programme last night, I was so glad that the radio presenter finally saw the reality of his town and the other side of the coin. It was not just about him wanted to keep eating his junk food is saving his town from dying young and badly.... Well done to Jamie Oliver for not giving up even though he had so many obstacle, and I suppose after he trying UK he knew how to get the people finally. Great in involving the University with the dancing... He made cooking fun and enjoyable and obviously well done to the teachers and the students that did it so well.... Great hopefully now that Jamie is out of there the town and a lot more towns in America will take up cooking lessons and keep up with the healthy eating. It just means that McDonald and all the other junk food chain will earn less money... Great!!! So for anybody else keep staying healthy and have fun trying new recipes.....

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French fries - vegetables or .....

Again I watched Jamie Oliver's programme yesterday and it is becoming quite amusing the more I watch it.  The teenagers that he got for his cooking skills, are amazing. They are probably a minority of kids that really understand that if you want to change something you need to make a big effort. They went from not knowing how to cook anything to cooking an entire meal for 80 + people, how great that is!! I am sure their parents or guardian have no choice but make a difference. But what about the rest of the school!! Will they understand the change that they need to make now for the future? I hope so.

Now going towards explaining French fries. I like a good French fries and once a year I probably have it somewhere nice. But just to be very precise, French fries are NOT A VEGETABLE, they are not part of the 5 a day scheme and they do not count towards a healthy eating!!! The lady that organized the meals for the schools in America, is very supportive of Jamie's mission and she wants to do her best to change the meals, but I do not think she understood that French fries are not better than freshly cooked noodles with few types of vegetables in there.... French fries are tasty but unfortunately they don't have anything healthy in them. Potatoes are not part of the vegetables either, they are starchy food, like rice and pasta, and, cooked with the skin on, they are a very good source of some minerals and vitamins as well as fiber (which helps in case you suffer of constipation, with some of the actual vegetables fibers). So again I hope that the people in America start thinking of their own health, as I do not think anybody else is doing anything there to change the bad habits that they got into... Also I still think the radio present of Huntington is a a... hole as he should be quite and keep his opinion of eating bad food for himself. If he and his family wants to eat unhealthy food that should be their choice but if the rest of the kids and family in his town wants to try the healthy option he should let them do that and be quite..... or even better be supportive, that is if he really cares about his listeners and he does not want them to have a heart attack while they are listening to his opinion!!

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Support for Jamie Oliver's mission

I have a great respect for Jamie Oliver and his mission of trying to make the nation, first with UK and now with America a better place. Making people more conscious of where the food come from before all the big chain of fast foods and easy food came along. Before all that happen every child and every woman knew what a vegetable was, and how to cook it. In a sad sense, we were much more healthier at a time or depression and low food than now. As before everyone that had a piece of soil or land would plant their own vegetables to eat and not flowers. Not that flowers are not great, but that is not the point. I am lucky that I grew up in a countryside where everything came from my parents garden. Vegetables, fruits, and meat. The only thing was missing was fish from their land, but leaving quite close to the sea you could easily find freshly caught fish sold off the boat! My son is also lucky, because he often visits my parents and knows what a tomato plant look like, the pear plant, the olives, plant, the salad plant and all that. He is very lucky also because I taught him what different fruits and vegetables are and he loves them. In Italy where I send him for the summer the play scheme where he stays have their own vegetables and they make the kids go and pick their own vegetables up! Which is fantastic!! And apparently all the kids that did not eat vegetables they started eating the vegetables they picked up!! Going back to Jamie Oliver mission,  I am also lucky that the school where my son goes, use a lot of their own herbs, use organic food as much as possible and they have fruits and salad as well as vegetables in their menu. Definitely the smaller kids do not complain and they are learning to eat vegetables. I might have to thank Jamie Oliver for his mission here in UK as my son's started his school after Jamie Oliver started to stir up the kitchens. Well, I would have done packed lunch, but for somebody that is tight for time everyday would have been a big mission, as well as my son not having warm meals everyday. He does not like sandwiches all the time which is good, but it meant that he would have a cold lunch everyday. Now again going back to Jamie Oliver mission, I was reading in the observer about the community that he managed to set up for cooking lessons for adults and children!! What a fantastic ideas. That would make a huge difference in the health of the adults, young, elderly, and children as they would know more about food and what healthy food means!! they would eat much more healthily which it means less burden on the NHS in the future.... So why now is the government cutting the funds for that!! Instead of taxing people with money they again taxing people without the money. Agian the health of the Nation will have a repercussion later if the kids do not learn now how to eat and cook. Maybe the government is not thinking of the future as they might not be in power later on. Anyway the other big thank you to Jamie Oliver is for trying so hard to change an entire town in America if not the entire America with his mission. And you would think that they would say thank you themselves and be happy.  Last night when I saw the programme I was very much saddened by the fact that his enthusiasm at the beginning was met with mistrust and anger and even the Radio host that should be thinking 'hey this is for the health of the people in our town, let's give it a try people and support him', he was against Jamie. I think the host of the radio was very selfish and not really considering the hundreds of people and children with big problems not knowing the name of one single vegetable and where their food came from.... I think as a radio presenter he should make a better judgement of what helps the listener and what is good for them rather than attacking Jamie Oliver for trying to help the children being healthier...... Again I felt very sorry for Jamie Oliver that seems like he had to beg for a job in the school to stay on and teach them what a good meal would be for the children.... How can they ever go back to that rubbish that they gave to the children, how can the parents ever go back to give their children that rubbish... Jamie Oliver does not have to do this, he can stay at his home writing and cooking in his own restaurant and no bother about any of this! He knows that his children will eat healthily, he does not need to beg for a job,, he does not need to do any of this... He is doing this because he is passionate about food, passionate about what health is and he wants to help.. He could have easily stayed at home and not care and have more time with his family.... And I hope that the people in UK and America understand how lucky they are that somebody like JAMIE OLIVER is teaching them to be healthier and how to cook... What an honour!!!! So well done Jamie Oliver and thank you for doing this......

http://www.nutritionhealth.net/

B vitamins and Alzheimers and homocysteine connection

Hey, finally there is prove that the B vitamins, especially B12, B6 and folic acid are beneficial in prevention of Alzheimer. But the homocysteine connection is also beneficial for the prevention of heart conditions, including reducing high blood pressure. Measuring the homocysteine level with a simple blood test will give an indication on how much B vitamins you need to take for how long and than keep maintaining a basic dose to keep you healthy. If you have a family history of dementia or Alzheimer it is worth to start early to keep it down and prevent it. And if you are older you can still take it and prevent any further damage by taking the B vitamins. Again a simple blood tests should be done. Some GP are very helpful and would send you for the test themselves. For the doctor is worth suggesting the tests and giving B vitamins as a prevention rather than spend much more later if the person gets either the Dementia or Heart problems.

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