Lifestyle Choices

These localized swellings (urticaria or wheals) of the skin or mucous membranes are usually very itchy. They can occur suddenly, last a few hours and then disappear, leaving no trace. No single hive lasts more than 36 hours. By circling the irregular, red swelling with a pen, you will see that it fades, even as new ones form. Each hive can be as small as a pea to larger than 30 cm (12in). When a hive forms near the eyes, lips, or genitals, there can be a frightening swelling called angioedema which lasts 12-24 hours (if the throat swells, seek urgent medical attention). (more…)

It is no doubt one of the oldest arts in the world. From the health standpoint it is second only to the choice of food. All through history the story has been the same. The leading nations of the world have always been those that were well fed. Napoleon’s famous remark to the effect that “an army marches on its stomach” is certainly true today. Good food, well prepared, is the main source of energy by which we live.

At the same time there is an element of danger in this art of cooking. Too much luxurious food can destroy the human race. Overeating is a frequent cause of illness. So are poor methods of cooking. Foods must not only be well prepared, but the important nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, must also be preserved. The tastiest foods have little value if these are missing. (more…)

What does cooking do to food? When properly carried out, it greatly improves the flavor. Cooking changes the chemical composition and often makes the foods more digestible. The heat helps to destroy many harmful germs. But do not overlook the fact that one serious type of food poisoning known as botulism may arise from the use of vegetables that have not been properly canned or preserved.

Under proper, germ-free conditions many foods can be preserved indefinitely, such as in canning. However, one should be careful when opening a can not to introduce germs into the food from outside. Carefully wash the container before opening it. (more…)

Why do you want to reduce? Probably for two reasons. You are not happy over what you see when you look into the mirror, and you don’t like what your friends are saying. But do not be in too much of a hurry to get those pounds off. This is where you might have failed before. It is usually better to reduce more slowly. It is not a temporary low calorie diet that you need, but rather an entirely new pattern of living.

Most likely you will not need to make any drastic changes in your diet. Just be sure it is well balanced. Begin by taking smaller amounts of foods you usually eat. Don’t cut out any single item except, perhaps, those rich desserts that you don’t really need. But remember, some foods high in calories may also be necessary to maintain good health.

Potatoes and whole-grain cereals are excellent foods. They should remain in your diet. Just be careful about the amount of food that you take. Omit those that are especially high in fats and carbohydrates. It is so easy to take more than you actually want. Watch this carefully. (more…)

Behavioral psychologists begin with the notion that eating behavior is learned and maintained as a result of interaction between you and your environment. And their definition of environment includes everything around you—people, events, things you see and respond to. These psychologists are not very interested in deep-seated motives for compulsive eating and they acknowledge that there is nothing you can do to change your genetic inheritance. But what you can do, they say, is to get to grips with overweight by looking at it as a voluntary disorder brought about by habit and environmental stimuli (remember how the habit of eating at certain times or the sight of food triggers hunger in overweight people). Change your environment, they say, and you will alter your habits and your eating patterns so you lose weight and keep it off. (more…)

About 5 percent of overweight is considered to be the result of a metabolic disturbance. But most often the cortical or hypothalmic dysfunctions on which overweight is blamed are the results of overweight rather than the cause. Sometimes a tendency to be fat originates in infancy. Bottle feeding and the early introduction of solid foods often result in overfeeding, which probably sets up eating patterns that are carried over into childhood and adult life. Some authorities believe too that when a baby is fed too much, it develops an excessive number of fat cells and from then on will always have a tendency to be fat. (more…)

Going on and off fad diets is an ineffective way to lose weight. It can also be dangerous, for you risk creating subclinical vitamin and mineral deficiencies that will not only affect your physical well-being and your emotional stability, but in the long run can also make your weight problem even worse. Fad diets upset your health in another way as well— because of the inevitable weight gain that follows each. When your weight seesaws up and down your skin ages more rapidly and serum cholesterol builds up in the cardiovascular system, making you more susceptible to heart disease. (more…)

The only way to lose weight is to change your eating habits permanently so you follow a life regimen of eating moderate quantities of good, wholesome food, which provides a full complement of nutrition for lasting health and beauty. This means reeducating both your palate (to expect different tasting, lighter foods) and your appetite so that you lose weight gradually. This way you also do not have any of the diet shock that leads to going off a regimen and defeats its purpose. Two pounds a week weight loss should be your goal, not more. Then you can keep it off. (more…)

The first and most important rule is don’t take into your body too much of the wrong kinds of foods in the first place. This includes all forms of refined carbohydrates, all overprocessed, precooked, or pickled foods, and prepared meats. Alcohol and coffee are major pollutants. If you are really serious about remaining cellulite-free, then avoid them altogether and drink spring water or fresh, unsweetened fruit or vegetable juices, or herb teas sweetened with a teaspoon of honey. (more…)

Let’s Look at Food Combining

First developed by Dr. William Howard Hay, the theory behind careful food combining is simple: don’t mix protein or acid fruits with carbohydrates at the same meal. If your enzyme system is not as good as it should be, eating concentrated proteins and starches at the same meal can play havoc with digestion, increasing the number of incompletely broken down food particles that find their way into the bloodstream to cause trouble. Concentrated proteins such as cheese, eggs, fish, and meat need an acid medium for digestion. If there are any concentrated starch or sugar foods in the stomach at the same time this can interfere with or even neutralize the acid medium so that the proteins are incompletely digested. (more…)

They do exist, particularly among women who have been on the weight seesaw for many years through crash dieting. Sensitivities to specific foods such as milk and milk products or grains (the two most common culprits) can make reducing almost an impossibility, for in the allergy- prone woman, the foods to which she is sensitive are invariably those that she craves and also those that, when she eats them, increase her appetite and lure her into giving up her weight loss program. For instance, I knew one woman who was allergic to wheat (although she wasn’t aware of it at the time). She would go on a reducing diet and stick to it conscientiously until the third day, when the diet called for a piece of toast. (more…)

The Cause

Oily skin is the result of overactive sebaceous glands, which usually occurs due to a hormonal imbalance in the body. Occasionally a diet too high in fats and fried foods or refined sugar can contribute to the condition, as can too much stimulation of the sebaceous glands by heat, the sun, or skin-care products containing chemicals such as sulfur, which, although they are designed to dry out the condition, in the long run work in a counterproductive way by removing too much oil and thereby stimulating the glands to produce yet more. Studies show that people on diets slightly deficient in some of the B group of vitamins rapidly develop whiteheads, blackheads, and oily hair and skin. (more…)

Forget about counting kilojoules, but accept that they are not all equal. By now you know that unnecessary kilojoules gained from fat are the biggest contributors to your excess weight and detractors from your general well-being. You might as well also accept the fact that the enjoyment of fat-rich foods started off as a habit; one that perverted your taste buds to favour certain kinds of foods -the fatty kind, usually concocted into a fat feast with the addition of refined starch, sugar and/or salt. And I daresay, a habit that possibly grew into full-blown emotional dependence on the sensual comfort they provide - a dependence that hampers emotional growth in the long run and pushes you further into the vicious cycle of eating to feel better, only to wake up feeling worse.

But simply removing fat from the cooking process would mean removing a great deal of taste and juiciness as well. And you should also know that in the long run, bland and fat-free food could cause you to abandon your healthy eating plan. (more…)

How should you cook in a healthy and conserving way and yet still be able to enjoy the results of your efforts? Consider in the first place whether the food, in fact, needs to be cooked for lengthy periods of time. A healthy diet depends to a large degree on foods that are as near to their natural state as possible, thus retaining their vitamin content and nutritional value.

Vegetables should be absolutely fresh, preferably young, and they should be prepared with the minimum of wastage. Fresh raw vegetables and fruit are highly nutritious and retain most of the minerals, vitamins, trace elements, and fibre often destroyed by cooking. They are also good for the teeth and digestion. You can eat the overwhelming majority of vegetables raw, after thorough preparation, which includes washing them thoroughly to remove any trace of possible pesticide residues. You should peel some vegetables, including commercially grown carrots, for the same reason. Raw root vegetables, potatoes apart, are excellent grated and have better, more distinct flavours than when cooked. Leaf and stem vegetables should always be perfectly fresh whether you intend to eat them raw or cook them, since the vitamin and mineral contents decline rapidly once they are harvested. (more…)

The behavioural treatment of obesity is based on changing daily habits and behaviours to reach the desired goal. The basic premise of behaviour therapy is to reward beneficial behaviours and discourage detrimental ones. However, state of the art behavioural treatment has a wider perspective and focuses on eating behaviours, social support, exercise, attitudes and nutrition. The aim is to modify the situations which promote eating and to evaluate the consequences of eating behaviour. Behaviour therapy involves specific processes which are aimed at modifying behaviour.

Self-monitoring

The client is asked to monitor when she eats, how much she eats and why she eats. This increases self-awareness so that eating cannot ‘just happen’, and enables her to evaluate her success and whether any changes have occurred. put their eating into context and to learn to say ‘I am not useless, the odd slip is inevitable and I will now return to my diet‘. This eradicates an ‘all or nothing response’ which can often result in the client abandoning the diet. (more…)

What is irradiation?

When a foodstuff is irradiated it moves along a conveyor belt into a central chamber where it is exposed briefly to gamma rays provided by an isotope of cobalt-60, a nuclear substance specially manufactured for the purpose. This brief bombardment of the food causes chemical and molecular changes that kill bacteria, moulds, micro-organisms, worms, grubs and other pests. In addition it stops sprouting in vegetables and delays the ripening process in fruit, greatly extendingthe shelf-life of these perishables.

A major advantage of irradiation is that during its application nothing is added to the product - irradition is a process, not an additive. (more…)

When discussing the effects of the study carried out in America, Keys and his colleagues said: ‘Food in all its ramifications became the principal topic of conversation, reading, and daydreams for almost all… subjects.’

The first change that became obvious for the women in my study was that they became preoccupied with food.

As women, in a society where we are expected to shop, cook and provide food for our families, food already plays a central role in our lives. It becomes a way to show love and affection to our dependants and a way to ask for love from those we are dependent on. If we provide dinner for our husbands when they come home from work (even if we ourselves have been working!) it shows that we appreciate that they have been working hard (and, it suggests, even harder than us) and that we recognise how much they do for us. Children learn from a very early age that eating their mother’s food makes her feel positive and valued. They also learn that to refuse her food is rejecting her love and will make her anxious and upset. We think about food in terms way beyond the limitations of feeling hungry and needing sustenance. (more…)

Dieters become preoccupied with the very substance they are trying to avoid — food. Not all foods, but those which are forbidden and outside the limitations set by the diet. Dieters see these foods as more exciting and pleasurable, and they become increasingly so if they are not eaten for a while.

A well-documented behaviour shown by dieters suggests that if they do actually eat a forbidden food, such as a chocolate bar or a piece of cake, they will then eat more food after it than if they had not eaten that piece of chocolate in the first place. You would expect them to eat less.

Many studies have been carried out both in America and Britain to illustrate this paradoxical behaviour, during which dieters are asked to consume a high calorie food. This is often very hard for the experimenter to do, although not as unethical as it may seem since the dieters always have the choice to say no. (more…)

Stocking up in advance with essential low-GL foods and getting used to buying and using new ingredients and cooking methods is part of your preparation for ‘made easy’ success.

Some of the foods listed here may be unfamiliar to you at this point, but exploring new flavours is part of the fun of the low-GL diet. A good supermarket or your local health-food store will stock almost all of the items.

Nothing here is difficult to source or particularly pricey.

As always, go for organic wherever possible. Not only is organic produce relatively free of contamination by herbicides and pesticides but it is also good value. The mineral levels in fruit and vegetables can be 100 per cent higher than those of non- organic produce. (more…)

Keeping your GL low and your blood sugar level stable depends not only on what you eat but also on how you cook what you eat. Cooking encourages the carbohydrate in foods to be released faster. The longer you cook something and the higher the temperature, the faster the carbohydrate in the food is released. The best method is actually leaving the food raw, but steaming, boiling, poaching, steam-frying, waterless cooking, baking and grilling are all good, too, in that order. Avoid frying food as much as possible. Deep-fried foods are definitely to be avoided.

Steaming

The best way to cook green, leafy, less-starchy vegetables is to steam them, as this will preserve a lot of their vitamins, as well as enhance their flavour. The method can be used for most food, especially fish, but is less successful for starchy vegetables such as potatoes and parsnips, and is not ideal for red meat. (more…)