Posts Tagged ‘healthy eating’

Junk food leaves an indelible mark on your appearance and health status. The Halloween candy you hid from the kids has been gone for at least 2 months. The pies and buttered mashed potatoes are no longer a regular staple at your dinner table. The assorted chocolates, candy canes and tasty beverages are just a fond memory. The bubbles from the New Year’s champagne are something you are already dreaming about for next year.

Why do they have to be gone so soon? Oh, but wait! They are not permanently gone. As we look in the mirror we see where their new home is.

Junk Food, the Tangible Results

Uh oh! Now what? Many people find themselves a couple to a few pounds heavier after the first of the year. It’s tempting to go on a crash diet or take a quick fix pill to help shed those pesky pounds. While you may lose weight at first, it’s likely those homesick pounds will find their way back to you like a needy relative. They may even bring a few friends! The best diet is no diet at all. At least not in the sense of the word we have grown accustomed to hearing.

Your eating habits define who you are. You eat junk food, you feel and look like junk. You eat mood altering foods and you are moody. When you drink high sugar, high caffeine drinks, your energy will rise and fall. This sounds like a crazy way to fuel our marvelous bodies, but for so many; this has become a normal way of life. After eating like this, the next step is often going on medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. These are the tangible results of junk food.

Finding the Fix

Finding the fix means thinking healthy and taking action. You have control! When you eat the way nature intended us to with vibrant fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds fish, healthy proteins and plenty of fresh water; you become vibrant and healthy. Your body naturally stops craving too much food because it is satisfied from the fiber and correct balance of proteins, carbs and healthy fats. Instead of envying the people who look like they are healthy and full of life, you will be that person! But wait! What about when the holiday season comes back around? Consider the 80/20 rule. Eat right 80% of the time so if you slip up 20% of the time, you can use your new found energy to work off the extra calories. Start this minute with positive thoughts and a determination to improve your life!

The papaya is sweet, succulent and when served ripe has custard like taste. That the papaya thwarts cancer cells in the lab makes this an even sweeter choice. Papaya contains anti-oxidant nutrients like beta-carotene, vitamin A and C, flavonoids, folate, B vitamins and pantothenic acid. It also contains small amount of minerals like calcium, chlorine, iron phosphorus, potassium, silicon and sodium.

Papaya Cancer Protection

The Papaya provides a blast of luscious sweetness while delivering powerful immune boosting nutrients. Papaya fights cancer because it has the powerful combination of lycopene, and carotenoids. It has shown promise against hormone related cancers as well as other types. In the case of breast cancer cells research shows it can stop the growth and metastasis process.

The nutrients in papaya have been shown to help prevent colon cancer. Papaya’s fiber is able to bind with cancer-causing toxins in the colon and keep them away from the healthy colon cells. Papaya’s folate, vitamin C, beta-carotene, and vitamin E have each been associated with a reduced risk of colon cancer. These nutrients provide synergistic protection for colon cells from free radical damage to their DNA.

Papaya may reduce a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer. This comes from research published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  Men who frequently consumed lycopene-rich fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, apricots, pink grapefruit, watermelon , papaya, and guava were 82% less likely to have prostate cancer than those who consumed the least of these fruits. Drinking green tea while on a diet high in lycopene-rich fruits offered stronger protection. There seems to be a synergistic effect that offers substantial protection.

Papaya and Cancer Research

Scientists at the University of Illinois think this anti-oxidant activity contributes to its effectiveness as a cancer fighting agent. The University of Florida researcher Nam Dang, M.D., Ph.D and colleagues in Japan have documented papaya’s dramatic anticancer effect against a broad range of lab-grown tumors. These include cancers of the cervix, breast, liver, lung and pancreas. Researchers in Japan found the mechanisms of action in a type of isothiocyanate found in papaya known as BITC (Benzyl isothiocyanate} that underlies the relationship between cell cycle regulation and appropriate cell demise.

Adding papayas to your diet is a powerful way to ensure you are getting a nutrient-dense fruit that is a rich source of cancer fighting nutrients. The key to health is to get nutriton in and cellular toxins out. It is common sense that what works to protect against cancer are whole foods with a broad-spectrum of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

Childhood Obesity is going to become a dominant force and have an impact on health care. There are children as young as ten are doing what teens and adults do in the insane world of weight loss, which is making themselves vomit. This is now becoming a tool for managing weight and eating. With vomiting becoming a tool for weight management we are a culture who lost our way. This is more common among boys than girls, according to a study of nearly 16,000 school children according to a study published by the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

These findings have prompted to issue a warning that self-induced vomiting is an early sign that children could develop eating disorders and psychological problems, such as binge eating and anorexia. They also think that this problem can be tackled by making sure that children get enough sleep, eat breakfast every day, eat less fried food and night-time snacks and spend less time on the computer.

This isn’t a holistic solution. As long as we think Pepsi refreshes, and packaged faux food is fuel for the body then we aren’t going be able to stop the damage. We as a nation have to improve the food supply or childhood obesity will be the number one health concern on the planet.

 A study of 120 schools, carried out for Taiwan’s Ministry of Education found that 16% or the boys made themselves sick, compared with 10% of the girls. America’s food manufacturing is big business and it is reaching foreign soil. When the dust settles we will see a world that depends on fast convenient food. Obesity is becoming a growing problem in industrialized countries, and has just about tripled over the last three decades.

“For example, a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in 2010, found that 4% of students had vomited or taken laxatives in the last 30 days to lose or stop gaining weight. And a South Australian study published in 2008 said that eating disorders had doubled in the last decade.”

The Taiwan study found that 18% of the underweight children used vomiting as a weight-loss strategy, compared with 17% of obese children and 14% of overweight children. Normal weight children were least likely to vomit (12%).

When the researchers carried out an odds ratio analysis, they found that using a computer screen for more than two hours a day increased the vomiting risk by 55%, eating fried food every day by 110% and having nighttime snacks every day by 51%. They also found that children were less likely to make themselves sick if they slept more than eight hours a night and ate breakfast every day. These sollutions will stop childhood obesity from becoming a world wide plague.