You can combine fruits by running varying chunks through a blender, or by pre-blending the fruits and freezing in ice cube trays as in the following recipe:

3 papayas

3 bananas

Juice of three lemons

Blend all 3 ingredients together in a blender and pour into ice cube trays. Freeze until solid. Remove frozen cubes and run through a juicer or food processor with chopping blade until fruit becomes fully whipped and creamy.

Do you make homemade ice cream without all the added sugar? Tell us about it.

Women tend to fear weight training, thinking it will result in huge muscles. However, female hormones don’t encourage muscular over-development. Working up to five or ten pound weights is an adequate goal for most women and unlikely to result in large muscles.

In addition to increasing bone density, weightlifting, like other forms of exercise, can strengthen your immune system and contribute to good mental health.

Weight and resistance training strengthens your quadriceps muscles, which in turn will protect your knees – a body area that is prone to injury.

Strengthening your abdominals by doing crunches (partial sit-ups) also acts as a protective device for your back muscles.

Like most regular exercise, weight training also raises your metabolism, so you use up more calories even when you’re not exercising (it takes more calories to sustain muscle mass than fat).

The best way to begin weight training is to take a class. Self-taught weight lifters can easily injure themselves, and the sort of injury you get from lifting weights incorrectly may take a long time to heal. For at-home sessions between classes, work along with a video that demonstrates proper technique.

To avoid strain, don’t work the same muscles hard two days in a row. The most effective schedule for training would be alternate days two or three days a week for twenty to thirty minutes. Alternating or combining weightlifting with Yoga or stretching exercises helps you develop and maintain flexibility.

With aerobic exercise such as running, you know when you need to take a breath, so you naturally breathe correctly. Remember to breath steady when lifting weights, too. Never hold your breath.

You need oxygen for optimum performance. Time your breathing so you exhale when you are exerting the most effort, such as when your lifting hand weights up. Inhale as you lower the weights.

Are you currently weightlifting? How do you fit it into your schedule? Do you want to start weight lifting and would like some more good tips? Write a comment and let us know.

 Background

Riboflavin was discovered in milk in 1879. Nobody realized it was a vitamin, mostly because back then nobody knew what a vitamin was. The discoverers just saw it as an interesting yellow-green pigment in the milk. The name riboflavin is a combination of two words: ribose, a type of sugar found in milk, and flavin, from the Latin word flavus, which means yellow.

Our cells need riboflavin to make energy, so we need to be sure we’re getting enough of this vital member of the B family.

Riboflavin does lots of other good things for us as well, mostly by working with the other B’s to keep our body’s systems, like the immune system, running smoothly. Riboflavin works especially closely with niacin and pyridoxine – in fact, without riboflavin, these two B siblings can’t do their main jobs at all.

The Role It Plays

Riboflavin gives us energy at the most basic level – inside our cells. We need it to make two of the enzymes that are absolutely vital for releasing energy from the fats, carbohydrates, and proteins we eat. To make a complicated story short, riboflavin keeps us alive.

Aside from that little chore, riboflavin also does a bunch of other little things in our body, either by itself or along with the other members of the B team (especially pyridoxine and niacin). Riboflavin regulates cell growth and reproduction and helps us make healthy red blood cells. It helps our immune system by keeping the mucous membranes that line the respiratory and digestive systems in good shape. If invading germs still sneak in, riboflavin helps make antibodies for fighting them off. Our eyes, nerves, skin, nails, and hair all need riboflavin to stay healthy. It might even help with memory – older people with high levels of riboflavin do better in memory tests.

By itself, riboflavin’s most important role is in cell respiration. Just as you breathe in oxygen and exhale the waste product carbon dioxide from your lungs, so does each and every cell in your body. Molecules of oxygen and food enter a cell and are carried into the mitochondria, tiny structures within the cell that act like little power plants. Enzymes in the mitochondria release the energy from the oxygen and food. Two of those enzymes must work together as part of the process. These enzymes contain riboflavin and if there’s not enough riboflavin then there’s not enough enzymes and therefore not enough energy.

The faster you use up energy, the more riboflavin you need. Most people have enough to meet their energy needs, but most people don’t really exercise very much. Anyone who exercises even moderately on a regular basis probably needs some extra riboflavin beyond the RDA. Women seem to need the riboflavin boost more than men.

Types Of Riboflavin

Riboflavin like all the B vitamins is water soluble. But riboflavin is an exception to the water-soluble rule. You store small amounts of it in your kidneys and liver. Riboflavin supplements come as tablets or capsules. They usually contain 50 mg or 100 mg – either amount is well over the RDA. You absorb about 15% of the riboflavin from supplements, especially if you take them on an empty stomach. To get the most from your riboflavin, take the supplements with meals.

RDA

Safe Dosage

The RDA for riboflavin is based on your calorie intake – the more you eat, the more you need. Important as riboflavin is, you really don’t need a lot of it for good health – just under 2 mg a day is enough.

You can’t really overdose on riboflavin, because even very large doses (over 1,000 mg) are safe. There is one side effect from large doses though: Your urine will turn a bright fluorescent yellow. It may be a little startling, but it’s harmless.

Make It Work Better

Most people get all the riboflavin they need from their food. Riboflavin is added to so many common foods, like bread and pasta, that even someone with lousy eating habits will probably get enough.

Most daily multivitamins contain the full RDA for riboflavin. If you think you need more, consider taking a complete B supplement. You need all the B vitamins for riboflavin to work well – and vice versa.

Good Sources

Riboflavin is found naturally in many foods, especially meat, milk products, and dark-green leafy vegetables. It’s also added to flour, bread, and most breakfast cereals.

Good choices include Broccoli, chick peas, cottage cheese, kidney beans, mushrooms, peas, spinach, sweet potato (with skin on), wheat germ and yogurt.

Deficiency

If you’re s strict vegetarian or if you exercise a lot (or both), you might need extra riboflavin.

Because small amounts of riboflavin are stored in the kidney and liver, a deficiency can take as long as three or four months to show up.

True riboflavin deficiency is rare. Most people get plenty of riboflavin in their food. When deficiency symptoms do occur, they’re usually related to a shortage of all the B’s. You need riboflavin to help niacin and pyridoxine work right. In fact, if you’re short on riboflavin you might have deficiency symptoms for one of the other vitamins. Usually, though, riboflavin deficiency shows up as problems with the mucous membranes, skin, eyes, and blood. An early and clear sign is sores and cracks on the lips, especially at the corners. Scaly skin, reddened eyes, and anemia are other deficiency signs.

Some people are at risk for riboflavin deficiency:

Athletes. You need extra riboflavin if you exercise a lot.

Diabetics, You may be excreting a lot of your riboflavin in your urine. Talk to your doctor about vitamin supplements before you use them.

Pregnant and Nursing women. You’re passing a lot of your riboflavin on to your baby, so you need about 0.5 mg more a day.

Elderly people. About a third of all elderly people have a riboflavin deficiency, mostly from poor absorption or poor diet.

People who can’t digest milk. Milk and dairy products such as cottage cheese are important sources of riboflavin. If you can’t digest these foods, you might not be getting enough riboflavin.

People who take tricyclic antidepressants. Drugs such as amitriptyline (Elavil) can interfere with riboflavin. Talk to your doctor about supplements before you take them.

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Ginger decreases the production of pain-causing chemicals in the body. Chamomile and linden are mild relaxants that help ease emotional and physical tension

1 cup water

1 teaspoon fresh chopped ginger root

1 teaspoon dried chamomile

1 teaspoon dried linden

Simmer the ginger in water in a covered pot for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add chamomile and linden. Steep for 10 minutes. Strain and drink it hot.

National statistics certainly would suggest that Americans are being fattened by hormone residues in meat. The American diet craze (Standard American Diet – SAD) started in the 1950’s a few short years after the use of antibiotics and hormone agents to add bulk to livestock became a common practice in feedlots. Americans are consuming fewer calories but gaining more weight than ever, Could this phenomenon be America experiencing what is known in feedlots as ‘feed efficiency” (the ability of livestock implanted with hormones to gain more weight on less food)?

The question is very pertinent considering the percentage of Americans that are obese and overweight. The majority of Americans fighting the battle of the bulge are concerned with losing the extra 15 to 20 pounds of excess weight they’re carrying around. This 15 to 20 pounds roughly equals 10 to 20 percent of the average adult’s weight; livestock implanted with hormones generally gain 15 to 19 percent more than their usual weight.

In addition to the battle of excess weight, Americans are struggling with other problems that are side-effects of ingesting hormones (knowingly in the form of birth control pills, bulking supplements for athletes and unknowingly in meats). These problems that have become so widespread include fluid retention, early puberty, hyper-insulinism and diabetes.

After reading about these undesirable residues. Some might consider a switch to organic meats to feed old tastes and habits – but anyway it is grown, meat still contains cholesterol and saturated fats.

Another thing to consider that requires us to widen our concern from just ourselves to others is that no matter how it’s grown, meat makes the least efficient use of the world’s food resources.

The bright side of these ‘foods’ most of us have grown up with as the center of our meals is that we don’t have to eat them, since we, and not food manufacturer’s decide what we eat.

We don’t have to eat meat, eggs, or dairy for proper nutrition. These ‘foods’ have traditionally been touted as superior protein foods because they contain all eight essential amino acids (the eight needed but not produced by the body to synthesize protein). However, the presence of cholesterol and saturated fat (not to mention pesticides and other environmental contaminants, antibiotics and hormones) make meat, eggs, and dairy inferior sources of protein.

For good health, cholesterol-free sources of protein are whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.

While getting an adequate amount of protein is important, daily requirement amounts can be misleading. As with other nutrients, the amount needed depends a great deal on body size, how active the person is, how much stress the body is under and other variables. In general, it’s safe to say that anyone eating a diet consisting of a wide variety of whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits doesn’t need to give extra thought to whether they’re getting enough protein (unless they’re body builders, do some heavy physical labor, or are pregnant or nursing).

Such an overemphasis has been placed on the amount of protein needed in the diet that Americans are suffering from overconsumption of protein. Excessive amounts of protein in the diet cause calcium to be leached from the bones, which results in osteoporosis. Meats also have a high phosphate content, and consuming larger quantities of phosphorus than calcium causes the bones to lose calcium.

In relation to the problem of being overweight, studies have shown that fat and protein are the most fattening sources of calories. These studies showed that the animals fed mostly with fat were the fattest, animals who ate mostly protein were next and the animals who ate mostly complex-carbohydrates were the slimmest.

Since adequate amounts of protein can be easily obtained through healthful and naturally slimming complex-carbohydrate foods, a more valid concern is if you’re getting enough vitamin B-12.

If you completely stay away from animal products – this is the one nutrient that must be watched, as no fresh plant food supplies it.

In actuality Vitamin B-12 is produced only by microorganisms – such as bacteria, friendly flora, and algae. Animal foods contain vitamin B-12 because animals bodies, like ours, store large amounts of vitamin B-12. Our bodies store so much vitamin B-12 that a deficiency in the diet can take 5 to 10 years to show up. Animals get their vitamin B-12 from microorganisms in the soil, but since our bodies are built differently and it’s gross, this isn’t advisable.

A good way to include vitamin B-12 in a diet that excludes animal products is through vegetable foods that have been fermented or cultured vegetable foods. Tempeh, miso, soy sauce, nutritional yeast (read the label as the amount varies from brand to brand) and algae type foods such as seaweeds.

 To relieve sinusitis, drink plenty of fluids to thin mucus secretions. Hot liquids are especially helpful – try peppermint tea for its decongesting properties, and vegetable or chicken soup with a clove of chopped raw garlic to fight infection.

Inhaling hot steam loosens and thins the mucous in your sinuses so that it an be expelled. Eucalyptus essential oil has powerful antimicrobial properties, and peppermint essential oil has a strong penetrating fragrance that helps open sinus passages.

1 ½ quarts boiling watercress5 drops eucalyptus essential oil

5 drops peppermint essential oil

Carefully pour the boiling water into a heat-proof bowl and then add the essential oils.

Make a towel tent over your head and the bowl, and breathe in the steam for 10 minutes. Take care to not burn yourself with the steam. Repeat twice daily.

 The world would surely be in a different state of affairs if we could be as open-minded and -hearted about understanding people and cultures as we are about their food.

Although the typical Russian diet, like the average American diet, is not a healthful one, there are certain tribes that live in the Caucaus Mountains whose diet and lifestyle are worth taking a look at.

The tribes of centenarians (people who live to the age of 100 or more) inhabiting there have been the subject of many studies. These studies have shown that these mentally alert, sprightly, and generally very slim centenarians eat an average 1,700 to 1,900 calories a day, and that the younger adults eat 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day.

Those calories are made up of mostly complex carbohydrates, as they eat very moderate amounts of protein foods (between 15 and 20 percent) and sparse amounts of fat (less than 10 percent).

About 70 to 75 percent of their diet is made up of plant foods, with milk and milk products being their primary protein food.

One mainstay is a cultured milk product they call matzoni, which resembles cultured buttermilk.

Their dietary habits that contribute to good health are:

They eat large quantities of fresh fruit, which is available about ¾ of the year. Whole pieces of fresh fruit and matzoni are their healthful snacks food.

They use honey as a sweetener; no refined sugar (or any other refined products, for that matter).

Vegetables are most commonly served raw or cooked in very small amounts of water.

They drink no coffee, preferring spring water to well water.

Along with what they eat, how and when they eat also contributes to their physical well-being. They take small bites and they chew their food slowly. They eat an early, substantial breakfast (about 7 – 8 am), a hearty dinner around midday (2-3 pm), a very light snack or meal later in the afternoon, and avoid eating shortly before bedtime.

In relation to how many calories they consume, it’s necessary to point out that they are a not sedentary people. Rather, from youth to old age they are all physically active and agile.

See Related Posts:

Beet Borscht – Russian Recipe

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 Borscht has many forms but is always made with beets. It is sometimes made as a hearty stew that is served hot. This borscht is a light, cold soup which makes a light, refreshing dish to serve on hot days.

2 large, fresh beets

3 cups water

1/2 cup very thinly grated cucumber

¼ cup finely minced green onions or scallions

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon honey

2 teaspoons fresh dill weed (or 1 teaspoon dry)

½ teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon vegetable-seasoned salt

2 cups buttermilk

yogurt (optional)

wash beets and cut off long root and top. Quarter beets and put them in a pot with the water. Bring to a boil, cover, turn down heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and remove lid. Allow to cool until the beets can be handled. Slip beet skin off and coarsely grate the beets right back into the water they were cooked in. Add the cucumber, onions, lemon juice, honey, dill weed, pepper and seasoned salt and refrigerate overnight, or place in the freezer for 2 hours. Right before serving, mix in the buttermilk. Serve with a dollop of yogurt.

Make about 7 cups, which is about 4 servings.

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 A lot of weight-loss diets are based on the truth that if more calories are consumed than are burned, the body converts and stores those extra calories as fat.

From that is would seem logical that the way to lose fat would be to cut back on calorie consumption.

A myriad of diets and weight-loss programs are set up to do just that in a number of different ways.

Theoretically they should have worked, but didn’t; thus going on and off low-calorie diets practically have become a lifestyle for many women.

The reason low calorie diets don’t work is because the body runs by many involuntary systems (systems which perform their functions without any conscious direction from us, like the heart beating, breathing, etc) that have never taken lessons in logic.

One of the involuntary functions the body carries out is to store fat for emergencies. While the dangers of starving to death are very slim in this country, there’s no way to tell our bodies not to worry and to discontinue that service.

After observing the body’s tendency to store certain amounts of fat under different circumstances, scientists have developed the ’set-point theory”.

According to the ’set-point theory’, there’s a mechanism in each of our bodies which causes the body to create more fat than normal (and hold on to the present fat stores) in times of emergency-like famine – to maintain whatever the amount of fat a person’s body is ’set’ at.

When anyone goes on a low-calorie diet, the body doesn’t know that it’s been receiving less calories because the person is trying to get rid of fat. Instead, when the body suddenly starts receiving fewer calories than usual, its emergency alarm systems go off and the body gears up to cope with harder times ahead.

Metabolism (the process by which our bodies convert food into energy) slows down so the body can make more efficient use of the little food its getting and turns more of it into fat than it normally would. To have as much fat in store as possible for the famine ahead, the body begins burning muscle protein so it can keep the present and newly-created fat on reserve.

The body keeps this up even after it starts receiving food again – just to be sure it’s ready in case there’s another famine. This is why so many people experience getting fatter and gaining more weight when they return to eating normal amounts of food (or even a little less) after a low-calorie diet. When this happens, the usual reaction is to start looking for another crash or fad diet to try for awhile (at least one that works this time). Thus the vicious cycle of on-and-off dieting is started.

The only way to get off this vicious cycle is to speed up the metabolism and lower the ’set-point’ by:

Giving up on-and-off again dieting forever.

Eating at regularly-scheduled times each day.

Eating at least 1,200 calories a day (calories are not our enemy – just a way to measure energy).

Make every calorie count but not eating empty-calorie foods.

Doing some sort of aerobic exercise.

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 Background

Thiamin (sometimes also spelled thiamine) was the first B Vitamin to be discovered. It doesn’t do anything spectacular to grab attention from headlines, it’s more like a good defensive lineman and works along the other members of the B team to keep you healthy. Thiamin’s special job is to help convert carbohydrates in food into energy the body can use.

The Role It Plays

The body goes through an amazing complex series of steps to turn food into energy. All of the B vitamins are involved in every one of those steps, alone or working together. One particular step needs an enzyme called thiamin pyrophosphate, or TPP, to work. Without thiamin, we can’t make the enzyme, and without the enzyme, the whole process stops.

Thiamin is also needed to keep the brain and nervous system fueled up. The brain runs on glucose and thiamin helps the brain and nervous system absorb enough glucose. Without thiamin the brain and nervous system gets about half the glucose it needs. When you’re brain doesn’t get enough fuel, you start to get forgetful, depressed, tired, and apathetic.

Types of Thiamin

Thiamin is water-soluble, so you need some every day. Thiamin is also known as Vitamin B1 and thiamine.

RDA

Safe Dosage

There’s no known toxicity from taking thiamin supplements – people have taken over 300 mg a day with no bad effects. There’s no reason at all to take that much, but it is safe.

Make It Work Better

The B vitamins work together to covert food into energy. All the B Vitamins are needed. Thiamin is also helped by magnesium. Alcohol and/or a shortage of other B Vitamins will effect thiamin.

Be aware that what you drink with your food affects how much thiamin you get. Alcohol and the tannins found in tea destroy thiamin. To get the most thiamin from your food, skip these beverages during meals and drink them afterward instead (emphasis on drinking tea!).

Sulfites, preservatives added to prepared foods, also destroy thiamin in food. Because of customer complaints most restaurants have stopped adding sulfites to salad bars and precut fruit, but they’re still sometimes used and especially in places where customers can’t complain, like school and company cafeterias and nursing homes. Sulfites are also added to many convenience foods. Read your labels.

Good Sources

B vitamin are found in many of the same foods, so eating foods high in thiamin will also give you riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, biotin, and pantothenic acid.

Wheat germ, sunflower seeds, whole grains, and all kinds of nuts are excellent food sources for thiamin. Beans and peas are also a good source along with oranges, raisins, asparagus, cauliflower, potatoes, milk, and whole wheat bread. Some whole grains that are high in thiamin are whole wheat, oatmeal, and brown rice.

Deficiency

Beriberi, a disease that symptoms can start after only 10 days without enough thiamin, occurs in less developed world areas, but is extremely rare in our modern society. Beriberi means “I can’t, I can’t”. That’s a pretty good way of describing what happens when you don’t get enough thiamin. Muscle weakness, appetite loss, poor coordination, a tingling feeling in the nerves, and severe pain in the calves are among the symptoms. Sometimes a person also gets an enlarged heart.

Thiamin is easily found in a typical diet with one very big exception: people who abuse alcohol. For one thing alcoholics tend to eat poorly, so they’re vitamin intake in general is very low. Because they don’t eat enough thiamin in the first place and then the alcohol destroys most of what little they do get – alcoholics are deficient in thiamin. To add to that, alcohol will cause increased urination and thiamin is water-soluble (excreted through the urine) – which makes them excrete thiamin faster. Chronic alcoholics need large amounts of thiamin supplements. Eventually, thiamin deficiency from alcoholism causes a type of nerve damage called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. The symptoms can usually be helped by giving up alcohol and eating a good diet, but the syndrome only worsens and leads to death if alcohol abuse continues.

Those with special health problems may also become deficient in thiamin. Mild thiamin deficiency generally causes tiredness, muscle weakness, a pins-and-needles feeling in the legs, depression, and constipation.

Many elderly people don’t eat well and don’t get enough thiamin in their diet, especially if they live in a nursing home.

Pregnant and nursing women are passing a lot of thiamin on to the baby so they may need about 0.5 mg extra every day.

If you diet a lot and get less than 1,500 calories a day or eat only a few different foods, you’re probably not getting enough thiamin.

People who fast frequently are low in thiamin. Thiamin is needed every day for good health.

Diabetics may be excreting too much thiamin in their urine.

People with kidney disease and are on dialysis should talk to their doctor about a supplement.

People with chronic infections, that cause frequent fevers need more thiamin because fevers make the body run faster.

Most people, even ones with health issues listed here, get enough thiamin. A real deficiency is pretty rare.

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