Is Fruit Juice good? (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part 1...

Fruit juice taken with cereal or other foods will be absorbed slower than fruit juice by itself, but will still cause higher blood sugar levels than if we did not drink the fruit juice. Smoothies are halfway between juice and whole fruit. The more the fruit is liquified, the faster its sugar is absorbed.

Scientists are frantically trying to explain the marked increase in diabetes, severity of diabetes, deaths from diabetes, increase in heart attacks, increase in obesity and so forth over the last 50 years in the United States. While the questions have not been answered yet, refined carbohydrates, particularly in liquid form, are suspect. Sugar-water does not suppress hunger the way that sugar in solid food does, and sugar-water causes the highest rises in blood sugar.

In a nutshell

Consume fruit in whole and its original form to get its nutrients.

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Is Fruit Juice good? (Part 1 of 2)

Researchers at Tulane University showed that eating fruit helps to prevent diabetes, while drinking fruit juices increases risk (Diabetes Care, July 2008). They analyzed diets of 71,346 women enrolled in the Nurses Study. Increasing intake of whole fruit by three servings a day lowered risk for diabetes by 18%, while a serving of fruit juice each day increased risk by 18%.

The food that we eat passes into our stomach and must remain there until it is turned into a liquid soup. No solid food is allowed to pass into our intestines. This delay prevents blood sugar levels from rising too high. However, sugar in drinks can pass directly into our intestines to cause an immediate rise in blood sugar. This can cause sugar to stick to the surface of cell membranes and damage them to cause the side effects of diabetes which include blindness, deafness, heart attacks, strokes, and so forth. It makes no difference whether the sugared drink is "junk food" such as a soft drink, or a supposedly healthful fruit juice.

If drinking fruit juice alone is bad to health, what about if we drink fruit juice while eating other foods?

Continue to Part 2...

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Blood group and diet (Part 3 of 3)

Continued from Part 2…
(Go to Part 1)

Apparently, there is a chemical reaction occurs between our blood and the foods that we eat. This reaction is part of our genetic inheritance. This reaction is caused by a factor called Lectins. Lectins, abundant and diverse proteins found in foods, have agglutinating properties that affect our blood. So when we eat a food containing protein lectins that are incompatible with our blood type antigen, the lectins target an organ or bodily system and begin to agglutinate blood cells in that area. Different lectins target different organs and body system.

Fortunately, most lectins found in the diet are not quite so life threatening, although they can cause a variety of other problems, especially if they are specific to a particular blood type. For the most part, our immune systems protect us from lectins. Ninety-five percent of the lectins we absorb from our typical diets are sloughed off by the body. But at least five percent of the lectins we eat are filtered into the bloodstream and different reactions in different organs.

Our blood group diet is the restoration of our natural genetic rhythm. Our blood group diet works because we are able to follow a clear, logical, scientifically researched plan based on your cellular profile. Next, we will look into what foods should we eat according to our individual blood group.

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Blood group and diet (Part 2 of 3)

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Blood group comes from the heredity of foods and their genes, and it’s closely related to the immune system of human body. According to medical statistical researches, many diseases are closely tight up with blood group. Blood group is inherited and represents contributions from both parents. In general, we inherit from either that of the father or the mother (such as group A, group O or group B), or the combination of both parents (such as group AB). If the father is of group A and mother is of group B, then the child can be that of group A, group B or group AB. He or she is also possible to take group O.

A little story here: Long time ago, human beings were herbivores or vegetarians, having the blood group that eats vegetables and fruits – group A. Their blood tends to be more alkaline. They are generally conservative, calm, and good at controlling themselves. Then there was a flood. People lost their land and were unable to eat vegetables and fruits. So, they moved uphill and started to hunt for animals. Meats made their blood to become acidic. To accommodate to the new environment, their blood group changed from group A to group O, the blood group that eats meat. People of blood group O have more acidic blood, and are generally crude, straightforward, easy to get angry and active.

After the flood, human beings brought the tamed animals back to the flat land and fed them there. They also started cultivation, started to exchange goods and trade for businesses. This enabled them to have the opportunity to taste variety of foods, and thus their diet became more balanced. Their blood group changed to group B, a more neutral blood. People of blood group B are generally more amiable, suave and friendly.

As people started to travel from one place to another for business trading, blood groups A, O and B started to mix through marriage. A new blood group AB was created as a result. Blood group AB is very unstable, as it can be converted back to A, B or O at their following generation. As such, people of blood group AB are generally having unstable moods and characteristics. They can be calm at one time but suddenly turn to become furious. They are sometimes amiable but self-centered.

Not only blood group affects our characteristics and personalities, it also determines what we should eat in order to stay healthy, for we will get sick if we eat wrongly. We should consider diet that matches our blood group.

Continue to Part 3...

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Blood group and diet (Part 1 of 3)

As we all know, in order to maintain a healthy and strong immune system, we have to strive to provide our body with balanced and sufficient nutrition such as carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, water and so on. However, each and every nutrient has different impact to our body. Some people might need more carbohydrate while others need lesser to maintain better health.

For instance, some people might need substantially more protein but lesser fat in their diet. However, in order to maintain so-called balanced diet and nutritional intake, these people eat everything. As such, their bodies are now lacking of sufficient protein and are thus unable to produce adequate immune cells. On the other hand, the excess intake of fat makes the immune cells to react slower in their bodies.

Excessive intake of a particular nutrient might improve the health of certain type of people. But in contrary, it might affect the health of other type of people. That is, every one of us has our very personal nutritional requirements. The so-called balanced nutrition should be taken according to individual body’s needs, rather than identical to everybody.

To maintain better health and have stronger immune system, there is this practice proclaiming that we need to eat according to our individual blood group, or blood type.

Continue to Part 2...

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Sore throat, ahhhhhh!!

What do you normally drink when you have sore throat? Try Honey Lemon Juice if you haven’t tried so.

Why? Honey has soothing, healing and anti-microbial properties that will bring quicker relief to the throat. Lemons contain a substantial amount of Vitamin C that speeds up the healing process and also help to cut mucus.

How to make it? Mix a teaspoon of honey into a glass of warm water. Add at least two (2) teaspoons of lemon juice and mix it thoroughly. Drink once daily until sore throat is cured.

Tip: Do not use boiling hot water as it will destroy some of the properties of the honey.

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The plastic fats: Trans Fats (Part 2 of 2)

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Maybe some of us are unaware of this fact, that consuming trans fats is almost like eating plastic, or swallowing chewing gum. This is because trans fats, plastic and chewing gum are all man-made products, and they are non-existent on earth. They are nearly non-biodegradable too. How come we don’t eat plastic or chewing gum but consume trans fats on the other hand?

Take a look at this video excerpt, at the bottom of this paragraph, from a documentary titled “Super Size Me,” where they carried an experiment to see how the McDonald's foods stay after 10 weeks. They purchased some McDonald’s burgers and fries, and regular burger and fries from the street, put them all inside transparent glass containers individually, and see how long the food would take to decompose. As the experiment goes on, we can see that all the buns and meats have got rotted overtime, but the fries still stay fresh looking, as if they were just being bought on the day itself. Even molds and bacteria don’t want to eat the trans fats that are covering the fries (trans fats prolong the shelf life of the fries), so why do we human beings eat them? After taking trans fats into our body, how does our body metabolize them normally? Not only trans fats can be used as source of fat, it’s also now being used as food preservative!



So, what types of foods contain trans fats?

• Spreads, such as margarine and shortening;
• Fast food, such as fries, fried chicken, burgers, pies, pizzas;
• Frozen food, such as frozen pies, pot pies, waffles, pizzas;
• Baked goods, such as doughnuts, cookies, cakes, pastries;
• Chips;
• Crackers;
• Popcorns;
• Breakfast cereals;
• Energy bars;
• Candy

In a nutshell:
Trans fats or hydrogenated fats are artificial. They are worse than saturated fat and our bodies don’t know what to do with them. They have a double negative effect on cholesterol as they increase LDL (bad cholesterol) and decrease HDL (good cholesterol). Remember, LDL clogs our arteries while HDL helps to clear them. Can we eliminate trans fats entirely from our diet? Probably not. Instead, our goal is to have as little trans fat in our diet as possible. Happy eating!

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The plastic fats: Trans Fats (Part 1 of 2)

The FATS family has many members, such as saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. Some of them are good, while others are bad; Some are natural fats, while others are simply artificial or man made. Trans Fats, or Trans-Fatty Acids, are largely artificial fats (a small amount of trans fats occur naturally in meat and dairy products) , and they are real bad fats! Trans fats are made by a chemical process called partial hydrogenation, where hydrogen atoms are added to liquid vegetable oil (an otherwise healthy monounsaturated fat) and converted into a solid fat. In short, it transforms liquid fats to become solid fats at room temperature. This makes what seemed an ideal fat for the food industry to work with because of its high melting point, its creamy, smooth texture and its reusability in deep-fat frying.

Because of its altered and enhanced properties, trans fats extend shelf life of food. They also add a certain pleasing mouth-feel to all manner of processed foods. Think of buttery crackers and popcorn, crispy french fries, crunchy potato chips, creamy frosting and melt-in-your-mouth pies, cakes and pastries. All these foods owe those qualities to trans fats.

Hydrogenated fats were initially seen as a healthier alternative to saturated fats: using margarine was deemed better for us than using butter, yet numerous studies now conclude that trans fats are actually worse. True, saturated fats raise total and bad (LDL) cholesterol levels. Trans fats do the same, but they also strip levels of good (HDL) cholesterol, the kind that helps unclog arteries. Trans fats also increase triglyceride levels in the blood, adding to our risk of cardiovascular disease. Basically, the more solid the fat at room temperature, the more it clogs our arteries.

Continue to Part 2...

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Is low-fat diet better? (Part 5 of 5)

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(Start from Part 1)

Since the past few decades, both the nutritionists and medical doctors have encouraged us to consume less animal oil or fat, including lard, butter, and chicken skin. However, this argument is debatable. It’s not wrong that many chronic diseases are caused by high consumption of oil and fat, but this is due to over 80% of the oil and fat that people consume today are those of bad oil and fat. Animal oil or fat is bad, but it’s not the worst. Many of us are unaware of this fact, thus avoiding animal oil or fat like the plague, but consuming other bad oil and fat in massive amount, and at the end continue to suffer from chronic diseases.

Oil can be divided in term of good and bad. If it’s good oil, it’s good for health even if we consume slightly more. However, even if it’s good oil, if we use it wrongly during the process of making or cooking, the good oil will turn bad oil. Many oils turn bad after high temperature cooking, like deep frying. Not only its property changes, it also releases toxins. Therefore, the question is not about how much oil or fat do we take, but rather in the consumption of good or bad oil.

How to tell which oil is good, or bad? Ha! See you next round!

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Is low-fat diet better? (Part 4 of 5)

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(Start from Part 1)

Many of the diabetic or high cholesterol patients, under the order by their medical doctors, are practicing low-fat diet, and their problems have become more and more serious at the end. Why is this happening? For diabetic patients, although they have reduced the consumption of both oil/fat and meat, the ratio of starch or carbohydrate in their diet has increased, thus controlling of their blood sugar level becomes even more difficult. For patients with high cholesterol, despite their meat consumption has reduced, they take in more pastry, kueh, biscuits, and so on, unawarely taking in more trans fat and free radicals. This makes their bad cholesterol level (LDL, or low-density lipoprotein) to increase even more than just by eating boiled meat in water.

Compared to the olden days, the days when our ancestors, or great great grandparents, or great grandparents, or grandparents, or even our parents, lived, we are eating better and more food now. Just do a simple Internet search, or visit some of our friends’ blogs, chances are we can find endless postings on what to eat and where to eat, and even how to eat. As such, our fat intake has also increased considerably when comparing to those olden days. In the olden days, oil, fat and meat were scarce and expensive items. People only ate them during festive season like New Year, for example. But today, we eat meat and oil every day. Because of this, many of the chronic diseases, like heart attack, stroke, diabetes, allergy and obesity, that were hardly heard of in those days, have become our very closed friends today. According to some researches done in the United States, many of these diseases are linked to our diet, especially related to the intake of “oil” in the food. The higher the consumption of fat and oil, the higher the chances of suffering from chronic diseases. This means chronic diseases are equivalent to fat and oil now. Animal oil or fat is ever being regarded as the prime culprit of chronic diseases in the medical industry.

Continue to Part 5...

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Is low-fat diet better? (Part 3 of 5)

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(Start from Part 1)

Low-fat diet is unnecessarily healthier. You see, fat is a very important substance to our body. Many of the body's building structure and physiological functions require fat. When fat intake is insufficient, our emotional will become unstable, immune system becomes weaker, blood sugar turns unstable, and consequently suffer from endocrine disorders, thus endangering our health. On top of that, reducing fat also reduces fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K to the body. This creates deficiency and many side effects will come by.

The problem with oil and fat is not of high or low consumption. Rather, it’s of the intake of good or bad fat/oil. If it’s of good fat/oil, it doesn’t harm as much even in larger intake (moderation is still preferred). On the other hand, we should stay as far as possible if the fat/oil is bad.

The problem with Anne in our example (refer to Part 1), or anyone of us who is on low-fat diet, is that, although she doesn’t consume much fat and oil, she consumes high amount of starch (breads, pastry, etc). This makes her gets hungry faster, and the tummy also gets bloated easier. The emotion also fluctuates with the rise and fall of the blood sugar in the body. All of these signs are that of a typical pre-diabetic state. For fat and oil, although she might have eliminated in her diet, she has in fact unawarely consumed large amount of trans fat when she takes her breads and biscuits. This makes her prone to future cardiovascular and chronic inflammatory diseases.

(Don’t worry if you don’t understand some of the terms like starch, blood sugar, trans fat, etc. We’ll look at each of them in the future. Remember, one step at a time.)

Continue to Part 4...

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Is low-fat diet better? (Part 2 of 5)

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Losing weight is always the ever-popular hot topic nowadays. Turn on the TV, or just flip through the newspapers and magazines, there are endless messages telling us that to look good we must lose weight. This weight-losing phenomenon has been changing the way we live, and it has even impacted the young generation. My skinny niece, who has just entered primary school, sometimes refuses to eat because she says she doesn't want to get fat. Scary!

Many people assume that eating lesser fatty and oily food can reduce the fat in their body, and thus practicing low-fat diet. They don't take food like chicken skin, fatty meat and even butter. This makes their face to look pale, emotionally unstable, and some even suffer from depression. On the other hand, some people are worried that they might suffer from chronic diseases, thus become very cautious with oil and fat. They believe strongly that low-fat diet means something good for their health.

So, is low-fat diet good? The answer is NO! No! No! No! Read with me: Low-fat diet is unnecessarily good. Why? OK, let's go on to find out the facts behind low-fat diet.

Continue to Part 3...

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Is low-fat diet better? (Part 1 of 5)

For the last couples of years, the body weight of Anne has been increasing every year. Compared to the time when she just started working, she has gained a massive 10kg over the years. Besides her colleagues reminding her about it, she also realizes that her body is going out of shape. Some of her friends tell her that this is so because she has taken in too much fat and oil in her diet. For this, Anne decides to get away from fatty and oily food. Hamburgers, deep fried chicken, french fries, pisang goreng, char kuoy teow, nasi lemak, curry, everything is now out of her diet. In deed, she takes only vegetable salads, breads, biscuits, pastry, cookies, or sushi in daily meal. Half a year passes, however, not only her tummy is getting more bloated and bigger, her emotion has also become unstable. She gets irritated and hot tempered easily on even the smallest matters. And when she is hungry, her hands and feet are feeling cool, and headache also sets in.

What is going on? Have I eaten something wrong? In the mind of Anne, there are simply more and more question marks...

Continue to Part 2...

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What? Vitamin pills are shortening my life?

It was very shocking when reading this 191-page review, dated 16 April 2008, titled Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases (file format: PDF, file size: 1.53 MB, click here to download). I believe many of us are taking multivitamin pills daily. Most doctors also take multivitamins themselves and recommend them to their patients. However, according to this review, it seems like we are doing more harm than good.

This review of 232,550 adults showed that those taking beta-carotene, vitamin A, C, and E and selenium gained no benefit over those who took placebos or no pills. "The findings show that, if anything, people in trial groups given beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality. There was no indication that vitamin C and selenium may have positive or negative effects."

The study was originally set up to see if antioxidant vitamin pills and minerals prevent gastrointestinal cancers. It found no protection whatever. Instead, an increased death rate of 16 percent was seen in those taking vitamin A pills, seven percent with beta- carotene, and seven percent with vitamin E. No increased death rate was seen in those taking vitamin C or selenium.

Most vitamins are parts of enzymes that start chemical reactions in our body. Each chemical reaction produces end products that are changed by further chemical reactions from other vitamins to other products that benefit our body. When we take a vitamin that has been isolated from the hundreds of other substances found in foods, that enzyme causes a chemical reaction that accumulates a disproportionate amount of its end products. If the substance that acts as an enzyme for the next chain of chemical reactions is not available, we can accumulate end products that may be harmful.

And don't forget that most of these antioxidant vitamins, like vitamin A and E, are fat soluble. That is, any unused portion will be retained by the body fat rather than being discharged from our body. When too much of these vitamins are being retained, they become toxic and poisonous, and we will suffer from that.

I visited the vitamins section of Guardian after lunch today and found that many of the multivitamin sold have very high dosage of certain vitamins and minerals. Some even go up to 500% or more than daily recommended intake. Unless we are consuming only vitamin pills and nothing else, can't we get those vitamins from our daily diet?

I've personally stopped taking all kind of supplementary vitamins and minerals for long time. Instead, I got them through natural food. But sometimes when I spot some deficiency, such as very dry lips, then I know I'm in need of vitamin B2, or riboflavin, I'll then pop vitamin B2 until recovery.

In a nutshell:

Try not to depend on pills for health well-being. After all, they are just supplements. Get vitamins and minerals through natural food instead. Otherwise, we might have to say goodbye earlier with this wonderful world.