Diet Archives

Should You Buy Organic Chocolate?

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 8:26 am 
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Most of us love our chocolate. But did you know there are significant differences between the supermarket varieties, and certified organic chocolate. Commercial interests try to dupe us into believing their product is the real thing, when it left that blissful state long ago on the way to the Supermarket.

Fair Trade

When it comes to chocolate, most of us are aware that when Europeans first took this fruit to Africa, there was child slave labor involved in Cocoa production. These days many farmers use their children to help them take care of their farms, but unfortunately unscrupulous chocolate companies such as Nestle and Hersheys, are more interested in short term profits, than the welfare of African children! Recently Cadbury announced that they are switching over to Fair Trade Chocolate after intense lobbying from consumer and green groups. Most organic chocolate, on the other hand, is certified free trade. Those wanting a clear conscience when eating chocolate will wish to make sure their favourite brand is fair trade certified!

Pesticides and Toxins

Chocolate in its raw form has been shown to have relatively low levels of toxins such as lead. Unfortunately, this is not the case after processing.  Here is the result of one study.

“What’s interesting is that cocoa beans tested had an average lead concentration of < 0.5 ng/g, “one of the lowest reported values for a natural food,” the study points out. But, by contrast, “lead concentrations of manufactured cocoa and chocolate products were as high as 230 and 70 ng/g.”

“In fact, a team of American and Nigerian researchers found that lead levels in raw cocoa beans were 60 times lower than lead levels observed in processed chocolate products, the Chicago Tribune reports”.

Chocolate absorbs everything from its environment. That means that toxic substance used in manufacture are going to get into the chocolate!

Certified Organic Chocolate comes from areas where pesticides are not used. It may still have residues, but they are generally much lower. Organic chocolate is generally not processed using chemicals, often a larger source of contamination than those in the growing environment.

Additives

When selecting an organic chocolate, make sure they are not using refined sugar in the production. Commercial chocolates have quite a few additives. Here is the list from Cadbury dark Chocolate.

Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Milk Solids, Emulsifiers (Soya lecithin, 476), Flavour. May contain traces of Nuts. Dark Chocolate contains Cocoa solids 45%.,

Unfortunately, with no certified foods, including chocolate, there is no requirement to list pesticides, herbicides, lead or other heavy metals in the product. Even the ingredients listed can come from many sources, and may be very detrimental to human health. Omission is a common practice amongst food giants to avoid scrutiny!

Conclusion

When all is said and done, Organic Chocolate is a better alternate to Commercial varieties. It does cost more and Dagoba sells a 56.7 gram square for $6.95 a piece.

Organic chocolate has many advantages, particularly if it is cold pressed and may retain much of the antioxidant and other nutrient value of the raw cocoa bean.

Chava is an organic, free trade, cold processed chocolate, combined with a natural mood enhancer and Activated Liquid Zeolite to provide a delicious combination of heavy metal detox and high potency antioxidants in the one product. This sets a new standard in teh power of chocolate for health. Click the link to learn more about Chava Chocolate with Zeolite

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Atkins Diet – Suggested Exercises To Complement

Saturday, May 1st, 2010 at 1:07 am 
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There’s a lot of attention paid in the Atkins diet program towards food and cooking. It is true that your food options on the diet are of maximum implication. But lots of folk make the error of ignoring exercising.

The just released Atkins food pyramid shows the meaning of exercising. It shows a rise in food options with elevated activity. Exercising is critical on the Atkins diet, and crucial for everyone’s general health.

Exercising is beneficial to body, mind and soul. It’s got numerous major benefits, even at limited levels.

It not only burns calories but it promotes your constitution and gains circulation. It is particularly vital to all low carbohydrate weight control programs as it manages blood sugar levels. Physical activity is vital for Atkins diet success. Studies have verified that inactive people have intense insulin reactions to even reasonable amounts of carbs. This implies that exercise doesn’t only help you to lose weight, it’ll aid you in keeping it off too. exercise will teach your body how to process the carbs in your diet.

When you exercise regularly, you are going to be able to eat more carbs over time because your body will use them efficiently. There are 2 base kinds of exercising: aerobics and anaerobic exercising.

Aerobic exercising’s primary goal is to enhance your heart beat rate. This is the cause of your body to consume more oxygen and it gives your cells a fresh oxygen supply. If you have been without exercising for some time, many of these cells have been deprived. Aerobicise will regenerate them and help you to feel better in instances when you are not exercising.

if you have been inactive for some time, it might take a little time to become used to your new aerobic exercise programs. You might want to get some recommendation from your first care doctor or a pro aerobics instructor. Make efforts to begin gently to give yourself a bit of time to adapt to your new movements.

It’s necessary that you find out how to stretch and heat up properly to obviate muscle strain. These activities will not lead to a lot of stress on your body, but they’ll get your heart moving.

For instance, if you’re beginning a walking program start by walking four blocks. Your body will reply well to the exercise after all of your body was intended to move. Most of the exercises in this class increase muscle mass. Weightlifting and force coaching are examples of anaerobic exercises. Working out with weights is a important part of shedding pounds. As you lose fat, you will need to swap it for muscle to stay lean.

Do not be scared of working out with weights. If an exercising schedule is not part of your weightloss efforts, you are setting yourself up for failure. Make a pledge to integrating exercise into your weightloss efforts and you may see the results right away.

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Cholesterol and Triglycerides – Important Things To Know

Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 7:16 am 
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More and more people are becoming aware of the real danger obesity poses and have begun to take much better care of themselves.

One aspect that people need to know more about is cholesterol and triglycerides.

The common misperception is that all cholesterol is bad, but in fact there is both good and bad cholesterol that play different roles in your body.

It is very important that everyone truly understands what cholesterol and triglycerides really are and how they affect the body so that can make intelligent decisions regarding treatment . To keep it simple, there are two types of cholesterol to be concerned about, LDL and HDL.

LDL And HDL

The bad cholesterol is know as LDL and this is the one responsible for building up in the arteries which feed the heart and brain with blood and oxygen .

In addition, LDL can work with other substances in the body to form plaque which is a thick, hard deposit that can eventually clog the arteries causing a condition known as atherosclerosis.

On the flip side, HDL is considered to be the good cholesterol, HDL is needed by the body and in healthy levels will actually protect against a heart attack and too low a level will allow LDL to build up and increase the risk of heart attack .

Triglycerides

When discussing cholesterol there is one other factor you should consider and that is triglycerides.

Triglycerides are a fat that can be found naturally in food, but are also created by our bodies . The triglyceride level plays a vital role because the higher our triglyceride level the higher the bad cholesterol LDL and the lower the good cholesterol HDL .

I t is very important to have your levels check regularly in order to keep yourself healthy and fit. Everyone’s health is affected to a large extent by cholesterol and you need to know when your LDL levels are too high, when your HDL levels are two low or when you have a combination of both. It is also a good idea to know when your body is healthy.

Sometimes checking your levels regularly isn’t enough as these levels can change dramatically and quickly . If you were checked about a month ago it doesn’t mean you are still healthy today. So it is important to make LDL and HDL levels a part of your regular checkup at the doctors office.

This way you can stay on top of your health and know when you need to make the necessary lifestyle changes to prolong your life and reduce your risk of heart disease. You doctor can recommend the necessary lifestyle changes and medications that you may need if they find you have high or low levels.

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