Eating For Health

Who doesn’t enjoy a cup of hot tea, especially in winter?   Does tea have any health benefits?   Do different kinds of tea have different health benefits?   Yes.   An interesting article, in Environmental Nutrition discussed teas for various health reasons such as weight, insomnia and improving your immunity. Many people make health claims for herbal teas, but what health claims are true and reliable?    Weight – are there herbal teas that promote weight loss?   Green, white and oolong teas:   These 3 teas have chemicals in them called catechins .   In the lab at least, these chemicals do affect fat metabolism.   Green tea is especially rich in catechins.   Roobios tea :   This is a different tea, a red tea with a different chemical.   This one has the chemical, aspalathin.    One study showed it helped improve fat metabolism. Peppermint tea:   a real treat on a cold winter day.   The smell of   peppermint in this tea seems to help suppress one’s appetite.   Insomn

Making a resolution to lose a few pounds in 2017?   If so, what are the best diets to be on for those interested in dropping a few pounds?   So many weight loss diets are “bad” diets as they are fads, diets that take away food groups and take away nutrients.   Diets that don’t change your lifestyle but offer a quick solution but for many a temporary solution.   You may lose some weight but once you go “off” the diet, you gain the weight back.   US News & World Report not only ranks the best diets for overall health (last week’s blog topic) but also the Best Weight-Loss Diets .    What makes a weight-loss diet a winner?   The experts ranking the diets looked for both short and long term weight loss results.    They noted some diets did well in the short term, people lost weight on the diet, but long-term results, not so good.   A diet really isn’t successful if you gain all the weight back that you wanted to say good bye to.   What Weight Loss Diets were ranked the best by

What does “eating healthy” mean?   What are healthy diets to follow?   Not for weight loss or weight gain, but just a healthy eating pattern?   I recently heard a person say they were on an “anti-inflammatory” diet.    They had given up fruit and dairy – 2 important food groups for good health so already not a good choice.   Another person said they were eating healthy and following the Whole30 diet.   US News & World Report gives the Whole30 diet a poor rating and a low ranking.   Why?   The diet is quite restrictive and excludes grain (an important food group), dairy (another important food group), legumes, even peanut butter.   Any diet that excludes a food group, excludes nutrients that the food group provides, is not a healthy diet.   Each year, the US News & World Report evaluates the “Best Diets”.     For 2017, they evaluated 38 popular diets and determined which ones are best for your health and fitness.   What do they look for?   They use health experts to rank d

What are 4 nutrition habits you can adopt in 2017 that are easy and will lead to a healthier you?    So many people make New Year’s Resolutions with broad goals that they never attain.    Goals such as “I will lose weight.”   “I will exercise more.”    No specifics and no real changes in your habits.   What are some nutrition habits you can easily adopt in 2017 that will improve your health, the way you look and the way you feel?   Try adopting one of these habits a month and see how easy it is to eat healthier in 2017. Nutrition Habit #1:   Eat breakfast Eat breakfast every day.   So many people skip breakfast, send their kids off to school without any breakfast and then wonder why they feel so tired by 10 AM.   Breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day and the way to fuel up and “break the fast” of not eating all night. Whole grains – breakfast is a great time to add some whole grains to your day. Cereal – choose a whole grain cereal like oatmeal, Cheeri