Month: June 2016

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, wish I could remember which one, and the host was talking about how good berries are for you because they are high in flavonoids.

Flavanoids are a type of antioxidant that will help your body heal itself. They are anti-inflammatory as well as being very detoxifying within our body.

As you can imagine, or probably attest to, whatever you hear or see lately will stick with you. So this afternoon I was thinking of the flavonoids as I was putting together a mid afternoon smoothie.

Some of the  best sources of these flavonoids are dark berries, and I have plenty of dark berries in the freezer. Also I have been taking in more flax seen and trying to improve my protein so this smoothie is a bit of a shitmix but I liked it a lot.

Berry, Peanut Butter, and Seed Fruit Smoothie

So here is what I used in the smoothie

• 1 Cup of Mixed Berries
• 1 Tablespoon Ground Flax Seed
• 1 Tablespoon Hemp Seeds
• 1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
• 1 or two cups of Raspberry Juice

 

So you have to wonder, how does this taste?

Well the hemp seeds, like the Natural Peanut Butter really add a nutty quality to the smoothie which is nice to me as the fruitiness is overpowering in a fruit smoothie with just fruit juice.

I liked it a lot.

As for the nutrition in this smoothie there is a lot to say. Here is a breakdown.

Hemp seeds – We have these in our fridge and they have become popular over the last couple years it seems.

There are a lot of hemp seed benefits like vitamin E and minerals such as phosphorus, potassium, sodium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, iron and zinc. I have made an Antioxidant Smoothie with them before

Flax seeds – Ground flax seeds are high in soluble as well as insoluble fiber. This will help with digestion and cleaning of the intestinal walls. I have been taking a tablespoon or so for the last few days.

Berries – Of course berries are really good for you. They are high in vitamin C as well as other nutrients and I was most interested in the flavonoids today that would really be a strong antioxidant.

Natural peanut butter – My wife and I eat natural peanut butter although the kids stick with the crappy stuff.

What we like most about natural peanut butter is that it really is just peanuts ground up until they are a butter while the other kinds are filled with sugar and other oils to make them creamier.

The other benefit of this smoothie is a lot of very healthy fats. Those Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, and a decent amount of protein thanks to the seeds and peanut butter

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I found this article at Sign on San Diego. It is a geat article on the value of these “other” egg products that we see in stores. I only eat eggs on the weekend when I am hungry for a bigger breakfast with the kids and have always wanted to know more about these eggs. I bought them once and they tasted like eggs but just never bought them again…

Remember the days when shopping for eggs was just a question of large or jumbo?

The Emergence of 100 Types of Eggs

Today’s supermarkets present dizzying choices: “free-roaming,” “omega-3,” “100 percent organic,” “cage-free,” “compatible with cholesterol-reducing diet,” “natural sunlight,” “hand-gathered,” “vegetarian diet,” “high vitamin E,” “humane harvest,” “vegetarian hens with roosters.”

It’s a trend born of the egg’s new and improved nutritional rap and fueled by the zeal of low-carb dieters. And these designer eggs bear designer prices.

So what makes them different? It boils down to two things: what the hens eat and how they are housed.

The speciality eggs getting the most attention are from hens fed a diet engineered to cut down on the yolks’ fat and cholesterol and to boost certain nutrients especially omega-3 fatty acids, which studies have linked to heart, brain and eye health.

Flax, kelp, marine algae and vitamin E supplements are most often cited as the diet additives that enhance eggs’ omega-3 nutritional profile. Marigolds boost the amount of lutein, which may promote good vision, as well as giving the yolks a more intense hue.

The nation’s top-selling enhanced eggs, Eggland’s Best, boast 100 milligrams of omega-3 in each egg, almost three times the typical 35 milligrams, as well as 25 percent less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. They also claim 180 milligrams of cholesterol, as opposed to the typical egg’s 215, and 10 times the amount of vitamin E.

Eggland’s Best says a special diet of grains, canola oil, rice bran, alfalfa meal, kelp and vitamin E is behind its pumped-up eggs, which generally cost more than twice as much as regular eggs.

The cost doesn’t appear to be deterring buyers. Eggland’s Best reported a 21 percent sales increase in 2004.

Are the nutritional claims accurate? Last year Consumer Reports tested the amounts of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA and vitamin E in a popular specialty brand, Gold Circle Farms Cage Free eggs. The tests found the nutrients to be in line with the claims on the label.

In terms of whether the benefits justify the cost, though, the picture is a little less clear.

Some types of omega-3 fatty acids are more helpful to the body than others. Many of the high-omega-3 eggs contain only a less potent type called ALA, and some don’t contain EPA, which the American Heart Association recommends along with DHA for the best heart benefits.

Certainly, oily cold-water fish such as salmon are a better source of DHA. Consumer Reports notes you would have to eat more than a dozen of the Gold Circle eggs a week to get the amount of DHA you would get in two 3-ounce servings of farmed Atlantic salmon.

And even if you’re avoiding high-oil fish because of fears of mercury contamination, the magazine said, fish oil pills are cheaper than the designer eggs.

But Anne Van Beber, associate professor and chairman of the department of nutritional sciences at Texas Christian University, believes it’s “always better to get your nutrients in food because they’re packaged along with other nutrients that work in synergy.”

For someone who won’t eat fish, like her son, she said, eggs are an excellent way to get more omega-3s.

“I feed my son an egg almost every day,” said Van Beber. She’s “a big fan of eggs in general” for their protein, vitamin and mineral content. And, although she complains about their cost, she buys the omega-3-enhanced Eggland’s Best or Eggs Plus.

“I really do think in the long run it’s worth it to pay the extra price for the DHA, the EPA and the extra vitamin E,” she said.

Van Beber is one consumer who thinks the enhanced eggs “taste really fresh and have more flavor,” though taste tests tend not to bear her out. A blind taste test last year by the San Francisco Chronicle food staff, for example, didn’t find any significant differences in flavor among 19 brands of specialty and regular eggs.

There’s little doubt in the minds of many consumers that true “yard eggs,” from pasture-raised hens, taste richer than regular supermarket eggs, but it’s unlikely that any eggs you buy at the grocery came from hens that wandered the barnyard, pecking and scratching.

“Cage-free” simply means the hens’ coops don’t crowd them so closely into a confined space that they can’t move around. If the eggs are “free-range,” that probably means the coops have openings that let the hens roost outside.

“Fertile eggs” indicates the hens get to interact with roosters.

Is it worth it to pay extra for better poultry living conditions? There’s probably less risk of bacterial contamination in eggs from hens that aren’t crowded closely into cages, but for many it simply boils down to humane considerations.

There’s more on the horizon for designer eggs. In Canada, the Edmonton Journal reports University of Alberta researchers are developing an egg with an immunoglobulin that may reduce allergic reactions to the gluten in wheat.

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Many people deal with panic attacks that make them live a fearful, frustrating life.

These types of attacks can come on fast without much warning, but to live a beautiful healthy life a person must understand that they can find help for panic attacks by using one of these two different treatment methods.

The important thing that anyone who experiences panic attacks must remember is that a particular treatment method might work for one person while another person might need to use a different method because nobody is exactly the same.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

The first method that a person might want to try is called cognitive behavioral therapy.

This type of therapy is performed by a psychotherapist. In the sessions that are between the psychotherapist and the panic attack patient the goal is to come up with the cause of why the panic attacks happen.

The psychotherapist also digs deep into the way the person feels before and during the time of having a panic attack because this helps them build a program that will help the person be able to handle their fears and nervousness.

If a person can handle these issues they can handle panic attacks in a more successful manner.

Self Treatment

Another method that a person might want to try is called self-treatment.

This form of treatment can take some time, but a person can learn how to handle panic attacks by understanding themselves better.

A person must reach into their own minds and figure out how they felt before and during panic attacks so they can try to eliminate attacks from happening over and over again.

Another thing is that if a person builds up their self-confidence and learns how to take more control of their minds they can possibly learn to control panic attacks.

Panic attacks are very common and occur in many people’s lives, but if you suffer from these undesirable attacks you can get treatment.

When you are seeking help for panic attacks you should know that these are only two different methods that you can use to learn to control and handle your attacks.

Thankfully, there are many others because everyone is different thus you just need to find the one that works best in your own life. If you have these kinds of attacks do your research and seek professional help if you can’t find a solution that leads you to living a beautiful healthy life.

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