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With the season of baking in full swing, we need to be reminded of a few proper food handling techniques that can make a healthier holiday season and less trips to the urgent-care for tummy troubles.  There are also a number of seasonal favorites that require either special ingredients or a specific handling method that I’ve found ways to make healthier.

I recently saw a news report discussing the importance of not eating cookie dough.   As you may know cookie dough contains raw egg which has been linked to salmonella outbreaks in the past.  However, the flour itself has recently been found to have traces of E. Coli.  This is especially important with prepared, refrigerated cookie dough which can often be mistaken as safe because of quality control during production. Consumers should also be aware of pre-made dough, since these products go through the same basic process as at home, only on a much larger scale.   It’s also important to clean the surfaces the cookie has come in contact with to prevent cross-contamination.

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Since I’m on the topic of egg safety, let’s not forget a seasonal favorite, Eggnog.  While I find it a guilty pleasure for the calories, I’d love to make this myself but didn’t know how to do so safely. The idea is to cook the eggs well, at least to 160 degrees and chill well overnight afterwards. I found a delicious recipe that avoids any contamination issues, and one that is kid friendly.  Let me know how your works out in the comment box below.  Enjoy!

In 14^th and 15^th century paintings you’ll see the ideal body image for women that was desired and respected- round stomach, modest breasts, and thick thighs- is on a completely different end of the spectrum from what is valued today. In the 1800s plump, full-figured, pear-shaped women were what every woman desired to look like and every man desired to have. Corsets became fashionable at this time because they accentuated a women’s shape. In the 1950s Marilyn Monroe, who was a size 16, sent the drive for this body style into full force. However, half a century later statistics show that 1/3 of women who are a size 12 think they’re overweight.

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All of this very scary but realistic information leaves every woman wondering how to achieve the perfect body. Many women today believe that starving themselves or exercising to the point of exhaustion is the way to accomplish this but there’s a much simpler way to do it. Although, exercising on a daily basis is beneficial for losing weight or achieving a ‘perfect’ figure the real reason any individual should strive to be in the gym should be for their health. Contrary to popular belief 90% of weight loss is correlated with eating habits, not dieting, rather than work-out regime.

Dieting isn’t the way to shed body fat; it’s changing your eating habits all together. The best way to go about this change is to learn ‘how’ to eat properly, learning what food(s) and what amount of each food is good for you, and what you need to avoid in order to keep the body fat off. Many experts agree that the best meat for women to eat is chicken or fish- and it is important to keep in mind safe preparation, since it is not just about losing weight but staying healthy. Researching these changes is the easy part. It is actually employing these changes into your daily lifestyle that can be difficult.

Although, running into the nearest fast food chain saves time and feeds your hunger you have to gain and utilize discipline if you really want to achieve and project a health body image. The best way to reduce body fat is to keep yourself from ever letting the unwanted calories into your body. You’ll be amazed at how much less you have to exercise once these changes have been made and enforced. If you have a well balanced diet and work-out plan you’ll be able to achieve whatever body style you desire. Your diet will provide the appropriate amount of nutrition while exercising will burn excess calories keeping you at a healthy weight and a body image you are happy with.

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I was frustrated to learn that the apparent lack of access to pertinent health information is a symptom of a greater problem 55+ population. The idea of being ‘older and wiser’ may be true in terms of life-experience but the speed and methods of information that is dispensed today, particularly in areas of health and wellness is at a quicker rate than ever. This information gap seems to be emanating from a generational digital divide and intimidation of the current computer and internet technology as was indicated in a recent study in France as well as a Pew report below.

65+ are the most under-served age group for important medical info online

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Everyday there are new health breakthroughs especially in the areas of longevity and aging. It’s at the point now where access to vital information is no longer a luxury, but an absolute necessity. For example, because of a terminal lung-disorder, my father-in-law was able to participate in an experimental drug trial for a new medication that my husband found out about only after  researching it on the web. It seemed to me that his pulmonologist would have known about this first, however even many doctors, especially older ones are at risk of being caught in this information gap.

The solution starts with helping older adults with computer literacy.  A trend towards “reverse mentoring” is being implemented in some workplaces such as GE, HP and Cisco. This method allows older adults, in this case, executives or older workers to team up with younger adults to be ‘tutored’ in recent technologies and social media among other things. This method can extend into the retirement population as community centers are now offering classes and workshops in everything from computer literacy to how to use smartphones.  There are now online resources for the rest of us in helping our older family members and friends in getting up to speed on these devices.

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Those of us with this valuable knowledge can help close the ‘digital divide’ that may exist for many older adults we care for. It can have life-saving consequences and result in a better quality of life.  Case in point:  my father-in-law was not only able to connect with and participate in that clinical trial, he helped advance the research necessary toward pending FDA approval for this much awaited medication.  Furthermore, he found his condition was nearly halted by the success of the drug and now he’s able to enjoy more time with his family and silly pics of the grandkid’s via email.

Weight and mass. Pounds and kilograms. The most important thing is that your bathroom scale is useful for you as an individual user. From my clicking around online, l have found various digital and analog and combination scales which are similar but not all the same.

My family has had the benefit of the services of a professional nutrionist for 2 separate stints over the years, for 2 of our children who needed help in this area. Actually when the nutritionist’s client is a child, she works with the food preparer/server of the household. l’m the “food lady” at my house and l had the opportunity to have these 2 positive experiences with nutritionists. We talked about all sorts of things and in our case the topic was not weight reduction. When the child was weighed bi-weekly or monthly what the nutritionist looked for was using the same scale, in the same way, consistently over time. Weigh ins at the pediatrition were also part of the overall plan however we didn’t compare number to number from the doctor’s office with the nutritionist’s scale’s results like apples to apples. We did look at trends and percentiles to get the real picture of how much progress was being made at the time if any. A few ounces got us jumping for joy at this stage in our lives. Again, thankfully we met with very good success with hard work, moral support and proper use of a tool called a scale. This brings us back to the topic of useful bathroom scales.

What do you want to do with your bathroom scale? Let it be a conscious, proactive reason that you can keep consistently in your mind over a period of time. Then look online for types of scales. Talk to friends and family, too. Give away or trade your scale with them if you are ready for a new scale in your bathroom. Oh and here is an idea, you don’t have to keep your scale in your bathroom if you want to shake it up a little bit at home. But where ever you put it, use it in the same place, the same way, to get a useful number.

Considering the human factors in actual use vs. perfect use of bathroom scales, this tip of consistent circumstances during the use of your scale is the best advice l can think of to help you make your scale useful even if it doesn’t have expensive bells and whistles and electronics.

Another side note is to realize that, even outside the laboratory, IRL “in real life”, mass and weight are different concepts. So if you expect your body composition to change due to the changes you are making in lifestyle (increase muscle mass or release fat deposits) please consider this when you look at adding a new scale to your routine.

Prevention Magazine, Moshe Morris, and apartmenttherapy.com have done some homework for us on brands of scales for your perusal.

...yowch!

How many people do you know who got a flu shot and immediately came down with the flu?  It’s one of the potential side effects of the flu vaccine.  How would you like to boost your immune system naturally and without side effects?  You can do just that and greatly reduce your changes of coming down with the flu, and other diseases as well.

While a host of medical studies have been done showing that tai chi does in fact boost the immune system, tai chi actually takes a multifaceted approach.  One of those ways is stress reduction.  Doctors tell us that excessive stress is a key factor in developing a variety of sicknesses.  Tai chi has been shown to be a very effective stress reducer.

As more and more research is done on tai chi, science is beginning to prove what the Chinese have been telling us for some time. “Tai chi supports and strengthens the entire body.”  There are medical studies demonstrating that tai chi can stabilize blood pressure, improve joint health, increase bone density, help us breathe better with increased lung capacity, even improve our balance among other things.

According to One Medical Study: “… what we are really testing is the overall immune memory [cell] and function. Since those memory cells are critical in a whole host of viral infections, I would expect these findings to generalize to other infections…”

According to a WebMD Medical News article by Daniel DeNoon written in September of 2003 titled “Tai Chi Each Day Keeps Shingles Away” stated that taiji practice seems to boost the overall immune system. In arriving at this conclusion the study noted a positive relationship between the risk of contracting shingles and Tai Chi. If you’ve had chickenpox, the virus never really goes away and you are at risk for shingles if your immune system dips. The study noted a 50% increase in associated immune cells, “enough to actually prevent shingles”.

Michael Irwin, MD of UCLA

Michael Irwin, MD of UCLA, conducted this study and states “But what we are really testing is the overall immune memory and function. Since those memory cells are critical in a whole host of viral infections, I would expect these findings to generalize to other infections …Shingles is a debilitating illness. There are no medical treatments to prevent shingles. No medical treatment has yet been shown to boost shingles immunity. This novel behavioral intervention – tai chi – may have those beneficial effects and it looked to us that the people who practice tai chi had improved ability to carry out day-to-day activities …”

As reported by the National Institutes for Health, a similar 2007 study was done by a team also lead by Dr Irwin. Testing done in conjunction with a vaccine for shingles, now available, found that tai chi alone had a similar increase in participants’ immunity to varicella as much as the vaccine typically produces in 30-40 year old adults … combined with the vaccine tai chi produced a significantly higher level of immunity, about 40 percent … over the vaccine alone.

Doing a Google search on tai chi medical studies yields about 334,000 results.  If you’d like to narrow that down just a bit.  There are a few other medical studies sited on my website at www.camptaichi.com/health-stories-medical-research.  You can also find interesting information by going to the Mayo Clinic’s site at www.mayoclinic.com and doing a search for “tai chi”.

So if you’re healthy and are thinking about getting a flu shot this year consider tai chi.  If your doctor has advised you to get a flu shot, go ahead and get it. Tai chi has also been shown to increase its effectiveness.

Anyone may copy this article and use it however they see fit, as long as it is copied in its entirety with all links, the author’s information, and this statement.  You may also email John@beginningtaich.net.

Thanks to some very talented and hip friends, we who are Health Patio welcome you heartily to our nice, new, healthy patio location. We have needed to grow, expand, and take a deep breath. Now, we did it and this is so exciting for us. It is a beautiful site, full of nifty features and insightful (and healthy) information.

The posts you’ll find on Health Patio are short, and our goal is to try to frame four to seven minutes of time whereby any visitor will be healthier in some way, if only for those minutes out of the day. Over the course of a month, this is about 2 healthy hours, and over a year’s time? That’s about one healthy day!

It would be great if we could list the names of all the people who gave suggestions, reported bugs, or contributed in some way, but the list would grow very long indeed. This new site was designed with the help of our community, to provide a better user experience with enhanced review tools, more visual appeal and higher performance. This site is truly a product of the Health Patio community and we want to thank everyone who made it happen. Kudos to each and every one of you!

We hope this new site will make it easier for all of us to find and share with each other in our virtual lawn chairs together — and make more informed decisions as we go about our daily lives. If you have comments or questions about the redesign, you are cordially invited to join the discussion!

Is corn a healthy vegetable?  Obviously it’s a major ingredient – I used corn meal today in a recipe in fact- and its derivatives fuel an uncountable number of people, animals and machines.  Original to the Americas, corn is a traditional food of cultures situated in modernity and of cultures that remain aboriginal.

But I’m worried about additives to a popular food- popcorn.  The offender? diacetyl.

A study commissioned by the Seattle P-I (online newspaper) shows that top-selling butter substitutes, when heated, release vapor from a chemical additive called diacetyl. When inhaled, this vapor has been linked to a rare, sometimes fatal respiratory disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. Yes, many brands have elimiated this additive but there is still the aspect of the professional cook or chef who uses products containing diacetyl constantly over heat as a condition of their employment.  No one outside the industry is examining what consumers and workers who pop corn in theaters, discount stores, school gyms and fairgrounds are being exposed to.

The diacetyl vapors from some of the products are released in such volume that they could pose a significant risk to professional cooks who stand over hot grills or skillets for hours and use large amounts of these butter substitutes, according to the analysis. source

The great societal debate about cloth versus disposable diapers isn’t as simple as it might seem. Concerned parents should consider the process of production as well as the disposal of the diaper, and keep in mind that the most environmentally friendly choices usually are the best for your baby’s health. While disposable and cloth are the most well known options, there are others to be aware of too. I have listed a few types of nappies, a brief description and some resources.

Cloth diapers: Cloth diapers are classic – my parents used them with me! They are well known for not being very absorbant. On the plus side these children tend to potty train more quickly, but are notoriously more messy. According to www.punpkinbutt.com, a baby will only need 3 to 5 dozen cloth diapers over a 2.5 year period. You don’t even have to wash them yourself! 42 of the 50 states have some diaper delivery services – they pick up soiled diapers and drop off clean ones! Finally, because their imprint on the landfill is minimal, a recent study released by ABC has found that cloth diapers are have a much smaller ecological imprint. Still they do require varying amounts of water to wash and dry them, this part is up to you and the efficiency of your washing machine.

Disposable diapers: Disposable diapers have come a long way. They are fully absorbant and comfortable, come in a range of sizes and colors, and are irresistable convenient. You may not know, however, that most disposables are bleached and made of unearthly plastics and toxins (like dioxin, Tributyl-tin (TBT)), known to contain carcinogens and cause athsma and rashes! And think of the amount of money and landfill space you could save by switching to disposables:

• In 2005, there were approximately 4.1 million births in the U.S.
• Children are usually potty trained by the time they are 2.5 years old.
• If these children go through 8 diapers a day in the first year on average and 4 diapers a day in the second year and a half
• 4.1 million children x ((8 times a dayx365days a year)+(4 times a day x548 days in a year and half))=20,459,200,000!
• Thats over 20 billion diapers if each of these children were to use disposable!

Thankfully, Bio-degradable, disposable diapers offer a third option, which may seem like a silver bullet but has its own downsides. While free of most toxins, they don’t actually biodegrade without the proper conditions (not a landfill). Still check out Seventh Generation or Nature Boy and Girl.

Joel’s words: Whether or not you believe carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming or not, it is harmful to the environment and reducing your carbon footprint is a great idea.

I evaluated myself at one of the several sites mentioned [Carbon Footprint], one that is based out of the UK but has data to compare me to my peers here in central U.S.A. The calculations for the primary emissions are based on a combination of metrics from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the UK’s Department for Transport, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). P.s. it was fun.

I gave US dollar figures for various types of fuel (electricity, coal, natural gas, LP, others) use at home and the results:

Total for your home = 7.437 tonnes of CO2
Total for your cars = 3.124 tonnes of CO2
Total secondary footprint = 4.813 tonnes of CO2
Total = 15.374 tonnes of CO2

* The average footprint for people in United States is 20.4 tonnes.
* The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes.
* The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes.
* To combat climate change the worldwide average needs to reduce to 2 tonnes.

The final stage of the evaluation reveals several options to donate to offset one’s personal carbon footprint!

The 19th Annual Weber GrillWatch Survey says 31 percent of American grill owners are grilling meat more than they were a year ago because they are “trying to eat healthier.” Nearly 40 percent said they are grilling leaner meats, more vegetables (38 percent), more poultry (34 percent) and more fish (22 percent) than they did a year ago. Meanwhile, six percent indicated they are grilling more meat substitutes such as veggie burgers and tofu, and 5 percent are grilling more fruit, although women are more likely to do so than men.

Grilling is growing in popularity, evidenced by the following factors, among others:

–Fifty-seven percent of all grill owners say they grill throughout the year. Among owners of different grill types, those who use electric grills (65 percent), gas stand-ups (61 percent) and smokers (60 percent) most often are more likely to define “grilling season” as year-round than charcoal grill owners (53 percent)

–Americans are grilling more times per week. Seventy-one percent report they use their grill “at least once a week” during their grilling season (up from 69 percent last year), and 47 percent say they fire it up “at least a few times per week,” compared with 43 percent last year

The Weber GrillWatch survey, conducted by third-party Greenfield Online, polled 1,000 grill owners. All respondents were more than 21 years of age and own a gas, charcoal or electric barbecue grill or smoker.

To view the study in more detail, click here.
By Tom Johnston on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 For Meatingplace.com.