And we're not talking about your mental health because you haven't looked at anything but spreadsheets for four days. We're talking about your physical health.
As you wind down your day in front of your computer sitting at your desk, take a moment and look down at your keyboard. You could be looking at something that is dirtier than the toilet seat in the bathroom down the hall. This means eating lunch in front of your computer might be a health hazard!
According to British microbiologist James Francis four of 33 keyboards he tested were potential health hazards and one had germs at a level five times higher than that found on the toilet seat.
Makes me want to dip my laptop in a bleach solution and never eat at my desk again.
Of course, that's not possible when your boss's demands are forcing you to wolf down a sandwich at your desk through lunch. Just make sure to wash your hands, don't let other co-workers touch your keyboard, and my best advice is to eat lunch with utensils, not your hands.
You've seen them before. Those fliers tacked onto telephone poles (wait, do such things still exist?!), duct taped to street light posts, or even stapled onto the bulletin board in your doctor's office: "Wanted: women for a [insert health condition here] study."
You've never thought about actually volunteering for one of those studies.
If you're a foodie at all, the news that spices have health benefits will come as no news to you. But if you're like me, you tend to forget exactly which spice is good for what, and when, and....how. And when you get a cold you're not sure whether to eat that garlic whole or brew it into tea...or infuse it with....anise...or what?
Ode Magazine this month as just the article to help. You can link to it here: Be a clever one and print it out now, maybe slip it into your spice drawer for future reference.
Some highlights we all love to hear again and again:
Turmeric is sometimes called the "Asian aspirin," used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries for its properties as an anti-inflamatory and anti-oxident.
Ginger is good for morning sickness and will help lower blood pressure.
In every achiever's life there comes a time to go off the life-source. Diet. Health. A simple need to just calm down for a few weeks. There are lots of good reasons for cutting out coffee, I suppose. The trouble lies more in the hows rather than the whys.
The Diet Blog shows you how. And very well, too, I might add. I might possibly even take some of these suggestions. Possibly. Maybe sometime next week. Right now I'm really busy and...can't...
Here. Drink these down:
Substitute green tea -- its big taste and heady caffeine count can help you ween yourself off those four cups a day.
Address the social aspect of coffee - suggests drinks you can nurse instead of coffee while chillaxing with your friends at a cafe.
Avoid the carbs -- to prevent that mid-afternoon crash, reducing your desperate need for another cuppa joe.
All very solid suggestions, indeed. And there are others worth checking out on the site. Just be sure you're actually ready to take the plunge.
Now excuse me. It's almost time for my 3 p.m. Starbucks...
I'm getting old, Slashfood friends. I'm not quite old yet, but I'm getting old, and I can see the signs of it on my face. I am beginning to see fine lines that will eventually turn into -- it makes me sigh -- wrinkles.
But maybe I don't need to worry because aside from all the $500-an-ounce skin serums out there, I just came across a pizza that supposedly reverses the aging process. The pizza, out of Italy, claims "anti-aging" because there is three times more fiber, higher magnesium and iron, and has specially chosen ingredients with anti-oxidant properties that reverse the aging process (tomatoes, spinach, zucchini, basil, mushrooms, carrots). Granted, the "formula" for this pizza was created by a nutritionist and a restaurant owner, so obviously there is a marketing angle to this.
However, I would propose that the thicker the fat layer under your skin, the shallower wrinkles will stay, so simply put, just eat more pizza.
The foods were chosen based on sheer caloric impact alone, because in the end, it all comes down to the number of calories we consume and burn. However, some "allowances" were made for excessive carbohydrates and fat, added sugars, trans fats, and sodium. After all their calculations, the Aussie Cheese Fries weigh in at 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Even if you do the polite thing and share the order with three other people, your starter alone will already put you over a dinner's worth of calories before the server even brings your entree to the table.
So I guess that means, order the Aussie Fries and a glass of water for dinner, right?
Perhaps one of the reasons we're having trouble with our efforts at weight loss is that we can't visualize what we are consuming. In other words, when you look at a plate of fried chicken with a heaping scoop of mashed potatoes and a brick of mac n cheese, you can't really tell how much fat and how many calories you're about to consume.
Website Foodsel is a tool that not only gives you detailed nutritional information of popular foods, but lets you visualize energy, sugar, and fat. For example. if you were to eat an entire 12" Pizza Hut cheese pizza, you'd be consuming 4.4 sugar cubes, one entire stick of butter, and would have to burn the equivalent of 87.5 D batteries. That's a lot of energy to burn.
The saying is that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but it never specified which kind. According to research from Chang Y. Lee of Cornell University, apples, as well as bananas and oranges, might keep brain doctors away. Antioxidant compounds found in those fruits seem to prevent neurotoxicity in cells. In other words, eating apples, bananas and oranges "may be beneficial to improve effects in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's."
I know the words genetic and engineering in the same sentence are very frightening to some. Until recently I was opposed to it myself, and I still have some reservations. But in light of all the benefits we've gained from tinkering with vegetable genes, I think we should give it a chance. Lets start with super carrots.
Scientists working at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas have developed a carrot that will deliver 41% more calcium than a regular carrot. To do it, they altered a gene which lets the vegetables calcium flow more easily through its membranes. This modification alone wouldn't get you 100% of the recommended daily calcium, but any little bit helps; especially if you are allergic to dairy.
There is a lot more testing to be done before the super carrots are ready for mass consumption. But as scientists find more health hazards in high fat diets, this may be one of the best ways to get the calcium you need while avoiding high fat dairy products. In the future, the slogan for osteoporosis prevention may be "Eat Your Carrots!"
Out of politeness, we normally don't point and scream such obvious statements to the people around us, but we just might have to. It seems that many parents are in total denial about their own children's obesity.
Research firm Knowledge Networks conducted a survey of 2,060 adults then collected height and weight measurements on the children from their parents to calculate body mass index. The comparison of what parents said about their children's weight -- "about right," "slightly overweight," "very overweight" -- was different from what the research firm calculated.
That's slightly alarming, given that obese children are susceptible to diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol problems. Overweight children are likely to grow up to be overweight adults with the same issues. What's more alarming is that children are open to changing their dietary habits to improve, but if their parents don't help them because they can't even see a problem, well, then, that's a problem.
We all know that the Food Pyramid under went a makeover a few years ago, both in cosmetics to make it easier to understand, as well as content for updates to health and nutrition needs. However, a specially targeted Food Pyramid for older adults hasn't gotten an update in 10 years -- until now.
The new pyramid takes into account two things. With the assumption that older people are less web-savvy, the new pyramid, made available online, has more graphics and is easier to understand. We will make no comment about the "dumbing down" of web tools for older people.
The slightly more useful change is in the content of the pyramid itself. Older adults need to get enough fiber, calcium and vitamins D and B-12 via nutrient-rich fare, like fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and high-fiber whole grains. The pyramid also emphasizes the importance of regular exercise and adequate fluid intake.
Well, you knew that at some point, the mass producers of cheap, grocery store chocolate were going to have to do something about hopping aboard the "chocolate is healthy" train. Let's face it, even with the claim that yes, chocolate is healthy, no person in his or her right mind would actually try to justify eating a Snickers bar, a bag of M&Ms, or a handful of Hershey's Kisses by saying they were doing it for his or her health. It's dark chocolate that usually has all the health benefits, and I'm still pretty sure that the tiny Special Darks inside the bag of Hershey's Miniatures doesn't count either.
I saw the bag of Hershey's Antioxidant Milk Chocolate at my local grocery store when I was hunting around the shelves for -- I must confess, a bag of Twix. They're not actually in the same place, so I have no idea how I cam across this new stuff from Hershey's, but I did. Even though the packaging says "Natural Flavanol," I was pretty sure that the flavanol was very much unnaturally added to really up its antioxidant power. Health claims thus far have been for dark chocolate, so how would they have it in Hershey's milk chocolate version?
According to a new report by the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America," the fat belt stretches through the South and into the Southwest, but the heaviest children are found in Washington D.C.
Is it surprising? Not really, since we are well aware of nutrition and physical activity levels of children. Nonetheless, it's still pretty disturbing. According to the Washington Post, which reports the story, "today's children are likely to be the first generation to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents" if the obesity rate doesn't turn around.
One of my worst habits, or lack of habit, to be more precise, is drinking enough water. Now that it's on my list of "Make sure you do this," along with taking vitamins, eating more fiber, and cutting down on table salt, you know I'm going to go to my usual OCD addictive extreme and drink too much water.
Sportline's Hyrdo Water Bottle is like a portable water drinking coach that reminds you to drink water because you're carrying it with you, and tells you how much water you really need with a built-in "hydration calculator." Based on your height and weight, you may find that the optimal amount may not even be 8 to 10 glasses. The "Sip Tracker" feature can track how much water you're taking in over the course of the day, so you don't over- or underdo it.
Available from the HydraCoach website for $29.95. For that much cash for a water bottle, you better believe I'll be making good use of it!
It has been amusing for me to watch the popularity of dark chocolate grow. Remember when you were a little kid and Mom would buy the family those bags of Hershey's Miniatures so that everyone in the family could get what they want? In most cases, the bag of Miniatures experiences the "Special Dark Effect" -- the clear plastic bag is empty of all the Krackels, Mr Goodbars, and Milk Chocolates, and the Special Dark sits there until the bloom on it turns it into white chocolate because no one liked dark chocolate. Not in my family, The Special Dark chocolates always went first because I ate them all in one sitting. All the other kids' mouths were smeared over with sickeningly sweet milk chocolate, and i was just...weird.
As an adult now, I am not so into dark chocolate, and I think it has to do with how health-trendy it has become. You see, I am allergic to trendy food, and now that dark chocolate is almost luxury item and it's "hip" to be into 60%, 70%, even 80% cacao chocolates, I am *meh* about it.
Nonetheless, I was willing to give Dove's new line of Origins chocolates a try. The line of chocolate bars and squares are 61% cacao with pure cocoa beans from Ecuador, Ghana or the Dominican Republic. I tried all three, but to be quite honest, I couldn't really tell the difference in flavors. I just sort of expected the Dominican Republic bar, wrapped in paper printed with dark fuschia and flowers, to taste like...berries.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
And we're not talking about your mental health because you haven't looked at anything but spreadsheets for four days. We're talking about your physical health.
You've seen them before. Those fliers tacked onto telephone poles (wait, do such things still exist?!), duct taped to street light posts, or even stapled onto the bulletin board in your doctor's office: "Wanted: women for a [insert health condition here] study."
If you're a foodie at all, the news that spices have health benefits will come as no news to you. But if you're like me, you tend to forget exactly which spice is good for what, and when, and....how. And when you get a cold you're not sure whether to eat that garlic whole or brew it into tea...or infuse it with....anise...or what?
In every achiever's life there comes a time to go off the life-source. Diet. Health. A simple need to just calm down for a few weeks. There are lots of good reasons for cutting out coffee, I suppose. The trouble lies more in the hows rather than the whys. 
Perhaps one of the reasons we're having trouble with our efforts at weight loss is that we can't visualize what we are consuming. In other words, when you look at a plate of fried chicken with a heaping scoop of mashed potatoes and a brick of mac n cheese, you can't really tell how much fat and how many calories you're about to consume.
I know the words genetic and engineering in the same sentence are very frightening to some. Until recently I was opposed to it myself, and I still have some reservations. But in light of all the benefits we've gained from tinkering with vegetable genes, I think we should give it a chance. Lets start with super
"Hey, your kids are obese!"
We all know that the Food Pyramid under went a makeover a few years ago, both in cosmetics to make it easier to understand, as well as content for updates to health and nutrition needs. However, a specially targeted Food Pyramid for older adults hasn't gotten an update in 10 years -- until now. 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
