Friday, November 09, 2012
Monday, November 05, 2012
About Hospital CompareSunday, November 04, 2012
Benefits of drinking Tea..... so ooooolong!
An Ancient Powerful Beverage for Daily Health
For thousands of years, many cultures have used the health benefits of tea in all aspects of their daily life.
Produced from the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis, tea is one of the most popular beverages on the planet – second only to water in consumption. Every country in the world drinks tea in one form or another.
Skin care companies tout the anti-aging qualities of tea, adding extracts of various teas to skin creams, soaps and moisturizers.
It has been used as an effective home health remedy for generations to soothe indigestion and calm diarrhea.
Tea fosters a calm mood while simultaneously revitalizing your brain’s ability to focus and think clearly.
Drinking tea daily can provide a myriad of health benefits and protect you against some of the most debilitating diseases known.
Common Types of Teas Which Provide Uncommon Health Benefits
Green Tea (Most popular: Japanese, Chinese, Ceylon and Kahwah) has far more proven health benefits than other teas do because it has garnered the most research. It is the most popular tea consumed in Japan and China.
Harvard Women’s Health Watch published their findings on the powerful antioxidant benefits of the flavonoids – primarily catechins, also known as ECGC – found in green tea.
They found that these compounds aid in weight loss, prevent DNA damage, lessen brain damage after a stroke and reduce the risk of cancer.
Black Tea (Most popular: Assam, Nepal, Darjeeling and Nilgiri ) is the most common tea, accounting for 75% of all tea consumed around the world.
The Journal of Food Science noted that black tea has the highest concentration of polysaccharides – carbohydrates that prevent glucose absorption; making it the most effective for diabetics.
White Tea (Most popular: Silver Needle, White Peony, Long Life Eyebrow and Tribute Eyebrow ) has a milder taste than green or black tea, has less adverse effects – even when you drink as many as five cups a day – and is now widely available.
A staple in Eastern households for more than a thousand years, white tea is gaining popularity in the Western world. A study by Beiersdorf AG found that white tea extracts not only prevented fat absorption, but also broke down the fat of lab-created human fat cells.
Because white tea is rare and more expensive than other teas, it may not be a first choice for avid tea drinkers.
Additionally, research is limited on this variety of tea but initial results show it may just surpass the recognized cancer-fighting benefits of green tea.
Oolong Tea (Most popular: Darjeeling, Assam, Vietnamese and Thai ) is processed differently than green or black tea.
It’s less oxidized than black tea, which gives it an increased concentration of polyphenols, that can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and help lower blood sugar levels.
Oolong tea has even proven effective in preventing oral bacteria according to the Department of Dentistry at Osaka University in Japan.
Top 7 Health Benefits of Tea
1.Fights Cancer: The antioxidants in tea kill cancer without damaging the surrounding cells. The polyphenols found in all tea varieties have some of the highest free radical scavenging ability, (free radicals promote oxidation, which scientists now believe causes cancer). Studies have focused on black and green tea as the most prolific teas consumed.
2. Accelerates Weight Loss: High concentrations of the aflavins and the arubigins fight the absorption of fat in rats fed a diet high in fat. Green and Oolong teas also boost your metabolism and naturally increase your energy levels.
3. Boosts Immunity: Tea is both antiviral and antibacterial due to compounds known as alkylamines. These antigens “prime” the immune system, which boosts the body’s immune response 5-fold.
4. Prevents Heart Disease: Tea reduces your risk of high blood pressure, prevents blood clots and keeps blood vessels relaxed. One study in Europe showed that one cup of tea each day could reduce the risk of heart attack by 50%!
5. Strengthen Nervous System: Tea polyphenols stimulate the nervous system and increase brain alertness. They also protect brain cells and slow deterioration caused by neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Unlike higher caffeine beverages, tea stimulates brain function without causing stress to the heart.
6. Lowers Diabetes: Research compiled by the Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, Germany found that consuming four cups of tea each day reduces your risk of developing type II diabetes by 20%. Tea also regulates glucose levels, allowing the body to absorb sugar more slowly.
7. Increases Bone Density: Scientific studies done at the University of Cambridge School of Medicine showed that tea drinkers have 5% stronger bones than non-tea drinkers. While coffee seems to weaken bone density, the flavonoids in tea counteract the caffeine and strengthen it.
Which Is Better? Bottled Tea vs Fresh Tea
The American Chemical Society (ACS) found that bottled teas boasting “antioxidant protection” on their labels may contain less polyphenols than a cup of green or black tea brewed at home.
Enjoy the health benefits of a cup of tea daily
The antioxidant power of a single, 8 ounce cup of home-brewed tea can range from 50-150mg. The six bottled brands studied ranged from 3mg to 81mg of polyphenols per 16-ounce bottle.
Shiming Li, Ph.D., explained, “There is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients — polyphenols — found in bottled tea beverages. Our analysis of tea beverages found that the polyphenol content is extremely low.”
Adding in high amounts of sugar and other additives further reduces the health benefits of bottled tea.
Tea made at home costs just a few cents, compared to bottled teas that can cost two dollars or more. In the United States, bottled beverages generate approximately one billion dollars in sales annually.
Tea sales – both bottled and fresh – have risen in recent years due to promising research in the scientific community. Polyphenol-abundant tea has been linked to reducing the risks of heart disease and obesity.
The health benefits of tea are not new. However, as more extensive research is done, we will likely find ever more reason to relax with a cup of tea.
"Veggie" burgers....don't do That!
- Neurotoxins & Carcinogens – The majority of store-bought veggie burgers contain some form of soy. Non organic soy is extracted using hexane, a chemical byproduct of petroleum refining. The food industry uses the hexane extraction method because it is cheap. Several studies have been published about the neurotoxicity of exposure of humans and animals to hexane, but the most alarming ones link exposure to brain tumors. Currently the FDA sets no limit to the amount of hexane that can be used in non-organic soy products and no one knows for sure how much residue is being consumed by the American public. If you want more info on this – the Cornucopia Institute released an excellent report about several popular veggie burger brands that use hexane. To quote top researcher Charlotte Valleys, “The bigger picture here is that hexane is being released into the atmosphere—since it’s an air pollutant. It leads to smog, which is ground-level ozone, which leads to a whole bunch of health problems, like asthma in kids. These effects are very real.” I don’t want this in my body or in the air I breathe – do you?
*Image taken from Cornucopia Institute’s report on hexane in soy
- Cheap Oils – If you see the words “canola oil, soy oil, corn oil, sunflower, and/or safflower oil” it is likely extracted with hexane too. But what further complicates this matter (if having a neurotoxin byproduct in your burger is not enough) is that the overconsumption of these cheap oils are causing an abundance of Omega 6 fatty acids in our diets. The imbalance of Omega 6 fatty acids increases the risk of inflammation, heart disease, obesity, and prostate and bone cancer.
- Textured Vegetable Protein, aka “TVP” – Several frozen veggie burgers available are developed using soy products and Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP). TVP is one of those foods I avoid at all costs and no one will ever convince me to eat something this processed. TVP is extracted from soy at a super high heat and made into a powder before it is “reshaped” into strips, chunks and granules and put back into food. The processing can also add artificial and natural flavors, MSG, colorings, emulsifiers and thickening agents, including nitrosamine, which is a carcinogen no one should be consuming. Does this picture of TVP look like nutritious nuggets of real food to you?
- Chemically Altered Flavorings & MSG – There are several hidden sources of MSG found in vegetarian meat substitutes. The food industry uses MSG to make processed food that is low in nutrition taste good, tricking your taste buds into liking something that isn’t real food. Futhermore, MSG increases your insulin response, tricking your body into thinking you can eat more than you actually should. And this is exactly how scientists make rats obese, by feeding them MSG laced food. I don’t know about you, but knowing there is a potential substance that can trick me into eating more food is reason enough to avoid this at all costs. But MSG is linked to all sorts of terrible reactions in humans like migraines, toxicity, and autoimmune disorders that you can read about in this tell all book about MSG.
- Full of Genetically Modified Ingredients (GMOs) – If the burger contains anything derived from corn or soy, you can almost guarantee it comes from genetically modified seeds unless it is certified 100% organic. Genetically modified foods have been linked to toxicity, allergic reactions and fertility issues and have not been studied for their long term effects on our health. Unfortunately, here in the US, companies can get away with including GMOs in our foods without us knowing it. If you want to know if GMO’s are in your food – support theJust Label It.org by signing their petition to the FDA
The Morningstar Farms Black Bean Burger, along with several other brands are guilty of every one of these points above. This burger is marketed as “healthy” and has even more questionable ingredients like caramel coloring (which is linked to cancer) and a slew of other chemical based preservatives. Knowing that I used to eat this particular brand many years ago on a weekly basis, absolutely disgusts me now. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of processed and convenience foods making a fool out of me…share this info with all your veggie burger buying friends and spread the word.
Housing.....LosingGround
the problem is getting worse. Housing and transportation costs rose faster than income during the 2000s, increasing the burden that these costs placed on already stretched budgets. This held true for each of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, though the disparity was greater
in some areas than others. For all households, including homeowners who have paid off their mortgage, housing and transportation together consumed an average of 48 percent of the median household's income by decade's end.
Moderate-income households pay a disproportionate share.
For households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area, nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of income goes to housing and transportation costs. For these households, the growing costs of place1 are particularly burdensome, leaving relatively little
left over for expenses such as food, education, and health care, not to mention savings.
the combined burden of housing and transportation costs is greatest where costs are out of sync with local incomes; these are not always the places with the highest absolute costs.
In some metro areas, such as Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco, high costs are matched by relatively high incomes, helping moderate- income households better afford their housing and transportation costs. But other regions, such as Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, Miami, and Los Angeles, have moderate or even high housing and transportation costs in spite of relatively low median incomes. In these metro areas, combined cost burdens for moderate-income households are very high, with average burdens ranging from 65 to 72 percent of household income.
Sent from my a~Pad
The H+T Affordability Index
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing based on its location.
360 Degree Aerial Panorama | 3D Virtual Tours Around the World | Photos of the Most Interesting Places on the Earth | AirPano.com
AirPano.com • 360° Aerial Panorama • 3D Virtual Tours Around the World
AirPano is a noncommercial project focused on high resolution 3D aerial panoramas. AirPano team is the group of russian photographers and panorama enthusiasts. During the next 2-3 years we plan to shoot the aerial panoramas and create the virtual 3D tours of the most interesting places of our planet.