Archive for the ‘nutrition’ Category

Diabetic Diet

June 20th, 2009

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There are hundreds types of diets in the world. The main purpose of all these diets is to remain healthy by eating the right types and amount of foods at the right time. There are some specific diets like South Beach Diet, Mediterranean Diet and Atkins Diet. Also there are general diets like rice diets, low carb diets, low fat diets as well that have proven to be effective for the people. Obesity leads to disorders like hypertension, high blood pressure, increased chances of heart stroke and diabetes.

A special diabetic diet is recommended by doctors for those patients who are suffering from diabetes. It is best to visit your doctor who will guide you with the exact directions to be followed in the diabetic diet. Let’s plunge into the main details of a diabetic diet.

A diabetic diet stresses on having foods that are rich in starches. Some foods that are rich in starches are breads, cereals and some types of vegetables. You should have at least 5 servings of these foods every day. See to it that you don’t include a lot of amount of food in each serving and also keep a fixed time interval between each serving. You can also include fruits in your serving. At least have five fruits and vegetables every single day of the diabetic diet. Limit your intake of foods that are high in sugar content. Hence limit your intake of sugar and sweets. You can in fact eat substitutes like low sugar sweets.

Foods like vegetable and some seeds consist of soluble fibers that may prove to be very beneficial for people suffering from diabetes. These foods in fact slow down the absorption of glucose by the body and hence keep the levels of sugar in the body under control. Foods that have soluble fibers are legumes, beans, whole grains and nuts. Hence see to it that you include these types of foods in your diabetic diet. It is necessary that you talk in detail about your current intake of the nature and amounts of foods that you eat. After the diagnosis, your dietician will recommend the best diabetic diet for you that you will have to seriously follow for a few months before the positive effects of the diet are noticed. You can also ask your friends, family or relatives who have followed a similar diet plan for advice and their experiences.

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Nutrition quiz

June 14th, 2009

Nutrition is a science subject. Any science subject can be extremely, dull and boring. How can we make nutrition knowledge, interesting and funny? By introducing nutrition quiz in our nutrition study. There are many web sites devoted to the subject of nutrition quiz. There are so many types of nutrition quiz present, that choosing one nutrition quiz to suit your taste, may be problem! You can be of any age group. The 7 years old kid can have nutrition quiz to suit his knowledge. The college going young man can have nutrition quiz to suit his level of nutrition knowledge. Everybody can enjoy the fun!
Let us first review a simple text based nutrition quiz from a government site. They have given five food groups like fish, milk products, bread and cereals. The nutrition quiz is which of these food groups give the body maximum energy. Well, even though your answer is wrong, you will be provided with the correct answer. This adds to your knowledge about nutrition.
Let us consider next nutrition quiz site. The quiz has to be answered as yes or no. The first nutrition quiz question is nibbling on chocolate really healthy? The answer is yes cocoa in chocolate has anticlogging property for heart arteries. This means heart will get less clogged. Healthy for you indeed. Please note consuming lot of chocolate will create other problems due to undesirable bad food intake. The nutrition quiz helps you understand the good food balance and bad food intake.
The second question in this nutrition quiz is that cottage cheese is not particularly rich in calcium. It is a nutritional fact that generally milk products are rich in calcium In case of cottage cheese it contains only 65 milligram of calcium, while comparable quantity of milk or yogurt will contain 300 milligram of calcium
The third question in this nutrition quiz is more interesting. Snacking does not always make you fat. This one is tricky one. The nutritional fact is, it is total amount of food intake, which matters, not in how many portions you have consumed it. If you take only a small portion at one time, it is really healthy. You do not feel hungry and so chances of over eating are extremely low.
The next nutrition quiz is does canned fruits or vegetables have more nutrients than fresh one? This is again tricky. Generally canning is done when nutrients in food have reached their peak. This is the reason that caned fruits will have more nutrients as compared to fresh ones
I have reviewed simple nutrition quiz. Actually there are lots of interactive, colorful nutrition quizzes, which are just enchanting. I just wanted to stress the point that the nutrition quiz helps you to build your nutrition knowledge.

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Nutrition labels

June 13th, 2009

All packaged food items have nutrition labels on it These nutrition labels carry information regarding the nutritious constituents in the food packaged in them. We eat food. But not all of the food is useful to the body. The chemicals which are not useful to our body are thrown away as the human excreta. What we eat is converted in to the useful chemicals by the digestive juices produced in the body. These digestive juices can react on certain types of foods only. Anything that can not react with the digestive juices is thrown away as the waste by the body. The nutrition labels tell us exactly useful
part in the packaged food..
Our body requires lots of useful foods to keep our body healthy. Thus the nutrition labels help us maintain our health. Now let us consider the items published on the nutrition labels and try to understand them.
Nutrients are the foods that are essential for body building. Vitamins are required by our body. Their deficiency can cause lot many health problems. Thus we must have certain amount of vitamins in our daily food intake. The nutrition labels have clear cut information about available vitamins printed on them.
Some nutrients printed on nutrition labels are measured in grams and are denoted by g.
Some nutrients info is given in milligrams on the nutrition labels Some information is given as percentage, on the nutrition labels.
The first important info is servings contained in the pack. You can decide how many individual servings you will require. The second point is amount per serving.
The nutrition labels also tell you about the serving size. It can be two cookies for example. It can be a cup of cereal. Thus you get an idea about the serving size in ordinary measuring units. The nutrition labels make it very easy for you to decide whether consume one cookie or two.
The nutrition labels give you info about the calories present in one serving. The calories can come from the fats or they may come from other sources like proteins. It is absolutely necessary to know amount of calories coming from fats. This is something that every weight conscious weight watcher has to watch. This calorie info is given on the left side of the nutrition labels.
Percent daily value is another important info on the nutrition labels. Suppose that an adult person needs 2000 calories per day. If the serving is giving 200 calories of energy per serving, then it will be noted as 10 % of your daily need. The amount of the sodium, potassium or minerals and vitamins remain the same. They do not change as per calories.
Total fat is another valuable info on the nutrition labels. Fat can come from different sources. Their individual info is also given along with the total fats. This is vital as everybody needs to monitor his fat intake closely to keep himself healthy.

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Pregnancy nutrition

June 13th, 2009

Nutrition of an individual is always important issue if he wants to maintain his health. In case of pregnant women the issue becomes twice more important, as health of two persons is involved in pregnancy nutrition. In pregnancy nutrition, as in all, a diet of fresh vegetables, whole grains is always recommended. The recommendation of fruits is of course there in the pregnancy nutrition. But these are general types of nutrition requirements. What are special recommendations in the pregnancy nutrition?
The first requirement is folic acid or foliates. These micronutrients help neural activity. Lack of these can produce brain damages in the baby. And there may be premature birth and other associated problems during pregnancy. Leafy green vegetables, citrus fruits, peas contain this micronutrient Also fortified cereals can provide this. The pregnancy nutrition involves this most important micronutrient. It is good to take vitamin tablets regularly from three months before you get pregnant. The pregnancy nutrition has to start before you get pregnant
For healthy teeth and bones you require calcium. Dairy products are rich in calcium, a fact that everybody knows. The pregnancy nutrition recommends 1000 milligrams of calcium intake per day during pregnancy.
Protein is important macronutrient your body needs. The babies’ growth in second and third trimester is governed by your protein intake. The pregnancy nutrition recommends taking 71 grams of protein daily. Well known sources of protein are of course, eggs fish meat etc. Dried beans and peas are also good protein sources. So also are the dairy products.
Iron is next important nutrient required in pregnancy nutrition. Our blood contains hemoglobin Iron is required to form hemoglobin. In pregnancy, blood requirement doubles and so also does iron requirement. The pregnancy nutrition recommends 27 milligrams iron per day.
There are special supplements available in the markets. It is better to start taking them three months before the pregnancy. This recommendation is there in pregnancy nutrition to fill in any gaps that may occur afterwards.
The pregnancy nutrition also deals with some “don’ts”
Take a potentially conflicting situation. Everybody knows that fish contain important omega -3 fatty acids. They are known to provide brain development help in babies.
Sea food is always recommended in pregnancy nutrition. But we also know that fish contain mercury, an extremely hazardous substance. So pregnancy nutrition does recommend not eating any fish containing mercury. What is the solution?
Obviously seafood, because it contains absolutely no mercury.
Shrimp, canned tuna fish, are very low mercury containing fish. You can use them safely as your pregnancy nutrition.
Similarly consider dairy products. They are recommended during pregnancy due to variety of reasons. But what if they are made from unpasteurized milk, then? You will invite lot of trouble. The pregnancy nutrition will recommend only pasteurized dairy products.

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Low Carb Diet

March 10th, 2010

More and more people prefer a low carb diet than other diets as it emphasizes on having foods that have lower amounts in carbohydrates. Low carb diets have been around since many years and also they have been recommended by dieticians as well. Before following a low carb diet, you should consult your doctor or dietician. Your dietician will diagnose your case and then suggest if you can go for a low carb diet or not. However it is not advisable to completely eliminate foods that contain carbohydrates. This is because your body will first generate the energy it requires from starches that have been formed from carbohydrates. In case the body does not find any carbohydrates to convert into energy then it will start converting the fats. Let us discuss in the next paragraph what low card dieting is all about.

Low carb dieting involves eating foods that are low in carbohydrate content. These foods include cheese, cream, nuts, eggs and vegetables. Also do get your cholesterol checked regularly by a doctor as high cholesterol can trigger a lot of disorders. You can also take the help of low carb diet books and also browse the internet for low carb recipes. However, as mentioned above before taking any major step always consult your doctor as he is your best advisor. You can also take advice from your friends and relatives who have followed the low carb diet in the past. In case some of your friends and relatives have still not followed the low carb diet but would like to do so, you can give them a few tips. You can also invitee them on low carb diet parties. You should also weigh yourself a couple of times in a week to see whether the low carb diet is working on you and also what improvements can you make in your eating habits in terms of types of foods, quantity of foods and the timings of eating your food. Let us discuss further on what type of foods you can have in a low carb diet for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For breakfast you can have eggs and beacon as well as mushrooms and sausage. For lunch you can have cheese and meat with salad. For dinner you can have meat or fish and vegetables. You can also help yourself to a dessert of fruits and sugar free jelly. For the first few weeks of your diet you should limit your daily carbohydrate intake to just 20 grams per day.

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