vibranthealthtoday.info

by Daniel J. DeNoon

January 25, 2012 — For the first time in 15 years, the National School Lunch Program has raised nutrition standards.

The new rules mean kids will see more fruits and vegetables every day. Portions will be smaller. Only low-fat or skim milk will be served. There will be a lot more whole grains. And schools will get more money — an extra six cents a meal — from the federal government.

But Congress in 2011 forbade the USDA from limiting servings of potatoes. The law also allows schools to count the tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that won’t throw a monkey wrench into the new standards.

“It was a bit unfortunate that some groups had powerful friends in Congress and basically tried to sort of short-change [kids] and create some confusion with these standards,” Vilsack said at a news conference. “Our response was to set up minimum requirements. You have to have a minimum level of dark green vegetables, you’ve got to have a minimum level of red or orange or yellow vegetables.”

Celebrity chef Rachael Ray, who joined Vilsack in announcing the new standards, says the potato/pizza loopholes won’t keep the new rules from making school lunches healthier.

“OK, so congress left pizza a vegetable. But we are changing the game today,” Ray said. “That [lunch] tray is going to have leafy greens and colorful fruit on it. If one of the other vegetables happens to be pizza or French fries in some schools that day, it doesn’t negate the fact that on the tray there is going to be a goal, depending on grade level, of roughly 800 calories — and it will include vegetables and fruits.”

Vilsack said that schools will be encouraged to serve baked or roasted potatoes instead of French fries.

About 32 million U.S. kids eat school lunches. Many of these kids get half their daily calories from these meals.

New School Lunch Rules

Today’s rules mean that school lunches must:

• Offer a minimum of 8 to 10 ounces of whole grains. No more than two desserts a week may be used to meet this minimum
• Offer at least a half cup per week of dark green vegetables
• Offer at least 3/4 cup red/orange vegetables for grades K-8, and at least 1 1/4 cups in grades 9-12
• Offer at least a half cup of beans or peas
• Offer at least a half cup of starchy vegetables. There is no limit on starchy vegetables
• Offer at least a half cup of fruit in grades K-8 and at least 1 cup of fruit in grades 9-12
• Offer at least a half cup (grades K-8) or 3/4 cup (grades 9-12) of “other vegetables,” which may be met with any of the above vegetables except for starchy vegetables
• Allow tofu as a meat alternative
• Get federal reimbursement only if they offer at least a half cup of a fruit or vegetable
• Contain no fewer than 550 calories for grades K-5, 600 calories for grades 6-8, and 750 calories for grades 9-12
• Contain no more than 650 calories for grades K-5, 700 calories for grades 6-8, and 850 calories for grades 9-12
• Obtain less than 10% of total calories from saturated fat
• Have zero trans fat
• Limit salt according to grade level
• Offer at least a cup of low-fat or skim milk

These minimum requirements for vegetables and fruits are far lower than the recommended portions. For example, while the minimum vegetable requirement adds up to 3/4 of a cup for grades K-8, the recommended amount is 3 3/4 cups.

“Kids will get six-and-a-half more cups of fruits and vegetables than they did before,” Vilsack said.

The cost of the new standards is expected to be $3.2 billion over the next five years.

There are new standards for school breakfasts, too, although schools will be given time to phase in the breakfast recommendations.

Although schools may phase in the new lunch recommendations over the coming year, Vilsack said that “several thousand schools” have already adopted the new school lunch plan.

Ray said school cooks would be getting new training, and get a chance to participate in healthy, tasty, and attractive recipe competitions. To start things off, Ray created a lunch menu served at the elementary school that served as a setting for today’s announcement. That menu was:

• Tacos with turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, Mexican brown rice, and whole-grain flat bread
• Black bean and corn salad
• Mixed fresh fruits
• Low-fat or non-fat milk

The new school lunch rules aren’t the end of the program. In coming months, the USDA will set new rules for vending machines on school campuses.

SOURCES:

USDA web site.

USDA news releases.

USDA news conference.

Published inThe Huffington Post on 1/18/12

Authored By Deborah Kotz for U.S. News Health

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So, What are the 11 Habits Cited?

One of the biggest factors that determines how well you age is not your genes but how well you live. Not convinced? A study published in 2009 in the British Medical Journal of 20,000 British folks shows that you can cut your risk of having a stroke in half by doing the following four things: being active for 30 minutes a day, eating five daily servings of fruit and vegetables, and avoiding cigarettes and excess alcohol.

While those are some of the obvious steps you can take to age well, researchers have discovered that centenarians tend to share certain traits in how they eat, move about, and deal with stress — the sorts of things we can emulate to improve our own aging process. Of course, getting to age 100 is enormously more likely if your parents did. (Recent research suggests that centenarians are 20 times as likely as the average person to have at least one long-lived relative.) Still, Thomas Perls, who studies the century-plus set at Boston University School of Medicine, believes that assuming you’ve sidestepped genes for truly fatal diseases like Huntington’s, “there’s nothing stopping you from living independently well into your 90s.” Heck, if your parents and grandparents were heavy smokers, they might have died prematurely without ever reaching their true potential lifespan, so go ahead and shoot for those triple digits. Follow these 11 habits and check out Perls’ lifetime risk calculator to see how long you can expect to live.

* Note This:

Americans who define themselves as Seventh Day Adventists have an average life expectancy of 89, about a decade longer than the average American. One of the basic tenets of the religion is that it’s important to cherish the body that’s on loan from God, which means no smoking, alcohol abuse, or overindulging in sweets. Followers typically stick to a vegetarian diet based on fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts, and get plenty of exercise. They’re also very focused on family and community.

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One of every two of you have a deadly disease that’s making you sick and will kill you, and 90 percent of you don’t even know you have it.

What’s worse is your doctor is not trained how to find it, and they are not even looking for it.

This problem will cost us $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years. It is bankrupting our economy. In 30 years 100 percent of our federal budget will be needed to pay for Medicare and Medicaid, leaving nothing for education, defense, agriculture, roads or even social security.

So what am I talking about? I’m talking about diabesity — the number one cause of obesity, heart disease, cancer, dementia and of course type 2 diabetes.

You might hear many terms used to describe this one basic phenomenon — a new epidemic of disordered biology and disease. It is the continuum of abnormal biology that ranges from mild insulin resistance to full-blown diabetes. We call it by many names. See if you recognize any of them: Read the rest of this entry

Watching TV can definitely make anyone fat.  No, not just because it is a sedentary activity, but because the information most commercials are giving is extremely misleading and really confusing, to say the least.

Most people who know me, know I am not a TV watcher. Actually, I don’t even have cable at home (A rare thing these days, I know.) Very often, I have no idea which show is the “latest craze” and which commercials are all the rave.

Last week the TV did catch my attention. I was at my parent’s house and my mom had the TV on in the background. I was helping her cook and I nearly chopped my fingers off because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!

“Eat Cheerios to lower your cholesterol.” “Three or more glasses of skim milk a day are a great way to lose weight”. Then it got ugly “Splenda is just like sugar and is great for kids”.

The worst of them all (the one where my mother had to nearly restrain me from attacking the TV “There is nothing wrong with High Fructose Corn Syrup. It comes from corn and can actually be good for you.” I nearly passed out.

I can see why people are totally confused about healthy eating. I can also see why obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes are at an all time high in this country and in many others as well.

After I was done hyperventilating, I decided to first turn the TV off (because my heart just couldn’t take anymore) and then write this newsletter to clear up a few misconceptions.

1. Cheerios biggest claim to fame is that eating them will help you lower your cholesterol. I am here to tell you that eating processed grains, especially in the form of cereal can actually make your cholesterol go up! The cholesterol study done showed how soluble fiber can help the body eliminate bad cholesterol from the body. Cheerios has 1 gram of soluble fiber per serving. Woop-dee-doo. Big deal. I can get 2 grams of soluble fiber from an apple, 3 grams from broccoli and carrots, and more than 4 grams from kidney beans. (Beat that Cheerio Man). Honestly, I don’t think there are many foods in a box that are healthy at all. They have to be highly processed to stay shelf stable, many times loading them up with chemicals and fillers that are making us gain weight. My recommendation is ditch the cereal and pick up some wholesome natural foods like fruits and veggies. Natural grains like brown rice, millet and quinoa are 10x’s better than any boxed cereal.

2. Milk does a body bad! That’s really what the commercial should say. Ok, that is not entirely true. Conventional milk does a body bad. If you have read the Dairy chapter in The Diet Solution Program, you know my stance on milk: Organic is a must and Raw Milk is even better. If you didn’t read my article on milk, you can read it here:

http://www.thedietsolutionprogram.com/articles.aspx?article=Is-Milk-really-Healthy?

But don’t go yet until you read #3.

3. Give Splenda to my children? Never! Splenda has not been out on the market long enough to show whether it is actually safe or not. Until then it is a public health experiment (No thanks, I don’t’ want to be your guinea pig). Being the organic chemistry nerd that I am, I know exactly how sugar is converted to Splenda. I will spare you the chem lesson but tell you that Splenda (or sucralose) is a synthetic compound stumbled upon in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new pesticide formulation. Huh? Did you say pesticide? Yup. Many chemists believe this molecule resembles a pesticide much more than it resembles natural sugar. If this is still in debate, I will not be a test subject. I highly recommend you take yourself and your children out of this experiment as well. My tip: Stick to natural sweeteners like whole fruits, stevia and agave syrup and stay away from artificial sweeteners like Splenda, Equal and Sweet & Low.

I could probably go on and on. If I watched TV long enough (or if I actually purchased cable) I could probably find 10, 20, 100 more commercials that are giving us false info, all in the name of selling products.

Now, go shut the TV off will ya?

Read the Real Truth about Healthy Eating and Weight Loss and get started on your own fat loss and health goals right away.

For more Information about Weight Loss View the VIDEO:

At a June 2011 meeting of the American Diabetes Association, two studies were presented that reported that diet soda was associated with weight gain and elevated blood sugar.

In the first report, 474 subjects were followed for nearly 10 years. Participants who said they drank two or more diet sodas a day experienced increases in waist circumference that were 600 percent greater than those who did not drink diet soda.

The researchers also reported that, as a group, those who ingested diet soda had a 70 percent greater increase in waist circumference as compared to those who did not drink diet soda.

A second study reported that mice that were fed aspartame (i.e., NutraSweet) had blood sugar levels that were higher than mice not fed aspartame.

Artificial sweeteners, which diet soda contains, can lead to a whole host of health problems, including diabetes, weight gain, and neurological disorders. It is extremely difficult for a patient to lose weight if he or she is ingesting artificial sweeteners.

Numerous research studies link these substances with health risks such as diabetes. If the Food and Drug Administration was doing its job properly, these sweeteners would never have been approved for consumption.

© 2011 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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Please CLICK HERE to see a related video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FemIWmqWwHE Read the rest of this entry

If you are like every other yo-yo dieter out there, chances are you have started and stopped several diet plans with no success. The first week is easy. You’re full of excitement. You tell yourself “this time will be different.” The second week is ok, a little harder than the first but you’re still sticking to it. And then what happens? You bend the rules a bit and start falling back into your old habits. Why does this happen? Why do we go through this vicious cycle? I’ll tell you why. We are focusing on the wrong goal. For whatever reason, we must not perceive our weight loss as being “important enough” to achieve. So what would be “important enough” to stick to our new healthy eating habits? Your HEALTH! Nothing in this world is more important than the state of your health. Think about it, your health affects everything else in your life. Once our health is compromised we automatically change our lifestyle habits. Just look at President Clinton. Not until he had the ultimate health scare did he really change his eating and exercise habits. Let’s not wait until our bodies completely have a break down before we decide to take care of ourselves. If you feel lousy, everything you do that day is lousy. Likewise, if you feel great, everything you do that day is great. So this year, let’s not focus on just losing a few pounds, let’s focus on Health, the #1 thing in our lives.

Ask yourself, “How important is my health to me? How do I want to live the rest of my life? Sick and feeling horrible or healthy and feeling vibrant? Do I want to play golf and tennis in my retirement or do I want to spend it in the hospital?” The answer to these questions will ultimately dictate your weight and your health for the future. Any lifestyle habit that affects your health in a positive way will automatically cause you to lose weight or maintain a good healthy weight.

Follow this checklist towards health and you will see weight come off automatically.

1. Make the time to focus on health.

The number one reason people do not eat healthy or exercise is because they “don’t have the time”. But why is it that once we get sick, have a heart attack, are diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes or cancer, we all of a sudden have the time? This doesn’t make any sense. We wait until our bodies have become so ill to finally take measures towards taking care of it. This is the equivalent to never getting an oil change or servicing your car and letting it completely break down before doing anything about it. Prioritize your day. What could possibly be more important than your health? Your children, yes, I agree. But guess what? If something happens to you, who will be there for your children? I know that sounds terrible but it’s true. How many times have we heard stories of young children losing parents to heart attacks and strokes? Choose health not only for yourself but for your children as well. Prioritize your day so that making healthy meal choices and exercising are right at the top.

2. Take a long hard look at what you are putting into your body.

For one week, read every ingredient of every food you eat. This could potentially be a scary experience. Some ingredient labels on packaged foods sound more like a college chemistry class than anything we should be eating. As a golden rule, if you can’t pronounce it, chances are you shouldn’t be eating it. The majority of the foods you should be eating shouldn’t even have an ingredients label. They should be vegetables, fruits, raw nuts, chicken, fish, eggs, meat. If you make 90% of your diet, fresh food, I guarantee you will significantly change your weight and your health. No time to make fresh food? (please refer back to #1). Cook more than one portion at a time when you do cook so that there are always healthy leftovers in the fridge. You can always have for lunch leftovers from the night before. Cook several portions of one meal and freeze some. A good example of this is healthy soup or turkey chili. Put a portion of chili in a small Tupperware and freeze. You can grab this when in a hurry for lunch or dinner.

3. How much are you eating?

In the United States, our perception of one portion is extremely distorted. Restaurant portions are about 3 times more than what we should be eating in one sitting. If we become accustomed to seeing this much food on our plate at a restaurant we tend to do the same when we are at home and serve ourselves. According to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, women are eating 300 more calories a day and men 168 more calories than 20 years ago. All it takes is 100 extra calories a day to gain 10 pounds a year.

For one week, reduce your portions at lunch and dinner by half. There is no need to “clean your plate”. Most times what’s on your plate is double what you should be eating anyway. If you feel some hunger in the afternoon, add one small apple with a handful of raw nuts as a snack. Your body will quickly become accustomed to the smaller portions and you will eventually not be able to eat as much in one sitting as you did before. Remember, you have access to an abundance of food every day. You don’t need to eat it all at once.

4. Drink WATER!

Dehydration has directly been linked to several forms of diseases including colon cancer, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels. Many people also mistake thirst for hunger. So it may not be that you’re hungry all day, you may just be thirsty and dehydrated. In due time, dehydration will cause a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.

Take a look at what you are drinking each day.

Coffee or Soda (Diet Coke included)? The caffeine in both will dehydrate you even more and will cause you to feel hungrier during the day.

Diet drinks and sodas? The artificial sweetener actually enhances your appetite and increases food intake.

Orange Juice and other Fruit Juices? The sugar and calories can add up to 10 teaspoons of sugar per drink, which can be anywhere from 150-200 calories. Not to mention the fact that sugar eventually makes you crave more sugar.

Every person should be drinking half of their body weight in ounces of water each day. So if you weigh 150 lbs, you should be drinking 75 ounces of water each day. If you drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverage during the day, the ounces of water needed increases.

5. How much do you move each day?

Your body was designed to move! Your heart is a muscle and must be worked just like every other muscle in your body. You don’t have to join a gym to move, you just have to challenge your body and your muscles each and every day. The two best time saving exercise options I always suggest to clients are:

1.Go for a walk. You can go for a walk anywhere and anytime. No time you say? Please refer back to rule #1.

2. Set up your home with some free weights and an exercise ball. You will be amazed at the number of exercises you can do with just your body, some free weights and a stability ball. If you don’t know how, hire a trainer to show you or get a good book. Get into the routine of scheduling your exercise time each and every day. No ifs, ands or buts. Make your exercise time more important than phone calls, laundry, errands or lunch dates.

Make a promise to yourself that this time will be about health, not about short term weight loss. Really evaluate how you are treating your body on an everyday basis. Is that the same way you would treat a highly valuable, expensive piece of equipment? Because that’s what your body is. There is no amount of money in the world that will buy you another one, so you might as well take really good care of the one you got!

Get started on your own fat loss and health goals right away with these Simple and Easy Healthy Meal Plans.

In health and happiness,

Isabel & Jeff

Affiliate Questions: Contact Raimee – affiliates@thedietsolutionprogram.com

Stay up to date on the most current nutrition and health information here:  The Best Diet Info.

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Bill Clinton’s diet has changed so much since his McDonald’s days that when CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked him in a recent interview whether he considers himself a vegan, the former president replied: “Well, I suppose I am.”

In the interview, a portion of which was released on Thursday, Clinton said he has cut dairy and meat, even fish, out of his diet.

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“At Thanksgiving, I had one bite of turkey,” he said.

According to CNN, Clinton has dropped 20 pounds and says he’s healthier than ever. But the change only came about at the urging of a trusted doctor, and even then after two heart procedures. In 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery after experiencing tightness in his chest. Even after cutting down on calories and cholesterol, Clinton had to have another procedure last year. Doctors put two stents in one of the veins from the bypass surgery.

After the second procedure, Dr. Dean Ornish, who had once worked with White House chefs during Clinton’s administration to get healthier foods in the president’s diet, met with Clinton and gave him some advice.

“I shared with him that because of his genetics, moderate changes in diet and lifestyle weren’t enough to keep his disease from progressing,” Ornish told CNN. “However, our research showed that more intensive changes actually reverse progression of heart disease in most people.”

Ornish offered to work with Clinton, and Clinton decided he needed to really change the way he eats.

“I essentially concluded that I had played Russian roulette,” Clinton told CNN, “because even though I had changed my diet some and cut down on the caloric total of my ingestion and cut back on much of the cholesterol in the food I was eating, I still — without any scientific basis to support what I did — was taking in a lot of extra cholesterol without knowing if my body would produce enough of the enzyme to support it, and clearly it didn’t or I wouldn’t have had that blockage. So that’s when I made a decision to really change.”

Working with Ornish and another doctor named Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Clinton has cut meat, dairy, eggs, and almost all oils from his diet. He hopes to get his weight down to 185 pounds.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease caused 26 percent of deaths in America in 2006, making it the leading cause of death for both men and women. Every year, about 785,000 Americans have a first heart attack.

Copyright Global Post

An Economical Way to Grow Healthy Vegetables at Home

June 2011

Ralph Harris, MD

Introduction

White rice and Spam won’t help with reversing diabetes.  Fresh food is needed.  Imported produce is too expensive for most islanders and locally grown traditional foods are scarce or nonexistent.  In Majuro, a head of lettuce costs two hours wages.

Complicating the problem of agriculture is the fact that an atoll is composed of coral gravel piled up by the waves and swept by salt laden winds.  Precious water must be caught in cisterns and stored for the dry season.  When it does rain, nutrients added around the roots get washed deep down into the coral gravel.  Special techniques are required to overcome the obstacles of atoll gardening.

The author, Dr. Ralph Harris was the first Medical director at the Canvasback Wellness Center on Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands.  The center is a lifestyle intervention outpatient clinic.

Recognizing the obstacles of raising vegetables on an atoll with no fertile soil and little water, Dr Harris pioneered the use of self watering containers.

Read the Full Article Here

http://www.canvasback.org/index.cfm/article_37.htm