We know that sugary beverages pack a lot of calories into their sweet little containers (they’ve taken a lot of heat in the obesity debate). But now the results of a new study are showing that they may also trick our brains into thinking that we’re hungry!
Actually, it’s the fructose in sugar-sweetened drinks that researchers say affect the brain region that regulates appetite. The researchers–who point out that the study does not show that fructose causes obesity–say that participants who drank a cherry-flavored drink with fructose in it experienced a spike in their hypothalamus. The participants who drank the same beverage made with glucose didn’t have the spike.
The conclusion: high-fructose corn syrup and other forms of fructose might actually help lead us to overeat more than glucose does. (Plain table sugar contains both glucose and fructose.) Which means, say the experts, that it’s generally a good idea to cook your own food at home and limit processed foods and drinks that have fructose or high-fructose corn syrup. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever have them–just keep how often (and how much) you have them in check!
Do you try to avoid fructose? What about sugary drinks in general?
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Posted by docakilah on October 25, 2012
These are really much simpler than they look, and are such a charming way to enjoy your favorite apple cider! The only requirements are some apples, a paring knife, and a spoon. (Although if you have a melon baller, it’ll make the scooping slightly easier!)
Cute, delicious, and nutritious!
Apple Cider Cups Recipe
Ingredients:
large apples
lemon juice
apple cider, either homemade or storebought
optional: cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, allspice and/or star anise for garnish
Method:
On a cutting board or sturdy surface, use a knife to cut off the top of the apple. Then take a paring knife and carefully outline where you’d like the “rim” of your apple cup to be. (My rims were about 1/4″ wide.) Use a spoon to carefully begin scooping out the center of your apple until you have a nice “cup”. (A melon baller also works well for this.)
Also, if your apple doesn’t sit exactly level, take your paring knife and just slice off a few millimeters to even off the bottom to make it even. Just be careful not to let your knife cut through the bottom or sides of the apple when hollowing it out, or the cider will leak out!
Once you have the inside of the apples hollowed out, brush a little lemon juice over the inside of the apples (to prevent browning). Then fill with your favorite apple cider, garnish with cinnamon or spices if you’d like, and serve!
Bonus Tip:
You could also warm the apple cups in the oven before serving. DON’T leave them in too long, or they will lose their firmness.
Homemade Apple Cider (Non-Alcoholic)
Ingredients:
8 -10 organic red apples
1/4 cup real maple syrup
4 tablespoons cinnamon (or 4 cinnamon sticks)
4 tablespoons allspice
Directions:
1. Quarter your apples (no need to remove peel or seeds).
2. In a large stock pot add your apples and fill with water–just enough to cover the apples.
3. Add maple syrup
4. Wrap your cinnamon and allspice in a doubled up cheese cloth and tie, and add this to the apples and water.
5. Boil on high for one hour (uncovered) checking on it frequently.
6. Turn down heat and let simmer for two hours (covered).
7. Take off the heat after two hours of simmering and let cool.
8. Remove spices and mash up the apples to a pulp like consistency (a potato masher works well for this).
9. Once cool pour into a strainer over a large bowl. When most of the juice has drained away, put the remainder of the pulp into a doubled up cheese cloth and squeeze over the bowl until no more juice comes out.
10. (At this point you can either restrain the juice to get out the little bits of pulp that remain with a cheese cloth draped inside the strainer to catch them or just leave it like I do).
11. You can store in an air tight container in your refrigerator for up to a week or you can freeze it for later use if you like.
FOR DIABETICS
** You could make this a diabetic recipe by omitting the maple syrup and adding stevia to taste in place of the sugar or none at all.**
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Posted by docakilah on February 21, 2012
Do you spend most days with a can of soda by your side? You might want to break that habit. Turns out, all soda — even diet — is bad you, and new research suggests it’s especially harmful to women. Here are six reasons to give up soft drinks for good.
1. Soda makes you fat. Both regular and diet soft drinks are tied to obesity. In one study, people who drank diet sodas had a 70% greater increase in waist circumference over a few years compared to those who skipped soft drinks.
Diet soft drinks are particularly insidious, says RealAge cofounder Michael F. Roizen, M.D. “Sweet diet soda fuels your desire for other sweets,” he explains. It also has a “health halo” effect. “You view choosing a ‘diet’ drink as virtuous (all those calories saved!). So it feels like you can afford to reward that virtue with a hot fudge sundae.”
2. Soda boosts your risk of serious disease. The extra belly fat that often comes with a soft drink habit is linked to heart disease and type 2 diabetes. A recent study in the Journal of Internal Medicine also tied a daily diet soda habit to a higher stroke risk.
3. Regular soft drinks may cause cancer. New research from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health finds drinking two or more regular soft drinks per week may almost double your risk of pancreatic cancer. Researchers speculate that the sugar overload from regular soda triggers insulin production that fuels cancer cell growth.
4. It’s bad for your teeth. Yep, your mom was right about this one. And here again, even diet soda is bad news because sugar isn’t the worst offender in soft drinks. The big culprit is soda’s high acid content: phosphoric, malic, citric, and tartaric acid strip tooth enamel. Citrus-flavored soft drinks are the worst — they dissolve enamel up to five times more than colas.
5. It’s bad for your bones. The same acids that are bad for your teeth also coax calcium from your bones. That goes for regular and diet caffeinated soda. Can’t give up your Diet Coke? Roizen recommends upping your daily calcium tally by an extra 20 mg for every 12 ounces of soda you sip.
6. It’s bad, even if you don’t gain weight. New research from the American Heart Association finds that women are more vulnerable than men to the harmful effects of drinking two or more sugar-sweetened drinks — including soda — per day. Soda-sipping women are likely to have a larger waist size, higher “bad” LDL cholesterol, higher levels of triglycerides (harmful fatty acids that can cause heart disease), higher blood sugar, and lower “good” HDL cholesterol — even if they don’t put on a pound.
Aspartame (E951) is an artificial sweetener, used in over 6000 products. The food industry claims that aspartame helps in losing weight, but why is obesity then becoming such an ever increasing problem?
Aspartame is a very sweet chemical, responsible for a host of health problems such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, brain diseases, migraines, ADHD, etc.
Aspartame breaks down into three toxic components:
1. Methanol - This is poisonous alcohol. In the body, methanol breaks down into formaldehyde, which is a poison. 2. Phenylalanine - This decreases the amount serotonin in your brain, which leads to mood swings (depressions) and an increased appetite! That is why aspartame is one of the main causes for the current obesity epidemic. 3. Aspartic acid - This is a neurological toxin comparable to MSG.
The US Department of Health has recorded 92 (!) symptoms following complaints about aspartame. In fact, over 80% of all complaints filed with FDA are related to aspartame consumption!
Some of the brand names for aspartame: AminoSweet, NutraSweet, Equal, NatraTaste, Canderel, Spoonful, Equal-Measure, etc.
Aspartame is used in any of the following products: Sugarfree, Light, Diet, Zero (Coke, Sprite & Fanta), Coke 007, Pepsi Max, Crystal Clear, Low-Calorie, Crystal Light, No Sugar Added, Smint, Stimorol Ice, Stimorol Fusion, Freedent, Mentos, Sportlife, etc.
Do no longer believe the lies of the food industry and the ‘main stream’ media. Contrary to what so-called ‘health experts’ claim, aspartame is NOT safe!
In fact, aspartame is a sweet poison developed to make people sick so the pharmaceutical industry can sell expensive medication to ‘treat’ the chronic diseases that are caused by it’s use.
Avoid this toxic chemical for 60 days and discover how your health will improve dramatically!
Shocking aspartame documentary ‘Sweet Misery’:
Other artificial sweeteners that you should avoid: Acesulfame K (E950), Cyclamate (E952), Isomalt (E953), Saccharin (E954), Sucralose or Splenda (E955), Alitame (E956), Neohesperidine (E959), Neotame (E961), Salt of Aspartame-Acesulfame (E962), Maltitol (E965), Lactitol (E966), Sorbitol (E420), Mannitol (E421), Glycerol (E422).
Sweet misery
The researchers also noted that aspartame appears to cause excessive signaling of nerve cells, and nerve cell damage or even death. By disrupting the functioning of the cells’ mitochondria, or energy source, aspartame leads to a cascade of effects on the whole system.
“The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally,” the researchers wrote.
According to a research review conducted by South African scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, high intake of the artificial sweetener aspartame may lead to the degeneration of brain cells and various mental disorders.
Same face, different name
Previous research was reviewed and it was found that aspartame, marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, Canderal and Tropicana Slim, leads to both direct and indirect changes in the brain when consumed in high quantities. It was found that the chemical can disrupt amino acid metabolism and structure, degrade nucleic acids, and interfere with the function of nerve cells and hormonal systems. It also appears to change the concentration of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.
Aspartame is used in more than 6,000 products around the world. It has been controversial since its introduction, with a number of studies linking it to cancer and neurological and behavioral disorders. Side effects have been reported by many people including headaches, insomnia and even seizures from aspartame consumption.
The FDA and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), however, continue to insist that the sweetener is safe.
You can’t imagine how hard soft drinks sweetened with Aspartame are on your body. A must-see for anybody with a sweet tooth, this exposé reveals the dangers of Aspartame consumption.
Americans constantly obsess over the latest diet fads and skinny trends, yet we’re one of the unhealthiest nations on the planet.
According to the US Surgeon General, obesity plagues more than 30% of Americans, killing over 300,000 people every year! Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are also all on the rise, with one of the main culprits in this disturbing trend being sugar. Almost 20% of our daily calorie intake comes from refined white sugar. That works out to about 150 pounds of sugar per year!
Consumed in small amounts, sugar actually helps your metabolism and supplies a quick boost of energy. In excess, sugar adds nothing but empty calories to your body. Many people have recognized this and now opt for sugar free alternatives, allowing for the rise of the artificial sugar industry. The most prevalent artificial sugar in our food supply today is called aspartame, which is also recognized as NutraSweet or Equal. Aspartame has made its way into more than 6,000 products including almost all diet sodas, chewing gum, frozen desserts, yogurt, and even vitamins and cough drops. 200 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame is a combination of two amino acids: aspartic acid and phenylalanine.
Even though the safety of aspartame has been affirmed by the Food and Drug Administration 26 times in the past 23 years, the FDA has received more complaints about adverse reactions to aspartame than any other food ingredient in the agency’s history. In fact, at least 30% of the US population is sensitive to even moderate doses of aspartame and may suffer several symptoms. Immediate reactions include severe headaches, dizziness, attention difficulties, memory loss, throat swelling, and seizures.
Aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in many diet sodas and used as an ‘alternative’ sweetener, has been found recently to have detrimental – specifically, cancerous – effects.
A new report has found that carcinogenic ingredients are be hiding in many common apple and grape juice brands. These juice products, despite previous denial, have now been officially found to contain cancer-causing arsenic as well as traces of lead.
Arsenic exposure, of course, can increase your risk of developing cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. What is even more shocking is the fact that those most prone to health problems resulting from arsenic exposure are children – the very demographic in which popular juice products are directly marketed towards.
The bombshell report, released by Consumer Reports, tested 88 samples of apple and grape juice from 28 different brands. What the investigators found was quite shocking, especially if you are one of the many parents filling your child’s lunch with brand name juice boxes.
Roughly 10% of the samples from 5 different brands were found to have total arsenic levels rising above 10 parts per billion (ppb), the limit set by the FDA for bottled water. Even more concerning is the fact that the researchers also reported that high levels of lead were observed in some of these juice products.
“The resulting analysis of almost 3,000 study participants found that those reporting apple-juice consumption had on average 19% greater levels of total urinary arsenic than those subjects who did not, and those who reported drinking grape juice had 20% higher levels. The results might understate the correlation between juice consumption and urinary arsenic levels because NHANES urinary data exclude children younger than 6, who tend to be big juice drinkers. “
Findings highlight the value of home-made juice
A great way to avoid the toxic ingredients found in brand name juice products is to simply make your own. Utilizing an inexpensive juicer, you can prepare your own apple juice – full of nutrients and beneficial enzymes.
Besides, commercial juices are extremely nutrient depleted and loaded with excessive amounts of fructose. Starting your day off with fresh juice made from your own home with locally grown organic produce is a recipe for energy, mental clarity, and optimum health.
