Which is more important when it comes to health food: Taste or nutrition?

Once a certain food is labeled as “healthy”, nutrition is the most important thing to consider. It is true that most people won’t want to eat anything (nutritious or not) if it tastes bad, but there are many “health foods” available that are more focused on taste than nutritional content. Any food that is overly processed isn’t really a health food, and you want to be sure to look at things such as fat, calories, salt and sugar content. These things are often slipped into foods without notice, and the consumer thinks they are being healthy…little do they know, they are filling their bodies with junk. Even foods such as canned vegetables and soup can be loaded with more than a healthy amount of sodium, despite the fact that they are “healthy” and taste good. Salads are the poster-child of health food, yet if they aren’t made carefully they can have as much fat and calories as a fast-food meal; nearly enough for an entire day!

Many fast-food restaurants advertise their food as being healthy, yet consumers should use common sense before buying into this story. Obviously a salad or grilled chicken sandwich at a fast-food joint would be more healthy than their other options, yet much less healthy than food you would eat at a better restaurant or at home. If you are in a pinch go ahead and order the best fast-food option available. Also, these options are ok as an occasional treat, if you really enjoy them. You just need to be careful about how often you eat these foods. On a daily basis, it is much better to think ahead, and be prepared by taking packed lunches with you to school or work.

The best way to be sure you are eating nutritional food is to cook your own food, at home. By using lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean proteins, you can cook nutritionally balanced meals. By learning to healthfully flavor your food, you can eat things that taste incredible while controlling fat and sodium. Many people have trouble learning to cook a variety of foods that are both healthy and balanced, while not eating the same foods all of the time. With all of the cooking shows on TV, and the websites and cookbooks available, any person can develop a passion for nutritious food that is far better than the “health foods” available to buy. Some great sources for food education and inspiration that you can use at your own pace are Rachel Ray (TV, magazine and cookbooks), Barefoot Contessa and Giada deLaurentiis on Food Network. allrecipes.com and vegetariantimes.com (and their magazine)are great readable sources. Health and exercise magazines include recipes, as well as most other magazines. Keep your eyes open for new and exciting ways to combine ingredients, and you will be eating the true health food!

Eating disorders explained

Eating Disorders Are a Serious Issue

Eating disorders can affect both males and females, with a higher instance occurring in females. An eating disorder is a potentially deadly syndrome, or illness, that has a biological base. The predisposition of developing an eating disorder is heavily influenced by emotional, societal, and cultural factors. Many eating disorder patients suffer without any help or treatment simply because of the stigmas attached to eating disorders, but with proper treatment, recovery is attainable.

Types of Eating Disorders

There are three main types of eating disorders, and it is possible that symptoms of all three occur in one person. The three types are known as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, which are also known as compulsive overeating. Patients suffering from any of these disorders experience extreme emotions, attitude changes, and strange behaviors, especially related to food and weight issues. People suffering from any eating disorder tend to have a negative body image.

Anorexia Nervosa

Men and women suffering from anorexia nervosa engage in self-starvation and extreme weight loss. Patients typically refuse to maintain a normal body weight and have an intense fear of becoming fat or gaining any weight. Additionally, anorexia patients feel fat despite their actual weight. Females often stop having menstrual periods due to the extreme weight loss.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is defined by binge eating and purging, which is usually done in a secretive cycle. Binge eating is characterized by eating a large amount of food in a very short period of time, normally more than what most people would eat in one meal, or even a day. Purging to get rid of the food and corresponding calories through over-exercising, excessive laxative use, or even self-induced vomiting immediately follows the binging. Most patients experience repeated episodes of binging and purging and feel out of control during these episodes.

Compulsive Overeating

Compulsive overeating, or binge eating disorder, is similar to bulimia but has no episodes of purging. Patients suffering from compulsive overeating will eat continuously and impulsively even after they feel completely full. In place of purging, there can be sporadic fasting periods, repetitive dieting, and most often feelings of shame and self-hate. Most patients susceptible to binge eating disorder also suffer from anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

The Causes of Eating Disorders

While the underlying causes of any eating disorder has yet to be determined, it has been found that a combination of factors will contribute to the onset of the disorder. Many patients begin with frequent thoughts about or obsess over food and weight. However, behavioral, emotional, psychological, interpersonal, and social factors also affect the onset and severity of eating disorders. Often, eating disorder sufferers use food and the control of food to compensate for emotions or feelings that overwhelm them otherwise.

Treatment

Because eating disorders can cause serious health problems and even death, it is important to get effective treatment and quickly. The earlier an eating disorder is detected and treated, the better chances a patient has of recovering. Usually, psychotherapy and counseling are the most effective treatments for any eating disorder. Accompanied with medical and nutritional monitoring, therapy is the most effective way to treat an eating disorder.

Terrific Ways to Find Good Restaurants

Are you fed up of the usual stuff offered by the restaurants that you normally frequent? Want to try new ones? Well, try the different ways given below to find good restaurants.

* Public media
Public media such as Newspapers, Television, Radio carry reviews and recommendations about restaurants in the locality, which also includes info on menus, price ranges, cuisine, ambience and so on. They also rate these restaurants based on user reviews. But there is a chance of it being biased.

* Recommendations from family and friends
Suggestions from family and friends are also helpful in finding great restaurants as they might have firsthand experience with some restaurants. But this also has its limitations as they can provide only very little info about the restaurants that they’ve visited. Moreover they cannot comment on all the restaurants in town.

* Internet search engines
Generic search engines provide some info on restaurants. Since, they are powered by keyword based technology; they fetch vast amounts of data mixed with a lot of irrelevant content. So, it’s a hectic task to select the right restaurant.

* Review sites
These are no doubt a good source of information providing both professional as well as user reviews. The basic drawback could be one could just be referring to a few review sites and they don’t cover all the local restaurants.

* Blogs
Some bloggers provide recommendations, reviews and suggestions about new restaurants in town. But, it also provides limited information.

* Vertical search engine to search restaurants
These compile reviews from across the web. As it’s powered by Natural Language Processing technology; it’s like a restaurant guide featuring detailed restaurants ratings, menus, ambience, addresses, hours, driving directions, maps, photographs, discount restaurant gift certificates and coupons, keyword searches and other relevant restaurant information. Users can also search by name, cuisine, occasion or location.

Of all the above options, vertical search engines are the best in finding good restaurants as they compile details from over a million online review sites to generate ratings of each and every restaurant based on its food, service and ambience. So, a restaurant guide helps in selecting good restaurants.

Metabolism boosting foods

I lost my adult weight gain and kept it off for over two years now by knowing which metabolism boosting foods worked best.

Not only did I lose weight, but I found enough energy to athletically outperform people 20 years younger than me.

It started by knowing that naturally growing foods boosts metabolism.

Mother Nature gave you an easy way to tell what foods constitute metabolism boosting foods, and what foods slow your metabolism down.

Here’s the catch, different foods have different metabolism affects on different people. This is why we have some people who could eat allot of one type of food and stay slim, while someone else eating that same food would balloon quickly.

Our bodies even react differently to what others would list as metabolism boosting foods.

Different people react to foods in different ways, but there’s a way for you to find out witch foods boost your metabolism and which ones slow it down.

Look back all the foods you’ve eaten in the past and recall how you reacted right afterwards.

If you’ve felt energetic for a long period of time, you’ve eaten a metabolism boosting food. If you’ve felt sleepy or tired after you ate that food, either immediately after eating or long after, you’ve eaten something that slows your metabolism.

Chances are that most the foods that kept you energetic after you ate were natural foods. Those that naturally grow that way in the wild or in the farm. You see these foods in the produce section like potatoes, carrots, and the butcher section, such as meats, fish, and poultry.

Go back to the last time you ate pancakes, allot of them. Also, go back and reflect on the last time you ate allot of cake and ice cream in one setting. Or when you ate allot of fudge bars. Chances are that you felt tired shortly afterwards.

This is your body shutting your metabolism down.

If you’ve wondered why some people could devote allot of time working out, but not losing weight, it’s possible that they’re eating foods that slow their metabolism down.

And it’s metabolism that contributes to people loosing weight, keeping it off, and getting by without needing coffee or feeling drowsy after lunch.

There’s an entire section in the grocery store that sells metabolism boosting foods. Fruits, vegetables, and meats are metabolism boosting. Natural grains like oatmeal and rice are also metabolism boosting.

Canned fruits, canned vegetables, and prepackaged/processed meats, have lots of sodium. Too much sodium slows your metabolism down and causes your body to hold more water. Canned fruits have too much processed sugar, another item that’ll slow your metabolism down.

Say you’ve gone to the produce section and purchased fresh fruits and vegetables. You’ve selected your meats and fish from the butcher section.

You’ve got fresh potatoes from the produce section instead of the prepackaged French fries and potato scallops. You’ve got your rice in the rice sack vice the boxed rice. You’ve got your natural oats that comes in the cylinder vice the prepackaged/boxed flavored oatmeal.

The next thing you do is eat them in a way that’ll maximize their metabolism boosting effects. You do this by eating them in the right amounts.

Instead of eating three large meals, eat several smaller ones. Eat when you get hungry. This is the trick to permanently loosing weight. Your body thinks that there’s plenty of food, and it’ll shed the pounds.

Supplement this with an exercise routine. Even if it means walking long distance on a regular basis. When you eat metabolism boosting foods, your eating will become the main weight loss strategy.

Why food is the ultimate gift

Life and food are intertwined. It is the first and most basic aspect of our lives that we imprint on. From the day of conception till the day we die food has a very central part in our existence. Without it life in our bodies would not begin or exist. Food is so vital, that just as the gift of life, it too has obtained a place in our consciousness as absolutely valuable and important to our very existence.

This consciousness that gives food such an elevated status, whether we think so or not, has to do with early life. When we are conceived our newly formed cells are nourished by it’s “yolk” until it is developed and can be feed via the placenta. Therefore we are born with an innate dependence for nourishment.

When we are born we find out that lack of food causes pain. This is why a hungry baby is a screaming baby (truth is always found in innocence). And this is where imprinting affects our entire view of food as life progresses. The first two years of life has a profound effect on the rest of our lives. The first years are the foundation which has a lasting effect on all life. We should, therefore ,be careful how we treat those years because once they take hold the effects cannot be suppressed.

So, we love food primarily because it makes us feel good. This is a fact. People who do not feel pleasure from food would not eat as much and would starve. Just sustaining life would not be enough to keep food in the number one spot in our lives. For example, we know that it is better to eat fruits and vegetables for a healthy long life but do most people change their eating habits just because of that fact. No, taste and other feel good factors play a greater role.

Other factors that play a role in making food ultimate in our lives is presentation and social feel good factors. From childhood we are taught that food is a happy occasion which is easily instilled in the mind of a child because he has already imprinted food with feeling satisfied and content.

Parents make every occasion and celebration a time to bring out the best foods. This is a time to be free, to eat as much as you want and whatever you want. It seems that the best of food comes out on happy occasions. Food is further instilled in the mind of a child as a happy thought when chocolates, sweets and confectionery are given on Christmas, Valentines, Easter, etc. Good food and treats are therefore associated with what humans crave the most, Love. Children therefore imprint good food,love and unconstrained living with food (daily eating although it satisfies a need for sustenance is always surrounded but rules and etiquette).

Presentation of food has now become an art form. Smell and taste, although they are what created our first love for food, has been joined by presentation; presentation is becoming as much of a factor. With media like magazines,TV and the Internet presentation has become a very powerful tool in invoking the senses in its continual indulgence in food. By just looking at any of the fancy dishes they are creating today can cause even the most reverent of monks to break his vows. Temptation is the very reason why monks and the like seclude themselves. And the food industry is taking advantage of that to the highest degree.

Resisting food is not in us. We need it to maintain life and most of all it has been groomed into our lives as an irresistible feel good priority of life.

The importance of food safety

The importance of food safety can not be underestimated. The safety of food is vital to your health and safety. The consequences of unsafe food can make you extremely ill or worse in the most severe causes can lead to death. The list of things that can be done to ensure food is kept safe is a mile long but without understanding the value of food safety you won’t see any reason to practice them.

Food safety is important to the health and well being of the family. It is also vital to the overall health of the nation when the problem begins before food is ever released in the market. You go to the store and get what you need only to have it make you sick or you go out to eat and spend the next day revisiting the food you had the night before to put it nicely. These are just a couple of things that occur when the correct precautions are not taken to ensure that the food we eat is grown, stored or prepared properly.

Restaurants aren’t the only places that have to know the importance of food safety. While the health department will make periodic inspections of the retail food world they will not come into your kitchen and tell you what’s wrong.

Waste results from improper food safety. Yes, waste because food that isn’t stored properly will spoil and you don’t want to feed rotten food to your family at any point and time during the course of your meals. When you don’t store food correctly bacteria can set up in it causing sickness to develop.

Cooking food properly is a part of food safety as well. When the importance of cooking food properly is not known disasters can result. There are some foods that have to be fully cooked before they can be eaten and when they aren’t cooked correctly they can cause you to become rather ill.

Cleaning food correctly is an important part of food safety. Whether you realize it or not there are sometimes chemicals used in the fields that your food is produced in. When these chemicals are not washed off due to an improper cleaning they can cause a poisoning effect on the body. The purpose of these chemicals is to kill insects that would eat the crop and the last thing that you want to do is to ingest a pesticide.

The importance of food safety is that it is the one thing that can make multiple people sick when not done correctly. Those that you love have to be kept safe and when you are responsible for preparing the food you feel responsible for things that happen when those eating it get sick.

There are cases of improper food safety that lead to death after an extended illness. While the cases are not frequent as they could be they do still exist. The importance of food safety can not be underestimated if you want to ensure the safety of your family.

Get All Information About Eating Disorder Types

Eating disorders are one of the unspoken secrets that permeate many families. Millions of Americans are afflicted with this disorder every year, and most of them — up to 90 percent — are adolescent and young women.

Rarely talked about, an eating disorder can affect up to 5 percent of the population of teenage girls.

Why are adolescent and young women so susceptible to getting an eating disorder? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, it is because during this period of time, women are more likely to diet to try and keep a slim figure and/or try stringent dieting. Certain sports (such as gymnastics) and careers (such as modeling) are especially prone to reinforcing the need to keep a fit figure, even if it means purging food or not eating at all.

These eating disorders carry serious health risks and can sometimes result in death. Medical and Dental complications can occur as a result of starvation, vomiting and abuse of exercise.

A small but significant number of eating disorder patients die from their disorder, convinced that it is better to starve to death than to be fat. It is vital that eating disordered people receive treatment for their disorders. Appropriate treatment includes medical attention and psychotherapy, both from professionals specializing in eating disorders treatment.

Preventing Eating Disorders
Cognitive-behavioral strategies may help prevent the development of eating disorders in adolescent women, particularly those who are overweight. A 2006 study in the Archives of General Psychiatry reported success with an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral program that targeted at-risk college-age women. The women were taught how to become more comfortable with their body weight and image. The program also provided education on healthy eating and weight management.

Eating Disorder Types

In Anorexia Nervosa, the sufferer shows a desperate fear of weight gain and a desire to be abnormally thin, and severely restricts her diet in an attempt to achieve this. Some sufferers also use excessive exercise and sometimes self-induced vomiting as a means of weight control. This behaviour leads to a wide variety of harmful physical and psychological consequences and can be life-threatening; in fact anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological illness.

Bulimia is characterized by eating excessive amounts of food in short periods of time,
Usually in secret, and is followed by some form of purging behavior. Most individuals suffering with bulimia realize that their behavior is abnormal and try to keep it a secret. Individuals are either slightly over, or at average body weight.

While bulimia is not as physically harmful as anorexia, the psychological effects can be devastating, leading to depression and even more serious outcomes including suicide in the worst of cases. The physical signs of bulimia which can be observed tend to be related to the purging methods used, and include regularly bloodshot eyes, swollen glands, and dental erosion. In the long term, the dangers include digestive system problems such as ulcers, weakness and exhaustion, and even heart problems.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is a type of eating disorder not otherwise specified and is
characterized by recurrent binge eating without the regular use of compensatory measures to counter the binge eating.

Binge Eating Disorder is characterized by:

1. Frequent episodes of eating large quantities of food in short periods of time.
2. Feeling out of control over eating behavior

A fast food observation

Please Boycott Fast Food

After three years of working in fast food, I have decided to boycott the industry. If people knew the truth, they would agree with my educated decision. Below are the reasons why people should not support the fast food industry.

First of all, no standard for quality exists. While a few restaurants may serve delicious food, the majority of them purchase the most inexpensive, lowest grade food possible. By giving us practically dog food, these companies maximize their profits. To increase profits even more, employees keep expired food, unless if it seriously endangers their customers’ health. Even though many companies make food after customers order it, the food still sits on the counters for hours. If you kept food on your counter for hours would you consider it fresh?

The quantity is a joke. One fast food chain literally puts a tablespoon of meat and a pinch of cheese on its products. The hamburger buns and tortillas create an illusion of feeling full. Please do not let these deceiving companies fool you. Fast food is inexpensive because they cut costs by barely giving you food, if you can call it food.

To kill all the germs on your hands, one must lather them for twenty seconds. How many times have you seen an employee wash their hands in only five seconds? Soap still clings to your hands after five seconds. Also, while making food, employees may go hours before washing their hands again. To employees, hand washing becomes a nuisance. Imagine washing your hands over 1,000 times a month. Another sanitation destructor is the innumerable flies, which enter restaurants in the summertime. Please think of the high probability that your dinner contains germs, soap residue, and fly feces. Yummy!

Most of these companies treat their workers as ants, unimportant and replaceable. They pay their employees minimum wage-the minimum needed to survive (if you have no children, at least). Minimum wage barely provided me, a single male, enough money for shelter and food. These employees cannot afford luxuries, like cars and health insurance. If the millionaire franchise owners offered ridiculous things, such as health insurance and paid-vacations, they might have to purchase a smaller vacation home. I would, however, like to tell you that McDonalds does offer paid-vacation and health-insurance. Unfortunately, most companies do not. Next time you eat at fast food, please think if the cashier can feed her own children.

I do not understand why customers put up with the poor customer service. Here is an inside secret, THEY DISLIKE CUSTOMERS. Employees begin to resent customers and complain of their stupidity, rudeness, and slowness. In fast food, the customers are expected to be fast. The drive-thru runs on a timer. When a car sits there, after they receive their food, it makes the timer run. When you eat in the lobby, have you heard a loud, annoying beep? That beep tells them to hurry, or else. Or else, the mangers threaten their jobs. By the way, do not make an employee angry. Otherwise, you might receive smashed food, no napkins, or even violated food. Employees view customers as a permanent, ugly, pus-filled boil on their faces.

Experiencing fast food first hand has made me resent the industry. The customers help them survive. So they can continue to give you unhealthy food with bad service. I would rather take five minutes and make myself a sandwich. I know my sandwich does not have fly feces on it.

Choosing a location for a new restaurant

Most important thing is that find out several things of pre-opening area; such as peoples’ population, average age, people’s eating habit and their purchasing ability etc. Make a comparison from different area to find out the better result.

Try to find the location near the commercial area or office towers. The location can be reached by walk or drive, it just takes a few minutes to arrive. The location should avoid facing another restaurant because it may mislead the people to enter the wrong place when they want to go to your restaurant.

Find out the location in the convenient zone, the transportation tool and pedestrian can pass by it conveniently. Ensure the parking lot has enough space for your customers parking.

Investigate the town, which area is well known dinning area and find out the location to open the new restaurant. More people will go to your place because your restaurant is in the famous area.

Choose a location near the street corner to open a new restaurant because everybody will know when they pass by it no matter car driver or pedestrian. When people feel hungry or they think the location is convenient they will come to your restaurant enjoying your place without hesitation.

If open a restaurant inside of the building, avoid opening at the upper floor, because people always think they want to find a convenient place to diet not to go high floors to waste their time. The best location is open at the ground floor because where are most people concentrated.

People can find your restaurant easily when they get together at the lobby of building. Everybody can see your restaurant if your restaurant at the lobby level.

Nowadays more and more people to use the transportation to go to diet at the restaurant. The best way is the restaurant should have its own parking lot or the restaurant location should be close to the city parking lot. The street face to the restaurant should be wide and without any traffic jam. The street’s name also should be well known and people can be found it easily.

Dealing with emotional eating

Emotional eating is often referred to as stress eating and over eating in general. Regardless of what it is called, it is a common problem in today’s society. Technically, it would be considered a type of eating disorder in the sense that the person that is emotionally eating is using food as a crutch to deal with their problems.

I am an emotional eater. I use it as an escape when things don’t go my way or to celebrate when I am on top of the world. If I get a promotion at work, I grab a snack cake. If I am having a bad day, I grab two snack cakes. I eat because it is available and rarely just because I am hungry. Actually, many of the times that I have turned to food for comfort, I have not been hungry at all.

Of course we all need food for survival but it is when that line is crossed that a problem begins. When food is used for something other than sustenance or a means to nourish the body, it is defeating the purpose. Yet, because there are a lot of foods out there it is often hard for many people not to reach for something to eat to help them cope.

There are a variety of reasons that people use for emotional eating. They may do it because it is available or because they are bored. They may stress eat because they are in pain or searching for a temporary solution for their broken spirit. Perhaps they are even overeating to avoid a craving for something else.

Emotional eating acts as a cushion. It provides comfort when bad things happen. It is a way for the people eating to deal with their problems and pacify themselves. In truth, it is just a far too convenient method.

Emotional or stress eating may falsely solve one problem but it brings a multitude of other problems to deal with. If a person stress eats, they are probably not taking time to read labels and make healthy choices. They are likely to gain weight and could even develop health issues. In the end, a temporary fix such as emotional eating just isn’t worth it.

Once a person gets used to stress eating, they often do it without giving it a second thought. Dealing with stress eating is very important. If a person gets too used to emotional eating, the outcome may not always be a desirable one. People can become addicted to food but no matter how delicious it tastes, very few people would want to make the world record book as fattest emotional eater.

The first step to get past this lack of impulse control is to work towards pinpointing the actual problem. If you are able