Eating Healthy During the Economic Crisis

Registered Dietitian Offers Nutritional “Bailout” Plan

St. Charles, MO 10/16/2008 07:21 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)

Eating healthy is often determined to be too expensive for the average American. Fast food and foods loaded with fat and sugar tend to be inexpensive and always at hand.

Registered Dietitian Jayson Hunter has created some tips for healthy and affordable eating. He is calling it his Nutritional Bailout Plan.”Too many people think they can’t afford to eat healthy, especially during this Economic Crisis”, according to Hunter.

Science Sins and Media Mistakes
What You Should Know About Dietary Supplement News Reporting

By Neil E. Levin, CCN, DANLA

Are male smokers taking beta-carotene really at increased risk of cancer? Are high dosages of Vitamin E really hazardous to your health? Is ephedra, an herb with demonstrated weight loss benefits, really a “killer” that merits its banned status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?

Natural health remedies have a long history of promoting health and wellness, dating back thousands of years. But sloppy science and sensationalist health reporting by the news media make this increasingly hard to believe.

Detoxification

By Neil E. Levin, CCN, DANLA

The EPA tracks about 650 toxic chemicals used in 23,600 facilities in the US. The agency reports that about half of the 4.24 billion pounds of these toxic chemicals are annually released into the air, ground or water. These include chemicals from the mining, smelting and power generation industries, paper production, electronic equipment manufacturing, plastics, pesticides, etc. While the highest release of chemicals is associated with mining and power production, other industries release problematic chemicals into the environment on a daily basis, all over our country.

Certain groups are most at risk (e.g., children, pregnant and nursing women, the elderly).

A recent journal article pointed out the widely-reported danger of smokers using beta-carotene, a natural source (provitamin) of vitamin A, as part of their multivitamins. 1 In this meta-analysis (as in common in such analyses) the researchers have neglected to consider pre-existing dietary and serum levels of this nutrient, making their claim to control by placebo inadequate to properly isolate this variable. In fact, this failure to determine the effects of beta-carotene at a dose-dependent plasma level – and by neglecting to measure total beta-carotene intake along with the relevant synergistic antioxidants associated with it, as opposed to simply measuring supplemental intake - raises serious questions about the validity of these results.

Weight loss is never easy. We always want the weight to come off fast, despite how long it took us to gain those extra pounds. At some point we all go through a sort of stagnant period or hit a plateau. It’s usually when we have our goal weight in sight, and only have those last 5 or 10lbs to go.
Vary your exercise and try something different. If you’ve been walking, try a different route with more hills or focus on walking faster or for a longer period of time.

This past week I attended part of Austin’s Diabetes Summit a continuing education conference sponsored in part by the American Diabetes Association. I learned a lot of great new things about diabetes and how to help my clients.

Dr. Ann Albright, the Director, of the Division of Diabetes Translation Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave a great talk on Pre-diabetes.

According to her presentation there are 21 million people with diabetes and 54 million people with Pre-diabetes in the U.S.

What is Pre-diabetes?

I know…I know I sound like a broken record. Last week I was at the Austin Diabetes Summit, a professional conference, and it was reiterated again that one particular diet doesn’t help people lose weight over the long-term.

Since it was a diabetes conference one could image that some of the speakers were talking about low-carbohydrate, low-fat diets, etc. The message that I got loud and clear, which comes to no surprise to me, is that there are several diets out there and maybe there is one that is right for you or maybe you have to make it up as you go…

The bottom line is to find an eating style that works for you over the long-term whether your hope is to control your blood sugars, lose weight, control cholesterol or just make peace with food.

I don’t know whether it is a new product or if I am now just noticing…but either way I am pleased. HEB (http://www.heb.com) has there own line of reduced fat cheeses. The HEB location that I shop at usually carries a Colby Jack and Cheddar cheese that are lower in fat. So, if you have heart disease or high cholesterol, diabetes or trying to lose weight HEB low fat cheese is good choice.

I know that other brands make reduced fat cheeses, such as Kraft (http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf) , which is great…but they can be costly.

If you have recently completed weight loss surgery such as the lap-band or gastric by-pass surgery there is a new resource available to help you with your journey.

Two registered dietitians, Annessa Chumbley and Ruthanne Hilbrich, have created a DVD called “Flourish your Journey”. The DVD includes 12 recipes, such has “Unfried Rice”, “Pasta con Pesto” and even “Mexican Brownies”. The DVD also includes shopping and exercise tips.

I have not seen the video in its entirety, but I have watched the video clip that is available on Chubley and Hilbrich’s website http://www.flourishyourlife.com/ .