Diet + Nutrition

As you age, it becomes more challenging to obtain an adequate amount of food due to poor oral health or difficulty in chewing solid food. Oral surgery, diseases of the throat and mouth or wearing dentures are common factors that often make it harder to chew and swallow a variety of foods to stay healthy. A diet of soft food or food that is easy to chew and swallow can allow you to meet your nutritional needs while still enjoying the pleasure of eating.

Black walnuts have a delicious meat that is used in cakes, cookies and other bakery dishes, or eaten plain as a snack. Black walnuts have a stronger flavor than standard walnuts available in the supermarket. If your neighborhood squirrels do not steal them all before harvest, you can clean and store your own fresh walnuts for a special organic treat.

Making homemade drinks for weight gain is extremely easy. You only need a blender, store-bought supplements, sugar/artificial sweetener (optional) and ice (optional). To optimize weight gain, see these drinks as supplements rather than replacements for meals.

Many healthy and delicious plant foods contain the soluble dietary fiber called inulin. Eating foods that use this carbohydrate storage material will add bulk to fecal matter, which aids in mineral absorption through the intestines. The probiotic nature of inulin helps provide an environment for healthy bacteria to continue growing in the intestinal tract. Add these foods to your diet to benefit from their positive effects on digestion.

Those who are worried about their health often consider cutting meat from their diet. While meat does have some negative aspects, there are multiple nutritional reasons to include meat in your diet.

The National Center for Health Statistics states 67 percent of Americans are overweight, and many of them are obese. In response to consumers’ interest, television programs are airing shows about obesity and weight loss.

During pregnancy, women often experience a range of side effects such as nausea, vomiting, bloating, heartburn, fatigue and constipation. Most often, these issues disappear post-pregnancy. If you are experiencing constipation during pregnancy, there are several treatments you can try to alleviate, or even avoid, the issue.

Anemia can be caused by several different factors. One cause of this disorder is an iron deficiency. If you are a woman of childbearing years, then you are at risk of this type of anemia. Learn what meats you can eat to cure or prevent anemia.

Providing balanced and nutritious meals is essential for children’s growth, energy, and overall well-being. Crafting healthy meal plans that kids enjoy can sometimes feel challenging, but with a few creative ideas, you can ensure they get the nutrients they need while keeping mealtime fun. From colorful fruits and veggies to protein-packed options, a well-rounded meal […]

Plantain chips are an interesting snack that have begun to make their way throughout the United States. Many people are beginning to make the distinction between sweet bananas and savory plantains. Those who have not been introduced to plantains are missing out on a nutritious food.

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, fat is actually an important part of a healthy diet. Omega-3 and unsaturated fats offer many benefits for the heart, immune system and the brain. Making the switch to healthier oils can be easy.

Fatty liver disease is characterized by an accumulation of fat in the liver. For most people, it does not cause any symptoms and will not lead to any complications. In some people however, the excess fat can lead to tissue scarring, inflammation and possibly liver failure. Luckily, treatment consists of simple self-care measures that will not only benefit your condition but your overall health as well.

Over the last decade, due in part to new regulations allowing Canada to grow and export hemp, more hemp products have made their way into U.S. markets, according to Purdue University. This includes the food market, where hemp is showing up in a variety of products.

Buttered corn on the cob is a sweet and satisfying side dish for Barbecue Sundays. In addition to that, corn offers a lot of nutrients that the body needs on a daily basis. You can eat whole kernel corn to detoxify your body. Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t neglect that corn on a cob.

The collection of calcium deposits in the skin, tendons, along bones or in scars is known as Calcinosis. It can be a painful condition, with many causes, including an underlying medical condition, such as over stimulation of the thyroid, tissue damage or lupus. Proper diagnosis of Calcinosis often requires a doctor visit and x-rays, and ridding the body of excess calcium and calcium deposits can be tricky, often requiring proper diet and physician assistance.

Colitis is an inclusive term that describes an inflammation of the colon that may have a variety of causes. Your strategy for treating colitis should also be inclusive. Colitis needs traditional diagnostic and medical treatment from a physician, but natural treatments (or what is called naturopathy) can ease symptoms and improve your overall health.

Most doctors agree that pregnant women shouldn’t try to lose weight. However, pregnant women shouldn’t gain too much weight either. In general, doctors suggest that a healthy weight gain during pregnancy is about 25-35 pounds for the average size woman. However, the recommendation for overweight women is between 11 and 20 pounds at a rate of 2 to 3 pounds a month.

Colitis is the inflammation of mucus membranes lining the colon wall. Symptoms range from mild diarrhea to pain, bloating, gas, hard stools and the bleeding of ulcerative colitis. Although the cause of every case is not known, colitis is associated with chronic stress, antibiotic use, food sensitivities and poor dietary habits. Dietary changes and natural remedies can cure or achieve remission of this condition.

The Noni plant is mainly grown in Tahiti, but its name is Hawaiian. The juice from the fruit is an excellent source of vitamins, especially vitamin C, vitamin A, niacin (vitamin B3), iron and potassium. Noni juice, known as the Tahitian miracle cure, can help with weight loss, headaches, diabetes, cancer, fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis.

If you’ve ever suffered with a kidney stone, you’d probably do anything to avoid having another one. Unfortunately, most people who are prone to kidney stones will develop them more than once. You don’t have to resign yourself to that, though. A few simple changes to your diet can reduce your risk of kidney stones.

Although a high protein diet is generally safe for an otherwise healthy adult, that does not mean such a lifestyle is entirely risk free. One not-so-common possibility stemming from adherence to a high-protein diet is the formation of kidney stones. Kidney stones are an incredibly painful urinary disorder that sends millions of people to the emergency room yearly.

Experts recommend increasing your daily intake of dietary fiber to between 20 and 35 grams.

Anyone who has experienced a kidney stone knows what a painful ordeal it can be. The sharpest pain can be felt in the lower abdomen and/or lower back. Diet is a major contributing factor to this issue, and certain rules should be followed to avoid kidney stones.

Pregnancy can be a time of uncertainty and joy for many women. Weight gain and loss, and how much is safe, is often on many women’s minds. Times have changed from the general philosophy in the past that pregnant women should eat for two. Today, your pre-pregnancy weight may determine how much weight a doctor advises you to gain. Most doctors do not advise women to lose weight during pregnancy, although some women may experience weight loss.

Protein and energy shakes can be very beneficial for your overall health. Several pre-made powdered mixes in different flavors are available that you can mix with water, juice, milk, or even blended in ice cream or with ice cubes to make a cold, creamy shake or smoothie.

Many women gain an exorbitant amount of weight during pregnancy, which is not healthy for the mother or the baby. It has been shown that women who gain too much weight during pregnancy have more complications with delivery and with breastfeeding their infants. However, there are some steps you can take to ensure that you lose excess weight and maintain optimal body weight during pregnancy.

It’s easy to pull a box of cookies off the grocery store shelf and glance at the nutritional information to know how many calories you are eating. But when you’re making a recipe, sometimes it’s hard to know how many calories are going into your culinary creation. With some basic math, you can get a good estimate of calories for all of your home-cooked meals.

Although breast feeding is a natural instinct, it may take babies a bit of time to learn. Hence, it’s sometimes necessary to build up your breast milk supply so that you can sufficiently train and feed your baby. As your baby sucks milk from your breast, your body releases hormones that instruct your brain to prepare more nutrient-rich milk for your baby. Frequent and unrestricted breast feeding, incorporating natural milk-producing agents in your diet and avoiding milk-restricting herbs are your best bet to build up your breast milk supply.

The neurotransmitter dopamine helps to regulate your mood, motor control, cognition, attention responses to motivation and reward. Lower levels of the hormone can lead to depression, a low sex drive and poor attention. Dopamine levels can decrease due to stress, drug use, and poor diet. By producing tyrosine, an amino acid that helps form dopamine, or other precursors to dopamine, you can increase your energy to exercise, prevent addiction and anxiety, and generally feel better physically and mentally.

The kidneys are integral to your health. They are responsible for creating urine and assisting our bodies in excreting wastes, among other things. Keeping your kidneys functioning and healthy is important to your overall well-being. Take a few simple steps to ensure that your kidneys stay functioning properly.

Flaxseed meal is a great alternative to flour, especially for those requiring a gluten-free diet. If you do not have issues with gluten, flaxseed meal can still be incorporated into many recipes for its added health benefits. Flaxseed is high in protein and soluble fiber, low in carbohydrates and contains healthy omega-3 fats and a high content of vitamins and minerals. Adding flax meal to recipes will add texture, increase moisture and enhance flavor. Additionally, flax meal can be used to replace fat, flour and eggs in most recipes.

Eating a diet rich in fiber is a proven method for achieving weight loss. Fiber-rich foods help you feel full longer, resulting in a decreased consumption of overall calories. Oat bran is one of the best sources of dietary fiber.

Guar gum is made from the extraction of a bean from the guar plant. The guar plant is grown primarily in Pakistan and India, as well as in the United States. The guar bean is rich in protein and used to feed cattle, and as a vegetable used in Middle Eastern cooking.

Apricots, picked at the peak of the summer growing season and dried outside under the hot sun, look as if the sun’s golden rays have been captured within the sweet, tart flesh of the fruit. A handful of dried apricots makes for a convenient, nutrient-rich, pick-me-up snack and can transport you back to the warmth of summer, even on the coldest winter day.

Sometimes, people find moldy food in their kitchen, whether it’s bread that didn’t get used fast enough or forgotten leftovers sitting in the back of the refrigerator. Moldy food should usually be discarded, but a few types may be salvageable.

Vitamins are an important part of a healthy lifestyle. They serve as the building blocks of many of the body’s essential functions. When the body does not have enough nutrition, or has extra demands placed upon it for one reason or another, vitamin supplementation may be necessary. For more rapid absorption into the body, injections of vitamins may be the method used. It is important to know all the details of how this works before you begin.

The kidneys maintain the body’s water supply, remove waste and keep chemicals in balance. Kidney disease and renal failure can be caused by exposure to toxins, drugs, solvents, chemotherapy and heavy metals, just to name a few. Edema is a common symptom of any kidney problem. This occurs when the kidneys are unable to excrete salt and the resulting fluid promotes swelling in the body. However, there is a specific diet you can go on to flush out toxins and heal the kidneys. Incorporate these suggestions into your diet to provide aid to ailing kidneys.

People who have been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease or renal failure may need medication, dialysis, a special diet, or a combination of treatments. Doctors place limits on dietary elements to relieve stress on the kidneys and alleviate uncomfortable renal disease symptoms like nausea, headaches and fluid buildup. Follow the diet your doctor prescribes for kidney disease control.

When an individual’s kidneys are no longer able to get rid of all of the waste they would normally remove, the person is diagnosed with renal kidney failure. The waste comes from the food and the liquids that are consumed by a person on a daily basis. In some cases, dialysis treatment is necessary when a person has entered into a stage of renal kidney failure.

Everyone knows that canned soups are loaded with sodium. What many people don’t know is that homemade soup can be, as well. Choosing the wrong ingredients can make a homemade version just as unhealthy as the canned version. It doesn’t have to be this way, though. There are several ways to reduce the sodium in homemade soup. If follow a few easy steps, even your favorite old-time recipes can be healthier.

Electrophoresis is a diagnostic method of identifying certain types of abnormal proteins. This clinical procedure is prescribed by practitioners if they suspect kidney damage or multiple myeloma in an individual. Often, abnormal protein electrophoresis is conducted to find traces of monoclonal proteins. The abnormal protein electrophoresis is considered one of the most effective ways to diagnose fatal ailments as well as to monitor a disease and its progress after treatment is commenced. Other instances where abnormal protein electrophoresis is widely used are in cases of liver problems, damaged nutrition systems, and intestinal syndromes which instigate wastage of proteins and immunity malfunction.

One of the most concentrated form of sodium comes in all of the processed and prepared foods available today. Soup often comes highly processed and canned. Follow a few simple guidelines to ensure you know how much sodium you’re ingesting and how to choose low sodium soups wherever you get them.

According to the Latin poet Horace, circa 35 B.C., “A man will pass his summers in health, who will finish his luncheon with black mulberries.” Mulberry plants have been used in folk medicine for centuries and are being studied as a possible weapon against diabetes.

According to the Merck Manuals, many health conditions can cause itchy skin, including liver diseases. Cleaning the liver is one way to reduce or eliminate itchiness. Detoxification of the liver takes a variety of forms, including supplements and fluids. The liver is an organ that has many important functions. Its main function is cleaning the body by filtering out harmful materials that impede health. Detoxification is a method of deep internal cleaning that eliminates the build-up of toxins, poisons and other impurities that can lead to liver problems and itching.

Those looking to shed a few pounds might want to consider a cleanse; these diets work to flush the body of toxins. The choice of healthy foods coupled with lower calorie intake leads to weight loss. In order to successfully complete a cleanse, sometimes referred to as a “detox” diet, consider the following tips.

A proper balance of alkaline and acidic foods can help your body feel good and function more efficiently. Mixing alkaline and acidic foods is known as food combining. Alkaline-forming and acid-forming foods require different digestive fluids to adequately digest. When you eat alkaline and acidic foods in the same meal they may interact in a way that causes your digestive system to slow down or stop all together. Once you know if a food is alkaline-forming or acid-forming, you can make better choices about what types of ingredients to include in your meals. The article, “Food Combining” (www.kamron.com/Health/food1.htm), notes that the proper (food combining) ratio is 4 parts alkaline foods to 1 part acidic-forming foods.

Those who choose to eat mainly alkaline foods are usually doing so in an attempt to reduce the amount of acid in their body. Too much acid has been associated with conditions such as diabetes and stomach ailments like ulcers.

For the diabetic, the presence of acetone in the urine is a warning that needs quick response in order to prevent ketoacidosis, a potentially fatal condition. Diabetics can avoid acetone buildup by practicing good diabetic management.

MSG, or monosodium glutamate, was isolated by scientists in 1907. Essentially a salt loaded with glutamic acid (an amino acid), MSG has been used as a flavor enhancer ever since it was patented in 1909. MSG produces a taste known as “umami,” which corresponds to the savory sensations found in meat, potatoes and rich greens like seaweed. In recent years a number of health concerns have arisen around MSG, most of which have been discounted by scientific studies. Regardless, some people still claim headaches from consumption of the additive, so it’s worth knowing what foods contain it.

Diarrhea is an uncomfortable condition that leaves many people afraid to leave their homes. Medical science recognizes that diarrhea is an important function of the body because it eliminates something unhealthy from your digestive system. Take a few steps at home to get through episodes of diarrhea as quickly as possible.