Sunday, July 27th, 2008

Eating Healthy Vegan Style

Regardless of your reasoning, choosing to be Vegan is a true lifestyle change; it requires commitment beyond words. People choose to be Vegan for a variety of reasons. Some people do it because they feel the inhumane treatment of animals in the manufacturing of meats and by-products, like eggs or dairy, is wrong.

Some people choose not to eat meat for religious reasons. And there are some people who believe it’s a healthier lifestyle. They feel the conventional Western diets of the United States, usually filled with meat and dairy is unhealthy and can lead to obesity and other diseases.

No matter the reason, Vegans must adjust their bodies to habits that have been bred into the Western world for centuries. Vegans must learn what true nourishment is and how to go about living a truly healthy Vegan lifestyle.

Because animal meat has always been the main source for protein for many people, Vegans must learn to find their protein from other sources besides meat. One of the highest sources of protein is that found in soybeans and soy products.

In fact, protein found in soy can be as high as protein found in many meats. In general, soybeans have more protein than any other bean and lots of other edible plants. Protein from soy is also easily digested and can, in fact, help the digestive system in many ways. Research has been conducted and studies found that protein in soy foods can lower cholesterol by approximately 9%.

Fiber is important to Vegans because it is filling and it works the body’s many systems. Fiber has been found to improve the circulatory system, the digestive system, and to fight off some cancers and chronic diseases. In fact, research has even been conducted regarding fibrous foods’ positive affects on blood glucose levels and cholesterol.

Fiber can add bulk to any food, leaving a person feeling full and satisfied. Because some fiber is soluble, meaning it will dissolve in water, many Vegans choose fiber foods that are a combination of soluble and insoluble, for example soybeans. Soybeans and soy products contain large amounts of fiber.

Research has shown that the amount of fiber you need is based upon age and gender. Women between the ages of 19 and 50 will need approximately 25 grams of fiber per day, while men in this same age group will need at least 30 grams of fiber per day. For Vegans, the amount of fiber needed daily is even higher. A Vegan needs to add another 5 grams of fiber to his or her diet daily.

It’s important that Vegans also receive other vitamins and minerals in their food. Eating a healthy variety of foods that includes lots of vegetables and high protein and fiber meals will aid in nourishing the Vegan body. Eating healthy foods high in good protein and fiber and low in fats will also have affects on long-term health.

Source: Nutrition

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Can You Add 7 Years to Your Life By Eating The Right Foods?

VibeFit.com

The simplest broad formula for eating to add vigorous years to one’s life is to cut one’s calories down sufficiently to stay thin.

Thin sibllings almost always outlive their chubby brothers and sisters, with and maintain greater vigor and vitality.

Statistically, Being Slightly Under- Weight After Age 30 or 35, Means a Longer Life

Insurance company statistics conclusively prove that, after the age of 30 or 35, persons who remain slightly under weight are much better bets for a long life than those who are only a little overweight.

Nothing Should Be Taken to Extremes

The relation between food consumption and human health is very complex. Going to dogmatic extremes in consuming foods simply in ways that you imagine will make you live longer might just make life seem longer, as a result of being rendered tedious. That said, enough research and development has been to establish that food greatly factors into the length of one’s life, and eating right can make a big difference.

Longevity Diets

Most famous of all longevity diets is that developed by Dr. Henry C. Sherman of Columbia University. One of the half dozen leaders in the field of nutrition, Dr. Sherman’s name is intimately linked to several of the vitamins through its use in identifying units of vitamin dosage in early stages of investigation.

The Importance of Riboflavin in Health

Riboflavin, or Vitamin G, is essential to what Dr. Sherman calls “preservation of the characteristics of youth”- that is, vigor, clear skin, enthusiasm, lack of wrinkles, and the like. By merely changing the proportions of natural foods in the diet, Dr. Sherman believes it quite possible to increase the average life span by 10 per cent. The Biblical threescore and ten thus becomes, through benefit of science, not 70 years but 77-an extra 7 years of terrestrial activity available to those who study their nutrition lessons.

What Made Rats Live 10% Longer in Experiments?

The families of white rats at Columbia University that made this heartening promise possible lived 10% longer than others who apparently had normal diets. What was added to their feedings? Principally, additional quantities of milk solids. The essential elements that made for longer life are, as Dr. Sherman identifies them, Vitamins A and G and the mineral calcium.

Nor are the extra years mere feeble and disabled ones added to old age. “They are best conceived as inserted at the apex of the prime of life,” says Dr. Sherman. It is one’s productive years, not the declining ones of senility, that are extended by riboflavin and Vitamin A and calcium in the diet.

Eat Foods Rich in B Vitamins (No, Not Just Take Vitamin Pills)

Since gray hair is usually associated with aging processes of the body, the marvelous B complex vitamins may reasonably be assumed to play an important part in longevity. Rats that turn white on diets deficient in the anti-gray hair vitamins also exhibit early signs of senility. These extraordinary vitamins are still so new that their functions have hardly been catalogued. However, it is probable-indeed, it is almost certain-that liberal intake of the B-rich foods will play a vital role in increasing life expectancy.

The Effect of “Good Proteins” on Quality of Life

Even in this fascinating business of living longer, proteins rear their gluey heads. There is every evidence that liberal intake of good protein in quantities considerably above the minimum usually prescribed makes for a long life and a merry one. On this basis a minimum intake of some 400 protein calories a day-a large part of them preferably from such superior protein foods as milk, eggs, and meat-is a splendid idea for anyone who wishes to postpone liquidation of his life insurance policies.

“Does man gain in vigor, happiness, or longevity by eating an amount of protein which is materially in excess of the minimum?” asks Dr. James S. McLester, famous nutrition authority of the University of Alabama whose classic textbook is a diet Bible of physicians. He answers his own question: “Animal experiment and clinical experience, as well as studies in racial development, warrant, I believe, an affirmative answer.”

Proteins, calcium, Vitamins A and G and the B Complex For Long Life

Proteins, calcium, Vitamins A and G and the B complex vitamins — there you have, in part, the answers o£ science to date as to how to eat for a longer life. Always, of course, these vital elements should be taken in foods which provide just enough calories to keep one at ideal weight or slightly below it, after middle age.

Be Thin

On the average, thin experimental animals live longer than overweight ones. But thinness should be achieved in healthy way.