Shared from a eye surgeon.
Scientists from the Arctic University of Norway found that 70 percent of GE soybeans have "extreme levels" of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which causes harm to human health and, in some cases, kills human cells.
And that’s just one food!
Here’s another statistic for you: 65 percent of the thousands of produce samples EWG analyzed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture tested positive for pesticide residues. This makes it more essential than ever that we have the resources we need to make informed choices about what we serve our families.
That’s why EWG created the 2014 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, listing the "Dirty Dozen" items likely to expose you to the most pesticides, and the "Clean Fifteen" safest bets for avoiding bug and weed-killers
SUPPORT THEM.
People have been sounding warnings about the dangers of too much sugar for a long time. As early as 1957, John Yudkin, a professor of nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College in London, began arguing that when it came to heart disease and other chronic ailments, sugar — not fat — was the culprit.
SINS OF SUGAR
1. Cavities: Tooth decay occurs when the bacteria that line the teeth feed on simple sugars, creating acid that destroys enamel. Because acid is a key culprit, sour candies are especially bad.
2. Weight gain & Obesity: Sugary foods are full of calories but will do little to satiate your hunger. Just one can of soda each day could lead to 15 pounds of weight gain in a single year, and each can of soda increases the odds of becoming obese, a JAMA study noted.
3. Insulin resistance. Sugar causes insulin to rise. When insulin levels are consistently high, your body’s sensitivity to the hormone is reduced, and glucose builds up in the blood.
4. Diabetes: study that followed 51,603 women between 1991 and 1999 found an increased risk of diabetes among those who consumed more sugar-sweetened beverages (soda, sweetened ice tea, energy drinks).
5. Liver failure: High doses of sugar can make the liver go into overdrive. That’s one reason excess fructose is a “key player” in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, where fat accumulates in the liver. People with this diagnosis have been found to have almost double the soda intake of the average person.
6. Pancreatic cancer: A handful of studies have found that high-sugar diets are associated with a slightly elevated risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers.
7. Kidney disease: Rats fed extremely high-sugar diets — consuming about 12 times the percentage of sugar recommended in the WHO’s new guidelines — developed enlarged kidneys and a host of problems with regular kidney function.
8. High blood pressure & Heart Disease: eating lots of added sugar has indeed been linked to high blood pressure. a CDC study of 11,733 adults concluded that there is “a significant relationship between added sugar consumption and increased risk for CVD [cardiovascular disease] mortality.”
9. Nutritional deficiencies: “High-sugar foods displace whole foods (eg, soft drinks displace milk and juice consumption in children) and contribute to nutritional deficiencies,” noted a statement from the American Heart Association.
Source: British Medical Journal, 2008; Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease, 2012 & http://www.businessinsider.com/effects-of-eating-too-much-sugar-2014-3#ixzz2zuToMJ8Q
We have a growing problem and opportunity in child education with the invasion of electronic gadgets in modern world. There are dizzying array of electronic good that can absorb your kid and take his mind away from books. E-books have started to nudging time away from books. Slowly and inescapably, the book stores are vanishing and becoming far and few. Are the crispy, sweet smelling and fresh books on the decline? Is our coming generation doomed to electronic consumption? Are they not going to get a chance to read books as we did in our childhood days?
As a parent you have the power to boost your children’s learning skills. That’s achieved by making books an integral part of their lives.
What are the merits of book-reading?
1. A stronger relationship with you.
As children grow up, they are on the move-playing, running and constantly exploring their little world. Each and every step they take is taking them away from you. Snuggling up with a book lets both of you to slow down and recapture those sweet times when (s)he was a baby. Instead of treating book reading as a chore, it can become a cozy, nurturing activity and bring the two of you to the sweet old days of cuddly two.
2. Academic excellence
Higher aptitude is the primary benefit of reading to toddlers and preschoolers. All studies point out that reading children do well in all facets of formal education.
3. Basic speech skills.
As a baby, he is learning to talk. He’s trying to learn language and pronunciation skills. Listening to you read, he’ll be reinforcing the basic sounds that form language. Book-reading is very important pre-literacy activity.
4. The basics of how to read a book.
Children don’t know how to read a book. How do you integrate images and letters. Essential pre-reading skills needs to be learned.
5. Better communication skills.
Reading helps them to express themselves in a more clear and healthy way. By witnessing the interaction between characters as well as your contact with them, the child will gain valuable communication/interaction skill.
7. More logical thinking skills.
Ability to grasp abstract concepts, apply logic in various scenarios, recognize cause and effect and utilize judgment is the other benefits of reading. As the kid tries and relates to her own life’s happenings, she’ll become more excited about the stories you share.
8. Acclamation of new experiences.
As the child nears one milestone after another, sharing a particular story will ease out her built-in tensions and help her to be stress-free and calm.
9. Enhanced concentration and discipline.
Initially kids are not interested in sitting and listening to books. As time passes they’ll learn the discipline, expand their attention span and improve memory retention.
In short, reading is fun. Spend the time before your little one grows up into a man and flies to new horizons.
Bigger Portion Sizes Make You Eat More
RESEARCH FINDING: A portion of food twice as big as what you normally consume will lead you to eat about a third more food than usual. And funnily, larger portions lead to greater consumption even across conditions of bad food.
Interestingly, portion sizes have been growing for a millennia. An analysis of 52 paintings of “The Last Supper” shows the painted portions of bread and wine have been steadily getting bigger over the last 1,000 years.
TAKEAWAY:
· The best way to not eat more than necessary is to control your portion sizes, and don’t let them control you.
· The second step is to train children to listen to internal cues and not be misled by external cues.
· The third step is to have food marketers limit portion sizes. Increasing portion size makes an offering more attractive, but when everyone does this in order to be competitive, all available offerings become large. This leads to unnecessarily large portions and unnecessarily large people.
· Step 4: Choose smaller size cutlery and plates on the dinner table
· Step 5: Never shop with a hungry stomach. If you go to a super market, and end up buying a lot of unwanted food, try taking a hand basket instead of a cart. (Ever noticed why the cart sizes are so huge now a days? They encourage you sublimely to buy more)
· Step 6: When eating in a restaurant, ask for the take out box before you start to dig in. Transfer part of your food to your take out box and eat only what you decide to. Seeing less on plate will motivate you to finish what you eat and also enhance your satiety.
· So make your portions smaller. You’ll save some money and save your waistline.
· “Always try to do it yourself before you ask the teacher.”
· “You have to show and share what you know.”
· “You can only get good at something if you practice hard.”
· “It’s not right to be mean to someone – even if the teacher isn’t looking.”
· “It’s good to read with your buddy from the third grade.”
1. Freezing food to use later in the week
2. Laying out all clothes and school uniform the night before
3. Hang clothes up instead of ironing them
4. Use a pen to write their names on clothing and shoes, instead of sewing in name tags
5. Using baby wipes to clean your children instead of always washing their face
6. Grating vegetables into food to ensure the children are eating their five a day
7. Using a bit of ketchup on foods the children don’t really like
8. Spray deodorant in smelly shoes instead of buying new ones
Check out other good ones from: http://www.viralnova.com/awesome-life-hacks/
The popularity of indoor games is rising with the use of Video games, Nintendo, play station, VCRs, DVDs, and Internet use. These take children away from outside activities and put them on a couch in front of a computer or big screen. Studies say that these devices could also be leading children to adopt more sedentary life-style one which could stick with them for the rest of their lives.
Couch potatoes syndrome is one of the reasons for obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and cholesterol in young kids. Lack of exercise and obesity are the top two health concerns for U.S. children. Can you imagine that kids as young as 8yrs old are taking cholesterol lowering drugs. Now there are special pediatric cholesterol checkups.
So, as a parent, wake up and smell the coffee. Parenting influences played a major part for their sedentary life-style. Either we can have a healthy active kid or a nice chubby couch potato who will end up chemically fried with pills or worse dead by the time they grow into adulthood.
If you want to make a change in their lives, read on….
Parents should always strive for balance between exercise and healthy eating. Making exercise a fun game is more important because if you do exercise you won’t realize you are doing exercise. It really helps. It makes you feel better about yourself. Some of the joys of physical exercise are:
Think outside the playing field.
All children are not soccer or basketball players. There are other activities also like, dancing, rock climbing, swimming, martial arts, or cricket. Be patient until you get one game for your children.
Family time can do wonders.
You don’t need fancy classes or fancy toys for the child to play. Play with them, run with them. Walk to school together. Take the bike and run.
Limit screen time.
Computers, TV, internet whatever it is restrict them to one or two hours per day. Suggest alternatives as tag time, walking dog or board games if it is winter.
Lead by example.
You sit in front of the TV with remote on one hand and popcorn on the other and expect your child to go and play outside? It is not going to happen. You have to show the kids how to do it. They learn from you each and every move. You can walk instead of driving to the corner shop. Climb up the stairs instead of taking the elevator all the time… you can be a role model to your children by incorporating small physical activity in your everyday life. Participate in active pursuits that you enjoy and let your kids see them. Talk to them about how much you enjoy such pursuits.
Offer positive feedback.
Shower children with praises for their fitness effort and yoga stands. Children need lots of encouragement for reaching even small goals. Remember to acknowledge the effort, choosing to be active or trying to improve their skills rather than the outcome. Kids need all the support and cheer leading you can offer. Nagging and negative comments don’t work with kids. It will only serve to make your child feel bad.
Bring a friend along.
Kids love to hang out with peers and buddies. Offer to bring them along for ice-skating or swimming. Children like to play with friends in playgrounds. Just make sure the focus is on making fitness fun and learning new skills. It is not winning and competition as this can dampen your child’s enthusiasm for the game.
Use exercise as a reward.
Don’t ever use exercise as punishment. Usually push-ups and run-laps are used for this. Instead try using them as reward. Running, playing and kickboxing for 10 minutes are a break from monotonous home-work. They are all fun stuffs. Instead of sweets and chocolates exercise can be offered as reward.
Establish a regular routine.
Make sure your child’s fitness program is plugged into family schedule in the same way that school work, shopping, party, groceries, birthday parties and play dates find their way into your calendar. You and your child are more likely to stick to an exercise plan if you incorporate it into your life on a routine basis. This way your child will begin to expect and accept the walking two days a week, yoga one day, one day bike session and one day tennis and so on.
Take a non-negotiable position.
As brushing teeth, eating food, wearing a seat belt a subject of debate in your home? No they are not. They are all activities that promote health, safety and well-being. The same way fitness too is important. The same approach should be given to exercise too. It’s a no-brainer. Regular exercise is good for the mental and physical well-being of the child. Stand firm from the get-go and don’t let your child argue the merits of computer games vs playing outside tennis.
Now, Go out and have some fun.
