December 2009 Blog Posts (29)

Happy New Year 2010!

To all Iowa Avenue members... and don't drink too much... :)

Added by Susana on December 30, 2009 at 12:00am — 1 Comment

Green Beans With Roasted Walnuts and Sweet Cranberries

This recipe from Real Simple Magazine was a hit with the family this Christmas dinner. I don’t know if it was the pretty Christmas colors in the dish, or the combination of ingredients, but these beans provided a nice balance for heavier foods like the stuffing and mashed potatoes.

I bought tender young green beans from Costco, toasted the walnuts, and added sweet dried cranberries. Who wouldn’t like that?

Happy… Continue

Added by Kristi Rimkus on December 29, 2009 at 7:47am — 4 Comments

Five small changes worth trying in the coming new year

While New Year’s resolutions are made with the best of intentions, they’re usually forgotten by mid-February. If this first sentence describes your own experience I'd like to suggest to you a no-resolution plan for change this coming year.

How could that work?

New Year’s resolutions tend to be big plans—commitments to a “project” that are often unrealistic because they impose impracticable demands on our tendency to stick to old habits. Try as we might,… Continue

Added by Ayala laufer-Cahana MD on December 28, 2009 at 7:30am — No Comments

Happy New Year 2010 for a Healthy Lifestyle

And if you search Google images with Happy New Year 2010 for a Healthy Lifestyle, we get our resident Dietitian, Diana Young's page and picture of… Continue

Added by David on December 27, 2009 at 3:05pm — 1 Comment

Happy Holidays!

Added by Susana on December 24, 2009 at 8:30am — 1 Comment

Christmas Fun

Added by Susana on December 22, 2009 at 3:40pm — 1 Comment

Tight Ass Tuesday - Step Up to Having One - Take the Stairs Today!

Climbing stairs. I know - it's boring. But it's great for your rear end. Take the stairs today!

5 Ways to Decrease Boredom and Increase the Number of Stairs Climbed Today

1) plug in some headphones and listen to music as you climb the stairs instead of taking the escalator or the elevator

2) sing a song out loud! this will help with your rhythmic breathing

3) count how many steps you're climbing and add one more than you think you can do...and one more after… Continue

Added by Cheryl Ragsdale on December 22, 2009 at 9:34am — 2 Comments

Are artificial sweeteners a healthier option?

Sweet tasting foods are rare in nature. Fruits and vegetables have some sweetness to them, but they’re also packed with lots of fiber, water, micronutrients and phytochemicals, and are nutritious and quite filling. Honey was hard to find for most of human history and even harder to harvest—it’s protected by an army of stinging warriors.

It’s only in our… Continue

Added by Ayala laufer-Cahana MD on December 21, 2009 at 5:16am — 2 Comments

Diabetes Meter Mates With PC to Track Trends

By Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal:

This week's column was, in a sense, written in blood. It's a review of a new consumer medical device, and to test it, I had to prick my fingertips several times a day to produce a droplet of blood that the gadget could analyze.

The product, called the Contour USB, is an… Continue

Added by David on December 17, 2009 at 1:55pm — No Comments

Ayurveda - The Mother of All Healing Systems

Ayurveda guides followers how to sustain harmony and balance between mind and body. This is a non-invasive technique and provides different ways of achieving healthy life. It’s different from taking a balanced diet, herbal remedies, placid exercise and physical therapies. The particular medicine is the concept of prakruti, an individual's unique formation determined at the moment of outset. An individual's prakruti is a particular combination of the three life forces or elements (doshas), which… Continue

Added by Naturesformulary on December 16, 2009 at 3:56am — No Comments

Consumer Ranking of Health Reform Elements

From Kaiser:

Percent who say it is extremely or very important to them personally that each of the following be a feature of any final reform plan:

* Making sure affordable health insurance plans are available: 79%

* Requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions: 71%

* Not adding to the country's budget deficit: 69%

* Filling… Continue

Added by David on December 14, 2009 at 2:17pm — No Comments

What would you change about the Nutrition Facts Panel?

Nutrition Facts labels became law in the US some 15 years ago, and the familiar panel we all know and strain our eyes over—the one that provides some key nutrition information, an ingredient list and allergen declarations—continues to evolve.

Do you read it? All of it? Do you understand it? Are you looking for your reading glasses?

In all fairness, not all… Continue

Added by Ayala laufer-Cahana MD on December 14, 2009 at 5:00am — No Comments

Will reducing obesity lower health care costs?

From the Center for Business and Public Policy

Graphs of Net Benefits, Costs, and Payoffs for Fix(x) and 'Var'

A number of the comments on my recent postings have focused on the idea that we could reduce health care costs in… Continue

Added by David on December 12, 2009 at 10:42pm — No Comments

Is your tap water safe?

I get EWG newsletter in my inbox. It is pretty scary to see San Jose tap water ranks very low...

Are you confident that your drinking water is safe? Ever wonder if you should filter it?

These are vital questions that EWG's new drinking water research and searchable guide will help you answer. We are the only ones who have put together a nationwide database of drinking water test results. The information is so important --… Continue

Added by Susana on December 12, 2009 at 4:51pm — 2 Comments

You don't need a gym membership

Portrait of Man with a Towel Around His Neck

Are you sick and tired of your clothes not fitting properly. You may have thought about joining your local gym. Most gym memberships want you to sign a (long term) 2 year or more contract. Also the only way you can get out of the contract is by paying a outlet charge, which can run you several hundred dollars. Who has that kind of money to… Continue

Added by Patrick Kallie on December 12, 2009 at 9:00am — 3 Comments

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetabile sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus… Continue

Added by David on December 12, 2009 at 8:52am — 4 Comments

Motivating your spouse to work out

Are you a person the likes to stay in shape and workout? Motivating yourself to workout is one thing, but motivating your spouse is another. I bet their are many people out their that are in the same boat I was in. To where you are pretty much the only person that works out in the household. I think that if you continue to workout and live a healthy lifestyle, sooner or later it will eventually rub off on your spouse. It's something you can't force on anyone. But their are things

that you… Continue

Added by Patrick Kallie on December 12, 2009 at 8:30am — No Comments

Eco-Friendly, Japanese-Style Gift Wrapping

By Becky Striepe, Green Options

There are lots of ecofriendly gift wrap options out there if you’re feeling the traditional, paper wrapping thing. If you want to branch out a bit, though,… Continue

Added by Susana on December 10, 2009 at 8:12am — 3 Comments

What's for dinner? - Moroccan Eggplant with Garbanzo Beans

I got this cold weather dish from The World's Healthiest Foods site. It is a good example of how to add a tasty and nutritious vegetarian dish to your healthy way of eating. This recipe provides a rich concentration of health-promoting molybdenum, vitamin C, manganese and… Continue

Added by Susana on December 8, 2009 at 9:00pm — 4 Comments

Effects of Green Tea and EGCG on Cardiovascular and Metabolic Health

Since ancient times green tea has been considered a health-promoting beverage. In recent years, scientists throughout the world have investigated the potential benefits of green tea and its most abundant catechin, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). The anti-cancer effects of green tea and EGCG were the focus of early research, and encouraging data from in vitro, animal model, and human studies have emerged. Due to the dominant role of cardiovascular disease and the dramatic rise of obesity and… Continue

Added by Linda Musselwhite on December 8, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments