Don't Read This if You are a Germaphobe

About twenty years ago I started reading a book called The Secret House. No, it isn't a horror book, I never read those. It is a book about what goes on during your day at a microscopic level.

If I remember right, it starts out explaining what happens to the dust mites when you first wake up. (You'll never want to get in or out of bed again, or walk on carpet, or apply mascara.)

I can't recommend the book, because I never got past the morning teeth brushing explanation. Yes, I do still brush my teeth, but I definitely changed where I

Please Tell Me It Isn't True about the Summer BBQ!

It is true, cooking muscle meats like beef, pork, fish, and fowl at high temperatures creates chemicals in the meats that are not present when the meat is raw.1  Some of these chemicals called, heterocyclic amines or HCA, are carcinogens which are substances that may cause cancer.2 This may be particularly true with postmenopausal breast cancer.3

What’s worse is it isn’t just barbequing that creates these high temperatures. Any time you cook muscle meats by boiling, grilling, barbequing or frying, you increase the amount of HCA in your diet. (This doesn’t happen with protein foods like eggs and milk.)

 Cooked beef seems to be the type of meat most likely to form HCA. According to Kansas State University, hamburger patties may be the greatest source of HCAs in the human diet.1 (One more reason to avoid fast food and  kid’s meals.)

So does this mean the end to the summer barbeque season?

Here are some tips to avoid dangerous HCAs in your diet.

Is Sunscreen Dangerous? Yes, If you Use the Wrong Brand

It has been pounded into our heads to always use sunscreen before going outdoors, (no one wants aging skin and cancer), yet it is the sun that helps us produce Vitamin D, which is essential to a healthy being. In fact, Vitamin D helps reduce the risk of aging and cancer. Complicate that with the fact that many sunscreens may not be blocking out the radiation they claim to, and actually increasing your risk of disease. So, what's a person to do?

Stress Begins with our Thoughts - by Dr. Michael Olpin

All stress begins with a thought. It isn’t what’s happening “out there” that initiates the stress response. It’s how we interpret what’s happening “out there” that causes us to become stressed out. 

We call this the perception of a threat. If we think this situation will lead to some kind of pain (emotional, mental, spiritual, or physical), our stress response turns on automatically to prepare for the potential pain. The potential pain is what we call a “threat.” 

Prevention of stress, then, is best done by focusing on our thoughts, by changing how we think about those things we think are threatening.

When you find yourself in a potentially stressful situation, ask yourself these questions.

The New CPR

Picture yourself at the mall or a family gathering and someone collapses . . What do you do?

This 2 minute video will explain a new way to save lives developed by doctors at the Mayo Clinic. It is easier to do and you don't need to blow in someones mouth. You really should watch this video.

Continuous Chest Compressions

Great Grains

We've seen some scary changes in our food supply in the last 50 years, (see Whoever Controls the Seeds, Controls the Food). We've also seen the negative nutritional changes that have occurred in our diets since the processed food revolution.

Take grains for example. Thousands of years ago, men ate 100 plus grams of fiber per day. Today we average 12. Twelve grams of fiber per day. With processed and fast foods, we have replaced our great grains with simple carbohydrates and fat. Not a good idea. Has anyone noticed that our

Injuries - Should You Use Heat or Ice?

If you are inactive and out of shape, it is likely that at some time in your life, you will suffer an acute injury.

If you are active and in shape, it is a good probability that at some time in your life you will be injured too, but hopefully you were doing some fun when it happened!

How to treat those not too serious injuries for maximum healing can be a bit confusing to some as many people with varying degrees of knowledge will tell you many different things.

Luckily, the answer is summed up nicely in this short but informative article from Runner's Magazine. Here it is . .

The Best Relationship Medicine

One night a few years ago, I was in a deep sleep when I began to feel the presence of someone else very close to my face. I opened my eyes to find my 6 year old daughter staring at me from about three inches away. Startled and a bit freaked out, I jumped up to find she had apparently been there for a while, wondering if she should wake me.

“Mommy, I had a bad dream.” I took a deep breath and asked her what it was about. “There was a monster in my closet.”

From here, I did exactly the wrong thing as you will soon see. I said,

The Case Against Soft Drinks

I know Americans love their soft drinks, but have you ever stopped to think, “What is in that drink?” The answer might surprise you. It doesn’t matter if it is regular or diet. There are somethings in all kinds of sodas that you should know.

The Advantages of Being Really Out of Shape

There are many obvious advantages to being in shape, but what about being out of shape?

People who are fit tend to look good, feel good, have more energy, less disease, can wear the clothes they want to wear, and can do the things they want to do. They are healthier, happier, they get better sleep, have better quality lives, live longer, and have more self confidence. They also fit into the movie seats at the local theater, don't have to pay more for airline tickets, have better sex lives, can be more fun to be around, better parents, and they can eat more without feeling guilty. Yes- fit people can eat more without getting fat.

But what about the advantages of being really out of shape? Well, there is a big one and here it is . . .

Want to Prevent Mental Retardation? Then Don't Let Someone Do This . . .

More than 10 percent of all children have been exposed to it (while in the mother’s womb). All will suffer varying degrees of effects ranging from mild learning disabilities, to major physical, mental, and intellectual impairment. These effects will last their entire lifetime.

Why Does This Happen? Most people want to have healthy, happy kids. They simply do not understand the damage they can cause these little ones with even one drink of alcohol.

Even small amounts of alcohol can have a devastating effect on a growing child. Most sane people would never give any child an alcoholic beverage, but if you drink while you are pregnant, your baby is also consuming that drink.

Alcohol is a teratogenic – a substance that causes birth defects. Its molecules are very small and easily pass through the placenta into the fetus’s bloodstream. If taken early in pregnancy, it poses a great threat to

Whoever Controls the Seeds, Controls the Food

The Future of Food Introduction

More and more when I give lectures on nutrition, I see an increased interest in the topic of genetically modified foods.

According to a recent CBS poll, 53 percent of Americans wouldn't buy food they knew it had been genetically modified. The problem is, it's very hard to tell if a food has genetically modified ingredients, even though almost 7 of every 10 products in the grocery store contain at least one

Misleading Fat Labels - When 2% fat is really 40% fat.

Let’s face it, if you were selling a product that has 2% fat when you measure it one way but 40% fat if you measure it another, you’d want the packaging to read that there was only 2% fat in your product. That is how it goes in the food industry. But that kind of advertising is misleading to consumers.

If you care about what you eat, and you want to be a savvy consumer, you are going to have to learn not only to READ packages and labels, but how to FIGURE THEM OUT. As far as fats go, here is the skinny on figuring out how much of it is actually in your food.

Let’s say you pick up a package of hamburger. It says 85% fat free.Wow, you think, this is only 15% fat. That is low fat and good for my family. What a great buy.

Hold on! That amount is dreadfully misleading because

Don't Eat THAT for Breakfast!

You wake up. You’re hungry. You open the cupboard and see two cereals, Captain Crunch and Raisin Bran. What you do next may not only effect your day, but your life.

What you eat for breakfast is vitally important to your health. It influences many things; what nutrients you get, how healthy you are, your ability to fight disease, how much energy you have, your cravings, your ability to focus, your mood and how much and what else you eat for the rest of the day.

Skipping breakfast is not a good idea. For one thing, people who skip breakfast tend to weigh MORE than those who

When and What Athletes Should Eat

Many athletes, weekend warriors, and soccer moms who want their kids to perform well, want to know what to and what not to eat before and after exercise. What you eat does make quite a difference on performance and on recovery.

When we were living in West Virginia, we watched many of the athletes at the college where we were teaching struggle because they ate so horribly. The football players would get up and eat things like