dimanche 16 août 2015
vendredi 7 août 2015
Berry Banana Sundae
Berry Banana Sundae
This simple sundae recipe is made with Healthy Choice Blueberry Greek
Frozen Yogurt, Reddi-wip, sliced banana and frozen mixed berries
Hands On: 10 minutes
Total: 10 minutes
Makes: 1 serving (1 sundae each)
Ingredients
1 container (4 fl oz each) Healthy Choice® Blueberry Greek Frozen Yogurt
1 small banana, peeled, sliced
Reddi-wip® Original Dairy Whipped Topping
1/4 cup frozen unsweetened mixed berries, slightly thawed
Directions
1. Remove foil cover from yogurt container. Run knife around edge of container; remove frozen
yogurt in 1 piece. Place in small dessert bowl.
2. Place banana slices around edge of yogurt. Top yogurt with Reddi-wip; add berries.
Cook's Tips
For variety, use different flavors of Healthy Choice Greek Frozen Yogurt and your favorite toppings.
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 sundae
each
Servings: 1 serving
Calories/Serving: 238
Amount/Serving % Daily Value*
Total Fat 3 g 5%
Saturated Fat 2 g 11%
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 12 MG 4%
Sodium 41 MG 2%
Vitamin A 2% Vitamin C 32%
Amount/Serving % Daily Value*
Carbohydrate 51 g 17%
Dietary Fiber 6 g 25%
Sugars 31 g 3%
Protein 5 g 11%
Calcium 11% Iron 3%
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet About Our Nutrition Information
5 best exercises for a bad back
Cardio
Walk, swim or cycle. If you’re in the gym, opt for a bike which has back support, and if you’re swimming avoid any strokes that twist your body.
Pilates
Pilates works the deeper muscles in the body helping to strengthen your back. For those who suffer from chronic back pain or who are recovering from surgery and have finished with physiotherapy, Pilates is an excellent way to keep improving your back strength focusing on just a few selected movements and working a little at a time. A short session performed often can make a huge difference.
Wall sits
Start by standing 10 to 12 inches from the wall, then lean back until your back is flat against it. Slowly slide down until your knees are slightly bent, pressing your lower back into the wall. Hold for a count of 10, then carefully slide back up the wall. Repeat 8 to 12 times.
Secrets for great sleep
1. Avoid weekend lie-ins. As tempting as snoozing in bed until 11am on a Sunday morning can be, they could actually not be doing you any favours. Your body can’t ‘store’ sleep, so if you’re trying to make up for a late night in the week, unfortunately it won’t benefit. Plus, it only serves to confuse your body clock and disrupt sleep patterns further, meaning your 6.30am weekday alarm will be even more torturous.
2. Set aside half an hour in the evening. Spend this time dealing with your worries and to-do list. Write them down in a journal or on a piece of paper, then set them aside before bed to ensure they’re not going round in your head and preventing you from nodding off.
3. Cut out noise. Live next to a busy road, have a partner who just can’t quit snoring or even just an annoyingly loud ticking clock? All of these can affect your sleep, so banish these sounds and sleep in peace by wearing earplugs.
4. Buy the biggest bed you can afford. Whether you’re single or sleep alongside your partner, the more space, the better. This will allow your body to move about without getting smacked by flailing arms or fear of falling out of the bed. And don’t forget to replace your mattress every 8-10 years to avoid old springs causing backaches and pains, and also for hygiene reasons – there’s a lot of dust mites and dead skin gathering in there that you can’t even see.
Food Services Company Aramark Promises Healthier Meals
U.S. food services giant Aramark says it will develop healthier meals for its clients.
The Philadelphia-based company serves 2 billion meals a year in schools, hospitals, universities, businesses, sports venues and other settings, the Associated Press reported.
Aramark is working with the American Heart Association to reduce fat and salt in its meals by 20 percent by 2020, and said it will increase the amount of fruits, vegetables and whole grains by the same amount.
The amount of produce the company buys is expected to rise from 200 million pounds to 240 million pounds a year, the AP reported.
lundi 3 août 2015
Mark Zuckerberg announces wife's pregnancy on Facebook

While many may be faintly annoyed by the over-sharing of distant acquaintances' baby announcements on Facebook, one couple certainly had the right to the social media attention.
Mark Zuckerberg shared the news that his wife of three years, Priscilla Chan, is expecting a girl. Zuckerberg posted this exciting development on his Facebook page to over 33 million followers.
How to survive a rip current
Practice safe swimming
You should always swim in an area with lifeguards. Patrolled areas post surf hazard warning flags or rip current educational signs so swimmers know about surf conditions and rip current activity. In addition, NOAA's National Weather Service issues surf zone forecasts to help lifeguards and local officials determine if the water is safe for swimming.
The U.S. Swim Schools Association urges parents to review rip current safety measures with their children and introduce kids to the lifeguard in the area before they go into the water.
"It's always good to check in with the lifeguard when you arrive at the beach," Gill said. "If you see red flags flying, check in and see what the restrictions are."
NYC Legionnaires' Disease Outbreak Claims 4th Victim
ew numbers released Saturday by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that the continuing outbreak of Legionnaires' disease has now claimed a fourth life, with 65 people now infected.
The illness is typically spread when people breathe in vapor or mist from a contaminated plumbing system, and USA Today says that five buildings -- including Lincoln Hospital, Concourse plaza and the Opera House Hotel -- have tested positive for the bacteria.
'Picky Eating
The researchers discovered that kids who eat selectively are unusually sensitive, and that this sensitivity affects their eating and their emotional health.
"They have a stronger sensitivity to the world outside and to how their body feels," Zucker said. "That sets them up to have more vivid experiences -- more intense food experiences, more intense emotional experiences. None of that is pathological, but it could be a vulnerability for later problems."
These findings should take some of the blame off of the parents, since it's not just a matter of controlling an unruly child, Zucker said.
In this study, researchers looked at more than 3,400 children ages 2 to nearly 6 who were treated at one of Duke's pediatric primary care clinics. Of those, over 900 kids were screened by an in-home evaluation, and their parents filled out psychiatric assessment forms and reported on their eating patterns.
About 20 percent of the kids who were screened had some form of selective eating, researchers found. Of those, 3 percent exhibited signs of severe selective eating and 17 percent were moderately picky eaters.
Children who ate within the normal range of childhood likes and dislikes weren't considered picky eaters. "Kids who disliked broccoli were considered normal," Zucker said.
For severe picky eaters, eating out is too challenging, Zucker said.
"Their sensitivities to smell and other foods are so extreme that eating around other people and all the different smells at a restaurant are too overwhelming," she said.
On the other hand, moderate picky eaters have a limited list of foods they like, but they can manage eating out. "He might not be able to order off the menu, but he's still fine being around food," Zucker said.
Plan to Eat Healthier
1°Limit your intake of pizza, sodas and sweet treats.
2°Drink plenty of water and low-fat or fat-free milk. Lean dairy products will help build stronger bones.
3°Fill half of your plate with fruits and veggies at each meal. Stick to lean meat and poultry, beans, eggs, tofu and other healthier sources of protein.
4°Opt for whole grains, such as brown rice and whole-wheat bread or pasta.
5°Make wise choices at fast food restaurants. Avoid a super sized meal, or split a meal with a friend. Make healthier choices at the school cafeteria, too.
Traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury can occur from a blow to the head caused by a fall, traffic accident, assault or sports injury. Concussion is one type of traumatic brain injury. In 2009, more than 248,000 teens and children were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for sports- and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries or concussions, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.For the study, published online Aug. 3 in the journal Pediatrics, researchers compared 113 children who had been hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury with 53 children who had a trauma injury not involving the head. The injuries, which ranged from mild to severe, occurred more than 18 months earlier on average.
The researchers tested mental functioning and evaluated questionnaires completed by parents and teachers at least two months after the injuries.
The head-injured group had slower processing speed, the researchers found. And their attention lapses were longer than those noted in the other children. But unlike other research, no differences were reported in other types of attention, such as executive attention -- the ability to resolve conflict between competing responses.
Diet Pepsi's how sweet it is?
Aspartame, which is more commonly known as Equal, is 200 times sweeter than table sugar, or sucrose. And sucralose — the stuff found in Splenda packets that will now be used to sweeten Diet Pepsi — is even sweeter than that. On average, sucralose is 600 times sweeter than table sugar, according to the Calorie Control Council, a non-profit organization that disseminates information about low-calorie foods and beverages.
But peoples' ability to distinguish between the two artificial sweeteners doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sucralose's extreme sweetness, said Stuart McCaughey, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Ball State University in Indiana, who studies taste perception. People can tell the difference between artificial sweeteners because they are sensitive to the "nonsweet tastes" associated with these substances, McCaughey told Live Science in an email.
"All sweeteners also have other aspects of their tastes, which affect how much people like them, and these other sensitivities might differ between people for a variety of reasons," said McCaughey, who added that bitterness is one of the tastes that might turn people off from artificial sweeteners.
People have different gene sequences that affect the way they perceive bitter tastes, according to McCaughey. There are also lots of different taste receptors (cells inside of taste buds) for bitterness in the mouth, and these taste receptors differ in every individual. So, it makes sense that one person might perceive the taste of a certain artificial sweetener as bitter while someone else does not, he said. It also makes sense that some Diet Pepsi drinkers might like the soda sweetened with aspartame, but not with sucralose, and vice versa.
There are also other preferences not related to taste receptors that affect whether or not a person will like a particular sweetener, McCaughey said. One of these is "mouth-feel," or the tactile sensations and textures that a food or beverage imparts in the mouth. Milk, for example, can be described as having a creamy mouth-feel and wine aficionados frequently describe the different mouth-feels imparted by their preferred vintages.
In news reports about Pepsi's new diet drink formula, PepsiCo vice president Seth Kaufman has been reported as saying that the company's new diet soda will have a "slightly different mouth-feel" than its aspartame-sweetened counterpart. It remains to be seen how die-hard Diet Pepsi fans will react to the new formula's mouth-feel, which could perhaps be slightly less (or slightly more) "syrupy" than Diet Pepsi sweetened with aspartame, according to McCaughey. [The 7 Other Flavors Humans May Taste]
Growing concerns over environmental chemicals and insulin resistance

"Our research adds to growing concerns that environmental chemicals might be independent contributors to insulin resistance, elevated blood pressure and other metabolic disorders."
Prof. Trasande would like the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act updated: "Our study adds further concern for the need to test chemicals for toxicity prior to their broad and widespread use, which is not required under current federal law."
Other research from Prof. Trasande in 2013 confirmed a link between DEHP exposure and hypertension in Americans. DEHP was used as a plasticizer but banned in Europe in 2004 - DINP and DIDP are designed to replace it. Perhaps the safer alternatives lie in not using plastics at all.
"Alternatives to DIDP and DINP include wax paper and aluminum wrap; indeed, a dietary intervention that introduced fresh foods that were not canned or packaged in plastic reduced phthalate metabolites substantially."
Prof. Trasande adds that there are "safe and simple" steps that can limit exposure to phthalates, including:
Do not microwave food in plastic containers or covered by plastic wrap
Do not wash plastic food containers in the dishwasher, where plasticizers can leak out
Avoid phthalates by avoiding plastic containers labeled with the numbers 3, 6 or 7 inside the recycle symbol.
The results of the research come from blood and urine sample analysis of participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
First study to show lasting reduction in blood pressure from dietary nitrate
During the 4 weeks they were taking the juice, patients in the active supplement group (whose beetroot juice contained inorganic nitrate) experienced a reduction in blood pressure of 8/4 mmHg (millimeters of mercury).
The first figure is the reduction in systolic pressure (when the heart is pushing) and the second figure is reduction in diastolic pressure (when the heart is relaxing). For many patients, the 8/4 mmHg reduction brought their blood pressure back into the normal range.
In the 2 weeks after they stopped taking the juice, the patients' blood pressure returned to their previous high levels.
The team notes that this is first study to show evidence of a long-lasting reduction in blood pressure due to dietary nitrate supplementation in a group of patients with high blood pressure.
The patients in the active supplement group also experienced a 20% or so improvement in blood vessel dilation capacity and their artery stiffness reduced by around 10%. Studies show such changes are linked to reduced risk of heart disease.
There were no changes to blood pressure, blood vessel function or artery stiffness in the placebo group (whose beetroot juice did not contain nitrate) during the period of the study.
The authors note that the reduction achieved in the active supplement group is comparable to that of medication; the average reduction in blood pressure that a single anti-hypertension drug brings is 9/5 mmHg.
Leaky versus perfect vaccines
The new findings are fascinating, but they have only been demonstrated with one particular disease in animals, said Joanne Devlin, a veterinary virologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who was not involved in the study.
"I'd be wary of extrapolating too far into other systems," Devlin told Live Science. "We use vaccines a lot differently in humans than we do in animals, and the vaccines themselves are different."
For instance, animal vaccines are largely developed for agricultural purposes, so people don't care too much about saving every single animal or stopping all symptoms of disease; they just want to stop outbreaks to protect their bottom line. As a result, most animal vaccines are developed rapidly, and undergo fewer tests to show safety and effectiveness than those that are required for human vaccines. There are also more animal vaccines in use, Devlin said.
Many animal vaccines are known as leaky vaccines, which means they reduce symptoms but people can still be infected by the viruses. Most human vaccines, such as for polio, and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine are perfect vaccines, so they also stop transmission of the disease in question, Read said. (It's not clear why some vaccines are leaky, but diseases where the body does a good job of creating lifelong immunity after a single exposure, such as for childhood diseases like measles, seem to be more suited to the development of perfect vaccines, Read added.)
How Does Cola Really Affect the Body?

The infographic also describes the negative effects of caffeine, but these are not unique to soda. "Any food/beverage with caffeine or other stimulant will dilate the pupils, raise blood pressure and increase the amount of glucose that is temporarily in the bloodstream," said Julie Kennel, a registered dietitian and clinical assistant professor at The Ohio State University. "This is the typical 'fight or flight' response."
What's more, a single can of Coca-Cola contains about 39 milligrams of caffeine, less than the 100 mg of caffeine in an 8-ounce cup of coffee.
The infographic says that phosphoric acid in soda promotes the loss, through urination, of nutrients, including calcium, which is important for teeth and bones. Mangieri said that there is a link between high soda intake and an increased risk of fractures, but this could be because people who drink a lot of soda may also drink less milk. Phosphoric acid is also found naturally in other foods, like meat and dairy products, she noted.
Still, there are many reasons to avoid drinking a lot of soda. These beverages have no nutritional value, don't do a good job of keeping you full, and can replace other healthy foods and beverages such as milk, Mangieri said. "There are a lot better ways to get your calories" than by consuming 39 grams of sugar in one beverage, she said.











