We all know we should eat our vegetables, right? Here’s an easy to read list titled, “25 Vegetables you Should not Miss“. It mentions the nutrients in various veggies like, “Bok Choy contains isothiocyanates (useful chemopreventive agent against the development and proliferation of cancers), plus lots of calcium (158 mg per cup) and vitamin C (44 mg per cup)”. The site also helpfully lists the proportions of the veggies in relation to the calories. For example, it says that 1 cup of seaweed has 32 calories and zero grams of fat.

I know where I can obtain cabbage, lol, but I had assumed that seaweed would be considered exotic and hard to find, but I was surprised to find a large assortment at Amazon, like this item:

I may just have to give it a try when I place my next Amazon order.

I just heard that GNC.com is offering a code that gives 30 percent off everything, but today is the last day that the code is valid. Also, I heard that s/h is free on orders of $50 or more, but I don’t know if that’s their standard procedure or part of their sale. The code is FEB174 .

I’ve never had a problem with anything from GNC and I know several people that really swear by their products. I’m probably not going to order from them today because I’m trying to find a place that sells a special compound of fumaric acid and I’m still looking.

Dr McDougall has a very interesting article about calcium in his latest newsletter. It says that the dairy industry is using fear to sell milk and milk products, and their fear mongering is working: Today, the average person consumes more than 593 pounds of dairy products annually, compared to 522 pounds in 1983.

He takes a very interesting look at the sources of calcium and why we need it. The article says that calcium is a necessary nutrient, but questions the conventional stances on sources of calcium as well as minimum daily requirements. I think it’s a very interesting and eye-opening article, and definitely should be read with an open mind.

Mel Cooley. Fred Mertz. Colin Mochrie. We’ve laughed with them, but we’ve also laughed at them because of their hair loss. Consequently, I think that a lot of men with the same condition have been made the butt of many jokes. We all may have thought the humor to be funny, but did we ever stop to think of the impact these jokes have on every day living? Some of the jokes are cruel and may cause the man to feel unpopular and ostracized.

One way for men to deal with these feelings is to find a solution for their hair loss, and who can blame them? Some men opt for surgical hair restoration and find the procedure to be much easier than they had imagined.  For those considering this option, there are some things to consider. This is not something you can skimp on . This is a life altering process that many have found to enhance their quality of life. Before choosing surgical hair restoration, do your homework. Make sure to find a reputable organization that doesn’t use high pressure sales tactics. Check out their licensing as well as making sure that they fully explain what they offer.

Personally, I think that we, as a society have been far too harsh on people with hair loss, and I can’t blame anyone for exploring all options that are available to people that are suffering from this condition. I think this is one area where you shouldn’t try to economize and that you should make sure you are dealing with an MD that has extensive expertise in this field that makes their clients goals their highest priority. If you do choose surgical hair restoration with a quality physician, you may be surprised at the way you feel about yourself and the way others react to your new looks.  As a matter of fact, after completing the process  you may even wonder why you waited so long.

The American Heart Association recently released new guidelines that say most U.S. Women face heart, stroke risk They urged all women to consider aspirin for preventing strokes but said it’s probably not a good idea for young women with no big health problems.

The guidelines are pretty good, mostly commonsense suggestions like:

• Get at least 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise on most and preferably all days, 60 to 90 minutes if you need to lose weight.
• Eat mostly fruits and vegetables, whole grain and high-fiber foods, fish at least twice a week, and little salt. Limit saturated fat to less than 10 percent of calories, 7 percent if possible, and trans fats to less than 1 percent. Limit alcohol to one drink or less a day.
• Keep body-mass index under 25.
• Don’t smoke.

I think all those points make a lot of sense, but I have to wonder why the study also said, “consider omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) if you already have heart disease. Do not take extra folic acid or antioxidants like vitamins E, C and beta carotene, for heart disease prevention.” The article says the study declares vitamins C and E, beta carotene and folic acid supplements worthless for preventing heart disease and this is the part of the study that bothers me. How do they know that all supplements are worthless? How long did the study run who or what was their control group? I know that a lot of scientists are skeptical about supplements.In my opinion, it’s one thing to express your skepticism, but it’s wrong to declare something is worthless unless they have a mountain of empirical evidence, especially when there is no proof that these supplements harm people. Interestingly, of the 33 people who wrote the advice, 13 have financial ties to heart drug makers, only three of them to a large degree. The study’s main purpose seems to be to promote the use of aspirin as a preventative among middle aged women, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, and I even think that an aspirin a day could be very beneficial on many levels.
However, I just wonder so many parts of this study, such as the objectivity of those with ties to drug makers, as well as the parameters used in the study. I appreciate the news release, but why not release all the information about the study as well?

Enviga is a new green tea and caffeine beverage from the Coca Cola Company that claims to “help burn calories by gently increasing your metabolism.” Their website says that since “each can of Enviga contains only 5 calories, you end up burning more calories than you consume - so for the first time you can actually ‘drink negative.’”

According to Mouse Print, Coke has done a study, but their “control” group was very small, consisting of only 32 healthy people, of normal weight, aged 18 - 35. If this drink is meant to help people lose weight, then why not include those kind of people in the study?

I don’t know how truthful the claims about Enviga are. But I know that water or plain tea would also help you “drink negative”, and with Enviga costing 1.29 a can, they are much more economical.

I can’t claim that I came up with this idea, I heard it on a cooking show.

Let’s say you’re making a soup that calls for a tablespoon of salt and you feel that the soup would be a flop unless you added some salt. Instead of dumping the entire tablespoon into the pot, measure your salt into a small container, like a ramekin. Then, you “layer” in the salt, bit by bit, tasting as you go. You may find that your food tastes just fine without all the salt that the recipe calls for, and if you do use up all the salt in the container, then you know exactly how much sodium your recipe has.

Dichloroacetate (DCA )is a drug that has been used to treat rare metabolic disorders. However, cancer patients may soon find that DCA kills almost all cancers. DCA has no patent, meaning it can be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of other drugs. Scientists, led by Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada tested DCA on human cells that were cultured outside the body and found it killed brain, breast and lung cancer cells, but didn’t damage healthy cells. They also found that tumors in rats shrank drastically when the rats drank DCA-laced water.

DCA seems to work because it kills off the cancer cells “immortality”. However, DCA can cause side effects such as pain, numbness and gait disturbances, but I think this is a small price to pay. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer, but this could be problematic because pharmaceutical companies are unlikey to pay for such studies because they can’t make a profit on unpatented medicines.

If you want to donate for a fund for the trials, or if you want the latest information on these studies, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board have set up a site and made it available to the public. They also have an opt-in mailing list available.

Some people avoid commercial microwave popcorn bags because they may have silicone in them. But hot air poppers can be a bother to use. It seems that there is another way to use your microwave to make popcorn:

Put 3 tablespoons of unpopped popcorn in a brown paper lunch bag. Roll down the top and put in the microwave for about two minutes. But make sure to watch and smell because every microwave cooks a bit differently. If you want, you can put some butter spray on it after it is popped so the salt sticks better, but read the label of the spray first to check ingredient information.

I found a link for a free three year subscription to Remedy Magazine . However, I found a review that said that its basically “long ad interspersed with short articles”. Also, last year, I got a free magazine subscription from a totally different company. After the free subscription expired, it was a HUGE pain in the neck to cancel, they kept sending magazines and bills. So, with those warnings, if you decide to get the free subscription, please let me know if the magazine is worth looking at.