Nutritional Myths and Facts

You can get all the nutrition from your supermarket (or from the infamous four food groups).  If you believe this, you are a candidate to buy a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge.
 
First, let’s destroy that myth of the “four food groups”.  If that were indeed true, a meal at Burger King would be “nutritious”.  No serious observer believes this – but it has all 4 food groups.  Would you believe that this absurd FFF (four food fictions) is STILL being taught in medical schools and nutritionist courses in all too many colleges?  (Nutritionists are those wonderful people who give you those “delicious” meals in schools, prisons, and hospitals.  Need I say more about this?)

Next, why can’t we just eat healthy foods from our supermarket?  Need a few reasons?

 1.    Fruits and veggies are picked green and artificially ripened with chemicals.  These same fruits and veggies are sprayed with insecticides that are also deadly to us humans.  We do accumulate these, albeit slowly, and it takes additional nutrition to help our bodies get rid of these chemicals.

2.    Many growing areas in the US are overworked and many more are more than a bit deficient in minerals needed for nutrition, and taste.  You can easily prove this – just try growing your own tomatoes, or even getting them fresh from some of the local fruit stands.  Bite into it – If the juice and seeds don’t squirt 3-4 feet, it’s not really picked ripe.  AND THE TASTE!  Not at all the same as those blobs of red plastic you get from the supermarket.  In Florida, zinc has to be added to fertilizers to grow oranges.  Milk from Florida cows contain no zinc.

3.    Food animals are fed hormones to increase their weight. These hormones are illegal for athletes to use, but legal for farmers.  If that’s not bad enough, consider this – about half of all antibiotics in the US are used in food animals.  I lived in Puerto Rico some years back, and when I found out about the very high level of penicillin in the milk. my kids stopped getting milk.  Most of the cows there are tuberculin. Nice hey?

 This factor of antibiotic use in our food is one of the prime factors facing us with bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.  Antibiotics are way overused and even abused by the medical profession as well as by food producers

In cows, pigs, and sheep, the hormones and antibiotics and other chemicals ingested by these animals is found largely in fatty tissues.   (From cows that browse along highways, high levels of lead – from lead additives to gas – were found.  This is why bone derived calcium is still not too good in the good old USA.). As we eat these meats, we get these chemicals as well.  How do we get rid of them – well, it takes extra vitamins and minerals to excrete them.

4.      Chickens are no longer the chickens our grandparents knew.  Now, they’re grown to “eating” size in a small cage, fed a “scientific” diet – not for nutrition – but for fastest growth.  This results in much more fat and much more chemical input in this fat.  When my wife and I were cruising around the Caribbean, and getting food in native markets, the difference in taste amazed us.  It was not only the chicken, but also the beef and pork.  It was often gotten from a shack with a dirt floor, and there were flies everywhere, but I know that it was much healthier (and tastier) for us than what we are now getting from our supermarket. The taste difference was marked, and the lack of fat was noticeable.

There have been many “disturbing” reports about cancerous growths and tumors in chicken and turkeys grown in these “factories”.  In addition, it seems that the automatic pluckers get chicken feces into the machinery, and both of these are passed on to us, the lucky (???) consumers.

5.    Any scientist or even any knowledgeable person in the US can tell you that our environment is being poisoned by the chemicals we are putting into it.  Our air, our water, and our soil are not even close to what it was 100 years ago.  All of these chemicals are getting into our bodies in ever increasing amounts, and it takes ever increasing amounts of vitamins and necessary minerals to excrete them.

6.    White bread and “Enriched” flour. This is one of the biggest jokes of all on us consumers.  When steel rollers were invented around the turn of the century, the wheat germ and the fiber casing were removed.  (It was then thought that fiber was not necessary to health because it wasn’t absorbed.  That’s just another scientific stupidity.)  This resulted in very white flour that was prettier and easier for housewives to use.  A couple of problems became apparent – the lack of several vitamins actually caused several deficiency diseases in people who were eating it.  Anemia and schizophrenia were probably the worst, but there were others.  The US government looked into it and decided that the wheat people had to add back a “few” items to reduce this problem.  So, they added back iron, and 3 of the B vitamins.  The advertising folks couldn’t admit that white bread had been “poisoning” the consumers, so they added the beautiful word “enriched” to this flour.  Isn’t advertising wonderful?  It sells garbage as good!

This “new” white flour removed over 40 vitamins and minerals very necessary to our health.  They added back in only minimum amounts of the 4 “most” needed ones.  That’s the equivalent of robbing a man of his clothes in a blizzard, and handing him back his tie, thereby “enriching” him! 

7.     Sugar and processed foods. In 1900, the average intake of sugar was about 5-6 pounds per year per person.  Today, that number is well above 200 pounds.  In that same 1900, there were few “processed foods”.  What was eaten was grown fairly near, and eaten in season.  Today, the supermarket is loaded with processed foods.  Just look at a few labels!! Read the list of the chemicals in almost every food on the shelf!

These are only the most important reasons for taking vitamin and mineral supplements.  Remember that to get rid of these accumulating chemicals, we need increasing amounts of vitamins and minerals, but because of some of the above factors, we are getting less and less.  Maybe, those people who lived in 1900 could get their nutritional needs better satisfied from their foods, but only a fool would believe it today.  (I doubt that they got enough either.)

Megavitamins are dangerous (and/or toxic).  More nonsense that simply isn’t true.  Of course, vitamin A in very huge doses can be toxic, but it’s pretty difficult to get that much vitamin A by accident.  Most adults can tolerate up to 25,000 IU per day for several days, and even if too much is taken over a long period, the symptoms are pretty clear and obvious (yellow skin, eyes, jaundice like).

 Some MD’s (without much vitamin knowledge) heard that B6 can cut down PMS symptoms, and prescribed it for patients.  Their patients came back after months with some different symptoms.  Then, some MD’s put out papers calling B6 “toxic”.  What every knowledgeable practitioner knows about the B complex is that it works together, and large amounts of any one MUST be balanced somewhat with a minimum of the rest.  Another case of not knowing enough!   Generally, you can take huge amounts of most B vitamins without any effects as long as you take sufficient amounts of the rest of the complex.  It’s much more dangerous to your health to take too much calcium or some of the other minerals.

Do you (and yours) need vitamin and mineral supplements? The answer is a resounding YES.  Just because you feel pretty healthy is no reason to forego them.  If you want to say healthy, you’ll get on them, and stay on them.  Remember this – You are what you eat.

Cholesterol Myths.  All the media hype about cholesterol makes it an “enemy”, which is just not so.  Cholesterol is a fat that’s a precursor to several hormones necessary to life.  As a matter of fact, sunlight on the skin changes cholesterol into vitamin D. So, without cholesterol, we’re in serious trouble.

So, if cholesterol is “good” what’s the entire hullabaloo about? Well, it seems that some researchers found that high levels of cholesterol in the blood correlate to high incidence of heart problems.  Also, artery plaque is composed of cholesterol (and other fats) along with calcium.  Many medical researchers immediately “jumped” to the conclusion that cholesterol was “bad”.  Lots of articles came out in various magazines written by so-called medical “experts”.  The upshot was that foods that contain cholesterol were “banned” by many MD’s.  These included eggs, butter, cheeses, and meats.  (A British research paper that showed people eating 6 eggs per week had lower cholesterol levels than those that ate none was ignored by most AMA “experts”)

Once upon a time, there was a cardiac specialist MD who had high levels of cholesterol. He also had a family history of heart problems (a good reason to go into cardiac specialty just as some psychiatrists and psychologists go into their professions because of personal problems.)

 He stopped eating any cholesterol-laden foods, and continually tested his HDL and LDL levels.  He was very surprised to find that his cholesterol didn’t drop.  He was a bit smarter than most, and he did more research, and found that 80% of the cholesterol in the blood is manufactured in the liver, and is NOT derived directly from the cholesterol in food.  And, that’s not a fairy story!!  So, if the liver makes it, why does it go high? 

To understand this, you need a bit more information.  When you eat something, it is broken down into very small bits in order to pass thru the intestinal walls.  Protein is broken down into individual amino acids, starch is broken into various sugars, and fats are broken down into various fatty acids.  An egg is broken down into all the essential amino acids needed for humans, some small sugars, and some fats which include cholesterol.

Next, let’s look at sugar which is the real culprit.  When starches are broken down into sugars, they in turn, are changed to glucose, which the body needs for energy.  Once the glucose is in the blood stream, it is literally forced into all cells in the body by insulin. 

If you are running a marathon, your body uses it as energy.  BUT, if you are watching TV, you don’t need much energy, so the cell converts this into “future” energy by changing it into a fatty acid, and ejects it back into the bloodstream.  Depending on several factors, this fatty acid can be any combination of three basic types. (The term “triglycerides” means 3 fatty acids.)

Now, the liver “sees” this triglycerides level rising, and it starts to use some of these to make cholesterol in order to “balance” these levels.  This is why high cholesterol levels are linked to high triglyceride levels. 

At the turn of the last century, the average person in the US ate 5-10 lbs of sugar PER YEAR.  Today, it’s up to over 200 lbs a year.  If you want to correlate things, correlate this – in Africa among poor persons who eat a diet literally free of sugar, there is NO diabetes, NO occluded arteries, inn fact, NONE of our “civilized diseases”.  If these “poor” persons are “helped” to eat a modern diet full of sugar, they develop all these diseases.  Now, that’s a real correlation.

There’s another correlation that I use as an analogy. People who drive older used cars have lower cholesterol than people who drive new luxury cars. The moral – don’t drive a new luxury car!  Of course, it has nothing to do with the car, but the correlation is generally true simply because the people who drive a luxury car eat more sugar laden (high carbohydrate) diets.  It’s the same thing with foods containing cholesterol.  (Another might be drawn about poorer families, including blacks that develop better athletes!)  Is sugar a real enemy?  You make up your own mind.  I’m addicted to it, and so are most of the people I know.

Eggs are not eaten by millions of people because the medical profession in its usual wrong-headedness trumpeted that correlation, and the media made it worse (also as usual).  In fact, eggs are the most perfect food for humans.  Measured on a scale of 100, eggs rate 99.99, and all other foods only reach 98 or less.  Eggs actually contain lecithin, another fat that actually lowers cholesterol.  (Remember the dieter who drinks a diet soda with his doughnut so it doesn’t count.  Not quite the same!)

A study in England, reported in the Lancet, 25 or so years ago, found that persons who ate 6 eggs per week had lower cholesterol than persons who ate none.  Several studies have also shown that persons who eat butter live longer and better than those who eat margarine.  Margarine has nickel (used to make oils into fats), trans-fatty acids, and it has close to the same fatty acid content as butter.  Isn’t it interesting that lately scientists are also coming to the same conclusions?

I personally eat eggs 3-5 times per week, and we use only butter in our house.  We try to only eat whole wheat bread, and/or whole wheat cereals.  Of course, I also take even more than the recommended vitamin/mineral supplements, and that undoubtedly helps me.  From all the research I’ve done and read, that’s one man’s educated opinion, you make up your own mind.

The above is covered in much greater detail in my book “The Health Revolution” that can be downloaded free from my website.

Today, it seems like everybody and their dog has a blog of some sort. So, you think, what can a real estate blog do for me and my business? The answer is: a lot, if you are willing to put in the time and effort to make it so.

A good blog is, as far as the search engines go, an ever-changing webpage that constantly offers content. This is a great place to be, from a search-engine-optimization (SEO) point of view. A website that is constantly offering new content is a good thing as far as Google is concerned. If you’re offering up-to-date, relevant info about your areas of operation, that’s gold as far as both Google and your readership are concerned. People are always looking for relevant information about their chosen home neighborhood and what’s happening.

A blog that is merely a series of home listings isn’t going to attract much attention. While you can certainly showcase homes you have to sell, try to make them interesting to more people than those who want a 4 bedroom rancher with 2 bathrooms and a charming expanse of front lawn. Perhaps you can talk about this listing’s neighborhood, the history of ranch homes or interesting things people do with bedrooms that are no longer required for guests and family members. Use your blog to capture the interest of people in general, rather than repeat something that is already amply represented elsewhere on your site.

Other topics you can focus on are local housing prices, the economy and how it is affecting home buying and selling in your area, events in your area, tax information/issues, tips for general home buying/selling… the list goes on and there’s plenty of ideas you can get off of the internet. Make it relevant to the times, make it apply to people interested in your area, make it apply to real estate and you will have a good base for a blog. Occasional forays into seasonal-appropriate topics or local news provides some interesting diversions.

This is a project for the real estate businessperson who likes to write or has someone who can write for them. It is not worth starting a blog if you’re just going to parrot someone else’s words, even if they lie in the public domain. It’s already been done before; enough that Google does not reward it with rankings. It also is boring for any human visitor who comes to your site looking for information your competitors haven’t already given them. If you’re just copy/pasting information they’ve seen before, you’re not likely to appear to advantage. Be original.

Spelling and grammar still say a lot about you. Use spell check and grammar checks. Read through your blog posts to ensure that they make sense to other people. Get someone to read them over for you if you lack the skills to do so yourself. The purpose of spelling and grammar is to clearly convey your thoughts on the subject at hand; it is the mark of a careful and conscientious person.

A blog can be a great way of getting yourself and your real estate business out into the local eye. If people are coming to see what you have to say from day to day, they may start viewing you less as just another Realtor and more as someone they can rely on for good information and advice in your area of expertise. That in itself may earn you clients; for the rest, it may open doors to potential clients that have hitherto been closed to you.

So you’ve got the buyer in front of your auction, and they’ve read the description. They’re must be interested, or they wouldn’t be looking… but just how can you push them over that line and make them leave a bid? Read on for some tips.

Improve your picture: In all that description writing, you might have missed the vital importance of your item’s picture. A picture with bad lighting or an intrusive background looks amateurish and won’t make anyone want to buy from you.

Add an About Me page: You’ll be surprised how much you can reassure bidders just by creating an About Me page and putting a little bit about yourself on your business on there. You can also have a few special offers there for people who bother to look at the page, and let people subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them updates.

Use SquareTrade: Signing up at SquareTrade and displaying their logo on your auctions shows that you are committed to have them resolve any disputes that arise. You always see this on PowerSellers auctions – it makes you look more professional.

Write terms and conditions: Have the ’small print’ clearly visible on all your auctions, giving details of things like shipping times and prices, your refund policy, and any other business practices you might have. This helps build confidence with buyers.

Show off your feedback: Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you’re most proud of to each item’s description page, instead of making bidders go and look for it. If you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to write that on every auction too.

Add NR to your titles: If you have extra space in a title, put ‘NR’ (no reserve) on the end. Bidders prefer auctions that don’t have a reserve price, and doing this lets them see that yours don’t.

Benefits not features: Make sure your description focuses on the benefits that your item can give to the customer, not just its features. This is a classic sales technique. If you have trouble with this, remember: ‘cheap’ is a feature, ’save money’ is a benefit.

List more items: If you want more people to respond to your items, then list more items! You might find you have better like listing items at the same time, instead of one-by-one. There’s no need to use a Dutch auction – you can just keep two or three auctions going at once for an item you have more than one of in stock.

Accept unusual payment methods: To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don’t, like cheques.

Buy some upgrades: The best upgrade is the most expensive one, which makes your item appear first in search results. In crowded categories, you might find that this is worth the money.

Once you’ve got some buyers, you want to keep them coming back to you. The next email will show you how to turn one-time buyers into long-term customers.

Nothing is impossible in today’s world. Nothing at all. You name it, and there is a solution readily available. Shell out some money and enjoy that “feel good look good” feeling. Be it facial treatments, figure corrections or permanent hair removal, technology has far advanced to a stage where solutions to these problems are just child’s play! Starting a laser engraving business today is a great storefront or work from home business opportunity. You can start with very little investment. Laser systems or laser machines today are simple to learn and use. It doesn’t take long to learn so you can generally start up your business in no time. You can work full time or part time and still build up a valuable and profitable business. There are several different lasers employed for laser scar removal. These are continually being developed; the lasers today are more precise and offer a much shorter recovery time than those used a decade ago.

You can create a wide variety of items including engraving pens, wine bottles, laptops, luggage tags, custom plaques and many other items or merchandise. You can engrave on acrylic, wood, rubber, stone, leather, fabric, glass and many other types of materials. You can create laser engraved trophies, keepsakes, plaques, pens, pencils, desk sets, toys, games, cabinets, keychains and much more. You can specialize in a particular item or engrave a wide variety. Our skin is made up of three layers – outer, middle, and inner. The outer layer or the epidermis is made up of pigment cells and dead cells. Dermis, or the middle layer, comprises nerves, oil glands, blood vessels, and collage and elastin fibers. The inner or subcutaneous layer consists of hair follicles, fat cells and blood vessels. During laser treatments for hair removal, a pulsating high beam of light (laser) travels through the skin to burn the hair follicles and destroy them instantly. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Well, you will be surprised to know that these laser treatments are actually painless.

Laser hair removal or light-based hair removal is based upon the principles of selective photothermolysis-which states that the light energy must be well absorbed by the targeted chromophore for efficacy and less well absorbed by competing chromophore(s) to prevent collateral thermal damage. In the case of Laser hair reduction, the targeted chromophore is perifollicular melanin and the competing chromophore is epidermal melanin. Lasers are single wavelength devices with absorption coefficients relatively specific to the chromophores they are intended to target. Lasers and intense pulse-light devices are gaining in popularity not only because of patient demand for permanent hair reduction, but also because of physician demand for increased utility. Unfortunately, these devices vary widely in their ability to deliver on their promoted indications, including hair removal.

Lasers are single wavelength devices with absorption coefficients relatively specific to the chromophores they are intended to target. Intense Pulsed-light (IPL) devices expose the patient to a broader spectrum of light energy defined by cut-off filters, typically in the range of 600-1200 nm. The fact that lasers and IPL devices may target multiple chromophores allow these products to be marketed as being capable of treating a variety of conditions in addition to hair removal, including treatment of vascular and pigmented lesions, warts, wrinkles, and even acne. These different technologies have been used under several brand names, so be sure to ask your doctor about the type of laser technology being used before you agree to the laser scar removal procedure.

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All the same,  you should not cut out all fats from your diet. There are good fats and there are bad fats. It is important to include the good fats in your diet to keep your body working. Good fats make  the transport of nutrients such as vitamin A, D and E easier and they also help keep hunger pangs at bay.

Butter and animal fats are saturated fats and should be eaten sparingly. Margarine is a man-made fat and is known as trans fats. Trans fats are hydrogenated vegetable fats and are really not good for your health so you need to restrict their intake as much as possible.

So what can you do tho ensure you do not consume too much fat? The answer is to control your environment. If you do not have a cupboard stuffed to the brim with biscuits, chocolates and crisps, you will not be able to snack on them if you sit in front of the TV or if you are bored. Control your weight and keep it at a healthy level by simply organising your grocery cupboard and fridge.

1.    Change to low-fat versions – Mayonnaise and cheese are extremely high in fat.  Search the cheese department for low-fat versions of your favourite cheese or change to low-fat cottage cheese or ricotta,  drink skimmed milk or if you cannot find that, low fat milk. Don’t think that home-made mayonnaise is better than the shop-bought version, you will waste your time making it and just add more fat to your diet. Rather buy a low-fat version.

2.    Read labels – Trans fats can be found in many food products like margarines, biscuits, snack foods, frozen meals and even some cereals. The trans fats are normally listed as ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oils’. Avoid these products as far as possible as trans fats raise blood cholesterol levels and can increase the risk of type II diabetes. ‘Lite’ or ‘low fat’ can still be dangerous for your health. Even 10% fat means you are taking in quite a lot of fat.

3.     Include more fish in your diet. Oily fish like salmon, mackerel, herring and anchovies in oil supply essential fatty acids (EFA’s) which play a role in prevention and management of many diseases. These EFA’s are vital for your overal good health. They lower cholesterol and can also play a role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

4.     Make your meals tasty  -  Add salsas, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and fresh herbs to your meals.

5.    Stock up on sensible snacks. Fresh fruit, wholewheat crackers, crispbreads, nuts, dates and raw vegetables are healthier choices and it won’t take long for your taste buds to adapt to new habits. Simply replace all the bad snacks in your cupboard and fridge with healthier choices and you will soon see a difference in your eating habits.

Make healthy snacking a part of your over all eating plan but do not get obsessive with kilojoule counting as this can become counterproductive to weight loss. You do not want to focus on food all day long. If you do eat a chocolate or a packet of crisps once in a while, don’t feel guilty about it, just accept it and eat healthy snacks again.

Water does not contain kilojoules or fats, so it is one of the best choices to include in your new snacking regime.Our bodies confuse thirst and hunger, so if you drink a glass of water when you think you are hungry you can actually remove hunger pangs if it’s fluid your body needs.