July is Blueberry Month

June is Blueberry Month!

Blueberries have lots of antioxidants!

Blueberries have long been recognized as the fruit  with the most antioxidants. The United States Department of Agriculture on May 8th, 1999, proclaimed July to be National Blueberry Month. Blueberries are grown in 35 states, with the United States producing over 90% of the worlds supply.

One of the easiest fruits to prepare and serve, these tasty berries offer as much as four times as many health-giving antioxidants than other fruits and veggies.

Because blueberries have few natural pests, (other than birds), pesticides are generally unnecessary when growing them. A powerhouse among fruits, blueberries rich antioxidants are valued for their cancer and heart disease fighting properties. They are also shown to help improve memory, balance, and coordination.

Adding fresh summer blueberries are a great way to give a little health punch to some of your favorite dishes. Try them in yoghurt, pancakes, muffins, on your salad, over ice cream and even blueberry salsa.

We invite you to enjoy a few of our tasty blueberry recipes below and tell us the ways you like to eat these healthy berry bites.

Care Solutions

* Don’t wash berries until just before using to prevent berries from becoming mushy.

* Chill berries soon after picking to increase shelf life. If refrigerated, fresh-picked blueberries will keep 10 to 14 days.

* Freeze berries in freezer containers without washing to keep the skins from toughening.

Fun Facts

* The blueberry is the second most popular berry in the U.S. The strawberry is number one. Over 200 million pounds of blueberries are grown commercially each year.

* Blueberries contain significant quantities of both antibacterial and antiviral compounds, and have a reputation of fighting infections. They may also help protect against heart disease.

* The blueberry muffin is the official muffin of Minnesota.

* Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for former president Ronald Reagan.

* The blueberry is the official state fruit of New Jersey, which also raises the most cultivated fresh blueberries in the United States.

Punch Bowl Cake (Great for July 4th because of it’s Patriotic Look!)

2 pkg of pudding mix

2 pkgs of strawberry jello mix

2 cups of blueberries

2 cups of strawberries

1 angel food cake (sugar-free)

1 lg. Cool Whip

Make up the pudding mixes and jellos according to directions and then layer between crumbled cake.  I  put pudding, then cake, then a layer of jello with the stawberries in it, then cakem then pudding tieh the blueberries on top, etc.  In a glass trifle bowl, this looks so pretty!  For an American holiday, very patriotic on your table.  Great for diabetics and for those on a diet!

For other recipes and more information on The Belly Buster Diet, please visit our site at www.beforeandafterdiet.net and fill out your health profile for a FREE metabolic assessment.  Lose 3-5 lbs. per week on the Belly Buster Diet…

We didn’t invent dieting…we just made it FUN!

Tilapia is NO Longer Recommended!

Something Fishy about Tilapia?

 

Everyone is always telling us to eat more fish. But not everyone finds that easy to do. So for many, farm-raised tilapia seems like a great solution. It’s mild-tasting, widely available, has low mercury levels, and is relatively inexpensive.It almost tastes breaded. We once thought tilapia was a  way to add more healthy fish to the diet.But now, according to a study out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine, farm-raised tilapia may not be the healthiest choice, and for people with certain medical conditions, they say it could even be dangerous.

The Wrong Kinds of Omegas?
Most people have heard by now that Omega-3’s are really good for you, but it can be hard to get enough of the best kinds, EPA and DHA. (Especially with all the misleading Omega-3 claims out there). Fish is generally considered a good source of EPA and DHA, but not all fish is created equal. It’s the oily fish, like salmon and sardines, that contain lots of beneficial Omega 3’s. (Note: For more specifics, the American Heart Association has a list of some common fish and their Omega 3 and mercury levels).

So when the researchers looked at farm-raised tilapia, what did they find? Only modest levels of omega-3 fatty acids (less than half a gram per 100 grams of fish) and very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, such as arachidonic acid.

Dangerous for Those With Inflammatory Diseases?
The researchers argued that these levels could be dangerous for people with heart disease, arthritis, asthma, allergic and auto-immune diseases, and others who are vulnerable to an exaggerated inflammatory response. In fact, they discovered that farm-raised tilapia had “higher levels of potentially detrimental long-chain omega-6 fatty acids than 80-percent-lean hamburger, doughnuts and even pork bacon.”

Cheap and Popular
If it’s true that tilapia is a bad choice for those battling inflammatory diseases like heart disease, there’s trouble ahead: tilapia is growing more and more popular, particularly in the United States. Because it’s farmed using cheap corn-based feed, and because the fish are easy to raise, the price is lower than many other fish and more lower-income families are able to buy it.

Said one of the article’s authors: “Cardiologists are telling their patients to go home and eat fish, and if the patients are poor, they’re eating tilapia. And that could translate into a dangerous situation.”

Not All Agree
Apparently there is still some controversy about the issue. The researchers admitted that scientists don’t all agree about “the importance of arachidonic acid or omega-6:omega-3 ratios vs. the concentration of long-chain omega-3 alone with regard to their effects in human biology.”  In the meantime, I would not risk it.  There is still mahi mahi and flounder!

 

WHAT IS THE GLYCEMIC INDEX & HOW CAN I USE THAT TO HELP ME LOSE WEIGHT?

WHAT IS THE GLYCEMIC INDEX & HOW CAN I USE THAT TO HELP ME LOSE WEIGHT?

Think of Glycemic Index as a measurement of the how carbohydrates in foods will affect your blood sugar.  It works like this: pure glucose is assigned the index of 100 to compare it to how other foods affect the blood sugar about two hours after eating. All other foods in the index are given a number relative to the glucose number.

Foods with a low index typically break down slowly and don’t cause drastic fluctuations in blood sugar. Foods with a high index typically do. For instance, broccoli has an index of 10, while corn flakes have an index of 92.  Originally the index was developed to help diabetic control their blood sugar. The numbers will also help people losing weight, as well, because when the glycemic index is high, you get hungrier when your blood sugar starts falling again. The more it has to fall the more ravenous you can get when your blood sugar is not under control. If you can keep your blood sugar more stable, you don’t have such strong cravings.

Type II diabetes, as well as various cancers and cardiovascular disease, are all highly correlated with high index diets. There’s abundant research that shows that reducing the overall glycemic index also reduces the risks of those problems.

The index includes mainly carbohydrate foods, because protein and fat don’t have much immediate effect on blood sugar.  At Before and After Weight Loss Clinics and with the Belly Buster Diet, we find the index more helpful than counting calories or grams of fat. We watch  whether the foods we’re eating have a low, medium or high index, not individual numbers.

As with any rule, there are exceptions. For instance, watermelon has a pretty high glycemic index, about 75, which is even higher than table sugar. Does that make it bad for you? No. Because in spite of its high index, watermelon actually has a pretty low glycemic load. That’s a measure based on the amount of food you’d actually consume, not just an arbitrary quantity used in testing, as with the index.

The glycemic load of a food can be determined using the glycemic index number for a food, divided by 100 and multiplied times the available carbohydrate you’d eat. With most foods, low index is consistent with low load, but there are the quirky exceptions. Of course, to find them, you’d be back to doing a bunch of math again, and that’s just not the way people normally eat.

That’s we encourage people who are trying to develop a healthy diet to avoid getting caught up in the numbers game and look more generally at the foods in the index, leaning toward those at the low end. Anything over 70 is considered high index, 55 through 69 is medium and below 55 are foods with a low glycemic index.

And look what’s in those groups: high index foods include most breakfast cereals, white breads and other processed baked goods, most potatoes, ice cream, candies and table sugar.Lower index foods include cherries, grapefruit, broccoli, legumes like lentils and beans, most whole grain baked goods and most dairy foods. We like to encourage clients to think of glycemic index and glycemic load as just two more tools that can be helpful in developing healthier thinking and planning about dietary habits.

Fruits tend to have a high glycemic index, so I recommend that people take their fruits with a meal, or with some protein like cottage cheese or regular cheese. These protein sources help the fruit sugar be released in the blood stream more slowly. If you are snacking on a half of an apple for instance, eat a piece of cheese with it, or if you eating watermelon, eat it with a meal rather than an in between snack.

For more information a low glycemic index diet you can follow, please visit www.bellybusterdiet.com

or fill out a health profile at www.beforeandafterdiet.net

and have a FREE metabolic assessment!

 

A final thing to remember: there’s not one standardized list and most indexes include brand-name items that people buy on a typical shopping trip, as well as the more generic items like vegetables and fruits. Her are some indexes I have found helpful:

Click here: Glycemic Index Food Chart

 

Click here: Glycemic Index Food List from FIFTY 50

 

Click here: Glycemic Index Food Chart: List of Glycemic Values of Foods

 

Click here: Glycemic Index List of oods – BestDietTips.com

 

For more information a low glycemic index diet you can follow, please visit www.bellybusterdiet.com

or fill out a health profile at www.beforeandafterdiet.net

and have a FREE metabolic assessment!