The Average Distance Our Food Travels

What is the average distance our food travels from farm to plate?
In North America, it’s 1,500 miles.
At nearly $3.00 a gallon for diesel fuel, can we really afford for our food to be grown in distant central locations and trucked to the consumer half way across the country?
And by the time it arrives at its [...]

The Foods That Made America Fat

In 1961 Americans consumed 2883 calories per person.
By 2000 this had increased to 3817.
Combine this with a decrease in physical activity and it’s a no-brainer; in the space of forty years people got fatter. Not only that – they also got sicker.
What foods made up this 935 calorie increase and what effect might those foods [...]

Genetics Loads The Gun…

Genetics may load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.
Did you know…
Only about 30 percent of the characteristics of aging are genetically determined? The other 70 percent are linked to lifestyle. Regular exercise and a whole-food diet, including mainly fresh and organic produce, can help tip the balance of health in your favor.
More here.

6 Things You Can Do to Protect Your Heart

Don’t smoke and avoid secondhand smoke
Control your blood pressure. Normal is below 120/80
Keep total cholesterol below 200; LDL below 130 (below 100 is optimal); HDL 40 or above for men and 50 or above for women.
Measure your waist. A high-risk waistline is 35″ or larger for women and 40″ or larger for men.
Maintain a healthy [...]

The Role You Play in a Hospital…

The online medical encyclopedia WebMD, a go-to resource for easy answers to health-related questions, recently outlined what it determined as Your Top 6 Hospital Risks prior to undergoing surgery.
The article examines some of the most common hospital oversights that happen between those white swinging doors, including post-op bleeding, pneumonia, and medication errors. Obviously patients would [...]

Oatmeal and Orange Juice

Drink a glass of this with your oatmeal to help elevate your breakfast to superfood status: orange juice.
Why? The nutrients in oatmeal and OJ work synergistically to provide double the benefits you’d expect from simply adding their powers together.
The phenols in oatmeal and the vitamin C in [...]

Do Probiotics Really Affect Metabolism?

Probiotics, or foods which contain live bacteria, have been shown to have a definite and tangible effect on your metabolism.
There is already evidence which suggests that adding ‘friendly’ bacteria to your gut can help your digestive system. But the first detailed research into how probiotics change the biochemistry of gut microbes has found that treatment [...]

The Missing Link Between Fat and Heart Disease?

It is well established that overweight people have a higher risk of suffering heart attacks, strokes and other problems as a result of clogged, hardened arteries, especially those with extra belly fat. But the reasons behind this connection have so far eluded scientists.
A new study in mice gives the first direct evidence of a possible [...]

Daily Exercise Dramatically Lowers Death Rates

Increased exercise capacity greatly reduces the risk of death in men, according to the largest known study assessing the link between fitness and mortality.
The government-supported Veterans Affairs study included over 15,000 participants. Researchers divided the subjects into fitness categories based on their treadmill performance, expressed as peak metabolic equivalents (METs) achieved.
The study found that [...]

How Many Drugs Do We Really Need?

There are a couple of hundred thousand drugs on the market right now.
Yet according to the World Health Organization, about two hundred would be enough to cover all the bases.

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