Posts Tagged ‘disease’
There’s just too many benefits from fruit to ignore or exclude them from your diet.
People on a mission to lose weight will try almost anything. They can get pretty desperate.
If you scan the pages of any fitness or bodybuilding magazine, you’ll see a lot of sample diets from prominent fitness folks. They’re usually pretty cut and dry chicken, broccoli, and occasional brown rice diets. Blah. Blah. Blah.
You’ll hardly ever see bodybuilders wolfin’ down fruit smoothies. Ever see a muscle building ad with a ripped lady eating a handful of grapes? Nope. For a long time, I didn’t understand. I mean, fruit is healthy, right? Why don’t the hardcore fitness mags push them? In fact, they almost make fruit out to be an evil. They hardly discuss it at all. Read the rest of this entry »
A juice fast is a type of detox diet. A juice fast involves the short-term intake of raw vegetable and fruit juice and water only. Proponents of juice fasting use juice because it’s thought to be a good source of vitamins and antioxidants.
A juice fast is considered an extreme form of detoxification because no solid food is consumed. More moderate detox methods, such as the detox diet include solid food.
Who Shouldn’t Try a Juice Fast?
• Pregnant or nursing women or children shouldn’t try a juice fast.
• People with diabetes, low blood sugar, eating disorders, kidney disease, liver disease, malnutrition, addictions, underweight, anemia, impaired immune function, infection, nutritional deficiency, low blood pressure, ulcerative colitis, cancer, terminal illness, epilepsy, or other chronic conditions shouldn’t try a juice fast or should do so only under strict medical supervision.
• People shouldn’t try a juice fast before or after surgical procedures.
• A juice fasting can reduce blood proteins and change the way prescription drugs react in the body. People taking prescription medications should consult a health professional skilled in detoxification before trying a juice fast, and should never discontinue or reduce their medications on their own.
It’s important to consult a qualified health professional before trying a juice fast.
Possible Side Effects of a Juice Fast
Common temporary side effects of a juice fast include headaches, tiredness, hypoglycemia, constipation, acne, increased body odor, and bad breath.
Other side effects of a juice fast can include fainting, dizziness, low blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, weight loss, hunger, vomiting, diarrhea, and kidney problems. If these side effects occur, there is a worsening of symptoms, or new symptoms appear, the fast should be discontinued and it should prompt an immediate visit to a qualified health professional.
Another possible side effect of a juice fast is diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and electrolyte loss.
If continued for a longer time, juice fasting can lead to nutrient deficiencies, particularly protein and calcium deficiency.
Grapefruit juice should not be used during a juice fast, especially by people taking certain prescription drugs. A compound in grapefruit can change the way certain prescription drugs are metabolized in the body. Recent evidence suggests that pomegranate juice may also have the same effect.
How Long Does a Juice Fast Typically Last?
A juice fast typically lasts for one to three days. A longer fast requires medical supervision and possibly monitoring to ensure that nutrient deficiencies don’t result.
What Does a Typical Juice Fast Involve?
• Proponents of juice fasting suggest fasting only during the warmer months of the year. Spring is thought to be the best time of the year for juice fasting.
• Seven or more days before the fast, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sugar, dairy, wheat, animal meat, fish, and eggs are typically reduced or eliminated from the diet. This preparation diet often consists mainly of organic fruits, vegetables, and beans.
• Between 32 and 64 ounces of juice is usually recommended per day during the fast. The juice is sipped throughout the day. Typical fruits and vegetables include celery, carrot, kale, cabbage, apple, pineapple, cranberry, spinach, beet, and greens. Citrus fruits are often avoided.
• Approximately 6 glasses of room temperature or warm filtered water is often recommended in addition to the juice.
• Organic fruits and vegetables are usually recommended. If organic produce isn’t available, practitioners suggest peeling the skin off fruits and vegetables or washing vegetables with a non-toxic produce cleaner, usually available at health food stores.
• Freshly juiced fruits and vegetables are preferred, but if unavailable, practitioners suggest buying it from the health food store or juice bar as fresh as possible.
• Green vegetables and sprouts contain the pigment chlorophyll, which juice proponents believe are especially beneficial during a juice fast.
• A combination of fruits and vegetables is recommended.
• Variations on the strict juice fast include eating one meal a day in addition to the juice.
• Certain fruits and vegetables and their parts should not be juiced, such as the pits of peaches, apricots, cherries, and other fruits, apple seeds, citrus peels, carrot and rhubarb tops, tough skins (such as kiwi, pineapple, mangoes), and bananas and avocados.
What Do People Eat After a Juice Fast?
There should be a gradual return to solid foods. Read the sample guidelines on how to break a fast.
Without proper nutrition, bones can become weak and brittle and joints can become damaged.
The health related benefit of a high consumption of fruit and vegetables on a variety of disease has been gaining increasing prominence in the literature over a number of years. A number of observational experimental clinical and intervention studies over the past decade have suggested a positive link between fruit and vegetable consumption and the skeleton (or bones). The skeleton itself has been referred to as “a giant ion exchange column loaded with an alkali buffer,” as 80% of body carbonate, 80% of body citrate, and 35% of body sodium are contained in solution within the hydration shell of bone and are released in response to metabolic acid.more
A variety of population based studies published in the later part of the 1900s and more recently between 2001 and 2003 have demonstrated a beneficial effect of fruit and vegetable potassium intake on indices of bone health in young boys and girls, premenopausal women, perimenopausal women, postmenopausal women and elderly men and women.
Calcium can be found in foods such as low-fat milk and yogurt, dark green, leafy vegetables such as kale and broccoli, carrots, yams and fruits such as oranges.
Acid – base homeostasis is critical to health and it is well documented that extracellular fluid pH remains between 7.35 and 7.45. A major requirements therefore of our metabolic system is to ensure that hydrogen ion concentrations are maintained between 0.035 and 0.045 m Eq/L. Acid-forming foods (protein and carbohydrates) drain calcium from the bones; alkalizing foods (fruits, vegetables, seaweeds) neutralize the acids and prevent calcium drain.
• Effect of dietary acidity:
On a daily basis, humans eat substances that both generate and consume protons and, as a net result adult humans on a normal western diet generate approximately 1 mEq per kg body weight of acid per day. Of course, the more acid precursors a diet contains, the greater the degree of systemic acidity. We know that as humans becomes older their overall renal function declines which include their ability to excrete acid. Hence with increasing age humans become slightly but significantly more acidic, leading to negative calcium balance. Furthermore, osteoclasts and osteoblasts appear to respond independently to small changes in pH in the culture media in which they are growing. There is evidence that a small drop in pH close to the physiologic range, causes a tremendous burst in bone resorption.
• Role of potassium carbonate:
From a clinical point of view the study by sebastian and colleagues in 1994, which demonstrated that potassium bicarbonate administration resulted in a decrease in urinary calcium and phosphorus, with overall calcium balance becoming less negative or more positive is a very important study in the investigation as to whether alkali is important for bone health. Changes were also seen in markers of bone metabolism with a reduction in urinary excretion of hydroxyproline (bone resorption) and an increased excretion of serum osteocalcin (bone formation). Long-term studies looking at alkali administration on indices of bone health throughout the lifecycle are now urgently required.
• The DASH Diet:
Further support for a positive link between fruit and vegetable intake and bone health can be found in the results of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension) and DASH sodium intervention trials. DASH diets rich in fruit and vegetables were associated with a significant fall in blood pressure compared with baseline measurements. However of particular interest to the bone field were findings that increasing fruit and vegetable intake from a 3.6 to 9.5 daily servings decreased the urinary calcium excretion from 157 mm/d to 110 mg/d.
Foods for improving bone health:
• Dairy foods provide the major, readily absorbed sources of calcium. Women aged 40 and over should consume 3-4 serves of low fat dairy food daily. Other, non-dairy sources of calcium include fortified breakfast cereals, canned fish with edible bones, some nuts, seeds and green vegetables.
• If calcium supplements are required, the best absorption rate is from a dose of 500-600mg of calcium once or twice daily.
• Avoid salty foods and adding salt to meals and during cooking.
• Vitamin D supplements may be necessary for elderly women with inadequate sun exposure
Weight control, protection form heart disease and some cancers are only some of the benefits. So, if you are looking to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, here are some ideas to get you there.
1. Have a smoothie for breakfast. This can be anywhere from three to five servings of fruit. Make one at home or go to one of those smoothie places. Just stick to all fruit smoothies. Avoid the “light” smoothie. It is probably filled with artificial sweeteners.
2. Drink vegetable or tomato juice before meals. They curb the appetite and the five ounce can adds half a cup of vegetables to your diet.
3. Make a big pot of vegetable soup for lunches all week. One of the best recipes is at the website Saving Dinner. Click on the “Body Clutter” free menu, scroll down until you see “Veggie Soup”. You can also try a basic minestrone soup. Avoid canned soup. They are too salty, lack in nutrition, and in flavor. more
4. At dinner, make your sides vegetables and skip the starchy sides like pasta and white rice.
5. If a meal is not a meal with out dessert, make dessert a cup of mixed berries, a dollop of vanilla yogurt and a tablespoon of granola. You can change this up with anything from pineapple, baked apples to peaches.
6. The tried and true fruit bowl. Just get a fruit bowl and fill it with organic apples, oranges, bananas, kiwi and peaches. This makes fruit as snack healthy, truly convenient.
7. Snack on fruit and cheese. It is a winning combination. Mix it up- Apples and Parmesan, pears and cheddar, peaches and cottage cheese, berries and mozzarella.
8. Everyone knows that raw veggies make a good snack but, try them cooked as a snack. This can be especially helpful if you get gas from raw veggies. Lightly steam carrots, sugar snap peas, green beans, and broccoli lightly and spray lightly with butter. You can also dip them in a low fat cheese sauce or ranch. They are great warm or cool!
9. Make a salad as your meal. Go light on the dressing and add some tofu or a chicken breast.
10. Go vegetarian for a week and find new ways to eat your vegetables!
11. Mash cauliflower and turnips into mashed and twice baked potatoes. Your family will not even know they are there.
12. Grate vegetables such as zucchini, carrots, parsnips, turnips and squash. Add them to red sauces, pizza, meatloaf and chili. No one will notice and you’ll get the all the nutritional benefits.
Getting creative with your diet and your fruits and vegetables is a sure fire way to get more into your stomach. Hopefully, the above ideas will spur on a few of your own.