Spinach is Good Food, Here’s Why…

April 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Spinach often conjures up images of parents forcing their children to eat a pile of mushy green slop. It was with good reason too. Calorie for calorie, spinach provides more nutrients than any other food and therefore should find a way into everyone’s diet.

Spinach contains at least 13 discovered compounds that act as antioxidants and anti-cancer agents, which help protect against osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, and arthritis. Moreover, the vitamin E and the antioxidant compounds are known to decrease free radicals in the brain and protect against age – related decline in mental function. Spinach also contains lutein which is a compound that protects against age – related eye diseases such as macular degeneration and cataracts.

Spinach is best eaten fresh because it retains all of the nutrients that are lost when cooked or processed. In addition, raw spinach has a much milder taste than cooked spinach. So, not only was Popeye making himself strong by eating spinach, he was protecting his heart, colon, and bones. Pretty smart after all.

Diet Soda Better for You Than Regular Soda?

April 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

If you read my other article on soda pop and thought, “it’s a good thing I drink diet soda,” this article is for you. There is a very common and dangerous misconception that diet soda is better for you than just plain soda. Through mass marketing, soda companies have convinced the public that low or no calorie diet soda is a healthier alternative. However, this healthy alternative isn’t so healthy after all. Multiple studies have shown that the artificial sweeteners used in diet soda can stimulate your appetite, increase your carbohydrate cravings, and stimulate fat storage and weight gain. In addition to gaining weight, artificial sweeteners can pose real life dangers.

One common diet soda sweetener is aspartame (NutraSweet). Aspartame is a known neurotoxin (toxic to brain cells) and can cause many side effects such as birth defects, brain tumors, diabetes, emotional disorders, and epilepsy. Sucralose (Splenda), another sugar substitute, is not much safer. Animal studies have demonstrated that sucralose can cause a decrease in red blood cells, increase male infertility, and cause brain tumors. The bottom line is that you may be saving calories by drinking diet soda laced with artificial sweeteners but at the cost of eating more and ingesting chemicals with dangerous side effects. Drink water…it’s safer than soda (carbonated sugar water) and diet soda (dangerous carbonated chemical water).

Soda Pop Strips Years?

April 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Some call it soda, some call it pop, nevertheless, it’s slowly stripping years off of your life. Soda accounts for more than a quarter of all drinks consumed in the U.S. with a heavy portion consumed by kids. Roughly 60% of private and public middle schools sell soda in their cafeteria with a large number giving them away to students who purchase their lunch. Soda companies, much like cigarette companies, discovered that marketing to children can create lifelong soda drinkers. This is evident by the statistical fact found on Mercola.com, “fifty-six percent of 8-year-olds down soft drinks daily, and a third of teenage boys drink at least three cans of soda pop per day.”

What can soda do to a healthy person? Harvard researchers discovered that for every serving of soda, the risk of obesity goes up 1.6 times. In addition to the cavities caused by the large amounts of sugar in soda, the acids begin to strip tooth enamel within 20 minutes of taking one sip. The phosphoric acid content in soda leaches calcium from bones. Since calcium is the “cement” of bones structure, without it the bones become very porous and weak. Additionally, the caffeine found in many sodas is a stimulant that can cause an addictive dependence as well as cause headaches, increase blood pressure and heart rate, and irritability. Maybe we should think twice before ingesting a substance that can loosen rusty bolts and clean the dirt from tile grout!

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