Top 10 reasons to shop at a farmer’s market

 

It’s already mid-March and that means the snows will melt and if the ground’s not too saturated farmers will soon be planting seeds for the food that will feed us this year.

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Steps for a Cancer-Free Life

Cancer will be the number one killer in the world by the year 2010, overtaking the spot now held by heart disease, according to a recent report from Associated Press. International health experts foresee a doubling in the global rate of cancer deaths by 2030. Read more

Weight-Loss Winner: A Diet High in Fiber, Low in Calories

Study shows the best recipe for shedding pounds

Some say the secret to losing weight is forgoing greasy, fatty foods like French fries; others swear that shunning carbs in favor of all-protein grub is key. Many popular weight loss plans recommend that dieters consume specific ratios of fat, protein and carbohydrates. (The Zone Diet, for instance, prescribes 40 percent carbs, preferably complex carbs like veggies and whole grains, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat). But a study published today in The New England Journal of Medicinesuggests that the smartest way to lose weight is to eat heart healthy foods (think: Mediterranean diet—lots of veggies and fish, limited amounts of red meat) and reduce your caloric intake. Read more

New Study Shows Skin Cream May Cause Skin Tumors

Common commercial skin care products may increase users’ risk of contracting skin cancer, according to a paper by researchers from Rutgers University and published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Researchers had originally been planning to study whether topically applied caffeine could reduce people’s risk of skin cancer.  Read more

Can hyperbaric oxygen therapy help autistic kids?

You might be familiar with hyperbaric oxygen treatment, in which a patient breathes in extra oxygen while inside a pressurized chamber, as a therapy for the bends and carbon monoxide poisoning. But while a small segment of families with autistic children believe it helps their kids, insurance generally doesn’t pay for it, and many doctors are skeptical that it does any good.

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Papaya is the Health Fruit of Angels

Papaya is called fruit of the angels by Conquistadors because of its heavenly taste. In its prime, it is a cerise-orange colored, unbelievably juicy fruit with an aroma to match its heavenly taste. Not only is papaya beautiful, fragrant and luscious, it is amazingly healthful! Read more

Vegetables Aren’t as Good for You as They Used to Be

According to new research, produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in your grandparents’ days, but also contains fewer nutrients. In fact, the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent lower in minerals such as magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc than those harvested just 50 years ago.

That Splenda you’re drinking will be in our water supply for awhile

WASHINGTON, D.C.—People like sucralose—the artificial sweetener marketed as Splenda—because the human body can’t break it down and use it. That means the substance has almost no calories and makes it a popular ingredient in everything from cookies to diet sodas. Unfortunately, it turns out that modern wastewater treatment methods don’t break down Splenda either.

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Top 10 Myths about Sustainability

Even advocates for more responsible, environmentally benign ways of life harbor misunderstandings of what “sustainability” is all about

 

When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or, even worse, “going green”) falls squarely into the first category. But “sustainable,” which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that’s because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more. Read more

The Truth about Alkalizing Your Blood

The natural health field is saturated with advice and products that are built around the premise of alkalizing your blood. The truth is that what you eat has little to no effect on the pH of your blood, which is tightly regulated by a complex system of buffers that are continuously at work to maintain a range of 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more alkaline than pure water. What you eat is a critical determinant of your health status, and the foods and beverages that you choose do tend to have acid or alkaline-forming effects on your overall system, but you cannot “alkalize your blood” through your food choices. Understanding this concept is essential to identifying and differentiating between hype and substance in the naturalhealth arena.

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