Foods with Health Benefits

Photo: Alycin Bektesh (for WFIU)

Via Real Age, the Top 10 Detox Foods.

Add these 10 foods to your grocery cart and you'll get three terrific benefits:

1. Liquids to flush out the body while pouring in the nutrients.

2. Fiber to keep your GI tract fit.

3. Foods that energize cleansing enzymes in your liver, the body's built-in detox center.

The Top 10

1. Leafy green vegetables. Eat them raw, throw them into a broth, or add them to juices. Their chlorophyll helps swab out environmental toxins (heavy metals, pesticides) and is an all-around liver protector.

2. Lemons. You need to keep the fluids flowing to wash out the body, and fresh lemonade is ideal. It has vitamin C -- considered the detox vitamin -- which helps convert toxins into a water-soluble form that's easily flushed away.

3. Watercress. Put a handful into salads, soups, and sandwiches. The peppery little green leaves have a diuretic effect that helps move things through your system. And cress is rich in minerals, too.

4. Garlic. Add it to everything -- salads, sauces, spreads. In addition to the bulb's cardio benefits, it activates liver enzymes that help filter out junk.

5. Green tea. This antioxidant-rich brew is one of the healthiest ways to get more fluids into your system. Bonus: It contains catechins, which speed up liver activity. Here's another beverage your liver loves.

6. Broccoli sprouts. Get 'em at your health-food store. They pack 20 to 50 times more cancer-fighting, enzyme-stimulating activity into each bite than the grown-up vegetable.

7. Sesame seeds. They're credited with protecting liver cells from the damaging effects of alcohol and other chemicals. For a concentrated form, try tahini, the yummy sesame seed paste that's a staple of Middle Eastern cooking.

8. Cabbage. There are two main types of detoxifying enzymes in the liver; this potent veggie helps activate both of them. Coleslaw, anyone?

9. Psyllium. A plant that's rich in soluble fiber, like oat bran, but more versatile. It mops up toxins (cholesterol, too) and helps clear them out. Stir powdered psyllium into juice to help cleanse your colon, or have psyllium-fortified Bran Buds for breakfast.

10. Fruits, fruits, fruits. They're full of almost all the good things above -- vitamin C, fiber, nutritious fluids, and all kinds of antioxidants. Besides, nothing tastes better than a ripe mango, fresh berries, or a perfect pear.

Here's the ultimate detox recipe.

Easy Wilted Garlic-Sesame Salad

Toss dark green leafy vegetables in hot, garlicky oil for a cleansing -- and delicious -– dish.

4 servings, about 65 calories each

1 tsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb. spinach, stemmed,
or 1 lb. swiss chard, stems sliced, leaves torn
or 1 lb. mixture of spinach and watercress
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tsp. sesame seeds for garnish

Warm oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and stir until lightly browned, about 45 seconds. Add greens (do in two batches if necessary) and toss until just wilted, 2 to 4 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Find more healthy recipes with the RealAge Recipe Finder.

Corporate Food: The Ugly Truth

No to Socialsm, Yes to Corporatocracy! tells the story of six banks controlling 60% of the Gross National Product (GNP)in this country. A few big corporations controlling our economic and banking system. This means that they "can distort the system. They can change the rules of the game to favor themselves. And unfortunately, the way it works in modern finance is when the rules favor you, you go out and you take a lot of risk. And you blow up from time to time, because it's not your problem. When it blows up, it's the taxpayer and it's the government that has to sort it out."

Therefore, power is being used against the people.

Another example of corporate power is found in the food industry. The movie Food, Inc., shows how four large mega-corporations own and control the meat packing industry. In the seed industry, Monsanto is the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed.

One of the repercussions of this concentrated ownership is that the bottom line profit becomes the motivating factor over the safety and quality of the product.

WATCH to see the ugly truth about our food industry.

It's still a Jungle in the Food Industry

Jennifer Poole at Daily Kos has the story about how the Bush Administration and the meat industry lobbyists turned ground beef into a slime of chemicals.

You're not going to believe what you've been eating the last few years (thanks, Bush! thanks meat industry lobbyists!) when you eat a McDonald's burger (or the hamburger patties in kids' school lunches) or buy conventional ground meat at your supermarket:

According to today's New York Times, The "majority of hamburger" now sold in the U.S. now contains fatty slaughterhouse trimmings "the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil," "typically including most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass" that contains "larger microbiological populations."

This "nasty pink slime," as one FDA microbiologist called it, is now wrung in a centrifuge to remove the fat, and then treated with AMMONIA to "retard spoilage," and turned into "a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips".

Thus saving THREE CENTS a pound off production costs. And making the company, Beef Products Inc., a fortune. $440 million/year in revenue. Ain't that something?[...]

Bush's U.S.D.A. also allowed these "innovators" to get away with listing the ammonia as "a processing agent" instead of by name. And they also OKd the processing method -- and later exempted the hamburger from routine testing of meat sold to the general public -- strictly based on the company's claims of safety, which were not backed by any independent testing.[...]

U.S.D.A. department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, who called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues, represents the situation better: "I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling."

What does Poole offer as a advice?

I've been thinking about an action item on this issue, and I've got three ideas:

1. Write Michelle Obama through this web form: http://www.whitehouse.gov/... or snail mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500;

2. Print out the NY Times article and give it to the manager of your local supermarket, and ask them if they sell any kind of ground beef that doesn't contain this "pink slime" or if their butchers will grind meat fresh for you;

3. Just stop buying the damned stuff altogether.

For those beef lovers, try organic meat.

Politically Correct Food in Britian

Is a new trend developing?

 

From foie gras produced without making birds suffer to “sustainable” fish, British retailers and restaurants are fast embracing politically correct food, helped by celebrity-fueled pressure.

Faux (false) gras is the ethical answer to the foodstuff which has been the bane of campaigners for decades for the way it’s produced: force-feeding ducks or geese to create engorged livers that yield the creamy pate.

A darker colour than the real thing, faux gras is made from about 50 percent liver from free-range poultry blended with goose or duck fat.

“It is only a matter of time before foie gras is relegated to the history books where it belongs,” said Sam Glover of lobby group PETA.

While the day that five-star establishments abandon such foods seems some way off, restaurants in England do seem to be turning towards “green” alternatives.

Acorn House, in the King’s Cross district of London, claims to be the “first truly eco-friendly” restaurant in the capital.

The duck it serves comes from birds raised in a “positive” way, without cages and without antibiotics added to their food; its food deliveries are made in vehicles using biofuel, 80 percent of its waste is recycled, and its roof is a herb garden.

French celebrity chef Raymond Blanc, the holder of two Michelin stars at his renowned restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons near Oxford, has embraced a campaign to use fish certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

This label guarantees that the fish has been obtained from sustainable stocks.

Those are just a few ways restaurants can "adopt a more ethical approach to their food." When will the US follow this trend?

Six Foods to Absolutely Avoid!!!

According to AlterNet, "once upon a time, some brave scientists had a noble dream of ridding food of nutrients. That dream is closer to reality than ever."

Here are the 6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods.

Once upon a time, some brave scientists had a noble dream of ridding our food of the plague of nutrients.

Today, at the start of the 21st century, the miracle of food processing has brought that dream closer to reality than ever before. From vitamin-free "blueberry bits" to spray-can cheese to avocado-free guacamole, food scientists have worked tirelessly to bring us new and exciting foods that contain as little nutrition as possible. Even apparently "healthy" foods such as soups have been ingeniously overloaded with so much salt you feel as if you’re eating French fries.

In this article, we’ll provide a handy guide to six uniquely unnatural processed foods that will hopefully serve as a blueprint for humanity’s eventual triumph over the tyrannical fist of Mother Nature.

1. Spray-Can 'Easy Cheese'

2. Oreo Cookie Death Filling

3. Condensed Soups

4. Spam

5. Artificially Flavored Blueberry Bits

6. Kraft’s Avocado-Free Guacamole

Read the article for why each of these products should be avoided!

20 Foods for Brain Power

EcoSalon has the top 20 foods to "supercharge" your brain.

Simply put, your brain likes to eat. And it likes powerful fuel: quality fats, antioxidants, and small, steady amounts of the best carbs.

On a deadline? Need to rally? Avoid the soda, vending machine snacks and tempting Starbucks pastries and go for these powerful brain boosters instead. The path to a bigger, better brain is loaded with Omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and fiber. Give your brain a kick start: eat the following foods on a daily or weekly basis for results you will notice.

1. Avocado
2. Blueberries
3. Wild Salmon
4. Nuts
5. Seeds
6. Coffee
7. Oatmeal
8. Beans
9. Pomegranate
10 Brown Rice
11. Tea
12. Chocolate
13. Oyster
14. Olive Oil
15. Tuna
16. Garlic
17. Eggs
18. Green Leafy Vegetables
19. Tomatoes
20. Cacao nibs

On the other side, here are "things that drain your brain"

Alcohol
Corn Syrup and Sugar
Nicotine
A High Carbohydrate Lunch

To read the full account of these items, click HERE:

Rep Cynthia Davis Says Hunger is Motivational

Stephen Colbert's Tip of My Hat/ Wag of My Finger

Representative Cynthia Davis opposes subsidized lunches for low-income children, and Fox News incorrectly identifies Mark Sanford as a Democrat.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News
www.colbertnation.com
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