Holistic Wellness for Life North of 50

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Now that summer is here, more and more people are out grilling all sorts of goodies to eat and enjoy. Meats, veggies, desserts and even pizza can be cooked on the grill. Even though we as humans have used this method cooking  since the time of the neanderthal, there are some health concerns that have popped up recently to detract from this past time.

Cooking meat at high temperatures (like grilling) can create carcinogenic chemicals known as heterocyclic amines (or HCAs), which have been linked to cancer risk. But is there an upside? Yes, certain ingredients can make your meat much safer to cook and add more flavor!

Studies have found that adding certain herbs or fruits to the marinade for meat or mixed directly into uncooked meat will greatly reduce the amount of HCAs found in your meat after cooking.  To find out what they are, keep reading.

• Rosemary Contains the antioxidant carnosol which reduces HCA’s and tastes good on beef or pork. Double bonus.

• Fingerroot Also called Chinese ginger, this spice is found mainly in Asian dishes, and gets its name from its shape. A study from the Kansas State University found it also aids in reducing HCAs in cooked meat.

• Turmeric The same study found that turmeric, an Indian spice found in many curries and known for its yellow color, can reduce carcinogenic chemicals.

• Garlic and onion You may already add these tasty, barbecue-friendly ingredients to your ground beef before cooking, but they also reduce HCAs.

• Blueberries It may seem odd and counter-intuitive to add fruit to meat, but mixing a cup of ground blueberries or cherries into a pound of ground beef before grilling can reduce HCAs by up to 90 percent. And according to this recipe, the taste is undetectable.

So get your ingredients together, get some friends over and start enjoying healthy food and good times. Many thanks to Fit Sugar for the information for this article.

Technorati Tags: brain health, holistic wellness, men over 50, nutrition, women over 50

One of the many aspects of good holistic wellness and health is our mental well being.  As we get older, we become slower mentally and more forgetful. We become more depressed when we worry if this forgetfulness is part of some disease. Sometimes it feels we are losing our minds. Cognitive degenerative diseases initially show up as signs of simple aging. Scientists are unsure what the various causes of these diseases are. They have many theories about the different causes but nothing really substantial that they can say “this is the cause”. Therefore, research carries on.

There seems to be two major branches of causation that are being pursued; genetic and environmental/life style. Genetic research of these diseases is still a process of matching similar gene mutations and separating of aspects of these diseases. Once the particular gene or genes is determined then animal testing is required to determine if manipulating the genes has any effect or not. Each year a new anomaly is noted, a theory is developed and testing started. The various causations of the multiple forms of dementia make it unlikely a full solution will be forthcoming in even the distant future.

A much more promising solution to these problems, at least in the short term, seems to involve changes in life style. These changes are further divided into physical or mental changes. The things we can change physically are exercise and diet. Exercise, despite all its benefits, brings up negative connotations to people. Possibly because they feel they have had exercise crammed down their throats. Their parents and grandparents never exercised, so why should they. What people don’t realize is that their parents and grandparents lives were much more active than we are today. Technology which attempts to make our lives easier has also made us softer. Starting with the mass manufacturing of the automobile in the beginning of the last century, we now move and walk less and sit more. Next, through tv, video games and computers, we have let ourselves become soft and out of shape. Fortunately, this can be easily reversed by simply having a brisk walk for 50 minutes 3 times a week. Just that amount of exercise every week has been shown in studies to increase speed and sharpness of thought and the volume of brain tissue. An additional benefit of exercise, along with diet, is to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and risk of dementia in older people. Exercise can help lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and control weight.

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Technorati Tags: health and wellness, holistic health, holistic wellness

ScienceDaily (2008-10-15) — Scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014111043.htm#

Technorati Tags: holistic wellness