Articles written by Nathdgreat Adolphus
Foodborne Illnesses: Prevention for Healthy Eating
Eating healthy foods will help you
to boost your immune system, but what if it’s the foods themselves making you
sick? Foodborn illness can cause food poisoning and a variety of other more
dangerous diseases, so they are a real threat to our bodies. Luckily, there are
a number of things you can do to prevent foodborne illnesses. Following safety
tips when handling, preparing, and storing food is very important.
First and foremost, you should be
concerned with the temperature of your foods. When cooking meat, make sure to
use a thermometer in order to make sure that you meat is reaching to proper
temperatures inside. Some meats, like beef, can be served rare safely, but
proper temperatures are crucial. This kills any bacteria that may be growing on
the meat. In the case of burger and other loaf meats that have been ground and
formed into patties, you should not eat rare meals. The bacteria then easily is
found inside the meat as well as on the outside, and you are at risk if you do
not cook these meats for a long period of time to kill any bacteria.
After your food is cooked, you
should continue to monitor temperature. Simply put, keep hot foods hot and cold
foods cold. Hot foods should be kept at temperatures above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit, while cold foods should be kept at temperatures below 40 degrees
Fahrenheit. The range between that is where bacteria can grow. When letting
food cool for refrigeration, place in the refrigerator after no more than two hours,
and when thawing meals, do so in a bowl or pan in the refrigerator, rather than
at room temperature.
Cross contamination is a huge
culprit when you are concerned with preventing illness and your food. Cross
contamination is basically the moving of bacteria from one dish to another.
This happens when you use dirty cutting boards, don’t wish your dishes
properly, and use the same utensil for all of your foods. If you use, for
example, a knife to cut raw chicken and then use that same knife to cut your
food after it has been cooked, some of the bacteria from the raw chicken has
probably remained on the knife, which can make you very ill. Make sure that you
are using a clean work space and clean tools whenever you cook.
Along with using a clean environment,
you should make sure that you are washing you hands regularly. Every time you
touch raw foods, you should use disinfecting hand soap and hot water to make
sure that no bacteria remains on your hands. Making sure that your food is safe
is one of the most important parts of healthy eating, so don’t overlook this
step the next time you prepare a meal.
Why Breakfast Really is the Most Important Meal of the Day
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard people say that breakfast is
the most important meal of the day. However, that doesn’t stop millions of
Americans, and people around the world, from skipping breakfast or opting for
only a drink of coffee. The truth is that breakfast really is the most
important meal of the day, and you will have a much more healthy diet if you
include breakfast in your daily life.
Breakfast is rightly named—break fast. When you sleep, you
are not eating for 6 to 9 hours at least, and more if you haven’t eaten since
dinner the night before. Therefore, breakfast is the first time you’ll be
eating anything for a very long period of time. Some nutrients, like proteins,
cannot be stored in the body and are therefore not present, so the body needs
you to replenish the “low” levels of such nutrients. Breakfast is like the
match that lights the fire. It truly is a very important source of energy for
your body in the morning.
Eating breakfast in the morning also helps you avoid some
illnesses and disease. For example, your sugar levels are probably out of whack
from not eating for many hours, so having breakfast levels out the amount of
sugars in your body, helping to prevent diabetes. Eating a healthy breakfast
also helps you to provide food to your stomach so that you don’t overeat at
lunch because you are so hungry. Overeating leads to obesity, which comes with
a whole host of problems, including heart disease.
Healthy breakfast foods, like eggs, fruit, or bran cereal
are also a good source of many of the vitamins and minerals a person needs
during the day. If you don’t eat these things in the morning, it will be hard
to make up for that loss later in the day. Remember that without the proper
amounts of nutrients, you body will not function correctly. When you eat a
healthy breakfast, it also makes you choose healthier foods during the rest of
the day, so that you continue to get the proper nutrients needed for your body.
Setting aside 15 minutes in the morning to eat breakfast
every day can truly make a great different in your diet. In the best case, your
breakfast will include foods from at least three different food groups. For
example, you can have whole grain toast (bread food group) with peanut butter
(protein food group) and a banana (fruit food group). Top that off with a glass
of milk to drink, and you’ve even hit a fourth food group. Breakfast does not
have to include a heavy pancakes and sausage meal every day to be healthy, and
even grabbing a single piece of fruit or a muffin is better than skipping the
meal completely. Breakfast is important to your health!
Three Deadly Eating Disorders
Healthy eating is very important for our everyday lives, but
unfortunately, many people develop problems with body image with prevent them
from this healthy eating lifestyle. Eating disorders vary greatly from person
to person, but one thing remains constant—they are very detrimental to a
person’s health. If you or someone you know suffers from an eating disorder, it
is important to seek help as soon as possible.
The first kind of eating disorder that a person may develop
is anorexia. Anorexia occurs when someone is overly concerned with weight and
simply refuses to eat. Someone suffering from this disease usually tries to
hide it by discarding the food without anyone knowing, cutting the food into
small pieces to make it look smaller, or lying about skipping entire meals.
Anorexia is dangerous because it does not allow a person to lose weight in a
healthy way. Cutting fat out of a diet is fine, but not getting enough
proteins, vitamins, minerals, water, and other nutrients can make your body
lose muscle weight and weaken.
Another major type of eating disorder is bulimia. While you
may notice an anorexic person losing lots of weight in a hurry, someone who has
bulimia may or may not be losing weight. If a person has bulimia, he or she
does not have the will power to give up foods, but instead vomits or uses
laxatives after meals to rid the body of these foods. Like anorexia, this can
rob the body of key nutrients, and it can also lead to problems in the
digestive system, throat, and mouth, which are not made for regular induced
vomiting.
The third main type of eating disorder is binge eating. This
is a combination of anorexia and bulimia in most cases. A binge eater will,
like a bulimic, not deprive his- or herself from food. In fact, someone who is
a binge eater will eat enormous amounts of food in a single sitting, and often
these foods are not high in nutritional value. Instead of vomiting, a binge
eater will then refuse to eat at all and exercise rigorously for a day or two,
but then slip into a binge once again. This leads to major problems with
weight.
Why You Need Protein
When learning about healthy eating, one of the most
important nutrients is protein. Of course, all nutrients are crucial for our
bodies to be as healthy as possible, but without protein in our diets every
single day, our bodies will not be as strong as they should be. Protein can be
found in a number of food sources, so if you’re interested in eating a
healthier diet, you should consider learning more about protein.
We need to eat foods rich in protein every day because,
unlike some other nutrients, it cannot be stored in the body. That means that
if you eat more protein than necessary, your body will simply cause it to pass
through your system. Therefore, you really can’t eat too much protein! However,
because protein cannot be stored in the body problems may arise surrounding
this nutrient as well. If you don’t get enough protein on any given day, your
body has no back-up plan for producing protein on its own or using reserved
protein from previous days. Therefore, protein is very important to consider
when you are planning your meals.
Essentially, protein builds muscles, which is why you will
see bodybuilders especially concerned with protein. When you lift weights to
work out, you body makes tiny tears in the muscles. Proteins are then used to
repair these healthy tears in the body, building the muscle slightly bigger
with every workout. Even if you do not work out, your body’s muscle
deteriorates, as you body needs the energy. Muscle provides energy, just like
fat. Having protein in the body helps you to rebuild any muscle lost.
Protein also helps a person’s body in other ways, mainly
with the maintenance of hormones. Hormones in the body do a number of things,
such as regulate organ function, account for stimulation, create metabolism,
and affect mood. Proteins are used in the making of some of these different
hormones, so if you go more than a day or two without eating foods rich in
proteins, your entire body will suffer.
How can you make sure that you re getting enough proteins?
Simply put, look for foods with protein as a key component on the label. Some
great foods to consider include chicken, beef, pork, eggs, and fish, although
vegetarians can also get proteins into their diets by eating nuts, beans, soy
products, and a variety of other foods. You should have some of these foods in
your diet every single day to ensure that you are providing your body with the
proteins it needs to stay healthy.
Healthy Eating with Little Money
If you are interesting in eating a healthy diet compared to
your current diet, I have good news or you—you don’t have to be rich to do so.
It is fully possible to involve yourself in healthy eating, even if you are on
a very tight budget. This may require a little bit of extra time and effort to
plan your meals, but you can make good and inexpensive food choice in order to
provide your body with excellent nutrition.
First, it is important to plan for your healthy diet. When
you go shopping, take a list with you of the healthy foods you need to purchase
instead of walking up and down the aisles without a plan. When you have a
shopping list, you are less likely to purchase random junk foods that you do
not need, and so you’ll save money as well as be good to your health. Planning
ahead with a list also allows you to look through store sales fliers in order
to choose healthy foods that are offered at discount prices that week in
particular. When you do go shopping, make sure that it is not on an empty
stomach, when you will be craving fatting foods and will be more likely to
overspend and waste money on unhealthy products.
You should also consider purchasing items in bulk. Many club
stores have a membership fee, but you can save a lot of money if you have an
adequate amount of freezer and pantry space. Look at the healthy foods you
need, and then head to the bulk-food supply store in order to grab enough of
the item for the next month. Remember to choose foods that are both healthy and
the freeze readily.
Eat at home as much as possible. When you go out to eat or
stop at a fast food restaurant on your way to and from work or during your
lunch break, you will pay extra money for the convenience of someone else
preparing the food. These foods are also usually high in calories and low in
nutrients. Instead, calculate the money you would normally spend to eat out and
then use it to buy more expensive healthy ingredients at the supermarket. You
can make breakfast and dinner and also pack a lunch to carry to work or school.
Purchase foods that are in season. Fresh fruits and
vegetables are usually very high in nutrients, but when you want strawberries
in January, you’ll end up paying the extra price. Learn when fruits come into
season in your climate and purchase them at those times of year. You can learn
to can or otherwise preserve these fruits and vegetables if you want to have
them all year round! Of course, heading to your local farmer’s market is a
great way to purchase these items and save money. Healthy eating on a budget is
all about being creative with the money you do have.
