Health World News and Features

People eat in different ways. Some gobble up their food, while others make an art of it. Does it matter? Definitely! How we eat also affects our health.

In “Cooking Naturally for Pleasure and Health,” authors Gail Watson and Michael Blate share guidelines on how to eat for better health:

Eat the right diet for the climate or region in which you live-eat regionally and seasonally, emphasizing fresh foods grown within 50 miles of your home.

Food should be chewed at least 30 times per mouthful. This will help restore acid/alkaline balance within the digestive system, which is vital proper digestion and assimilation

Proper chewing

Thorough chewing accomplishes several things: analysis (taste is developed and, if the food is bad, it can be spat out); proper chewing restricts excess food intake while providing complete nutrition; proper chewing massages important digestive acupressure points in the mouth and jaw to improve digestion.

3. Eat moderately – avoid food extremes (e.g. excessively large, salty, sweet, and/or highly spiced meals, etc.).

4. Eat with an eye to the medical repercussions of food. If it tastes sweet, it will affect – and, in large amounts, injure-the spleen, pancreas and stomach. If it tastes salty, in large amounts, it will injure the kidneys and urinary bladder.

Liver

If it tastes sour, large amounts will injure the liver and gallbladder. It is tastes bitter large quantities will injure the heart and small intestine. And if the tastes spicy or pungent, in quantity, it will injure the lungs and large intestine.

5. Discover – and avoid – any hidden food (or other) allergens.

6. Avoid food and drinks that are too hot or too cold. Food is best eaten at body temperature, since extreme temperatures injure the digestive tract. Food or drink that is too cold could injure the lungs, liver and gallbladder, while food that is too hot injures the stomach, spleen, pancreas, small intestine and heart.

7. Drink as little as possible with meals – ideally, wait at least a half-hour after eating (excess liquids in the stomach dilute the hydrochloric acid necessary for proper food assimilation).

Generations

8. Learn to use and enjoy miso, tofu, seaweeds and other tasty-yet-unusual traditionally oriental foods.

These have evolved over generations of logical, not haphazard eating.

9. Avoid eating frequently in restaurants. Their portions are too large – and cost, not quality, is ordinary their ultimate guiding light.

10. Substitute carob for chocolate, fruit juices for sugary, carbonated softdrinks, herbal teas for coffee and other caffeinated drinks.

Exercise and Diet can Treat Gestational Diabetes

During pregnancy, the physical and emotional experiences that a mother go through are shared with the child inside her. One condition that pregnant women should be watchful is gestational diabetes. In the United States alone, 135,000 cases of gestational diabetes are reported each year.

Gestational diabetes happens to pregnant women who have never had diabetes before but who have high blood sugar (glucose) levels during pregnancy.

With this condition, the body is not able to make and use all the insulin it needs for her condition. Without enough insulin, glucose cannot leave the blood and be changed to energy. Glucose builds up in the blood to high levels. This is called hyperglycemia. There is no clear explanation as to why this condition happens to some pregnant women.

However, most doctors claim that some hormones in the placenta block the action of the mother’s insulin in her body. Insulin resistance makes it hard for the mother’s body to use insulin that she needs.
Gestational diabetes is usually diagnosed between the 24th and 28th week of pregnancy when insulin resistance usually begins.

Pregnant women who have a family history of diabetes, are overweight, are 30 years old and above and those who have a previous delivery of a baby weighing more than nine pounds, are at the risk of experiencing gestational diabetes.

High sugar levels in your blood can be unhealthy for both mother and baby.
If the diabetes isn’t addressed immediately, the baby may be more likely to have problems at birth. This can lead to macrosomia, or an overweight baby.

Babies with macrosomia face health problems of their own, including damage to their shoulders during birth. Because of the extra insulin made by the baby’s pancreas, newborns may have very low blood glucose levels at birth and are also at higher risk of breathing problems.

Babies with excess insulin become children who are at risk for obesity and adults who are at risk for type two diabetes.

The good news is that gestational diabetes normally goes away after giving birth.

However treating gestational diabetes greatly lowers the baby’s chances of having health problems.
Pregnant women who have gestational diabetes must schedule regular exercise in their routine. It may also include daily blood glucose testing and insulin injections. Most importantly, expecting mothers must follow simple daily guidelines, like eating a variety of foods including fresh fruits and vegetables that limit fat intake to 30 percent or less of daily calories.

For pregnant women who need to watch their sugar intake, there are already a variety of sugar-free snacks available in the market.

One of these is the Murray Sugar Free cookies which come in different variants like chocolate chip, chewy double fudge, chocolate sandwich, vanilla craaèmes, shortbread, peanut butter and oatmeal chocolate chip.
Murray Sugar Free Cookies are available in leading supermarket nationwide and is exclusively distributed by Benby Enterprises.

Manila Bulletin