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10 Facts About Carrots.

9 Apr
  1. Carrots are 88% water.
  2. The carrot primarily gets its characteristic and bright orange color from beta-carotene.
  3. Carrots are rich in antioxidants and minerals.
  4. Carrot greens are edible as a leafy vegetable, but are only occasionally eaten by humans.
  5. Baby carrots are really just carrots that have been cut and peeled into uniform cylinders.
  6. Growing carrot plants with tomato plants increases tomato production.
  7. The carrot is one of the top-ten most economically important vegetables crops in the world.
  8. Carrots can be stored for several months in the refrigerator or over winter in a moist, cool place.
  9. Carrots are a member of the Umbelliferae family, which also includes celery, parsley, dill, cilantro, caraway, cumin, and the poisonous hemlock.
  10. Eating too many carrots can cause a person’s skin to turn yellowish orange, especially on the palms or soles of the feet. This is called carotenemia. It is completely reversible once the consumption of carrots is reduced.

Man Celebrates 65th Birthday By “Paying It Forward.”

8 Apr

If you have seen the movie Pay It Forward, you have an idea what we are talking about. If not, it doesn’t matter because the concept of “Paying it Forward” is much, much, much older than the movie that made it popular.

The concept can be dated back to 1841 when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “In the order of nature, we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody.”

In 1916, Lily Hardy Hammond wrote, “You don’t pay love back; you pay it forward.”

In a nutshell, pay it forward is asking the beneficiary of a good deed to repay it to others instead of to the original benefactor. In other words, passing on the good to the rest of the world, especially those who may not be in a position to pay YOU back or give ANYTHING to you in return.

That’s exactly what Doug Eaton decided to do for his 65th birthday. As the story goes, he turned 65 on June 11, 2012. He was looking for something to do, so he asked his friends on Facebook what he should do. He got a whole bunch of suggestions. Some were good. Some were bad. Many were ridiculous. One was brilliant.

That suggestion was, “Why don’t you do 65 random acts of kindness?” Eaton immediately knew that was the winner.

According to Yahoo: [Eaton spent] 65 minutes standing on the corner of NW 39th Street and May Avenue in Oklahoma City, handing out $5 bills to people who passed by. He told his Facebook friends that he handed out more than $375, but the response – and the amount of good cheer he shared – was priceless. From a distance, Eaton looked a bit like any other panhandler holding a sign at a street corner, but instead of a plea for money, his sign read: “I have a home… and a car… and a job. Do you need a few bucks for some coffee?”

As you can imagine, people who drove by were shocked. Some just drove by shaking their heads. Others told him, “God bless you.” Many did not want to take his money.

Eaton posted on Facebook, “One obviously needy truck holding a family came around the second time after misunderstanding the first time to give ME $2 just to bless ME for what I was doing. I took their money AND gave them a $5. We kind of traded blessings.”

A lot of people told him to give theirs to someone else.

But, Eaton did not invent this birthday act of kindness idea. In 2010, Robyn Bomar turned 38 by doing 38 random acts of kindness. Bomar wrote on her blog, “I planned out 38 things ahead of time, just in case, but really was praying for opportunities to present themselves throughout the day. My husband, three daughters, and my husband’s parents joined me in the most favorite birthday of my life!”

That day changed Bomar’s life and she started a website with an online community of people who celebrate their birthdays by paying it forward. The website is http://www.thebdayproject.com. Now you know what to do for your next birthday!

Want To Stimulate Your Brain In Just 20 Minutes?

7 Apr

A study recently published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that a 20-minute session of yoga improved participants’ speed and accuracy on two measures of brain function associated with the ability to focus and take in, retain, and use new information. The study had 30 participants, and researchers said they performed significantly better immediately after the yoga practice than after moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise for the same amount of time.

Medical Research Sheds Light On Hunger and Risk… Never Make Decisions Hungry!

6 Apr

Have you heard of the term, hangry? Even if you haven’t, I can almost guarantee you’ve experienced it. According to the Urban Dictionary, the definition of

hangry is: “When you are so hungry your lack of food causes you to become angry.”

Here is hangry used in a sentence: The service in this place stinks! I ordered my food over an hour ago. I’m starving and starting to get really hangry!

Come on. You can admit it…

You’ve Been Hangry!

We all have, and hangry is not a good place to be. Well, now research is showing how being hungry affects our decision making.

According to an article published by the Max Planck Society, hunger affects not only decision making, but also the perception of risk.

According to the article, “Hungry people are often difficult to deal with. A good meal can affect more than our mood, it can also influence our willingness to take risks. This phenomenon is also apparent across a very diverse range of species in the animal kingdom. Experiments conducted on the fruit fly, Drosophila, by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have shown that hunger not only modifies behavior, but also changes pathways in the brain.”

Studies show that animals are willing to take much more risk depending on how hungry they are. For example, an animal will only hunt dangerous prey

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when hungry. If they are not hungry, they will try their luck getting a meal in a less hazardous way.

That seems pretty obvious, but here’s something that is NOT obvious… and even a little surprising. One study found that hungry humans took significantly more financial risk than their well-fed colleagues.

One obvious lesson here is…

Never Make Financial Decisions When You’re Hungry!

Of course, make sure your financial advisor and stock brokers are also well fed. Maybe call them and make sure they have a good breakfast before they start their work day! ☺

On a more serious note, it is obvious that blood chemistry is seriously affected by what and when you eat. Your blood chemistry is extremely important when it comes to both your physical and mental health.

Hangry may seem funny, but when you are hungry, your body is not functioning optimally.

Your muscles and brain are not getting the nutrients they need. Bad decisions and risk taking are just the tip of the iceberg. Not giving your body the nutrients it needs when it needs them can affect every organ and cell in your body.

Understand this: If you want to GAIN WEIGHT, being “hangry” is one of the best ways to do it.

Why? Because weight loss is best accomplished when you keep your blood sugar levels stabilized. This can be accomplished by eating small portions of the correct foods multiple times throughout the day. Often times, eating five or more small meals is ideal.

If you have reached the point when you feel hunger, then you are falling behind. Hunger means your blood sugar levels have already dropped. (Becoming “hangry” is a whole different level!)

But this does not mean you should eat as much as you want whenever you want.

The answer is to eat the right foods, at the right times, in the right portions.

Portion size is a BIG problem for most people. But, believe it or not, you can be “tricked” into eating or drinking more (or less) than you think you are.

Here is how: You’ve heard the statement, “Everything is relative.” Well, relative is a HUGE factor when it comes to how much you decide to eat.

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There is something called the Delboef illusion. This illusion occurs when people misjudge the size of identical circles when they are surrounded by larger circles of different sizes.

For example, people will think a circle is smaller if the circle surrounding it is huge and vice versa.

Researchers found that the same illusion applies to plates we eat our food on.

When the same portion of food is served on a very large plate, it seems like less food than when it is served on a small plate.

According to an article published by the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, “For example, in a study conducted at a health and fitness camp, campers who were given larger bowls served and consumed 16% more cereal than those given smaller bowls. Despite the fact that those campers were eating more, their estimates of their cereal consumption were 7% lower than the estimates of the group eating from the smaller bowls. This suggests that not only could large dinnerware cause us to serve and eat more, it can do so without us noticing and trick us into believing we have eaten less.”

The Cornell article also revealed how we can use this optical illusion to our favor. Here is how: Serve the vegetables and healthy foods many people do not like on large plates. The large plate will make the portion look small and easier to eat. On the contrary, serve bad foods, like desserts, on small plates to make the serving size look bigger.

The Secret To Living A Happy, Healthy and Longer Life.

5 Apr

Do you like secrets?  Most people do.  I’m not talking about that dvd/book, The Secret.  No… not even close to that.

But first, let’s define what a secret is.  Basically, a secret is something someone else doesn’t know.  So, secrets can be good, bad, or neither.  They can be information that changes someone’s life or just worthless trivia.

In this case, this secret is something that has the potential to change your life.

So, what is this big secret?

Let’s start with a quote from the late, great, Jim Rohn:

“You must take personal responsibility.  You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.  That is something you have charge of.”

That, in a nutshell, is the secret to living a happy, healthy, and long life.

There is no doubt that taking 100% personal responsibility for EVERYTHING in your life is the most positive and life altering thing you can ever do.  It is also the most difficult.

We live in an era of almost ZERO personal responsibility.

People sue because the coffee is too hot.  They blame the credit card company for what they bought.  They blame the junk food maker because what they stuffed in their mouth made them overweight and sick.

The minute you take total responsibility for everything in your life, your life will change.

The minute you take total responsibility for your health, you will become healthier. Because health comes from the small decisions you make every day, the small actions you take every day, the right foods you eat every day, and the exercise you do every day.

Jim Rohn also said, “Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event.  You don’t fail overnight.  Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”

You become what you repeat every day.  If your life is not what you want it to be, then stop repeating what you are doing.

Do start repeating something that makes you happy, healthy, and live longer.

The Surprising Secret Ingredient In Pepper That Fights Parkinson’s Disease.

4 Apr

If you are in pain, you are probably looking for a treatment for your pain. If you have a disease, you are probably looking for a treatment for that disease. Most people look for a miracle scientific breakthrough like a brand new surgical procedure or a new drug. Stem cell therapy has many people (and doctors) dreaming of potential cures, but many times, mother nature had the answer all along.

For example, new research just published in the Annals of Neurology tested the effects that eating plants in the Solanacae family had on Parkinson’s disease. Solanacae is a plant family includes plants with edible nicotine. Plants in this family include tobacco, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes. This study examined whether Parkinson’s disease was associated with self-reported typical frequency of consumption of peppers, tomatoes, tomato juice, and potatoes during adulthood, while adjusting for consumption of other vegetables, age, sex, race/ethnicity, tobacco use, and caffeine.

Results: Parkinson’s disease (PD) was inversely associated with consumption of all edible Soloanacae. The more concentrated the nicotine in the food, the greater the impact. The inverse association was greatest for peppers. According to the study, “Dietary nicotine or other constituents of tobacco and peppers may reduce PD risk. However, confirmation and extension of these findings are needed to strengthen causal inferences that could suggest possible dietary or pharmaceutical interventions for PD prevention.”

Peppers may not be the “cure” for Parkinson’s disease, but once again, it points out the importance of the basics: eating right, exercise, and stress reduction.

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