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Food and Nutrition |
| Challenge your mind and improve your body |
Our food channel covers everything from breastfeeding to teenage diets, dealing with fussy toddlers, providing healthy lunchbox ideas and offering expert advice on food intolerance and allergies.
The Nutrition Facts section defines a serving size and describes the weights of macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate, protein) in a serving and the percentages that these macronutrients represent of the daily Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for a 2000-Calorie diet. Additional information may be provided for specific minerals, vitamins, or other components of interest such as cholesterol. The second type of consumer information is the List of Ingredients which contains the basic components of the product in order of decreasing weight. Since the basic components must be listed, products containing ingredients consisting of several components must list the components in parentheses. A breakfast cereal containing crystallized ginger must list it as "crystallized ginger (ginger root, sugar)". Manufacturers sometimes add explanatory notes about an ingredient, e.g., "BHT (a preservative)". |
Health Positive |
| Health Really Is a Laughing Matter |
No matter what you’re planning for the year ahead, if health is a priority, then laughing should be one as well. A good guffaw, or even a goofy giggle, is not only your best medicine, but a free, easy, and powerful way to prevent disease, relieve stress, and increase emotional health.
It’s been more than two decades since Norman Cousins’s Anatomy of an Illness (Doubleday, 1991) featured the first documented case of humour positively affecting disease. The scientific evidence has been piling up ever since. Our recent fascination with how the mind affects the body, also known as psycho-neuro-immunology, has provided even more reason to burst out, crack up, slap our knees, and rock with laughter. In this field of study, where doctors determine how a person’s psychological state affects his or her immune system, laughter is becoming an effective means of disease prevention.
Cultural anthropologists suggest the purpose of laughter is related to making and strengthening human connections. Psychologists suggest that human laughter may have begun as a gesture of shared relief after danger had passed. The relaxation that results from a bout of laughter inhibits the biological fight-or-flight response. It also shows trust in our companion.
Cave men probably had a good giggle after surviving near-death while hunting woolly mammoth. Today, we still often need to feel such relief. Laughter, our emotions, and true health are intimately linked. I remember laughing my head off with a friend at her father’s wake a few years ago. Yes, the occasion was sad and uncomfortable, but we had an opportunity to laugh and we did. The relief was as great as the emotions behind the laughter. Since then, I’ve often noticed the fine line between laughter and tears. They are similar avenues for emotional release, so why not laugh when given the chance? Laughing helps release emotions that, if held inside, can create biochemical changes harmful to the body. |
| Alternative Medicine |
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