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I saw an interesting advertisement in the Virgin Voyeur magazine for NW nutrient water advertising it’s super low calorie content.

“Naturally sweetened, super low calorie with only 23 calories per bottle ( if you always pass on dessert you’II know what we mean)”.

I find the whole flavoured water market very interesting, actually the bottled water market in general. What people don’t realise is that there are a lot of nasty toxins in the plastic but that’s another post.

What got me thinking is a beverage company admitting that there regular bottled water products are high in calories and sugar. By this I mean promoting another product in the same range that has 23 calories verses 258 says to me that there regular product is high in calories and sugar or as they say the equivalent to eating a dessert.
While a similar sized can of Coke has 10.6% sugar (63.6gms/600mls sugar), 258 calories, Nutrient Water’s other varieties contain 5% sugar (28.8gms/575mls), 115 Calories which is still relatively high considering tap water has ZERO sugar and calories.

One thing to think about when buying any beverage product, especially those aimed at the health conscious consumer is to look at the percentage of sugar by volume and the total amount of sugar.

Energy is energy and any unused energy is stored in the body, especially the tummy, butt and legs:(((

A new Australian study has found that reducing the amount of salt in your diet can help your bone health.

The study was conducted over 12 weeks with middle aged women from 45 -75 by reducing the sodium (salt) in their diets from 9.7gms to 6.5gms and monitoring the results from their urine. A second group was given a high carbohydrate, low fat diet with lower salt intakes.

It was found that the the amount of calcium leached from the body and excreted was less in the target group with blood pressure decreasing from 146/91 to 141/88 mmHg and sodium (salt) decreasing by 26%, while the high carb, low fat diet reported more calcium being leeched from the body than the purely low salt intake group..

The World Health Organisation recommends a daily intake of 5mg, over half the amount of salt that is consumed by the western world currently at 10-12g per person.

The other benefit of reduced calcium loss in the benefit is for those women at risk of getting osteoporosis, by taking early preventative action the risks will be reduced.

Source:
British Journal of Nutrition
Volume 102, Pages 1161-1170, doi:10.1017/S0007114509371731
“The effects of a low-sodium base-producing diet including red meat compared with a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet on bone turnover markers in women aged 45-75 years”
Authors: C.A. Nowson, A. Patchett, N. Wattanapenpaiboon

While staying with friends recently, I was treated to some good old-fashioned homegrown veggies. Nothing quite beats the freshness, taste and goodness of vegetables grown in your own backyard.

While this backyard was much larger than your average size house block, it shows what is possible without using chemicals. Rain water irrigation and food scrap mulching contributes to these super healthy spinach, beetroot and silverbeets.
And the scent of fresh vegetables can’t be beaten, as you walk through the garden you experience natures bouquet, something that is missing from the supermarket fruit and vegetable department.

With the summer crop of corn, broccoli and tomatoes just finishing, my friends were kept busy preserving any excess vegetables.

It harks back to our grandparent’s era when they enjoyed a less hectic lifestyle and had more time to spend gardening, which apart from producing great food also has other benefits such as stress relief, physical exercise, leaving a smaller carbon imprint and self sufficiency.

There is a sense of immense satisfaction knowing that the food on the table is produced from your very own garden plus it taste super yummy. This spinach, parsley and parmesan cheese was easy to prepare, very healthy and best of all it’s from the garden.

Feeling inspired? If you need some help building your own vegetable garden, Sustainable Gardening Australia have some great step by step instructions on getting started.

It’s the simple things that help weight loss, today’ tip is about resisting the temptation to buy all the energy rich, fatty food that tastes yummy but is hard to resist.

I was talking to a Fitmate who lacked the self control and discipline when it came to chocolate and ice cream. Actually I’d say a lot of people have a weakness, especially the home made variety. Rather than rationing the chocolate over a few weeks or even a month it became a competitive eating event to finish off the sweets as soon as possible. Every hour of every day, the temptation was too strong to resist, whether you are eating for emotional reasons, for comfort or enjoyment it’s these re-occurring thought patterns that take over.

The simple solution is too remove the temptation all together by simply not buying the sweets in the first place. I’m not saying to go cold turkey and remove the fun food from your life but key strategies need to be adopted until the thought patterns leading to chocolate eating feasts are changed.

Like anything is life, if you can get through the cold turkey period of withdrawals, in time your body will no longer crave these sugary, fatty treats. Belive it or not, your body can adapt to change.

We all know that home cooking is a healthier options yet with parents under stress from longer working hours, the humble home cooked meal is becoming an extinct animal.

With people renovating there kitchens every 5 years, buying all the latest kitchen gadgets and watching restaurant TV and cooking shows, we spend more time contemplating than doing. The consumption of take away food is growing substantially every year.

With Australia’s obesity levels at epidemic levels, are we contributing to the problem by placing our reliance on fatty, sugary low nutritional value takeaway as a cheap and fast alternative?
It disturbing to see an advertisement about giving mum/dad a break from cooking by getting a “Family Dinner Box” from McDonalds.
Geez, getting a bunch of burgers and fries must be better for the family nutritionally than steamed vegies, brown rice and grilled chicken. Mmmm, I don’t know about that, there website saying “spend less time in the kitchen and more time with the family”, well nice premise but what is actually happening, kids glued to there computer screen or mobile, parents watching TV or cable or just chilling out after a stressful day at the office, worrying about being able to meet the next mortgage payment.

So promoting the consumption of energy dense, fatty food the only way to free up the parents time in the evening?

Secondly how much time is actually involved in cooking a healthy meal, try cooking something special, why not get the kids involved in the process of cooking and cleaning up.

It’s scary that McDonalds promotes the process of cooking a home meal negatively with there website showing words associated with cooking such as “Cook, clean up, wash dishes, rush, prepare, scrub, burn”, well if people were so concerned about the preparation and cleaning process why are home coffee expresso machines so popular, you could use the same words as mentioned above when making a coffee yet it doesn’t stop people from preparing there own home cappuccino.

The modern supermarket is full of “just add water”, “ready in 5 minutes, just place in microwave”