Do you know the important differences between butter and margarine? Many people interchange between consuming butter and margarine because they are similar in functions, as a bread spread or to use in baking or cooking. People who may prefer to consume margarine normally do so because it is cheaper in price compared to butter.

But you should learn the health benefits of butter and margarine before you think about saving money and choose something that will threaten your health. Here are some of the differences.

• Both butter nad margarine have the same amount of calories.
• Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams in margarine.
• Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
• Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
• Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has less.
• Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
• Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

Margarine is known to be less healthy than butter. Read on to find out the cons of consuming margarine.

• Very high in trans-fatty acids.
• Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
• Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol).
• Increases the risk of cancer up to five fold.
• Lowers the quality of breast milk.
• Decreases immune response.
• Decreases insulin response.

Also, this is an interesting finding: Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC!

Now if you are not convinced of the unhealthiness of margarine, try this little experoment.

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

• No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
• It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro organisms will not find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic!

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The difference between butter and margarine

Most of us are daily consumers of tea or coffee, or some kind of similar beverages. Since we consume such beverages on a daily basis, we might as well consume something that will bring us the greatest health benefits, to kill two birds with one stone. Green tea is my obvious and favourite choice amongst all hot beverages for the day. And I’m glad to learn of the many benefits to drinking green tea, much healthier benefits than drinking your usual cups of coffee and black tea.

Here are 3 great benefits of drinking green tea on a daily basis, as found in many resources online to be shared here for your benefit.

Green tea helps with weight loss

If you do a quick search on the internet regarding the topic of how green tea can help in reducing weight, you are sure to come up with many search results to confirm this fact. One of the more credible sites that I refer to for this fact is WebMD. According to the article, it says that green tea may help to ward of weight gain, as tested on mice. However, a human may be required to drink a large quantity of green tea for it to work. If you are drinking lots of green tea on a daily basis anyway, coupled with regular exercises, you may just find yourself having a trimmer waistline! Green tea has long been known to be a good natural fat burner.

Green tea helps with arthritis

Once again referring to an article in WebMD, there’s a certain compound found in green tea that helps reduce inflammation and joint damage in rheumatoid arthritis. Those with arthritis may want to read more on this before going on to consume green tea. The article does warn that it is unsure how much green tea needs to be consumed in order for this to be 100% effective. But again, if you are already drinking green tea regularly, it may be working to your advantage already.

Green tea lowers the risk of heart disease

Scientists found that people who drink green tea benefit from better blood vessel function just 30 minutes after consuming the tea. It improves the function of endothelial cells, which is vital since an endothelial cell dysfunction causes clogged arteries. Green tea is also found to contain powerful antioxidants called flavonoids which may protect the heart. You can read more about the claim to this from here.

Are you convinced of the benefits of drinking green tea yet? As with all things, it is best not to consume too much of one type of food stuff. It’s best to always consume things in moderation. Too much of anything can sometimes lead to problems too. So be considerate in your consumption and don’t over-do things.

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The many benefits of drinking green tea

This article about the nutritional value of eggs was apparently written some 2 years back and many people may have read and now know the true nutritional value of eggs. However, for those who are still uncertain and think that eggs may be harmful to you, read on and find out.

I would like to highlight an interesting insight from this article that says that it is not the eggs that are harmful, it is how we consume them that makes it harmful to our health. So eat smart and stay healthy.

Note: I would love to be able to quote the source of this article, but it came to me with no trace back to the source of the author.

May 4, 2007 – Once considered cholesterol-laden no-no’s, eggs are making a comeback. That’s great news for egg lovers who have avoided them, “thinking it would put them in an early grave,” says Lisa Cimperman, a registered dietitian at University Hospitals of Cleveland. ” Eggs are an almost perfect food.”

Eggs lost their breakfast staple status when nutritionists linked dietary cholesterol (the cholesterol found in foods such as meat, seafood, eggs, dairy and poultry) with a person’s overall serum cholesterol levels (the cholesterol level in your bloodstream). But new research shows that dietary cholesterol does not play as big a role in boosting cholesterol levels as previously thought.

In a meta-analysis of 224 dietary studies carried out over the last 25 years, researchers from the University of Arizona found that saturated fat is the culprit behind high cholesterol levels, with dietary cholesterol having little to no effect on blood cholesterol for most people. And researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found no relationship between egg consumption and cardiovascular disease in a population of more than 117,000 nurses and health professionals who were followed for a period of eight to 14 years. In fact, there was no difference in heart-disease risk between those folks who ate less than one egg a week and those who ate more than one egg a day.

For a cheap, readily available and potent source of nutrition, you can’t beat the egg. Although one medium egg is only about 70 calories, it is considered nutrient dense, meaning that it is loaded with good-for-you vitamins and minerals. The egg white is an amazing source of protein (about 5.5 grams). The protein found in eggs rates a “biological value” of 93.7, higher than that found in milk or beef. (The “biological value” is a measurement that determines how efficiently a protein is used by the body.)

Eggs are also a great source of chemical called choline, which allows your nerves to communicate with your muscles. And they are high in lutein, which may help prevent age-related muscular degeneration and cataracts. Eggs are relatively low in fat. One large egg contains about 5 grams. Most of that fat, which is contained in the yolk, is of the good-for-you unsaturated variety. And since it is a whole food, it contains no man made trans-fats.

While there are no specific recommendations as to how many eggs you can eat in a day, there are some guidelines. For example, one egg contains about 213mg of cholesterol. The American Heart Association recommends that you shouldn’t eat more than 300mg of dietary cholesterol per day as part of an overall healthy diet. That means an egg a day is just fine if you are not sensitive to dietary cholesterol, and if you load up on fruits, vegetables, low-fat diary and lean meats as part of your overall daily diet.

The biggest problem with eggs is what you might eat with them. So skip the fried egg (unless you use low-fat margarine or a nonstick pan), hash browns and bacon. Your best bet is to keep it simple. A smart breakfast, for example, is one hard-boiled egg with a side of oatmeal, which will give you a dose of fiber.

And to settle the age-old dispute, brown eggs are not higher in nutrition. According to the American Egg Board, white shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and ear lobes. Brown eggs come from hens with red feathers and red ear lobes.

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Do you know the true nutritional value of eggs?

For a while now, many people have been promoting the consumption of soursop as a means to kill cancer cells. The claim is that soursop works better than chemotherapy as some cancerous cells are resistant to chemo treatments. The question is, are soursop fruits really a cure for cancer and a better alternative to chemotherapy for cancer patients?

The soursop fruit – a miracle cure for cancer?

If you do a search on the internet on this topic, you are likely to find many sources that stand by the goodness of soursop to help cancer patients battle cancer instead of undergoing chemotherapy. Besides the fresh fruit itself, there are also many types of soursop supplements in the market. Do they really work?

Here’s a short article posted on Cancer Research UK’s website on the use of soursop to help cure cancer:

Can graviola cure cancer?

Graviola is something that comes from a tree in the rain forests of Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.  Its scientific name is Annona muricata.  It is also known as cherimoya, guanabana, soursop, custard apple, and brazilian paw paw.  In many countries, people use the bark, leaves, root, and fruits of this tree for traditional remedies.  The active ingredient is thought to be a type of plant compound (phytochemical) called annonaceous acetogenins.

People in African and South American countries have used graviola to treat infections with viruses or parasites, rheumatism, arthritis, depression, and sickness.  We know from research that some graviola extracts can help to treat these conditions.

In laboratory studies, graviola extracts can kill some types of liver and breast cancer cells that are resistant to particular chemotherapy drugs.  But there haven’t been any large scale studies in humans.  So we don’t know yet whether it can work as a cancer treatment or not.  Overall, there is no evidence to show that graviola works as a cure for cancer.  Many sites on the internet advertise and promote graviola capsules as a cancer cure, but none of them are supported by any reputable scientific cancer organisations. 

We know very little about how graviola affects the body.  But we do know it can cause nerve changes, causing symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.  So it may have harmful side effects for some people.  Always talk to your doctor before taking any kind of complementary or alternative therapy.

Graviola costs more than £5 for 100 capsules.  The manufacturers advise taking 2 capsules, 3 to 4 times a day.  So 100 capsules could last less than 2 weeks.

We do not support the use of graviola to treat cancer.  Our advice is to be very cautious about believing information or paying for any type of alternative cancer therapy on the internet.  You may find it useful to read our section on searching for information on the internet.

Whatever you read and have been recommended by well-meaning family members and friends, do a quick check, especially on reliable sites. Get to know the full picture before you think the majority should be right.

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During this time of economic uncertainty, everyone is sitting on the edge of their seats, hoping for the best that they are able to sustain their regular source of income, be it as an employee or as a business owner.

We also pray and hope that our monies which are put into what we deemed as safe investments would remain intact. It is indeed a stressful time for all. So here are some practical tips to help you de-stress, relax and stay calm in your everyday life.

1. Think positive and happy thoughts
Worrying about the worst things that could happen doesn’t help. By thinking and worrying about them, it doesn’t mean they won’t happen. Sometimes, negativity breeds negativity (this is the law of attraction, if you believe it). So why not think positive and happy thoughts and hope that you will attract positive things in life?

2. Brainstorm and think of solutions
Whilst we remain positive on the outlook of things, it doesn’t harm for us to think of alternatives of what we can do just in case we are faced with the worst of scenarios. You can think about tapping on your other talents and skills which could earn you some additional income on the side as a means to earn more. If you are able to start on it and see some results, you may even feel more confident that it can grow into something bigger if you continue to work on it. Who knows, it can be something so successful that you may want to consider doing it full time instead of keeping your day job!

3. Spend more time with your family
It’s always good to spend time with family members. Cultivate more happy moments and enjoy that quality time you have. A family often builds a happy foundation for an individual. After all, if you trace back your very reason of wanting to make more money, more often than not, you will find that it is because you want to provide better for the family, so that they are well cared for and happy. Remember that money does not buy happiness.

4. Read more books
Spend more time to read. Read things that you find pleasure in, be it a hobby, interest, novels, self improvement tips, etc. Reading increases your knowledge and makes your brain active through what you are digesting. So spend your time doing something useful instead of being idle and let your mind wander to the many worries that could take a toll on you.

5. Use scent to help you relax
If you have trouble sleeping or can’t help having worries in your mind, try to use relaxing scents to help you calm down. Lavender essential or fragrance oils are very popularly used to help people stay calm and also to sleep better. You can either burn some aromatheraphy oils or scented candles or even place potpourri around the house.

6. Go out on more outdoor activities
If you enjoy outdoor activities such as camping or even a simple picnic but have not had the time to do them more often, this is a good time to set aside some time to indulge more in these activities that bring you pleasure. Being out and about helps to refresh and revitalise you mentally and emotionally. You will also tend to leave behind your worries when you spend time doing something that you enjoy. Besides, getting fresh air and having more greens around you when are you outdoors is rather healthy!

7. Indulge in comfort food
Some people have a list of food stuff that they find therapeutic in times when they feel stressed. The more common types of food include ice cream, chocolate, cakes, a hot cup of tea or coffee, a warm bowl of chicken soup, etc. We each have our own preference, so indulge yourself in some comfort food once in a while just to soothe your soul.

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7 tips to de-stress during the economic downturn