What Should My Child Be Eating for Optimal health?

Understanding healthy eating has become a huge challenge in our society. Our ancestors living thousands of years ago did not have this challenge. They ate what grew and what they could catch. Before the advent of agriculture, people ate what was naturally supplied.While I have been studying nutrition for 46 years, I am not an expert, since I am not a scientist and have not done my own research. What I share with you comes from my personal experience with my children and grandchildren.Rather than laying out a specific way of eating, I am going to write about what I have learned about what NOT to eat.Below is a partial list of things not to feed your children:

• Sugar
• Corn syrup
• Glucose syrup
• Wheat syrup
• Rice syrup
• Potato starch
• Modified food starch
• White foods - white bread, white rice, rice milk, white pastas, white wheat flour
• Processed grains
• French fries
• Sodas
• Trans-fats
• Vegetable oils other than coconut and olive oil
• Preservatives and food colorings - or anything that you can't pronounce!

You might not think you are feeding your children many of these, but if you look at the labels, you will find many of these non-foods in packaged and refined products. In fact, most refined foods will contain one or more of these items. For your children to be healthy, they have to be eating foods that are nutrient dense.

Not only do none of the above items have any nutrient value, they rob the body of nutrients, creating the weight and health problems that are endemic to our society.What are the nutrient-dense foods? The most nutrient dense foods are organically grown vegetables. Next are fruits, followed by beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds - in moderation. If you are not a vegetarian, highly nutritious forms of animal protein are organically fed grass-finished beef and lamb (grain-finishing beef and lamb changes the composition of the fat and causes many health problems), free-range organic poultry, and organic free-range eggs. Mercury-free fish is very healthy, as the oil provides the important omega-3s.Regarding dairy products: pasteurization kills the enzymes in dairy and can cause problems such as asthma and allergies. Pasteurization also causes milk and other dairy to become difficult to digest, also contributing to illness. Unless you can get very clean, raw organic milk and cheese from grass-finished cows, it is better to avoid dairy. Due to the difficulties in absorption of pasteurized dairy, it is not a good source of calcium - despite what the dairy industry claims. My children were brought up on raw Alta-Dena dairy products and did very well on them. The right kinds of fats are also important. Cocoanut oil is the best to cook with and olive oil is the best in salad dressings.How do get your children to eat like this? The only way I know of, which is what I did when my three children were growing up, is to eat this way yourself. I chose not to have anything in the house that I didn't want them to eat, so everything they ate was healthy while they were in the house. I never insisted that they eat. I just put the healthy food out and they ate as much or as little as they wanted to eat.It is also important to determine you own and your children's metabolic type, which you can do by reading William Wolcott's "The Metabolic Typing Diet."

This will help you to know if your child does better on animal protein or vegetable protein. While it is important to have healthy choices in the house, it is equally important not to insist that your child eat the way you do. You might be a rapid metabolizer who needs a lot of meat, while your child might be a slow metabolizer who needs more vegetable protein.If you want to be healthy and have healthy children, the very best thing to do is read as much as you can about healthy eating, and then decide for yourself what you want to do for your family.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone Sessions Available.

How to Use Your Health Savings Account to Slow Down

One of the best aspects of having a Health Savings Account is that you can control your medical care. If you want to have a medical test or procedure done that is not covered by your health insurance, you pay for it with pre-tax money from your health savings account. One of the processes of aging that scientists have been learning more about in recent years is glycation, and the formation of Advanced Glycation Endproducts, or AGEs. Here's how to reduce this harmful process, and a simple test you can pay for from your Health Savings Account to see how you're doing.

What is "Glycation" and what are AGEs?

When we take a piece of bread and put it in the toaster, it slowly turns brown. This is the result of a natural process called the "Maillard reaction", in which sugars react with proteins. It is this process that gives flavor to beer, pizza crust, and roasted coffee.

The same process naturally happens in the human body. (So in a sense, we all slowly "brown" as we age). When a protein in your body is "glycated", it has a sugar molecule attached to it, and can then bond to another protein in your body in a process called "cross-linking". These damaged proteins result in the formation of Advanced Glycation Endproducts.

Exposure to AGEs in the body contributes to inflammation and to a large variety of age-related diseases, including cataracts, joint stiffness, Alzheimer's disease, and cardiovascular diseases. Some AGEs increase the risk of auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and others increase the risk of cancer.

Reduce AGEs in your Food

When experimental mice are fed a low-AGE diet, they have better cardiovascular health, better kidney health, better blood sugar management, and they live longer. AGE formation is increased when foods are cooked at high temperatures, and for longer periods of time. You can significantly reduce AGEs created in food preparation by using boiling, poaching, or stewing rather than frying or grilling.

So one strategy is to simply reduce your consumption of "browned" foods. So for instance, fried shrimp will have way more harmful AGE compounds than boiled shrimp.

How to Reduce AGE Formation in your Body

AGE formation is particularly high in diabetics, due to uncontrolled sugar levels in the body. This is one of the reasons why they suffer from increased rates kidney disease, vision loss, and cardiovascular disease.

Millions of Americans who have not been diagnosed as diabetic still have glucose handling difficulties, typically diagnosed as "metabolic syndrome". It is becoming more and more evident that a diet low in foods that raise blood sugar rapidly (typically the "white" foods like bread, pasta, rice, and sugar) will reduce a person's risk of diabetes or metabolic syndrome. This in turn will also reduce your body's AGE formation.

Supplements You Can Take

Numerous dietary supplements have now been shown to reduce glycation, cross-linking, and AGE formation. Some experts recommend the following supplements, typically 500 mg to 1 gram of each, per day:

· Carnosine

· Benfotiamine

· Alpha-lipoic acid

· Acetyl-l-carnitine

· Curcumin

If your health care practitioner recommends supplements for the prevention or treatment of a specific health condition, you can pay for them from your Health Savings Account.

A common blood test that diabetics have done is Glycated Hemoglobin A1c. This measures how much the red blood cells have become glycated over the past one to three months, and is seen as an indicator of average blood sugar levels.

Stay Healthy, Grow Your Health Savings Account

So be proactive - fund your HSA to the max, do what you can to optimize your health, and let your account grow.

By Wiley Long – President of HSA for America (http://www.health--savings--accounts.com ) - The nation's leading independent health insurance firm specializing in individual and family coverage that work with Health Savings Accounts.

Health: Benefits of Fish Oil for Fitness and Health

The Truth about Fish OilEssential fatty acids must always be part of our daily diet – without them, we take one step closer to our deaths. Essential fatty acids are divided into two families: omega-6 EFAs and omega-3 EFAS.Although there are only very slight differences to distinguish the two groups of essential fatty acids from each other, studies have revealed that too much intake of omega-6 EFAs can lead to inflammation, blood clotting and tumor growth. The good news, however, is that the opposite is true for omega-3 EFAs. Omega-6 EFAs can be found in vegetable oils while omega-3 EFAs can be found in fish oils among other foods.

Omega-6 vs. Omega-3Physicians and scientists are of the same opinion that the cause behind increasing cases of heart disease, hypertension or high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, premature aging and certain kinds of cancer is none other than an imbalanced intake of omega-3 and omega-6 EFAs.As mentioned earlier on, omega-6 EFAs can be found in vegetable oils. This includes but is not limited to corn oil and soy oil, both of which contains high amounts of linoleic acid. Omega-3 EFAs on the other hand can be found also in marine plankton and walnut and flaxseed oils. It should be significant to take note that fatty fish and fish oils contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), fatty acids that have been observed to provide many benefits to the human body. In the early 1970’s, a study on Greenland Eskimos have revealed that one of the major reasons why they rarely suffer from heart diseases is because of their high-fat diet (mainly composed of fish).The two essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are also helpful in preventing atherosclerosis, heart attacks, depression and various forms of cancer. Fish oil supplemented food have also proven to be useful in treating illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, Raynaud’s disease and ulcerative colitis.Other Benefits of Fish OilThere are a lot more illnesses and situations in which intake of fish oil has proven to be significantly beneficial.Making the Heart HealthierThe heart is inarguably one of the most important parts of our body and having an unhealthy heart means having to suffer a rather limited lifespan. Naturally, it’s in our best interests to keep our hearts happy and healthy and one way of doing that is eating food that contains fish oil.

In Athens, Greece, for instance, a study was made to show if there was a direct relationship between high fish diet and inflammation of blood vessels. The results revealed that those who ate more fish than the others had a lower level of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, factors that are commonly used to measure likelihood of blood vessel inflammation. These benefits remained even when the various risks associated with high fish diet were taken into account.Fish to Become ThinIn Perth, Australia, a study had revealed that fish consumption can be used against hypertension and obesity. Researchers of the UWA (University of Western Australia) have discovered that a weight-loss diet which includes a regular amount of fish consumption can be quite effective in reducing blood pressure and improving glucose tolerance.Fish Oil to Combat AsthmaPeople suffering from respiratory problems like asthma tend to be perceived as unfit and unhealthy. They should now be pleased to learn that certain studies have revealed the benefits of fish oil for asthma-burdened-individuals. Statistics show that approximately 20 to 25% of children today suffer one form of asthma or another at a certain point in their lives. And certain evidence reveals a regular diet of food with high linoleic acid content as the reason behind it.Researchers of UW (University of Wyoming) conducted a study by subjecting a number of children to a high-fish diet while others continued with their regular diet.

Results revealed that the participants who ate more fish were less prone to asthma attacks and were able to breathe more easily as well.Consult Your Nutritionist NowNothing is good when consumed or used excessively but complete avoidance of a particular food type is equally harmful as well. Ask your nutritionist for the right amount of fish intake for your age and health status.