Healthy and Delicious Smoothie Recipes for Kids

There is no better way to get you and your children started off to a great day than ensuring a nutritional breakfast. When I was a child, I woke up many a school day to the sound of the blender. That always meant my mother was downstairs whipping up another delicious smoothie concoction for us before school. Smoothies taste great, they are an easy and quick addition to breakfast, and are even fantastic on their own for those busy parents and for kids who simply do not have much of an appetite in the wee hours of the morning.*

Most children will love smoothies because they are like a treat but you can rest assured knowing that these smoothies are a great way for you and your family to get those reccommended daily servingsof fruit and many other vitamins and nutrients necessary for healthy bodies and minds. All you need make these tasty delights is the ingredients, a blender, and under five minutes of time!

(Notes: 1.Ingredient amounts are mostly approximations as recipes are flexible and can be easily adjusted for the desired amount of servings, 2. Dairy ingredients in these recipes can be substituted with soy, rice, or other alternative milk, 3. Once you have a basis for making smoothies, there is no limit to the combinations of different ingredients you can create! )

Banana-Berry Blast

Ice (Approximately 2 handfuls)
1 cup of plain yogurt
2 whole bananas, each cut in half for easier blending
1 cup of blackberries (Fresh or frozen, frozen berries are great because they last longer, blend well, cost less per volume, and are easy to find in your grocery store’s frozen section)
1 cup of blueberres (Fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup of milk

Toss all items in the blender in this order and blend away until smooth!

Orange Creamsicle

Ice
1 cup of vanilla or plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups of orange juice
Dash of lemon Juice (optional)

Blend and enjoy!

Brytt’s Favorite Smoothie Combo

Ice
1 cup of blueberries
1 banana
Two kiwi fruits, peeled and halved
1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1 mango (see my related short article on the best way to slice a mango!)
1/2 cup milk

*Smoothies can be enjoyed at any time of the day!…

Living a Health Hazard Free Freegan Lifestyle-You Don't Have to Go Dumpster Diving

250 million tons of garbage is generated in the US alone every year. Most of the garbage comes from households and it is mostly good food or commodities that are still in good or recyclable condition. Isn't it ironic that on one end of the world we have food products overflowing the supermarket shelves, these are western countries, while in continents like Africa, Asia and South America we have people dying of hunger or lack of shelter.

Freegans are anti-consumerists. The freeganism is against society's wastage of resources. A freegan's lifestyle is almost similar to a vegetarian's, but the freegan is more on the extreme. Not only are they against animal torture or chemical testing on animals, but also they are activists against society's greed. Their main goal is to spend as little as they possibly can and only use or have what they really need. Freegans fulfill their goals by recycling, sharing what they already have, and gardening. The most controversial issue about freeganism, is the recycling process which many people call dumpster diving. It is a taboo in our current society for people to go about searching other peoples' trash, let alone scavenging for food leftovers.

While it is a good thing that we live in America and are free to lead any kind of lifestyle we want as long as we don't hurt anyone, a freegan's lifestyle threatens his or her own life. Even though most of them say they haven't had any medical issues related to consumption of dumpster food, it is still not safe for us to scavenge for food from other peoples' trash. I mean, the food could have all sorts of chemicals or bacteria especially after it stays in a dirty trash bag for some time. This is like knowingly consuming poison. I know there are so many people who would love to recycle and not waste any food products, but they are just not willing to search through trash for food poisoning.

Now, here are two tips for all of you aspiring freegans, you do no have to go through a stranger's trash to get your supplies:

Instead of dumpster diving, you could make a deal with supermarkets or neighbors to give you leftover food before it is thrown in the garbage. In fact, this is a win-win for both parties. The freegan gets his supplies without having to waste time dumpster …

I Took Back My Health by Leaving Fast Food Behind

I stopped eating all fast food items from fast food restaurants five years ago. After reading several books, doing research and simply buying healthier food at grocery stores it was an easy concept to follow through on.

You see, when I worked at a full time job, I bought junk food at all the fast food restaurants. I ate Wendy's, Arby's, Mc Donald's and Burger King Whoppers. This was my lunch nearly everyday. I also worked at a department store which served junk food that I loved eating a hot dog, and nachos smothered with cheese on the days I didn't have time to drive to the nearest fast food place.

The thing was two hours after paying for and eating this utter junk, I would be super hungry again. On my fifteen minute work break, I wound up eating more junk food from my job's snack bar.

After I had my first child, I had even less time in the morning to eat, and to pack a lunch, so I continued driving to the nearest fast food restaurant to buy the least expensive meals on their menus. I also took my son when he was old enough to chew food, to fast food places to buy him this utter junk. We lived on Coca-Cola, French fries, and cheeseburgers.

I started tapering off on my unhealthy eating habit when my stomach started bothering me 24-7. I started feeling like I was going to throw up and I either couldn't go to the bathroom or I was always going. I experienced many days where I had to call in sick even though we needed the money. After being hospitalized with pneumonia for four days, I stopped eating fast food for a year. I discovered the food, or what passes for food, I was putting into my body was filled with too many bad things, and I felt better when I ate healthier foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables and food my husband and I made at home. I discovered that the best foods were the meals we made from scratch that were not premade or just needed to be popped into the microwave.

After my second bout of pneumonia and a nasty bout of colitis when I lost ten pounds in one week, my unending love for fast food died a quick death by simply saying those two words, "Never again."…

Lebanese Recipes for Healthy Post-Holiday Salads

The Mediterranean Diet is not your typical cut out this, add more of that diet. It's just the way people living in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea happen to eat on a regular basis. Fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and beans, a lot of fish and healthy oils are the staples of the diet. Adding in fresh herbs and spices provides a ton flavor to the dishes making them as delicious as they are healthy.

Salads in particular offer a lot of flavor punch with the added benefits of plenty of fiber and healthy fats. Although a salad recipe from Lebanon may sound exotic and difficult to make, they are super simple and don't require any obscure ingredients. Plus, you make the dressing yourself so you know exactly what's in it and limit those nasty additives and preservatives.

Try these healthy salad recipes with chicken or fish.

Lebanese Fatoush Salad

2-3 small or 1-2 large loaves of good, thin pita bread
1 tablespoon of dried mint
1 bunch of scallions
Juice of 2 lemons
1/3 cup of olive oil
1 head of lettuce or equivalent amount of leafy greens
1 large cucumber
1 small clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place loaves of pita on oven racks and toast for 10-15 minutes until hard. Be careful not to burn the bread.

While the bread is toasting, cut up lettuce, scallions, and cucumber into small bite-sized pieces and place into a bowl.

When the bread is finished toasting, crush the loaves into small pieces over the salad. The pieces should be mostly bite-sized, but a few smaller pieces are fine too.

Mince the garlic with a microplane grater over the bowl. Add mint, crushing it finely by rubbing it between your hands. Add lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and combine all ingredients until the salad is evenly coated with the dressing.

Serving Tips

  1. Wait to dress the salad until just before serving so the bread doesn't get too soggy.
  2. If you don't plan to serve the salad all at once, make dressing in a separate container and keep pita chips in a separate bag. Top salad with pita chips and dressing just before serving.
  3. Use whole wheat pita for added fiber.

Lebanese Tabooleh Salad

½ cup fine bulgur (cracked wheat)
2 large bunches of flat leaf parsley
1 pint grape tomatoes…

Treatments for Canine Kidney Disease

According to Only Natural Pet, kidney disease is a common ailment for dogs over the age of 10. As your dog's body suffers from the normal wear and tear as the years go on, her kidneys can fail. When this occurs, knowing the different remedies available to you can help you and your dog's veterinarian decide on the best course of action for your dog's situation.

Diet

Your dog's veterinarian may recommend a special diet to help combat the effects of kidney disease. Usually, the diet includes low protein, low phosphorus and low sodium foods. According to Healthy Happy Dogs, low protein diets are controversial amongst some vets since if they are not monitored they can cause your dog to be malnourished. However, a low protein diet produces less nitrogenous waste which means less nausea and vomiting for your dog. Reversely, some vets will recommend a diet that is higher in good quality proteins. These diets are often made from homemade foods using good quality meat. Low phosphorus diets help limit the amount of minerals that build up in the kidneys which can help slow down the development of the disease. Low sodium diets also put less strain on the kidneys.

ACE Inhibitors

Depending on your dog's specific situation, your vet may recommend a medication, such as an ACE inhibitor. These drugs, which are usually used to help humans with high blood pressure and heart disease, can help slow down the development of the disease. They are also beneficial since there are little known side effects when administrated appropriately.

Supplements

Nutritional supplements can help the development of the disease in different ways. It's common for dogs with kidney disease to have problems eating which can lead to weight loss or anemia. Some vets will recommend giving your dog B-vitamins to help encourage your dog to eat. Another common supplement is Omega-3 fatty acids, usually in the form of fish oils. In conjunction with vitamin E, they can help decrease kidney swelling.

Other Methods

If you are looking for a more holistic approach, there are steps you can take. Lowering the stress in your dog's life can help his quality of life. One way to accomplish this is to give your dog flower essences which can improve the mood on your dog. Acupuncture is another option. Acupuncture is known to slow the development of the disease and help prolong your dog's …

How you can Know Healthy foods to Eat &ndash

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Healthy foods are foods that enhance your healthy living. These foods make you grow. They give you energy with which to work. Eating healthy foods can heal you when you fall sick and it can help your body repair any damaged part. Healthy foods can make you look ‘every year young’ and they can make you have a healthy long life.

The foundation for a proper nutrition is in whole, pure and natural foods. Without proper healthy eating, you can never achieve and maintain good health. Good health through healthy eating is only possible when you know what to eat at the right quantity and at the right time.

There are five major groups of healthy foods. However, at any one meal, you need a combination of 2 or 3 groups in order to achieve a balanced diet. But first, let me show you the food groups.

  1. Whole Grains: Grains are rich in proteins, minerals and starch. This group includes foods like rice, oats, corn, beans, soybeans, peas, wheat, etc.
  2. Tubers: Tubers are high polysaccharide carbohydrates. When you eat this class of healthy food, their sugars provide the most important source of energy for your body. The foods in this category include potato, yam, plantain, cassava, etc.
  3. Fruits & Vegetables: When you regularly eat fruits and vegetables, you acquire a wide variety of vitamins and minerals that are needed and easily assimilated by your body. Some of these fruits are apple, orange, lemon, watermelon, banana, pineapple, avocado, etc. For the vegetables, your body needs tomato, cucumber, cabbage, pumpkin, carrot, garlic, onion, green beans, etc.
  4. Seafoods: Seafoods are high in fatty acids, iodine, omega-3 and vitamins A, D & K. The foods in this group include fish and fish liver oil.
  5. Fat: Fat should not be omitted in your healthy food diet so long as it is not more than 30% of your daily calorie intake. One of the best sources of fat is from cold-pressed vegetable oils such as soybean oil, fresh palm fruit oil and groundnut oil. These oils are rich in essential fatty acids, lecithin, and vitamins A & E.

Variety, they say, is the spice of life. Remember that by combining the above healthy food groups in the right proportion will help your body acquire the nutrients you need to boost your immune system in order to adequately fight infections; repair or replace dead cells and tissues; …

How to Monitor Your health When You’re Busy &ndash

When life begins to be busier than you think, your health may move to the back of your mind. After all, you have more important things to think about: family, work, and school. But when your health begins to suffer, you realize just how tenuous your relationship with your body might be. In order to keep track of your health along with everything else in your life, you need a simple system of monitoring your health, one that works with your active and your busy schedule. Thankfully, the wonders of technology are allowing this to be simpler than ever.

Your Healthy Habit Is Health Monitoring

If you want to go back to the basics of health monitoring, it can help to keep a journal of your diet and your exercise behaviors. In doing so, you can begin to see the effects of the choices you make, while also noticing the way that bad habits affect your health. A diet journal is a good place to start and there are a variety of programs available online or via your cellular phone. Many people, however, prefer old-fashioned pen and paper to give them a hard copy of their health records. When keeping a diet journal, make sure to list all of the foods and the drinks you are consuming. This can be tricky at first to remember everything during the day, so keep the diet journal close and write everything down as soon as you eat it, this would help monitoring your health. You will also want to include the amount of exercise you engage in each day, while also keeping note of your stress levels. After all, stress affects your health just as much as bad habits can. Your health assessments will reveal that.

Listen to your Body

Many of us are so busy that we forget we are often our own best health monitoring system. Instead of doing daily health assessments by simply stopping to think about how we feel, we can begin to see whether we are ill or healthy. If you’ve been feeling more tired as of late, it might be time to consider looking at your health habits to see if you could improve anything. In addition, you will want to think about whether you’ve been sick more often than usual – another sign that your body is not as healthy as it could be. Take some …

Protecting Our Eyes

We are only given one set of eyes and they must last us our entire lives. This is why it behooves us to take care of them. Believe it or not, there are many things that we can do, on our own, to take care of our eyes. What we eat, the amount of sleep that we get, and even protecting them from the harmful rays of the sun can do a lot to keep our eyes healthy.

Sun Glorious Sun

The sun is wonderful. It provides us with vitamin D that keeps us healthy and it feels good on our skin: but too much sun can be harmful, not only to our skin but our eyes as well. Wearing sun shades protect our eyes from the harmful UV rays that could lead to cataracts. This is why you should wear sun shades if you plan on being in direct sunlight for an extended period of time.

Sleep

Getting sleep is another health boosting benefit for your eyes. Adequate sleep helps with everything from tear production to moisture. When you don’t get enough sleep there are a whole host of problems that you can develop as a result. There are even diseases that you can become more susceptible to contracting as a result of not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep increases the amount of blood and fluid around the eyes resulting in dark circles and bags: not only does lack of sleep rob your eyes of health, it diminishes their beauty as well. When a person has sleep apnea and goes prolonged periods of time without sleep, vision loss can occur in severe cases.

Nutrition

Your eyes benefit greatly from a nutrient called lutein. It is found in green leafy vegetables. If you are not eating a balanced diet inclusive of vegetables, you may not be getting enousun to this precious nutrient. A nutrient-poor diet means that your bodies organs don’t get everything that they need: and over time, they may begin to function at a less than optimal level. This is why eating well means eating a balanced nutrient rich diet. It may not seem that your eyes dep[end on what you put in your stomach, but they do. Your eyes count on you to make good decisions about the food you consume and the nutrients that you get via the food. Eyes that go without what they …

College Students: How to Get Healthy at the End of Winter

1) Put an apple in your breakfast! You want that bagel smothered in cream cheese, but starting the morning feeling full and heavy will only lead to poor choices the rest of the day. You can choose a small carton of yogurt, a carton of cottage cheese (they sell these little 1 serving cartons of low fat cottage cheese that is loaded with protein and not too many calories),1 piece of toast, or a banana if you like fruit, but whatever you do, put that apple in your breakfast too (apples are key because they keep you feeling fuller for longer, they are a good source of fiber, they are low in calories, and they are easy to carry on-the-go!)

2) Along with breakfast, drink a good half-liter to liter of water. It will fill you up, but it also will seem to energize you. Often, being dehydrated puts you in a sluggish mood, and fools many into grabbing a soda or other form of unhealthy beverage. Get ahead of these bad choices by filling up on water. Also, take that water bottle with you, so you can fill it up throughout that day and sip on during class. Constant hydration is key to getting and feeling healthy.

3) For lunch, keep it light. Consider lunch to be a midday snack. At home, you are used to being served a reasonable lunch with a sandwich, orange, and maybe a small cookie or piece of chocolate. However, in college, the dining halls offer you food that would otherwise wait until suppertime: mashed potatoes, pasta alfredo, casseroles, etc. So, think back to those days at school and either buy yourself a small lunch that you could imagine in a small lunch box, or better, pack your own homemade (and therefore, likely healthier) lunch.

4) Keep drinking water!

5) For an afternoon snack, have a fruit such as another apple (I can't stress how wonderful apples are!), banana, orange, pear, plum, grapes, etc. Or, if you like, a bag of 94% fat free butter popcorn is a great way to feel like you ate a big carbohydrate snack, when you actually only had a handful of calories.

6) When you get home, take the time to make a good meal. Enjoy pasta with marinara, or a chicken breast, with some vegetables…really whatever you fancy, but be reasonable. The evening is the easiest time …

Things you should know about Dental Implants

If you’re not entirely satisfied with the way your teeth look or if you’re not able to chew easily then you may be a good candidate for dental implants. After all, you want to be able to enjoy your life and that includes looking your best and being able to enjoy all the things going on around you. One way to start that process is to get your teeth looking their absolute best.

Are you a Candidate for Dental Implants?

There are actually very few requirements in order to be a candidate to get dental implants, but you definitely want to make sure that you fit each of them to make sure you’re going to get what you’re looking for but you won’t be in any danger to your health.

  • Have you lost teeth that will not grow back (adult teeth)?
  • Are you in good health?

That’s pretty much all you need to know in order to find out whether these implants are going to work for you or if you’re going to need something different. Of course, there are several other options as well so you may want to consider them before you make your final decision because implants are definitely a serious consideration.

Why Get Dental Implants?

Dental implants are going to give you a whole lot of benefits actually, some that you might not even realize. The key is making sure you know which of these reasons you’re really looking for, or at least if they’re going to be a benefit to you over a cheaper alternative. Because implants are going to cost you a decent amount of money you want to make sure you’re getting what you pay for.

  • Most like natural teeth
  • Doesn’t slip or move because it’s fused to the teeth
  • Made to last over 10 years
  • Insures you never have cavities
  • Teeth look just like normal
  • Allows you to eat the foods you like
  • Made to fit comfortably in your mouth
  • Protects bones in the jaw
  • Allows you to speak easily
  • Protects any healthy teeth
  • Extremely reliable over the long term

What you should know

When you get dental implants in Austin TX is a great place to be, but you need to know a few factors before you jump in. The most important thing to know is that dental implants are meant to be a permanent solution. They don’t come out and …