Your friends have finally gone home but the mess remains. And it’s not just the pots, pans and plates. Your finest damask napkins have been splashed with red wine, the matching placemats are coated with wax from the designer candles and then there’s the children! Fruit juice and chocolate everywhere. Oh Hell!
While the supermarket aisles may be filled with the latest and greatest products to refresh and restore our clothes and linens, there’s no better answer to food stains than removing them while they are fresh. Leaving a stain will give it time to set, so act fast – even if it is Saturday night.
Tart apple and spicy cinnamon can sure get your taste buds tapping. But help control your blood sugar, too?
It very well might. Turns out that a daily dose of cinnamon may help improve insulin receptivity — an important part of blood sugar control. Slip a little more cinnamon into your day with a Double Apple Cinnamon Smoothie (recipe below).
A Little Does a Lot
You may need only a little bit of cinnamon — as little as a quarter teaspoon a day — to reap blood sugar rewards. Just don’t overdo it — highly unlikely with a typical diet, but loading up via supplements could be toxic. Another cinnamon bonus: When you add it to high-glycemic-index foods, it can help lessen their impact on your blood sugar.
Fruit juices have been slammed for being high in carbs and low in fiber. But get ready for a surprise: They do have redeeming qualities for your health.
Fruit juice has become the Britney Spears of the grocery store, typically scoffed at by those old enough to remember a time before ultra-low-rise jeans. Between being called liquid sugar by the anti-carb crowd and being blamed for the rising obesity rate among kids, it would seem that juices are simply not worth swallowing. (In fact, their sales dropped 1.4 percent between 2002 and 2003, the first decline in more than 6 years, according to a recent report by www.marketresearch.com.) And mainstream nutritionists promote the whole fruit over juice for its fiber and pulp. But the truth is, some fruit juices do deserve a place at your table because of their nutrients and powerful disease-fighting properties.
Effective stress control results in the enhancement of both mental and physical well-being. Exercise and practice of relaxation methods are the best ways to keep chronic stress in check, but it isn’t realistic to take a jog or a meditation break every time you’re faced with a stressful situation.You can, however, practice techniques like controlled breathing exercises when you feel your stress levels soaring. The following exercise in breathing can be done for as little as three to five minutes at a time and is an effective way to halt escalating feelings of anger, tension, and frustration.
While looking at an article by a leading fitness guru, I was struck by her emphasis on making exercise a priority and finding a way to fit in your gym time at any cost. Although she’s right in principle, I couldn’t help thinking that this woman cannot possibly be a working mom with small children!
Those of us who are balancing multiple roles – as parent, worker, spouse, school volunteer, household manager, and responsible citizen — often find that 24 hours per day simply aren’t enough. Fitness gets put on the back burner.
Lack of time is a major reason why many people forego healthy eating. Fast food is readily available and it’s just too tempting, and it’s cheap and filling. While eating fast food is never as healthy as a well–planned, balanced diet, if you must eat fast food, you can easily take steps to improve the quality of your nutrition when on the run.
Watch portion sizes. Your craving will likely be satisfied after you have finished a small order of fries, and you’ll save over 100 calories when compared with the super-sized order. The same holds true for sandwiches. Order the regular version or even a kid’s meal for yourself.
No, smartypants, not like that. Watching professional chefs at work is mesmerising - they see able to chop through mountains of celery in mere seconds.
This is how it’s done!
Get The Right Tools
You don’t have to mortgage the house for a German knife or the latest Japanese sashimi technology - it’s far more important to have a knife that’s sharp. The problem with expensive knives is they need lots of love, and there’s absolutely no point buying them if you aren’t likely to visit the knife-sharpener regularly. You can find perfectly good - and much more enduring sharp - knives for around $60, and although they may not have such beautiful balance or come with their own special little cleaning-cloth, they will get through the tomatoes just as well.
Your friends have finally gone home but the mess remains. And it’s not just the pots, pans and plates. Your finest damask napkins have been splashed with red wine, the matching placemats are coated with wax from the designer candles and then there’s the children! Fruit juice and chocolate everywhere. Oh Hell!
Fruit juices have been slammed for being high in carbs and low in fiber. But get ready for a surprise: They do have redeeming qualities for your health.
