Less intense than cocaine and heroin, but nonetheless addictive for some people, sugar activates the same region in the brain that makes you experience a high and feelings of pleasure.  Like using hard drugs, bingeing on sugar blunts the “pleasure” response over time, making you want the sugar fix more frequently and in higher doses to experience the same feelings of pleasure.  This has dire consequences on some processes in the body. The biochemical effects of sugar: In the 1960’s and 1970’s the buzz words in food and diet became “low fat”, following on (largely incorrect) assumptions that obesity and related metabolic syndrome disease (characterized by abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, and low HDL cholesterol)

Full of delicious flavour and packed with nutrients, avocados are truly one of nature’s super fruits. In addition, it is a fast food that is cholesterol free and can be enjoyed on its own or to enhance the taste and texture of a wide variety of meals. Less appetizing, however, is the origin of the name Avocado – coming from the Aztec word “ahuacati”, meaning testicle due to its shape. Nutritional value: Avocados are often referred to as a superfood as they are high in nutritional value. An avocado consists of water (73%) and macronutrients such as healthy monounsaturated fat (15%); healthy carbohydrates (8,5%) (mostly fiber); and protein (2%). It is also rich in a variety of micronutrients in the

The Mediterranean diet is not a diet in the traditional sense of the word (short term weight loss), but is based on a lifelong eating pattern that was historically followed in countries around the Mediterranean Sea, such as Spain, Greece, and Southern Italy. The Mediterranean diet is widely regarded as the best nutrition pattern in the world and earlier this year (2019) an influential USA survey found that the historical Mediterranean diet is not only the best diet overall, but also the best diet in the categories for diabetes, heart-health, healthy eating and easiest diet to follow.   Origin of the Mediterranean diet: The Mediterranean eating pattern and physically active lifestyle became well known after Dr. Ancel Keys launched the

There are quite different perceptions of the meaning of the word “diet.”  To most people it means going on a specific eating regime for a specific purpose, such as weight loss, or to better manage diabetes.  To others diet has a general meaning, as defined in the Cambridge dictionary:  “The food and drink usually taken by a person or a group.” It is not always easy to find the right diet to suit your purposes. Fortunately the ultimate assessment of diets and how applicable they are to various dietary needs have recently been published as Best Diets 2019, in the U.S. News and World Report.   Editors and reporters researched different well known diets and created in-depth profiles for 41 of

Coffee is the second most popular drink in the world, after water. People drink coffee for the taste and the boost provided by the caffeine.  Although coffee drinkers usually don’t consciously think or care whether it is healthy or not, coffee has over time become a subject of medical research and studies. While coffee seems to have therapeutic benefits, it depends on the brew and how you drink it. Drinking it doused with milk, creamer, sugar, sweeteners and flavourants, however, takes away many of these benefits. There are many varieties of coffee available, as various cultivars of coffee trees are grown in different climates and soil conditions around the world. Arabica is a more expensive coffee species than Robusta, which