Vitamin Information Center

Everyone is praising acai berry as one of the best “super foods” or “power foods” out in the market. Although this fruit has been used for ages in the South American region extensively, it is only now that the rest of the world is learning about its numerous benefits in regards to human health. Needless to say, there are still a lot of misconceptions floating about regarding this innocuous dark purple berry. Some of these claims are exaggerated to a fault; others can be rightly classified as works of fiction. Regardless of such, this fruit can help shed off those pounds, if you know precisely how to incorporate this in your lifestyle. So how precisely do you use acai berry for weight loss? Here are the facts.

1. The acai berry and all products based on the fruit (drinks, capsules, etc.) are mostly classified as food supplements that can aid weight loss. In other words, these are not medicinal preparations that have guaranteed effect to alter any person’s weight by simply drinking several cups a day, or drinking the prescribed number of capsules. In short, this is not the so-called miracle product that will end all your excess weight problems in just several gulps. Fresh acai berry and acai berry supplements are tools that should help you lose weight. Other tools that you would need to get to your target weight include: a nutritionist approved diet plan, and a healthy exercise regimen you can follow.

Your best course of action in this regard is to actually go to your health care provider and try to get a clean bill of health. Ask if you can take supplements from the said fruit, especially if you are taking strong medicines for other health ailments. Then try to formulate your diet plan (or ask a nutritionist for this service.) Try to set up an exercise regimen that you know you will do on a daily basis.

2. Acai berry is a natural source of fiber. Acai berry wine and all other drinks with high concentrations of the fruit are great sources of natural fiber. However, nothing beats getting the fiber from the actual fruit. These days, there are a number of specialty stores that provide the dark purple fruit in dried, fresh and frozen packs. You can cook these in whatever way you want, and have them with your favorite snacks like smoothies or yogurt. You can also add this to the breakfast plate with your cereals or “juiced” for a refreshing power drink. If you can add this to your other meals of the day, this will help increase the fiber content in you diet.

Fiber is one of the most essential nutrients you would need if you are indeed trying to shed off those pounds. Fiber helps release the toxins in your body by easing the passage of unwanted materials in your gastric system. Bowel movement will become easier, which lessens the possibility of constipation. (Constipation usually happens to people who are on a high-vegetable, low carbohydrate diet.) Natural fiber sources are usually recommended by dieticians and nutritionists, as compared with synthetic fiber capsules and laxatives. Not only does the natural fiber source help with bowel movement, but foods like the acai berry help fill up the stomach for longer periods of time. This makes the person less prone to hunger pangs, and may feel full even after a relatively light meal.
by Nicholas Thompson

DR HUGH Butt, the Mayo Clinic physician who discovered the role of vitamin K in clotting and developed anti-clotting techniques that paved the way for open-heart surgery and transplants, has died after a fall at his home in Rochester, Minnesota, in the United States. He was 98.

He was a resident at Mayo in the 1930s when he learned that Danish nutritionist Henrik Dam, who received the 1943 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of vitamin K, had shown that chickens deficient in the vitamin were susceptible to internal bleeding.

Butt suspected that an inability to absorb the vitamin properly was at the root of the hemorrhaging and confirmed this in chickens.

Soon after, he was confronted with a jaundiced patient who was bleeding to death internally. He administered vitamin K combined with bile salts to increase absorption and, within an hour, the bleeding had ceased.

It was “the first kind of miracle I had ever seen,” he later recalled.

There are people who will tell you that asparagus is so good it’s a shame to call it a vegetable.

Such are the powers of the green stalk just now coming into its prime growing and eating season. Long a staple on many tables on Easter Sunday, the good news is that asparagus is as good for the body as it is for the soul.

Shannon Justice is a nutritionist with St. John’s Regional Medical Center and an affirmed asparagus lover. Justice, who lives on a farm where asparagus grows wild, said she has already started looking for signs of the plant.

The health value with asparagus, Justice said, is that it has a high vitamin C content. According to Justice, a 3-ounce serving (equal to about eight stalks) provides as much vitamin C as an orange. That 3-ounce serving equals 55 percent of the recommended daily allowance.

Like all vegetables, there are good and not-so-good ways to prepare asparagus that take advantage of its health benefits. Justice said you want to avoid boiling asparagus for an extended amount of time.

“If you boil it you can lose 50 percent of its vitamin C content,” she said.

If you’re in a hurry, Justice suggests wrapping the asparagus in a wet paper towel and putting it into the microwave to give it a quick steam. You can also blanch it quickly in hot water or bake or grill it. The main thing you want to avoid is having asparagus sit in water for any extended period of time, she said.

Gayl Navarro, owner of Ozark Nursery, 5361 N. Main St., said it’s possible for patient asparagus lovers to set themselves up with a almost unlimited supply of fresh asparagus. As it turns out, the plant — once given a few years to truly take root — is a prodigious grower and will continue to sprout pretty much year after year and in greater and greater numbers.

“Once you plant them, it takes a couple of years before you can harvest them. The first year you don’t harvest at all and then in the second year you can harvest about half,” Navarro said.

According to plant guides, it’s not until the fourth year that you will be able to fully harvest your asparagus crop. But after that fourth year, she said, you will have an ample supply of fresh asparagus. And since asparagus is a perennial, you shouldn’t ever have to replant it.

“You plant it once and it just goes and goes,” she said.

Navarro said she sells asparagus roots at her nursery. Currently asparagus roots are selling for about $1.35 a root. One root, she said, will produce several asparagus spears. The suggested planting dates for asparagus runs from approximately March 14 through April 5. Harvesting dates run from early to mid-April and runs into late May.

The following asparagus recipes are among those available at www.whatscookingamerica.net.

Aboriginal teenagers are turning community perceptions on their head by saying traditional tucker such as stingray and bush plums are their favourite foods, an Australian study says.

Dr Julie Brimblecombe, at the Darwin-based Menzies School of Health Research, says the finding is part of a larger study into food choices in remote communities.
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Now more than ever, there are 100s of diets to pick from when you decide it is time to slim down. Prior to beginning any diet or exercise routine, it is highly recommended that you talk with your doctor. This will ensure that there is no underlying medical condition that could cause problems in the process.
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