They spend a lot on commercials but using energy drinks like Red Bull to gain energy is really just shooting yourself in the foot.

Red Bull is high in caffeine and sugar. It will probably give you a kick but what they don’t tell you is that it leaves you jittery, unable to focus and then weak. Just like the poor guy in this article. HEALTH BEATS: Energy doesn’t live up to its hype
If you’re really unlucky the high amounts of caffeine can also give you high blood pressure, anxiety, interrupted sleep patterns and hypertension.

Some energy drink!

How to Energize Your Day

I actually didn’t believe that it would have such a big effect on me.
I eat healthy. I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables each day. I bike and walk my kids to school each day.

But Berry Radical is amazing. It kicks in fast and it makes me full of energy the whole day.

A Berry Radical day for me is a day when:

• I decide to paint the kitchen instead of watching TV.
• I clean up the mess in a corner of the basement that has been lying there for months.
• Or treat myself to a wonderful home spa evening.

It’s a day when I’m:

• happy,
• full of energy,
• have all the patience I need with my kids.

But it is also a day when I go to bed on time. Because even if it gives me tons of energy I still feel my body. I still feel when I’m tried and I have no trouble sleeping.

I can not say enough good things about Berry Radical.

It is a natural and organic mixture of the worlds best antioxidants. It has an ORAC score of 7000 per sachet. And yes, you feel the power!

Of course I have tried Red Bull. It makes me want to jump up and down. If I drink it can not sit still, I can not sleep and I can not focus. I can imagine students taking Red Bull a Saturday night. But I you need energy to accomplish something then Red Bull is in the wrong direction.

The funny thing is Red Bull and Berry Radical cost about the same.

Instead of spending 3$ on Red Bull, spend it on Antioxidant Energy.

Here is more about why antioxidants are so good for us.

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A blog full of “sexy” pictures of food.

The Food Pornographer is a women from down under. She brings her camera everywhere, photographs food and loves Cadbury Creme Eggs.

I love that you can find these crazy sites on internet.

• No related posts.

I feel for her and her family.

And it makes me think of how important it is to be present and enjoy life here and now.

Let’s spend 6 minutes of our time forgetting all our musts and worries and just laugh at this hilarious video:

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It was that milk is better than soda.

Should we drink milk just because soda is bad? It sounds like they where running out of arguments. Yet I can’t say I don’t agree. I would much rather have my kids drink a glass of milk than a glass of soda.

Are there any good reasons to drink cows milk?

If you would swap your cows milk to rice milk the most significant difference is that you would need to make sure that you get enough calcium and vitamin B12.

A couple of days ago I published a post how to get enough calcium without dairy.

How about B12?

Vitamin B12 is necessary for the synthesis of red blood cells, the maintenance of the nervous system, and growth and development in children.

The traditional sources of B12 are meat, eggs and dairy. But milk not such a good source of vitamin B12 anyway.

You need to drink 1/2 liter or 2 cups of milk to get your RDI of vitamin B12.
But you could also eat just 33 grams or 1,2 ounces of salmon. Or 2 large eggs.

There is also B12 in spirulina and chlorella but the outstanding best source of vitamin B12 is liver.

More about Vitamin B12

Deficiency is more common than we might think. Symptoms are:
# Anemia
# Insomnia
# Loss of memory
# Lack of balance
# Depression
# Weakness
# Breathing difficulties
B12 is stored in the liver and can be reused. This way it can take up to 5 years before any symptoms are showing.

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A 6th grade science fair project was to water 2 identical plants. One with purified water one with water boiled in the microwave oven. Here is the result on Day Nine.

And look at these 7 days old “clippings” were the left unhealthy one has microwaved water.

You can see all the images from her project here.

Another thing about microwaves that I’ve heard many times is that they don’t leak much radiation.
This home test shows something totally different.

In the first video the guy preforming the test shows the equipment and does a first test.

Microwave Oven Radiation Test PART 1 - LEAKAGE

Then he continues with more tests further away from the microwave oven.

Microwave Oven Radiation Test PART 2

In 2002 when I did my first google search on microwave dangers I decided not to continue in my old patterns just because I was used to it. I wanted to see how hard it would be not to have a microwave oven so I moved it to the basement.
The microwave oven never reentered my kitchen. I didn’t even miss it that much. It probably costs me a couple of minutes every day. But am I really in such a hurry?
And who knows, maybe my decision not to use a microwave oven will let me reclaim those minutes at the end of my life.

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Growth hormones? Gene therapy? Cellular?

How do we really know these products are safe?
If a facial cream really does contain hormones what effect does this have on or health? We don’t know do we?
But we do know that there is very little control of the cosmetics industry.

And do we really need to spend our money on these expensive products?

Laure Rittié, a research investigator in dermatology at the University of Michigan, said that simple skin physiology could account for the fancy microbiological-sounding claims on some beauty products. She explained that dead cells compose the very top layer of skin and that any product (even a washcloth or sandpaper) that exfoliates the dead cells, exposing underlying skin cells, might call itself regenerative, multicellular or biologically stimulating.

In other words use a good cleanser and then exfoliate with oil and sugar. Then enjoy your beautiful rejuvenated skin and save you money for something more important.

Wanna know more? Then read this article about too complex skin care in the New York Times.

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Our body’s are not very efficient in taking up the calcium in milk. Only 1/3 of the calcium is actually used in the body. The RDI of calcium is around 1000 mg for an adult. If we take in account the calcium we actually use we must drink almost 1 quarter gallon or 1 liter each day.

Calcium from vegetables are easier for the body to take up. There we use about half of the calcium.
Still we need a lot of vegetables or seeds to cover the full RDI of calcium.

This table displays how many pounds of a certain product that is needed to the full RDI of calcium.

	1300 mg RDI for ages 9 - 18	1000 mg RDI for ages 19 - 50	1200 mg RDI for people over 51 years
Kale	0.7	0.5	0.6
Broccoli	1.8	1.3	1.6
Almonds	1.8	1.4	1.7
Chinese cabbage	2.2	1.7	2.0
Sesame seeds	3.4	2.6	3.2
Brussels sprouts	4.1	3.1	3.7
Cauliflower	5.3	4.0	4.9

The same table, only this time in grams.

Remember that vitamin D also is very important for healthy bones.

Source RDI: About.com

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“My brain? That´s my second favorite organ.” Woody Allen said.

If our brains function poorly we function poorly. Without a working memory our life falls apart.

Here are 4 ways to support your brain:

1. Food
2. Rest
3. Exercise
4. Brain games

Food:
The fat-free society that we have built up actually not very brain friendly. Our brains consist of 60% fat. Half of which is omega3 fatty acids. It is really important for our brains, our memory and our children’s brain development to eat enough fat.

The best brain food is sushi.

Sushi has fish, sea food and algae that together becomes a perfect composition of brain fat.

Rest:
Getting sufficient rest is absolutely vital for you brain function.
An experiment with American soldiers showed that getting a maximum of 4 hours sleep per day during 1 week can cause strange behavior and delirium.

Exercise:
Exercise increase our overall health, we know that. But research has also shown that exercise improve our learning ability.
A Danish research team made tests on humans that showed that the BDNF ( Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor ) levels increased as people exercised. BDNF levels in our brains is linked to our learning ability.

Brain games:
While researchers are divided as to whether computer games can really make us more intelligent, brain games are becoming increasingly popular. I believe that there is no doubt about that you can improve certain skills using brain games and researchers seem to agree on the point that stimulation of the brain is good and important.

The range of brain games is huge. From hand held games to free online games and popular video games like Nintendo Wii Big Brain Academy. There is even a brain training on Facebook called Who Has The Biggest Brain?.

But brain games are also used for medical reasons. At the Stockholm Brain Institute Dr. Torkel Klingberg have helped children with ADD/ADHD with a 5 week long program using a computer game called RoboMemo. The program improves the children’s working memory which helps them concentrate and makes the world around them less chaotic.

There is also an adult version of the program:

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The mistakes are:

1. Sending Children Out of the Kitchen
2. Pressuring Them to Take a Bite
3. Keeping “Good Stuff” Out of Reach
4. Dieting in Front of Your Children
5. Serving Boring Vegetables
6. Giving Up Too Soon

I fully agree that it is bad to send your kids out to of the kitchen. The best thing you can do is to cook healthy meals and let your children join if they want to.

Pressuring them to take a bite: My experience is not that this is a bad thing. My oldest son is really picky with food. He became worse and worse until we decided we had to do something about it. So we had a family meeting where we, together, setup these rules:

1. Everyone has to try one bite of everything.
2. Each person can have one type of food that they don’t like and therefore don’t need to try.
3. Hot food is excluded.

This has made a great difference for all my kids but especially for my oldest son. After he’s tried new foods a couple of times he usually wants to take more than just one bite of it. He’s eating better and he learning to try new things.

When it comes to keeping “good stuff” out of reach for your kids I think it is very much a matter of age and maturity. You can not expect a hungry 3 year old ask for food if there is a whole plate of cookies on the table in front of him. What I do find important is to inform kids about food. I would NEVER say to my child “if you eat that you get fat”. But what I do say is:

• Eating a lot of candy or sugar is bad for your teeth.
• Vegetables are good for you.
• XXXX are not good food so we only eat that once a week.

My boys often ask what food that is good if they want to run faster, or become stronger or become better at ice hockey. And I always come up with some vegetable. For the moment they love spinach.

I agree that you should not Diet in Front of Your Children and let them know why. You can of course follow a healthy diet plan but you have to think of what you tell your child. You want you child to have a healthy relationship with food. When it comes to powder diets and similar these are diets that no one should follow. And you should definitely never do that in front of your child.

Serving Boring Vegetables: I must admit I hate tasteless steamed vegetables. Most vegetables are great raw. When I start cooking I usually cut some raw veggies and put on the kitchen table. By the time that dinner is ready my kids have finished the vegetables. For them it’s like a treat and I happy because I know that they have already eaten the most important food.

For both ourselves and our children we should not give up serving healthy foods. One of the most important gift you can give to your child are healthy eating habits.

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If you are suffering for bad breath the first thing you need to do is make sure you brush your teeth with a toothpaste that does not contain sodium laureth sulfate twice a day. Be careful when you pick your toothpaste as sodium laureth sulfate dries out the mouth and increases your bad breath problem.

Then look at what you eat:

1. Most people know that onion and garlic gives you bad breath.
2. The cause can also be coffee or alcohol dehydrating your body and your mouth.
3. Or acid food, like coffee and juices, as they make bacteria reproduce even faster.
4. A low-calorie diet can also cause bad breath.
5. I don’t think that many people know that lactose intolerance, a growing problem, can casue bad breath.

There are also things you CAN eat to cure your bad breath:

1. You can fix it with simple household ingredients.
2. Or use herbs.

Checkout how this baby reacts on his daddy’s bad breath.

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