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Acai Fruit Juice for a Healthier You

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:07:07 +0000

Recently, a little-known fruit called the acai berry has received incredible amounts of attention in the health industry. The acai berry comes from a type of palm tree found in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. This wonder fruit is said to have the healthiest nutritional value of all known fruits. This type of berry is characterized by a long thin trunk which may be up to 25 meters in height with several branches on top. Ribbon like leaves hang from each branch characterizing that of a palm tree. The acai berry fruit can be found hanging from these branches which are similar to a cluster of blue bottles. The tribesmen pick the fruit by hand with a cut to a specific branch from the top of the tree itself. This fruit appears to be dark purple in color and can be found over the swampy portions of the Amazon. The flavor of acai berry is similar to blueberries with a slight hint of cocoa. Ever since this product gained much popularity, there has been mass production of this wonder fruit. The acai berry can only last for 24 hours before it rots. Thus it must be processed immediately to prevent the decomposition of this fruit. As soon as the acai berry fruit is picked out from the tree itself, there must be an active chain of transportation to seal in and preserve the natural vitamins and minerals of the berry. Acai berry is a new player in the field of supplements and it has unbelievable health benefits. It is no wonder that natives of Brazil have used this fruit as a staple part of the diet. It is packed with essential fatty acids, omegas and proteins for a healthier body. In this way, the acai berry can help in fostering good health through the intake of supplements or the acai berry juice itself. Below are some of the most notable health benefits. * Increases energy levels * Aids in digestion * Lowers cholesterol levels * Packed with free radical fighting antioxidants * Detoxifies the body * Slows signs of aging * Weight loss Acai berry juice can be consumed in moderation on a daily basis without fear of any adverse side effects. Unfortunately, there are two drawbacks to acai berry juice: cost and poor quality juice products. Acai juice can be very expensive due to its 1 day life span before decomposing. Not to mention, the acai berry is only found in the rainforests of South America, notably Brazil. Secondly, many juice products contain a small amount of acai and the remainder is made up of other popular fruit juices. With that said, for the majority of us who want to add the acai berry to our diet regimen, taking an acai supplement would be a better alternative. Whatever you choose, discover the path to a healthier you with the acai berry.

Tired of carrying around that stubborn belly fat? Discover how the acai berry is helping women lose up to 450% more weight than just dieting and exercise alone. Some remarkable benefits of acai include increased energy levels, body detoxification, reverses the signs of aging, and much more!

Choosing the Right Fruit and Vegetable Supplier is Good for Business

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:08:01 +0000

Choosing the right supplier for your fruit and vegetable needs is more critical than ever as businesses fight for survival in today’s difficult economic climate. Restaurants, hotels, pubs and other food outlets in the UK currently account for a staggering 1.9 million tonnes of food waste per annum out of a total of 6.7 tonnes million for the country – equivalent to filling Wembley Stadium 8 times over.

With fruit and vegetables contributing a huge 40% of this waste mountain, it makes sense for retail food businesses to examine ways to reduce this cost burden in an industry which is under both market and margin pressure.

The area for obvious focus is the supply chain. Whilst the food preparation industry prides itself on its ability to manage product once acquired and on the premises, a critical piece of the equation can often be overlooked in return for discounted supply and last minute availability when buying fresh fruit and vegetables.

A strong sourcing strategy is critical to ensuring that the produce arrives in the best possible condition for both preparation and service and also, potentially, further storage on site.
In order to minimise spoil, businesses need to ensure that their fruit and vegetable supplier is focussed on delivering produce in its optimum condition. In support of this, you need to develop an understanding of their business practices across three key areas:

Strength of Relationship with Growers: Fresh food suppliers with a strong relationship with the grower/ producer will generally be able to focus attention into quality straight from the field. Whilst the big buyers can apply quality and pricing pressure, those who invest their time in building great relationships will reap the rewards and of course be able to pass on the benefits to you, their customer.

Depth of Product Knowledge: The depth of knowledge across the whole range of products and supply conditions is a key factor when assessing the capability of your fruit and vegetable supplier. Growing conditions, local or distant seasonal variations, transportation and logistical issues can all contribute to diminish the usable life of produce once it arrives at its end destination. With a clear understanding of these factors, a good supplier is able to make informed choices when planning and executing buys on your behalf, with both product freshness and economics in mind

Storage and Distribution Practices: The final link in the supply chain, where inappropriate storage and transportation facilities and practices are even more important as the food supplier moves into the final stage and the product becomes more susceptible to poor practices. This area is perhaps the easiest to check out. Spend time with your supplier, experience and understand their capabilities and practices and offer feedback – a good supplier will be happy to accept and act on it.

Choosing the right supplier for your fruit and vegetable needs and placing the spotlight on freshness and longevity of produce will serve to reduce waste due to spoilage and ultimately have an impact on your business bottom line. Equally, it will also enable you to make more informed decisions given a clear understanding of the history as well as the unit price of your fruit and vegetables.

Oliver Kay.

Managing Director: Oliver Kay Produce
Fruit and Veg Suppliers

Oliver Kay Produce are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of Fruit and and Veg to the UK Catering Industry. Delivering to leading Pubs, Hotels and Restaurants daily fresh produce.

Sugar and Health

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:08:22 +0000

For most of the history of humanity man ate a diet of wild game and natural vegetation including some seeds, nuts, and fruit during certain sea-sons. In our era, with the advent of processed foods, mankind’s diet has undergone a radical change. People are eating foods that never existed in nature before, foods which the body was never designed to utilize. The result is that the heavy consumption of refined sugar, and refined flour products too, has led to serious health problems for those who regularly eat them. Today 65% of Americans are overweight, and 27% are clinically obese. Even children are starting to show more and more symptoms of this growing health problem. Diabetes is starting to appear more frequently in the very young. When we look at the diet of the typical American, it is easy to see how this has happened. The average American each year consumes 125 pounds of sugar in the form of 300 cans of soda, 200 sticks of gum, 18 pounds of candy, 50 pounds of cakes and cookies and 20 gallons of ice cream. I want to make clear just how much sugar is found in the sodas people are drinking each day. There are 7 to 8 teaspoons of sugar in some form, in the average soda drink. If you have a soda at lunch, one as a snack in the afternoon, one with your dinner, and one as you watch TV or go out for a final snack later in the night, you have consumed 28 spoonfuls of sugar.

Americans are also consuming too many foods which are made from highly refined flour, which act just like sugar in the body, such as pasta, bread and cookies and cakes. In addition to all the many obvious sources of sugar in the typical American diet, sugar is used as an inexpensive additive to improve the taste of many items in which the producers in order to increase profits use cheaper inferior ingredients or use less expensive ingredients. Among these items, you may have guessed, because they taste so sweet, are ketchup, and jams and jellies, which really should have no added sugar and should be made primarily from the fruit. Fruit flavored drinks and fruit flavored yogurts, and especially, sweetened canned fruit have unnecessarily large amounts of sugar in some form in them. But it is also surprising how much sugar, unhealthy sugar, is found in items like peanut butters, bread, soups, pickles, mustard, canned dishes like baked beans, and salad dressings. Even American’s general idea of proper cui-sine contributes to this problem. Making potatoes a staple at almost every meal has been an additional negative health factor. Potatoes, among all other vegetables, are the one of the most likely to affect the body in the same way as refined sugar.

A surfeit of carbohydrates in any form will lead to gaining weight and eventual obesity, but it is sugar in all its forms, and refined flour in our diets that do the most harm. They lead to a fast rise in blood sugar, which causes the pancreas to produce a large amount of insulin to lower our blood sugar quickly, because high blood sugar is dangerous to our health. Unfortunately, this strong dose of insulin makes the blood sugar drop below our normal level and makes us feel down in mood. In order to compensate for this psychological effect, we are driven by cravings to seek an immediate repeat of our ingestion of sugar to again raise our blood sugar to make ourselves feel better, and so the cycle continues on and on. This results in our taking in more calories than are necessary to supply energy to the body. The end result is overweight and eventual obesity. The high amounts of insulin also have other deleterious effects.

They make the insulin receptors become less and less sensitive, requiring the pancreas to produce larger and larger amounts of insulin each time, to deal with same amount of high incoming sugar. Eventually the receptors become very insensitive to the incoming insulin, and the person has developed a condition referred to as insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance aggravates another problem which results from the production of insulin in the body. When insulin in the body is high, another hormone called glucagon is low. Glucagon is a hormone which promotes the release and utilization of fat from the fat storage cells for energy. So that when glucagon is present, you will be burning and thus reducing your fat stores. In other words, you will be losing weight and the weight will be a loss of fat. However, the high level of insulin in insulin resistant people keeps them from burning any of their fat stores. They can only burn incoming sugar and carbohydrates, and when they are depleted, they will begin to break down and use muscle tissue as a source of energy. This is, again, because the insulin has blocked getting access to the body’s fat by blocking the production of the necessary hormone, glucagon. Now you understand why people who have eaten a lot of sugar, and sugar acting foods like refined flour and grains, and potatoes, in their life all the time have had trouble losing weight, or permanently keeping off any weight they have lost through extreme measures like very strict diets or fasting.

Eventually people on these refined high carbohydrate diets exhaust their pancreas, which stops generating any insulin at all, and they become diabetic, and must take insulin regularly to keep their blood sugar from staying at dangerously high levels.

There is another serious problem with too much sugar, sugar addiction. For many years people have spoken of sugar addiction because of the seemingly addictive behavior of people who have a strong desire for foods with sugar. However, it is only recently that it has been scientifically been shown to be a genuine addiction. Rats fed sugar showed classic signs of withdrawal when their sugar “fix” was taken away from them. When they were allowed to eat sugar again, they binged on it. The sugar had triggered natural pleasure producing opiods in their brains. The effect is similar to morphine and heroin, though not as powerful. Actual studies of these animals’ brains showed an accelerated growth of dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens in their brains. This helps explain why people who eat sugar regularly, have strong cravings and seek a sugar “fix” many times throughout their day.

You are probably addicted to sugar if you have the following: if you have cravings for food containing sugar, if you can’t stop eating after one piece of candy or one bite of cake or other baked goods; if you can’t go for more than a few hours without experiencing a letdown with fatigue or irritability or anxiety; if you have to have your sugared coffee and donuts or other baked goods every morning and have and eat candy and other sweets in your home all the time; if you regularly drink sugared sodas during the day to give yourself a pick-me-up because you’re dragging.

Nutritionally, refined sugars present another problem. It takes vitamins and minerals to digest and assimilate ingested refined sugars. Unprocessed sugar cane juice is rich in vitamins and minerals and provides some nourishment to the body, though it is still too high in sugar to be good for the body. But refined sugar is an empty calorie, which uses up valuable vitamins and minerals in order to be digested without supplying any of them. Thus, eating a lot of refined sugars depletes the body of these valuable health promoting factors. That’s why, you now can understand, even overweight people who have become so because of large amounts of sugar in their diets, can actually suffer from malnutrition.

Here’s a list of some of the negative health effects of sugar, and the refined flour products and potatoes that act like sugar within the body. Sugar can:

… cause an increase in insulin being generated in the body

… cause an increase in insulin sensitivity

… overstress the pancreas causing damage

… cause diabetes … cause weight gain and obesity

… produce a significant rise in triglycerides

… reduce helpful high density cholesterol, known as HDLs

… promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol, know as LDLs

… increase total cholesterol

… cause atherosclerosis

… increase systolic pressure

… cause hypertension

… upset the body’s mineral balance

… promote tooth decay

… cause hyperactivity, anxiety, concentration difficulties, and crankiness

in children

… lead to alcoholism

… cause depression

If you are seriously craving sugar, you should avoid all sugars. The following is a list of sugars and sweeteners that act like sugars, though you may not have recognized them as sugars before reading this article. Of course, if a label just says “sugar,” you will avoid that too!

AVOID THESE SWEETENERS: corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, honey, sucrose, maltodextrin, dextrose, molasses, rice milk, almond milk, white grape juice, fruit juice sweetened, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, date sugar, cane sugar, corn sugar, beet sugar, succanat and lactose.

There are many other points to be made if one wishes to guide oneself correctly. Raw sugar and brown sugar, which was at one time sold in a lot of health food stores and still may be found in some supermarkets, is actually highly refined white sugar with some molasses put back in to give it brown color. Fructose doesn’t increase leptin, a hormone that decreases your appetite, and doesn’t suppress ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry. Thus, people who eat food containing fructose are likely to take in more calories, not less. And remember, almost all simple sugars, fructose included, and not just refined white sugar, are metabolized quickly and raise insulin levels too quickly. Just like refined white sugar, they play a role in creating insulin resistance. In addition, fructose is converted into triglycerides more efficiently than glucose elevating triglycerides that are linked to an increased risk of heart disease. Fructose converts to fat more readily than any other sugar, and some believe its prevalence in our present food supply has made it an important factor in making Americans fatter and fatter.

Eating small amounts of fruit will not provide unhealthy large amounts of natural fructose, but fruit juices are best avoided as being too high in fructose for the body to assimilate without generating too much insulin. Aside from limited amounts of fruit, avoid fructose in food just as you would table sugar. One of the best ways to limit your intake of fructose, in general, is to eliminate soda and fruit juices from your diet.

Most artificial sweeteners are increasingly considered to be unhealthy for the body. Aspartame is the technical name for the brand names NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, and Equal-Measure. Aspartame, which is frequently found in diet sodas, accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious. In addition, Aspartame suppresses serotonin production, the chemical in the brain that contributes to your feeling satisfied after a meal. The end result from ingesting Aspartame, just as it was from people eating fructose, is that people are less satisfied with their food and tend to eat more. Diet sodas may actually be increasing your total intake of calories.

Finally, artificial sweeteners in general, just like real sugar, give you an intense experience of tasting something sweet, which psychologically stimulates cravings to consume even more sweet tasting things.

In general, you will be better off health wise if you only buy products that say “no sugar added.” Jams should say fruit only. Often fruit juices are added to the food item, but don’t be fooled, this is an unhealthy form of concentrated sugar too, even though it is originally from fruit. And remember, cocaine and heroine are derived from natural sources, but no one would say they are good for your health. A lot of poisons start out as plant material too. So do not be fooled by people who insist certain sugars are healthy because they are made from natural sources.

YOU ARE READY TO GET HEALTHIER AND FEEL BETTER

Always keep in mind

Sugar is nutritionally worthless and is full of fattening calories Sugar creates cycles of emotional highs and lows, and is chemically additive Sugar is very bad for your body’s health

READ FOOD LABELS

If sugar appears in the ingredients in the first few listed items:

DO NOT EAT THAT PRODUCT

Always keep in mind except for occasional fruit, it is best if you avoid eating any sugar at all.

Many people are addicted to sugar and should avoid all sugars permanently for optimal health.

And remember refined flour products in bread, bagels, pasta, and cookies and cakes, act just like sugar in your body, as do potatoes and potato products too.

We must eliminate refined food products from our diets and choose carefully, selecting high-fiber, non-starchy vegetables as our carbohydrate choices. In this way, we generate less insulin and avoid any insulin resistance and the adverse health effects that result. Remember, even fruits that are relatively low in carbohydrates will generate some insulin in the body to deal with the sugars they contain. Since one of the goals of low-carb eating is to generate as little insulin as possible, enjoy eating fresh fruit, in reasonable moderate amounts. On the other hand, dried fruits should be much more limited because they have a high concentration of sugars. And remember, as noted above, fruit juices are too high in sugars to be appropriate for a low insulin generating diet. Berries, on the other hand, are a good choice.

Jeffrey Rose, CMH, is New York’s leading doctor-referred, Certified Hypnotist , and is the director at The Advanced Hypnosis Center, (www.ahcenter.com), in New York City. He has practiced hypnosis for many years, successfully helping people with a wide variety of challenges to make important changes in their life and achieve their goals. Mr. Rose is not only a skilled practitioner of the art of hypnosis, but he is very knowledgeable in a wide variety of health-related fields. He has written many articles for health magazines, including being a staff writer for Recover Magazine, and is currently writing a book on weight loss.

Fruit Tree Care Tips

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:09:44 +0000

If you have just planted a new fruit ranking, I think it is anodyne to think you are not yet an authority on the subject. More fruit leaves die in their beginning days due to destitute treatment habits than any disease or pestilence. Therefore it is essential that you understand how to fear for plants in a way that will guarantee their abrupt star as well as upcoming good strength.

During the first stages of the ranking’s life, the roots, coffer, and twigs have not yet totally urbanized to an identity supporting asset. Therefore, if your ranking is budding fruits, occasionally the mutual influence is enough to instant off a full sphere. If this is the instance, you should supply outdoor stanchion for your kindling – sustain them up with boards, or tie them to something at a superior altitude. While you can impart your ranking the provision it desires in these early living, it should grow to be independent in no time at all.

Proper diet is not only crucial for the production of healthful fruits, but is also required for the hierarchy to outlive longer than one spell. The thorough specifications contrast with the vicinity, climate, and kind of ranking, but I’ve found that there is no better well than a nursery worker. Maybe they’re just eager to vend you the right style of fertilizer, but in my experience they are almost never mistaken. Just notify them about the conditions your ranking is living in and how well it is looking, and they should be able to help you find something to upgrade the majestic of your ranking.

Much people think that the only way to ensure a hierarchy’s healthiness is to grant it insane amounts of water. This is not the issue at all. As a count of fact, bountiful too much water to a hierarchy can be more unsafe than making it go thirsting. At the best it will have a damaging provoke on the choice of the fruit. Nevertheless at nastiest, your intact hierarchy could die and foil you from ever mounting fruit in the potential. So do not ever try to elucidate your problems by bountiful it masses of water! Solve your tree’s health problems at the ransack, so to speak. Go to where the puzzle originates from, and fix that.

If it is too behind and you’re already initial to see unhealthy kindling that look whichever unwell or smashed, you should always subtract them. If the tree slaughter nutrients by sending them out to the side that cannot be saved, it is practically throwing away all the nutrients that it could use on the other, recovered branches. When you advantage to see a separate that is deteriorating or becoming unhealthy, chop it off right away. At the very least, edge down the unhealthy part but permit all the segments that still look like they could prolong growing.

Once your tree has happening to write the option juncture, never delay any of the fruit on the ground that touch to accident. Also, be delicate to get every part off the tree. Even if it is an obnoxious looking fruit that you don’t want to keep, you should still choice it and baffle it away. Once these fruits begin to rot, they bestow a textbook home for uninvited insects or diseases that can transport to the tree itself. So always memorize to gather up these fallen fruits, and foil manually a lot of eminent grief.

Getting a fruit tree and caring for it throughout its life can be a scary brief. It may even look impossible sometimes to keep footstep of all the factors that make a tree vigorous. Nevertheless if you just pay thought to the nutrients that your tree needs, you should be on a good conduit. Besides nutrients, notable out the accurate amount of watering that you should be burdened to keep your tree’s thirst quenched without drowning it. Just do all these gear, and you will have a great tree that produces delicious fruits.

Information on peach varieties can be found at the Peach Facts site.

All About Fruit

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:09:24 +0000

There are very few people who do not enjoy sitting down and relaxing with a bowl of fresh fruit. There are many different reasons why this is the case, but regardless of the reasons the fact remains that fruit is one of the most widely-eaten food groups in the world. Unfortunately, there are many people who do not eat sufficient quantities of fruit and other fresh produce on a daily basis or even on a regular basis. This can lead to a lack of nutrients in the body which can have widespread ramifications on the whole body and your health.

The ever-increasing number of people who are suffering from malnutrition has lead to the establishment of a set of guidelines regarding the necessary quantities of different food groups that should be eaten on a daily basis. This can help to ensure that those people who are unsure of what quantities of each type of food they must eat can provide their body with sufficient nutrition. This can help to diminish the spread of mild cases of malnutrition that are caused through people’s ignorance of what their body needs. It can also help to ensure that the body receives sufficient nutrients so that it can perform its functions properly.

Each different type of fruit contains different nutrients so it is better to consume a variety of different fruits than just consume a single type, like just apples. Although if there is only one type of fruit available then eating only that type is far better than not eating any fruit at all. There are many different people who have vastly different lifestyles and these lifestyles can have a great impact on the nutritional needs of your body, but many busy people do not have the amount of time that is needed in order to relax and eat a bowl of fruit or vegetables, and so they neglect the nutritional aspect of their diet.

This can lead to an adverse impact on their entire lives and their health, mental and physical, which is a situation that no person should strive to be in. Most people do not even realize that they are suffering from a nutrition deficiency since for many people it is very slight, but there can still be minor signs. These symptoms can include constant feelings of tiredness and an inability to concentrate for long periods of time. These symptoms can impair your ability to perform the very tasks that can prevent you from having the time to eat sufficient fruit, which can therefore evolve into a vicious cycle as your body becomes more and more deprived of the nutrients it needs.

There is a source that you can obtain nutrients from to help prevent the onset of mild cases of malnutrition, which is sometimes not thought of as a source of the necessary nutrients and that is juice. There is an equation that states that a glass of fresh fruit juice is the equivalent of a serving of fruit. Juice cannot completely replace whole fruit within your diets, unless you are incapable of eating fruit at all, but it can augment the amount of nutrients that you provide for your body through eating fruit. It is possible to create a large batch of fresh fruit juice in the juicer in the morning and have that as a drink throughout the day. This practice can help to top up the nutrients in the body through the day as they get used up.