Cooking up a storm: The rise of African superfoods

(CNN)An apple a day keeps the doctor away — but is that enough to keep us fit and strong?

From kale to quinoa to goji berries, more and more of us are constantly on the lookout for ways to eat ourselves healthy.
But as the search for the so-called “superfoods” intensifies, many health food fanatics are now increasingly turning to nutrient-packed products originating from Africa.
 

 

 

 

 

Drinks

“I process some of these indigenous crops, herbs and spices into something that we already know,” says Baatuolkuu, who is constantly researching the medicinal properties of her ingredients and incorporating them into her recipes. “I’m looking at these vegetables that we have one way of eating and I am reprocessing them into another way.”
Baatuolkuu has found success supplying her line of health-conscious juices, syrups and marinades to the hospitality industry — her biggest client, she says, is a local bar that has started incorporating her syrups in to cocktails.
Looking ahead, Baatuolkuu hopes to soon introduce other fruits and vegetables like the baobab to her line.

Moringa and baobab

Rising in popularity, African superfoods are not just staying inside the continent’s borders. Shrewd business minds are taking them out of Africa and putting them in supermarkets across the world. Across the North Atlantic, former Peace Corps volunteer Lisa Curtis has established her business, Kuli Kuli, named after a popular Hausa snack.
Several years ago, while in Niger volunteering, she began to suffer from the effects of malnutrition and soon learned first-hand about the medicinal properties of the local plant, moringa. Following her return to the U.S., the plucky entrepreneur decided to set up a business to offer moringa products at home, while providing a financial avenue for women back in West Africa.

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
3/4 cup wholemeal plain biscuits
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup baobab fruit powder
1 tablespoon Amarula cream
Juice of half a lemon
9-inch springform pan

METHOD

  1. Melt the butter over a low heat. Crush the biscuits to crumbs and add to melted butter. Once blended, press the mixture into the base of springform pan.
  2. Mix cream cheese, sugar, baobab powder and Amarula cream until consistency is smooth. Squeeze in lemon juice and combine.
  3. Spoon the mixture onto the pressed breadcrumbs and spread evenly across the dish.
  4. Cover with foil and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. (Optional finish with a thinly layer of passion fruit)

For more of Riley’s recipes, go here.

Meanwhile over in the UK, Malcolm Riley, a Zambia-born chef is introducing his beloved homeland’s tastes and traditions to far flung foodies by bringing baobab to British shores. In 2008, he founded his line of African-inspired health products, The African Chef.
Riley says: “The African Chef ethos stems from using fruits such as the baobab fruit … which has twice as many antioxidants as goji berries, blueberries or pomegranates, and it is a sustainable resource. There is also moringa, which is very rich in protein — about 24 antioxidants in it. It’s fantastic for helping malnourished children across Africa.
“And then you’ve got Shea butter which we are also trying to pioneer as an edible food. And I’m also trying to pioneer pumpkin leaves, both cooked and dried, (where) you’ve got very low sodium, a good amount of iron and B-vitamins.”
As well as offering up some of his country’s delicious products, Riley’s passion also extends to a desire to help people back in Zambia, while “trying to create something that had the potential to double their income.”
“Baobab is a phenomenal resource for the African continent,” he says.

Mapping local delicacies

It’s this wealth of food, and the tantalizing tastes, that prompted British/Ghanaian filmmaker Tuleka Prah to start documenting popular plates across the continent and offer them up to the world through her online series, “My African Food Map.”
It’s a job most would dream of — eating your way across Africa. The 33-year-old food lover decided to embark on her self-funded culinary adventure after wanting to cook a dish her Ghanaian father used to serve up — kontomire, a coco yam leaf-based stew or soup.
Looking online, she was confronted with unappetizing lumps of green mush.
“I thought it’s a good thing I know what this tastes like,” she says. “I used to take a lot of photos of my food — like everybody does — but then I thought why don’t I try and find (a way) to archive these recipes properly with good pictures to try and transport the flavor of the food to someone who doesn’t know what it is but might want to try it.”
Starting in Ghana, where she had family to stay with, Prah then went to Kenya before traveling down to South Africa. As she heads to each gastronomic destination, she talks to local food enthusiasts searching for the most favored dishes which she then highlights through recipe videos she produces herself.
While Prah’s mission is to make beloved African dishes accessible to foodies around the world, local market sellers also provide her with the products’ medicinal attributes which she confirms before adding them to her blog.
“They are trying to sell it to me so they would say ‘Do you know this is good for you?’ or ‘This vegetable is good if you have hypertension’ and this market seller is giving me health advice!” she laughs. “Then I’d ask the host (I was staying with), or taxi driver more about it and follow up with research online.”
She adds: “(The medicinal aspects) are also more sort of passed down information through generations and then I try corroborate it with other research methods.”
 

Do You Crave Chocolate after a hectic day?

If you crave chocolate or Cheetos after a hectic day, it may be because you’re sleep-deprived, a new study suggests.

Researchers have found that lack of sleep may lead to increased appetite and an affinity for unhealthy foods.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in three U.S. adults don’t get enough sleep and roughly the same percentage are obese. Study author Erin Hanlon, a research associate at the University of Chicago, aimed to connect these two nationwide problems.

Evidence from laboratory and epidemiological studies has started to consistently associate insufficient sleep with an increased risk of obesity,” she said.

Lack of sleep can be a risk factor because it boosts hunger, due to the delicate balance between the nutrients consumed and the energy costs of staying awake, which remain generally the same whether you’ve had enough sleep or not.

Hanlon’s study, published in the journal Sleep, compared 14 otherwise healthy young adults who had four nights of normal sleep (8.5 hours) with those with four nights of restricted sleep (4.5 hours). Both groups were provided with carefully prepared meals. On the final day, participants were given a healthy meal, followed by free rein at a snack bar containing tasty treats including cookies, candy and chips (what researchers dubbed “highly palatable, rewarding snacks”).

Those in the sleep-deprived group tended to eat snacks with more carbohydrates and nearly twice as much fat and protein.
The team’s previous research suggested that sleep deprivation affected levels of endocannabinoids, chemicals in the brain that are involved in regulating appetite and bind to the same receptors as marijuana.

Hanlon’s team, from the University of Chicago, Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Medical College of Wisconsin, was able to measure the concentration of a specific endocannabinoid called 2AG in the blood. For both groups, the researchers matched those levels with hunger and food intake.

Under normal sleep conditions, the concentration of 2AG endocannabinoids gradually increased in the blood during the day, reaching a peak in the early afternoon that coincided with the onset of early afternoon munchies.
But for subjects who had less sleep, not only did researchers note greater increases in 2AG concentration that lasted into the late evening, but participants were also hungrier and more likely to eat unhealthy snacks.
This study is an important step in understanding the relationship between the endocannabinoid system, sleep deprivation and weight gain, Hanlon said. 

Do You Get enough sleep?….if not then check this out-How to Fix Neural Imbalances and Cure Insomnia

Drinking Cranberry Juice Won’t Get Rid Of Your UTI

If you’ve ever felt the pain that comes with a urinary tract infection, you know you’d do just about anything to relieve the pain and get better.

 For years friends, mothers and even doctors have advised women to drink cranberry juice to make it all go away.Recently a Texas A&M Health Science Center urologist  explained that cranberry juice on its own will not get rid of you UTI

 

Cranberry juice and especially the juice concentrates you find at the grocery shop, will not treat a urinary tract infection. Of course It can give us more hydration and may wash the bacteria from your body more effectively, but the actual ingredient in cranberry is forever gone by the time it gets to your bladder.”

 Cranberries contain an active ingredient called proanthocyanidins,  that can keep bacteria from binding to the walls of the bladder but heres the thing….. PACs aren’t present in commercial cranberry juice. 

It would take an extremely large concentration of cranberry to prevent bacterial adhesion and that amount of concentration is just not found in the juices we drink. Maybe it was stronger back in our grandparents’ day, but it is definitely not strong enough today.

Then there are the  cranberry capsules in the pharmacy aisle. Good news ….These do have a concentrated amount of PACs and can help prevent the risk of UTIs. According to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, cranberry capsules will reduce the risk of UTIs by 50 percent in women who had a catheter in place while undergoing gynecological surgery.

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UTIs account for around  8.1 million visits to health care professionals each year and are the second most common type of infection in the body and the majority of UTIs. 

The infection can be caused by  different types of bacteria in the urinary tract. Symptoms are a constant urge to pee, pain with urination, pelvic pain or blood in the urine. The symptoms do not usually last that long but the infection usually needs to be treated with antibiotics.

 Sometimes you can confuse a UTI with an overactive bladder, so it’s  best to consult your physician about any  symptoms you’re having. Remember that UTIs can progress into kidney infections which are much worse.

Did You Know That Bacteria Will Develop Resistance To Antibiotics After Repeated Use?

Here Is A 100% Natural Way You Can Cure Your UTI Without Worrying About Harmful Side Effects!

 

 

The alkaline Diet cannot work

 

Because of what I do …lecture on health sciences….. and because I am constantly researching new topics for my subscribers I continually come across so called diets that have no grounding in scientific fact. The Alkaline diet is one of those programs.

I know that it cannot work because of my job but I reckon that many people buy into these wild claims that programs make and to be honest how are you meant to know?

  Just read on and I will explain to you how this diet cannot work.

The Alkaline Diet is based on the acid/alkali theory of disease. When we break down the food we eat, we are left with some waste products, These waste products can be acidic or alkaline, depending on the protein, sulphur or mineral content of the food.  Promotors of the alkaline diet claim that eating foods which leaves behind a lot of acidic waste affects our bodies pH and leaves us vulnerable to disease.  They advise eating a diet high in alkaline forming foods, to promote health and wellness.

 

Do you remember your chemistry lessons when you learnt all about  PH.  A PH of 1-6 is acid and 8-14 is alkaline. All of the chemical reactions that take place in your body are controlled by proteins called enzymes. Enzymes are very fussy about the PH in which they work and so if the PH changes they will not work .Now here is the thing when enzymes do not work you do not work!

For that very reason we have a process in our body called homeostasis that always brings  the body back to its normal functioning PH. This means that no matter what food you eat the body will always remain at the normal PH….around 7.4 except for the stomach where the PH is 2.

Lastly the notion that you can test your bodies pH by testing the pH of your urine is also not correct.  Your urine pH is not a reflection of the pH of your blood (or any other part of your body). It’s just an indication that your kidneys are doing their job. Whatever the number on the pH strip, if you are healthy and well you can be sure that  the pH of your blood is around 7.4

So Take it from me the alkaline diet cannot work. If you need any other reasons as to why it cannot work then let me know and I will send them 

Kathy

The Top Five Worst Foods For your Joints

Every day, millions of people have a hard time exercising because of shoulder, knee, back and elbow pain.

What most people — and even most doctors — don’t know is that one of the major causes of pain is actually… food.

Here’s what you should focus on removing from your diet if you want to double your recovery process and get pain-free faster than with just pills:

1) Sugar. This one is obvious. Nothing damages the digestive track like sugar.

The medical community is starting to agree on the fact that chronic inflammation often starts in your gut, the biggest part of your immune system.

2) Alcohol. I also like my Friday night drink-out, but keep in mind that beer or any other alcoholic beverage damages your gut flora and liver when consumed in excess.

3) Grains. Refined or not, grains are inflammatory. That’s even worse if you’re gluten sensitive, like 10-15 % (depending on the sources) of the world’s population.

The phytic acid and lecithins in grains are a problem for most people, even without allergies or intolerance.

4) Refined vegetable oil. Canola, soy, safflower, corn, sunflower, you name it.

Even though these oils are advertised as healthy and trans-fat free, turns out the heavy refining which they go through destroy the healthy fats and turn them into highly inflammatory by-products.

5) Pasteurized dairy. 75% of the world’s population is intolerant to lactose.

That’s because the pasteurization process destroys the healthy bacteria and enzymes in raw milk, and make this popular beverage very hard to digest.

In my experience, most people feel like a million bucks when drinking less pasteurized milk or ditching it altogether.

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These are just some of the inflammatory foods most people are consuming on a daily basis.

But there are also a ton of superfoods that can REDUCE your pain and help you heal your joints.

 

So, if you suffer from any kind of joint or muscle pain, then make sure you check out the best resource on the subject:

==> 101 Superfoods That Stop Your Joint Pain And Inflammation

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