There are diets named after people - Atkins, Pritkin, Rosedale, and Ornish; regions - Mediterranean and Asian; places - The Hamptons and Okinawa; and even how you cook, or don’t cook, your food - Raw and Macrobiotic. There is definitely not a shortage of nutritional information; however, there IS a shortage of valuable and effective nutrition informational. The vast majority of books and recommendations are based on nothing more than faulty science and personal conjecture. The dizzying array of contradictory information confuses rather than informs, and cripples rather than equips. You can not turn on a TV or open a magazine without being bombarded by the latest diet fad or counseled by the next weight-loss guru. One day you’re informed that a specific food is nothing short of a miracle, and the next day you’re informed that consumption of that very miracle food assures untimely disease and death.

The fact of the matter is that in order to move our nutritional status forward, we need to look backward. Our genome has evolved through Darwinian natural selection, or trial and error, over hundreds of thousands of years, and its proper expression necessitates a lifestyle that is harmonious with our evolution. Our bodies are adapted to subsist and thrive on the foodstuffs available to our ancestors prior to the advent of farming and processing techniques developed during the Neolithic revolution. This dietary regimen is broadly known as the Paleo diet and represents humanities only natural form of sustenance. By following this regimen you can drastically improve your health, performance, and body composition, while simultaneously slashing your risk of acquiring the various degenerative diseases that plague modern society such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimers. The tenets of this regimen are extremely simple and straightforward. There is no need to count calories, carbohydrates, or fat grams. Eat when hungry, and until you’re full.

Do eat: Meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. These are the foods that bestowed our ancestors with the robust health necessary to face a harsh environment free of degenerative disease.

Do not eat: Grains, dairy, potatoes, beans, sugar, or any type of processed food. These foodstuffs are inedible without processing techniques developed roughly 10,000 years ago (less than a hundred years for many of the foods found in your average supermarket); a blink of an eye in the evolution of man. As such, our bodies have not physiologically adapted to properly handle these foods, and their consumption results in various pathologies.

It is immediately evident that current dietary recommendations are at odds with how we are genetically programmed to eat. Various world-renowned researchers, such as Loren Cordain, feel that the root cause of the majority of modern disease lay within our departure from our ancestral diet. Neolithic foods are calorie dense and nutrient poor, tend to cause large elevations in insulin levels (the number one biomarker for aging), create a condition of chronic inflammation in the body, and cause wild swings in blood sugar that lead to ravenous hunger and a lack of satiety. All of this translates into unhealthy levels of bodyfat, sub par health, and eventually chronic disease. Scary as this may be, we as people have the ability to consciously avoid these foods in favor of those that promote health, well-being, and longevity.

Paleo foods are dense in nutrients, low in calories, tend to have a low glycemic index, modulate inflammation, and induce satiety. This translates into optimized health, and an excellent defense against chronic disease. Paleo nutrition is not only a panacea for health, but also for fitness and performance. The regimen effectively regulates insulin and satiety thereby creating the ideal environment for the optimization of body composition. The nutrient density of the regimen is extremely high and promotes rapid recovery allowing the individual to work out at a high intensity on a more frequent basis. The protein content of the diet is high and promotes the accrual of lean body mass and recovery of damaged muscle tissue. Forget diet trends and fads that come and go like the wind, adopt the only nutritional protocol designed by nature, and optimize your health, fitness, and performance.

Jonathon Edward is a Certified Personal Trainer, Nutritional Advisor, and Motivational Coach based out of Orlando, FL. He specializes in creating unique and effective training and nutrition programs that consistently help his clients reach their goals. Jonathon is also the founder of Primal-Movement, a personal training company providing Functional Fitness to the masses.

More info can be found at: http://www.primal-movement.com

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A new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry shows that children who experience malnutrition exhibit strikingly increased behavioral disorders and aggressive behavior as they grow older. The study looked at children between the ages of eight and 17 years, and found some rather shocking statistics about their behaviors.

Children who suffered certain nutritional deficiencies demonstrated a shocking 41% increase in aggression at age eight. At age 17, they demonstrated a 51% increase in violent and antisocial behaviors. And the only difference is their diet. It’s all about the foods they were eating and the nutrients they were missing.

What specific nutrients were missing from their diets? Four primary nutrients were tried in the study: Zinc, iron, B vitamins and protein. Malnourished children weren’t getting crucial minerals like zinc and iron, and they weren’t getting the B vitamins they needed to develop healthy nervous systems. And a healthy nervous system is a prerequisite for mental and emotional health and stability.

Now let’s talk about these nutrients in a little more detail and explore why these nutritional deficiencies are so widespread. Zinc is perhaps the single most common nutritional deficiency in the American population. Estimates are that more than 80% of the population is deficient in zinc. As a result of that deficiency, people’s immune systems are impaired, they’re not able to resist infectious diseases such as influenza, they’re not able to heal their wounds as quickly and they’re not able to recover from surgical procedures as quickly as they could if they had zinc. It also affects fetal development in pregnant women and impairs neurological function.

And yet zinc is cheap! It only costs a few pennies a day to supplement our diets with zinc. In fact, it’s one of the least expensive supplements you can get. But in our country we still have widespread chronic deficiencies. And as we’re seeing in studies like this, our zinc deficiency is leading to - let’s say it bluntly - criminals.

Why do we have so many criminals in this country? Because so many of them are raised with nutritional imbalances which then distort their mental function, their mood, their response to stress and their ability to be successful in modern society. At least those are major contributing factors.

At the same time we have B-vitamin deficiencies, which is interesting because so many of the popular food products sold in grocery stores all over the country and around the world actually deplete the body of B vitamins. The two most common ingredients in our foods seem to be white flour and sugar. It’s hard to find any product in the grocery store, it seems, that isn’t made with flour or some form of added sugars, whether it’s sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose or just plain sugar. These two ingredients are both highly refined ingredients, and they tend to strip away nutrients from the bodies of people who consume them. For example, when a person eats a donut, that donut contains both white flour and added sugars, which deplete the body of B vitamins, causing deficiencies. And it is these deficiencies that lead to antisocial behavior, aggressive behavior and ultimately criminal behavior - especially among males.

Another dietary factor in these behavioral disorders, it turns out, is a lack of quality protein. People aren’t getting high quality protein because they think the only place to get protein is from beef and red meat, when in fact superfoods like spirulina offer much higher quality protein. Soy and rice proteins are also much higher quality proteins. In fact, there are many plant proteins that are actually healthier proteins for human beings, but are not being adequately consumed by the American population. People tend to turn to meat and milk, and those are in my opinion the worst sources of protein if you wish to maintain long-term health.

So we have a population that suffers from widespread nutritional deficiencies - that much we know. But what may surprise you is how we actually deal with these deficiencies. Instead of spending a few dollars a month on nutritional supplements that would prevent these chronic diseases and aggressive behaviors, we end up spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on building new prisons and treating these people with expensive prescriptions and mind-altering drugs. When it comes to children, for example, instead of giving them the food they need to be healthy, which would prevent these diseases and disorders, we dose them on Ritalin, antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs. This is expensive. It also impairs the child’s learning capability while at the same time increasing the child’s risk of violent behavior and suicide.

Here we have a nutrient deficiency, most notably the B vitamins, that is causing children to act aggressively and be diagnosed with ADHD. The solution offered by conventional medicine is to dose them with antidepressant drugs that actually promote more aggressive behavior as we’ve seen in recent school killings. What kind of solution is that? It sounds crazy, but it’s exactly the solution being implemented every day, right now, all across the country. Perhaps even with your child. But these kids don’t need drugs; they need vitamins, nutrition and healthy foods.

But even if you went to the grocery store for fruits and vegetables and ate them three times a day, you still wouldn’t be getting adequate nutrition. To figure this out for yourself, just do the math. Add up the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) numbers on the labels of all the foods you consume, and you’ll find out that if you’re going to meet the minimum requirements set by the U.S. government for preventing chronic disease, you’re going to have to eat, on average, 10,000 calories a day of grocery store foods. That’s 500% more food than an individual needs if they’re a healthy adult of average weight. It’s impossible to eat that much, even if you try hard. Morgan Spurlock, the creator of the “Supersize Me” documentary, ate nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days. He stuffed himself with McDonald’s food three times a day and still only managed to eat about 5,000 calories. You would have to double Spurlock’s incredible feat to eat 10,000 calories a day. And only then would you be meeting the minimum requirements for nutrition.

And yet, those minimum requirements aren’t enough to experience optimum health; all they do is prevent the most obvious nutritional deficiency diseases such as beriberi, scurvy or even rickets. If you want to get optimum health, you’ve got to supplement your diet through nutritional supplements, or by consuming superfoods like chlorella or spirulina, sprouts, berries and products like The Ultimate Meal or Berry Green. This is the only way you can get adequate nutrition.

As we’re now realizing with this study, a huge segment of our childhood population clearly is not getting this nutrition. As a result, we are raising yet another generation of children with behavioral disorders, aggression and problems with the law. Essentially, we are raising tomorrow’s criminals. These are the people that will be put in federal prisons that you and I will have to pay for with our taxpayer dollars. We’re going to have to support them, and it costs a lot of money to support prisoners. Not only do they not produce anything, they don’t pay taxes or contribute to the revenue needed to support society. They actually suck away revenues from society by costing something like $60,000 per year per prisoner on average. They simply waste away without learning new skills that could help them assimilate back into society someday.

Now think about it. We could spend a few dollars a month on our children, and give them nutritional supplements that prevent all of this. The choice is this: spend a few dollars a month on supplementing our kids’ nutrition, or let this become a full-blown problem where we have to build more prisons and spend tens of thousands of dollars every year to support them in our federal prison system. Which choice makes more sense? If you were running the country and had to decide where to spend the money, where would it make more sense? Should you spend a couple of dollars a month on nutritional supplements for children and pregnant women, or should you spend $60,000 a year on each and every criminal that is created by nutritional deficiencies?

So what’s the solution here? It’s easy. Nutritional supplements should be made available free of charge to the entire population. The government (the taxpayers, actually) should provide free vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients to the population, especially pregnant women and children, so that we can prevent birth defects and behavioral disorders early on. We would save countless dollars down the road. This is something I’ve supported for a long time and I will continue to promote.

But of course, nothing is free. American taxpayers would be footing the bill, but it is a wise investment. By spending a few dollars on disease prevention today, we are avoiding the long-term expenditure of a lot more money taking care of a society full of criminals. Nutrition is a great investment, and preventing disease has a big payoff for society. I say we pay close attention to these studies and find ways to provide better nutrition to our children, our expectant mothers and our general population so that we can prevent these diseases before they become problems for society.

Copyright 2006 Truth Publishing

Mike Adams, “The Health Ranger,” is chief contributor and editor of the NewsTarget Network, a leading independent news source for natural health, nutrition, medicine and other wellness topics. NewsTarget and Webseed.com are leading information resources for consumers seeking independent information on natural health and nutrition. More than 12,000 searchable articles are available at http://www.newstarget.com.

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Introduction-

For example, half a fresh carrot a day will give you the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, which is very well known for being good for your eyes. There are many other examples of everyday food stuffs that are also beneficial for you and easily obtainable in any supermarket.

The recommended daily allowance:

In Europe the daily allowance for certain vitamins is measured in International Units [IU] and the vitamins extracted from either animal or plant sources vary. In the U.S, the recommended daily allowance- [RDA in its shortened version] for vitamins that are essential to healthy eyes is measured in Retinol Equivalents -RE. This daily allotment of vitamins is different for men and women; in the U.S.A the RDA for women is 800 RE a day and for men it is 1000 RE a day. To compare between the European and the American measurements, one American RE is equivalent to 3.3 European units that come from animal sources and one American RE is equivalent to 10 IU for plant products. Some vitamins, such as vitamin C, aren’t measured in RE units, but in milligrams per serving.

The role of antioxidants

Antioxidants are useful in preventing muscular degeneration and eye diseases. Vitamins C, A and E are all antioxidant vitamins important to eye-care. They are also beneficial in preventing cataracts or reducing cataract deterioration, as the antioxidants play a vital role in reducing the levels of protein buildup in the eyes that lead to cataract development. They are found either in meat products and various vegetables. Meat and vegetables hold the optimum amount of vitamins when they are fresh and as a general rule, the consumption of alcohol reduces the body’s effectiveness in absorbing these nutrients.

1. Vitamin A:

Vitamin A is found in meat, especially in the richly blooded internal organs, such as the liver or in dairy products that are rich in natural fats. Chicken liver, for example, contains over six thousand RE units in a 100g serving. This is six times a man’s recommended daily allowance and even a small portion of that serving would be greatly beneficial to maintaining the health of your eyes. Beef liver contains even more RE units if vitamin A- atleast 10,500 in a 100g serving. Vitamin A deficiency is the prevalent source of blindness in developed countries, where malnutrition and famine are a constant reality. Even in developed countries lack of proper nutrients in your food can lead to vitamin A deficiencies; leading to the development of cataracts or night blindness. Ongoing malnutrition or just bad eating habits can deteriorate simple night blindness to full onset of blindness if left untreated and if the diet isn’t corrected to include vitamin A-rich foods. Furthermore, cigarettes and alcohol both reduce the body’s ability to absorb nutrients and these unhealthy habits deplete the body’s ability to hold on to already digested vitamin A-rich foods.

2. Carotenoids:

A second, powerful antioxidant is carotenoid. Certain types of carotenoids are more beneficial for the eyes than others. Certain carotenoids, such as beta-carotene, which one of the most commonly found carotenoid types, also help the body break down vitamin A in the food. Lutein and Zeaxanthin are closely related carotenoids found most frequently in green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, and studies have shown that both these types are advantageous in preventing cataracts and muscular denegation. They are also found in yellow vegetables such as corn. The body doesn’t produce either of these carotenoids, so it’s doubly important to include green vegetables in your diet.

The best values of carotenoid-rich food sources are in fresh, uncooked vegetables. Cooking reduces the vitamin values and so every healthy diet should include a daily dose of fresh salad and fruits. If fresh produce isn’t available the frozen packets can substitute, as the freezing process reduces the vitamin content only marginally as long as the vegetables themselves were frozen still very fresh. Canned produce is never recommended, as canned goods are invariably suffused with chemicals and preservatives, deteriorating the vitamin value greatly.

Carrots, for example, are bright orange in color because they contain carotenoid, which is an antioxidant found in brightly colored fruits and dark green, leafy vegetables. Carrots contain almost three thousand RE units per 100g. and a single, average-sized, fresh carrot contains over 2000 RE. Carotenoid colors the vegetables red, yellow or orange and has been found to reduce the risk of all sorts of eye diseases. Carotenoid-nutrient foods are easily distinguishable because of this characteristic that provides pigment and allows for easy absorption in the body. A single medium sized mango contains 800 RE, a single sweet potato [also called yams] contain 2,660 RE units, a red bell pepper contains about 500 RE and a cantaloupe contains 320 RE for every 100g serving.

3. Vitamin C:

Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, such as oranges and lemons, also in tropical fruits [pineapples, papaya, etc’], berries, every kind of pepper [red, yellow and green], potatoes and green, leafy vegetables. An important supplement that accompanies vitamin C is the group of bioflavonoids that appear in all the same fruits and vegetables. Bioflavonoids are chemical compounds that give certain foods their color and help the body absorb vitamin C. Though they are not vitamins themselves, they act as antioxidants in the body. Buckwheat is a good source for this compound, as are grapes, plums, cherries and the pith of citrus fruits. Bilberry is also an excellent source of bioflavonoids, but they are seldom seen in the U.S

Vitamin C should be consumed in produce as fresh as possible, as heat and light reduces it potency. Vitamin C-rich foods should be kept in a cool, dark place and even orange juice is better stored in an solid, enclosed container rather than a translucent container such as clear glass. The RDA [recommended daily allowance] for vitamin C is sixty milligrams for both women and men. One single orange contains 70 mg, one mango contains 57 mg, grapefruits contains 90 mg, one cup of raspberries contains 31 mg and one cup of strawberries contains over 85 mg of vitamin C. Green vegetables contain slightly less per weight- one cup of chopped broccoli contains 82 mg and one cup of chopped green peppers contains 133 mg.

Like Lutein and Zeaxanthin, the human body doesn’t produce vitamin C naturally and foods rich with this vitamin are vital to general good health and certainly eyesight. In fact, vitamin C isn’t stored for very long in the body’s reserves and daily doses are required. Like other antioxidants, this vitamin reduces the risks of various eye ailments, especially cataracts and muscular erosion. It is especially important for people aged 50+, as the body retains less vitamin C as the years progress, leading to the onset of age-related diseases.

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Vitamin E for eye-health-

The best and most obvious source of vitamin E is in nuts and this vitamin is another preventive measure against muscular degeneration and the development of cataracts. Almost all nut types contain great amounts of this vitamin. It is the important third vitamin for eye health after vitamins A and C. The recommended daily allowance in the U.S for vitamin E is 8 mg for women and 10 mg for men. Sunflower seeds are the richest in vitamin E and half a cup of sunflower seeds contains 36 mg of vitamin- which is four and a half times the daily allowance for women. Peanuts are also good for you and half a cup contains 7 mg, while the same amount of blanched or untreated almonds contains 17 mg and in hazelnuts its 16 mg.

Minerals-

Minerals are inorganic substances, which mean that they are not formed by living matter and contain no carbon. We require very tiny amounts of minerals in our diet and minerals in general comprise only four percent of our body’s weight. Minerals have several functions in the body;- they are cofactors in various metabolic reactions, they are electrically charged elements in the body that make movement of cell membranes and muscles possible and they comprise part of the balance between enzymes, hormones, vitamins and other factors that are the result of our diet.
Selenium- Some minerals help the body absorb vitamins that are necessary for eye-health, such selenium, which helps with the absorption of vitamin E. Selenium is required to break down fats and other body chemicals and it also helps he body make its own antioxidants. It is found in yeast, whole-grain cereals, Brazil nuts, all seafood that comes from the sea and not freshwater, egg yolks, whole milk and fresh garlic. The estimated daily recommendation for selenium is about 5 mg to 20 mg for adults and this trace amount of mineral should already be present in your normal diet. There is definitely no need to take any supplements in this case.

Zinc- Zinc has a whole array of functions in the body to do with general good health. Zinc deficiencies are quite common and can lead to a plethora of physiological problems.
It is vital for the development of certain white cells in the immune system, it helps gastrointestinal function and it encourages healthy skin and growth during childhood and adolescence. In the case of eyesight and eye-health, zinc is important in the development of certain eye tissues that enable vision in dim light, and subsequently lack of zinc in your diet will encourage night blindness. This mineral helps your body absorb the all-important vitamin A and reduces the number of free radicals in your system, protecting against muscular degeneration. The recommended daily allowance for both men and women is 15 mg and it can be found in red meat, liver, poultry, various whole-wheat grains, oysters and nuts. “Junk food” is virtually lacking in zinc and fast-food hamburgers don’t come close to filling the RDA for this mineral.

The role of fatty acids in your diet-

Fat is certainly a controversial issue in the field of nutrition today, though the importance of some level of fat and cholesterol in the body for maintaining good health is undisputed. Fat is the most concentrated source of dietary energy at our disposal and it certainly makes food taste better. Its function is to store energy, standing as reserve for times when we cannot eat regularly, it enables the body to absorb and utilize vitamins, such as vitamins A, E,D and K [which are all fat-soluble] and it provides linoleic acid, which is known as an essential fatty acid. Fatty acids have been proven to be indelibly linked to visual development in infants, and deficiencies can to impaired vision. It adults it can lead to retinal damage and even blindness. Linoleic acid is a component of fat found in corn oil and other vegetable oils and though it is vital to the body’s functioning, only a small amount is required for good health. Unlike butter, which has a very high percentage of saturated fats, corn oil is composed mainly of polyunsaturated fats and this is a far healthier alternative in any diet. Ideally, it shouldn’t exceed two percent of person’s daily calories, which can be obtained from a single tablespoon of soybean, corn or any other vegetable oil.

Omega-3 EFA:

Essential Fatty Acids [EFAs] are divided into two categories- the first is omega-3 EFA and the second is omega-6 EFA. Both make up polyunsaturated fats in the body, and both are necessary to good health. The first type, omega-3, is an alpha-linoleic acid [LNA for short] and it helps the body convert prostaglandins, which moderate the pressure inside the eye. In the August 2001 ‘Archives of Ophthalmology’ a published article came out claiming that a link had been found between omega-3 and it ability to prevent the deterioration of severe muscular degeneration.

Omega-6 EFA:

Omega-6 is a linoleic acid [LA for short] and studies have shown that while most Americans don’t consume enough omega-3 in their diet, they certainly do consume enough omega-6. Like omega-3, this acid plays a part in maintaining and regulating the eyes internal pressure and thus reducing muscular problems and the development of problems related to high intraocular pressure. However, unlike the more beneficial omega-3, this acid has been found to increase the potential for eye problems if it is too present in your daily diet. You should be consuming about equal amounts of each and current studies have shown that most Americans should cut down on omega-6 rich foods.

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Summary-

As you can see, there are many different factors that go into good eye care and balancing a healthy diet that will not only protect the body from various ailments, but also especially the eyes. This is particularly important as we age and the eyes begin to retain higher levels of protein in them, clouding vision and inducing cataracts. However, so many easily accessible foods contain all that we need to stay healthy and maintain good eyesight that sustaining health should be no problem. Vitamin A reduces the risk of night blindness, dry eye syndrome, blindness, the development of cataracts and muscular degeneration. Vitamin C and bioflavonoids also protect against cataracts and other age-related diseases and carotenoids are generally beneficial to the eyes, while also helping the body to break down and absorb vitamin A. And so the recommended diet for good eye health should always include brightly colored vegetables and fruits, such as carrots and sweet red peppers, citrus fruits like oranges, green leafy vegetables such as parsley, broccoli or spinach and various nuts and seafood, especially cold-water fish from the sea or oysters.

Andi Panenberg
http://www.66-contact-lenses.com

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