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Nutrition

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Gout – Not just a Kings affliction any more

by jughandle March 20, 2018

written by jughandle

If you look up images of Gout on Google (don’t), you will thank me for not posting one here. Trust me it is bad enough suffering through the pain of without seeing pictures of how bad it can get.

Definition

Gout is a form of arthritis that effects the joints. It is caused by a build up of uric acid which crystallizes and collects in the joints. The crystals have sharp pointed ends like crystals tend to do and can cause swelling, severe pain and redness in the joints.

Attacks

An attack of Gout can come with out warning, usually over night. Any joint in the body can be affected but usually attacks begin in the big toes, feet and ankles. A bad attack can cripple you for as much as a week. If treated with anti-inflammatory medications, pain and duration can be reduced.

When I say cripple, I mean cripple. You won’t want to have the bed sheets even touch the painful area.

Who gets Gout?

In by-gone days it was thought that Gout was a rich man’s problem. Not so much today. The body can retain uric acid for many reasons. A diet high in Uric acid such as wine and red meat can contribute but isn’t the only way to get Gout. Men tend to be affected more than women and anyone over 40 is much more likely to get Gout than a younger person.

If your blood work shows an elevated uric acid level of 6.0 mg/dL or more you are at risk of an attack.

Medications

The good news is that changes in diet, exercise and alcohol consumption can help. Also, your doctor might prescribe medications such as colchicine or allopurinol which are very useful in the treatment.

Conclusions and Recommendations

If you start to suffer “with the Gout”, go to your Urologist as soon as you can get an appointment. Get a physical and blood work. If you have Gout it is likely you have other problems. My gallbladder that was full of stones and was removed that week. I still take a daily 300 mg tablet of allopurinol and haven’t had a severe attack since.

If none of that works, what the hell, cut back on rich foods and alcohol and start an exercise program – jughandle

March 20, 2018 0 comment

Additives All About Food Chemistry How To Informational Blog pH

Baking Soda vs Baking Powder, what’s the difference – Jughandle’s Fat Farm

by jughandle January 24, 2018

written by jughandle

Baking Soda vs Baking Powder, what’s the difference? When should we use one over the other? Are there any other uses for either, than baking or cooking?

If you are a serious cook, you should be able to rattle off the answers to those questions instantly.

Baking is more of a science than an art. Chemistry and exact proportions are very important to achieving a quality finished product consistently.

The holes are formed by the expansion of CO2 as the dough rises and sets.

Baking Soda

Sodium bicarbonate, sodium bicarb, bicarb soda, bicarbonate, and bicarb are all names for the same thing – NaHCO₃

It is a salt made up of sodium and bicarbonate molecules. For a more in-depth explanation and chemistry, go to Wikipedia. Sodium Bi-carbonate is used for many things but since our many focus is cooking, let us look at that first.

without and with

Cooking

In cooking Sodium bi-carbonate is called Baking Soda. By providing CO2, its primary use is as a leavening agent in batters and dough such as pancakes and breads, but is also used to crisp up the batter in fried foods. Baking soda is very alkaline and in too large a quantity can leave sodium carbonate, which has a bitter or soapy taste.

What you need to remember is that Baking Soda releases CO2, carbon dioxide gas, that causes the batter or dough to rise by expanding within the lattice like structure of protein, known as gluten, in the dough. The gluten traps the CO2 gas as it forms to make the bread or batter rise.

Ok, now dig deeper and recall a little high school chemistry. Baking Soda, aka: Sodium Bi-carbonate, is a base. A base will decompose in the presence of of heat, starting at 180 deg F, but give up only half of its its CO2 leaving, proportionately, more of its bitter, soapy flavor, relative to the gas, in the final product.

You may also recall that a base and an acid have a strong chemical reaction. In the case of Baking Soda, if you also use an acid such as a phosphate, cream of tartar, lemon juice, yogurt, buttermilk, cocoa vinegar or even a sourdough batter, you can create a reaction that will release much more of its CO2. Remember that unlike batter or dough that has no acid, which will only rise when CO2 is released at 180 deg when baking. When your acid and baking soda are mixed the reaction will start immediately and you will need to hurry and start the cooking.

Additionally

You might find useful the fact that when adding baking soda to your coating for fried foods, your crust will be more crispy. The reason for the crispiness is that the emerging CO2 leaves passages for steam to escape from the food not only keeping the breading from being soggy but also preventing the crust from being blown off during cooking.

Baking Powder

Let us now consider, baking powder. Not the stuff with a thousand uses that you put open in the refrig, but the powder in a round can that that said
“Double Acting” on it.

Baking powder generally contains around 30% sodium bicarbonate combined with calcium acid phosphate, sodium aluminium phosphate or cream of tartar, which are activated by adding water, not needing acid. Having both the Baking Soda and other additives make it “double acting”.

While baking soda is alkaline; the acid used in baking powder helps to avoid the metallic, bitter, soapy taste when the chemical change during baking creates sodium carbonate.

Tipsbulletin.com

Tips bulletin is a very informative site that gives tips on all sorts of different topics. The following are excerpts from their 50+ Amazing Uses of Baking Soda

1. Clean Your Bathtub

Bathtub Cleaner Recipe

Baking soda (1/2 Cup)

Coarse salt (1 Tbsp)

Dish soap (1 Tbsp)

A safe and effective way to wash your bathtub, sink, and surrounding tile is by sprinkling a light layer of baking soda on a clean, damp sponge and scrubbing the tub as usual. Thoroughly rinse the bathtub and wipe it dry with a clean towel.

Baking soda also works well to clean fiberglass and glossy tiles. For extra cleaning power, you can make a paste with the baking soda for a deep-down clean.

9. Clean Furniture

Baking soda is an excellent product if you need to clean or remove marks from painted furniture or walls. Apply baking soda to a clean damp rag or sponge and lightly rub the area that you need to clean.

Baking soda works especially well to clean patio furniture. Using a clean, dry cloth, remove the residue from the furniture or wall. This method will even work for removing crayon marks from your walls and furniture.

17. Natural Fruit and Vegetable Scrub

Even if you buy organic produce, it is important to make sure to wash your fruits and veggies before consuming them. Not only can this get rid of any pesticides that may have seen use during the growing of the produce, but it can remove bacteria from your food.

Baking Soda Uses: Keeps Produce Fresh

You can make a natural produce cleaner by adding one teaspoon of baking powder to one tablespoon water. The paste is an excellent way to get rid of unwanted bacteria and pesticides from your produce.

23. Extinguish Grease Fires

If you encounter a minor grease fire in your kitchen, you can use baking soda to put it out quickly. Pouring baking soda on the fire will instantly stifle the flames. When the baking soda is heated, it discharges carbon dioxide and produces water.

The carbon dioxide doesn’t support combustion like oxygen. It smothers the fire, allowing the water that has formed to cool the fire to below the temperature needed for ignition.

31. Deodorize Recycling Bin

You can make sure your recycling bin doesn’t smell by adding baking soda to the top of the container every time you add to the container.

You can also clean the recycle bin with baking soda after it is empty. Place some baking soda on a damp sponge and wipe down the inside of the recycle bin, followed by a thorough rinse with warm water.

And many others – Check it out – Jughandle

January 24, 2018 0 comment

All About Diets Nutrition

Foods that raise your metabolism – Jughandle’s Fat Farm

by jughandle January 19, 2018

written by jughandle

Foods that raise your metabolism. These are the Holy Grail of dieting and losing weight. My wife used to eat almost as much as I do but she weighs 122 and I weigh 300 lbs. The difference is that her metabolism is that of a hummingbird. She can lose weight by just saying the words. I can look at a picture of food and gain 2 lbs.

What I need are foods I can eat that will raise the rate my body metabolizes it. I know that it sounds like a pipe dream but if you keep reading you just might learn something like I did. – jug

Fuel for the furnace to start the day

Milk, Whole Grain Cereal, Oats – 10%

Secret Ingredients: Calcium, complex carbohydrates, and fiber

How they work: Complex carbohydrates and fiber pump up metabolism by keeping insulin levels low after you eat. That’s good, because spikes in the production of insulin send a signal to the body that it’s time to start storing fat. In order to stockpile fat, your body has to slow down your metabolism, causing you to burn fewer calories, says Margaret McNurlan, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition and medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Since oatmeal breaks down slowly in the stomach, it causes less of a spike in insulin levels than foods like bagels, she says.

Besides helping to keep insulin production down, eating breakfast can also help stoke your daily calorie burn. When the U.S. Navy studied the metabolisms and eating habits of a group of its personnel, it found that eating breakfast helped raise the men’s metabolisms by as much as 10 percent. “By skipping meals, you slow down your metabolism and prime your body to store fat,” says McNurlan.

The calcium in milk is a metabolic trigger as well. A University of Tennessee study found that dieters who consumed between 1,200 and 1,300 milligrams (mg) of calcium a day lost nearly twice as much weight as dieters getting less calcium.

Jalapenos, Habaneros, Cayennes – 25%

Secret Ingredient: Capsaicin—the chemical in peppers that gives them their bite

How it works: By speeding up your heart rate.

A study from the late ’80s found that eating a single spicy meal can boost your metabolism by up to 25 percent, with the spike in calorie burning lasting for up to 3 hours after you finish eating. More recently, a study from Laval University in Quebec found that men who consumed coffee plus red pepper-packed snacks and meals were able to burn nearly 1,000 more calories a day than a control group.

Small snacks can also help keep your body from running out of fuel-preventing those 3 p.m. office blahs. “When you restrict the number of calories your body has for fuel, your metabolic rate can drop temporarily,” says Susan Roberts, Ph.D., chief of the energy-metabolism laboratory at Tufts University in Boston. That makes it easier to pack on the pounds and harder to burn them off again

A Good Team for burning fat

Green Tea, Coffee – 80 calories a day

Secret Ingredients: Caffeine and a chemical in the tea called EGCG

How they work: Caffeine helps speed up your heart rate. The faster your heart beats, the more calories you burn. EGCG works in a similar way, but instead of revving up your heart, it causes your brain and nervous system to run more quickly-also helping you burn more calories.

In studies, researchers found that a combination of caffeine and a 90-mg dose of EGCG taken three times a day can help you burn an extra 80 calories a day. And that’s just when your body’s at rest. A study conducted by the Canadian government found that soldiers who consumed caffeine in the 12 hours prior to a physical-fitness test not only were able to work out longer before becoming exhausted, but also consumed more oxygen while working out. The body’s oxygen requirements are directly related to the speed of-guess what-your metabolism, so the more oxygen you use, the more calories you burn during your workout.

Lean Protein

Lean Beef, Pork, Chicken, Turkey – 5%

Secret Ingredient: Protein

How it works: It takes more energy for your body to digest the protein in meat than it does for it to digest carbohydrates or fat, according to Doug Kalman, R.D., director of nutrition at Miami Research Associates, a nationally recognized pharmaceutical-research facility. “That means that the more protein you eat, the harder your body has to work to digest it, and the more calories you’ll burn in the process,” he says.

When researchers at Arizona State University compared the benefits of a high-protein diet with those of a high-carbohydrate diet, they found that people who ate a high-protein diet burned more than twice as many calories in the hours following their meal as those eating carbs. Even better, researchers in Denmark found that men who substituted protein for 20 percent of the carbs in their diets were able to boost their metabolisms, increasing the number of calories they burned each day by up to 5 percent.

Cold water fish

Salmon, Tuna, Sardines

Secret Ingredient: Omega-3 fatty acids

How they work: By altering levels of a hormone called leptin in your body. Several recent studies suggest that leptin directly influences your metabolism, determining whether you burn calories or store them as fat.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that mice with low leptin levels have faster metabolisms and are able to burn fat more quickly than animals with higher leptin levels. The best way to lower your leptin? Eat fish.

Mayo Clinic researchers studying the diets of two African tribes-one of which frequently ate fish and one of which didn’t-found that fish eaters had leptin levels nearly five times lower than the levels found in tribes that primarily ate vegetables.

The good news, if you don’t like fish: Fish-oil supplements may work just as well as the stuff with scales. French researchers found that men who replaced 6 grams of fat in their diets with 6 grams of fish oil were able to boost their metabolisms and lose an average of 2 pounds in just 12 weeks.

Observations and Conclusions

If you are trying to find ways to help yourself loss weight, I can’t think of a better way to start than by eating your way to a smaller body. If you count the percentages beside each of the headings above you’ll see that you can raise your metabolism by at least 40% just by eating.

I’m giving it a shot and I’ll let you know how I’m doing. Please do the same. – jughandle

January 19, 2018 1 comment

Additives All About Blog Topics Food Chemistry Food Safety Informational Blog News & Opinion Nutrition

Is High-fructose Corn Syrup Mad Science? – Jughandle’s Fat Farm

by jughandle January 18, 2018

written by jughandle

High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Aka: HFCS. Is the Devil, Right?

I’m a huge opponent of high-fructose corn syrup otherwise known as HFCS. That said, I will do my best to remain neutral and explain why. This topic is not black and white. There are many shades of gray.

A Little Chemistry

Our body uses glucose and Fructose (monosaccharides) as its energy sources and both are “simple sugars”. The most important monosaccharide is glucose because it is already at the state where the body’s enzymes can initiate metabolism and doesn’t need to be processed further. Most other more complex sugars and carbohydrates need to be processed in order to be turned into glucose by the body. Glucose is also our “blood” sugar. The body’s pancreas produces insulin in response to elevated levels of glucose in the blood as well as the energy regulating hormone leptin. Not so with fructose.

Fructose is a natural sugar found in fruits and vegetables. It is also added to foods and beverages to sweeten them. The problem lies in the metabolic pathway fructose has in the body. Fructose is not the preferred energy source for muscles or the brain as is glucose and tends to be treated more like fat in the body than sugar. Fructose can only be metabolized by the liver and is more fat-producing than glucose. More importantly, fructose does not cause insulin to be released or leptin to be produced.

Because Fructose isn’t the body’s primary energy source it builds up in the body and is stored in the liver as triglycerides (fat) while the body’s insulin response is only to the glucose.

Chemistry

The History Of HFCS vs Sucrose

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a fructose-glucose liquid alternative sweetener to sucrose (table sugar), and was first introduced to the food and beverage industry for mass use in the 1970s. HFCS is not meaningfully different in composition or metabolism from other fructose-glucose sweeteners like sucrose, honey, and fruit juice concentrates.

Sucrose is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. There are basically two types of commonly used HFCS, HFCS-42 and HFCS-55. 42 is only 42% fructose and 55 is 55% fructose.

Food formulators quickly moved to HFCS as a replacement for sucrose, and its use grew between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s. Its sweetness is comparable with that of sucrose, it has improved stability and functionality, and is much easier to use because it is already a liquid.

Even though the use of HFCS today is roughly equal to sucrose use in the United States, the world’s preferred sweetener is sucrose: greater than 90% of the sweetener used worldwide is sucrose.

Sucrose

The Good

HFCS is less expensive to produce than sucrose. Sucrose comes from countries that are somewhat unstable and the basic crop price can fluctuate wildly. When sugarcane is processed into sucrose it is a solid gradual that must be dissolved in water to the proper concentration before it can be used. HFCS is produced as a liquid, ready to use and is more easily transported.

Even though the product is called High-Fructose corn syrup, it has only slightly more (55%) or slightly less (42%) fructose than does sucrose which has 50% fructose. The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to change the name simply to “corn sugar”. So far they have been denied.

The Bad And Ugly

I’m not going to hit you with a bunch of numbers. All I need to say is that obesity in America is at an all time high.

Why

As I see it there are many reasons why, pick a few of these.

Food is easier to get
It is “cool” to over eat, there are even eating contests
Serving sizes are much larger
Everything has sugar or sweetener in it
Prepared or fast-food is now more common and easy to get when time is short
There are many more places to get food than ever before
Deserts, candy and sweet foods that were once considered a treat are now readily available at any time.
There are many more “snack” foods flooding the market
School children are NOT required to exercise for the most part
TV and Computers have taken over play time where playing outside and physical games once dominated
The general public is not sufficiently educated as related to nutrition and diet

Conclusions and Recommendations from the Farm

For the first time in modern history the average life expectancy has dropped in the US. The reasons given mostly revolved around obesity and heart disease.

My research has lead me to conclude that high-fructose corn syrup is no worse for us than ordinary table sugar. The problem is that we are consuming many times the sugar than is healthy.

The chart above shows that in 1822, the average American ate the amount of sugar found in one of today’s 12-ounce sodas every 5 days. Now, we eat that much every 7 hours. We are now eating roughly 100 pounds of sugar apiece each year.

Since you are reading my rants on the Fat Farm you are doing the best thing you can to improve your health. Educate yourself. As always don’t believe a thing I say. Research, trust but verify. Put in the time and do the work. Ask questions. – jughandle

CNN Obesity among all US adults reaches all-time high

January 18, 2018 0 comment

All About Food Safety Informational Blog Water

Your Drinking Water

by jughandle January 17, 2018

written by jughandle

This blog, which I first posted 5 years ago, and many many others, have posted various warnings about our drinking water from our taps. These warnings are REAL, people! This country may have the best drinking water in the world, but that doesn’t mean it is safe to drink over years.

The sad part about re-posting this blog in 2018 is that NOTHING has changed. It’s gotten worse if anything!

Tap Water is NOT Drinking Water

Tap Water

Tight municipal budgets as well as a lag in technology have caused water-treatment plants to stick with the old standard of using chlorine or rather, chloramine to “shock” the water we drink. The process has worked for many years but not so much any more. It seems that chlorine can and does react with organic matter in the water coming from the reservoir to form toxic by-products that have been linked to bladder and liver cancer.

What isn’t being removed

Most municipal water authorities, test and treat for heavy metals in the water, such as lead, mercury and such. But did you know that some contaminants aren’t even screened, let alone removed. Those include, but are not limited to, pharmaceutical drugs like prosac, Consumer-product chemicals such as PFOA which is the chemical used to coat clothing and nonstick pans. BPA which is used on receipts, plastics and canned-food linings is also present in our water, and the new one, “artificial sweeteners“. Anything we flush down the toilet has the potential to end up in our water supply.

Are you STILL drinking bottled water?

STOP!!!!!

Bottled Water

If you are, then you didn’t get the memo that 50 percent of all bottled water is supplied from the same place your tap water comes from. Worse than that, the government water sources have to make public the contaminates they test for and which ones they remove. Bottled water companies don’t have that requirement. Bottled water has a shelf life too. Bacterial can develop in those bottles and toxins from the plastic can leach into the water also.

What are we to do?

Filter your potable water. Find a filter that fits your budget and paranoia level and USE it! The best of what is available to us now are reverse osmosis systems. I use one in our house, but they have expensive filters that need to be replaced every 6-12 months and other maintenance is very important to keep them working properly.

EWG’s Updated Water Filter Buying Guide – click here

Reverse Osmosis System

Above is a diagram of how a reverse osmosis filtration system works. The EWG deems this system, currently, the most effective.

Be safe, drink lots of filtered water – jughandle

January 17, 2018 0 comment

Food Combinations How To Informational Blog Nutrition

The Basic Rules of Food Combining

by jughandle January 15, 2018

written by jughandle

Yes, there are a few basic rules of food combining. If you think about it, eating the proper foods together makes a lot of sense. Protein and starches are digested differently in the body so you wouldn’t want to eat them together because proteins produce acid and starches produce alkaline in the stomach, counteracting each other causing your food to rot in your stomach producing gas.

The following are the basic rules of food pairing or combining you should follow to have a smooth digestive system – jughandle

This comes from an article found at http://www.trustedhands.com/content/fcbeg.pdf

Basic Rules

Do not eat proteins and starches together. That’s right – no more meat sandwiches. Your body requires an acid base to digest proteins and an alkaline base to digest starches. Proteins and starches combine well with green, leafy vegetables and non-starchy vegetables, but they do not combine well with each other.
Generally fruits should be eaten alone or with other fruits. If fruits seem too sweet, then eat a handful of nuts (80% fruit, 20% nuts). Fruits digest so quickly that by the time they reach your stomach, they are already partially digested. If they are combined with other foods, they will rot and ferment.
Melons digest faster than any other food. Therefore, you should never eat melons with any other food including other fruits. Always eat melons on their own.
Do not mix acid and/or sub-acid fruits with sweet fruits at the same meal. Acid fruits, such as grapefruits, pineapple, and strawberries, can be mixed with sub-acid fruits, such as apples, grapes, and peaches, but neither of these categories can be mixed with sweet fruits, such as bananas, dates, or raisins.
Eat only four to six different fruits or vegetables at one meal.
Fats and oils combine with everything (except fruits) but should be used in limited amounts because while they won’t inhibit digestion, they will slow it down.
Wait the following lengths of time between meals that don’t combine:

a. Two hours after eating fruit.

b. Three hours after eating starches.

c. Four hours after eating proteins.

How to Fix it if you Screw Up

· If you eat PROTEIN and STARCH during the same meal, eat some legumes.

· If you eat NUTS, eat an acid fruit with them.

· If you still eat DAIRY, make sure to eat an acid fruit.

· If you overloaded on PASTA, eat an apple the next morning.

· If you’ve eaten too much PROTEIN, eat papaya the next morning.

· If you’ve, eaten too much SUGAR, eat grapes the next morning.

· If you’ve eaten too much SALT, eat watermelon the next morning.

Conclusions

Eat Proteins like nuts, seeds, soybeans, lentils, meats, fish, milk and eggs and cheese with vegetables such as green beans, cucumber, sprouts, artichokes, mushrooms, lettuce asparagus, beets, turnips, spinach, onions and others but avoid eating Proteins with Starchy carbohydrates like carrots, parsnips, corn, brown rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and others. Vegetables go well with both proteins and carbohydrate starches, but avoid eating proteins and starchy carbs at the same meal.

Different foods take different lengths of time to digest in the body. It only makes sense to keep your meal simple, limiting the number of different foods eating at one sitting to no more than 4 or 5.

– jughandle

January 15, 2018 1 comment

Blog Topics Diets Food Safety How To Nutrition pH Vegan Vegetarian

How to Test Your pH

by jughandle January 12, 2018

written by jughandle

Snake Oil

When talking about pH my biggest concern in discussing this topic is to be taken seriously. When a health method isn’t totally embraced by the traditional health community, it seems as though the snake oil salesmen display an inordinate number of cure-all methods and substances you can take to cure everything from gout to cancer.

You can’t be cured over night

As with most things you should stay toward the middle of the road. Don’t believe anyone who says they can cure you over night. Most of our problems took a long, long time to develop and will take almost as long to fix. There are no silver bullets, just rational science.

Why Test Your pH?

pH is an indicator that our body chemistry is either good or bad. If your pH is out of range for a long period of time, changes in our blood, organs and skin will take place to compensate for an acidic condition.

Out Of Range pH can induce unwanted body changes

These changes aren’t good and can be dealt with before real damage is done. An acidic pH level is an indicator that something is out of balance. Make corrections. Don’t ignore the “engine warning” light.

Now to Test Your pH

My Urologist is trying to bring my very acidic urine pH from a 5.0 to some where close to 7.0. He has me on 45 mg of Potassium Citrate three times a day.

Test often

Because your pH changes throughout the day it is important to test it several times during the day, maybe once a week or so.

When to test your Urine

Urine – Test your second pee of the day by placing the test strip in the urine stream for a few seconds. You test the second pee (before coffee) because the first pee from storing it overnight will be more acidic. The kidney’s job is to remove acid from the system. Wait 10-15 seconds or what ever your brand of test strips recommends and compare the color to the chart provided in the test kit. Write down this number and time and do it again 2 – 3 more times during the day.

Test Before a Meal or 2 hrs After

Remember to test either before eating a meal or 2 hours after a meal for most accurate results.

Also Test Your Saliva

Saliva – First thing in the morning, either flush your mouth with your own saliva and spit or rinse with water and wait 30 mins before testing. Wet the strip with your saliva and check against the chart as with your urine. Write the number and time down. As with the urine, test 2-3 more times during the day.

Average Results and Chart Them

You can average the numbers then chart them over time to see what difference changes in your diet can make.

The Chart

Remember that the pH chart with your kit is like an earthquake chart, it is logarithmic which means each step, ie; 4.5 to 5.5 is ten times the previous.

Which Strips?

You can find test strips in most pharmacies and health food stores or you can find them on line.

I personally use PHion Balance Diagnostic pH Test Strips.

Please let me know if you can find them less expensively, I will pass it along.

What Results Should we Expect?

What’s normal pH…
Our bodies have a number of systems which all have their own specifically preferred pH.

Expect Changes

Overall, the body’s internal chemical environment normally changes from a weak acid to a weak base within a 24-hour period.

More Acidic In The Morning

The body is usually more acid in the morning and most base at night. These physiological changes occur on a curve during this period.

Morning Should Be Slightly Less than 7.0

The slightly acid time period early morning: pH < 7.0 is perfect for the activity of the nerves, hormones and neurotransmitters. In this pH, the stored acidic wastes are dissolved into liquid form and then excreted from the body as wastes.

Blood pH

The bloodstream is the most sensitive system of the entire body, far more sensitive than any other.

Maintain A Slightly Alkaline pH

Arterial and venous blood must maintain a slightly alkaline pH: arterial blood pH = 7.41 and venous blood pH = 7.36.

Acidosis And Alkalosis

Because the normal pH of arterial blood is 7.41, a person is considered to have acidosis when the pH of blood falls below this value and to have alkalosis when the pH rises above 7.41.

Figure 3. Range of Arterial pH Values

ACIDOSIS
pH = 1 to 7.40

NEUTRAL
pH = 7.41

ALKALOSIS
pH = 7.42 to 14.0

Connective Tissue pH

A normal pH in this area is 7.34 and 7.40, a slightly more acid profile, because body cells dump as much free hydrogen (H+) as possible, buffering the blood as much as possible. However, pH in these areas can dangerously drop to concentrations of pH = 5.0.

Ideal Urine pH Values

In a pH balanced body. urine is slightly acid in the morning, (pH = 6.5 – 7.0) generally becoming more alkaline (pH = 7.5 – 8.0) by evening in healthy people primarily because no food or beverages are consumed while sleeping.

Whereas, during the day the body buffers the pH of the food and beverages consumed by releasing electrolytes and the pH level goes up. This process allows the kidneys to begin the elimination process slowly.

Urine pH Range

The pH of urine can range from an extremely unhealthy low of 4.5 to a high if 8.5, which it tolerates a little easier, depending on the acid/base status of the extracellular fluids. A high pH value may indicate the body is over buffering to compensate for a physiological system that is too acidic.

UNHEALTHY
pH < 6.0

NEUTRAL
pH = 6.5 TO 8.0

UNHEALTHY
pH > 8.5

Don’t Make The Body Overwork

When urine pH is 6.0 and below for extended periods of time, it is an indication that the body’s fluids elsewhere are too acid, and it is working overtime to rid itself of an acid medium.

When urine pH is normal, then the blood pH is normal, but when the urine pH is overly acid, the body releases too many electrolytes to keep the pH level normal and maintain life.

Easy to take urine buffer test strips are available to indirectly determine the safety of all body fluids, including blood.

Results may vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the U.S.A. Food and Drug Administration and this product is not intended to treat, cure or prevent disease.

What to Do?

More later – jughandle

January 12, 2018 0 comment

All About Blog Topics Diets Jerry Wooden Nutrition

Diets or “A diet that makes sense”

by jughandle January 12, 2018

written by jughandle

I think we’ve discussed before that weird diets don’t work. Sure, you might lose 10 or 15 lbs on the cabbage diet, then wham, a plateau and you’re stuck. That’s because your body adjusts to your new calorie intake and if it is too low your body shifts into “starvation” mode to keep you from starving to death and you lower your metabolism making you feel crappy and depressed because you aren’t losing weight. You need a diet that makes sense.

Most diets deprive you of something you need to be healthy. That’s why you can’t binge diet. To be healthy you need to:

Drink 80 to 120 oz of water per day

Yes, you can get water from coffee, tea, coke zero, etc, etc, but those other drinks add toxins and sugar that your system will need to fight to eliminate. Drink water. Actually, better yet, drink water with lemon in it. As much lemon as you want, just no sugar. Lemon in your water helps to neutralize your pH because even though lemon juice is acidic it is processed by the body making it a base.

Eat a diverse, well balanced diet

We’ve heard that line all our lives, but what does that mean? It means that you should have a protein at every meal. Eat different proteins, mix it up. Eat beef or pork for breakfast, chicken for lunch or fish for diner. Don’t stop there. Try new stuff. Eat lots of vegetables. All colors of vegetables.

Lots of fruit too. Try eating vegetables or fruit for snacks. You can almost eat a much as you can hold. But its important to lower your desire to stuff your self to the gills. You do that by not eating sugar or carbohydrates high on the GI scale.

Remember, sugar begets more sugar. Yes, you do need carbs, but make sure they are complex carbohydrates, allowing your body to convert them to energy over a longer time, using more of the energy instead of storing it as fat. That brings up the “f” word, Fat. Don’t fear fat. Eat natural butter, not margarine. Eat lean meat but don’t worry about that too much. Eat and use olive oil in cooking and salad dressings. You get the drift. We’ll talk more about it as time goes by.

Exercise when you can

Do what you can to exercise. Take the stairs, walk the dog, etc. Exercise not only burns calories but also raises your metabolism making your body burn more calories even at rest.

Eat healthy foods

Most importantly, when you put something into your body, make sure it’s good for you. Read the label, if you don’t know what the ingredient is don’t eat it. Try to make your own food. Don’t eat out as much. If you eat packaged or processed food, don’t eat anything that has more than 5 ingredients on the label.

If you drink alcohol

Try to reduce your intake and drink more red wine than any thing else. If you normally have a drink or two a night, don’t drink on Wednesdays for a couple of months. You’ll be surprised at the difference.

It used to be thought that alcohol was treated by the body as a carbohydrate. It isn’t. When you take a drink, your body gives priority to metabolizing the alcohol first. So alcohol is really treated like a fat in the body.

“This is because alcohol is oxidised by the body in preference to fat, thus ‘saving’ fat for storage. Therefore, alcohol affects the diet in the same way as an increase in the percentage of fat eaten. This is something to remember in your weight loss quest.” – BYC

In Conclusion

So, if you do all five of the things above and you still aren’t losing weight, the only thing left is portion control. You are now healthy, just not at your ideal weight because of the stored calories in your past.

You only have one option:

1. eat fewer calories than you burn

But you can do that in two ways:

1. eat less

2. exercise more

Here at the Fat Farm we consider these suggestions as a diet that makes sense and recommend tracking your caloric intake at SparkPeople.com

Their online tracking method will tell you the number of calories you need and even calculate the nutrition for you. If you are diabetic they will track your glucose readings among other things. Ask me how I use it to keep my recipes and normally eaten (grouped) foods charted.

Later – Jughandle

January 12, 2018 5 comments

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