March 2012

Health Benefits of Ginger

A natural food ingredient that can help with multiple health symptoms is ginger.  For instance, it can really help to lessen feelings of nausea or upset stomach.  Usually, the recommendation is to use ginger root to alleviate such symptoms.  However, ginger ale can also be used. 

Personally, I once have had experience with horrible feelings of nausea while at work.  My co-worker noticed my situation and offered me a ginger ale.  At first, I was quite skeptical about the drink being able to help me.  Yet about 20 minutes after finishing the ginger ale, I noticed a mark improvement in how my stomach was feeling.  After a little while, I felt completely better.  So ever since then, I no longer questioned the power of ginger ale.  Since ginger ale actually does include the ingredient of ginger, I also started believing in the power of ginger itself.

The Truth About Milk

Milk is something that most kids are taught to drink from the time they were little.  Parents always tell their children about how drinking milk will help them to grow taller and stronger.  However, not everyone believes milk is wholesome and healthy.  There are groups of people online who strongly believe milk is a toxin that is extremely deadly and poisonous.  So what is the real truth about milk?

Orange Juice vs. Oranges

Growing up, there was always orange juice at my house.  Every time I opened up the doors to the refrigerator, I would see the carton of orange juice.  My dad loved the taste of the fruity drink, and my mom liked the fact that it was a healthy beverage.  Over the course of time, I developed a liking for the juice as well.  I had a glass with my eggs and toast for breakfast.  Then at dinner, I had some orange juice to wash down my meal.  I enjoyed the taste of the freshly squeezed juice, and my parents were thrilled to see me picking this healthy drink over a can of soda.

However, as I got older, I heard a lot of people talk about how orange juice was not really all that healthy.  They said orange juice was just as bad as the soda pop, and that it was a lot healthier to just eat the oranges instead.  Was what they were saying about my juice of choice true?

The Sun and Vitamin D

As a runner, I spend plenty of time in the sun.  So imagine my surprise when I found out that I was deficient in Vitamin D.  Yet that was exactly what the doctor reported to me about my blood work a few years back.

How could it be?  Wasn’t natural sunlight enough for my body to produce its own Vitamin D?  The problem, according to my medical doctor, was that I religiously applied sunscreen to my body whenever I was outdoors.  The sunscreen not only blocked harmful effects from the sun, but it also blocked any chances of my body creating Vitamin D from all of that sun I was getting on my weekly runs outside.