Good to know..
Piece of Cake
There is always space for a piece of cake because a cake goes not in stomach but in the heart
The good old Cake is a sure hit every time and is the family’s favorite. It’s really easy to bake at home too.
Chocolate..
1. Chocolate’s Sweet History
Chocolate was first discovered by the ancient Mayans then later by the Aztecs when they learned how to grow the trees. The word “chocolate” was derived from the word “xocoati”, used to describe the bitter, dark drink made from cocoa beans. Chocolate beans are grown on the Theobroma cocoa tree, the name which translates into “food of the gods”. Chocolate was primarily consumed in liquid form for over 90-percent of the time since its existence. Historians estimate that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II drank upwards of 50 cups of chocolate each and every day. Currently South Africa supplies more than 2/3 of the world’s cocoa, with Cote d’Ivoire the runner up supplying 33-percent of cocoa.
2. Chocolate Takes the Edge Off
Chocolate lovers everywhere can rejoice in the fact that their favorite sweet can actually be considered healthy. Did you know that the smell of chocolate can help calm your nerves? That’s right! Research published in journal Nature Neuroscience shows that inhaling the fragrance of chocolate increases the amount of theta brain waves in the brain, which in turn promotes relaxation. Who’d have thought, the smell of chocolate is actually good for you!
3. Chocolate Can be Good for the Heart
Chocolate can be good for your heart, and in more ways than one. There are actually chemicals in chocolate that improve your mood and mimic those wonderful feelings we experience when we fall in love. That kind of explains why Valentine’s Day and chocolate go hand in hand. Both chocolate and the heart are associated with love. Not only that, but chocolate is also good for your physical heart as well. This study from the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the University of Warwick Medical School, the University of South Australia, and the University of Maine found that eating chocolate on a regular basis can reduce the risk of heart disease by as much as one third.
4. Chocolate is Only Good for Humans
Unfortunately, chocolate is not good for all living creatures. In fact, a small bit of the sweet stuff can sicken and be fatal to pets. Humans, yes. Dogs, No. Cats, no as these animals break down foods and chemicals differently than we do.. So please, don’t feed your dog, cat, or other pet’s chocolate. Veterinarian’s consider chocolate poison to dogs because it contains a chemical called theobromine, which can cause diarrhea, stomach pain.
Coffee
1. It triggers your ‘flight or fight’ mode
The rush of energy we get from a strong coffee is caused by a caffeine-triggered chemical reaction that tells our adrenal glands to produce adrenalin. Within 15-minutes of drinking coffee, adrenalin is released, putting the body into ‘fight or flight’ mode. It is basically a stress reaction; hence why it leads to a feeling of increased energy and heightened senses (it can even give you sharper vision as adrenalin causes your pupils to dilate).
This so-called ‘fight or flight’ mode is the evolutionary protection mechanism we developed to outrun predators and battle foes, and it can be a lifesaver. But what happens to today’s office warriors who self-induce this state continually, every day?
It’s easy to become addicted to this quick and easy energy boost, but when the caffeine starts to wear off we often feel even more lethargic. Typically, coffee will stop you feeling tired for around three hours but after that you’re headed for a ‘coffee crash,’ and this is when we reach for another hit.
Thanks to this vicious cycle, we end up building a tolerance to caffeine and therefore need more of it to gain the same effect. Constant caffeine consumption forces our adrenal glands to produce more and more adrenaline. In the worst cases, it can eventually exhaust them, leading to feelings of emotional, mental, and physical ‘burnout’.
2. It boosts brainpower
Many people drink coffee to increase their concentration. Caffeine helps to enhance levels of alertness by inducing the production of dopamine – a neurotransmitter that controls attention and motivation. Studies show that coffee could enhance memory for up to 24 hours after consumption and that regular coffee consumption over a lifetime could even reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. However, for most people, one mild coffee is all it takes to bring dopamine to optimum levels in the brain, enabling you to focus on your work – any more and it could push dopamine levels too high causing restlessness and anxiety.
3. It affects your mood
Dopamine is often referred to as the ‘feel good’ hormone. This is because it also plays an important role in controlling the brain’s reward and pleasure centres and helps to regulate emotional response. Small amounts of caffeine can help reduce anxiety levels and make you feel happier (we all know people that we wouldn’t even think of approaching until they’ve had their morning coffee!). It’s even been shown to help with depression. But just like before, it’s all about getting the balance right. Too much coffee can make you short tempered, irritable and down.
4. It accelerates your heart rate and opens up your lungs
Once it enters the bloodstream through the stomach, the caffeine in coffee starts to block phosphodiesterace – the enzyme that helps keep heart rate in its normal range. It stimulates the receptors within the heart to beat faster, which leads to greater blood flow and a raised body temperature. Increased heart rate can make you feel more energised, which is why caffeine drinks are sometimes used by athletes to improve performance. Caffeine also improves cardiovascular performance by opening up the airways in the lungs making it easier to breathe. Caffeine can increase heart rate by approximately three beats per minute but not everyone will experience the same effects. The way that caffeine affects you will depend on your size and your tolerance. People who weigh more and consume caffeine regularly typically have a higher tolerance to its effects. If you consume caffeine on a daily basis, it will affect your heart rate less, compared to someone who consumes it once a week or even more sporadically.
For healthy people increased heart rate is not a problem, but may be an issue for those with underlying problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure or abnormal heart rate.
5. It stimulates your bowels
Do you ever experience the sudden need to go to the toilet after a cup of coffee? This is because compounds in coffee stimulate the bowel and can result in waste being pushed out faster than normal. Turns out the tradition of drinking coffee after a big meal is about more than social nicety – coffee facilitates digestion by raising acid levels in the stomach. However, increased gastric juices on an empty stomach can irritate the gut lining, causing pain, bloating and heartburn, so coffee is best taken with breakfast rather than first thing in the morning.
6. It resets your body clock
While completing dinner with coffee can do good things for digestion, it can be bad news for our sleep quality. Coffee consumed late in the evening resets the internal body clock by delaying a rise in the level of melatonin, the body’s chief sleep hormone. Coffee appears to trick the body into thinking that it is around an hour earlier in the day, switching back on bodily functions which should be powering down in the evening. Not only does it make it harder to fall asleep come bedtime and reduce the total amount of sleep we experience, it also interferes with the amount of truly restorative deep sleep that we enjoy. The effects of caffeine can occur even when you consume it earlier in the afternoon or evening. One study found that consuming caffeine six hours before bedtime reduced total sleep time by one hour.
Conclusion
Coffee and caffeine affects everyone differently and you’ll know what’s the right amount for you. However, the Department of Health recommends adults should limit their intake to 400mg of caffeine per day, which equates to around two to three cups. Other more healthy ways to energise include eating foods that provide long-lasting energy such as soya beans, trail mix, quinoa, eggs and whole grain cereals and drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Tea.
Tea can boost exercise endurance. Scientists have found that the catechins (antioxidants) in green tea extract increase the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel, which accounts for improved muscle endurance.
Drinking tea could help reduce the risk of heart attack. Tea might also help protect against cardiovascular and degenerative diseases.
The antioxidants in tea might help protect against a boatload of cancers, including breast, colon, colorectal, skin, lung, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, liver, ovarian, prostate and oral cancers. But don’t rely solely on tea to keep a healthy body — tea is not a miracle cure, after all. While more studies than not suggest that tea has cancer-fighting benefits, the current research is mixed.
Tea helps fight free radicals. Tea is high in oxygen radical absorbance capacity (“ORAC” to its friends), which is a fancy way of saying that it helps destroy free radicals (which can damage DNA) in the body. While our bodies are designed to fight free radicals on their own, they’re not 100 percent effective — and since damage from these radical oxygen ninjas has been linked to cancer, heart disease and neurological degeneration, we’ll take all the help we can get.
Tea is hydrating to the body (even despite the caffeine!).
Fruit Salad.
One Fruit, Two Fruit, Three Fruit, Four
We all know that the antioxidants in fruits and veggies work hard to protect your body from aging and disease. But what you may not know is that those antioxidants work even harder when they have the company of other antioxidants. That's why researchers recommend people eat 5 to 10 servings of a wide variety of different fruits and veggies every day.
f you tend to eat the same fruit over and over, consider breaking the mold next time you're at the grocery store or farmers market, and pick up something you've never tried before. And choose whole fruit, so you get the most antioxidant bang for your buck. To eat healthy, pick foods that are the colors of the rainbow, and watch your portion sizes. Eating foods that are colorful-red apples, orange carrots, yellow squash, green salad, tomatoes, blueberries and purple eggplant-helps you add fruits and vegetables to your diet.
Coconut Milk Nutrition Facts.
coconut milk
In addition to providing nutrients and its awesome taste, coconut milk contains beneficial fat called lauric acid, a medium-chain fatty acid that’s easily absorbed and used by the body for energy. Coconuts’ fatty acids are primarily saturated fats, but don’t think these will raise your cholesterol levels and cause heart damage. Instead, they’re known to actually do the opposite — coconut milk can help you lower cholesterol levels, improve blood pressure, and prevent heart attacks or a stroke.
Since real, full-fat coconut milk is high in calories, it’s better to have a smaller serving than you would of regular milk or coconut water. About 1/4–1/2 cup at once is best, either as part of recipes (for example as “coconut whipped cream”) or on its own combined with other flavors (such as in a smoothie).
Full-fat coconut milk contains all of its natural fatty acids, while “light” coconut milks are strained to remove some of the fat, which creates a thinner, lower-calorie milk. Because coconut milk is completely free from dairy, lactose, soy, nuts or grains, it’s a good option for anyone allergic to dairy and nut- or grain-based milks, plus it’s vegan and good for plant-based eaters.
A quarter cup of coconut milk (full-fat/not skimmed or light milk) has about: (1)
138 calories
1.5 grams protein
2 grams sugar
14 grams fat
.55 milligrams manganese (27 percent DV)
.15 milligrams copper (8 percent DV)
60 milligrams phosphorus (6 percent DV)
22 milligrams magnesium (5.5 percent DV)
3.9 milligrams iron (5.5 percent DV)
157 milligrams potassium (4.5 percent DV)
Health Benefits of Coconut Milk
1. Improves Heart Health by Lowering Blood Pressure and Cholesterol
Coconuts are one of the best sources of lauric acid — 50 percent of the fat in coconuts is lauric acid, which has antibacterial and antiviral activities. According to many studies, lauric acid is a protective type of fatty acid linked with improved cholesterol levels and heart health.
For example, when 60 healthy volunteers were given coconut milk porridge (CMP) for five days a week for eight weeks, researchers found that their low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels decreased while their “good” high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels rose significantly. They concluded that “coconut fat in the form of coconut milk does not cause a detrimental effect on the lipid profile in the general population, and in fact is beneficial due to the decrease in LDL and rise in HDL cholesterol.” (2)
Because coconuts contain minerals important for circulation and controlling blood flow, coconut milk is also useful for lowering blood pressure and keeping blood vessels flexible, elastic and free from plaque buildup. For example, magnesium may help combat stress and muscle tension while aiding in circulation and keeping muscles relaxed, important for preventing heart attacks.
Soybeans Nutrition Facts
The health benefits of soybeans come from the nutrients, vitamins, and organic compounds including a significant amount of dietary fiber and a very large amount of protein. In terms of vitamins, soybeans contain vitamin K, riboflavin, folate, vitamin B6, thiamin, and vitamin C. As for minerals, soybeans contain significant amounts of iron, manganese, phosphorus, copper, potassium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, and calcium. They are also a good source of organic compounds and antioxidants, which further help in boosting your health.
Health Benefits Of Soybeans
The health benefits of soybeans include the following:
Improve Metabolic Activity
As mentioned above, soybeans are an extremely important source of protein. When you have enough proteins in your body, your metabolic functioning and the overall system will get a major boost. Proteins are the building blocks of cells and blood vessels and basically every essential part of the human body. Proteins from soybeans ensure proper health and regrowth of cells if they need to be repaired or replaced. It can be difficult to get enough protein when you follow a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, so soybeans provide an excellent replacement for proteins that are normally acquired from red meat, chicken, eggs, dairy products, and fish.