National Nutrition Month is a nutrition education and information campaign that focuses on the importance of making informed food choices.  It was created by the American Dietetic Association to be observed annually in March.

This March, Driscoll’s encourages you to make informed food choices by adding nutrient rich berries, such as blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, to your daily diet.  What better food choice is there other than antioxidant-packed berries?  Don’t these look amazing?

Raspberry – Orange Muffins
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 20 Minutes
Cool Time: 5 minutes
Makes: 10 Muffins

1            6 ounce package Driscoll’s Raspberries
1 ¾        cups all purpose flour
1 ½        teaspoons baking powder
½           teaspoon baking soda
½           cup sour cream
½           cup packed brown sugar
¼           cup canola oil
2-3         teaspoons grated orange zest (about 1 orange)
¼           cup orange juice
1            large egg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or coat with cooking spray.
Rinse and drain berries. Pat dry with paper towel.
Stir together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl.
Combine sour cream, brown sugar, oil, zest, juice and egg in a large bowl. Stir in flour until partially moistened.  Add raspberries and stir in gently until evenly mixed.  Do not over-stir.
Divide batter evenly between muffin cups, filling each about ¾ full.
Bake 20 minutes until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool in pan 5 minutes.
Serve warm or remove and place on wire rack to cool completely.

Lighten Up this recipe by replacing the sour cream with the equivalent amount of fat free sour cream or plain low fat yogurt.

And the eating fest begins! Parties here, dinners there. Um, what about healthy eating?

Kim Galeaz, RD, CD and co-author of 4 Weeks to Maximum Immunity offer these tips (pdf files) to help keep energy levels up and support a healthy immune system throughout the holiday season and throughout the year:

• Grocery Store Roadmap: Kim navigates the aisles to make the most out of a trip to the store by showing readers how to find the best immune system-supporting foods.
• Cook Away Colds: You are home from the grocery store, what’s next? Use Kim’s mouth-watering recipes to provide the body with the nutrients and antioxidants in needs to maintain winter wellness.
• A-Z Nutrients: What is the difference between vitamin C and vitamin A? What can they do for my body? Kim explains the nutrients that help support the immune system and dishes on what foods provide them to help with nutritious holiday menu planning.
• Breakfast Booster: Kim has created a delicious Orange Cinnamon Breakfast Boost to keep you moving and healthy during your holiday activities.

Although we do buy organic foodstuff from time to time, we are by no means buying exclusively organic. It must be as tough as not buying anything that’s made in China!

So I take my hats off to Dr. Greene, the 100 percent organic man, who has been eating only organic produce (including meat!) for 3 years, even when eating out! Contrary to expectations, eating purely organic food isn’t really that much more expensive, since he has cut his meat intake quite a bit, so it somehow just balances off. Is he better off eating organic? He says he gets sick less often now. But then that could have been to more complex, compounded reasons, rather than simply the switch to organic produce.

Do YOU have what it takes to go purely organic?

Whether the public is ready or not, big leaps are happening in the field of nutrigenomics. In a paper published in Nature Genetics, scientists have identified 11 new gene variants (in addition to 19 other previously reported) associated with three blood lipids measured to determine cardiovascular disease risk: low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides.

These results indicate that a person may have any combination of these genes which can result to dyslipidemia, i.e., a combo of high LDL and triglyceride levels and extremely low HDL-cholesterol which is linked to cardiovascular disease risks. A personalized dietary plan drafted according to the gene variants an individual has become one step closer to reality.

“With this new knowledge, we are closer to identifying precise dietary recommendations for people at risk for cardiovascular disease. For instance, carriers of a certain variant gene could
reduce their risk of disease with a low-cholesterol diet, carriers of another variant gene
may benefit from the Mediterranean diet, while a high-fiber diet may be the healthiest
option for carriers of yet another variant gene.”

Source: Tufts University Photo Credit: svilen001

High blood pressure, which often remains unnoticed by those affected, is crucial for the development of cardiovascular disease. Among the carotenoids found in plant foods, lycopene is the most powerful antioxidant in vitro. As shown by Paran and colleagues, lycopene-rich tomatoe extract (Lyc-O-Mato) - when tested in a double blind cross-over study over 6 weeks versus placebo - may help to better control hypertension in patients receiving standard low-dose medication (such as ACE inhibitors or beta-blockers).

“The benefits of our study are in the use of an effective concentration of antioxidants in their natural formulation, tomato extract with all the nutrients of the tomato included, extracted in natural tomato oil.”

“The core findings from this study are:

(1) a significant decline both in systolic and diastolic blood pressures with tomato extract therapy

(2) a significant increase in serum lycopene level after tomato extract therapy

(3) a significant increase in serum nitrate level after tomato extract therapy.”

Whether tomato extract alone is able to lower high blood pressure is currently unknown; the present data, however, are encouraging as they possibly offer means to reduce the daily intake of standard drugs for controlling hypertension in humans.

The full text article was published in Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy on December 4, 2008.

Photo Credit: freestuf

Selenium, a micronutrient essential for human health, is often considered as a magic bullet for the prevention of age-related diseases, especially cancer. However, in the SELECT study, published in the journal JAMA on December 9, selenium supplementation in middle-aged, healthy men did not seem to help reduce the occurrence of prostate cancer. Even in combination with vitamin E, a compound often praised for its antioxidant and hence disease-preventive potential, selenium did not show any significant effect.

Notweworthy, the study confirms data from the EPIC study (December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) which also did not detect any association between selenium concentrations in the blood and prostate cancer risk in a large cohort of European men.

Although selenium supplements may help prevent (bladder) cancer in certain sub-populations, and may perhaps be useful in populations prone to selenium deficiency, supplementation specifically for the prevention of prostate cancer does not seem to hold water.

Looking for something natural to help your kid’s coughs and colds? Try a dose of buckwheat honey just before bedtime. According to a study that has been published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine it might work even better than an over-the-counter cough medicine in relieving cough to help your child sleep better.

Ian M. Paul, M.D., M.Sc., Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, and team carried out a study on 105 children - they were aged 2-18, and all were suffering from upper respiratory tract infections. They were ill for up to seven days and experienced symptoms during the night. 35 of them were randomly selected to receive a dose of honey, another 33 were given dextromethorphan, while the other 37 were given nothing - those receiving treatment got it 30 minutes before bedtime. Their parents had to fill in a survey assessing their child’s cough and sleep difficulty twice - once for the night before treatment, and then again for the night with treatment.

The researchers found that honey helped children the most by far, followed by dextromethorphan. Honey helped alleviate the following problems - cough frequency, cough severity, the child’s sleep, and the parents’ sleep.

Worth a try, especially considering that the use of dextromethorphan for children’s cough is a treatment which is not supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, nor the American College of Chest Physicians. Honey, on the other hand, is considered to be safe for use for kids at least 1 year old.

Photo Credit: nkzs

Selenium, a trace mineral found in grains, nuts and meats, may aid in the prevention of high-risk bladder cancer.

A recently published comparing the blood selenium levels of 767 recently diagnosed bladder cancer patients with 1,108 individuals from the general population indicates that selenium levels in the blood is inversely related to bladder cancer incidence among women, some smokers and those with p53 positive bladder cancer.

The data are still preliminary, and there is no causative relationship established indicating that selenium does have chemo-preventive properties, but the data are promising.

“Ultimately, if it is true that selenium can prevent a certain subset of individuals, like women, from developing bladder cancer, or prevent certain types of tumors, such as those evolving through the p53 pathway, from developing, it gives us clues about how the tumors could be prevented in the future and potentially lead to chemopreventive efforts,” Karagas said.

This study is published in the January 2009 issue of Cancer Prevention Research.

Are you still using corn oil? You might want to switch to canola, according to a recent study on the effects of these oils on breast cancer risks.

In this study, researchers fed one group of mice a diet containing corn oil and another group a diet containing canola oil, then recorded the incidence of breast cancer and changes to breast cancer regulating genes in the offspring. All offspring were fed a diet containing corn oil after weaning.

While both groups of offspring were about the same weight, the total tumor weight, number of glands with tumors and fraction of mice with tumors were higher in those whose mothers who were fed corn oil.

Apparently, this is due to the higher omega-3/omega 6 ratio of canola oil in comparison to corn oil. Omega 3 has been linked to lower cancer risks, while omega 6 polyunsaturated fats, which are high in corn oils, have previously been linked to increased rates of breast cancer.

Me? I’m still sticking to my rice bran oil.

Photo Credit: _e.t

Yet another report on the cancer-fighting properties of broccoli: it appears that the cancer-protective properties of broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables lower the lung cancer risk among smokers.

Among smokers, the protective effect of cruciferous vegetable intake ranged from a 20 percent reduction in risk to a 55 percent reduction in risk depending on the type of vegetable consumed and the duration and intensity of smoking.

For example, among current smokers, only the consumption of raw cruciferous vegetables was associated with risk reduction of lung cancer. No significant results were found for consumption of vegetables in general and fruits.

Researchers further divided their findings by four subtypes of lung cancer and found the strongest risk reduction among patients with squamous or small-cell carcinoma. These two subtypes are more strongly associated with heavy smoking.

So if you can’t or don’t want to quit smoking, at least make sure you’re having an ample serving of brocs and other veggies. It’s not an antidote, though. As the researchers also indicated, quitting smoking is will definitely be more effective in lowering your lung cancer risk!

Photo Credit: lockstockb