Olive Oil and Beyond: 5 of the Healthiest Oils

The low fat movement is thankfully all but over and people are rediscovering the benefits of healthy fats. Fats are essential to help maintain a healthy body and can be used as an energy source, to normalize blood sugar, and to provide fatty acids needed for optimal brain function and tissue repair. Beyond these, there is also the misconception-busting role that healthy fats play in cardiovascular health and digestion.

 

There are plenty of great options to choose from, and the selection and availability is increasing all the time. To judge what people are using based on the grocery store shelves, many are using just using olive oil and perhaps vegetable oil, and the latter should be avoided if possible. There are plenty of other fats that you can add for health and flavor. Changing up the oils and fats that you use in your cooking and condiments will allow you to add a range of savory flavors that will take your mealtime experience to the next level.

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BB Cream: Really the "Best" New Thing in Beauty?

Essance's BB Cream. (Photo credit: JAY ZHANG)

A friend of mine was asking about "BB Cream" which is apparently an upcoming beauty trend from Asia. There are a lot of products that fall in this category, so I googled around and took a closer look at one of the first few that I found, that was talked about on blogs.  I think the ingredients speak for themselves, and I hope the time spent investigating this list is worth it at least to someone.

Here's a TRANSLATION of the ingredients in "Etude House BB Magic Cream SPF30 PA++":

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Allergies, a personal note

So, I finally got the chance to do some allergy testing and not unsurprisingly it turns out I have some allergies. Well, not really just "some" allergies - more like a lot of 'em. Nothing like an "eat a peanut and die" kind of allergy, but at least I know what causes my problems now.  I've tested it; avoiding the foods the blood test points out does work. It's just not easy.

I'm foremost allergic to brewer's yeast, which as I understand thanks to the internet means pretty much all alcohol is off-limits. That's fine, I guess. Most of my life has been filled with little- or no- drinking anyway. There was a time when my friends would see me with a drink and ask whether I actually drank or not.  So, now I have a true, physical reason to avoid it.

But a brewer's yeast allergy doesn't bother me. Neither does the blue cheese allergy which is 3rd on the list of personal no-no's. In second place is corn. Fourth? Eggs. Great. Like those aren't found in absolutely everything!  It's been so long since I've been blogging (since April? Wow.) that I've forgotten a good number of contacts that I had and miss... But at least there are resources.  I'm either going to have to memorize lists like this or just let this influence me to live the way I know I should.

That's the way to look at adversity, right? How can it make me better? Basically the foods I'm not allergic to are almost all vegetables and fruits, and all meats except pork. So I'm looking at essentially a primal kind of diet. I can get used to that, I think.

I don't know whether this one allergy test tells me whether I'm only allergic now and if I can heal and incorporate some of the off-limit foods - like green beans. I also don't know whether this really only tests "mainstream" foods; it says I'm allergic to milk but does that mean raw milk? I personally doubt it.

I'm not sure where to go from here, except to just keep eating more greens.  I'm safe with greens.

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BPA and Avoiding Receipts

Image via WikipediaWhen handed a receipt at the store, you apparently have just over a 50% chance of receiving an apparently-high dose of easily-absorbed bisphenol-A, due to unregulated and wide usage of the material as a loose coating to make printing the receipt easier. A study by the Washington Toxics Coalition (WTC) says that in as little as ten seconds of light handling, BPA receipts can transfer large amounts of BPA directly into the body.

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Raw, Non-Dairy Hot Chocolate (has an awesome bonus result)

While cruising around for a recipe for a raw, apple-pie smoothie today (how many other people use Google as their main cookbook? :), I stumbled upon Karen Knowler's blog, and after checking out her (okay, actually Nina Dench's) recipe for it, I browsed her homepage and found her recipe for Spiced Hot Chocolate. So, as a snack for the family today, I tried it out.

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A Second Look at the Hurom Slow Juicer

I thought it appropriate to come back and describe my experience with the Hurom Slow Juicer (see my previous review), now that we've been using it at our house for many months. By now, the honeymoon has worn off, but fortunately the love is still there. Even though the cracks and stains are showing a little bit, I look forward every morning to waking up and making a new juice in this very easy-to-use and thorough juicer.

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Healthy at McDonalds?

CAN McDonald's be healthy? That's the thought that's running around my mind. Naturally, as you might guess, I'm probably biased against the restauarant and you might be able to guess how this article will turn out. But stick around; I'll try to be creative and come up with ways they possibly could. If I can. For the sake of healthiness, it certainly WOULD be great if there was a fast food restaurant out there that you could actually trust was serving you healthy food.

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Real Hot Chocolate *not instant!

Recently, Lifehacker had a post about how to make a better-tasting instant hot chocolate mix, linking off to Cook's Country that revealed the recipe as including dry milk powder, confectioner's sugar, salt, white chocolate chips, and Dutch-processed cocoa powder.

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