Now Practice Safe Fruit: Prophylactic for Bananas

This just in from the I’ve Seen it all Now Department: A protective sleeve for bananas called the Banana Bunker. I saw this in The Daily Candy, an ultra cool food blog, natch.

Everyone knows the pesky problem of toting bananas in your backpack; they get squished and squashed and frankly, are no fun to eat when smeared everywhere, so this genius inventor, Paul Stremple, Artist/Inventor/Architect decided something must be done, and voila! Instead better mousetrap.

The Banana Bunker looks just like a … well a …. banana? Yep, that’s right. It’s protective gear for that favorite of fruits: BananaBunker.com

This is sure to become an instant cult favorite.

Cashews Can be Toxic!

Photo by Jenn Kosar on Unsplash

Why Cashews sometimes Bite Back

The skin of a cashew is highly caustic and can blister the skin, so the nut meats must be carefully removed from the skin before being touched or eaten. This explains why cashews can be so expensive, and it also may explain why some people experience “fever blisters,” when eating them.

Video Games for Exercise Catching On

News reports are coming in fast and furious about all the new video games that get people up and moving. I’ve talked about it here in The Slimming Pool often:

Video Game That Causes people to Lose Weight, January 2004 … When the game involves bodily movement, that’s how. Today I came across Tanya Jessen’s story and how she eventually lost 95 pounds playing DDR. …

Why Exercise Takes so Long to Show Results, February 2004 … I just started using our new DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution) game and I love it…

Yourself!Fitness Fitness Comes to the Home Computer, Jan 2005 … You’ve heard of DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution), and now there is Yourself!Fitness, developed by a Portland, Oregon company and now available for the PC

New Year New You, January 2004 (obviously I was quite smitten with this whole thing early last year!) … The game is called DDR, Dance, Dance, Revolution and it involves a vinyl platform on the floor in front of you with squares, X’s and Triangles

New additions include the Golf Launchpad, which looks like it would be most fun if you set up a projector like they do in the store. You swing, you want to glance up and see your shot, not have to rush over to your computer screen. I do think golfers will love this; being able to practice that shot while you’re supposedly working. There’s just nothing better! :

This entry is a bit odd: Kilowatt SPORT. The videos are not exciting, some are just talking heads, but this is probably one you’d need to experience in person. If nothing else playing while standing up and moving about a bit is certainly better than sitting in a chair. Anytime you get your muscles moving and the blood pumping, it’s a good thing.

All of these games and more to come are sure to help enormously with the obesity problem. Get yourself to a video arcade and check this stuff out! Also, if you think these games are expensive, consider the cost of a visit to the doctor or open heart surgery. That is expensive.

Yourself!Fitness – Fitness Comes to the Home Computer

You’ve heard of DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution), and now there is Yourself!Fitness, developed by a Portland, Oregon company and now available for the PC (plus game consoles such as XBox and PlayStation). Here is a link to the XBox site’s review of Yourself!Fitness which is an excellent overview.

After checking it out, pop on over to the Yourself!Fitness forum and check in with people using the game.

Both excellent ways to get fit in the comfort of your own home. Your kids will love these too. You might just find yourself having to fight for time to use them actually

Women More Prone to Eating Disorders Says Japanese Study

Japanese researchers at Hiroyshima University reported that women are 10 times more likely than men to develop anorexia and bulimia. This conclusion was drawn after their rather questionable study which compared brain scans by MRI showing the differing responses of men and women when shown unpleasant words describing body parts versus neutral words.

Well duh! Take any group of women, show them unpleasant words describing body image and you’ll have an unhappy group of women, but do the same with a group of men and you’ll have a bored group of men asking if they can change the channel.

Men would probably be laughing and slapping each other on the back while women would be having unpleasant memories of past experiences of their own or others they’d witnessed. This might be a good test of empathy but it is not indicative of whether women would develop an eating disorder! How on earth they drew that conclusion is beyond me. Probably all men researchers, I’ll bet.

Look in any magazine, any TV show and nearly any movie and you’ll see women presented at their most attractive when they are thin and perfect, while men simply do not have the same stringent physical requirements to be considered highly desirable.

Case in point: Donald Trump. No one would even date that man if he worked in a warehouse and carried a lunch pail, believe me. That man’s only attraction is cold cash.

Most women grow up surrounded with negative associations and troubling body image issues by virtue of our society while men do not suffer the same indignities. You cannot draw any conclusions based on this ridiculous study except that the researchers were too lazy to put together an unbiased study in the first place.

If the study had been about body imagine itself, it would have made sense, but the conclusion about eating disorders is a leap at best.

Fast Food Cannot be Part of Healthy Diet Says New Study

Is Fast Food Okay Sometimes?

To hear the fast food industry tell it, you can eat McDonalds every day and be perfectly healthy. I disagree with that, but you certainly can eat fast food occasionally and still lose weight. I love burgers and fries.

Healthday.com today reported that, “frequent fast food consumption cannot be part of a healthful diet, despite claims to the contrary by the food industry,” according to Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston and senior author of a recent study

In response the National Restaurant Association said it could not respond to the study without knowing more details, and then submitted a statement saying, “Dietary experts agree that all foods can be part of a healthy diet — foods that are readily available in varying portion sizes on all types of restaurant menus.” Well what else would they say?

The No. 1 vegetable kids eat are french fries, with ketchup (tomato candy) the close second. That’s not good.

Is “Safe Drugs” an Oxymoron?

You’d think the pharmaceutical companies were running scared the way they’re suddenly announcing dire consequences should you be so foolhardy to actually use their drugs, yet many aren’t being pulled from the market. Naprosyn (Naproxen) suddenly causes heart problems? That’s interesting since it’s been on the shelf for years and prior to that was prescription only. I didn’t research it, but it’s probably been in use for 20 years or longer, so why are we only now hearing about it’s possible link to heart problems?

Interesting how these drugs can still be sold, despite deaths, yet they pulled Ephedra in a fat hurry. Wonder why? Could it be because it wasn’t manufactured by a drug company.

Here’s a listing of the less commonly known side effects: Abdominal bleeding, black stool, blood in urine, changes in liver function, chills and fever, colitis, congestive heart failure, depression, diarrhea, dream abnormalities, general feeling of illness, hair loss, hearing disturbances or loss, inability to concentrate, inability to sleep, inflammation of the lungs, inflammation of the mouth, kidney disease or failure, light-headedness, menstrual disorders, muscle pain and weakness, peptic ulcer, red or purple spots on the skin, severe allergic reaction, skin inflammation due to sensitivity to light, skin rashes and hives, sweating, thirst, throbbing heartbeat, vertigo, visual disturbances, vomiting, vomiting of blood, yellow skin and eyes.

You must be kidding me? And this is sold openly over-the-counter? Cripes. Yellow skin and eyes? Kidney disease or failure? What the heck?

These side effects are not suddenly showing up. They were there all along but the drug companies (big pill) do not care. They justify their costly drugs under the guise that the side effects are not worse than the disease being treated, but pain relief causing another serious health problem is another story. Most people taking pain relievers on a regular basis are older, and the older you are the more likely heart problems start to become an issue.

Over-the-Counter Pain Relievers Cause Heart Problems

It was announced Friday that a national study found that those given high doses of Celebrex had a 240 percent increase in heart problems, including death (yikes! death is a pretty serious side effect). Merck painkiller Vioxx was withdrawn from the market entirely after a study found that it increased the risk of heart attack and stroke by more than 100 percent. And, lest they be left out, Pfizer announced recently that a study of Bextra found that it increased the risk of heart attacks in those who have had cardiac surgery.

Industry insiders are beginning to point out that, “all drugs have risks.” Well duh. Yet the pharmaceutical companies continue to bury us in ads for everything from allergy medicines to Viagra and back again. They want us to believe our kids all should be taking a drug so they won’t act childlike, restless, bored. Do you remember being forced to sit in a boring, hot, smelly classroom for hours on end? Were you restless? Did they drug you? Probably not, but that was then and this is now, and times have changed, haven’t they?

The Best Prescription for Good Health

Best prescription? Healthy living. Good fresh air, brisk walks, home cooked meals with fresh ingredients, and a happy home. Strive for a bit of relaxation everyday, and stop gripping the steering wheel so tightly. High stress is more likely to knock you down, and it causes increased pain and weight gain for that matter, so go get a massage and relax. It can help with the pain relief, and it will help with the stress, so what better prescription?

How to Explode Your Self Confidence

If you want to explode your self confidence bestow yourself with super powers. You can then tap your magic wand upon the shoulder of anyone you meet and grant them wishes, powers, and riches beyond their wildest belief. The trick is, other people don’t know you have this magical ability and they never will, so it is how they treat you that determines whether they are rewarded.

So, now that you have this magnificent power, you can look at people with pity that are so short-sighted they don’t look beyond your exterior shell. It’s what’s inside that determines true beauty. Yes, it’s nice to have an exterior other find pleasing, but we’ll all grow old and frankly, I want to be a beautiful old lady too. Wrinkled, and bent, but beautiful with sparkling eyes and a mischevious smile.

Overweight Obesity Researcher Develops Northwoods Diet

What Does it Take to Develop a New Diet?

Allen Levine, director of the Minnesota Obesity Center and head of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Food Science and Nutrition thinks people need to police themselves because, “You can’t have sex at your desk and you can’t drink booze at your desk and you can’t inject drugs at your desk, but you can eat a donut. Nobody’s going to stop you.”

Wow! That’s a little harsh. Somehow I don’t think eating a donut at my desk really is equal to the other choices (sex, drugs, drink — hey, he forgot rock-and-roll!).

Levine’s colleague University of Minnesota professor David Bernlohr and obesity researcher realized he’d gotten fat. Yes, that’s right. Just because you research obesity does not mean you are immune. Oh, no. The rotund Bernlohr decided to create his own diet and dubbed it the “Northwoods Diet,” in a vain attempt at poking fun at the fad diet industry and the popular South Beach diet.

His diet is pretty tame: Three meals a day with smaller portions and no food after 7:30 p.m. That’s it. Probably he’ll write a 200 page book about it soon.

Bernlohr explained his diet, “is just common sense to people who study nutrition or metabolism.” What he didn’t explain was he didn’t bother to follow his own “common sense” and keep his weight under control in the first place.

Atkins + Digital Chocolate = Atkins 2Go

No, this has nothing to do with chocolate at all, it’s just the name of a company.

Too bad! Atkins partnered with the San Mateo, California-based mobile games company called Digital Chocolate Inc. to develop the “Atkins 2Go” service for mobile phones.
Digital Chocolate President Mark Jacobstein said he’s not concerned about the evident decline in consumer interest in low-carb diets, and said he thinks all major cell phone carriers will be interested in the product. Pretty darn market savvy I’d say. Doesn’t care that his customer base is dwindling. I don’t think I’ll buy any stock in this company.

Atkins International is feeling the pinch of less people on low carb diets, plus most folks following low carb plans are learning to make better food choices, rather than buying low carb bread and pancake mix. So, in an effort to not go broke, they are teaming with Digital Chocolate to bring something amazing to cell phone users — the ability to figure out how many carbs in the food you are eating!

Wow. I’ll just go nuts calling up to find that out, instead of simply looking it up online which takes about a split second and is free. Unfortunately my cell phone minutes are not free.

I don’t need Atkins to figure out the carb count anyway because I don’t count carbs. If anything I eat a high carb diet. My husband was on the all carb diet and lost 40 pounds, so much for Atkins for him.

It doesn’t really matter what weight loss program you try, it all comes down to making sensible choices in the foods you eat on a regular basis. If you try to avoid carbs, you’re probably not eating enough fruits and vegetables, and most certainly are not eating whole grains and beans.

Carbs are not the enemy, processed foods are. I wish the Atkins company all the best success but frankly, I don’t see their products staying on shelves much longer. A few will survive but the majority will go the way of the Dodo Bird.