Are you a label reader? I know that I am, and -- until you get savvy at it -- food labels can be a bit confusing. U.S. News and World Report has a list of 8 fixes nutritionists would like to see on food labels:

• Realistic serving sizes. Serving sizes are often misleading. For example, have you ever treated yourself to a Pop-Tart? They're wrapped in packages with two pastries, yet a serving size is only one.
  
• Clearer guidelines on the daily value. Are the percentages based on the most you should get of a nutrient or the least? For example, saturated fat is a ceiling -- the daily value represents the most you should get. With vitamins and minerals, on the other hand, the daily value is a floor -- or the minimum amount you should get.
  

Source

I'm a bit of a sucker for memoirs. I even read A Million Little Pieces after James Frey was deemed a fraud. (He's still working, by the way. No such thing as bad press, right?) I just finished The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan.

Jacki Donaldson read and posted about the book a while back. But I read it after a new friend of mine recommended it. She recently went through the excruciating experience of losing her mother to ALS while living an airplane ride apart. I am currently going through the same thing.

The Middle Place instead involves dealing with cancer, but the themes involving parent-child relationships, distance, disease, and faith are the same. Kelly, who survived her cancer, struggles with all of it, but particularly faith. She is baffled by the Buddhist truth of detachment, "even to people." She still struggles with faith to this day, several years later. I struggle with it a bit as well and I suspect all of us do to some degree. It's the very nature of faith, after all. It's transparent, intangible.

Source

While the area I live in may have made my exposure to this fruit a little slower than it was for most people, it's still a relatively new addition to the regular fruits and veggies on grocery store shelves. In a short span of time the bizarre-looking pomegranate has moved from exotic to mainstream.

The world of nutrition has its trends just like anything else, and pomegranates certainly had their day (or couple of years) in the sun. Pomegranates have been linked to health benefits for erectile dysfunction, cancer risk reduction, lung health, and other issues. And they certainly are good for you... not to mention tasty. (Though pomegranate juice can negatively interact with certain medications (such as some blood pressure meds), so check with your doctor.)

But when a food item becomes trendy, there is a bit of a halo effect; anything that has that item listed on the package automatically seems healthier and better for you. Health by association, if you will.

We may be getting closer to HAL 9000 before too long. Scientists have tested a computer which can accurately predict what you are looking at 90 percent of the time. In the study, the system was able to tell what people were seeing just by watching test subjects' brain patterns.

By exposing people to various stock photography, the computer literally "got to know" the person. After it learned a little about how they reacted when seeing fruit, for example, it could simply watch their brains later and tell the next time that person was seeing fruit.

Even if it was a different photo, it could predict what they were looking at. This could be a building block to construct systems capable of reading people's mind in more advanced ways later on. Wouldn't it be neat to peer into dreams at night? We may be able to do exactly that in the future!

Source

Ah, the food label. There it is, smack dab on your food packages, containers, boxes, and bags, calling your name, begging for your attention, eager for you to read it over and make an informed decision about the nutritional contents that lie within. Seems easy enough. Yet in reality, reading food labels can be quite confusing.

WebMD makes food-label reading a bit more manageable. In this article, experts offer tips on interpreting serving sizes and making sense of these commonly-used label words: calories, calories from fat, nutrients, ingredients, and % daily value. A neat little chart also helps explain label claims. If a label claims a product is fat-free or sugar-free, for example, this means it contains less than 0.5 grams of fat or sugar.

For your own personal lesson in label reading, take a stroll over here.

Source

I'm a self-confessed bookworm. I read a lot. If I'm currently reading a book that really interests me, pretty much every spare moment I have is spent reading it -- including when waiting for the bus, when I'm stuck in traffic and when I'm enjoying my Grande Americano at Starbucks. If I was able to read while I did my daily run on the treadmill, I would but unfortunately, running is not conducive to reading.

BUT, I just read this tip from eDiets and it struck me as ingenious -- why not listen to an audiobook while you're on the treadmill? In fact, you could listen to your favourite book in almost any situation that's not fit for reading -- doing housework, driving and shopping included.

Source

Here's something that I suspect a lot of people do: They put aside a certain amount to time, say an hour or so, for the gym. But of that time, they don't take in to account the time they spend changing, chatting to other members, showering, resting and so on. The amount of time that they actually spend working out is actually pretty short and ineffective. Maybe it's a subconscious thing, but regardless, it's taking precious time away from your all-important workout.

WebMD has created a list of what are the most common time-wasters at the gym. If you've noticed that your time at the gym is easy and fun, check out the list and consider the things that you might be doing to avoid the hard work.

Reading, chatting and resting are big things for me ... what about you?

Source

One hundred years ago, only 3 million people in this country were aged 65 or older. Today, more than 36 million Americans are in this age group, and that number is expected to grow during the next 25 years to over 70 million as baby boomers age.

Regular physical activity, keeping the mind busy, and a healthy diet are key to healthy aging and physical independence. Not only does it keep the body strong, but keeping the body moving protects and improves your emotional and cognitive health and people who mentally challenge themselves, and stay connected with loved ones are less likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, short-term memory loss, and illness in general. Maintaining a healthy diet keeps the body and mind sharper. Avoid high sodium, sugar, and high fat diets. Stay away from smoking or heavy alcohol use.

Regular walking and aerobic exercise is proven to help manage depression, anxiety, and stress and maintains balance, strength, and flexibility, which are key to preventing injuries and falls. Challenging your intellect on a daily basis by reading, learning a new musical instrument or language, doing crossword puzzles, or playing games of strategy or cards with others will keep the brain active and developing and less likely to lose its power and memory. Eating healthy will maintain your weight, as well as keep a handle on developing diabetic, heart, or colon problems.

Source

Sometimes it is all those little distractions during the day that we curse under our breaths. But distraction is a good method to relieve pain. People use this method without even realizing it when they watch TV or listen to the radio to take their minds off of worry or their pain. Distraction may be used to manage mild pain or used with medicine to help manage episodes of severe pain.

Any activity that occupies your attention can be used for distraction. I personally play the guitar to "take my mind off of pain". Distractions could be doing needlework, model building, painting or diving into a good book. Use your hobbies as a way to focus and distract your attention off of pain. Listening to fast music through a headset or earphones keeps your attention on the music and tapping out a rhythm will help hold your attention away from the pain. Playing video games can be a way to keep your focus off of pain. Distraction can also be internal such as singing mentally to yourself, praying, counting or repeating yourself with statements such as "I can cope" or demand the pain away with statements over and over like "pain leave my body."

Of course the best distraction of all to me is to pop in a favorite movie in the DVD player and get focused on the screen.

Source

So if today is becoming a world of both computers and health problems, why not combine the two? Yanko Design has a new concept for a computer mouse that reads the user's heartbeat and other vitals while they work. It tracks the information on the computer itself and can, if it needs to, then send that information to family, caregivers, or even to the hospital at regular intervals for monitoring.

Although I'm sure no doctor would recommend bypassing regular vital checks by a professional for this little mouse gadget, it would be a nice way to stay on top of things and possibly even keep tabs on your stress levels while working. I think my productivity might take a hit, though, since I'd probably get all distracted checking the reading all the time and running little experiments!

Source