Spending so many hours a week as an employee at the Vitamin Shoppe oftentimes gives me the time to read and research supplements and supplement ingredients.
The other day, following the request of a customer, I read about Acai - the popular drink with high antioxidant properties. I read something that made me continue my research about acai later on at home.
I’ve always enjoyed a huge mixed veggie salad. Even more when there are hearts of palm in it. Well, I just found out that one of the most common sources of hearts of palm (or palm hearts) is the acai palm trunk’s core.
I also found out that harvesting heats of palm has quickly and significantly decreased the population of this palm. Reading more on the internet revealed this: 1) Nowadays cultivating the acai palm for its fruit and juice is a lot more profitable business than killing it for the core of the trunk, known as hearts of palm; 2) There is another palm tree, which has been artificially cultivated especially for the harvesting of palm hearts.
Still, not knowing where the heats of palm are coming from is what worries me some. Being the eco conscious person that I am, I wouldn’t want to think of myself, even for a minute, as of a person, who contributes to the destruction, rather than the restoration of the earth’s eco systems.
So, next time I decide to enjoy a salad I will certainly make sure to find out how the common delicates was derived. If this is not possible, I will order a salad with no hearts of palm.
In case you don’t know about acai - it is one of the few fruits with extremely high ORAC value. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity. It is a fruit (and fruit juice) with what we know more as very, very high antioxidant properties.
British researchers found that boiling cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower) destroys the glucosinolates, contained in them. In the body glucosinolates are converted to isothiocyanates - fighting compounds.
Their study showed that stir-frying, microwaving for up to 3 min or steaming for up to 20 min didn’t show significant reduction in the amount of glucosinolates.
So, if you are concerned about containing the health important nutrients in your veggies, make sure you avoid boiling as a method of cooking.
I was reading recently my fitness magazine and a stumbled upon a little not, mentioning several websites, each of them providing some type of cool service for active people, who travel a lot.
One of them was the google’s gmap pedometer.
I have to admit that it took me a few minutes to figure out how to work with this cool free tool. I had to go to the author’s notes in the forums, related to the gmap pedometer.
I played with it for a while and really came to love it. So, I decided to put together a little video tutorial, explaining how to work with the pedometer.
Basically the gmap pedometer is a tool, based on Google’s regular or satelite maps, which allows you to build a running route anywhere in the US, as well as in several other coutriens.
It is very convenient if you want to know exactly how long is your running route, also how many calories approximately you burn running this route. It is extremely convenient for active individuals, who travel a lot. It let’s them find a route for jogging before their trip has even started!
Like I said, this tool is really, really cool. Go ahead and click on the Play button to watch the video. Wait a few seconds for the video to begin…
