The Energizing Pita Wrap!

Today I will reveal one of my very first 'recipes' to the public. It's a pita wrap that will provide all the energy that you need for a great workout. Did I make a mess in the kitchen? You better believe it... but was it worth it?

First, let's get a few things out of the way. This wrap has a good combination of carbohydrates which will provide lasting energy for hours. It can be used by athletes before a big game, a big competition or a big workout in the gym. Eat it 30 minutes prior to any physical activity.

It's also pretty portable so it's a great breakfast wrap on the go!

Another thing you will notice is the intentional exclusion of PROTEIN. DO NOT put meat or take any source of protein with this wrap, you will be asking for a problematic digestion cycle. The reason for this is simple, this wrap has avocados which INHIBITS the digestion of protein... which means it will stay in your stomach for a while.

Trust me, I LOVE meat, but that doesn't mean it has to be included in every meal, this wrap tastes awesome on its own.

Okay enough talk, let's get on with it!

Cooking and Preparing time: 20 mins, serves 1
Ingredients:

" 1 cup broccoli
" ½ cup mushrooms (chopped)
" 2 tablespoons carrot (finely chopped)
" 2 tablespoons squash (finely chopped)
" 2 tablespoons red peppers (finely chopped)
" ½ onions
" 1 whole wheat pita
" Some mayo
" 3 thin slices of pickle
" ½ cup lettuce... romaine NOT iceberg (finely shredded)
" 2 slices avocado

PREPARE THE VEGETABLES:

Cut the broccoli into thin lengths and use only the top portion (the floret) and put all the vegetables (minus the avocado) into a work or pan. Add 10ml of water, and a hint of your favourite spices and 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Cook vegetables till they are slightly tender. BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVER COOK YOUR VEGETABLES... OR THEY WILL LOSE THEIR HEALTH PROPERTIES.

Once they are ready, turn off the heat source and add some bbq sauce over the vegetables and mix them until the sauce is spread evenly.

PREPARE YOUR PITA:

Heat your pita on a pan, a little bit on both sides. Make sure it's still soft and warm, NOT crisp. Then place it on a sheet of plastic wrap (or wax sheet I think its called) and cut a sliver so that the pocket opens up easily. Now spread a thin layer of mayo (don't go overboard with this please) and place all your vegetables in the center, forming a line.

Wrap up your pita tightly and take a bite. Mmm...

FOR US CARNIVORES:

If you would like to eat meat, you can do so after an hour of having the wrap. Again, I cannot stress enough, do not eat meat with this wrap... you will feel the complete opposite of an energy boost. Meat takes hours and hours to digest, its carbohydrates that give you energy.

If you would like more information on PROPER food combinations and how you can use simple techniques to come up with energizing food combinations, check out the website below.

Basics of Histograms

Histograms are used very often in public health to show the distributions of your independent and dependent variables.  Although the basic command for histograms (hist()) in R is simple, getting your histogram to look exactly like you want takes getting to know a few options of the plot.  Here I present ways to customize your histogram for your needs.

First, I want to point out that ggplot2 is a package in R that does some amazing graphics, including histograms.  I will do a post on ggplot2 in the coming year.   However, the hist() function in base R is really easy and fast, and does the job for most of your histogram-ing needs. However, if you want to do complicated histograms, I would recommend reading up on ggplot2.

Okay so for our purposes today, instead of importing data, I'll create some normally distributed data myself. In R, you can generate normal data this way using the rnorm() function:

BMI<-rnorm(n=1000, m=24.2, sd=2.2) 

So now we have some BMI data, and the basic histogram plot that comes out of R looks like this:

hist(BMI)

Which is actually pretty nice.  There are a number of things that R does by default in creating this histogram, and I think it's useful to print out that information to understand the parameters of this histogram.  You can do this by saving the histogram as an object and then printing it like this:

histinfo<-hist(BMI)
histinfo

And you get the output below:

This is helpful because you can see how R has decided to break up your data by default. It shows the breaks, which are the cutoff points for the bins. It shows the counts, intensity/density for each bin (same thing but two different names for R version compatibility), the midpoints of each bin, and then the name of the variable, whether the bins are equidistant, and the class of the object. You can of course take any one of these outputs by itself, i.e.  histinfo$counts would give you just the vector of counts.

Now we can manipulate this information to customize our plot.

1. Number of bins

R chooses how to bin your data for you by default using an algorithm, but if you want coarser or finer groups, there are a number of ways to do this. We can see that right now from the output above that the breaks go from 17 to 32 by 1.  You can use the breaks() option to change this in a number of ways.  An easy way is just to give it one number that gives the number of cells for the histogram:


hist(BMI, breaks=20, main="Breaks=20")
hist(BMI, breaks=5, main="Breaks=5")

The bins don't correspond to exactly the number you put in, because of the way R runs its algorithm to break up the data but it gives you generally what you want. If you want more control over exactly the breakpoints between bins, you can be more precise with the breaks() option and give it a vector of breakpoints, like this:

hist(BMI, breaks=c(17,20,23,26,29,32), main="Breaks is vector of breakpoints")

This dictates exactly the start and end point of each bin.  Of course, you could give the breaks vector as a sequence like this to cut down on the messiness of the code:

hist(BMI, breaks=seq(17,32,by=3), main="Breaks is vector of breakpoints")

Note that when giving breakpoints, the default for R is that the histogram cells are right-closed (left open) intervals of the form (a,b]. You can change this with the right=FALSE option, which would change the intervals to be of the form [a,b).  This is important if you have a lot of points exactly at the breakpoint.


2. Frequency vs Density 

Often, we are more interested in density than frequency, since frequency is relative to your sample size. Instead of counting the number of datapoints per bin, R can give the probability densities using the freq=FALSE option:


hist(BMI, freq=FALSE, main="Density plot")

Notice the y-axis now.  If the breaks are equidistant, with difference between breaks=1, then the height of each rectangle is proportional to the number of points falling into the cell, and thus the sum of the probability densities adds up to 1.  Here I specify plot=FALSE because I just want the histogram output, not the plot, and show how the sum of all of the densities is 1:

However, if you choose to make bins that are not all separated by 1 (like breaks=c(17,25,26, 32) or something like that), then the plot still has an area of 1, but the area of the rectangles is the fraction of data points falling into the cells. The densities are calculated like this as counts/(n*diff(breaks).  Thus, this adds up to 1 if add up the areas of the rectangles, i.e. you multiply each density by the difference in the breaks like this:

3. Plot aesthetics 

Finally, we can make the histogram better looking by adjusting the x-axis, y-axis, axis labels, title, and color like this:


hist(BMI, freq=FALSE, xlab="Body Mass Index", main="Distribution of Body Mass Index", col="lightgreen", xlim=c(15,35),  ylim=c(0, .20))

Here along with our frequency option, I changed the x-axis label, changed the main title, made the color light green, and provided limits for both the x-axis and y-axis.  Note that defining the look of you axis using xlim() will not have any impact on the bins - this option is only for the aesthetics of the plot itself.

Finally, I can add a nice normal distribution curve to this plot using the curve() function, in which I specify a normal density function with mean and standard deviation that is equal to the mean and standard deviation of my data, and I add this to my previous plot with a dark blue color and a line width of 2. You can play around with these options to get the kind of line you want:

curve(dnorm(x, mean=mean(BMI), sd=sd(BMI)), add=TRUE, col="darkblue", lwd=2) 

And we get this!

High Fiber Bread Delicious and Nutritious

Not All Loaves Are High Fiber Breads

As food has become more and more processed and mass-produced, bread has become less nutritious. Whereas "rustic" bread is made with whole grains which are comprised of complex carbohydrates, the advent of "white bread" - clearly the most popular type of bread eaten in America today - has removed all of the vitamins and nutrients from the equation, since white bread is made only with refined flour. This refined flour also lacks the necessary fiber needed for people to keep their blood sugar and digestive system properly regulated.

Additionally, it isn't only what white bread lacks, but also what it contains that can be dangerous to your health. Mass production of these breads often requires the use of added hydrogenated fats that can lead to heart disease. This, combined with other additives and preservatives, make white bread healthy and unnatural.

The good news is that rustic, high fiber breads have never disappeared from the local grocery store or bakery, and now the rising popularity of eating whole grain foods is bringing high fiber bread back into the public eye. Browse the bakery section of your local supermarket or bakery and you'll find plenty of high fiber options alongside white breads. Any bread or rolls labeled as "wheat," "rye," "multi-grain," or "pumpernickel" indicate the use of unrefined flour of some sort. Also, some white breads will also be labeled as "whole grain." These white breads have been baked using white flour that still contains some remnant of the grain itself, or they have nutrients added into the flour mixture.

In an effort to keep up with this high Fiber Diet, mass-produced white bread manufacturers have begun to offer high fiber alternatives to their normal line of bread products. While these breads do have an improved fiber content, many of them still contain high levels of preservatives and chemicals, unlike freshly baked high fiber bread. Also, high fiber breads are typically of a much different consistency, with thicker crusts than processed white bread.

Whether you choose to purchase high fiber breads from a bakery or opt for a high fiber white bread, it is advisable to make this switch in your daily diet. Rather than turning to sugar in your bloodstream, high fiber, multi-grain breads will control your blood sugar and make you feel more energetic throughout the day.

5 "Healthy Foods" That Create Fat - Avoid These and Lose Weight Fast

It never ceases to amaze me, all of the "hype marketing," that food companies put out there and all of the misinformation that you get on TV and in magazines and articles etc.

They really just want you to buy their food, they don't care if it's going to make you gain weight or lose weight they just want your money.

Now whether this is a good thing or bad thing that's completely up to you to decide, but I thought that you might want to know what to look out for and what to avoid if you're trying to lose weight. So I've compiled a list of the top 5 foods that are labeled healthy but really you want to avoid or at least only eat in limited quantities.

The foods listed below could be the difference between you losing weight or gaining weight at a rapid pace.

Okay so on to the list.

Offender #1: Peanut butter

Many people think that peanut butter is a "wonder food" and that it's very healthy, especially if you get the organic or natural peanut butter. I won't argue with the health benefits of peanut butter, it is a good fat and it does have some protein, but people don't realize that peanut butter has huge amount of calories and the calories are completely disproportionate to the amount of protein that peanut butter actually has.

For example, only one cup of smooth peanut butter has 1,571 calories in it, that's about half a pound of pure body fat! And for those 1,571 calories you'll only be getting 65 g of protein. Compare that with the same amount of protein from a chicken breast, which would be around 300 calories.

So you might want to rethink how much peanut butter you're eating in a day and if you're mysteriously gaining weight you might want to cut it out completely.

Offender #2: Salads

How many times have you heard that salads are great for you when trying to lose weight? Well, when done right this can be true, however if you're getting a salad at a restaurant, or at the store, you might want to check and see the nutritional information on that salad because most likely it has a ton of fat in it from the dressing, cheese and other random tidbits they put in there.

I've seen salads that are in excess of 1,000 calories per serving, and that can do some serious damage to your weight loss program.

Offender #3: Extra virgin olive oil

This offender has gotten a lot of publicity lately, many people think that extra virgin olive oil is the "holy grail" of good fats, and that you should use it in cooking almost in any opportunity that you get. Would it surprise you to know that 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil has an average of 1,910 calories? And one tablespoon has about 120 calories.

That means for about two tablespoons of olive oil you can do just about as much damage as eating a serving of some brands of ice cream.

Also extra virgin olive oil oxidizes much quicker under high heat when cooking than normal olive oil. Most cooks would tell you to use olive oil rather than extra virgin olive oil when cooking under high heat. But even olive oil won't save you from the calories, because olive oil is just about the same as extra virgin olive oil in regard to calories.

Offender #4: Juice

Most people think that juice is really good for them, especially juices like orange juice, grapefruit juice, and apple juice.

From a weight loss perspective drinking 12 ounces of raw orange juice can actually be worse than drinking a soda. Why? because for 12 ounces of raw orange juice you're looking at around 155 calories and an average soda is around 120 to 130 calories.

Also orange juice, grapefruit juice, apple juice, basically any juice is pure sugar and it's going to react just about the same way as any sugar will react in your body. So drinking a Coke or a glass of orange juice is going to do about the same damage to your weight loss results.

Also take a look at a lot of the juice that you see on the shelf. Most of them are actually blends of other juices, and most have apple juice as the primary ingredient, even if it's labeled as something like "cranberry juice." Also note that lot of juices include a ton of refined sugar as well.

Be very careful with juices, my personal recommendation is, if you're going to drink juice, try adding just a few ounces of juice in your cup and then fill up the rest with water or sparkling water to make it more interesting. That will keep the calories way down, and still retain a lot of the flavor.

Offender #5: Whole wheat

It seems like there's a big push in the marketing world right now to sell products by labeling them as whole wheat. On the grocery shelfs we see whole wheat flour, whole wheat bread, whole wheat cereal, etc.

I agree that whole wheat is better for you than refined wheat from a nutritional standpoint, when it comes to vitamins and minerals, and it can digest a bit slower in your system which makes your body have less of an insulin spike, and that can be good for keeping your blood sugar levels even.

But when it comes to weight loss, whole wheat and refined wheat, are pretty much the same. Often whole wheat actually has more calories than the refined wheat. So ultimately, at the end of the day, pay attention to the calories on the back of the box or the package. Because even if it's whole wheat it's not going to specifically help you with your weight loss if you are going over your calorie limit for the day.

One thing to especially look out for are whole wheat bagels. Whole wheat bagels (or bagels and general) can pack from 600-800 calories per bagel so be very careful and wary of those.

Maine CDC Public Health Update 12/13/12

Pertussis (whooping cough)

Thirty cases of pertussis (whooping cough) have been reported in children younger than 1 year old in Maine so far this year. Maine CDC has issued new clinical guidance for providers treating infant pertussis. It is available on the Maine CDC website.

In total, more than 660 cases of pertussis have been reported in Maine this year, with the majority in children ages 7 to 19. Reported cases appear to be on a downward trend.

Weekly updates on pertussis in Maine are posted to www.mainepublichealth.gov on Thursdays.

DTaP vaccine is recommended for all infants and children. Tdap vaccine is recommended for all preteens, teens, and adults.

For more information, visit http://go.usa.gov/dCO


Recent health alerts

• Group A Strep: Maine CDC is investigating a cluster of invasive Group A Streptococcal (GAS) infections in patients who have reported a history of injecting bath salts. Four cases of invasive GAS have been reported among persons aged 23-37 years, two of which resulted in Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome (STSS). All cases reported injecting bath salts, all required hospitalization, one required intensive care, and one had necrotizing fasciitis. All four cases are from Aroostook and Penobscot counties. The health alert is at: http://go.usa.gov/gPfj

• Gonorrhea: Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacterium. Gonococcal infection is reportable to Maine CDC within 48 hours of recognition or strong suspicion of disease. In men, common symptoms include burning sensation when urinating or a white, yellow or green penile discharge. In women, symptoms are uncommon, but may include painful or burning sensation when urinating or increased vaginal discharge. Gonorrhea is a major cause of serious reproductive complications in females. Case reports of gonorrhea in Maine have been increasing in recent years from 96 cases in 2008 to 272 cases in 2011. The health alert is available at: http://go.usa.gov/gPf5

Influenza

Maine CDC reported regional flu activity for the week ending Dec. 8. Weekly updates are available online:

• for Maine: http://go.usa.gov/NoK
• for the US: http://go.usa.gov/ITB
• for the world: http://go.usa.gov/ITK

Maine CDC reminds everyone to take everyday preventive measures against the flu: 

• Wash your hands frequently
• Cough and sneeze into your elbow or shoulder
• Stay home when you feel sick
• Get vaccinated – find locations at www.flu.gov

America's Health Rankings

Maine ranked ninth overall (up from tenth last year) in the recently released America’s Health Rankings by the United Health Foundation.

These rankings are used to stimulate action by individuals, elected officials, medical professionals, public health professionals, employers, educators and communities to improve the health of the population of the U.S.

For more information, visit http://www.americashealthrankings.org/ME


HIV and hepatitis screenings

Recently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued draft recommendations pertaining to HIV and viral hepatitis screening and is inviting public comments on both.


The Task Force is an independent group of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that works to improve the health of all Americans by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services.

The draft recommendation for HIV screening applies to all people aged 15 to 65 and all pregnant women. Public comments can be submitted online until December 17.

Public comments on the draft recommendations for screening adults for hepatitis C virus infection can be submitted online until December 24.

For more information and to submit comments, go to http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/index.html

Learning Curves: Iconic Body Image

Over the centuries the lives and interests of women have changed beyond all recognition - generally, most would agree, for the better. It's unthinkable to modern women that our predecessors were denied the right to inherit, to vote, and in so many other ways to be considered equal to men. Despite our striving for that equality, however, there is one way in which we definitely still prefer to be very different from men: that is our body shape!

Amazingly our perception of the perfect female body image and shape has never really changed, and throughout history we have maintained a desire for the hour-glass figure. In fact, we have gone to great lengths to achieve it - by fair means or fake! Over the years we have corseted our waistlines to the point of asphyxiation, enhanced our bottoms with bustles and crinolines, and boosted our bust-lines with padded bras. Think of iconic beautiful women and the chances are they share the same iconic body image: from Marilyn Monroe to our very own Nigella Lawson - it's the curves that count.

And it seems our ideas are not about to change any time soon: these days increasing numbers of us turn to plastic surgery to achieve this ideal body-image. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery the quest for the hour-glass figure is still an international phenomenon: the Brazilians opt for buttock enhancements for bootyliciousness (think J-lo, Beyonce), while breast implants and tummy tucks are both in the top 5 procedures worldwide. Frustratingly, where our mothers and grandmothers seemed to naturally acquire a waistline, we are increasingly developing a more masculine body shape - the muffin-top is now our equivalent of the male beer-belly and it's one area we really don't need equality! In fact, in a recent comedy sketch comedienne Sarah Milican referred the 'muffin-top' as a 'cake-shelf' so who knows where it end!

So just what is going on? Well, the muffin-top is the consequence of thirty or so years of mistaken beliefs about the low-fat diet. It's almost unbelievable that avoiding dietary fat leads to us accumulating excess body fat - especially around our middles - yet that is exactly what nutritional science has now revealed.

The dangers of the low-fat solution are now absolutely evident. In 2012, The Harvard School of Public Health branded the low-fat diet more dangerous than saturated fat, linking it with excessive and hard to shift abdominal fat and the tell tale shape linked with serious illnesses including diabetes and heart disease.

Good Fat Vs Bad Fat

Oh! December, a busy month - lots of shopping, parties and more, as we usher in the holidays that come along with the festivals. It is the season of annual holidays with a lot of 'pomp n show'. It is a busy time with a lot of arrangements to be made and gifts to be purchased - celebrating the festival season at home with family/ a get-together with friends/ a holiday getaway just for 'you & your' loved ones. Christmas and New Year are two festivals celebrated all over the globe with a zeal and fervor.

Right dude! But you need to make the right choices as well. With the mouth-watering gourmet - sweets, cakes, pastries and a gamut of other delicacies. Do you have a choice other than gorging yourself? This is where your intellect comes in - how judicial are your choices with respect to your health. Read further to learn about good fats, bad fats & nerve racking and back breaking.

Good Fats Vs Bad Fats

Dietary fats add a good flavor and taste when added to foods. One gram of fat gives 9Kcals of energy, nearly double the amount of energy provided by either carbohydrates or proteins. Apart from giving the richness of taste and fullness of energy, fats improve the texture of food products like the puffiness and flakiness of baked products. As the serving size of fat increases so does the girth around the waist. Each kilogram gain in body weight is proportionate to the increased risk of obesity, heart disorders, diabetes and other life style complications.

Butter, ghee, margarine, cooking oils and lard are called visible fats. Invisible fats are those present in meat, milk, egg yolk, cheese, pastries, cream and so on. It is these invisible fats that bring about more harm as they are difficult to estimate. The fats considered bad are - saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated fats are present in almost all fatty foods - egg yolks, whole milk, butter, dairy products, meat, poultry, coconut, chocolate and cream. All fast foods and junk foods like pizzas, burgers, and ice creams to name a few are all highly laden with saturated fats. Hydrogenated or trans fats are produced by converting vegetable oils into solid fats at room temperature. It is done for commercial purposes like margarine. Both saturated and trans fats have a higher potential risk of heart attacks. One should try to cut down on these for a heart-healthy life.

Good fats are the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats known for their heart-healthy properties. Cooking oils from Soybean, safflower, sunflower, sesame, and corn, soybeans, soft margarine, tofu and fish are examples of polyunsaturated fats or PUFA. Omega-3 fatty acids present in PUFA have a stellar reputation for lowering the risk of heart attacks. These are mostly found in fish and fish oils. Foods containing monounsaturated fats include olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, nuts, avocados and sardines.

Bad fats increase the LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) in the body whereas good fats enhance good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol). HDL's carry cholesterol away from the cells to the liver for excretion whereas LDL's help deposit cholesterol in the cells, thereby increasing the chances of plaque formation (fatty deposits) and consequent heart disorders.