For those who don’t know, there are actually foods out there that will help treat sunburn. This is awesome news since most sunscreens contain toxic ingredients and cause damage to the body. Next time your out soaking up the UV’s, try consuming some of these foods to protect your skin, and even for treating skin that has already been scorched.

Carrots

Plants, just like people, also need protection from the sun. The protecting-compounds found in plants also protect people if they are consumed. An example is carotenoids found in carrots and dark leafy greens. Eat some carrots or kale during your next beach vacation.

Watermelon

Another carotenoid is lycopene, a compound found in watermelons and tomatoes which is responsible for their red color. In one study, participants consumed 2 1/2 tablespoons of tomato paste or 1 2/3 cups of carrot juice daily for 10-12 weeks. After being exposed to UV light, the conductors of the study found that they had almost 50% less skin reddening than people who didn’t consume the tomato paste or carrot juice.

Cucumber

Cucumbers contain a skin-soothing vitamin called vitamin c. Try cutting a cucumber in half and topically rubbing it on burnt skin. Feel the pain subside as your skin takes in the vitamin c.

Although summer is slowly reaching it’s end, this information will prove to be valuable for every single summer to come. Try it, and let us know of your success.

Sources:

The Huffington Post

It’s hard to eat just one potato chip, and a new study may explain why.

Fatty foods like chips and fries trigger the body to produce chemicals much like those found in marijuana, researchers report today (July 4) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). These chemicals, called “endocannabinoids,” are part of a cycle that keeps you coming back for just one more bite of cheese fries, the study found.

“This is the first demonstration that endocannabinoid signaling in the gut plays an important role in regulating fat intake,” study researcher Daniele Piomelli, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement.

Homemade marijuana chemicals

The study found that fat in the gut triggers the release of endocannabinoids in the brain, but the gray stuff between your ears isn’t the only organ that makes natural marijuana-like chemicals. Human skin also makes the stuff. Skin cannabinoids may play the same role for us as they do for pot plants: Oily protection from the wind and sun.

Endocannabinoids are also known to influence appetite and the sense of taste, according to a 2009 study in PNAS, which explains the munchies people get when they smoke marijuana.

In the new study, Piomelli and her colleagues fitted rats with tubes that would drain the contents of their stomachs as they ate or drank. These stomach tubes allowed the researchers to tell whether fat was acting on the tongue, in which case they would see an endocannabinoid release even with the tubes implanted, or in the gut, in which case they wouldn’t see the effect.

The rats got to sip on a health shake (vanilla Ensure), a sugar solution, a protein-rich liquid called peptone, or a high-fat beverage made of corn oil. Then researchers anesthetized and dissected the rats, rapidly freezing their organs for analysis.

For the love of fat

Tasting sugars and proteins didn’t affect the release of the body’s natural marijuana chemicals, the researchers found. But supping on fat did. The results showed that fat on the tongue triggers a signal to the brain, which then relays a message down to the gut via a nerve bundle called the vagus nerve. This message commands the production of endocannabinoids in the gut, which in turn drives a cascade of other signals all pushing the same message: Eat, eat, eat!

This message would have been helpful in the evolutionary history of mammals, Piomelli said. Fats are crucial to survival, and they were once hard to come by in the mammalian diet. But in today’s world, where a convenience store full of junk food sits on every corner, our evolutionary love of fat easily backfires.

The findings suggest that by blocking the reception of endocannabinoid signals, medical researchers might be able to break the cycle that drives people to overeat fatty food. Blocking endocannabinoid receptors in the brain can cause anxiety and depression, Piomelli said, but a drug designed to target the gut might not trigger those negative side effects.

When it comes to keeping your weight down, a new study by Harvard researchers suggests that the quality of your food matters more than its calorie count.

Intuitively, we know that gorging on burgers and French fries and slurping down soda leads to more weight gain than eating fresh fruits, veggies and brown rice. But in the most comprehensive and detailed study of its kind, researchers have figured out exactly how much weight gain is associated with the consumption of certain foods.

The worst offenders were potato chips, which led to more weight gain per serving than any other food, the study found. The best nosh for your waistline? Surprisingly, yogurt.

It matters, of course, how many total calories you take in each day, but the authors say the age-old advice simply to “eat less and exercise more” may be naïve. To control weight over the long term — adults gain about a pound a year on average — the study suggests that people benefit more by focusing on eating right, rather than less.

“For diet, conventional wisdom often recommends ‘everything in moderation,’ with a focus only on total calories consumed,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and lead author of the study. “Our results demonstrate that the quality of the diet — the types of food and beverages that one consumes — is strongly linked to weight gain.”

For each extra serving of potato chips eaten in a day, for instance, people gained 1.69 lbs. every four years. Among the other extra-fattening foods the study highlighted: potatoes. Baked, boiled, mashed or French fried, each extra serving of potatoes was associated with an average 1.28-lb. weight gain (looked at separately, French fries were particularly unhealthy, linked with more than 3 lbs. of gain alone). Rounding out the top five most fattening foods were sugar-sweetened beverages, red meat and processed red meat, each associated with about 1 lb. of weight gain every four years.

So why would potatoes be particularly fattening? It’s not clear. Maybe because they’re generally eaten in large quantities, Mozaffarian says, or possibly because, as some previous research has shown, they are the type of food that causes big spikes in blood sugar and insulin, which tends to make people hungrier and overeat at their next meal. Other starches and refined carbohydrates like white bread, white rice, low-fiber breakfast cereal, candy and desserts may affect the body the same way, he says. (On average, the study showed that foods that fell into the “refined grains” and “sweets and desserts” categories were associated with just under a half-pound of weight gain.)

The findings are based on data from three large, long-term government-funded trials looking at diet, lifestyle and health in adults: the Nurses’ Health Study, which has tracked 121,701 women since 1976; the Nurses’ Health Study II, which has followed 116,686 women since 1989; and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which includes 51,529 men enrolled in 1986. The new analysis involves 20 years of data on 120,877 men and women from these three cohorts. Researchers tracked changes in participants’ eating and lifestyle habits — and weight — every four years.

Overall, the participants gained 3.35 lbs., or 2.4% of their body weight, in each four-year interval. Over the 20 years of follow up, that amounted to a nearly 17-lb. hike on the scale.

The data also showed that eating specific high-quality foods was linked with less weight gain over time. In fact, the more daily servings people ate of fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains and yogurt, the less weight they gained. The yogurt finding — each extra daily serving prevented 0.82 lbs. of weight gain — was unexpected, Mozaffarian says: “This clearly deserves further attention to determine if this is cause-and-effect and, if so, why.”

While diet was most strongly associated with weight gain, lifestyle behaviors mattered too. Exercise was a big one; those who most increased the amount they exercised gained 1.76 fewer pounds than those whose exercise patterns changed the least. Sleep was also a factor: people who slept less than six hours, or more than eight hours, a night were more likely to gain more weight. And alcohol appeared to be an effective fattener, with each additional drink per day associated with 0.41 lb. of weight gain every four years.

Like several other previous studies, the Harvard research found an association between watching TV and ballooning weight. “TV watching has stronger links to weight gain than other sedentary activities,” says Mozaffarian, likely because it encourages snacking both while watching and afterward, due to the influence of food commercials. “Turning off the TV is therefore very important — in particular, to improve diet. If TV must be watched, then it should be done without any eating and without any food or beverage advertising.”

The study found that while individual food choices had only modest effects on weight, diet and lifestyle changes in aggregate accounted for large differences over the long term: people who made the fewest dietary changes gained nearly 4 lbs. more every four years than those who made the most such changes. “Small dietary and other lifestyle changes can together make a big difference — for bad or good,” says Mozaffarian. “That makes it very easy to gradually gain weight unintentionally, but also means that a little bit of attention to a handful of dietary and other lifestyle changes can prevent this.”

The point is that you should be thinking about your diet and lifestyle habits in a comprehensive way. Healthy changes don’t have to be big, but they should be many. It would be wrongheaded to assume that simply cutting out potato chips, and doing nothing else, will magically make you thin — though it’s a good start.

On the potato chip finding, Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University and author of Food Politics, commented that the weight gain associated with chips and potatoes didn’t track very closely with what we know about how the typical American eats. For instance, how is it that potatoes were associated with more weight gain than desserts like cakes, cookies and pies, which are the leading source of calories in the average diet?

She says it may have less to do with chips per se, and more to do with the fact that people who eat potato chips may eat more calories and more junk overall; conversely, people who eat foods like fruit and yogurt are probably more health-conscious. “I think it’s likely that potato chips and French fries are markers for junk food diets, and yogurt is a marker for healthy diets,” says Nestle.

The study has some limitations, including that it relied on self-reports of portion size and used different serving sizes between foods. It also included a pretty homogeneous population: white, educated adults.

But, in general, Nestle says, the findings echo nutrition experts’ advice for eating well. “The study has a clear and consistent message: if you want to gain weight, eat junk foods and drink sodas. If you want to maintain a healthy weight, eat healthy foods. This means following basic dietary recommendations and choosing relatively unprocessed foods — vegetables, meat, dairy, grains, fruits. And don’t drink too much alcohol.

“It’s not that calories don’t count; indeed they do. But it’s a lot easier to control calories by eating healthfully and avoiding junk foods and sodas than it is to delude yourself into thinking you can count them accurately,” she says.

The study appears in Thursday’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

To lose weight, eat less, right? Not always. New research shows that eating more of certain foods can stave off hunger pangs and control calories.

The foods, which include cayenne pepper and puréed vegetables, are natural appetite suppressants. As diet pills fall into increasing disrepute — since Abbott Laboratories withdrew its drug Meridia last year, the Food and Drug Administration has rejected three new diet drugs in recent months — these foods offer a welcome option to people struggling with their weight.

For the research, published in the journal Physiology & Behavior, scientists at Purdue studied the effect of just half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper on a group of 25 diners.

While hot red pepper has been studied before as an appetite suppressant, this study was notable in that it compared people who liked spicy food with those who did not. At various times, diners were given a bowl of tomato soup laced with a half teaspoon of pepper, plain tomato soup, or plain tomato soup with a supplement of red pepper in pill form.

The effect was greater among diners who didn’t regularly consume spicy meals. Among that group, adding red pepper to the soup was associated with eating an average of 60 fewer calories at the next meal compared with when they ate plain soup. For both groups who ate red pepper in food, the spice also appeared to increase the metabolism and cause the body to burn an extra 10 calories on its own.

“We found that when individuals consumed the red pepper in the soup rather than the supplement, they burned more calories,” said Mary-Jon Ludy, who conducted the research as a student at Purdue and will join the faculty of Bowling Green State University. “There is something special about experiencing the burn from the red pepper.”

The researchers were careful not to make too much of their findings. The effects of the cayenne pepper were real but modest, they said, adding that dieters may become desensitized to the effect of red pepper as they grow accustomed to eating spicy foods.

“We’re not at all proposing that this is any miracle cure for obesity,” said the senior author, Richard D. Mattes, a professor of food and nutrition at Purdue. “This is a small change with a small effect that is achievable by making just a small change in the diet. It goes in the right direction.”

Dieters may get better results by adding puréed vegetables to some of their favorite dishes, according to a February report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In that study, researchers from Penn State gave 20 men and 21 women casseroles made with varying amounts of purée — a strategy popularized by the cookbook author Jessica Seinfeld, who has encouraged parents to sneak vegetables into foods like spaghetti.

But in the Penn State study, the goal wasn’t to trick people into eating vegetables. Adding the purée bulked up the dish and resulted in fewer calories per serving.

In a macaroni and cheese recipe developed by the researchers, for instance, the cheese sauce is made with skim milk, reduced-fat cheese and one cup each of puréed cauliflower and puréed summer squash.

The diners were fed the casseroles during different visits. They ate pretty much the same amount of food during each visit and reported no differences in flavor or enjoyment. But when they were served the casseroles made with puréed vegetables, they ate 200 to 350 fewer calories a meal.

“We’ve been able to change recipes a lot, even baked goods, and we’ve been doing it for preschool kids and adults,” said Barbara Rolls, director of Penn State’s laboratory for the study of human ingestive behavior. “We had a huge effect on energy intake. We’re adding cups of veggies to recipes and people don’t even notice.”

Other research by Dr. Rolls, author of the popular diet series “Volumetrics,” has shown that eating soup or salads before a meal can also curb the appetite and result in eating fewer calories over all.

But the stealth-vegetable approach allows diners to eat the same amount of favorite foods without ingesting as many calories.

While the best option is to purée vegetables and add them to home-cooked meals, Dr. Rolls said she hoped the food industry would respond by offering more convenient canned and frozen vegetable purées and more foods bulked up with vegetables.

She said that especially when serving the foods to young children, it’s important to continue offering whole vegetables on the side so children develop a taste for vegetables. Adding purée to reduce the calorie content works well with spicy dishes, she said.

“We offered a Tex-Mex casserole, and we could get away with adding the vegetables much more easily,” she said. “Once you put in those spicy flavors, they mask other changes in calorie density and vegetable content. The people were totally unaware we were adding lots and lots of veggies.”

Canned fruits and vegetables have long been a staple of the American kitchen, but there is something far more devious inside than high levels of sodium or even the artificial preservatives that come along with easy preparation.

There’s also BPA. A recent study done by Consumer Reports magazine found that almost all of the canned vegetables, tuna, juice and soups that they tested contained some level of BPA.

BPA, or Bisphenol A, is a plastic chemical and organic compound used to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, including the liner on most canned foods.

BPA is an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen, and both Canada and the European Union have banned its use in baby bottles. Some think that the widespread use of BPA may be contributing to the current obesity epidemic as well as rising levels of ADHD, and studies from Yale School of Medicine have proven it to cause “adverse neurological effects.” Other research has linked BPA to the early onset of puberty, reproductive abnormalities, a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

So why are we putting BPA in tomato soup?

And plastic water bottles? BABY bottles? Some might say it’s because the United States government cares more about the wallets of big business than the health of its citizens. Other might accuse manufacturers of pure laziness. Whatever it is, you can’t afford to expose your body and your family to these chemicals. Pregnant women, children and infants are most at risk for BPAs nasty side effects, so take action now to minimize your exposure to these dangerous chemicals and get BPA out of your life.

Here’s how:

1. Look on the bottom of your favorite plastic bottle or baby bottle. Is there a #7? This item probably contains BPA. #3 is also likely to contain BPA. Which numbers are safest? #1, #2 and #4 (polyethylene plastic) and #5 (polypropylene plastic).

2. Replace your BPA-laden plastics with glass, ceramics or metal. As more consumers are waking up to the scary implications of BPA research, more manufacturers are meeting the demand for BPA-free plastic items. When you shop for new items, look for stickers and labeling that say “BPA-free,” or just choose metal instead.

3. Toss your #7 plastics into the recycling bin. Don’t save them to use as watering cans or donate them to charity – you don’t need to be handling these plastics and neither does anyone else.

4. Can’t bear to toss your favorite BPA-containing water bottle from college? At least keep it away from sources of heat like the microwave or dishwasher, and never wash it with bleach.

5. Don’t take a receipt – or don’t handle it when you do. That powdery feeling of receipt paper comes from BPA!

6. Purchase vegetables that come in glass jars or packaging other than metal cans, and buy only canned food (including baby formula) that is labeled “BPA-free.” This especially applies for highly acidic foods, like tomatoes, which help to leech the BPA from the can lining into your food.

As far as food manufacturers go, ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s is actually pretty progressive. The company combats climate change through various campaigns, supports family farmers, and sources the paper for its containers from sustainably managed forests.

Plus, Phish Food is hands down the most delicious ice cream ever. But the company’s ice cream is not made from “all-natural” ingredients, and both Ben and Jerry finally stopped claiming that it is.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) recently asked Ben & Jerry’s to remove the “all natural” stamp from its ice cream containers, claiming that ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, alkalized cocoa, and hydrogenated oil are far from natural. These ingredients are, in fact, quite heavily processed. Ben & Jerry’s heeded CSPI’s demands and agreed to remove the “all natural” label from its ice cream containers.

Ben & Jerry’s may be the one taking heat from CSPI, but the ice cream maker is hardly alone in its misuse of the “all natural” label. Other ice-cream makers like Edy’s/Dreyer’s, Breyer’s, Friendly’s, Turkey Hill, and more do the same exact thing. Breyer’s advertises that its ice cream is “all-natural” even though it contains ingredients like corn syrup, alkalized cocoa, and malt powder.

A carton’s of Edy’s also boasts “all natural flavors,” but lists ingredients like corn syrup, alkalized cocoa, and artificial food dyes like Red #40 and Blue #1. Corn syrup and alkalized cocoa may boost the dessert’s flavor, but they’re hardly all natural. They’re made in factories, for goodness sake!

And it’s not just ice-cream makers who mislead consumers with an “all natural” label. Food products from cookies to yogurts to sauces to cereals come with glowing, “all natural” labels, but actually contain ingredients that are decidedly man-made in a weird science-type of way.

The real problem here is that while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates the use of the “all natural” label on animal products like beef and poultry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fails to provide any kind of definition on what constitutes an “all natural” food item. Because there’s no definition, food manufacturers can feel free to slap the phrase on any food item they choose, even neon-colored “fruit” snacks that spew sugary goo when you bite into them.

Many consumers fail to realize that the “all natural” label means nothing, so they seek out these products thinking they’re choosing a snack that’s good for them and the planet. It’s yet another deceptive marketing strategy created and perpetuated by the FDA and unscrupulous food manufacturers.

Regardless of what you celebrate, this time of year harbors in thousands of different food choices which aren’t exactly supportive of healthy holidays. Even hardened health-zealots will most likely end up enjoying a few slices of the homemade apple pie, so don’t feel guilty if you indulge a little over the holiday. Instead of skyrocketing stress levels because you feel guilty over-indulging, allow yourself this time to enjoy yourself and keep negative emotions at bay.

Your body is designed to handle more than you can imagine. While it wouldn’t be the greatest idea to devour every dessert in sight, let loose more than you normally would. Being healthy is about enhancing every aspect of your life, not taking away from it. Small amounts of holiday treats a few times a year won’t kill anyone. If you spend all your time worrying about eating the wrong things, then you’re going to be stressed so much that the healthy eating will actually negatively affect your health.

With that being said, there are many ways to promote healthy holidays. A few simple ways can turn mostly any holiday treat into a healthy one.

Healthy Holidays | Transforming Your Holiday Foods

Eat organic: Avoiding harmful chemicals, and ensuring the food is free of toxic additives is important if you are very serious about being healthy. This means shopping at health food stores and purchasing organic food.

Add holiday spices: Given the amazing health benefits of ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and many other spices, adding spices to meals is a great way to not only add flavor, but to also enhance your food on a nutritional levels. Since many of these spices are powerful enough to fight cancer, the use of them could easily make for healthy holidays.

Continue supplementation: Whether it be vitamin capsules or some form of superfood-mix, continue using it to help clean out the body and keep everything running smoothly.

Relax: Take it easy. Stress can do a lot of damage to your body in addition to your mental clarity. Don’t worry about every little thing and you’ll find your quality of life will improve.

Enjoy yourself: The holidays are for enjoying time with friends and family; don’t let your nutritional goals deprive you from that. Remember, being healthy is about enhancing every aspect of your life, not taking away from it.