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Why You Should Never Drink Cold Water

While a glass of ice water can sound incredibly refreshing, it turns out that there are a number of reasons why drinking cold water can be harmful and warm water is far more beneficial.

What cold water does to your body:

Cold water can interfere with a number of healthy bodily processes and actually be detrimental to your well-being in the following ways:

Cold water robs you of nutrients: The body’s natural temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When you drink something that is very cold, your body has to spend an exorbitant amount of energy to regulate your core temperature. This takes away from energy that is needed to digest food and absorb nutrients.
It may cause a sore throat: Extremely cold water may cause respiratory mucosa to build up, resulting in increased chance of infection causing a sore throat.
It can increase your risk of headache: According to a 2001 study, women who had experienced a migraine in the last year were twice as likely to trigger a headache by drinking cold water.

On the flipside, here are some of the amazing health benefits of drinking warm water:

Warm water provides pain relief:

Drinking warm or hot water has a soothing effect on the muscles of the abdomen. It can provide relief from menstrual and abdominal cramping, as well as muscle spasms.

Boosts your weight loss:

Instead of cold water, drink warm water to help boost your weight loss.

By drinking a cup of hot water first thing in the morning, you can jump-start your metabolism. Warm water increases body temperature and increases the rate at which your metabolism burns calories.

Prevents premature aging:

Drinking warm water helps to flush compounds from the body that can accelerate aging. It also improves skin elasticity by aiding in cellular repair.

Clears nasal and throat congestion:

Hot water is a wonderful natural treatment for colds. It can naturally dissolve phlegm and clear your airways. It not only clears out nasal congestion, but it also soothes sore throat symptoms as well.

Prevents constipation:

Forget cold water, drinking warm water can help prevent constipation.

Hot water can help you to maintain bowel movement regularity. Dehydration is a frequent cause of recurring constipation problems. Not to mention that the movement of the bowel slows down as it fills up. The hot water can finish breaking down food remnants and flush them through the intestines.

Aids your digestive process:

It is believed that drinking cold water during a meal might promote hardening of oils in the food and lead to a fat deposit in the intestine. As mentioned previously, warm water boosts metabolism and aids the digestive process.

Detoxifies your body:

The act of drinking hot water naturally raises the temperature of the body. As the body temperature rises it activates the process of sweating, which flushes toxins out of the body through the pores of the skin. The extra hydration also helps the function of the kidneys to flush waste material out of the body, along with toxins.

Improves your outlook:

According to Dr. Michael Wald, the director of Nutritional Services at Integrated Medicine and Nutrition in Mount Kisco, New York, consuming hot water activates receptors found in the stomach, esophagus, intestines and mouth. This stimulates pleasure regions of the brain.

Maintains balance in the body:

Practitioners of Chinese Medicine believe that drinking warm water that is similar to the temperature of the body maintains balance. They believe that extremes of either hot or cold throw off the body’s yin and yang. Imbalances are believed to be responsible for symptoms like chills, depression, thirst, “foggy” thinking, sleepiness, bloating and more.

Enhances blood circulation:

Drinking warm water breaks down fat deposits that are present in the body and blood stream. The warmth increases the flow of blood circulation and promotes the removal of toxins. The increased circulation induces muscle relaxation, which can reduce pain.

Try warm lemon water

Rather than cold water, drink warm water with lemon.

Another way to drink warm water is by adding a squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice. This is especially beneficial first thing in the morning. Lemons contain citric acid, magnesium, bioflavonoids, vitamin C, pectin, calcium and limonene, which supercharge our immunity so that the body can fight infection. They also help to lower the activity of free radicals and increase the breaking down of body fat, also known as adipose tissue

So, drink warm water for a more overall healthy lifestyle.

Sheet Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies

September 25, 2018 / worththi / 0 Comments

Roasted garlic-parmesan veggies with sausage and herbs all made and cooked on one pan. 10 minutes prep, easy clean-up!

Healthy garlic parmesan roasted veggies with sausage and herbs all made and cooked on one pan. 10 minutes prep, easy clean-up! GREAT MEAL PREP IDEA. Recipe via chelseasmessyapron.com

Thinking about easy dinner recipes this is one of them. Tons of veggies & sausage mixed with herbs and olive oil and then all tossed together on one foil or parchment-lined pan = ridiculously fast prep, insanely quick clean-up (like none really), and so much delicious flavor. This is a one pan healthy dinner that you are going to love!

Make one huge tray of these veggies + sausage and a big batch of quinoa (or rice) and voila: easy and healthy lunches for an entire week long.

Healthy garlic parmesan roasted veggies with sausage and herbs all made and cooked on one pan. 10 minutes prep, easy clean-up! GREAT MEAL PREP IDEA. Recipe via chelseasmessyapron.com

This sheet pan dinner is ridiculously easy, healthy, and tastes great even by the end of the week!

I mean, there’s nothing like this sheet pan dinner straight out of the oven, but, it also makes for pretty good meal prep.

You can basically use whatever veggies you have on hand or need to use up as this dish is pretty forgiving. The one vegetable that has precise instructions are the red potatoes — you want them chopped pretty little if they are going to bake in the same time as everything else.

You can use whatever sausage you like best. And last but not least, if you are enjoying this straight out of the oven, try some freshly grated Parmesan because that is out-of-this-world. It takes the roasted veggies to a whole new level!

Sheet Pan Healthy Sausage and Veggies

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 40 mins

Servings: 4 if served with rice/quinoa

Ingredients

2 cups (~1 small) red potato
3/4ths pound green beans
1 large head of broccoli (~ 1 and 1/2 cups)
1 and 1/2 cups chopped bell peppers 2 large or 6-7 mini sweet bell peppers
9 ounces smoked sausage, not ground sausage
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Serve with: fresh parsley, quinoa/rice, lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a large sheet pan with foil or parchment paper.
Prep the veggies: chop the red potatoes (pretty small pieces here so they will be tender in time), trim the green beans and halve, chop the broccoli, chop the peppers into thick squares, and cut the sausage in thick slices.
Place all the veggies and sausage on a sheet pan. Pour the olive oil and all the spices on top. Toss to evenly coat all the veggies and meat.
Bake 15 minutes, remove from the oven and flip/stir all the veggies around. Return to the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until vegetables are crisp tender and sausage is browned.
If desired, sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan cheese over the veggies and sausage as soon as they come out of the oven.
Enjoy with rice or quinoa and fresh parsley if desired.

Walmart Will Track Veggies On The Blockchain After An Epic Lettuce Scare

September 24, 2018 / worththi / 0 Comments

Health officials, who are looking at how to apply blockchain technology to public health issues, consulted with Walmart on improving food supply traceability.

After hundreds of people in the US became ill after eating contaminated romaine lettuce earlier this year, Walmart, along with many other food retailers and restaurants, pulled the potentially tainted produce from their shelves after regulators issued a warning. The company says the outbreak could have been stemmed sooner if there were a faster and easier way to trace what people had eaten.

Walmart thinks blockchain technology could be the solution. The big-box company worked for more than a year with IBM and 11 food companies to develop a blockchain-enabled food traceability network. Now, Walmart and its subsidiary, Sam’s Club, will require their leafy greens suppliers to use its blockchain technology to implement real-time, end-to-end traceability back to farms within a year, the company announced today.

The company claims its blockchain technology dramatically improves efficiency. In an early test, Walmart’s vice president of food safety, Frank Yiannas, brought in sliced mangoes and asked his team to “stop everything they were doing and trace that product back to its origin on a farm,”. “It took them nearly seven days, as the methods of tracking today are antiquated — sometimes done with pencil and paper.” But using the blockchain, that tracking process can be done in 2.2 seconds.

“Imagine if blockchain would have been able to do what it’s done in our pilots,” the spokesperson said regarding the romaine lettuce outbreak.

“We had to throw out all romaine because there was no way to precisely identify which romaine was from Yuma [the region where the contaminated lettuce originated] versus other growing regions. … It not only affected Walmart, but all of retail and even restaurants. All romaine had to go.”

Bar codes, a common supply chain management tool, “are not a continuous chain (i.e. distributor, farmer, etc. could use different codes along the way),” the Walmart spokesperson said in an email. And even if “they did use the same barcode, the database would still differ by retailer. We are eliminating duplicity within the supply chain and creating one shared system.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been working with IBM on applying blockchain solutions to other public health issues, such as the opioid crisis, consulted with Walmart on improving traceability to help public health officials investigate foodborne disease outbreaks and find the source of contaminated food.

As the MIT Technology Review explained in an article about the CDC and the health care blockchain, “a complex mishmash of data usage agreements and government privacy rules dictate which members can access information and which ones can modify it. That slows things down. A number of additional, sometimes manual processes are needed to make sure the correct organization or person sent or received the right data, and that it was used correctly. A blockchain can automate these steps.”

Walmart said the aim of its new blockchain system is “to help reduce the number of people who fall ill during food incidents, while at the same time reducing losses for retailers and suppliers during a recall.” The information about Walmart’s leafy greens will not be immediately available to consumers, but “that’s in our roadmap,” the spokesperson said.

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