5 December, 2012

Salads too can make you fat!

A salad with too much dressing and the wrong ingredients can cause more harm than good. Here's how...

If you are planning to go on a diet, forget ordering a salad the next time you're eating out. Did you know that a restaurant salad with a dressing has as many as 1,000 calories? It joins the list of those foods that can make you pile on the pounds and tip the weighing scales. And people who have tried these, have had a bad experience...

How it affected people

Says Mumbai-based advertising executive Amisha Sinha. "I went on a lunch salad diet two months ago and decided to just have carrots with a little peanut butter for my mid-day meal. But slowly without my realising it, I started to dab on too much peanut butter on the veggies. It made me put on a lot of weight."

Another city-based entrepreneur Vikam Ramani has his own tale to tell. "To avoid a heavy meal, I thought I would switch to a simple, fresh salad at the canteen at a deli close to the office. They used to add a lot of mayonnaise and barbecue dressing to it, which I got used to for the taste and I didn't realise the salads were actually making me sleepy and sluggish; till I had to discontinue them."

Expert speak

What is unfortunate, says dietician Rima Goswami, is that people look at a salad with a automatic thumbs-up. "They just think anything connected with a salad has to be healthy and order everything on it. This is wrong; fried chicken, cheese and nuts all are culprits and avoidable."

Warns nutritionistVaishali Mehta, "Having a salad like this is especially harmful for those with high-blood pressure. Salty ingredients contain high sodium levels. Instead try fresh lettuce, broccoli, beans, red peppers and sweet potato. Too much dressing is bad, try to just have a single tablespoon if it's a large bowl."

Source: www.timesofindia.com

05.12.2012

'Stop touching your face to avoid flu'

Something as innocuous as touching your face could infect you with flu, especially after your hands brush with contaminated surfaces, according to a study.

"There are many opportunities in between hand-washing episodes for people to re-contaminate their hands. If a deadly respiratory virus is around, this is something to really take into account," said Wladimir Alonso, from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the study, according to Daily Mail.

Alonso and colleagues picked 249 people to observe in public places on the Washington D.C. subway and in Florianopolis, Brazil, the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases reports.

They found that people touched common objects an average of 3.3 times per hour and their faces 3.6 times per hour. "We are therefore likely to get germs on our hands far more quickly than they are washed off," Alonso said.

Alonso said that during flu outbreaks, people should be reminded to try and avoid touching their faces as well as washing their hands regularly.

But he added that while it was good to boost awareness, there was no need to be in a constant state of alert because the immune system offers good protection against disease. The advice is a timely reminder as cases of both flu and the norovirus (vomiting bug) peak over the winter months.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

05.12.2012

All things are difficult before they are easy

Norley, John